Turkish Kurds react to court decision on Roboski bombing
Turkey's military prosecutor has decided not to prosecute those behind the deadly December 2011 Roboski incident, causing Kurds to lose their hope of finding justice.
A specter is haunting Turkey’s policy in defense of its national interests, territorial integrity and security: the specter of being trapped in the difficulties of fighting against terror for three decades at least, with nearly 40,000 dead, and failing in this time to peacefully resolve the country’s Kurdish dilemma. While there is no doubt that the fight against terror is not a clean task, it still should be no excuse for authorities to keep demanding that the people accept any wrongdoing as collateral damage.
When Turkey’s military court decided on Jan. 7 that there was no need to prosecute the December 2011 air bombardment of Uludere — Roboski in Kurdish — which resulted in the death of 34 Kurdish civilians, it was evident that that decision would not be well-received in the people’s conscience. The military prosecutor’s office based its reasoning on the fact that the order for the operation came directly from the chief of the General Staff. It also underlined that carrying out such an order could only be considered normal procedure, but it was unfortunate that the intelligence was bad, and that had led to this tragic “error.”
In June 2013, this case was transferred from a civilian court to the military court when the former declared the case not under its jurisdiction.
Speaking to Al-Monitor, Ferhat Encu, the brother of 17-year-old Serhat, who died in that bombardment, said, “This decision is nothing but injustice and lack of remorse, but we were expecting this. The government did not respect our losses from day one. Prime Minister [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan thanked the military just two days after this attack for carrying out such a successful operation, and they tried to silence us by paying compensation. We did not accept it.
