Roboski airstrike

The Roboski airstrike, also known as the Uludere massacre, Sirnak massacre,  or Roboski massacre took place on December 28, 2011 at 9:37 pm local time near Turkish-Iraqi border. Two Turkish F16 jets fired at a group of villagers, acting on an information that PKK militants were crossing the border. According to Turkish government sources 34 cigarette smuggling civilians were killed in the incident.

Incident
A group of 40 Kurdish villagers of Turkish nationality, mostly teenagers, from the Ortasu (in Kurdish: Robozik) and Gülyazı villages in Uludere district of Şırnak Province were moving in the night of December 28, 2011 from Iraqi territory towards Turkish border. The people were on a tour for allegedly smuggling cigarettes, diesel oil and the like into Turkey, packed on mules.

Turkish Armed Forces had received certain information about activities at the region supplied by United States intelligence services that was based on a U.S. drone  ten days before the incident. The footage of the unmanned aerial vehicles flying over the terrain was "mistakenly" evaluated as a group of soldiers of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Pentagon officials were quoted as saying that American drones initially spotted the group, but after alerting the Turks and offering to conduct more detailed surveillance they were denied and “Turkish officers instead directed the Americans who were remotely piloting the drone to fly it somewhere else.” The security forces were criticized in the media for their failure and losses. The ordered two F-16 Fighting Falcons of the Turkish Air Force took off and bombed the area.

The next morning, relatives searched for the missing people, and found the bodies of the victims. 34 people belonging to the group were killed during and shortly after the airstrike. Two civilians escaped to Iraq. Only one survivor, Servet Encü, returned to his village. 28 of the dead were from the Encü family. The bodies, some of them burnt beyond recognition or dismembered, were transported to their hometown on mules due to rough terrain.

Servet Encü stated that generations of people in his village and neighboring settlements have been in the smuggling business because they are financially in need. He added that Iraqi traders bring diesel oil or tea by their vehicles to 2 - 3 km close to the border, and they buy the goods and bring them home on trails that takes about two and half hours. He said that the smuggling action was well known by the security forces at the border.

Funeral
The funeral of the victims, following an autopsy performed in the Uludere hospital, took place at a newly established cemetery between the villages Ortasu and Gülyazı. The funeral convoy, formed by about 1,000 vehicles and attended by a crowd of about 10,000 people, covered the distance of 20 km between the district center and the cemetery in one hour. The coffins were wrapped with the flag of PKK, even though the victims were members of village guard families, a local militia supported by the state in defense against the PKK guerrilla.

Protests
Major protests followed in Turkey's predominantly Kurdish cities, most notably Diyarbakır where protests turned violent and police used batons and tear gas against protesters and protesters threw stones and Molotov cocktails at police. Protests were also held in Ankara and Istanbul, where over 1,000 protesters gathered in Taksim Square and threw stones at police and smashed vehicles before police dispersed the crowds with tear gas and water cannons.

District governor Naif Yavuz, who was from the beginning on together with the smugglers at the autopsy and the funeral service, paid later a visit to house of the relatives of the victims for condolence. Shortly after his visit, he was attacked by a mob, which attempted to lynch him. He barely escaped the attack with the help of his security guards, however, was hospitalized for his injuries. It turned out to be an act of people, who came outside the village.

In Nicosia, around 300 Kurds and Turkish Cypriots marched on the Turkish embassy in Northern Cyprus, where Murat Kanatlı, head of the left-wing New Cyprus Party spoke to the crowd and accused Turkey of escalating tensions in the South-East. The demonstration ended peacefully.

In Tehran, a group of Iranian Kurds demonstrated in front of the Turkish embassy in Iran.

In Arbil, some 500 Iraqi Kurds protested the killing, some of which clashed with Iraqi Kurdistan security forces, although no casualties were reported. Some protesters carried pictures of Abdullah Öcalan and chanted "fight, fight for freedom" and "Erdogan is a terrorist." At the protest, Kurdish activist Ali Mahmoud told the press that "The crime ... is a real genocide, a war crime and a crime against humanity, and breaches international laws, we demand that Turkey be judged in the international courts."

Responses

 * Bahoz Erdal, the leader of the PKK's military wing, called for a Kurdish uprising in response to the incident, releasing the following statement: "We urge the people of Kurdistan... to react after this massacre and seek a settling of accounts through uprisings." Meanwhile Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) leader Selahattin Demirtaş released a statement claiming that "It’s clearly a massacre of civilians, of whom the oldest is 20," but he called for Kurds to respond through democratic means. He also quoted Erdoğan on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad "A leader who kills his own people has lost his legitimacy" and said "now I say the same thing back to him."


 * Prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan assured that essential administrative and judicial investigations were initiated. Hüseyin Çelik, the deputy chairman and spokesman of the ruling party AK Party, announced that the families of the victims will be compensated constituting a "material apology". A verbal apology can follow after incident's all details are uncovered, he added.


 * The Republican People's Party (CHP), Turkey's largest opposition party, sharply criticized what they perceived as the government's attempt to portray the incident as understandable, collateral damage, with Kurdish CHP deputy Sezgin Tanrikulu saying that "If there are some who think that death of these innocents is just a natural result of the struggle against terror, it means that Turkey has already been divided on moral grounds."


 * Graeme Wood at the New York Times blog asked if the Turkish leader Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is a 'New Assad' dictator, oppressor.

Public opinion
In a MetroPOLL survey which involved 1,174 people, when asked about who was ultimately responsible for the deaths, 14.5% of Turks said the state, 11.5% said the smugglers, 9.5% said the PKK, 5.4% said the prime minister of the government and 4.9% said it was the General Staff. When asked whether the government had fulfilled its responsibilities towards the incident, some 45% said yes, with 38.1% saying no.

Legal procedure
Legal procedure after the massacre includes:
 * A special investigative commission at the Turkish Grand National Assembly which found no deliberate intend by the officials involved on 22 March 2013;
 * A criminal investigation against the state officials which concluded with plea of negligence on 7 January 2014;
 * And the various charges against the civilians and families of the deceased, some of which ended in various sentences against individuals.

Against officials involved
On 9 January 2012, the commander of the Gülyazı (in Kurdish: Bujeh, near Roboski) military border post, Gendarmerie Colonel Hüseyin Onur Güney, was suspended from duty following a military investigation. 17 active duty army staff were also prosecuted for allowing border smuggling.

On 9 January 2012, a special commission to investigate the Uludere massacre has been established at the Turkish Grand National Assembly. During the hearings, opposition MPs complained that the Ministry of Defence denied answering questions using the confidentiality order taken by the prosecutors office as an excuse. On 22 March 2013, the commission submitted its 85-page report on the massacre which concludes that military operation ended with 34 civilian casualties was without deliberate intend. Three members of the commission from the opposition parties lodged a minute of dissent to the report, mainly criticising the lack of thorough investigation.

The criminal investigation has first been administered by the Diyarbakır State Prosecutor's Office, however, prosecutors admitted the documents they have demanded from the office of Chief of General Staff have been belated and military personnel has not been interrogated. Despite of the limitations, prosecutors were able to confirm on 6 August 2012 that the villagers were clearly discernible from the footage of the unmanned aerial vehicle taken before the massacre. Wall Street Journal reported that it was a U.S. drone that spotted the group on the Iraqi border. On 11 June 2013, the Diyarbakır Prosecutor's Office after investigating the case for more than 18 months has cited no deliberate intend by the military staff, but negligence, and hence declared lack of jurisdiction and transferred the investigation to the military prosecutor.

On 7 January 2014, military prosecutors (General Staff Military Prosecutor's Office) have decided not to follow charges against the military personnel --nolle prosequi, citing that no investigation was necessary for suspected military staff İlhan Bölük, Yıldırım Güvenç, Aygün Eker, Halil Erkek and Ali Rıza Kuğu as “they committed an major error but performed their duties within the given orders”.

Previously on 23 May 2012, then Minister of Interior İdris Naim Şahin had stated that the decision for the operation has been given at the air forces command centre in Ankara. On 7 January 2014, it was reported that the Chief of General Staff, Necdet Özel, has authorised the operation approximately 90 minutes before the first fire. Pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) had filed a lawsuit against the Turkish government at ICC following the massacre.

Regarding civilians and families of the deceased
5 persons were arrested for attempting to murder Uludere district governor Naif Yavuz on 9 January 2012.

On 16 January 2012, Roboski massacre survivors Davut, Servet and Hacı Encü testified for passport law abuse, illegal border-crossing and smuggling charges.

On 28 June 2012, NGO members and relatives of the deceased who intended to protest at the site of the massacre were subjected to police violence and were dispersed by the pressurised water cannons.

On 25 December 2012, police detained 19 individuals in and around Sirnak just four days before the anniversary of the massacre.

Among the relatives of the deceased, Ferhat Encü who has lost 11 relatives at the massacre, has been subject to continuous harassment by the police, reportedly taken into custody four times with the same charge.