Hans-Lukas KIESER
In 1937-38, a military campaign took place against parts of the
province of Tunceli, formerly Dersim, Turkey, that had not been
brought under the control of the state. It lasted from March 1937 to
September 1938 and resulted in a particularly high death toll: many
thousands of civilian victims. Contemporary officers called it a
“disciplinary campaign” (tedip harekâtı, a term also used by the
official military historian, Reşat Halli, in his 1972 account);
politicians and press, a Kemalist civilising mission (Uluğ 2007
[1939]). Prime Minister Tayip Erdoğan, however, in a November 2009
speech referred to it as a “massacre”, which can be considered an
historically appropriate term. It took place when the Republic of
Turkey was consolidated – in contrast with the repression of the
Kurdish Sheikh Saïd rebellion in 1925 or the Koçgiri uprising in
1921. The campaign of Dersim was prepared well in advance and
therefore was not a short-term reaction to a concrete uprising.
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the state president, stood personally behind
it and died shortly after its end.
After the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne had recognised the Turkish
nationalist movement as the sole legitimate representative of Turkey
and admitted its victory in Asia Minor, the Republic of Turkey was
founded. It implemented revolutionary changes from above, such as
the abolition of the Caliphate in 1924, and the introduction of the
Swiss Civil Code in 1926 and the Latin alphabet in 1928. Broadly
acclaimed as a successful modern Turkish nation-state, the Republic
rebuilt its international relations in the 1930s and succeeded, in a
deal with France and the League of Nations (of which it became a
member in 1932), in incorporating the Syrian region of Alexandretta
into its national territory in 1938-39. However, radical Turkism (Turkish
ethno-nationalism) with racist undertones marked the ideological
climate of the 1930s, while cosmopolitan Ottomanism and Islam were
radically evacuated from the political sphere and intellectual life.
Kemalist Turkism – the ideology of the new political élite tied to
the single-party régime – albeit triumphalist, expressed the need
for a connection to deeper roots and made a huge effort to
legitimise Anatolia as the national home of the Turks by means of
historical physical anthropology.
The region of Dersim, renamed Tunceli in 1935, stood markedly at
odds with the politico-cultural landscape of 1930s Turkey. Hamdi Bey,
a senior official, in a report of 1926, called the area an abscess
that needed an urgent surgeon from the Republic (Halli 1972: 375).
Journalist and (in 1931-35) deputy Naşit Uluğ published in 1932 a
booklet under the title The Feudal Lords and Dersim; it asked at the
end how a “Dersim system” marked by feudalism and banditry could be
destroyed. After Hamdi, General Inspector Ibrahim Tali, Marshal
Fevzi Çakmak and Minister of the Interior Şükrü Kaya all collected
information on the ground and wrote reports concluding the necessity
of introducing “reforms” in the region (Kalman 1995: 135-68; Aygün
2009: 57-89). The need for reforms for Dersim, together with
military campaigns to effect them, had been a postulate since the
Ottoman reforms, the Tanzimat, of the 19th century. Several military
campaigns had taken place but had brought only limited successes. In
parts of Dersim and other eastern parts of the Ottoman Empire, in
which Kurdish lords had reigned autonomously since the 16th century,
the central state had established its direct central rule in the
second third of the 19th century, though it depended still in the
republican era on the co-option of local lords to maintain its rule.
The central parts of Dersim, by contrast, resisted both co-option
and direct rule until the 1930s. Dersim nevertheless had been
represented by a few deputies in the Ottoman parliament in Istanbul
and, since 1920, the National Assembly in Ankara.
Dersim is a mountainous region between Sivas, Erzincan and Elazığ (renamed
from Elaziz in 1937; Turkification of local names began during World
War I). It covers an area of 90 km east-west and 70 km north-south
and had, according to official estimates in the 1930s, a total
population of nearly 80,000, of which one-fifth were considered men
able to bear arms (Jandarma Umum Kumandanlığı Raporu 2010 [1932]:
59). Dersim’s topography allowed cattle breeding but only little
agriculture. It offered many places for refuge and hiding: valleys,
caves, forests and mountains. These had been vital for the survival
of Dersim’s Alevi population. The Alevis venerated Ali, Muhammad’s
son-in-law. They refused the Sharia and remained attached to
unorthodox Sufi beliefs and practices widespread in Anatolia before
the 16th century, when the Ottoman state embraced Sunnite orthodoxy;
the beliefs were mostly linked to Anatolian saint Hacı Bektash (13th
century). Since many of the Alevis had sympathised with Safavid
Persia in the 16th century, they were lastingly stigmatised as
heretics and traitors.
The first language of the Dersim Kurds, as they were called by
contemporary observers, was not Turkish but Zaza (the main language)
or Kurmanji. Kurdish nationalism had had its impact on a few of its
leaders and intellectuals since the early 20th century. These
reclaimed President Woodrow Wilson’s principle of self-determination
after World War I and linked an articulated ideology to Kurdist
activism, as General Fevzi Çakmak complained in his report of 1930.
Çakmak therefore demanded the removal of functionaries of “Kurdish
race” in Erzincan (Halli 1971: 351-52). The Koçgiri uprising in 1921
had been the first rebellion marked by open Kurdish nationalism; it,
too, had taken place in an Alevi region, called Koçgiri, at the
western boundary of Dersim.
Though the declaration of a secular republic and the abolition of
the Caliphate in early 1924 won over many Anatolian Alevis, most
Alevis in Eastern Anatolia remained distrustful. This divide
coincided by and large with that of Turkish- and/or Kurdish-speaking
“Eastern Alevis” outside the organisation of the Bektashis, on the
one hand, and “Western Alevis” reached by the reformed Bektashi
order of the 16th century and thus domesticated by the Ottoman
state, on the other. Dersim had important places of religious
pilgrimage, partly shared with local Armenians. Its “Seyyids”
claimed descent from Ali and entertained a network of dependant
communities in and outside Dersim (Gezik 2000: 141-76, Kieser 2007:
166). The Young Turks and the leaders of the Turkish national
movement after 1918 had both co-opted the Bektashiye, of which a
leader had in vain tried to win over the chiefs of Dersim to fight
side-by-side with the Ottoman army against the invading Russians in
1916. Two limited rebellions then broke out, and armed groups
harassed the Ottoman army. Dersim was the only place more or less
safe for Armenian refugees during and after the genocide of 1915,
which mainly took place in the eastern provinces (Dersimi 1952:
100-103; Halli 1972; 373-74; Kieser 2000: 396; Küçük 2001: 212–23).
After the establishment of the new state in Ankara and the
repression of the Kurdish uprisings of the 1920s, the attention of
Ankara turned more and more to Dersim, described as a place of
reactionary evil forces, of interior and exterior intrigues and
hostage to tribal chiefs and religious leaders. Dersim could, in
fact, be described as a pre-modern, tribally split society; it
became growingly isolated after 1920. At the same time, according to
Hamdi Bey, who visited Dersim in 1926, it was growingly politicised
to the point of adopting openly anti-Kemalist Kurdish positions.
Sustained contacts with Kurdo-Armenian organisation Hoybun, founded
in Syria in 1927, were not, however, possible. Economic problems and
correlated banditry had a long history; they became more acute due
to the region’s isolation and the generally bad economic conditions
after World War I. Yet, in the late Ottoman era, new currents had
begun to permeate Dersim’s neighbourhood. These included labour
migration, emulation of quickly modernising Armenian neighbours, the
desire for education and attendance at new – Armenian, missionary,
or state – schools, as well as the spread of medical services in the
region. Compared with the situation in the early Republic, late
Ottoman Eastern Anatolia had been pluralist, and culturally and
economically much more dynamic.
A Law of Settlement of 21 June 1934 legitimised in general terms the
depopulation of regions in Turkey for cultural, political or
military reasons, with the intent to create, as Minister of the
Interior Kaya stated, “a country with one language, one mentality,
and unity of feelings” (Ülker 2008: 8). This law was conceived in
order to complete the Turkification of Anatolia in the context of
the new focus on Dersim in interior politics.
B - Decision-Makers, Organisers and Actors
In October 1935, Italy began a brutal invasion of Ethiopia, in which
it used chemical weapons and killed hundreds of thousands of men,
women and children. For the prominent theorist of Kemalism of those
years, deputy and former minister Mahmut Esat Bozkurt, Mussolini’s
fascism was nothing other than a version of Kemalism, even though
Turkey’s and Italy’s foreign policies contrasted. In 1930, Bozkurt
had spoken of a war between two races, Kurds and Turks, and had gone
so far as to say, “All, friends, enemies and the mountains, shall
know that the Turk is the master of this country. All those who are
not pure Turks have only one right in the Turkish homeland: the
right to be servants, the right to be slaves” (Son Posta 20
September 1930).
These elements formed the context when, in December 1935, Minister
of the Interior Kaya presented a draft law, commonly known as
Tunceli Law, that once more labelled the region a zone of illness
that needed surgery (Beşikçi 1990: 17, Ülker 2008: 8). In terms of
national security, there was no urgency; non-military officials of
the state were not molested on entering Dersim, e.g., for the
population census of every village in 1935 (Aslan 2010: 411). The
law passed without opposition in parliament and press, both being
controlled by the Kemalist party, the PRP. Dersim, formerly part of
the province of Elazığ, was established as a separate province,
renamed Tunceli and ruled in a state of emergency by the military
governor, Abdullah Alpdoğan, the head of the Fourth General
Inspectorate. Three former General Inspectorates had served to
“pacify” other regions in Turkey judged to be a risk. Alpdoğan was
the son-in-law of Nurettin Pasha, the general who had led the
repression of the Koçgiri uprising in 1921. He had previously called
for the “pacification” of Dersim in 1921. Roads, schools, police
stations, military bases and a railway to Elazığ were established
and considered a threat by many Dersimis. The reports by Alpdoğan of
1936 emphasise the progress in establishing a military
infrastructure in the region, including gendarmerie stations (Akgül
1992: 37-40, 63-68).
The report of Hamdi Bey (1926) had already called for strong
measures and labelled the attempt at a peaceful penetration of
Dersim by schools, infrastructure and industry an illusion (Halli
1972: 375). Against this background, actors on both sides were
separated by a rift and unable to find a common language, albeit in
an unbalanced dialogue. Seyyid Rıza, perhaps the most important
tribal chief, in addition to being a religious figure, insisted on
autonomy and the revocation of the Tunceli Law of 1935. He seemed to
have believed initially that Dersim could not be subdued militarily.
He had worked for years, partly successfully, to unite the tribes (Akgül
1992: 124-25, Dersimi 1952: 237-39, report of Vali Tevfik Sırrı of
28 November 1933, BCA Yer No: 30 10 00. 110.741.21).
After several incidents, culminating on the nights of 20/21 and
26/27 March 1937, tribal attacks against the new infrastructure in
Pah and a police station in Sin in eastern central Dersim, the
military campaign was launched. With 8,623 men, artillery and an air
force in early May, it was largely superior in numbers and materiel
to the forces of the insurgents. On 4 May 1937, the Council of
Ministers, including Atatürk and Fevzi Çakmak, the Chief of General
Staff, decided secretly on a forceful attack against western-central
Dersim, to kill all who used or had used arms and to remove the
population settled between Nazimiye and Sin. The same day, planes
dropped pamphlets saying that in the case of surrender, “no harm at
all would be done to you, dear compatriots. If not, entirely against
our will, the [military] forces will act and destroy you. One must
obey the state” (Halli 1972: 390-91 and 491).
In the following months, the army successfully advanced against
fierce resistance and changing tribal coalitions led by Rıza, allied
tribal chiefs and Alişer, a talented poet and activist. Unity of the
rebels was far from achieved; only a few tribes formed the hard core
of the resistance. On 9 July, Alişer and his wife were killed by
their own people, their heads sent to Alpdoğan. In July, Rıza sent a
letter to the prime minister in which he vividly described what he
saw as anti-Kurdish politics of assimilation, removal and finally a
war of destruction. Via his friend Nuri Dersimi, who had gone into
exile in Syria in September 1937, he also sent a despairing letter
to the League of Nations and the foreign ministries of the United
Kingdom, France and the United States, none of which answered. On 10
September, he surrendered to the army in Erzincan. Messages of
congratulation were sent to Alpdoğan by Atatürk, Minister of the
Interior Şükrü Kaya and Prime Minister Inönü, who had visited Elazığ
in June. Shortly before Atatürk’s visit there, Rıza was executed in
Elazığ, together with his son Resik Hüseyin, tribal leader Seyit
Haso and a few sons of tribal chiefs. The execution was hastily
organised by Ihsan Sabri Çağlayangil, later a foreign minister (Çağlayangil
2007: 69-73, Kieser 2007: 249-51).
Despite the setbacks of 1937, Dersimi groups resumed attacks against
the security forces in early 1938, saying that they all would perish
if they did not resist (Halli 1972: 412). The military campaign took
on a new and comprehensive character as the government embarked on a
general cleansing in order “to eradicate once and for all this [Dersim]
problem,” in the words of Prime Minister Celal Bayar in parliament
on 29 June 1938 (Akgül 1992: 155). In June 1938, units began to
penetrate those parts of Dersim that did not surrender between Pülür
(Ovacık), Danzik and Pah in central Dersim. On 10 August, a large
campaign of cleansing and scouring (tarama) started. It ended in
early September and cost the lives of many thousands of men, women
and children, even of tribes that cooperated with the government.
C - Victims
According to the official statements, the military campaign of 1937
targeted bandits and reactionary tribal and religious leaders who
misled innocent people. On a secret level, however, right from the
beginning in particular, with the decision of the Council of
Ministers of 4 May 1937 parts of the Dersim people as a whole were
targeted, at least for relocation pursuant to the 1934 Law of
Settlement. Those targeted feared, as in Koçgiri in 1921, that they
would all perish like the Armenians if they did not resist (Aygün
2009: 72). The campaign in spring 1937 concerned the regions in
which most clashes occurred, between Pah and Hozat. Villages were to
be disarmed and people removed, but the main violence targeted armed
groups. Halli, who amply cites military documents, scarcely uses the
word imha (annihilation) for this period. This changed with the
campaign of summer 1938, which employed massive violence against the
whole population, even beyond the parts of Dersim that did not
surrender and that had been declared prohibited zones under the Law
of Settlement. The Council of Ministers decided on 6 August 1938
that 5,000-7,000 Dersimis had to be removed from the prohibited
zones to the west. “Thousands of persons, whose names the Fourth
General Inspectorate [under Alpdoğan] had listed, were arrested and
sent in convoys to the regions where they were ordered to go” (Halli
1972: 463).
Also targeted for relocation were numerous families living outside
these zones or in the neighbourhood of Dersim, if they were
considered to be members of Dersimi tribes. Notables living outside
Dersim were killed in summer 1938, as were some young Dersimis doing
service in the army. For the killing of surviving “bandits”, an
order by the prime minister, the Minister of the Interior, the
Minister of Defence and the Military Inspectorate proposed to use
the Special Organisation, known for its role in the mass killing of
Armenians in 1915-16 and, particularly, of targeted personalities (Halli
1972: 465).
According to the official military historian Halli, “thousands of
bandits” were annihilated in the first week of cleansing alone, from
10-17 August 1938 (Halli 1972: 463). Halli mentions no comprehensive
number for the whole campaign. From his detailed narrative, however,
which gives precise numbers or mentions a “big number” of killed
persons for dozens of incidents, deaths likely totalled considerably
higher than 10,000. An unpublished report by Alpdoğan’s Inspectorate,
recently quoted in Turkish newspapers, mentions 13,160 civilian dead
and 11,818 deportees (Radikal 20 November 2009). The high number of
deaths and ample evidence prove that the killings were not limited
to the insurgent tribes. A comparison of the censuses of 1935 and
1940 shows that the district of Hozat, with a loss of more than
10,000 people, was the most seriously impacted (Aslan 2010: 411). A
proposed number of 40,000 victims seems, however, implausibly high (McDowall
2000: 209).
According to Çağlayangil, the army used poison gas to kill people
who hid in caves (NTV Tarih December 2009: 61). Many others were
burned alive, whether in houses or by spraying individuals with fuel.
Even if people surrendered, they were annihilated. In order “not to
fall into the hands of the Turks,” girls and women jumped into
abysses, as many Armenians had in 1915 (Dersimi 1952: 318-320). The
suspicion of having lodged “bandits” or, according to witness
accounts of soldiers, military units’ desire for vengeance sufficed
as justification to kill whole villages. Soldiers confirm that they
were ordered to kill women and children. One has to bear in mind
that the Dersimis were seen – and declared so by officers – as Alevi
heretics, some times as crypto-Armenians. When gendarmerie posts
were established in the 1930, gendarmes even exercised control over
whether local young men were circumcised. “Was he perhaps a giavour,
an Armenian?” (Algör 2010: 159; Bulut 1991: 299-301).
Devami için......
http://www.massviolence.org/Dersim-Massacre-1937-1938
