Pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy (BDP) Co-chairpersons Selahattin Demirtaş and Gülten Kışanak, many other BDP deputies and members of several nongovernmental organizations were also present at the commemoration ceremony.
The ceremony started with a recitation of the Quran by the graves of the victims. Later, the BDP officials read a letter sent by the imprisoned leader of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Abdullah Öcalan. The PKK leader stated that the main reason for the impasse in the settlement process is that the perpetrators of the Uludere massacre have still not been found by the government.
The ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) has been holding talks with Öcalan since last year in a bid to resolve the Kurdish problem and PKK terrorism. Thanks to these talks, clashes between the PKK and the Turkish security forces have ceased for over a year. The government is also taking some democratization steps to expand the rights of Kurds; however, many believe its failure to explain the Uludere tragedy will damage the peace efforts.
Öcalan also said as long as Turkey pursues denial policies against Kurds, it will continue to be labeled a pro-massacre country in the eyes of the international community.
The thousand of attendees later walked along a two-kilometer-long road from the graveyard to the victims’ village.
During his speech at the village, BDP leader Demirtaş criticized the government for not shedding light on the Uludere incident. “After the sons of three ministers are accused of corruption, they [the government] dismissed 800 police officers, but not even a single noncommissioned officer was dismissed from his post for the Uludere massacre,” Demirtaş said.
He also claimed that the order for the Uludere strike was given by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and there have thus been concerted efforts to cover up the incident for the past two years.
An ongoing corruption operation which has extended to several ministers and their sons led to the removal of hundreds of police officers who took part in the operation by the government which sees the investigation as a “dirty operation” aimed at overthrowing the government.
Independent deputy Aysel Tuğluk claimed the victims of the Uludere “massacre” were only killed because they were Kurdish. Furthermore, she claimed that Prime Minister Erdoğan’s AK Party is currently facing the corruption scandal for cooperating with the perpetrators of the Uludere killings.
Turkish fighter jets bombed smugglers who were believed to be terrorist PKK members near Uludere on Dec. 28, 2011, sparking outrage in Turkey. The Turkish military stated that the warplanes had targeted the group based on intelligence that suggested a group of armed terrorists would be heading towards the Turkish border to stage attacks on the military.
None of those responsible for the tragedy have been identified. The government’s only act thus far has been the Interior Ministry’s removal of a colonel who served as the deputy commander of a border regiment in Uludere over claims of negligence.
Appealing to the government, another pro-Kurdish deputy, Ertuğrul Kürkçü, said: “You hid the killers but give up on this. You cannot be the ruling party in this way.”
He said a massacre which took place just five kilometers away from the Turkish border cannot be committed without the approval of the prime minister and the chief of General Staff, adding that the government is mocking people by not finding the perpetrators of this tragedy for the past two years.
According to Kürkçü, the referral of the Uludere case to a military court is an obvious attempt to cover up the incident.
Following a one-and-a-half-year investigation of the Uludere incident, in June 2013 the Diyarbakır Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office ruled that the case is outside its jurisdiction and decided to refer it to military prosecutors in a move that dashed hopes about shedding light on the incident.
Speaking to the Cihan news agency on Sunday, BDP deputy Altan Tan said the reason for the failure to clear up the killing of the 34 civilians is the fact that they were Kurds.
“The military and the police, which are subordinate to the government, have not done anything to shed light on this incident. The prime minister hid the perpetrators. He is also involved in this crime. When we say he gave the order for the strike, he denies this. When we ask him who gave the order for the strike if not him, he does not say anything. In the simplest words, he is committing the crime of aiding and abetting criminals,” he said.
Prime Minister Erdoğan, who for the first time came together with families of the Uludere victims last summer, told the families that he did not order the deadly air strike.
Meanwhile, Miran Encü, who lost three of her relatives in the Uludere incident, passed away on Saturday after suffering a heart attack during the commemoration ceremonies in the village of Ortasu. She was buried in the village cemetery following prayers on Sunday.
In the meantime, commemoration ceremonies were held for the Uludere victims on Saturday across many provinces in the country. Twenty people who took part in a commemoration ceremony in İzmir were detained after they clashed with the police on Saturday.