>From: Solidariteitsgroep Turkije-Kurdistan > >What is Turkey's Hizbullah? >Human Rights Watch: Backgrounder >February 16, 2000 > >In the early 1990s, when the Turkish government's conflict with Kurdish >separatists was at its most fierce, a right-wing organization called >"Hizbullah" began attacking suspected sympathizers of the Kurdish Workers' >Party (PKK). Young assassins operated in broad daylight in the mainly >Kurdish cities of southeast Turkey. People who opposed the government's >policy were being killed at the rate of two a day; in all, more than a >thousand people were killed in street shootings from 1992 to 1995. > >The government remained deaf to allegations that its security forces were >colluding with Hizbullah. In April 1995, a parliamentary commission of >investigation - under-equipped and complaining of official obstruction - >produced findings which seemed to confirm the links, but no public action >was taken on its report. > >Since then, little has been heard of Hizbullah until the operations which >began on January 17 this year, when Huseyin Velioglu, recognized as leader >of the bloodiest factions of Hizbullah called "Ilim," was killed in a police >raid on a house in Istanbul. Since then, Turkish police have made hundreds >of arrests during operations against Hizbullah "safe houses." They have >found many mass graves inside the grounds of safe houses - the body count is >currently 59 - and videos showing Hizbullah's victims being tortured and >"executed". In recent months, Hizbullah appeared to be carrying out killings >once again, but this time members of Kurdish religious charitable foundations > were particularly targeted. > >Are the current operations against Hizbullah and the killing of its leader >merely the disposal of a puppet organization which has reached the end of >its useful life? Or is the Turkish government prepared to initiate a full >investigation of the links between security forces and the Hizbullah? Human >Rights Watch wrote on February 16, 2000 to the Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit >detailing the evidence for such links and calling for an independent inquiry. > >The history: > >Hizbullah was a mainly urban phenomenon (in rural areas, hundreds of >extrajudicial executions were carried out by gendarmes, village guards paid >by the government, and "special teams"). It was an Islamic organization, >although not linked to Hizbullah organizations in Iran or Lebanon, and was >supposedly founded to overthrow the secular Turkish state. In practice, it >repeatedly targeted people with a history of being harassed, detained, >ill-treated, and tortured by the police. > >Hizbullah did not claim responsibility for any of the killings, but came to >be associated with a particular style of assassination carried out in broad >daylight, often by pairs of young assassins using pistols of Eastern >European manufacture. It has emerged in the past few days that the >governor's office of the city of Batman, where local officials claimed in >1993 that the military provided training for Hizbullah, was importing >weapons from Eastern Europe in the early 1990's, and that many of the >weapons imported cannot be accounted for. > >Human Rights Watch first called for investigation of links between Hizbullah >and the security forces in 1992. Fikri Saglar, who served as a government >minister that year, expressed the view that "the founder, promoter and >indeed user of Hizbullah in the southeast was the high command of the Armed >Forces. Hizbullah was expanded and strengthened on the basis of a decision >at the National Security Council in 1985, and some of them were even trained >at security force headquarters..." (Interview in Siyah-Beyaz (Black and >White) newspaper, quoted in Kod Adi: Hizbullah (Codename: Hizbullah), Faik >Bulut and Mehmet Faraç; Ozan Publications, March 1999.) > >The Turkish authorities never investigated these allegations, opting to deny >the existence of Hizbullah, and the current government remains impassive to >allegations of collusion with Hizbullah. The Turkish military, however, has >issued a sharp denial: "To link directly or indirectly the merciless murder >network Hizbullah to the Turkish armed forces is a slander (without) sense >or logic." (Written statement from office of Chief of General Staff. >Reported in Reuter; January 24, 2000.) > >The evidence of links: > >On February 9, 2000, Cumhuriyet (Republic) reported that a high ranking >Hizbullah member >confessed in police custody to killing Ramazan Sat on behalf of the >organization on July 2, 1992 "because he was PKK." Batman police, who also >suspected Ramazan Sat of being a PKK member, had interrogated him under >torture for twelve days the preceding March. Ramazan Sat used photographs of >his injuries in order to bring a prosecution against a number of Batman >police officers. Although torture was and still is widespread in Turkey, >Ramazan Sat's case was unusual in that he had not only the courage to >complain, but also the evidence to substantiate his complaint. A Hizbullah >bullet ensured that he never lived to testify against his torturers. > >Investigating a connection between Hizbullah and Turkish security forces was >dangerous in the early 1990s. Several representatives of publications which >attempted to probe these links were killed. Halit Güngen, a reporter for the >left-wing weekly journal, 2000'e Dogru (Toward 2000), was killed in the >magazine's Diyarbakir office on February 18, 1992. Two days before, the >journal had featured a cover story on Hizbullah and the police. Namik >Taranci, the Diyarbakir representative of the weekly journal Gerçek >(Reality), was shot dead on November 20, 1992 on his way to work in >Diyarbakir. Again, the previous edition of the magazine had examined >relations between the state and Hizbullah. > >Hafiz Akdemir, reporter for Özgür Gündem (Free Agenda), was shot dead in a >Diyarbakir street on June 8, 1992, after reporting that a man who had given >refuge to assassins fleeing a Hizbullah-style double killing in Silvan was >released after only six weeks in custody, without even appearing in court. A >gendarme officer was directly linked to political murder in Silvan, a known >Hizbullah stronghold. > >Witnesses of Hizbullah killings frequently reported that the assassins were >very young. In some cases the killers were recognized as people from very >poor families. In a telephone conversation taped by Ankara police in 1992, a >gendarmerie officer in Silvan was heard to press a seventeen-year-old boy to >kill Mehmet Menge, a local left-wing politician. The boy had earlier been >detained for suspected PKK membership, but was released in return for his >promise to commit the crime. Threat of prosecution as a PKK member was >combined with promises of rich rewards: "Pull the fuse on the grenade and >throw it at him. Shoot him in the head no more than three times. Do not >worry, we have arranged everything. We'll say terrorists killed him. Your >money is ready." (From a transcript which appeared in Yeni Ülke (New Land) >of 22 March 1992]. No reports of formal investigations or prosecutions >ensued, while the Gendarmerie General Command, in a response to a >parliamentary question of May 7, 1992, blandly stated that the commander in >question had been "transferred to other duties." > >The official "investigations:" > >Belated police operations against Hizbullah often appeared to be carried out >for show, rather than as a determined move against a dangerous illegal armed >group. Initially, police did not move against the more ruthless Hizbullah >Ilim group, which was the target of last month's operations, but against >their rival, the Menzil faction, which was reportedly opposed to attacks on >suspected PKK members. Several people reported to the press as "captured >Hizbullah murderers" were later quietly released. The detainee announced in >November 1992 by the State of Emergency Region Governor Ünal Erkan as "the >Hizbollah militant ... who killed Halit Güngen" (reported in Turkish Human >Rights Foundation bulletin, February 11, 2000), was remanded for a few >months before being released. Similarly, three people initially said by >authorities to have confessed to murdering the Kurdish parliamentary deputy >Mehmet Sincar in Batman on 4 September 1993 on behalf of Hizbullah, were >later acquitted for "lack of evidence." The authorities were inexplicably >coy about their successes in combating Hizbullah, and declined to respond to >Amnesty International's repeated requests for detailed information on >prosecutions of alleged Hizbullah members (Amnesty International, Turkey: >Unfulfilled Promise of Reform, September 1995). > >The Commission on Unsolved Murders of the Turkish Parliament revealed that a >Hizbullah training camp had been operated with Turkish military assistance. >This establishment of the Commission on Unsolved Murders of the Turkish >Parliament was triggered in February 1993 by the killing of Ugur Mumcu, an >Ankara reporter for Cumhuriyet and a key public figure, in January of that >year. The Commission's authority was only later extended to cover the >distinct pattern of political killings in the southeast. Its April 1995 >report documents how the ill-equipped and understaffed commission was >plagued by official obstruction, and by an awareness that potential >witnesses were being intimidated. Its findings were emphatic that the >security forces were indeed giving succor to Hizbullah: "On July 27, 1993 at >Batman Police Headquarters, the Chief of Batman Police and the >Deputy Governor of Batman told the Commission that they had received >information that there was a camp belonging to Hizbullah in the region of >Seku, Gönüllü and Çiçekli villages, in the Gercüs district of Batman, and >that military units in the area were giving assistance to this camp; that >they had spoken to gendarmerie officials and that authorized military >persons had told them that the militants of this organization had abused the >relations in various ways, and for this reason they became disgusted with >the organization and severed their links." (Report of the Commission of the >Turkish Grand National Assembly for the Investigation of Unsolved Political >Murders, p. 5). The General Headquarters of the Gendarmerie denied the >existence of the camp. The commission's report goes on to describe the >subsequent removal of the Chief of Batman Police from his post in the >region, apparently for having testified frankly before the commission, and >the inhibiting effect this had on other officials called to provide testimony. > >By March 1993 and the publication of its report Turkey: Killings Mount, >Human Rights Watch had already repeatedly protested to the Turkish >government about its failure to investigate the extraordinary number of >political killings, including extrajudicial executions, that had been >committed in southeast Turkey since 1991. On January 28, 2000, in connection >with recent revelations of Hizbullah killings, the Turkish Daily News asked >Mustafa Yilmaz, former parliamentary deputy and member of the above >commission, what Turkey had lost because of its failure to respond to the >warnings in the early 1990s about Hizbullah: "We can all see what has been >lost: corpses are being dug out of mass graves, many lives have been lost." > >By action or omission, the Turkish state bears some responsibility for the >slaughter committed by Hizbullah. In accord with the criteria contained in >the United Nations Principles on the Effective Prevention and Investigation >of Extra-Legal Arbitrary and Summary Executions, the evidence currently at >hand should trigger such an investigation. Those principles also provide an >excellent model for the way in which a thorough such investigation can be >conducted. > >-- >Pressagency Ozgurluk.Org >In solidarity with the Peoples Liberationstruggle in Turkey and >Kurdistan http://www.ozgurluk.org >DHKP-C: http://www.ozgurluk.org/dhkc > > __________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki - Finland +358-40-7177941, fax +358-9-7591081 e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kominf.pp.fi ___________________________________ [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe/unsubscribe messages mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ___________________________________
