The Story - Tragedy - of a Turkish Soldier in the Mountains of Kurdistan

by Oktay Yildiz

[First appeared in Ozgur Politika, September 1996]

"On a rainy Saturday afternoon, we went shopping in the suburb of Ulus in Ankara. I unconsciously threw myself on the ground when I heard gun shots. When I got up off the ground, faces in the crowd around me were looking strangely at me. I then realized that I was covered with mud. I asked my wife, who was guiding me away from the crowd, "Who shot us?" Looking at my face with deep sympathy, she answered, "It was the sound of the jack hammer digging the concrete on the sidewalk.' "

It is a rather difficult feeling to explain; the fear of living with fear. Jumping out of bed from a nightmare only to find your pajamas are drenched in sweat. Huseyin Guclu, a seargant serving in the military in Kigi, Bingol, in 1987, was telling us this story in an interview.

Ali Riza Eker, another seargant who served in the Turkish military in Kurdistan, committed suicide a month ago after finishing his military service. He had post-traumatic stress disorder, or the so-called "Vietnam syndrome." He was a victim of the psychological damage that is created when one is exposed to a war environment. This syndrome was experienced by the American military cadets in Vietnam, the Russians in Afghanistan, United Nation forces in Somalia, and the Turkish troops in Kurdistan. That is why the United States, which lost thousands of people to this syndrome, has produced movies like "Rambo" to eradicate the effect of this disease from the minds of their young people. Turkey will suffer from this syndrome in the years to come; who would have expected that soldiers decapitating and mutilating innocent people would lead a normal life after such experiences? Doctors from the military hospital have reported that between 20-30 soldiers are treated every month for the symptoms of this syndrome, according to Nokta weekly magazine. According to one doctor, these people are having a hard time adapting to civilian life; they think that they are still in the military and engage in pseudo-militaristic activities such as dodging bullets, patrolling the streets, and awaiting a military offensive. According to one of the military doctors, civilian life represents an unadaptable form of living, an inescapable trench, and the more they try to get out of it, the deeper it gets. Every object they come across and every sound they hear is perceived as the enemy and they become soldiers all over again. They live this trauma of war even when they are asleep.

What was the premilitary life of Ali Riza Eker like? He was young, healthy, handsome, and an individual full of life who was considered to be the best hunter in Mahmudiye village in Balikesir. One day he was summoned to the military to serve in one of the gendarmarie battalions in the province of Mardin (Kurdistan). He was put in charge of managing an automatic weapon with heavy artillery. He was appointed "Hunter of the Kurds." He would tell his family of his heroic military stories and, particularly, of how he killed over 30 Kurds and how proud he was of these killings. Whether he truly believed his actions to be heroic or not is unknown. He was conditioned to act on orders and he did. In a letter to his best friend, Bulent Koroglu, who was serving in Tunceli province (Dersim) in Kurdistan, he described his participation in one of the military actions against PKK guerrillas where he jumped off a military helicopter, dodged behind a rock, and sprayed the PKK guerrillas with his automatic weapons and, before long, he had fired off 1,600 bullets and killed 7 people. "You should have been there, Rambo was nothing compared to us!" As he continued with his heroic actions of killing Kurds and decapitating them, he thought that it was all for the benefit of his people and his country, without knowing that he was not only committing harm to his people and his country but also to himself. He was on a journey with no return. He later realized that he had no choice but to put the barrel to his own head and pull the trigger.

"Whatever happened, happened in the last three months of his military service" explained his father Husamettin Eker. He asked his mother to get his coffin ready as he may not have much time to live during his last phone conversation with his mother 20 days before being discharged from the military, an event that put the family on the edge. He went to Istanbul with one of his cadets for a few weeks, then to Balikesir for several days where he was found drunk and unconscious in a coffee shop by some relatives who later took him to his village. Ali Riza had now discovered the truth that what he did to other human beings in the military was not for the benefit of his country, but it was too late. He would not speak, except for giving short answers to questions he was asked. He would wake up in the middle of the night and rush outside and engage in military-style actions, such as holding imaginary weapons, digging trenches, and shooting at imaginary enemies in the night. He had been engaged to be married before going to the military, but would not speak of his fiancee and did not care about his dream house that was under construction. When his father asked him if he would like to get married, he answered by saying "I killed my fiancee". He then went on to say that 7 days before he was discharged he was given the responsibility of killing a captured female guerrilla and that she turned into his fiancee when she was killed. He would rush into his brother's bed in the night and tell him about how one of his best friends exploded into pieces upon stepping on a mine and how one religious cadet taught them about the code of honor and then died with 8 others in one of their operations, and how one of his friend committed suicide in Ankara after being discharged from the military, and how they all are asking him for his company and how he cannot turn them down. He told his family how he killed 35 people during his military service and how he was brain-washed into committing these killings and how he had no choice but to do so. "We were forced to enjoy the killing. I now know that the people I killed were human beings just like me." He knew that he was one of tens of thousands of young Turkish soldiers that were made the hunters of the Kurds; his conscience would not leave him alone. He knew now that the ones who made him commit these crimes were getting rich from this dirty war and were enjoying their money while he could not even get a good night's sleep. He eventually lost the battle to his conscience and decided to take his life on one October night while attending a wedding ceremony. His body was discovered by his fiancee outside of the wedding hall with a bullet in his head. As this dirty war continues, there will be many more Ali Riza's who will become the victims - unfortunately.

(The American Kurdish Information Network is grateful to a Kurdish doctor for the translation of this article.)