Turkey blames IS for Ankara terror attack, but survivors point finger at government
PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 13 October, 2015, 8:02am
UPDATED : Tuesday, 13 October, 2015, 12:42pm
Washington Post
Protesters, angry over the Ankara bombings, set fire to a picture of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and US President Barack Obama in the northern city of Thessaloniki, Greece. Photo: Reuters
The Islamic State is the “primary focus” of investigators after suicide bombings killed nearly 100 people at a rally in the capital during the weekend, Turkey’s prime minister said on Monday. But even as authorities vowed to identify the perpetrators, survivors of the bloodshed directed their anger at the government.
Labour unions, other workers and universities throughout the country went on strike and led protests against the government, pointing to a nation dangerously polarised by unrest and violent spillover from Syria’s civil war.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan “can still rule the country if he wants to. But he divided us. After the bombings, one part of the country is not sorry that this happened,” said Veli Sacilik, a member of a civil servants union who witnessed the attack.
A protester runs from a barricade after protesters set it on fire during clashes with Turkish security forces after a protest against the Ankara bombing attacks in Istanbul's Gazi district. Photo: AP
Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) have governed Turkey since 2002, but the party lost its ruling majority for the first time in elections in June. The upset set off months of tense negotiations over a coalition government that ultimately failed. In the meantime, Turkey’s ceasefire with the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which has waged a decadeslong struggle for the rights ethnic Kurds in Turkey, ended as both sides resumed attacks.
Erdogan had called for snap elections scheduled for November 1, and opponents accuse the president of sabotaging the country’s politics to regain his party’s majority in the polls. Saturday’s demonstration, which mobilised activists from across the country, was supposed to serve as a nationwide call for peace.
Instead, at least 97 people were killed when two blasts ripped through the crowd of demonstrators in central Ankara on Saturday. The bombs exploded just seconds and yards apart and were detonated by two suicide bombers, officials said. It was the worst terrorist attack in the country's history.
“If you consider the way the attack happened and the general trend of it, we have identified the Islamic State as the primary focus,” Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Turkey's NTV television.
Turkey is a strong backer of rebels seeking to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, but the nearly four-year civil war has allowed the Islamic State militants to seize territory there and in Iraq - and now possibly mount attacks in major Turkish cities.
People attend a sit-in rally to mourn the Ankara bombing victims in Istanbul. Photo: Xinhua
At the Ankara headquarters of Halkevleri, a rights group, the union leaders who organised the rally said it was possible that Islamic State bombers carried out the attack. But they also said the government’s support for Sunni extremists in Syria emboldened the jihadists. The operation was a well-planned assault aimed at maximising casualties, the activists said.
“Nothing can happen in Ankara without the knowledge of intelligence or the police,” said Samut Karabulut, Halkevleri's director in Ankara. At the office, the unionists printed a three-page list of 130 victims they say were killed in the bombing. The list included the victims’ full names, birthplaces and the hospitals they were taken to by paramedics on Saturday. Karabulut and other activists accuse authorities of deliberately playing down the toll, but officials say the Health Ministry won’t announce the deaths until they have been verified through a government procedure.
The activists’ claim that there were 130 victims was “based only on anecdotes. The government has a verification process, that includes notifying the families, before a statement is issued,” said a senior Turkish official.
“It doesn't help to have mainstream political parties blaming the government for the attacks without any evidence,” the official said. “It's like saying the Bush administration perpetrated 9/11.”
Witnesses to Saturday's massacre said that police attacked demonstrators and volunteer responders in the wake of the blasts. Police fired tear gas at bystanders rushing to help.
