WEAPONS TRANSFERS AND VIOLATIONS OF THE LAWS OF WAR IN TURKEY

Excerpt

Human Rights Watch conducts regular, systematic investigations of human rights abuses in some seventy countries around the world. It addresses the human rights practices of governments of all political stripes, of all geopolitical alignments, and of all ethnic and religious persuasions. In internal wars it documents violations by both governments and rebel groups. Human Rights Watch defends freedom of thought and expression, due process and equal protection of the law; it documents and denounces murders, disappearances, torture, arbitrary imprisonment, exile, censorship and other abuses of internationally recognized human rights.
Human Rights Watch began in 1978 with the founding of its Helsinki division. Today, it includes five divisions covering Africa, the Americas, Asia, the Middle East, as well as the signatories of the Helsinki accords. It also includes five collaborative projects on arms transfers, children’s rights, free expression, prison conditions, and women’s rights. It maintains offices in New York, Washington, Los Angeles, London, Brussels, Moscow, Dushanbe, Rio de Janeiro, and Hong Kong. Human Rights Watch is an independent, nongovernmental organization, supported by contributions from private individuals and foundations worldwide. It accepts no government funds, directly or indirectly.

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The regional directors of Human Rights Watch are Peter Takirambudde, Africa; José Miguel Vivanco, Americas; Sidney Jones, Asia; Holly Cartner, Helsinki; and Christopher E. George, Middle East. The project directors are Joost R. Hiltermann, Arms Project; Lois Whitman, Children’s Rights Project; Gara LaMarche, Free Expression Project; and Dorothy Q. Thomas, Women’s Rights Project.

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• CASE 28 Summary: According to a former soldier interviewed by Human Rights Watch,203 U.S.-supplied arms, including tanks, armored personnel carriers, helicopters and small arms played a key role in an assault by Turkish security forces on the town of Ôirnak on August 18-20, 1992. The attack, described by diplomatic sources asa disproportionate and overly harsh military response to a small-scale PKK attack,204 led to the deaths of twenty-two civilians, the wounding of over sixty non-combatants, widespread destruction of civilian structures, and the wholesale flight of the town's 25,000 residents.205 Some civilians may have been the victims of summary executions. In addition to the civilian casualties, four security force personnel were killed in the fighting. The Ôirnak incidents were part of an attempt by Turkish security forces to crush support for the PKK in the urban areas along Turkey's southeastern border with Iraq, which was especially strong during late 1991 and 1992. The August incident discussed here followed a series of bloody incidents during March 1992, in which scores of civilians were killed by Turkish security forces.206 Description: T.T., a Turkish Army conscript, said he was a private attached to the Seventh Mechanized Infantry Brigade's Second Regiment at the time of the raid. He said he had been sent from his transportation unit in the town of Ka-2zman in Kars province to a base in Ôirnak for six weeks of training. On the night of August 18, 1992, he said, "There suddenly was a big panic, and the whole base was shooting into the town. Artillery, tanks, machine guns, everything." T.T. identified U.S.-supplied M-48 and M-60 tanks as well as 105mm artillery as participating in the gunfire. T.T. said the troops were informed that the PKK was attacking them and other military posts from the mountains, but noted that none of the base's guns were ever turned away from the city. "If there had been PKK in the mountains," he said, "why were we only shooting at the city?" T.T. said there was some light weaponsfire directed toward the base from the town, but said it was limited and sporadic and did not warrant the massive barrage unleashed by his colleagues. During the following day, he said, the base's heavy guns pounded the city, while two helicopters hovered overhead. He said a second battery of artillery and tanks fired at the city from the mountains. On several occasions, he told Human Rights Watch, the artillery ceased fire to allow troops, armed with flamethrowers, German-designed G-3 assault rifles and MG-3 light machine guns, and U.S.-designed LAW anti-tank rockets, to drive into the city on U.S.-made M-113 armored personnel carriers. Officers in the patrols carried U.S.-designed M-16 assault rifles. At one point during the second day of the assault, he said, the M-60 tanks moved into the city and stayed there all day. T.T. did not participate in the initial patrols outside of the base, but said he spoke with soldiers upon their return. One boasted to T.T. over lunch of having poured petrol over a male teenager wounded by gunfire and burning him to death. "I said, 'How could you do that?' and he said, 'Don't worry, once you've been here for a while you'll get used to it.'" On the third day of the raid T.T., armed with a G-3 rifle and two LAW rockets, was assigned to a body-collection detail, during which he saw corpses that appeared to have been summarily executed or mutilated. "I saw about thirteen or fourteen children's bodies," he said, "and I collected three of them." One of the corpses was a young boy shot at close range in the groin, another was an infant, while the third was a young boy who had been shot up against a wall. T.T. said the officers in his patrol carried M-16s and AKMs, both of which were held for them by privates. T.T. said he found the devastation in the city hard to believe. "There were buildings destroyed by shell fire, wounded and dead civilians all over.... In one building an entire family had been killed by a tank shell, and another shell lay unexploded in the house." According to the Turkish government, the Army was responding to an attack by a large PKK raiding party. The then-Interior Minister ¤smet Sezgin initially claimed that between 1,000 and 1,500 guerrillas attacked police and Jandarma headquarters and government buildings with rockets and mortar bombs. Later, however, he cut his estimate in half, saying that only 600 to 700 rebels took part in the battle.207 No actual guerrillas were ever captured, however, and no dead bodies of suspected guerrillas were recovered. Sezgin argued that the PKK fightershad slipped into the mountains during a power failure. The PKK, for its part, denied that its fighters had launched an attack.208 T.T. rejected the government's version of the incident, saying it was an attempted cover-up. T.T.'s version supported arguments made by witnesses, journalists, and Turkish human rights investigators after the incident, who claimed the Army had unleashed the assault as punishment for the town's pro-PKK sentiments. According to the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey, the attack was one of several launched during the same period in southeastern cities.209 A Turkish journalist who visited Ôirnak shortly after the assault told Human Rights Watch that she believed the attack was part of a general policy of crushing pro-PKK sentiment in the major towns of the southeast. "The government had lost control of the cities and tried to take them back by unleashing a series of powerful assaults," she said. The journalist recalled that Ôirnak had been the site of clashes between pro-PKK demonstrators and security forces in March 1992 that left eighty civilians dead.210 Jonathan Rugman, correspondent for the British daily The Guardian, wrote shortly after the incident, "Western diplomats say the picture emerging is of an over-reaction to some kind of PKK attack, with soldiers setting shops alight with petrol and tanks firing at houses."211 Human Rights Foundation head Ak2n Birdal, who conducted an investigation in Ôirnak days after the assault, charged that the government had "faked" the PKK attack to justify its actions. As evidence Birdal cited eyewitness reports which argued there had been no significant guerrilla presence in Ôirnak at the time of the assault, the authorities' failure to produce captured or dead guerrillas, and the results of his own survey of the town's buildings, which indicated that none of the supposed PKK targets bore signs of an attack. The onlybuildings damaged or destroyed, Birdal said, were those inhabited by civilians; the police, Jandarma and government structures remained unharmed.212 Birdal's findings were supported by a report from a journalist writing for a British paper who visited Ôirnak after the incident and wrote, "Apart from the post office warehouse which was destroyed and a state village guard housing unit with a hole in its roof, there is little evidence of damage to government property."213 These reports directly contradict statements made by Interior Minister Sezgin, who claimed that most of the government and military buildings in the city had been destroyed.214 According to local journalists familiar with the city, many of the original inhabitants have since abandoned it, and their places have been taken by Kurds paid by the authorities to participate in the government-sponsored village guard system. Violations of International Law: C Indiscriminate fire leading to the death and injury of civilians and widespread damage to civilian structures; C Possible summary execution of one civilian; C Failure to care for civilians displaced by government actions; C Pillage/destruction of civilian areas. Troops Involved: According to the witness, a mixture of Turkish Army forces, including infantry, armored corps, and artillery were involved, in addition to helicopters from an unidentified unit. Weapons Used: The witness identified troops as using U.S.-made M-48 tanks, M-60 tanks, M-113 armored personnel carriers, and U.S.-designed M-16 rifles and LAW anti-tank rockets. He also said 105 mm artillery or mortars were used, which may havebeen of U.S. or Turkish origin. Other unidentified armored and soft-skinned vehicles were also used, he said. Many soldiers, including the witness, carried a German-designed G-3 assault rifle, while a few carried the German-designed MG-3 light machine guns. During part of the assault Turkish helicopters, most probably U.S.-supplied systems for transport or reconnaissance, hovered over the city.

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