Politics
In common with other districts of Şanlıurfa business and politics in Siverek are strongly influenced, even controlled, by a powerful clan. Siverek is the home town of Sedat Bucak, the former DYP member of parliament who survived the car crash in the Susurluk scandal. He is the leader of the Bucak clan, one of whom has represented the area in the Turkish Parliament since its foundation. Sedat Bucak remains a friend of current DYP leader Mehmet Ağar.
The Bucak clan are Zaza people who moved to Siverek from nearby Diyarbakır in the 1800s. They have always been loyal to the Turkish state, particularly during the Shaikh Said uprising in the 1920s. They were members of the party of Adnan Menderes' Demokrat Parti but survived the coup that deposed Menderes in 1960. The Bucak were also active in the struggle against the Kurdish separatist PKK. In the 1970s the Bucak family were targeted by the PKK and they continued to actively oppose the PKK all through the 1990s and beyond. During this period hundreds of members of the Bucak clan were employed by the state as village guards in Siverek and Hilvan. The area was the scene of kidnappings, disappearances and assassinations across the political spectrum in this period.
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Famous quotes containing the word politics:
“Politics is repetition. It is not change. Change is something beyond what we call politics. Change is the essence politics is supposed to be the means to bring into being.”
—Kate Millett (b. 1934)
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