RIGHTS-TURKEY: Displaced by Kurdish War, Villagers’ Return Blocked

By Jim Lobe Reprint | | Print |

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Oct 30 2002 (IPS) - As many as one million Turks, the vast majority of them ethnic Kurds, remain displaced throughout Turkey as a result of the 15-year Kurdish insurgency that ended in 1999, according to a report released by Human Rights Watch (HRW) Wednesday.

Uprooted from their homes in southeastern Turkey, hundreds of thousands are believed to want to return but are effectively prevented from doing so by the government, the security forces, and the paramilitary Village Guards, Kurdish militias created by the army during the insurgency, says the 78-page document, Displaced and Disregarded.

While the government initiated a ‘village return and rehabilitation project’ in 1999, HRW concluded that the plan has amounted so far to little more than the creation of 12 model villages that are controlled by the Village Guards and located far from the lands owned by the displaced before they were forced to flee.

”The empty promises and inaction are wearing villagers down,” according to Jonathan Sugden, the main author of the report who was in Istanbul to release it.

Many of the displaced fear that the government and military have no intention of permitting them to return home, so they can cement their control of the countryside and force the villagers to assimilate in distant towns and cities, where it is more difficult to maintain the Kurdish language and culture, the report says.

Two years ago, the military-dominated National Security Council approved a military master plan for the southeast, the contents of which have never been disclosed. The secrecy has added to suspicions that the displaced, most of whom are peasants with little education, have been permanently exiled.

Release of the report comes just days before Sunday’s parliamentary elections in Turkey, which could produce a new government, possibly led by the Islamist Justice & Development Party (AKP) which is expected to win a strong plurality with at least 30 percent of the vote.

The AKP Party is a descendant of the now-banned Welfare Party that led Turkey’s first Islamist-led government, which ruled 1996-97 before being forced out by the military.

During its reign the Welfare-led government tried to ease repressive conditions in the Kurdish southeast and even initiated secret talks with the insurgency, the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK). Some observers believe a AKP-led government could be more sympathetic to the plight of the displaced Kurds.

The report is also being released six weeks before the European Union’s (EU) Dec. 12 summit in Copenhagen, where Turkey is hoping to get a firm commitment of negotiations over its admission to the EU.

To bolster its bid for membership, the government of Prime Minister Belent Ecevit has enacted a series of reforms, such as guaranteeing Kurdish language rights and eliminating the death penalty, which the EU has said are conditions for Turkey’s accession.

Kurds themselves, as well as human rights groups like HRW, have been urging the government for some time to permit the displaced, which are estimated at between 380,000, the government’s figures, and 1.5 million or even more, to return home.

The plight of the displaced has also been taken up by European institutions.

The European Court for Human Rights, for example, has issued a series of judgements over the years that Turkey had violated the property rights of Kurds displaced by the conflict between Ankara and the PKK. But, despite the appeals of the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers, which is charged with enforcing the Court’s rulings, even those few plaintiffs who brought suits have been unable to go home, according to HRW.

Most of the displaced were driven from their homes by government gendarmes and by Village Guards. ”Villagers’ homes were torched, their crops destroyed and their livestock destroyed before their eyes,” the report describes. ”This was not an orderly and lawful resettlement programme but an arbitrary and violent campaign marked by hundreds of ‘disappearances’ and summary executions.”

After the capture of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, the rebel group declared a unilateral ceasefire in 1999. But, despite the government’s announcement of a series of programmes for returning the displaced, only about 30,000 are believed to have returned, but only after signing statements absolving the government of all civil and criminal responsibility for their original displacement.

Indeed, the government has never acknowledged any responsibility for the abuses inflicted on its Kurdish population during the war. A 1995 parliamentary commission on migration documented the scale of the displacement but put most of the blame on the local gendarmerie.

Most of the displaced live in the big cities of western Turkey or in towns around the southeast. Local governors and gendarmerie have forbidden some to return on the grounds that their villages are within restricted military zones. Others are reluctant to return, according to the report, for fear they will still be subject to detention and harassment.

Still others who travelled to their homes were met with soldiers who threatened them, while many found that Village Guards had taken over their lands and property and refused to return it. And despite the end of the insurgency, new forced displacements occurred as recently as last year.

”If the villagers go back now, what is the guarantee that they won’t get turned out again in a year’s time – and perhaps with violence?” one of the displaced, who now works as a taxi-driver in Istanbul, told HRW. ”More than help in returning or permission to return, our villagers are looking for guarantees of safety.”

The displaced are reluctant to seek redress in the courts, because many believe it would be a futile effort and could possibly provoke retaliation by the security forces, the report said. Most of the informants who spoke with HRW about their plight insisted that their identity not be disclosed.

The government has not only failed to design and adequately fund its own return programme, says the report, it has failed to seek funding and expertise from international sources, such as the World Bank, the European Commission, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which have gained vast experience in similar post-conflict situations in the Balkans, Africa, and elsewhere over the past 15 years.

This human rights problem affects more people in Turkey than any other single human rights issue,” said Sugden. ”But the international community is unlikely to lend resources and expertise to the effort until the government produces a transparent plan that effectively protects and meets the needs of the displaced.”

RIGHTS-TURKEY: Displaced by Kurdish War, Villagers’ Return Blocked

By Jim Lobe Reprint | | Print |

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Oct 30 2002 (IPS) - As many as one million Turks, the vast majority of them ethnic Kurds, remain displaced throughout Turkey as a result of the 15-year Kurdish insurgency that ended in 1999, according to a report released by Human Rights Watch (HRW) Wednesday.
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