Human rights groups call for investigation into Turkish mass graves
AP Worldstream; Jul 08, 2005
SUZAN FRASER
Two sisters of a slain Kurdish guerrilla urged authorities on Friday
to conduct tests on what they said were two mass graves containing
headless bodies discovered in southeastern Turkey to determine whether
their brother’s body is among the remains.
Human rights groups are also demanding an investigation into the
possibility that the remains belong to guerrillas who may have been
caught alive and later shot in the head and beheaded to hide evidence
of executions.
Villagers discovered two mass graves in Bitlis province holding the 27
headless remains of people a year ago after coming across soiled
clothing, human rights groups said Friday. A third grave with 11
bodies was also discovered near the town of Kulp in Diyarbakir last
year. The graves are believed to have been dug in the mid-1990s, at
the height of the brutal conflict between the military and Kurdish
guerrillas.
Lawmakers rushed to the region last year to investigate the grave near
Kulp, conceding that the remains appeared to be those of missing
villagers.
Gen. Ilker Basbug, deputy head of the military, denied any military
involvement in the Kulp deaths, saying claims against security forces
in the southeast were attempts to get compensation through the
European court or win support for the rebels.
Human rights activists say nothing has been done since and have
threatened to take the sisters’ case to the Strasbourg, France-based
European Court of Human Rights.
“It has almost been a year and nothing has been done,” said Nazime
Avras, sister of Mehmet Sabri Avras, a missing militant. “We just want
a proper grave, we’re not asking for much.”
The family was told that Mehmet Sabri Avras, a member of the Kurdistan
Workers’ Party, or PKK, was killed in fighting between the rebels and
the military in Bitlis in 1995. His body was never handed over to the
family, the sisters said.
Human rights groups say remains from the graves were handed over to
prosecutors shortly after they were found but no autopsies or DNA
tests have been conducted, said Nedim Tas, the head of THY-DER, an
organization that supports families of prisoners.
The graves also contained bodies with no heads, leading to suspicion
that the militants were executed with a gunshot to the head and later
decapitated to hide the shootings, said Kazim Genc, head of the human
rights organization, Pir Sultan Abdal.
Mehmet Elkatmis, the head of the parliament’s human rights commission
which investigated the Kulp mass grave, did not immediately return
calls for comment.
Some 37,000 people have died in the conflict between the rebels and
the military, which began in 1984. The rebels have recently stepped up
attacks, detonating remote-controlled bombs on train tracks and roads
used by the military.