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Turkey: No going back from democracy,
governor says after Kurdish riots
2.4.2006
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DIYARBAKIR,
Kurdistan-Turkey, April 2, 2006 (AFP) - 08h32 - The
governor of this southeastern Turkish city, at the
center of deadly Kurdish riots this week, has said
that only more democracy will erode Kurdish
separatism and militancy in the region.
"Democracy cannot eradicate terror but can decrease
its popular support... The era of those who know no
other tool than the truncheon is long gone,"
Diyarbakir Governor Efkan Ala said in an interview
with the Milliyet newspaper Sunday.
The riots, the worst urban unrest in the mainly
Kurdish southeast for years, broke out in Diyarbakir
Tuesday and spread to other areas, claiming eight
lives, including three children.
Authorities say the violence was orchestrated by the
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), an armed group
blacklisted as terrorist by Ankara, the European
Union and the United States, which has been fighting
for Kurdish self-rule in the region since 1984.
The conflict, at its peak in the 1990s, has claimed
some 37,000 lives.
Ala argued that the riots, which saw angry youths
torch government buildings and banks, vandalize
shops and attack the police with petrol bombs and
stones, was a violent PKK reaction to the erosion of
its popular support following democratic reforms by
Ankara.
The riots shuttered a relative calm in the region in
the past several years during which Ankara, eager to
boost its EU bid, granted the Kurds a measure of
cultural freedoms and lifted a 15-year emergency
rule in the southeast.
"They (the PKK) expected that the state would react
with its old reflexes and the conflict would grow,"
Ala said. "But their expectations did not
materialize... Now they will try other methods."
Compared to much more hardline practices in the
past, the response of the security forces was more
controlled this time, apparently to keep relations
on an even keel with the EU, and local Kurds were
more vocal in their disproval of the violence.
Ala said the riots should not discourage the
government from pressing ahead with democratic
reforms in the region and ruled out a return to a
state of emergency as a solution.
"A democratic state does not decide what rights to
give to its citizens depending on terror," he said,
citing as an example the inauguration of the first
private Kurdish-language broadcasts in the region
last week.
Kurdish activists say Ankara's reforms are unevenly
implemented and inadequate, and criticize the
government for failing to address the region's
rampant poverty.
They also urge an amnesty for PKK rebels to
encourage them to lay down their arms.
AFP
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