Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris

REVUE DE PRESSE-PRESS REVIEW-BERHEVOKA ÇAPÊ-RwISTA STAMPA-DENTRO DE LA PRENSA-BASIN ÖZETÎ
Cindoruk: Declaration of martiallaw is an error' tl;u~~~r::~~~o~Y:~e~~
• Opposition parties are against martiallaw
• ANAP Group Chairman Oltan Sungurfu:,
We do not support martiallaw ,
• RP Group Chairman Kazan: We desire the
abolishment of emergency rule
. Turkish Daily News
ANKARA Parliamentary Speaker Hüsamettin Cindoruk,
voicing his strong reaction to martiallaw in the Southeast,
said, "In a region where the rule of law is in effect, the declaration
of martiallaw is an error."
At his meetingwith the Hak-t~ Labor Union, the speaker,
recalling the previous years during which Turkey was governed
by emergency rule, said that "terrorism and anarchy
can only be overcome by democratic means."
"lt is absurd to demand martial law within a country
whose Parliament is functioning. The state's solidarity can
surviveonly if the state preserves ils democratic institutions.
Governance by the mihtary is not democratic," Cindoruk
said. Upon the imposition of bans on the national and foreign
press in the Southeast by the outlawed Kurdistan
Workers' Party (PKK), the debate over the possible establishment
of martiallaw intensified.
Ankara: PKK activity in
Iraq endangers aid to Kurds
Turkish Daily Nell's
ANKARA- The increasing activities of the secessionist
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in northern Iraq .can
endanger Turkey's humamtarian assistance to Iraqi Kurds,
government sources in Ankara said on Wednesday.
Sources, who asked not to be n'amed, told TDN that Iraqi
Kurdish leadership had agreed last year with Turkish security
forces to protect the Turkish-Iraqi border, but for the last few
weeks increased activity. by the PKK has been observed in the
region. Turkey had carried out' air strikes across the border
against PKK camps in Iraq earlier this month. Following that
raid, the security director of the Iraqi Kurdish .leadership
issued a warning to the PKK and asked them to cease their
activities along the Turkish border. . .
Meanwhile, Turkish foreign ministry sources point out that
Turkey's ongoing $13.5 million of humanitarian assistance to
Iraqi Kurds IS more than the aS,sistance given by many western
countries. Some sources say that international assistance to
Iraqi Kurds, which was planned under the umbrella of the
Umted Nations, fell short because the West broke its
promises. According to ministry sources, Turkish food aid to
northern Iraq up unt.il Oct. 10 has reached the following
levels: 7,379 people have rec;dved 70.1 tOl1sjn,Dohuk, 13,680
p~le jf~ve rçeeive,çfJl9..9JoQS ln 'F;rbil~',al1d.,],79J), peöple
have receIved 66.8 tons In theto",n of Sul~ymamye.
100
CRUSADE:
The Untold Story of the
Persian Gulf War
By Rick Atkinson. 575 pages.
$24.95. Houghton Miff/in.
Reviewed by John Keegan
R -., ICK Atkinson's "The Long
, Gray Line" was a wonderful
.book. I, who spent 26 years of my
life in a military academy, Britain's
Sandhurst, still marvel at the skill
with which Atkinson wove the story
of.a We$~ Point clas~ into a
his rear end. Atkinson may think it
While some hard-line deputies in the senior partner, the awful that junior generals were
True Path Party, with the su~port of somemembers of the made to cringe. I suspect that the
. . . rough edge of Schwarzkopf's tongue
OppOSitIon parties are for t e imposition of martiallaw, saved a lot of lives.
Pnme Minister Tansu Çiller and Social Democrat Peoples' What of the other disclosures?
Party (SHP) Chainnan Murat KarayalçIn stated their oppo- Atkinson strains to present a picsition
to martiallaw. The group chairman of the Main Op- ture of improvisation, secondposition
Motherland Party (ANAP), OItan Sungurlu, em- guessing and malfunction. What
phasizing the huge dimensions of terrorism in the Southeast, else is war about? The enemy does
'd "Th . d' f 'd . h' hr' not behave as expected, orders are
sai: ere IS a Ivergence 0 I eas WIt In t e coa Ilion misunderstood, friendly fire falls' ~
government which has caused a debate on the possible im. on one's own troops, equipment.
position of martial law. The government, which suffers breaks down, the weather does not
from a lack of coordination, has been paralyzed. An election obey forecasts, the terrain is not
gove!TIment can overcome the ,trouble." Arguing that the ..yhat the. maps say it should look
electIOns can be held safely, Sunourlu stated the declaration like. Atkinson collects examples of
of martiallaw will subsequently fead to a military coup. .all these.phenomena. They do no~,
The pro-Islamic Welfare Party (RP) has denoted its abso- t~ ~y rru!l~' detract. from the coalil
' . h "bl' . . f . 11 . lion s rruhtary achievements. The
ute Opposllion to. t e pOSSI e Imposllt.on 0 martla aw In Gulf War, whatever it is now fashth~
.S~utheast regl?n. Party Group Chalrma~ ~evket Kazan' ionable to say, was a triumph of
cntlclzed the poliCies of the government whIch have caused incisive planning and almost faultsuch
an undeSIrable situation. "We desire the abolishment of less execution. The logistic achieveemergency
rule," Kazan said. . ,ment alone, which effecti~ely
history of the VietilainWhf.:, i.lllg
with truth. Yes, I -kept saying, t5>
myself as I read it, that is what
young men who want to be officers
are like; different as the American
is from the British Army - and no
two armies could be more unalike
- I sensed from page to page that
Atkinson had got it. .
Now Atkinson, a Washington'
Post reporter, has turned his technique
of telling history through the
biographical sketch to the Gulf Wat.
It is a bold sortie. Has' he flown a
successful mission? I am still not
qw~e,slJf~;). know'the.lDipn:ssions'
he 1laldeft. First, he reinforces more.
.strongly than ever how different the
American Aimy is from the one I .
know best, the British. The British
are a tough lot, but tough in a
deceptive, underspoken way. Orders
are framed as requests or suggestions.
Politeness prevails even on
the battlefield. Bad language is not
used between gentlemen and, although
it incinerates the air between
private .soldiers, an officer absolutely
would never direct it to them.
So it is the reported profanity in.
Atkinson's narrative that shocks.
General Schwarzkopf and General
Carl Vuono, the army chief of staff,
and, to my surprise, General Colin
Powell turn the pages blue with
their expletives; strategy is filtered
through a barrage of F-words, and
intelligence reports are all about
SOBs. Is this really how American
generals talk? It isn't my recollection
of Schwarzkopf. Not only was
he smaller than I thought he would
be but gentler, too, rather sensitive
and decidedly high-minded.
Nevertheless, I suspect that At.
,kinson may have caught something.
Peacetime armies, we forget, fossilize.
Bureaucrats get to the top.
Schwarzkopf was what John - Ie
Carré would call a mole, inside a
monolith. He really eared about restoring
the U. S. Arroy's warrior
ethos, which Vietnam had so grievously
degraded, and he had no pa.
tience at all with anyone who
thought the book ruled. He wanted
.a. victory so badly. that no language
It is expected that the debate on martiallaw will be dis.. brought the arrny meant to fight
. .. . . the Warsaw Pact to the eastern
cuss~d In the upcomIng NatIOnal Secunty Council (MGK) Saudi ports from a standing start in
meeting of Oct. 25 four months, bears' comparison
with that which preceded D-Day,
Atkinson is at his best in conveying
the atmosphere of command responsibility
and the uncertainties.
that afflicted the commanders in the
months before the war was unleashed.
It was ~y for a detached -
observer to believe from the outset,
- as I did - that Saddam was a,
paper tiger and that his army would'
collapse once struck a sharp blow,"
quite different to have to frame
plans that would work on the appointed
day. There were real dan-
'gers that the Iraqis might use chemical
weapons, might provoke the:
, Israelis into a self-defensive war that'
, would ignÎte the Middle East, might'
get lucky with a Scud strike on a
Saudi city. The author shows a mas-
,terly touch in cutting from Washington
to Riyadh to Tel Aviv, in recreating
the tensions of decision.
He is also excellent in his descriptions
of combat. This was a war of
high-speed interaction between hu~'
man beings and highly complex, often
untested equipment. There was
little old-style dismounted combat..
The young men in the armored vehicles
and high-performance aircraft
were playing a deadly version of
video games. There had never been a,
war like that before and the wonder
is that, in what was in effect a military
laboratory, the workers and'
their apparatus so often achieved
the correct results.
In "The Long Gray Line" Atkinson
encountered a warrior class
whom he recognized to be the servants
of a high and noble calling,
that of the use of force in the cause
of order. I do hope he is not weaken-
,ing in his belief that covenants without
swords are but words. If America
wobbles, there is not much hope
for the rest of uS. "Crusade" is a
morally ambiguous book.
John Keegan, the defense editor of
the London Daily Telegraph, wrote
this for The Washin.8ton Post.