Saturday, October 5, 2013

The KCK Trial Resumes

File:Salem witch2.jpg
One of the predecessors of the KCK trials
              

No more long breaks--the KCK trial will now drive forward with occasional weeklong breaks until the government gets what it wants, I presume.

                It's October 1st. We board the bus from home which begins our three hour trip to the courthouse in Silivri. I have taken a personal day from school to do this, but Delal does this every day. Sometimes she comes back at night, which means 6 hours of traveling every day except Wednesday. And we are one of the lucky families in terms of travel time and logistics. Nevertheless, however fortunate we may be relatively speaking, this whole process is stressful, and has a wear and tear on our lives here that increases with time. It's been two years! On the bus ride, I catch a glimpse of a newspaper article about the government shut down in America and I think of all the hysterical shouting about ‘communism’ and ‘dictatorship’ over this watered-down, anemic health care plan—God forbid the US should ever get a taste of what a real dictatorship is like (or real health care) but these games back home irk me today. How could people there be so blind and ignorant?

                By the time we arrive, the trial has already started. I hear Judge Ali Alçın’s voice as we rush down the hall—he is shrieking in that high pitched nasal voice of his, shouting at the lawyers. When we enter he has just finished and things are settling down. I won’t go into too much detail here—the proceedings are monotonous, the same absurdities dragged out again and again, over an over. Two people give their defense today—no one says the name of the first very clearly (none of us catch it) but the second is a man named Kiyaset Mordeniz. Both are local officials for the BDP. The proceedings are the same. Judge Ali asks ‘You were seen at a political rally on such and such a date, what do you have to say to that?’ And both of them give the same answer, ‘First, I was not at that particular rally, and even if I had been, it would not have constituted a crime because the BDP is a legally recognized political party and as an official, I have a right and duty to attend a rally.’ One piece of evidence is that a picture was taken showing one of the men near a building where a political meeting was taking place. Again--'is being near a building enough to prove I joined the meeting and even if I had...' The mentality if frighteningly stupid.

                At one point, Judge Ali starts to quote a personal phone conversation between Mordeniz and his wife. The lawyers stand one by one and issue their objections, private conversations have no place in the courtroom they insist. But Ali shouts them down—he does this alot today—and proceedings resume with this intimate phonecall between a husband and wife.

                It is clear to me that these people are being tried here for being in the BDP on the State’s assumption that it is equivalent to being a member of the PKK. They are arguing against a mentality capable of seeing the world only in a very rigid and twisted way.  People who oppose the government’s line are trying to divide the country and are terrorists.  Any concession you make to anything they do or say is treason. It’s the mentality of McCarthy, of the Witch Trials, of any of history’s frightening and monsterous purges. It’s all spectral evidence and guilt by association and circumstantial evidence and thought crimes—all the things that democracy has spent the last four centuries trying to stamp out. It's a disease.

                At the breaks, we wave to my father in law. We try to talk over the huge distance but even with shouting it’s impossible to hear anything. And after a minute or so, the guards shove them all out anyway. They must vacate the courtroom during the breaks—no choice, no tolerance, no mercy for those who have no other way to see their loved ones. I am sure in the eyes of the hysterical Judge Ali—our personal devil in all this, our Judge John Hathorne—we are also terrorist witches who must be stamped out forever.

That’s a real dictatorship, kids. The Law doesn’t protect you, it attacks you. The State sees you as the enemy and changes its policies as necessary to punish you, and then uses lies and animadversions to hide what it’s doing. Because you are assumed guilty, anything you do is spun to support that claim and as evidence is not really important, nothing you can say can exonerate you. Nothing is certain—not the fairness of judges or the absoluteness of the Constitution—nothing except that the State will win. Things will always be adjusted to ensure that ending. For those back home playing like this is what you are experiencing, you should hang your heads.

Saturday, September 21, 2013

Kemal Seven's Court Defence (from the Septermber 13th Cumhuriyet Newspaper)


Kemal Seven's Defense on the Anniversary of the Coup (original Turkish here)

(Translator's note--last night, September 20th, was the last day of this hearing. Out of the 97 prisoners, three were released yesterday, but not my dad-in-law. Of course, a release would have meant little since all those 'released' are still being prosecuted. They just don't have to wait in prison while it happens. Still, it would have been nice. And with all the jabber about the peace process and Erdoğan's Democracy Package, we had been stupidly if slightly hopeful. Whatever. What more can you expect from a trial that from the very beginning has been a sham in such an obvious way that its painful to relate, painful to both the heart and the brain. And yet, at the end of each of these hearings we have hope, all the feigned indifference is lost and it kind of burns a little when that hope is violated. And it burns when I watch my wife suffer and her family suffer yet again. And then, with that fire inside, sitting in a bar at an event to raise money for an American friend who'd been beaten and deported by Turkish police, I faced an ethnic Turk who grew up abroad and who, for all intents and purposes, is culturally Australian. And when I answer that I'm married to a Kurdish woman, he says, with a note of disgust, 'It's people like you who are dividing this country.' Do I laugh, cry, punch him in the face? Or sit there trapped with him for another hour? The last is the correct answer and in a way it seems symbolic of our position as a whole.
 

FROM THE CUMHURIYET NEWSPAPER

 
SEPTEMBER 13th, 2013
 

Suspects in Istanbul’s number 1 KCK trial revealed that they would not present their defenses as  they were expected to pay for their own court translator. Lawyer Sinan Zincir said, ‘This is hypocrisy on the part of the the party in power.’ While Lawyer Ercan Kanar added ‘Even in a Fascist state, no one would be made to pay a fee for speaking in their own language.’ The court refused all formal requests and only when the translators agreed to voluntarily provide their services so as not to victimize those in custody did the trial proceed to the formal defenses. Imprisoned suspect and retired teacher, Kemal Seven said that on September 12, 1980, 300 of his books had been seized and destroyed while 30 of his books were taken during the KCK operation.

‘For more than forty years,’ he concluded, ‘The system has been terrified by books.’

(September 12th was the date of the military coup that wreaked havoc on Turkey for decades to come, and this hearing was the 23rd anniversary)

Istanbul’s Severe Penalty Court 15 sits across from Silivri Prison and was built to house mass trials. This is the 40th session. 97 of the 205 suspects remain incarcerated, most of them members and administrators of the Peace and Democracy Party (The BDP). 7 suspects were not in attendance.BDP Parliamentarian Hasip Kaplan of Şırnak also watched the hearing.

The head judge Ali Alçık began by addressing Hüseyin Barış, the BDP’s ex-district chairman for istanbul who had finished his defense during the last hearing. He said, ‘You said that your telephone conversations had been twisted inside out in your statement to the court. Are you talking about a mistake in translation or are you saying they were misinterpreted?’ Suspect Hüseyin Barış stated that he used Kurdish in both his daily life and in his work with the party and that his conversations on the telephone in Kurdish had been mistranslated. Head judge Ali Alçın announced that Mr. Barış would submit a formal complaint to the court about the mistranslations and experts would investigate the matter. Kemal Seven was then summoned to the witness stand. ‘Language is a people’s honor, their literature, their everything--it  is their most valuable asset. Is charging me a fee for a translator in order to give my defense in my mother tongue in accordance with either  justice or the law?’

When Ali Alçın said ‘You will pay the translator’s fees,’ Seven answered, ‘Then I won’t give my defense.’ Judge Ali said, ‘Suit yourself.’

Against the Constitution


Lawyer for all suspects, Sinan Zincir, made clear that the other suspects did not want to make their defenses either if they were going to be required to pay the translator’s fees. He went on to say, ‘In this country, if a German or an Arab gives testimony they are not required to pay for their translations. But from a people who were equal founders of this country, you want money to give a defense in their mother tongue. This is hypocrisy on the part of the party in power.’ Zincir made clear that article CMK 212 (the law on which this decision was based) and related regulations were in violation of the Constitution. He requested that the matter be referred to the Constitution Court and put on hold. So that the incarcerated suspects not be victimized, Zincir petitioned that the translators be asked if they would perform their role on a volunteer basis.

An Discriminatory Application (of Law)


 

Lawyer Ercan Kanar stated that in no country, not even in Fascist states, were  a people charged money to speak in their own language. If neither Turkish citizens , citizens with a minority status, nor foreigners had to pay for translations, then the demand of payment from Kurdish citizens constituted a discriminatory application of law. Kanar said that while their previous request related to the unconstitutionality of item CMK 202 had not been accepted by the court, at the trial of the lawyers in the KCK case at Istanbul’s Severe Penalty Court 16, a verdict was still pending  on this matter. In that light, he requested that the application to the Constitutional Court be taken seriously. ‘The judges are not run-of-the-mill public servants. An independent and unbiased judge’s duty is to uphold theuniversal supremacy of law. With the legal understanding of an advocate of freedom, you can assure that the trial process is not impeded.’

Enough Kurdish to Express Yourself Sufficiently


Head Judge Ali Alçık, after stating that no unfair discrimination was being applied to the Kurds announced the courts decision made after recess. According to article CMK202 ‘A fee will not be collected from those, without regard to ethnic origin, who cannot express themselves sufficiently in Turkish, however for those who can express themselves sufficiently in Turkish but prefer to defend themselves in a language they may better express themselves in, a fee will be collected.’ Alçık went on to say on the subject of article CMK 202 being in violation of the Constitution, that the previous request for application to the Constitutional Court had already been rejected and it had been decided that there would be no returning to the issue.

Volunteer Translation

Upon the lawyers request, Judge Ali Alçık asked the interpreters prepared for the hearing if they would be willing to translate on a volunteer basis. Interpreter Naşide Adanır and Sebahittin Havli said that they had taken on this position assuming that they would be paid however, so as not to victimize the imprisoned suspects, they would agree to do the translations free of charge.


An Eye Witness to the September 12th Coup

When Kemal Seven, 60 years old, was once more called to the stand to present his defense, he said that ‘September 12th was a dark period of Turkish history. Tens of thousands of intellectuals and patriots were put on the torture table and thrown in dungeons. I myself was arrested during that time and was active in The Turkish Teachers Union, TÖB Der* and later Eğitim*-Sen. After I retired I took part in the political work of the DEP*, the DTP*, and the BDP.

During the coup over 300 of my books were seized and destroyed. For 30 years this sistem has been terrified of books and here, now, in the 21st century they remain terrified. Ahmet Şık’s book ‘The Untouchables’ was banned, but the system could not stop tens of thousands of readers from downloading it on the internet. I was charged because of my work at the BDP Academy with the Kurdish language.’

White painted houses

Regarding what he had witnessed during the September 12th era, Kemal Seven explained that ‘Soldiers at the time, in order to have an easier time with bombing them, painted houses in Kurdish villages white. In the villages, every adult male was forced to strip naked in front of the women and crawl over rocks and thorns. Those who didn’t do so were beaten with clubs on which ‘Unbeliever Commando!’ had been written.’ (İmansız Komando)

September 13th, 2013

 

NOTES

TÖB Der—All Teachers Unity and Solidarity Society, one of the biggest teachers organizations ever with over 200,000 members, formed after the 1971 coup. Shut down after the 1980 coup with its members purged, exiled, and tortured. Many were veterans of the Village Institute system.

Eğitim Sen—the current teachers union founded in 1995

DEP, DTP—All Kurdish political parties shut down by the government

 

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Kemal Seven's Defense at the so-called 'KCK' trials

ARTICLE as it appeared in Yuksekova News 'The Voice from Hakkari' and also ODATV on September 12th. The English Translation is Mine
Logic from Judge Ali Alçın--the terrorists most deadly tool, the planner!

The Istanbul ‘KCK’ trial put off until tomorrow

The main trial of 205 human rights activists and Kurdish politicians, 95 of whom remain incarcerated without bail, has been adjourned off until tomorrow.
 
Istanbul’s ‘KCK’ trial of 205 human rights activists and Kurdish politicians, 95 of whom remain incarcerated without bail, continued today at Silivri at the 15th Criminal Court located across from the Silivri Penal Institution with the defense of prisoner Kemal Seven,  an educator at one of the BDP’s political academies. At the start of his defense, Seven indicated that he wanted to make a change in the statement he gave the prosecutor. ‘In my statement, It seems I said that I was a member of the Peace and Democracy Party (The BDP). At the time (of my arrest), I was not yet a party member but merely working there. I want this corrected.’ Seven went on to discuss the additional files attached to the indictment prepared against him, specifically a segment regarding his telephone on which the numbers of Abdulkadir Akdağ and Nural Doğan appear*. He asked why this was added to the indictment as evidence of a crime. ‘These people are members and workers of the BDP party. Since I am also a member and worker of the BDP party, isn’t it normal to find their numbers on my phone?’ In regards to his trips overseas which were spun as evidence of links with out-of-country PKK and KCK members, he said ‘In 2003, I went to Germany to visit my brother who had been arrested. As for 2010, I went then to marry my brother off. In any case, millions of people leave the country every day and that’s not a crime, but when a Kurd does it, it’s a crime? Seeing any logic in this is a strain, really.’
Also, Seven discussed a text message sent to him by the Kurdish Institute, in Kurdish, with the words
'The message stated,' he explained, '‘The history lesson will be given at 1:00PM’. ‘Then in the attached files the prosecutor makes this comment, ‘Placing men in the PKK Kongra Gel (guerillas)’. Where this came from I cannot understand. It’s shocking how you can extract that from what was said.’
In another message sent by the Institute are the words ‘Tonight there is no taking watch at the tent. TZP Kurdistan.’
‘First of all,’ Seven said, ‘This message was not just sent out to me, but to all members of the Institute. At the same time, it is attempted to show that this ‘keeping watch’ was somehow my watch to keep. There was nothing of the kind. Moreover the word ‘TZ Kurdi’* is explained as TZP Kurdistan. This reveals the level of ‘seriousness’ with which this indictment was prepared.’ After Seven requested to be released, the court moved on to the files of evidence.
First, head judge Ali Alçık asked if Seven had attended a rally in 2011 for Peace Day on September 1st. Seven said that indeed he had and that this had been a democratic action. Alçık went on to say, ‘On several CDs found in your house were lists of addresses. What do you say to that?’ (By the way, one of these lists was our wedding invitations) ‘You’ll also find Cemil Çiçek’s internet address, too. (He’s the AKP speaker of parliament.) It’s a rather normal thing.’ Alçın went on ‘We also found pictures of you with Gültan Kışanak and Sebahat Tüncel (two BDP members of parliament), what do you say to that?’ Seven answered, ‘These were photos taken at the opening of the BDP academy. I have a lot of photos like this.’
Using Judge Ali Alçın and friends' logic--Oprah is a terrorist for appearing with an elected official
 
 
The Prosecutor Ismail İsık (who never speaks by the way) said, ‘A planner was found at your house in which the sentence was written ‘the state will either accept the leadership or a revolutionary people’s war.’ This so-called ‘leadership’ you mention—to what does it refer?’
‘This is a quote I took from a press statement and noted down.’ Seven answered. ‘As for who the ‘leadership’ referred to his, Mr. Öcalan is meant.’
After the presentation of the evidence, the court committee once again asked the incarcerated prisoners to give their defense, calling each one by name. When they answered, ‘Ez ne amede me’ (I am not ready in Kurdish) the floor was given to publisher Ragip Zarakolu, tried on bail (and thus out of prison). When he said he was not ready either, the court announced that seeing as the defendants are not ready to make their defense, the court would be adjourned until tomorrow.
*note, the defendants presented a list to the court. The list contained names in order the order that they wanted to give testimony. When the court rejected this and imposed its own order, the defendants protested by saying ‘I’m not ready.’
*TZP Kurdi (NOT Kurdistan, which, at the time this indictment was prepared was a taboo word) stands for Tevgera Ziman û Perwerdehiya Kurdî (TZPKurdî) which means ‘The Movement for Education in the Kurdish Language’—a Kurdish group dedicted to establishing education in their mother tongue.
*Nural Doğan is the vice chairman of the Istanbul province of the BDP. Abdulkadir Akdağ was the party chairman of the Fatih District (of Istanbul)—both arrested at the time of my father in law’s arrest. 

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Day Hike Two--Through the High Pastures of Conag, A Naturalist's Hike

 

 

 

 
 



Malan bakır le le çune waran le (Oh, we moved house, we went up to the high pastures)


                In the old days, before the mountains were mined and bloodied in guerilla battles, young men and women would go up in the summer with their herds to the waran, the local (and plural) Kurdish word for high pastures (yayla in Turkish). They’d camp there from May to September, grazing their animals, flirting with one another, and sleeping at nights under the grandeur of the Milky Way. They stayed in the tiny holik—or pasture cottages at night, but there were bonfires, songs, and, according to Dede, lots of flirting. In standard Kurdish, waran means also ‘homeland or hearth’, which may explain why there is so much nostalgia for them. In the  Xolxol region (once a province of Kiğı), each village had its own pasture land, and Delal had never seen hers, so we persuaded our neighbor, Mehmet Abi, who had spent his boyhood summers in the waran, to take us on a hike up through them. Which brings us to today’s entry, ladies and gentleman, on a 10 hour day walk from Conag to Xolxol through the old pasturelands, through nostalgia, ruin, renewal, and breathtaking scenery—all with a bit of history tossed in, both natural and human (of the oral kind).

                Now just briefly, there’s going to be a lot of information in here that my Southern father called ‘not important but nice to know’. Why? The Kiğı region where my wife’s village is located suffers from an information blackout. There are clearly lots of important things going down and interesting things growing here but no knowledge whatsoever about what the hell any of it is—the reason? Well as mentioned in my previous article, lots: indifference, remoteness, a 30 year guerilla war, poverty, a desire by nationalists to erase all traces of Kurds, Alevis and Armenians from the records (the paper documents themselves have all been erased or destroyed). The information blackout is archaeological (just what the hell is an Urartruan castle doing in Xolxol (Yayladere)? How is it connected to the one in Bağın that’s actually on archaeologists’ maps? What about the prehistoric drawings in the caves of Pargasor? Are the ones at Abvank part of a larger system?) Biological—no one knows the names of the wide diversity of animals and plants around here, or what you can do with them.

                Which brings me to another point—a few farseeing souls are trying to figure out a way to bring a sustainable economy to this area without destroying what makes it worth saving (a la the way the government’s dams and other projects have wreaked havoc in nearby areas) Or at least, create some sort of awareness of the value of this place before someone comes along and tries to build a mall. So some of the nice-to-know-stuff will include uses I’ve discovered for local plants. By the way, don’t take everything I say as the last word on these plants—I spent hours and hours and hours researching, checking out everything from Wikipedia to herbal medicine websites to botany books checked out from the library, but it’s easy to make mistakes because the sources are not organized and lots of these plants look alike. I only included the ones I am relatively certain of.

THE HIKE TO THE WAR

We woke up early in the morning to avoid being out on the bare rock face in the heat. Our first target was an old ruin on the ridges called Derdivan. It’s just barely visible from the fields of Conag looking north and slightly east where a ring of rocky peaks shadow the village.

We started our trek along the trail that follows a dike to the spring of Merga Axe—the Ağa’s Meadow. Conag is known for its water—springs are bubbling out of the rocks wherever you look. Apparently it has always been known for its water and for this spring in particular. Mehmet Abi tells us of the Turkish lord (Bey) of Temran Village , who so desired the water of Conag that he sent a servant every day to retrieve it—a ride of a hundred kilometers or so. The servant figured he’d cut his journey short and stop at a closer fountain along the way, but the Ağa tasted the difference, beat him to a pulp, and then sent him back for the true water. This cruel Turkish lord of Temran (Darman in Armenian) apparently was especially cruel to the Armenians of the village—and had been appointed years before the genocide by the Ottoman government to whip the local Armenians into line—the Russians Empire was looming to the East and the Ottomans were afraid the Armenians would embrace the cause of their Christian brothers. This an oral story picked up by Mehmet Abi on a trip through the region. I looked up the Lord of Temran but couldn’t find anything specific, though Darman clearly played an important role in the genocide. From that angle, there’s tons of information.

                There seem to have been many ties between the Conag region and Temran in the past (some of the villagers still have relatives there today) Delal’s uncle’s paternal grandmother was a hidden Armenian, born in Temran and moved to Kiğı before the genocide started. The Derdivan to where we were headed might have been some sort of shrine to which Armenian priests from Temran came to pray (this according to Cevat Eran’s book Bingölün Yayladeresi). But again, I could find nothing concrete.

                The path winds past the spring and through the ruins of the old village mill. It is lined with penny royal plants (pung in Kurdish), a species of mint with purple flowers. The Kurds of Conag still use penny royal in their cooking and apparently it has been used medicinally in the past to spur on a woman’s period. There are also large bushy trees called qultifang (black elderberry or Sambucusnigra) near the water—the branches and fruit are supposedly good for colds and the urinary tract—but the green parts are all poisonous and contain cyanides, as do the unripe berries. And of course you can make jelly from the berries. A study showed that it also was useful against Influenza B. Take a look.
The waterfall on the ya Bêbin

From the mill, we take a path that winds up around above the creek toward a small waterfall. The bath is called the Rêya Bêbin—the Watershed Road. Before we hit the waterfall, we turn up and right toward an outcropping of red and black rock that is shaped either like a ruined wall of a castle or a camel—depending on who you ask.

In the rocky, dry areas along the foothills of these mountains, we run into a pretty wildflower called the marsh mallow (our English word marshmallow comes from an extract the ancient Egyptians used to make a candy from this plant). The scientific name is Althaea officinalis or the deve gülü in Turkish and it apparently has a lot of medicinal properties. In fact its genus name Althaea means ‘to heal’ in Greek. The flowers and young leaves can be eaten in salads, the root can be used to treat sore throats, and a gargle rinse made from the plant can treat mouth ulcers (useful for me and my mom) The root extract is also sometimes used to flavor Middle-Eastern versions of helva.

The Marsh Mallow
 

Some of the birds here are quite striking in color. We see, at different points, bright yellow and black golden orioles (sarıasma in Turkish) and a luminous green bird called a blue-cheeked bee-eater. (Dede told us it was a şalul in Kurdish though that translates as hummingbird, and this is no hummingbird. In Turkish its mavi yanaklı arıkuşu) There are also lots of magpies (qelebast in Kurdish), and black and white crows (qirik), and a funny looking bird with a crest called ‘diksuleyman’ in Kurdish but a hoopoe in English. The hoopoe’s cry is very distinctive and you hear it all the time in these woods. One interesting thing about the hoopoe is that during nesting, the females coat their feathers and those of their chicks with a foul smelling liquid that keeps predators away—it supposedly smells like rotting meat. Another plus is that it eats a lot of insects that farmers consider pests. Most of these birds range over all of Eurasia for nesting in the summer and winter in Africa—so the ones we see now in Conag will be heading Africa-ward come September.

In case you are ever in the village and wonder about what birds are making what song, here is a video of the Golden Oriole and its song. And here is a video of the hoopoe and its song. And also of the blue cheeked bee-eater.


Me as we arrive at Camel Rock
We head up toward the camel rock, crisscrossing back and forth along an old goat trail.

The heat is bearing down on us already and the trail is lined with stinging nettles (ısırgan otu), milk thistle and other thorny plants. The milk thistle is everywhere—a pretty prickly plant with a globe of purple flowers on top that Delal says they used to hit like a baseball. Its name is kelenga kere in Kurdish—or Donkey’s Thistle, because donkeys love to eat it. According to different herbal medicine sites, the seeds have been used for centuries totreat liver problems, including hepatitis B and C.  It is also apparently a good hangover treatment because it cleanses alcohol toxins from the organs. All parts of the plant are edible. The roots can be eaten raw or boiled and buttered. The leaves can be trimmed of bristles and used like spinach while the seed head can be eaten like a globe artichoke (it’s apparently a relative).

At a bend in the trail, we pass the camel shaped rocks and then push up, cresting one ridge until we emerge in a meadow filled with ruined shepherd’s cottages (horik).
On the ruined walls of the horik of Warê Garîşan
This is Warê Garîşan—the High Pastures of the Garishan. These houses are small and made of rock, with one section for the animals and a small bed sized section for the herder. I stood on the rubble of one of the walls and looked down over the valley below, the vast expanse of hill and garden that rolled all the way to the ancient Peri River—the name of which comes, not from the Turkish word for fairy but from a much older Assyrian word. The wind whipped over the rocks and the air carried the scent of some sweet herb. What the stars must have been like here at night! The splatter of the Milky Way, and all the meteorites. What a life that must have been—to spend your summers in such a place, surrounded by such stunning scenery!


The hot sunny view of the horik of Warê Garîşan
The pasture is full of a plant called gunî in the local Kurdish (goni in Kurmanci). In the old days, the sheep, goats, and cattle would have kept this meadow free of gunî, but now the plants made a thorny blanket of pale blue-green leaves, white fuzz, and purple flowers. In English, the plant is called milkvetch (or goat’s thorn). It is a part of a genus of plants called Astragalus, of which there are dozens of species in this region. The scientific name of this particular local species—if my research is accurate—is astragalus gummifier, and it contains a high amount of flavonoids—a plant compound with anti-viral and anti-cancer properties. (It is also apparently in the Bible!) It is currently being used in research for its ability to enhance the immune system. The bees that make the local honey feed on pollen from these flowers—so Bingöl honey may give an extra boost to immunity. A friend from the village of Xıwek tells us that you can pull up the roots and extra a gooey substance that you chew as gum. This gum has been mass produced, particularly by Iran. It’s called ‘shiraz gum’ by the hoipolloi and ‘tragacanth’ by them ivory tower know-it-alls. It’s also apparently a good topical medicine for burns.
The Fields of Milkvetch as we hiked toward Derdivan

A close up

We zig zag up a gravelly ridge, slipping and sliding as we go, toward the peak called Derdivan. Derdivan, according to the author of the only resource book on the region (Cevat Eran’s Bingölün Yayladeresi), is a word that means ‘high viewing’ in Kurdish, but it also sounds very Armenian. ‘Der’ being monastery and ‘Vank’ being something like a chapel. Then, of course, there are the aforementioned rumors that Armenian priests from Temran came to this area to pray at places like the Derdivan, of which there are several, and according the Mehmet Abi, there used to be a small shrine (ziyaret) for burning candles here—implying some sort of church like ruin like the one in the village center. These days, the Derdivan has only two small circles of stones built by soldiers to serve as make-shift watchtowers. This region used to be full of guerillas and Turkish soldiers kept guard here. There is a tiny oasis of oaks next to the rocks and we rest in the shade and have a peach.
The stick we set in a cairn of rocks on top of Derdivan--That's Sulbus and Taru in the back ground
 

The blackberries on Korta Usxanan
The hike down from Derdivan zig zags back past another set of horik, these filled with swallows (hechecik in Kurdish, you can hear what we heard at this link) and wild black berry bushes (tureşk). The horik on the right are the Korta Usxanan (The Yusufhan Hollow) and the ones on the left the Korta  Seferan (the Sefer Hollow). The Sefers and the Yusufhans are the two Kurdish clans that settled Conag. ‘Kort’ is a word that means ‘hollow’ or ‘area of land lower than the surroundings’ and they are considered ‘hollows’, I guess, because they are lower than the peaks around them.


The Horik of Korta Usxanan
 

The swallows twitter, the black berries are ripening on the upper slopes and we sit on the stones and have a few (berries not swallows) for brunch. There are bear droppings everywhere, giant piles filled with berries and nuts, and we have been walking in the foot prints of a bear since we left the ridge. But of course, there are none in sight (we make too much noise)—the interesting thing is a lot of small plants grow out of the dung—a whole mulberry tree sprouted from a pile of bear dung down in Mehmet Abi’s garden.

So yeah, a bit about bears (hirç). I’m devoting some space to this because there are lots of bears here, and all during the hike, everyone keeps talking about them. Every night, we fall asleep to all the dogs in all the villages barking hysterically at what are most likely bears, because the next day, in all the fields around us, fences were broken down, honey combs raided, and mulberry tree branches snapped in bear raids. We hear stories of bear intelligence—bears circumventing or destroying electric fences and dismantling ingenuous bear traps.

My favorite story is this: the local bee keeper and honey maker, Cengiz Abi, noticed that his hives were being raided at nights but he didn’t see how or when because he was going up every night to monitor them. So one night, he decided to take a friend. Both men had a flash light but only Cengiz turned his on on the way up to the hives. He did his standard inspections and then, with flashlight glowing, went back to the village leaving the friend secretly hiding behind the hives. Of course, the bear loped down as soon as Cengiz left—apparently having waited till he saw the telltale flashlight descend the hill. The friend heard a rattling near the hives and turned on his light, and there, illuminated in all his ursine glory, was a big brown bear seated on his ass with a honey comb raised up in the air, mouth open, ready to take a chomp a la Winnie the Pooh.

The bear in Turkey is ursus arctos arctos, the Euroasian brown bear, a subspecies of the brown bears found all over the world—though darker in coloring than the other types. All the population studies I’ve read (link here) site lack of systematic studies in the region as an impediment to any accurate estimates of pretty much anything about them (information blackout, remember?) Despite the fruit salad like consistency of the many piles of bear poop we observed and stepped in, brown bears also eat deer, mountain goats, and occasionally live stock.  There are some wonderfully startling pictures here or at this bizarre hunting website. According to internet searches, unlike the black bear, adult brown bears cannot climb trees (though cubs can) due to the shape of their claws, corroborated by our Uncle Mehmet from the nearby village of Zenan who relates a story of climbing a tree to escape a bear. Also, adult males are aggressive and some bears will eat other bears’ cubs, so cubs often flee up trees when a strange male appears.

Now for those who think the bears are on 24 hour Eat-Some-People patrol. The brown bear is primarily noctornal and can be seen during the early evening and late morning hours. They are not ‘full hibernators’ which mean they can be woken easily, and prefer secluded spots for their dens like caves. And I thought this was interesting, from the ‘Bear Almanac’, ‘bears make 11 different sounds bears in 9 different contexts. Sounds expressing anger or aggravation include growls, roars, woofs, champs and smacks, while sounds expressing nervousness or pain include woofs, grunts, and bawls. Sows will bleat or hum when communicating with their cubs.’ (From Bear Anatomy and Physiology from Gary Brown's The Great Bear Almanac, Lyons & Burford, Publishers, 1993)

                Here is a safety guide with bears—wear bells, red ribbons and make lots of noise when you walk. Also, stay away from strong smelling things like colognes, perfumes, and strong smelling foods because their noses are quite sharp. If you see a bear and it doesn’t see you, move discreetly away. Most attacks are bluffs, so make noise, wave your arms to look big, and don’t run. More here.


The wild peony seeds at the Korta Uşxanan
Speaking of bears, another plant popping out of the ruins of the horik of the Yusufhan Hollow is the wild peony or gula hirçe (Bear’s rose) in Kurdish. In the spring it makes a bright purple blossom, but in the late summer it produces tall purple seedpods filled with hard bead-like beans. Delal’s aunt says they used to make necklaces and rosaries out of the seeds.  According to an herbal medicine site, the seeds used to be ground up and used to treat colds and sore throats, but the entire plant is poisonous so I’m not about to try it.


Our fingers coated with black berry juice, we keep traipsing diagonally down toward a small belt curving up toward Çiyaye Rût (Bald Mountain). Then up the far hill to a rocky outcropping overlooking the valley below—to the West is the volcanic Mt. Silbus, the rugged Mt. Taru, and all the peaks surrounding them. It’s a majestic view—the cloud shadows dapple the rocks, and toward the north is a patch of red rock and bursts of green dot the plains where springs burst out of the mountainside and sprout patches of weed, wild poplars (kawax) and willows (bi in Kurdish). And interesting thing about Taru is that the profile changes depending on where you are viewing it from. From the mezra (sub-village) of Xelan near Conag, the left side looks like the profile of a young African girl with her chin pressed up against a bearded man. The locals call her the ‘Arap kızı’, the Arabian Maiden. She’s visible from nowhere else.


The view of jik in the back and the castle (Kale) in the foreground

Taru (left) and Silbus (Surp Luis)
 

Besides Taru and Silbus, we can also see the precipitous Tûjik—its name means ‘sharp, rugged’ in Kurdish) and the Urartuan castle (Kale). Though the castle to the south in Bağın near Karakoçan is on many of the maps I found of the old Urartu Kingdom, I can’t find any trace of this castle. Karakoçan was called Palin in the ancient Urartu days. The Bağ of the current name meant ‘god’ in the Urartu language. In 1914, an explorer with the National Geographic Society did a tour of this area and said a tablet had been found at Bağın with ‘cuneiform’ on it explaining that this was the border of the Urartu Empire headquarted at Tuşpa (Van) during the time of King Menuas--(link)--who was the fifth King of Urartu and a great expanionist who built fortress in all the conquered territories. He reigned back in 800BC—could the fortress we saw on our walk be King Menuas’s work? Why isn’t it on maps? Did explorers not make it this far up the Peri River Valley? Are people wrong in calling this an Urartu castle? No one knows—and the treasure hunters destroy a little more of it every year. There were burials up on the top until quite recently that were destroyed by people hunting for Armenian gold.

According to our trusty Cevat Eran the castle was part of a fortress system overlooking an ancient highway connecting Dersim to the Urartu capital of Tuşpa (Van). If there were an attack here on the frontier, a fire would be lit on the peak and the guardians at Bağın would see it and light their own fire—in this way, in less than 20 minutes, a chain of castles lighting fire after fire would notify the capital of the attack.
The yarrow plants (yellow) in the Kilampox Ravine


From this ridge we start winding down the other side toward the Klampox ravine (spelled Kilampox in our Evan’s book). I have no idea what the name of this ravine means—in our Kurdish dictionary it says ‘Kilam’ means a musical story while ‘Pox’ means improper remark (halt in Turkish). Does this place mean the ravine of improper songs? As we descended into the ravine we passed through patches of yellow yarrow (civanperçemi in Turkish and gulhesil in Kurdish) You can apparently boil the flowers and leaves and make an ointment that is good for skin diseases, wounds, and to stop bleeding. It’s apparently a good animal feed, too, because it contains so many minerals, and it helps to prevent erosion. Some interesting facts—it’s scientific name achillea wilhelmsii comes from the legend that Achilles took it to Troy as a medicine to treat battle wounds. Here is a link which shows that it has been used to help reduce blood pressure and cholesterol levels.

The Picnic Site at Nala Gewr
 The ravine is a closed-in hollow created by the Nala Gewr (Gray Creek) that spills out of the mountain side and is rumored to be one of the main sources of water and food for bears in the area. The creek is lined with lovely green willows and oaks that shade its banks. We climb down to this stream and cut a path to the water with a machete. The water is guarded by a swarm of yellow jackets but they seem indifferent to us as we dig a small pool in the creek. Mehmet Abi makes a fountain using a pet bottle he cuts in two and we fill our water bottles. The water is ice cold—so much so that it stings to leave our hands in for more than a few seconds. We build a hearth with some rocks under a shade of willows and here have our lunch. The girls are very much focused on making tea, but the icy water takes a long time to boil.

We linger here for a while among the tall grasses—no one has been here in ages. There’s no path, no sign of other fires, no litter. About four in the afternoon, we climb up the other side of the ravine through little patches of stunted oak covered with apple like protrusions called ‘oak apples’ or ‘gall nuts’ (mazî in Kurdish). Oak apples are the swelling of oak branches from the nest of gall wasps. These oaks are a species called Aleppo Oaks (Quercus infectoria) and their galls are used to make an ink called ‘iron gall ink’ or Aleppo ink which was used all over Europe for writing, and can still be bought. (Here’s a link with how to make it)

At the top of this ridge we have a view of the valley under the Castle. There is a dry stream flowing through it called the ‘Darabi’ or Willow Tree Stream for the willows on its borders. The ridge we’re standing on is covered with pale blue-green milkvetch (gunî) and another species of the same family that locals call gongil (at least according to Uncle Mehmet from Zenan; others call it fisgunî). Gongil is shaped like a globe and looks to me like a sea urchin. According to Uncle Mehmet, the roots are quite flat and so people used to use dig it up and turn it upside down to use it to line their ceilings—snakes would not crawl over the gongil and so you were kept safe from them. Pretty little stalks of white flowers grow out of the middle.  

Gongil--another Astragalus
 

So here is an example of that information blackout. Gongil is everywhere and an image search of the Turkish name (geven) turns up this very plant, but with no scientific info or a species name. An image search of the species names of all the Astragalus species in the region turn up no pictures of this plant. So what the hell is it? I think it’s the Astragalus Traganthus (based on this website) but they might just be guessing. A study I read out of Tehran University says Eastern Turkey sees a high level of variation in this plant and is a ‘center for speciation’ for the genus Astragalus (Funny thing, these researchers cite insufficient information as a problem in their studies). In other words, this region is the source of all sorts of new and crazy species of gunî—dozens of them, but and seem to have the same medicinal properties. Basically, you use dried slices (sliced diagonally and horizontally), shavings, shredded root, whole root, and liquid extracts. Traditional Chinese medicine practitioners often administer it as a tea or shredded in soup.
Another common plant is the Bladder Senna (Colutea arborescens). It produces these puffy membranous bean pods that are fun to pop--in fact one of the Turkish folknames for the plant is patlangaç--'popper', and, an added bonus, it's leaves boiled make a mild laxative! But apparently it's not much use medicinally otherwise. The seeds are poisonous so don't eat them. It is a good fighter of erosion, however, and prevents much of this land from washing away.


I've been corrected--this is Bladder Senna, Colutea arborescens
The rolling, rocky valley under the castle is full of thorny thistly plants and majestic views of the castle and Tûjik. The bed of the Dara Bî Creek is dry and we cross slipping on crumbly ridges of yellow sand. Some of the plants here are the narcissus (nergis) and anıx. Now anıx is always explained as ‘Kurdish thyme’, but the plant we found and harvested had pale yellow-white flowers and every thyme plant I found on line and in our botany books has blue flowers. It is actually a species of oregano native to this area called Origanum rotundifolium, or 'Round Leaved Oregano'. It has a thyme like flavor, though a bit more lemony in my opinion. My wife fries it a bit in oil and drizzles it over a creamy soup made with yogurt and it’s delicious. 

Anıx

 
Another plant we find along a dry stream bed is called bugloss in English, though I have never heard of it in my life. It has pretty deep blue flowers with luminous white centers. It’s called güriz in Kurdish and sığır dili (Ox tongue) in Turkish—the scientific name is Anchusa officinalis—whatever you call it, you can eat the young leaves in salads and the flowers are apparently good for your urinary tract. 
The blue flowers are the güriz (bugloss)

It is too late to hike up to the castle, so we skirt around it, along a path called Reye Riviye—the fox’s road. And in deference to the name, a red fox lazes in the middle of the road as we round a bend past the first sign of civilization—the Mezela Şere, the largest cemetery of Xolxol with some very old graves marked with ram horns, a sign of the old Akkoyun Turkic empire that used to control these lands back in the 1400s.


One other common plant up in these parts is called kinkor by our local Kurds, though the common Turkish name is çarşıt. I could not find much about it anywhere at all except from locals, Uncle Mehmet, and Cevat Eran’s book. Kınkor is a spindly, brambly plant that grows in the rocky places here—its green and reddish. It’s all green when its young and if you cut it then, a burning white liquid resembing milk will ooze out. In the old days, they would harvest it in the fall, leave it to dry in bundles and then take it home for winter feed for the animals. In the fall, it turns yellow and can get yanked out of the ground by a good wind, just like a tumble weed.
Kinkor--under which the delicious Kifkark mushrooms grow in the spring--yum
 
Foxes here, like everywhere, are known for being wiley, but this guy in front of us seems quite tame. He is the same orange gray color as the rock with large pointy ears bigger than those of any other foxes I’ve seen. He doesn’t bother to get up until we are right on him, and even then, doesn’t dash away but trots off nonchalantly to a pile of rocks near the graveyard.




Heading toward the castle and Fox Road
 
 
 

As the number two most common animal I saw in this area let me stop and give a little info on the red fox. Our fox friend is vulpes vulpes anatolica—the Anatolian Red Fox. The red fox (whose coat can widely vary in color) originated here and expanded out all over the world (just like civilization). They apparently have remarkable hearing skills and can hear the flight of crows from over ½ km away (about a third a mile) and the squeaking of mice from 100 meters (300 ft.) Another cool thing is that though the use urine to mark territories they will also mark empty food caches with urine so as not to waste time searching there later. Like our fox, most people here say foxes are not particulary afraid of people and may form friendships with cats or dogs. Uncle Mehmet says that there was a fox in Zenan who got close enough to pet.

Also, since Urartuans controlled this area way back when, I think it’s interesting to note that Urartu burial chambers contain fox skeletons—the animals were part of death rituals in other words. This connection to religion is old since some of the carvings on the monuments at Göbeklitepe, the oldest temple-like site in the world, are of foxes.

We also keep seeing turtles everywhere—it is apparently testudograeca ibera—the Spur Thighed Tortoise—named for the spurs on their thighs, naturally. They range from the Central Balkans all the way to the Caucuses. They live in ‘scrapes’ and come out during the day to bask and graze. We heard them moving through the brush everywhere we went, assumed they were giant bears with land mines in their mouths, freaked out, and then only found, in the end, turtles. They eat dandelions, mallows, and vetches—all of which I have mentioned here. They like to bask in the sun and will prop themselves up on a rock and extend their necks and legs. The most interesting thing about them seems to be their mating habits—the male gets rather feisty, biting and ramming them as he tries to mount them and mounting other dude-turtles if ladies are not available. They also seem to be surprisingly, in a little danger of extinction.

 
Let me end with one final animal—my Chinese zodiac sign, the wild boar our in scientific circles the Sus scrofa libycus . We see signs of boar all along the paths—they have clearly been rooting in places. At twilight once we saw a heard of them in the fields. People hunt them here, though they don’t eat them, however back in the days that homo sapiens first started settling these lands, they not only ate them, but domesticated them. Evidence for the very first domesticated pigs comes out of sites like Çatalhöyük, one of the earliest human settlements sites in the world and not too far from this area. The story is here.

So that’s it—hopefully I turned on a few lights in the vast information blackout, but really, there is still so much we don’t know about this place. If nothing else, you can look at the pretty pictures.