From: TEX5HAD@CMS1.LEEDS.AC.UK (Haluk DEMIRBAG)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish
Subject: KURDISH REBELS KILL OWN KIND FOR REVENGE
Date: 4 Oct 1992 06:58:01 -0500
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
Reply-To: Turkish Cultural Program List <TRKNWS-L%USCVM.BitNet@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU>
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu

KURDISH REBELS KILL OWN KIND FOR REVENGE

From Hugh Pope in Cevizlidag, Turkey

Bullet-riddled  bodies of  Kurdish  men, women  and children  lay
before the smouldering rubble of this mountain village yesterday,
another gory lesson that there  is nothing simple or compromising
about  the  direction  of   Turkey's  increasingly  ugly  Kurdish
conflict.

At  least 40  Kurds  were killed,  many shot  in  cold blood,  by
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)  guerrillas fighting in the Kurds'
name for an independent Kurdish state.

It  was  the  worst  massacre  in  their  eight-year  insurgency,
possibbly a sign of desperation  but more likely a declaration of
all-out war to match Turkey's new-found zeal.

The  band  of 100  guerrillas  attacked  Cevizlidag on  Wednesday
afternoon and  easily overwhelmed 15 defenders  dug into outposts
around the  stone-built, flat-roofed village which,  in any other
circumstances, would  have presented the idyllic  scene suggested
by its name - Walnut Mountain.

"They shouted  at us to  surrender, so we  did," said one  of few
known  survivors,  sitting with  head  in  hands by  the  village
stream.

"They gathered outside the  village. But then army reinforcements
began to  come. So they shot  us, blew up our  houses with rocket
grenades, and ran away."

Twenty-four hours  later, almost all  of the village's  15 houses
were still  burning or smoking.  Bodies were being washed  one by
one by  Muslim imams,  wrapped in fresh,  white sheets,  and laid
side-by-side in  a mass  grave. Keening  women in  national dress
chanted Kurdish laments and relatives sat in disconsolate rows.

Scores  of  tired Turkish  commandos  carved  crude coffins  from
trees,  kept  watch  or  lounged  under  walnut  trees.  Somewhat
incongruously, the  Turkish judical system had  also arrived. Two
secretaries  typed death  reports on  picnic tables  set up  in a
field as a young state  prosecuter collected statements, a pistol
tucked into his waistband.

Twenty-one bodies had  been collected so far,  he said, including
11 women  and two children.  Another 19 people, mostly  women and
children, were feared to be under the still-burning rubble of the
village.

Two oxen  also lay  dead, machine-gunned  while harnessed  to the
yoke of a sledge stacked with hay.

The PKK  may have attacked  to avenge the death  of up to  174 of
their number  on Tuesday during  their biggest raid yet  over the
border from bases in northern Iraq.  But the killing of women and
children in a number of recent attacks shows that the guerrilllas
have gone  back to  a terrorist  tactic of  intimidation forsworn
three  years ago  as  they  tried to  attract  urban Kurdish  and
Western support.

The villagers'  crime in PKK  eyes was probably to  have accepted
arms  from the  government  and to  have  joined a  34,000-strong
militia force of village guards in the south-east.

But villagers often  have little choice in the  matter, caught in
the  crossfire between  government and  the guerrillas  in remote
villages such as Cevizlidag, two  hours of bumpy driving from the
nearest asphalt road by rocky, narrow, mountain track.

Now  these  beautiful  highlands  of the  south-east  are  slowly
emptying. Probably no one will  live in Cevizlidag again. "I lost
all my  grandchildren in one  blow," said an old  Kurdish sheikh,
"what do i have to live for, here, any more?"

THE INDEPENDENT, 3 October 1992


KURDISH GUERRILLAS WIPE OUT VILLAGE

Pam O'Toole in Cevizdali (Cevizlidag |-|)

(...)

The Cevizdali incident gave  the Turkish armed forces, accustomed
to criticism of Turkey's human  rigts record, a welcome chance to
show the other side of the Kurdish story.

The  colonel in  charge of  the clearing  operation in  Cevizdali
restricted  himself  to giving  us  the  facts. However,  another
officer,  who would  not be  named, insisted:  "'Go and  tell the
world about this  scene. They talk about human  rights in Turkey,
but they don't see massacres like this.'"

THE GUARDIAN, 3 October 1992
            _
|-| /-\ |_ |_| |< {I don't care if even 100,000 people are killed.
                   A lot of blood will be shed. Abdullah Ocalan (APO),
                   leader of PKK}
Xref: sparky soc.culture.turkish:10243 talk.politics.mideast:20586 alt.activism.d:3329