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Fol­low­ing the explo­sion in Ankara, and after the many dec­la­ra­tions by gov­ern­men­tal spokesper­sons accord­ing to whom Turkey was “free to respond to ter­ror”, “wher­ev­er nec­es­sary”, the mur­der­ous vio­lence of the Turk­ish troops and police forces were unleashed again after the mas­sacres in Cizre.

The AKP gov­ern­ment seized on the oppor­tu­ni­ty offered by the Euro­pean gov­ern­ments “sup­port in this time of tri­al” and on the strength of its « deter­mi­na­tion » brought on by a Kur­dish demand. It need­ed nei­ther but the facade of “defense and reprisals against the attack” was in place, both for the out­side world where the notion of “attack = PKK” went around the world, news agen­cies rais­ing no ques­tion in their copy­ing and past­ing, and for domes­tic con­sump­tion via medias either cen­sored or at the boot of the regime.

In the same way, Erdoğan had instru­men­tal­ized the attack in Suruç to stop the “nego­ti­a­tion process” and increase the war against civil­ians in North­ern Kur­dis­tan. And even though he had no need of it, the excuse allowed him an all-out offen­sive, allow­ing for shock and awe favor­able to a muz­zling of the media and a repres­sive rede­ploy­ment. This has become a habit with the gov­ern­ment, so we are not sur­prised if it does the same with Ankara as an alibi.

As far as Syr­i­an Kur­dis­tan is con­cerned, Erdoğan plays with the pos­si­bil­i­ty of region­al defla­gra­tion the risk of which inter­na­tion­al pow­ers have not ful­ly gauged yet. There­fore he set­tled for hits and “facil­i­tat­ing” the return of hun­dreds of Dji­hadists via his bor­der so they could join the Azaz region against the Roja­va fight­ers, await­ing deci­sions for ground inter­ven­tions (dec­la­ra­tion and com­mon threats with Sau­di Arabia.)

cizreFol­low­ing the mas­sacres in Cizîr that made waves on the inter­na­tion­al scene, North­ern Kur­dis­tan offers a new oppor­tu­ni­ty, once again on a back­ground of sider­a­tion of Turk­ish pub­lic opin­ion, to pick up the “cleansing“under the ali­bi of “legit­i­mate defense”. A done deal over the past few days, yet again with troops, mer­ce­nar­ies and back-up police­men, gal­va­nized by a revenge motif added to their geno­ci­dal ultra nationalism.

Talk­ing of Peace under these con­di­tions is deriso­ry, and yet indis­pens­able, but we may be at risk of only being able to note that the neigh­bor­hood lines of self-defense are mas­sa­cred one after the oth­er, civil­ians and fight­ers com­bined, amid a great inter­na­tion­al silence and the media con­cert from the media under orders in Turkey, under the theme of “vic­to­ries against the PKK and terror”.

Among the brief reports from non-cen­sored Turk­ish releas­es con­cern­ing the Sur neighborhoods :

Explo­sions have occurred in the neigh­bor­hood. Com­mu­ni­ca­tions have once again been cut off from civil­ians trapped in base­ments. Heli­copters are fly­ing over the neigh­bor­hood and the army con­tin­ues its deploy­ment of heavy artillery. Police­men rig­or­ous­ly fil­ter entrance into the neigh­bor­hood yet some res­i­dents have returned to their homes.

The neigh­bor­hood could turn into the next Cizre. All the con­di­tions are gath­ered for the forces of repres­sion to pro­ceed to anoth­er « cleans­ing ». On top of the artillery and the tanks, State forces announced a pos­si­ble aer­i­al bomb­ing of the district.

Sibel Yiği­talp, HDP mem­ber of par­lia­ment Amed, who man­aged to speak to one of the wound­ed trapped in Sur, also declared that gov­ern­men­tal forces were announc­ing aer­i­al bomb­ings. Turk­ish com­bat planes have been fly­ing recon­nais­sance mis­sions over the dis­trict for the past few days.

Yig­i­talp also spoke with the Gov­er­nor of Amed (Diyarbakır). As was the case for Cizîr, he explained that the demand to evac­u­ate the wound­ed was com­pli­cat­ed because of their high num­bers , the destruc­tion of build­ings and the “fight­ing” block­ing the rapid exit of civil­ians in Sur.

For its part, Nusay­bin expects the worse. Same prepa­ra­tions, same con­di­tions, although the pres­ence of “del­e­ga­tions” and of a few war cor­re­spon­dents (some of whom were tak­en into cus­tody), holds up the forces of repres­sion for the time being.

HDP mem­ber of par­lia­ment Hiş­yar Özsoy made a pub­lic dec­la­ra­tion con­cern­ing recent devel­op­ment in the zones knows as “under mar­tial law and blocs”, plac­ing spe­cial empha­sis on the neigh­bor­hood of Sur. Özsoy calls on inter­na­tion­al pub­lic opin­ion to take mea­sures so that Sur does not become anoth­er Cizre, where over 250 peo­ple have been killed so far, sev­er­al of whom were burned alive in basements :

Urgent Appeal: Don’t let tomor­row be too late for Sur!

The indef­i­nite, round-the-clock cur­fews that the AKP gov­ern­ment has declared in Turkey’s Kur­dish provinces since August 16, 2015 con­tin­ue to deep­en the emer­gency sit­u­a­tion that under­mines basic human rights and free­doms in the region, includ­ing the right to live and per­son­al safe­ty. As of today, cur­fews have been effec­tive in sev­en provinces and twen­ty coun­ties for a total of 395 days. This cur­few pol­i­cy direct­ly and clear­ly vio­lates imper­a­tive pro­vi­sions of the Con­sti­tu­tion of the Repub­lic of Turkey as well as basic prin­ci­ples of inter­na­tion­al human­i­tar­i­an law, first and fore­most the pro­vi­sions of Gene­va Con­ven­tion for the pro­tec­tion of civil­ians in war and con­flict zones. The last and most destruc­tive exam­ple of sys­tem­at­ic vio­lence and mas­sacre threats under the cur­few rule occurred in the town of Cizre, Şır­nak province, before the eyes of indif­fer­ent Turk­ish and inter­na­tion­al publics: at least 165 civil­ians who had tak­en refuge in the base­ments of res­i­den­tial build­ings amidst mil­i­tary oper­a­tions were bom­bard­ed to death by Turk­ish secu­ri­ty forces.

Where­as the AKP gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to absolve itself of the respon­si­bil­i­ty to account for the basics of the civil­ian mas­sacre in Cizre beyond the cliché of “fight­ing ter­ror,” we are, once again, ter­ri­fied by the news that most recent­ly came from Sur dis­trict of Diyarbakır, which has been under cur­few for the last 78 days, since Decem­ber 11, 2015. Accord­ing to local sources and the press, as of Feb­ru­ary 18th, around 200 peo­ple, includ­ing chil­dren and injured indi­vid­u­als, remain trapped in the base­ments of res­i­den­tial build­ings in Sur dis­trict, where armed clash­es have been tak­ing place. For the last two days our par­ty offi­cials and mem­bers of the par­lia­ment have been try­ing to com­mu­ni­cate with the gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tives, demand­ing offi­cial inves­ti­ga­tion of these claims and the open­ing of a safe cor­ri­dor for the trans­fer of trapped civil­ians. Yet, all our efforts and demands remain unan­swered. We are extreme­ly con­cerned about the pos­si­bil­i­ty that the mas­sacre in Cizre may be repeat­ed in Sur.

Under these cir­cum­stances, we are fur­ther con­cerned about the ongo­ing silence of the inter­na­tion­al pub­lic against the vio­lence and mas­sacres in Kur­dish cities. As the mil­i­tary attacks against the trapped civil­ians were going on in Cizre, we had told the inter­na­tion­al pub­lic that their silence and indif­fer­ence was bol­ster­ing the AKP gov­ern­ment and its secu­ri­ty forces in their unlaw­ful and inhu­mane prac­tices in Kur­dish cities. Had the inter­na­tion­al pub­lic raised a pow­er­ful voice for the pro­tec­tion of the lives and safe­ty of the trapped civil­ians in Cizre, per­haps we would not have had hun­dreds of dead bod­ies retrieved from beneath the ruins of Cizre today.

Now at the wake of a sim­i­lar pos­si­ble tragedy to take place in the Sur dis­trict, we are appeal­ing to the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty once again. We are call­ing on all inter­na­tion­al insti­tu­tions, human­i­tar­i­an orga­ni­za­tions and activists to take urgent respon­si­bil­i­ty and approach the Turk­ish gov­ern­ment with­out any delay for the ter­mi­na­tion of cur­fews and state vio­lence in Kur­dish cities, and par­tic­u­lar­ly for the pro­tec­tion of the lives of the civil­ians that are trapped inside the base­ments in Sur.
Don’t let tomor­row be too late for Sur!

Hiş­yar ÖZSOY Vice Co-chair of HDP in Charge of For­eign Affairs

The social­ist deputy Kati Piri ” [Dutch eurodeputy reporter on Turkey] “lost her neu­tral­i­ty on Turk­ish ques­tions” and shows “par­tial­i­ty” declared the Min­is­ter of Euro­pean Affairs, Volkan Bokzir, in a press release.

On his Face­book, page Kati Piri shared impres­sions after a vis­it on Fri­day to the town of Diyarbakır. “Actions by the secu­ri­ty forces are often harsh and piti­less. This makes life impos­si­ble in these regions,” she said. She men­tions “grave vio­la­tions of human rights” and “the grow­ing despair of many peo­ple.” The par­lemen­tar­i­an called for a ces­sa­tion in the hos­til­i­ties in what she qual­i­fied as “a bloody civ­il war in Turkey”. In his response, M. Bokzır reproach­es her for “not men­tion­ing any­where in this text (the PKK) as being a ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion” when it is con­sid­ered thus by Ankara and by the EU.

So if tes­ti­mo­ny, infor­ma­tion relays or demon­stra­tions can serve to stop this esca­la­tion, let us tes­ti­fy and mobilize !

Some of the reports men­tioned here show facets of real­i­ty but by plac­ing the « com­bat­ants » almost back to back, by pre­sent­ing the civil­ians almost as « hostages » of the sit­u­a­tion, they avoid pro­vid­ing the keys to an under­stand­ing of the sit­u­a­tion. So, if these « tes­ti­monies » are bet­ter than silence, they say noth­ing of the AKP government’s “objec­tives”, and rein­force the the­sis on «“PKK com­bat­ants spoil­ing the life in the region” and “bring­ing on war.”

video’ Fahriye Guzur moth­er of a victim
In Diyarbakır, the hid­den war between the army and the Kurds

 


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Le petit mag­a­zine qui ne se laisse pas caress­er dans le sens du poil.