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

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Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Basm Özeti In addition to killing 37,000, Turkey's war against the PKKhas over the last 15years left more than 3,000 Kurdish villages in ruins. As in Kosovo,the Kurds of Turkey have been fJgbting laws restricting the use of their native language and other freedoms. And in a campaign that U.S. human-rights watchdog groups liken to Yugoslavia's "ethnic cleansing," Turkey has relocated at least 560,000 Turkish Kurds. In a report this month, the U.S.Committee on Refugees, a non-profit relief and research group, said the number of displaced Kurds in Turkey could exceed 3 million. "Turkey has burned so many villages and destroyed so much property that the Kurds are down," said Kani Xulam, director of the American Kurdish Information Network, a Washington-based advocacy group. But he added, "I don't believe for the life of me that the Kurdish dream (of independence) will die. The dream is delayed; it' s postponed. It will not be killed." . Just before Clinton's trip, 23 House members, including Reps. John Porter (R-llL),and Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.),wrote the president urging him to press for condemned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan's life to be spared and for a peaceful resolution to the Kurdish civil war. "The United States has been a beacon ofhope to the Kurds of Iraq," the lawmakers wrote. "We believe the Kurds of Turkeyalso have the right to live free of persecution and that America can playa leading role in helping to resolve this tragic conflict." So tolerant has the Clinton administration been toward Turkey that the United States has raised no objections when Thrkey launched military incursions into northern Iraq in pursuit of Kurds who use the rugged terrain south of the Thrkish border as a sanctuary. In 1995,some 35,000 Turkish foItes ventured into northern Iraq, at times attacking some of the very Kurdish communities that U.S.foItes flying out of Turkey were trying to protect. Then, and again in 1996, the Pentagon even halted its patrols over northern Iraq to avoid interfering with the Turkish operations. In July and again in September of this year, up to 10,000Turkish forces pursued rebels into Iraq. The World Policy Institute's Hartung said Clinton administration officials have "squirmed noticeably in their efforts to explain ... why it was permissible for Turkey to bomb and kill Kurds in northern Iraq when it was forbidden for Saddam Hussein to do so." A senior defense official, speaking to reporters at a recent background briefmg at the Pentagon, was asked about the apparent inconsistency in the U.S.attitude toward Iraq versus Thrkey in relation to their Kurdish populations. "That question is too hard to answer," the official said. Administration officials say the key difference lies with the nature of the PKK,the group that has been battling Turkey for 15 years. "The PKK is a b~-time, nasty terrorist organization," said a senior U.S.diplomat. Accused of involvement in abductions, bombings and targeting of Americans, the PKK is on the State Department's list of terrorist organizations. And the organization has links to Syria, another nation on the list of terrorist sponsors. Last year, U.S.intell~ence was believed to have assisted Turkey in the capture of Ocalan in Kenya.Ocalan is now the lone inmate in a Turkish island prison, appealing the death sentence handed down by a Turkish court. The Washington-based group Human ~hts Watch agrees that the PKK has committed acts of terrorism. But the watchdog group also has criticized Thrkey for drawing civilians into the battle against the rebels. • •••••••••••••• ~ •••••• A SHIPMENT OF MEDICINE, A CHALLENGE TO GENOCIDE! International Action Center November 22, 1999 The Iraq Sanctions Challenge will defy the U.SJUN sanctions that have killed one million people by taking tons of medicines and medical supplies to Iraq in January 2000 as an act of solidarity with our Iraqi sisters and brothers and of defiance to the genocidal U.S.-led UN sanctions. . Between January 13 and 2L 2000, Ramsey Clark and other prominent leaders and activists will be part of a large delegation that will defy the sanctions in an international act of civil disobedience. This will be the third delegation sent by the Iraq Sanctions Challenge. The fIrSt Iraq Sanctions Challenge included more than 84 people$F7community and religious leaders, trade unionists, students. and activists$F7in May 1998. Combined with the second Iraq Sanctions Challenge in December 1998, more than $6 million worth of medicine was delivered to Iraq. We know that no amount of humanitarian aid can truly meet the needs of the Iraqi people. Only a complete lifting of the sanctions and allowing Iraq to resume normal trade relations can bring an end to the country$E2s catastrophic economic situation. In the spirit of the civil rights movement, we refuse to abide by unjust U.S. laws or UN resolutions that result in death and destruction for Iraqi children. women ~d men. . . . We call upon all who are dedicated to justice to join with us in making the Iraq Sanctions Challenge a major step toward endmg the blockade agamst the people of Iraq. 30
Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Basm Özeti Kur"s In Turkey / Breathing 'the Scent of Peace' Weary ofFighting Ankara, New Crop of Leaders UrgesModeration . abandoned. ilS insistence on By R. Jeffrey Smith keeping the area under tight con- WashingtvII PO.tt Service trol and blocking wider use of DIY ARBAKIR, Turkey - Turhan and Merve held Kurdish. Gokhan Aydiner, the hands and swayed to the sounds of two drums and governor appointed a month ago two Turkish lutes as they celebrated their union by the central government in under the streetlights in front of their apartment. Ankara, 650 kilometers (400 As one of the lute players sang a traditional Kurdish song of miles) to the northwest, said adamantly about Kurdish: longing, the newlyweds followed the ritual dance of three "It's useless to think of this. We have an official lansteps forward, then three back. .' guage." Kurdish music is officially banned at pubhc gathenngs, but almost every evening it spills out of halls and apartm~nts holding wedding receptions and swirls into the cool mght air of this city of 600,000 residents in southeastern Tur- ~y. . Police are still stationed in booths at Virtually every intersection in the city, but after nearly two decades, passers-by pay them little heed. Local media are strictly controlled by the government. Police still videotape speeches by Kurdish leaders for use in potenti~l trials.. . But a tentative air of calm has settled over Diyarbakir 10 the aftermath of recent peace overtures by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, which has waged a I5-year guerrilla war against the Turkish state. Long at the heart o~ the ca~paign ~y :rurkey's K~rdish minority for greater nghts, Dlyarbaklf IS to~y a City.of contradictions, caught between the old .routme of pol~ce crackdowns and mass arrests and a future that Kurdish leaders here predict will be marked by more'tolerance and less violence. The Turkish government has yet to pick up the Workers Party's olive branch, and its local representatives still vow to finish off the rebels. Indeed, in the mountains north of here, thousands of army troops are attempting to hunt down remnants of the Kurdish rebel army, albeit with limited success. Even so, many Kurds said they were confident that the hard-line approach of the government could not be sustained. They also openly express their exhaustion at the toll taken by the years of conflict, which has impoverished the region. Local officials estimate that 3 million people were uprooted and 35,000 killed - most of them civilians - at the hands of rebels or government forces. With the imprisoned Work~rs Party leader, Abdullah Ocalan, calling for an end to fighting, a new generation of Kurdish officials, such as Feridun Celik, 33. is urging patience and moderation. Mr. Ocalan is being held in an island prison outside Istanbul pending appeal of a death sentence handed down by a military court in June. Mr. Celik was elected Diyarbakir's mayor in April on the Many Kurds believe that the hardline approach of the government cannot be sustained. ticket of the pro-Kurdish People's Democracy Party. He won 63 percent of the vote despite a govérnment ban on party posters, flags alld political speeches. Kurds "can breathe the scent of peace," he said. "Everybody now believes there will be a political solution. " Mr. Celik and other Kurdish leaders said they had not abandoned their goal of gaining official approval of th.e Kurdi~h language~ so they can teach and publish in Kurdish as well as stage Kurdish cultural events and broadcast Kurdish music. Some said they wanted the southeastern region declared a state within Turkey, allowing limited selfgovernance for the 12 million Kurds in the country. The .government has not BUT FOR THE MOMENT, this dispute has been sidelined while Kurdish leaders press for narrower goals such as an end to the government's autocratic, emergency rule here and to the mass resettlement of hundreds of villages cleared and often burned by army troops to deny refuge to rebels of the Kurdistan Workers Party. They also have stressed their loyalty to the Turkish state. "Since the beginning, we've tried to tell the government their paranoia is unwarranted, .that we never wanted or demanded a division," said Ahmed Demir, chairman of the People's Democracy Party. In the new atmosphere, Cabbar Leygara, a party member and mayor of tbe.nearby town of Baglar, said that when he and hismayoralcolleagues get together "we talk about trade and the economy, not about how to protect ourselves. '.' Their immediate aim is to pull the region out of grinding poverty, reflected in average monthly wages of $60 .. Private investment has been slack for decades, With-the result that the largest employer in Diyarbakir is the government. Unemployment is estimated at nearly 75 percent. At a meeting of Turkey's National Security Council in Ankara on Oct. 27, top officials began planning accelerat~d economic development ofthe region. "We have to give the people reason to think that their situation will improve," said :SukruUurel, who was the acting foreign minister at the meeting. "This is not new thinking. The only difference is that everyone in the leadership now shares this view. ,. The Kurdistan Workers Party has surrendered 16 of its European leaders to Turkish authorities in the past month to convince the government of the sincerity of its pledges to end the uprising and to win amnesty for an estimated 4,000 jailed rebels. Acting at Mr. Ocalan 's instructions, most of the party's fighters still in Turkey - estimated at about 1,500 - have evidently been trying to cross the border into northern Iraq, where, there is a large Kurdish population. To date, the authorities have largely dismissed these overtures. General Dogan Temel, who commands the army's 7th Corps with responsibility for four southeastern provinces, said the fight against the rebels would be continuing "unless this organization is finished totally." He said this would not take long, and that sometime next year the army may be able to withdraw most of its troops from the region and turn their job over to local police. 7J l~ I\Trlr.\TIIl\\L~ • b }.'ll'ra u~~(!;n NOVEMBER 17, 1999 lUll' 31
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