END THE MASSACRE OF KURDS IN TURKEY!

Turkish war planes massacred 35 children and youth in air strikes on 28.12.2011.

Following the authorisation given by the Turkish government to its army to attack all life forms seen in the Kurdish countryside, Turkish war planes have begun a process of systematic massacre against the Kurdish people. This systematic killing has claimed the lives of 35 Kurds after F-16 fighter jets attacked the outskirts of Roboski village using illegal weapons and gas.

A villager who was wounded in the attack has said that they were apprehended by soldiers and rounded up, then the soldiers left and the war planes arrived on the scene. Furthermore the villager added that the bombs that rained down on them spread a bitter smell, were flammable and left them breathless. The Turkish Chief of Staff claimed that the air strike was carried out following orders and blamed the Kurds for being there at that time. They also added that the attack was carried out following detection by unmanned aircraft (obtained from Israel and the USA.)

These statements prove that the attack was carried out with the permission of the AKP government, planned by the Chief of Staff and implemented using the technological and intelligence support of the USA.

Public opinion is aware that over 5000 thousand civilian Kurds have been arrested in the past two years, including political representatives, MPs, writers, journalists, intellectuals, Mayors and children. Parallel to this political genocide campaign the Turkish Army have been carrying out military operations and have used chemical weapons to massacre Kurdish guerrillas and burn their corpses. Also in recent months a family of 7, including 2 children, were brutally murdered  in the Qandil region by the cross border air attacks of the Turkish armed forces. These political and military operations were met with silence in the international community, and the Turkish state gained the necessary confidence to continue creating a bloodbath in Kurdistan, the latest which has taken place in the Roboski village in Sirnak province and ended the lives of 36 young Kurds just in the spring of their lives, with the death toll expected to rise.

The Turkish state has added another atrocity and massacre to its history of crimes against humanity. Other states that have remained silent in the face of these atrocities and supported the Turkish state and its armed forces with all types of technology and military support are also responsible. What are the states that have intervened in the Middle East by justifying it with the argument that arms were being used against civilians going to say to the Turkish government bombing ‘their own civilians’ with planes?  This two faced, hypocritical policy against the Kurds must end. Or are these states using the rhetoric of human rights and democracy for their personal gain and propaganda!

As a Kurd living in Europe I do not accept the massacres that are being enforced on my people. We do not deserve this treatment and will do everything to see justice done. I am calling on democratic public opinion and all human rights supporters and activists to support the Kurdish people.

                This is my appeal to international public opinion, bodies and individuals:

-          Condemn and say ‘enough is enough’ to the systematic massacre of the Kurdish people by the Turkish state,

-          Call for the military support offered to the Turkish Republic, especially by the USA and EU to cease, and for political and economic relations to be frozen,

-          Call for the Turkish Republic to be tried in an international court for the human rights and war crimes it has committed,

-          Call for the EU and UN to assign a committee to investigate the incident in Roboski village.

Mehmet Aksoy

             A British citizen and member of the European Kurdish Community