TURKISH ARMY CONTINUES TO COMMIT WAR CRIMES

"When a uniform exercise of kindness to prisoners on our part has been returned by as uniform severity on the part of our enemies, you must excuse me for saying it is high time, by other lessons, to teach respect to the dictates of humanity; in such a case, retaliation becomes an act of benevolence."
~ Thomas Jefferson.

War crimes continue in North Kurdistan, from Özgür Gündem:

The moment humanity died

These pictures, which reveal the dirty war in the region with all its clarity, were taken after a clash in Mutki, Bitlis.

This is the dirty war in the region

The practices which were put into use after intensified operations and clashes are not better than the ones of the 1990s. The troops who once became infamous by frequently cutting ears and [committing] beheadings, this time showed up in Mutki. After a clash on 26 August, these troops stepped on the eight corpses of HPG guerrillas and took a military souvenir.

The troops did not settle for poses

These troops did not settle for poses. The bodies that are seen in the pictures are whole, whereas the families of the guerrillas had declared that their bodies were in pieces when they [the families] buried them. In this clash Gülcihan Sönmez and Ümit Yakan were killed. Later on it was revealed that Gülcihan's body was in pieces, while Yakan's skull was crushed.

[1994: He is posing with his hands in his pockets. He extended his leg to the guerrilla's head, which he had crushed with a rock.]

[2008: The mentality did not change. First take a picture while stepping on a guerrilla's chest. After the picture, divide the body into pieces.]

On 16 September, these photos published in the Turkish daily Alternatif caused a tremendous reaction. Fatma Sönmez, the older sister of Gülcihan Sönmez, who was killed in the clash, commented on that treatment of the bodies as the moment when humanity died, from Yeni Özgür Politika:

"Even in Nazi Germany there weren't such things. Humanity must be ashamed of itself because of these incidents. No one is supposed to remain silent to this incident."

Hevals Gülcihan Sönmez and Ümit Yakan in life:

The atrocities and war crimes committed by TSK are typical of the war in North Kurdistan. Earlier this year, other shocking photos of HPG guerrillas captured alive by TSK in 2007 were published.

Such treatment is in violation of the laws of warfare as stipulated in the Geneva Conventions and protocols, as well as being violations of UN Resolution 3103:

3. The armed conflicts involving the struggle of peoples against colonial and alien domination and racist régimes are to be regarded as international armed conflicts in the sense of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, and the legal status envisaged to apply to the combatants in the 1949 Geneva Conventions and other international instruments is to apply to the persons engaged in armed struggle against colonial and alien domination and racist régimes.

4. The combatants struggling against colonial and alien domination and racist régimes captured as prisoners are to be accorded the status of prisoners of war and their treatment should be in accordance with the provisions of the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, of 12 August 1949.

[ . . . ]

6. The violation of the legal status of the combatants struggling against colonial and alien domination and racist régimes in the course of armed conflicts entails full responsibility in accordance with the norms of international law.

All of this stands in stark contrast to the treatment of TSK prisoners of war by HPG last year in the Dağlıca operation:









Meanwhile, at Kato, a major operation has been ongoing for 12 days, beginning on 6 September and ending today. The results include more than 30 TSK casualties and the retreat of the TSK. Earlier this year in July, HPG Headquarters Command issued a statement of congratulations to guerrilla forces at Kato.

Today's news of TSK's retreat shows that congratulations are in order once again for all of our guerrillas, but especially for those in the Kato resistance.