Uludere two weeks later – a sweep up
On 28 December 35 civilians died in an air strike of the Turkish army. The victims came from the villages of Gülyazi and Ortasu, in the district Uludere in the southeastern province of Sirnak.
In two weeks time, I wrote seven stories about it. Some of them are based on what I saw and heard in Gülyazi, where I went …
This week, I went to Gülyazi, one of the villages in the Uludere district where 35 citizens were killed by the Turkish air force. I talked to families of the victims, and to young smugglers. I’d like to share my findings on two subjects in blog posts: village guards, and smuggling as a totally normal part
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Uludere investigation, or: the potholes in our minds
Intense days it have been, totally taken up by the news around the killing of 35 civilians by the Turkish air forces. Chilling details, like: 28 of the 35 deceased had the same last name, and 17 of 35 were under the age of 18. The group of smugglers always took the same route, one of the survivors told an …
What’s it worth, this apology that Prime Minister Erdogan made yesterday for the Dersim massacres? He said it, he actually said that he apologizes on the state’s behalf for what happened in 1937 and 1938. A novelty in Turkish politics. But at the same time it is not a novelty at all. It is not the first time people’s pains …
The paralysing message of the Balyoz case
‘I’m going to convince you in half an hour’s time that the whole Balyoz case is fake’. I had an interview today with Celal Ülgen, the lawyer for eight suspects in the Balyoz case (Balyoz is an alleged coup plot). Some of the suspects he is defending are ‘big fish’ who had high military positions, like Cetin Dogan and Dursun …
In some countries, you have child soldiers, but in Turkey, there are baby soldiers. In fact, every Turk, the myth says, is born as a soldier. Children say that every day in their pledge to the flag before they enter school: besides saying they are Turks, honest and hard working, they state they were born a soldier. To become a …
Shocking news this morning: a pregnant woman and her six year old daughter were killed in the Southeastern province of Batman. Many Turkish media were quick to say it was the PKK who did it, Kurdish Firat news agency reported, on witnesses account, that mother and daughter were killed by police bullets. A big TV-station sought the truth in the …
Two soldiers will go on trial. They accidently shot another soldier while they were on duty in the South-Eastern province of Adiyaman. They saw a shadow, thought they were being attacked by the PKK and started shooting. The army has now revealed that the soldiers* were not trained well enough. My heart breaks when I think of these young men …
It’s almost August, and thats always the month of the military council in which, among other things, is decided about military promotions. That was always sort of a formality: the military decided who would be in charge where, and the President approved. But things have changed. The military somehow has to come to terms with the fact that Turkey is …
After one and a half hours of walking silently in the snow, the group arrives at a mass grave. The grave is old, the group is young: 45 boy and girl scouts are here to pay their respects to Ottoman soldiers who froze to death in the Battle of Sarikamis, fought in December 1914 and January 1915. ‘There is not …
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