Dersim massacre
Local authority in these small manorial communities was in the hands of feudal lords, tribal chieftains and other dignitaries, who owned the land and ruled over the serfs who lived and worked on their estates.
Following the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, some Kurdish tribes became unhappy about certain aspects of Atatürk's "Kemalist policies", described as "the ideology of the new political élite tied to the single-party régime", imposing a policy of Turkification, including the removal of functionaries of "Kurdish race" in Turkish Kurdistan[16][17][18][19] and land reform,[20] and staged armed revolts that were put down by the Turkish military.
Aghas in Dersim objected to losing authority in their manorial affairs and refused to pay taxes; and complaints from the provincial governors in Dersim were sent to the central government in Ankara,[23] which favoured land reform and direct control over the country's farmlands, as well as state planning for agricultural production.
[27] This area had a reputation for being rebellious, having been the scene of eleven separate periods of armed conflict over the previous 40 years.
[29] In order to consolidate its authority in the process of Turkification of religious and ethnic minorities,[30][31] the Turkish Grand National Assembly passed Law No.
[41] Seyid Riza, the chieftain of Yukarı Abbas Uşağı, sent his followers to the Haydaran, Demenan, Yusufan, and Kureyşan tribes to make an alliance.
[42] According to Turkish authorities, on March 20–21, 1937, at 23:00 hrs, the Demenan and Haydaran tribes broke a bridge connecting Pah and Kahmut in the Harçik Valley.
[51] The prime minister, Celal Bayar (in office: October 25, 1937 – January 25, 1939) had agreed to an attack on the Dersim rebels.
[54] Muhsin Batur, engaged in massacres for about two months over Dersim, stated in his memoirs that he wanted to avoid talking about this part of his life.
[55][better source needed] Kurdish leader Nuri Dersimi claimed that the Turkish air force bombed the district with poisonous gas in 1938.
[56] According to an official report of the Fourth General Inspectorate, 13,160 civilians were killed by the Turkish Army and 11,818 people were taken into exile, depopulating the province.
[57] According to a claim by Nuri Dersimi, many tribesmen were shot dead after surrendering, and women and children were locked into haysheds which were then set on fire.
[59] Hüseyin Aygün, a jurist author, wrote in his book Dersim 1938 and Obligatory Settlement: "The rebellion was clearly caused by provocation.
[62] In 2011, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan acknowledged that 13,806 citizens had been murdered and 11,683 individuals displaced—these figures were based on contemporary Turkish documents.
[71] Historian Annika Törne estimates 32,000 to 70,000 dead as a result of massacres,[72] citing as sources among others Nicole Watts (Relocating Dersim: Turkish State-Building and Kurdish Resistance, 1931–1938, in: New Perspectives on Turkey 23 (2000), S.
It contributed to a Kemalist perception of Dersim and its populace, which characterises the province as unruly and defends violent state intervention.
[74] On November 23, 2011, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan apologized "on behalf of the state" over the killing of over 13,000 people during the rebellion.
[78] Martin van Bruinessen has argued that the actions of the government were not genocide, under international law, because they were not aimed at the extermination of a people, but at resettlement and suppression.
[81] Historian Annika Thörne, in her study of historical memory in Dersim, concludes that the 1938 massacres and forced assimilation amounts to genocide.
