As a widening scandal highlights not only the level of corruption in Erdogan's tenure, but also his willingness to repress Turkey into silence and obedience, more and more Turkish people are being evicted, illegally, to make way for bulldozers and new projects.
The push to shed light on the wide corruption network that is behind the huge construction projects undertaken by Erdogan, has been met by a level of unprecedented repression usually employed in states ruled by tyrants and despots. Hundreds of policeman, untold number of judges and unknown numbers of citizens have been fired, imprisoned, demoted or intimidated in an effort to quell the fire that has been lit by the corruption investigation against Erdogan, his administration and what is appearing more evident each day, his family and other cohorts that are behind the enormous construction projects.
Even though the scandal investigation has not been totally silenced, and amidst the growing anger at projects that in many a Turkish citizen's mind serves no one, bulldozers are pushing forth in the effort of completing the projects.
In the frenzy to finish the uncompleted projects, thousands of Turkish citizens are being illegally evicted from their homes in northern Istanbul. These citizens are often forced to vacate by force homes that had been in their family for decades or centuries.
Many of the people evicted had been offered good sums for their land and homes at the onset of the projects, but the money never materialized. The money was promised to be delivered once the sale was official, but the bulldozers have moved in, and people pushed into the street before any sale ever took place.
To boot, many of the projects are redundant. Some are even unfeasible, or 'crazy' as was described by some. A 44 kilometer shipping canal, a third bridge over the Bosphorus and a 14 billion dollar airport are all underway. All of these projects would forever change the storied and beautiful Turkish landscape that fronts the Bosphorus forever.
To make matters worse, the evicted citizens learned that the state used an eminent domain law that allowed it to appropriate their land and homes and to assign very little value to the land through this law, making the properties nearly valueless. Whatever monies the evicted people will receive will never reflect the true value of what has been taken from them.
One properties was assigned a value of 8 Euro per square meter, which is less than 10% of the value it had before the eminent domain rule was applied.
The grass root protest that has been trying to contrast the relentless advance of the construction machinery and is trying to stop the illegal evictions, has turned to angry demonstration. In one coastal city, Agacli, the people blocked an intersection in an attempt to stop the construction. To make matters worse, people in Agacli have learned that the eminent domain rule in their locality was not used to expropriate land for the airport, but to build a luxury resort, a project that would only benefit private enterprises.
Almost all these massive construction projects have been connected to Prime MInister Recep Erdogan's inner circle. Although many people have resigned, the resignations have not changed the project scale or schedule one iota.
The initial hopes that the corruption scandal could stop the Erdogan 'machine' are already fading. The swiftness and scope of Erdogan's retaliation means that any official or judge or policeman who would wish to continue the investigation has to reckon with the fact that he could be imprisoned for doing so.
Erdogan has painted the whole corruption investigation as an attempt from within Turkey and from foreign 'entities' to oust him illegally. With this excuse, which he even reiterated at an EU meeting, he is voiding any possibility of the investigation having any positive results.
Erdogan has even intimated that the protests at Gezi, which were also an attempt to stop a construction project that would have destroyed the storied park - a beloved fixture of the Instanbul landscape- was orchestrated by 'unidentified' forces from the European block, an oblique attempt at accusing the EU of ostracizing Turkey for being a Muslim country, or from becoming a player in the area with its new economic and infrastructural development.
A prominent environmentalist, Yildirim, has been very vocal about the destructive scope of the projects. Even if it is to build another airport, 2.5 million mature trees would be destroyed in the process. Instanbul would become a veritable cement jungle, completely obliterating its previous landscape, which was carved through centuries of history, and is known for its gardens and architectural beauty.
What is worse, those people who have been evicted, will have so little money, if they ever see it, that they will not have enough to buy new homes. These people are fated to become homeless street dwellers in a city that is trying to become a modern metropolis. A metropolis born from an effort to reshape it and deny it, instead of an effort to to respect and protect its historical art and traditions.
Op-Ed
Source : Deutsche Welle/ 2.1.14
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