The fifteen years of war with the Kurdish rebels in Turkey, in addition to leaving some 37,000 people dead, led to the formation of a village guard force that still has 60,000 part time security guards on duty. Paid about $200 a month, the guards provide muscle for villages that have decided not to support the Kurdish separatist groups (particularly the PKK, which now calls itself  Kongra Gel.) But these armed men, scattered in small groups through hundreds of villages in eastern Turkey, are becoming another Kurdish political force.