Dersim 1938 Katliami dersim genocide 1938

TURKEY IS GUILTY OF THE GENOCIDE COMMITED İN DERSIM IN 1938
TURKEY IS GUILTY OF THE GENOCIDE COMMITED İN DERSIM IN 1938

In order to create a Turkish nation from above, Turkish nationalists waged a bloody campaign against non-Turkish and non-Muslim elements of the empire.
The First World War served as an excuse for the Young Turks, the then Turkish goverment, to exterminate Armenians. It was a deliberate and sustain war, in the course of which hundreds of thousands Armenians, Assyrians and Greeks had been ruthlessly killed or forced into exile.
The collapse of the Ottomans had left a power vacuum, filled by another section of the Turkish nationalists, called Kemalists at a later time.
In 1937-38, i.e., at a time when world attention was focused on the Second World War, the Turkish nationalists commited another genocide. This time the victims were Dersimis, who are also known as Kızılbash or Alevis. Approximately 40.000-70.000 of them were killed and thousands were taken into exile. The Dersim Genocide of 1937-1938 was on one hand a continuation of the Kızılbash extermination of the Ottoman times and also an extermination of an ethnically distinct and separate people from Turks.
What happened back then has been handed down to the later generations by their parents and grand-parents, who witnessed the onslaught, and of whom some are still alive.
Furthermore the sites of the mass graves all over Dersim are well known and can easily be located if and when need be. The ruins of the country`s cultural heritage including churches belonged to the nations`s Christian section are still visible.
People wish to see the justice served. A search for justice has already began. A legal action against Turkey will at long last be taken at some time in the future.

SEYFI CENGIZ
Efo Bozkurt who lost his whole family in the "1938 Dersim Incidents" applied to court under allegations of "crimes against humanity" last year but his complaint was now dismissed.

86-year-old Bozkurt lost both of his parents and his five siblings in 1938 in the village of Çaytaşı in the Dersim district of Hozat.

The so-called "Dersim Massacre" refers to the violent suppression in 1937/38 of the local population of Dersim, now called Tunceli Province (eastern Anatolia). Some sources speak of tens of thousands of Alevi Kurds and Zazas that were killed and thousands more that were forced into exile.

The Hozat Public Chief Prosecution decided to drop procedures on 18 February 2011. It was stated, "The Turkish Criminal Law in effect at the time of the incidents that allegedly happened in Dersim in 1938 did not include 'genocide and crimes against humanity' as imputed by the complainant".

It was furthermore said in the decision that the alleged cases of death were to be evaluated as "homicide" and thus fell under the statute of limitation.
Appeal against the decision

bianet talked to the plaintiff lawyer and writer Hüseyin Aygün who summarized the appeals against the decision under the following headings:

* The decision of the prosecutor does not meet the regulations. Article 90 of the Constitution is based on international law. The basis must be the United Nations' decision that "the statute of limitation does not apply to 'crimes against humanity'. Regardless of saying that Articles 75, 76 and 77 of the Turkish Criminal Law as enforced in 2005 was not applied in the past, international law has to be the basis.

* The law lags behind the developments of the society, the judiciary has to settle that.

* This issue has to be discussed in a domestic framework as well. No research has been carried out at all, the places where the bodies were buried have not been visited and nobody has talked to the witnesses.
"State has to apologize"

Lawyer Aygün declared to appeal to the Erzincan Court (north-eastern Anatolia) and in case this should not yield any result, he is going to apply to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). He said that it would be good to have this topic discussed by the ECHR but emphasized that it should particularly be discussed in Turkey.

"The CHP [Republican People's Party] and the AKP [ruling Justice and Development Party] are racing against each other who is going to be the first to say 'what happened in Dersim was a massacre'. We request to enforce a special law on the 'Dersim 38 Massacre'. The perpetrators have died long ago, we are not after punishment. The important issue is to discuss history openly and clearly. The state has to apologize officially", Aygün claimed.
"Incident was limited to rebels"

The decision stated that the crime of genocide was not constituted and that the suppression of the uprising was limited to the insurrectionists.

In summary, the decision read, "The actions of the armed rebels came to a stage where they disrupted the national sovereignty of our country and the necessary use of weapons was rendered insufficient. However, it is a historic fact that the incident was limited to the insurrectionists".

"In order to constitute the crime of genocide, the actions have to be executed according to a plan and in a systematic manner". (NV/EÖ/VK)

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (1881-1938) was the founder of the Republic of Turkey and the consummator of the Armenian Genocide. Kemal was an officer in the Turkish army whose defense of Gallipoli in 1915-1916 defeated the Allied campaign to breach the Dardanelles and quickly eliminate the Ottoman Empire from World War I. A supporter of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), he stayed out of politics until 1919 when he organized the Turkish Nationalist Movement in the drive to oust the Allies who had placed strategic portions of the country under occupation after its defeat. Kemal established headquarters in Ankara, amnestied CUP members who joined his movement, and regrouped the remaining Ottoman army and other irregular units under his general command.

Kemal first directed his forces against the French in Cilicia with fatal consequences for the Armenians. With Allied encouragement and promises of protection, most surviving Armenians had repatriated to their hometowns in Cilicia in 1919. The attack by Kemalist units against the city of Marash in January 1920, which was accompanied by large-scale slaughtering of the Armenians, spelled the beginning of the end for the remnant Armenian population. The Armenians of Hajen (Hadjin) put up a last desperate fight for seven months only to be reduced by October 1920 to less than five hundred survivors who fled from a city completely torched by the besieging Turks. When the French formally agreed to evacuate Cilicia in October 1921, the debacle signified a second deportation for the Armenians of the region. In the meantime, the Turkish Nationalist forces had gone to war against the Republic of Armenia. With secret instructions from the Ankara government to proceed with the physical elimination of Armenia, General Kiazim Karabekir seized half the territories of Armenia in November 1920 as Red Army units Sovietized the remaining areas. Once again the Armenian population was driven out at the point of the sword with heavy casualties as the city of Kars and its surrounding region were annexed by Turkey.

The final chapter of the Armenians in Anatolia was written in Smyrna (Izmir) as Kemalist forces routed the Greek army and entered the city in September 1922. Soon after, a fire begun in the Armenian neighborhood consumed the entire Christian sector of the city and drove the civilian population to the shore whence they sailed into exile bereft of all belongings. With this exodus from the mainland, Mustafa Kemal completed what Talaat and Enver had started in 1915, the eradication of the Armenian population of Anatolia and the termination of Armenian political aspirations in the Caucasus. With the expulsion of the Greeks, the Turkification and Islamification of Asia Minor was nearly complete.

With the restoration of Turkish sovereignty over Anatolia, Kemal turned his attention to the modernization of the country. Designated President of the newly proclaimed Republic of Turkey in 1923, he embarked upon a thorough-going process of Westernization while promoting a secular Turkish national identity. This effort was epitomized in the adoption of the Latin alphabet for the modern Turkish language. In 1934 the Turkish Grand National Assembly hailed Kemal with the surname of Ataturk, meaning the father of the Turks, in tribute to his singular contribution in forging modern Turkey. With an eye toward securing his legacy, in 1931 Kemal founded the Turkish Historical Society, which was charged with the guardianship of the state's official history. In 1936 Kemal began to pressure France to yield the Sanjak of Alexandretta, or Iskenderun, a district on the Mediterranean under French administrative rule whose inhabitants included 23,000 Armenians. Preoccupied with the deteriorating situation in Europe, France yielded when Turkey send in its troops in 1938. Kemal died that year having prepared the annexation of the district. His action precipitated the final exodus of Armenians from Turkey in 1939 as most opted for the French offer of evacuation to Syria and Lebanon rather than risk mistreatment yet again.

—Rouben Paul Adalian

Erdogan, Kilicdaroglu, and Genocide of Dersim

Kurdishaspect.com - By Amed Demirhan

During this partial constitutional amendments referendum, Turkish politics are getting intense and heated. The new leader of the Republican People Party (RPP -Turkish CHP) Mr. Kemal Kilicdaroglu has created an interesting debate mostly because of his “Alevi-Kurdish” background but some times because of his reckless claims. For example, he claimed in the past that he is a “Sayid” meaning a decedent of Prophet Mohammed par-excellence while actually his tribe is from Khorasan in Central Asia which makes him an original Turk. It is well in line with the old Turkish claim that Kurds are “Mountain Turks”. Mr. Kilicdaroglu has been a living example of that. Another time the RPP leader claimed he was like “Gandhi,” but a few weeks later he went to a Turkish military post on the Iraqi-Kurdistan border and took photos with a Turkish officer in a war trench against Kurds. (1) And so he demonstrated his commitment and support to the Turkish military in a war against Kurds.

However, there are some that have been abusing his “Alevi – Kurdish” identity knowing he can’t defend himself on that basis. At times some of the accusations against him have reached to racist slander; for example, those of mayor of Ankara Mr. Melih Gokcek. The Mayor claimed Mr. Kilcdaroglu’s mother is Armenian descend and his father Alevi – Kurdish; knowing these three identifications: Armenian, Alevi, and Kurd are the worst things in Turkish political literature.

Nevertheless, Prime Minister of Turkey, Mr. Recep Tayip Erdogan, statement about Dersim (a Kurdish City/Region in Northwest Kurdistan) regarding a Kurdish genocide created quite serious debate. Mr. Erdogan stated’: “… Kemal Kilicdaroglu is from Dersim. This place was bombarded with order of former RPP leader Ismet Inunu (co-founder of Turkish Republic and second man in command) because people of Dersim didn’t pay taxes. It is claimed 20 thousand, 30 thousand, 40 thousand, and/or 50 thousand were killed without due process. First this has to be cleared.” (2) After Erdogan statement there have been many discussions in the Turkish media about the genocide of Dersim in 1937 – 1938. Soner Yalcin a writer and columnist in daily Huriyet on August 22, 2010, wrote an article (with an interview with Kilicdaroglu) in defense of Mr. Kilicdaroglu. In his article he claimed that Mr. Kilicdaroglu has studied this “incident” and actually has interviewed a former Turkish politician, Ihsan Sabri Cagliyangil, who has participated in this “incident.” Basically his article presents Mr. Kilicdaroglu’s point of view. Mr. Cagliyangil claimed the reason the war started in Dersim: “Seyit Riza’s men have killed a Turkish Officer and 33 soliders…” (3) In reality Mr. Kilicdaroglu didn’t have to do any particular research as there are thousands of survivors and eye witnesses from Dersim still alive in his town. His parents, grandparents, and neighbor could have told him, too, but this is not why the war started.

Another interesting article on this subject was published in the daily “Zaman” newspaper by Mustafa Armagan . (4) This article had more substance and indicated a more serious allegation that most people know. Armagan implied that Attaturk himself had given an order to Turkish Army to commit a genocide in Dersim, which is a well-know fact but official dogma has never admitted it. However, this article, too, doesn’t actually mention how and why war started except mentioning that the Turkish state saw the Dersim region as a threat to the Turkish army.

Since this is a very important subject of modern Turkish -Kurdish history and for Kurdish -Turkish relation every one should publish all available documents about Dersim. Here how it was reported in a British secret document in 1943: the Turkish government appoints Mr. Abeddin Osman as the inspector general for eastern provinces (Kurdistan [AD]) to prepare a report for government policy. In 1936 Mr. Osman submitted his report about how to deal with Kurdistan Region in Turkey. In January 1937 the Turkish government passes a new law for the Kurdistan region. I quote the shortened list that reported by the British officials:
A Military Governor was to be appointed.
The civil administration was suspended and replaced by military law.
Local tribunals were to be set up with powers up to capital punishment.
The Military Governor was to have a free hand in regard to military operations in his area.
The use of any language other than Turkish was forbidden.
The teaching in schools of any other language than Turkish and keeping of books in any foreign language were forbidden. (p. 117) (5)

The British report continues in this subject and states clearly that the Dersim Region until then never participated in any anti-government rebellion. Nevertheless, after this law passed the leader of Dersim started feeling uncomfortable. The report state: “However, feeling in Dersim ran high, meetings were held and a delegation visited the Military Governor bearing a letter of protest. The three emissaries who carried the letter were arrested and executed at Elaziz a few days later. As a reprisal the Kurds stopped a convoy of Turkish police cars and kidnapped the police. Revolt had started. A considerable Turkish force was assembled and in May 1937 military operations against the rebels commenced. This operation lasted well into 1938 and it is reported that more than three army corps were employed, Villages were burned but the Kurds, adopting guerilla tactics, defied the Turkish Army in the Mountains. Little is known of what actually happened except from Kurdish sources according to which, despite savage massacres, the spirit of Kurdish resistance was not broken.” (p.117)

The Turkish Prime Minister and the Justice and Development Party’s leader Mr. Erdogan, says up to 50, 000 civilian may have been killed in Dersim. I don’t know about exact numbers but most eye witnesses I talked with during my university years in Elaziz said many more civilian were killed. The Turkish Government used chemical gas on civilian population and killed many “prisoner of war” including children and pregnant women and later deported tens of thousands of survivors to the Turkish cities in the west. Aren’t these crimes against humanity?

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(1) You may check this link for photo of the man claim to be “Ghandi” http://fotogaleri.hurriyet.com.tr/galeridetay.aspx?cid=37393&rid=2

(2) “Erdoğan: Dersim'i CHP bombaladı” http://www.radikal.com.tr/Radikal.aspx?aType=RadikalDetay&
ArticleID=1013583&CategoryID=78

(3) Yalcin, S. (2010, August 22) “Kılıçdaroğlu sordu Çağlayangil yanıtladı KONU: DERSİM” http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/yazarlar/15608090_p.asp retrieved 08 22, 2010

(4) Armagan, M. (2010, August 29)” "Dersim'i vurun" emrini Atatürk mü verdi?”
ZAMAN http://zaman.com.tr/yazar.do?yazino=1021324&title=
dersimi-vurun-emrini-ataturk-mu-verdi

(5) Destani, B (2006)M Minorities in the Middle East Kurdish Communities 1918-1974 (Vols. 3 - 4) Chippenham, UK. Antony Rowe Ltd.

Amed Demirhan
e-mail: ameddemirhan@hotmail.com

He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in International Studies with a minor in Spanish, a Master of Arts Degree in Dispute Resolution from Wayne State University and a Master’s Degree in Library and Information Science from the University of Southern Mississippi, His languages spoken are: Kurdish, Swedish, Turkish, Spanish and English.