Final declaration of Diyarbakir
The 5th International Conference Against Disappearances, was gathered in Diyarbakır in between May 16th and 20th, under the main title “War and Occupation: Human Rights Violations, Torture and Disappearances”. 300 delegates from the countries; Argentina, Chile, Canada, India, Sri Lanka, Spain, France, Bulgaria, Germany, England, Palestine, Switzerland, Holland, Colombia, Greece, Finland, South Korea, Turkey and Northern Kurdistan attended the Conference.
We believe that gathering this conference in Diyarbakır, an opening gate to the Middle East, where war and occupation creates great human rights violations and a city located in the center of Kurdish geography where the people have been suffering disappearances/deaths under arrest, extra judicial executions, evacuated/burnt villages, mass graves, torture are experienced intensively, has a great meaning and importance.
Besides discussions and sessions, we also realized sit-down action, planting trees for the memory of the disappeared, film shows and music performances for disappearances, in the course of the Conference.
More than fifty relatives of disappeared people, sharing their pain with other delegates, pointed the newly found mass graves in Diyarbakır-Kulp, Mardin-Savur and Bitlis-Tatvan and demanded that all mass graves should be uncovered, fate of their relatives should be explained, and the responsibles of the disappearances should be tried. The cry of the mothers from the Conference desk; “at least we want a gravestone of our sons for crying and praying”, marked the conference.
The delegates, coming from many different countries of the world, shared their struggle experiences and the realities of their own countries, and stressed that even tough it is experienced in different languages and different geographies; disappearances are rooted from the same imperialist system. They called attention to the need of joining the struggles for disappearances in the international level.
Our conference called for raising the struggle for democracy and fraternity and the international solidarity against militarist policies arising in Turkey and especially in the Kurdish province in recent times, against the fact that the Turkish state replies the just, honored and democratic peace demand of the Kurdish people with policies of blood and tear.
Our conference raised the demand of the immediate end of the heavy isolation conditions of Abdullah Ocalan in Imrali Prison (where he was put after being kidnapped by a CIA plane, through an international conspiracy) and of the isolation in the F-type prisons which continue since the last six years, and the realisation of humanitarian life conditions in these prisons.
We also demanded that the new proposal for the change of the “Anti-Terror Law” which is being held in the Turkish Parliament to be immediately withdrawn, since this law will bring the usurpation of the democratic rights, the legalization of the mass graves and will prepare the basis for new mass graves.
Our conference called for support to the resistances of Middle Eastern people, Iraqi, Palestinian, Kurdish people coming in the first place, against imperialism, Zionism, occupation and colonialism and for enhancement of the common struggles of the peoples. This conference convicted the torture brutality in the Abu Gharaib and Guantanamo Prisons, many political disappearances in Iraq, attacks to Palestinian captives such as the kidnapping of Ahmad Saadad from Jericho Prison, and demanded the immediate end of these attacks.
Our conference drew attention that the USA, with the support of the European states, is developing a new form of crime against humanity by kidnapping people by CIA planes and putting them in secret prisons.
Our conference supports the tireless struggle of the Argentinian people and of the Plaza De Mayo mothers, demanded that the responsibles of disappearances should be punished and that more than 400 young people who were born in concentration camps and kidnapped from their families should be given back their identity.
In Chile, we support; the popular struggle for the punishment of Pinochet, the primary responsible for the disappearances in Chile, and the struggle of the Mapuche people; we demand the release of the captive political leaders of the Mapuche people.
In Colombia, we condemn the paramilitarian style neofascist regime, for state terrorism and dirty war applied on the revolutionary opposition, union and political leaders, with the support of North American imperialism and its’ multinational corporations (such as Coca-Cola).
Our conference, also discussed the neoliberal attack programme of imperialism and its’ results; and stated that, there is a direct relation between militarist violence and unemployment, poverty, starvation, exploitation policies.
In our conference, these suggestions were declared in the discussions about the perspective, means and methods of struggle against disappearance policies:
– forming a communication network for raising international solidarity in the struggle against disappearances, for preventing the disappearances, and organizing simultaneous reactions in different countries,
– The number of known disappearances was 839 in Turkey. However, after our examination in the process of our conference, this number raised to 1228. This situation indicates once more that it is a necessity to form a social memory, to strengthen the communication and co-ordination between associations working for human rights and disappearances. In this frame, forming different commissions for revealing the realities and providing justice,
– forming a commission for finding out all mass graves and exposing the realities in all its’ dimensions and for struggling on this issue,
– following the trials in which the polices who killed the twelve-year old boy Ugur Kaymaz and his father in Mardin-Kiziltepe and the trial of the state officials who made a bomb attack targeting the civilian people in Semdinli; and organizing the mass struggle and mass pressure for preventing these kind of attacks,
– Providing capacities for the necessary rehabilitation and support for the traumas that the relatives of the disappeared live,
– organizing the struggle for finding and judging the responsibles of disappearances/deaths in police custody, extra judicial executions and mass graves, and for removing the legal barriers that prevent their judgement,
– re-organizing the actions of the relatives of the disappeared was proposed.
Our conference ended with enthusiastic embraces of international delegates and relatives of disappeared from Turkey and with the calls of “Never Again!”
20th of May, 2006 Diyarbakır
International Committe Against Disappearances (ICAD)
Association of Assistance and Solidarity with the Relatives of the Disappeared (YAKAY-DER)
