Press Release

February 12, 1996

202.483.6444

Despite the Cease-Fire, the Turkish Army Continues to Destroy Kurdish Villages

The destruction of Kurdish villages in southeastern Turkey which began in the early 1990s continues today, in spite of the unilateral cease-fire by the Kurdish side which started on December 15, 1995.

According to reports reaching our office throughout recent weeks, close to 100 villages in and around Divrigi, Zara, Hafik, Imranli and Ulas in Sivas province have been bombarded by the Turkish air force using U.S.-supplied Cobra attack helicopters.

The people living in these villages are Kurdish Alewites, followers of a moderate Islamic faith considered too liberal by fundamentalists and too supportive of the Kurdish liberation movement by the Turkish state authorities.

Many of these villagers have been harassed to either become "village guards" or face the consequences of forced migration in the middle of winter. Unwilling to become the tools of the Turkish government to fight their kin, these Kurdish villagers have had no choice but to move to the shantytowns of large cities in western Turkey.

The plight of these Kurdish villagers was also voiced last Wednesday on February 7, 1996, by three of their representatives from the Republican People's Party (CHP) in the Turkish parliament who raised the issue during a press conference in Ankara. They said: "People are under pressure and abandoning their homes." (Reuters World Report, February 7, 1996.) According to a CHP report, Turkish troops have arrested almost 500 villagers and 75 village leaders in the last four months.

These new attacks on the Kurds of Sivas, coming at a time when the PKK has adhered to a unilateral cease-fire, show that the Turkish government is determined to resolve the Kurdish question by way of force alone.