The Kani Yilmaz Case: Background in

[kurdeng at aps.nl]

From: tabe at newsdesk.aps.nl
Subject: The Kani Yilmaz Case: Background information
Reply-To: kurdeng at aps.nl

Context: What was happening in Kurdistan at the time of Yilmaz's arrest?

Balance sheet of Kurdish villages burnt down and emptied up until October
1994

The Turkish state is continuing its relentless attack on the Kurdish people
and their environment everywhere. Every day innocent people are murdered
in public by contraguerrillas; people in custody are tortured to death and
their bodies are dumped on a roadside or in a river; people 'disappear';
political prisoners are brutally attacked; villages are bombed and
destroyed, adding thousands more to the million displaced Kurds already in
shanty towns, camps and make-shift homes or barren mountain slopes.

The systematic burning of villages and forests (a depressingly recurrent
feature of the Kurdish country-side since 1990) has escalated recently.
Estimates of numbers of burnt down and emptied villages vary: ranging from
900 (Murat Karayalcin, SHP Leader & Deputy PM who said: "We are faced with
scenes from Bangladesh..." Milliyet 6/10/94): to 550 villages and 750
hamlets (ANAP party); to 1,284 by September 1994 (IHD, Human Rights
Association) but the number is certainly higher.

"We can confirm that 1284 vittages in the Kurdish region have been burnt or
empried until today. The governmenr is watching the situation and not
lifting a finger. As a result, 2 million people have been forced to become
refugees in their own counrry. The refugees have food, accommodarion and
health problems. We are calling on the Grand Turkish National Assembly to
do its duty. The inhumane actions have to be stopped immediately. We want
everybody to pay heed to the screams rising from Tunceli and the rest of
the region." IHD. Ozgur Ulke. 8/10/94)

Between 27 September - 7 October 1994 the press published a total of 57
villages and harnlets destroyed; 25 villages were given a deadline of
between 7-10 days to evacuate or the houses would be burnt together with
their occupants and 132 villages had been subjected to a food embargo since
August '94. These barbarous actions provoked shock, outrage and disbelief
amongst the people of Kurdistan:

"Tunceli is absolutely seething, citizens are disgusted and in a desperate
situarion" (SHP MP from Tunceli Sinan Yerlikaya. Ozgur Ulke 30/9/94)

"Dersim is being depopulated. The state is getting ready to perpetrate a
genocide similar to the one carried our in Dersim in 1938 (where more than
150,000 peopte were slaughrered between  1937-1938 to crush the Kurdish
uprising). Not far from us a massacre is going on, children are being
killed, villages and forests are being burnt. Please listen to the Kurdish
people and don't leave them alone"

( Press statement of 13 arts centres, cultural, peace & legal associations
& 16 artists. Ozgur Ulke 7/10/94.)

" I can't stop the burning down of villages. I don't know who to get in
touch with. I don't know how many heads this state has. This is not
managing a state: it is managing a bandit group. I have spoken to the Chief
of Staff on the telephone. He said to me 'The PKK is burning down the
villages' but the PKK never burnt an ordinary village before: why should
they start to do so now? Clearly security forces are entering a village
from one side and coming our of it the other side by burning it. "
(SHP MP from Tunceli & deputy of Grand Turkish National Assembly Kamer
Genc. Ozgur Ulke 8/10/94)

"The PKK is not burning our viiiages. Soldiers are doing it. We are
inviting the Ministre and Chief of Staff to come to the area and
investigate the siruation. Let them come and see the truth for themselves."
 (village headmen, later arrested, on TV news report.7/10/94)

"Today I came from Ovacik. The Governor and military officials I spoke to
in Tuniceii said that the viiiages were burnt by the PKK. But when I asked
the head of the village and the villagers themselves, whose houses were
burnt, I was told that the soldiers have burnt them down. I have got a list
of 27 villages that were burnt in Ovacik. At the moment in Ovacik there
are 1228 people in need of food and accommodation. If it rains they do not
even have a tent."
(Azimet Kayluoglu, Minister responsible for Human Rights. Live TV
interview. 8/10/94)

"Half of Ovacik's villages are burnt and emptied. The situation is the same
in Hozat, Nazimiye, Pulumur and Mazgirt. People there are facing death
every day. People are slaughtered under different scenarios and the
environment is destroyed in the region. People who say that they are
against the destruction of the environment are silent... The dead are
unknown, nobody knows which of their relatives is dead... Peopie who call
themselves human beings should not be indifferent to rtis savagery."
(Selman Yesilgoz, Chair of Tuncelians Assoc. Istanbul. Ozgur Ulke 8/10/94)

"Villages are being burnt with flame-throwers. People are being dragged our
of their houses withour allowing them to take any food or clothing. Peopie
are left to freeze, exposed to the elements and to wild animals. "
 (Yalicin Dogan. Milliyet. 7/10/94)
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