US embassy cable - 05ANKARA6540

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 ANKARA 006540 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/02/2015 
TAGS: PGOV, PHUM, PTER, TU 
SUBJECT: CONSULATE ADANA TRAVELS TO TUNCELI AND ELAZIG 
 
 
1.  Classified by AmCon Adana Principal Officer Walter S. 
Reid, E.O. 12958, reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). 
 
2.  This message is from AmConsulate Adana. 
 
3. (C) Summary:  Officers from Consulate Adana traveled to 
Tunceli and Elazig provinces October 25 and 26 to discuss PKK 
movements and human rights issues with local officials and 
human rights groups.  The Tunceli governor told us that PKK 
activity in the province had increased but that anti-PKK 
measures had not increased, but were &non-stop,8 and would 
likely continue throughout the winter.  Tunceli,s DEHAP 
mayor was upbeat on women,s issues, but she often feels 
under pressure from local military and state authorities. 
The former president of the Tunceli Bar Association believed 
that the operational tempo of local military operations had 
picked up over the past few months.  He also related stories 
of seeing mutilated bodies of militants killed in clashes 
with state security forces; Elazig Human Rights Association 
(HRA) representatives related similar stories, though 
reported no evidence that local police or prosecutors were 
involved in torture. HRA claimed that security officials are 
complicit in provocations and attacks on &those who champion 
peace and human rights.8  End Summary. 
 
Tunceli Governor Gives Party Line 
--------------------------------- 
 
4. (C) During an October 25 visit to Tunceli, Provincial 
Governor Mustafa Erkal told us that the number of PKK 
militants in the province had &obviously8 increased, but he 
refrained from confirming that 350 militants had entered the 
province, as was recently reported in the press.  Erkal said 
that PKK logistics in the province were not tied to Iraq, 
though some explosives have entered Tunceli from there. 
Erkal emphasized that PKK cadres live off the land and often 
depend on local farmers for subsistence.  Erkal denied that 
military operations against the PKK had increased in recent 
weeks.  He claimed that anti-PKK measures were &non-stop,8 
and would continue as much as possible, even through the 
winter months.  He told us that most of the PKK-related 
incidents in the province this year have involved harassment 
of local security forces and roadside explosions.  Erkal 
recalled one night attack on a military unit. 
 
Tunceli Mayor Offers Contrasting Views 
-------------------------------------- 
 
5. (SBU) Also on October 25, Tunceli,s DEHAP Mayor Songul 
Abdi Erol told us that her 2003 win was the first time that 
DEHAP had won a mayoral election in the province, a 
traditional CHP stronghold.  She attributed her electoral 
victory to the fact that she was a female candidate. Erol 
said that her municipality was 9 trillion lira in debt 
(approximately 6.9 million USD) when the city was handed over 
to her by the previous CHP administration.  Many municipal 
workers, salaries had not been paid for a long time, she 
said.  Since she took office, her administration had managed 
to pay all the back salaries, as well as start new 
infrastructure projects, such as building new &green areas8 
in the city and pursuing a variety of cultural activities. 
Erol claimed her DEHAP-run Tunceli city budget received scant 
central funding, while AK Party-run smaller Tunceli 
provincial municipalities were awarded greater funding. 
 
6. (SBU) Erol was hopeful about the soon-to-be-formed 
pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Movement (DTH) party,s stance 
on women,s issues.  She said that the party,s draft charter 
called for 40 percent female membership.  Erol believed that 
women will become more active in the party, and that the 
party will establish counseling centers on such issues as 
female health and honor killings .  She reported that Tunceli 
municipality has already established such women,s counseling 
centers.  Erol believes that sensitivity to women,s issues 
among Kurds was increasing.  She also noted that up to 9 of 
approximately fifty DEHAP mayors were women, even though she 
was the only female mayor of a large town or city in 
southeast Turkey. (Note: Erol and most of the predominately 
Kurdish population of Tunceli province are Alevis, whose 
religious traditions are more open and progressive, 
 
ANKARA 00006540  002 OF 004 
 
 
especially on women,s issues, than the more traditional, 
conservative Sunni Muslim Kurds, among whom a large 
proportion of Turkey,s honor killings and other practices of 
oppression against women occur.  Alevi women do not cover 
themselves in public and they are generally treated as equals 
with men in society.  End Note.) 
 
7. (C) Erol reported that she often felt under pressure from 
local military and state authorities.  The local military 
regiment commander often publicly criticized her; whenever 
she released a press statement, the commander openly 
questioned her decisions, she said. When the central 
government staged a flag-waving march last spring in response 
to a Mersin flag burning by Kurdish youth during the Kurdish 
Nevruz holiday, all employees of all government agencies in 
the province were required to attend, she said.  (Note: An 
Embassy contact at the European Commission office in Ankara 
also reported that civil servants were given time off and 
instructed to attend the march. End Note).  Erol told us that 
because she did not attend the march, the local military 
regimental commander criticized her in public as well as in 
private conversations with her, calling into question her 
patriotism and devotion to the state as an elected official. 
 
Former Bar Contact Under Apparent State Pressure 
--------------------------------------------- --- 
 
8. (C) The former president of the Tunceli Bar Association, 
Huseyin Aygun, told us in an October 25 conversation that the 
military had been carrying out intensive operations in the 
province over the past seven or eight months.  The military 
portrayed these operations as a continuation of ongoing 
operations, but Aygun believed the operational tempo had 
increased in recent months over the previous period. 
 
9. (C) Tunceli Governor Erkal warned us in an earlier October 
25 conversation that Aygun was under investigation on charges 
of fraudulently filing a case, that he was trying to get rich 
by suing the Turkish state and  appealing , case to the 
European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), and that he was  not 
to be trusted.  Aygun told us these charges are false.  He 
explained that an elderly client who was living in Thrace had 
sent Aygun a power of attorney document allowing him to 
pursue the client,s Tunceli-based case regarding forced 
removal from his village in the 1980,s or 1990,s.  The 
client died before Aygun opened the case in the ECHR, but the 
surviving family members neglected to tell Aygun that his 
client had passed away.  The government claimed that Aygun 
had submitted fraudulent documents to the court.  Aygun then 
obtained power of attorney from the client,s heirs to 
continue to pursue the case, which he successfully completed. 
 Aygun added that public prosecutors and other state 
authorities believe that no case should be brought before the 
ECHR;  they believe doing so shows disloyalty to Turkey. 
 
10. (C) In a case publicized in the press last year, Aygun 
had received pressure from the same local Jandarma colonel 
about whom Mayor Erol also spoke for taking cases involving 
the Jandarma,s 1994 burning of local villages to the ECHR. 
Aygun believed the colonel felt threatened because Aygun had 
opened a channel to the ECHR to bring cases of alleged 
Jandarma  human rights violations to court.  In reprisal, 
Aygun said, the Jandarma colonel had Aygun,s sister 
transferred from her job in the Tunceli branch of the Oyak 
Bank ( an arm of the Turkish Army Pension Fund) to the 
bank,s branch in Cankiri, the colonel,s hometown.  Aygun 
told us that instead of making the transfer, his sister quit 
her job. 
 
11. (C) Aygun related allegations of mutilations of bodies of 
local PKK terrorists killed by security forces in Tunceli. 
He told us of an incident in June or July in the Mercan 
valley near Ovacik where 17 people were killed.  Family 
members of the victims reported mutilations of some of the 
bodies, including clipped ears and carved-out eyes.  Those 
who saw the bodies reported that most of the mutilations took 
place on the bodies of female militants.  Aygun mentioned 
that photographs of the bodies had been posted on the 
internet and the incident had been aired on Radio Zaza in 
Germany.  Post has not confirmed this. 
 
ANKARA 00006540  003 OF 004 
 
 
 
Elazig NGO Sees Security Force Crack-downs 
------------------------------------------ 
 
12. (C) In an October 26 conversation, Elazig Human Rights 
Association (HRA) President Nafiz Koc told us that he had 
personally seen some mutilated male bodies, including the 
body of a male Iranian national, which had since been 
retrieved by his parents who came from Iran for the body. 
Koc believed that some of the bodies he had seen showed 
indications of torture before being shot at close range or 
otherwise killed.  Indicating that mutilation took place 
after death, some of the bodies had their eyes gouged out and 
some had parts of their skulls removed then re-attached.  Koc 
mentioned that he had also seen the body of a female Syrian 
national whose face had been burned.  Another member of the 
Elazig HRA told us he had seen three bodies that appeared to 
have been dragged behind a vehicle 
 
13. (C) Koc said that he knew of no current court cases 
charging the police or prosecutors with torture.  Though he 
had never seen evidence of torture on captured PKK members, 
he had heard from defendants captured in the field during 
clashes with security forces that they had been tortured, 
then not taken to a doctor or given access to legal 
representation in a timely fashion, as required by law for 
all suspects taken into custody.  Koc speculated this was 
likely because the militants were captured far from a city 
that might provide access to such services. 
 
14. (SBU) Koc complained that during a June 20 nationwide 
peace campaign march, a group of human rights activists in 
Elazig were confronted by a group connected to the 
ultra-nationalist Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) who 
accused the marchers of collaborating with terrorists.  When 
the MHP group began to throw stones at the marchers, the 
police stood between the two groups, but made no arrests or 
detentions of those throwing the stones.  Eventually, Koc 
said, the police put the marchers on buses and took them to 
the offices of the Security Directorate &for their 
protection.8  The police did not interrogate the marchers. 
 
15. (SBU) Koc believes that some security officials are 
complicit in such provocations and attacks against &those 
who champion peace and free expression.8   Koc listed a 
number of incidents to illustrate his point:  During recent 
clashes in Mazgirt in Tunceli province, the Jandarma colonel 
in charge refused to conduct investigations into alleged 
Jandarma violations, Koc said. Indeed, he said that the 
Jandarma leadership actually encouraged such violations.  Koc 
also mentioned that there has been no government action on 
citizens, complaints about forest fires started by security 
forces.  In one instance, a village house was destroyed by 
rockets fired by security forces.  When the house owner filed 
a complaint the government merely claimed that a terrorist 
lived in the house, but conducted no investigation.  The 
government then brought countercharges against the house 
owner for slandering the state.  A man and his three sons 
were arrested in the case, but are currently released while 
the case continues.  In another case, about 20 days ago, 
after a cab driver was killed in Tunceli, a group that 
marched during the funeral was photographed by the police. 
Some group members became angry with the police and were 
arrested for resisting state forces and for assisting 
terrorists.  In yet another case in September in Tunceli, Koc 
said that security forces broke into and searched the homes 
of the DEHAP chairman and the former DEHAP chairman while the 
homeowners were not at home. Security forces justified their 
illegal entries by stating that the two were harboring 
terrorists. 
 
16. (SBU) Finally, Koc added that during funeral ceremonies 
for three security officers killed in Bingol in June, the 
office of the Bingol branch of the HRA was broken into.  When 
the HRA filed a complaint with the government, the prosecutor 
threw the case out stating that the HRA collaborated with the 
PKK.  Koc noted that the Elazig governor, in contrast, had 
met with his HRA branch after the Bingol HRA incident to hear 
its concerns and that Turkish police had protected the 
building housing the Elazig HRA during a subsequent occasion 
 
ANKARA 00006540  004 OF 004 
 
 
of comparable local tension. 
 
17. (C) Comment:  Post continues to follow ongoing PKK 
activities and state security forces violations of human 
rights within the southeast region.  While we cannot vouch 
100 percent for Aygun,s version of his conduct versus the 
Tunceli governor,s, it is likely a smear campaign is under 
way against Aygun for pursuing cases at the ECHR contrary to 
state security interests. Additionally, Tunceli has long seen 
some of the most vicious and entrenched fighting in the 
southeast, and while it is not as intense as in the days of 
martial law, the situation has significantly deteriorated on 
a continuing basis since the PKK in June 2004 declared the 
end of its  unilateral ceasefire.  End Comment. 
MCELDOWNEY