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Civil Wars
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Environmental Consequences of
Civil War: Evidence from the Kurdish
Conflict in Turkey
Mehmet Gurses
Published online: 12 Jun 2012.

To cite this article: Mehmet Gurses (2012) Environmental Consequences of Civil War: Evidence from
the Kurdish Conflict in Turkey, Civil Wars, 14:2, 254-271, DOI: 10.1080/13698249.2012.679495

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 Environmental Consequences of Civil War:
Evidence from the Kurdish Conflict in Turkey

MEHMET GURSES
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Theories of environmental degradation as a predictor of armed conflict have

gained momentum as scientists warn of the catastrophic consequences of
global warming. Despite an increasing number of studies that emphasize this
causal relationship, the literature is scant on the reverse linkage –
environmental consequences of civil war. This study seeks to examine the
impact of civil war on the environment and argues that state forces deliberately
transform the environment to undermine rebels’ ability to wage a war. Using
data from the Kurdish conflict in Turkey, this study presents evidence for the
devastating effects of civil war on deforestation and the agrarian economy.

INTRODUCTION

Theories of environmental degradation as a predictor of armed conflict have gained

momentum as scientists warn of the catastrophic consequences of global warming.
This growing literature is conceptually based upon the notion that changes in the
global environment such as rising temperatures, land degradation, deforestation, and
the declining supply of fresh water generate fierce competition, and thus increase the
chances of armed conflict and civil war.1
Along this line studies have provided evidence for the disastrous effects of
environmental degradation on armed conflict. Burke et al.,2 in their examination of
the impact of global warming on civil war in Sub-Saharan Africa, conclude that rising
temperatures are significantly associated with an increased risk of civil war. Hendrix
and Glaser3 conclude that rising temperature and precipitation are significantly
associated with the risk of armed conflict. Similarly, Hauge and Elingsen4 conclude
that deforestation, land degradation, and a scarce supply of fresh water increase the
risk of civil war. This scarcity-induced conflict, Sirin5 argues, interacts with the size
of the minority group; large ethnic minorities are more likely to engage in civil
conflict under conditions of environmental scarcity. Other groups of scholars,
however, have argued that this proposed effect is weak or negligible,6 is rarely
substantiated with reliable data,7 or is contingent upon a range of social and political
variables.8
From different perspectives, scholars from several disciplines have addressed
varying effects of armed conflict on the environment. Earlier studies have examined
negative effects of interstate and/or internationalized wars on environment.9
Civil Wars, Vol.14, No.2 (June 2012), pp.254–271
ISSN 1369-8249 print/ISSN 1743-968X online
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13698249.2012.679495 q 2012 Taylor & Francis
 ENVIRONMENTAL CONSEQUENCES OF CIVIL WAR 255

Recently, scholars have examined the effects of war on wildlife10 and CO2 and NOx
emissions per capita.11 This study engages the growing literature on the environment
and armed conflict and seeks to examine the impact of civil war on environmental
degradation.
State forces, as a part of counterinsurgency measures, deliberately transform the
environment in which the rebels operate to undermine rebels’ ability to wage war.
The next section delineates the mechanisms through which civil war leads to
environmental degradation and is followed by evidence from the Kurdish conflict in
Turkey to substantiate the relationship. The data from the Turkish Statistical
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Institute, the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, and the Ministry of Agriculture
and Village Affairs, coupled with in-depth interviews with locals that lived in the
regions in Turkey that became the primary sites of armed conflict between Kurdish
rebels and the government in the 1990s, show that civil war increases deforestation
and leads to a substantial decline in animal production.

C IVI L WA R A ND E NVI R ONM E NT AL DE S T R UC T ION

The relationship between rough terrain and civil war has been the subject of several
studies, as geography and the environment in which the rebels operate can become
an important factor in the fight. Rough landscapes such as mountains, jungles, and
swamps favor the insurgency because they can serve as shelter for the rebels in their
fight against the state. It also strains the policing capacity of the state and makes it
easier for rebels to establish safe areas from which to operate.12
The state’s counterinsurgency measures to transform the environment to
undermine rebels’ ability to wage a war destroy the environment through direct and
indirect mechanisms. Building upon previous studies,13 Reuveny et al.14 argue that
armed forces may engage in destructive actions and utilize scorched earth techniques
to deny use by the opposition. Reuveny et al. also argue that collateral damage to the
environment may occur through troop and refugee movements as well as the fighting
itself. The ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s drastic measures in the fight against
the Shi’a Muslim inhabitants of the Shatt al-Arab marshlands, also known as the
Marsh Arabs, in the 1990s is a classic example of how civil war can lead to
catastrophic environmental consequences. The Marsh Arabs increasingly became the
target of the Ba’athist regime because of their part in the rebellion against the
government in 1991. As a Human Rights Watch report15 documents, despite some
early government plans devised to harness these wetlands for economic purposes,
they were systematically drained to root out the insurgency. The government’s
massive counterinsurgency project – building a series of dams, dikes, and canals with
the goal of preventing the flow of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers into the marshlands,
along with the forced relocation of the local population a decade later – was dubbed
‘the destruction of the Middle East’s largest wetland ecosystem.’16
Similarly, the Anfal campaign that aimed to annihilate the Kurdish minority in
Iraq through using forced deportation, massacres, and chemical weapons not only
points out the brutality of civil war, but also provides convincing evidence for the
 256 CIVIL WARS

environmental consequences as well. The state’s counterinsurgency measures to cut

off the rebels from their logistical support base destroyed animal stocks and resulted
in the collapse of agriculture. According to Black,17 between February and
September 1988, the regime of Saddam Hussein attacked at least 60 villages, as well
as the town of Halabja, with mustard gas, nerve gas, or a combination of the two. It
also razed thousands of villages, destroyed the traditional rural economy and
infrastructure of Iraqi Kurdistan, and killed as many as 100,000 people.
News reports from conflict zones in Africa, Latin America, and Asia provide
further evidence for the environmental destruction that war and political instability
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has brought: the plunder of forests in the Ivory Coast has been associated with the
breakdown of law and order during the civil conflict of 2002;18 the long-running civil
war in Colombia, according to a recent report by the United Nations High Council
on Refugees, is threatening the country’s biologically diverse forests;19 and
increased logging during the civil war in Burma, as a way of financing the war, has
more than doubled the rate of deforestation since the military takeover in 1988.20
Forests have been exploited for their economic value throughout history.
The Indonesian military under Suharto (1966 – 98) played a significant role in the
exploitation of forest resources as a part of the ‘regime’s plan for economic
development and the extension of its political control across the nation.’21 In some
instances, the erosion of state power combined with lack of will to take the necessary
steps to preserve forests, especially during the time of political crisis, can lead to
deforestation through illegal timber cutting. The plunder of the rainforest in
Madagascar coincided with, and was accelerated by, the installment of a weak
government following the military coup in March 2009.22
Deforestation during civil war, however, is neither a product of the state’s
economic development plan, nor a consequence of a weak state that fails to enforce
its authority in the remote parts of the country. Instead, it is a direct result of the
state’s deliberate policies to undermine rebels’ ability to operate. It often becomes a
consequence of deliberate state policies directed at containing insurgency, cutting
off rebels from their logistic support base, and eliminating their ‘natural’ shelter.23
Despite inconclusive findings on the link between forests and civil war onset,
Fearon and Laitin24 and Collier and Hoeffler25 emphasize the importance of forests as
a cover for the rebels.26 Forests as a form of rough terrain can serve to obscure rebels
from air surveillance and air raids and provide an invaluable source of water.27
Because forests are easily destroyed en masse via chemicals or fire, they often become
an easy target for the government. The destruction of huge swathes of forests may
serve the dual purpose of smoking out insurgents and inflicting psychological terror
upon the local civilian population by forcing many in the path of destruction to flee,
and thus inhibiting local bases of support for the insurgency. Thus, the first hypothesis
stipulates that as a part of an overall counterinsurgency campaign the state will
undertake a systematic practice of deforestation to undermine rebels’ capacity to
operate.
Another mechanism through which civil war can lead to environmental
degradation is forced population displacement. War often creates an atmosphere of
 ENVIRONMENTAL CONSEQUENCES OF CIVIL WAR 257

fear, intimidation, and instability that generates an influx of internally displaced

people.28 Consistent with the state’s counterinsurgency measures, the state may opt
to coerce the rural population to evacuate with the goal of containing the insurgency
and cutting off the rebels from their logistic support. This displaced population often
ends up in the peripheries of major cities, creating the range of social and political
problems associated with rapid urbanization.29 This forced relocation leaves
thousands of hectares of land uncultivated and unattended, destroying the potential
for a rebound in the postwar agrarian economy.30 The second hypothesis posits that
civil war will lead to a substantial decline in agrarian economic activities.
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SPECIF ICATION AND DATA

Civil conflict tends to be confined within a certain part of the country and often the
data for the conflict zone is incomplete. Thus, using country-level data to observe the
impact of civil conflict on environment may not be the most effective method since it
hides significant within-country variation. For instance, according to forestry
statistics provided by the Ministry of Environment and Forestry of Turkey,31 the
distribution of forestland has gone up by almost 1 million hectares since 1973 – from
20,199,296 hectares in 1973 to 21,188,747 hectares in 2005. Another source reports a
gain of 0.2 per cent in forested area for Turkey between 1990 and 2000.32 According
to the World Bank,33 the forest area for Turkey went up from 12.58 per cent in 1990 to
13.28 per cent in 2007, indicating a gain and confirming the aforementioned
statistics. Nevertheless, despite such overall increases in forest area, the Kurdish
region suffered an important loss. Etten et al.,34 based on eyewitness reports that are
further verified with pre- and post-conflict satellite images, conclude that a significant
amount of forest area (somewhere between 7.5 per cent and 25 per cent of all forests
in the province of Tunceli) was burned down as part of the government’s
counterinsurgency strategy. Hence, employing country-level data to examine the
effect of armed conflict on environmental degradation (e.g., deforestation) could lead
to inaccurate conclusions as these data mask the loss of forests in the conflict region.
Given the limitations of cross-country approaches, carefully documented case
studies can shed light on the environmental consequences of civil war by allowing
researchers to carefully distinguish the cause from the effect. However, case studies
that lack variation in the outcome variable and those without an empirical basis for
comparison might fail to provide evidence for the causal link between explanatory
and outcome variables.35 To overcome these potential issues, this study utilizes data
for the communities that experienced violent conflict in the 1990s before and after
the end of the armed clashes together with data for communities within the region
that did not participate in the conflict. The statistical data are supported with in-depth
interviews with the locals that lived in rural communities in the southeastern and
eastern parts of Turkey. These two regions, especially southeastern Anatolia, are
predominantly Kurdish and have been the primary site of the armed conflict between
Kurdish rebels and the government since the mid-1980s.
 258 CIVIL WARS

A Closer Look at Environmental Consequences of Civil War in Turkey

Others have detailed the origins, causes, and progression of the Kurdish conflict in
Turkey.36 A brief description of the conflict, however, is necessary for background
information. The Kurds, the largest ethnic group in the world without its own state,37
are divided among Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria. Their number ranges from 35 to
40 million, comprising roughly 25 per cent of the total population in Turkey and Iraq
and 10 per cent of the total population in Iran and Syria.38 The root causes of the
Kurdish conflict in Turkey can be traced back to the collapse of the multiethnic
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Ottoman Empire following the end of World War I. The new Turkish Republic that
emerged from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire embarked upon an ambitious
nation-building project under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. The Turkish
political elites’ aggressive assimilationist policies generated a fierce reaction from
the large Kurdish minority.39
The repressive state policies, coupled with the defeat of the rebellious Kurdish
attempts to gain better status or independence in the formative years of the republic,
generated a long period of pacification in the Kurdish provinces. This period came to
an end with the rise of Kurdish political activism in the late 1960s that culminated
with the start of an armed insurgency by a militant Kurdish organization – the
Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK, Partiya Karkêren Kurdistan) – in 1984. The PKK,
unlike its predecessors, has sustained a long ethno-national struggle against the state
with profound domestic and international consequences.40 It has succeeded in
gaining sizeable support from the Kurds in Turkey as well as sympathy and
logistical support from the Kurds that live in neighboring states.
The government responded to this escalating threat by deploying hundreds of
thousands of regular troops along with thousands of special operation teams
(Ozel Tim) and paramilitary village guards to the region with the goal of eliminating
the insurgency.41 The conflict reached its peak in the early 1990s during which the
Turkish armed forces conducted extensive military operations inside and outside of
the Kurdish region, including cross-border air and ground incursions against the
PKK bases in northern Iraq.
A combination of factors, including the capture of the PKK leader Abdullah
Ocalan in 1999, the US invasion of Iraq that accelerated the emergence of a de facto
Kurdish state in northern Iraq, and pressures from the international community
(most notably the European Union42) for a peaceful resolution, have created a new
phase in the conflict. The PKK announced a unilateral ceasefire upon its leader’s call
from his prison cell, abandoned its initial goal of creating an independent Kurdish
state, and sought a negotiated peace deal with the Turkish government. Although the
conflict issues that gave rise to the onset of the initial war in the mid-1980s have yet
to be resolved, the armed conflict has entered a distinct phase since 2000s.
Therefore, this study focuses on the 1990– 2000 period to examine out the
environmental consequences of civil war.
 ENVIRONMENTAL CONSEQUENCES OF CIVIL WAR 259

Civil War and Deforestation

As a part of the overall counterinsurgency campaign against the PKK, the Turkish
armed forces undertook a systematic practice of burning forests and destroying other
forms of livelihood in the region.43 The Ministry of Environment and Forestry of
Turkey does provide valuable information on the distribution of forestland, growing
stock, and forest fires.44 These data, however, are not broken down by province. An
analysis of the total population of forest villages, as a proxy for deforestation,
coupled with the data on deforestation in the province of Bingol lent support for
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Hypothesis 1.
The total population of forest villages for Bingol and Tunceli, two provinces that
became battlefields for the armed conflict, show substantial declines of 25 per cent
and 51 per cent, respectively, between 1990 and 2000. The total population of forest
villages for Adiyaman, another predominantly Kurdish province that lacked
significant support for the PKK, declined by less than 1 per cent for the same period.
A careful analysis of these data also indicates that the impact of armed conflict on
deforestation shows an important variation within provinces. The districts that lent
active support for the insurgency saw a dramatic decline in their forest villages’
population. Lice and Kulp, two forest districts of the province of Diyarbakir that
became sites of PKK activities, lost, respectively, 43 per cent and 63 per cent, of
their total village populations. Cermik and Cungus, two other mountainous districts
with an important number of forest villages yet without overt PKK activity, lost
7 per cent and 18 per cent of their total village population.45
The data on deforestation for the province of Bingol provide further support for
the effect of armed conflict on deforestation.46 This province has a rough terrain and
was the site of intense clashes during the 1990s, making it a useful case to assess the
effect of armed conflict on deforestation. These data are presented in Table 1. High
forest refers to well-developed forest that is established through seeding with tree
species that are expected to have a long maturity age and that are relatively tall.
The difference between productive and degraded forests is a matter of density; the
latter refers to the forestland where tree canopy cover is less than 10 per cent.47

TABLE 1
CIVIL WAR AND DEFORESTATION IN BINGOL PROVINCE

1984–2004 2005–2034
High Forest (ha) High Forest (ha)

District Productive Degraded Productive Degraded

Bingol-Center 660 – 30.5 1,147
Genc 1,186 – 91 1,725.5
Kigi 219.5 – 374 8,599.5
Solhan 25 – – 976
Total 4,326 – 1,391.5 19,689.5

Source: The Ministry of Environment and Forestry of Turkey, Bingol.

 260 CIVIL WARS

The data show that the productive forest area has gone down from 4,326 hectares
to 1,391.5 hectares, indicating a 68 per cent decline between 1984 and 2005.48
The productive forests are thickly covered and provide shelter for the rebels.
Consistent with the argument proposed here, one of the interviewees pointed to the
practice of deliberate deforestation to facilitate air raids.
It should be noted that the missing data for degraded forest area and the lack of
data for other districts in the province (i.e., Adakli, Karliova, Yayladere, and
Yedisu) make it difficult to draw any clear conclusion. Nonetheless, the data for
Ilica,49 a district for which data are available for both categories and time periods,
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show that there is an important decline in the productive forestland between 1984
and 2005. The productive land area for the district has gone down from 2,235.5
hectares to 896 hectares, whereas the degraded forestland has seen a dramatic
increase: from 428.5 hectares to 7,241.5 hectares.
During the author’s visit to Bingol in July 2010, there were ongoing, albeit
sporadic, clashes between the rebels and the army in the countryside. The locals that
were interviewed pointed out that the forests were targeted during clashes in one of
the remote rural settlements. These conversations with the locals pointed to the
state’s counterinsurgency measures as an important cause of deforestation.
In addition to deforestation through burning to isolate the insurgency, the
interviewees pointed out that the state turned a blind eye to locals who joined the
village guard system (i.e., joining the state forces in the fight against the PKK), and
plundered the forests through illegal logging. Thus, despite the lack of data on
deforestation for predominantly Kurdish provinces that became battlefields for the
armed conflict, the decline in forest village population for those provinces and
districts that provided active support for the insurgency, coupled with the data on
deforestation in Bingol as well as the interviews with the locals in the province,
indicates debilitating effects of civil war on deforestation.

Civil War and Agrarian Economy

The forced relocation of the countryside constitutes an important linkage between
civil war and agrarian economic activities. Thus, a brief discussion of the
depopulation of the countryside in the Kurdish provinces should help clarify this
linkage. During the period of 1990– 2000, over 3,000 villages and hamlets were
forcibly evacuated (known as koy bosaltma), an act that reached an unprecedented
level in 1994 with 1,531 villages being evacuated and/or burned.50 These measures
generated an influx of internally displaced rural Kurds to major cities in the Kurdish
region and to the western part of the country, most notably the cities of Istanbul,
Izmir, Mersin, and Adana.
These policies, as Jongerden51 argues, were directed at containing the insurgency
by depopulating the countryside that provided intelligence, shelter, and recruits for
the PKK. Thus, the army led a widespread campaign in the provinces where the PKK
militants carried out attacks. The deliberate depopulation of the countryside
generated a massive wave of internally displaced Kurds heading to major cities in
 ENVIRONMENTAL CONSEQUENCES OF CIVIL WAR 261

the region. Diyarbakir, as the largest city in the region, received many of the
internally displaced. Between 1990 and 1997, a period that witnessed heavy fighting
between the PKK and the Turkish Armed Forces, the urban population for the city
went up by 38.6 per cent, whereas the rural population declined by 9 per cent.52 The
census data for other cities in the region point to a similar conclusion. Sirnak, a
smaller province with a rough terrain that borders Iraq and Syria, saw a 69 per cent
increase in its urban population between 1990 and 2000; the village population saw
an increase of 3.7 per cent for the same period. The city population of Hakkari, a
mountainous province bordering Iraq on the South and Iran on the East, increased by
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96 per cent between 1990 and 2000; its village population went down by 4 per cent.53
The interviews with dozens of individuals from Bismil, a town 30 miles East of
the city of Diyarbakir, in July 2010, point to state pressure as a primary factor behind
rapid urbanization in the region. The interviewees agreed that the rapid urbanization
in the mid-1990s was primarily a consequence of the state pressure on villagers to
either become village guards (i.e., joining the state forces in the fight against the
PKK) or evacuate their villages. Over the course of a half an hour or so one of the
interviewees, H.M., counted about 20 rural settlements, including his own village,
from around Bismil that were partially or completely destroyed/evacuated by the
state forces during the 1990s.54 Another interviewee, the chairman of the
Association of the Grain Market of Bismil, stated that ‘I believe 95 per cent of those
forced evacuations were due to the state pressure to depopulate the countryside in
order to eliminate the PKK.’ These figures, together with the data for the number of
villages evacuated and burned, indicate that depopulation of the countryside during
1990 –2000 was primarily a product of the state’s counterinsurgency measures to
quell the insurgency.
The consequence of this rural exodus was thousands of evacuated villages and a
destroyed agrarian economy. As a result, agricultural activities in the region
suffered; this led to an important reduction in farming and animal husbandry, the
two dominant economic activities in the region. The meticulous study undertaken by
Etten et al.55 provides an important insight into the effect of civil war on the agrarian
economy. Utilizing data from the province of Tunceli, the site of the last major
Kurdish rebellion during the early years of the republic, they show that between
1990 and 1995 the province lost 25 per cent of its area of crop cultivation and saw a
significant reduction in the size of herds; it lost 58 per cent of its sheep, 67 per cent of
its goats, and 51 per cent of its cattle herds.56
The data from the Agricultural Products Bureau, a government agency within the
Ministry of Agriculture and Village Affairs, and the Turkish Statistical Institute
show an overall upward trend in grain production until the 1990s. The trend has
become steady in the last 20 years. The total wheat production for 1988 is about the
same as the total production in 2009 (20,500,000 tons vs. 20,600,000 tons). The total
area used for grain production, however, has gone down, indicating an increase in
productivity.57 Unfortunately, the data are not broken down by provinces, a
necessary piece of information to test the effect of conflict on grain production.
 262 CIVIL WARS

That said, the interviews with the local farmers in Bismil, including an
agricultural engineer at the local branch of the Ministry of Agriculture and Village
Affairs, the chairman of the Chamber of Agriculture of Bismil, and the chairman of
the Association of the Grain Market of Bismil, point to a rather unexpected
conclusion. Bismil, the aforementioned district of Diyarbakir province,58 is known
for its grain production (most notably wheat, barley, and lentils) that results from its
favorable location on the Tigris River, one of the two major river basins in the
region. According to the data from the Ministry of Agriculture and Village Affairs’
local branch, the district of Bismil has a total area of 174,800 hectares, with 147,000
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hectares being used for agricultural production. As noted earlier, the district’s
countryside was emptied with the goal of isolating the PKK and punishing the
would-be supporters of the insurgency.
The interviewees indicated that, with the exception of the year 2007 that saw a
severe draught, the total grain production has indeed increased in the last decade or so;
a conclusion that confirms the statistics provided earlier. They ascribed this increase
in production to advances in agricultural techniques, fertilizers, and irrigation
networks. As such, the effect of the conflict on grain production is not noticeable.
Etten et al.59 point to a substantial decline in the area of crop cultivation in Tunceli
province between 1990 and 1995. The conflicting finding might be due to the time
period, as the conflict reached its zenith in the early 1990s. Also, the data for other
cities in the region are not available, making it difficult to substantiate the linkage
between civil war and grain production. That said, as the conversations continued
another important detail emerged. The grain production was not necessarily hit by the
forced evacuations because those lands that belonged to the evacuees were farmed
and tilled by neighboring rural settlements (i.e., those who joined the village guard
system). The aforementioned local H.M., for instance, was not allowed to till his land
for six years while the neighboring village cultivated the lands. The state authorities
not only turned a blind eye to this practice, but also encouraged it as a way of
rewarding those who signed up for the village guard system.
In contrast, the effect of the war on animal production seems to be quite
discernible. The locals from Bismil pointed to a substantial decline in animal
production, a decline that they ascribed to the depopulation of the countryside.
The interview with the chairman of the Association of Sheep and Goats of the
province of Bingol led to the same conclusion. The interviewee acknowledged the
effect of other confounding factors on the dramatic decline in animal (especially
sheep and goats) production. Nonetheless, he was quick to add that ‘80 per cent of the
decline, in my opinion, is a direct consequence of the armed conflict.’
Analyzing the data on animal production from the Turkish Statistical Institute,
combined with the earlier observation that the state forces coercively evacuated/
burned rural settlements to cut off the rebels from their logistical support base while
sparing those that joined forces with the state against the PKK, strengthens the
conclusion that the effect of civil war on animal production and deforestation shows
important variation. This outcome seems to be a primary product of the state’s
counterinsurgency measures.
 ENVIRONMENTAL CONSEQUENCES OF CIVIL WAR 263

The effect of civil war on animal husbandry shows considerable variation between
and within provinces. One can argue that provinces that became battlegrounds for the
armed conflict should have had a greater decline in their animal production than those
did not. This argument is supported by the significant change in animal production in
Diyarbakir and Tunceli. These two provinces have substantial support for the
insurgency and were the sites of frequent clashes between the PKK and the Turkish
Armed Forces in the 1990s. Comparing them with their neighbors Adiyaman and
Malatya, which lack a significant active support for the insurgency, supports this
conclusion.
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The city of Diyarbakir, the largest city in the region with significant support for
the PKK, lost 51 per cent of its sheep and 55 per cent of its goats during this period.
The province of Diyarbakir, including its rural districts, lost about one-third of its
sheep and goats. Likewise Tunceli, a smaller province with rough terrain and a high
level of support for the PKK, lost 58 per cent of its sheep, 68 per cent of its goats, and
58 per cent of its cattle herds for the same period. Hakkari, a mountainous province
with a high level of support for the insurgency, took the hit. Because of the
restrictions on grazing and state pressure to create safe areas, the sheep herds
plummeted, down from 2.5 million in the 1990s to 200 –300 thousand in the 2010.60
The data for the provinces in the region as of yet without significant support for
the PKK support the causal linkage between the civil war and dwindling animal
production. Malatya and Adiyaman, for instance, are provinces that have a
significant Kurdish population and border Tunceli and Diyarbakir, respectively; the
PKK, however, does not have a strong support base in these provinces. The
reduction in sheep and goats for Malatya is 20 per cent and 15 per cent, respectively.
The province saw a 54 per cent decline in its cattle herds. Adiyaman, on the other
hand, lost 19 per cent of its sheep, 8 per cent of its goats, and 18 per cent of its cattle.
A careful analysis of the data on animal production reveals another important
detail: provinces that are generally known for their pro-PKK positions and/or were
battlefields for the conflict show significant variations within themselves. To clarify,
Turkey overall lost about 37 per cent of its cattle, 30 per cent of its sheep, and 29 per
cent of its goatherds between 1991 and 2000. These numbers for Diyarbakir, a
province with a substantial active support for the PKK, are 23, 30, and 32 per cent,
respectively. This analysis, however, is misleading due mainly to the uneven
consequences of the civil war; the effect on animal production varies significantly
within the province. Kocakoy, a district of Diyarbakir with overt PKK activity, lost
49 per cent of its cattle, 91 per cent of sheep, and 62 per cent of goatherds during this
period. Similarly, Mardin, another province in the southeastern region with
significant PKK activities, lost 3 per cent of its cattle herds, 20 per cent of its sheep
herds, and 25 per cent of its goatherds between 1991 and 2000. These numbers for
Dargecit, a district of Mardin with overt PKK activity, are 65, 92, and 77 per cent,
respectively. Derik, another district of Mardin yet without significant overt PKK
activity, saw 35 per cent decline in its cattle herds, 15 per cent of its sheep herds, and
no change in its goat production.
 264 CIVIL WARS

Analyzing the data at the district level for the province of Diyarbakir furnishes
further evidence for uneven effects of civil war on animal production. Of the 13
districts within Diyarbakir province, 9 (namely Bismil, Dicle, Ergani, Hani, Hazro,
Kocakoy, Kulp, Lice, and Silvan) lent significant support for the insurgency and/or
became a battlefield for the Turkish Army and the PKK. In the majority of these
districts, the pro-Kurdish political parties’ candidates scored significant electoral
victories in the 1999 and 2004 mayoral elections – often gaining more than half of
the total votes. Kulp and Hani were added to this group due mainly to their rough
terrain and their proximity to the district of Lice, a primary site of the war. Hani, just
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like the town of Kulp, was a battlefield for the Turkish Army and the PKK during the
1990s. The district of Kulp, like its neighboring district, Lice, was a PKK stronghold
near Diyarbakir in the mid-1990s.61
The other districts (Cinar, Cermik, Cungus, and Egil), despite some support for
the insurgency, did not become primary sites for the armed conflict. The analysis of
the data shows that those districts with a significant level of support for the
insurgency and/or became a primary site of the war had a substantial decline in their
animal production between 1991 and 2000. These data are presented in Table 2.
Lice, a district with rough terrain and a high level of support for the insurgency,
became a primary site for the clashes between the PKK and the Turkish Armed
Forces during the 1990s. It lost 64 per cent of its sheep, 68 per cent of its goats, and
56 per cent of its cattle herds. Cungus, on the other hand, another mountainous
district within the same province yet without significant support for the insurgency,
saw a drop in its cattle (41 per cent) and goats (8 per cent) – albeit alongside an
increase of 26 per cent in its sheep herds for the same period. These changes are
illustrated in Figures 1 and 2.
Overall, the districts that lent active support for the insurgency lost 42 per cent of
the sheep and 43 per cent of the goatherds during the period. The districts that did
not lend support for the insurgency or did not become a primary site for the armed
confrontations gained 0.4 per cent in its sheep and 4 per cent in its goatherds for the
same period. The difference for the reduction in sheep and goats, but not for the
cattle herds, is statistically significant [Pr (T . t) ¼ 0.001 for the sheep and Pr
(T . t) ¼ 0.04 for the goats]. As such, the data indicate that towns and provinces
that were at the epicenter of the conflict saw a substantial decline in their animal
production compared to those that were not participant at the conflict, providing
evidence for the negative effects of the civil war on the animal husbandry.
As noted earlier, rough landscapes such as mountains, jungles, and swamps favor
the insurgency because they can serve as shelter for the rebels in their fight against
the state. Thus, it is plausible to expect that rough terrain should also be correlated
with the intensity of the war, hence forced depopulation and environmental
destruction. The impact of civil war on animal production, as noted earlier, shows
considerable variation between and within provinces. Districts with higher altitudes,
such as Lice and Kulp, had a greater decline in their sheep and goat production than
Bismil, with an altitude of 535 meters. That said, of the 13 districts, Cungus, a
district with an altitude of 1,000 meters, saw the smallest decline in goatherds
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TABLE 2
CIVIL WAR AND ANIMAL PRODUCTION IN DIYARBAKIR PROVINCE

District Support for the PKK Sheep (1991) Sheep (2000) Per cent change Goats (1991) Goats (2000) Per cent change Altitude (meters)

Bismil Yes 112,185 72,500 235 10,251 6,900 234 535

Dicle Yes 27,068 20,500 224 32,228 26,450 218 950
Ergani Yes 162,755 126,000 237 26,357 20,780 221 950
Hani Yes 19,700 6,530 267 17,950 7,540 258 900
Hazro Yes 29,304 22,000 225 10,220 7,600 225 1,050
Kocakoy Yes 34,830 3,000 291 5,210 2,000 262 930
Kulp Yes 50,000 27,000 246 64,700 33,000 249 1,050
Lice Yes 23,350 8,500 264 36,400 11,750 268 1,125
Silvan Yes 60,000 57,000 25 23,036 9,800 257 830
Cermik No 138,148 110,000 220 22,756 20,000 212 700
Cinar No 143,820 144,000 0.01 26,330 41,500 58 680
ENVIRONMENTAL CONSEQUENCES OF CIVIL WAR

Cungus No 7,835 9,850 26 18,180 16,800 28 1,000

Egil No 47,641 45,750 24 40,102 31,400 222 800

Source: Turkish Statistical Institute.

265
 266 CIVIL WARS

FIGURE 1
ANIMAL PRODUCTION IN LICE, 1991 – 2000.
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(see Table 2). Thus, despite some evidence for the link between rugged terrain and
environmental destruction, the outcome seems to be conditioned by the state’s
counterinsurgency efforts to eliminate the insurgency.62
To summarize, the expectation that civil war can have a devastating effect on
agricultural economy is more complicated than was previously hypothesized.
The effect on grain production is not discernible. Arable agriculture is in the plains,
highly mechanized, and labor extensive.63 Grains, unlike animal husbandry, do not
require farmers to attend the land on a daily basis. The grain farmers in the Kurdish
region sow the seeds in late fall – early winter and harvest in June –July. Despite an

FIGURE 2
ANIMAL PRODUCTION IN CUNGUS, 1991 – 2000.
 ENVIRONMENTAL CONSEQUENCES OF CIVIL WAR 267

increase in irrigated farming, dry land grain production is still the dominant form of
farming in the region. Thus, with the exception of applying fertilizers to grains, the
land is not attended to until the harvest time.
The effect of civil war on animal production, on the other hand, seems to be a
significant one. The size of sheep and goat herds saw a dramatic decline during the
mid-1990s. The detrimental effects of civil war, which became severe in the
mid-1990s, seem to vary by the type of animal husbandry; the effect on the size of
cattle herds is less observable than the one on the sheep and goat herds. The latter are
grazers, and traditionally the herders move their sheep and goat herds to the
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highlands in search of fresh grass and water. As the state evacuated the countryside
and banned pastoral farming, sheep and goat husbandry ceased to be a profitable
business. Another important conclusion is that the effect seems to be a rather
permanent one. As shown in Figures 1 and 2, animal production was hit hard in the
mid-1990s, reflecting the peak years of the war. Despite some gains in animal
production after 1995, the effect seems to be permanent, especially in those cities
that experienced intense fighting. The majority of the evacuees did not return to their
rural settlements even after the armed clashes ceased, creating a structural change in
the socioeconomic fabric.

C ON CL U S I O N

Several studies have shown that environmental factors are associated with the onset
of civil conflict. Further, scholars have long argued that repressive state policies tend
to lead to more support for the insurgency.64 That is, the districts and villages hit
hardest by environmental destruction might exhibit a higher level of support for the
insurgents. Although this mutual causal relationship cannot be ruled out, the
evidence from the Kurdish conflict in Turkey helps clarify causal dynamics at play
and points to the effects civil war has on the environment. The analysis of the
Kurdish conflict in Turkey provides evidence for the direct effect of civil war on
environmental destruction. The state’s counterinsurgency measures during the civil
war stand as the primary variable behind environmental destruction. Moreover, the
environmental consequences of civil conflict tend to be associated with the amount
and degree of support for the insurgency. Of the rural districts and villages, those
that lent overt or covert support for the insurgents were hit hardest. The rural
settlements that agreed to become village guards in the fight against the PKK were
spared, creating a considerable variation across neighboring villages.
The Kurdish provinces are among the poorest in the country with a gross
domestic product (GDP) per capita much lower than the national average.
According to the data provided by the Turkish Statistical Institute, the national
average for the year 2001 is $2,146 (USD, at current prices). This number for the
same year for Diyarbakir, the largest province in the southeast with a substantial
amount of support for the insurgency, is $1,313. This value is substantially lower for
rural provinces in the region. Bingol and Hakkari, for instance, two smaller and
mountainous provinces in the Kurdish region, have a GDP per capita of $795 and
 268 CIVIL WARS

$836, respectively.65 Furthermore, agriculture and animal production constitute an

important part of the region’s economy. According to the data provided by the
Turkish Statistical Institute, as of 2001 agriculture and animal production combined
make up more than 40 per cent of the total GDP for Diyarbakir at 20.6 per cent and
20.7 per cent, respectively. The share of these two sectors in total economic output is
greater for smaller and rural Kurdish provinces. Agriculture and animal production
constitute more than half of the total GDP for Bingol (27.3 per cent and 26.5 per
cent, respectively) and more than 60 per cent of the GDP for Hakkari (31.8 per cent
and 31.2 per cent, respectively).66 These numbers for Konya, a central Anatolian
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province also known as Turkey’s grain depot, are significantly lower. Agriculture
and animal production make up 18.9 per cent and 18.6 per cent, respectively, of the
total GDP for the province.
Therefore, given the pivotal role agriculture and animal production play in the
region’s economy, the environmental destruction during civil war can have
far-reaching consequences. As the dominant economic sector in many conflict-torn
societies,67 this destruction can severely damage the prospects for building and
sustaining the peace in the aftermath of war.
Drawing upon one case might limit the generalizability of the findings.
The Kurdish conflict in Turkey, however, serves as a useful representative case for
ethno-nationalist civil wars. Thus, this study serves as a useful model to clarify the
link between ethno-nationalist civil wars (e.g., Tamils in Sri Lanka, Chechens in
Russia) and environmental destruction as these wars tend to be geographically
isolated that enables the government to carry out its plan to eliminate the insurgency.
Evidence from other conflict zones such as the Ivory Coast,68 Colombia,69 and
Cambodia,70 although not ethno-nationalist/separatist in nature, shows that the
findings from this study are not limited to ethno-nationalist civil wars. To conclude,
this study brings together sporadic evidence and makes an important contribution to
this subject’s growing literature by drawing attention to the rather overlooked
negative effects of civil war on the environment. As such, it is intended to encourage
greater debate on the environmental consequences of civil war.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author would like to thank Kake Eli, Chris Johnson, Aimee Kanner Arias, Murat Tezcur,
Idean Salehyan, the editors, and two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on earlier
versions of this manuscript.

NOTES

1. For extensive surveys, see, for instance, Thomas F. Homer-Dixon, ‘On the Threshold: Environmental
Changes as Causes of Acute Conflict’, International Security 16/2 (1991) pp.76–116; Nils Petter
Gleditsch, ‘Armed Conflict and the Environment: A Critique of the Literature’, Journal of Peace
Research 35/3 (1998) pp.381–400.
2. Marshall B. Burke, Edward Miguel, Shanker Satyanath, John A. Dykema and David B. Lobell,
‘Warming Increases the Risk of Civil War in Africa’, PNAS 106/49 (2009) pp.20670–4, online at
,www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.09079988106., accessed 6 May 2010.
 ENVIRONMENTAL CONSEQUENCES OF CIVIL WAR 269

3. Cullen S. Hendrix and Sarah M. Glaser, ‘Trends and Triggers: Climate, Climate Change and Civil
Conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa’, Political Geography 26 (2007) pp.695– 715.
4. Wenche Hauge and Tanja Ellingsen, ‘Beyond Environmental Scarcity: Causal Pathways to Conflict’,
Journal of Peace Research 35/3 (1998) pp.299–317.
5. Cigdem V. Sirin, ‘Scarcity-Induced Domestic Conflict: Examining the Interactive Effects of
Environmental Scarcity and “Ethnic” Population Pressures’, Civil Wars 13/2 (2011) pp.122–40.
6. Clionadh Raleigh and Henrik Urdal, ‘Climate Change, Environmental Degradation and Armed
Conflict’, Political Geography 26 (2007) pp.674–94.
7. Ragnhild Nordas and Nils Petter Gleditsch, ‘Climate Change and Conflict,’ Political Geography 26
(2007) pp.627–38.
8. Idean Salehyan, ‘From Climate Change to Conflict? No Consensus Yet’, Journal of Peace Research
45/3 (2008) pp.315–26; Karen M. Witsenburg and Wario R. Adano, ‘Of Rain and Raids: Violent
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Livestock Raiding in Northern Kenya’, Civil Wars 11/4 (2009) pp.514– 38; Halvard Buhaug,
‘Climate not to Blame for African Civil Wars’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
107/38 (2010) pp.16477–82.
9. For a survey, see Rafael Reuveny, Andreea S. Mihalache-O’Keef and Quan Li, ‘The Effects of
Warfare on the Environment’, Journal of Peace Research 47/6 (2010) pp.749–61.
10. Joseph P. Dudley, Joshua R. Ginsberg, Andrew J. Plumptre, John A. Hurt and Liliana C. Campos,
‘Effects of War and Civil Strife on Wildlife and Wildlife Habitats’, Conservation Biology 16/2 (2002)
pp.319–29; Loucks Colby, Michael B. Mascia, Andy Maxwell, Keavuth Huy, Kong Duong, Nareth
Chea, Barney Long, Nick Cox and Teak Seng, ‘Wildlife Decline in Cambodia, 1953–2005:
Exploring the Legacy of Armed Conflict’, Conservation Letters 2 (2009) pp.82–92.
11. Reuveny et al. (note 9).
12. James D. Fearon and David D. Laitin, ‘Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War’, American Political
Science Review 97/1 (2003) pp.75–90; Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler, ‘Greed and Grievance in
Civil War’, Oxford Economic Papers 56/4 (2004) pp.563–95; Mehmet Gurses and T. David Mason,
‘Weak States, Regime Types, and Civil Wars’, Civil Wars 12/1 (2010) pp.140–55.
13. Arthur H. Westing, Warfare in a Fragile World: Military Impact on the Human Environment
(London: Taylor & Francis 1980); Partha S. Dasgupta, ‘Population, Poverty, and Local
Environment’, Scientific American 272/2 (1995) pp.26–31; Asit K. Biswas, ‘Scientific Assessment
of the Long-Term Environmental Consequences of War’, in Jay E. Austin and Carl E. Bruch (eds)
The Environmental Consequences of War: Legal, Economic, and Scientific Perspectives (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press 2000), pp.303–15; John R. McNeill, Something New Under the Sun: An
Environmental History of the Twentieth-Century World (London: Norton 2001).
14. Reuveny et al. (note 9) p.750.
15. ‘The Iraqi Government Assault on the Marsh Arabs: A Human Rights Watch Briefing Paper’, January
2003, online at ,www.hrw.org/backgrounder/mena/marsharabs1.htm., accessed 6 May 2010.
16. Ibid. p.3.
17. George Black, Genocide in Iraq: The Anfal Campaign Against the Kurds (A Middle East Watch
Report) (New York: Human Rights Watch 1993) pp.26–359.
18. Online at ,www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid¼ 52512., accessed 30 May 2010.
19. John Collins Rudolf, ‘When a Drug Battle Spells Extinction’, online at ,http://green.blogs.nytimes.
com/2010/09/24/when-a-drug-battle-spells-extinction/?scp¼ 1&sq¼ colombia%20forests&st¼
cse., accessed 25 Sept. 2010.
20. ‘Destruction and Degradation of Burmese Frontier Forests: Listening to People’s Voices’, online at
,www.kesan.asia/Resources/logging.pdf., accessed 27 Sept. 2010.
21. Charles Victor Barber and Kirk Talbott, ‘The Chainsaw and the Gun: The Role of the Military in
Deforesting Indonesia’, Journal of Sustainable Forestry 16/3–4 (2003) pp.131–60, 131.
22. Barry Bearak, ‘Shaky Rule in Madagascar Threatens Trees’, online at ,www.nytimes.com/2010/05/
25/world/africa/25madagascar.html.
23. Jacon van Etten, Joost Jongerden, Hugo J. de Vos, Annemarie Klaasse and Esther C.E. van Hoeve,
‘Environmental Destruction as Counterinsurgency Strategy in the Kurdistan Region of Turkey’,
Geoforum (2008), DOI: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2008.05.001
24. Fearon and Laitin (note 12).
25. Collier and Hoeffler (note 12).
26. For an excellent survey and a comprehensive examination of this link, see Siri Camilla Aas Rustad,
Jan Ketil Rod, Wenche Larsen, and Nils Petter Gleditsch, ‘Foliage and Fighting: Forest Resources
and the Onset, Duration, and Location of Civil War’, Political Geography 27/7 (2008) pp.761–82.
 270 CIVIL WARS

27. Maria D. Alvarez, ‘Forests in the Time of Violence: Conservation Implications of the Colombian
War’, Journal of Sustainable Forestry 16/3 (2003) pp.47–68.
28. Paul Collier, Lani Elliot, Havard Hegre, Ane Hoeffler, Nicholas Sambanis and Marta Reynal-Querol,
Breaking the Conflict Trap: Civil War and Development Policy (Oxford: Oxford University Press
2003); Will H. Moore and Stephen M. Shellman, ‘Fear of Persecution: Forced Migration,
1952–1995’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 46/1 (2004) pp.91–110; Will H. Moore and
Stephen M. Shellman, ‘Refugee or Internally Displaced Person? To Where Should One Flee?’
Comparative Political Studies 39/5 (2006) pp.599–622.
29. Bilgin Ayata and Deniz Yukseker, ‘A Belated Awakening: National and International Responses to
Internal Displacement of Kurds in Turkey’, New Perspectives on Turkey 32 (2005) pp.5– 42.
30. Indra De Soysa and Nils Petter Gleditsch (with Michael Gibson and Margareta Sollenberg),
‘To Cultivate Peace: Agriculture in a World of Conflict’, Environmental Change and Security Project
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Report Issue 5 (1999), online at ,www.wilsoncenter.org/topics/pubs/feature2.pdf., accessed

25 May 2010; Alvarez (note 24).
31. Online at ,http://web.ogm.gov.tr/Dkmanlar/istatistikler/ormancilik_ist_2008.pdf., accessed
25 May 2010.
32. Online at ,www.mongabay.com/deforestation_simple.htm., accessed 25 May 2010.
33. Online at ,http://data.worldbank.org/topic/environment., accessed 25 May 2010.
34. Etten et al. (note 23).
35. Gleditsch (note 1).
36. Martin Van Bruinessen, Agha, Shaikh and State: The Social and Political Structures of Kurdistan
(London: Zed Books 1992); James Ciment, The Kurds: State and Minority in Turkey, Iraq and Iran
(New York: Fact on File 1996); David McDowall, A Modern History of the Kurds (London: I.B.
Tauris 1997); Michael M. Gunter, The Kurds and the Future of Turkey (New York: St. Martin’s Press
1997); Henri J. Barkey and Graham E. Fuller, Turkey’s Kurdish Question (Lanham, MD: Rowman &
Littlefield 1998); Ahmet Icduygu, David Romano and Ibrahim Sirkeci, ‘The Ethnic Question in an
Environment of Insecurity’, Ethnic and Racial Studies 22/6 (1999) pp.991–1010; David Romano,
The Kurdish Nationalist Movement: Opportunity, Mobilization and Identity (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press 2006); Ali Kemal Ozcan, Turkey’s Kurds: A Theoretical Analysis of the PKK and
Abdullah Ocalan (London/New York: Routledge 2006); Joost Jongerden, The Settlement Issue in
Turkey and the Kurds: An Analysis of Spatial Politics, Modernity and War (Leiden/Boston, MA: Brill
Academic 2007); Gunes Murat Tezcur, ‘When Democratization Radicalizes: The Kurdish Nationalist
Movement in Turkey’, Journal of Peace Research 47/6 (2010) pp.775–89.
37. Michael M. Gunter, ‘The Kurdish Question in Perspective’, World Affairs 166/4 (2004) pp.197–205.
38. These numbers are based upon Minorities at Risk (MAR) Project, Minorities at Risk Project
(‘Minorities at Risk Dataset’ College Park, MD: Center for International Development and Conflict
Management 2009), online at ,www.cidcm.umd.edu/mar/., accessed 2 June 2010.
39. The motive behind the early Kurdish rebellions against the emerging republic cannot be explained
solely by nationalist aspirations to form a Kurdish state. The new republic’s secularizing policies and
reforms also contributed to these rebellions. Nevertheless, these rebellions contained the seed of
modern Kurdish nationalism, and thus paved the way for the emergence of the PKK movement in the
early 1980s. Despite the PKK’s secular outlook it has successfully utilized this early repertoire of
contention to its own benefit.
40. Henri J. Barkey and Graham E. Fuller (note 36) p.179, two experts on Turkey, describe the PKK as
‘. . . by far the most serious Kurdish armed struggle . . . since the founding of the [Turkish] state.’
41. According to Human Rights Watch, there were some 350,000 Turkish security forces battling an
estimated 5,000–20,000 PKK fighters in the early 1990s, online at ,www.hrw.org/en/reports/1994/
10/01/forced-displacement-ethnic-kurds-southeastern-turkey., accessed 27 May 2010.
42. In December 1999, Turkey officially became a candidate state for full membership into the European
Union.
43. Etten et al. (note 23) p.10.
44. Online at ,http://web.ogm.gov.tr/Sayfalar/solmenuicerik/İstatistikler/Istatistikler.aspx., accessed
23 Jan. 2012.
45. Forest villages data, online at ,www.tarimziraat.com/cevre_orman/orman_koyleri/., accessed
1 Feb. 2012. The data on village population, online at ,http://tuikapp.tuik.gov.tr/nufusmenuapp/
menu.zul., accessed 1 Feb. 2012.
46. The author obtained these data by contacting the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, Bingol in
July 2010.
 ENVIRONMENTAL CONSEQUENCES OF CIVIL WAR 271

47. Ministry of Environment and Forestry, online at ,http://web.ogm.gov.tr/Dkmanlar/istatistikler/

ormancilik_ist_2008.pdf., accessed 18 Sept. 2010.
48. The data do not cover the exact war years. The war began in 1984, intensified after the 1990s, and
entered a new phase after 1999. Besides, the data for the 2005–34 are the projected values.
Nonetheless, the data, coupled with the interviews with the locals, provide an important insight to the
effect of the war on deforestation.
49. Ilica is located northeast of the city of Bingol and known for its thick forests and rugged terrain,
making it a strategic location for the insurgents.
50. Jongerden (note 36).
51. Jongerden (note 36) p.87; also see Etten et al. (note 23).
52. Jongerden (2007) p.87. These data originally come from M. Kocher, Human Ecology and Civil War,
PhD Thesis in Political Sciences, University of Chicago (2004).
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53. Turkish Statistical Institute, online at ,http://tuikapp.tuik.gov.tr/nufusmenuapp/menu.zul.,

accessed 31 May 2010.
54. These villages are Ambarciya, Batile, Belli, Birike, Cirze, Gire Izze, Gundike Keye, Gundike Mala
Mele, Gundike Mala Faris, Karacux, Kopekliya, Kose, Kuzeri, Melefiyata, Merxendi, Sadiye, Siira,
Zewe. These names are in Kurdish. It is worth noting that despite the state policy of using the Turkish
names for the Kurdish cities, towns, and villages, the locals had difficulties remembering the Turkish
names of their villages. Despite some recent reforms the Kurds are still not allowed to use the Kurdish
names.
55. Etten et al. (note 23).
56. Ibid. p.7.
57. The data come from the Turkish Statistics Institute, online at ,www.turkstat.gov.tr/Start.do.,
accessed 31 May 2010. In 1988, each 1000 square meters yielded 217 kilograms of wheat. The yield
was 254 kilograms in 2009.
58. Turkey is divided into seven regions (bolge) and 81 provinces (il). Each il, depending on its size, is
divided into smaller subunits called districts (ilce). Each ilce is divided into smaller rural settlements
called village (koy or nahiye). Diyarbakir, for instance, is the name of the largest province in
southeastern Anatolia region. It also refers the city of Diyarbakir, as the center/capital of the province.
The province has 13 districts with each district divided into smaller rural settlements.
59. Etten et al. (note 23).
60. Cengiz Candar, ‘Sira Hakkari’de mi?’ [‘Is it Hakkari this time?’], Hurriyet Daily, online at ,www.
hurriyet.com.tr/yazarlar/16769041.asp?yazarid¼ 215., accessed 15 Jan. 2011.
61. Jonathan C. Randal, After Such Knowledge, What Forgiveness? My Encounters with Kurdistan
(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux 1997) p.280.
62. The average altitude for the nine districts of Diyarbakir that provided support for the insurgency or
became a primary site for the armed conflict is 924 meters. This value for the four districts without a
substantial support for the PKK is 795 meters, indicating some support for the link between rugged
terrain and civil war, online at ,http://diyarbakir.yerelnet.org.tr/il_ilce_koordinat.php?iladi¼
D%DDYARBAKIR., accessed 7 Feb. 2012.
63. I would like to thank an anonymous reviewer for bringing this to my attention.
64. T. David Mason and Dale A. Krane, ‘The Political Economy of Death Squads: Toward a Theory of
the Impact of State-Sanctioned Terror’, International Studies Quarterly 33/2 (1989) pp.175–98.
65. Online at ,www.tuik.gov.tr/VeriBilgi.do?tb_id¼ 56&ust_id¼16., accessed 24 Jan. 2012.
66. Online at ,www.tuik.gov.tr/ulusalhesapapp/ulusalhesap.zul?tur¼2., accessed 24 Jan. 2012.
67. De Soysa and Gleditsch (note 30).
68. See note 18.
69. See note 19.
70. Colby et al. (note 10).