'Contractors are merely the hired guns and racketeers of this crooked system'

Click to read the article in Turkish

They may not have felt the jolts of the 6 February earthquakes, but when they switched on the television that morning they felt the pain in the earthquake zone deep down inside. They felt the anger of falling short of extending a helping hand to the people there, of the state being nowhere to be seen in the region, and the prevention of those who wanted to extend that helping hand. Mücella Yapıcı, who for many years has continued her struggle for the right to humane housing and an end to the devastation of nature, conveyed her feelings and thoughts in the answers she provided to Çiğdem Mater's questions. Here, we publish this interview which was forwarded to us by Mater and Yapıcı's lawyers.

- We learned about the earthquake at 8 am on the morning of 6 February, when we switched the television on after the headcount. What did you think, what did you feel at that first moment?

First of all, deep anger. It was as if all my anger that had welled up for nine months, was released from these earthquake faults that were "expected" to fracture. With the entire area in my mind, all the scientific and technical warnings made to this day - that thus proved useless as if they had been said to a brick wall - began to flow through my brain at the speed of lightning. That was followed by great despair... Despair felt for what we could not do... As if all the responsibility was ours, as if we had failed to tell the people and administrators what they needed to know. And then the people, the lives, the historical monuments, memories, friends, and my dear Hatice Can. [Lawyer Hatice Can and her husband Mithat Can, two leading rights' defenders, lost their lives in Antakya during the earthquake.] My friends and colleagues there, and of course, my dear sister and her family in Adana... It is tough to describe it; we are both living through the same thing...

To sum up, anger, responsibility, sadness, a sense of revolt, incarceration, uselessness, the desire to hold accountable... All mixed up. But always that question, "What are we doing here, when there is so much to do?" As if we were dodging our duty. I had never experienced the feeling of captivity so intensely. As I just said, it is all mixed up, I feel like bringing down these walls. I think we all feel this. And besides, when we have lost, so far, thirty thousand lives, what importance do our own feelings have? In fact, the real secret of the system lies in the answer to the question, "Why are we here?"

- On the basis of your experience of the 1999 earthquake and later earthquakes, what are the rights and wrongs you saw in the first moments of this earthquake?

Dear Çiğdem, you were there, too. Exactly two months before the Marmara Earthquake, we, as TMMOB [Union of Chambers of Turkish Architects and Engineers-UCTEA], had held a symposium in Kocaeli, titled "Is Kocaeli Ready for an Earthquake?". Moments before the 12 November 1999 Düzce (Kaynaşlı) Earthquake, me, my husband architect Memik Yapıcı, geologist dear Oğuz Gündoğdu and lawyer Erbay Yucak, were at the Bolu Governorate. When we went to the Governor to say, "We are expecting an earthquake here, be prepared", he looked at us as if to say, "Who are you? Do you claim to know what only Allah knows?" Then, just after the Governor left and as we entered the governorate courtyard, the earthquake began, with an acceleration that at times overcame gravity. And we were forced to set up the Disaster Coordination Centre in the governorate courtyard. Believe me, we organized much faster then than today. We waited for orders or directives from no one.

We knew what we had to do and we had received training. Right after the earthquake, the army arrived. I remember the commander of the soldiers repeating my orders without asking "Who is this woman?" and addressing me as "commander". And the miners... Exactly two hours after the earthquake, each with a loaf of bread in their hands, they arrived in coaches at the coordination centre. I remember crying. The same had happened at the 17 August earthquake. We, as TMMOB, along with all other professional organizations, medical chambers, pharmacists, bar associations, psychologists and women's organizations, shared out tasks in a highly organized manner, worked with the army to bring the situation under control. People were crying out "Where is the state?" then, too, but at least the state wasn't preventing help.

The most significant difference today is that there is a self-proclaimed, hollowed-out spectre we call the state, yet the fear struck by this spectre is so great that all the institutions, organizations and individuals that have pledged it their obedience, even to save their own lives, appear to await instructions from it.

During previous earthquakes, at least we didn't have to deal with this spectre. You are asking me about the rights and wrongs committed in the first moment, but the wrongs of the first moment are rooted in the already-prevailing approach, form of administration and mentality. In any case, all members of the media and the people who have experienced the earthquake have openly expressed these mistakes. For God's sake, to keep the miners waiting, who were ready to be dispatched to the earthquake are, and then to send them by land, what does that mean? In the age of communication, how is it possible that a vital need like communication cannot be provided? Who are these companies? We grew tired of repeating our opposition to the 'Construction Amnesty' that was passed in 2018.

More than 10 million faulty constructions were given licenses. Who voted for this law to pass? So, now, does the responsibility lie with the property owners, as this law says? What kind of legal monstrosity is this? Have all mistakes been waived?

The same mistake existed before the 1999 earthquake. With the amnesties of the 80s, thousands of faulty and irregular buildings were legalized under the responsibility of certified inspection offices. Many buildings that collapsed were within this scope.

In 2018, the "Construction Amnesty", then presented by the government as if it were a divine act almost on the scale of a peace treaty between Russia and the Ukraine, this time didn't even seek a cover, like the certified inspection offices. So who's culpable now? Is it the owner of the hotel, who was allowed to open despite seven separate verdicts of stay of execution, that hotel which has now become the grave of tens of athletes and guides? Is it the contractor who is culpable? Is it those who allowed this to happen? Or all of them, together?

The huge settlement of Değirmendere, built on a landfill site, lies under the sea (since 1999) to this day, yet there are those who continue to make plans for and construct buildings on landfill sites, there are those who hold rallies at the Maltepe and Yenikapı landfill sites, filled with construction rubble, and they continue to collect earthquake aid on those very same sites when the Istanbul Earthquake could happen at any second... Do they not know? Did we not tell them?

Who was it that opened all the earthquake gathering zones to development, and insisted "I must construct buildings here" - despite all the scientific, technical and legal rulings against it - on the only site in the middle of Istanbul that can be used to erect a field hospital, a tent area or a helicopter pad, that is, Gezi Park? Who was it that committed violence against those who tried to stop that, who murdered 8 of us and injured thousands? They are all listed in the "complainants" section of our case file.

- 'It's all there, with relevant documents, in the TMMOB archives'

Which companies built an airport by draining the Amik Lake and the Amik Plain (in the province of Hatay), which companies prepared positive Environmental Impact Assessment (ÇED) reports for them, despite the negative reports of TMMOB and other organizations? Who approved those projects and reports?

Who was it that built a gigantic airport on the frailest part of the Thrace region, an airport that will clearly suffer worse devastation than Hatay Airport at the first earthquake, and let alone an earthquake, can't even operate when there are strong winds or snow? Who deliberately destroyed the Atatürk Airport that worked like clockwork, to find customers for the "new airport" and maximize the profits of construction gangs? Who condemned us to that single remaining runway? Then one asks: why did the search and rescue teams fail to arrive on time?

Who are the judges who didn't rule for a stay of execution in the cases we filed, who undersigned these plans, these projects, who are the university staff and inspection board staff who wrote the reports?

Who are the big names, our star colleagues who undersigned all these irregularities, having firmly placed their professional ethics in their wallets, and then try to clear their name by saying "if it wasn't me, someone else would have done it, and I can do a better job"? Are they now hiding in the pockets of contractors, I wonder?

We could go on for months. It is all there, with relevant documents, in the TMMOB archives, until the next earthquake.

What percentage of the housing produced to this day by TOKİ, which on the pretext of urban transformation has become the greatest monopoly in the world, have been built for people living in risky buildings? I have no access to documents, but I guess it is around 10 per cent - go on the internet, check the TOKİ web site.

Who today is aware of the danger posed by the quarries opened on the periphery of residential areas in order to cater for the construction projects only in Istanbul? The people there, and professional organizations like ours are aware of it, we know it and we say it, but who is listening?

Stop me, Çiğdem! I'm telling you, these are not mistakes of the first moment, this is a lack of morality that has persisted for years. Nature has passed its sentence. Now it's our turn to do the same.

So do we, as the people, hold no blame at all? Oh, but we do! When we conducted a struggle to prevent the present development in Fikirtepe and what would follow, when we conducted a struggle for a healthy restructuring in line with reason, science and the environment, suitable for people, wasn't it the people who raided our meeting and hung a banner in the middle of Kadıköy that read, "Chamber of Architects, Don't Block Our Profits"?

Is society, who thinks that construction is the occupation only of a clan known as 'contractors' and has forgotten even the name of the architect, engineer and planner, not guilty at all? I am following the press, and I see that the only authorized person they still recognize is "contractors", in other words, tens of thousands of rich individuals who have no specialized education and authority. For the last week, I have been reminiscing about our building foremen of the past who possess the ancient knowledge of construction.

As for building inspection... The current system of building inspection is also entirely "tied to the contractor". Because it is the contractor who makes the payment to the inspector. The professional inspection rights of the relevant chambers of TMMOB were blocked by the government. Today, the great majority of building inspection firms are companies that merely provide signatures. As for those firms that "do their job properly", they can't find work. Besides, every large construction company has established its own inspection office anyway. In other words, cook it yourself, eat it yourself and let the people die.

Today, estates with 2-3 thousand residences are controlled by a single firm. There are very few resident architects and engineers, which should in fact be present on site every day. And yet thousands of our young colleagues are out of work.

Young people are becoming architects without studying geometry

We even have colleagues who undersign around a thousand projects a year. And since there is no inspection by professional chambers, this work distribution leads to great inequality, lack of control and lack of quality. On the education side of things, new private universities are opened not on their own campuses but in apartment blocks, with no good lecturers. Architecture, engineering and planning education has been cut off from its fundamental notions, and young people are becoming architects without studying geometry. Professional ethics? What is that? It could put you in prison. So this is the situation in brief, and I ask, who is guilty? We all are...

- I witnessed how, bemoaning and lamenting, you received the news of this earthquake which arrived "with our eyes open", after both TMMOB and scientists had issued warnings for many years. Also remembering how Süleyman Demirel [President, 1993-2000] said "we learned our lesson" about the 1999 earthquake, I want to ask, even if we learned our lesson, did we do our homework?

I will try to summarize without returning to my responses to the previous question and without repeating myself. Forgive me. For the last week, my brain has been under the irregular bombardment of the accumulation of many years and both necessary and unnecessary information. I fail to impose any methodical order on them, it is, in a sense, a breakout of ideas in a confined space...

This part of the world has been receiving its earthquake lessons since the Neolithic Age. Göbeklitepe, for instance. The best lesson was taken from the Erzincan Earthquake in 1939. That earthquake led to the preparation of perhaps the most sophisticated disaster laws in the world. That was followed by other great lessons... The lessons learned from each of them were written down, illustrated, rules were introduced, regulations were renewed. However, following the neoliberal economic and ideological restructuring that began especially from the 1970s on, a deeply-rooted change was made to public administration mentality. With the 1980 military coup, this new system was established through anti-democratic methods, without making any infrastructural changes and without introducing any supportive measures, and it prioritized a consumption economy rather than a production economy. Cities and rural land, even if they belonged to the public, became the greatest capital of an economy based on construction. In addition to this, the target was set to become a centre of attraction for international capital through "crazy" and "mega" projects. Governments, in order to stay in power, formed very close relationships with this new group of capital. All the profiteering gangs and mobs we speak of today are an outcome of the ideology of that period. Meanwhile, the 1999 earthquake introduced a new field of work: demolished cities, the fear struck by sites waiting to be demolished, this industry, and "urban transformation", which is still ascribed exceedingly false meanings, thanks to scientific neoliberal ideologues. This concept, which should, in fact, be used to mean "the reinforcement, sanitization and rehabilitation of settlements" was transformed into a "miracle" concept in the hands of the new construction industry on the basis of a false translation and mentality. In the immediate aftermath of the 1999 earthquake, the "inexpensive and swift reinforcement plans and techniques" proposed by all professionals and scientists were rapidly shelved. The already dense housing, with contractor dividends consented to by society, was now made almost ten times denser, and neighbourhoods were constructed from scratch. And it was not areas that should have essentially been rehabilitated that were chosen, but areas that could provide high profits. With new laws, TOKİ became the owner of all the land stock of the state, and opened these areas to the "profit projects" of the new contractors.

The policy of social rental housing was abandoned completely, law no. 775 was abrogated. The "earthquake" was used as a pretext to comfortably carry out all this, and thousands of new laws and decree laws were issued. As far as I know, the public tender law has been changed 195 times. The State Planning Organization (DPT) was abolished, severing the ties between nationwide planning and physical planning. All the planning powers of municipalities were handed over, bit by bit, to the Ministry of Environment and Urbanization, or rather, to a single authority. All the plans in planned regions were shot to ribbons with changes to those plans. An attempt was made to divest the professional chambers from their inspection powers, as they were trying to legally prevent all this by using their constitutional powers. They were declared enemies and traitors. Bar associations were divided; the legal system was "transformed" in line with this new mentality. This was how this legal transformation was included in development reports (I paraphrase, I am in prison after all, I don't have access to the full text of these articles): "What really needs to be done today is to provide the necessary convenience for international and local capital. Our municipalities will be transformed into promotional corporations in this sense. Our legal system will be reformed to suit this new condition".

'We have been declared enemies of the state and even labelled as sluts'

Did our lessons stop in the face of all this that took place? I can respond to that question with great peace of mind: No. We continued them on individual and institutional levels with greater determination and effort. My own institution, TMMOB, the trade unions, TTB [Turkish Medical Association], the bar associations, professional organizations, they all held hundreds of national and local symposia and meetings on earthquakes, the results were shared with the state and the public, and measures that needed to be taken were listed separately for each region. Professional and institutional training was conducted, search and rescue training and construction analysis first and foremost. Society didn't sit about, either. Serious organization began through Neighbourhood Disaster Volunteers groups. Forces were joined with municipalities, containers were placed in every neighbourhood, all full with rescue tools. Where are they now, one wonders. Then what happened? Everyone went after getting new kitchen tiling and renewing their old building, in order to increase their profits. Is that out of the ordinary? No. If homes are no longer tools of housing but have been transformed into tools of social and economic security and tools of profiteering, if both the state and society define the right to housing only via the right to property, then this is quite ordinary. Besides, if urban land is subjected to private property, if public property is made available to whomever, in order to provide income for the state, then it is even more ordinary.

In the same way that the state puts the land it owns on sale for a profit, the people also try to increase the profit on each square-meter of their property. Besides, the profit the people seek is still so much more modest. Seeing that the contractor makes an 80% profit, the people seek about 1%. And they never ask, the poor people, what is it precisely that this contractor actually does? What kind of responsibility does the contractor bear? As for the architect, the engineer and the planner, the regular person doesn't even know them. They are like the sub-contractors of that great contractor.

In other words, we learned our lessons time and time again, yet some continued to grow big, grow fat, through ill-gotten gains all off our backs, in the meantime taking society's value judgments captive. We were condemned as troublemakers, naysayers, enemies of the people, enemies of the state and we were even labelled as sluts. In short, we failed our class in the lesson of the state.

What's the good of saying, "We told you so"? The people didn't listen to us. We told them, professors told them, but we failed to get the message across to society. We failed to overcome the media, that gargantuan organization controlled by the state.

Those who raise their voices are punished even for "making facial expressions" [Halk TV presenter Ayşenur Arslan received a ban from the Radio and Television Supreme Council for 'praising terrorism with her facial expressions'], so there is only social media left to teach a lesson, and we all know what state social media is in. Tweeting is a ground for punishment. Now, there is only a single transformation to be done: a transformation of the system and mentality. That is the lesson I take from this. Lest we forget, those who create the crisis can never solve the crisis, they must be dismissed from their positions at once.

- We know that the Minister of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change has recently stated that 6.5 million buildings in Turkey do not comply with the earthquake code. Whether inspected, not inspected, or having benefited from construction amnesties that were resolutely rejected by professional chambers, all of them collapsed. Beginning at the project stage, how would you describe the chain of mistakes/acts of negligence?

If 75% of a country is located along seismic belts, then the planning must begin at country-level. Where to have the industry, where to have the settlement, and how much of the population? That is followed by physical plans. The geographical, geological, topographical and ecological structure of settlement areas has to be determined before the plans are made. Unfortunately, planning organizations do not include specialists from the fields of geology, forestry, agriculture and geophysics. There are some very general assessments, but they do not even abide by them. Many people who have received training in these fields are out of work. There are even some who work as prison wardens.

And no planning decision is made anymore in line with geographical, geological, ecological or social targets. All decisions are being made by politicians at the command of capital, who view land as "real estate", and even, so to say, as "prime and tender real estate".
'A fault line was shifted by a municipal council decision'

I never forget the time when, for a mass housing project to be built in the Adana area, the fault line was shifted away a kilometre by a municipal council decision. Areas under building prohibition in plans are opened to development with changes to the plans, and then that becomes legal. Then there is also huge unlicensed construction on these sites. They are legalized through construction amnesties and added to plans. The greatest problem at the planning stage is that the Environmental Impact Assessment Reports, which by law must be prepared especially for large investments, are ordered by investing companies. This is precisely the stage where the excuses of high-ranking professionals who have lost their sense of professional ethics and their forged reports come into play. All the cases filed by professional chambers and non-governmental organizations continue with no ruling for a stay of execution. This is a legal problem of such magnitude that those mainly responsible today for more than thirty thousand lost lives and hundreds of thousands of destroyed buildings are those who hold judicial power yet did not grant a stay of execution despite the specialist reports they had in hand.
And after that, these harmful plans and investments are activated, the construction concludes and only then is the plan cancelled. But what is done is done, and all those estates and buildings have been included within the scope of "national wealth". Sulukule, Tarlabaşı, Hasankeyf, the third [Bosphorus] bridge, the third [Istanbul] airport, the environs of Kanal Istanbul which have been opened for development, Hatay Airport, Akkuyu, Sinop, Zorlu Center, Galataport, the examples are many.

Consider the fact that the most valuable documents of the ancestors of this country, the Ottoman archives, were transported to a new building on the Kağıthane River. No need for an earthquake, the building gets flooded anyway. Why? Because they made a hotel out of the original archive building, and if that is how they treat the Ottoman archives, what do we expect?

We know this for sure: With the 2018 Construction Amnesty, around ten million buildings in Turkey and 294 thousand buildings in the earthquake zone were legalized despite being unlicensed, and even in some cases, despite rulings for their demolition. They all received licenses.

When inspection is mentioned, everyone thinks of inspection carried out during or after construction. Those stages are also very important, of course, but architectural and human designs that do not establish a proper relationship with the ground, and that includes electrical and mechanical projects as well, projects that do not take into account the seismological impacts of earthquakes, and have not been constructed on the basis of architectural and static designs are condemned to either tilt sideways, sink into the ground or collapse. Both during other earthquakes and now, we have seen thousands of examples of this, we have recorded them, we have published reports. While the Chamber of Architects, the chamber of mechanical, construction and electrical engineers continued their professional inspection implementations, while we inspected the projects of all our colleagues, the government took those powers away form us. Project inspection was left to construction inspection bureaus. Look at the reports of chambers affiliated with TMMOB. Those who voted for this law, should please re-read the reports that were transmitted to them one by one, and transform their conscience.
Meanwhile, we, as the TMMOB Chamber of Architects, have been carrying out both professional inspection and environmental impact assessment since 1995. In every province there are Environmental Impact Assessment Advisory Boards made up of specialist academics, relevant chambers and inspection architects, and I am currently the secretary of the Istanbul Advisory Board.

From Taksim Square to landfill areas, there are Environmental Impact Assessment (ÇED) reports for every building that applies to us for inspection. We convey these reports to everyone, and first and foremost to relevant ministries, municipalities, property owners and the press. In other words, we try to protect the jug before it breaks.

In this way, both our colleagues and our municipalities safeguard themselves from problems that may arise in the future, if there is a mistake, then it can be corrected at the project stage.

Despite all the obstructions of the central administration, we carry out these highly important inspections with all the municipalities we sign protocols with. However, I guess because of their workload, we hadn't yet had the opportunity to sign a central protocol with the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality at the time of my imprisonment. If we had managed to do that, we would have had a protocol with all district municipalities as well. I hope that has been done during the time I have spent here.

In the past, our colleagues working in public institutions were legally under obligation to register as members of professional chambers, but this obligation was removed with the 1980 military coup. Public buildings were made exempt of inspection both during the project and construction stages, and TOKİ [Housing Development Administration of Turkey] is included in that. Now, plans and projects are made by command, and buildings are constructed by directive.

This problem must be solved urgently. Contractors are merely the hired guns and racketeers of this crooked system. (I wish permanent inner peace to those contractors who do their jobs properly.)

'Those who had nothing to do with construction were allowed to work as site managers'

As for the construction process, all decisions regarding materials and work programs must be prepared before construction begins. A team is formed of technical staff and construction workers who are experienced and have economic and social security. The management of these teams is carried out by technical, implementation and site supervisors (engineer or architects). A change was made to the construction site manager regulation so that technicians and those who were from fields that have nothing to do with construction were allowed to work as site managers.

Architects hold professional controller rights as part of their rights as designers of the building. However, with the new inspection regulation, this power has been transferred to building inspectors that receive their payments from the contractor.

- In order to "learn lessons" this time around from such large devastation, what must we pay attention to, how should we go forward?

Let me give you a striking example. After the first, approved restoration project for the Atatürk Cultural Centre (AKM, in Taksim Square, Istanbul) was stopped and given to another firm, we heard that a number of interventions were being carried out inside the building, but we, and the architect of the project, M. Tabanlıoğlu, were not allowed into the building. Funnily, dear Eyüp [Muhcu, Chairperson of the Chamber of Architects] and myself, had to hold a press statement at Taksim Square behind the police line, because it was demanded that the AKM be demolished, although all reinforcement projects and financing were ready. Now we applaud because its name has remained the same. Are you aware of the increase in construction area of the AKM, of the privatization of culture, and wasted public resources?

'Our generation has proved to be tough'

I wish I had my documents so I could tell you the planning, project design and construction stories of all these buildings, one by one. I hope I will get that opportunity before too long. I'm 72 now, but not to worry, our generation has proved to be tough.
What I am saying is that construction is not an easy job at all, especially if you are expecting the solution from a "contractor" who doesn't even have to have finished primary school. Good luck with that, my dear people. You didn't hear us, or we failed to make our voices heard.

I can't say much more, everyone knows all this already, I am baring my heart, that's all. As I speak, the number of lives we have lost has exceeded thirty thousand, and we still have thousands of people and animals under the wreckage. I fall silent.

But I will say this, what needs to be done is clear, one by one. Immediately bring into force the proposals and measures in the reports of TMMOB, TTB, the bar associations, KESK [Confederation of Public Employees' Unions], DİSK [Confederation of Revolutionary Trade Unions of Turkey], municipalities and universities in the fields of society, health, education and in fact, every single field.

I beg you, so that no act of negligence goes unpunished, teams formed of prosecutors and lawyers, professional chambers, representatives of professions and public officials must inspect the wreckage, and evidence must be collected properly.

Besides, I hope the system has planned where to deposit the millions of tons of construction rubble, for they have already declared even the number of floors for the buildings they hope to build in the region, and they are no doubt already carrying out tenders as well.
Immediately declare these spoil areas, and don't cause a new environmental massacre. The best is, immediately, yes, immediately, resign your positions to individuals with a sense of ethics, and leave, just leave! Now, immediately, once and for all. This would be the most important, most urgent and most beneficial act that can be done at this moment.

I'm hurting inside, my brain won't fall silent. Forgive us, children!

(ÇM/ND/VK)

Translation: Nazım Dikbaş