An international delegation have tried to visit a mass grave near Çatak in the Van region. The delegation had difficulties as permission to visit the site was not granted.

The delegation wants clarification of the massacre perpetrated by the Turkish army on 23rd October 1998 and calls for the offenders to be brought to justice.

The international delegation from Germany, El Salvador and Switzerland has arrived in Turkey last Wednesday. Along with representatives of the Turkish Human Rights Association (IHD) and the research group Keleh, they intended to visit mass graves in the mountains near Çatak in the Van region, which were discovered and secured by IHD personnel in the spring of 2011. Following a commemorative memorial service at the location for those murdered and buried there by the Turkish army in a massacre on 23rd October 1998, the relatives – accompanied by the delegation – will present criminal charges at the public prosecutor's office in Çatak against those of the Turkish military responsible, and apply for an official, forensic investigations of the mass graves.

According to information gathered to date, in 1998 the German internationalist Andrea Wolf in the Kurdish women’s army (YAJK), together with her Kurdish comrades, were taken prisoner by the Turkish army following a skirmish in this area. According to witnesses’ statements, as an unarmed prisoner, she was tortured and extralegally executed along with at least two other combatants – the victims’ corpses were subsequently further abused and mutilated.

A total of 41 combatants were apparently murdered in the skirmish and the following massacre.
The execution by shooting of the defenceless prisoners confirms the elements of the offence as murder according to international law. The killing of already disarmed prisoners – as well as those unable to fight – is a blatant contravention against all criteria of international law and, according to the Geneva Convention, a war crime – and this is equally true for the torture of prisoners. This applies equally to the systematically applied methods of sexual torture used by the Turkish army, which officers in particular learn in the training camps of western secret services as a means of subjugation, humiliation, power-demonstration, destruction and debasement of women, but also of men, which does not yield to the containment of state-legitimised oppression. War crimes also include the utilization of poison gas by the Turkish military against combatants of the Kurdish guerrilla and against the civilian population, which took place, and still occur today, according to independent research.

Since July 2011, together with the mother of – and the circle of friends of – Andrea Wolf, members of the families of those killed as well as the International Independent Committee of Inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the death of Andrea Wolf and further combatants (IUK) therefore demand the tracing and prosecution of the perpetrators.

In this connection, in a case at the European Court of Human Rights, the Turkish government has already been convicted in June 2010, because until now a constitutional clarification of the massacre was systematically prevented: “The sentence is a resounding slap in the face for the Turkish state. Now, finally, those of the military responsible for torturing and intentionally killing Andrea Wolf must be traced and brought to justice. We therefore demand of the office of public prosecution in Frankfurt, to once again commence investigations into the Andrea Wolf case, to question surviving witnesses of this war crime, and together with the IUK – to prepare the opening of the grave of Andrea Wolf as well as a post-mortem examination by means of international forensic scientists. In addition, we shall submit further proof”, explained lawyer Angelika Lex – who represents the mother of Andrea Wolf and the IUK – on 8th September 2010 on the occasion of a press conference for the judgement. However, up until now, the responsible public prosecutor in Frankfurter refuses to recommence proceedings in the Andrea Wolf case despite the availability of new witnesses and evidence. Other German authorities, including, for instance, the foreign office have, to date, drawn no consequences whatsoever from the judgement against the Turkish state – for 13 years, they have been idle – or at least they have refused every initiative regarding clarification of the massacre.

The human rights organization IHD assists in cases of processing and prosecution of breaches of human rights, provides help in the search for the dead and disappeared relatives, compiles statements of witnesses and endeavours to protect them: A difficult task in a dirty war, such as is orchestrated in Kurdistan under the gaze of the global public with the approval and military support – particularly that of the German government – as well as of German security services, secret services and armaments industries. With as much as 14 percent, Turkey is the largest customer of military equipment from the German economy. Today, Germany is the world’s third- largest armaments exporter after the USA and Russia. On 1st May 1997 Andrea Wolf wrote from the mountains of Kurdistan that this was the reason why she would wish for a strong movement in the cities, which could cut back these continuous military supplies as well as the deliveries of military equipment to the Turkish military. The international delegation explicitly regards its visit as an act of international solidarity and as local support for human rights work with the aim of a comprehensive processing of war crimes in the Turkish-Kurdish conflict as a basis for future peace in the region.


This international delegation, in which members of the Bundestag, lawyers, doctors and representatives from various women’s and human rights organisations, trade unions and from Andrea Wolf’s circle of friends are taking part, has held a press conference after its arrival in Istanbul on 14/9/2011 and re-introduce the delegation’s itinerary to the Turkish, Kurdish and international public.


Some of the delegation’s participants will be returning home on 18/9/2011 and some will take part in the 2nd Mesopotamian Social forum in Diyarbakir, where together with members of the families and human rights activists – a major political event will take place concerning state-legitimised sexual violence and torture against women and men through Turkish militarism as a systematic war crime. In addition, it is as an internationalist expression of the struggles to remember the lessons of the past and to defy impunity, whether in South Africa, Latin America or in Turkey. The perpetrators must be brought to justice!
The experiences and the struggle in other countries against breaches of human rights such as those in Argentina, Chile, Guatemala, Uruguay and Paraguay have demonstrated through changes in society that those responsible for war crimes and torture can indeed finally be brought to justice after years of strenuous and political work by relatives and all other parties concerned – to be sure, quite often, as has successfully occurred in Argentina in the last few weeks, only after many decades.
The international delegation to Kurdistan is to be a contribution to the clarification of war crimes in Turkey, it intends to exert political pressure in order to clarify these war crimes and to enforce the materialization of criminal proceedings and the sentencing of those responsible.