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Turkey, the Kurds and the F-16 connection
11.10.2006 |
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Kurdish activist Mizgin
Yilmaz uncovers the links between arms manufacturer
Lockheed Martin and US policy towards Turkey
Recently a small article appeared in the Dallas Fort
Worth Star Telegram announcing the pending sale of
30 new F?16 fighters to Turkey. According to the
article, the Pentagon had already notified Congress
of the deal and, if there are no congressional
objections in 15 days, the sale will be approved
automatically.
Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest arms
manufacturer, will produce the fighter jets. But
other members of the US defence contractor
establishment also stand to gain in the deal.
General Electric, Boeing, L-3 Communications
Holdings, Raytheon, and BAE Systems are all
contributing to the production, according to Market
Watch.
“This proposed sale will enhance the Turkish Air
Force’s ability to defend Turkey while patrolling
the nation’s extensive coastline and borders against
future threats and to contribute to the global war
on terrorism and Nato operations,” the US
government’s Defence Security Cooperation Agency
announced.
It is widely known that the Turkish military has
used Lockheed Martin F-16s to assist in the
obliteration of Kurdish villages in North Kurdistan
during the 1990s “dirty war”. The facts are well
documented by human rights groups.
In 1995 Human Rights Watch examined arms sales to
Turkey, along with related violations of the laws of
war by that state. The use of F-16 fighter jets
figured prominently among the many gross abuses that
Turkey has perpetrated against the Kurdish people.
Yet despite the fact that the US state department
issued its first human rights report on Turkey in
1995, US officials remained eager to sell more of
their deadly toys to the Turkish government.
Moreover, Turkey was not content to keep its use of
F-16s or other aircraft within its own borders.
During Operation Northern Watch, the Turkish
military routinely bombed Kurdish civilians in South
Kurdistan, trying to obliterate those villages that
Saddam Hussein had not got round to destroying.
As John Pilger wrote in 2002, “In 1995 and 1997, as
many as 50,000 Turkish troops, backed by tanks and
fighter aircraft, occupied what the West called
‘Kurdish safe havens’. They terrorised Kurdish
villages and murdered civilians. In December 2000
they were back, committing the atrocities that the
Turkish military commits with impunity against its
own Kurdish population.
“For joining the US ‘coalition’ against Iraq, the
Turkish regime is to be rewarded with a bribe worth
$6 Billion. Turkey’s invasions are rarely reported
in Britain. So great is the collusion of the Blair
government that, virtually unknown to parliament and
the British public, the RAF and the US have, from
time to time, deliberately suspended their
‘humanitarian’ patrols to allow the Turks to get on
with killing Kurds in Kurdistan-Iraq.”
The PKK - the most prominent Kurdish freedom
movement - declared a unilateral ceasefire that went
into effect on Sunday 1 October. It still remains
unilateral - the entire Turkish establishment, from
top general Yasar Buyukanit to prime minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan, has rejected it, clearly stating
their determination to continue the war.
This is despite the fact that the PKK prefers to
negotiate a political settlement and indicated their
willingness to do so in August. The rejection of a
political settlement was echoed by Joseph Ralston,
the US’s special coordinator for countering the PKK.
“Ceasefire sort of implies an act that is taken
between two states, two actors, to do that. And I
don’t want to confer that kind of status on the PKK
by saying a ceasefire,” he said in Ankara, the
Turkish capital, on Wednesday 27 September.
What is most interesting about Ralston, a retired US
Air Force general, is the fact that he is a member
of the board of directors of Lockheed Martin - the
same corporation whose deal for the sale of 30 F-16s
sits in the venerable halls of Congress at this very
moment.
What, then, is Ralston really coordinating in
Ankara? What are the intentions of the US
administration that appointed Ralston to his new
post in August? It is difficult to believe that the
US administration was unaware of the conflict of
interest that the appointment of a board member of
Lockheed Martin would create in a matter that has
resulted in some 40,000 Kurdish dead.
This obscene conflict of interest is compounded by
the fact that both Ralston and Lockheed Martin are
closely tied to the Turkish lobby organisation, the
American Turkish Council (ATC).
Ralston is a member of the ATC’s advisory board,
while George Perlman. a former Lockheed Martin
executive, is the ATC’s executive vice president.
Lockheed Martin is a corporate member of the ATC, as
are General Electric, Boeing, Raytheon, and BAE
Systems - all of which stand to profit from the
current sale.
This conflict of interest makes it clear that
neither the US nor Turkey has the intention of
finding a just and peaceful solution to the great
opportunity the PKK ceasefire affords them. On the
contrary, both countries seek a return to the “dirty
war” - in order to reap the profits of repression.
socialistworker co.uk
The use of the term "Kurdistan" is vigorously
rejected due to its alleged political implications
by the Republic of Turkey, which does not recognize
the existence of a "Turkish Kurdistan".
Others estimate as many as 40 million Kurds live in
Big Kurdistan (Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Iran, Armenia),
which covers an area as big as France, about half of
all Kurds which estimate to 20 million live in
Turkey.
The Kurdish flag flown officially in Iraqi Kurdistan but
unofficially flown by Kurds in Armenia. The flag is
banned in Iran, Syria, and Turkey where flying it is
a criminal offence"
Southeastern Turkey:
North Kurdistan (
Kurdistan-Turkey) wikipedia
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