anyhow the important topic of this week was the anniversary of the sivas massacre, in which 37 progressive intellectuals and young activists were burned alive by fundamentalist in sivas hotel madımak. on 2nd of july 1993, intellectuals, artists and activists gather in sivas to commemorate alevi[*] cultural icon pir sultan abdal. the reknowned and subversive writer aziz nesin was the most important guest who incidentally at the time started translating salman rushdie's satanic verses to turkish. frictions between the progressive guests and the conservative (fundamentalist to be more exact) locals were expected, even before the organization, as the organizers received threats, but the contraversy that surrounds the incident which led to the massacre still continues which were discussed this week in sourtimes, excessively and thoroughly.
The first aspect of the controversy stems from the local newspaper headline "are they selling snails in a muslim neighbourhood?" the article that condemns aziz nesin's controversial claims on islam. Apparently the news with the verbatim headline was served to the local newspaper "hakikat" from the sivas police headquarters, as claimed by sourtimes. after the friday prayers, the fundamentalist crowd seemed to be agitated and they moved off to the town hall chanting "mayor resign," "sivas will the grave for aziz nesin." after chanting, gathering and a standoff stone exchange from the crowd of turkish folk singer arif sağ's listeners, the elected head of municipality urged the crowd to dissolve before their actions hurt their cause.
the second unknown about the incident is as the speech seem to work and crowd dissolve someone or some people called the mob back and directed them to the hotel madımak. the mob of 5000 sieged the hotel yelling "down with laicite." from 16:00 to 18:00 police could not disperse the crowd as the numbers got larger. and finally they decided to ask for help of the türko-islamist conservative party (the big solidarity party; büyük birlik partisi; bbp) local leaders. in effect they addressed the mob, according to the witnesses inside the hotel, saying (godspeed, "gazanız mübarek olsun"). Also the comments about the success of the "demonstrations" further agitated and credited the mob.
the role of military
the military commander of the local base, ahmet yücetürk is also central to the controversy. during the early hours of the uprising, military dispatched in a way to protect the shops and the army residential buildings.
when the soldiers first approached the hotel, the mob blocked the roads chanting "military to bosnia." after bargaining the military pulled back with the mob chanting "our soldier is the greatest(en büyük asker bizim asker)."
according to a recent interview with sivas victim serdar doğan, who was present during the massacre and lost his little brother to the fire; an officer and according to sourtimes the local commander ahmet yücetürk, got inside the hotel to snatch (and incidentally rescue) the police chief mehmet yıldız, who was responsible of nesin's protection. during the siege and just before the arson he insisted on taking mehmet yıldız out, and he responded "if i can get out, so should the others here." as the argument continued one of the civilians asked, "how can we escape," which in effect his answer was "escape the way you got in, son of a bitch!"
the lack of involvement of the military during the incident was defended by ahmet yücetürk as the lack of information from mayors side. later the mayor refuted by explaining, he received a call from the chief of staff (supreme general?) and commander yücetürk was present at the time and at the place where the phone call took place. he had a chance to receive orders directly from the chief of staff, nevertheless he was reluctant to effect the uprising directly, up until the attack on the town hall right after the arson of madımak hotel.
18 gendermarie soldiers were able to disperse the mob who attacked the town hall after the arson of madımak was over, aziz nesin rescued and putting off the fire was underway. military commander found to be not responsible by the central command investigation. nevetheless later that year, he was forced to retire with a raise in his rank.
role of the türko-islamist conservative party, bbp
i have already mentioned the agitating comments of the party members, during the incident. also the history of this party is always shroded with contraversy in mystery because of their own paramilitary organization alperenler (which is supposedly the youth organization of bbp, a good example is hrant dinks killer samast's and his collaborators involvement with alperens).
their most important involvement during the massacre happened right after the arson, when the victims discovered a passage to the neighboring building from the hotel, after giving up on the arrival of the military or firebrigade. unfortunately the passage led to the local headquaters of bbp.
the pary members, opposed the entry of the victims by attacking them with sticks. the swearing, fighting off the victims continued until an older looking party member calmed them down and agreed on protecting the victims. some people were saved eventually by the bbp party escape path.
role of the fire brigade
the mayor of sivas supposes that if the fire brigades intervened to the burning of the cars around the hotel before the arson, it would never had happened and lives could've been saved. and the mayor acknowledges the lack of enthusiasm of the fire brigade.
the clearest example of brigades mob friendly disposition was the way they treated aziz nesin during the rescue. initially they extend the staircase to the window of aziz nesin, thinking he is a police chief and as they realize he is the main target which the mob initially antagonized against, one fire brigade officer grabs him by the wrist and throws him to the ground from the top of the fire truck. from there nesin dragged to a police car while being lynched, to be beaten more which is stopped finally by the intervention of a police commissioner.
role of the social democrats
at the time of the massacre social democrats were the partners in government, and the head of the social democratic peoples party (sosyal demokrat halkçı parti; shp) erdal inönü was vice prime minister. aziz nesin called him directly, making him listen to the chants of the mob, but he couldn't do anything other than calling the mayor. later he received wide criticisms asking for his resignation, which never happened.
fikri sağlar, minister of culture at that time cancels his visit to sivas mysteriously. his expected visit was seen as an insurance, according to serdar doğan. his apology came too weak, too late.
the outcome
37 dead, 60 injured. the trials dragged on till 2001 and finally 34 people were sentenced to life without parole, 4 accused were sentenced to life, 4 accused to 20 years, 1 accused to 15 years, 9 accused to 7.5 years, 1 accused to 5 years and 14 accused were found not guilty. the mayor, elected head of municipality, police commissioner were fired. local military commander was forced to retire after an increase in rank.
final analysis
some of the information comes from the testimonies of the victims and the mayor, which can be heard and seen from a nice documentary by can dündar (as nice as it can for a massacre depiction).
I remember the incident although i was young. being raised by cautions of free speech constraints, news of violence, stories from the recent realization of torture in the former coup prisons the visions of a lynch mob did not seem to sink in. but my mother yelled at my disregard as "shut the fuck up, your grandfather is there." my grandfather luckily has left the hotel before the incident started hence was saved.
looking back at the whole massacre, in my mind there are clear indications of foul play and agitation to the crowd, not by the participants of the events but by even governmental institutions or people involved with government. more importantly the lack of intervention by them sealed the fate of the events as a tragedy. the facts and mysteries of the massacre needs to be remembered.
[*] a religious minority, often considered to be heterodox by islam, which believe in the holyness of muhammed's cousin and son-in-law ali, hence named ali lovers "alievis".
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