Kurdish and Turkish families alike suffered from the crimes. The state is accused of ordering the annihilation of entire Kurdish villages. But members of the Turkish military also paid with their lives if, for example, they were too lenient with the Kurds. These were political murders and, for years, the real killers remained confident they'd never be called to account. The government had blamed most of the killings on the armed wing of the PKK, the Kurdistan Workers' Party.