Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris

REVUE DE PRESSE-PRESS REVIEW-BERHEVOKA ÇAPÊ-RWISTA STAMPA-DENTRO DE LA PRENSA-BASIN ÖZETi
Sivas incidentrema'ins on country.s agenda
v State indifference and cover-up attempts continue
V Questions about Sivas have not yet been answered
)4
By Emre Gökalp
Turkish Daily News
SIVAS-ANKARA- One month after
the Sivas massacre in which 37 people
were burned to death in a fiotel
fire started by Islamic fanatics, state
indifference and even cover-up attempts
by authorities continue as the
order of the day.
. The following questions about Sivas
have not yet been answered. .
• Why did the state merely watch.
the incidents?
• Policemen and gendannes could
not dispel the crowd, which grew
bigger and bisger. Why? . .
• Where ISCafer Erçakmak? (Sivas
Municipal assembly member representing
the pro-Islamic Welfare
Party (RP) who is currently sought
by police for prov~king the riot.) Did .
heescape to SWItzerland as men- .
tioned in press reports? . .
• Even thougb leaflets were dis".
tributed over the weekand hundreds
of nonresidents had come to the city,
the regional administrator of the National
Intelligence Service (MIT) did
not inform Ankara. Why?
• According to the local people
and officials; the students staying at
hostels operated with the contributions
of certain religious associations
incited the crowd to riot. Did an investigation
of those students and
those 14 hostelsln Sivas take place?
• An indictment prepared by the
Kayseri State Security court (DGM)
spotlights a fundamentalist organization,
"Muslims," as the group behind
the Sivas inCident. Even the intelligence
service and police have not
heard ofsuch an organization, and
while there are known. outlawed
Muslim organizations in Turkey, why
did the indictment mention a new organization?
Is this to cover-up for the.
Heibollah organization or some other
Islamic organizations including the
Welfare Party?
• The focal people in Sivas
strongly maintain that the 96 suspects
who were captured were not the leaders
of the gang, but the figureheads.
What about those who came from
Malatya, Amasya, Ankara, Istanbul
and Yozgat?
• Why weren't the local intelligence
chief and brigade commander
sackedby the government as the Sivas
governor and security chief
were? Didn't they share the same re- .
sponsibility?
• The suspended mayor 'of Sivas,
Temel Karamollaogullan; was reportedly
in Ankara one week before
the incident. He allegedly held a
'meeting in the "Sivas Hostel" in Ankara.
Is that true?
• Even the government put the.
blame for provocation oh Aziz Nesin
for angenng the crowds with his
atheistic remarks. What about the local
press? Is the same claim'of provo-
caMn not valid for the local newspapers?
Situation in Sivas
To sum up, when you first roam
the streets of Sivas, it looh as if the
incident never occurred. But on closer
inspection, that is, when you hear
the conversations among the local
residents, you realize that even more
than one month after the incident,
people still talk about as if it happened
yesterday. The citizens of Sivas
should not be blamed for the riots
SHP Sivas Deputy Halis:
Demirel1s suggestion plays
a role in Sivas incident
Turkish Daily News
SIVAS-ANKARA. Ziya Halis, Sivas
deputy and chief accountant
for the Social Democrat People's
Party (SHP) argues that President
Süleyman Demirel's suggestion
not to confront the security forces
and the people has played a role in
the Sivas incident.
"It is. impt::'ssible to call those
demonstrators .
people. They were
the assailants.
President Demirei's
suggestion
tied the hands of
security forces in
Sivas. Those people
might have
been saved," Halis
told the TDN.
Saying that the
Sivas incident was
an organized
event;. Halis un-
derlines that it
must not be shown
as an Alawi-Sunni
struggle. "The fundamentalists
have declared Sivas a zone for
their struggle, with the slogan 'The
Turkish Republic's foundation was
laid in Sivas; we shall ruin the republic
again in Sivas,'" adds HallS.
Admitting that the SHP has un-
derestimated the strength of pro-
Shariah forces in Turkey, Halis
says, "One of the lessons we
learned from the Sivas incident is
to work harder to get organized to
protect the secular and democratic
system." Halis also refutes allegatIOns
that the SHP was incapable.
of preventing .the Sivas massacre,
arguing that they did their"utmost
to persuade.
Intenor Minister
Mehmet
Gazioglu. to
take the neces- .
sary measures
to protect peo- .
pie from the
assault of
Muslim fundamentalists.
"What more
could we do?
In a coalition
government,
every party
SHP Sivas Deputy Ziya Halis has its own
ministries and
responsibilities. How could Iorder
the security forces in Sivas? There
is a limit to how far you can go."
Halis also recalls that they asked
for the resignation of the Interior
minister for his failure to act in the
Sivas incident. "But, he did not resign."
CZ)
~ a: 0\
(]..) .....
--
~ 'Ô ... ~
'" :::J
.~
c