WHEN WILL THE DANGER CREATED BY VILLAGE GUARDS CEASE?

On 4 November 2009 in Ergani town in Diyarbakır province, Necmettin, Süleyman, Şevki and Zeynep Aras lost their lives in vehicles after being shot with long-barreled guns by Ismail Akyol and his son Abbas Akyol, both village guards from Yolbulan Village.

On 1 October 2009 the Aras family applied to the Diyarbakır branch of the Human Rights Association.  In the application, mother Belkıza Aras stated the following: ‘About three years ago a woman from Yolbulan village married into our family, and her family was part of the village guard system.  About one year ago this family entered a partnership with the leaders of the Ergani Gendarmerie Station there and began to repress us.  A year ago they forcibly took our bride, Perihan Aras, back to her former home in Yolbulan village and they also took all her gold items.  They tried to forcibly divorce her.  Approximately 6 or 7 months ago our bride called us and asked us for help and to go get her because they were going to force her into divorce and then into marriage with a rich old man.  Upon this we went and took our bride and informed the gendarmerie station about the situation.  However, the station didn’t take any measures.’

She continued: ‘The village guard family later began to threaten us by saying ‘I looked after your bride for months, you’re going to give us 1,000 Turkish Lira.’  When we went to inform the gendarmerie station commander of the situation, the bride’s father – a village guard named İsmail Akkol – was there.  When we explained the situation, Akkol was next to the station commander and Akkol threatened us by saying ‘they’re either going to give the money or I’m going to kill them.’

She continued: ‘On 18 August 2009 at the Ergani vegetable market, village guards İsmail Akkol, İlyas Akkol, Abbas Akkol, Gülhan Akkol and two other village guards almost beat my son to death because he hadn’t paid the 1,000 Turkish Lira.  My son called 155 (Turkey’s phone number for emergency assistance) and was brought to the hospital.  The same individuals beat my son again in the days that followed.  He made a complaint and gave a statement about this at the hospital.  After this incident, the same village guards and gendarmerie station commander asked for 40,000 Turkish Lira.  After that, the station commander said ‘they said 40,000 Turkish Lira but I brought it down to 20,000.  If you don’t bring it I won’t interfere, go ahead and kill each other and come to me like that.’  Although we applied to the public prosecutor’s office, no measures were taken.  We can’t leave our home, the lives of all our family members are in danger.  We request assistance from your organization regarding this matter.’

With the application made to us, we as the Human Rights Association stated clearly to the institutions we applied to that we were concerned about the village guards’ repression and arbitrary actions towards people as well as the criminal actions they’d taken using the guns given them and relying on authority. After receiving this application at our organization on 1 October 2009, on 2 October 2009 we presented applications to the Ergani local administration, the Ergani Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Interior Ministry. We expressed the possibility that other events like the one known as the massacre in Bilge Village – one of the most tragic recent events rooted in the village guard system – could take place

Unfortunately, the data, press statements, and warnings we’ve issued for years concerning the village guards’ use of state-issued weapons to commit crimes outside their areas of duty, secure material benefits, and repress and intimidate normal people haven’t been and aren’t being considered.

Although applications were made to the appropriate institutions as a consequence of the application lodged at the Human Rights Association, no initiative appears to have been taken, and the family’s application to the Ergani Gendarmerie Station hasn’t produced results.  Instead of taking the individuals before the station, telling them not to make threats, explaining that what they were doing was illegal and trying to make peace between the parties, the assumed behavor was virtually an invitation to death.

The Temporary Village Guard System in Turkey is the world’s largest uneducated and disorderly army.  Seventy-thousand strong, this disorderly army is like a bomb ready to explode.  Using weapons, most village guards secure villages, geographical areas and social-psychological support for the state, and are oriented toward criminal activity.  The state virtually takes power from the system’s chaotic and menacing existence.  The village guards’ affiliations reveal the way that these groups who spread fear among peasants are protected and how applications made to bases and police stations regarding them remain fruitless.

HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS CARRIED OUT BY VILLAGE GUARDS (Between 1990 And The First Nine Months Of 2009) 

This table is comprised of events documented in applications to the Diyarbakır branch of the Human Rights Association and the 13 HRA branches and 3 representative offices in the region and partially incidents documented in the press.  The incidents listed constitute a very small portion of the violations carried out by village guards.  Many haven’t been possible to report or share with the public because of insufficient data and severe conditions that prevailed at the time of the incidents.

How can the preservation of the world’s largest paramilitary force and the failure to pursue  complaints about it be explained.  Those who oversee and ignore the criminal actions of village guards are as guilty as those who commit the crimes themselves.  There are many people in the region who work with the village guards and secure material benefits through illegal channels.  In a state under the rule of law it’s not possible to protect and preserve a disorderly army with such big potential to engage in criminal activity.  Is the Temporary Village Guard System only a state policy that’s remembered during massacres and forgotten a few days later?  It must be seen now that this state policy is bankrupt.

We request that what was done in relation to the applications made to the Ergani Gendarmerie Commander and Ergani Public Prosecutor’s Office and the people who received death threats be researched, and if it’s found that they had neglected their duties that a legal inquiry about them be opened.

We request that a commission made up of NGO representatives, sociology professors from Dicle University, and AKP and DTP parliamentarians from Diyarbakir be established with the goal of conducting comprehensive research on the Temporary Village Guard System in the southeast. 

We request that this research include such matters as the Temporary Village Guard System’s union with the military, whether or not it’s taken bids from public institutions, whether or not it’s been involved in relations of mutual benefit, how many dunums of land it’s seized in the last twenty years, whether or not it’s been involved in the trades in hashish, heroin or guns, and how many crimes such as sexual harassment, rape, torture, seizures of property, deaths and forest fires it’s been involved in.

At the conclusion of this research the state, while providing rehabilitation for the guards, must make urgently necessary legal changes for the gradual dissolution of the village guard system.  We know that the village guards exist because of the attempt to solve the Kurdish issue with a law and order and security perspective.  We hope that the state will constitute a democratic model of two peoples living together by sitting and talking with the Kurds and their legal representatives, not by making concessions to foreign powers, giving money and weapons to paramilitary forces that flout the law and ignoring and concealing their crimes.

Muharrem Erbey, Attorney at Law
Vice President of the Human Rights Association, President of the Diyarbakir branch