Executive Summary
In an ostensible effort to combat the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) insurgency during the 1980s and 1990s, state security forces forcibly displaced thousands of rural communities in the Kurdish regions of Turkey. Some 3,500 towns and villages were destroyed during this time. Illegal detention, torture and extra-judicial execution by both state forces and village guards also took place. Today, the majority of these villages remains demolished and there are no plans for their reconstruction. Between 3 and 4 million villagers were forced from their homes and are still not allowed to return. Most internally displaced people (IDPs) are unable to return to their homelands because of obstruction by village guards, landmines and poor socio-economic conditions.
The return of persons displaced during the armed conflict in east and south-east Turkey to their homes is one of the most pressing issues that Turkey will encounter. The European Commission’s 2004 and 2005 Progress Reports on Turkey’s accession to the EU both described the situation of IDPs as ‘critical’. The steps taken by the Government to address the problem are so far limited to the Return to Villages and Rehabilitation Project, which intends to secure the economic infrastructure for return, and the Law on Compensation for Damage Arising from Terror (Law 5233). It is generally felt that these measures are not sufficient to solve the problem, since the village guard system, the landmines, the region’s economic underdevelopment and the danger of renewed armed conflict all continue to present significant obstacles to return which fail to be addressed by the Government. This report summarises the results of a fact-finding mission to Van, south-east Turkey, and Ankara, in July 2006 to investigate the operation and effect of the above two programmes in practice. | 
