| Press Statement by the Socialist Party of
Kurdistan (PSK)
THE ON-GOING PHYSICAL AND CULTURAL GENOCIDE
The rulers of Turkey are unaware
of what century and what kind of world they live in as once
again the latest developments have showed. As if they are
behind times for a hundred years or even more. As if they
are unaware of international law and the development of goodwill
between different languages, cultures that became common value
of humanity within the past century. Germany apologised
to the Jews and the world public opinion about the genocide
of the Jews. To make sure that it is not forgotten, genocide
monuments erected in Germany and the
concrete evidence of this tragedy, ensures that concentration
camps are protected and open to the public. Putting it another
way, Germany has confronted
its history. Australia has apologised
for what was done to its indigenous population, Aborigines,
they too confronted their history.
It may not be on the same scale but
in our world, no civilised country's intellectuals, rulers
are trying to cover-up, deny or defend the genocides against
other people which are shameful events in their history. But
in Turkey everything
is the opposite of this. Turkey has not
confronted its history and is adamant and stubborn in its
behaviour. It is less than a century since the Armenian Genocide
happened in front of the eyes of the world. This shameful
act for humanity was condemned by the parliaments of many
countries. Each time the Turkish government and its parliament
has responded to these condemnations with anger. Excluding
few conscientious intellectuals, the so called intellectuals
and artists of Turkey have followed the footsteps of their
politicians and tried to hide, deny, even falsify history
and are using every trick in the book to blame the Armenians.
Of course, in Turkey, the example
of a shameful act is not just the Armenian Genocide, but what
was done to the Assyrians, Greeks and Kurds are crimes against
humanity too. During the genocide of the Armenians, the Assyrians
got their share in this slaughter. In the following years,
that means before the Greek and Turkish governments exchanged
populations, the Greeks who were oppressed and threatened
were deported from Anatolia in their hundreds of thousands
… One of the leading figures carrying out such activities
was CELAL BAYAR who was nicknamed 'GALIP HOCA' and was from
the CUP (Committee for Union and Progress Party).1 After the war and the exchange of the populations, some Greeks
were allowed to stay in Istanbul because
some Turks stayed in Western Thrace. [But] most of these Greeks left
Istanbul as a result of oppression
and the events of 6/7 September which were organised by the
state.
The genocide against
the Kurds has been ongoing since the time of the Ottoman Empire. Marshal Moltke's memoirs are full of such stories. During the
First World War, alongside the genocide of the Armenians,
700,000 Kurds from Kurdistan were exiled, and deported to central
and western Anatolia. This was an ethnic cleansing
and many of these people died as a result of hunger and cold.
After the war, in order
to Turkify Anatolia and to establish a
unitary state, the second biggest population group, the Kurds,
were declared as non-existent. The state was established
according to only Turkish elements. Kurdish history, language
and culture was banned. The Kurdish peoples just reaction
to all this was brutally and bloodily suppressed. After each uprising was put down, the civilian
population of the region, without any discrimination – [including]
women, children, young and old - were subjected to genocide.
For example, after the Sheikh Said rebellion, they killed
20,000 civilians. After the Agri uprising, in Zilan Stream
region, a population of more than 30 villages was exterminated.
After the 1938 Dersim uprising, 60,000 people, disregarding
[the fact that many were] women and children, were bayonetted,
shot, herded en masse into the mills and burnt or were killed
in caves.
The journalist AYSE
HUR recently reported on an interview that had taken place
in 1986 with the ex-Foreign Minister of Turkey, IHSAN
SABRI CAGLAYANGIL. [He said]: "The Dersimis [i.e. Kurds
in the region] had taken refuge in the caves. The (Turkish)
army used poison gas. Through the caves entrance ...
they were poisoned like rats. Aged
from 7 to 70, … the Kurds in Dersim were slaughtered …
The [military] operation was bloody. The Dersim case
was finished. The government's authority was established
in the villages and in Dersim ... Today, anyone can go
to Dersim. Gendarma can go, so can you. But lately,
especially in the borders region, the Kurds influenced by
the external powers started an independence movement. Some
Kurds live in Turkey, some in
Iran...." (AYSE HUR,
16/11/2008 TARAF GAZETESI).
After these uprisings and many smaller
ones, the masses were exiled. By doing so, they wanted
to clear out the Kurds from the region. The appearance
of the PKK and its armed struggle was used as a pretext to
evacuate and demolish more than 4,000 villages and towns.
3-4 million [Kurdish] people were exiled from their homeland
as thousands of 'unsolved murders' of Kurdish intellectuals
and patriots occurred that took the form of full massacre.
These are the end result of policies that have been implemented
over the past 30 years.
The oppression and
bans continued along with forced assimilation and Turkification
policies. They wanted to wipe out the language, culture
– in short, the very existence of the people who lived on
their land for thousands of years, who had deep roots
and contributed to the civilisation of Anatolia, Iran and
Mesopotomia, who had their own distinct and rich history and
language.
In conclusion, we can
say that, all the things done to the Kurds, and at different
times and places, were beyond ethnic cleansing and they are
physical and cultural genocide. The system that started this
policy towards the end of Ottoman Empire and that
spread all through [the Turkish] Republican period wanted
to exterminate tens of millions of Kurds through genocide,
deportation and assimilation. Even if
this has not been fully achieved [to date], such policies
had a huge destructive impact on the lives of the Kurdish
people.
Has the situation changed
today? No. Today, Turkish statesmen are neither brave enough
to confront their history nor to make real changes in their
policies that are suitable for our times. They
are disregarding world public opinion and international law
and carrying on with their policies without fear. Today the system
is using the terror that it had created, carrying on with
its militarist and racist activities. It is resisting [initiatives
aimed at] opening a peaceful path for a solution.
They are not
allowing [Kurdish] exiles to return to their land. The
ban on language and culture is ongoing. Even today, there
is no freedom of expression and organisation for the Kurds.
The intellectuals who support them are punished according
to the laws such as Turkish Penal Code article 301 and by
similar articles.
The Turkish Prime Minister,
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, recently visited the Kurdish region
and had this to say to the people who asked for cultural and
political rights:
The ones
who don't accept the idea of one state, one
nation, one flag, should leave the country ...
In fact, this is an
infamous slogan of fascism:
love it
or leave it ...
On 10/11/2008 (The anniversary of
Ataturk's death on10/11/1938), the Defense Minister, Mr.VECDI
GONUL, who was in Brussels for a meeting,
openly claimed that without the genocide of the Armenians
and the deportation of the Greeks, there would have been no
national state. These are Vecdi Gonul's exact words:
...The most
important step during the establishment of the nation was
exchange of the populations. Just think, would it have
been possible for us to become a nation state, if the Greeks
had continued to live in Aegean region and the Armenians in
many parts of Anatolia?
The Defence Minister, Mr. V.Gonul went
on with an example from Ankara: "...
Just one district of Ankara were Muslims in those days …"
and added that another one [was] Greek and another one Armenian.
He also stated that, at the time, Izmir Trade Organisation
was made up of non-Muslims. Mr. Gonul is admitting that
with genocide and deportations, Turkey was ethnically cleansed,
the finances were gained by Muslim Turks, and by doing so,
the nation state was set up and what is more, he defended
such action.
Honestly, there are no Greek or Armenian
districts, Greeks or Armenians left in Ankara. Such Greek
or Armenian districts don't exist in Istanbul either.
Despite all that the ones who stayed behind and how they feel
is not a secret. The events that took place in Malatya and themurder
of HRANT DINK with the knowledge and support of the police
and gendarme authorities are still fresh in our minds.
Today, the extermination
of the Kurds, and the physical and cultural genocidal policies
that are implemented against the Kurds, are a continuation
of that "NATION BUILDING" mentality.
It is obvious that the Turkish statesmen believe that they
have not completed the task yet ....
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