MASSACRE IN TURKEY

"The massacres are the result of a policy which, as far as can be ascertained, has been entertained for some considerable time by the gang of unscrupulous adventurers who are now in possession of the Government of the Turkish Empire. They hesitated to put it in practice until they thought the favorable moment had come, and that moment seems to have arrived. . ."
~ British Viscount James Bryce, October 6, 1915, on the Armenian Genocide.

So the devastating news is that the Islamist regime in Ankara has bombed Kurdish civilians in Iraq. . . NOT.

The Islamist regime in Ankara has bombed Kurdish civilians in Turkey:



More from Al-Jazeera:



But those of us who know, know that bombing by F-16 in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan happens all the time, especially in Şirnak. There's no mistaking it when it happens because the bombing makes such a distinctive noise, even at a distance.

I'm sure, however, that Katil Erdoğan will get to the bottom of it with "no cover-up of potential mistakes," as the talking head at Al-Jazeera claims. Mark my words: There will be no cover-up of this just as there was no cover-up of the Şemdinli bombing. Everyone should remember that Katil Erdoğan promised no cover-up of that incident and yet, what happened with that?

There have been a lot of misleading headlines in foreign media about this massacre to the effect that the bombing took place inside Iraq, but such headlines are nothing more than bold-faced lies. As Hasip Kaplan explains, the bombing took place well within the Turkish border, in the village area of Ortasu, Uludere District, Şırnak Province. From Hasip Kaplan:

More than 20 people were also wounded and the count is increasing, said Hasip Kaplan, a parliamentarian with the pro- Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party, or BDP. The jets bombed Ortasu village in the Uludere district, killing smugglers who were operating along the border with Iraq, he said in a phone interview from Sirnak. Turkey's military said it's investigating the airstrikes.

Nazmi Gür describes the victims--and they're not the big, bad PKK:

Pro-Kurdish legislator Nazmi Gur said most of those killed were teenagers who were carrying diesel fuel from Iraq into Turkey on donkeys or horses — often the only livelihood in local villages. He claimed that officials would have known that Turkish smugglers would be operating in the area.

Of course officials knew that this was a smuggling route. How could they not? Especially when soldiers from the local garrison were the very ones who rerouted the teens:

According to local accounts, a group of people from the villages of Ortasu and Gulyazi were crossing the border from northern Iraq when they were blocked by soldiers on the path and then bombed at around 9.30pm on Wednesday.

More on how the group was rerouted:

Hurriyet quoted BDP joint chairman Selahattin Demirtas as saying the killings were "clearly a massacre". A group of 50 smugglers had crossed the border into Turkey and were stopped and redirected by soldiers from a nearby outpost right before they reached their village, Demirtas said.

"The air strike happened on that route they were directed to. Those killed were young people who made a living off of smuggling. There were people studying for university exams among them and the soldiers at the outpost knew it."

Absolutely, they knew it! But why were the teens rerouted? Very simply, to create plausible deniability. Everyone in the area knows the smuggling routes and the smugglers--the teens, in this case--are not normally targeted. Let me say it again to be clear: Everyone in the area, particularly the TSK, knows the smuggling routes. If TSK had bombed these well-known routes, it would clearly be a massacre. To cover up any potential charge of massacre, the soldiers at the garrison are ordered to reroute the smugglers, which they do. This forces the smugglers to take a route not known to be a smuggling route. It allows TSK to claim that drones located a group of "unknown" people walking through the area and who else would walk around in this area in a large group but PKK? After all, the group is not on the smuggling route.

Finally, TSK lies to the media by saying that it had "intelligence" that PKK was due to make an attack in the area, and Voilà! Plausible deniability!

Isn't it odd that TSK never has the same kind of "intelligence" when the big, bad PKK really does come and really does whack about 100 TSK'ers?

Check this out:

A security official said: "There were rumours that the PKK would cross through this region. Images were recorded of a crowd crossing last night, hence an operation was carried out. We could not have known whether these people were (PKK) group members or smugglers."

"Rumours?" That doesn't sound quite as professional as "intelligence", does it? Then let me ask this: What's the difference between "rumors" and "lies"? In addition, if you "could not have known" who the people were then you shouldn't be bombing people, Mr. Security Official. Besides, as we have seen with the soldiers redirecting the teens, the TSK did, in fact, know that these were not PKK guerrillas.

But wait, there's more:

The Turkish military said the strike had been against PKK forces in northern Iraq."It was established from unmanned aerial vehicle images that a group was within Iraq heading towards our border," it said. "Given that the area in which the group was spotted is often used by terrorists and that it was moving towards our border at night, it was deemed necessary for our air force planes to attack.

Another bunch of lies. The group was not in Iraq. It was in Turkey. And it had been redirected by soldiers on the ground. And it was in an area known for smugglers. And if you're not sure who you're bombing, should you be bombing?

Then we have the big business angle on the massacre. It would appear that gasoline retailers in Turkey take a dim view of the smuggling of diesel:

Companies including Petrol Ofisi AS, Turkey's biggest fuel retailer and a unit of OMV AG, have complained that smuggling from northern Iraq, where the PKK keeps a command center in the Kandil Mountains, provides unfair competition.

First of all, the fact that PKK has its command HQ at Kandil has absolutely nothing to do with "unfair" competition. Secondly, Petrol Ofisi AS executives should maybe get off their fat asses and do something about the abysmal unemployment rate in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan so that young people wouldn't have to smuggle for a living.

But that's capitalism for you.

Protests have already started but I wouldn't expect too much to happen regarding this. In fact, look, here comes Katil Erdoğan now, with a scarf on his head, a broom in one hand and a dustpan in the other. Maybe he really won't cover it up. Instead, he'll just sweep up the charred remains of these, the Kurdish future, and throw them in the trash.

REVENGE TAKEN ON HAKKARI

"You had to attack civilians, the people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game. The reason was quite simple: to force the public to turn to the state to ask for greater security."
~ Vincenzo Vinciguerra.

The Kurdish patriots of Hakkari are now being made to pay for their boycott of the phony AKP constitutional referendum with their lives.

Earlier today a dolmuş was blown up by contra-guerrillas in Hakkari province near the village of Geçitli. Ten civilians are dead as a result. This is no different than the Güçlükonak massacre, which was the work of the Turkish military or, more recently, the massacre in Beytüşşebap, Beşağaç, in which 12 people, including village guards, were killed.


Villagers apparently rushed to the scene of the blast and fought the TSK in order to preserve evidence that was left behind. Shades of Şemdinli! You remember the Şemdinli bombing, in which the citizens of the town chased down and captured the TSK perpetrators and found loads of evidence in the perpetrators' JITEM-registered vehicle.

According to KCK, from Hürriyet:

“This is a counter-action against the people of Hakkari who joined the boycotting of the referendum on Sept. 12,” KCK officials were quoted as saying on Fırat’s website. The officials were also quoted as saying that they would not carry out any attacks until Sept. 20, the end of the cease-fire announced earlier by the PKK.

More from PKK, from Fırat News (http://en.firatnews.com/index.php?rupel=article&nuceID=1035):

PKK said the guerilla forces are committed to the unilateral ceasefire, declared on 13 August.

Kurdish boycott campaign against the constitutional referendum was most effective in Hakkari, only 7 percent of the registered voters casted their ballots.

PKK statement said in Peyanus village only 5 voters casted their ballots while 99 percent of the voters supported BDP's boycott campaign and labelled the attack "a response to Peyanus's attitude in the referendum."

"The attack in Hakkari is an attack to all the Kurds" PKK said.

PKK also warned AKP government saying "The people of Hakkari is not alone".

PKK declared the victims as "martyrs of democracy" and paid condolences to the relatives and Kurdish people.

Furthermore, Selahattin Demirtaş had this to say, again from the Hürriyet link:

Later Thursday, BDP leader Selahattin Demirtaş condemned the attack in Hakkari, calling it “inhumane” and saying he believed it was carried out not by the PKK but by the “deep state,” a term used to describe an alleged criminal network within the Turkish state.

The BDP chief said he and other party officials had traveled to Ankara from Diyarbakır to participate in a secret meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Çiçek on Thursday but the meeting was canceled after the blast, CNNTürk reported him as saying at a press conference.

Demirtaş was also reported as saying the cancellation implied that the government saw the BDP as responsible for the blast.

It may appear to Selahattin Arkadaş that AKP blames BDP for the massacre but the cancellation of negotiations with BDP by AKP clearly indicates something else for me. For me, it indicates that the AKP and The Murderer Erdoğan are behind this contra-guerrilla operation. AKP needed an excuse to not speak to Kurds so it cooked up another massacre, in the finest tradition of the Ankara regime. The AKP ordered this massacre; TSK happily obliged.




Among the evidence left behind at the scene of the massacre were two military bags with two unexploded anti-tank mines, flares, bayonet, hand grenade, and a Hakkari mountain commando brigade bag containing canned tuna, chocolate, soda, cheese, and bread.

Now this is very, very sloppy. What professional soldier or contra-guerrilla would leave behind such a mess after completing a showy false flag operation? Such a slob should properly be shot. But, of course, this is very interesting in what it tells me and what it should tell others. It tells me that a professional did not do this job. It tells me that TSK ordered korucular, or village guards--non-professionals, in other words--to do this job. Hell, TSK remembers Şemdinli very well. AKP remembers Şemdinli very well, too.

Ah, well . . . 20 September is only a few days away. I can hardly wait!

KAYSERI COMMANDO GARRISON DESTROYED BY PKK!

Who am I, you ask?
The Kurd of Kurdistan,
a lively volcano,
fire and dynamite
in the face of enemy.
When furious,
I shake the mountains,
the sparks of my anger
are death to my foes.
~ Cigerxwîn, "Kîme Ez".

Oh, SWEET!!

A brigade of Kayseri commandos has been destroyed early this morning Kurdistan time by the beloved freedom fighters of the People's Defense Force (HPG)!

U-LULULULULULULULULU!!!!

Before we get to the announcement, let's review the role of Kayseri commandos in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan [emphasis in the original]:

The decision to ‘train’ alongside Turkey’s mountain commandos in 1997, we should note, was also made two years after Human Rights Watch had publicly disclosed that “two special Commando Brigades, Bolu and Kayseri, [we]re heavily involved in counterinsurgency operations. Unlike the regular Turkish Army forces, the Bolu and Kayseri [mountain commando] units [we]re more highly trained and [we]re expected to engage in closer contact with PKK fighters and with civilians suspected of supporting the guerrillas. [Witness] B.G. told Human Rights Watch that during his April 1994-May 1995 stint in the southeast, he learned that the Bolu and Kayseri were considered by soldiers and civilians alike to be far more abusive of the civilian population than the regular Army. ‘Nasty behavior toward the population [wa]s encouraged in the Bolu and Kayseri brigades’, he explained, ‘while the Piyade (infantry) Commando tend[ed] to be kinder. The commanders want[ed] there to be a kind of good guy - bad guy situation, which they then use[d] to threaten the locals. They sa[id] be good or we’ll send the Bolu after you!’ Bolu and Kayseri Commandos were prevalent throughout the 1994 Tunceli [Dersim] campaign, during which tens of villages were destroyed. Witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch said they were able to identify Bolu and Kayseri soldiers, and reported that they were involved in numerous violations of the laws of war, including village destructions, indiscriminate fire, and kidnapping civilians who were then forced into serving as porters during Army patrols … The Bolu and Kayseri Commandos”, furthermore, “appear to have incorporated a significant number of U.S.-designed M-16 assault rifles and M-203 grenade launchers into their regular arsenal … According to Reuters, 5,000 Bolu and Kayseri commandos joined 35,000 other forces in the Tunceli campaign [See ‘Turkish Army Torches 17 Villages, Residents Say,’ Reuters, October 5, 1994]”.

Now that we know these bastards have received what they have so richly deserved, on to the news report, from ANF:

Garrison Destroyed in Çukurca!

It has been announced that HPG guerrillas, who conducted an operation against a mobile military garrison in Çukurca, destroyed the entire garrison and killed 30 soldiers. It was also reported that the guerrillas confiscated a number of weapons and munitions.

The clashes started between 0100 and 0200 hours. The mobile garrison that was targeted by the guerrillas was located 30 km from Çukurca district in Hantepe, between Bilican and Talise villages and the military unit was the Kayseri Commando Military Brigade Command.

30 Soldiers Killed

According to HPG sources, in the operation against the Bilican mobile garrison the entire garrison was destroyed. In the operation, in which 30 soldiers were killed, many weapons like artillery and artillery shells were destroyed.

Weapons Confiscated

While the TSK came to pick up their wounded soldiers with helicopters they too encountered guerrilla intervention and it was reported that the helicopters were fired at [by the guerrillas]. HPG sources also indicated that the helicopters were forced to retreat.

In addition, during the guerrilla operation, the guerrillas went into the military units and confiscated many weapons and munitions.

Clashes Continue

Clashes in the region, in the Uzundere area are still ongoing under the control of the guerrillas. Details of the clashes are expected from HPG soon.

One would presume that these Kayseri commando-types are the same types that would fill the ranks of a so-called professional army within TSK, which would be posted to Turkish-occupied Kurdistan to fight our guerrillas.

Sweet!!

Bijî Gerîla!


Çok Yaşa Gerilla!


Çok Yaşa Önder Apo!

TURKISH ARMY CONTINUES TO MUTILATE CORPSES

"We are deeply rooted in the mountains and hearts of the people of Kurdistan. We are able to live another 50 years like this."
~ Murat Karayılan.

I remember that last spring and summer two Turkish journalists pushed for a dialog on the Kurdish situation. Hasan Cemal wrote a series of articles from Kandil which were published in Milliyet. Later, both Hasan Cemal and Cengiz Çandar hosted a discussion live on Turkish TV from Diyarbakır, in which they spoke to Kurdish leaders and--surprisingly--actually seemed to listen. Until I find out otherwise, at this point I have to give them credit for trying to open a public dialog on the situation.

Of course, at the time, DTP members were being rounded up by the AKP government for two simple reasons: 1. They were Kurds; 2. The DTP had badly beaten the AKP in the March 2009 local elections . . . in spite of all the bribes AKP had dispensed to villagers in the preceeding months and in spite of Katil Erdoğan's hypocritical show at Davos.

Now Cengiz Çandar has called out Beşir Atalay, the Interior Minister (the ministry responsible for Turkey's domestic "security" affairs), on this whole "democratic initiative" farce, stating correctly that "[t]he democratic initiative is not going anywhere." I would add the fact that the "democratic initiative" was stillborn.


Çandar describes the signs of the times:

First of all, the military concentration continues at the Şemdinli border line. The Kurdish administration in Iraq is pressurized. Fighter jets bomb northern Iraq. In the presence of the United States and Arbil, efforts are being made for the handing over of 248 outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, militants over to Turkey. The pre-1990 conditions settle in the Southeast again. We are going back to a state in which people are fed up with check points and barricades.

If these are called “efforts,” there were more of them in the 1980s and the 1990s. The point we have reached is crystal-clear.

Yes, indeed, I agree. The point that we are at is excruciatingly crystalline.

And then Çandar quotes a recent editorial by Radikal's Oral Çalışlar:

“Here is a letter for you: ‘I am sending photos and information. They belong to guerillas who died in the clashes that took place in Şemdinli. They were handed over to the Şemdinli Municipality as they were. People are washing the bodies in the river.’ I couldn’t look at the photos, burned young bodies in pieces… the Günlük daily has been publishing the photos for a few days. In another letter, an article published in Günlük daily was sent. It is on the same topic. ‘…The images the cameraman recorded are detailed. The cameramen who recorded every single detail of the corpses of the guerillas will leave their mark in the history. That’s for sure. Or rather, the cameramen record acts of violence the state is involved in against Kurds, Kurdish bodies, corpses in the 21st century… I cannot look at the photos. My eyes are shut. Yes, we are at the end… where humanity ends. In the 21st century such acts are flat violence. Their goal is to destroy the willpower of the Kurdish people, scare away Kurdish women and the Kurdish youth.’ For days, funeral ceremonies are being held for the PKK members in Hakkâri, Şemdinli, Diyarbakır, Van and in many other southeastern cities. Groups to pick up the bodies are waving placards writing ‘Welcome our martyrs’ on them. The corpses are not being returned to the families. They are buried at the scenes of encounters. For this reasons, demonstrations are held, people fight against police officers. The PKK members who are killed in the regions mostly driven by a political trend advocating the Kurdish identity are welcomed not as ‘terrorists’ but as ‘martyrs.’ They are treated like martyrs. This is the latest picture in the Southeast… In other words, a completely different psychology and public opinion is settling in the region…”

Indeed.

The daily Günlük has a photo of one of our guerrillas who's body was mutilated and had something to say about the situation:

HPG member Özgür Dağhan's family was shocked when they went to the morgue to identify their son, who was killed in a clash in Gümüşhane. Özgür Dağhan's head had been completely deformed. The things remaining from his head were some hair and his teeth.

[ . . . ]

The family saw that inhumane act not only against their son but in two more HPG members' bodies. There weren't any deformations on the other parts of Dağhan's body, which indicates he was caught alive and was tortured after he was killed.

The article goes on to say that the bodies of Hamit Ulaş and Bayram Dün, HPG fighters who were killed in Karadeniz and Diyarbakır Silvan on 23 June, had also been tortured. Their heads were also smashed and the bodies tortured.

At Dağhan's funeral, which saw a turnout of thousands of mourners, BDP Diyarbakır Provincial Chairman Nijad Yaruk asked, "What kind of fire is that in your heart to make you attack the bodies of dead people?"


In addition to these recent mutilations, Selahattin Demirtaş also forwarded information to Katil Erdoğan on the TSK's mutilation of Rojhelati guerrilla, Abbas Emani, from Zaman:

BDP leader Nurettin Demirtaş [sic. Note: It's not Nurettin Demirtaş but Selahattın Demirtaş who is the BDP co-chair referred to here--Mizgîn] earlier this week sent a CD to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan filled with images of Özgür Dağhan, who was recently killed in Gümüşhane, and Abbas Emani, an Iranian militant who was allegedly killed when he was captured in Batman five years ago. According to the BDP’s claims, PKK member Emani was captured by the Special Forces. He was interrogated and then executed near a vehicle parked in front of a gendarmerie post. Later, his body was dragged to the site of a clash between the military and PKK terrorists, where it was mutilated by Turkish soldiers.

Demirtaş also enclosed a note to the prime minister that said: “These incidents [corpse defilement] are common, to our knowledge. Are you thinking of apologizing to the people and the families and punishing those responsible?” He said many witnesses in the area had confirmed the truth of these acts of disrespect for the dead.

I might add that I personally know people who can confirm similar behavior from the 1990s. There's more at Zaman from Mehmet Dağhan, the father of Şehîd Özgür Dağhan, via Taraf:

The Taraf daily spoke to Mehmet Dağhan, father of Özgür Dağhan, who said: “When my son was killed I went to Trabzon to identify him. They showed me about 10 pictures. There was blood on his face in the picture, his hair had been neatly combed and he was vaguely smiling. I said it was my son. Then I went to the Council of Forensic Medicine’s (ATK) morgue to identify the corpse. They brought my son’s body. His skull had been smashed and burnt. His body was completely black. I said I was not able to identify him. I talked to the prosecutor who was following up on the autopsy. He was about the same age as my son, and he was very nice to me. He was very respectful. He showed me pictures. There was not a blemish on his body in those pictures. He was dead, but his body was intact. It is natural for him to die in a clash. But later, I don’t know if they charred his body with gasoline, chemicals or some kind of acid. You wouldn’t even do this to an animal.”

Of course, none of this is new behavior on the part of NATO's second largest army, nor of Turkish state officials charged with the remains of guerrillas. As Heval Selahattin said, "These incidents [corpse defilement] are common, to our knowledge." Earlier photos of atrocities carried out against guerrilla corpses were posted on Rastî in March 2008 and in August of the same year, I posted information that appeared in the daily Taraf on the same subject:

Terrifying confession of a sergeant


"They threw a PKK member from a helicopter . . . A police special operations member raped the dead body of a female PKK member . . ." Former sergeant Çakan wrote this, including the name, date, and place, in his book; however, he was the one prosecuted.

Former Sergeant Kasım Çakan assembled information in his book on murders he witnessed which were committed by unknown perpetrators while he was on duty in The Southeast. Demanding that Çakan's book be accepted as an informant's document, Çakan's publisher, Mehdi Tanrıkulu, made a criminal complaint against the soldiers and police named in the document.

Being a Soldier While a Sergeant

Kasım Çakan, who used to work in the East and Southeast as a sergeant, compiled information about incidents that happened to him just after he was discharged from the army, in a book called Being a Soldier While a Sergeant. While Cakan wanted the incidents mentioned in his book to be considered as an informant documentation, Istanbul's chief prosecutor charged Çakan and his publisher with the charge of "making terror propaganda" [Article 7/2 of the new and improved Anti-Terror Law]. The trial of Çakan and Tevn Publications owner, Mehdi Tanrıkulu, is still ongoing.

A criminal complaint

Publisher Mehdi Tanrıkulu made a complaint to the Istanbul chief prosecutor's office based on the writing in the book. Tanrıkulu did so with the rationale that starting an investigation about such incidents would reveal several murders by unknown perpetrators.

More on that is available here. Other photos documenting TSK atrocities can be found at this page at Yeni Özgür Politika. Atrocities committed by TSK have also been disclosed by TSK conscripts in Nadire Mater's book, Voices from the Front (Turkish title: Mehmedin Kitabı).

While Katil Erdoğan was, no doubt, crying his eyes out in Bosnia and Herzegovina over the victims of the Srebrenica massacre:

I remember all the martyrs of Srebrenica with great respect and hope that they are all in heaven, Erdogan said.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Sunday that the massacre of 1995 in Srebrenica dealt a heavy blow to human dignity.

[ . . . ]

The victims of the Srebrenica massacre lost lives for their homeland, honor and humanity. They were massacred in a bloody, ruthless, lawless, and wild war, Erdogan stressed.

[ . . . ]

Erdogan referred to the International Court of Justice in The Hague which ruled that what took place in Srebrenica was a genocide.

Now, this is the same son-of-a-bitch who has never bothered to shed a tear for Kurds but, in fact, was the one to authorize the murder of Kurdish women, children and elderly during the Amed Serhildan in 2006. This is the same son-of-a-bitch who refuses to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide. This is the same son-of-a-bitch who replied to Heval Selahattin's letter and CD thusly:

"They have sent me a letter on [BDP] letterhead with a CD attached, stating that the situation of these corpses was a crime against humanity and asking what are we going to do about this. Is it left to you, BDP, to advocate for an organization that has been declared a terrorist organization by a majority of the world's countries? . . . Where are we going to put the armless, legless veterans in GATA [Gülhane Askeri Tıp Akademisi--TSK's hospital in Ankara] then?"

So this murdering son-of-a-bitch continues to ignore the incidents which are endemic to NATO's second largest army. He lies about PKK being a "terrorist" organization according to "a majority of the world's countries"--only state-sponsors of terror like the United States and Turkey and their little f***ing lapdogs in the EU think that PKK is a "terrorist" organization and these bottom-feeders are hardly "a majority of the world's countries". And then this son-of-a-bitch, Recep Tayyip Katil Erdoğan goes on to deflect any accountability for war crimes and crimes against humanity by referring to some "armless, legless veterans in GATA". Oh, and I can guarantee you that the sons of Katil Erdoğan are never going to be found among those GATA unfortunates, nor will they ever be quoted in any future Mehmedin Kitabı, and you, dear reader, can easily guess the reason why.


Here's how Heval Selahattin responded to the Murderer's idiotic statement:

"This is an unfortunate statement. If a PM is thinking this way then he has lost his legitimacy. It is a confession that he is not the PM of a certain part of the country. . . . We do not distinguish the dead bodies, the pain. There is not your pain or my pain. There is our pain. Guerrillas are also the sons and daughters of this country. They are all our people. The parents of guerrillas are also citizens of this country. But if a PM is doing this then he will pass into history as the PM defending brutal treatment on dead bodies."

Well, all I can say is that Heval Selahattin is a much better man than I. As far as I'm concerned, what this comrade said.

THE FALCONS OF KURDISTAN

"Don't worry. Such things happen. We are doing all that we can."
~ General Gürbüz Kaya, TSK.

The falcons of Kurdistan are tearing the flesh of the wolves of the Turkish Republic.

On its website, Teyrêbazên Azadîya Kurdistan (TAK) has claimed responsibility for yesterday's bombing of a military bus in Istanbul. TAK states that the bombing was in retaliation for "an unjust war in Kurdistan" and it also warns TSK about using civilians as shields and warns all civilians to stay away from military areas and vehicles for their own security. It would appear that TAK's intention is to continue its attacks. There's a little more on TAK's statement at Bianet.

The Independent remarks that this bombing marks the end of HPG's ceasefire. However, the end of the ceasefire occurred on 1 June and HPG has no relationship to TAK. If urban operations continue, it may be possible that TAK will operate in some coordinated manner with HPG since TAK has always remained open to such a possibility. At this point, of course, it's too early to tell.

Still, it would be a good idea to avoid Turkey as a travel destination this year.

HPG's policy of active defense has resulted in numerous TSK deaths in the last few weeks. The responsibility for these deaths lies with TSK as the natural result of its recent heavy operations in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan. Heavy TSK losses are also a result of a combination of hubris and incompetence in the Turkish officer corps--a fact that Turkish families are suddenly recognizing.

Not that this would be the first instance of such hubris and incompetence. Remember the Dağlıca (Oremar) commander, Onur Dirik? Well, so does Zaman:

Dağlıca Battalion Commander Lt. Col. Onur Dirik had left his battalion at the time of the attack to attend a wedding. His pictures, dancing at the wedding at the time of the attack, were published in national newspapers.

Now the families are blaming the deaths of their beloved this last weekend on the paşa in charge of the garrison in Şemdinli, General Gürbüz Kaya. It would appear that not only is this particular paşa filled with hubris and incompetence, but he's a big, fat liar, too:

Kaya was previously in the press for his remarks in a recorded phone conversation last year after it became evident that mines that killed seven soldiers in an explosion two years ago had been planted by the Turkish military rather than the PKK. The tragic background of the incident was revealed by Van prosecutors who launched an investigation into the mine explosion after a telephone conversation between Brig. Gen. Zeki Es and Maj. Gen. Kaya indicating that the mines were planted by the people who were responsible for the soldiers' security came to light. In the recording, Kaya -- speaking about the blast that killed seven soldiers -- can be heard telling Es: “Don't worry. Such things happen. We are doing all that we can.”

OOPS!!

But, then, we know for a fact that Turkish officers don't give a shit. Remember this, from last year:

Four soldiers were killed in the eastern province of Elazığ on Aug. 17 after a lieutenant gave one of the privates a hand grenade whose pin he had pulled out to punish him for sleeping during his night watch, the Taraf daily claimed yesterday.

The testimony of members of the army obtained by the daily reveal that the four soldiers died when an activated grenade given to them by Lt. Mehmet Tümer exploded. According to the records, Tümer wanted to punish Pvt. İbrahim Öztürk for falling asleep during his night watch. It had previously been claimed that the soldiers were killed when a hand grenade carried by one of the soldiers exploded accidentally as they were patrolling the rural area against the prospect of a terrorist attack by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Four other soldiers were injured in the blast. However, soldiers' testimonies point to a totally different cause behind the deaths.

So, this criminally feckless attitude is rife among the officer corps of NATO's second largest army. How appropriate for such a pack of hyenas. Bengi Yıldız is right: "Don't send your children to military service".

On a related matter, Israeli UAV technicians and instructors were recalled to Israel in the first half of June, after the Mavi Marmara incident. CNN reported this:

After the May 31 [Mavi Marmara] incident, Turkey's prime minister ominously warned "nothing would ever be the same again," between the two once-close Middle Eastern allies. Recep Tayyip Erdogan has demanded that Israel apologize for what he has repeatedly labeled an act of "state terrorism" and "piracy" in the eastern Mediterranean.

Turkey withdrew its ambassador from Tel Aviv, Israel, in protest and cancelled joint military exercises with Israel. But Ankara has been careful not to sever ties with the Israeli defense industry.

Further down in that article, İlker Paşa had this to say:

When asked on Monday whether Israeli technicians and engineers had to cut short training on the new drones due to the recent rift in relations, Basbug insisted Turkish operators were adequately prepared to pilot the Herons.

"Now our own personnel, our air force, is using the Heron systems that we bought," Basbug said. "They got the training, it is over. We are capable, we have started using them."

But I think İlker Paşa prevaricates; yesterday, Zaman reported that a Turkish military delegation arrived in Israel on Tuesday to complete some testing on the Heron systems. They'll be there for two weeks.

So much for all of Katil Erdoğan's anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian solidarity shit.

In conclusion, let me express my best wishes to our dear Kurdish falcons and let's all lift a glass to happy hunting!

UPDATES FROM DIYARBAKIR'S IHD OFFICE

"Today's human rights violations are the causes of tomorrow's conflicts."
~ Mary Robinson.

Here are a couple of statements from the Diyarbakır IHD office. The first is an update on the human rights situation in the Kurdish region of Turkey:

PRESS STATEMENT

27 October 2009

(Give the Republic’s biggest project a chance)

Dear press members

Although we’ve seen partial advancements regarding democracy and human rights in Turkey in recent times, we can still say that there are serious problems concerning the exercise of basic rights and liberties. Two forms of power are needed for human rights to find life in a country; the first is the power of Democratic Public Opinion, and the second is the power of the law. If these two forms of power don’t exist in a given country we can’t mention human rights. When we look at practices in Turkey in recent years, it’s clear that there are very serious complications obstructing the exercise of each of these forms of power.

In the European Union progress report released on 13 October 2009, it says that Turkey has made progress in the areas of economic competition and statistical and scientific research, but that there’s a chequered picture in the areas of human rights and democracy.

According to the EU report, with respect to the primacy of human rights and democracy, the protection of minorities, civil and political rights, civil oversight of expenditures on security forces, reform of the constitution, freedom of assembly and protest, freedom of belief, reform of local administration, the independence of the country’s forensic medical foundation, the independence of the judiciary, children being punished with sentences of 25 years in prison, the use of languages other than Turkish, the right to unionize, the rights of disabled people, the Kurdish question, the Cyprus question, the question of cultural rights, the problem of novels and discrimination, in some areas we’re still witnessing serious fluctuations – that is, regression – instead of halts to violations.

Fourteen days after the 29 March 2009 local elections, a major operation was carried out against the Democratic Society Party (Demokratik Toplum Partisi – DTP). Three operations have been carried out against the party in the last six months. More than 1,000 people have been detained. Due to a judicial decision prohibiting access to files concerning the situation of the detained people, 450 DTP members and activists have remained under arrest for months without knowing what they’re being charged with. The principle and practice of being released pending trial is violated for DTP members and child victims of the Turkish Anti-Terror Law. There country’s prison population now exceeds 120,000. In the last four years, security forces have increased the use of disproportionate force against children and children’s deaths have increased as a result. In the latest EU progress report this matter is raised by mentioning police officers who have been “acquitted” after facing trial for “killing outside legitimate self-defence”.

In recent years the army’s repression and tutelage over politics, the judiciary, media and society have reached extraordinary dimensions. The military very frequently goes before the press and makes statements on all varieties of political issues. In the EU progress report it’s requested that the 1997 EMASYA secret Protocol on Security, Public Order and Assistance Units be terminated.

When we look at our table of confirmed violations in the East and Southeast Anatolia region, we can’t say that a heart-warming picture emerges. When we evaluate violations in the last nine months of the year 2009, we see an erratic picture. The number of lives lost in clashes has decreased compared to last year, but we’ve observed that these losses continue and that there’s been a sharp increase in extrajudicial killings as well as murders carried out by unknown perpetrators.

We’ve also seen that the number of people killed and injured by mines and stand-alone explosive articles has increased. A serious increase of complaints regarding torture and maltreatment has been seen again. An increase in incidences of interference in and beatings at social actions has been confirmed in the last nine months. The disproportionate use of force has been triggered by a failure to open sufficient inquiries against those who use excessive force, the abscence of anger control, and the forcing of security forces to work excessive overtime hours.

It seems that everything changed for the worse following the Prime Minister’s July 2005 action and greatly important speech on the Kurdish question in Diyarbakır, especially in 2008, when violations reached their highest levels. Violations decreased considerably in the first three months of 2009 and have continued to increase since April. At a time when a democratic solution for the Kurdish question is being debated, we’re curious as to why violations are increasing non-stop.

In recent years the government has introduced an extremely hardline approach to policy and matters related to children. Slapping children with sentences of between 10 and 25 years in prison due to their flashing of the ‘V’ for victory sign with their fingers or for throwing stones, the aquittal of those responsible for the death of Uğur Kaymaz, the 28 September killing of Ceylan Önköl with an artillery shell, and the fact that those responsible for the loss of 18 month-old Mehmet Uytun’s life - who died as a result of a gas bomb that was deployed as his mother was breastfeeding him on the balcony of their home in Cizre – still haven’t been found, has damaged the trust of the region’s people in the state and judiciary and increased mistrust between local people and the state. Why has there been a serious increase in children’s deaths? Why haven’t the perpetrators been tried following these deaths? What’s the explanation for the fact that 98% of judicial and administrative inquiries opened about security forces between 2003 and 2008 ended in their favor and that 2% ended with light punishments?

The increase in human rights abuses in recent times has been caused by intensified operations and clashes in northern Iraq and Turkey’s Eastern and Southeastern regions, the repression of peaceful and nonviolent social movements and political parties, and the growth of hardline nationalism.

We find the work the government’s doing concerning the ‘Democratic opening’ to be meaningful and positive. However, the rapid increase in human rights violations that this process has coincided with perturbs us. We don’t understand the extreme reaction that’s been shown to the return of those who came from Kandil and Mahmur. They returned with the goal of opening the clogged political process and were met with a peaceful gathering, without throwing a single stone, initiating any violent rallies or shouting anti-state slogans. We think that there needs to be an end to the speeches to the effect that after this, every word and every step taken must be taken within an approach that considers all of the emotions in Turkey, that those who are going to contribute to a solution must be ‘more careful’, and that ‘we’ll turn back, we’ll start from the beginning.’

If we turn away from a Democratic solution to the Kurdish Question – the Republic’s biggest project – our country will be brought back a hundred years, and if there’s a solution it’ll be the end of an era and we’ll move into a bright period. It’ll be brought closer to Europe. We’re either going to forget the pain of the past and open a new page or we’re going to dig new graves. Believing in everyone’s dream of peace, from now on we request that prejudices and the past be left aside, that work be done to stop the flow of blood, and that steps be taken mindful of the weight of every word and action.

With our respect,

Muharrem Erbey, Attorney at Law

Vice President of the Human Rights Association

President of the Diyarbakir Branch of the HRA

The second statement, below, is an IHD statement on the murder of Ceylan Önkol:

PRESS STATEMENT

13 October 2009

(Why aren’t those who killed Ceylan being investigated?)

On 28 September 2009 at 11:30, 12 year-old Ceylan Önkol lost her life as a result of being fired upon while tending sheep. The incident occured in Xambaz hamlet near Şenlik village in the Lice district of Diyarbakır province. A Human Rights Delegation drafted a report after visiting the village where the incident took place and gathering everyone’s statements. Ceylan’s mother, father, older brother and indeed every witness asserted that they had heard a humming and vooming-type sound that came from the direction of Tabantepe police station, followed by an explosion. Even this assertion implies that a mortar had been fired at that time. They didn’t know the exact type of weapon that was used, but the family identified the item as a mortar shell. But the type of artillery doesn’t change the identity of the perpetrators. The perpetrators are the ones who have these very special weapons.

The UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child was published in Turkey’s official gazete in 1994 and went into effect in the country the same year. The Convention’s sixth article states: ‘1. States Parties recognize that every child has the inherent right to life. 2. States Parties shall ensure to the maximum extent possible the survival and development of the child.’ The state has to protect and safeguard children. The fact that perpetrators aren’t being tried in an active and effective way as the number of children’s deaths increases leaves us human rights defenders concerned.

In the criminal report it says that a mortar had been fired before the incident occured. But that contention can’t be used to absolve the suspects of responsibility for Ceylan’s death. Has even the most minor inquiry about the perpetrators been carried out up until now? What was the sound that was heard before the explosion, and why was it heard by everyone? Is the topic of the mortar that had been fired before being removed from the line of inquiry?

Do sounds like that emerge when mortar shells are tampered with while they’re on the ground? According to the witness statements, was there or was there not a humming and vooming sound after it was fired? How come the criminal report that wasn’t given to Serdar Çelebi and Keziban Yılmaz (the Önkol family’s lawyers and members of the Human Rights Association’s Steering Committee) by the Lice public prosecturor’s office was given to the entire press in a surreptitious way? We’re interested in the answers to these questions.

In this region, we’ve seen other incidents resulting from articles that resemble unexploded ordinance and remants of war being tampered with or hit with a rock in areas where there are children. We showed that such incidents resulted in the child’s hand being severed and her entire body wounded.

In conclusion, we’ve been told that this incident result from Ceylan hitting an unexploded shell with a farming tool that she was holding in her hand. The report prepared by the criminal investigation unit at Diyarbakır Metropolitan Police Headquarters was not objective, and when the case file comes to the Diyarbakır Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, we’re going to object as the Human Rights Association and as the family’s lawyers.

We’re going to request that research be done to determine whether or not it’s possible to ascertain that a bomb had been deployed or not by looking at the components of the case file.


Muharrem Erbey, Attorney at Law

Vice President of the Human Rights Association, President of the Diyarbakır branch of the HRA

TURKISH TERRORISTS MURDER KURDISH GIRL IN LICE

"Wanton killing of innocent civilians is terrorism, not a war against terrorism."
~ Noam Chomsky.

THE STATE OF INJUSTICE

"A kingdom founded on injustice never lasts."
~ Lucius Annaeus Seneca.

Picture this: A seventeen-year-old guy picks up his seventeen-year-old girlfriend after school and takes her to his family's large home. The guy kills the girl, decapitates her with a saw and chops up her body, stuffs the body parts into a suitcase and guitar case, gets a driver to take him to a dumpster on the other side of town and disposes of the body.

The guy's father is picked up by the police on charges of abetting the crime and the mother flees the country.

Six months after the murder, the guy turns himself in to the police.

What do you think should happen to a guy like this? Would it make any difference if you knew that the murderer was a member of one of the richest families in the country?

If this story plays out in Turkey, which it did, the murderer will be charged in juvenile court instead of being tried as an adult--because he's only seventeen.

More on the murder at Zaman and another at Bianet. Note that the first of those articles claims the father of the murdered girl is quoted as thanking the police and government for helping to capture the murderer. However, that's not at all the same guy who was on NTV on the day of the surrender, yelling to know what kind of deal had been made between the government and the very rich kid's family.

On the other hand, if you're a ten-year-old kid growing up in another part of the country, in a family that was probably forcibly displaced from their home back in the 1990s, and you're a Kurd, you're going to get very different treatment from the state:

In Adana alone, some 155 children are facing trial, 67 have been convicted and five have begun to serve their sentences, says Ethem Acikalin, head of the local branch of Turkey’s Human Rights Association. All were charged under article 220/6 of the penal code, which criminalises “acting on behalf of a terrorist organisation”. The cases are tried in adult courts.

Or then there was Cizre:

If Turkish prosecutors have their way, Yilmaz, a soft-spoken 16-year-old with a teenager’s pimply face, could spend up to seven years in jail for having joined a demonstration early last year in the town of Cizre, in Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish southeast.

Yilmaz (the name has been changed to protect his identity) has already spent 13 months in jail awaiting trial, although he was recently let out on bail. Although he joined a demonstration that took place after the funeral of a young boy who had been run over by a police armored vehicle during an earlier protest, prosecutors say the event was organized by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and are charging the boy with supporting a terrorist organization.

"In each appearance in court, we were telling the prosecutors that we are children, that they should let us go back to our lives," says Yilmaz.

Yilmaz is one of hundreds of minors, some as young as 13, who have been arrested and jailed in Turkey over the last few years under strict new anti-terrorism laws that allow for juveniles to be tried as adults. Some have even been accused of "committing crimes in the name of a terrorist organization" for participating in demonstrations that prosecutors charge have been organized the PKK.

If you're the police and you torture a Kurdish kid in broad daylight, in front of media cameras, then have no fear! Your case will be dropped.

Then there are the activities of the ironically-named "Children's Day" in Hakkari.

Or, as happened several days ago, if you're a fourteen-year-old Kurdish girl gathering feed for her sheep, you can just be blown to bits by TSK mortar fire. At least Ceylan's mother was able to pick up the pieces of her daughter that were left so that they could be buried. The cover-up is already ongoing because no prosecutor arrived at the scene of the crime and he cites "security zone" (i.e. OHAL) as the reason for helping TSK to cover up its murder of this Kurdish child.

So much for the "Kurdish initiative". Hevals, you are needed!

WILLFUL AND DEDICATED IGNORANCE

"It is only in folk tales, children's stories, and the journals of intellectual opinion that power is used wisely and well to destroy evil. The real world teaches very different lessons, and it takes willful and dedicated ignorance to fail to perceive them."
~ Noam Chomsky.

I used to think IWPR was a fairly decent source of news, especially from such places as Iraq or Afghanistan, but I think I'll have to reasses my judgement.

IWPR has a piece up about the PKK and the KRG, in which it claims that the KRG is supposed to "end the fighting between it's neighbors and Kurdish rebels based inside its borders."

How is the KRG supposed to do that when those who need to sit downn to "end the fighting" are the Ankara regime and the Kurds of North Kurdistan, including the PKK?

Henri Barkey, author of a recent report on the region for a Washington-based think-tank the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told IWPR the KRG could seek to persuade the rebels to agree to some form of deal “and ensure that a demilitarisation is done honourably”.

Now we have just seen where the PKK itself stands with regard to a political solution with the Ankara regime, in Hasan Cemal's series from Kandil (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4), all of which were available from the original source at Milliyet days before the IWPR piece was published. Later we had the piece from the London Times which included statements from Murat Karayılan that were the same as in the Hasan Cemal series.

So why didn't IWPR or Henri Barkey call attention to the position of the PKK as regards a cessation of hostilities? Why did they ignore PKK's position on the matter altogether?

And the same can be said of the jackass who passes for the "US embassy official in Ankara" who spoke to the author of the IWPR piece. Are we to believe that the diplomatic jackass had absolutely no clue about Hasan Cemal's series? I find that impossible to believe. The Americans know very well but have their own reasons for keeping the fighting going and those reasons are $$$$$.

The jackass continues:

Unlike the KRG, the United States endorses military action as part of a broader solution to the conflict. A US embassy official in Ankara told IWPR Washington’s strategy to end the fighting included supporting Turkey “with intelligence sharing and other operations”.

The Washington regime supports a losing strategy because its military-industrial complex benefits from it by the billions and, for this reason alone, the US has no reason to see an end to the fighting.

The US stepped up its engagement in the region in 2007 by classifying the PKK as a terrorist organisation – a move which effectively bars the group from any potential US-backed peace talks.

That's plain bullshit. If the US wanted peace talks, the US would overlook its bogus "List" and start to force the issue of negotiations.

“The PKK has conducted more than enough violent acts to justify being labelled a terrorist organisation,” said the US official, when asked whether the move to proscribe the group may have weakened prospects for an eventual settlement by affirming Turkey’s military strategy.

We should acquiesce to this statement, shouldn't we, since it's uttered by a member of the world's biggest terrorist organization--the Washington regime--whose violent acts make even the Ankara regime's violent acts pale in comparison. Of course, if it had been Americans in the position of Kurds in Turkey there would have been no uprising against repression because Americans are sheep. On the other hand, if they had engaged in uprising, they, too, would be terrorists.

To rise up against severe repression and gross human rights abuses is not terrorism. It's a natural reaction.

More from the jackass:

The US official stressed that military operations alone would not solve the conflict. She said leaders in the region were working towards “a comprehensive solution that includes other aspects of the Kurdish issue”, such as economic and social development.

"Military operations alone would not solve the conflict," but that's the only option either the Washington or the Ankara regime considers. Again: $$$$$$. Let's also note that it was immediately after Obama's visit to Turkey that the Ankara regime engaged in terror operations against the DTP, arresting its members in the same way that it arrested members of every other pro-Kurdish political party in Turkey's atrocious history. Doesn't that make it look very much like the Americans gave the green light for the terror operations?

And I'd like to know which "leaders in the region" are working to solve the Kurdish issue? Does this mean the Turkish security forces who rounded up the DTP politicians and workers? Does this mean the AKP who went all over The Southeast in the days before the 29 March electcion, handing out washing machines, refrigerators and cash?

But Barkey says the US “has not been as energetic as it could have been” in pursuing a resolution of the conflict.

Oh but the US has been very energetic in pursuing a military resolution, particularly when it appointed Lockheed Martin board of directors' member Joseph Ralston as its "special envoy" to coordinate the PKK for Turkey. Again: $$$$$

However, the KRG has kept its forces out of the conflicts, claiming it does not have the means or the grounds to retaliate.

“The KRG can’t attack or oust PJAK and PKK because [Iran and Turkey’s] problem is not with the KRG,” said Jabbar Yawar, a top official in charge of Kurdish forces.

This isn't quite the truth, is it? The fact of the matter is that the pesmerge know they got their asses kicked by PKK when they teamed up with TSK in the 1990s to annihilate the guerrillas and they don't want to do that again. At the time, Turkey itself tucked its tail between its legs and ran back across the border dragging its body bags behind it.

Yawar said Kurdish troops can defend the borders “if there are any ground assaults, but not against bombardments and aerial strikes”.

Well, that's not quite true either. It was PKK who defended the border during TSK's February 2007 land invasion and not the peşmêrge.

The KRG has long ruled out military action against the rebels, as demanded by Turkey and Iran. It has also avoided retaliating against its neighbours, as demanded by the Kurdish street.

The KRG rules out military action because the peşmêrge remembered what happened to them the last time they went to get a piece of PKK. If the Americans are so gung-ho to settle this situation for Ankara, let them go to the mountains and give it a try! A word of warning, however: You have to leave your Bradley's behind. Whatever you need, you'll have to carry on your back. Good luck and thank you for giving your lives for Atatürk's descendents.

There's also mention of the "Kurdish" conference in this piece:

In March, Iraq’s president and the leader of one of its two major Kurdish parties, Jalal Talabani, announced plans for an international peace conference drawing together the region’s Kurdish political groups.

The conference could have seen the triumphant climax of the KRG’s careful diplomacy if, as many had hoped, it yielded a declaration demanding the PKK and PJAK disarm.

But the meeting, due to have been hosted in Iraqi Kurdistan, was postponed. The reasons behind the cancellation are unclear. However, the delay has highlighted the problems the KRG faces as it seeks to promote peace beyond its borders.

TSK's been demanding PKK's disarmament for decades; the KRG will have the same luck as TSK in doing the same. However, the reasons behind the cancellation of the "Kurdish" conference are crystal clear: DTP won massively over AKP on 29 March and that means that the "Kurdish" conference, demanded by AKP and the Americans, would not be the proper vehicle for a joint Turkish-American demand for disarmament if DTP were sitting at the same table wearing their victory laurels.

No, there is nothing at all mysterious about the indefinite postponement of the "Kurdish" conference. Nor is there anything mysterious about this piece in IWPR; it's propaganda for the status quo.

To read more on how the media promotes the status quo, take a look at an analysis by Sibel Edmonds on how Newsweek deliberately screwed up reporting her case, in order to make her look less credible than she actually is. You'll find it at the first in her series on Project Expose MSM.

FIGHTING TO THE END AND EXPANDING THE WAR

"We will be forced to continue a war of defence. Such a war would be different from the period before 1 June."
~ Nurettin Sofi, HPG Headquarters Commander.

The ATC conference is ongoing in Washington through tomorrow and İlker Başbuğ is in attendanceç On Monday night, Başbuğ revealed Turkey's intentions with regard to the Kurdish question:

"Therefore, we are very much determined to fight against the terrorist organization until its total elimination. This fight is a long-term effort, and it requires patience," he said.

Başbuğ has been meeting with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mullen and we can assume that they are working out the details of Turkey coming to US aid in Afghanistan/Pakistan. Any deal on this issue will require a counter-deal from the US and that counter-deal will focus on PKK, especially since the Ankara-Washington "Kurdish" conference has been indefinitely nixed, thanks to DTP's success in the 29 March elections. Bet on some new fly in the ointment for the future, in spite of the recent publicity that Hasan Cemal's series from Kandil generated.

I mean, if that got your hopes up, you're a real tenderfoot anyway. There is only one way to solve Turkey's most serious problem.

And so much for Gül's less than impressive remarks that the Kurdish situation is Turkey's most serious problem. Such is an obvious statement of fact, the acknowledgement of which does not mean that there will be any steps of goodwill from the Ankara regime. In August 2005, Katil Erdoğan went to Amed [Diyarbakır] and promised to deal with the Kurdish situation by applying more democracy. The opposite happened: after the Amed Serhildan seven months later, repression and murder became, once again, the order of the day.

Following that example, we should expect more repression from the regime as an answer to the Kurdish situation and we have seen the beginning of that in the recent arrests of DTP members.

Meanwhile, HPG Headquarters Commander Nurettin Sofi countered Başbuğ's statement:

HPG commander Nurettin Sofi announced that "if the attitude of the government and the army does not change, there will be an intensification."

Speaking to the Fırat News Agency (ANF), Sofi said, "We will be forced to continue a war of defence. Such a war would be different from the period before 1 June."

He threatened a spread of fighting throughout Turkey.

Mark the last two sentences there and pay attention! Like I said above, there is only one way to solve Turkey's most serious problem.

Sofi points out that which I have pointed out here in the last few weeks, that TSK operations against HPG continue in The Southeast. On top of that, we all know what Başbuğ means when he says that Turkey will fight PKK to the end:

. . . [S]ince March, the area has been home to backhoes and salvaging equipment. What was once unheard of is now happening in southeastern Turkey -- in Cizre, in Silopi, in Kustepe and wherever else local lawyers have filled a petition to have the "death wells" opened. Turkish officials have now started to dig for the remains of Kurds who have disappeared. But the digging also means working through one of the darkest chapters in this country's history, when Turkish security forces waged a dirty war against supporters of the PKK and its suspected supporters.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, thousands of civil rights activists, politicians and businesspeople suspected of having ties with the PKK were kidnapped and murdered. No one knows their exact number, and it was only in rare cases that the victims were even identified. Many corpses were dumped into wells; others were doused in acid and thrown into fields. The horror of the sight was meant to serve as a deterrent. But the majority disappeared without a trace and are still listed as missing.

[ . . . ]

Other former henchmen of the state, such as Tuncay Güney and Yildirim Begler, are now talking about the war against the PKK. From the safety of exile in Canada, Sweden and Norway, men like these recount the names of the victims and the places where their mass graves can be found. They describe the bestial interrogation methods and the orders to kill that always came "from the very top." They talk about how the gendarmes would bathe the dead in acid baths and make them disappear in wells. And they never fail to mention the type of cars the Jitem usually used: white models of the Renault 12-based "Toros" manufactured in Turkey between the 1970s and 1990s. When the angels of death appeared in their white cars, inhabitants knew that one of their friends or neighbors would be disappearing soon.

At this point, HPG has extended its ceasefire until 15 July and we shall see what happens. Until then, this is a good time to prepare for any eventuality, which is exactly what I believe our comrades are doing.

SISTER CITIES AND EXCAVATIONS

"The wells date back 15 to 20 years. It is possible that there is some remnant if the amount of acid used was not too much. An exhaustive forensic examination could yield some results."
~ Ali Çerkezoğlu, Forensic Medical Council.

Three years ago DTP's Amed (Diyarbakır) mayor Osman Baydemir made a visit to the US which included a stop in Nashville. This week we see some of the fruits of that visit. Yesterday there was a cultural event in Nashville which introduced Amed as a prospective sister city of Nashville. Here's something from the press release:

SISTER CITIES OF NASHVILLE TO HOST DIYARBAKIR, TURKEY CULTURAL EVENT AT TSU

NASHVILLE (Feb. 27, 2009)…Mayor Karl Dean will be the special guest speaker at a free cultural event to showcase the city of Diyarbakir, the largest city in southeastern Turkey, on Wednesday, March 11 from 5 to 7 p.m. at TSU’s Avon Williams downtown campus, 330 10th Ave. N. The event, which also will feature authentic music, food and cultural presentations, is presented by Tennessee State University (Dept. of ??) and Sister Cities of Nashville. The cultural showcase is free and open to the public.

Situated on the banks of the Tigris River, Diyarbakir is a historic city, encircled by walls typical of the military architecture of medieval times. At 5.5 kilometers, they are the second largest and best preserved walls in the world after the renowned Great Wall of China. “Diyarbakir: The Mystery of the Stones” is a special video about the city that will be presented at the event, which is being organized by Dr. Kirmanj Gundi, a professor of XXX at TSU and a member of the Sister Cities of Nashville board of directors. Diyarbakir is a prospective sister city for Nashville.

Sister Cities of Nashville, a not-for-profit organization founded in 1990, is an active volunteer organization promoting peace through mutual respect, understanding, and cooperation among citizens of Nashville and other international communities through educational, cultural, professional, commercial and municipal exchange programs. It is a chapter of Sister Cities International which developed from a program begun in 1956 by President Dwight Eisenhower to promote international goodwill through citizen diplomacy.

Nashville’s official sister cities are Belfast, Northern Ireland; Caen, France; Edmonton, Canada; Madgeburg, Germany; Mendoza, Argentina, and Taiyuan, China.

You can also check the Sister Cities of Nashville website.

Meanwhile, closer to Amed than to Nashville, more bones have been unearthed in the JITEM acid well excavations in Silopî:

The excavation of wells located in Silopi, Şırnak province, continued yesterday in search of the remains of victims who were allegedly killed in the 1990s by an illegal group inside the gendarmerie, with more bone fragments unearthed.

Heavy diggers and workers using picks and shovels continued digging a site near the Sinan facility of the state-owned Turkish Pipeline Corporation (BOTAŞ) yesterday. Bone fragments, pieces of hair, remains of a sack and clothing were found during excavation on Wednesday. They were sent to a forensic lab for analysis to determine if the remains were human.

The excavations in BOTAŞ facilities for around a week now have resulted in the discovery of several bone fragments and clothing. The families of dozens of missing people residing in the Kurdish-populated Southeast believe the excavation will give significant clues about the whereabouts of their loved ones.

There's a little more from Eurasianet.org:

There are no reliable figures for the number of civilians murdered or disappeared by state-backed paramilitary groups amid the conflict between Turkey and the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, a war that has claimed more than 40,000 lives since it started in 1984. Official statistics put unsolved murders between 1991 and 1995 at 1,412. Human rights groups reckon that at least 5,000 died, including over 1,000 missing persons who are presumed dead.

Getting convictions for murders committed by security personnel remains nearly impossible, says Tahir Elci, a prominent human rights lawyer. He says he can remember only one case - that of a sergeant sentenced to life in 2007 for ordering the 1994 murder of a Kurdish businessman. Turkey’s system, he adds, "protects its murderers."

Which means, of course, don't get your hopes up. Digging for evidence has not been a completely smooth operation. Last week, the state attempted to stop the digs before they got started, citing "security reasons". If the state were truly concerned with the security problem in The Southeast, it would remove the biggest terrorists of all, the TSK. I mean, you seriously have to wonder about the security situation when at least some of JITEM's acid wells are located on a military installation.

Yeah. Security issues. Does TSK guard every military installation as well as it guarded Bezele? Or is this an admission that TSK really is the cause of security problems in The Southeast?

THE BLACK FIFTEENTH: PHOTOS

"Photography to me is catching a moment which is passing, and which is true."
~ Jacques-Henri Lartigue.

Here's a selection of photos from protests against the international conspiracy that led to Öcalan's capture ten years ago. One photo comes from the AP and the rest from Özgür Gündem (more here) and Fırat News (more here: http://www.firatnews.com/gallery/index.php?rupel=mal ).

This is an AP photo (Murad Sezer), seized from Yahoo News, of Kurdish youth in İstanbul. The caption also described them as throwing "missiles" at a police armored vehicle. I don't know . . . they look more like bricks than missiles to me.

The Kurdish capital, Amed (Diyarbakır)

Amed, in front of the mayor's office.

Amed.

Amed.

Amed.

Cizîr (Cizre)

Cizîr.

Êlih (Batman).

Êlih.

İzmir.

İzmir.

Qendîl.

Qendîl.

Farqîn (Silvan).

Farqîn.

Wan (Van).

Strasbourg.

Strasbourg.

Strasbourg.

Strasbourg.

Strasbourg.

According to Özgür Gündem, 394 people, including women and children, were taken into custody during the weekend protests and 70 people, including police, were injured.

In Êlih, 80 people were taken into custody (including 40 children) and dozens were injured.

In Şirnex (Şırnak) and its district, 49 people were detained and four arrested. A 16-year-old in Hezex (İdil) lost an eye due to a police tear gas cannister (the left eye, while the boy was working in the garden of his family's house). Four police and more than eight people were injured.

In Mêrdîn (Mardin) district, 69 people were taken into custody. Six police were injured as were more than eight other people.

In Amed, 38 people, including children, were taken into custody. Three police and 23 other people were injured.

In Sêrt (Siirt), 12 people were taken into custody and more than 10 people were injured, including police.

In Mersîn (Mersin) district, 17 people were taken into custody and one woman was injured.

In Adana district, 35 people were taken into custody.

In Wan, 20 people were taken into custody and six people, including three children, are still in detention. Three people were hurt during the protests.

In Colemêrg (Hakkari), seven people were taken into custody and 17 people were injured, including nine police.

In Gewer (Yüksekova), 23 people were taken into custody, with 11 released. Twelve people remain in custody. Two children were injured during the protests.

İstanbul saw ongoing demonstrations for two days. 44 people were taken into custody and 38 people released. Six people remain in custody and one person was injured.

From the Not-To-Be-Missed Department: Hevallo has a video post of the ever-courageous Eren Keskin and her work in defense of, not only Kurdish, but all women of Turkey. Trust me; if it's Eren Keskin, it's going to be great.