4 Killed in Village Raid; KADEK (PKK) Suspected

Zaman Daily Newspaper ^ | June 12, 2003 | Abdullah Celik

[Angelus Errare]

4 Killed in Village Raid; KADEK Suspected

Bingol, TURKEY, July 12, 2003 - Four people were killed and one fatally wounded when gunmen attacked villagers near the East Anatolian town of Bingol yesterday. Governor of Bingol Huseyin Avni Cos said the incident might have been an inside job.

Two gunmen pretending to be village guards came to eight-home Yenikoy village, 43 kilometers outside Bingol at 7,30pm. They gathered the villagers in the area by reading their names out loud before taking them to the fields in the mountains. The villagers were told that a list of people with the following names would be taken to the Yamac Gendarmarie-Police Station for interrogation: Erdal Acar, 30, Ahmet Acar, 50, Huseyin Ozmen, 55, and Mahmut Kaya.

Villager, Haci Kaya, following the captives, noticed that they were being taken in the opposite direction and notified the other villagers. However, soon after that, the two gunmen stopped them and told them to go back. Gunshots were heard at about 10pm but the villagers were unable to contact the authorities because there were no telephones.

Bingol Governor, Huseyin Avni Cos has called a full-scale manhunt in the region to capture the gunmen, who are believed to be members of the terrorist organization, the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK-KADEK).

[Angelus Errare]

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This kind of raid is why I compare the PKK to the Viet Cong. If they were a legitimate liberation movement, they would be targeting Turkish military and gendarmerie. They are not, they insist on targeting their neighbors.

People who would commit the kinds of atrocities that the PKK is known for can never be trusted with power, ever. This is the mistake everyone has made with Arafat. His history of murder was never a secret. On what basis would anyone ever trust him with the institutions of a State?

So, while as a theoretical matter I sympathize with Kurdish territorial aspirations, the PKK is the worst possible argument for such a thing. They must lay down their arms and take up productive lives either in Turkey if it is possible, or in Iraq if it is not, or else they must be hunted down to the last man.