Sir, - Mr Selcuk Unal (January 27th) accuses me of making alarming and inaccurate statements about Turkey. He has not outlined exactly what statements he is referring to. I presume he means my study of the depopulation of villages and hamlets in the predominantly Kurdish south-east of Turkey which states that 3,185 villages and hamlets have been completely evacuated since 1990. These statistics, however, have not come from Amnesty International nor any other international agency but from the Turkish Parliamentary Commission on Migration. Alarming indeed, but Mr Unal will have to vouch for their accuracy.
The only "corrections" or explanations that have been offered about the scale and extent of the evacuations is that they happen as a result of the "fight against terrorism". As the study outlines, the evacuations and the manner in which they are carried out have been condemned by the European Court of Human Rights and by Human Rights Watch/Helsinki. Soldiers arrive in a hamlet and give the occupants notice to evacuate. Often men of the village are arrested and mistreated. In many cases, houses and crops have been burned and destroyed.
The wholesale displacement of a rural population violates the letter and spirit of international humanitarian law. No compensation has been offered to displaced people.
The Kurdistan Information Network is well aware that Turkey is an attractive, inexpensive destination for Irish sunseekers. We believe, however, that many people would not be happy supporting an economy which has such a high military expenditure and poor human rights record. Our position is that the conflict does not and cannot justify mass civilian evacuations, disappearance of political activists nor torture of political or criminal detainees. We call for an end to all military operations in the southeast and for Turkey to initiate negotiations with elected Kurdish representatives for a solution to the conflict, including Leyla Zana and the other Democracy Party MPs who have been imprisoned since 1994. - Yours, etc.,
Kurdistan Information Network, Upper Camden Street, Dublin 2.