In the northern Kurdistan province of Van, the Turkish state is in search of village guards, local men armed by the state to fight against the Kurds.

Now the governor has launched his own campaign for this purpose. "Do you want to stay a peasant all your life? Do not be a farmer, become a village guardsman," is the slogan used by the governor to encourage new militia officers win against the guerrilla forces of the HPG (People's Defense Forces) and YJA Star (Free Women's Troops).

The Governor of Van has set up its own commission to look after recruiting village guards. In recent days, Commissioners have been particularly active in Payîzawa (Gürpınar) district, where meetings are held with various village leaders. With economic incentives, the members of the village conservation commission in the region try to recruit young men.

In the district of Ertemêtan (Edremit), however, this method seems to have worked. Here, 48 village guards are said to have been trained recently. Responsible for their training was therefore the usurper of the Edremit District Municipality, Atıf Çiçekli.

Van HDP MP Murat Sarısaç explains what's behind the state's recruitment campaign. According to him, the AKP pursues a strategy in which it initially starves the population, then to recruit them with economic incentives as village guards and act as agents of the state.

Sarısaç also sees a link between the recruitment attempts and the upcoming local elections in Turkey: "Until the elections there should be village guards in every village in the region. That's their goal. In this way, they want to have their men in every little community and thus prevent the unity of society. "