تركيا: لن ننتظر أوروبا بعد اليوم

في الوقت الذي كان الجيش التركي يقصف فيه مناطق من مدنه في جنوب شرق البلاد ذي الأغلبية الكردية في يناير عام 2016، كنت أجهز للجنة في مؤتمر بالبرلمان الأوروبي في بروكسل.

بعد الترحيب بالحضور الذين كان بينهم برلمانيون، اتصلت بمحمد تونج الذي كان يحتمي في قبو بمدينة سيزري التي أعلن منها الجناح الشبابي بحزب العمال الكردستاني الحكم الذاتي وحفر خنادق ونصب متاريس ليمنع قوات الأمن من دخولها.

رد الجيش والشرطة بنيران دبابات ومدفعية وأرسل قوات خاصة لسحق التمرد.

وصلت هاتفي المحمول بمكبر الصوت في القاعة وقال تونج:

ما يحدث في سيزري مأساة بالتأكيد. أصيب 28 شخصا في منزل، وفقد خمسة منهم حياتهم بسبب كميات الدماء التي نزفوها. ولا توجد مياه متبقية. نترك المبنى لجلب الماء ويصيبنا القناصة بالرصاص ولذلك لا نستطيع الخروج. هجمات قذائف المورتر دمرت بالكامل المبنى المؤلف من أربعة طوابق، وأنا داخل هذا المبنى الآن. الموقف حرج. ولهذا أناشد أصدقائنا عندك. من فضلكم أوقفوا هذه الوحشية. أنتم أقوياء بما يكفي لوقف هذه المذبحة في سيزري. أنتم أقوياء بما يكفي لتحذير حكومة حزب العدالة والتنمية ورفع الحصار عن سيزري. وإن فشلتم في ذلك فستصبحون متواطئين في المذبحة هنا.

أنصت أعضاء البرلمان الأوروبي للمكالمة لكنهم لم يفعلوا شيئا للناس المحاصرين تحت المنازل في سيزري.

بعد عشرة أيام من المؤتمر، وفي الثامن من فبراير 2016، أحرق تونج حيا مع آخرين. أكثر من 150 شخصا أحرقوا حتى الموت في أقبية سيزري. وشاهد البرلمان الأوروبي مقتل الناس الذين ناشدوا المجلس وطلبوا المساعدة.

حي سور في مدينتي ديار بكر كان من بين مناطق قصفتها الدولة في الفترة بين ديسمبر 2015 وحتى مارس 2016. وطلبت جمعيات لحقوق الإنسان ونشطاء من البرلمان الأوروبي والدول الأوروبية القيام بشيء لوقف القصف وحظر التجول الذي فرضه الجيش وإجراءات أخرى.

وانتظرنا مجددا. ولم يأت أحد.

ودمر القصف نصف سور بالكامل وهو المركز التاريخي لديار بكر الذي يعود جذوره إلى خمسة آلاف عام.

وبعد ذلك، فرض الجيش حظرا للتجول وشن عمليات عسكرية في مدن نصبين وشرناق ويوسيكوفا، وقد قمت بزيارة هذه المدن بعد رفع حظر التجول ووجدت القصف دمر نصف نصبين ويوسيكوفا.

كانت الجثث تحت الأنقاض، وأخذت الأمهات في البحث عن جثث أطفالهن. وكان الأسوأ في شرناق. وبعد ثمانية أشهر من الحظر دُمر 70 في المئة من المدينة بالكامل. واختفت تماما ثمانية من أحياء المدينة الاثنى عشر. وقد أصبت بصدمة فلم أتمكن من العثور على أماكن مألوفة، ولم أجد مركز المدينة وكان من الصعب علي تصديق أنني في شرناق.

علت أصوات احتجاج قليلة في الاتحاد الأوروبي والأمم المتحدة وبعض الدول الأوروبية وكان هذا كل شيء.

'Europe, we don't hold our breath for you anymore'

As the Turkish military bombarded parts of its own cities in the mainly Kurdish southeast of the country in January 2016, I was moderating a panel in a conference at the European Parliament in Brussels.


After welcoming the audience that included parliamentarians, I called Mehmet Tunç, who was sheltering in a basement in the southeastern town of Cizre from fighting between the youth wing of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and Turkish troops backed by tanks and artillery.


I connected my mobile phone to the microphone in the room. Tunç said:

Why Turkey is posting paramilitary forces to its own cities

Why Turkey is posting paramilitary forces to its own cities

*As published in Ahvalnews on 12.11.2017

https://ahvalnews.com/pkk/why-turkey-posting-paramilitary-forces-its-own-cities

When the Turkish state needed help protecting Kurdish villages in its southeast region in the mid-1980s from insurgents belonging to the Kurdish-separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), then-president Turgut Özal began a “village guard" system. The controversial system, established in 1985, recruited villagers – mostly Kurdish themselves – to act as a paramilitary force both to protect their villages and to aid the Turkish military. The Turkish state has kept the system in place since then, despite opposition from both human rights groups and from within the Turkish parliament.

The number of village guards was around 90,000 in the 1990s. Even though recruitment slowed down during the 2000s – a relatively peaceful period – from the outbreak of new conflict in August 2015 recruitment began to gain speed once again. Unfortunately, there is no precise data on the number of recruits today. The most recent figures from the General Directorate of Provincial Administration are from February 2014. According to those numbers, in 2014 there were 47,800 temporary village guards in addition to 25,000 voluntary village guards in 22 provinces.

Aaaauuu…. ttttttoooo …. Shooooooowww

Aaaauuu….  ttttttoooo …. Shooooooowww

The alarm rang at its usual time of 7:30. I woke up the children and rushed into the kitchen to prepare breakfast. Normally, while preparing breakfast, I would watch news on the TV. This was before the closing of Kurdish TV and alternative media channels. There are no trustworthy media channels that give news from the Region anymore. So today, my birds and turtles keep me company instead of the TV.

As the children started their breakfast, I checked my mobile phone. I saw many messages from my friends in the West. They sent messages like “how are you? Are you okay?” From their messages, I understood that something bad had happened in my city or in the country. I immediately opened the TV, and checked CNN Turk. I tried to understand what had happened. There are a lot of advertisements on CNN Turk. I was sure something important had happened, but I couldn’t find it on Turkish media.

A man on CNN Turk was shouting, “Aaaauuu….  ttttttoooo …. shooooooowww”. It was an advertisement.

"East issue”of Turkey begins now, actually!

"East issue”of Turkey begins now, actually!

The atrocity in Cizre, we have watched live day by day, lasts almost more than a month. Today, about more than a hundred people from Cizre, most of them less than 20 years old and who were alive one or two weeks ago are dead now. People who were wounded only for one or two weeks agoand asked us for a glass of water are not with us now. These people died gradually. They were tormented, they had to witness the death of who were with them, they lived dead and wounded together, and they were tortured to death, burned as they were without water, and starved.

And these people massacred by having us to watch each step. Apparently, they want to test our silence. And our silence is approved with Cizre. In this way, we used to watch and wait bigger massacres.

With this massacre, they also causean information pollution delibaretly. Adherent media of rulling party promotes this info pollution, and this situation lead to a confusion about what really is happening in Cizre.

Therefore we should review the developments in Cizre:

Can the Kurdish question be settled by killing people in Sur?

Can the Kurdish question be settled by killing people in Sur?

We are in Surici district with Lale Mansur, Zeynep Tanbay, Ferhat Tunc, Aysegul Devecioglu, Bahri Belen and Dilek Gokçin who came from Istanbul today. We meet Sibel Yigitalp, the HDP Diyarbakir deputy who is on constant watch in Sur. Ms. Yigitalp is able to talk with the families inside from time to time. A heavy bombardment is going on. Small particles drop to where we stand.  

We listen to the phone conversations with the people in the basements. Remziye talks:

From the Book THAT DAY: The “Wise People” come to Kavar

From the Book THAT DAY:

 The “Wise People” come to Kavar 

Today is the fifteenth of May 2013.  I set out from Tavan to Çorsin just before noon.  Today we have important guests.  I get to Çorsin just after the Wise People Committee is about to arrive at the villages.  Clearly the Wise People are not the only ones to arrive, for I can see several vehicles from the Office of the Prime Minister as well.  It is not easy to find space for these vehicles in a place as small as Çorsin.  The women of Kavar greet the Wise People with pictures of their dead children.  They do not put these pictures down throughout the two hours of the meeting.  The Committee is taken to the house of mourning where the meeting will be held and seated at the chairs and tables hung with cloths of yellow, green and red.  I quietly find a place to perch at the side and begin watching.  Quite a number of people have been stuffed into a room of one hundred-square meters.   Women sit on one side and men on the other, with several people from the Prime Ministry wandering around in the center.  The Committee Head briefly explains the goals of their visit and then various residents of Kavar describe what they experienced THAT DAY.  How Çorsin was burned down on the twenty-eighth of December 1993, who it was that gave the order, what all happened to the people of the village THAT NIGHT, all of it is described in detail.  As the man from the Prime Ministry runs his video camera over the faces of the people of Kavar I am once again awed by the villagers’ bravery.

            Then THAT woman begins to speak.  Sometimes she speaks Turkish, sometimes Kurdish.  It is obvious that she speaks Turkish well, but like my mother, when she begins to weep and moan she slips into Kurdish.  She speaks of THAT DAY: 

Where are the Kurds? They went up to the mountains. Where is the mountain? The state bombed...

Where are the Kurds? They went up to the mountains. Where is the mountain? The state bombed…[1]

One of the basic topics on the Twitter timeline on May 1^st was this: “Where are the Kurds?” When some Turks who were on the streets on May 1^st International Workers Day became subject to pepper gas and were beaten up by nightsticks, they were launching into verbal attack saying that they could not see Kurds with them in the streets and asking this question: “Where are the Kurdish people?” After all Kurds were the ones to methodically suffer from pepper gas and nightsticks, and they should have had taken their place in the forefront in this occasion as well.

On the same day, I asked myself the same question: “Really, where are we that Turkish people can never see us?” This article is for those who wonder where we were on May 1^st…