Tunceli embraces President Gül

Gül, whose motorcade came to Tunceli from Elazığ, was greeted with applause from residents. He first visited the Governor's Office, where he talked to the city's residents, hearing out their problems in fields concerning employment, education and financial aid. The president promised he would do his best to address these concerns. Some residents in the crowd told the president they would like to see a planned dam project on the Munzur River not implemented, while others held posters demanding the construction of a cemevi, an Alevi place of worship as well as a community center, by the state. President Gül, addressing the crowd, said, “We are here for you.”

During Gül's visit to the Governor's Office, Higher Education Board (YÖK) Chairman Yusuf Ziya Özcan, Cem Foundation head İzzettin Doğan and several deputies were also present.

At a speech he delivered there, he said he was very happy to be in Tunceli and very proud to be the first president to visit the city in such a long time. He said: “Turkey is a great country located over a vast area. We have a large population. We are the second-biggest country in Europe in terms of population. … A country like this will most certainly have its diversity, different cultures and sociological realities. All of these are a wealth of this country. Let this be known as a fact -- there is no Edirne and Hakkari, no Sinop and Mersin or Kayseri and Tunceli. Are all the same. They are all the land of our noble motherland. People living in any city are first-class citizens of this country. As all our regions have their own unique qualities, our Tunceli also has its own qualities. When we look at this point culturally, it is a province of ours that contributes a value with its cultural richness and diversity as a city where the Alevi culture lives on and where we have Alevi citizens. I am very proud to be in such a province of ours today.”

The president also stated that Tunceli, like all other provinces, had many needs that demanded to be met. He said he was looking forward to meeting with representatives of civil society organizations to find out about problems facing the city and to find an opportunity to fulfill the city’s needs.

Protests against dam construction

He later visited the province’s garrison command, followed by a visit to city hall where he was met by Tunceli Mayor Edibe Şahin. In response to one of the gifts presented to him here -- an album including photographs of the city-- Gül said, “The city is like a postcard.”

A banner reading “Mr. President Welcome to Dersim,” Tunceli’s name in Kurdish, was hanging on the wall of the municipal building. Meanwhile, a group of residents gathered at Republic Square and unfurled a banner reading “We don’t want dams on Munzur.” The group also chanted slogans expressing the same demand. A brief scuffle between the protestors and police ensued when the protesters attempted to cross a police barricade.

After his visit to the municipal offices, Gül visited the Association to Protect and Spread the Culture of Hacı Bektaş Veli, a beloved figure for the Alevi and Bektaşi communities and this association’s cemevi. He was met by the deputy chairman of the association, Celal Karagöz, and other members. A candle was lit in the cemevi for Gül, as Karagöz explained is the custom when somebody visits a cemevi for the first time. The move symbolizes brotherhood, democracy and peace. Here Karagöz reiterated the province’s demand that cemevis be given legal status as places of worship. “Mr. President, we would like you to act as a leader of this move. We know the sensitivities of our Sunni siblings, and we respect them. If they respect our sensitivities, we can live in peace and brotherhood.” The president later watched a semah performance here. Gül’s visit to the cemevi was followed by his participation in a ceremony marking the start of the academic year of Tunceli University.

Tunceli has expectations

Human Rights Association (İHD) Tunceli branch President Barış Yıldırım, who was one of the representatives of civil society organizations that met with the president yesterday, said he was very pleased with the visit. Speaking to Today’s Zaman ahead of the meeting, he said: “The government’s Kurdish initiative started with the president’s statements. This is why we attach great importance to this visit and think it is highly positive. We will demand a continuation of the Kurdish initiative and also that cemevis are granted legal standing. We will also state our sensitivity about a dam to be built in Tunceli province and convey our request that we would like the Munzur River area to be made a national park instead. We also want Tunceli be renamed Dersim.”

Also speaking before her meeting with the president, Tunceli Mayor Şahin said the visit is of great importance and reiterated earlier demands to stop construction of dams on the Munzur River. Şahin also said she hoped the president would take new initiatives in his speeches about the Alevi faith in Tunceli, which she defined as the “center of Alevis.” However, not everyone was easily impressed. Binali Gerçek, the head of the Association of Pülümürites -- residents of Pülümür, a district in Tunceli, said: “We are not a people who are eager to host a president. What is important is that wrongs that have been done to the people of this region and its nature are righted. There is no contribution the construction of eight dams can possibly make to Tunceli, but it will ruin its natural attributes.”

Gerçek said similar visits in the past have not resulted in any concrete improvement to the welfare of the region. “There is a view that they are doing a big favor to the region. If a president is visiting for the first time in 10 or 15 years, this is a shame for this country. Tunceli is part of this country; it is a beautiful city that has a 99 percent literacy rate. People from Tunceli are special. The state cannot expect the residents to change how they think when they have so many difficulties to cope with.”

He said the construction of the dams amounts to a “betrayal of Tunceli’s nature.” In addition to halting all dam projects in the city, he also said Tunceli’s people want the state project known as “Back to the Villages,” a project implemented in some cities to help victims of forced migration return to their cities, to be implemented in Tunceli. “What matters to us is to know if the president will solve our problems. That’s what we care about. Tunceli has a wound, a big one. We don’t want our nature to be destroyed.”

Tunceli visit and Alevi initiative

Gül’s visit comes at a time when the government has been organizing a series of workshops that aim to find solutions to problems faced by Turkey’s Alevi population. State Minister Faruk Çelik, who has been coordinating the government’s Alevi initiative, also joined Gül in his historic Tunceli visit. Çelik on Wednesday spoke to journalists, saying his party was not undertaking the Alevi initiative for the sake of votes. He also warned other politicians against exploiting the issue for political gain. The minister also briefly talked on Wednesday about past workshops on the Alevi question the government has held with the participation of journalists, academics, writers and representatives of Alevi organizations. He said the different groups that came together in these workshops had worked to produce brilliant opinions through discussion, which, he said, have been very productive. He said he believed the completion of all planned workshops would bring about healthy proposals that would contribute to a settlement.

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