Etiket massacre

Niyazi Dalyancı “To put all the blame for the assault in Mardin on the village guards is not fair,” declared Brigadier Metin Guralp in his press briefing at the headquarters of the Turkish General Staff four days after armed men massacred 44 people, including children, pregnant women and men at prayer in a village of Turkey’s southeastern province. The indiscriminate bloodbath shocked Turkey and made headline news in international media. The savagery of the massacre unparalleled even in the country’s southeastern part which has been the scene of fighting between Kurdish separatist PKK members and government forces for more than 30 years triggered a heated debate in Turkey on what might have incited people to commit such a ruthless act. The carnage turned the spotlight on the “village guards,” some 60,000 men armed, trained and paid by the government to help the army in its struggle against the PKK. Simply because, both the victims and assailants of the massacre at the Bilge village were members of the clans where men belonged to this paramilitary organization and those who lost their lives were hit by weapons supplied by the government. The attack took place when the victims had gathered at one of the 32 houses in the village of 150 for an engagement celebration. Dusk had just settled over the village and men in the house had taken their places behind the imam for evening prayers after eating their dinner served by the women. Shooting started at that moment. Masked men, armed with automatic guns, mostly Kalashnikovs sprayed the people in the house indiscriminately with bullets leaving 44 dead, 6 of them infants, 16 women, three of them pregnant and 22 men, including the imam. Three escaped with bullet injuries. Within hours, the security forces seized 12 suspects with their weapons. […]