The Destruction and Reconstruction of Hope

In order to watch a video about this event on youtube please click the link below
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y0TWmPj_UI

On November 9, 2005, a stranger approached the ‘Umut’ (which means ‘Hope’) Bookstore in Semdinli, a small town in southeastern Turkey populated mostly by Kurds. He took out two grenades from his pockets, threw them on the floor and fled. Seconds later, the little shop exploded. Seferi Yilmaz, the shop’s owner, -a former Kurdish rebel and political prisoner-, and the apparent target of the attack, saw the stranger and the bombs before the explosion and run after the suspect as the explosion took the life of his neighbor Mehmet Zahir Korkmaz. Following the bombing of the bookstore, townspeople, alerted by Seferi Yilmaz, witnessed that the suspect got into a car which was escaping from the place of incident. People ran after it and caught the car with the perpetrators in it. The suspect got frightened, opened the back of the car, took out a gun, and shouted: “I am a security personal, don’t touch me!” (Report of the Turkish Parliament’s Human Rights Commission on Semdinli Incident - Statements of the witnesses 2005 : 5)

The bomb that destroyed the ‘Umut’ Bookstore, disclosed at the same time the hope to track the traces of the State violence. The Semdinli incident made visible the ways in which the State produce and make use of its kind abuse to create ‘states of exceptions’. Actually it was not the first explosion in Semdinli. According to the mayor of Semdinli, that on November 9 was the eleventh explosion within six months (Human Rights Commission 2005 : 12). The last explosion, a very strong one, occurred on November 1 near the military lounge of Semdinli. However, the lounge was suspiciously emptied before the explosion which severely damaged the buildings within the area without claiming any lives (Human Rights Commission 2005 : 5,6,12) The military claimed that this was an attack of the PKK (Kurdish Workers Party -the armed Kurdish militia) however, the people of Semdinli were doubtful of this explanation. Therefore, the townspeople, who absolutely distrusted the explanations of the Turkish security forces and did not believe in the official declarations regarding that PKK was responsible for these attacks, were already pursuing an independent search for the perpetrators of these explosions. The Semdinli incident helped them to disclose the public secret. Following the incident, townspeople actually did not touch the suspect Ali Kaya, a gendarmerie intelligence officer and his accomplices Ozcan Ildeniz, another member of gendarmerie intelligence and Veysel Ates, a former member of the PKK who has been working for the Turkish State’s intelligence service. They rather took the gun from the hands of Ali Kaya, detained the suspects, and called the police, the persecutor and the member of the parliament of Hakkari province Esat Canan. At the same time, they took photos of the back of the car, which was full of Kalashnikovs, grenades, other kinds of explosives, the documents proved that the car was registered in the name of the gendarmerie intelligence. They found maps and plans, on which the locations of the former explosions and some new targets were marked. They also found an official gendarmerie watch list of 105 ‘suspicious’ locals with some of their names and addresses, including Yilmaz’s, marked with red ink. In absolute distrust, they took photocopies of these documents as they were waiting for the public persecutor and the police (Panel on Semdinli Incident in Bogazici University December 2005 - Statements of the witnesses) . People of Semdinli were right about not trusting the official process. They saw another car approaching them as the persecutor prepared his report on the site. The soldiers in the car started firing on the crowd which included the public persecutor, some police officers and even a member of the parliament, Esat Canan. While another civilian in the crowd was killed immediately under the fire, several people were also injured and taken to the hospital. Others ran away in different directions. Unsurprisingly, the state hospital of Semdinli was surrounded by the military who did not allow the injured people to enter. On the contrary the soldiers attacked the injured people by naming them as members of the PKK and betrayers of the Turkish state (Panel on Semdinli Incident 2005). After the event, the suspects were taken to the police station and the persecutor finished his report thanks to the photocopies.
On the following day, the gendarmerie commander of Semdinli, Major Erdem Yilmaz declared that the car belonged to the gendarmerie. He said that they were ask to ‘save’ Ali Kaya and Ozcan Ildeniz from the lynching of the mob, but that, they would not ‘save’ their car. He also added that the PKK was certainly responsible for the explosion (Human Rights Commision 2005 : 13). Even General Yasar Buyukanit, the chief of the land forces at that time who is presently the chief of the general staff of the Turkish armed forces declared that he personally knew Ali Kaya and Ozcan Ildeniz. He said, “they are ‘good boys’ so that it is unthinkable to relate them with such a terrorist activity” (Hurriyet, Milliyet, Radikal Newpapers, 11 & 12 November 2005)
In the following days, the protection of the suspects by high ranked officers compelled the people to think that the explosions in Semdinli were not separate actions planned by a maverick gang in the State. It was imagined that the explosions was rather a general strategy of the army in order to provoke the armed conflict. Because of the unilateral declaration of cease-fire by the PKK between 1999 and 2004, a relative peaceful environment had emerged in the region that had converted the army into an expensive and unnecessary instrument in the region. In addition, the amendments of the laws in accordance with the norms of the European Union for the democratization of the Turkish republic at the expense of the restriction of the military authority had disturbed the military authorities. Before the incidents, on August 5, 2005, the chief of the Turkish general staff Gen. Hilmi Ozkok complained about the army’s lack of decreasing power in the region. “Despite their reduced authority,” he said, “the Turkish armed forces are continuing to and will continue to fight, with self-sacrifice the terrorist organization which aims to return our nation to painful days in its past” (Milliyet and Hurriyet Newspapers, August 5, 2005)
It is therefore not surprising that the army continued to influence the trial of Ali Kaya and Ozcan Ildeniz. As a response, the chief prosecutor of the province of Van, Ferhat Sarikaya, drafted an indictment that questioned the relations between the General staff of the Turkish army and the gendarmerie officers involved in the Semdinli incident. Moreover, the prosecutor challenged courageously the chief of the general staff Gen. Buyukanit by accusing him of violating the independence of the judiciary and forming an illegal organization, abusing his authority and preparing fake documents (Prosecutor Ferhat Sarikaya, Semdinli Indicement 2005: 71,72,86,87). The indictment reached the press before the court proceedings started. In spite of the seriousness of the allegations, the prosecutor was neutralized after the chief of the general staff Buyukanit personally contacted Prime Minister Erdogan and asked for “necessary steps to be taken,” as members of the military were accused (Oktem 2006 : 5). In due course, the Higher Council for Judges and Prosecutors dismissed Sarikaya from his post and banned him from the legal profession, on the grounds that the indictment reached press before proceedings started, which did not abide by the established rules of procedure. No one knows who carried the indictment to the press. However, it was clear that the reason behind the dismissal of Sarikaya was not the professional violation but the threat of the army. Whereas the dismissal of a persecutor is an exception in the history of the Turkish judiciary, the dismissal of Sarikaya disclosed the fact that the State sovereignty in Turkey was based on such exceptions which suspended the principles of the rule of law and the separation of powers.
As the mayor of Diyarbakir, Osman Baydemir states although the Semdinli incident was sad and unacceptable it helped to uncover the violence of the government. “Against such violence we have to persist on repeating constantly -the General is naked-” (Interview with Osman Baydemir, Nov 2005). Such persistence opens up the possibility of making different kinds of ties beyond existing categorizations, exclusions and definitions and lets us rethink the relation between the Kurd and the Turk. The explosion which destructed the Umut (Hope) Bookstore in Semdinli, lets us reconstruct hopes about putting an end to the State’s violence and the suspension of the right to live