Twenty years later, pains are still fresh today for the massacre carried out by soldiers in Diyarbakır's Lice district on 22 October 1993.

Lice massacre is one of the bloodiest tragedies suffered in the Kurdish region in recent history, and it tells about how a district was burnt down and destroyed following the assassination of a general. Twenty years and the massacre is still fresh in minds. Brigadier General Bahtiyar Aydın who was sent to Lice because of the ongoing clashes in the district was shot dead on 22 October 1993. During the four days of clashes that lasted till 26 October, 20 people died, according to official records, in the district where people were also denied entrance and exit, and 302 out of 401 houses suffered complete damage, 86 moderate damage and 13 small damage.

Thousands of soldiers took part in the massacre in Lice which was the first district evacuated in the region at the time, left with a view of a destroyed town abandoned by its people. Despite the evident attack of soldiers, the state announced that the attacks were carried out by the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party). After the massacre, state officials tried to cover the incidents up by telling that "nine people died" and "those damaged because of the incident will receive compensatory damages". It was only 300 out of the 9,600 residents that were left in the district after the massacre, with others moving to Diyarbakır and nearby cities.

On the first day, the operation was reflected to the public as "ordinary clashes" that frequently took place in the region. However, it is being said that Brigadier General Bahtiyar Aydın's assassination on his way to Lice laid the groundwork for launching more attacks on Lice and that his murder was used as a justification for the massacre. This is how the state tried to maintain the "clashes scenario" which however turned out to be a massacre when delegations of different institutions went to Lice after the incident and explained their observations to the public.

CHP (Republican People's Party) leader Deniz Baykal, deputy chair Erol Çevikçe, Secretary General Ertuğrul Günay, Antep deputy Mustafa Doğan, İzmir deputy Veli Aksoy and six other deputies who had arrived in Diyarbakır on the day of the massacre, to attend the seventh regional meeting of the party, took their way to Lice one day later. The CHP delegation was stopped near the Karaz village located 30 km from the district. With military officials insisting that the delegation wouldn't be allowed into the district, the delegation was finally allowed to head towards the district following the talks they had with government officials in Ankara. The delegation was stopped once again by special operation teams only seven kilometres to the district and denied permission to move further on the grounds of the ban on entering the district.

Mustafa Eşer, witness of the Lice massacre, told that they were at a central area in the district when they heard gunshots from the south of the district, and could hardly hide themselves in the Kali neighborhood mosque as the gunshots intensified in the morning of 22 October 1993. Eşer, who says he didn't manage to reach home during the day, told the followings as to what happened later; "I was trying to reach home going through side streets as it got dark when I saw a woman, Kudret Ergün, shot dead on the street as a result of the fire opened from the gendarmerie command. Avoiding to mess with the body, I hardly managed to go home. We did not get a wink of sleep till the early morning when soldiers blockaded the entire district, cleared people out of their houses which they later set on fire and burnt down. People who were forced to leave their houses were taken to the field near the police directorate and subjected to maltreatment, insult and torture here."

Eşer told that they were released after they were kept waiting in this field till the evening of the 23 October, the second day of incidents, and added that their neighborhood had been burned to the ground when they went back home after being released. "More than half of the residents left the district when the road block to Diyarbakır was removed three days later, Lice turned to a ghost city. We stayed with our relatives and in their houses and suffered misery for years. I feel the pain once again every time somebody talks about the massacre".

Another resident Baki Akman, who was 14 when the massacre happened, told that soldiers raked through the district when he went out early in the morning to put their sheep and goats out to grass. Akman turned back home in a rush, thinking that it would be safer to stay in the house, as did all their neighbors who also gathered in their house which they believed was safer for being a stone house. "We stayed home and nobody went out till the morning when soldiers raided our house and took everyone to the field near the police directorate. We saw bodies of the people killed on the street while being taken to that field. They held us waiting there and released us in the evening when we went to the centre and saw that all shops and workplaces had been burnt down. After three days of incidents, we left Lice and moved to Diyarbakır where we lived for some time before turning back to our hometown. I live those moments again every time I leave the district ever since".

* This article first appeared in DIHA News Agency.
Tomorrow: Lawyers for the Lice massacre will talk about the incidents and the legal process.