Uludere incident

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The Uludere incident or the Roboski massacre (also called the Uludere massacre ) refers to an air strike carried out by the Turkish air forces in Uludere near Ortasu in the province of Şırnak (Uludere operation) in the evening hours of December 28, 2011 . Here, not far from the Turkish-Iraqi border, mostly young Kurdish civilians were killed in a bombing of Turkish F-16 fighter aircraft 34. Only one person survived the attack, seriously injured. According to official reports, the men killed were smugglers who illegally imported diesel, tobacco products and sugar from Iraq into Turkey . In doing so, they are said to have used hidden paths which, according to the Turkish government, were used exclusively by fighters of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) . 24 of those killed belonged to the Encü family.

The General Staff of the Armed Forces later stated that the military reconnaissance became aware of the group of people at 6:39 p.m. that day. Since the men were on paths that were mainly used by PKK fighters, the armed forces carried out an operation from the air between 9:37 p.m. and 10:24 p.m. On May 16, 2012, a US Department of Defense official initially stated that he conducted the operation on the basis of information the Turkish armed forces had received from the US, but later the armed forces leadership revised this statement.

Shortly after the deaths of the civilians, NGOs gathered and began to investigate the events independently, fearing that state investigators might not be interested in a complete clarification of the circumstances. The Turkish Association for Human Rights (İHD) and the Association for Human Rights and Solidarity (Mazlumder) rated the events as mass murder and criticized the Turkish government for not assuming political responsibility.

Banner (bottom right) for bringing those responsible for the Uludere attack to justice during the Gezi Park protests in 2013

International criticism

The events also found their way into the reporting of foreign press products. The BBC headlined "Air strike killed Kurdish villagers". CBS News criticized that the "bodies had to be transported on carts and tractors". The Daily Mail headlined: "Smugglers Killed Because They were Believed to be Militants". "Turkish Air Strike Kills Kurds" was the headline of The Wall Street Journal. "Turkish air force bombs Kurdish village. Kill 35 civilians" headlined the French newspaper Le Monde. "Confused with the PKK. That is why the army kills 35 Kurds," read the French newspaper Liberation. The then President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz described the death of civilians as a catastrophe.

Financial compensation for survivors

On January 3, 2012, Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç stated that it was inappropriate to expect an official apology from government or state officials. But they are ready to compensate the families financially.

In February 2012, all of the victims' families rejected the prospect of compensation payments totaling 4.12 million Turkish Lira promised by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan . In a public rally, representatives of the victims' families declared that such compensation would be considered blood money and could therefore not be accepted.

Reports of the Turkish Parliament

To investigate the incident, the Turkish parliament set up a committee of inquiry. The pro-Kurdish party BDP also turned to the International Criminal Court . In their application, party representatives asked for complete clarification with the help of international organizations, as it was suspected that the Turkish Republic would not help to establish the truth. In its final report, the Human Rights Committee of the Turkish Parliament found that the events leading to the death of the Kurdish civilians had never been premeditated and stopped their investigations.

Criminal investigation

The Prosecutor General Diyarbakir declared in June 2013 that she was not responsible and handed the case over to the Turkish Armed Forces public prosecutor . The public prosecutor's office for the armed forces declared on January 7, 2013 that all members of the armed forces involved in the air attack acted within the framework of the legal provisions and that no disregard of service regulations or legal requirements could be seen in retrospect. Therefore, there are no sufficient reasons to initiate legal proceedings against members of the armed forces. The case is closed.

Turkish Constitutional Court

The bereaved's lawyers brought an unsuccessful trial before the Turkish Constitutional Court in July 2014. In a 28-page statement, the Ministry of Justice told the Chamber of the Constitutional Court entrusted with the procedure that "misconduct that comes to light in the course of a procedure does not automatically allow the conclusion that disproportionate force was used endanger such and his officials. "

USA participation

According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, the killed Kurds were first discovered by a US Predator- type drone . US Army soldiers stationed in Ankara are said to have informed Turkish liaison officers of their discovery, but also stated that it could not be ruled out that the group of young men were civilians. According to the report, the US armed forces have offered to help with further investigation. However, the Turkish side rejected this offer and asked the US soldiers to remove the drone immediately. The General Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces denied this report, stating that it was a Turkish Armed Forces drone that detected the Kurdish civilians.

On November 25, 2013, the Turkish drone pilot in question, Ali Ihsan Sahin, told a military prosecutor in his testimony that it was initially a Predator drone of the US Army that detected the movements of the killed Kurds and that only then did the Turkish armed forces become active were.

Unresolved involvement of the MİT secret service

The head of the Turkish secret service, MİT Hakan Fidan , declared in January 2012 that his authority could not prove any wrongdoing. The MİT was not entrusted with the incident and did not gain any information or knowledge about it, nor passed on false information.

However, Interior Minister İdris Naim Şahin announced at a press conference in November 2014 that high-ranking leaders of the MİT informed the Turkish armed forces that day that a leading member of the PKK, Bahoz Erdal , would be crossing the Turkish-Iraqi border at any moment . The armed forces had asked whether this information was secure and the secret service MİT had insisted on the accuracy of the information about Erdal's whereabouts. The interior minister said that tragically, the air strike only took place because communication with the secret service was inaccurate.

In July 2015, the high-circulation daily Cumhuriyet reported that in a report sent by the General Staff of the Armed Forces to the Prosecutor General Diyarbakir, MİT had passed on information that Erdal was planning further attacks and that this information was secured. After all, it was the MİT whose information, according to the armed forces, led to the air strike on the civilians.

Cumhuriyet also reported that, according to testimony from witnesses and accused, several members of the army had recognized the Kurdish civilians as such and despite this warning the General Staff gave the order for the bombing.

Culture and remembrance

In memory of the deceased, the documentary filmmaker Ümit Kıvanç presented his report " Ağlama Anne, Güzel Yerdeyim " (in German: "Don't cry, mom. I'm in a good place.") In November 2012 . The British screenwriter Anders Lustgarten addressed the Roboski massacre in March 2015 during the performance of his play "Shrapnel: 34 Fragments of a Massacre" in London. A memorial built in 2013 by the city of Diyarbakir was removed in the first week of January 2017 after Mayor Gülten Kisanak was arrested and replaced by an administrator sent by the central government in Ankara.

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  1. ↑ Sondakika.com.tr message dated December 29, 2011. Accessed December 28, 2016
  2. ↑ Hurriyet.com.tr message dated May 17, 2012. Accessed December 28, 2016
  3. ↑ Radikal.com.tr message dated December 30, 2011. Accessed December 28, 2016
  4. ↑ a b Sabah.com.tr message dated December 29, 2011. Accessed December 28, 2016
  5. ^ Wall Street Journal news item May 6, 2012. Retrieved December 28, 2016
  6. ↑ Hurriyet.com.tr message dated May 16, 2012. Accessed December 28, 2016
  7. ↑ Turkish Armed Forces ( Memento from May 20, 2012 in the Internet Archive ). Report from May 17, 2012. Retrieved on December 28, 2016
  8. ↑ Hurriyet.com.tr news from May 19, 2012. Accessed December 28, 2016
  9. ↑ bianet.org news from December 30, 2011. Accessed December 28, 2016
  10. ↑ Bianet.org message dated December 29, 2011. Accessed September 28, 2015.
  11. ↑ Bianet.org . Notification dated May 29, 2012. Retrieved September 28, 2015
  12. ↑ BBC . News from January 3, 2012. Retrieved September 28, 2015
  13. ↑ Cumhuriyet.com.tr . Notification dated January 23, 2015. Accessed September 28, 2015
  14. ↑ Bianet.org news from January 11, 2012. Accessed December 28, 2016.
  15. ↑ Bianet.org news from January 27, 2012. Accessed December 28, 2016
  16. ↑ "İşte Uludere raporu" TRT.com.tr of March 22, 2013, last accessed on December 28, 2016
  17. ↑ Radikal.com.tr news from June 11, 2013. Retrieved December 28, 2016.
  18. ↑ [// "NO LINK?"] Hıdır Tok. Baska Haber . "Genelkurmay Başkanlığı Askeri Savcılığı'nın Uludere İçin Verdiği Takipsizlik Kararının Tam Metni". Erişim tarihi: 7 Ocak 2013.
  19. ^ "Adalet Bakanlığı, 34 kişinin öldüğü Uludere için AYM'ye görüşünü bildirdi" . Hürriyet . January 23, 2015, last accessed December 28, 2016.
  20. ^ "Turkey's Attack on Civilians Tied to US Military Drone" . The Wall Street Journal . May 16, 2012, last accessed September 28, 2015
  21. ↑ "TSK: Uludere istihbaratı yerli kaynaklardan" July 28, 2013, last accessed on September 28, 2015
  22. ↑ a b "Komutanım bunlar kaçakçı" . Cumhuriyet . September 26, 2015, last accessed on September 28, 2015
  23. ↑ "TSK'ye istihbarat vermedik" . BirGün . January 6, 2012, last accessed September 28, 2015
  24. ↑ "Roboski'de MİT görevlisi TSK'yı yanılttı" . T24 . November 25, 2014, last accessed December 28, 2016
  25. ↑ "Genelkurmay MİT'i suçladı" . Cumhuriyet . September 21, 2015, last accessed December 28, 2016
  26. ↑ "Ümit Kıvanç'tan Roboski belgeseli: Ağlama Anne Güzel Yerdeyim" . T24 . November 7, 2012, last accessed December 28, 2016
  27. ^ "Shrapnel review - Anders Lustgarten's short, sharp play about the Roboski massacre" . Guardian . March 18, 2015, last accessed December 28, 2016
  28. ↑ Diyarbakır'da 'Roboski Anıtı' ve Insan Başlı Aslan Heykelleri Kaldırıldı. In: Sondakika.com. Retrieved February 3, 2017 .