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 a few days after the massacre. The articles were written partly for media I work for, partly for this website. I sweep them together here, to give you an idea of what happened, in chronological order.

For news agency ANP:
‘Turkish TV can’t cover the news’

For this website:
Uludere investigation, or: the potholes in our minds

For news agency ANP:
Uludere victim’s families don’t want compensation

For this website:
The village guards of Uludere
He went for a computer
Who saved the governor?

For youth paper 7Days:
Kids in southeast Turkey: smuggling to survive

On 10 January, Turkish NGO’s Insan Haklari Dernegi (Human Rights Association) and Mazlum-Der published a report about the Uludere massacre. They did not get access to any of the authorities. They published a list of questions that urgently need answers, and state that the UN and the Council of Europe should investigate what happened.

This will never happen. Ever since Turkey’s war of independence, that lead to the founding of the Turkish Republic in 1923, Turkey has a deep rooted suspicion against any foreign interference. The government will never allow anybody from outside dig into its affairs. Especially not when it has no intention of the truth ever coming out, like in this case. Already very soon certain documents concerning the massacre were labelled ‘classified’ – with which the covering up began.

My conclusion: the truth about Uludere will never be known, and those responsible will never be punished.