Statements 29.12.2011- Turkish war planes bomb Kurdish village and massacre 40 children and youth in Sirnak, South East Turkey.
Turkish war planes bombed Roboski village, a Kurdish village in the South East province of Sirnak, Turkey, killing at least 40 civilians, many of them children and youth, late last night. 24 of those killed belonged to the same family. A villager who escaped the air attack wounded said that the bombs thrown sucked the air away and left them breathless, spread an acidic smell and burnt them. Other villagers who hid under a large rock to escape, were crushed by the rock said the villager. Another villager said that Turkish soldiers had apprehended them only moments before the attack and then had moved away. The bodies of 35 civilians have been found while the corpses of others are still to be discovered because of the obliteration caused by the bombing.
Who is going to say “STOP” to the Turkish state and AKP government bombing their civilian citizens? This state and government only days ago massacred Kurdish guerrillas using chemical weapons and irreparably damaged the nature of Kurdistan, however not a single international body has criticized them. Now the same state and government, taking confidence from this silence have massacred civilians. If this is not an attempt at genocide then what is it?
Are the states that are giving the Turkish state arms, gas and financial support going to see the results of this support? What are the UN and Human Rights organizations going to do about this? Are they going to implement universal human rights norms to Turkey?
What are the states that view the intervention to Middle Eastern states on human rights grounds as legitimate going to do against the Turkish states use of arms against civilians? On one hand the Turkish state is arresting civilians, politicians, lawyers, intellectuals and children, more than 5000 people in total, on the other they are massacring Kurdish civilians. This openly shows that there is a systematic plan to break the will of a people by different forms of violence.
As the Kurdistan National Congress (KNK) we are calling on international public opinion, democratic NGOs, and other democratic international organizations to condemn the actions of the Turkish state. Furthermore we are calling on the EU and US as well as all other states to begin an arms embargo and freeze all their relations with Turkey.
Executive Council of the KNK
December 29, 2011
