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

REVUE DE PRESSE-PRESS REVIEW-BERHEVOKA ÇAPÊ-RWISTA STAMPA-DENTRO DE LA PRENSA-BASlN ÖZETÎ
2 Turkish Probe February 24, 19Y4
The Bombs which DEP Loves to Hate
T
urkey's Kurdish-based Democracy Party
(DEP) was thrust once again to the forefront
of the political scene last week with a bomb
explosion ripping through the party's headquarters
and internal strife in this political movement reaching
a peak. On Friday evening, an explosion at the
DEP headquarters in downtown Ankara shattered
windows and blasted through walls, killing one person
and wounding 22 others. The eight storey building
was ripped apart, showing that had the explosive
reached its target, there would have been a
massacre. Fortunately for those inside, one of the
victims had opened the lift door, seen a military bag
inside, spotted the smoke coming out of it, pressed
the down button and shut the door with the speed of
lightning. Seconds later, just when the lift was between
the fifth and sixth floor, the explosion occurred.
Security officials believe the DEP bombing
was in retaliation both for the PKK's previous attack
on the Tuzla train station which left behind five dead
and 26 wounded, and recent statements made by
the party's chairman Hatip Dicle. Even within the
DEP, parliamentarians and party executives agreed
that Dicle had gone too far and had inflicted serious
damage on the party.
He had not only described the Tuzla massacre as
a "normal attack" on a "military target" but had
overtly supported the PKK for such activities and
had thus encouraged future killings. He had quite
simply stepped out of line and in such a way as to
anger millions of Turks.
In the words of one DEP parliamentarian, "It is as
if he wants to alienate everyone and close down the
party." This is a viewpoint which the TON and Turkish
Probe have adopted since December when Dicie
was elected as chairman of the party. Government
reaction to Dicle was even stronger, and was
clearly spelled out. For Interior Minister Nahit
Mente~e, he was a "traitor." According to President
Süleyman Demirel, "Those who shed blood will
drown in blood." And, in the words of Prime Minister
Tansu Çiller, it was "correct" to say that Dicle was
betraying his country.
The most striking affect of the bomb blast at DEP,
however, was seen within the party which was already
witnessing an incipient split.
Hatip Dicle and his aides had just held a meeting
and left the building before the explosion. But unbeknown
to observers, there was another meeting the
same day. In this, parliamentarians and executives
had decided to take action against Dicle and try to
remove him from power. Some of the deputies had
even decided to resign from the party if they failed
to do so.
But as the explosion drew attention to the party
as a whole, according to deputy Sim Saklk, it also
put a stop to some significant moves. He had even
told his colleagues that with the crisis at hand, he
would resign on Wednesday.
"But with this explosion, it has become very difficult
for us to do anything," he explained in an interview
with the TP. "If we resign now or go too far in
criticism, people will think that we have been scared
off."
Indeed, as if an invisible hand was trying to save
the DEP from the effects of a moderate splinter
group, the explosion had been very timely.
Still, not even that was enough to prevent the crisis
altogether. Over the weekend, DEP deputies
Saklk, Orhan Dogan and Ahmet Turk told the TP
that they were prepared to take action against Dicie.
The master-plan, or rather preferred outcome,
was for Dicle to resign on his own without creating
any problems.
But even as members of the DEP "Expanded
Consultative Board" gathered to meet on Wednesday,
it was evident that a crisis was at hand but that
Dicle had turned the circumstances to his advantage.
He accused those covering the leadership problem
within DEP of "being scared off" by threats from
the military and immediately made his point clear:
"There are those who want to stifle the party by attacking
it. This is the time to show our unity!" It was
quite clear that both the bombing and the attacks
from within the party had helped Dicle rather than
create problems for him.
What was more important in the whole ordeal,
however, was how officials in Ankara were divided
over the DEP phenomenon and how this was affecting
Turkish politics.
There was a sudden increase in criticism of the
partyafter Dicle's statements but Turkish politicians
did not finish there. Accusations followed one another
until, on Tuesday, Çiller guaranteed to her
own party group in parliament that "the PKK will be
ousted from parliament." Her reference was clearly
to the DEP.
Today Turkish officialdom is divided between
three views which makes it rather difficult for the
country to decide on what to do about the Democracy
Party. The first, a creation of the military, is that
the DEP in general consists of traitors and has no
right to exist in Parliament. The argument here is
"How can I order my soldiers to fight (in the Southeast)
when those people remain in parliament?" If
this view is taken as correct, the DEP should be
closed down altogether, all of its parliamentarians
should be stripped of their immunity, put on trial and
ousted from the Grand National Assembly.
The second view is that only some of the DEP
deputies should be stripped of their immunity while
the Constitutional Court continues to look into the
party's case and, as a result, when the party does
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