Saturday Mothers meet for 1033rd time, seek justice for Güçlükonak massacre

Ferhat Yaşar / DUVAR 

Turkey's Saturday Mothers, a group who has been holding vigils for their relatives who disappeared or were killed in suspicious circumstances in the 1990s, held its 1033rd gathering on Jan. 11 at Istanbul’s iconic Galatasaray Square.

The group sought justice for 11 people massacred under detention in Şırnak’s Güçlükonak district, whose bodies were not returned to their families, this week. 

In a statement read by Sevil Turgut, the group said they gathered this week for the Güçlükonak massacre, in which 11 detainees were shot and burned in a van.

It said the state was obliged to investigate “gross violations of rights suffered by people under its protection, to uncover the truth and to ensure justice.”

Accordingly, the soldiers detained Abdullah İlhan, Ahmet Kaya, Ali Nas, Neytullah İlhan, Halit Kaya and Ramazan Oruç on Jan. 10-12, 1996, in the Çevrimli and Yatağan villages of the eastern Şırnak province’s Güçlükonak district. 

“The detainees were taken to the Taşkonak Gendarmerie Station. Six villagers were severely tortured and killed there,” it noted.

Then, the soldiers called the Koçyurdu village head (“mukhtar”), Mehmet Öner, and told him that they were going to release the detainees, asking him to send a van to the station. 

Suspicious of the situation, Öner did not want to send the driver Ramazan Nas alone and took the village guards Hamit Yılmaz, Abdülhalim Yılmaz, and Lokman Özdemir with him and went to the station. 

“Waiting only for the van and its driver, the soldiers also killed the village guards to leave no witnesses. The dead bodies of 10 people, including the six villagers killed earlier, were tied to the seats of the van, and sacks were placed over their heads. The van driven by Ramazan Nas set off under the control of the gendarmerie. The road was closed to traffic by soldiers. When the van reached a point, the gendarmeries inside the vehicle got out. Then the van was first gunned down. Then they fired rockets at the van with the dead bodies of 10 people inside. The driver Ramazan Nas, who tried to escape, was also shot dead. The charred bodies were not handed over to the families, but were buried en masse by the security forces,” the group said, depicting the massacre. 

Meanwhile, the General Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces depicted the massacre as the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) attack. 

“Skeptical of official statements, the delegation of the Working Group Together for Peace went to the scene. In the light of all the information, findings, and documents it obtained, the delegation publicly declared, ‘This massacre was committed by state forces.’ With the report they prepared, they applied to the Diyarbakır State Security Court, the Regional Governorate of the State of Emergency, and the General Staff. The delegation repeatedly filed criminal complaints. However, all attempts to date have been fruitless,” it added.

Meanwhile, the European Court of Human Rights convicted Turkey of violating the obligation to conduct an effective investigation and the right of the families to an effective remedy before a national authority.

Then-State Minister Adnan Ekmen even said “When we investigated the incident, the state was behind it. It was the work of JİTEM, we couldn't tell.”

The Saturday Mothers reminded the state to act within universal norms of law.

Hundreds of Kurdish people became victims of enforced disappearances in Turkey during the 1990s, abducted by JİTEM.

Since 1995, the Saturday Mothers have staged a sit-in at Galatasaray Square, demanding answers about their loved ones who disappeared in custody and calling for the prosecution of those responsible.