Roboski and Great Impunity

I’ve been in the human rights movement for 30 years. I have seen so many similarities of rights violations in Kurdistan, and we have all witnessed it, that this was perhaps one of the greatest sufferings of the Roboskî Massacre…

It was December 28, 2011. That evening, we all got some devastating news. We were back to those painful days of the ’90s. Thirty-four people were killed by bombs dropped from F-16s; Of the 34 people, 19 were just children.

In fact, in the fragmented geography of Kurdistan, they were doing a job under the name of “smuggling”; they were doing a little trade in their region, but it was described as “smuggling”. This was the most painful version of Kurdistan’s divided and fragmented state, reflected in people, in business, in their lives.

These people were taking cigarettes from one part of their region to the other, which they were living with. Despite this, these people were known to be unarmed, even as children, but were brutally slaughtered by bombs dropped from F 16s. And to date, no account of this massacre has been given, no one has been punished, only the people who died continue to be remembered for the pain they left behind.

It was the early ’90s. As human rights defenders, we realized that a new era would begin after the beloved Vedat Aydin, who spoke Kurdish at the IHD (Human Rights Association) congress, was then arrested, was taken from his home after his release and then tortured to death. And indeed, with the murders of counterguerrilla began a very horrific process with disappearances in custody.

In fact, it’s much needed to go back a long way; because “the state mind” has never changed in this geography. Today, although all the demands on Kurds are considered divisive or Pro-PKK, we see that “the state mind” was the same even before the PKK was founded. So, if we’re going to discuss what’s happening in geography today, we need to discuss the state mind together with the politics of violence.

For example, it was recently the anniversary of Ismet Inonu’s death. Again, CHP people and all Kemalists revered Ismet Inonu. However, Ismet Inonu was the head of the Eastern Reform Council founded by Mustafa Kemal and was one of the implementers of the Eastern Reform Plan (Şark Islahat Planı).

The Eastern Reform Plan actually still exists. At the heart of all the massacres that go unpunished today is the understanding at the heart of the Eastern Reform Plan.

This plan was actually a “constitution” imposed on the Kurds, with violence and impunity at its core. Therefore, we must consider all the massacres, all counterguerrilla murders and all the disappearances in custody that we have experienced today that go unpunished within the framework of this Eastern Reform Plan.

Because the understanding that is the essence of the state, which forms the basis of the state, is hidden in this Eastern Reform Plan.

Unionist (İttihatçı) policies that have existed in the geography we live in since 1915 have never actually faded. This Unionist policy, which has always been based on the Turko- Islam Synthesis, dominated the state mind. At times, the side based on Turkish identity became stronger, and at times the side based on Islamist identity became stronger. But in the end, these two streams had no difference in the approach to the Kurds, in the approach to other identities…

And as a society, we are stuck between these two streams that define themselves as Kemalists or Islamists, but ultimately become completely the same when it comes to issues such as Kurdistan, Armenian genocide, Cyprus. A third and democratic path was never allowed to come out of the way, just like today…

Today, 15% of those who oppose these Unionist policies of the state are not allowed in any way. Different ideas are not allowed to be discussed, and policies of impunity are not allowed to be discussed.

Today is December 28th. The anniversary of the Roboski Massacre. In Roboski, as we mentioned above, 34 people were suddenly bombed to death. 19 of them were children, and their killers have not been found, and there is still no such hope… There is a great impunity…

Ten years after this great suffering on December 28, 2011, there is a trial for the killer of Deniz Poyraz, who was murdered in June on December 29, 2021.

The murder of Deniz Poyraz, like other massacres and murders, is a premeditated murder, almost unpunished. We are talking about a murder that fell on only one person, whose links to the organization behind it were not investigated, and even backed up by the partner of the ruling AKP, Devlet Bahceli, leader of nationalist MHP.

I’ve been in the human rights movement for 30 years; I have witnessed so many murders, massacres, disappearances in custody that we have all witnessed, as all human rights defenders… And unfortunately, in the wake of these murders, we have seen very clearly the silence in the society. Perhaps one of the main reasons for all the problems we have is this social silence.

 Unfortunately, the power and the opposition are shaped by the same Unionist (İttihatçı) approach. Therefore, we are talking about a power and opposition that has no problem with the system except for their own small “power struggles.”

Perhaps one of the biggest reasons of the suffering we experience today, the great impunity that exists against such pain, is the double standards of those who define themselves as opposition.

I try to articulate it in every speech or article. In this region, we are at most 15% who criticize the official ideology, criticize the 1915 Genocide, 1938, and state that democratization is not possible without discussing all these İttihatçı codes…

That’s why our job is not easy. That is why, after the massacre of 34 people on December 28, 2011, we were forced to live with the community of people who moved on as if nothing had happened.

And that’s still the case. People are acting like it didn’t happen, a very large part of society… They act as if such great pain is never suffered, and go on with their life.

The remaining 15% will once again protest the impunity of the Roboskî massacre on December 28th, we will feel the pain for it, and the day after that, in the case of Deniz Poyraz, who was murdered last June, we will try to seek his rights.

Although we seem to be alone, this non-pledged 15% is strong enough to change many things in this country… At least we continue to fight with our faith in it.