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Excavations begin in search of bodies of 12 village guards
Excavators belonging to the Şemdinli municipality began digging at the outpost, where the Derecik internal security battalion is stationed, early in the morning in search of the bodies of the 12 village guards, identified as Casım Çelik, Yusuf Çelik, Mihraç Çelik, Hurşit Taşkın, Kemal İzci, Abdülaziz İnan, Salih Şengül, Naci Şengül, Sıdık Şengül, Cabbar Selvi, Reşit Selvi and Hayrettin Öztürk. Prosecutors were present in the area during the excavations.
The Taraf daily earlier this week published a map showing where 12 village guards -- killed by the gendarmerie during a raid of Ormancık village in 1992 -- were buried. The daily, which spoke to an eyewitness in the region, revealed that soldiers, led by Lt. Col. Ali Çamurcu, raided Ormancık village, killed 12 village guards and buried their bodies in the area.
In a front-page article yesterday, Taraf, referring to sources from the region, claimed that the military launched excavations in the area following the publication of a map in Taraf in a bid to remove bone fragments before the start of an official investigation. Residents of the region lodged a criminal complaint over the incident when they saw military vehicles carrying materials from the area.
Hakkari Bar Association President Mehmet Ekici, who was also in the excavation area, said he would be following the excavations in the name of the families of the victims. The closest relatives of victims were also allowed to follow the excavations yesterday. They were taken to a healthcare center in the neighborhood to provide DNA samples.
Yesterday's excavations came after excavations were carried out in many areas in Turkey's southeastern provinces earlier this year in search of bodies of victims allegedly killed by an illegal group inside the gendarmerie, yielding bone fragments.
It was alleged that JİTEM, a clandestine gendarmerie intelligence unit established in the late 1980s to counter ethnic separatism in the Southeast, summarily executed a large number of people, doused their bodies with acid and buried them in wells located near state-owned Turkish Pipeline Corporation (BOTAŞ) facilities in several southeastern provinces. According to human rights organizations, around 1,200 people went missing during that period.
Though the existence of death wells was denied for many years, a prosecutor from the Silopi Public Prosecutor's Office conducted a field survey in February on BOTAŞ-owned land in Şırnak, calling for excavation at two sites in the area; the excavations finally took place in many southeastern provinces as well as Şırnak, yielding bone fragments and pieces of clothing.
In remarks made earlier this week, Hanefi Avcı, the police chief of the Central Anatolian province of Eskişehir, admitted that perpetrators of many extra-judicial killings, kidnappings and disappearances during the late 1980s and early 1990s were protected by gendarmerie commanders working for JİTEM.
“It would be impossible to commit crimes like kidnapping, extra-judicial killing without the knowledge and the protection of the commanders of the perpetrators,” Avcı said.
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