BDP Protests Lack of Progress on Roboski Massacre

Members of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) in the southern province of Mersin issued a press release Thursday to protest the government's lack of progress in identifying and bringing to justice the parties responsible for the Roboski Massacre, a botched air strike that killed 34 civilians in the southeastern province of Şırnak last year.

Ali Tanrıverdi, the head of the Mersin branch of the Human Rights Association (IHD,) Mehmet Taşçı, the Mersin Provincial head of the Labor Party (EMEP,) Akdeniz District Mayor M. Fazıl Türk, Akdeniz Deputy District Mayor Makbule Kaplan, the BDP's Mersin Provincial Co-Chairs Aynur Aşan and Musa Kullu, as well as members of the Mersin Provincial Council of the People's Democratic Congress (HDK) all partook in Thursday's demonstration.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan needs to account for the massacre in Şırnak's Roboski (Uludere) district, the BDP's Mersin Deputy Co-Chair Fatma Bozaner said while she was reading the press release, adding that the prime minister's current style and demeanor attested his guilty conscience, however.

"[They] committed this massacre against everyone who call themselves human beings and deemed it proper for the the people of Roboski who had gone through all the pain of war up to the hilt for years. Unfortunately, the [same] mindset that sacrifices society [to perpetuate its own] power is incessantly trying to cover up the truth," Fatma Bozaner said.

The General Staff, the Gendarmerie and the National Intelligence Organization (MIT) all answer to the prime minister, she noted.

"Mr. Erdoğan, Parliament's Human Rights Commission, the majority of which is composed of AKP deputies and which is presided over by an AKP member, presented you the Roboski Report in all its bareness. You, on the other hand, maintain your silence, and is if this was not enough, you proceed to hurl threats and accusations. Mr. Erdoğan, in this way you create the emotional separation between peoples," she said.

Bozaner also called for a halt to all military and political operations to get back to the negotiation table.

"The solution lies in negotiating with the parties involved. There used to be negotiations in İmralı, Oslo and Kandil only a year ago. Tell us [please,] which strand of reasoning and mindset does your return back to [the path of] destruction serve, just at a point when the preparation of the protocols were underway?" Bozaner said.

Bozaner also spoke about the recent crackdown on the Confederation of Public Sector Trade Unions (KESK) that culminated in the detention of dozens of members this week. The AKP's policies toward alternative institutions and organizations are no different than Hitlerian fascism, she said. (SA/EKN)