LET THE RIVER RUN
(In praise of Father Munzur)

Seyfi Cengiz

The dam construction over River Munzur is in progress under tight security. Munzur, which is our life-blood, is being barricated. A legal initiative to stop the construction has turned down by the Turkish Suprim Court. There has also been a series of peacful protests across Dersim. Thousands of people took streets chanting “Let the river run (flow)”.
Fighting is not yet died down. Anger is growing stronger.
Turkey has so far ignored this oppsition to the project. This is still the case.
Her insistance on the project seems to be a decleration of another war against Dersim. She is interested not so much prooducing energy, but destroying the country and dispersing its people. By building eight dams over River Munzur means to employ different methods beside military force to this end. The real aim is to evict the innermost part and hart of Dersim which has always been the stronghold of the national resistance up until now.
In short not only the River Munzur but Dersim as a whole is under threat.
The River Munzur is sacred in our country’s religion. Some holiest sites of the land are on or along this river. The religious life of the country is already disrapted by the construction work.
If not abondoned, people might lose faith in peacfull means and the anger could well turn into a bitter struggle including perhaps a guerilla warfare, though no one would normally prefer it.
One thing is certain. We shall defend our homeland. People of Dersim do not let the occupiers get on with this project for long. It is a national issue and the struggle to save the river would be a part of the struggle for national freedom.
Let me tell you how the River Munzur emerged in our country before I finish.
This is the legend:
“Once upon a time in Dersim there was a king called Cemþit. Munzur was his sheperd. One day this king went away with his army to fight wars. When on front he wished some ‘helva’ to eat. Munzur knew what his master wished for. He told this to his master’s wife and asked her to make the ‘helva’ to take to his master. She thought it is Munzur himself who wishes some and did what he asked for. He took the helva and disappeared. Coming back a few minutes later he said to her that the plate would be brought back by his master.
This is what happened afterwards:
People went to welcome and kiss his hands when King Cemþit came back. He told them about what happened and showed them the plate. Then asked them to kiss Munzur’s hands instead. By hearing this Munzur run away. People went after him. As he was running with a cup full of milk in his hands, the milk was pouring down. In each place where the milk dropped a spring was emerging and of which the River Munzur”.

Munzur is regarded as a saint and one of the ancestors by Dersimis. That's why he and the river that named after him is also called Father Munzur or Saint Munzur. So, do not touch the Father Munzur.


AN OPEN LETTER TO THE HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIZATIONS, ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECOLOGICAL GROUPS, ALL THE OTHER PEOPLE AND BODIES CONCERNED

Partiya Serbestiya Dêrsimi-PSD, 21st February, 2005

THE DERSIM QUESTION
The region named as ‘Tunceli‘ by Turkish occupiers is the inner and central part of the historical Dersim.
It is the homeland of a non-Turkish people known as the Dersimis or KIzIlbaþ, who suffer from both religious and national opression at the hands of the Turkish invaders.
The country‘s language, identity, beleifs, in short its whole culture and whole future as a people is under immidiate threat. This is the very reason that have given birth to the PSD, Partiya Serbestiya Dêrsimi (Freedom Party of Dersim), in order to challenge the dark prospect posed by the Turkish colonial rule.
Dersim became a political cause and a banner out of the conditions just mentioned above.

THE YEAR 1938 AND THE GENOCIDE

Dersim used to be an autonomous (self-governed) region for centuries up until 1938, the very date that became a reference point in our people’s recent history due to the genocide and mass exile planned and executed by the Turkish state at the time.
The then Turkish strategy was to settle ‘The Dersim Question‘ once and for all by using military force. Opposed by a strong and desperate resistance, the invaders couldn’t achieve this. But our homeland has become an internal colony of the Turkish state and remained as a ‘forbidden land‘ ever since.

EVIL DEEDS OF THE COLONIAL GOVERMENT FROM 1994 TO 1997

Insisting upon the policy to destroy the land and disperse its inhabitants, Turkish occupiers tried time and again to realise their aim whenever the opportunity arrived.
The most recent example of this had been witnessed over the period between 1994 and 1997. Under the pretext of ‘PKK terrorism‘ hunderds of villages were destroyed and thousands of people forced to emmigrate over those three years. In 1994 sixteen people disapperad during military operations and it is still not allowed to investigate what happened to them.

THE TURKISH SECRET PLAN BEHIND THE DAM PROJECT

After 1999 there has been no ‘PKK terrorism‘ for five years and people have expected to be helped in order to recover from mass unemployment and poverty, hoped at least some freedom for their language, religion and culture. Let alone these expectations being fulfilled, people were surprised to hear of a project which envisaged the construction of eight dams on River Munzur high on the agenda.
The issue of the dam once again reminded us all the tragic events of the year 1938, simply because this project, which is already in progress and about to reach a vital stage, will eventually,
1) displace hunderds of families living in the villages around the dam site,
2) damage the region’s ecology,
3) endanger the existing plants and creatures in the valley,
4) ruin the countryside life,
5) destroy the holy places on and along the river.
In short this project poses a major threat to the fabric of our society.
That’s why we are against it.
People of Dersim believe it to be a politically-motivated initiative, aimed to dislocate and disperse themselves by flooding the country. It is something that makes people think of 1938, when the Turkish military commited a genocide by killing approximateley fifty-thousand people. This project openly aims to finish whatever remained of Dersim.
Six-years long people’s protest across Dersim and in some European countries is being ignored. Despite local opposition and countless legal initiatives the Turkish Goverment seems to be quite determined to go ahead with the project.
The Munzur River is the life-blood of the country. There can be no life in Dersim without Father Munzur and ist valley. The dam project imposed on our country must be stopped.
We would like to make it known to the whole world that we won’t permit the River Munzur to be treated in this way. This River is sacred in our country’s tradition. We are determined to act in defense of our homeland in case we have to.

DERSIM NEEDS HELP

We call upon the Hüman Rights Organisations, environmental and ecological groups and all the other people and bodies concerned to put pressure on Turkish Goverment,
to stop obstructing investigations into disappearances and many other hüman rights abuses in Dersim,
not to go ahead with the dam project over River Munzur,
to acknowledge the genocide commited in 1938
to remove the restrictions imposed on the local language, religion and culture.


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