Kürkçü: Roboski families need to know the truth
Kürkçü: Roboski families need to know the truth
Speaking about the Roboski massacre which has left one year behind with nobody taken to court so far, Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) Mersin deputy Ertuðrul Kürkçü said that “the families of the victims are living their pain once again every day as no progress in the search for truth and justice has been made.”
Parliamentary Uludere Sub-Commission member Kürkçü criticized the Commission for mishandling the investigation and wasting time and said that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoðan and the Chief of General Staff bore first degree liability for the massacre.
Kürkçü remarked that the investigation into the incident have yet to be concluded and added; “There is a clear injustice here because the families of the victims are those subjected to pressure and cruelty while nothing has been done to bring the responsible of the massacre to justice. There is also no information available - he added - as to the three ongoing investigations led by the public prosecutor of Diyarbakýr, Parliamentary Human Rights Watch Commission and the Chief of General Staff.”
Noting that the Turkish state has covered up the incident to prevent progress in the investigation and commission work, Kürkçü said this was why the government has so far managed to disclose nothing as to who gave the order to fire that night, one year ago. The BDP deputy also criticized the Parliamentary Commission for not gathering information from the Chief of General Staff and noted that “The military cannot have carried out this cross-border operation outside the knowledge of the government because of the fact that this operation requires the government to know. The Chief of General Staff should have been called to account instead time was wasted by directing questions to division and brigade commands and governors of Þýrnak and Uludere.”
Kürkçü also criticized the Commission for waiting for the Interior Ministry report which he said would never enlighten the public opinion about the massacre. “The only important document we could reach was the Heron images which, as a matter of fact, was a kind of confirmation of the statements by villagers and what we thought. On the images, it is clearly seen that those people were villagers carrying goods. As an ordinary person having watched the images, I can say that there was no military purpose in the attack”, he added.
A major state organization which watched these people for hours and opened fire cannot have failed to understand that those people were villagers. This massacre was carried out by the Chief of General Staff and the government on the basis of intelligence information gathered in the area. Even the slightest possibility of presence of one guerrilla among the people targeted by the attack cannot justify the irresponsibility in killing the rest of the people there. With a straight-forward approach just one day after the massacre, Erdoðan congratulated the Chief of General Staff on the operation, regardless of the fact that it was understood those people were civilians”.
Kürkçü reminded that AKP government first threatened the villagers to accept compensation and then claimed that those people had received help from the PKK about the mines in the territory and added; “The General Staff also committed a crime for not allowing the disclosure of the massacre by spoiling evidences and hiding them from the parliamentary commission and public prosecutor of Diyarbakýr. The targets were determined by the General Staff but the air force command cannot decide on a cross-border operation which requires the permission of the government. The perpetrators are already apparent but the lack of evidences forces us to determine a new way of struggle to bring the perpetrators to light by means of fair trial.”
The BDP deputy underlined that the government has however denied bearing responsibility in the massacre. “This mass killing, like all other unidentified killings we have witnessed in our country, was carried out by the state but we now need to know the persons inside the state that led and carried out this massacre”, he added.
Parliamentary Uludere Sub-Commission member Kürkçü criticized the Commission for mishandling the investigation and wasting time and said that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoðan and the Chief of General Staff bore first degree liability for the massacre.
Kürkçü remarked that the investigation into the incident have yet to be concluded and added; “There is a clear injustice here because the families of the victims are those subjected to pressure and cruelty while nothing has been done to bring the responsible of the massacre to justice. There is also no information available - he added - as to the three ongoing investigations led by the public prosecutor of Diyarbakýr, Parliamentary Human Rights Watch Commission and the Chief of General Staff.”
Noting that the Turkish state has covered up the incident to prevent progress in the investigation and commission work, Kürkçü said this was why the government has so far managed to disclose nothing as to who gave the order to fire that night, one year ago. The BDP deputy also criticized the Parliamentary Commission for not gathering information from the Chief of General Staff and noted that “The military cannot have carried out this cross-border operation outside the knowledge of the government because of the fact that this operation requires the government to know. The Chief of General Staff should have been called to account instead time was wasted by directing questions to division and brigade commands and governors of Þýrnak and Uludere.”
Kürkçü also criticized the Commission for waiting for the Interior Ministry report which he said would never enlighten the public opinion about the massacre. “The only important document we could reach was the Heron images which, as a matter of fact, was a kind of confirmation of the statements by villagers and what we thought. On the images, it is clearly seen that those people were villagers carrying goods. As an ordinary person having watched the images, I can say that there was no military purpose in the attack”, he added.
A major state organization which watched these people for hours and opened fire cannot have failed to understand that those people were villagers. This massacre was carried out by the Chief of General Staff and the government on the basis of intelligence information gathered in the area. Even the slightest possibility of presence of one guerrilla among the people targeted by the attack cannot justify the irresponsibility in killing the rest of the people there. With a straight-forward approach just one day after the massacre, Erdoðan congratulated the Chief of General Staff on the operation, regardless of the fact that it was understood those people were civilians”.
Kürkçü reminded that AKP government first threatened the villagers to accept compensation and then claimed that those people had received help from the PKK about the mines in the territory and added; “The General Staff also committed a crime for not allowing the disclosure of the massacre by spoiling evidences and hiding them from the parliamentary commission and public prosecutor of Diyarbakýr. The targets were determined by the General Staff but the air force command cannot decide on a cross-border operation which requires the permission of the government. The perpetrators are already apparent but the lack of evidences forces us to determine a new way of struggle to bring the perpetrators to light by means of fair trial.”
The BDP deputy underlined that the government has however denied bearing responsibility in the massacre. “This mass killing, like all other unidentified killings we have witnessed in our country, was carried out by the state but we now need to know the persons inside the state that led and carried out this massacre”, he added.
