Although it had previously been claimed that the soldiers were killed when a hand grenade carried by one them exploded accidentally as they were patrolling the rural area against the prospect of a terrorist attack by the PKK, Taraf daily reported that the soldiers lost their lives after a lieutenant gave one of their number a live hand grenade to punish him for sleeping during his night watch. According to the report, four soldiers died when the activated grenade, given to a private by Lt. Mehmet Tümer, exploded. The fact that similar negligent acts by members of the military have previously claimed the lives of many soldiers but were covered up has stretched everyone's patience, with many calling on the military to concentrate on fixing its own business rather than constantly meddling in politics. “Go and ask those parents whose sons died due to the ‘grenade punishment' whether they know the cause of death of their sons. Forget those parents, even the defense minister does not know how those soldiers were killed. The generals are so involved in politics, they almost forgot their profession,” complains Taraf's Ahmet Altan, who blames the generals' eagerness to interfere in politics for the occurrence of such desperate events within the ranks of the military. He says that just like every army which meddles in politics, the Turkish army makes a lot of mistakes which they then constantly try to cover up. “Generals always talk about politics, but the public never talks about the military. The mistakes of the army never come to the agenda. Do you remember how many years later we learnt that the Turkish military sank its own ships during the Cyprus operation? It is forbidden to talk about or recall the mistakes of the military,” Altan regrets. In his view, the only way the Turkish military can correct itself and refrain from making such mistakes, where its members' negligence costs the lives of young soldiers, is for it to return back to the barracks, concentrating on its profession, maintaining good discipline and remaining silent on issues that do not involve it. “There is no military like ours left in this era. Only a short while ago, the Greek chief of general staff was removed from his position for speaking out too much in the political arena. That's why Greece is an EU member and Turkey is not. That is why the smaller Greece is much wealthier than us. We need a military initiative, and the military needs discipline. Otherwise, our sons will continue to die,” warns Altan.
The four soldiers we lost give us some idea of the extent of damage that can be caused by a bomb, says Zaman's Mümtaz'er Türköne, who thinks Lt. Tümer is the person most responsible for this disaster. “The duration that the soldier was able to hold the live grenade was less than the time foreseen by the lieutenant: It was only about 20 minutes. The mistake is here, there is no such officially sanctioned punishment or training method. The punishment given by the lieutenant is against common sense, before all,” says Türköne.
According to Milliyet's Derya Sazak, the tragic case in Elazığ once again shows the challenges of performing military service in the Southeast and its fatal consequences. “Performing military service has gone beyond being a responsibility of citizenship since the late 1980s, when the PKK dragged Turkey into an environment of civil war, and has turned into a professional job which claims the lives of young civilians at the slightest mistake,” says Sazak.
