[Media-watch] militaristic essay followed by other kurdish material
Billy Clark
billy.clark at ntlworld.com
Mon Jun 9 14:29:36 BST 2003
This is an odd insight into the military mind which seems to imply a
Lebanon-isation of Iraq along the racial divide, which the author
depicts as kurds in the top, sunnis in the middle and sh'ite moslems at
the bottom. The divide follows the no-fly zone's division. I imagined
the model of a post-war germany and the process of de-nazification. The
US did not set up the communists and other anti-nazi factions in power.
On the contrary they subverted these factions and re-instated a great
deal of the old guard (Gehlen being the worse example), one can also
point to the Italian example and the 'strategy of tension' instigated by
far-right military.
The Iraqi situation floated by our (probable) proxy below leaves the oil
in the hands of the Kurds in the north and the moslems in the south.
The southern faction are the most anti-american and iranian leaning, the
bureaucrats may well have lived in the more refined part of the country
but the natural resources are elsewhere. Giving the kurds autonomy is a
political no no to Turkey (and Israel - because it sets up a dangerous
precedent). to give the north to the INC/PUK/KDP alliances would create
an effective bulwark in a conflict with Turkey (whose NSC will have to
go eventually). The vast Turkish conscript army is more used to Veitnam
style counter-insurgency enforcements against the kurds, for them to
invade what would be effectively an American protectorate is a big
problem. The Americans set up the Turkish NSC by providing the
intelligance on the whereabouts , names and addresses of the Communists,
the same as they did for saddam and bin laden. The head of the Northern
Kurds is in a very good position and taking full advantage of the fankle
the US has caused.
So how to get the oil - well colonialists tend to sit about mulling over
how the previous lot got the job done - 'are any of them still around'.
Ralph below has concerns about the attacks on US troops. A lot of this
material is provided by independent journalists, but we don't really see
much of it. The policy of the big oil companies - Ken saro-wiwa
immediately comes to mind, then Biafra, then media manipulation - has
always been to exploit racial divides so we should start to look for the
creation of 'children of a lesser god' a tribe of sub humans - I would
say the prime target is not the central bureaucrats class - it is more
those people who live next to the devil's black tar, whose smoldering
fields are said to be the root of tales of hell. The managers who have
been farming their labour will be needed - top executives from US oil
companies would be sadists if they didn't supervise. best simplify
everything with serious transactions being done in dollars. The main
worry of 'unfinished business' is these sporadic outbursts of violence
against US troops - but they legitimise the presence of the troops. The
kurds will not be asked to extend southwards and the moslems in the
south will not be asked to expand into the north - any colonial
enterprise only has to hold the 'insurgents' at bay while pumping out
the goods. The promise of democracy is a fine one but no more then
that - the setting up of proxy death squads is more of a historical
reality (operation phoenix obliterated the middle-class which could
potentially operate a free vietnam). Iraq 2004 will be an
administration to behold. For all the posturing in this essay i seem to
remember you can shoot people who break into your house in the US, but
that's been reversed a bit in Iraq.
More rational analysis follows Peter's rant.
billy
Unfinished Business
By: Ralph Peters
Ralph Peters is a retired military officer and the author of "Beyond
Terror: Strategy in a Changing World."
New York post
May 28, 2003 -- PERHAPS the greatest error U.S. authorities in Iraq
could make would be to underestimate the importance of the recent
attacks on our soldiers. Those low-level ambushes against American
patrols are key elements in a strategy to drive out the U.S. military.
Those who profited from Saddam Hussein's tyranny - primarily Sunni
Muslim Arabs from Iraq's mid-section - know they don't have much of a
future in Iraq if Americans design the new government. They also know
that the U.S. military cannot be defeated on the battlefield. But they
take inspiration from previous terrorist successes against our troops.
Make no mistake: The diehard Iraqis are not going to win. We are. But
the desperate hope of Saddam's disciples is to continue to kill American
soldiers in ones and twos, or perhaps a few dozen in a major bombing,
until the "soft" citizens and leaders in the United States decide the
game isn't worth the cost of playing.
These Iraqis base their strategy on our withdrawal from Somalia, after
we suffered only a handful of casualties, and on our pullback from
Lebanon after the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut. They have
convinced themselves that Americans cannot tolerate a long bloodletting.
They do not have the measure of our president or our people - especially
after 9/11. But killing Americans, one after another, is the last chance
they have. Instead of letting them set the price of our presence, we
need to set the price of their continued resistance.
The new head of the U.S. occupation, L. Paul Bremer III, seems to have
the right stuff, but he must beware any voices that tell him we
shouldn't be too strict with the Iraqis.
We are still at war. When we are attacked, we need to behave
accordingly.
There must be penalties, not only for enemy assassins, but also for
population centers that harbor them. We do not need to deter or even
capture enemy gunmen. We need to kill them.
When a town nourishes regime thugs in its midst and refuses to surrender
them, the population must be deprived of privileges and even basic
comfort. At a time when we are still trying to keep the electricity on
in sections of Baghdad, we must not be afraid to turn it off elsewhere.
We are not obligated to comfort murderous enemies.
Of course, the same "experts" who claimed we would suffer massive
casualties in the war will warn against alienating the Iraqi population.
But part of the Iraqi population - a minority - is irredeemably
alienated from us. We need to stop talking about "Iraqis" and think in
terms of Sunnis, Shi'ites, Kurds and other minorities.
Of the three major groups, we are least likely to make progress with the
Sunni Arabs, who long dominated Iraq with guns and torture. Yet our
continued insistence that Iraq must remain one unified country is a
reward for the Sunnis who supported Saddam and who now are killing
Americans, hoping to re-establish their dominance.
On the other hand, Iraq's Shi'ite majority excites too much worry. We
hear only the loudest voices, those of extremist clerics, but do not
have a sense of what the average Shi'ite wants from a future government.
Elections will tell. And if Iraq's Shi'ites vote for a religious party,
well, that's democracy, folks.
Fundamentalism in the Islamic world is a disease akin to alcoholism. You
cannot simply talk people out of it. They have to hit bottom before they
can begin to recover. Iran has hit bottom: The majority of Iranians want
no further part of theocratic rule. An Iraqi Shi'ite experiment with
theocracy would have a much shorter life expectancy than the failing
regime next door.
The Kurds, on the other hand, are the wronged party. Long oppressed by
Iraq's Arabs, they have been slaughtered, gassed, tortured and driven
from their homes. Yet, over the past decade, they proved that they could
do what not a single Arab state has done: Establish a popular government
and a market-based economy.
Our nonsense about being even-handed in Iraq is a liberal prejudice, not
a practical policy. Fairness to butchers makes little sense. Instead of
droning on about the integrity of the Iraqi state, we should make it
very clear to the spoiled Sunnis that, if they will not adjust
themselves to the rule of law and democracy, we will hold plebiscites to
decide whether or not Iraq's various ethnic and religious groups wish to
remain together.
This is a powerful threat, because neither the Kurds nor the Shi'ites
would hesitate to split with their Sunni Arab oppressors. And the Kurds
and the Shi'ites would have the oil. The Sunnis would have dust. It is
the Sunni Arabs, among whom our enemies thrive, who need Iraq kept
whole.
Yes, an integral Iraq would have practical advantages over smaller
states. The same might have been said of the former Yugoslavia, or even
of the Soviet Union. We live in an age of the breakdown of old empires
and phony states, of the emergence of the popular will. The harder you
try to arrest the process, the higher the price in blood.
In Iraq, our fallback plan should be a free and independent Kurdistan,
guaranteed by U.S. military strength. Yes, such a Kurdish state would be
landlocked - at least for now - but so is Switzerland. The Kurds have
earned their freedom, not least by fighting beside us, and we should not
hesitate to favor them.
We need to knock off the nonsense about fairness in Kirkuk and Mosul.
Such "fairness" is unjust. Saddam drove out the Kurds. Historically,
those oil-rich cities were Kurdish. We should allow them to become
Kurdish again.
The Kurds desperately want to succeed and to be our allies. The Sunnis
are killing our soldiers. The jury's still out on the Shi'ites. But we
would do all Iraq a favor by making it very clear to the Sunni Arab
center that there will be a severe price to pay for murdering Americans.
---------------
1. Kurd Rebels in Turkey Won‚t Disarm without Concessions (Reuters)
05/19
2. PKK Rejects Disarmament without Amnesty (Turkish Daily News) 05/21
3. Three Killed in Clash between PKK, Turkish Army (Associated Press)
05/21
4. US, Turkey Disagree on Approaches to PKK Threat (World Tribune.com)
05/19
5. Ankara: KADEK/PKK Must Leave Northern Iraq (Globalvision News
Network) 05/20
6. Kurd Rebels from Turkey in northern Iraq Warn Crackdown Will Trigger
War (AFP) 05/12
7. Turkish Democracy Reforms Falter on the Ground (International News)
05/17
8. Kurdish Freedom in Iraq Seen as Threat by Turkey (San Francisco
Chronicle) 05/09
10. Kurdish Women Stalwart Fighters in PKK (Observer) 05/11
11. DEHAP Leader Abbasoglu Interviewed on Developments (Turkish Daily
News) 05/11
12. Ocalan Statement on Amnesty Law, Democratic Participation (Kurdish
Observer) 05/18
13. KADEK Launches Campaign for Amnesty (Kurdish Observer) 05/20
14. ECHR: Turkey Failed to Investigate Murder of Journalist (KHRP) 05/12
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1) Turkish Kurd rebels won't disarm, want concessions
Reuters
May 19, 2003
by Ferit Demir
TUNCELI, Turkey / Turkish Kurdish rebels in north Iraq will not disarm
without an amnesty but promise not to fight Iraqi Kurds the United
States is backing as it rebuilds the country, guerrilla leader Osman
Ocalan said on Monday.
Ocalan, leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) of separatist
Turkish Kurds since the jailing of his brother Abdullah, told Reuters he
had received no U.S. request to disarm but his
forces were ready to work with the United States.
It was unclear how Washington would respond to the PKK rebels as it
considers them
"terrorists" because of their bloody fight for an ethnic homeland in
southeastern Turkey in the
1980s and 1990s.
In a written response to questions from Reuters, Ocalan dismissed
proposals floated by Turkish
authorities of a "repentance law" offering reduced jail sentences to
guerrillas who turn themselves
in with arms or information.
Turkey must offer the rebels a full amnesty, he declared. "The path to
disarmament is...with an
amnesty. We will not hesitate to give up our weapons if we are allowed
to participate in political
life under an amnesty," Ocalan wrote in an e-mail.
He set one more condition for a PKK arms handover -- that Turkey release
his brother and
PKK commander Abdullah Ocalan from jail, where he is serving a life
sentence for treason.
Fighting between the rebels and Turkish troops, which killed more than
30,000 people, dropped
off sharply after Abdullah Ocalan was captured in 1999 and most of his
followers withdrew from
Turkey into northern Iraq.
Some 5,000 PKK fighters are in northern Iraq and could complicate U.S.
efforts to rebuild the
country. The PKK, which is also known as KADEK, has clashed sporadically
with Iraqi
Kurdish factions in the mountainous north.
"Our desire is for a democratic Iraq and for stability to be realised.
Our position will be to make
every contribution we can," Ocalan said when asked whether his forces
would cooperate with
the United States.
He was quoted earlier on Monday by the Europe-based Mezopotomya News
Agency, which is
close to the PKK, as saying his followers would no longer fight the
U.S.-backed Iraqi Kurds.
"We have brought to an end all of our armed activities and political
efforts in northern Iraq," he
said.
Turkey has kept several thousand troops in northern Iraq to crack down
if necessary on the
Kurdish rebels who retreated there, but is now under pressure from the
United States and Iraqi
Kurds to withdraw its forces.
----
2) PKK says won't disarm without amnesty, recognition
Turkish Daily News
21 May 2003
ANKARA / The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) refuses to disarm without
recognition as a legal group and it has sent 90 of its militants to
areas close to Turkey's border, news reports said Tuesday.
Murat Karayilan, heading the rebell group's armed wing, said at a
recent presidential council meeting of the group that the U.S.
demands for the disarmament of the group were unacceptable before it was
given recognition,
Anatolia news agency said.
The agency said the dispatch of 90 PKK members was a step in the
direction of increasing the
group's bargaining power with the United States.
PKK leader Osman Ocalan told Reuters Monday that the PKK, mostly based
in northern Iraq,
will not disarm without an amnesty, but promised not to fight Iraqi
Kurds the United States is
backing as it rebuilds the country.
Ocalan, leading the PKK since the jailing of his brother Abdullah, told
Reuters he had received
no U.S. request to disarm but his forces were ready to work with the
United States.
It was unclear how Washington would respond to the PKK, as it considers
the group
"terrorists".
In a written response to questions from Reuters, Ocalan dismissed
proposals floated by Turkish
authorities of a "repentance law" offering reduced jail sentences to PKK
members who turn
themselves in with arms or information.
Turkey must offer a full amnesty, he declared. "The path to disarmament
is ... with an amnesty.
We will not hesitate to give up our weapons if we are allowed to
participate in political life under
an amnesty," Ocalan wrote in an e-mail.
He set one more condition for a PKK arms handover -- that Turkey release
his brother
Abdullah Ocalan from jail, where he is serving a life sentence for
treason.
Some 5,000 PKK fighters are in northern Iraq and could complicate U.S.
efforts to rebuild the
country. The PKK, which is also known as KADEK, has clashed sporadically
with Iraqi
Kurdish factions in the mountainous north.
"Our desire is for a democratic Iraq and for stability to be realised.
Our position will be to make
every contribution we can," Ocalan said when asked whether his forces
would cooperate with
the United States.
He was quoted earlier on Monday by the Europe-based Mezopotomya News
Agency, which is
close to the PKK, as saying his followers would no longer fight the
U.S.-backed Iraqi Kurds.
"We have brought to an end all of our armed activities and political
efforts in northern Iraq," he
said.
Turkey has kept several thousand troops in northern Iraq to crack down
if necessary on the
PKK who retreated there, but is now under pressure from the United
States and Iraqi Kurds to
withdraw its forces.
-----
3) Three die in Kurd rebel clashes with Turk soldiers
Reuters
May 21, 2003
TUNCELI, Turkey, May 21 (Reuters) - Two Turkish soldiers and a Kurdish
guerrilla
were killed in clashes in eastern Turkey, officials said on Wednesday,
amid fears the
guerrillas may use upheaval in neighbouring Iraq to re-enter Turkey.
Fighting between security forces and a group of Kurdistan Workers
Party (PKK) rebels erupted late on Tuesday in mountainous Tunceli
province, governer Ali Cafer Akyuz said.
One soldier was killed on Tuesday, while the second died in further gun
battles on Wednesday. A PKK fighter was also killed on
Wednesday. The military operation was continuing, Akyuz said.
Two Turkish soldiers were killed and three others were wounded in April
in clashes with PKK guerrillas in the mountains of nearby Bingol
province.
Some 5,000 members of the PKK are based in northern Iraq after
withdrawing from
Turkey following the capture of their commander, Abdullah Ocalan, in
1999.
The PKK has signalled a willingness to cooperate with the United States
after the war
which toppled Iraq's former president Saddam Hussein.
Washington has not yet responded to a group it lists as a terrorist
organisation for its
campaign in the 1980s and 1990s to carve out a Kurdish homeland in
southeastern
Turkey.
At least 30,000 people, mainly Kurds, died during more than 15 years of
violence, but
the fighting has dropped off sharply since Ocalan was tried and jailed.
A military official in Tunceli told Reuters close to 500 guerrillas had
crossed over from
Iraq in recent weeks, worried about a possible stand-off with U.S.
forces.
Of those at least 50 militants had come to Tunceli, where around 100 PKK
fighters were
already based, he said.
-----
4) U.S., Turkey disagree on PKK threat
WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
May 19, 2003
ANKARA - Turkish officials said the intelligence communties in Ankara and
Washington are examining a range of proposals to eliminate what they
term the
threat from the Kurdish Workers Party, or PKK.
They said the CIA and Turkish intelligence have discussed assessments
regarding
the number of PKK insurgents, their location and the weapons they
possess.
Turkey asserts that up to 8,000 PKK insurgents are located in northern
Iraq, Middle
East Newsline reported. Officials said many of them are believed to have
sought
safe haven along the Syrian border.
But the United States is said to dispute the Turkish assessment. Turkish
officials
said the CIA believes that there are no more than 2,000 PKK insurgents
in northern Iraq.
A Turkish Foreign Ministry delegation has been in northern Iraq to
discuss the PKK
presence and ensure the safety of ethnic Turks in the area.
Another snag is a timetable for the disarming of the PKK. Officials said
the Bush
administration does not consider this a high priority and has refused to
relay a
timetable for the surrender of PKK weapons to U.S. forces.
The Turkish semi-official Anatolia news agency said the PKK has deployed
more
than 80 short-range rockets at its camps in northern Iraq near Turkey's
border. The
agency said the range of the rockets is between five and eight
kilometers, procured
after the PKK failed to obtain tanks and heavy weapons.
"After failing to obtain tanks just after the overthrow of the Iraqi
regime, the terrorist
organization tried to get missiles and night vision goggles with the
help of arms
smugglers," Anatolia said.
Officials said the U.S.-Turkish talks will result in a report on the PKK
issue and
recommendations for its disarming. The report will be relayed to the
Turkish
General Staff for review.
Turkey has offered to grant amnesty to any PKK member who disarms and
surrenders to Turkish authorities. PKK members have been given safe
haven in Iran
and Syria.
-----
5) KADEK/PKK Must Leave Northern Iraq -- Ankara
Globalvision News Network
By Adam McConnel
May 20, 2003
ISTANBUL, May 20, 2003 -- Turkish forces will remain in northern Iraq --
despite calls for their
withdrawal by the Kurdish Parliament - as long as Kurdish terrorists
remain active there, Turkish
media report.
Both Turkey and the U.S. consider the militant Kurdish organization
KADEK, formerly the PKK or
communist Kurdistan Workers' Party, to be a terrorist group. Turkish
media have reported that
its fighters have increased their forces and deployed more than 80
short-range missiles along
the border of northern Iraq - aimed at Turkey.
Turkey's U.S Ambassador Faruk Logoglu told reporters Monday that
Ankara's forces will remain
deployed in northern Iraq as long as KADEK remains a potential problem.
His comments were
reported by NTV, MSNBC's Turkish affiliate, and other media.
Turkey and the U.S. have been discussing how to disarm KADEK and ensure
that it does not launch
attacks into Turkey. KADEK also is holding talks with U.S.
representatives.
Ambassador Logoglu said the U.S. agrees with Turkey's position
concerning the armed militants
and the presence of Ankara's soldiers in northern Iraq. He also said
Turkey is prepared to aid in
reconstructing northern Iraq.
The exact number of Turkish troops in northern Iraq is not known, but
Turkey has sent military
observers into the country and has stationed troops along both sides of
the Iraq border. These
troops have been in place for years since Turkey fought the PKK, or
KADEK. Some troops also
patrol a buffer zone between other Kurdish groups. Turkey refrained,
however, from sending
in a major military contingent during the Iraq war.
The Kurdish Parliament has asked Turkey to remove its forces, but
Kurdish forces are not
strong enough to expel Ankara's soldiers.
Ankara is concerned about preserving Iraq's unity and preventing Kurdish
separatists from setting
up an independent state - or enjoying too much autonomy under a federal
system because that
could encourage Turkey's own Kurdish separatists.
NTV reports that KADEK is building itself into northern Iraq's third
strongest force, behind the
PUK and KDP. The Anatolian News Agency reports that KADEK recently
infiltrated 90 militants into
the region along Turkey's border and deployed another 300 fighters in
maneuvers.
These moves are seen as an attempt by KADEK to strengthen its bargaining
position with the
U.S. in disarmament negotiations.
A Turkish foreign ministry delegation, meanwhile, is holding talks in
northern Iraq with U.S.
representatives, the Kurdistan Patriots' Union (PUK) and the Kurdistan
Democrats' Party (KDP).
They met PUK chief Jelal Talabani.
The Kurdish leader later told reporters that he knows where Saddam
Hussein's wife and children
are hiding, but he declined to identify the children or give further
information, Milliyet reported.
"Saddam Hussein is a murderer, but his wife and children are not,"
Talabani said. "Through private
connections they asked for protection in a region of northern Iraq. I
know where they are, but I
can't say."
Concerning strained U.S. relations, Turkey's politicians and media
continue to express their
resentment over Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz's criticism of
the government and
military. Wolfowitz said Turkey should admit it made a mistake in not
granting the U.S. request.
The U.S. is angered that Turkey did not allow the U.S. to base 62,000
troops in Turkey and open a
northern front in the Iraq war.
U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass) has called for Wolfowitz's resignation,
saying his derogatory
comments harmed Turkey's democracy.
Wolfowitz, in a CNN Turk interview on May 6, said that Turkey's military
was lacking in leadership
and should have done more to influence the vote in Parliament on U.S.
troops. The measure was
narrowly defeated - by just four votes.
------
6) Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq war crackdown would trigger war
AFP
12 May 2003
by Mahmut Bozarslan
DIYARBAKIR / Turkey's outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) warned at
the weekend
that it would retaliate with force if either Turkey or the United States
moved to
purge northern Iraq of its militants. Some 5,000 PKK rebels are believed
to
have found refuge in the mountainous area across the border in Iraq
since 1999, when the
separatist group declared an end to its 15-year armed struggle for
Kurdish self-rule in
southeastern Turkey.
But a top PKK official warned Turkish and US troops not to drive Kurdish
rebels out of
northern Iraq, which has been outside Baghdad's control since the 1991
Gulf war. "It would be
misjudgment for Turkey to count on the United States against us...
Turkey should not play with
fire," Mustafa Karasu, a member of the PKK's leadership council, told
the Europe-based
pro-Kurdish Medya-TV late on Sunday.
"No force could expel us from here. That is day-dreaming... If they
crack down on us, we will
restart the war," he added, without giving details. Karasu said PKK
militants would only lay
down their arms if there was a solution to the Kurdish conflict and that
they were prepared to
establish ties with regional powers to facilitate a settlement.
"We will establish ties with anyone for the interests of our people.
This could be the United
States, this could be Israel, but the US should help the resolution of
the dispute, not block it," he
said.
Ankara maintains several thousand troops in northern Iraq to hunt down
PKK militants and is
counting on US soldiers present there to crack down on the group, which
Washington also
describes as a "terrorist organisation". A senior US government official
said in a Turkish
television interview last week Washington was determined to purge
northern Iraq of the PKK
and hinted of possible moves against the rebels.
"PKK is a terrorist organisation. I don't think we can tolerate a
terrorist organisation in northern
Iraq," US Deputy Secretary of Defence Paul Wolfowitz told CNN-Turk
television. "How we
deal with that is a difficult issue ... but I think we are absolutely in
clear agreemeent with Turkey
and I think with the major (Iraqi) Kurdish groups that these people are
terrorists and
troublemakers and we don't need that kind of trouble," he added.
Wolfowitz signalled that once northern Iraq ceased to be a "sanctuary
for terrorists" attacking
Turkey, there would ne no need for Ankara to maintain a military
presence in northern Iraq. The
Turkish army, which sees the PKK as its number-one enemy, has dismissed
the group's 1999
truce and demanded that the rebels either surrender or face the
military's wrath. Turkish Justice
Minister Cemil Cicek said on Monday the government was working on a new
limited amnesty
bill for PKK rebels to speed up the dissolution of the organisation.
Previous amnesty bills had offered reductions in penalties only to PKK
rebels who were not
senior leaders of the organisation, who had not killed any Turkish
soldiers and who were able to
provide useful information on the group. But Cicek hinted that the new
law would include
different provisions. "It will be a different law and will be a
satisfactory arrangement," Anatolia
news agency reported him as saying. More than 36,000 people were killed
in when the PKK --
now renamed KADEK -- took up arms against Ankara for self-rule in 1984,
triggering a harsh
military crackdown.
The fighting has significantly abated since the PKK declared a ceasefire
in 1999 and Ankara has
in the meantime granted its Kurdish minority broader cultural freedoms
as part of efforts to boost
the country's bid to join the European Union.
------
7) Turkish democracy reforms falter on the ground
The International News (Pakistan)
May 17, 2003
ANKARA: As Turkish authorities continue to crack down on rights groups
and dissidents, critics are questioning whether the government is really
determined to embrace the European Union's democracy norms despite
passing rafts of reforms.
"Oppression of freedoms has changed into judicial pressure, a kind of a
refined oppression," Husnu Ondul, chairman of the Human Rights
Association (IHD), told AFP Thursday. "This is a problem of mentality.
The
way that the security establishment -- and this includes the judiciary,
the police, the military and the governors -- looks at human rights is
not
healthy," he said.
Ondul last week attended a meeting on democratization between Foreign
Minister Abdullah Gul and civic groups after police raided his office and
another IHD branch office in Ankara, confiscating computers, diskettes
and archive files. "No specific accusation has been brought against us,"
said Ondul, whose organization has long been charged with being a
mouthpiece of separatist Kurdish rebels.
The raid drew sharp criticism from Brussels, which is watching how
Turkey, the laggard among 13 EU hopefuls, is enforcing reforms it has
adopted. "There is a yawning gap between stated reforms... and their
actual implementation," the enlargement commissioner's spokesman
Jean-Christophe Filori said.
The EU will assess Turkey's progress in December 2004 before deciding
whether to open accession talks with its sole Muslim candidate or
whether to keep it in the waiting room. Turkey has long been under fire
for jailing dissidents, particularly those advocating Kurdish rights,
widespread torture and failing to curb the influence its powerful
military
wields in politics.
Scores of amendments since last year have lifted a number of restrictions
on freedom of expression and allowed state television to air programs in
Kurdish and private classes to teach the language of the country's
troubled minority.
No broadcasts have yet started, while several entrepreneurs who were
willing to launch Kurdish classes have given up, complaining that
procedural rules authorities impose makes the business commercially
unviable. A widespread problem, critics say, is the failure of the
government, a staunch advocate of democratization, to change
deep-rooted oppressionist habits and prevail over nationalist quarters in
the state establishment.
Pro-Kurdish dissident writer Fikret Baskaya sees himself as a victim of
such resistance in the judiciary. A prosecutor recently indicted Baskaya,
63, for propagating separatism -- an offence carrying up to three years
in prison -- in a book decrying Ankara's Kurdish policies, for which he
already spent 20 months behind bars in 1993.
-----
8) Kurdish ferment in liberated Iraq has Turks concerned
Ethnic aspirations could bubble over into nationalism
San Francisco Chronicle
Juliette Terzieff
May 9, 2003
Istanbul -- Abbas Uyilmuz has long dreamed of living
in a Turkey where Kurdish language, culture and
tradition are freely expressed.
Like many of this country's 9 million Kurdish
residents, he is divided over how best to achieve that
goal but hopeful that the war in next-door Iraq will
herald a new era for his long-suffering people.
"I was born in Turkey but have never been allowed
freedom inside my own country," said the 32-year-old
watch vendor. "We tried fighting and that didn't work.
Now we're trying politically, but that doesn't seem to
be working too well either.
"If the Americans allow Iraqi Kurds to govern
themselves and ensure their rights, maybe we will
get ours too," he mused, fidgeting with Swatch
knockoffs on a small table set up on an Istanbul
street corner." The Kurdish question is often the
object of knee-jerk emotional reactions in Turkey.
It's hardly surprising, given that a bloody separatist
rebellion led by the Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK)
claimed 36,000 lives in Turkey's southeast and ended
only in 1999 with the arrest of notorious PKK
commander Abdullah Ocalan.
The issues that drove widespread Kurdish support for
Ocalan's rebellion -- recognition of basic political and
social rights -- have yet to be resolved. The reforms
passed into law, including permitting schools to
teach students in Kurdish, are slow to be
implemented, and much of the southeast still lives
under virtual martial law.
"While it may scare the Turks to hear us say it,
Kurds must be allowed their rights -- in northern Iraq
and in Turkey," argues Saban Ozel, who emigrated
from his home in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir
14 years ago. "Autonomy is not enough, the Kurds in
northern Iraq deserve their own country."
Worries that an independent Kurdish-governed state
in northern Iraq could rise from the ashes of Saddam
Hussein's overthrow was one of the driving forces
behind Turkey's opposition to the U.S.-led war.
While Washington insists that an independent
Kurdistan is not an option, a European diplomat in
Istanbul notes that the Kurds have had their own de
facto state in northern Iraq for the last 12 years.
"They will be looking to the U.S. to guarantee they
have at least that, if not more. . . . The idea of a
quasi-federal setup where they officially retain control
over the north is a point they have been making for
some time."
Turkish leaders remain adamantly opposed to any
upgrading in the autonomous status of the
Kurdish-ruled area of northern Iraq, arguing that it
would rekindle ethnic tensions in their own country.
"We will not accept an independent Kurdish state in
Iraq," insisted a retired Turkish air force colonel. "This
so-called Kurdistan does not exist. Iraq exists and
that is the reality that must be maintained."
Istanbul analyst Ece Temelkuran noted that there is
a new term in Turkish official language: "Northern
Iraqis."
"Officials are terrified to use the word 'Kurds' publicly
should anyone then want to seriously discuss the
situation here," Temelkuran said.
An estimated 23 million Kurds live in Iraq, Iran,
Turkey and Syria, and for centuries they have been
ignored or repressed.
Turkish leaders worry that a desire to settle scores
could spur a serious re-emergence of the PKK under
Ocalan's brother Osman, who fled to the mountains
of northern Iraq in the late 1990s with hundreds of
loyalists. Intelligence officials believe Osman, who
often threatens to return, now has a core group of
5,000 fighters ready to launch operations against
Turkey.
"If we see any violations, we will forget NATO,
America and the European Union, and if necessary
we'll march across the border with a half a million
soldiers to protect our interests," insisted the
colonel, echoing warnings by Foreign Minister
Abdullah Gul.
The Bush administration may feel duty bound to
reward the Kurds for their stalwart opposition to
Hussein, but Turkey's threats keep a lid on the ethnic
and religious kettle in Iraq mean Washington is likely
to rein in Kurdish aspirations, at least in the short
term.
Delegates from across Iraq's ethnic and religious
spectrum are set to choose a transitional government
by next month, after which work on a new constitution will begin.
Kurdish leaders in northern Iraq appear ready to play along.
"Although we believe that the Kurdish people, like
other people in the world, have the right to
self-determination, at this moment we want to deal
within the framework of Iraq," Jalal Talabani, veteran
leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of two
groups controlling the area, said recently.
But some within the Kurdish community fear their
leaders are wasting their leverage. The prime
example, they argue, was the withdrawal of
triumphant Kurdish forces from Kirkuk, a city many
Kurds would like to see become the capital of a
Kurdish-administered territory.
"The displaced, oppressed Kurds should not return to
their homes and histories because 'Turkey will be
annoyed and provoked'?" asked Kurdish analyst
Kamal Mirawdeli. "How naive, cowardly and criminal
to accept such an argument."
Temelkuran said politicians on both sides benefit by
keeping tensions high: "Let's get real. The Kurds
aren't really important to America and need the
attention to keep themselves in the headlines.
"As for Turkey, the issue is a political tool to
maintain the military's strength. If there is no enemy
to fight, they lose their power."
-----
10) Daughters of the revolution
May 11, 2003
The Observer
by Jason Burke
High in Iraq's Qandil mountains, 5,000 armed women stand ready to go
into battle for liberation and sexual equality. To some, they are
glorious freedom fighters, but to the west they are dangerous
terrorists... Jason Burke meets the soldiers of the Kurdish Freedom and
Democracy Congress
She is five foot nothing in her trainers with hair pulled into a
ponytail that reaches the small of her back and a multicoloured thread
round one slim wrist. She is wearing green combat fatigues with a radio
antenna sticking out from one pocket of her well-worn, olive-drab
jacket. She has an AK47 over one shoulder and she is talking about
killing men.
'I first saw action in 1992 when I was 13,' she says. 'There was a long
battle up in the mountains on the Badinan line. It went on for weeks,
but eventually we won. I threw grenades and shot with my Kalashnikov.
When the enemy were attacking we killed many of them. We shot them in
the head, in the lungs, in their abdomen and legs. Mostly we shot them
in the head. I killed a man from about 50 metres away. I shot him in the
head. I don't remember his face.'
We are sitting on the grass under a tree on a ridge in the Qandil
mountains high on the triple border between Iraq, Iran and Turkey. It is
the last week of April and the sky is a clear blue, though the clouds
building to the south mean heavy rain soon. The clouds are moving fast
and cast swift shadows on the steep wooded slopes of the rocky hills. In
the valleys, a long way beneath us, small villages sit improbably under
precipices.
A few metres from where we are sitting a dozen or so young women are
playing volleyball on a patch of earth cleared among the trees. They are
still wearing their uniforms, though they have leant their guns against
tree trunks or fallen logs. Another 20 young women are sitting, smoking
cigarettes of green local tobacco rolled with paper and making tea over
small open fires. They are listening to shortwave radios, laughing and
talking. There is a group of young men a few yards away, but they are
keeping to themselves around their own fire. They, too, are in high
spirits. Some of them are preparing to play football and are setting up
goalposts using broken branches as posts and the lengths of the fabric
they wind round their waists as cummberbunds as crossbars. But for the
small stacks of weapons everywhere, the smell of unwashed bodies and the
hard, pinched faces of the older women, the scene is almost bucolic.
'I have been in many battles since then,' Comrade Gulbar is saying, one
hand on her gun and the other fiddling with the scrunchy in her hair.
She is slightly irritated by my questions, though too polite to say
anything, and is frowning. 'I have not kept track of the men I have
killed. There are many of them. I did not see them all die. Often in
battles it is very dark and very confused. I have been wounded three
times. In the arm and the leg.'
Comrade Gulbar is a military commander, in charge of a unit of 30 young
men and women of the Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan (the Kurdish Workers
Party or PKK). Her struggle, she tells me, is twofold. She is fighting
for the Kurdish people and for the liberation of women. She says that
the two issues are inextricably connected.
To those who have suffered most from their activities, the PKK is a
brutal, criminal terrorist organisation given to indiscriminate attacks
on civilians and motivated by a fanaticism paralleled only by Osama bin
Laden's Islamic militants. To many Kurds, either in the diaspora or in
the heartland Kurdish areas of southeastern Turkey, western Iran,
northern Iraq and eastern Syria, the PKK are freedom fighters, battling
for a homeland, or at least better rights, for a people without a
nation. Up to half the PKK are women and, throughout the group's 30-year
history, the 'struggle for women's freedom' as Comrade Gulbar terms it,
has been an integral part of its campaign.
The PKK's ideology is, to coin a phrase, very last century. Were it not
for its propensity for extreme violence, self-immolation, bombing towns
and kidnapping journalists and tourists, there would be something quaint
about its talk of dialectic materialism, the struggle against
imperialism, false consciousness, the alienated capitalist self and so
on. When you talk about 'gender issues' with PKK members (they don't
have cadres, I am told, but volunteers), you are suddenly returned to
agitprop feminist debate, circa 1980.
Take the issue of marriage. PKK volunteers are not allowed to marry
because truly free gender relations are impossible given the oppression
inherent in the capitalist world system that is currently dominant. In
that system, individuals and their emotions are reduced to commodities
and so marriage, a bourgeois concept based on ownership, can only aid
the continued dominance of patriarchal (and imperialist) power. As no
truly power-free gender relations are possible (and here the
revolutionary Marxism shades into French existentialism) until
capitalism is replaced by a system which allows truly free relations
between individuals, no marriage between PKK volunteers is permissible.
Instead, all must strive for the revolution. As an added incentive, sex
is banned, too, also until the revolution. It is 'not included in the
programme plans of the party'.
Such sophomoric Leftism is understandable given the origins of the
movement. The PKK was formed in 1974 by Abdullah Ocalan, a charismatic
Kurdish political activist from Turkey. They were based in Syria through
the 80s, but moved to their current bases in the mountains of northern
Iraq in the chaos following the first Gulf War of 1991. With the local
Kurdish parties weakened by the war on Saddam Hussein and by internecine
rivalry, the PKK was able to hack out a substantial and effectively
self-ruled feifdom. The early and mid-90s saw horrific violence in
southeastern Turkey as the Turkish state attempted to force the PKK out
of its enclave and to crush dissent among its own restive Kurdish
minority. Both sides committed terrible atrocities, burning villages and
killing civilians. Around 40,000 people died and the Turkish
government's brutality was condemned by a series of international human
rights organisations. The PKK took to suicide operations and explosions
in Turkish cities and swiftly earned themselves a place on British and
American lists of banned terrorist organisations. A series of military
operations during the 90s involving thousands of Turkish troops backed
by Kurdish groups and auxiliaries failed to dislodge the group from its
mountain stronghold. Once again, casualties on both sides were heavy. In
all, Ankara says, more than 20,000 PKK fighters have been killed and
several thousand Turkish soldiers and security militia men.
In 1999, there was something of a breakthrough. Abdullah Ocalan was
captured in Kenya and, from his Turkish prison cell, issued a directive
saying that the military strategy pursued by the PKK hitherto had been
misguided. The PKK renounced violence, except in self-defence. Last
year, it renamed itself Kadek, the Kurdish Freedom and Democracy
Congress, and the hammer and sickle was dropped from its flag, though
the red, yellow and green motif featuring a five-pointed star remains.
Kadek now says it wants to pursue Kurdish and women's rights through
democratic means. Up in its enclave, it exacts customs duties and taxes
on the local people, builds roads and the occasional clinic, runs a
standing army of about 10,000 fighters, directs a sophisticated
international network of activists and fundraisers (and extortionists)
and overall acts like a mini-state.
'We are not terrorists. We are a liberated people in a liberated land,'
said Comrade Gulbar. Many disagree. The PKK is still banned almost all
over the world. Given that the Americans are committed to a 'war on
terror' and are now in power in Baghdad this is an important point that
seems to have escaped the notice of most PKK cadres.
I had first tried to see the PKK in 1991. The group was in the process
of launching its guerrilla war against the Turkish security forces and
meeting them had proved too difficult and too dangerous. Twelve years
later, back in Kurdistan to cover the US-led war on Baghdad, things were
easier. As Kadek, the group is keener on media exposure. We were told
the days of kidnapping journalists are long gone. Contacts in the
northeastern Iraqi city of Sulaimania carried our request up to the
mountains and came back with an invitation.
We left Sulaimania as it got light and drove west. It was Easter Sunday.
By mid-morning we had hired a local taxi, passed through the final
government checkpoint and were on a dirt road heading up a narrow gorge.
It opened on to a high wooded plateau, surrounded by huge peaks, with
the colours of the trees and fields all muted by a swollen, lowering,
overcast sky. On a spur at one side of the plateau was a small base
built of wood, mud and breeze blocks with small turrets, a defensive
wall, an aggressive mongrel, and several flags displaying the PKK star
flapping in the wind. We were stopped there and waited.
War, as any soldier will tell you, involves a lot of waiting. Guerrillas
do more waiting than most. They wait for dark, for supplies, for orders,
for the enemy, for the right time to attack, for the political situation
to change, for someone to convene a committee and make a decision. The
PKK has been waiting for a long time and are very good at it. Western
journalists are not so good at it. So after two days we were somewhat
relieved when word came that a senior commander was ready to see us.
In fact, two senior commanders were ready to see us. We had hoped to
meet Osman Ocalan, chairman Abdullah's brother, but he was unavailable.
Instead we were asked to join Murad Karailluh, aka Comrade Jamal, and
Haleeja Actac, aka Comrade Chedam, for dinner.
Karailluh turned out to be a tubby, moustachioed and avuncular
46-year-old man who has spent 25 years fighting for the PKK. Actac was a
slim and intense 31-year-old woman who, in just 10 years in the
movement, has risen to be one of the group's top military commanders.
Both Karailluh and Actac are members of the PKK high command. I was
mildly amused to see that, whereas the lowly grunts with whom we had
spent the previous two days ate nothing more than greasy fried potatoes,
rice and the occasional egg, we were served chicken, fresh bread and
Coca-Cola.
Karailluh was jolly enough, however. He sat and belched loudly on to the
back of his hand and spoke for long periods expecting everyone to
listen. He was one of the original band of activists who had helped
found the PKK with 'Apo', as Abdullah Ocalan is universally known, in
the mid-70s. In 1980, he said, the Turkish government had destroyed his
home and tortured and killed his father, a sheep farmer, to punish him
for his militant activities. Actac grew up in Istanbul. She had become
involved with the PKK in 1994 as a geography student at the university
and was imprisoned for two years as a result. On her release she had
travelled to Europe and then, after four years in Greece, made her way
to the Qandil mountains.
As we eat I ask her why she joined the PKK. She answers in rapid
Turkish. 'I became involved primarily for the feminist struggle,
secondly because my friends were [involved], thirdly because when I saw
that Kurdish people were persecuted in my own country I felt I had to do
something.'
She explains that in almost all of the Middle East women are repressed.
Their basic human rights are denied and they are treated as the property
of their husbands. To fight the repression of women in the Middle East
and in the world more generally, Actac says, is a significant part of
the PKK's mission. 'Our revolutionary struggle means that here men and
women are equal, standing shoulder to shoulder,' she says. 'Only in our
party is this the case and so we are an example of how men and women
should work and live together. Our role is to inspire and mobilise. When
women see us they will understand that there is an alternative to the
way they are forced to live their lives.'
Until a decade or so ago it was the Soviet Union that performed this
role, Actac says, until the leadership's 'deviation into dogmatism'
caused the Communist regime to collapse. Actac is adamant. 'The failure
of the USSR is one of the main reasons for the continuing reactionary
ignorance among the masses, both the dominant men and the unconscious
women,' she says. 'We have to be the standard bearers of liberation now.'
I ask whether there is anything she misses from her former life. 'It's a
hard life up here in the mountains,' I say. 'Back in Istanbul there are
people out clubbing, dancing with boyfriends, drinking, having fun.
Don't you miss all of that?'
I also want to know if Actac and Khairallah are, as they appear to be
from their body language, an item. This must be a problem for an
organisation that bans sex between its members, but has 10,000 men and
women living together in close confines up mountains with very little in
the way of diversion. The attempt to eradicate any mention or practice
of sex merely makes everyone obsess about it. I want to know if my
suspicions about Actac and Khairallah are correct partly because it
would be a flagrant, if magnificent, breach of party rules by the senior
command and partly because it would be an amusing confirmation that they
are both human, flawed and, despite the potential for dialectic pillow
talk, occasionally have fun.
I am wondering about Marxist sex - thesis, antithesis, synthesis - when
Actac answers my question. Her words rattle out like gravel hitting
ceramic. 'I had a boyfriend and I drank and smoked and danced, but I
found all those things trivial,' she says. 'They are not things that are
comparable to what I am now seeking. They are small things. I am engaged
on important things.
I cannot be happy when I see a nation persecuted. I cannot stand by. I
have to struggle.'
I ask Actac brightly if she has any questions for me. 'Yes' she says.
'Why are you asking me social questions and asking my [male] comrade
political questions?' I move on to books. Other PKK cadres have cited
Simone de Beauvoir as a favourite author. Who would be hers? 'Lenin,'
she says.
Spending time with the PKK is disorientating. It is impossible to get a
firm grasp on what is going on. One moment they resemble a joint girl
guides/boy scouts summer camp led by someone with a worrying interest in
rifle-shooting, the next they are back to talking, seriously, of
martyrs, self-immolation, death and the struggle. The combination is
disconcerting. Even moments of levity - a girls' game which involves
hurling a ball at each other and screaming with high-pitched giggles if
hit, a surreptitious cigarette out of the commander's sight, a fit of
bashfulness when faced by a Western photographer - are tainted by an
underlying darkness.
Who are these teenage cadres? Why do they make their way to the
mountains in the knowledge that to go back to their homes will be, given
the attention of the security services in their own countries, very
hard? Few are in contact with their families. All profess a willingness
to kill and die for the cause. All have made huge sacrifices, though
they may not know it yet. All appear to be having tremendous fun.
With some, questions are deflected with the language of the manifestoes.
Comrade Janda, from Qamishli in eastern Syria says she joined four years
ago, at the age of 12, 'because [her] nation is under persecution and
torture'. 'It is useless to have lessons when you are in an occupied
country,' she says, adding that her family, who have a long history of
left-wing political involvement, suffered 'indirect' repression. 'The
regime were putting obstacles in front of the Kurdish people. My family
did not prevent me coming. It is better to be here than anywhere else.'
Seventeen-year-old Comrade Rosa, a Russian Kurd, born in Moscow and,
like comrade Janda, raised in a 'revolutionary family' tells me how she
was 'very influenced by the ideology of the manifesto of Abdullah
Ocalan. Firstly, the liberation of humanity, secondly the liberation of
women.' She clenches a fist.
Others don't bother with the ideology. Comrade Shaheen, 20, left his
home in northeastern Iraq in 1998. His father is a tailor and had taken
him out of school to help him earn money for his family. Shaheen says he
joined the PKK because he 'was influenced by the kind of life of my
comrades here, living in the mountains, hiking and marching and training
for a specific aim.'
Then there is the 18-year-old, also born into a family with a history of
political activism though this time in Germany, who joined the PKK to be
close to his Kurdish roots. There's the 29-year-old Swiss man, entirely
devoid of Kurdish blood, who says he is an 'internationalist and a
humanist'. And there is the Kurdish girl from Holland, who speaks
English, Dutch and Kurdish with equal facility, who left her college in
Amsterdam to join. 'You can go anywhere and life will be the same, but
here you have 5,000 women fighting for freedom, democracy and human
rights,' she says. 'We will stay here until the final victory.'
So, after spending several days talking to several dozen recruits, what
have I understood? Very little, to be honest. The recruits are young,
many are from families with a history of involvement in left-wing
politics, most are Kurdish, some feel strongly nationalistic, some are
politically inspired, some are drawn by the prospect of adventure, and
some by both. Given the minimal life opportunities available in your
average provincial town in the Kurdish dominated regions of the Middle
East, particularly for women, one can see the attraction of life as a
guerrilla. Or maybe I am just too jaded and simply cannot credit their
unabashed, unalloyed idealism, their genuine commitment to a cause.
After all, currently life isn't so bad in the hills. No one has had to
fight for nearly three years. There are no knocks on the door from the
government's heavies in the middle of the night. The daily routine
involves a dawn reveille, physical exercise for an hour, military
lessons for the rest of the morning and then political lessons in the
afternoon, all interspersed with lots of volleyball and soccer and
hiking. The prohibition on sex between cadres must be very difficult to
enforce, as a number of cadres hint to me. There are books to read and
films to see. On a shelf in one bunker I found the following: Anna
Karenina, The Brothers Karamazov, six of Ocalan's works all with titles
like We Will Win Freedom, Ten Days with Commander Marcos and the
Zapatistas by a Turkish journalist, An Introduction to the History of
Thought and Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. There are
also communal video screenings of carefully selected 'revolutionary
works'. The most popular is Braveheart.
On the plateau where we spent two days waiting, is a small, white-washed
concrete building with a spire. It looks like a mosque or a shrine and,
for those who have made the leap of faith, performs a similar function.
It is the PKK's 'martyrs memorial'. In its well-kept garden are rows of
graves, each with a name, age and date of death inscribed on it. Inside
the memorial are large posters of Abdullah Ocalan, a huge PKK flag and,
in carefully constructed wooden display cases, rows of photographs of
young faces. The pictures cover one wall and half of another. The rest
of that wall is covered by the flags and the posters. There are no
pictures on the other two walls. But they are not empty. There are a
series of wooden display frames waiting to be filled with the faces of
the dead. And outside, there is room for many more graves.
The day I stood at the memorial, Jay Garner, the retired general
appointed by Washington to govern Iraq, arrived in Baghdad. The
implications of this do not appear to have sunk in up in the Qandil
mountains. Comrade Jamal was very sanguine about the prospects for
Kadek. Capitalism was entering its final stage, he told me. All other
forms of government were being swept aside. The autocracy in Iraq had
gone. The monarchy in Saudi Arabia was next. Then would come the
oligarchy of Turkey. The maps of the Middle East were being withdrawn
and the old borders of the colonial era dissolving. This was a
tremendous opportunity for the party, he said. Victory was drawing close.
There is another reading of the current situation of the PKK. The PKK is
a terrorist organisation. It exists on a piece of land which is now
directly governed by America. America is in the middle of a war on
terror. Turkey and the other local Kurdish groups are, despite
occasional differences, strategic allies. In short, it is only a matter
of time before the US, with willing auxiliaries, moves to destroy the
PKK, Kadek, its mountain enclave and comrades Gulbar, Rosa, Chedam and
everyone else.
Outside the martyrs memorial is a detachment of new recruits, two thirds
male, one third female, but commanded by a woman. They have just arrived
in Kadek territory and are taken directly to the martyr's memorial. They
walk around the graves and the pictures with solemn faces and then stand
in ranks as a salute is fired. Then they sit on benches in the memorial
gardens, boys on one bench, girls on another, and drink orange squash,
smoke, play with flowers and talk and laugh. Then they form ranks and
march away into the hills.
----
11) Turkey must not miss the opportunity for transition, DEHAP
Turkish Daily News
12 May 2003
by Mete Belovacikli and Esra Erduran
ANKARA / We have been witnessing a new process that began after
September 11
terrorist attacks against targets in the Unites States and continued with
the war in Iraq. Although, it is not clear what will be the outcome of
this
process yet, there are a number of discussions and debates about its
results. The good guys of the Cold War era turned into some kind of
brothers in arms. Hot issues varying from the newly emerged dual
structure in the EU to the future of the U.N., from reconstruction of
NATO to redesign of borders, put their stamp on this process. A number
of new concepts such
as preemptive strike, rogue state and controlled instability emerged.
One of the countries that were at the center of this process was Turkey
and it still is. The main
characteristic of Turkey is its position that directly influences the
process with its actions, abilities,
failures and success. Those who administrate the country, those who are
candidates to power
and those who previously ruled the country comment on this process. Here
are Turkey's
expectations from this process and its aftermath from the perspective of
Turkey's prominent
politicians.
Pro-Kurdish People's Democracy Party (DEHAP) leader Mehmet Abbasoglu
believes that
Turkey cannot stay outside the transition/reconstruction process that
began in the post-Sept. 11
era. But he also underlines the fact that Turkey should finish its
domestic problems and solve its
Kurdish problem in order to become a regional force.
Abbasoglu is the leader of DEHAP that aims to become a party of Turkey
but some circles
believe it is a pro-Kurdish party. Like other predecessors of DEHAP,
there is an ongoing case
against the party in the Constitutional Court.
Abbasoglu stresses that, it is hard to say that Turkey is an independent
regional force. It is more
like a subcontractor power and this is a result of periodical conditions
as well as the result of
international relations Turkey established like its membership to NATO.
Here is the full text of the interview:
TDN: Can you draw us the picture of the current panorama of the world
and what were
the conditions that created this situation?
ABBASOGLU: The world has left the problems, contradictions and balances
of the 20th
century behind. In other words, the conditions that were valid in the
previous century are no
longer valid. A real socialist system was born as a result of the
capitalist system but it collapsed.
On the other hand, the capitalist system itself was at a point of
deadlock.
National states that were one of the basic institutions of the 20th
century, are facing a structural
transition. Regional unions and establishments formed by various
different countries have began
to dominate a number of issues which were under the domination of
national states in the past.
Certainly, it is too early to say that these new developments have
replaced the national states. In
contrast, national states are designing the implementations and rules of
these international and
supranational organs. And it is a fact that these states are passing
through a structural transition
period in order to share the sovereignty of these international and
supranational organizations.
TDN: Do you think what we have experienced until now is the indicator of
domination of
a bipolar world or is it the beginning of new conflicts?
ABBASOGLU: The bipolar system that put its stamp on the 20th century
failed after the
collapse of the Soviet Union and opened the functions of some
institutions that were based on
this bipolar system such as NATO to discussion. Despite the collapse of
this bipolar system, the
new balance has not been formed yet. But, we are heading for a
multi-polar system based on
reconciliation aiming at solving problems by using democratic methods.
Or at least, it should be
like this.
Europe tries to overcome the current problems of the Western system by
reforms and without
causing the emergence of conflicts. On the other hand, the U.S. prefers
an impatient method
aiming to solve the crisis by conflicts. The U.S. when it launched the
first war of the 21st century
by staging an operation against Afghanistan was underlining its choice.
The U.S. was born as a result of an independence war derived from the
French revolution. It is
paradox that, currently, it tries to become the sole dominating power of
the world. This system
aiming to dominate the world, is the excellent form of the archaic
Babil-Rome slavery system.
Developed global domination policy is supported by military methods.
But we still have plenty of reasons to be optimistic. States just like
people, take lessons from
history and the biggest lesson that should be learned from history is
the necessity of sharing. A
brand new world will be established on the lessons derived from the
history of mankind with a
critical approach.
The war against Iraq gathered millions of people from every nation. They
chant the same slogan
at the same time. States even the most powerful ones, cannot turn a deaf
ear to this chanting for
long.
The alternative to the current system that has no pledge but similar
pains that emerged due to
conflicts of the 20th century. A possible alternative to this system
should be based on idea of
equal welfare and contentment for all humanity. Amid this environment,
the Western world is
trying to restore the current system that is indeed the product of its
own.
But neither the U.S. can have the chance of being the world emperor
forever without a hitch nor
it is possible to accept the EU as an alternative balance power. There
is no alternative balance
element yet. Countries such as Russia, China and India cannot overcome
their positions as a
distant contributor during the reconstruction process but they can form
an important bloc to
balance the western system. They have the power and they have the goal.
But still this does not mean that this process is the beginning of
never-ending conflicts and chaos.
The history of mankind must have taught that when a power tries to hold
the domination role of
the whole world on its own, it gets the first blow. Despite the outcry
of millions of people all over
the world, the Iraqi war began and it is not hard to predict that
similar clashes that violate
international law can take place in the future. But this time, they may
feel the necessity to display
a reconciliatory approach in order to prevent the reaction of all people.
TDN: On the other hand, the EU split into two during this process. Do
you believe that it
will be possible for it to become an unique organ?
ABBASOGLU: The EU as a common organization of a number of European
countries is
respectful to democratic values and universal law norms. But it is clear
that it suffered from
conflicts within itself. The EU whose economic unity is not arguable,
suffered from hardships in
showing a political unity for the first time in its history, regarding
the war in Iraq.
The EU split into two concerning the operation against Iraq. Opposed
members failed to show
an adamant unity. Apart from ethnic values, states and their coldblooded
political interests were
more apparent. It seems that despite differing views among themselves,
the European countries
would prefer maintaining their unity. From now on, a U-turn cannot be
expected. But time will
reveal if they can overcome the differing views among themselves and put
forth a common
European authority.
All the ethnic, economic and environmental problems including what has
been lived in Iraq, are
actually the domestic problem of a patriarchal dominated system. Just
like problems of the
Middle East that remain unsolved. The solution to these problems becomes
a necessity for the
good of the system itself.
TDN: Let's focus on Turkey. What were the conditions Turkey faced during
the post Sept.
11 era and during the Iraqi war?
ABBASOGLU: The construction of state in Turkey was the product of the
20th century system.
Turkey's relations with neighboring countries as well as relations with
the European countries and
the United States were designed in line with the bipolar world axis.
But, just like we see the
transition of the bipolar system, we recently witnessed a change of
balance in the region. Turkey
faced the post September 11 era and the Iraqi war amid such transition
conditions.
Shift of balance and necessity for transition, on the other hand,
conservatism and failure to
determine a clear direction; these were the conditions of Turkey when
the terrorist attacks
against targets in the U.S. took place on Sept. 11. In this light, it is
possible to say that Turkey
faltered in some ways. The World is changing more swiftly than predicted
and this interests
Turkey.
The Middle East has already entered the transition process. Turkey that
witnessed the tension
and concerns of the region throughout the 20th century, has lost a lot
of time and we believe that
Turkey has no time to waste. The brightest future that lies in the path
of Turkey passes through
democratization. This is what can make Turkey a regional power. Only
after that, Turkey can
become the determining power in any alliance.
TDN: Was Turkey a regional power?
ABBASOGLU: Unfortunately, it is hard to say that Turkey was an
independent regional force. It
was more like a subcontractor power and this was a result of periodical
conditions as well as the
result of international relations Turkey established like its membership
to NATO. Conditions
have changed. And now, Turkey can grab the opportunity to become a real
regional force. But it
has to make swift resolutions and take adamant steps in order to achieve
this goal.
TDN: There was an impression that Turkey was forced to make a choice
between
supporting the U.S. or EU policies. Do you have the same impression and
what were
Turkey's options?
ABBASOGLU: Turkey's relation with the U.S. goes back to the Truman
Doctrine and Marshall
Plan. Due to well-known reasons, the dependence of Turkey on the U.S.
increased day by day.
Turkey's geographical location also played a role in this situation. It
is very important for Turkey
to boost its relations with the EU in regards to democratic reforms in
its political structure.
Turkey should make the most of the transition period. It should solve
the Kurdish problem using
democratic political ways in order to establish domestic peace. Without
maintaining this
atmosphere, it is hard for Turkey to cure its concerns, to become a
democracy in the center of
the region, and to become a center of attraction in terms of economy.
This and other political
reform steps that are needed for Turkey's membership to the EU must be
taken in advance and
Turkey's membership to the bloc should be quickened. We have to create a
peaceful Turkey
that will become an example in terms of democratization for its
neighbors.
TDN: In the aftermath of the war, what is ahead and will Turkey have a
"say" in the
reconstruction of the region?
ABBASOGLU: Despite the outcry, the operation against Iraq started. From
now on, the
reconstruction of Iraq is important. And the best decision regarding
this process can be made
only by those who are living in Iraq. Efforts to prevent war failed but
at least, a new regime that
will be established in Iraq should be made in a way that prevents
domestic conflicts. The only
way to achieve this goal is to give the right to have a "say" to every
society and every people in
the reconstruction process of Iraq. If all of Iraq including Kurds ask
for a federative system, it is
not right to oppose it.
TDN: Do you think Kurds will form an independent state? And if they do
so, what should
Turkey do?
ABBASOGLU: It is hard to answer if a Kurdish state can be formed in the
region or not. As I
mentioned before, Kurds announce that they support a federative system.
But a Kurdish state
will be formed despite this fact, Turkey should not have the right to
intervene in any way.
If Turkey has concerns due to the establishment of a possible Kurdish
state, the only way to lift
this concern is not to follow a war policy but to recognize the
democratic rights of its Kurdish
citizens and to cure the unbalance between the regions of the country.
The solution of Turkey's
concerns is not in northern Iraq but in Diyarbakir, Van and Batman
[predominantly Kurdish
Southeastern cities of Turkey.]
Turkey is a country directly affected due to developments taking place
in its region. So, in line
with the mentioned points, it has to solve its domestic problems and
realize the reconstruction.
DEHAP will be a pioneer of this process and we are ready to offer our
contribution to those
who are also willing to play the role of pioneer. A new and democratic
Turkey will be the bridge
that will bring peace to Eastern and Western systems.
TDN: Do you think that the reconstruction of the region will have
reflections in Turkey,
too?
ABBASOGLU: Turkey cannot stay outside the transition period. The 80
year-old policy of the
country has been exceeded. It should be reconstructed. Indeed, Turkey is
the most
advantageous country of the region but it has to use its development
potential and also achieve
progress in democracy.
Until now, Turkey missed this opportunity. Maybe, it suffers from a
little self-confidence
problem. This shrinkage led Turkey to become more conservative and
intolerant to any tiny
democratic demand. Turkey has to free itself from this situation. If you
continue to close your
eyes to the realities and developments in the world, you cannot save
yourself from becoming a
closed despotic system.
Only a few months ago, Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdogan during his visit to
Russia said, "If you say
there is no Kurdish problem, then there will be no such problem." How
can it be? The problem
that Turkey believes to be "non-existant" rose during the war in Iraq.
Kurds are not living only in Turkey. There are Kurds living in
neighboring countries and denial of
a single person does not mean that this question can vanish into thin
air. Why not use democratic
ways to solve the problem, instead. Turkey has denied Kurds for years
and saw the issue as a
terrorism or economic problem.
But Kurds have openly voiced their demands that were, "Neither denial
nor separation but
democratic republic." This exactly proposes an opportunity for
transition of Turkey to become a
regional power with its own might while the region is passing through a
structural transition.
Turkey that achieves to establish peace; give Kurds their democratic
rights; that achieves its
democratization process; lifts the laws that limits freedoms will play
the role of a pioneer state in
the reconstruction of its region. This is not an option but an
obligatory path. Other options will
lead Turkey out of the league of the civilized world. No patriot would
prefer it. As soon as
Turkey achieves to solve its own problems, it will have the "say" in the
solutions of the problems
of the region.
TDN: How does this process influence domestic politics? Do you believe
this process
urged parties to undertake new roles and positions?
ABBASOGLU: This process was allowing the political parties of Turkey to
revise their stand
and adopt new attitudes. However, one of Turkey's deep-rooted parties,
the CHP (Republican
People's Party) didn't abandon its classical manner instead it stiffened
it while adamantly
defended sending Turkish troops to northern Iraq. We regret that.
Meanwhile, the ruling AK
Party showed that it has no brand-new policy regarding northern Iraq but
they show their
sensitivities about the region on the agenda. Unfortunately, those
parties who failed to renew
themselves cannot escape from suffering the same problems that the past
parties faced.
TDN: What is DEHAP's position?
ABBASOGLU: I would like to repeat that DEHAP is a party that wants
welfare for all society;
that take democratic values as the basis and worked for the construction
of democracy; that
adopts a system where working class, women and other oppressed people
can voice their
differing views and where they will not face pressure; that is
respectful to labor and despite all
odds that believes that democracy is needed in this country.
In this light, DEHAP is a party that believes that the democratization
is for the benefit of this
country and the people and a solution to the Kurdish question will
enrich this country and double
its power. DEHAP is a democratic, liberalistic and progressive party
that supports labor and
peace. For these reasons, we are pretentious and we tailor ourselves to
the role of a pioneer
during the construction process for the future of this county on these
basis.
-----
12) Ocalan: Law on Peace and Democratic Participation
Kurdish Observer
18 May 2003
MHA/FRANKFURT / KADEK President Abdullah Ocalan made important
statements on the
"Repentance Law" and democratic unity. Ocalan pointed out that a new law
that would allow the forces to participate in democratic life was
necessary.
"There must a law passed on peace and democratic participation. I call
the law
to be passed as such. The guerrilla forces, now making war practice, will
participate in peace and democracy. DEHAP must make contact with AKP on
the matter and meet with CHP representatives as well. Disarmament of the
guerrilla can be managed only through a just peace and their free
participation in democratic
political life," said the President.
Ocalan continued with words to the effect: "What is important is to
manage to mingle the
disarmament with a true and real democracy. If the law is delayed, there
may be conflicts. If
USA enforces, People's Defence Force can withdrow to north. It is not
right for the US
Embassy to make false distinctions like KADEK is one thing and the
Kurdish question is
another. USA knows very well the close relation between KADEK and the
Kurdish question.
US's opinion that even if KADEK abandons its weapons we shall force them
do so is to try to
seize control without taking steps towards the resolution of the Kurdish
question. Our main
collocutor is Turkey on the matter. We are in a process to solve the
question with Turkey. If US
play a role, it must help to solve it. It should not cause to draw
Turkey into a war by forcing
forces of legitimate defence. We have declared cease-fire in reply to my
kidnapping by USA
and its effective collaboration in the struggle against us. We have no
such problem to wage war
with USA. But if we are made fed up with up to our neck, the forces will
withdraw to mountains.
American soldiers can not climb these mountains. It is not a right
policy to make KADEK and
Turkey confront eacp other. Saying that Kurds are one thing and KADEK is
another is to close
eyes to realities. Everybody knows that we represent the Kurdish people.
We are waging a
struggle for democracy. I find US's role in overthrow dictators. We do
not make a strict
anti-Americanism. We meet with its representatives and there can be a
democratic cooperation.
If they do not make any negativeness and sincerely want the democratic
unity of Kurds and
Turks, such an approach will have effects on democratization of all the
countries in the region.
They should not confuse us with terrorist organizations. We have never
see seperatism as the
main method. Our slogan is democratic integrity and it is our principle.
But if they say no matter
what that 'I will crush them,' ours will know how to defend themselves."
"Democratic unity is for benefit of both Turks and Kurds"
The President also had this to say: "Democratic unity is for benefit of
both Turks and Kurds. I
think that all solutions other than democratic unity and brotherhood in
the region will bring
sufferings and massacres. My all struggles are to avoid such
consequences. If Turkey does not
change its denial mentality and bring democratic solutions to the
problems, thousands of
guerrillas will enter to Turkey and a new period of war will start. A
number of forces and states
will become a part of it. Turkey must realize this. We will not
surrender and fight with others'
weapons."
"My principle is free life"
The KADEK President added the statement "There can be no life without
freedom" to his
message "My principle is either free life or death". Ocalan underscored
the following: "If they
impose disarmament, the right to legitimate defence will be enjoyed. Our
forces are the
guarantee for democracy and freedom. Their raison d'etre is only this.
They are not attack forces
but ones to defend themselves. Their entrance to Turkey can only be an
attempt for a new peace
and democracy drive. Its aim will not be to seperate Turkey. Like it or
not they will extend from
Dersim to Serhat, to Toros. If American armed forces attack on them with
all their might and
technical advantage, they will be resisted by these forces that will
form the Democratic Front of
Iraq. Everybody knows how I have struggled for the freedom of Kurdistan.
I did not give up my
struggle."
Ocalan continued his statement by saying the following: "Talebani speaks
the truth when he says
Hasan Cemal that Apo has listened to me. But there is something missing.
He has tried to attract
us and the Kurdish movement to the American line. If I went to them in
93 they would give
everything to me. They could give even Stinger missiles. But how could I
wage a war against
Turkey with these weapons. It did not fit to my ideology and the notion
democratic unity of
peoples. The alliance and relations between Kurds and Turks goes to a
thousand years ago. It
begins with the entrance to Anatolia. This dialogue is of vital
importance. It continues until
1920s."
"Democratic Unity of the Middle East is an attainable goal"
The President, giving examples of the European Union and United States
of America, said that
the Democratic Unity of the Middle East in also an attainable goal. "The
Middle East unity can
be established through strategic alliance between Turks and Kurds. The
democracy can be
brought to the Middle East thorough their democratic unity. Now the
Middle East is beginning to
be democratized."
"Democracy will be brought about by peoples"
Ocalan said that democracy would be brought by the peoples in the Middle
East and the
Turkish-Kurdish alliance, not US-England alliance. "It will not be
brought about by the alliance
between US and England. They will form the Middle East according to
their interests. Arabs can
not bring it either. They are waging a war against Israel. Can Iran
bring it? No. Its mentality is
not suitable. In Turkey there is a tendency towards and tradition of
democratization. So is in
Kurdistan. I have wanted to improve it through PKK but could not succeed
completely.
Therefore I say continuously: Develop Coordination for a Democratic
Society."
"No bad legacy to peoples"
The KADEK President emphasized that it was dangerous not to approach
positively to the
Kurdish question and PKK and had this to say: "KADEK will enter to the
parliament in the
South. They will give heavy artillery too. Council members will find a
place there. If US finds it in
its interest it helps to establish a state. Afterwards it might leave it
in the lurch. Consequently a
bad legacy might be left to peoples. Therefore the key to all problems
in Turkey is a matter of
reconciliation. If a law is to be passed, it should be Law on Peace and
Democratic Participation,
not the repentance law. It is not passed, it will mean to push KADEK to
the arms of USA and
primitive nationalistic policies. The democratization process in Turkey
can be possible only
through peace with Kurds. Weapons are abandoned. It is not a big matter.
But if peace is not
secured, Turkey will be divided. I warn everybody. Do not let yourselves
be deceived. And for
it democratic integrity of Turkey must be considered the key item on the
agenda. We do not
accept seperatism even if it is imposed on us by others. I have opened
both ways. These must
be explained very carefully and everybody must understand it."
Ocalan stressed that AKP had tried to do their best with the adjustment
laws: "Do they have the
willpower as far as democratization and the Kurdish question are
concerned? We will find it in a
short while. I am not opposed AKP totally. But I do not approve their
relations with religious
sects while I support their steps towards democratization. There are
subtle plans of some foreign
forces as far as disarmament is concerned. We want to disturb such a
ploy. If AKP has a
willpower, it will act accordingly. We have loving relations with the
Turkish people, not relations
of war."
"I dedicate it to the memory of Kemal Pir and Haki"
The President pointed out that both sides had mistakes and sent the
following message: "Both
sides must express their mistakes. The rest is peace and it is
important. Who can lose from
brotherhood? Who can lose from integrity? CHP must understand it, they
must support our
approach. Eighty years were lost. Now fifty years are tried to be lost.
My deliverance to Turkey
is the continuation of the same ploy. But it can be avoided through
peace and democratic
participation. I warn as a democratic citizen. I do not issue orders.
And my legal position is a
hindrance for it. What said Mustafa Kemal in his Bursa speech, they must
be read. He has said
to youth, 'We have established the Republic, you must claim it.' Deniz
Gezmis and his friends
have claimed it. I have dedicated my last meeting to Deniz and his
friends. And this week I
dedicated the meeting to the memory of Kemal Pir and Haki (Karer),
valuable children of the
Turkish people."
----
13) KADEK Campaign for general amnesty
Kurdish Observer
May 20, 2003
MHA/FRANKFURT / KADEK released a written statement, saying that it had
launched a
campaign for general amnesty and stressing that it ≥would open the way
for a solution to the problems in the Middle East and Turkey„. The
statement underscored that Turkey needed an indiscriminative general
amnesty, not the repentance law.
A call for democratic serhildans (uprisings)
KADEK called on the Kurdish people to play their role with all their
democratic might and said
the following: ≥Begin democratic serhildans (popular uprisings) to make
President Apo, the
guerrilla, and the prisoners a force for peace and democratization.„ The
statement included also
the following: „The Turkish people and democratic forces should see that
the dilemma in Turkey
could be overcome by the project proposed by President Apo for
democratic unity that was
based on peace and brotherhood. The Kurdish people must turn the
campaign into a struggle to
create a democratic Turkey.‰
KADEK said, ≥The democratization drive to be launched in all four parts
of Kurdistan and
Turkey must include democratic forces in Arabian countries and Iran
other peoples. Participation
of the guerrilla and prisoners in political and democratic life and
freedom of President Apo will
mean a leading participation of all Kurds in democratic political life
in the Middle East.‰
The statement drew attention that the campaign would be a drive for
democracy and therefore it
must continue without interruption.
All day and night∑
KADEK explained the main points of the campaign as follows:
- Youth must the leading force of the campaign by making activities and
demonstrations all day
and night with all their might and courage and turning all schools,
streets, quarters, towns and
cities into an action place. There must not be a day without actions. "
- Women must stand up as the spirit of freedom and democracy, they must
make actions every
day.
- The Kurdish people must participate in the campaign with all their
might and enthusiasm and
show that they are the main force of democracy and peace in the Middle
East. They must say,
there cannot be democracy without Kurds and Kurds without democracy.
They must display
their determinence to bring democracy and freedom to the Middle East
including Turkey.
- Workers must leave their mark on the campaign as the most organized
force of the society.
- Political parties must play a role on the campaign that will be a step
to solve the Kurdish
question. They must contribute to the democratic liberation of Turkey
and take their
unrenouncable place in democratic life.
- In the Middle East mosques must stand up for peace and democratic
participation and Fridays
must become a day at which justice, equality and freedom are chanted.
- The more democracy, freedom, justice, equality and brotherhood are
inflitrated into all cells of
society and individuals, the more it can gain life. Therefore
non-governmental organisations must
partake in the campaign and give it power and richness.
- Intellectuals, writers and democrats must be the indispensable part of
the campaign as the
conscience and moral force of society and cry the truths freely. They
must defeat dogmatism,
demagogy, chauvinism, nationalism, reactionism and denial of Kurds by
participating in the
campaign all their might..
- Law on peace and democratic participation will not only allow
Presidant Apo, the Kurdish
freedom movement, the guerrilla and the prisoners to participate in free
and democratic society,
the peoples will succeed in getting a free and democratic life as well.‰
-----
14) Turkey once again found in breach of ECHR
Turkey did not investigate killing of Kurdish reporter, rules European
Court of Human Rights
Kurdish Human Rights Project
May 12, 2003
LONDON / On 9 May 2003, the European Court of Human Rights found once
again that Turkey had
violated the European Convention on Human Rights for its failure to
investigate the killing of a
reporter for a pro-Kurdish newspaper.
The applicant, Isak Tepe, at the material time was provincial chairman
of the now banned
Democracy Party (DEP) in Bitlis, Southeast Turkey. He alleged that in
July 1993 his son, Ferhat
Tepe, born in 1974, who had been a reporter for the pro-Kurdish 'Ozgur
Gundem' newspaper,
had been tortured and killed after being abducted by undercover agents
of the State or by
persons acting under their instructions and that the authorities had
failed to carry out an effective
and adequate investigation into his death.
On 28 March 1995, KHRP submitted an application to the Court on behalf
of Isak Tepe.
As the Turkish Government and the applicant did not agree on the facts
surrounding Ferhat
Tepe's death, three delegates from the Court took evidence from 24
witnesses at hearings held
in Ankara between 9 and 14 October 2000.
In its judgment of 9 May 2003, the Court considered that the
circumstances in which Ferhat
Tepe had died and the fact that he had been working for a pro-Kurdish
newspaper militated in
support of his father's allegations. However, the absence of sufficient
corroborating evidence
meant the Court could not conclude beyond all reasonable doubt that
Ferhat Tepe had been
abducted and killed by any State agent or
person acting on their behalf.
The Court noted that there had been striking omissions in the conduct of
the investigation into
Ferhat Tepe's disappearance and death. There had been no proper
co-ordination between the
police authorities and the various prosecutors, who, moreover, had
failed to broaden the
investigation or take steps on their own initiative to identify possible
witnesses. The Court also
found it regrettable that no full forensic autopsy had been carried out
by a qualified forensic
expert. Accordingly, it considered that there had been a violation of
the right to life (Article 2) on
account of the national authorities' failure to carry out an adequate
and effective investigation into
the circumstances surrounding the death of the applicant's son.
The Court found that there had been a violation of Article 13 because
the applicant had had an
arguable claim under Article 2 that had not been adequately
investigated. Moreover, the Court
found that the Government had failed to fulfil their obligation under
Article 38 of the Convention
to provide all necessary facilities to the Court in its task of
establishing the facts.
Kerim Yildiz, Executive Director of KHRP, says, "This judgment puts
Turkey under an
obligation to put an end to the breach and to make reparation for its
consequences in such a way
as to restore, as far as possible, the situation existing before the
breach. Despite the large volume
of judgments against it, to date Turkey has failed to fulfil its
obligations to reform and improve
human rights. The international community must also fulfil its own
obligation to monitor closely
the implementation of this and other judgments."
NOTES FOR EDITORS:
(1) The judgment of Tepe v. Turkey (27244/95), 9 May 2003, European
Court of Human
Rights: http://www.echr.coe.int/Eng/Judgments.htm
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