Families: We want to be a part of building a brighter future

For them, the most important thing is to find out who gave the orders. The families that want to participate in the trial against Ergenekon want justice to be done and stress that illuminating this dark period is the only guarantee for a brighter future.

"If the state really wants to solve this issue, it shouldn't bother with the pawns. The most important thing for me is to find out who gave the orders for these killings or disappearances. The mastermind behind these incidents must be found, or the bloodshed will not stop," says Nesibe Haran.

Her husband, İhsan Haran, had disappeared in Diyarbakır in late 1994, but she only recently learned the details of how he disappeared from an interview with a former JİTEM member, Abdülkadir Aygan, that appeared in the Taraf daily. In that interview, Aygan described how Nesibe's husband had been executed: "There was a young man named İhsan Haran, who was said to be a PKK [Kurdistan Workers' Party] member. His family had migrated to Diyarbakır from one of the evacuated villages in Lice. He was residing in the Şehitlik neighborhood. That young man was taken and interrogated by JİTEM. Then he was taken somewhere near Silvan and he was shot in the head and left there.

However, I later heard from Abdülkerim Kırca [former JİTEM commander who recently committed suicide after his name surfaced in the Ergenekon investigation] that that young man did not die of that bullet to his head. He was only shocked. He walked to Batman to find a hospital. He told them about the incident he suffered. This was reported to the Batman murder squad which, in turn, reported it to the Diyarbakır branch of JİTEM. They phoned Kırca to inform him about it. Abdülkerim Kırca and his squad went quickly to Batman and that young man was taken once again to the rural area where he was executed. JİTEM never leaves anyone alive."

Nesibe has memorized this statement, and she believes that this shadowy network has nested itself everywhere, from the security forces to the judiciary. For instance, for her, the prosecutor who did not want to accept the official complaint she wrote and instead insulted her is a member of this network. Yet, another prosecutor who listened to her and said, "All of us are living in this country, and this issue should end," is a good man.

"After my husband disappeared, a person who disguised himself as a police officer intercepted me as I was going home in the evening one day. He addressed me by my name. He knew everything about me. He knew that my three brothers were in the mountains and that there were people in my family who were killed in mysterious murders. 'Your husband did something wrong. Do not wait for him. He won't come,' he said. He also said to me: 'Do not be like him. If you help us, we will give you luxury cars, houses. We will endow you with all sorts of opportunities. We will make sure that your children attend school.'"

After this incident, Nesibe informed the prosecutor's office that she was being threatened, and she started to wait for whatever would come next, fearing and sitting in her house without turning on the lights at night for almost a year.

"When the incidents in ?emdinli broke out, I understood who that man in police disguise really was. The same person had also talked with my mother-in-law. When we saw his photo, we immediately remembered. It was Ali Kaya."

In 2005 a bookstore was bombed in Şemdinli, and one of the offenders who were caught in the act was noncommissioned officer Ali Kaya. Kaya and other defendants were sentenced to 39 years in prison by Van's High Criminal Court, but they were later acquitted by a military court. At the time, Chief of General Staff Gen. Yaşar Büyükanıt had praised Kaya, saying: "I know him well. He is a good boy." Büyükanıt was indicted by prosecutor Ferhat Sarıkaya on charges of attempting to influence the investigation, but Sarıkaya was later removed from office and disbarred.

"Those who mastermind this network sit in high places," Nesibe says.

We talk with Nesibe via a Kurdish translator. She notes that she had fallen in love with her husband before they were married, but she doesn't want to talk about it. "Leave that part to me. I don't want to talk about it," she says.

When her husband disappeared, she had three children -- the eldest was just 4 years old. Initially they spent the money they had saved. Later she started to do housework for other people. She says that she is now working at the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP).

"I went through very difficult times. I was hospitalized for mental problems. I am not as strong as I may seem," she says. Her eyes get red, but she resists the urge to cry

"He had previously been detained two times. When they last detained him, they said to him that they were tired of detaining him. He had told me this and asked, 'What will you do if I die?' First, I did not want to give an answer. But he insisted, and I said to him, 'I will continue with my struggle until the end.' This is the promise that makes me go on living."

Nesibe indicates that she advises her three children who are now attending school to keep away from bad people.

"My husband would call me, 'My rose.' We had two sons, but he wanted a daughter. He would say, 'I wish we had a daughter and I could see her go to the river in the village before I die.' This is why my daughter has a special place for me, and I call her, 'My rose'."

She adds that she has not told her children everything about their father's disappearance. "In the end, it was not a good thing. But they are not full of hatred."

'Does a 70-year-old man pose a threat to the state?'

In this series, we tried to describe the people who had disappeared in the 1990s when terrorism was at its peak and what they left behind, based on the stories of their relatives. We tried to draw attention to the relations between defendants in the Ergenekon trial and these disappearances. We tried to touch on the human dimension of the Kurdish issue, as we thought that, although other aspects of this issue have been exhaustively debated, its psychological impact has largely been neglected. We started the series with the story of 13-year-old Davut Altınkaynak, and we want to end it with the story of 70-year-old Fikri Özgen.

"I always remember my father waking up early in the morning to go out for gardening jobs after performing his morning prayers. I do not say this because he is my father, but he was the most tender person I ever met. He had no bad habits.
Everyone had so much respect for him that he served as the muhtar of the village for 28 years. He was modest and would not offend other people. He attached great importance to reading."

This is the way how his son Sertaç Özgen describes his father, who was abducted after being forced into a car when he went out to buy medicine for his long-standing problem of short breath on Feb. 27, 1997 in Diyarbakır. His whereabouts are still unknown.

"He liked very much to listen to the news bulletins on the radio. He would call those bulletins an ‘agency.' Sometimes he would listen to Kurdish songs from a Yerevan radio station."

Sertaç was in prison after having been convicted of being a member of the PKK when his father disappeared. His elder brother had been wounded in a PKK-led attack and then died. His little brother, too, was in the mountains, and died after his father disappeared.

"Before I was apprehended, a notice had come to our house. ‘We know that your children are in the mountains. You will either surrender them or you will be punished with death,' it said, and it was signed by the Counter-Guerrilla. At that time, such notices would be issued to everyone. And there wasn't much to do about it. We were thinking that our father might be detained because of us, and even that he might be subjected to certain physical approaches."

Sertaç is making bird shapes out of a tissue he is playing with while he is talking about his father. He doesn't want to say "torture" openly. He opts for "physical approaches" instead.

"But we never thought he might be executed or disappeared, because he was too old and ill. How can a 70-year-old man pose a threat to the state?"

He says that he had gone through "indescribable" sorrow having learned in prison that his father had disappeared: "I suffered a lot when I thought he was too old. He did not deserve those insults. Thinking that he was going through these insults gave me indescribable sorrow. I was helpless. I couldn't do anything."

Sertaç says that their father would always worry for his sons, but did not say anything to show his discontent. Sometimes he would say, "Wouldn't it be better if you'd surrender," or, "You could go to Europe."

"My two brothers had gone. I could not go. He would tell me to go to Europe. He would advise us to protect ourselves. Whether we like it or not, the fate of the people who go to the mountains is known. Their relatives always wait for the bad news. But my father wanted to see one of us saved, perhaps as a consolation. He had no concern for himself, but always cared about his children."

When we ask him whether he is angry with himself, his voice quivers: "It is a very difficult situation. Sometimes you get angry with everyone. You feel the urge for rebellion. But you cannot do this, as you know this is no solution. Sometimes we get angry with ourselves. On the other hand, we have an identity. There is the Kurdish society. Your existence has long been denied, but you want to be yourself. To do this, there is a price. You pay it very dearly. Then both camps say something as a political move as if nothing happened. Yet I believe that the extent of the pains suffered is not known very well or there are attempts to make them be forgotten. Also, you are young, naive, and don't know where you should stand. You learn it as you live."

He attaches great importance to preserving his father's muhtar seal, the radio on which he used to listen to news bulletins and his flashlight as keepsakes. He thinks that one of his father's greatest wishes was to see a grandson. Several years after Fikri Özgen disappeared, Sertaç's son, Janmedi, who is now 2 years old, was born.

"We call this region Medya, and Janmedi means 'the sorrow of Medya,' Sertaç explains. When he is asked how he will describe his father to his son, he cannot refrain from weeping and whispers, "As he is."

For Sertaç, the bridges between Turkey's peoples must be reinforced in order to prevent these things from happening again: "I don't know what could be done or whether there was really any alternative or chance. A man cannot predict what will happen in his life. This is what happened to us, as well. We are aware that these things are very heavy. Who would want to have experienced these things? But they were lived in reality. We, too, say that these things should not have happened, but we don't know what might have happened instead. We do not esteem death. In the end, you fight for something, for not being denigrated, banned or alienated."

He adds, "If strong bridges could have been established, these things wouldn't have happened."

Just like other relatives of disappeared people, Sertaç, too, wants to find the remains of his father and put them into a grave. He, too, wants to be part of the Ergenekon trial.

"My purpose is not to make sure that people are punished. I just want to expose the murder networks. We want to participate so that these things will not happen again. But, more than this, we would like to participate in building a better future irrespective of ethnic origins."

THE END