My name is Zeydan Encü
My name is Zeydan Encü
My name is Zeydan Encü.
The son of a populous family who never lived a healthy and happy life…
I could continue my education only till the high school. I don’t know how many of the “thirty four” used the same sentence but the reason of my leave is the same with theirs; poverty…
I did all I could and worked as a portage, laborer and smuggler, so that this reason wouldn’t make my brother Orhan too leave his school…
Poverty and “smuggling” is the destiny of this territory and a person shares the same fate with the lands he lives on…
Until I started my military service, I carried my fate on my neck and the leash of my donkey in my hand. I slept in the arms of poverty during the service as well. When I once took a leave from the service on a bairam day, my uncles and brothers raised the money needed for my ticket, I returned to Malatya with a suitcase loaded with sorrow…
I had a rough mood and a soft heart… I wouldn’t hurt even an ant for no reason…
We lost my mother shortly after I returned home from my military service. I cried in every nook and cranny for days, I ate my heart out thinking that it would have been different if we had had better conditions and had a better hospital and doctor… This death which left a deep scar of pain on each of us affected my brother Orhan differently… He didn’t speak, eat or sleep for days…
I can’t tell how cold I felt that night when Roboski was covered by a white sheet. I hid my coughing all day long inside the house so that my father wouldn’t tell me to not to go and my brother Orhan wouldn’t have to suspend his dream about having a computer for a longer time…
However, my lungs were now as if caught by a fire of snow, my donkey startled each time I coughed…
The only thing I wanted that night was to take my brother home safe and sound and to curl up near a burning stove. The dread of the bomb that scattered me to hundreds meter away with my donkey made me learn that it was too much what I wanted…One more bomb was dropped on us and I don’t remember the rest…
“Each one of the thirty four” died in a different pain that night…The ending laid thirty four samples of it on the field of death…Each of us had to taste the death they found, not the death they expected…
My name is Zeydan Encü; the one who fell not but into pieces with his brother Orhan with whom he walked together side by side towards the bosom of the black earth… The autopsy report recorded me as Þerafettin Encü, they corrected my name when I was in the grave…
We weren’t able to avoid the circle of death… They broke our circle of death… For which one of us shall my father mourn now…
...
This may annoy you but I have several words to say;
I demand justice,
If the bombs that killed me didn’t kill the justice too…
Doesn’t everyone have the right to justice?
Or,
Should I apologize to the state because it has warted those huge, expensive bombs for killing me,
Should I thank the General Staff for not missing the target and for killing me!?
* Platform for Justice for Roboski publishes the life story of 34 people from the villages of Roboski and Gülyazý who were killed by bombs on 28 December, 2011. These stories which will be published for 34 days are also sent to the offices of President, Prime Minister, Ministry of Justice and Interior Ministry via fax and mail.
The son of a populous family who never lived a healthy and happy life…
I could continue my education only till the high school. I don’t know how many of the “thirty four” used the same sentence but the reason of my leave is the same with theirs; poverty…
I did all I could and worked as a portage, laborer and smuggler, so that this reason wouldn’t make my brother Orhan too leave his school…
Poverty and “smuggling” is the destiny of this territory and a person shares the same fate with the lands he lives on…
Until I started my military service, I carried my fate on my neck and the leash of my donkey in my hand. I slept in the arms of poverty during the service as well. When I once took a leave from the service on a bairam day, my uncles and brothers raised the money needed for my ticket, I returned to Malatya with a suitcase loaded with sorrow…
I had a rough mood and a soft heart… I wouldn’t hurt even an ant for no reason…
We lost my mother shortly after I returned home from my military service. I cried in every nook and cranny for days, I ate my heart out thinking that it would have been different if we had had better conditions and had a better hospital and doctor… This death which left a deep scar of pain on each of us affected my brother Orhan differently… He didn’t speak, eat or sleep for days…
I can’t tell how cold I felt that night when Roboski was covered by a white sheet. I hid my coughing all day long inside the house so that my father wouldn’t tell me to not to go and my brother Orhan wouldn’t have to suspend his dream about having a computer for a longer time…
However, my lungs were now as if caught by a fire of snow, my donkey startled each time I coughed…
The only thing I wanted that night was to take my brother home safe and sound and to curl up near a burning stove. The dread of the bomb that scattered me to hundreds meter away with my donkey made me learn that it was too much what I wanted…One more bomb was dropped on us and I don’t remember the rest…
“Each one of the thirty four” died in a different pain that night…The ending laid thirty four samples of it on the field of death…Each of us had to taste the death they found, not the death they expected…
My name is Zeydan Encü; the one who fell not but into pieces with his brother Orhan with whom he walked together side by side towards the bosom of the black earth… The autopsy report recorded me as Þerafettin Encü, they corrected my name when I was in the grave…
We weren’t able to avoid the circle of death… They broke our circle of death… For which one of us shall my father mourn now…
...
This may annoy you but I have several words to say;
I demand justice,
If the bombs that killed me didn’t kill the justice too…
Doesn’t everyone have the right to justice?
Or,
Should I apologize to the state because it has warted those huge, expensive bombs for killing me,
Should I thank the General Staff for not missing the target and for killing me!?
* Platform for Justice for Roboski publishes the life story of 34 people from the villages of Roboski and Gülyazý who were killed by bombs on 28 December, 2011. These stories which will be published for 34 days are also sent to the offices of President, Prime Minister, Ministry of Justice and Interior Ministry via fax and mail.
