Bureaucracy closes way back to villages

The implementation of a new law aiding people displaced by the armed conflict with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, is being obstructed by local authorities, daily Radikal reported Friday. 

A commission set up by the southeastern province of Mardin to assess damages from terrorism has raised a series of objections to avoid paying compensation for losses suffered by local residents to their houses, animals or possessions.The municipality asked for documents like tax records or registration papers for the compensation of animals and then refused to pay any compensation when villagers were unable to show any such documents.In 1993, due to an increase in armed conflict, thousands of villages and allegedly 3 million people were evacuated. In 2004 a law known as the "Back to Villages Law" was passed to compensate losses suffered and to encourage people to go back to their villages. The government promised the villagers that their losses would be reimbursed by commissions established within the municipalities. A total of 91 villagers living in Mardin's Midyat district appealed to the provincial damage assessment commission in 2004. After four years, the commission reached a verdict on 30 of the cases. The verdicts were met with disappointment from the villagers when despite experts' statements and villagers' legal evidence of ownership of the stables, the commission did not accept that the villagers were engaged in animal raising. 

Objecting to the decision, the villagers' lawyer, Medeni Ayhan Ayhan, filed a petition saying they had been renting houses for 11 years and that each of his clients had a rental loss of YTL 33,000, which the commission refused to pay. Ayhan claimed the commission offered unsatisfactory compensation for the damage incurred to villagers' homes. Yet the commission argued that some villagers had already left or were getting ready to leave their houses before the mandatory displacement.

Reasons for refusal

Among the commission's arguments for refusing payment were a lack of documentation stretching back more than 15 years ago, a lack of clearance from the husbands of female applicants and a lack of photographs of the alleged houses. Ayhan said requiring clearance for female applicants went against the law and that the commission was trying to dissuade people from pursuing their legal rights.In his petition Ayhan said they had assessed the damage to each house at least four times. "Although it is not mentioned in any of the laws and none of the provincial commissions demanded it, our commission did not conclude files that did not include photos. We had the images of the houses on CDs, but the commission did not change its attitude." Characterizing these practices as arbitrary, Ayhan added he refused to provide any more assessments of the damages.