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Kurdish pro-Turkish village guards 'Jash'
face danger from all sides
14.11.2007
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Kurdish pro-Turkish guards known by Kurds as JASH
(traitors) face danger from all sides for playing
the role double agents
November 14, 2007
HILAL, Kurdish Southeastern region of Turkey,
-- With a rifle slung around his neck,
Sadik Babat points to where his house stood before
being destroyed in Turkey's scorched-earth campaign
in the 1990s against villages suspected of
supporting Turkey's Kurdish PKK separatists.
Babat, a Turkish Kurd, is an unlikely figure to be
working as one of 57,000 state-sponsored village
guards throughout mainly Kurdish Turkey's southeast,
acting as a guide and fighting the Kurdish PKK
rebels alongside the same army that destroyed his
home.
But with recent legislation aimed at boosting their
numbers by the thousands and a possible cross-border
operation into Iraqi Kurdistan looming, these
villagers, labelled traitors by many of their kin,
may become more important than ever to Turkey's
military.
Ankara has amassed 100,000 troops on its border with
Iraqi Kurdistan and threatened a cross-border
offensive to crack down on rebels of the Turkey's
outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) based in the
border mountains of Kurdistan region ' northern
Iraq'.
Iraqi Kurdish politician says, Turkey is using
Turkey's Kurdish separatist PKK rebel group as an
excuse to invade Kurdistan region 'Iraq' to prevent
the establishment of Kurdistan state in the Kurdish
autonomous region in 'northern Iraq', Turkey fears
this could fan separatism among its own large
Kurdish population in southeast Turkey.
Turkey rejects direct talks with Iraqi Kurdistan
government, Officially, Turkey does not recognise
the regional government of Kurdistan led by
president Massoud Barzani.
Turkey has never, and still does not, recognize the
Kurdistan region government (KRG) and refuses to
meet with its representatives in any official
capacity. That reflects Ankara's fear that any
international respect shown to the autonomous Iraqi
Kurdistan region would only embolden Turkey's own
large Kurdish minority to seek similar home-rule
status.
The army says the village guards' knowledge of this
remote mountainous terrain is key to operations in
guerrilla warfare.
"I've probably participated in more than 500
operations over the last 21 years. At the end of
some I've been the last one standing, and there have
been times when I've shot and killed, too," Babat
said loading his rifle in a single, fluid motion.
The PKK took up arms against the Turkish state in
1984 with the aim of creating an ethnic Kurdish
homeland in the heavily Kurdish southeast. Nearly
40,000 people have been killed in the conflict.
Officially the guards are part of a controversial
policy established in 1985 to set up a paramilitary
force to protect villages against PKK attacks,
patrol the rugged mountains and help fight the
separatists.
But their right to carry arms, to inform on
suspected separatist activities and to kill in the
name of the state has made them a force within the
region, while critics say they use their status to
settle family scores and take over land. www.ekurd.net
UNACCOUNTABLE FORCE
"They are an armed and unaccountable force and the
rules by which they are governed are very ill
defined, so they can get away with murder, theft,"
said Emma Sinclair-Webb, a researcher on Turkey for
U.S.-based Human Rights Watch.
Since the system's implementation, 4,972 guards have
committed recorded crimes, while 853 have been
imprisoned, according to parliamentary records.
The guards have also been criticised in the latest
European Union progress report, which says their
armed presence has hampered the efforts of displaced
villagers to return to their homes in the southeast.
One village guard walking his donkey on a border
road said there is little love for him and his
fellow guards.
"If they ever take my gun away the first thing that
will happen is I'll get hung in the village square,"
said the man who gave only his first name as Cinsi.
In the southeast, Turkey's military -- the second
largest in NATO -- has always said the decision to
join the guards is voluntary, but villagers say
their decision to sign up has been accompanied by
force.
Even Babat acknowledges the contradiction of working
with the army that destroyed his own village of
Hilal, and says he joined purely out of pragmatism.
"When they destroyed our village, some people joined
the PKK, others fled to northern Iraq. If you wanted
to stay you had to become a village guard," said
Babat, looking over the river that once ran through
Hilal.
Village guards say the 500 lira ($424) monthly
salary also draws enlistments in the country's
poorest region.
With participation largely dictated by economics or
force, loyalties can be uncertain and telling friend
from foe can be difficult and dangerous.
Babat, like other guards, carries his rifle
everywhere he goes -- slung over his shoulder at the
grocer's or walking along the mountain roads -- to
defend against both members of the PKK and
intelligence services who may think he is a double
agent.
In October six guards working in the area were
arrested for informing the PKK about army
operations, security sources said.
"There has always been informing. That's nothing
new. I've known people that have worked both sides
for years. With the things that happen out here ...
sometimes you know that someone is informing," said
Babat.
With Turkey's top general saying they are waiting
for orders for a cross-border operation, village
guards say they do not
want an even greater military presence in their
backyard.
But Babat says he will fight if the need arises.
"I'm not afraid, there's no fear in me. If I meet a
terrorist on the road, I'll shoot and I'll make sure
I'm the last one standing."
The former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein used the
same method, they used pro-Saddam village guards
against the civilian Kurds in 'northern Iraq'
Kurdistan region, there were the spying and
informing the former Arab regime of all Kurdish
activities in the area. www.ekurd.net
Reuters
**
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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