HELICOPTERS AND HUSH MONEY

"Hush Money. Noun: (Informal) A bribe paid to keep something secret."
~ American Heritage Dictionary.

There was an interesting article on the aftermath of the Beytüşşebap massacre published last Friday by Özgür Gündem, which I had bookmarked in order to point out. Today I noticed a portion of it was translated on Info-Turk. Besides, a friend passed me the information in email, all of which reminded me to post something about it.

The original article has been summarized at Info-Turk as follows:

Former DEP MP Selim Sadak who visited the relatives of the people killed in a massacre in Beytüşşebap said that the families told him that they knew the people who massacred their relatives. Sadak said that peasants told him that it was not done by PKK and the families knew the names of the perpetrators.

Sadak said: “A helicopter approached the crime scene after the incident but it leaves without taking any of the injured. How come there are no bullet shells in the area where 12 people were shot? There were water bottles and food tins on the crime scene? Who were using them? Why were those cleaned afterwards?

The occupants of the helicopter had a good vantage point of the area surrounding the massacre site. If HPG gerîlas had committed the massacre, why didn't the occupants of the helicopter see them and pursue them? Why didn't the helicopter fire at them? Oh, by the way, there is no such thing as an unarmed helicopter in The Southeast.

Selim Sadak added that if the official investigation of the Beytüşşebap massacre were legitimate, the names of the perpetrators would already have been made public. I would add that not only would the names of the murderers be public, the murderers would already be in custody.

Sadak is quoted as referring to other massacres that were committed by the regime and then blamed on PKK, Such as the Gevaş massacre in Wan in 1993 and the more widely known Güçlükonak massacre. Earlier the comparison with Güçlükonak was made on Rastî, and Hevallo has done the same.

The Özgür Gündem article goes on say that with each passing day it becomes clearer that the regime is responsible for the massacre, particularly since Erdoğan and the AKP have offered hush money, overtly and covertly, to the families of the victims. AKP ministers have already visited the families and gave them Erdoğan's money, but the exact amount remains a secret. The state-appointed governor of Şirnex (Şırnak) gave each family 2,000 YTL.

The state which has deprived the Kurdish people since 1923, has created a dire economic situation, has forced Kurds through economic deprivation to take up unofficial military service with the state through the Village Guard system, and has pursued a brutal war against the Kurdish people, now comes to bribe them for their silence.

The very people who have created the economic conditions of extreme poverty in The Region, now pretend to come as economic saviors to twelve individual Kurdish families. Well, after all, it is only hush money.

More questions about the massacre come up than are answered, but these are not appearing in Turkish media. The Beytüşşebap massacre is being buried by the guilty, something that the parliamentary human rights commission will no doubt see too. The only trustworthy one on that commission is Akın Birdal and he is outnumbered by the commission's AKP, MHP, and CHP members. On the bright side, IHD, Mazlum Der, and KESK will conduct their own, joint investigation and their results will be the ones to watch for.

Hevallo is circulating a petition against the Ankara regime's use of cluster bombs against the civilian population of South Kurdistan. Take a look at his post on the matter and sign the appropriate petition. There is one for citizens of the UK and one for all others. Both petitions will be given to the British prime minister.