Innocent victims of terrorism

Meanwhile, Turkey is preparing a partial amnesty for the PKK militants in the form of a "repentance law" to bring them down from the mountains and from northern Iraq. Turkey issued a similar pardon before with partial success. This time the measures will provide more amnesty but is presented as a partial measure not to antagonize the sensitive Turkish public. Whether it produces a mass surrender by the PKK militants remains to be seen but still we feel it is an appropriate measure that will prove the goodwill of the Recep Tayyip Erdogan government that it wants to solve the problems of the southeastern regions hit by PKK separatist terrorist actions.

The repentance law is fine but we still feel the government has forgotten the real victims of the terrorist war. They are the villagers of eastern and southeastern Turkey who have been imprisoned for aiding and abating the PKK…

During the height of the anti-terrorist war in the 1990s several villagers were forced to help the PKK in various forms. The PKK raided their villages and confiscated their food and stocks. The PKK took away their livestock. Even these villagers were regarded as collaborators and thus were arrested and then convicted for aiding the terrorists.

There were also instances where PKK militants who surrendered to the security forces said they were aided by villagers and those villagers were also imprisoned by the testimonies of a couple of militants… Some people who had a grudge against each other used this to imprison their rivals by telling the security forces they had seen these people helping the PKK.

What would you do in the middle of no where in rural southeastern Turkey if a couple of armed PKK militants burst into your home and demanded your possessions?

So many people are now in prison on rather flimsy charges. Yet, they have not been able to benefit from the recent partial amnesties that saved many crooks simply because what they have done is regarded as a terrorist offense.

This is a great injustice that has to be corrected if we want genuine peace in eastern and southeastern Turkey something has to be done for them. We feel this is the time to remember these real innocent victims of the PKK terrorist campaign…