|
In Turkish Bombings, 'Who Benefits?'
20.4.2006
By Karl Vick and Yesim Borg
|
|
|
|
ISTANBUL -- The
latest small bomb to explode in Istanbul detonated
in a trash bin, blowing shards of plate glass into
the faces and exposed limbs of shoppers crowded into
the narrow passageways of a teeming marketplace in
the fading light of a warm Sunday evening.
No witnesses saw the percussion grenade being placed
in the bin, and no group asserted responsibility for
the attack that injured 31. But within minutes of
the explosion, the crowd milling angrily amid the
damage decided this was the work of the Kurdistan
Workers' Party, a shadowy organization of ethnic
Kurdish radicals known by the initials PKK.
Young men shouted, "Damn PKK!" Agitated bystanders
decided that a man was acting suspiciously and, in
mere seconds, they formed into a lynch mob that
pursued its terrified quarry down a side street.
Police fired into the air, pushed back the crowd and
declared the man innocent. The situation was nearly
calm when youths from a Turkish ultranationalist
party showed up and began chanting obscene things
about "the mothers of separatists."
"It is definitely the PKK," said Nazif Cakir, 29,
whose women's shoe shop was damaged by the blast.
"It is, of course."
But such assumptions are slippery things these days
in Turkey. In a country where small explosions are
becoming more frequent, the point of the violence is
growing more elusive.
"Who benefits from this upsurge of violence, which
is a blind violence, without ideology?" asked Dogu
Ergil, a political scientist at Ankara University
who specializes in Kurdish issues.
Experts do see the involvement of militants in
several of the attacks. The first of the most recent
incidents in Istanbul occurred late last month,
coinciding with rioting by Kurdish youths in the
cities of southeastern Turkey in which at least 16
people were killed. A firebomb hit a city bus in
Istanbul, killing three people when the bus lurched
onto the sidewalk.
A PKK splinter group, the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons,
asserted responsibility for a bomb left in a bus
stop garbage can March 31 that killed one and
injured 30. Five days later, the same group said it
planted the bomb that exploded at the doorstep of an
office of the ruling Justice and Development Party.
On April 5, police announced the discovery of about
20 pounds of plastic explosives in a graveyard,
allegedly secreted there by Kurdish militants. One
Kurd was charged with involvement in the bombing of
a tourist bus on the Aegean coast last July that
killed five.
"It's nothing new," said Mehmet Ali Kislali, a
newspaper columnist and author of the book "Low
Intensity Conflict in the Southeast." "It seems that
some factions of the PKK decided to do something in
the big cities because they failed in the
southeast."
But other factors cloud the picture, including
evidence that elements of Turkey's security services
have planted at least one bomb in the recent past.
Last Nov. 9, local authorities arrested two Turkish
soldiers and a PKK informant in the southeastern
town of Semdinli after witnesses said they saw the
informant plant a package that exploded outside a
bookstore, then race to a waiting car containing the
soldiers, members of a paramilitary intelligence
unit. One bystander was killed in the incident,
which underscored the belief, widely held in Turkey,
that Kurdish militants are not the only ones
provoking a fight.
Among the conspiracy theories spawned by the
unexplained violence, one scenario holds that
hardened elements of the Turkish government are
promoting a conflict that justifies a stern,
militaristic response.
Turkey's security forces fought the PKK for 15 years
until a 1999 cease-fire. With Kurds accounting for
most of the 30,000 war dead, few members of Turkey's
largest ethnic minority say they seek a resumption
of the conflict. But hardened PKK elements resumed
sporadic attacks two years ago, and the recent spike
in tensions may endanger a crucial shift by Turkey's
elected government away from stern measures. Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared last year
that the solution to "the Kurdish question" lay in
democracy and relieving Kurds' acute economic
problems. This month, however, the Turkish military
deployed additional troops to the southeast as
casualties mounted.
The new tension, said Ergil, the political
scientist, "remobilizes the militaristic system and
re-transforms Turkey into a national security state
when it has been gradually emerging from that into a
civilian system."
Kemal Kirisci, a political scientist at Bosporus
University in Istanbul, said, "What's going on is
typical terrorist tactics: polarize society, raise
tensions and raise anti-Kurdish reactions."
Both experts see evidence that the overwhelming
majority of Kurds prefer to share in Turkey's recent
economic and political growth. The PKK no longer
preaches separatism, Ergil noted. And Kirisci said
Turkey's tentative moves toward accepting a Kurdish
identity, such as allowing broadcasting in Kurdish,
provides "a framework under which this Kurdish
problem could be managed."
" 'Resolved' might be too ambitious," he said.
Washington Post.com
Top |
Kurd Net
does not take credit for and is not responsible for the content of news
information on this page
|
® 