No Lessons Learned From The 1990S

In the 1990s, many conscripts used to return from their military service with ears cut from Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) members. These ears were a symbol of defeating the "enemy" but they were also quite a powerful symbol of how a state could go out of control in a struggle with an armed group.
While conscripts were returning to their homes with these ears, in the streets of Diyarbakır people were being killed, shot in the neck in broad daylight; that is to say, extrajudicial killings were a part of daily life. Kurdish villages were set on fire, torture was systematic and widespread and forced disappearances were routine.
All these terrible practices were carried out in the name of fighting terrorism. In the 1990s, they had a slogan -- they said terrorists could only be fought with their own methods.
This “fight terrorists with their own methods” understanding had a very high price on all levels. Turkey became a country with one of the worst human rights records in the world. The whole atmosphere in the country was terrible. These illegal and unethical methods of the state took the entire country hostage. The media, the judiciary, Parliament and almost all state institutions turned into active or passive partners of the crimes of the deep state. The media turned a blind eye to them and the judiciary turned its head elsewhere in order not to see the torture and destruction of villages and so on.
However, there was also another price for all of these terrible human rights violations. The grievances of Kurds turned into fertile ground on which PKK could flourish and become much bigger than ever.
I mention all this because nowadays there are signs that Turkey is at serious risk of returning to those days. On Monday we saw shocking photographs and video footage of a dead boy being dragged through the streets behind an armored vehicle in Şırnak province in the Southeast. In the video, we heard the voices of security forces swearing at the dead body they were dragging behind their vehicle. The trailing dead body of the suspected PKK member is not the first sign that the security forces do not recognize any rule or law in their struggle against the PKK. Before that, we saw a photo of security force members lined up behind the fully naked body of a deceased female PKK member.
What happened in Cizre during the curfew was also a shocking reminder of a return to the 1990s. There are signs that the whole population of Cizre was treated like they were terrorists. They were denied all basic services, they could not take their ill and wounded relatives to hospitals and they could not even find a loaf of bread. Many civilians were killed under suspicious circumstances. As I have said in this column before, we even saw a video of a police officer who addressed the people of Cizre on a megaphone, saying, "You all are Armenians.”
Yes, it is true that the PKK is playing dirty, killing people in front of their family members. They even kill traffic police officers after luring them with false traffic accident announcements and the PKK launches attacks while hiding among civilians and similar acts. But if a state responds to this by dragging dead bodies behind armored vehicles and with all sorts of massive human rights violations, it means that it has already lost the war. No state can defeat an armed group on its territory by acting as if it itself is an armed group with no rules. Recent developments show us that the Turkish state has not learned the lessons that the 1990s taught all of us in this country.

ORHAN KEMAL CENGİZ (Cihan/Today's Zaman)