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Village Guards { 19 images } Created 20 Aug 2009

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  • A television receiver in the village of Catal Koy, near Diyarbakir, in eastern Turkey. Television allowed villagers to see a world beyond their semi-feudal system when it first arrived.
    14050-4a.jpg
  • Villagers return to Ugrak, eastern Turkey, even after three were shot and their car burned by local village guards who wanted to keep their lands.
    14200-23a.jpg
  • Houses destroyed by the Turkish military in attempt to remove the PKK's powerbase. Even villagers who wish to return home may have no home left.
    14120-26a.jpg
  • A former village guard in Catal Koy, near Diyarbakir, in eastern Turkey, tells journalists of torture, kidnapping, and harrowing escapes  as part of the government pressure to become village guards.
    14140-19.jpg
  • In a dusty hamlet outside Ugrak,  Bahriye Guclu, the wife of imprisoned village guards who allegedly killed returning villagers, insisted the men burned their own car.
    14120-20a.jpg
  • The Turkish government armed about 60,000 village guards in Eastern Turkey, almost all Kurds, as defense against the PKK, but with the war over, the guards have little use for their weapons beyond protecting their flocks and many are refusing to allow villagers to return home.
    14170-5.jpg
  • Villagers return to Ugrak, eastern Turkey, even after three were shot and their car burned by local village guards who wanted to keep their lands.
    14060-26.jpg
  • The Turkish government armed about 60,000 village guards in Eastern Turkey, almost all Kurds, as defense against the PKK, but with the war over, the guards have little use for their weapons beyond protecting their flocks and many are refusing to allow villagers to return home.
    14180-32.jpg
  • At night, in many towns all over Turkey, the men sit and gamble and smoke in tea houses like this one in the eastern city of Diyarbakir.
    14090-33.jpg
  • Pushcarts are common in Turkey, used for transport and sales, as much in the developed West as in this eastern city of Diyarbakir.
    14070-17.jpg
  • Villagers who were forced out of their homes often moved to the city, Diyarbakir. They are trapped in poverty, without access to capital, and without saleable skills.
    14090-24.jpg
  • The face of the founder of Turkey, Ataturk, stares down on the Kurds of Diyarbakir. Kurds in Turkey do have full language or cultural rights.
    14070-30.jpg
  • Expelled from his village by military police, "Mehmet Kucuksoz"  (not his real name) says his lands have since been taken by village guards.  A mixture of threats and government obstructiveness have prevented him from returning home.
    14060-17.jpg
  • Many villagers in the Diyarbakir region cannot return home. They work in the city at anything they can find, if they can find anything.
    14070-20.jpg
  • Sehmuz Kaya, a village guard, at the water pump, in his village outside Diyarbakir. The Turkish government armed about 60,000 village guards in Eastern Turkey, almost all Kurds, as defense against the PKK, but with the war over, the guards have little use for their weapons beyond protecting their flocks and many are refusing to allow villagers to return home.
    14180-11.jpg
  • Women and children store grain for the animals in Catal Ko?y, a former village guard village near Diyarbakir in eastern Turkey.
    14130-4.jpg
  • Villagers from Ugrak, unable to return to their village, live in squalor in a quarter of Diyarbakir.
    14100-17.jpg
  • The village of Yazc?ic?egi, in the Diyarbakir district, near the Mardin district. The villagers are still village guards.
    14070-34.jpg
  • Men catch the winter sun in the village of Yazc?ic?egi, in the Diyarbakir district, near the Mardin district. The villagers are still village guards.
    14070-32.jpg