ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – At a ceremony marking the first anniversary of a Turkish airstrike that killed 34 Kurds from the village of Roboski near the border with Iraqi Kurdistan, Zeyneb Anco stood next to her brother’s grave, his death certificate in her hand.
“People, look at this paper, it is the certificate of my brother. His dream was to go to university," she wailed in grief, as the relative of another victim tried to console her.
"God Almighty, we seek no one's help but yours in seeking justice," Anco cried.
On the anniversary of the December 28, 2011, bombing, New York-based Human Rights Watch blamed Turkey of failing the families of victims in their search for justice by still not disclosing who had ordered the attack. Turkey’s Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) last week accused Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of directly ordering the attack, saying the premier knew he was targeting civilians.
Shortly after the airstrike, the Turkish military had said in a statement that unmanned drones had indicated the civilian caravan had in fact been a convoy of guerrillas from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
In Roboski relatives of some victims – 17 of whom were children – believe that the attack was deliberate.
Obeid Anco, whose 12-year-old son Mehmet was the youngest of the dead, believes that the villagers were targeted because in last year’s elections they had voted for the BDP instead of Erdogon’s Justice and Development Party (AKP).
"In the 2007 elections only four percent of our votes went to the BDP, but in the 2011 elections 96 percent of Roboski’s population voted for BDP. This massacre was planned,” he alleged.
"The Turkish media only write about what is good for the Turkish government,” said 20-year-old Narin Ant, who wore a T-shirt with the picture of her dead brother.
“A few days ago the Aksam newspaper asked me whether I had reconciled with the state. I told them that I would not reconcile unless they officially apologized, but despite my statements they wrote 'Roboski and the state have reconciled,'" she complained.
Ant, a student at Mardin University, believes that the main perpetrators of the massacre are not difficult to identify.
"The fighter jets did not take off from our homes; it is obvious who they are. The chain of command and execution is clear,” she said.
“The main culprits tried their best for an entire year to keep the relatives of the victims silent. This implies that the massacre was planned. They say that the air raid was a mistake. So, if it is s mistake, should the not apologize for it?" she asked.
Erdogan told Turkish television channels in mid-November that the government might make an official apology.
On December 27, the first day of the two-day ceremony in Roboski to mark the attack, four students were injured after Turkish police prevented mourners from Sirnak and Cizre from heading to the village to attend the anniversary.
"We are here to support the relatives of the victims. It has been one year and the pain of these people has not been alleviated yet,” Sezgin Tanrikulu, deputy secretary of the Kemalist People's Republican Party (CHP) said in a speech at the ceremonies.
“The Roboski issue is a matter of conscience and justice, but the conscience of state officials and the government has been dead for the past year," he said.
Levent Gok, CHP's MP from Ankara, said that one year on, the Turkish Parliament’s Human Rights Committee still had not released its report about the attack.
“The report is ready, but the AKP members inside the committee do not recognize any authority except their own. They will not attend the meetings or listen to the report of the committee because they are aware of the dire consequences of exposing the details of this massacre to their party," said Gok, who is a member of the committee.
Ihsan Sener, chairman of the Roboski Investigation Commission, claimed on December 16 that the report on the attack was ready, but only two hours later Ayhan Sefer Ustun, chairman of the Human Rights Committee, issued a denial.
“The chairman of the investigation commission says the report is ready while the human rights chairman claims otherwise after two hours. On the first anniversary of the massacre we are face-to-face with a commission that has lost credibility," Gok said.
Salahattin Demirtas, co-leader of the BDP, said in a speech that tens of Turkish political parties were present at the Roboski ceremony to demonstrate the Turkish nation’s condemnation of the attack.
"Since last year, all that was needed to be said and written about Roboski has been done. It only remains for Erdogan to admit that this massacre was carried out through his orders,” Demirtas said.
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