|
DIYARBAKIR, Turkey, June 28 (AFP) - 11h19 - The
mood at Haydar Okur's home after the tense funeral
of his son, a Kurdish rebel killed in a clash with
Turkish soldiers, was of defiance rather than
mourning.
Friends and relatives who gathered in Okur's flat in
a poor neighborhood of Diyarbakir, the central city
of Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast, shed no tears
as they spoke angrily of their dissatisfaction with
reforms undertaken by Ankara to expand Kurdish
freedoms.
For them, a decision by the outlawed Kurdistan
Workers' Party (PKK) to end a five-year unilateral
ceasefire, leading to a sharp increase in violence
in the region over the past three months, was the
inevitable consequence of what they described as
continuing discrimination and oppression of the
Kurds.
"I would not have wanted my son to go to the
mountains," Okur said. "I want peace and no more
bloodshed. But the state is still denying the Kurds
their full rights. I want justice."
The retired imam (Muslim prayer leader) was speaking
late Monday, shortly after burying his 37-year-old
son Ahmet, one of five PKK militants killed Friday
in a clash with the army in the mountains of
neighboring Bingol province.
The funeral turned into a pro-PKK march, quickly
degenerating into clashes between the demonstrators
and riot police, which left several people injured
in this city, which had recently enjoyed relative
calm.
Police used truncheons and tear gas to disperse the
crowd and, for the first time in several years,
according to locals, fired warning shots in the air.
The unrest in Diyarbakir followed the killing of a
Kurdish youth last week in Van, 350 kilometres (220
miles) to the northeast, when security forces opened
fire at a crowd protesting against the authorities
hastily burying two PKK rebels instead of handing
the bodies over to their families.
The incidents have sparked fears that clashes
between the army and the rebels, confined mainly to
remote mountainous areas since the PKK called off
its truce on June 1, 2004, are spilling over to
urban areas.
At least 65 rebels and 32 soldiers have been killed
since April, when the clashes intensified
significantly.
The Kurdish conflict has claimed about 37,000 lives,
most of them between 1984 and 1999, when the PKK,
considered a terrorist group by both the United
States and the European Union, waged a bloody
campaign for Kurdish self-rule in the region.
The PKK has given up its claim to statehood, but is
now pressing Ankara for broader cultural and
political rights, which many Turks fear could be a
cover for separatist ambitions.
Under pressure from the European Union, which it is
seeking to join, Turkey has granted the Kurds a
measure of cultural freedoms such as allowing
Kurdish language lessons at private institutions and
limited broadcasts in Kurdish on public radio and
television.
Kurdish intellectuals have called on the PKK to
unconditionally lay down their arms, and on the
government to end military operations against the
rebels as a gesture of good will to encourage a
peaceful settlement.
The EU has also expressed concern over the resurgent
violence, even though its scale is still
uncomparable to the peak years of the PKK
independence campaign of the 1990s and the
aggressive military riposte it sparked.
The government and the army, however, have vowed
that military action will continue as long as the
rebels stick to their guns and refuse to surrender.
Many Kurds now fear that the unrest is threatening
the fragile freedoms they have only recently gained,
as well as any hopes for economic progress in the
impoverished region.
"A return to the past would be a disaster, the most
terrible thing that can happen to us," said Cengiz,
a taxi driver who would not give his last name.
AFP
Top |
® 