Our Culture And Beliefs Are Threatened

Tension remains in the southeast city of Tunceli following angry demonstrations by thousands of inhabitants against the governor and local authorities this week. Demonstrations follow a bloody feud among the pub owners, whom the locals blame for exploiting "barmaids" for prostitution.

During the fight three were injured. One of the injured and the ambulance driver later died in accident as they were transferred to neighboring Elazig province public hospital.

Eighteen women, who have come from other parts of the country to work in the Tunceli pubs, have left the town after the demonstrations. The barmaids are reported to lack work licenses.

It is still uncertain if the women have left the town with their own will or forced to do so by the local authorities.

"The matter is not the barmaids, but forced degeneration"

The demonstrations were not against the barmaids but against the ongoing "degeneration" in the city's public life, a woman from Tunceli, who wanted to remain unanimous told bianet .

"Almost all Tunceli inhabitants are Alevites and vote for the left...But this structure is deliberately threatened from above," she says.

A southeast province, most of Tunceli's 100 thousand population are of ethnic Zazas most of whom belong to the Alevite belief, a very liberal interpretation of Islam, characterized among others with granting utmost freedom to women in public life.

Scene to bloody war between the guerrilla PKK and other rebel Kurdish groups and the Turkish government during the past decade, Tunceli has remained under emergency case rule until 1999. The emergency case is lifted since the PKK's kaying down arms after the leader Abdullah Ocalan's capture that year.

'This protest is not against the barmaids," the woman underlines. "They say that they have to work as barmaids as a result of the unemployment and migration. But we, including me, all know that these women wait in front of the pubs and lots of marriages are about to collapse. Nobody is against woman workers here, but we are all against the schemes from above to deform Tunceli's cultural structures through such interventions that had never happened in this city before."

Tunceli governor targeted

The demonstrations were triggered by the denial of health care by he local public hospital for the wounded as their surgeon was in leave. The deaths of one of the injured, Deniz Çinar, and the ambulance driver, Zeki Yilmaz, in a traffic accident during transfer to the nearby town of Elazig provoked public anger, and the delivery of the bodies of the lost inhabitants back in Tunceli hospital comprised a last drop in the cup, the locals believe.

On Tuesday the city mayor, representatives of the political parties and the unions made a joint public statement to condemn the pub owners, who employed barmaids from without Tunceli, and urged for an end to "negative developments" what they believe lead to ethical degeneration in the town. 6 thousand locals joining the press conference urged the "barmaids" to leave work.

Tunceli mayor Hasan Korkmaz called the demonstrators "boycott the pubs who exploit women to attract customers, and disguise dirty things under the veil of service work." Two protestors were taken under custody after the demonstration.

Our cultural and spiritual structure is targeted .

Ekber Kaya, an official from "Tunceli Culture And Art Foundation", explains why the protest have gone so far as to urge for the governor and the surgeon resign: "Tunceli's original cultural structure is threatened. Lack of doctors, insufficient control on pubs and the neglect of street children are what people are reacting against and protesting today. The matter is not the 'barmaids' but the schemes of destroying the city's original cultural and intellectual structure".

Governor Mustafa Erkal who says that the events are misinterpreted is expected to make a public statement to clarify the case.

Following the events that stormed the city, the owners of 16 pubs and hotels have been warned in a meeting in the mayor's office concerning the "barmaids" working without licenses. Charges raised by the demonstrators were also discussed in the meeting.

Demands and proposals:

Tunceli inhabitants commenting for bianet on the reaction by 6 thousand demonstrators converge on the opinion that, people have urged for the governor resign for tolerating moral degeneration in the city, women working in the pubs for prostitution, absence of doctors, growing robbery, and drug addiction.

The governor Hasan Korkmaz and the NGO representatives who attended to the joint press conference on Monday raised the issues and urged for urgent action:

* We should protest the pubs, who employ barmaids until the situation is changed the other way around.

* We should all react together to street gangs the people fighting in the street and response in one way against their damages to the environment. We should display them.

*The relatives of drug addicts, undergound people, and of robber gangs should have been warned and provided aid for rehabilitation. They should be isolated from the public if they fail in that respect and treated as "immoral" in accordance with our tradition says.

* A rehabilitation centre should be opened in the city where the young can be cured.

* The emigrants should be provided the chance to return to their native villages.

The real solution: Returning to villages

According to the mayor Hasan Korkmaz the demands of Tunceli inhabitants arise out of recent developments that took place in the last few years:

' In Tunceli, where no criminal event has ever happened, it is of public knowledge that in the last three years the number of thefts, the gangs and sniffers have grown considerably. We have held the press conference in order to urge for a solution to the situation what grows out of the vacuum caused by unemployment and migration.

* Clear solutions are needed for the Tunceli people who are loyal to their culture and past: Job opportunities and measures for returning to villages.

Returning to villages is widespread demand among both the inhabitants of the Southeast cities and the emigrant Kurds. Throughout last decade estimated 2 million people have been forced to leave remote Kurdish villages and hamlets under government measures to deny local support to Kurdish guerrilla PKK.

The policy have ended up with dumping millions of jobless people in the already troubled cities with insufficient substructure and housing and already suffering from unemployment.

Tunceli mayor Korkmaz repeats that they are not against women working in pubs. "It is normal," he says. "But we have asked for their firing for it is a widespread belief that they are not simply barmaids"

General solution will

The teachers union Egitim-sen Tunceli branch chair Murat Halat too converges on a similar opinion: "It is reality that these women are exploited as sexual objects in order to attract demand," he told bianet. , usage o the women as goods to attract customers was a reality, which was based on the observations and sensations of the public.

Left wing Emegin Partisi (EMEP) Tunceli branch chair Murat Uldes warns that the demonstrations are the expression of a profound distress.

"This was a signal for the authorities. The more general problems such as migration and unemployment are the real causes," he says. And urges for a "general solution in line with the general will of the people. (ÖG/EK)