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Turkey Takes Two-Pronged Approach to
Fighting Kurdish PKK rebels
4.3.2008
By Daniel Steinvorth
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March 4, 2008
Turkey's incursion into northern Iraq to fight the
PKK may be over, but the government of Recep Tayyip
Erdogan is a long way from solving the "Kurdish
problem." Erdogan's AKP party is trying another
approach -- winning over Kurds with concessions and
job promises.
The Kaya family keeps photographs of their son
Mehmet displayed in the living room of their house.
The photos show a young man in a grayish brown
uniform, wearing a red star on a yellow background,www.ekurd.net
the symbol of the banned
Kurdish Workers' Party, or PKK. Draped over the
pictures is the red, yellow and green flag of
Kurdistan; simply displaying the Kurdish flag is a
crime in itself. |
What has Turkey's ground offensive against the PKK
really achieved? AFP |
Two female students have
set up a camera in the Kaya family's living room.
They are filming the interview for Roj TV, a pro-PKK
satellite network that is also banned under Turkish
law, even if its headquarters are in faraway
Denmark.
In early February, before Turkey launched its ground
offensive in northern Iraq (more...), Mehmet Kaya
was killed in an exchange of fire with government
troops. The family drove from Diyarbakir into the
mountains to identify the son's body. "He had
already written me a farewell letter a long time
ago," the mother says into the camera, her voice
choked with emotion. "In the letter he wrote: 'You
have four other children. Let them fight for our
cause.'"
The students are pleased with their recording. It
will soon be aired on the channel, as an example of
the injustices Kurds face in southeastern Turkey.
No one knows how many Kurds in the region are even
receptive to such messages anymore. Even the
government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
can only guess how popular the PKK, founded in 1978
and classified as a terrorist organization by the
United States and the European Union,www.ekurd.net
is in Diyarbakir.
Diyarbakir, considered the unofficial capital of
Turkey's Kurds, is one of Turkey's poorest and most
neglected cities. Unemployment generally ranges
between 60 and 70 percent; in some neighborhoods, it
is as high as 90 percent.
This is the epicenter of the ongoing conflict
between the Kurds and the Turks, 200 kilometers (124
miles) from the Iraqi border and worlds away from
Europe. The region is also home to Turkey's most
important military base, where its F-16 fighter jets
take off, emitting a dull booming noise that sounds
like thunder, on their missions to bomb PKK camps as
part of Turkey's Operation Sun. It is also a place
where Kurdish youth still volunteer to join the PKK,
and where the AKP, Erdogan's conservative Islamic
party, is trying to gain a foothold.
So far it is the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society
Party (DTP) which enjoys the trust and captures the
majority of the votes of residents in and around
Diyarbakir. It was the only party to criticize the
government's military campaign in northern Iraq, and
in recent days the DTP has called for demonstrations
in major Turkish cities. Public prosecutors accuse
the party of being too closely aligned with the PKK,
and a petition to ban the DTP is currently before
Turkey's Constitutional Court.
Nejdet Atalay, 32, doesn't deny the association with
the rebels at all. "They have grown out of the
history of our people, and they come from within our
ranks." Atalay, wearing a sand-colored suit, is the
DTP's new chairman in Diyarbakir. He says that he
operates within the tradition of the "Kurdish
struggle for freedom," but that he pursues it with
democratic means. This, Atalay explains, is why his
party has abandoned the old Kurdish demand for an
independent state.
People like Atalay envision the Kurds being granted
the kinds of rights that minorities like the Scots,
the Basques and the Catalans have already been
granted: their own regional parliament, a regional
government and recognition of the Kurds as a
civilized people in the Turkish constitution. But
what would happen to the PKK fighters in the
mountains? "We need a peaceful solution," he says.
"They must be granted amnesty."
The rebels in northern Iraq see things differently.
PKK commander Murat Karayilan (more...) has
threatened to "take the war into the cities."
Karayilan is one of the PKK's leaders who are said
to be hiding out somewhere in the impassable
mountains of northern Iraq. With words like these,
Karayilan awakens memories of the civil war the PKK
fought against the Turkish army in the 1980s and
1990s, in which the official death toll reached
40,000.
The PKK has also been taking the war to Diyarbakir
lately. In early January, a remote-controlled bomb
exploded near a luxury hotel in the city's downtown
area, killing five and injuring dozens.
Although the attack was meant for Turkish soldiers,
most of the victims were civilians. The PKK later
announced that it was a "horrible mistake," which it
regretted deeply. Since then the anti-government
group's reputation has suffered tremendously in a
place that would normally be its stronghold.
The Turkish prime minister's party has been trying
to make inroads in Diyarbakir for some time.
Abdurrahim Hattapoglu, a 43-year-old Kurdish
business consultant, is the local head of the AKP.
Like his role model Erdogan, Hattapoglu wears a
moustache and necktie. Standing in front an
oversized portrait of the prime minister, he talks
about how he plans to conquer the "Kurdish
stronghold."
Of course, he admits, mass unemployment here in the
southeast is devastating, but the planned dam on the
Tigris River, scheduled to begin operation in five
years, will bring change to the region. "It will
provide an additional 300,000 hectares (741,000
acres) of usable land," he says. "That will create
at least as many jobs." What he neglects to mention,
however, is that hundreds of villages and the
historic sites of the town of Hasankeyf will have to
be flooded -- the price of progress.
The AKP captured an impressive 41 percent of the
vote in Diyarbakir in the 2007 parliamentary
elections, an enormous gain over the 16 percent it
garnered in elections only five years earlier. Prime
Minister Erdogan did not introduce this massive
shift by investing in the region, but by uttering a
few overdue words. In 2005, he became the first
prime minister in Turkey's history to travel to
Diyarbakir, where he conceded that Turkey has a
"Kurdish problem," adding that it was also his
problem.
"That was a historic moment," says Irfan Babaoglu, a
reserved man who is chairman of the Kurdish Writers'
Association. "He gave us hope. But then he took it
away again when he didn't keep his promises."
A sign in Babaoglu's office reads: "Ji Kerema Xwe Re
Cixare Neksinin," Kurdish for "Please do not smoke."
He was careful not to have the sign printed on
official paper, because that would have been a
potential offence. All official statements, signs or
brochures in the Kurdish language are still
forbidden, even though many residents of Diyarbakir
speak and read almost no Turkish. Abdullah Demirbas,
the mayor of Diyarbakir, was suspended because he
had service brochures printed in Kurdish, even
though he also had them printed in Arabic and
Armenian. He will soon go on trial on charges of
distributing "propaganda for the goals of the PKK
terrorist organization."
"Of course, it is no longer forbidden to speak
Kurdish on the street," says author Babaoglu. "But
Kurdish classes are still banned in public schools.
Often Kurdish speeches are forbidden during election
campaigns, as are the use of Kurdish names for
newborn babies, because the Kurdish letters W, X and
Q do not exist in the Turkish alphabet." He says
that he too is torn between Turkish and Kurdish,
between the official and the vernacular language.
According to Babaoglu, many Kurds have, like him,
the same schizophrenic relationship with their own
culture.
"Assimilation is a crime against humanity," Erdogan
told Turks during a visit to Germany in mid-February
(more...). Back home, he faced journalists asking
whether the roughly 15 million Kurds were also
permitted to apply this brazen statement to
themselves. A short time later, the government
announced that Kurdish-language programs could now
be broadcast nationwide on TRT, the government-run
television network. Was it a new beginning, or just
another promise that will not be fulfilled?
Until now, only heavily regulated local stations
have been permitted to broadcast in Kurdish, but for
no more than 45 minutes a day and only with Turkish
subtitles. Gün TV is one of those stations. Its
commissioning editor, Diren Keser, 29, recently
appeared in court because the word "Kurdistan" was
used in one of the station's programs. The misstep
could cost him €50,000 ($75,000).
Getting their own state of Kurdistan is no longer
the dream of most Kurds. If there is a Kurdistan at
all, it is the region across the border in northern
Iraq, which is why the Turkish army is a thorn in
its side. Officially, at least, the targets of the
ground offensive that ended last Friday were the PKK
camps in the mountains. It was by no means a
permanent withdrawal. Indeed, the Turkish military
leadership now plans to build 11 permanent bases in
the mountains, to keep the PKK on its toes. "There
are further lessons that we need to teach," Turkish
General Yasar Buyukanit told reporters Monday at a
briefing on Turkey's incursion into Iraq. "There
will be operations when needed. We will continue. We
will try to inflict heavier blows on the PKK."
According to official sources, 24 soldiers and 237
rebels died in Operation Sun. One family or another
will likely be leaving Diyarbakir soon, to pick up
the body of a son.
spiegel de
** 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, a
large Turkey's Kurdish community 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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