Pınarcık massacre

The Pinarcik Massacre is the name given to a 20 June 1987 event in which 30 Kurdish civilians, including 16 children, were killed in the village of Pınarcık, in the Mardin Province of Turkey.^[1][2]

The government accused the PKK and said guerrillas were behind the massacre. However, neither PKK nor other Kurdish armed groups took credit of the attack. Serxebun newspaper which is believed to be close to the PKK didn't condemn the attack, but rather supported it. Former Turkish special forces soldier, Ayhan Çarkın said that the intelligence agency of the Turkish Gendarmerie (JITEM) was behind the attack.^[3] Turkey has been condemned several times by the European Court of Human Rights for executing Kurdish civilians and blaming the PKK.^[4]

Background

PKK rebels had previously come to Pınarcık, a small village of about 60 people in Mardin Province, nestled between two hilltops, about 10 miles from the nearest main Mardin-Omerli road. Once or twice before rebels had turned up on the village outskirts, firing off a few warning shots and leaving notes that warned the men to quit the state-financed village guard militia. The PKK had begun a campaign in January 1987 to stop people joining the village guards.

On 18 June the European Parliament passed a resolution recognizing the Armenian Genocide. Turkish President Kenan Evren said after the attack that the resolution had emboldened the PKK to act.^[5]

Incident

According to Turkish claims, one June evening in 1987, men who were apparently PKK rebels partly encircled Pınarcık. It was later at night where one of eight Pınarcık's Turkish state-financed village guard recalled that the attackers shouted at them to surrender, but the guards apparently did not pay much attention.^[1]

Turkish authorities claimed that the attackers fired directly on the village. The guards fought back, but they were outnumbered nearly four-to-one and, as one man later complained, hobbled by a lack of sufficient ammunition. According to Turkish authorities, thirty men then descended upon the village and continued the shoot-out with the village guards. The firefight lasted more than two hours. At the end, 30 people were dead, including 16 children, 6 women and 8 men lay dead - shot by the attackers (Turkish claims).^[1][6] According to the Ankara Domestic Service, the attackers attacked houses using hand grenades and Molotov cocktails, and fired on those fleeing the burning houses.^[7]

However, neither local villagers nor village guards have ever confirmed claims of Turkish authorities. Also, former soldier said it is totally fabricated story, there is no single evidence to confirm the story.^[3]

Aftermath

Ayhan Çarkın, then a police special forces officer, said in 2011 that he had visited Pınarcık immediately after the attack: "I went to that village. The smell of blood and gunpowder were everywhere."^[6] He said that the attack had been carried out by the secretive JİTEM unit of the Turkish Gendarmerie as an act of provocation.^[6] The attack was ascribed to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) as they stated that the attack has been made by themselves on PKK's newspaper, Serxwebun at August 1987.

Turkish columnist Mehmet Ali Birand, who had distinguished himself for his attempts to write openly about the country's Kurdish issue, called it a crime of "historical" proportions.^[1]

In July 1987 Prime Minister Turgut Özal signed an agreement with Syria under which Syria would remove PKK camps from its territory.^[8]

References