WEAPONS TRANSFERS AND VIOLATIONS

OF THE LAWS OF WAR IN TURKEY

Copyright © November 1995 by Human Rights Watch.

All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 95-81502

ISBN 1-56432-161-4

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH

Human Rights Watch conducts regular, systematic investigations of human rights abuses in some seventy countries around the world. It addresses the human rights practices of governments of all political stripes, of all geopolitical alignments, and of all ethnic and religious persuasions. In internal wars it documents violations by both governments and rebel groups. Human Rights Watch defends freedom of thought and expression, due process and equal protection of the law; it documents and denounces murders, disappearances, torture, arbitrary imprisonment, exile, censorship and other abuses of internationally recognized human rights.

Human Rights Watch began in 1978 with the founding of its Helsinki division. Today, it includes five divisions covering Africa, the Americas, Asia, the Middle East, as well as the signatories of the Helsinki accords. It also includes five collaborative projects on arms transfers, children's rights, free expression, prison conditions, and women's rights. It maintains offices in New York, Washington, Los Angeles, London, Brussels, Moscow, Dushanbe, Rio de Janeiro, and Hong Kong. Human Rights Watch is an independent, nongovernmental organization, supported by contributions from private individuals and foundations worldwide. It accepts no government funds, directly or indirectly.

The staff includes Kenneth Roth, executive director; Cynthia Brown, program director; Holly J. Burkhalter, advocacy director; Robert Kimzey, publications director; Jeri Laber, special advisor; Gara LaMarche, associate director; Lotte Leicht, Brussels office director; Juan Méndez, general counsel; Susan Osnos, communications director; Jemera Rone, counsel; Joanna Weschler, United Nations representative; and Derrick Wong, finance and administration director.

The regional directors of Human Rights Watch are Peter Takirambudde, Africa; José Miguel Vivanco, Americas; Sidney Jones, Asia; Holly Cartner, Helsinki; and Christopher E. George, Middle East. The project directors are Joost R. Hiltermann, Arms Project; Lois Whitman, Children's Rights Project; Gara LaMarche, Free Expression Project; and Dorothy Q. Thomas, Women's Rights Project.

The members of the board of directors are Robert L. Bernstein, chair; Adrian W. DeWind, vice chair; Roland Algrant, Lisa Anderson, Peter D. Bell, Alice L. Brown, William Carmichael, Dorothy Cullman, Irene Diamond, Edith Everett, Jonathan Fanton, Jack Greenberg, Alice H. Henkin, Harold Hongju Koh, Jeh Johnson, Stephen L. Kass, Marina Pinto Kaufman, Alexander MacGregor, Josh Mailman, Andrew Nathan, Jane Olson, Peter Osnos, Kathleen Peratis, Bruce Rabb, Orville Schell, Sid Sheinberg, Gary G. Sick, Malcolm Smith, Nahid Toubia, Maureen White, and Rosalind C. Whitehead.



HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH ARMS PROJECT

The Human Rights Watch Arms Project was established in 1992 to monitor and prevent arms transfers to governments or organizations that commit gross violations of internationally recognized human rights and the rules of war and promote freedom of information regarding arms transfers worldwide. Joost R. Hiltermann is the director; Stephen D. Goose is the program director; Ann Peters is research associate; Kathleen A. Bleakley and Ernst Jan Hogendoorn are research assistants; William M. Arkin, Kathi L. Austin, James Ron, Monica Schurtman and Frank Smyth are consultants; Selamawit Demeke is associate.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This report was researched and written by James Ron, a consultant to the Human Rights Watch Arms Project. The report is based primarily on his field work in Turkey in June and July 1995, and on a visit to northern Iraq by a second consultant in June 1995. Chapter III on arms transfers to Turkey was researched and written by Kathleen Bleakley, research assistant for the Arms Project. The report was edited by Stephen Goose, program director of the Arms Project, and Joost Hiltermann, the Arms Project's director, who was also responsible for oversight and guidance for the field work. Selamawit Demeke, Arms Project associate, prepared the report for publication. Human Rights Watch associate Kerry McArthur provided editorial assistance.

Of the many individuals and organizations who gave guidance and support, Human Rights Watch would like to thank Yelda, an independent researcher in ¤ stanbul, the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey and the various branches of the Human Rights Association for sharing their data and providing background information.

In Germany, special thanks are owed to Otfried Nassauer, director of the Berlin Information Center for Transatlantic Security, Hamburg television reporter Hans-Peter Weymar, Member of Parliament Angelika Beer, and Ralph Bäcker, all of whom shared information and insights. In the United Kingdom, special thanks are due to Dr. Françoise Hampson of Essex University who gave invaluable legal analysis and practical guidance, to the staff at the Kurdish Human Rights Project, as well as to union activist Alain Hertzman. In New York and London, thanks are owed to several leading photo agencies and scores of photojournalists for their generosity in allowing Human Rights Watch to use their archives. The agencies and journalists prefer to remain anonymous.

Human Rights Watch would like to express its gratitude to the many U.S. officials and military officers, both in Washington, D.C. and Ankara, who gave generously of their time and knowledge.

Many other individuals in Turkey and abroad, who have requested to remain anonymous, shared information and provided invaluable guidance, often at substantial risk to their personal safety.

Finally, Human Rights Watch would like to thank the Kurdish witnesses who took the time to recount their experiences in detail, and the Turkish soldiers who shared their experiences in the southeastern emergency zone. Many of these men and women took risks by meeting with Human Rights Watch and telling their stories. Their courage is greatly appreciated.

The Arms Project acknowledges with appreciation funding from the Carnegie Corporation, Compton Foundation, Ruth Mott Fund, Rockefeller Foundation, and Winston Foundation. Human Rights Watch takes sole responsibility for the contents of this report.

MAP OF EASTERN TURKEY

I. SUMMARY

For the past eleven years, the government of Turkey has been mired in an increasingly bitter war with insurgents of the Kurdistan Workers Party, the PKK.1 To date, the war's toll is estimated at over 19,000 deaths, including some 2,000 death-squad killings of suspected PKK sympathizers, two million internally displaced, and more than 2,200 villages destroyed, most of which were burned down by Turkish security forces.2 In an effort to root out PKK fighters and sympathizers from southeast Turkey, the government has adopted increasingly brutal counterinsurgency measures, in clear violation of international law. The PKK, for its part, has also systematically engaged in violations such as summary executions and indiscriminate fire.

Both before and during this period, Turkey's NATO partners have extended generous political and military support, helping Turkey to develop a formidable arms industry and supplying it with a steady stream of weapons, often for free or at greatly reduced cost. The United States government in particular has been deeply involved in arming Turkey and supporting its arms production capacities. Although several NATO governments have occasionally protested Turkish policies, most have continued to supply Turkey with arms.

This report documents the Turkish security forces' violations of the laws of war and of human rights, and their reliance on U.S. and NATO-supplied weapons in doing so. Drawing on investigations of twenty-nine incidents that occurred between 1992 and 1995, the report links specific weapons systems to individual incidents of Turkish violations. Supplemented by interviews with former Turkish soldiers, U.S. officials and defense experts, the report concludes that U.S. weapons, as well as those supplied by other NATO members, are regularly used by Turkey to commit severehuman rights abuses and violations of the laws of war in the southeast.

The most egregious examples of Turkey's reliance on U.S. weaponry in committing abuses are its use of U.S.-supplied fighter-bombers to attack civilian villages and its use of U.S.-supplied helicopters in support of a wide range of abusive practices, including the punitive destruction of villages, extrajudicial executions, torture, and indiscriminate fire.

According to Human Rights Watch's investigation, U.S. and NATO-supplied small arms, tanks, armored personnel carriers and artillery are also used in the abuses. One particularly troubling example is the preference displayed by Turkey's special counterinsurgency forces, who are renowned for their abusive behavior, for U.S.-designed small arms such as the M-16 assault rifle3 and for British armored cars. Other Turkish forces, many of whom routinely engage in human rights abuses, rely on German-designed rifles and machine guns, Belgian rifle grenades, German-supplied armored personnel carriers, and a wide variety of other military products sold or donated by NATO governments.

In June 1995, the U.S. Department of State issued a ground-breaking report admitting that Turkey engages in gross abuses such as torture, extrajudicial executions and forced village evacuations. According to the report, U.S.-origin equipment, which accounts for most major items of the Turkish military inventory, has been used in operations against the PKK during which human rights abuses have occurred."4 One official told Human Rights Watch, "The majority of what their military has is from us, so of course U.S. weapons are involved in whatever it is they do." Obtaining concrete proof of the use of U.S. weapons in specific incidents, however, was far more problematic. "The Turks won't tell us what theyused in specific incidents," he said.5 Even so, the State Department report did cite at least one incident in which U.S.-designed F-16s were used to bomb Kurdish civilians; the Turkish government, however, blandly asserted that "no air raids took place" on that day in the area.6

Despite documenting the fact that Turkey has misused U.S. weapons, the Clinton administration, which says it supplies Turkey with 80 percent of its foreign military hardware,7 has consistently refused to link arms sales to improvements in Turkey's human rights record. Shortly after publication of the June 1995 State Department report, the U.S.'s top military officer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General John Shalikashvili, wrote a letter to the U.S. Congress urging U.S. lawmakers not to cut military assistance to Turkey because of its human rights record.8

In fact, based on Human Rights Watch interviews with U.S. military personnel, it appears that Pentagon representatives in Ankara are more eager than ever to sell Turkey U.S. weapons, including M-60 tanks, helicopter gunships, cluster bombs, ground-to-ground missiles and small arms. The U.S. is also involved in co-production agreements with the Turkish defense industry, most notably helping to build the F-16 fighter-bomber, which the U.S. State Department acknowledged may have been used indiscriminately to kill Kurdish civilians, and a new armored personnel carrier.

According to senior U.S. officials, Turkey is NATO's "frontline" state, supports U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, and shares the West's fear of Islamic fundamentalism. Consequently, these officials argue, Turkey should not be punished for its misuse of U.S. weaponry and for its systematic violations of thelaws of war and human rights. The argument is reminiscent of U.S. statements during the Cold War, though the enemy has been redefined: once again, the U.S. is arguing that special allowances must be made for strategically important friends, no matter how abusive they may be to their own citizens.

The June 1995 State Department report, while acknowledging the role of U.S. weapons in Turkish abuses, is marred by a series of systematic flaws and contradictions which facilitate the policy of continued military sales to Turkey. Most importantly, the report's authors claimed they were unable to determine whether U.S. weapons have been used to commit grave abuses such as torture, summary executions and disappearances.9 If the report had identified the involvement of U.S. weapons in such abuses, the Clinton administration might have been forced to take more direct action against Turkey. Other serious flaws include the report's understatement of the role of U.S. weapons in the Turkish village eradication campaign, its failure to provide more than three concrete examples of Turkish misuse of U.S. weapons, and its failure to provide original investigative findings. The majority of information contained in the report was drawn from the local press, local and international nongovernmental human rights organizations, and Turkish military authorities.10 It appears that despite being ordered by the U.S. Congress to conduct a serious investigation into Turkish misuse of U.S.-supplied weapons, the State Department made little use of the U.S. government's vast resources and knowledge of Turkish military activities.

One reason officially offered for the State Department report's lack of detail was a May 1993 to May 1994 ban on travel to the southeast imposed because of the "precarious security situation" there.11 The official restriction was in place at a time precisely when the counterinsurgency campaign was in its worst phase, so that the ban effectively blocked most U.S. access to the southeast when independent evaluations were most vitally needed. Even when the State Department permitted its personnel to visit the region, however, Turkish authorities stopped them from visiting specific sites where villages were alleged to have been razed by Turkish security forces.12 In interviews with Human Rights Watch, U.S.officials acknowledged that before and after the ban on travel, trips by U.S. government personnel to the southeast have always been monitored by Turkish authorities. It appears that the U.S. government has not made independent and full access to the southeast a top priority in its dealings with Turkish authorities.

The U.S. government's professed inability to seriously evaluate the actions of a major NATO ally does not appear credible, given the immense investigative resources at its disposal. Were the U.S. truly interested in determining the full extent of U.S. weapons' involvement in Turkish abuses, it could do so by insisting on full and independent access to the southeast, and insisting that Turkey be more forthcoming with information. One U.S. Embassy official in Turkey conceded that the U.S. government had not made a serious investigative effort to examine the role of U.S. weapons for the congressional report: "We're not an investigative body," the official said.13 "We can't spy on an ally," another government official claimed in Washington D.C.14

Human Rights Watch is particularly troubled that throughout Turkey's wide-ranging scorched earth campaign, U.S. troops, aircraft and intelligence personnel have remained at their posts throughout Turkey, mingling with Turkish counterinsurgency troops and aircrews in southeastern bases such as ¤ ncirlik and Diyarbak 2 r. Some U.S. troops are in Turkey on NATO-related duties, while others operate within the framework of Operation Provide Comfort, a no-fly zone in northern Iraq designed to defend Iraqi Kurds from Saddam Hussein's Air Force. While the effort to defend Iraqi Kurds has been pursued with great vigor since 1991, U.S. military and diplomatic personnel have studiously ignored the abusive actions of their Turkish allies. It appears that in return for Turkey's support for Operation Provide Comfort, the U.S. has agreed not to publicly criticize what Turkey does with its own Kurdish citizens, located directly across the Iraqi border from the zone protected by U.S. warplanes.

Given Turkey's status as an important NATO ally and as a major base for U.S. troops, including U.S. intelligence units, as well as U.S. nuclear weapons15, it appears likely that elements within the U.S. government possess detailed knowledge of the full scope of Turkish abuses as well as the key role played byU.S. weapons. This information is probably far more detailed than the material published in the June 1995 report to Congress. Interviews with U.S. officials suggest such information exists but has not been disseminated within the U.S. government and was not made available to the authors of the June 1995 report.

The U.S. government has adopted a significantly less critical attitude toward Turkey than have other governments. At least five nations have at some point suspended military sales to Turkey because of its abuses in the conflict in the southeast: Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and South Africa. Moreover, Turkey has declared that it would not import arms from four other nations because of their critical comments about the war in the southeast: Austria, Finland, Sweden and Switzerland.

Other NATO nations, and Germany in particular, have debated arms transfers to Turkey far more vigorously than the U.S. and have examined Turkey's human rights practices in greater depth. On more than one occasion, Germany has suspended arms sales to Turkey, including after receiving information from non-governmental organizations about the use of German-supplied weapons by Turkish counterinsurgency forces. Unlike the U.S., Germany applies strict conditions on the weapons it supplies Turkey, requiring that they not be used against the Kurds.

NATO itself has done nothing to set up oversight mechanisms to restrain Turkey's armed forces, many of which are integrated into NATO's operational structure and are slated for U.N. peacekeeping missions. In addition, powerful interests throughout Western Europe are pressing for Turkey's entry into a customs union with the European Union and have deflected opposition to the union based on Turkey's human rights record.

Turkey's Counterinsurgency Campaign

Chapter II of this report provides background on the origins of the conflict with the PKK and discusses the nature and consequences of Turkey's counterinsurgency campaign, focusing on the village evacuation and destruction strategy and the village guard system. Turkey's counterinsurgency strategy has had a number of dismal consequences for Turkey. Legally, Turkey is in gross violation of its international commitments to respect the laws of war. The security forces still seem unable to eradicate the PKK in southeast Turkey, and the counterinsurgency has further damaged Turkey's aspirations to be viewed as a liberal democracy on the verge of integration with Europe. Turkey's abysmal human rights record has earned it condemnation throughout the West.

More importantly, the government's counterinsurgency methods have created a huge underclass of embittered and impoverished internal refugees, whose homes and livelihoods have been abruptly destroyed by the state. These refugeeshave moved to squatter settlements throughout Turkey's cities, providing the PKK with a potential base for future organizing and presenting Turkey with a difficult social and economic crisis.

Turkey's Arms Acquisition Program

Chapter III of this report traces arms flows from NATO nations and others to Turkey in detail. Turkey has been a member of NATO since 1952, and has benefited from a wide range of weapons transfer programs. Wealthy NATO members have both sold and donated a full range of weaponry to Turkey, including more than 500 combat aircraft, 500 combat helicopters, 5,000 tanks, and thousands of artillery pieces, mortars, machine guns and assault rifles. The United States has been Turkey's dominant supplier, providing about 80 percent of Turkey's arsenal. Over the past decade, Congress has appropriated $5.3 billion in military aid (grants and loans to purchase weapons) for Turkey, making Turkey the third largest recipient of U.S. military aid, after Israel and Egypt.

Germany has been Turkey's second largest supplier of arms. Other NATO suppliers have included Italy, France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Spain and Canada. As criticism mounted in Europe over Turkey's treatment of the Kurds, Turkey has increasingly turned elsewhere for arms, including the Russian Federation, Israel, Pakistan and other nations.

Turkey's Security Forces

In Chapter IV, Human Rights Watch examines the different Turkish units involved in the fighting and describes their composition and arsenals. The role of each unit in the counterinsurgency is evaluated, with special emphasis on responsibility for human rights abuses.

The worst abusers are regular forces belonging to the Jandarma (or Gendarmerie), Turkey's rural police force, and special counterinsurgency units belonging to both the Jandarma and the police. These special forces, designed to spearhead the anti-PKK campaign, reportedly are recruited from far-right Turkish nationalist groups notorious for their hatred of Kurdish nationalism.16 The Turkish special forces use U.S.-designed arms and British-supplied armored vehicles.

Contrary to arguments made by U.S. officials, however, all Turkish units, including the regular Turkish Army and Air Force, are implicated in abuses. Human Rights Watch's research demonstrates that Turkish units are integrated and intermeshed in the southeast, making it impossible to argue that the Army and Air Force-which are integral components of NATO-have played no role in the violations. The Turkish Army has deployed about 150,000 troops to the southeast and routinely supports the Jandarma and special forces during village destructions and other abusive operations. Three former Turkish Army personnel interviewed by Human Rights Watch have stated that their units directly participated in abuses, as well as having backed up Jandarma and special force units while they engaged in violations. The Air Force, which relies almost exclusively on U.S.-designed aircraft, frequently raids suspected PKK positions and has been implicated in bombings that killed civilians in violation of the laws of war.

Case Studies

Chapter V contains twenty-nine case studies based on Human Rights Watch interviews in Turkey and northern Iraq in June and July 1995, as well as a number of incidents investigated by reliable domestic and international organizations. Human Rights Watch used a variety of methods to determine the type and, whenever possible, the supplier of the weapons used. Cumulatively, these cases demonstrate that Turkey has engaged in a pattern of abuse and that NATO-supplied weaponry, with special emphasis on U.S.-supplied products, plays a key role in these abuses. Among the violations investigated, the most important are forced evacuation of the rural population and destruction of their villages, indiscriminate fire, torture, and summary executions.

Forced Evacuation and Destruction of Villages

Turkey's forced depopulation strategy is by far the most severe human rights issue in Turkey today.17 By eradicating large portions of the Kurdish ruralpopulation, the Turkish military hopes to eliminate the PKK's networks of logistical support in the countryside. Largely as a result of this policy, over 2,200 Kurdish villages have been fully or partially destroyed since 1984, with the vast majority eradicated by Turkish forces since 1992.

B.G., a former Turkish soldier interviewed by Human Rights Watch, said that he walked through "hundreds" of destroyed villages during his mountain patrols in late 1994 and early 1995.18 The villages were usually destroyed by burning, B.G. said, and were ordered destroyed by senior commanders in Diyarbak 2 r, the counterinsurgency center of the southeast. V.A., a former Turkish officer, said that soldiers destroyed the homes after forcing residents to leave because they wanted to deny the PKK access to shelter during the winter months.19

Human Rights Watch found that Turkish troops use a wide variety of transport vehicles and weapons during village depopulations, many of which are of NATO origin. In the following cases, for example, helicopters supported village burnings by resupplying troops. Given the composition of the Turkish helicopter fleet, it is highly likely that they were U.S.-supplied Black Hawks or Hueys:

C In October 1994, Turkish helicopters landed twice a day to resupply a column of Army commandos engaged in a week-long search and destroy mission in the Mercan valley of Tunceli province. The witness who described the events to Human Rights Watch was kidnapped from the village of Bilgeç to act as a porter for the troops. He said the column burned down six villages. (Case 14).

C In late September 1994, security forces burned down the village of Cevizlidere, located in the Ovac 2 k district of Tunceli province. They remained in the village for three days, using it as an operational base. During that time, helicopters repeatedly landed and took off from the village's central square, ferrying in troops and supplies. (Case 18).

C At the end of August 1994, troops landed in three helicopters at sunrise near the village of Çomak, located in the Ki - i district of Bingöl province. The troops burned the village down and ordered the residents to walk to the nearest town. (Case 12).

C In other cases, helicopters have been used to drop explosives or strafe villages, contributing to the displacement and destruction of civilian settlements. The helicopter gunships involved were most probably U.S.-supplied Cobras. On October 22, 1993, for example, five witnesses said that helicopters and other aircraft pounded the village of Zengök, located in Mu Õ province. The air bombardment followed the forced evacuation and partial burning of the town by ground troops. Although no civilians died in the initial attack and sweep by Turkish troops, five civilians were found dead in the village two days later, captives left by the troops to be burned alive while bound and tied, linked together with electric cables and a chain. There were reportedly no guerrillas in the village at the time of the raid. (Case 24).

Indiscriminate Fire

Human Rights Watch investigated incidents of indiscriminate fire in which civilians were terrorized, wounded or killed and during which troops did substantial damage to civilian property. Indiscriminate fire is a persistent and troubling phenomenon in Turkey's southeast; Human Rights Watch does not, however, have sufficient information to evaluate with any precision how many unjustified deaths or village destructions were caused by indiscriminate fire. It is clear, however, that indiscriminate fire causes scores of casualties each year.

Indiscriminate fire by Turkish warplanes is particularly grave because of the destructive potential of air-delivered weapons, typically 500 or 1,000-pound bombs. Turkish warplanes routinely take part in raids against suspected PKK bases, both within Turkey as well as in northern Iraq. On occasion, these planes have dropped bombs on civilian settlements, killing civilians and destroying villages. While some of these attacks may have resulted from gross negligence, others appear to have been deliberate. The worst air raids took place in late March 1994, when Turkish warplanes struck a number of villages in the Ô irnak province, killing scores of civilians.

C Witnesses from the village of Ku Õ konar in Ô irnak province, for example, told Human Rights Watch of a March 26, 1994 airstrike by two Turkish warplanes that killed twenty-four civilians and wounded several more. A helicopter first overflew the village; two warplanes then buzzed Ku Õ konar at low altitude; finally, after having examined the village at close range, the jets made two bombing runs, dropping a total of four bombs. Both the airplanes and the helicopters were most probably U.S.-supplied. (Case 3).

In the cities and towns of the southeast, Turkish security forces have used massive and disproportionate force to crush PKK urban strongholds. A former Turkish soldier told Human Rights Watch that on August 18-20, 1992, troops used U.S.-supplied M-48 and M-60 tanks, 105mm artillery, U.S.-supplied M-113 armored personnel carriers, U.S.-designed M-16 rifles and LAW anti-tank rockets to assault the town of Ô irnak following an alleged PKK provocation. Twenty-two civilians died in the assault, sixty were wounded, and many of the town's 25,000 residents fled in panic. Much of the town was destroyed. (Case 28).

Torture and Ill-Treatment

Human Rights Watch found that torture and ill-treatment of civilians was commonplace during village displacements and that NATO equipment was commonly used in these incidents. In the following incident, for example, U.S.-supplied helicopters were almost certainly used:

C On February 21, 1993, Turkish troops, some of which were helicopter-borne, came to the snow-bound village of Ormaniçi located in the Güçlükonak district of Ô irnak province. In retaliation for an earlier PKK ambush the troops burned Ormanici down and ordered forty-two civilians to lie in the snow for hours. Six men and a boy were later taken for interrogation, badly tortured, and exposed to extreme cold. Fivedeveloped gangrene; four subsequently had their legs amputated, and one died. The witnesses were transported at one point during their interrogation to another base by helicopter. (Case 19).

Summary Execution and Disappearances

Summary executions, a serious problem in Turkey for the past several years, are perpetrated by both government forces and PKK guerrillas. This report documents several summary executions by security forces in which NATO-supplied weapons played a role.

C On April 19, 1995, according to B.G., the former Turkish soldier, Turkish security forces ambushed and shot and wounded Ali ¤ hsan Da - l 2 , a suspected PKK supporter, in the village of Kuruçay 2 r, located in the Savur district of Diyarbak 2 r province. The troops holding Da - l 2 prisoner were joined by a senior Turkish general, who flew to the village in a U.S.-supplied Huey helicopter, and carried a U.S.-designed M-16. The general helped other soldiers beat Da - l 2 , as well as other villagers. The troops then burned the village down and took Da - l 2 with them. B.G. was later told by a military officer that Da - l 2 had been killed in custody, an allegation supported by the fact that Da - l 2 has been on a list of missing persons since April 1995. (Case 1).

C On May 10, 1994, a Jandarma non-commissioned officer threw three suspected PKK guerrillas to their deaths from a helicopter flying near the town of Kulp, located in Diyarbak 2 r province. The guerrillas had been captured, interrogated and tortured. A fourth prisoner who witnessed the incident said he survived by promising to provide his captors with crucial information. (Case 8).

PKK Violations and Sources of Weapons

In Chapter VI Human Rights Watch highlights the PKK's substantial violations of the laws of war, as it has done in past reports on the war in Turkey.20 The most common PKK abuses are summary executions, indiscriminate fire andthe intentional targeting of non-combatants. Until late 1994, the PKK openly acknowledged that it targeted civilian state employees and the families of paramilitary village guards, who are protected persons under international humanitarian law. Although the PKK recently announced its intention to abide by international law, evidence from 1995 suggests that the PKK has violated this pledge.

This chapter also examines the PKK's sources of arms. While some weapons may have been transferred to the PKK by states such as Iran, Armenia and Syria, the bulk of the PKK's arsenal appears to have been purchased in arms bazaars scattered across Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia, including Antwerp, Hamburg, northern Iraq, and the former Soviet Union. The PKK reportedly raises money for weapons purchases through a variety of both peaceful and coercive methods, including voluntary contributions from sympathizers and violent extortion from unwilling Turkish and Kurdish businessmen. In addition, elements of the PKK reportedly raise funds by shipping drugs from Asia and the Middle East to western Europe through the Balkans and Italy.

The U.S. Government's Role

Chapter VII examines the role of the U.S. government, which has expressed concern about human rights while failing to exert real pressure on Turkey. Based on analyses of U.S. public statements and interviews with officials in the State and Defense Departments and in the field, Human Rights Watch concludes that the U.S. is deeply implicated in the Turkish government's counterinsurgency policy and practices through its provision of arms and political support, and is aware of the abuses being committed, but has chosen to downplay Turkish violations for strategic reasons.

Correspondence with the Government of Turkey

At the beginning of August 1995, the Human Rights Watch Arms Project wrote to the representative of Turkey in the United States, Ambassador Nuzhet Kandemir, with a list of twenty-two questions that arose from our field investigation in Turkey in June-July. We offered to include in this report any response to these questions we might receive from the Government of Turkey. Ten questions addressed general issues regarding the conflict in the southeast (casualty figures, number of villages burned and/or evacuated, number of displaced persons), the nature and sources of the PKK's weapons, the rules of engagement governing the behavior of Turkish troops, Turkey's policy with respect to village evacuations, and the existence of investigative mechanisms within the Turkish military. A further twelve questions dealt with specific allegations supplied to Human RightsWatch by witnesses in Turkey regarding violations of human rights and the laws of war committed by Turkish security forces.

At the end of October, the government of Turkey had not provided answers to these questions. Human Rights Watch did receive a letter from the Chargé d'Affaires at the Turkish embassy in Washington, D.C., Minister Counselor Rafet Akgunay, in the middle of August. In this letter, Mr. Akgunay provided a legal analysis of the conflict in Turkey's southeast. A summary of this letter is included in Appendix I of this report.

RECOMMENDATIONS

To the Government of Turkey

C Ensure that Turkish security forces cease immediately to violate international humanitarian law in the southeastern emergency zone.

C Cease the policy of forced evacuation and destruction of Kurdish villages. Internally displaced civilians should be permitted to return to their villages and compensated for the destruction of their homes and possessions.

C Investigate the cases presented in this report. Those found responsible for the abuses should be prosecuted and punished under the law.

C Create an official commission of inquiry into the village eradication campaign empowered to determine and make public the extent and precise nature of the destruction and to identify those responsible.

C Order the Turkish General Staff to conduct a wide-ranging review of its codes of conduct, rules of engagement and operational guidelines. The review should be public and be conducted by a special commission including members of the military, the Turkish Parliament, and independent legal experts.

C Order the Turkish General Staff to create new guidelines including strict rules regarding the use of air power, artillery, and small arms. These rules should conform to internationally recognized standards and should be reviewed by NATO commanders.

C Publish the new guidelines and disseminate them widely within the Turkish armed forces. The Turkish General Staff should make public its mechanisms for disseminating the guidelines within the Turkish armed forces.

C Create a special Internal Affairs unit within the Turkish General Staff to examine allegations of human rights abuses in Turkey's southeast by all security forces, including the Jandarma, the police, the Army and the Air Force.

This unit should be given adequate resources, be commanded by a senior and respected officer and make its procedures and conclusions available for public review. Persons suspected by the Internal Affairs unit of abusing human rights should be tried and punished to the full extent of the law. The trials and sentences should be made public.

The Internal Affairs unit should make monthly and annual reports to the Turkish Chief of Staff, the Turkish Minister of State Responsible for Human Rights, and the Turkish Parliament.

C Grant the Minister of State Responsible for Human Rights oversight authority over the new Internal Affairs unit. A special staff of investigators, responsible only to the Minister of State Responsible for Human Rights, should monitor the new unit's casework, operating procedures and findings.

C Order the Jandarma and police special forces (Özel Tim and Özel Hareket Tim) to suspend operations immediately. These units' tactics, training, and recruitment methods should be reviewed by the special commission of military officers, political representatives and legal experts.

C Any special force members affiliated with far right nationalist groups should be ordered to leave the units immediately. Special force members should not be recruited from far-right nationalist groups.

Prior to resuming activities, the special forces should undergo intensive human rights training. The content of the training and its implementationshould be publicly monitored by the Turkish Minister Responsible for Human Rights and the General Staff's new Internal Affairs unit.

C Immediately allow access to the emergency zone to delegates of the International Committee of the Red Cross, and allow them to visit prisoners detained in connection with the conflict in the southeast.

C Allow monitors from Human Rights Watch and other independent, internationally recognized human rights organizations unimpeded access to the southeastern emergency zone.

To the U.S. Government

C End all military sales and security aid to Turkey until such time as Turkey no longer engages in a pattern of gross human rights violations, as required by section 502B of the Foreign Assistance Act.

C Failing to end all arms transfers, at the least reject exports of weapons that have a high possibility for misuse, such as combat aircraft, helicopters, artillery, armored vehicles, and small arms.

C Seek written assurances in all future arms transfer agreements with Turkey that the arms and equipment will not be used in human rights abuses or violations of the laws of war, and provide for independent monitoring to take place to confirm this; this would serve as an additional safeguard to ensure that Turkey lives up to its existing obligations to abide by international law.

C Conduct an annual review of Turkish use of U.S.-supplied and -designed weapons. Unlike the review submitted in June 1995 by the State Department, however, future reviews should focus on Turkish use of specific categories of weapons, including combat aircraft, helicopters, artillery, armored vehicles, and small arms.

Future end-use monitoring reports should utilize all relevant U.S. government information, and should contain detailed examples and studies of particular events.

C Use all possible means, including linkage of aid, to persuade Turkey to implement the recommendations addressed to the government of Turkey above.

C Urge the Turkish government to allow the International Committee of the Red Cross, humanitarian aid groups, accredited press, and internationally recognized human rights groups unhindered access to southeastern Turkey.

C Order an inquiry into all training, joint maneuvers, liaison and other inter-force activities undertaken since 1990 by U.S. military special operations forces with Turkish forces, with a view to identifying the Turkish units involved and the nature of U.S. special operations training and doctrine imparted to them.

To NATO Commanders

C Inform the Turkish General Staff and Turkish officers serving in NATO structures that a pattern of gross human rights abuses and denial of access to the southeastern emergency zone by international human rights monitors is not acceptable behavior by a NATO member.

C Create a liaison unit to the Turkish General Staff aimed at improving the Turkish armed forces codes of conduct, rules of engagement, methods of disseminating human rights standards and methods of investigating human rights abuses.

To the International Community

C Cease all arms transfers to Turkey until such time as it no longer engages in gross patterns of violations of human rights and the laws of war. Individual countries should conduct end-use monitoring of equipment transferred to Turkey.

C Use bilateral channels to urge the Turkish government to implement the recommendations specified in this report, with special emphasis on access to the southeastern emergency region by independent human rights monitors.

To the European Union

C Within the framework of the EU, the Council of Europe and the Organization on Security and Cooperation in Europe, condemn publicly human rights abuses committed by both the PKK and Turkish security forces.

C Urge the Turkish government to implement the recommendations outlined in this report, with special emphasis on access to the southeastern emergency region by independent human rights monitors.

To the Organization on Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)

C Ensure that OSCE members comply with the OSCE's "Principles Governing Conventional Arms Transfers" (1993), i.e., Art. 3. (b), "the need to ensure that arms transferred are not used in violation of the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations"; Art. 4 (a) (I), the directive to take into account, in considering proposed arms transfers, "the respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms in the recipient country"; and Art. 4 (b) (i and vii), the directive to avoid transfers of arms which would be likely to "be used for the violation or suppression of human rights and fundamental freedoms," or "be used for the purpose of repression."

To the PKK

C End abuses against civilians.

C Cease punitive attacks against village guard families and relatives.

C Cease all summary executions, especially of state civil servants, unarmed village guards, alleged "state supporters" and "collaborators."

II. BACKGROUND

The Turkish-Kurdish Conflict

Since 1984, the PKK, or Kurdistan Workers Party, has fought the Turkish state in an attempt to carve out an independent zone for Kurds in Turkey's southeast, although there have been recent indications the PKK might settle for less. The Turkish government, however, has opposed concessions to the PKK, claiming that the organization's ultimate goal remains the dissolution of Turkey.21 The Turkish government regards the PKK as a terrorist organization.

Turkey's rural southeast, where the majority of the country's approximately ten million Kurds live, is the country's poorest and most underdeveloped area. While western, urban Turkey has increasingly developed its technological and industrial infrastructure, linking the richer parts of Turkey to European markets, the southeast has fallen further and further behind. Southeastern underdevelopment has remained essentially unchanged despite limited government efforts to spur economic growth, as in the case of the state-funded GAP regional irrigation project.

Economic underdevelopment, however, was not the only factor contributing to the rise of the PKK and to the sympathy it enjoys among many Kurds. Economic underdevelopment in the southeast has gone hand in hand with cultural repression of the Kurdish ethnic identity. While Turks rightly point out that Kurds may integrate into Turkish society with ease, reaching the highest positions in political and economic life, they often neglect to mention that these Kurds must do so as "Turks" who have renounced their ethnic heritage.22 Until recently, forexample, the Kurdish language was banned in Turkey. Practically speaking, although the Turkish government could not block villagers from using their mother tongue at home, it has successfully prevented Kurdish from being used in public platforms.23

The organizational origins of the PKK can be traced back to the 1970s, when left-wing Turkish movements of all types grew in influence among Turkey's intellectuals and working class. Abdullah Öcalan, the PKK's leader since its inception, was originally a member of a left-wing group at the department of political science at the University of Ankara. In the late 1970s, a three-way struggle erupted between right-wing Turkish quasi-fascist movements, the Turkish left, and the Turkish government. In 1980, as the struggle became increasingly violent, the Turkish military overthrew the civilian government and instituted military rule. The subsequent crackdown on political activists was especially harsh against the Turkish left.

Immediately prior to the September 12, 1980 military coup, however, Abdullah Öcalan, together with other Kurdish leftists, fled to Lebanon's Beqa' valley, which was then home to left-wing and nationalist Palestinian organizations. Between 1980 and 1984, Öcalan and his supporters founded the PKK and built a full-fledged organization. In 1984, the PKK launched its first attacks on Turkish state representatives, including military outposts, public school teachers and civil servants (targeted because the PKK viewed them as representatives of a "colonial state"), and members of the paramilitary "village guards," local Kurds recruited by the state, and their families.

Turkey's Counterinsurgency Strategy

The war between Turkey's armed forces and the PKK has been primarily a rural struggle. With its rugged mountains, myriad of caves and difficult winters, Turkey's southeast is well-suited to a determined guerrilla force enjoying the support of part of the rural population. The PKK has exploited these advantages, hiding from Turkish forces when pursued, emerging to attack military and state installations as well as the state's own Kurdish militias when the pressure is lifted. While there have been clashes in urban centers, the PKK's campaign remains, at heart, a rural phenomenon.

Although the PKK and Turkish security forces have struggled for control of the southeast since 1984, the war entered its current brutal stage only in 1992,following the Gulf war. Previously, the PKK's rear areas were primarily located in Lebanon's Beqa' valley, which was not contiguous with Turkey's borders. PKK resupply efforts were forced to follow a difficult, circuitous route into Turkey through second, third and fourth countries. After defeating Iraqi forces in Kuwait in early 1992, the U.S.-led coalition has treated northern Iraq, inhabited mostly by Iraqi Kurds, as an autonomous, quasi-sovereign area, enforcing a no-fly zone against Iraqi aircraft and providing aid to Iraqi Kurds through Turkey. The PKK used the new conditions in northern Iraq to its advantage, developing forward bases near the Iraqi-Turkish border and sending fighters and material to its forces within Turkey.

By 1992, the PKK's presence in Turkey's mountainous areas was strong, and PKK cadres had made inroads into southeastern cities such as Ô irnak, Lice, and Cizre. A PKK network was set up throughout villages in the southeastern areas, with special emphasis on villages along the Iraqi border and in Diyarbak 2 r province. The Turkish security forces, which were unprepared for the PKK influx, lost their monopoly of power in the area. In the cities, the PKK presence was manifested in mass demonstrations, flag-waving, commercial strikes and political meetings. The PKK was on its way to becoming a popular and powerful political force in the southeast.

In mid-1992 the Turkish military reorganized in the southeast and launched an urban offensive against the PKK. The region was flooded with troops, both from the Jandarma and the military, and the security forces adopted a policy of overwhelming and disproportionate response to PKK actions. Security force assaults on Ô irnak, Lice and Cizre appear to have been harsh collective punishments aimed at the entire population of those towns. In these incidents in mid-1992, Turkish forces took advantage of PKK provocations to unleash indiscriminate barrages of heavy weapons fire against the urban population and buildings, killing a total of at least sixty-five persons, according to estimates by the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey, and causing extensive damage. Urban areas were rendered uninhabitable, thousands of civilians fled their homes, and the security forces successfully demonstrated their determination to reassert control over the cities.

In addition to the assault on southeastern cities, the security forces created and strengthened existing elite counterinsurgency forces.24 Experienced regular Army and Jandarma troops were recruited into special counterinsurgency forces belonging to the Jandarma and the police, were given specialized training andadvanced equipment, and were ordered to take the lead in destroying the PKK. These units quickly became the most serious abusers of human rights in the region, with a reputation for brutality and impunity.

Most importantly, perhaps, the security forces changed their rural strategy. Prior to 1992, Turkish forces had remained in central bases and strongholds, moving into the mountains only in response to a PKK attack. In 1992, however, the Turks adopted a "regional defense strategy," drawing up a grid dividing southeastern Turkey into zones of responsibility. Individual units were given the task of patrolling a square on the grid, and security forces were ordered to remain on patrol in the mountains for extended periods of time. "It used to be that we were always in the bases, waiting until the PKK came. Since 1992, however, we have been ordered to stay out of the base for weeks on end," V.A., a former Turkish military officer, told Human Rights Watch in 1995.25 By keeping constantly on the move, laying ambushes and observing remote areas, the military hoped to reduce the PKK's freedom of movement and to increase contact with the guerrillas. A second component of the new strategy was the creation of "no-go zones," mountainous areas declared off-limits by the military, regardless of whether the areas were inhabited. V.A. said that in the region of Kars, where he served, an entire mountainside and its related slopes and valleys had been declared "forbidden." "We fired artillery at anything that moved in those areas," he said, "civilian or guerrilla, it didn't matter. Anyone who goes in there is shot at." According to Christopher Panico, several regions, including areas near the Tendürek and A - r 2 mountains, were declared "restricted military areas," which were little more than military free-fire zones.26

Kurdish villages in the mountains presented a particularly severe problem to the architects of the new counterinsurgency approach. Controlling the thousands of individual villages would require far more troops, helicopters and resources than the Turkish state was willing to invest. The security forces dealt with this problem in two ways, village eradication and strengthening the "village guards," both of which have had grave implications for human rights.

Village Evacuation and Destruction

It is an open secret within Turkey that the security forces have destroyed large numbers of villages in an effort to deny the PKK logistical support. The Turkish government has gradually admitted the scope of the problem, although it continues to deny that security forces are responsible for the large majority of forcible evacuations. The government has given a series of different estimates for village destructions: In April 1994, Interior Minister Nahit Mente Õ e said in a press conference that 871 villages and hamlets had been evacuated; by the end of 1994, however, Mente Õ e's estimate, supplied in a written statement, had soared to 2,297 village and hamlets partially or fully evacuated.27 On June 27, 1995, Mente Õ e told the Turkish Parliament in a public briefing that 2,200 villages had been "emptied or evacuated."28 On July 25, 1995, the mainstream Turkish daily Milliyet quoted the office of the Governor of the southeastern emergency rule area as stating that 2,664 villages and hamlets had been partially or fully evacuated.29 According to a respected Turkish human rights expert, the evacuations have displaced some two million villagers, who have flooded into slums in all of Turkey's major cities and towns.30

In 1994 alone, according to the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey, 1,000 villages were destroyed or evacuated.31 In October 1994, Turkish State Minister for Human Rights Azimet Köylüo - lu visited Tunceli province, then the site of a massive counterinsurgency offensive, and declared that the security forces had engaged in "state terrorism" by burning villages and forcibly evacuating villagers. The government minister, who was later forced to retract his statements under pressure from conservative politicians, said, "Security forces should avoidthe psychology [sic] of burning and destroying while in their relentless fight against terrorism. The evacuated villagers must be given food and shelter.... We can't even give them Red Crescent tents."32 In October 1994, Human Rights Watch/Helsinki published a twenty-seven-page report documenting the campaign of forced displacement in the southeast. "In an effort to deprive the PKK of its logistic base of support," the report stated, "security forces forcibly evict villagers from their villages and sometimes destroy their homes. Torture and arbitrary detention often accompany such evictions."33 According to the report, the security forces destroy villages under three different sets of conditions: when villagers refuse to join the official "village guard" system, a state-supported militia (see below); in retaliation for PKK attacks on state installations, when villagers are unlucky enough to be living in the immediate area; or when villagers find themselves in an area of counterinsurgency operations. In this case, the security forces' attempt to ensure that the area is clean of PKK guerrillas and potential supporters prompts them to burn the villages down.

B.G., a conscript in an infantry unit based in the Silvan district during late 1994 and early 1995, told Human Rights Watch that during foot patrols in the high mountains, he passed through "hundreds" of empty villages. B.G. said that it was common knowledge that the security forces burned villages down, although he had only participated in one such burning. "Most of the villages in my district were burned down by the time I arrived," he explained.34 V.A., the former Turkish military officer quoted previously, told Human Rights Watch that in addition to forcing villagers to leave, security forces in many cases burned the villages down to prevent the PKK from using the empty houses as shelter during the cold winter months. "I have slept in some empty houses during winter patrols," he said, "and they were very useful. If the PKK had access to those houses, they would be in good shape."

V.A. also said that in some cases villagers decided to leave their homes because of pressure placed on them by local security forces. "The Jandarma comes there again and again, demanding that they be village guards, so of course people are going to flee. They have no choice." When villagers leave their homes of theirown accord, he said, the security forces still often burn the structures down to deny their use to the PKK.

B.G., the former soldier, said that he believed officers in the field had only limited discretion where village destructions were involved. "If you want to burn down a house or two in one village," he explained, "that's no problem, you just do it." In many cases he witnessed, he said, his officers burned down a few homes that had not been fully destroyed in previous destruction efforts. "If you want to burn down an entire village," he said, "you need authorization from the senior Jandarma commander in Diyarbak 2 r." B.G. said that in addition to the one village burning which he himself witnessed, he recalled hearing over the radio an order to burn down a village in the Silvan district. The directive was issued by a senior commander in Diyarbak 2 r to an infantry officer in a nearby unit.

B.G. said that most of the village burnings took place in mountainous areas above a certain altitude. More accessible villages in valleys or near major highways tended not to be destroyed, because they could be more easily controlled. "We would search those villages once a week or so," he said, "and we could keep an eye on them." "The ones that were a problem were far from view," he explained.

Strengthening the "Village Guard" system

The current concept of a state-supported "village guard" system in Turkey goes back at least to the mid-1980s.35 In theory, the system appears relatively benign: Security forces, unable to maintain a presence in all villages at all times, give local people weapons so that they can defend their own homes against PKK attack. In practice, the system includes a significant amount of forced conscription, intimidation, bribery and incitement to commit human rights abuses.

The village guard system, which the authorities hoped would reduce PKK access to civilian populations, has been only partially successful. While financial incentives have resulted in the officially recognized number of village guards increasing from 5,000 in 1987 to 67,000 in 1995, brutal PKK retaliations against village guard members and their families, coupled with the politicization of the Kurdish population, have militated against the spread of the village guard system. Many villages refuse to cooperate because they support the PKK and because the village guards are perceived as collaborators with a brutal and illegitimate state. Others have refused because they are scared of PKK retaliation.

The security forces typically give villagers a choice between joining the village guard or being forced to leave their homes. In some cases, unscrupulous tribal chiefs or local troublemakers who have received weapons and security force backing have proceeded to settle old feuds with state-issued weapons. The result is often criminal, with village guards implicated in serious human rights abuses. According to the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey, in 1994, "The number and authority of village guards has been increased. In several areas, security affairs have been completely turned over to village guards."36 Because of their paramilitary status, uneven command-and-control, as well as the government's failure to investigate alleged abuses, the village guards often appear as little more than forces operating with a government license for impunity. The potential for abuse is enormous.

The introduction of the village guard system has polarized the southeastern countryside. The Turkish security forces view with suspicion civilians who do not belong to the village guard system, while the PKK views as traitors all those who do. Neither side has recognized in practice the status of "non-combatants," leaving no neutral ground for the rural population. Turkish authorities often attack and destroy villages that resist recruitment into the village guards, while the PKK has targeted both guards and their families. In late 1994 and 1995, the PKK issued statements declaring it would not attack families of village guards or guards who had been coerced into fighting for the government, but the PKK has not fulfilled these promises. (See chapter VI).

Consequences of the Counterinsurgency Strategy

The Turkish strategy for defeating the PKK contains elements such as forced dislocation that are common to counterinsurgency campaigns worldwide, especially those confronting popular and elusive insurgents operating in difficult terrain. The military has crushed PKK hopes of establishing semi-autonomous zones within southeastern Turkey and of moving toward a large confrontation with the Turkish state. Although the PKK is still able to strike at security forces in small-scale raids and ambushes, where as many as twenty soldiers may be killed, it can no longer move about freely within the southeast, receive generous and open support from the rural population, or act as vigorously as it once did in urban areas.

In the long term, however, the government's strategy has had a number of dismal consequences for Turkey. Legally, Turkey is in gross violation of its international commitments to respect the laws of war. The security forces still seem unable to eradicate the PKK in southeast Turkey. Moreover, the counterinsurgencyhas further damaged Turkey's aspiration to be viewed as a liberal democracy on the verge of integration with Europe. Turkey's abysmal human rights record has earned it condemnation throughout the West. What is more, the singular pursuit of a military solution to what is seen as "the Kurdish problem" is closing non-violent doors to Kurdish idendity and cultural rights. The trial and detention of Kurdish parliamentarians in 1994, for example, is emblematic of the way the Turkish state has sought to forestall a political solution to the conflict. The result may well be an increase in popularity of the PKK among the Kurdish population.

Perhaps more importantly, the government's counterinsurgency methods have created a huge underclass of embittered and impoverished internal refugees, whose homes and livelihoods have been abruptly destroyed by the state. These refugees have moved to squatter settlements throughout Turkey's cities, providing the PKK with a potential base for future organizing and presenting Turkey with a difficult social and economic crisis.

B.G. told Human Rights Watch that the Army has, in recent months, begun to realize that it should be attempting to win over Kurdish peasants to the state. On several raids in which he participated, the Army searched homes and then offered medical services to the villagers. "It used to be that if one PKK person was discovered in the village, the entire village was considered to be PKK," he said. "Now, they try just to find that one PKK person without hurting everyone." He admitted, however, that the new policy had hardly begun to trickle down into the field units. In any case, much of the countryside has already been depopulated; much of the most severe damage has already been done.

III. ARMS TRANSFERS AND MILITARY AID TO TURKEY

Turkey has been a large recipient of economic and military aid since it became a NATO member in 1952. Wealthy NATO members have both sold and donated a full range of weaponry to Turkey, including more than 500 combat aircraft, 500 combat helicopters, 5,000 tanks, and thousands of artillery pieces, mortars, machine guns and assault rifles. Several studies indicate that Turkey was the largest weapons importer in the world in 1994.37 (See Appendix II for a detailed list of weapons in Turkey's inventories.)

The United States has been Turkey's dominant arms supplier. In 1995, the U.S. government estimated that it had supplied close to 80 percent of the defense equipment used by the Turkish Armed Forces.38 Over the past decade, the U.S. Congress has appropriated $5.3 billion in military aid (grants and loans to purchase weapons) to Turkey, making Turkey the third largest recipient of U.S. military aid, after Israel and Egypt.

Germany has been Turkey's second largest supplier of arms, and other NATO suppliers have included Italy, France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Spain and Canada.39 Turkey has traditionally been one of the poorest NATO member states, along with Greece and Portugal, and the wealthier NATO countries saw the bolstering of these nations' armed forces and defense industries as a vital way of improving the southern allies' strategic value.

The 1990 Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty has proven to be a tremendous boon to Turkey's security forces, including those fighting in the conflict in the southeast. The treaty obliges NATO and former Warsaw Pact countries to reduce conventional firepower in central Europe, and allows transfer of those same weapons to NATO's southern flank. Through this so-calledcascading process, arms siphoned off from CFE Treaty areas are donated or provided at very low cost to Turkey, Greece and Portugal. The cascade program has provided a major arms bonanza for the Turkish counterinsurgency effort in the southeast, since southeastern Turkey is not included in the treaty area.

As criticism has mounted in Europe over Turkey's treatment of the Kurds, Turkey has increasingly turned outside of NATO for arms, including to the Russian Federation, Israel, Pakistan and other nations. Turkey has also attempted, with success, to develop further its indigenous arms industry.

In further response to criticism about its practices in the southeast, Turkey created a system in 1993 whereby it assesses potential arms suppliers on their readiness to provide Turkey with arms without criticizing Turkey's human rights record or attaching conditions to arms transfers. Turkey will not buy arms from countries on the "red" list; arms purchases from countries on the "yellow" list require explicit approval by the Turkish government, while no prior approval is needed for purchases from countries on the "green" list.40

The United States

Since it joined NATO, Turkey has been a close military partner of the United States. Defense and Economic Cooperation Agreements (DECA) signed between the two countries in 1980 and 1987 cemented close bilateral relations. The DECA provides the U.S. access to airfields and intelligence and communications facilities.

During the past decade (FY1985-FY1994), the U.S. sold Turkey $7.8 billion in arms.41 For the past three years, as Turkey's war in the southeast hasescalated greatly, U.S. arms sales agreements with Turkey have totalled $4.9 billion (exceeded only by Saudi Arabia and Taiwan); actual arms deliveries have totalled $2.4 billion (exceeded only by Egypt).42 Recent U.S. arms transfers to Turkey have included fighter aircraft, attack helicopters, transport helicopters, artillery, armored personnel carriers, light weapons and small arms; all of these types of weapon systems have been used by Turkey in violations of the laws of war.43

Because U.S. policy emphasizes the importance of the strategic relationship with Turkey, Turkey has become a large recipient of U.S. military aid, the third largest after Israel and Egypt. U.S. military aid to Turkey flows through three programs: the Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program, which allows nations to acquire U.S. military equipment through grants and loans; the Excess Defense Articles (EDA) program, under which nations receive weapons no longer needed by the U.S. military free of charge or at a reduced rate; and the CFE cascading program.

The majority of U.S. military aid to Turkey under the Foreign Military Financing program has been committed to the Peace Onyx program for F-16 fighter aircraft, which are built in Turkey under a co-production agreement with the U.S. Lockheed Corporation. The total value of the 240-plane program has been pegged at $7.6 billion. FY1996 is the last year in which the U.S. will finance the program. The 160 planes in the Peace Onyx I program have been built. The remaining eighty planes ordered under Peace Onyx II will be financed by the GulfWar defense fund established in 1991 by the U.S., Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. These nations pledged $3.5 billion over five years to reward Turkey for its support of the U.S.-led coalition against Iraq.44

As detailed in this report, Turkish fighters, including F-16s, have been used to attack villages and to kill civilians in violation of international humanitarian law. In other instances, the planes have been used deliberately to destroy civilian structures, contributing to the general process of forced dislocation.

During 1992 and 1993, weapons delivered to Turkey under the EDA and cascading programs have apparently included 1,509 M-60-A1/A3 main battle tanks, 147 M-110 203mm howitzers, 489 M-113-A2 armored personnel carriers, twenty-eight AH-1 attack helicopters, and twenty-nine F-4E combat aircraft.45 Human Rights Watch believes that these weapon systems, or similar systems, have been used in the southeast in incidents involving violations of the laws of war.

Congress was notified in FY1994 of the following proposed deliveries under the EDA program: 110 M-85 machine guns; 88,000 rounds of 40mm ammunition; 1,314 rounds of 105mm ammunition; fourteen SH-2F LAMPS anti-submarine helicopters; one ASROC (anti-submarine rocket) launcher; parts for F-4 aircraft, and other weapons parts.46 In FY95, Congress was notified of the transfer of 515 Rapier air defense fire units, and 130 Sparrow air-to-air missiles.47

Another big-ticket agreement for FY1995 pertains to the co-production of M-1-A1 Abrams tanks in Turkey. General Dynamics Land Systems and an asyet unnamed Turkish company are planning to produce fifty tanks per year over a period of ten years.48

Because of their widespread use in abuses in the southeast, Human Rights Watch is especially concerned about the transfer of combat helicopters to Turkey. In January 1993, Turkey signed a contract to purchase ninety-five Sikorsky S-70A Black Hawk transport helicopters worth $1.1 billion. Forty-five were purchased directly, while the remainder were to be co-produced in Turkey.49 According to one source, five of these Black Hawks are designated for the Jandarma.50 However, the co-production plan for the remaining fifty Black Hawks has been put on hold due to Turkey's budgetary constraints.51

In addition to the Black Hawks, the air wing of the Army is also looking to bolster its attack capability by purchasing Bell AH-1 Cobra attack helicopters. Thirty-eight Cobras were delivered between 1990 and 1992. In evaluating this air power, one defense journal stated, "Turkey will enter the next century with a military air capability barely recognisable from the one with which it entered the 1990s. It is a combat capability which its NATO allies and its neighbours hope Turkey never feels the need to exercise."52

Furthermore, Turkey is planning to purchase an additional 200 helicopters over the next decade, including 106 attack helicopters. Helicopter manufacturers from the U.S., Europe, and Russia will be competing for the contract awards. Bell Helicopter in the U.S. has stated that it would like to sell more of the AH-1W Super Cobra attack helicopters, of which Turkey already has ten.53

Concern for the growing Turkish helicopter fleet arises from the possibility that these attack helicopters may be used to fire indiscriminately at villages or other civilian settlements, and that the transport helicopters may be used to bring reinforcements and supplies to troops who engage during their operations in illegal practices such as forcible displacements, summary executions, indiscriminate fire, or torture.

Turkey has also received a number of smaller arms and light weapons from the United States. An undetermined number of M-16-A2 rifles have been sold to Turkey under the commercial sales program.54 Commercial sales differ from Foreign Military Sales in that exports go directly from the U.S. manufacturer to the foreign government, but must be licensed first by the State Department's Office of Defense Trade Controls. Figures on commercial sales are more difficult to obtain than government-to-government sales because the State Department will not release information on company sales.

The U.S. has also provided Turkey with grenade launchers for M-16 rifles, including the M-203 40mm Colt grenade launcher. The grenade launcher fires a wide range of 40mm high explosive and special purpose ammunition and attaches easily to the M-16 in five minutes.55 Human Rights Watch has determined that the Jandarma and police special forces, as well as the officers of some Turkish Army units, use M-16s with M-203 launchers. These units are also known to be the most abusive in terms of human rights.

Turkey has a number of U.S. mortars in its inventories, including some 1,265 U.S.-made M-30 107mm mortars.56 The M-30 is a rifled muzzle loaded weapon which can be hand-carried for short distances and fires eighteen rounds per minute.57

Other light weapons sold to Turkey between 1980 and 1993 under the Foreign Military Sales program include: 40mm M-79 grenade launchers;ammunition for assault rifles and machine guns; M-67 fragmentation hand grenades and M-14 incendiary hand grenades.58

The U.S. has exported more than 40,000 antipersonnel and antitank landmines to Turkey since the early 1980s. There have been reports of use of antipersonnel landmines by both Turkish and PKK forces in the war in the southeast. The U.S. has provided Turkey with conventional, hand-emplaced M-18-A1 Claymore antipersonnel mines and modern, remotely-delivered ADAM (Area Denial Artillery Munition) mines. The ADAM is a 155mm artillery-fired projectile that contains thirty-six M-74 antipersonnel mines inside. Each mine arms on impact and sends out seven tripwires which, when disturbed, will cause the mine to explode, spewing hundreds of fragments in all directions. The U.S. has sold Turkey 952 ADAM rounds with a total of 34,380 mines.59

Human Rights Watch believes that any use of antipersonnel mines is illegal under existing humanitarian law, because of their indiscriminate nature.60

Germany

Since the 1960s, Germany has been the second largest military supplier of Turkey. Germany has delivered numerous defense items ranging from communications equipment to fighter aircraft. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Turkey ordered the following items from Germany between 1990 and 1993: forty-six F-4F Phantom fighter aircraft, forty-six RF-4E Phantom reconnaissance aircraft, 131 LARS 110mm rocket launchers, 131 M-110-A2 203mm self-propelled guns, 300 BTR-60P armored personnel carriers (former GDR equipment), one hundred Leopard 1-A1 main battle tanks, and twenty M-48 armored recovery vehicles.61 These figures represent the number of items ordered; information on actual deliveries is incomplete.

In the 1994 U.N. Register of Conventional Arms, Turkey reported receiving in 1993 eighty-five Leopard tanks (from the original one hundred ordered as cited by SIPRI), 187 M-113 armored combat vehicles, fifteen F-4 combat aircraft, and one training ship from Germany. Germany's report to the register concurs.62

The German F-4E Phantom has been in service with the Turkish Air Force since the 1970s. The Turkish Air Force is reportedly fond of the Phantom for its capacity to carry Laser Guided Bombs and Maverick missiles.63

Germany supplies not only the Turkish armed forces but the police as well, in the form of equipment and training aid. This aid has consisted of cash donated to facilitate the purchase of arms for the police force; equipment such as computers, supplied by the firm Siemens; and training of special police forces in "counter-terrorism."64

According to one defense trade journal, Germany has supplied Turkey with 256,000 Kalashnikov rifles, 5,000 machine guns, and a hundred million rounds of ammunition from former East German Army stocks.65 Other weapons transferred from ex-GDR Army stocks include ammunition for BTR-60 cannon, trucks, 5,000 RPG-7 rocket propelled grenades, and various unnamed missiles and bombs with fuzes.66 The German government stated that these weapons must not be used against the Kurds.

In 1992, the German aid organization Medico International investigated the use of German weaponry in Turkey. It found that GDR Leopard tanks and BTRarmored personnel carriers were used in the depopulation of several Kurdish villages.67

Despite the close military ties between Germany and Turkey, this relationship has been disrupted several times during Turkey's war in the southeast. Germany instituted an arms embargo against Turkey in 1992 in reaction to Turkish attacks against the Kurds, but the embargo was lifted three months later. In April 1994, Germany halted arms sales again while it investigated allegations that Turkey used German supplied BTR-60 armored personnel carriers in southeastern Turkey. The embargo was lifted after Turkey asserted that the BTR-60s had come from Russia, not Germany. Following Turkey's March 20, 1995 invasion of northern Iraq to rout the PKK there, Germany again froze military sales to Turkey. That embargo was lifted at the end of September 1995, when Germany released frozen military aid worth $110 million to support the manufacture of two frigates for the Turkish Navy.68

The Russian Federation

Because Russia's requirements for the selling of weapons are not as strict as those of many western countries, Turkey has recently turned to Russia for much of its equipment. Turkey's economic crisis has also prompted it to consider less expensive Russian weapons. In early 1994, the Turkish defense minister visited Moscow and signed a military cooperation agreement to allow joint production of arms and import of Russian weapons.69

In 1994, Turkey reported to the U.N. Register that it had received 115 BTR-60/80 combat vehicles from the Russian Federation. The Russian submission to the register noted that these vehicles came "with ammunition."70 As noted above, Turkey has acknowledged that Russian BTRs have been used in thesoutheast. BTRs are used by Jandarma and Army troops en route to committing violations such as village destructions, summary executions and torture.

In 1992, Russia sold Turkey an undetermined number of Mi-8 Hip-E and Mi-17 Hip-H transport helicopters, armored vehicles, rifles and night vision goggles.71 SIPRI notes that this sale consisted of seventeen of the Mi-17 helicopters and was worth $75 million. However, although the deal for the Mi-17s was finalized in February 1995, in September 1995 Moscow announced that it was suspending their delivery, pending settlement of a dispute over payments. Despite the problems with this particular agreement, Russia is now hoping to sell its Ka-50 attack helicopter to Turkey following Turkey's announcement that it will purchase 200 new helicopters over the next ten years.72

Also according to SIPRI, ten BTR-60 personnel carriers were delivered to Turkey in 1992 for the Jandarma, as part of a larger deal worth $75 million.73 Russia is continuing to promote further sales of armored vehicles such as the BTR-80. For example, the BTR-80 was featured at the International Defense Industry and Civil Aviation Fair held in Ankara in September 1995.74

France

France has not been a major supplier of arms to Turkey, but has been involved in cooperative agreements. For instance, France and Germany co-produce the Cougar AS-532UL transport helicopter (Eurocopter), twenty of which were sold to Turkey in 1994 in a deal worth $253 million.75 Although France condemned Turkey for its spring 1995 incursion into Iraq, it did not reverse its plans to carry out the sale. In a June 1995 agreement, France approved the sale ofa further thirty Cougars to Turkey for $370 million.76 Since transport helicopters have been used in villages where abuses take place, there is reason to be concerned about the Turkish helicopter build-up.

Italy

Italy became a key arms supplier to Turkey in 1975, after the U.S. imposed an arms embargo against Turkey for its invasion of Cyprus (which remained in force until 1978). At that time, Turkey purchased Starfighter aircraft from Italy. More recently, the Italian company Agusta completed a deal for forty training aircraft, most of which were built in Turkey under a license production agreement.77

According to SIPRI, Italy transferred one hundred M-113 armored personnel carriers to Turkey in 1991 as part of the CFE cascading process. Between 1990 and 1992, Italy also sold radars and Aspide ship-to-air missiles for MEKO-type frigates to Turkey.78

The Netherlands

The Netherlands has had a small portion of the arms market to Turkey. In 1988, the government decided to increase aid to the three poorer NATO countries: Greece, Portugal, and Turkey. The Netherlands supplied Turkey with sixty NF-5 fighter aircraft between 1989 and 1993. Dutch personnel will train Turkish forces in the use of the NF-5 aircraft, as well as the older F-104 Starfighter aircraft sold to Turkey in the early 1980s.79

The Dutch company Eurometaal also signed a contract with Turkey to supply M-483-A1 artillery shells. M-483-A1 shells are designed to be delivered by 155mm howitzers and have a range of up to thirty kilometers. This is a coproduction deal in which the majority of the shells will be produced in an MKEKfactory in Turkey.80 Other sales or potential sales to Turkey include radars, combat information systems for the Turkish Navy, 40,000 fuzes for howitzer shells, and Leopard-1 tanks.

This defense relationship ceased briefly in April 1995, when Turkey announced that it would no longer purchase military equipment from the Netherlands, placing it on the "red" list, because the Netherlands had permitted the self-declared Kurdish parliament in exile to meet in The Hague. Then on June 24, 1995, Turkey lifted the ban, supposedly "because of Dutch efforts to help Turkey combat the PKK."81 The Netherlands is now bidding to supply Turkey with eight frigates.

Others

Other NATO and non-NATO countries have had minor defense relationships with Turkey. The United Kingdom for example, has recently been mainly involved with supplying radios, night vision equipment and minesweepers.82

Spain sold second-hand Phantom fighter aircraft to Turkey in the 1980s, and more recently has signed a contract to supply light transport airplanes. This deal will involve co-production of fifty-two CN-235 aircraft between the Spanish company CASA and the Turkish company TAI.83

Switzerland was a regular supplier of small arms and ammunition to Turkey until 1991, when it imposed an arms embargo against Turkey because of Turkish human rights violations. Despite a series of short embargoes since 1991, Turkey has managed to obtain Swiss technology and equipment through licensing. Furthermore, the Italian branch of the Swiss company Oerlikon Contraves has supplied Turkey with 25mm cannon for armored vehicles.84

In 1986, the Canadian government transferred fifty CF-104 aircraft from its bases in Germany to Turkey. According to one source, "The CF-104s, together with F-4s and F-5s, are frequently called upon to attack Kurdish PKK bases."85 The Canadian government is also considering the sale of CF-5 trainer/fighter aircraft to Turkey.86

The Czech Republic has apparently targeted Turkey as a potentially lucrative market. In 1993, the Turkish police force was the largest customer of 9x18mm ,, Z-75 pistols, produced by the Czech plant Uhersky Brod.87

In 1994, Turkey purchased an unspecified number of 500 lb. and 2,000 lb. bombs from Pakistan. The Turkish government stated that the reason it had turned to Pakistan was the delays in receiving such ordnance from the U.S.88

Israel has also expressed an interest in sharing technology with and selling arms to Turkey. Turkey and Israel are currently discussing the sharing of air force technology such as night-targeting systems. Earlier this year, Turkey chose Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI) to upgrade its F-4 Phantom aircraft in a deal worth $500 million.89 The deal, which will provide for the upgrading of fifty-four F-4s, was finalized in September 1995. Israeli officials see this deal as the beginning of "future bilateral strategic projects."90 Hints of possible closer military ties came in 1994, when Turkey and Israel agreed to exchange military attachés, the first such exchange since 1980.91

The Turkish Arms Industry: Joint Production

Turkey began to pursue an indigenous arms industry after the U.S. imposed an arms embargo on Turkey for its invasion of Cyprus in 1974. Presently, Turkey is involved in a number of co-production operations as well as production of its own weapons systems. The creation of Turkish Aerospace Industries in 1984 spearheaded Turkey's move toward independent arms production. Further impetus to develop its own arms industry came with the German decision to suspend arms sales in March 1995 (revoked in September 1995). A new Turkish law stipulates plans "to convert its local industries for military production to meet...the requirements of its armed forces."92

Many of the arms produced in Turkey today are still licensed or co-produced by foreign industries. The largest joint venture has been the U.S. F-16 Peace Onyx program mentioned above. The Turkish company TUSAS Aerospace Industries (TAI) was established to produce the F-16s for the Turkish Air Force. TAI is also involved with an Italian aircraft company, Agusta, which is providing a license to produce training aircraft.

Another joint production project in which Turkey is involved is the Euro-Stinger project, licensed by the U.S. company Raytheon. In the 1980s, Turkey became the largest partner in a joint venture with Germany, Greece and the Netherlands to develop a European version of the U.S. Stinger shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missile. The four participating countries manufacture parts and assemble the final product in either the German plant Dornier or the Turkish plant Roketsan AS.93

The U.S. company FMC entered into a joint venture with the Turkish Nurol SS in 1989 to form the company FNSS, which has been assembling and producing, under license, 1,698 armored combat vehicles.94 The designation of these vehicles is unspecified; the Defense Institute of Security Assistance Management notes that they will be of "various configurations...based on an FMCdesign," and parts will be supplied by various U.S. companies.95 However, this program has been delayed indefinitely due to a lack of funds.96

Other examples of joint production include:

C the Turkish company Aselsan collaborating with Philips (Netherlands), Texas Instruments (USA) and Litton (USA), producing components for the F-16 fighter and night vision equipment for infantry vehicles; Aselsan also collaborates on the Euro-Stinger project.

C the Arifiye Tank upgrading plant collaborates with Zeiss, Rheinmetall, MTU and GLS (all in Germany) on M-48 tanks.

C Baris assembles M-72 rocket launchers and launching tubes for the Euro-Stinger missile.

C ENKA assembles the Black Hawk helicopter in a joint venture with United Technologies in the U.S.

C Eski Õ ahir collaborates with Rolls Royce (U.K.), producing motors for the F-104, F-4 Phantom, and Northrop F-5 combat aircraft.

C Kayseri Werkplaats is engaged in joint ventures with Sergant Fletcher (USA), SIAI-August (Italy) and MBB (Germany) in upgrading M-113s and producing components for the F-16.

C MKEK produces anti-aircraft artillery, rocket launchers, machine guns and ammunition, working with Oerlikon Contraves (Switzerland), Heckler&Koch (Germany), General Defense Corporation (USA), Rheinmetall (Germany), Eurometaal (Netherlands) and GIAT (France).97

Other Turkish plants also upgrade systems and produce parts and nonlethal equipment. As Turkey faces further cuts in foreign and military aid, especially from the U.S. and Germany, it will likely continue to develop its own arms industry with self-sufficiency in all facets of weapons production as ultimate goal.

IV. TURKISH SECURITY FORCES:

COMPOSITION, WEAPONS, AND RESPONSIBILITY FOR ABUSES

Turkish security forces fighting in the southeast include members of the Army, Air Force, Jandarma, police, and paramilitary village guards. Of the approximately 300,000 Turkish forces serving in the southeast, 140,000-150,000 belong to the Turkish Army, 10,000 to the Air Force, 40,000-50,000 to the Jandarma, 40,000 to the Turkish police, and some 67,000 to the village guards.

According to U.S. military officers, most of the security force human rights abuses in Turkey's war in the southeast are not committed by regular Army and Air Force personnel, but rather the Jandarma, Jandarma special forces, police special forces, and village guards.98 The U.S. officers' interest in promoting the notion of Turkish Army and Air Force innocence is clear: government-to-government military sales to Turkey go to regular armed forces (Army, Air Force and Navy), and the U.S. military enjoys close relations with the Turkish Army and Air Force, which are closely integrated into NATO planning and operational structures. The Jandarma and national police, on the other hand, are formally under the control of the Turkish Ministry of the Interior; consequently, they are not part of the NATO structure, and they do not receive government-to-government military sales.

Human Rights Watch disputes the notion of Turkish Army and Air Force innocence of involvement in severe human rights abuses and violations of the laws of war. The Army and Air Force are inextricably intertwined with the Jandarma and police in the southeast and many operations are conducted jointly. The June 1995 U.S. State Department report acknowledged this point, stating that the Turkish Army "is the primary agent for planning and executing major offensive actions against the PKK....[I]n many cases the military has assumed control," and that Turkish Air Force operations "are closely integrated into Army and Jandarma planning and operations."99 While regular Jandarma troops and the approximately 10,000 special Jandarma and police counterinsurgency forces are clearly the most abusive units in the region, many other Turkish units, including those from the Army and Air Force, are implicated in the violations. The Turkish counterinsurgency effort has fostered the growth of a plethora of different units operating against the PKK and the chains of command and responsibility havebecome tangled and confused. According to the June 1995 U.S. State Department report, Army units are "often co-located in secure compounds with the Jandarma," and the "chains of command [between the Army and Jandarma] quite often are blurred."100 Turkish military officers and their sympathizers in the U.S. military and State Department have taken advantage of the confusion in the chain of command, seeking to shift blame for human rights abuses away from the Army and the Air Force. The reality, however, is one in which all elements of the Turkish armed forces, including the military, Jandarma, village guards and the police, operate in an integrated counterinsurgency program and take part in the types of abuses documented in this report.

The Turkish Army

Regular Forces

The Turkish Army, which at 590,000 troops is one of the largest forces in NATO, has assigned approximately one-fifth of its troops to counterinsurgency operations in the southeast.101 Of the four armies that make up the force, two, Armies Two and Three, based in Malatya and Erzincan, are assigned to counterinsurgency tasks.102 According to one Western defense analyst, the Army's increased role in the counterinsurgency effort dates from 1992, when the Turkish General Staff introduced a series of radical strategic and tactical changes into the war on the PKK.103 Included in this force are combat units such as infantry, artillery, and armor, as well as numerous support units in the areas of transportation, communications, supply and maintenance. The bulk of the regular Army units involved in the fighting are infantry units composed of conscripts. Indeed, most of the Turkish Army is conscripted; a professional officer corps is supplemented by "reserve officers," typically university graduates who deferred their military service until the end of their education. Importantly, all of theseforces form an integral part of NATO's southeastern flank, and regularly engage in exercises related to their NATO responsibilities.

According to U.S. officials, the two most important causes of human rights abuses by the military are the Army's lack of trained and professional non-commissioned officers, and its reliance on a conscripted force. "If you only have a soldier for a few months before he leaves," one official explained, "he never learns how to be disciplined and how to obey the rules. When they go into the field, all hell can break loose."104

According to experts and three ex-soldiers interviewed by Human Rights Watch, the infantry's duties include routine patrols and ambushes in mountainous regions, garrison duties in major bases, and convoy protection. In those areas where Turkish security forces have permitted Kurdish civilians to remain, such as the towns and villages in major plains and valleys, the Army routinely cordons off villages and engages in surveillance, house-to-house searches, and arrests.

Regular Army units are frequently used as supporting forces during raids on villages by special Jandarma or police forces, which are notorious for their abusive behavior, and also work alongside regular Jandarma forces during rural operations.

In many of the incidents of abuse documented by Human Rights Watch, it appears likely that regular Army forces were present in conjunction with other units. In one incident related by B.G., the former Turkish infantryman, for example, Army troops stood by while Jandarma troops savagely beat male villagers, tortured suspected PKK activists, burned the village down, and then detained a suspect who was later reportedly killed in custody.105

Despite avowals of the Turkish military's relative innocence in the phenomenon of human rights abuse, a senior U.S. official in Turkey acknowledged that "the Army and the Jandarma are intermeshed," and admitted that as a result,it would be difficult to relieve Army troops of their responsibility for specific human rights abuses.106

Armaments

Regular Army forces carry German-designed G-3 assault rifles and MG-3 light machine guns, as well as U.S.-designed LAW (lightweight anti-armor weapon) shoulder-launched anti-tank rockets, Belgian Mecar fragmentation or armor-piercing rifle grenades, and Russian RPG-7 rocket-launchers. A few of the Army officers carry U.S.-designed M-16 rifles, but that preference, which is stronger in the special Jandarma and police units, has not yet caught on in the regular Army. Nevertheless, the Army has decided to replace its G-3 rifles with a new 5.56mm assault rifle by the end of 1995. Turkey is currently looking at bids for rifles from Belgium, France, Germany, Israel, Singapore, and the U.S. (the M-16).107

The Army's artillery forces use a variety of weapons, including 105mm M-101-A1, 150mm Skoda, 155mm M-114-A1, 155mm M-114-A2, and 203mm M-115 towed artillery systems; 105mm M-52-A1 and M-108, 155mm M-44, 175mm M-107, 203mm M-55 and M-110 self-propelled artillery systems; and 107mm M-30 mortars, and 120mm and 81mm mortars. The majority of artillery used by the Turkish Army is U.S.-supplied.

The Army's basic armored personnel carrier is the U.S.-supplied M-113 and the newer Armored Infantry Fighting Vehicle, co-produced by U.S. and Turkish companies in Turkey. Three hundred BTR-60s supplied to Turkey by Germany from East German stocks, as well as 115 BTRs supplied by the Russian Federation, have recently been added to the Turkish armed forces. The majority of these BTRs were sent to the Army, while the remainder went to the Jandarma.

Supply trucks include U.S.-made M-35/M-44 2.5-ton cargo trucks, M-54 5-ton cargo trucks, U.K.-made AWD Bedford MK-4000kg trucks, German-supplied Mercedes-Benz Unimog trucks, and Turkey's own MANAS trucks.

The Turkish armored forces use U.S.-supplied M-48 and M-60 tanks, as well as some German-supplied Leopards.

Elite Army Units

Mountain Commandos

In addition to the regular Army units, two special Commando Brigades, Bolu and Kayseri, are heavily involved in counterinsurgency operations. Unlike the regular Turkish Army forces, the Bolu and Kayseri units are more highly trained and are expected to engage in closer contact with PKK fighters and with civilians suspected of supporting the guerrillas.

B.G. told Human Rights Watch that during his April 1994-May 1995 stint in the southeast, he learned that the Bolu and Kayseri were considered by soldiers and civilians alike to be far more abusive of the civilian population than the regular Army. "Nasty behavior toward the population is encouraged in the Bolu and Kayseri brigades," he explained, "while the Piyade (infantry) Commando tend to be kinder. The commanders want there to be a kind of 'good guy - bad guy' situation, which they then use to threaten the locals. They say 'be good or we'll send the Bolu after you!'"108

Bolu and Kayseri Commandos were prevalent throughout the 1994 Tunceli campaign, during which tens of villages were destroyed.109 Witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch said they were able to identify Bolu and Kayseri soldiers, and reported that they were involved in numerous violations of the laws of war, including village destructions, indiscriminate fire, and kidnapping civilians who were then forced into serving as porters during Army patrols.110

Armaments

In addition to the weapons used by regular Turkish infantry troops, the Bolu and Kayseri Commandos appear to have incorporated a significant number of U.S.-designed M-16 assault rifles and M-203 grenade launchers into their regular arsenal. According to witness picture identification, it appears that many commando NCOs and officers use the U.S. rifles instead of the heavier and more common G-3s.

Army Special Forces

Little is known of the Army special forces, which do operate in the southeast, but with less frequency and contact with the civilian population than the highly abusive police and Jandarma special units. These special forces, originally part of the "Special Warfare Department," are now part of a new "Special Warfare Command," and are responsible directly to the Turkish General Staff. The Army has recently recalled former commandos back into service for counterinsurgency duties in the southeast.111 Some or all of these ex-commandos may have been seconded to the Jandarma or police special counterinsurgency forces, however.

U.S. military officers in Turkey told Human Rights Watch that a team of U.S. special forces, including Navy SEALs, visits Turkey on a quarterly basis to conduct training exercise with their Turkish counterparts.112 The officers would not reveal which particular Turkish units are trained by the U.S. forces, but it appears likely that the Turkish Army's special forces are among the trainees.

Armaments

Although it is difficult to identify all of the weaponry employed by these forces, Human Rights Watch does have information suggesting that the special forces use some U.S. weapons. We were shown a picture taken by a Turkish defense correspondent during a 1992 tour of the Army special force training camp in Ankara, which shows troops practicing small arms and anti-terror techniques with U.S.-designed M-16 assault rifles.

Turkish Army Aviation

The Turkish Army operates a fleet of helicopters with crews trained for attack, observation, support and transport roles. As such, these helicopters play an integral role in counter