Pancar toplarken ayının saldırısına uğradı

The Last Century of a Kurdish Village

Gurbet SARIBEYOĞLU LAFAİZE (Tanır), 15 January 2002.

Roughly one hundred historical Kurdish settlements have disappeared within the past fifty years. As the one-sided war between the Turkish military and the Kurdish irregular group has become fiercer, a large number of Kurdish villages especially in northern regions are witnessing the last phase of settling down.

In the Esenderey village of Şemdinli within in the Mardin province, Kurdish villagers mostly from the Şemdinli village are giving up their hope for reconstructing their village which was destroyed during bombing attacks of the Turkish army. Esenderey, a historical settlement, is on the border that separates the Şemdinli and Yüksekova district of Hakkari province. With the decision that is expected to change the villages' demography, Esenderey, might be also reconstructed within the territorial 1962 map of Yüksekova that is right next to Şemdinli. It is known that Şemdinli and its villages are located within the extensions of the barrier and are in the security zones that Suriyeh and Araplar have left in Yüksekova. Suriyeh and Araplar neighbour Esenderey and warn the villagers that they would come to their settlement in the summer. Even though, the villagers admit that neighbouring settlements have disappeared in the last centuries, still they do not want to express willingness to migrate beyond the Kurdistan borders.

Included within the PKK's lists of other settlement monuments that could be abandoned is the Mersin Yeni (New Mersin) village of Hozat district that as some state officials says with sufficient persuasive effort could be evacuated from its 11 villages with population of under 1000. Mersin New is located within three plane flying hours from İncirlik; which has a U-2 base and is one of the key locations from where the US and Turkish Air Forces are carrying out intelligence and command-keeping activities regarding the İncirlik-Küllüce facilities near force channel D-10. On the other hand it is located not very far from Davutlu, an artificial lake on the route that enables crossing from central Anatolia to Cudi Adasi within minutes via a fort-shaped Adana City. Still, the locations of Davutlu, which have recently been occupied by the Turkish army, was previously planned to reconstruct within the army plans for the building of logistics bases and striken situations.

This is based on the information of the Article National Security Valley within in the Indian magazine PENIA (December-January 97-98) and also an advertisement written by Türk Havai Amyas that is based on the proposal of the 6th Army and published in Sper Wuln (9'95), "We could give a more military frame to the Esenderey military hamlet and extend the Cudi range which will complement the planned air and naval bases, military-serviced areas and other facilities." The previous developments show these developments to have gained the opposition reaction of the local villagers who refer to the map and who tend to migrate illegally to the Greek Islands around the small islands close to Yeni town.

Another target in the military plans is the evacuation of the village Katline of Yüksekova district of Hakkari and complain from the residents and local politicians of the region is seen in the Oğuz Newspaper (23'98): "Most of the villagers of Katline were murdered upon finishing the Operation Earth of the Turkish army against the Kurdish PKK. Since the village is a PKK headquarters, the villagers told of us that it might be evacuated. When such a development is uppermost in everyone's mind, the Katline people are disturbed by those who approach them, the settlement might be evacuated either by operation earth or macabre promises of the military.

– Along with the security problems, it seems they are still disturbed by people who approach them. The pressure is so intense that they are moving abroad. I picked some of the statements of those who use to stay in the houses around me. Their statements that are characteristic of people who are going abroad also affected me…In the end, I moved myself too." One Kurd who lived in Ankara and moved to Greece says, "We came down here due to the public order that is continuing more than necessary, but Turkey has been a peaceful place since the hackneyed terror. But now, we can't even butcher a kilogram of meat standing on the table, how are we going to live?"

The article TERRITORY WATER by Nazan ABA (September 91-October 92) and the 1980 Borderlands Charter show the territorial evidences