TURKEY: Turkish And Kurdish Families Shattered by South-East War

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Nadire Mater

ISTANBUL, Dec 16 1994 (IPS) - The war in south-east Turkey is tearing apart the families on both sides of a conflict that has already claimed as many as 15,000 lives.

“Soldiers as well as guerrillas are my sons,” said Kebire Dogan, who has lost two sons in the ten-year-old war waged between government forces and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) guerrilla organisation. “I have suffered a lot… I hope others do not…”

The PKK began a violent campaign in 1984 to secure an independent state for Turkey’s minority Kurdish community which up to now the Turkish government does not recognise; The PKK has since toned down its demands for Kurdish recognition, but Ankara is maintaining a hardline stance to rid the region of the guerrillas.

With no end in sight to the fighting, Turkish and Kurdish families directly affected by the war this week used a public forum to air their grievances and to urge the authorities and the guerrilla leaders to find a peaceful resolution to the war.

From the south east city of Tunceli, Dogan lost her son Mazlum, when he burnt himself to death in his cell 14 years ago in protest at the treatment of detainees in Diyarbakir prison. Her second son Cemil, a member of the PKK, died in a gunfight with security forces.

“I believe that this war serves the interests of some but I want peace, I want an end to bloodbath,” said the brother of a Turkish soldier killed in another clash with PKK forces in the district of Semdinli in June 1992.

“People were dying before him and they continue to die,” said the youth, who did not give his name. “There must be something wrong in this.”

The forum, organised by Turkey’s Human Rights Association (IHD), not only brought together grieving families, but was also attended by a large number of the intellectual community which has been calling for an end to the violence.

Many of the grieving families however chose not to attend the gather, claiming ill-health. But controversial humorist Aziz Nesin said that their absence would be better explained by fear.

“Coward nations, coward intellectuals and coward families… “Their sons are gone, yet they remain afraid,” he said. “However, there is no reason why the state should feel proud of this situation, rather they should be embarrassed for the fear they have evoked among the public,” he told IPS.