As long as modern history in the Middle East, none of the nations in the region have been treated with systematic tyranny as much as the Kurds. Particularly after establishing the modern form of State-Nation in the Middle East, those countries which have dominated Kurdistan have planned their systematic tyranny and have acted on it as well. In this process, the Kurdish leaders have commenced movements against the enemies of Kurdistan. I try to discuss one of these leaders’ destinies.
In 1937 in the Tunje province in north Kurdistan, a massive massacre began. The Turkish army forces invaded the area and according to different documented sources a population of 65 to 70 thousand Zazaki Kurds were massacred and thousands of others were exiled. “Martin van Bruinessen” in his book, “The Genocide of the Kurds and the suppression of the Dersim Revolution” talks about this catastrophe in detail. In the revolution “Seyed Reza” led the Zazaki Kurds. The Turkish army and air forces tried their best to suppress the Kurdish revolution and according to different sources, a population of 50 to 70 thousand individuals got killed in Dersim. Although Turkey’s government sources decline this number and estimate the massacred people to be about 12 thousand.
In a commentary titled “What happened in Dersim from 1937 to 1938,” it has been mentioned that on May 4th, 1937 the Turkey Parliament and ministers discussed the following subject:
"It is necessary to put sanctions on Dersim. The Kurds must be assimilated into Turkish society and become Turks themselves. The army should search every inch of Dersim including the caves where people may have fled to, find every one of them, and kill or exile them."
In another document titled “Turkey and the linguistic and ethnic groups” it has been mentioned that during those invades about 700 thousand individuals were forced to abandon their homeland and 350 thousand others were murdered.
This process was in line with the genocide of the Armenians and was a part of the establishment of state-nation plans when the Republic of Turkey began by Ataturk.
There is much historical evidence that shows the Turkey government not only genocided the Kurds but also the Arabs, too. For instance, in “Mousa Antar” memoir on page 64 he says: Hatay region in Turkey was an Arabic city. They were forced to confess they were Turks. He witnessed that “Mustafa Fandi” who had a workshop making agriculture tools named “Adana”, as a trustworthy man to the people of that area, talked to a crowd of people and although he couldn’t speak Turkish very well, swore to God that he was a Turk. He came down off the stage but it was clear he was convinced to say those words.
This happened simultaneously as the Turks began their invasion of Kurdistan. Mousa Antar, a person who lived at that time in Dersim, talks about those events as political and social memoirs. He talks about Seyed Reza: “Seyed Reza was the leader of the Dersim revolution. His wife madame “Baseh” was the leader of a group of guerrillas. That’s why Istanbul newspapers insulted madame Baseh every day.”
Turkey’s air force’s commander was “Mohsen Batur” at that time in 1985 and he wrote a book, “The hidden story and the ideas of three different eras”. In this book he mentions in 1938 we were totally settled in “Alazi”, but after a command that we received from Ankara, I took part in the suppression of the Dersim movement with my forces. However, I apologize to my readers for I am not able to write about those days in my life.” Those days of Turkey’s air force commander which he hides from the readers of his book and is ashamed of revealing to the world are about the massacre that was done by Turkey’s air forces against the Kurds of Dersim.
Mousa Antar recalls one of his memories with one of the high-ranked officers of Turkey’s army who was directly involved in Dersim suppression on page 70 of his book, in the part of Dersim’s revolution. That high-ranked officer was “Sajaddodin”. Two of the memories that Sajaddodin narrated about Dersim reveal more facts about the events that happened in Dersim than any other recorded history by other writers.
“We had started a major step of genocide in Dersim. In a cave, we found a family, including a grandfather, a mother and a father, and a four or five-year-old child. We killed the adults and kept the child for information. However, not only he didn’t say a word but also while we were talking after he saw one of our jets in the sky he lied down on the ground, picked up a stick, and aimed at the jet. ‘Kill that bastard, too’ I ordered.”
In this part, too, we can see the savagery of the Turkey army towards the civil citizens who are elderly or even disabled, and also their brutality towards children shows how cruelly they were killed by the soldiers. However, the more important point here is the reaction of the Kurdish child against the enemy of humanity. This kid aims his wooden stick toward Turkey’s air force jets even after his parents got killed right in front of him. This shows the revolutionary spirit of Kurds that prolongs to this very day.
The second event is even more disastrous and makes one compare it with the genocide of the Jews in Germany by Nazis. In this second event, Sajaddodin narrates:
“One day we arrested thousands of Kurds in a cave during a vast operation and took them to the downhills. We gathered them all in a field and we were ordered to kill them. The commander said: You don’t need to waste so many bullets to kill them. Take them to the “Monzar” river and drown them. We made them move toward the river and divided them into several groups so that we could lead each group to the Monzar bridge to push them down to the deepest parts of the river. If they didn’t obey, we would make them move by hitting or shouting at them until they were pushed down the bridge. So, we pushed them down in groups into the river. They had tied themselves together so we couldn’t arrest them easily. It was useless though; I had fashioned a whip with some soaked sticks and I ordered the soldiers to hit those who refused to go to the river. Below the river, I had some soldiers to push those who did not drown immediately into the river so that no one could stay alive.”
In most of the documents about World War II, such stories have been mentioned when the German soldiers in order to “save bullets” have done the same thing or other unusual ways like starving their enemies, particularly the Jews. Whatever the Turkey army and their government's fascistic ideology have done, a part of it practiced in Dersim and against the revolutionary people of that city, which is only one part of the Kurdish genocide by their opponents in the past century. In the end the leaders of the revolution, one of whom was “Seyed Reza”, voluntarily stepped up the hanging stage, pushed down his executioner, put the rope around his neck gallantly, and got martyred for his nation. However, Seyed Reza’s idea of freedom and his opposition toward the enemy is still floating in Kurdistan.
Reading about the Dersim revolution from the point of view of those who were involved in the suppression is of great importance because these men were not ordinary individuals but they were legally responsible. The Turkish army commanders’ behavior towards their Kurdish victims was as disturbing and against humanity as the Nazis toward Jews. These events need to be studied and discussed more carefully and these facts must be documented in videos and get translated into other languages so that the fascistic face of those who are against the Kurds is known to all.
