Turkey: One-man peacekeeping force tries to end blood feuds

Yigal Schleifer: 6/10/08

Elfin in stature and with thinning gray hair, Sait Sanli might not seem too imposing. But in Turkey's southeast region, the 64-year-old former butcher is a force to be reckoned with.

Over the last decade, Sanli has become a local celebrity, a one-man peacekeeping force who has dedicated himself to resolving blood feuds and other family disputes in a region where even the smallest incident – a cow wandering into a neighbor's field, a minor debt never repaid – can lead to a protracted, even bloody fight.

By his own estimation, Sanli says that in the last 10 years he has helped end some 446 blood feuds, some of them stretching back for decades. A waiting list of disputes in need of resolution currently has 67 families on it.

"The cost of the suffering that these feuds cause cannot be estimated. One person may be killed, but the lives of 100 people are affected. Based on the tradition here, when one person commits a crime, every one of their relatives is responsible," says Sanli, who has a grey mustache and deep set brown eyes. "We are really suffering here from a gap between the official law and traditional law. What I'm trying to do is fill in that gap, to prevent things from escalating. I'm a messenger."

For example, when the mayor of the village of Carikli, located outside of the southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakir, recently shot a political rival in the leg, local leaders quickly appealed to Sanli for help. "We were afraid that this situation would have exploded, so we immediately came to Sait. If he hadn't come to our village, there would have been a lot of violence," says Ibrahim Ozdal, the nephew of the politician shot in Carikli.

"Everybody in the area knows that he's the first person to come to when something happens. He's the ambassador of peace," said Ozdal, speaking during a recent visit to Sanli's Diyarbakir office.

The enduring and violent power of blood feuds was made clear by two recent events that made headlines in Turkey. In early April, five members of one family were shot to death in Tarsus, a city on Turkey's Mediterranean coast, caught up in a 20-year-old dispute that had its roots in Diyarbakir, some 335 miles (540 kilometers) away. A few weeks later, five brothers were shot in cold blood near the southeastern city of Sanliurfa, after fighting with a rival family about access to irrigation water.

"The blood feuds have remained resistant to Turkey's modernization," says Mazhar Bagli, a sociologist at Diyarbakir's Dicle University, who studies local family customs. "It's not easy to do what [Sanli's] trying to do. He's going against something very ancient."

What drives his work, Sanli says, is experiencing the effects of a blood feud firsthand. When he was 14, he and his family had to flee their home village near Diyarbakir after an argument with a neighbor turned violent. They resettled in a town several hours away. "When I think about those days, I can't help but cry. There was always a sense of panic in the house," Sanli says.

In 1980, a truce was declared between the families and Sanli was able to return to Diyarbakir, starting up a successful butchering and cattle raising business. Ten years ago, he decided to let his eight children run the business and dedicate himself fulltime to peacemaking.

On a recent Monday, Sanli was in his office receiving a constant stream of visitors asking for his assistance. Among them were two young men in dark blazers who were trying to end a 35-year-old dispute that cost the life of their uncle. They've been able to get the younger generation from the families involved to sign on, but now needed Sanli to work on the older generations.

"I am trying to show people the importance of forgiveness, how important it is in our holy book, and to show them how much they have been sacrificing by seeking revenge," says Sanli, a human dynamo who seems to be in perpetual motion, his hands gesticulating and body swaying as he talks.

"I tell them we can't do anything about the past, but we can do something about the future."

The former butcher spends most of his days, though, on the road, shuttling between families in far-flung towns and villages as he tries to hammer out peace agreements. He cajoles, admonishes and occasionally – especially with younger folks – threatens. When all else fails, he resorts to his most powerful weapon – crying. The sight of tears rolling down the grown man's face is apparently enough to soften even the most revenge-hardened heart.

Once he has the families on board, Sanli brings them together for a celebratory peace ceremony where they sign a truce agreement, walking one after another under a Koran held overhead. Sometimes he will even invite local politicians to the signing to give the event an "official" sanction.

"The main thing is making people think about how they are acting, about what kind of example they are setting. I try to appeal to that sense in people. I'm trying to show people that there's a different way to do things, that there's a different way to live," he says.

Although Sanli now has a five-member "peace committee" in Diyarbakir that assists him, he is still very much of a one-man show. Inside his suit jacket pocket is a stack of papers kept together with a rubber band and filled with names and numbers of people he has helped. A small address book carries the names of those who have signed peace treaties and – in black ink – people who have threatened him.

His work, Sanli says, leaves little time for rest, on some nights getting only two hours of sleep. "I never stop thinking about other people's problems. That's what keeps me going," he says.

"Doing this work makes me feel peaceful inside," Sanli adds. "When my head touches my pillow at night, I feel peace."

Editor's Note: Yigal Schleifer is a freelance journalist based in Istanbul.

Posted June 10, 2008 © Eurasianet