Deportations of Kurds (1916–1934)

Deportations of Kurds (1916–1934)
The Deportations of Kurds by Turkey refers to the population transfer of hundreds of thousands of Kurds from Turkish Kurdistan that was perpetuated by the Ottoman Empire and its successor Turkey in order to Turkify the region. Most of the Kurds who were deported were forced to leave their autochthonous lands, but the deportations also included the forced sedentarization of Kurdish tribes. Turkish historian İsmail Beşikçi emphasized the influence of fascism on these policies, and Italian historian Giulio Sappeli argued: "The ideals of Kemal Atatürk meant that war against the Kurds was always seen as an historical mission aimed at affirming the superiority of being Turkish." Occurring just after the Armenian genocide, many Kurds believed that they would share the same fate as the Armenians. Historians Dominik J. Schaller and Jürgen Zimmerer state that this event "not only serves as a reminder of the unsettling fact that victims could become perpetrators, but also that perpetrators [as some Kurds were during the Armenian Genocide] could turn victims".
Background and Ottoman deportations (1916)
During the 1910s, Kurdish-Ottoman relations were complex as some Ottoman Kurds had sided with the Committee of Union and Progress against the Christian minorities for opportunistic reasons, while others had positioned themselves against the Ottomans and sided with the Christians. Kurdish manpower had also been used in the Caucasus campaign against the Russian Empire, but the Ottomans did not consider the Kurds as loyal, believing that they would cooperate with the Armenians and the Russians to further their own nationalist aspirations. On this, historian and genocide expert Üngör points at the memoirs of Commander Ahmed İzzet Pasha:
Moreover, Talaat Pasha ordered in May 1916:
As the forced sedentarization and deportations began, the authorities meticulously followed up to learn how well the policies were working, requesting information on whether those deported had assimilated into Turkish culture. Moreover, the largest Kurdish city Diyarbakır was declared a 'Turkification Region' and Kurds were deported from the area, as migrants from the Balkans were planned to be settled there. Kurds deported from Diyarbakır were allowed only to return with a permission by the authorities. In 1916, about 300,000 Kurds were deported from Bitlis, Erzurum, Palu and Muş to Konya and Gaziantep during the winter and most perished in a famine.
When the liberal Freedom and Accord Party came to power in 1918 (to 1923), the few surviving deported Kurds were encouraged to return to their areas of origin.
Amount of deportees
Most sources suggest that as many as 700,000 Kurds were deported during World War I, although there are no reliable statistics. Safrastian (1945) estimates that half of these deported Kurds died. Üngör (2009) writes that "it would require a separate study to calculate meticulously how many were deported".
Turkish deportations (1923-1934)
The official policy of the newly-founded Turkey was to dismantle traditional Kurdish Islamic tribal society and institutions, as well as to continue with the World War I CUP's Turkist assimilationist policies against the Kurds. Consequently, the Kurds began to mobilize for a resistance and a group of Kurds led by Colonel Xalîd Begê Cibranî briefly captured the town of Beytüşşebap (see Beytussebab rebellion of 1924). In spite of being unsuccessful, the rebellion generated more distrust and accumulated into the Sheikh Said rebellion in 1925 which forced the mobilization of half of the Turkish army and prompted the Turks to bomb the Kurds. The rebellion was ultimately crushed and Sheikh Said executed. The far-right wing of the Young Turks exploited this situation and demanded tougher punishments and even pro-state Kurds were persecuted including politicians Aziz Feyzi Pirinççizâde and Pirinççizâde Sıdkı. By mid-1925, the government initiated a pogrom in Diyarbakir executing civilians and burning villages to the ground which in total destroyed about 206 villages and killed 15,200 people. By late 1925, the new deportation law Law on Migrants, Refugees, and Tribes Who Leave Their Local Settlements Without Permission was implemented and the Kurdish elite - numbering about 500 - were deported to western Turkey. In Sheikh Said's village, all men were deported making a 14-year-old boy the oldest man there. The subsequent laws Settlement Law from May 1926 and Law Regarding the Transportation of Certain Persons from the Eastern Regions to the Western Provinces further allowed the government to deport Kurds. In the western parts of the country, Kurds experiencing xenophobia, and in some cases, lynching.
Assuming that the laws had become successful, Turkey eased on the restrictions and allowed some of the deported to return in 1929.
Similar to the previous Sheikh Said rebellion, the Kurds of Mount Ararat rebelled in the Ararat rebellion from 1927 to 1930 and was also subdued. Consequently, the Turkish Parliament discussed new methods to oppress the Kurds. Kemalist Mustafa Naşit Uluğ argued that it was needed to "exterminate root and branch all of the remaining social institutions from the Middle Ages’ so these would ‘never blossom again". Thus, in 1934, the Settlement Law was passed which banned the Kurdish language in public and issued the settlement of Turks to the Kurdish region. On this deportation wave, Üngör writes: During the 1940s, most of the survivors of the deported Kurds received amnesty and returned to Kurdistan.
Independence Tribunal of Diyarbekir
The Independence Tribunal of Diyarbakır is a court established in March 1925 in order to quell the Sheikh Said rebellion. The court was inspired by the Independence Tribunals which were established during the Turkish War of Independence and which were provided with extensive powers to subdue the enemies of the Government of Mustafa Kemal Pasha, and established following the issuing of the by the government of prime minister İsmet İnönü on the 4 March 1925. The law was to be valid for two years, after which the Independence Tribunal of Diyarbkır was disestablished.
Aftermath of the Dersim rebellion
Turkish authorities have treated present-day Tunceli area with suspicion after the rebellion and consequent massacre in the 1930s which included new conducts of deportations. Today, a majority of the people of Dersim live in Western Turkey and Europe.
See also
Deportation of Armenian intellectuals on 24 April 1915
Hasan Hayri
1925 Report for Reform in the East (Turkey)
References
Bibliography
Further reading
1916 establishments in the Ottoman Empire
1934 disestablishments in Turkey
Deportation
Kemalism
Persecution of Kurds in Turkey
Persecution in the Ottoman Empire
1916 in the Ottoman Empire
1920s in Turkey
1930s in Turkey
Ottoman war crimes
Ethnic cleansing in Europe
Ethnic cleansing in Asia
Persecution by Muslims
Turkish nationalism
Genocidal massacres
Racially motivated violence in Asia