Indebted Farmers Lined up in The Prison Queue
Debts swelled under 200% interest rates
Farmers from the villages of Havran say:" In 1999 we received credits from the Cooperative, but under the economic crisis we were unable to pay back. Later even the Cooperative itself was closed as no one applied for the credits. Then day after another we were called to the court one by one. The managers of the Cooperative, without even noticing us, had made us undersign as collective guarantors for each other. And adding insult to injury they imposed 200 % interest rates on the initial debts.
Struggling to find a way out of the biggest ever financial crisis of its modern history Turkish government in February devalued the Turkish Lira 40 percent before the US dollar and the interest rates skyrocketed to 200 percent in one night, thus ruining small enterprises who were indebted to the banks.
Farmer Necati Ok from Büyükdereli village, albeit a shareholder in the cooperative could not escape the same end. "Even those who had not yet appeared before the court were sentenced for 10 days in absence," he complains. "I personally had not obtained anything from the cooperative, neither money nor fertilizers."
"Further, I was not a guarantor to anyone, and undersigned nothing ," he told. I wonder how I became a guarantor. I applied to the lawyer of the Cooperative. He told me that I was a guarantor because I didn't submit any declaration of my belongings."
55 million became 2 billion
Omer Faruk Yazici (68) who bought a pump engine 3 years ago for 55 million has ended up with a forty times bigger debt.
"Last year there came a letter saying that the credit I received from the Cooperative rose to one billion 600 million Lira. It was said 'If you don't pay, we will start the necessary procedures'. The 55 million I borrowed had become 2 billion liras. How can I pay this money now," he asks bitterly.
"Further," he adds, "the whole thing doesn't come to an end even if I pay".
"All villagers have become guarantors to others. Some of them even don't know the persons they are guarantors to. To sentence the whole people of Büyükdere will not end the problem either. "
Mr Yazici, having prepared for his stay in prison makes his way to the ditrict penitentiary.
The mayor: The debts won't be paid staying in prison
Büyükdere mayor Hüseyin Asarli, from the True Path Party (DYP) says, "some 1,500 shareholders of the Agricultural Credit Cooperative had withdrawn in 1999."
"During the past 3 years the indebted were not asked to pay back the credits. But when an abrupt increase was imposed on the interest rates people were called to pay. The figures reached to such a point that now it is impossible for them to pay back," he summarizes the situation.
Only in Buyukdere 640 people have been sentenced to 10 days of whom 25 to 30 have already served their terms, the mayor told. "The district prison is for 60 people. People are now heaped there like canned sardines."
"In the other villages too some 2000 people have been sentenced for the same reason. Yet, they too are unable to pay. Somebody has to stand up and say 'stop it'. They carry out the pressure, yet in prison, the debts won't be paid," he concludes. (EK)