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Turkish Kurd: Son in army and brother with
Kurdish PKK rebels
5.11.2007
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With son in army and brother with rebels, a mother
pleads for peace
November 5, 2007
CIZRE, Kurdish Southeastern region of Turkey,
-- With a son in the Turkish army and a
brother in the Turkey's Kurdish rebel PKK, Gule
Uysal will do anything to avoid an escalation of
violence in this restive southeastern region of
Turkey and avert a wider conflict with Iraqi
Kurdistan.
"I don't want my brother to kill my son or my son to
kill my brother," Uysal, 41, said in the courtyard
of her humble apartment in this town close to the
Iraqi border.
Cizre, in Sirnak province, has been at the heart of
a bloody conflict between the Turkish army and the
PKK, the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which has waged
an armed campaign for self-rule in the heavily
Kurdish southeastern Turkey since 1984 at the cost
of more than 37,000 lives.
Uysal's life bears the scars of more than two
decades of violence.
She has already lost one brother who died fighting
for the PKK and says her father died after being
tortured by the military.
"Because my brother joined the PKK in the early
1990s, the military burned down our home and we just
managed to escape.
My father was then arrested and tortured and died a
month after he was released," Uysal said.
Now the prospect of more violence looms, with the
Turkish government declaring an all-out campaign to
stamp out PKK fighters after rebels on October 21
ambushed a military unit, killing 12 soldiers and
capturing eight, who were released Sunday.
Turkey is also threatening military action into
Kurdistan autonomous region 'north of Iraq', where
Ankara says 3,500 PKK rebels use bases to conduct
cross-border attacks in Turkish territory.
Considered a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the
United States and the European Union, many here,
like Uysal, nonetheless credit the PKK with fighting
for the basic rights of Kurds.
"This struggle is not only the struggle of the PKK
but the struggle of the Kurdish people. My brother
died for a just cause," said Uysal, wearing a purple
dress and a white headscarf.
After the PKK proclainmed a unilateral ceasefire in
1999, the government moved to improve the condition
of the Kurds, who make up about one-fifth of the
country's 70-million population.
It lifted emergency rule and allowed Kurdish to be
taught at private schools and used in public
television broadcasts, and passed laws to compensate
the victims of the violence.
But the PKK reverted to the armed struggle in 2004,
arguing that government reforms to expand Kurdish
freedoms were inadequate.
Reflecting on the emotional toll of the past
decades, Uysal said she no longer believes violence
is the best way to achieve the goals of the Kurdish
people.
"I don't want anyone else to die, be they army or
PKK. I don't want any mother to go through what I
had to go through. I don't want any more conflict,"
Uysal said, tears welling up in her eyes.
Instead, she pointed to her daughter -- a top
student at the local high school with dreams of
studying law -- as the example to follow.
"Education is the most important thing," she said.
"I want my daughter to become a lawyer and continue
our struggle that way, not with guns.
"So many have died but I am still hopeful that one
day there will be peace," Gule said.
AFP
**
Kurds are not recognized as an official minority in
Turkey and are denied rights granted to other
minority groups. Under EU pressure, Turkey recently
granted Kurds limited rights for broadcasts and
education in the Kurdish language, but critics say
the measures do not go far enough.
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" Southeast
Turkey.
Others estimate over 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.
Turkey is home to over 25 million ethnic Kurds, some
of whom openly sympathise with the Kurdish PKK for a
Kurdish homeland in the country's mainly Kurdish
southeast of Turkey.
Before August 2002, the Turkish government placed
severe restrictions on the use of Kurdish language,
prohibiting the language in education and broadcast
media.
The Kurdish alphabet is still not recognized
in Turkey, and use of the Kurdish letters X, W, Q
which do not exist in the Turkish
alphabet has led to judicial persecution in 2000 and
2003
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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