COLEMÊRG – Ayse Yasar lost her daughter, son and 9 relatives during the conflict. She pointed to the Parliament for a solution and said, “If the state does not take steps, this process will not work and will.”
While the echoes of Kurdish People’s Leader Abdullah Öcalan’s “Call for Peace and Democratic Society” continue, families whose relatives were killed during the conflict support the resolution of the Kurdish question by removing it from the conflict environment.
While the PKK declared a ceasefire following the call, air and ground attacks against the PKK continue in the Federated Kurdistan Region. The attacks make it difficult to solve the Kurdish question through peaceful methods; the relatives of those who lost their lives during the clashes want the attacks to stop and the state to take concrete steps.
Ayse Yasar is one of those who want the clashes to end and the state to take concrete steps. Ayse Yasar was born in Zerene hamlet of Oremar village in Gever (Yüksekova) district of Colemêrg (Yüksekova). She got married at the age of 19 and moved to Gever. Her daughter Sıdıka Yasar joined the PKK in 1993 and was killed in a clash in Xakurk in 1996. Her relatives Mehmet Yasar was abducted by Gendarmerie Intelligence and Anti-terror Unit (JITEM) in 1994 and Recep Yasar was taken from his home and murdered the same year. Her brother-in-law Fettah Yasar was also killed by soldiers in the village of Alekana in 1994.
In 1996, when the pressure of forced village guard recruitment increased, the Yasar family, including Ayşe Yasar, refused to accept this and migrated to the town of Şêladizê in the Federated Kurdistan Region. The family returned to Gever in 1998 after losing Fettah Yasar's daughters Cimen, Kevser and Behice, aged between 7 and 11, and Ayşe Yasar's other son-in-law Huseyin Yasar's children Giyabent and Yunus in an explosion.
A year after they settled in Gever, their relative Resit Tokcu was killed in the middle of a clash between the soldiers and the PKK in the Serpil hamlet of Oremar while trading in livestock. 12 years after Ayse Yasar, who had spent her life on the roads of migration, returned to Gever, her son Ikbal Yasar was killed by a police bullet in Gever on Newroz 2008.
‘THOSE I LOST ARE MY PRIDE’
Ayse Yasar said that the perpetrators of the murdered 11 members of her family, including her son, have not been found yet and said, “I want those who murdered o many lives to be brought to justice, tried and punished as soon as possible. Those I lost are my pride and martyrs. They may be the reason for my tears, but they are not the reason for my regret. I will not take a step back from their struggle until I die. Even if I cannot do anything, I will not forget what I have been through and I will keep the memories of those I have lost alive. But now this blood must stop. This war will not end with bloodshed. But this process will end by revealing and confronting the perpetrators of the massacred civilians.”
Stating that the state should show its sincerity by revealing the perpetrators of 17 thousand unsolved murders committed by JİTEM in the 90s, Ayşe Yasar stressed: “Only by revealing the perpetrators will we see that they are sincere. With the process, efforts should be made to ensure that no mother sheds a tear. The mothers on both sides should not suffer anymore. Isn't it a pity for so many young people? I hope that this process will come to a favourable conclusion.”
“If the state does not take steps this process will now work and will not be fruitful” said Ayse Yasar and added: “The state should be as transparent and solution-orientated as the Kurdish side. Both sides should come to the parliament and come to an agreement to prevent such a war from happening again. A solution can be achieved with a joint decision and the guarantorship of other states. If the state wants, this issue can be resolved in a short time. I trust Mr Öcalan with the same peace of mind as I trust my son. We must fight according to what he says. That is why we advocate and demand peace.”
MA / Ruken Polat – Mazlum Engindeniz