Turkish military calls Varto Kurds "Armenians"
Relatives of 3 killed shepherds break their silence No case has been opened for 11 years after 3 shepherds who were killed in Varto, Mu? in 1994 by the Special Forces teams. Abdurahman Tekal, father of Suphi Tekal who was reportedly killed along with two shepherds; Mehmet K?l?? and Izettin Tekal after taken into custody, stated he informed the governor's office, gendarmerie station and prosecutor' office about that who had been killed by special forces teams are shepherds and, he became paralyzed from tortures he had been exposed. Huseyin K?l??, elderly brother of Mehmet K?l???, says: "This cruelty must be punished and justice should be implemented into practice. This is savageness which a human cannot do to the other. We demand those who are accountable for that cruelty to be penalized." It is asserted that the special force teams called "Tansu's soldiers" who established themselves in Varto Clinic held a military operation covering Karapinar (Xerepungar) village of Varto, Mu? in August 1994, and detained Mehmet K?l??, Suphi Tekal and Izettin Tekal, shepherds who had been residing in the village cited and executed them by shooting in Kuru Gol arean nearby Arpa Upland called 'Var? Ce'. The security officials took off shepherds clothes, dressed their robed them in guerilla dresses and laid down 3 Kalashnikovs by the bodies. Huseyin K?l??, Mehmet K?l??'s elderly brother, pointing out the special force teams took reporters to the spot and told them they had killed 3 guerillas after incident said: "After showing the bodies with guns to press as if they had been guerillas, the special force unites brought funerals to Mu? State Hospital. Upon this, we applied to the Governor's Office Varto and Varto Gendarmerie Headquarters telling the 3 who had been murdered by the special force staff are shepherds and requested the incident to be revealed. Afterwards, while were going to Mu? Public Prosecutor's Office, we were stopped and threatened to be killed by some armed people dressed in plain clothes. They wanted us to make depositions that who had been killed are 'terrorists'. I answered them: One of died persons is my brother having 6 children. Since his financial situation was not good, he had been shepherding for his livelihood. He is not a terrorist." K?l?? expressing they did not permit us, me and other shepherds' relatives, to go in prosecutor's office after taking our ID cards and threatened us to kill saying "If you see the prosecutor, we kill you as others" said he and the relatives of the 2 killed shepherds were handed over to a sergeant major. "We were taken out of the administration of justice by him and told 'The funerals are in Mu? State Hospital. Go and receive the corpses there. Prosecutor: I can do anything "I and other families returned back to the administration of justice after walking around for a while and presented a petition bearing the statement those who had been killed by the special force units are shepherd to the prosecutor. We requested the funerals to be delivered us, hereupon; prosecutor said ' I cannot do anything'. Indictment after autopsy alleges that the dead are terrorists who caught killed after in an armed conflict with troops. After prosecutor's attitude, we went to hospital and received the funerals." ''Difficulty in defining the bodies' The corpses were unrecognizable reporting K?l?? said he could identify his brother from his nose and hair. "The day when we take the bodies from the morgue, a person dressed in plain clothes who was calling on the phone called me and asked me to come on the phone. The individual who was talking on the phone introduced him self to be the commander of air operation and offered his condolence to me. He said ' Come to see me when you received the funerals, so I asked the person dressed in plain clothes to tell where the commander of air operation was. The former told me 'You cannot talk to the commander of air operation', swearing at me and added ' If you strive much, we will send you along side them'. We take the delivery of funerals and turned to our village." Military operation on the village After we took the bodies to the village, a wide-scope military operation was held over the residence, and the special force units gathered all the villagers on the boulevard, insulted at and tortured them. After undressing dwellers, the security officials dragged villagers on thorns "Militaries wanted to force us to say 'Died people are terrorists'. They started to beat us with rifle butts after getting us down out of vehicles. 'You burry those Armenians in these holy grounds' they told us. Calling imam to come by themselves, they said 'Priest, are coming here to pray for these Armenians'. They ordered all the villagers as well as women and children to lie down and we waited so for an hour. After they went, we stand up, buried the funerals and applied to Varto Public Prosecutor's Office. The prosecutor asked me why I didn't come to make the application before. I answered him I had been afraid of the troops. Then, he said 'I will call you later', but has never done so up to now. This cruelty must be punished and justice should be implemented into practice. This is savageness which a human cannot do to an other. We demand those who are accountable for that cruelty be penalized. The state should not have done this cruelty to its own citizens" said he. Father Tekal: They made me paralyzed with torments. Abdurrahman Tekal recording he became paralyzed due to bruelty tortures told DIHA what was lived on the incident day as such: "That my son's a few sheep had got lost. He and his shepherd friends go outside the village to look for the animals. The special force units had come to residing place, too, and they detained him. We were at home that time. Later some villagers came and told 'Tansu's soldiers brought away your son'. The militaries were killing my son and 2 shepherds more in the evening. We were oppressed too much after the event. I became paralyzed because of that bad treatment and pressures. He was killed after 7 months he got married. The militaries killed our children cutting them into pieces. They must give the account of what crimes they had committed." Application to the ECHR Selahattin Kaya, the shepherds' attorney, said he appealed to the European Court of Human Rights ( ECHR) but the case was rejected because of incomplete means of domestic laws and added: " We will apply to prosecutor's office for a case to be litigated against the criminals, an if denied, we will appeal to the ECHR."
