Ironically, Tunceli deputy Hüseyin Aygün from the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) has triggered the debate over the 1937 events in Dersim, which took place when the CHP was in power during the single-party period. The events have increasingly come to be described as a massacre in recent years.
Aygün started the controversial debate over the massacre of Kurds by the state in Dersim as part of an assimilation campaign on Nov. 9, when he said the 1937 Dersim massacre had occurred with the acquiescence of the then-CHP government. The deputy further alleged that the events took place with the full knowledge of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Turkey's founder.
Aygün has been subjected to a lynch campaign by his party over his remarks and has been threatened with being expelled.
The CHP has refrained from debating the truth about the Dersim events, which have always been portrayed by a military dictated ideology as retaliation by the state to quell a Kurdish uprising.
Professor Baskın Oran, however, denied the allegations of a Kurdish uprising in Dersim.
“There was no uprising in Dersim. A systematic and planned massacre committed by the state. The operation launched to massacre Kurds had been planned by Atatürk himself,” Professor Oran told to Habertürk TV in an interview last Friday.
Forty relatives of Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the CHP leader, were killed during the Dersim events. Despite this, he has refrained from initiating a debate over the sad and unacceptable operations staged against the people of Dersim.
Though the Turkish military has been reluctant to open the archives concerning Dersim to the public, clear evidence already exists regarding the truth lying behind the mass killing of Kurds in Dersim.
For example, Hasan Cemal, a senior columnist for the Milliyet daily, has published several quotes from then-Cabinet members as well as from the then-chief of General Staff about the Dersim incident in his article last Sunday that has shed light on what actually happened in the Kurdish province.
“The year 1931, Chief of General Staff Fevzi Çakmak: Dersim people are ignorant. The Turkification policy should be applied to them. An intervention by the armed forces will have a bigger impact on the people of Dersim. Kurdishness should be eradicated within the Turkish society. The year 1930, Justice Minister Mahmut Esat Bozkurt: The nation is composed of Turks. Those who are not real Turks do have a right to be on Turkish land. These rights allow them to become a servant, a slave. The year 1932, Interior Minister Şükrü Kaya: The northern Dersim people should be forced to migrate to the West. All arms should be collected before the start of the military operation. Local civil servants [Kurds] are spies. It is necessary to teach the Dersim people that they are in fact Turks. Training exercises of military planes should take place over Dersim. The year 1986, İhsan Sabri Çağlayangil, a now deceased former Turkish foreign minister who was the head of the security directorate at the time of the Dersim events told Kılıçdaroğlu in an interview that ‘people had escaped to the caves in Dersim. The military sprayed poisoned gas into the caves... the military poisoned them like rats'.” (Hasan Cemal, Milliyet, Nov. 20)
The Turkification process of religious and ethnic minorities in Turkey began with the Turkish Parliament passing the 1934 Law on Resettlement.
The ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) joined in the debate triggered by CHP deputy Aygün when Bülent Arınç, the deputy prime minister, urged the establishment of a research commission in Parliament with the intention of unearthing the truth behind the Dersim events.
“Even if it hurts us [Turkey] the truth should come out concerning the events surrounding Dersim,” he said on Nov. 20.
Aygün's remarks over Dersim has resurfaced yet another conflict within the main opposition CHP that is already engaged in a fierce internal row over the general policy lines of the party, which are confusing.
Aygün defended his remarks over Dersim calling those objecting to his statements as neo-nationalists who don't want the part to change.
In the words of a leading Kurdish intellectual, Orhan Miroğlu, the CHP cannot transform itself into a pioneering and democratic party as long as the influence of the status quo on the party cannot be eliminated (Taraf, Nov. 19, 2011).
Note: The Turkish energy ministry has an objection to a part of my column published under the heading of “Cracks occur within government over Iran,” in which I said, “Some ministers, such as Turkish Energy and Natural Resources Minister Taner Yıldız, reportedly ran out of patience during a Cabinet meeting where he complained about Iran, accusing the country of being unappreciative of Turkey's gestures, and criticized [Ahmet] Davutoğlu over his handling of Iran.”
Yıldız's press officer told me that the above-mentioned conversation with Davutoğlu did not take place at a Cabinet meeting, but fell short of telling me where the dialogue between the two ministers did take place or whether it even had taken place. He, however, confirmed the ongoing differences between Turkey and Iran over the take or pay agreement.
