US embassy cable - 04ADANA133

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 ADANA 000133 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL, PTER, PHUM, TU, ADANA 
SUBJECT: GOVERNMENT PASSES COMPENSATION LAW FOR EVACUATED VILLAGERS; 
NO IMPLEMENTATION YET 
 
 
1.  (SBU)  Summary: Turkey's new law on compensation for 
citizens who have incurred damages due to terrorism and the 
fight against terrorism since 1987 calls for formation of 
province-level commissions to determine compensation. 
Implementing regulations for the law have not been announced, 
nor have any provincial commissions yet been formed.  However, 
claimants are already flocking to human rights organizations 
with outlines of their claims.  Information about how the 
government will fund implementation of this law, and, indeed, 
about what its total cost might be, is not readily available. 
Given these large question marks hanging over implementation, 
the law's eventual impact on village returns is hard to foresee. 
 However, the law's language reflecting partial acceptance of 
State responsibility for the village evacuations of the 1990s is 
a welcome development to some human rights activists in the 
southeast.  End Summary. 
 
2.  (U) Human rights contacts in Turkey's southeast have been 
following with great interest developments related to Law 5233 
on the Compensation of Losses Stemming from Terror and the Fight 
Against Terror, passed on July 27, 2004.  This law addresses the 
conditions under which citizens who incurred damages due to 
terrorism and the fight against terrorism will be compensated by 
the state. Early drafts of this law specified that it would 
cover losses incurred during the period July 19, 1987 through 
November 30, 2002 (i.e. during the state of emergency in the 
southeast).  In its final version, however, the law is 
open-ended.  It states that claimants for losses incurred since 
July 19, 1987 must apply within one year of the law's passage, 
and that those who incur losses from terrorism and 
anti-terrorism efforts from this day forward must apply for 
compensation within sixty days of the loss. 
 
3.  (U) The law calls for the formation of province-level 
commissions to evaluate claims and determine the level of 
compensation to be offered.  Each commission will be chaired by 
a Deputy Governor and will comprise representatives from the 
Finance, Public Works and Resettlement, Agriculture and Village 
Affairs, Health, Industry and Trade Ministries.  Damages 
previously compensated through court cases, insurance, or other 
sources will not be considered under this law.  In addition, 
losses stemming from voluntary migration for other than 
security-related reasons will not be considered.  The law 
specifies a formula for calculating compensation of injury, 
disability and death. (Note:  Lawyers in two different cities 
offered the same estimate of the payment for the death of a 
family member, for example:  12.5 billion TL per person killed, 
or approximately USD 8400.  Post cannot confirm this 
calculation.  End note.)  As for property losses, the law refers 
to value estimation principles outlined in the Nationalization 
Law 2942. 
 
Diyarbakir Bar Input on Drafting 
-------------------------------- 
 
4.  (SBU) Diyarbakir Bar Association representatives told poloff 
they had been able to give input as this law was being drafted, 
and they pointed to two specific improvements that resulted from 
their intervention.  The Bar suggested to drafters that they use 
language referring to compensation for any result of terrorism, 
not just to damage resulting from terrorists.  The law's 
resulting reference to damage from anti-terrorism measures, they 
claim, implies some degree of responsibility-taking by the state 
for the social upheaval in the region during the 1990s.  (Note: 
In the past, activists claim, in order to get any kind of 
similar compensation when filing with the courts or provincial 
government, petitioners had to attest that their losses were due 
to PKK terrorist actions.  End note.)  In addition, initial 
drafts of the law said that those who had left their villages 
out of "negligence" would not be able to apply; thanks to Bar 
efforts, they say, the final version stated instead that those 
who "voluntarily left for reasons other than security" would not 
be compensated. 
 
5.  (SBU) Bar members in Diyarbakir who have kept the issue of 
returns high on their agenda, and who advocated successfully 
that a recent visit by EU Commissioner Verheugen include a visit 
to an evacuated village, see this law as a potentially important 
development.  They told poloff they thought a Bar representative 
would be appointed to participate on each provincial commission. 
 In late August, Diyarbakir contacts told poloff that 
implementing regulations were expected o/a September 15.  On 
October 4, however, they stated that the regulations had not yet 
been developed, nor had any provincial commissions as specified 
in the law been formed. 
 
"Most Important Damage Won't Be Compensated" 
-------------------------------------------- 
 
6.  (SBU) A number of rights activists in the region agreed that 
the law's wording implied the state was taking some degree of 
responsibility for damages during the 1990s, but they were quick 
to point out the law's weaknesses, as well.  The Bingol HRA 
leader reported that he had lobbied for changes to the draft 
law, but that his suggestions were not considered.  He said that 
material damage was the focus of the law, but that psychological 
damage was more important and more urgently required attention 
in Bingol, where the evacuations of the previous decade had 
affected 211 settlements with 2,920 families for a total of 
17,113 residents.  He had suggested the law offer a variety of 
psycho-social services to those who had suffered damages. 
Moreover, he added, there were 15 years of lost income to take 
into account when talking compensation.  In addition to the 
houses these people lost, he argued, entire village 
infrastructures were lost, including schools, mosques, 
infirmaries, livestock pens, silos and sheds.  Some people can 
go back to harvest now, he said, but there is no way to live in 
some of those places.  "They should have consulted with us 
more," he said, "We could have contributed to people seeing 
return as a more attractive option."  He argued that the 
government should be offering to build new structures to 
encourage return instead of paying out compensation. 
 
They Want to Tell Their Stories 
------------------------------- 
 
7.  (SBU) After the law's passage, and in the absence of 
implementing regulations and a clear application process, many 
would-be applicants are working through the non-governmental 
Human Rights Association (HRA), and in some cases, local Bar 
Associations, as they prepare their claims for eventual 
submissions the Commissions.  As of early September, HRA-Siirt 
had received applications from residents of 50 villages, and 
HRA-Mardin says it has received some 1500 requests for 
assistance in preparing claims.  The HRA has prepared a 
questionnaire that branches are administering to all those who 
approach the organization for assistance in applying for 
compensation.  An HRA-Mardin branch representative said the 
organization hopes the surveys will be able to reach close to 80 
percent of all those who had been evacuated from their villages, 
and collect more comprehensive information than ever before 
about the experiences of families who fled from the violence. 
"They don't just want money," said one human rights activist, 
"They want to tell their story."  So far, said our Mardin 
contact, only about 5 percent of those filling out the survey 
indicated that the PKK was responsible for their dislocation; 
the rest, he said, were evacuated by the government. 
 
But where will the money come from? 
----------------------------------- 
 
8.  (U) One thing that may be slowing down the implementation of 
this law is the fact that no one can explain exactly where the 
money will come from to fund it.  One Diyarbakir contact said 
that his impression is that the government is hoping to mostly 
provide in-kind compensation, such as materials for housing, but 
that past EU and World Bank projects offering iron, cement and 
sand as incentives to return were not found to be attractive. 
Some lawyers speculate that ultimately funding of the law's 
implementation will have to come from major external 
contributions, perhaps from the European Union. 
 
9.  (SBU) Comment:  One human rights activist in Diyarbakir 
asserts that at least 75 percent of the estimated 3688 villages 
evacuated during the violence of the 1990s are still empty.  The 
Compensation Law is not likely to lead to a rush back to 
villages any time soon, especially given the renewed violence in 
the region between security forces and PKK terrorists. 
Nevertheless, contacts in the southeast have been talking about 
this legislation for two months, and are waiting to see if 
something will come of it.  Some see it as significant simply 
because the government, in the way the law is written, seems to 
be acknowledging some degree of responsibility for the 
evacuations of the 1990s.  Others see value in the fact that 
these internally displaced persons will be able to "tell their 
stories" through the claims process, thus painting a more clear, 
collective picture of what happened in the region during those 
turbulent times.  In the absence of funding and implementing 
regulations, however, the law's potential impact is difficult to 
envision.  EU interest in the issue of village returns may 
eventually provide an impetus for the government to get down to 
the details on implementation of this law.  End comment. 
 
 
ALLISON