Prominent Kurdish politician Leyla Zana has reiterated the need for justice over the 2011 Roboskî massacre, which saw 34 Kurdish civilians, including 19 children, lose their lives due to an airstrike by the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK), during a solemn visit to the graves of the victims.
The visit to the village of Roboskî in Kurdish-majority southeastern Şırnak’s (Şirnex) Uludere (Qileban) district, part of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy (DEM) Party’s local election campaign, saw Zana and a delegation being welcomed by families holding photos of their lost loved ones at the entrance to the Roboskî cemetery.
During her visit on Saturday, Zana made a poignant statement, saying, “Roboskî is the wound of Kurdistan”. She elaborated on the enduring pain of the Kurdish community, drawing parallels between the Roboskî tragedy and other historical sufferings of Kurds across the region. Zana’s words echoed the sentiment that justice for the Roboskî victims is pivotal for a free future, underscoring the massacre as an “unhealed wound”, not only for the local community but for all of Kurdistan.
Zana criticised the Turkish government’s handling of the massacre, emphasising the lack of accountability and transparency in the aftermath of the incident. “There will be no peace without justice,” she asserted, calling for a thorough investigation to shed light on the events of 28 December 2011.
Leyla Zana and the ‘Oath Crisis’
Zana, a well-known figure in Kurdish politics and winner of the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, has been in the spotlight recently for reappearing in public speeches after a long absence to call for peace. A key figure in the 2013 peace talks, she is now pushing for renewed talks between Turkey and the PKK.
A staunch advocate of a political solution to the Kurdish question since the 1990s, Zana was charged with treason in 1994 after uttering a sentence in Kurdish during a session of the Turkish parliament.
The incident, which went down in the history of the country as the “Oath Crisis”, erupted when Zana, the first Kurdish woman MP in the Turkish assembly, took her oath by saying in Kurdish “I take this oath for the brotherhood of the Turkish and Kurdish people”.
The massacre and its aftermath
A total of 34 people, including 19 children, were killed in an airstrike by the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) in Şırnak’s border village of Roboskî on 28 December 2011. The bombs left bodies dismembered, with families unable to identify their loved ones.
News of the Roboskî airstrike broke on television about 12 hours after the event. The delayed coverage was due to pressure from social media, which had already increased awareness of the incident and forced the mainstream media to cover the story.
Turkish officials had first announced that the strike had targeted a convoy of Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) fighters entering Turkey illegally. However, it was quickly revealed that the victims had been locals who were smuggling cigarettes and other goods from the Iraqi side of the border, which cuts through closely related communities on both sides.
Cross-border smuggling is a main source of income for many in the region, due to the mountainous border, lack of opportunities in the area, and the fact that two frontier Kurdish communities are closely related.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, prime minister at the time, had targeted alternative media organisations for reporting on the dozens of deaths, and congratulated the army for their “sensitivity despite the press”.
“It was a group of 40. There were mules and people. How can anybody know who is who from that distance?” Erdoğan said at the time, defending the army’s decision. “We have already announced we will pay compensation, but there are some who abuse the matter,” he said.
On 16 January 2012, the survivors of the massacre were indicted on charges including abuse of the passport law and smuggling. This was seen as an act of intimidation.
A parliamentary commission conducted an on-site investigation in Roboskî between 4 – 6 February 2012. Some members of the commission protested after reviewing drone footage of the incident, on the grounds that civilians were clearly identifiable.
An important turning point came on 16 May 2012, when the Wall Street Journal reported on US involvement in providing the drone imagery for the airstrike. The Turkish army and Prime Minister Erdoğan denied the allegations, which included the claim that civilians could be clearly identified in the drone footage.
On 5 August 2012, the Diyarbakir Prosecution confirmed that civilians had in fact been identified in the drone images.
In January 2013, Hakan Fidan, the former head of the National Intelligence Organisation (MİT), denied the MİT’s involvement. He stated that there had been no “faulty intelligence”. However, in November 2014, then-Interior Minister İdris Naim Şahin contradicted this, claiming that MİT had provided several intelligence reports that led to the tragedy.
Neither MİT nor state officials have acknowledged their role in the massacre years after the event.
The families’ search for justice was delayed for years, only to be dismissed by a military court in 2014. Another appeal at Turkey’s Constitutional Court failed in 2015, and in 2016, a group of 281 relatives of the deceased appealed to the European Court of Human Rights.
The top European court rejected the case on a technicality, saying the documents the court requested were provided in 17 days instead of 15 as the bylaws stipulate.
Erdoğan’s son-in-law and then-Energy Minister Berat Albayrak said in 2019 that “Uludere may be investigated again, the aircraft may be investigated”, prompting another appeal to Turkey’s courts by the families citing new evidence. There have not been any developments on the new appeal to date.
