Pınarcık massacre

The Pinarcik massacre was the killing of 24 Kurdish women and children and eight village guards on 20 June 1987, in the village of Pınarcık, in the Mardin Province of Turkey, by ARGK units of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).[1][2] The dead consisted of 16 children, eight village guards, and eight women.[3] Aliza Marcus, a specialist on the conflict, describes it as "the PKK's most brutal attack on villagers since the state-sponsored militia had been formed".[1]

Pınarcık massacre
LocationPınarcık, Ömerli, Mardin Province, Turkey
Date20 June 1987 (20 June 1987)
Attack type
Massacre, shooting, arson
Deaths32
Perpetrators Kurdistan Workers' Party

Incident

One June evening in 1987, men who were apparently PKK rebels partly encircled Pınarcık. It was later at night where one of eight Pınarcık's Turkish state-financed village guard recalled that the attackers shouted at them to surrender, but the guards apparently did not pay much attention.[1]

The attackers fired directly on the village. The guards fought back, but they were outnumbered nearly four-to-one and, as one man later complained, hobbled by a lack of sufficient ammunition. According to Turkish authorities, thirty men then descended upon the village and continued the shoot-out with the village guards. The firefight lasted more than two hours. At the end, 30 people were dead, 16 children, 6 women and 8 men lay dead.[1][4] According to the Ankara Domestic Service, the attackers attacked houses using hand grenades and Molotov cocktails, and fired on those fleeing the burning houses.[5]

Aftermath

Serxwebûn, a publication of the PKK,[6][7][8] stated that the massacre was a "noble action" carried out by the ARGK militant units of the PKK against village guards in its June 1987 issue. It further described the massacre as "the culmination of a series of actions" against "Turkish colonialism", which included an attack at a farm in Ceylanpınar, the "punishment" of an "agent teacher" and an attack against a Turkish army convoy.[9] Şemdin Sakık, a previous commander of the PKK, wrote that the massacre was ordered by Abdullah Öcalan himself and carried out by special forces under his command.[10][11]

A day before the attack the European Parliament passed a resolution condemning Turkey for its refusal to recognize the Armenian genocide and issues regarding Kurdish rights, saying that they presented "insurmountable obstacles" ("unüberwindbare Hindernisse") to Turkey's EU membership bid. After the Pınarcık attack, Turkish President Kenan Evren said this resolution had encouraged the PKK to attack Pınarcık to make sure Turkey would be excluded from the EU. Der Spiegel dismissed this claim as "hardly serious" ("kaum ernst gemeint").[12]

The Turkish news agency Hürriyet claimed the attackers had come from Syria, whose border is about 25 km from Pınarcık.[12] In July 1987 Prime Minister Turgut Özal signed an agreement with Syria under which Syria would remove PKK camps from its territory.[13]

Turkish columnist Mehmet Ali Birand, who had distinguished himself for his attempts to write openly about the country's Kurdish issue, called it a crime of "historical" proportions.[1]

Ayhan Çarkın allegations

Ayhan Çarkın, then a police special forces officer, told Radikal in 2011 that he had visited Pınarcık immediately after the attack: "I went to that village. The smell of blood and gunpowder were everywhere. The Pınarcık Massacre was actualized by groups formed by JİTEM", an intelligence unit of the Turkish Gendarmerie, "for means of provocation."[4] In a 2002 interview with Hürriyet he said "I have collected the body of a 1.5 months-old baby myself. No one can prove that terrorism is right to me."[14]

References
  1. Aliza, Marcus (2007). The PKK and the Kurdish Fight for Independence. NY, USA: New York University Press. pp. 115–120.
  2. Reuters News (July 1987). "Kurdish Rebels Kill 20 In 2 Villages in Turkey". The New York Times. Retrieved 21 October 2012. {{cite news}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  3. Satana, Nil S. (2012). "The Kurdish Issue in June 2011 Elections: Continuity or Change in Turkey's Democratization?". Turkish Studies. Routledge. 13 (2): 169–189. doi:10.1080/14683849.2012.686575. hdl:11693/21264. S2CID 55920795. In those years, the PKK committed several "crimes against humanity" such as the Pınarcık massacre in 1987 in which 8 village guards, 16 children and 8 women were slaughtered in a raid on a village in Mardin province.
  4. "State agent's confessions reveal alleged work of Turkey's deep state". Hurriyet Daily News. 24 March 2011. Archived from the original on 22 December 2016. Retrieved 6 June 2021.
  5. Lois Whitman, Jeri Laber (1987), State of Flux: Human Rights in Turkey : December 1987 Update , Human Rights Watch. p102
  6. Marcus, Aliza (2007). Blood and Belief: The PKK and the Kurdish Fight for Independence. New York University Press. p. 115. The Pinarcik massacre—as it was called by the Turkish media— was the PKK's most brutal attack on villagers since the state-sponsored militia had been formed. The rebels' goal was to force Kurdish villagers to quit the guard system, which not only was supposed to keep the PKK from the villages but also sometimes helped Turkish soldiers operating in the unfamiliar mountain terrain. "In order to [strengthen our presence], collaborationists will be completely wiped out," warned the PKK's Serxwebun party newspaper, making clear that Kurds who worked with the state were viewed the same as enemy Turkish soldiers.
  7. Belge, Ceren (2016). "Civilian victimization and the politics of information in the Kurdish Conflict in Turkey". World Politics. 67 (2): 275–306. doi:10.1017/S0043887115000398. S2CID 155139277.
  8. Laoutides, Costas (2016). Self-Determination and Collective Responsibility in the Secessionist Struggle. Routledge. p. 160. ISBN 9781317057468.
  9. "Serxwebûn, issue of June 1987" (in Turkish). Serxwebûn. Archived from the original on 4 August 2020. Retrieved 20 December 2016.
  10. "Pınarcık katliamı emrini Öcalan verdi". Zaman. 2 June 2012. Archived from the original on 19 October 2014. Retrieved 12 December 2016.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  11. Sakık, Şemdin (2005). Apo. Şark Yayınları. ISBN 9789759825904. Pınarcık, Derecik, Başbağlar, Ömerli... ve daha bir çok köy baskınlarının talimatını bizzat kendisinin verdiği ve bu amaçla Suriye'de özel gruplar oluşturduğu, katliamlardan sonra bu grupları ödüllendirdiği anı anına kayıtlarla belgelidir.
  12. Der Spiegel, 29 June 1987, Waisen des Universums
  13. Michael Gunter (1991), Transnational SOurces of Support for the Kurdish Insurgency in Turkey, Conflict Quarterly, Spring 1991. p10
  14. "Ayhan Çarkın Emniyet'te". Radikal (in Turkish). Retrieved 2021-06-06.

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