Mayor to hit back at barracks with statue
Güncelleme Tarihi:
by Gülay Özer
Oluşturulma Tarihi: Haziran 25, 2009 00:00
VAN - The mayor of the Özalp region of Van, eastern Turkey, will erect a memorial for the 33 people who were shot dead on the orders of a general in 1943 in front of barracks named after the same general.
On July 30, 1943, 33 locals in the Özalp region near the border with Iran were detained for smuggling and taken into military custody on the orders of Gen. Mustafa Muğlalı and then shot dead. In 1949, the Democrat Party, or DP, opposition submitted an application for an inquiry into the matter, leading to the arrest and prosecution of Muğlalı, a senior officer in the Ottoman army in World War I and Turkey’s War of Independence between 1919 and 1922.
Muğlalı pleaded guilty and a military court sentenced him to capital punishment, which was later commuted to 20 years in prison due to his age. The top military appeals court overturned the sentence but he died in prison in 1951 at the age of 71 while the appeal process was underway.
The Office of the Chief of General Staff rehabilitated Muğlalı with a posthumous pardon in 1997 and erected a statue of the general in the War Academy grounds the same year.
In 2004, the General Staff named the Gendarmerie Border Command in Özalp after the general, calling it the "General Mustafa Muğlalı Barracks."
Özalp Mayor Murat Durmaz, from the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party, or DTP, said the memorial, which will be built right across from the barracks and financed by the municipality, would be in the shape of a large bullet with crevices containing 33 icons for each of those killed.
Durmaz said work on the design was continuing and that construction would begin soon after the municipality received approval from the local administrator. The memorial was his brainchild, said the mayor, adding that visitors would be able to light candles inside and plant trees outside the building. "The memorial will be a symbol of hope that such a massacre will never be repeated," he said.
Muğlalı pleaded guilty and a military court sentenced him to capital punishment, which was later commuted to 20 years in prison due to his age. The top military appeals court overturned the sentence but he died in prison in 1951 at the age of 71 while the appeal process was underway.
The Office of the Chief of General Staff rehabilitated Muğlalı with a posthumous pardon in 1997 and erected a statue of the general in the War Academy grounds the same year.
In 2004, the General Staff named the Gendarmerie Border Command in Özalp after the general, calling it the "General Mustafa Muğlalı Barracks."
Özalp Mayor Murat Durmaz, from the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party, or DTP, said the memorial, which will be built right across from the barracks and financed by the municipality, would be in the shape of a large bullet with crevices containing 33 icons for each of those killed.
Durmaz said work on the design was continuing and that construction would begin soon after the municipality received approval from the local administrator. The memorial was his brainchild, said the mayor, adding that visitors would be able to light candles inside and plant trees outside the building. "The memorial will be a symbol of hope that such a massacre will never be repeated," he said.