FEATURE-Turkey's village guards face danger from all sides

Reuters - Wed Nov 14, 2007 1:18am EST

By Thomas Grove

HILAL, Turkey, Nov 14 (Reuters) - With a rifle slung around his neck, Sadik Babat points to where his house stood before being destroyed in Turkey's scorched-earth campaign in the 1990s against villages suspected of supporting Kurdish separatists.

Babat, a Turkish Kurd, is an unlikely figure to be working as one of 57,000 state-sponsored village guards throughout Turkey's southeast, acting as a guide and fighting the Kurdish rebels alongside the same army that destroyed his home.

But with recent legislation aimed at boosting their numbers by the thousands and a possible cross-border operation into Iraq looming, these villagers, labelled traitors by many of their kin, may become more important than ever to Turkey's military.

Ankara has amassed 100,000 troops on its border with Iraq and threatened a cross-border offensive to crack down on rebels of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) based in mainly Kurdish northern Iraq.

The army says the village guards' knowledge of this remote mountainous terrain is key to operations in guerrilla warfare.

"I've probably participated in more than 500 operations over the last 21 years. At the end of some I've been the last one standing, and there have been times when I've shot and killed, too," Babat said loading his rifle in a single, fluid motion.

The PKK took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984 with the aim of creating an ethnic Kurdish homeland in the southeast. Nearly 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict.

Officially the guards are part of a controversial policy established in 1985 to set up a paramilitary force to protect villages against PKK attacks, patrol the rugged mountains and help fight the separatists.

But their right to carry arms, to inform on suspected separatist activities and to kill in the name of the state has made them a force within the region, while critics say they use their status to settle family scores and take over land.



UNACCOUNTABLE FORCE

"They are an armed and unaccountable force and the rules by which they are governed are very ill defined, so they can get away with murder, theft," said Emma Sinclair-Webb, a researcher on Turkey for U.S.-based Human Rights Watch.

Since the system's implementation, 4,972 guards have committed recorded crimes, while 853 have been imprisoned, according to parliamentary records.

The guards have also been criticised in the latest European Union progress report, which says their armed presence has hampered the efforts of displaced villagers to return to their homes in the southeast.

One village guard walking his donkey on a border road said there is little love for him and his fellow guards.

"If they ever take my gun away the first thing that will happen is I'll get hung in the village square," said the man who gave only his first name as Cinsi.

In the southeast, Turkey's military -- the second largest in NATO -- has always said the decision to join the guards is voluntary, but villagers say their decision to sign up has been accompanied by force.

Even Babat acknowledges the contradiction of working with the army that destroyed his own village of Hilal, and says he joined purely out of pragmatism.

"When they destroyed our village, some people joined the PKK, others fled to northern Iraq. If you wanted to stay you had to become a village guard," said Babat, looking over the river that once ran through Hilal.

Village guards say the 500 lira ($424) monthly salary also draws enlistments in the country's poorest region.

With participation largely dictated by economics or force, loyalties can be uncertain and telling friend from foe can be difficult and dangerous.

Babat, like other guards, carries his rifle everywhere he goes -- slung over his shoulder at the grocer's or walking along the mountain roads -- to defend against both members of the PKK and intelligence services who may think he is a double agent.

In October six guards working in the area were arrested for informing the PKK about army operations, security sources said.

"There has always been informing. That's nothing new. I've known people that have worked both sides for years. With the things that happen out here ... sometimes you know that someone is informing," said Babat.

With Turkey's top general saying they are waiting for orders for a cross-border operation, village guards say they do not want an even greater military presence in their backyard.

But Babat says he will fight if the need arises.

"I'm not afraid, there's no fear in me. If I meet a terrorist on the road, I'll shoot and I'll make sure I'm the last one standing." (Editing by Stephen Weeks)