TURKISH AUTHOR REVEALS ARMENIAN, KURDISH MASSACRES IN MODERN TURKEY
By Asbarez Staff
Nov 19th, 2009
ANKARA (Hurriyet)–In the late 1930s, the nascent Turkish Republic
massacred a village of Kurds and Armenian Genocide Survivors under
the guise of an operation against a fabricated Kurdish rebellion,
previously unseen photographs, historically important documents and
eye-witness accounts reveal.
Hasan Saltuk the author of a new 600-page book said his research
seeks to unravel the taboo of the Dersim Massacres.
Set to be released in May in both English and Turkish, the book will
challenge the official history of the incident, using primary sources
to reveal the government’s role in the brutal massacre of this Kurdish
village in the formative years of the modern Turkish Republic.
"Over 13,000 people were killed by Turkish armed forces during the
operation and 22,000 were exiled. Orphaned children were subjected
to Turkification policies in orphanages," Saltuk said.
The official historical sources say the 1938 operation in Dersim, now
called Tunceli, was implemented to quash a Kurdish tribal rebellion.
Saltuk’s research, however, reveals otherwise.
"We see in the documents that the Dersim operation was planned;
the reports were prepared in 1920. The law related to the operation
was passed in 1935 and action was taken in 1937. Seyit Rıza and his
friends were hanged on grounds that they were leading a rebellion,"
Saltuk said.
Although the government at the time labeled it a Kurdish tribal
insurrection, Saltuk said the fundamental reason behind the operation
was that the region was home to Tunceli Alevis who were merely Armenian
Genocide survivors that had changed their identities.
"The official sources say Dersim residents were not paying taxes or
performing military service and that they were always rebelling.
However, we have documents proving the opposite. Ataturk led the
Dersim operation himself," he said.
"Historians here cannot go beyond the official ideology; they do
not do any research. Those who do research and know the truth cannot
raise a voice because they are afraid," Saltuk said.
The book reprints the comments he found on the back of all the
photographs he obtained. In many cases, the comments expressed remorse
for the events in Dersim. "[Many] felt qualms of conscience for
what was experienced. Some expressed their feelings with the words,
‘I have become a murderer.’ Others wrote, ‘I caused the deaths of
250 people,’" Saltuk said.
The project involved following the trails of surviving soldiers who
participated in the operation, Saltuk said, adding that he saw many who
were unable to adapt to social life. "Many soldiers we [interviewed]
demanded their names be made public after their deaths.
A few people did not mind having their names in the book; some said,
‘They ordered us to kill and we did,’" he said.
He obtained hundreds of original photos and maps alongside two dossiers
of population records from the grandchild – whose name Saltuk withheld
– of a high level civil servant from that era. "The invaluable
documents and photographs in the dossiers reveal the operation in
all its detail. However, it is without doubt that much more striking
files are in the archives of the Turkish General Staff."
Saltuk, who is the owner of the Kalan record label, a researcher and
an ethnomusicologist, has spent nine years collecting previously
unseen photographs, historically important documents and comments
from soldiers who participated in the operation..
A member of one of the oldest families of Dersim, Saltuk said that
even though he was from a Turkmen tribe on his father’s side, dozens
of their relatives were murdered during the operation.
"My grandmother was pregnant with my mother but she saved herself from
the firing squad at the last minute," Saltuk said in an interview with
the Turkish Hurriyet Daily News & Economic Review. "Dersim residents
are still afraid to talk. The elderly still think somebody’s going
to come and kill them."
Saltuk said he believes that Turkey has entered an age of great
change. "All the taboos of this country will be broken and, in the
future, there will not be anything that cannot be spoken about."