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

REVUE DE PRESSE-PRESS REVIEW-BERHEVOKA ÇAPÊ-RlVISTA STAMPA-DENTRO DE LA PRENSA-BASIN ÖZETÎ
Dicle's mission: Closing down Democracy Party
Many see him as a traitor to the Kurdish people
By Ismet G.lmset
Turkish Daily News
ANKARA- Recent statements made by Kurdish-
_ based Demoàacy Party (DEP) chairman Hatip
Dicle and Friday's bomb attack on the party headquarters
in Ankara have made it even more clear
that Dicle 's mission in the DEP is to have the party
closed down altogether. If those within the DEP
want their pro-Kurdish political party to survive and
if they are sincere in their bid for unity between the
Kurds and Turks, they must either topple the Dicle
flank as soon as possible or resign from the partr.
Otherwisc. they have to accept that under Dlclc s
management. the party is servIng
ation between the people who
only to fan alien.-
make up modern.
Turkey
war.
and to take the country to the brink of civil
The election of Dicle as the party's chairman last
December was the result of three developments
known to all observers. Firstly, Turkey's military
solution to the Kurdish crisis, whieh prevented any
moderate approach or political initiative, had naturally
strengthened radical trends within the Kurdish
anned and political movement. Second, Diele had
maintained an upper hand in relations with the PKK
leadership and had thus strengthened his own local
support through their support of him. Third, the
moderates were too weak seriously to challenge him
during the convention.
lt was evident, months before
~;.
Dlcle selection
,
tQ
the party chairmanship, that the hardline trend
which has taken over the Kurdistan Workers' Party.
(PKK) was having its impact on this party as well.
Throu~h reports of DEP radica[s reaching the
PKK chairman and his close aides, the party's moderate
and peaceful
parliamentarians became targets, and were harshly
criticised for the lives they lived. PKK leader
Abdullah Öcalan. receiving his only information
DEP from the party's hardliners. lashed out
on
at
everyone "living in the lod~ings" refming to
parliamentarians,
Leninist tone. accused
ana in a h!g.hly.Marxistthem
for hVIng III a bourgeois
style, . , , ,
Ocalan' S European-based pohtlcal advl,sor Kam
Yllmaz issued a statement about the same time, calling
for the DEP to, withdr~w from 'parliament altogelher
and telling Its parhamentanans to return to
their people. , . .
.Th~ mall1 ,motive of the PKK leadership pnor to
'Dlcle s election was for the party to be closed down,
-' the democrallc platfornl to be abandoned altogether
and everyone to go.underg~ound. .
A TON analYSIS published when Dlcle took
• power had rung the necessary alarm bells: "Perhaps
the best way to explain what is going on in Turkey's
Democracy Party is to define It as the Hatip Dicle
Syndrome - if one .~ants to ~void openly to brand
il the PKK takeover, It had said.
Even then it was evident that in reality: "Nothing
is to be the same for the DEP any longer. and those
who in the past argued that the party's policies were
too radical can now parade on the streets. For, lookins
at what the new DEP chairman is saying and
dOIng. the word 'radical' may indeed be too light an
expression to describe where the party is headed
after this." The December DEP convention had
started off spreading hope in the hearts of many
Turks (even the most cynical ones) that the/arty
had finally seen the realities and that it coul pull
itself together. Even columnists such as Emin
Cöla~an. who have been the staunchest critics of
this pro-Kurdish entity, wrote advice to the party to
conclude its metamorphosis.
But many missed the irony behind the windo'W
dressing. Days in advance of the convention, a decision
was made to ban any flags other than the
Turkish and party flags and even slogans had been
censored. It was decided that party officials would
prohibit any "unwanted" demonstrations and slogans.
A decision was also made not to decorate the
meetin~ hall with the red-yellow-green colors of the
Kurdisn flag as in previous gatherings of similar
nature.
In the words of one newspaper, it app