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15
August marked the 21st anniversary of the start of
Turkey’s Kurdish insurgency. On 15 August 1984,
suspected militants from the Marxist Kurdistan
Workers Party (PKK), killed two police officers in
twin attacks in the Anatolian villages of Eruh and
Semdinli. The killings marked the start of a 15-year
armed campaign for Kurdish self-determination.
Following a series of military setbacks and the 1999
capture of their leader, Abdullah Ocalan, PKK
militants declared a unilateral truce and sought
refuge in Iraqi Kurdistan. But citing Ankara’s
refusal to suspend hostilities, the group in 2004
called off its cease-fire and reportedly resumed
attacks against Turkish targets. Regional experts
say that while most Kurds would like the PKK to
renounce violence, the responsibility for
establishing a lasting peace ultimately falls to
Ankara.
Prague, 17 August 2005 (RFE/RL) - Turkish
security forces accuse PKK rebels of seeking to
rekindle the deadly conflict that claimed some
35,000 lives – mostly civilians -- between 1984 and
1999.
In the past few months, clashes between militants
and government forces have been reported in
southeast Anatolia, where most of Turkey’s 12
million Kurds live.
Violence has also hit non-Kurdish provinces, with
recent deadly bombings taking place in some of
Turkey’s crowded resort areas.
Ankara unequivocally blames the PKK for this upsurge
of violence.
Turkey’s powerful army generals warn that they have
the means and ability to crush any resurgence of
Kurdish armed irredentism.
Yet they reject the possibility of unrest returning
to 1990s levels, claiming that the vast majority of
Turkey’s Kurds stand behind the state and are -- in
the generals' words -- “tired of terrorism.”
Ankara has long maintained that the PKK does not
enjoy support among the Kurds and that separatism,
or autonomy, does not appeal to its southeastern
populations.
Independent observers say it is the PKK's methods,
rather than its political agenda, that raise the
most concern among Kurds.
Katrin Michael is an Iraqi Chaldean who fled her
country in the 1990s and spent months in a refugee
camp in southeast Turkey before emigrating to the
United States. Michael, who now works with the
Kurdish Human Rights Organization in Washington,
told RFE/RL Turkey’s Kurds have mixed feelings about
the PKK.
“They have different opinions," Michael said. "Some
people support [the PKK], saying that they want to
liberate themselves, that they want autonomy such as
[the Kurds] have in Iraq. But a lot of Kurds are
very much against the actions [undertaken by the PKK]
against innocent people. They are against this, they
don’t like this.”
David McDowall, a prominent historian of the Kurdish
separatist movement, told our correspondent that
although Kurds largely disapprove of the PKK's
methods, they nonetheless support the group.
“Most Kurds, actually, feel very, very frightened
and disturbed by the PKK. Its violence is pretty
terrifying," McDowall said. "And the only reason why
the Kurds have, certainly during the 1990s,
supported the PKK was that the Turkish state forces
were able to be equally terrifying to the Kurds. So
they then said: ‘Blood is thicker than water and I’d
stick with a devil that is a Kurdish devil, rather
than with a Turkish devil.’ It is basically for that
reason that so many people have given support to the
PKK.”
Arguing that the Turkish army had mounted some 700
raids against its militants during the cease-fire --
including in northern Iraq -- the PKK last year
officially resumed its armed struggle against
Ankara's security forces.
The group says it is ready to lay down weapons once
again -- as soon as Turkey recognizes the rights of
its Kurdish minority.
Pressed by the European Union, which it hopes to
join within a few years, Ankara has liberalized its
legislation with a view to granting Kurds greater
cultural and social rights. But most of these legal
changes have yet to be implemented.
Turkey has rejected dialogue with the PKK, which it
considers a terrorist group. It has also banned
several pro-Kurdish parties for allegedly
maintaining links with the rebels.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on 12
August made a landmark visit to eastern Anatolia’s
main city of Diyarbakir. During the trip, he pledged
to solve the Kurdish problems “with more democracy
and civil rights.”
Groups close to the PKK described this statement as
“significant” but said they wanted to see how it
would translate into action.
David Morgan from the Kurdistan Solidarity
Committee, a nongovernmental group that lobbies for
Kurdish rights in the British parliament, said he is
rather skeptical. Citing similar statements made by
Turkish leaders in the past, he said there is no
guarantee Erdogan’s pledges will have any practical
effect.
“Historically, Turkish leaders have gone to
Diyarbakir to make such statements," Morgan said.
"When Prime Minister Tansu Ciller made statements
similar to that [in the mid-1990s], saying that
there should a ‘Basque solution’ to Kurdish
problems, it led to a further intensification of
military action on the part of the Turkish army. So
it’s not clear what will happen. I think the Kurdish
people in the area are quite concerned that [Erdogan]
made that statement; they're not hopeful in that
respect. It could be made to address the European
audience.”
Meanwhile, the clock is ticking for Turkey. And not
only because of the approaching 3 October deadline
for starting EU accession talks.
PKK officials blame the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK)
for recent bomb attacks in Istanbul and Turkey’s sea
resorts. They say the TAK is a dissident group that
recognizes Ocalan as its leader, but not the
authority of the PKK.
Turkish officials in turn say the TAK is just a
cover for the PKK.
But McDowall said it is unclear what link exists
between the two organizations. He said he believes
the Kurdish separatist movement might have split
into different subgroups, much as the Irish
Republican Army did in the late 1990s.
“This is kind of symptomatic of these movements that
use political violence that, very often, a point
comes where the mainstream decides that there is not
more to be [achieved from] the political violence
and the time to find alternative, diplomatic roots
has now come and, therefore, they effectively
abandon using violence," McDowall said. "And always,
there tends to be a minority within the movement who
break away because they are so wedded to the idea of
political violence that they find it almost
impossible to think in any terms, expect those of
some kind of military victory – which tends to be
pretty unrealistic.”
Whoever bears responsibility for the recent bomb
attacks, regional experts agree that the solution to
the Kurdish problem lies first and foremost in
Turkey’s hands.
McDowall said that despite its shortcomings and
whatever support it may enjoy in Anatolia, the PKK
has, “for better or for worse,” succeeded in making
Kurds throughout the country aware of their ethnic
identity.
He said any further delay by Ankara in recognizing
the existence of its Kurdish minority and relieving
Anatolia's dire economic condition will inevitably
lead to new outbreaks of violence.
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