21 March 2006Sinem Yılancı
Turkish Republic is not a country that has a good reputation for its attitude and discourse towards minority groups. One of the recent controversial problems about minority rights is the issue of displaced people.
In East Anatolia, during 80s and 90s lots of people but specifically the most crowded minority group, Kurds, was forced to migrate by the state systematically. At the verge of the new millennium, even though the hot war ended peace was not fully settled, yet those Kurdish people, who have been forced to move before, commenced demanding their rights to return to their lands once they owned. Because of their mistrust in the Turkish Republic jurisprudence these people began to seek their rights in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). Forming a mass, the files started to indicate that the problem is chronic and cannot be solved by domestic law. As ECHR enforced Russia and Poland before about a similar problem, it urged Turkey to solve the issue by territorial law and to pass a compensation law for displaced people in the parliament as a task of Turkey's European Union (EU) integration process.
Compensation law, passed thanks to the EU accession negotiations, is a positive development for certain. Nevertheless taking into consideration the history of the minority groups' problems, expecting the process to function independently and fairly would be a very optimistic approach. As a matter of fact, recent results of the relevant cases and ongoing researches conducted by various NGOs are indicating that the situation is not satisfactory.
First of all, the red tape in bureaucracy and the way domestic law operating lessens victims' enthusiasm to struggle. Cases as such may continue for five to ten years and the expenses may not be affordable for the litigant after some threshold. Above all, considering the domestically unsolved cases which will most commonly be brought further to the European courts, the duration of a court will be extended
Let us assume that the case eventuated in favor of the litigant and as s/he wishes s/he could return back to home. However it is apparent that the place to return is not the one they left 15-20 years ago; they may probably find villages destroyed or burned down. The amount of compensation obliged to them may be enough to provide constructional material to build a new house but will they be able to live in the villages which have no infrastructure, no school, no electricity, no water and even no road? Will these people earning their lives by agriculture and livestock ten or twenty years ago gain any support for the lands and animals they lost during the war? It seems like the answers to these questions are not positive. Therefore, the compensation law, which passed in parliament out of necessity, does not in fact take into account the basic living conditions in the area, reducing the amount of loss to a building material
EU's attitude towards Turkey, that inviting government to be more sensitive about displaced people is very important and affirmative. However except for the fact that the recent situation does not make things easier for the victims, it makes the process more complicated. With a non-functional law it is projected as if the minority groups' rights are protected and without providing necessary conditions the problem is actually instigated. There are a few NGOs that are trying to draw attention to the issue but EU prefers to wait and observe the operation of the law.
I hope to see radical solutions to the problem in the short term for the favor of everyone otherwise lots of people aggrieved for decades will continue to live in exile in their own country.
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=74&ItemID=9959
