TURKISH ARMY CONTINUES TO MUTILATE CORPSES

"We are deeply rooted in the mountains and hearts of the people of Kurdistan. We are able to live another 50 years like this."
~ Murat Karayılan.

I remember that last spring and summer two Turkish journalists pushed for a dialog on the Kurdish situation. Hasan Cemal wrote a series of articles from Kandil which were published in Milliyet. Later, both Hasan Cemal and Cengiz Çandar hosted a discussion live on Turkish TV from Diyarbakır, in which they spoke to Kurdish leaders and--surprisingly--actually seemed to listen. Until I find out otherwise, at this point I have to give them credit for trying to open a public dialog on the situation.

Of course, at the time, DTP members were being rounded up by the AKP government for two simple reasons: 1. They were Kurds; 2. The DTP had badly beaten the AKP in the March 2009 local elections . . . in spite of all the bribes AKP had dispensed to villagers in the preceeding months and in spite of Katil Erdoğan's hypocritical show at Davos.

Now Cengiz Çandar has called out Beşir Atalay, the Interior Minister (the ministry responsible for Turkey's domestic "security" affairs), on this whole "democratic initiative" farce, stating correctly that "[t]he democratic initiative is not going anywhere." I would add the fact that the "democratic initiative" was stillborn.


Çandar describes the signs of the times:

First of all, the military concentration continues at the Şemdinli border line. The Kurdish administration in Iraq is pressurized. Fighter jets bomb northern Iraq. In the presence of the United States and Arbil, efforts are being made for the handing over of 248 outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, militants over to Turkey. The pre-1990 conditions settle in the Southeast again. We are going back to a state in which people are fed up with check points and barricades.

If these are called “efforts,” there were more of them in the 1980s and the 1990s. The point we have reached is crystal-clear.

Yes, indeed, I agree. The point that we are at is excruciatingly crystalline.

And then Çandar quotes a recent editorial by Radikal's Oral Çalışlar:

“Here is a letter for you: ‘I am sending photos and information. They belong to guerillas who died in the clashes that took place in Şemdinli. They were handed over to the Şemdinli Municipality as they were. People are washing the bodies in the river.’ I couldn’t look at the photos, burned young bodies in pieces… the Günlük daily has been publishing the photos for a few days. In another letter, an article published in Günlük daily was sent. It is on the same topic. ‘…The images the cameraman recorded are detailed. The cameramen who recorded every single detail of the corpses of the guerillas will leave their mark in the history. That’s for sure. Or rather, the cameramen record acts of violence the state is involved in against Kurds, Kurdish bodies, corpses in the 21st century… I cannot look at the photos. My eyes are shut. Yes, we are at the end… where humanity ends. In the 21st century such acts are flat violence. Their goal is to destroy the willpower of the Kurdish people, scare away Kurdish women and the Kurdish youth.’ For days, funeral ceremonies are being held for the PKK members in Hakkâri, Şemdinli, Diyarbakır, Van and in many other southeastern cities. Groups to pick up the bodies are waving placards writing ‘Welcome our martyrs’ on them. The corpses are not being returned to the families. They are buried at the scenes of encounters. For this reasons, demonstrations are held, people fight against police officers. The PKK members who are killed in the regions mostly driven by a political trend advocating the Kurdish identity are welcomed not as ‘terrorists’ but as ‘martyrs.’ They are treated like martyrs. This is the latest picture in the Southeast… In other words, a completely different psychology and public opinion is settling in the region…”

Indeed.

The daily Günlük has a photo of one of our guerrillas who's body was mutilated and had something to say about the situation:

HPG member Özgür Dağhan's family was shocked when they went to the morgue to identify their son, who was killed in a clash in Gümüşhane. Özgür Dağhan's head had been completely deformed. The things remaining from his head were some hair and his teeth.

[ . . . ]

The family saw that inhumane act not only against their son but in two more HPG members' bodies. There weren't any deformations on the other parts of Dağhan's body, which indicates he was caught alive and was tortured after he was killed.

The article goes on to say that the bodies of Hamit Ulaş and Bayram Dün, HPG fighters who were killed in Karadeniz and Diyarbakır Silvan on 23 June, had also been tortured. Their heads were also smashed and the bodies tortured.

At Dağhan's funeral, which saw a turnout of thousands of mourners, BDP Diyarbakır Provincial Chairman Nijad Yaruk asked, "What kind of fire is that in your heart to make you attack the bodies of dead people?"


In addition to these recent mutilations, Selahattin Demirtaş also forwarded information to Katil Erdoğan on the TSK's mutilation of Rojhelati guerrilla, Abbas Emani, from Zaman:

BDP leader Nurettin Demirtaş [sic. Note: It's not Nurettin Demirtaş but Selahattın Demirtaş who is the BDP co-chair referred to here--Mizgîn] earlier this week sent a CD to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan filled with images of Özgür Dağhan, who was recently killed in Gümüşhane, and Abbas Emani, an Iranian militant who was allegedly killed when he was captured in Batman five years ago. According to the BDP’s claims, PKK member Emani was captured by the Special Forces. He was interrogated and then executed near a vehicle parked in front of a gendarmerie post. Later, his body was dragged to the site of a clash between the military and PKK terrorists, where it was mutilated by Turkish soldiers.

Demirtaş also enclosed a note to the prime minister that said: “These incidents [corpse defilement] are common, to our knowledge. Are you thinking of apologizing to the people and the families and punishing those responsible?” He said many witnesses in the area had confirmed the truth of these acts of disrespect for the dead.

I might add that I personally know people who can confirm similar behavior from the 1990s. There's more at Zaman from Mehmet Dağhan, the father of Şehîd Özgür Dağhan, via Taraf:

The Taraf daily spoke to Mehmet Dağhan, father of Özgür Dağhan, who said: “When my son was killed I went to Trabzon to identify him. They showed me about 10 pictures. There was blood on his face in the picture, his hair had been neatly combed and he was vaguely smiling. I said it was my son. Then I went to the Council of Forensic Medicine’s (ATK) morgue to identify the corpse. They brought my son’s body. His skull had been smashed and burnt. His body was completely black. I said I was not able to identify him. I talked to the prosecutor who was following up on the autopsy. He was about the same age as my son, and he was very nice to me. He was very respectful. He showed me pictures. There was not a blemish on his body in those pictures. He was dead, but his body was intact. It is natural for him to die in a clash. But later, I don’t know if they charred his body with gasoline, chemicals or some kind of acid. You wouldn’t even do this to an animal.”

Of course, none of this is new behavior on the part of NATO's second largest army, nor of Turkish state officials charged with the remains of guerrillas. As Heval Selahattin said, "These incidents [corpse defilement] are common, to our knowledge." Earlier photos of atrocities carried out against guerrilla corpses were posted on Rastî in March 2008 and in August of the same year, I posted information that appeared in the daily Taraf on the same subject:

Terrifying confession of a sergeant


"They threw a PKK member from a helicopter . . . A police special operations member raped the dead body of a female PKK member . . ." Former sergeant Çakan wrote this, including the name, date, and place, in his book; however, he was the one prosecuted.

Former Sergeant Kasım Çakan assembled information in his book on murders he witnessed which were committed by unknown perpetrators while he was on duty in The Southeast. Demanding that Çakan's book be accepted as an informant's document, Çakan's publisher, Mehdi Tanrıkulu, made a criminal complaint against the soldiers and police named in the document.

Being a Soldier While a Sergeant

Kasım Çakan, who used to work in the East and Southeast as a sergeant, compiled information about incidents that happened to him just after he was discharged from the army, in a book called Being a Soldier While a Sergeant. While Cakan wanted the incidents mentioned in his book to be considered as an informant documentation, Istanbul's chief prosecutor charged Çakan and his publisher with the charge of "making terror propaganda" [Article 7/2 of the new and improved Anti-Terror Law]. The trial of Çakan and Tevn Publications owner, Mehdi Tanrıkulu, is still ongoing.

A criminal complaint

Publisher Mehdi Tanrıkulu made a complaint to the Istanbul chief prosecutor's office based on the writing in the book. Tanrıkulu did so with the rationale that starting an investigation about such incidents would reveal several murders by unknown perpetrators.

More on that is available here. Other photos documenting TSK atrocities can be found at this page at Yeni Özgür Politika. Atrocities committed by TSK have also been disclosed by TSK conscripts in Nadire Mater's book, Voices from the Front (Turkish title: Mehmedin Kitabı).

While Katil Erdoğan was, no doubt, crying his eyes out in Bosnia and Herzegovina over the victims of the Srebrenica massacre:

I remember all the martyrs of Srebrenica with great respect and hope that they are all in heaven, Erdogan said.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Sunday that the massacre of 1995 in Srebrenica dealt a heavy blow to human dignity.

[ . . . ]

The victims of the Srebrenica massacre lost lives for their homeland, honor and humanity. They were massacred in a bloody, ruthless, lawless, and wild war, Erdogan stressed.

[ . . . ]

Erdogan referred to the International Court of Justice in The Hague which ruled that what took place in Srebrenica was a genocide.

Now, this is the same son-of-a-bitch who has never bothered to shed a tear for Kurds but, in fact, was the one to authorize the murder of Kurdish women, children and elderly during the Amed Serhildan in 2006. This is the same son-of-a-bitch who refuses to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide. This is the same son-of-a-bitch who replied to Heval Selahattin's letter and CD thusly:

"They have sent me a letter on [BDP] letterhead with a CD attached, stating that the situation of these corpses was a crime against humanity and asking what are we going to do about this. Is it left to you, BDP, to advocate for an organization that has been declared a terrorist organization by a majority of the world's countries? . . . Where are we going to put the armless, legless veterans in GATA [Gülhane Askeri Tıp Akademisi--TSK's hospital in Ankara] then?"

So this murdering son-of-a-bitch continues to ignore the incidents which are endemic to NATO's second largest army. He lies about PKK being a "terrorist" organization according to "a majority of the world's countries"--only state-sponsors of terror like the United States and Turkey and their little f***ing lapdogs in the EU think that PKK is a "terrorist" organization and these bottom-feeders are hardly "a majority of the world's countries". And then this son-of-a-bitch, Recep Tayyip Katil Erdoğan goes on to deflect any accountability for war crimes and crimes against humanity by referring to some "armless, legless veterans in GATA". Oh, and I can guarantee you that the sons of Katil Erdoğan are never going to be found among those GATA unfortunates, nor will they ever be quoted in any future Mehmedin Kitabı, and you, dear reader, can easily guess the reason why.


Here's how Heval Selahattin responded to the Murderer's idiotic statement:

"This is an unfortunate statement. If a PM is thinking this way then he has lost his legitimacy. It is a confession that he is not the PM of a certain part of the country. . . . We do not distinguish the dead bodies, the pain. There is not your pain or my pain. There is our pain. Guerrillas are also the sons and daughters of this country. They are all our people. The parents of guerrillas are also citizens of this country. But if a PM is doing this then he will pass into history as the PM defending brutal treatment on dead bodies."

Well, all I can say is that Heval Selahattin is a much better man than I. As far as I'm concerned, what this comrade said.

TORTURING "DEMOCRACY"

"Congress cannot look the other way; it must demand an independent investigation and independent prosecutor. Congress is duty-bound by the Constitution not only to hold the President, Vice President and all civil officers to account, but it must also send a message to future presidents that it will use its constitutional powers to prevent illegal, and immoral conduct."
~ Caroline Fredrickson, ACLU.

Here's a Sunday evening documentary for you, titled "Torturing Democracy". There's a website for the documentary, hosted at George Washington University. The website also contains an annotated transcript which is available in .pdf.

As you watch the video, remember that the US has not been at war since the Second World War and it is not at war now. Only Congress has the power to declare war and it has not done so since 11 December 1941 (see Article 1, Section 8, of the Constitution for more).

Run time just over an hour.

All three parts here.

Compare with PKK's treatment of its prisoners:

"THE PKK WAY"

"TURKISH POWS RETURN HOME"

"HPG HANDOVER OF TURKISH POWS"

BUSH-WHACKED WITH SHOES

"Good night, good night! parting is such sweet sorrow . . . "
~ Juliet, Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 2.

Remember all thos photos from 2003, in which Iraqis beat statues and photos of Saddam with their shoes? It looks like it's a political tradition:

And dumbbell Dana Perino got a black eye out of it? PRICELESS!

If it had been a Kurdish mother launching the shoes, Bush would have easily had one shoe firmly lodged in each nostril at that close distance. When you need something done right, better ask a Kurdish woman to gt it done instead of screwing around with amateurs.

GENOCIDE AND THE KURDS

"I will kill them all with chemical weapons! Who is going to say anything? The international community? Fuck them! The international community and those who listen to them."
~ "Chemical Ali" Hassan al-Majeed.

CNN recently aired a documentary on genocide. Among those interviewed for the documentary was Peter Galbraith, the only person in the West who tried to draw attention to Saddam's attempted genocide of the Kurds. From CNN:

Years before the first Gulf War, Saddam Hussein was slaughtering Iraq's Kurds with bombs, bullets and gas.

The Reagan White House saw it as a ruthless attempt to put down a rebellion by a minority ethnic group fighting for independence and allied with Iraq's enemy, Iran.

But Peter Galbraith thought it was something worse.

"A light went off in my head, and I said, 'Saddam Hussein is committing genocide,'" said Galbraith, who was on the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at the time.

An unabashed idealist, Galbraith was known for tackling unconventional issues.

"If you're going to be idealistic in life, you're going to be disappointed," he said. "But that's not a reason to abandon idealism."

Galbraith was one of the first Westerners to witness the effects of the slaughter. During a fact-finding trip for the Senate in 1987, he saw something troubling.

"When we crossed from the Arab part of Iraq into the Kurdish part of Iraq, the villages and towns that showed on our maps just weren't there," he said. Bulldozing Kurdish villages was just the first phase of Hussein's war against the Kurds. In 1988, it escalated with chemical weapons.

"Thousands, maybe tens of thousands of people were killed in those attacks, and then Iraqi troops moved into those villages and gunned down the survivors."

There are several video clips of Galbraith talking to CNN's Christiane Amanpour: Video 1, Video 2, and the bullshit excuses can be seen in Video 3.

More on the documentary can be found here.

It was "special interests" that saw to it the Prevention of Genocide Act of 1988 was never enacted. In her book A Problem from Hell America and the Age of Genocide, Samantha Power notes that it was agricultural "special interests", notably wheat and rice growers who were engaged in supplying Iraq with their products, who helped to kill Galbraith's legislation. But there were other "special interests", too:

According to a 1988 confidential State Department cable, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the non-profit National Security Archive (NSA), U.S. Ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie wrote that Bechtel officials threatened to bypass the sanctions, passed by the Senate in 1988.

”Bechtel representatives said that if economic sanctions contained in the Senate act are signed into law, Bechtel will turn to non-U.S. suppliers of technology and continue to do business in Iraq,” the cable said.

The document also shows further behind-the-scenes particulars of how the U.S. corporation, now part of President George W. Bush's project to bring democracy to post-Saddam Iraq, courted the dictatorial regime with full knowledge of Saddam's use of chemical weapons against Iranian troops and the Kurds -- with the approval of U.S. diplomats.

”They (Bechtel) were certainly well aware of what was going on in Iraq and had no qualms about making a buck there,” said Jim Vallette, research director at the Washington-based Sustainable Energy and Economy Network.

”So they had no concerns over what Saddam was doing to his own people.” [sic]

[ . . . ]

In the 1980s Bechtel signed a technical services contract to manage the implementation of Iraq's two-billion-dollar petrochemical project II. U.S. firms, including Bechtel, won 300 million dollars in contracts to build the plant.

But the deal was jeopardised when the U.S. Senate wanted to penalise Baghdad for using chemical weapons against the Kurds, although it was well documented that Saddam had employed such weapons against Iran for at least four years before he used them on the Kurds.

The Senate initiative came on the heels of a series of Iraqi chemical weapons assaults against Kurds -- most notably in Halabja in March 1988 -- and called for strict economic sanctions against Baghdad, including blocking all international loans, credits and other types of assistance.

The government's then minister of industry, and Saddam's son-in-law, Husayn Kamil, told Bechtel officials he was angry the Senate passed the 'Prevention of Genocide Act of 1988', according to the cable.


[ . . . ]

Fearing to lose the contract, Bechtel officials threatened then to use non-U.S. suppliers and technology to keep the lucrative deal, in spite of the Senate's decision.

Isn't capitalism great?! Aren't "free" markets wonderful?!! Let's not forget that Turkey was also involved in the genocide of Kurds along with Saddam.

Ah, well . . . at least Hussein Kamel got his. Now if only scumbags like those at Bechtel and in the Ankara regime would get theirs.

While we're on the subject of hoping for just desserts, Blackwater mercenaries were indicted by a federal grand jury in DC of the slaughter the mercenaries carried out in Baghdad in September 2007. It looks like every attempt now is to make the mercenaries look like honorable human beings, but the fact is they are simply mercenaries, whores of war, so to speak.

Man, I'd pay to see these guys swing. I'd even bring the popcorn.

MORE TSK WAR CRIMES AND AN INTERVIEW

"Today we have nearly 10,000 men and our response capability is greater than ever. Neither Alexander the Great nor Saddam Hussein could ever control this region, and it is clear that Erdogan and his generals will not get it either."
~ Bozan Tekin, Commander-in-Chief, HPG.

Please take note of a recent post from Hevallo that documents more war crimes and atrocities by the TSK. You'll find it here, with a link to Zinar Ala, who is carrying the images. Also in Zinar Ala's post is a link to an interview with HPG commander-in-chief Botan Tekin. The interview was carried on what appears to be a Basque site and is in Spanish. The following is a translation of the GARA interview:

Trip to the heart of Kurdistan

"Europe must see with their eyes what's happening in Kurdistan"

Bozan Tekin
Commander in chief of the guerrillas of the PKK

From the mountains of Qendil, the guerrilla commander Bozan Tekin said that the struggle of the PKK against Turkey has succeeded in imposing a change of mentality in the Kurds, which previously were ashamed of their culture and that thanks to Abdula Ocalan Kurds have learned to feel and also people. In this interview, he lamented that "unfortunately, no European government has offered us a hand yet."

[by] Karlos Zurutuza

The commander Bozan Tekin greets us with a smile and a friendly handshake at our arrival at one of the humblest villages in Qendil. He is interested in the operation that has enabled us to overcome the information blockade imposed by the Kurdish autonomous government of South Kurdistan, and then invites us to sit down to carry out the ritual of tea. In this adobe house with a roof of wood and straw, Tekin confessed himself an admirer of the Russian classics and, especially, George Orwell, all of whose work he [Tekin] claims to have read. Probably he had much more time during the 20 years that he spent in Turkish prisons.

Soon he turns on his laptop. He wants to give us some pictures taken by Turkish soldiers that he has recently obtained. He does not specify whether they [the photos] had reached a Kurdish conscript or if they [the guerrillas] have snatched them from a Turkish soldier, dead or alive. In them appear tanks and helicopters in the military quarters; young soldiers posing with heavy weapons near the Turkish flag or next to bodies of guerrillas of the PKK, whose guts they have emptied and whose intestines were entangled in the undergrowth. "May the whole world see it," Tekin asks us (Soon they will be displayed in zinarala.blogspot.com).

For the interview we move away from the village and so that it avoids being identified and then bombed by Turkish aircraft. Two guerrillas accompany us, a Kurd from Damascus and a Kurd from Sirt (North Kurdistan). We take the camera and tripod, and they do the same in an almost simultaneous manner. We record the commander and they us. That's the deal.

"They say that internationalism died with Che Guevara, but this interview is good evidence that it is not true," says Tekin, with a smile that imprisonment and life in the mountains have not yet been able to erase.

The Turkish army has escalated attacks on Qendil in recent weeks. What do you think is the reason?

Erdogan's AKP has lost its prestige, for that reason these operations are carried out. They [the AKP] have disappointed the Islamists, the Turks and the Kurds who voted for them, and now they want to seek support among the nationalists. Moreover, the PKK has carried out numerous operations successfully and this has undermined the morale of the Turkish army. On the other hand, we are just a few months from the elections in Turkey, so the party in power will be used thoroughly so that there be no doubt about the strength of its "fight against terrorism."

But you say they are completely deployed and away from the camps.

It is true. The situation has not affected us but we have adapted to it. Today we have nearly 10,000 men and our response capability is greater than ever. Neither Alexander the Great nor Saddam Hussein could ever control this region, and it is clear that Erdogan and his generals will not get it either.

In addition to the guerrillas, it seems that people have been mobilized also in major cities of northern Kurdistan. Is this a new uprising of Kurds in Turkey?

Without a doubt. People on the street have responded to the torture inflicted on our leader, Abdullah Ocalan. He was tortured both physically and psychologically, and has said repeatedly he prefers to die than be insulted. He's been 10 years locked up and deprived of all his rights. But our people continue to support him and increasingly mobilize themselves more. Following the most recent torture, Erdogan traveled to Amed (Diyarbakir) and found a city paralyzed by the strike. The response has been massive in Wan (Van), Colamerg (Hakkari), Mus ... People have said "enough" and went into the street. Any Kurd that reacts now is a guerrilla.

However, Erdogan is co-chair of the "Alliance of Civilizations' together with Rodriguez Zapatero. What do you think about this?

It is at least ironic that someone who complains about the assimilation of peoples as an 'aberration', ignores, deprives of all rights and represses 20 million Kurds in their own country. Zapatero is therefore complicit in the barbarity suffered by our people and that should make you think about both him and the other European leaders. Zapatero and Erdogan are leading a false project with which false Turkey seeks, in turn, to deceive the EU. Simply, they agreed to exterminate the Kurds.

The PKK has been fighting for decades. Did it get something?

The PKK has been fighting ideologically for 35 years and for 30 with arms, under the leadership of Abdullah Ocalan. We have offered a hand towards peace on more than one occasion but, far from negotiating, Turkey has responded to us with a state of emergency. There is no difference between the Turkish generals and Franco or Salazar. We are fighting against Turkish imposition and it is more than evident that there has been a significant change in the mindset of the people. The Kurds felt ashamed of their culture, of being Kurds. Until we learn to be `best Turks' at school. But Apo (Ocalan) taught us to feel ourselves not only Kurds but also persons. Our people have become aware of their own existence and that we owe in great measure to our leader, Abdula Ocalan. He opened the way and we will support him until the day of his death.

Do you dream about an independent Kurdistan?

We are pursuing a democratic confederalism. The PKK is an internationalist movement and has in its ranks fighters of many other nationalities. Among us there are Kurds, but also Russians, Germans, Armenians ... and even Turks. We are not nationalists, not fighting for statehood but for our rights and our freedom. We fight against imperialism and we believe in real democracy based on socialism and coexistence between peoples. We have always lived alongside Persians, Turks and Arabs, and we think that we can continue to do so but in a peaceful manner.

But the Kurds have fought among themselves until recently and are still divided.

It is true. The PKK was at war against Barzani's KDP and it, in turn, with Talabani's PUK. We have created the KCK (Democratic Confederation of Kurdistan) to bring together the Kurds of Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran into a single body that promotes democratic and socialist ideals. PJAK in East Kurdistan is one of its components and struggles to replace the theocracy in Tehran with a federal government that respects the rights of all the peoples of Iran. There is also the PYD, the most important party among the Kurds of Syria, that shares the ideals of Ocalan. Furthermore, both Barzani and Talabani are aware of the support that KCK's ideas are having in South Kurdistan.

What is the first step towards a resolution of this conflict?

The Turkish government has to withdraw or negotiate peace with us. The PKK became very powerful in the 90s and today it's not only the guerrillas but [it's] the entire community. We have 22 deputies in the parliament in Ankara and the Turks still remain determined that there are no Kurds in Turkey. The laws are of no use in Kurdistan because the state of war continues.

Would Turkey's entry into the EU improve things?

If Turkey had to import the European model of democracy, of course. Unfortunately, no European government has offered us its hand yet. Turkey interests Europe and the United States by the potential of its market and, above all, for its strategic location, which gives it a predominant role in NATO. Without going much further, Ankara bombards us using the information about our situation that the United States offers it. Until this changes, we will continue to be victims of the disastrous Western policy in the Middle East.

For now, both the EU and United States considers you "a terrorist group."

The Turkish Constitution makes no mention of the Kurds. Arrests and torture occur on a daily basis. Ankara's repression during the last decades has claimed thousands of destroyed villages and four million displaced. Among the multitude of Kurds murdered there are about 5,000 dead through "bizarre circumstances", many of them victims of the dirty war of Ergenekon, orchestrated by the same Turkish state. You had Guernica; we have Diyarbakir, Mus, Sirnak, Wan ... And the remains of the missing still continue to appear. Europe considers us as "a terrorist organization" since 2000, since the Turkish government controls the means of Western information, it "drinks" from them then. The people, the European parliamentarians, would have to come here and see what is happening with their own eyes.

I have placed three new links in the blog column on the right-hand margin. They are Bersiv, a Kurdish blog from Sweden, Kurdistan Commentary, which reads like it's coming from the US, and Zinar Ala's Kurdish blog in Spain. Please take a look at those and, if necessary, avail yourself of Google's translation tools to help you out if you need it.

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.

NEWS FROM THE FRONT

"Given the current situation of active fighting and no prospect of peace, this decision from the Kongra-Gel/HPG to renounce the use of AP mines is significant. It reflects the will of the Kongra-Gel/HPG to commit itself to respect certain rules of behaviour during warfare and to spare civilians from the effects of landmines. We will follow up the implementation of this humanitarian commitment and we call upon the Government of Turkey to facilitate our work on the ground."
~ Elisabeth Reusse-Decrey, President, Geneva Call.

TSK has a plan for minefield identification and clearing, from Taraf:

Let Civilians enter the minefields first

Şırnak Brigade Command General Ahmet Yavuz released an immediate order for precautions against mine attacks: Use the most frequently mined roads indirectly rather than directly, use the roads after civilian vehicles pass through, enter such mined regions after shepherds and civilian passengers use them.

First shepherds and passengers enter

In order to reduce the casualties from mines that have been planted by PKK in The East, it turned out that civilians would be pushed forward. In a top secret document signed by Şırnak Brigade Command's General Ahmet Yavuz, there were the following suggestions to reduce troop casualties: first sending civilians to the minefields, sending civilian vehicles on roads where the possibility of the existence of mines are high. and appointing trained dogs to such regions.

In addition to these suggestions, there is a demand to use Claymore mines, which are banned by international law.

Apparently, these decisions were made after a meeting of Şırnak Brigade Headquarters, which the unit commanders, headquarter lieutenants and battalion commanders had attended at the beginning of June 2007. This meeting came about as the result of two mine explosions which resulted in the deaths of six Turkish soldiers and another in which eight were wounded. These explosions occured in May and June 2007.

The top secret document, numbered HRK:7130-115-07 / (58557), was sent to İkizce and Doğanköy units, Şırnak Province Jandarma Command, Jandarma Special Operations Battalion Command, and Jandarma Security Protection Command.

Taraf obtained a copy of the document and, among the suggested solutions to the problem of regional minefields, was the following:

The roads and regions where mine and hand-made explosives are intensively used must be constantly surveilled; instead of going into those regions directly, an indirect strategy must be implemented; such roads must be used after opened to civilian vehicle traffic; such regions must be entered after shepherd and passenger use.

Why am I not surprised that NATO's second largest army, the TSK, is, once again, engaging in war crimes?

HPG stopped using anti-personnel mines in 2006, although it still uses command-detonated mines.

Now some news from the front. Note: the front is everywhere.

At the beginning of September, operations were continuing in Bingöl. Thirty-six Turkish soldiers were killed, one of whom was a major and nineteen were Special Team members.

This HPG operation occured on 2 September against the Tevzan Garrison in Kiğı of Bingöl. According to statements from HPG-BİM, the operation started with an infilitration at 1800 hours that encircled the garrison. The garrison was targeted from three points. All the materials in the garrison's yard were destroyed, including one artillery gun.

An hour and a half into the attack, Cobras arrived on the scene. One Sikorsky, which came to intervene and contained one major and twenty Special Team members, came under intense fire from our guerrıllas while trying to land in the garrison yard. It was downed by our guerrillas and exploded. There were no survivors of the explosion.

The war balance from this operation included four Turkish officers, one of whom was a major, and thirty-six enemy soldiers killed. Twenty-six were wounded.

There were four HPG şehîds as a result of this operation. BİM tells the struggle of the operation's commander Ahmet Tevfik (Kahraman Haseki) as follows:

"Comrade Kahraman Haseki was seriously wounded. Despite the other comrades' insistence that they take him [out of the operation area for medical attention], he rejected this offer and his final words were 'Say hello to all comrades. We took revenge for the Bingöl şehîds. Bijî Serok Apo!' Our comrade exploded his grenade and entered martyrdom. In addition to his martyrdom, our comrades İrfan Gündoğan (Munzur Sara), Şirzat Paşar (Sefkan Çiya), and Derviş Köşker (Özgür Roni) were martyred.

Kahraman Haseki had been a guerrilla for 15 years.

On 4, 5, and 6 September, operations continued in Hakkari, Şırnak, and Bingöl, in which eight soldiers and one JITEM were killed. Clashes between our guerrillas and the TSK in areas of Yüksekova, Hakkari on 5 September resulted in the death of four soldiers, with one wounded. On the same day, in Şırnak, Navyana Şeyxan garrison, YJA-STAR forces engaged in a clash with the TSK that resulted in two sergeants and three soldiers killed, and two soldiers wounded. On the same day in the Bingöl region, one JITEM and two soldiers were killed, and one wounded. On 6 September, in Kato Jirka of Beytüşşebap, operations were ongoing, including an operation initiated by TSK.

On 7 and 8 September, in two separate operations, HPG forces killed three enemy soldiers and wounded five others. On 8 September, a TSK command center was targeted by HPG in the Meydan Kolyan area, which was coordinating the Kato Jirka operation. The command center contained 15 officers, which were HPG's targets. Eight enemy soldiers were killed and seven wounded by HPG at the command center. After the operation, three helicopters came to remove the dead and wounded. Meanwhile, on 7 September in an operation in Şemdinli, HPG forces killed six soldiers and three village guards. Two of the dead soldiers were officers. The bodies were under the control of our guerrillas.

On 7 September, in villages of the Dicle district of Amed (Diyarbakır), three enemy soldiers were killed and two wounded. On 8 September in the Beytüşşebap district of Şırnak, YJA-STAR forces launched rocket attacks and heavy arms fire against police housing. Casualties from this attack have not yet been confirmed.

HPG has confirmed all of the şehîds from clashes on 16 and 28 August in the region of Bitlis, as follows:

Şehîd nemirin!

DISCLOSING WAR CRIMES IN NORTH KURDISTAN

"The truth is plain to see. Banning the truth does not eradicate it."
~ Nadire Mater, in a statement at her trial for writing Mehmedin Kitabı.

Last week Taraf published a report about a book written by a former TSK non-commissioned officer, in which he names names and lists dates and crimes committed by Turkish special operations personnel in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan during the 1990s.

These kinds of confessions are not new, not even the part about throwing Kurds out of helicopters. In 1998 Nadire Mater published her book Mehmedin Kitabı: Güneydoğu'da Savaşmış Askerler Anlatıyor, in which she collected interviews with former soldiers who had served in The Southeast. The book has been available in English for several years--and is highly recommended . . . trust me. Mater's book created quite a stir when it was first released in Turkey.

While I said that the information in the Taraf article is not new; what is new, and what was not included in Mater's book, are the names, dates, and places for the war crimes witnessed by the author and documented in Being a Soldier While a Sergeant, by Kasım Çakan.

One thing that Mater and Çakan have in common is prosecution by the Ankara regime for publishing the truth. Mater faced charges in an Istanbul court for a violation of Article 159 of the old Turkish penal code (insulting military forces of the state through publishing). Mater was eventually acquitted of the charge.

Now, however, Çakan and his publisher have been charged and are undergoing a trial in Istanbul. Charges were brought by the chief prosecutor of Istanbul when Çakan's publisher used the book to bring charges against the special operations commandos and police named as war criminals in the book.

Isn't that how it's supposed to work? You bring information about crimes to the prosecutor and he turns around and charges you with a "crime"? So much for democracy.

From Taraf:

Terrifying confession of a sergeant


"They threw a PKK member from a helicopter . . . A police special operations member raped the dead body of a female PKK member . . ." Former sergeant Çakan wrote this, including the name, date, and place, in his book; however, he was the one prosecuted.

Former Sergeant Kasım Çakan assembled information in his book on murders he witnessed which were committed by unknown perpetrators while he was on duty in The Southeast. Demanding that Çakan's book be accepted as an informant's document, Çakan's publisher, Mehdi Tanrıkulu, made a criminal complaint against the soldiers and police named in the document.

Being a Soldier Wile a Sergeant

Kasım Çakan, who used to work in the East and Southeast as a sergeant, compiled information about incidents that happened to him just after he was discharged from the army, in a book called Being a Soldier While a Sergeant. While Cakan wanted the incidents mentioned in his book to be considered as an informant documentation, Istanbul's chief prosecutor charged Çakan and his publisher with the charge of "making terror propaganda" [Article 7/2 of the new and improved Anti-Terror Law]. The trial of Çakan and Tevn Publications owner, Mehdi Tanrıkulu, is still ongoing.

A criminal complaint

Publisher Mehdi Tanrıkulu made a complaint to the Istanbul chief prosecutor's office based on the writing in the book. Tanrıkulu did so with the rationale that starting an investigation about such incidents would reveal several murders by unknown perpetrators. In his complaint, he mentioned the following claims from Çakan's book:

They threw from a helicopter

"I started my duty in July 1992, in Kars-Kağızman in the 7th Mechanized Brigade, 1st Mechanized Battalion, 1st Mechanized Company. On 4 April 1993, around noon, there was a clash between PKK militants and the soldiers in the battalion between the two Ağrı Mountains. A militant named Doğan, who was originally from Malatya and left İnönü University in his second year, was captured while he was wounded. He was taken by military officials to Erzurum by helicopter. However, I learned from both civilian and military sources that Doğan was thrown from the helicopter and died, since he didn't 'confess'."

Raping a corpse

"We were on duty in the 7th Mechanized Brigade, 1st Mechanized Battalion. On 27 May 1994, around 0920 hours, there was an ambush by PKK against military patrols. Eight troops and one sergeant died. One female and one male PKK members were dead and their corpses were left in the valley. The next day, special forces units went to the area where the clash occured; after them, there were our forces. When we arrived there, the special forces police were beside the two corpses. The male's body was torn apart from bullets that targeted his body; the female was shot in the head. While my team went beside those [special forces police], there was this police, Ramazan, from Adana. Our company commander, Captain Mehmet Özpolat asked him, 'What are you doing?' Police Ramazan yelled, 'Don't come, I'm dealing with the dead terrorist.' The captain said, 'How come? Don't be silly. Can it be done to someone who's dead?' And again, he [the captain] continued, 'It can't be. You guys are crazy. There can't be such craziness.' I lost myself. I cursed at Ramazan. Ramazan pulled his gun and attacked the captain. Right at that moment, I removed the safety on my rifle and shot at the sky twice."

The death of Private Huseyin

"I started my duty in Demirköy with the 3rd Border Battalion on 18 September 1989. Tuncay Baydur was the company commander in this unit. While playing soccer, Baydur beat one of the company's soldiers called Huseyin, from Doğubeyazıt. On the same night, Huseyin ran away and three days later his body was found. I arrived at my new duty station, Şırnak, in April 1993. On 7 July 1993, around 1000 hours, the Kayseri Commando Unit returned to its base. There were four handcuffed villagers with them. They had been kept in the shelters at their [the commando unit's] base until morning. On 8 July 1993, they took those four villagers along with them and went on duty. On 9 July, when they returned, one of those young villagers was absent. The other three villagers were being dragged and beaten by a commando sergeant, two soldiers, and a second lieutenant. I asked one of those youngsters where the other [fourth villager] was. He replied, 'They [referring to the soldiers] constantly asked him to tell where the terrorists were, and he said 'I don't know'. Commando Captain Mustafa said, [ordering the other soldiers] 'Remove his handcuffs to let him escape.' Since he didn't escape, they shot him with twenty bullets. They shot the son in front of his father.' The next morning, they took the remaining three villagers and they never brought them back."

Mehdi Tanrıkulu, in his criminal complaint, wanted the soldiers and the police named in the book to be judged for the following crimes: killing more than one qualified manslaughter, omittance of duty, torture, desecration of a corpse, and forming an illegal armed gang within the army. Tanrıkulu pointed out that with the investigation, several other incidents would be revealed.

For more on the crimes of Turkish security forces, particularly JITEM, in The Southeast, see Wednesday's post.

There have been other revelations in recent years from retired Turkish military about the terror they committed against the population of The Southeast. Retired TSK general Altay Tokat admitted in an interview that he had "a few bombs" thrown at civil servants in order to impress upon them the seriousness of the situation in The Southeast. In short, they weren't afraid enough and Tokat was not above committing terrorism himself.

Then retired TSK colonel Erdal Sarızeybek wrote a book in which he described the terrorism he inflicted on the population of Şemdinli.

Now, tell me, who are the real terrorists?

WHO ARE THE REAL TERRORISTS?

"May the prisoners' families not worry. If the prisoners are in the hands of HPG, which they are, they are in good hands."
~ Murat Karayılan, KCK Executive Council Chairman.

In case you missed it, here's the HBO documentary titled "Ghosts of Abu Ghraib". But it's not really torture, right? It's just torture lite; No need to lose any sleep over any of this. Forget what Anthony Taguba found as a result of his investigation.

Compare the treatment meted out by the Washington regime at Abu Ghraib to PKK's treatment of its prisoners of war. Check the video on that, too. Compare it to the one below and then you tell me who are civilized and who are the terrorists.

Run time 78 minutes. Full screen version here.

THE PROSECUTION

"Be prepared for hysterics and even a fainting spell. Better have smelling salts handy and a nip of brandy. "
~ Sir Wilfrid, Witness for the Prosecution.

Here's something else the filthy Imperial Congress will surely flush:

More on the same theme from Scott Horton at this mp3.

COLLUSION, CORROSION, CORRUPTION

"NOUN: A secret agreement between two or more parties for a fraudulent, illegal, or deceitful purpose."
~ col·lu·sion.

Oh, good article by Bill Moyers on how the American media is acting together with Corporate America to hasten the end of democracy. And people wonder why I'm such a skeptic when it comes to democracy:

Our media institutions, deeply embedded in the power structures of society, are not providing the information that we need to make our democracy work. To put it another way, corporate media consolidation is a corrosive social force. It robs people of their voice in public affairs and pollutes the political culture. And it turns the debates about profound issues into a shouting match of polarized views promulgated by partisan apologists who trivialize democracy while refusing to speak the truth about how our country is being plundered.

Our dominant media are ultimately accountable only to corporate boards whose mission is not life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for the whole body of our republic, but the aggrandizement of corporate executives and shareholders.

These organizations’ self-styled mandate is not to hold public and private power accountable, but to aggregate their interlocking interests. Their reward is not to help fulfill the social compact embodied in the notion of “We, the people,” but to manufacture news and information as profitable consumer commodities.

Democracy without honest information creates the illusion of popular consent at the same time that it enhances the power of the state and the privileged interests that the state protects. And nothing characterizes corporate media today more than its disdain toward the fragile nature of modern life and its indifference toward the complex social debate required of a free and self-governing people.

[ . . . ]

The new owner of the Tribune Company, real estate mogul Sam Zell, recently toured his new property Los Angeles Times, telling employees in the newsroom that the challenge is this: How do we get somebody 126 years old to get it up? “Well,” said Zell, “I’m your Viagra.”

He told his journalists that he didn’t have an editorial agenda or a perspective about newspapers’ roles as civic institutions. “I’m a businessman,” he said. “All what matters in the end is the bottom line.”

The viagra analogy is so appropriate because obviously Zell is a dick.

The dominant media remains in denial about their role in passing on the government’s unverified claims as facts. That’s the great danger. It’s not simply that they dominate the story we tell ourselves publicly every day. It’s that they don’t allow other alternative competing narratives to emerge, against which the people could measure the veracity of all the claims.

[ . . . ]

Sadly, in many respects, the Fourth Estate has become the fifth column of democracy, colluding with the powers that be in a culture of deception that subverts the thing most necessary to freedom, and that is the truth.

To be fair, it's not only the worthless American media that colludes with "the powers that be"; the same happens in other countries, too, although I don't think it's reached the same level as it has in the good, old corporatist USA. I can think of any number of stories that should have been allowed "alternative competing naratives" in public, such as the Ralston conflict of interest, or Sibel Edmonds' story. But as Sibel Edmonds proved, when she offered to spill her guts to the media last October, there is serious collusion between the media, the corporate world, and that "official" source of information, the State.

In other news, Colombia screwed the International Red Cross (IRC) big time by authorizing one of their military intelligence teams to use the logo of the IRC in a military operation to rescue war criminals from the FARC. From CNN:

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe admitted Wednesday that the symbol of the neutral Red Cross organization was used in a hostage rescue mission that freed 15 people from leftist rebels two weeks ago.

Uribe made the admission after CNN reported on unpublished photographs and videos that clearly showed a man wearing a Red Cross bib. Wrongly using the Red Cross logo is prohibited by the Geneva Conventions.

The man was a member of the Colombian military intelligence team involved in the daring rescue, Uribe said in an address carried on national TV and radio.

[ . . . ]

Such a use of the Red Cross emblem could constitute a "war crime" under the Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law and could endanger humanitarian workers in the future, according to international legal expert Mark Ellis, executive director of the International Bar Association.

Nice work, jackasses. Kiss your credibility goodbye, IRC. On the other hand, maybe the IRC deserves it in a karmic sort of way because it hasn't released the information it collected on the CIA's " highly coercive interrogation regime". Human rights lawyer Scott Horton, writing in Harper's, interviews Jane Mayer, author of The Dark Side, on the matter:

In a series of gripping articles, Jane Mayer has chronicled the Bush Administration’s grim and furtive dealings with torture and has exposed both the individuals within the administration who “made it happen” (a group that starts with Vice President Cheney and his chief of staff, David Addington), the team of psychologists who put together the palette of techniques, and the Fox television program “24,” which was developed to help sell it to the American public. In a new book, The Dark Side, Mayer puts together the major conclusions from her articles and fills in a number of important gaps. Most significantly, we learn the details on the torture techniques and the drama behind the fierce and lingering struggle within the administration over torture, and we learn that many within the administration recognized the potential criminal accountability they faced over these torture tactics and moved frantically to protect themselves from possible future prosecution. I put six questions to Jane Mayer on the subject of her book, The Dark Side.

The Torture Administration couldn't exist without the collusion of the criminal Democrats. Glenn Greenwald, constitutional lawyer and civil rights litigator, rips the Democrats, specifically Congress Creatures Nancy Pelosi, Jane Harman, and Jay Rockefeller for their complicity in torture.

As for the icing on the cake, let's note that the Imperial President now has the power to put anyone in the US into military detention. Do not pass "Go"; do not collect $200, from the NYTimes:

President Bush has the legal power to order the indefinite military detentions of civilians captured in the United States, the federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., ruled on Tuesday in a fractured 5-to-4 decision.

[ . . . ]

The decision was a victory for the Bush administration, which had maintained that a 2001 Congressional authorization to use military force after the Sept. 11 attacks granted the president the power to detain people living in the United States.

[ . . . ]

Jonathan L. Hafetz, a lawyer for Mr. Marri with the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, called the Fourth Circuit’s decision deeply disturbing.

“This decision means the president can pick up any person in the country — citizen or legal resident — and lock them up for years without the most basic safeguard in the Constitution, the right to a criminal trial,” Mr. Hafetz said.

Is anyone out there still deluded enough to think their vote in November will make any little bit of difference? Go on, take the blue pill. There's nothing to see here. Move along, move along.

TURKISH ARMY WAR CRIMES

"In the context of war, a war crime is a punishable offense under international law, for violations of the laws of war by any person or persons, military or civilian. War crimes can be committed during international armed conflict or internal armed conflict."
~ War crime.

Some photos of Turkish atrocities against HPG guerrillas have surfaced on the web. KurdishMedia picked them up, but incorrectly gives the impression that these atrocities were committed during the "recent Turkish aggression on southern Kurdistan". That is clearly not what is said on the webpage where these photos are found. Instead, it is clearly stated that these are photos of HPG guerrillas captured alive in 2007 by the barbaric Turkish army.

A small sampling of the photos:








The photos can be found on the original site here, or on a .pdf at the KurdishMedia link. WARNING: photos are extremely graphic and disturbing. Don't come crying to me if you have nightmares because you didn't pay attention to the warning.

Here's a translation of the Turkish text that accompanies the photos:

You cannot avoid the responsibility of this genocide

As "reverence for the dead" the Turkish army continues to commit crimes against humanity by tearing apart the bodies of Kurds they have murdered!

They have a place for this violence in the AKP government's belief . . . . You monsters, is this your belief?

Here is the Turkish state's crimes against humanity! Can a state become as low as this?

Can the Turkish army refute this crime against humanity?

How are you going to render an account before history for these crimes against humanity?

HPG guerrillas that have been caught alive and murdered in 2007.

We are curious if, in Vietnam, which left a big scar in history, such violence occured . . .

NATO and the West, who gave you the most modern weapons and training to let you commit more crimes against humanity, are also as guilty as you!

Now, compare those photos with the photos of Turkish soldiers captured alive, held prisoner, and released by HPG. Do you see so much as a scratch on HPG's Turkish POWs?

We know exactly who the terrorist barbarians are, don't we? The terrorist barbarians know exactly who they are. And like it says at halkarinsesi.com, NATO and the West are just as guilty.

Remember that fact if any European tourists get blown up this summer and don't expect any sympathy here.

TURKEY'S EU-FUNDED WAR CRIMES IN KURDISTAN

"In Turkey, where the majority of an estimated 25 to 30 million Kurds live, resistance is costly; as the pictures show, even your dead body is not immune from abuse and degradation."
~ Kani Xulam, "Turkey's War Crimes".

ANF, via Özgür Gündem, suspects executions without judgement during recent clashes in Bingöl:

The operation in Dallıtepe village, Bingöl, in whcich TSK clashed with HPG guerrillas, has some contradictory statements from various sources. On the night that the conflict took place, news agencies (Cihan News Agency and Ihlas News Agency) provided news to the Turkish media that five guerrillas were killed and five were captured alive. In addition, the chief of police of Adilcevaz, Bitlis, called Salih Toro to tell him to come and identify one of the martyred guerrillas--his brother--and also that five guerrillas were captured alive.

Salih Toro went from Bitlis to Bingöl to identify the body of his brother based on the information given by the Adilcevaz police station. When he arrived at the Bingöl state hospital morgue, he was shocked to see ten corpses, because he had been told there were five corpses. His brother was not among any of the ten corpses. He realized that the information he received from the police station and the scene he witnessed at the hospital was inconsistent.

Toro then applied to the Bingöl IHD. DTP's Bingöl provincial chairman Ömer Faruk Ersöz mentioned that there were bullet wounds on the heads and through the hearts of the guerrilla corpses. Having previously been a member of a medical staff, Ersöz has some familiarity with wounds. "I used to be a medical staff member. Therefore I know how living organisms react when wounded. The HPG guerrillas that have been shot in the head and through the hearts might have suffered close-range shots. The skin of some of the corpses was peeled and the possibility of this kind of peeling happening during operations is very low. The skin appears as if it had been peeled by a knife."

Turkey abolished capital punishment for all crimes in 2004 but extrajudicial murder continues and all Turkish security forces enjoy impunity.

The hevals at KurdishInfo compiled reports from DIHA and ANF to continue the story--which grows more shocking (English):

In the Bingöl countryside of Dağlıtepe, 10 HGP-guerrillas lost their lives and were taken to the mortuary where the corpses were thrown on a heap allegedly because of a "lack of space". The pro-Kurdish party DTP and Turkey’s Human Rights Association (İHD) said that this was a crime and inhuman treatment.

The Democratic People’s Initiative is urging people to take a stand and see off the guerrillas’ funerals.

The governor of Bingöl, İrfan Balkanlıoğlu, said, "some of them weren’t circumcised". In response to this statement, the DTP province chairman Ömer Faruk Ersöz reacted: "There is a mentality which makes politics upon peoples genitals. The governor should immediately apologise to the people", demanded Ersöz.

The Human Rights Association’s department chairman in Bingöl, Mehmet Şirin Yanılmaz, asserted that "whatever opinion, whatever nation one might be from, the treatment meted out is inhumane. What kind of mindset doesn’t even show respect for the dead? Therefore one must treat everyone with humanity", insisted Yanılmaz.

The Democratic People’s Initiative said that the Turkish government and its army insist on war: "Despite all the efforts to achieve a cessation of fighting, the AKP and its supreme commander Yaşar Büyükanıt keep on insisting on war. It should be well understood that it is this organisation which thrives on blood and conflicts among people", they maintained.

[ . . . ]

As for the guerrillas who lost their lives, the Initiative said that they "send their condolences to the martyrs of freedom and democracy, to the guerrillas’ families, the people, its unquestionable force the PKK, and its military force the HPG. The Kurdish people should take care of their guerrillas wherever they may be. The people should see off the funerals of our guerrillas", they encouraged.

Balkanlıoğlu needs to provide proof of his own circumcision because we certainly can't take his word for it, the dirty, dirty boy. And this incident raises questions about the humanity of good Turkish Muslims like Balkanlıoğlu. Is this the behavior Balkanlıoğlu's religion teaches? Is this the behavior the religion of the mortuary workers teaches them? Or were they simply born as dirty, uncircumcised pigs?

Guess who's been helping to fund these atrocities? The EU. From ANF via Özgür Gündem:

It has been revealed that the EU is subsidizing the TSK under the name of a donation program. Seeing the TSK as the major impediment against democracy, the EU donated 497 million euros in 2007 to the Turkish General Staff.

These donations are made for the TSK's modernization. The EU's economic aid, supplied for the last five years, indicates the EU's hypocrisy. In the EU's 2007 donation program planning, the Turkish General Staff received most of the aid.

For the modernization of the TSK, the EU gave 497 million Euros in economic aid in 2007. This aid will continue in 2008, 2009, and 2010. According to this plan, the EU will donate 538 million Euros in 2008, 566 million Euros in 2009, and 653 million Euros in 2010.

It's kind of odd, don't you think, that the Turkish military and government are so very eager to receive money from the hands of dirty, uncircumcised Europeans?

Well, maybe it's not so odd after all.