Reviving the "Kurdish Opening"

The International Crisis Group today released a superb report that examines Turkey's lingering Kurdish issue and the failure of recent efforts to solve, and that also offers some very clear and practical advice for how to move the issue forward. From the summary of the report, entitled "Turkey: Ending the PKK Insurgency":

A surge in violence has dashed plans for a negotiated end to the 27-year-old Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Kar­ke­rên Kurdistan, PKK) insurgency. Since Turkey’s elections in mid-June, clashes have killed more than 110 people, country-wide ethnic friction has hardened opinion, and the government has started bombing PKK bases and talking about an imminent ground offensive in northern Iraq. The PKK must immediately end its new wave of terrorist and insurgent attacks, and the Turkish authorities must control the escalation with the aim to halt all violence. A hot war and militaristic tactics did not solve the Kurdish problem in the 1990s and will not now. A solution can only lie in advancing the constitutional, language and legal reforms of the past decade that have gone part way to giving Tur­kish Kurds equal rights. Given the recent violence, returning to a positive dynamic requires a substantial strategic leap of imagination from both sides. Neither should allow itself to be swept away by armed conflict that has already killed more than 30,000 since 1984.

The Turkish Kurd nationalist movement must firmly commit to a legal, non-violent struggle within Turkey, and its elected representatives must take up their seats in parliament, the only place to shape the country-wide reforms that can give Turkish Kurds long-denied universal rights. The Turkish authorities must implement radical judicial, social and political measures that persuade all Turkish Kurds they are fully respected citizens. They should reach out to non-violent nationalists and not abandon long-standing negotiations on disarmament with the PKK, including its jailed leader, Abdullah Öcalan. Although justified in acting resolutely to block the PKK’s recent attacks, the authorities must avoid falling into the trap of tit-for-tat escalation. Many big Turkish strikes against PKK bases in northern Iraq solved nothing in the past. As the more powerful party, the authorities should instead take the lead in creating opportunities to end the fighting.

For all its gaps, flaws, and unravelling since late 2009, the promises of the Democratic Opening developed by the ruling Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) remain the best way forward. That initiative counts as Turkey’s most credible attempt to heal the open wounds of conflict between the state and its estimated 15-20 per cent Kurdish-speaking population. This report details more than a dozen concrete steps it has involved so far, including broadening access to Kurdish-language television, legislating the right to make political speeches in Kurdish and overseeing an end to almost all torture in Turkish jails. Others have led to a new sense of freedom in Kurdish cities, high-level talks with Öcalan and a greater readiness by mainstream commentators to discuss previously forbidden ideas, like a change in Öcalan’s jail conditions after a full peace deal or a federal disposition for the Kurdish-majority south east.

The outline of a deal to end the insurgency that was also under negotiation – an end to the fighting, major legal reforms, an amnesty and Turkish Kurd acceptance to work within the legal Turkish system – remains the best long-term outcome for both sides. But while making these reforms, the authorities have arrested hundreds of Turkish Kurd nationalists, including many elected municipal officials and other nationalist party members. More than 3,000 nationalist activists are behind bars, many punished as “terrorists” for the non-violent expression of opinions under laws for which the AKP is responsible. On the other hand, what should have been the centrepiece of the Democratic Opening – a ground-breaking PKK amnesty in October 2009 – foundered when Turkish Kurd nationalists exploited it for propaganda purposes.

AKP’s relatively open-minded approach has won it half the Turkish Kurds’ votes, but the government has to go further and fully engage the other half and its representatives, who are the decision-makers in the Kurdish nationalist movement. It should offer educational options that respect Kur­dish languages and culture and rewrite laws that unfairly jail nationalists as terrorists. It must also ensure its policies are fully implemented by all military, judicial and state bodies. Otherwise, as developments since the June 2011 elections show, the nationalists will feel unconvinced and threatened and be unready to reach a compromise deal.

AKP leaders must also speak out to convince mainstream Turkish public opinion that reform is essential to resolve the Kurdish problem; granting universal rights is not a concession; Turkish is not being undermined as the country’s official language; and almost all Turkish Kurds wish to continue living in a united Turkey. The government must order the security forces to try whenever possible to capture rather than kill PKK insurgents, and should engage the legal Kurdish nationalist party to the maximum extent.

The full report can be found here. Previous posts about the "Kurdish Opening" are here.

ICG's report comes out only a few days after the leaking to the Turkish press of a recording a previously secret meeting (held either in Europe or Northern Iraq) between Hakan Fidan, the head of Turkey's intelligence agency, and senior members of the PKK. Although opposition figures have criticized the government for meeting with the PKK, there are also suggestions that now that the fact that these meetings took place is out in the open it will help normalize the idea of the Turkish state and the PKK actually sitting down to negotiate. More on this development here (Hurriyet Daily News) and here (The National).

The Democracy Agenda

I have a new policy briefing out for the Project on Middle East Democracy that looks at Turkey's recent elections and what the results mean for the country's ongoing democratization project. From the briefing:

Turkey’s free and fair parliamentary elections on June 12 were yet another important achievement for a country that over the decades has seen four military coups and various other interventions in its democratic process. The poll was also a historic milestone for the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), which won its third straight election and which again managed to increase its share of the national vote, this time reaching close to 50 percent.

But the AKP may have little time to celebrate its victory. While the party has broken significant political and economic ground over its nine years in power, the upcoming period might prove to be the most difficult yet. In the coming weeks and months, the AKP will have to address an overheating economy, turmoil in next-door Syria, escalating tension over the Kurdish issue, as well as questions about how it intends to push ahead on its plans to introduce a new constitution and to revive the stalled European Union (EU) membership process. At the same time, the AKP and, in particular, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, are likely to continue facing charges both at home and abroad that Erdogan’s leadership style has become increasingly autocratic and that some of the democratic gains made in Turkey—particularly regarding freedom of the press and freedom of expression—are under threat.

How Erdogan and the AKP respond to these issues will have profound implications for the continuing development of Turkey’s democracy and will also require close monitoring by the United States. While policymakers and pundits alike have focused almost exclusively on Turkey’s possible “drift away from the West,” it is the internal drift from the path of domestic reform that should be the major cause for concern. Washington should coordinate closely with Ankara on the international front—particularly regarding events in the Middle East—but it must also keep a close eye on domestic developments in Turkey and be prepared to put Ankara on notice for any backsliding on the democracy front.

You can read the full piece here.

Rockin' the Kurdish Vote

A new Economist article points out why for Kurdish politicians in Turkey this summer's parliamentary elections might different than previous ones. As the article points out, this time around campaigning in Kurdish will be allowed, while the existence of a new Kurdish-language state-run television station and the arrival of several private Kurdish television and radio stations could also change the political landscape.

Credit for these changes should be given to the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has done more than many of its predecessors to liberalize and reform the Kurdish issue (despite the fact that its much-heralded "Kurdish opening," announced in 2009, failed to get too far). So why is the AKP expected to take a big hit at the polls in the southeast, while the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party looks set to make big gains? The Economist explains:

There are several reasons for AK’s ailing fortunes among the country’s 14m Kurds. They are no longer swayed by free coal and talk of Islamic fraternity. AK’s “opening”, which was meant to lead to an amnesty for PKK rebels untainted by violence, has been shelved. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, blames the Kurds. He says the PKK provoked Turks in 2009 when fighters returning from Iraq started delivering “victory” speeches.

The government’s response was to lock up thousands of Kurdish politicians, including BDP mayors. Selahattin Demirtas, a BDP leader, reels off the figures. At least 2,300 Kurdish activists have been jailed since 2009. Sentences sought by prosecutors in an array of cases against the BDP’s 22 parliamentarians, including Mr Demirtas, add up to a staggering 2,350 years.

Egged on by Mr Ocalan, the BDP has raised the bar with a civil-disobedience campaign that has seen a Kurdish female parliamentarian slap a policeman. Kurds are spurning mosques staffed by state-appointed imams in favour of Kurdish-language prayers in fields. Their campaign will not end, they say, until BDP prisoners are released, an amnesty is given to PKK fighters, education in Kurdish is permitted and the 10% threshold is lowered.

The strategy is paying off. Analysts reckon the BDP could win some 30 seats in June’s election. AK’s case has not been helped by the lacklustre candidates it is fielding in the south-east. This may be a good thing. The more Kurds there are in Ankara, the more comprehensive will be the new constitution Mr Erdogan promises to deliver after the election.

A senior AKP official I recently spoke with told me that the government's two main post-election priorities are passing a new constitution and restarting the stalled Kurdish reform initiative. The big questions remain how well can the AKP and a stronger BDP work together in parliament (based on what we saw in the current parliament, not so well) and how much confidence will the AKP have to take the political risk of making significant reforms on the Kurdish front (again, based on what we have seen before, questionable). Another failed "Kurdish opening" could prove to be very dangerous.

(Today's Zaman takes a look at the BDP's clever list of candidates here. On a related note, for more on the rise of the southeast's pro-Kurdish imams, take a look at this Christian Science Monitor article of mine from a few years back, and at this more recent Today's Zaman story.)

(photo -- BDP leader Selahattin Demirtas campaigning near Diyarbakir, Turkey, in 2009. By Yigal Schleifer)

Criminalizing Protest

Human Rights Watch has an excellent new report out that looks at the troubling use of anti-terror laws to imprison Kurdish protestors and stifle dissent in southeast Turkey.

According to Turkish law, protestors (even non-violent ones) can be accused of being members of a terrorist organization (read, the PKK) if they go to a demonstration that was deemed to have been organized by that organization. That had led to numerous cases of people who have been given fairly severe sentences for basically showing up at a protest. Some of examples covered in HRW's report include the case of an illiterate mother of six who was sentenced to seven years in jail for joining a protest where she held up a banner that said "The approach to peace lies through Ocalan" and that of a university student who was given six years in jail after being filmed flashing a victory sign at the Diyarbakir funeral procession of a slain PKK fighter and then later seen clapping his hands at a protest at his university.

From a release about the report:

....Over the past three years, courts have relied on broadly drafted terrorism laws introduced as provisions of the 2005 Turkish Penal Code, plus case law, to prosecute demonstrators. The courts have ruled that merely being present at a demonstration that the PKK encouraged people to attend amounts to acting under PKK orders. Demonstrators have been punished severely for acts of terrorism even if their offense was making a victory sign, clapping, shouting a PKK slogan, throwing a stone, or burning a tire....

...."When it comes to the Kurdish question, the courts in Turkey are all too quick to label political opposition as terrorism," said Emma Sinclair-Webb, Turkey researcher at Human Rights Watch and author of the report. "When you close off the space for free speech and association, it has the counterproductive effect of making armed opposition more attractive."

The report can be found here.

(photo: a group of Kurdish women at a 2007 rally in Diyarbakir. By Yigal Schleifer)

The Kurdish Kurdish Opening

I've been on the road lately, so I'm just now catching up on current developments. One article that jumped out at me is Henri Barkey's Aug. 31 piece on the Foreign Policy website, "Turkey's Silent Crisis." In the article, Barkey -- who just returned from a trip to Southeast Turkey -- takes a look at the resurgent Kurdish problem in Turkey and at some of the trouble brewing under the surface. One of the interesting developments he looks at is how Kurdish politicians in Turkey are increasingly organizing an effort to move towards some form of local self government (trying to nip this movement in the bud, the Turkish state is currently prosecuting dozens of Kurdish mayors in the southeast). From his article:

The end of the Kurdish opening has also served to consolidate Kurdish attitudes toward the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), the primary legal Kurdish political organization. The BDP has close ties to the PKK and increasingly sees itself as the Turkish equivalent of Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army.

In the absence of political progress with the government, the BDP and Kurds in general are also beginning to put together the rudimentary institutional structures of self-governance in the southeastern provinces. The prosecution's 7,500-page indictment against members of the BDP, largely resting on conjecture and unsubstantiated allegations, nevertheless manages to sketch the contours of a parallel self-governance structure the Kurds have been attempting to put into place -- independent of Ankara.

For most activist Kurds, the PKK's armed insurrection is of secondary importance. The PKK, and especially its imprisoned leader Ocalan, is a symbolic force that they admire for raising the Kurdish issue to the forefront of Turkish politics. "Without the PKK, no one would be talking of Kurdish rights today," goes the refrain. At least in the southeastern provinces, Kurds now have an important advantage: control of the municipalities. This provides them with organizational capabilities to deepen their political struggle for recognition. Psychologically, the Turkish state may have already lost these provinces.

You can read the full article here. To get a better sense of what the BDP's leadership is thinking, take a look at this interesting interview with its co-chair, Gultan Kisanak, where she talks about the party's demands for decentralizing the Turkish state.

The Kurdish Problem, Again

The signals coming out of Turkey's predominantly-Kurdish southeast region and from along the border with Iraq are not comforting. In recent weeks, Turkish soldiers are being on an almost daily basis in attacks by the resurgent Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Turkey's state-run news agency happily reports that 46 PKK members have been killed in the past month, failing to mention that most of them are also young Turkish citizens whose bodies will be returned home to be buried and mourned. Turkish jets have been bombing targets in Northern Iraq with increasing regularity, while Today's Zaman reports that military checkpoints have now been reintroduced in the southeast and that a previously-abandoned ban on herders taking their flocks up to the region's high plateaus has also been reinstated.

It seems like the hope and good will created by the Turkish government's "democratic opening," a reform initiative announced last summer that's mostly designed to deal with the decades-old Kurdish problem, has very quickly evaporated. Cengiz Candar, an astute analyst whose warnings are worth listening to, writes in a column in today's Hurriyet Daily News:

The democratic initiative is not going anywhere. It has come to a halt, deviated even. We have an endless number of signs showing that we are back to the square one....

....The pre-1990 conditions settle in the Southeast again. We are going back to a state in which people are fed up with check points and barricades.

The full column (worth reading, though poorly translated) is here.

Open and Shut

More troubling news for the Turkish government's initially promising "democratic opening," a reform initiative announced last summer that's mostly designed to deal with the decades-old Kurdish problem.

As the Turkish press reports today, ten members of a group 34 Kurds who returned to Turkey last October after several years in exile in northern Iraq have been arrested after being charged with supporting the PKK. The group's return (several of them were former PKK members) was one of the first visible signs -- and tests -- of the government's new initiative (sometimes referred to as the "Kurdish opening"). More groups of exiled Kurds were supposed to come after the first one, but the heros' welcome given to the initial group and the fact that jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan said they returned at his command, turned the whole thing into something very costly for the government, and plans for further returns were put on hold.

Since then, everyone in the group of returnees (save for four minors) has been charged with making statements on behalf of the PKK and are currently standing trial for "supporting a terrorist organization." So much for amnesty and reconciliation.

Take a look at this Eurasianet article of mine for more background on the "Kurdish opening."

These arrests, when put together with the recent increase in clashes between the military and the PKK in Turkey's predominantly-Kurdish southeast and an ongoing court case against a large number of Kurdish politicians who are also accused of supporting the PKK, paint a troubling picture. For now, Ankara appears to be struggling to find a way of pushing forward its much needed Kurdish initiative while at the same time keeping Ocalan and the PKK -- who still hold a considerable amount of influence -- out of the process.

A New (Old) Front in the Turkey-Israel Fight

As if more fuel was needed to be poured on the fire burning in the wake of last week's tragically botched Israeli flotilla raid, a new campaign is being mounted in Turkey to link Israel with increased activity by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

The main impetus for this is the fact that around the same time that Israeli commandos were sliding down their ropes onto the deck of the Mavi Marmara, the Turkish cruise ship turned naval embargo buster, PKK guerillas attacked a naval base on the southern Turkish coast, killing six sailors. The implication is that Israel was using the PKK attack as a kind of virtual smoke screen against the Turkish-led flotilla and sending out a warning shot to Turkey to not push things too far.

Turkish officials have certainly been hinting at that being the case. “We do not think the two attacks are a coincidence,” Huseyin Celik, deputy chairman of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), said. Turkey's interior minister, Besir Atalay, also expressed his concern that the two events were somehow connected and said any links will be investigated. In an article in Sunday's edition, Today's Zaman runs a fairly long piece entitled, "Suspicion growing about possible link between PKK and Israel," quoting a host of analysts who make some fairly inflammatory accusations (Israeli agents training PKK terrorists in how to "penetrate" cities and that captured PKK guerillas have confessed that they were trained by Israel, for example) without offering much evidence.

In a column in the same paper, Andrew Finkel -- one of the few voices of caution in the overheated Turkish media -- sees the attempt to link Israel with the PKK as part of a worrying trend. From his column:

....It is this sense of events slipping out of control which is among the most worrying aspects of Turkey’s current standoff with Israel. As if the nation did not have enough issues to deal with, it has now taken on responsibility for the Middle East. If the government appears to be taking a hard line on Israel, public opinion is shouting that it should take a harder line still. A recent public opinion survey undertaken by the MetroPOLL organization reports that 60 percent of the population believe the government has under-reacted to events. If pressure continues to build then Turkey will continue to back into uncharted waters.

There must be suspicion among the cynical few that the government is not displeased with the current crisis with Israel. Its total command of the headlines and the uniformity of the popular outrage has usefully overshadowed debates over constitutional reform, unemployment and the resurgence of the PKK. However, such cynicism would be misplaced; a more realistic view is that the government is genuinely concerned that those of its citizens trying to run the blockade in Gaza are now wagging the dog of Turkish foreign policy. One can only assume there is debate among the highest echelons between those who believe that the last week has served to redefine Turkey’s new soft power in a positive way and those who worry this exercise is getting out of hand; the contrast between a Turkey which enjoys more prestige and one which risks dismantling its carefully nurtured image of an ambassador between different regions. Distaste for the policies of the Netanyahu government aside, a Turkey able to speak to Israel presents a very different picture to the world than a Turkey which might adopt the anti-Zionist discourse of the Middle East.

Full piece here.

Making a link between Israel and the PKK/Kurds is not a new trope in Turkey. It was raised a few years ago during the American war in Iraq, when Turks were particularly worried about how the war might empower the Iraqi Kurds and the PKK and threaten Turkey. At the time, the rumors didn't only involve suggestions that Israel was training Kurdish peshmergas and helping the PKK, but also included the mother of all rumors -- that Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani is in fact Jewish (there was a line of rabbis in Kurdistan, which until recent decades had a large and thriving Jewish community, named Barzani). His being "Jewish," of course, would explain everything very neatly. Follow this link to an article I wrote at the time about this particular "who's a Jew" campaign.

A full-scale diplomatic war is clearly going on between Israel and Turkey right now. But there are clearly also efforts being made to drive a further wedge between the two countries, something both sides should be very vigilant about.

The Kurdish Shabab

Nicholas Birch has an interesting article up on the Eurasianet website about the breakdown of discipline and the chain of command in Turkey's Kurdish movement, much of it fueled by angry youths in Turkey's southeast. It's a trend that should certainly raise alarm bells among both officials in the Turkish government and the Kurdish movement. From Birch's article:

....Many observers see the rise in urban violence as a sign both of the growing vacuum at the heart of the Kurdish nationalist movement, and the changing dynamics of the PKK's support base.

"In the old days, there was a clear chain of command," says one Yuksekova politician. "The PKK would tell the politicians 'the shops will be closed today' and the politicians would pass that on to the shopkeepers. Today, they both say 'don't close the shops down', but then some 18 year old claiming to be the right-hand man of a PKK commander comes along and countermands their orders."

Locals say the break-up in the PKK hierarchy began in 2005, when three separate PKK groups began to set up civilian support organizations in Hakkari Province. The PKK has always used civil 'militias' to spread its message and ensure a steady influx of provisions and money. After 2005, however, the rapid growth of militias, and the lack of a clear chain of command, led some members to use the PKK trademark to enrich themselves.

In 2008, two Yuksekova men were found dead, allegedly murdered by the PKK for running a protection racket under the guise of collecting for militias. Some locals say the group has since moved to professionalize what were once volunteer militia units, to avoid a repeat of the same problem.

"In the old days, rhetoric about the Kurdish struggle was enough to bring people onside," says Irfan Aktan, a Yuksekova-born reporter who writes widely about the Kurdish issue. "But war has left a whole generation in poverty. They have nothing to lose. Money is infinitely more important to these people than ideology."

A journalist based in Diyarbakir, Ahmet Sumbul sees no evidence that the PKK is professionalizing itself to ensure the loyalty of its supporters. But he agrees that urban violence is on the rise, and changing too. In the past, he says, protestors used to stone police stations and state offices. "Over the past five years, they have started throwing stones at everybody and everything. Small shopkeepers get the worst of it."

"The PKK can use these people, but they can't control them. It's just unfocussed anger. Kids no longer listen to their fathers. Kurds no longer listen to the mountains," Sumbul added.

You can read the full piece here.

The "Kurdish Initiative": Now in Theaters!

Although, on a political level, the government's "Kurdish initiative" -- a democratization program announced last summer that's designed to tackle the decades-old Kurdish problem -- seems stuck in the muck (see this previous post) of Turkey's political polarization, interesting things are happening on the cultural front.

Case in point, the recent opening in Istanbul of "Min Dît," the first Kurdish-language film to get a full theatrical release in Turkey. The film tells the story of three Kurdish children in Diyarbakir who witness the murder of their parents by a paramilitary group. I took the photo above, of a marquee advertising the film (the title is roughly translated as "I witnessed"), while walking down Istanbul's Istiklal boulevard the other day. Considering the restrictions that were in place up until only a few years ago on the public use of Kurdish, the fact that a billboard in Kurdish could be put up in the heart of downtown Istanbul without much fanfare or reaction struck me as significant. (That said, it should be noted that there are still politicians on trial in Turkey for campaigning in Kurdish and that a court in Diyarbakir recently sentenced the former editor-in-chief of a Kurdish newspaper to 166 years in prison for having "disseminated the propaganda of a terrorist organization." Read about it here.)

Today's Zaman recently interviewed the film's director, Miraz bezar, who won the "best director" award at last month's Istanbul Film Festival. You can read the interview here.

Kurdish-language cinema has come far in Turkey. A few years ago, when the restrictions on Kurdish language in Turkey were starting to ease up, I went down to Diyarbakir to profile what was then a budding homegrown movie making scene. At the time, it was an extremely low-budget, though highly resourceful scene that was strictly serving the local market. You can read the story, in Canada's Walrus magazine, here.

The Closing of the "Kurdish Opening"?

The winds of political change in Turkey often tend to change direction quite abruptly. This seems to be the case with the government's recently announced "democratization initiative," popularly referred to as the "Kurdish opening." The initiative, which is being rolled out in small bits, consists of various reforms designed to give Turkey's Kurds increased political and cultural rights and put at end to the decades of bloody conflict that the Kurdish issue has resulted in. (For some more background on the initiative, take a look at this previous post. To get a sense of how Turkey's foreign policy ambitions are helping push Ankara's new approach to the Kurdish issue, take a look at this post.)

The government's reform plan certainly represents an important break from previous approaches to the Kurdish issue and has led to the discussion of topics that only a few years ago would have been off limits. But now there is some concern that the initiative could be in serious trouble. From a Eurasianet article of mine looking at recent developments regarding the Kurdish reforms:

Official rhetoric in recent months has fostered hope that Turkey can implement a civilian - rather than a military - solution to its decades-long Kurdish problem. Those hopes, however, remain fragile -- a fact underscored by the opening of a court case that could result in the banning of the country’s major pro-Kurdish political party.

Over the summer, Turkish Interior Minister, Besir Atalay, speaking during a nationally televised news conference, said that the government is actively working on a comprehensive plan, one based on democratization and expanded rights. "We have the intention to take determined, patient and courageous steps," he said. "This can be seen as a new stage."

On November 13, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government unveiled in a historic debate in parliament parts of this "democratization initiative," which include the easing of restrictions on private Kurdish-language television stations and Kurdish language faculties in universities, as well allowing towns and villages to use their original Kurdish names once again.

"Today is the beginning of a new timeline and a fresh start," Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told parliament. "We took a courageous step to resolve chronic issues that constitute an obstacle along Turkey’s development, progression and empowerment, and we are very sincere."

But now there are growing concerns that the government’s efforts could be undermined by renewed tensions in Turkey’s predominately Kurdish southeast.

Protests were held in several cities in the region this past weekend, including one where a 23-year-old university student was killed by a bullet to the back. The trigger for the protests were reports that conditions have worsened for jailed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan since he was moved into a new facility on the island prison that has been his home since 1999.

Meanwhile, Turkey’s highest court on December 8 started hearing a case which could lead to the closure of the Democratic Society Party (DTP), the only pro-Kurdish party in parliament. Prosecutors contend that the party has violated Turkey’s constitution and has acted as a front for the outlawed PKK. An indictment seeks not only the party’s closure, but also the banning of some 220 of its members from participating in political activity.

The DTP is the latest incarnation of a string of pro-Kurdish parties that have been previously closed by court order, and observers worry that its closing could further stoke tensions among Turkey’s Kurds.

But there is also concern that the party itself is standing in the way of the government’s Kurdish reform program. Although party leaders initially supported the government’s initiative, members are now distancing themselves from it, with DTP chairman Ahmet Turk recently calling it "insufficient."

"For us, the ’democratic initiative’ is over," Emine Ayna, a top DTP official recently told the Radikal newspaper....

....Despite the recent hardening of the DTP’s rhetoric, observers say that shutting the party down would be a mistake. "I totally disapprove of their behavior but I oppose the party’s closure," said Sahin Alpay, a professor of political science at Istanbul’s Bahcesehir University.

"It was such a mistake to close down these Kurdish parties in the past," Alpay continued. "Had they not been closed down, they would have become much stronger than the armed wing of the Kurdish movement. But what we have here now is the opposite."

(You can read the full article here. Click here for an informative Human Rights Watch Q&A on the DTP closure case.)

The government's reform plan right now seems to endangered by both Turkish and Kurdish nationalists. Turkish leaders, to their credit, have publicly stated their intention to continue with the reform process. But there are clear challenges ahead. The closing of the DTP (though flawed, the party is an important political force in the southeast) will leave the government once again searching for a Kurdish interlocutor and will be a major setback for the development of a mature Kurdish political movement in Turkey. Meanwhile, if the tension and violence surrounding the Kurdish continue to rise, Ankara may find that moving ahead on the Kurdish reform program might simply be too costly a move for the time being.

(Photo -- a Kurdish demonstrator clashing with police. AFP)

For the Ilisu Dam, a Lifeline Made in China?

Will the controversial Ilisu dam project in southeast Turkey, put on the shelf after European creditors withdrew their support due to a lack of environmental safeguards, be brought back to life with Chinese help?

From a blog post by Peter Bosshard, policy director for International Rivers:

Turkey is so indebted it cannot finance the dam from its own resources. Reliable sources have told us that the Turkish government is currently discussing support for the Ilisu Dam with China. For years, the Turkish and Chinese governments have strongly disagreed over the treatment of the Uighur population, which is ethnically Turkic, in China’s Xinjiang Province. Yet in June 2009, Turkey’s President visited China and signed several cooperation agreements, including in the energy sector.

Under a plan which is currently being discussed, Andritz Hydro, the main contractor for the Ilisu hydropower project, would manufacture the turbines for the project in China rather than in Austria. Sinosure, an insurance company set up and owned by the Chinese government, would insure the bank loans for the contract. In a new twist in its emerging role, China would thus not enable its own dam builders to go abroad, but would underwrite the exports of Western dam builders which have shifted part of their manufacturing base to China.

When Chinese companies and financiers started to go overseas around the turn of the century, they held that following social and environmental standards was up to their host governments. They consequently picked up several rogue projects that had been shunned by other financiers during this period. China Exim Bank provided more than $500 million in funding for the Merowe Dam in Sudan in 2003 after export credit agencies from Europe and Canada declined to get involved because of environmental and human rights concerns. Chinese companies are also building several dams in Burma which many other actors would not touch.

Projects like the Merowe Dam have created serious conflicts with the local populations, and have damaged the reputation of the involved Chinese companies. Starting in 2006, the Chinese government asked its companies to take environmental and community concerns more into account when investing abroad. In October 2007, China’s State Council for example stressed the importance of “paying attention to environmental resource protection, caring for and supporting the local community and people’s livelihood” in such projects. An integrated policy package with specific recommendations for Chinese foreign investors is currently under preparation. Such measures indicate that China is interested in being a responsible partner in international finance.

The Ilisu Project has become an international symbol of a substandard project. China is not bound by agreements of the OECD governments, but it helped establish the World Bank standards which the dam on the Tigris is violating. The independent panel of experts which documented the violation of these standards included a well-known Chinese resettlement specialist. So far, China has not yet received an official funding request from Turkey and has not yet had to take a decision on Ilisu. If Sinosure does approve support for the project, it will be a slap in the face of the European governments who have put the interests of the environment and local people before their own export interests. Chinese support for the Ilisu Dam would endanger the efforts of a coordinated approach among international funders on the environment, and could start a new environmental race to the bottom.

You can read his full post here. For more background on the Ilisu dam project, take a look these previous posts.

The Middle East's Troubled Waters

Something worth keeping an eye is the growing dispute between Iraq, Syria and Turkey over water issues. All three countries, which share many of the same river borne water resources, are going through a period of decreased rainfall. The difference, of course, is that Turkey is upstream from Syria and Iraq, which means that it controls much of the water that eventually trickles down to the other two countries. Iraq, in particular, is accusing Turkey of taking too much of the water that flows through the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which flow through all three countries, because of its extensive dam network on the two rivers. (For more on Turkey's dam building project in the southeast of the country, take a look at this Eurasianet piece of mine.)

From a Reuters report on the brewing water crisis:

Turkey has failed to meet a pledge to release more water down the Euphrates and Tigris rivers to Iraq, an Iraqi minister said on Thursday, and called for a coordinated water policy in the region.

In June, Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said Ankara will guarantee a minimum 400 cubic metres of water per second from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers to help its neighbour weather a drought.

But Iraq's Water Resources Minister Abdul Latif Rasheed told Reuters that Iraq was still not getting enough water from Turkey, and said his country's agriculture and drinking water supplies were at stake.

"It isn't happening and we want Turkey to implement that agreement. The amount of water we are getting is fluctuating," Rasheed said on the sidelines of a meeting between Turkish, Iraqi and Syrian ministers to discuss water sharing from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

"The minimum requirement Iraq needs is 600 cubic metres. Sometimes it fluctuates to less than 200 cubic metres. We need two or three times that amount," he said.

Iraq accuses Turkey, and to a lesser extent Syria, of choking the Euphrates with hydroelectric dams that have restricted the flow, damaging the farm sector already suffering from decades of war, sanctions and neglect.

The dispute is a delicate diplomatic issue for Iraq as it seeks to improve ties with its neighbours. Turkey is one of Iraq's most important trading partners.

Turkish officials say flows to Iraq have been decreased by Syria, which also shares the Tigris and Euphrates basin.

But Rasheed said Iraq was getting less water since Turkey began building dams in the southeast of the country under the GAP development project....

....Turkey says it has occasionally limited the flow on the Tigris and Euphrates to less than 400 cubic metres per second to meet its own needs during extremely dry weather.

Syria's Irrigation Minister Nader al-Bunni said his country was "concerned" about the amount of water that flows out of Turkey and said neighbours sharing the Euphrates and Tigris rivers needed to find a solution that is "sustainable from a social and humanitarian point of view".

Hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to abandon their land in Syria, a major farm commodities producer in the region, due to the effects of the country's worst drought in decades.

(You can read the full article here.)

[UPDATE I -- Turkey has apparently now reversed course on the issue, saying it would release more water than the minimum required, although it did not specify how much.)

Water issues and climate change are clearly going to pose major political and diplomatic challenges for the Middle East in the years ahead. For some interesting perspectives on this, take a look at the most recent edition of Bitterlemons, an online roundtable on Middle East issues. One of the articles, titled "Conflict Ahead," by Aharon Zohar, a specialist in regional and environmental planning, offers this warning:

These issues will affect stability mainly in countries and societies that are already destabilized due to ethno-religious conflict, weak economies and environmental decline. One expression of this could be violence between countries rich in water and energy resources and those without, particularly where they share drainage basins of international rivers: Uganda, Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt over the Nile; Turkey, Syria and Iraq over the Euphrates; and Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Israel over the Jordan and its tributaries. Another instance could involve internal destabilization of moderate states like Egypt and Jordan due to water shortages....

....Readiness to counter the consequences of global warming in the Middle East demands coordination and problem-solving on a broad regional level. Yet in view of the hostility and tension that characterize regional inter-state relations, this option appears less likely than specific ad-hoc cooperation between specific countries.

[UPDATE II -- The Washington Post has an interesting piece about some environmentally suspect joint projects Israel and Jordan are undertaking in an effort to deal with their looming water shortage problems. Worth reading.)

(photo -- a dam near Sanliurfa, in southeast Turkey, part of the country's GAP dam and irrigation project. By Yigal schleifer)

The Kurdish Gambit

I have a piece up on the Eurasianet website looking at what the Turkish government's upcoming "Kurdish Initiative" -- a reform plan aimed at resolving the long-standing Kurdish issue -- might look like and what are some of the challenges facing it. There are a number of internal and external factors pushing Ankara to finally take a decisive (and non-military) step in dealing with the Kurdish issue, one of the more interesting ones being the fact that jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan is planning to release his own "road map" on how to solve the Kurdish problem.

Things are certainly moving forward on the issue in Ankara, with one of the more interesting and positive developments being the announcement that Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan has finally agreed to meet with members of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP). Erdogan has previously refused to even shake hands with the DTP's parliamentarians, saying they must first denounce the PKK.

More on this issue from my Eurasianet article:

After decades of conflict and repressive policies, Turkish leaders appear to be taking concrete steps toward resolving the Kurdish issue. But analysts warn that domestic opposition and the lack of consultation with Kurds themselves could limit any plan’s chances for success.

In recent months, Turkish leaders have sent strong signals that an initiative to deal with the Kurdish issue is in the works. In May, President Abdullah Gul said that Turkey had an "historic opportunity" to address the issue, while Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, just before departing for a recent trip to Syria, told reporters: "Whether we call it the Kurdish, the southeast or eastern problem, whether we call it the Kurdish initiative, we have started work on this."

In late July, meanwhile, Turkish Interior Minister Besir Atalay said during a nationally televised news conference that the government is actively working on a comprehensive plan -- one based on democratization and expanded rights. Although he didn’t offer any specific details or a timeframe, Atalay told reporters, "We have the intention to take determined, patient and courageous steps."

Writing in the English-language Hurriyet Daily News, political analyst Mehmet Ali Birand said the government’s anticipated initiative does represent an important shift. "The Turkish Republic has now accepted the existence of a Kurdish issue and a [Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)] problem, and has started comprehensive efforts towards finding a solution. Until now, these issued were accepted, but ignored," he wrote.

"Now, for the first time, the Kurdish issue is being separated from the PKK issue, and again for the first time, a plan is being developed that will influence Turkey’s future," Birand continued.

According to reports in the Turkish press, the government’s plan may include a series of moves on the cultural rights front, including the establishment of private Kurdish-language television stations and Kurdish language faculties in universities, as well allowing towns and villages to once again use their original Kurdish names. It is not clear if it would include a wide-ranging amnesty program for members of the outlawed PKK. The group continues to attack Turkish security forces, mostly from its hideouts in northern Iraq.

Observers say a series of domestic and regional developments are forcing the political and military establishments in Ankara to confront the Kurdish issue in a new way. "The Turkish military is finally coming to grips with the fact that it cannot win this war, no matter what happens [to the PKK] in northern Iraq. It’s finally dawning on them that some kind of political solution is necessary," says Henri Barkey, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington and an expert on Turkish politics.

Barkey also says Turkey’s ambitions to play a larger role on the world stage, particularly as a regional mediator, are also forcing Turkish leaders to take stock of the country’s own problems. "Turkey is lecturing other countries, like Israel and [China], about human rights issues and here you have a country where the Kurdish language is illegal. That is absurd," Barkey said. "They have to do something. There is a discrepancy between domestic Turkey and the image it is trying to project abroad...."

....The big question now being asked is, once the government announces its plan, what are its chances for success? The [International Crisis Group's Hugh] Pope says an important element of the current debate, which may help any government initiative succeed, is that it is mostly domestically driven. "Ten years ago everyone in Europe would be lecturing Turkey about the Kurds. This current talk about a Kurdish opening is domestically driven, which makes it a lot more legitimate," he says. "Before, when Turkey was being lectured from the outside, it caused people to circle the wagons and stop listening."

Dogu Ergil, a professor of political science at Ankara University, says the Kurdish initiative could be hurt by what he sees a lack of consultation between the government and other key players - particularly the Kurds themselves - about how to best approach the problem. "We lack a definition of what we are trying to solve and some people have gathered behind closed doors and decided they have the solution," he said.

"For the Kurdish people in Turkey, it is still a state initiative," Ergil continued. "The method has not been democratic enough so far. ... That’s the problem. The whole thing is a mystery."

Some analysts suggest that the AKP government may find itself in a bind on the issue. "They are going to have to sell this to a skeptical public and the opposition is going to raise hell," noted Barkey.

Ultimately, the government’s main challenge may be to come up with a plan that is politically viable, but which also meets rising expectations. "The problem with things like this is that when you raise expectations so high and then you don’t do something, it’s like setting a match to a tank of gasoline," says Barkey.

You can read the full article here.

A Final Crack in the Ilisu Dam Project?

Back in December, I wrote about the problems faced by the controversial Ilisu dam project in southeast Turkey, especially after its main financial backers -- Germany, Austria and Switzerland -- suspended credit guarantees for the project. Now the countries have announced that they are pulling out of the dam project completely. From Reuters:

Three Western export credit insurers quit Turkey's planned Ilisu dam on the Tigris River on Tuesday because it is failing World Bank environmental and heritage standards, throwing the 1.2 billion euro ($1.68 billion) project into doubt.

The dam is due to provide 3.8 billion kilowatt hours of electricity a year and help wean Turkey off reliance on energy imports. But it will also swallow up more than 80 villages and hamlets by the time of its planned completion in 2013.

Work on the project was halted in December when the three insurers -- Euler Hermes Kreditversicherung of Germany, Austria's Oesterreichische Kontrollbank and Swiss Schweizerische Exportrisikoversicherung -- ordered suppliers to stop working on the dam for 180 days.

"The agreed contractual conditions regarding the environment, cultural heritage and relocation could not be fulfilled," the insurers, which were providing credit guarantees for the German, Austrian and Swiss suppliers, said in a joint statement.

You can read the full article here.

Environment minister, Veysel Eroglu, said a few days ago that work on Ilisu would continue even without foreign backing, but it's not clear if Turkey has the financial or technical resources to build a dam like this. This latest news may not mean the end of the Ilisu project, but it certainly will delay its construction in a meaningful way.

For more background about the Ilisu dam project and the wider issue of water management in the southeast, take a look at this article I wrote last year for Eurasianet.

(Photo -- A view of the historic town of Hasankeyf, which would be flooded if the controversial Ilisu dam were to be built. By Yigal Schleifer)

Borderline Nationalism, Cont.

The question of who will clear the hundreds of thousands of mines along Turkey's border with Syria continues to roil the country, with several newspapers running front page stories on the issue in the last few days. 

First, some clarification regarding my previous post on the issue. My problem with the debate on the demining issue is not that the opposition is questioning the details of the legislation that the Turkish government is trying to pass in parliament, which would allow foreign companies to bid on a contract that would allow them to clear the mines and then get a 44-year lease on the cleared area and use it for agricultural purposes (organic farming, supposedly). I wish they were questioning the specifics of the legislation, since -- like so many other bills that have been approved by parliament in recent years -- it contains some serious flaws. 

[UPDATE -- Hurriyet is now reporting that bill has been withdrawn from debate and sent back to commission.]

What disturbs about the way the issue is being discussed, both by opposition politicians and in the parts of the press, is the nationalist tone that's being used. Here's what Deniz Baykal, leader of the main opposition Republican Peoples' Party (CHP) had to say in parliament the other day: "It does not suit Turkey to allow a foreign company to clear its mines." Similar stuff comes from Devlet Bahceli, head of the hardline Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), who had this to say recently: “We don't object to clearing borders of mines or opening demined territories to agriculture. What we are objecting to is the government's insistence on granting foreign companies the right to open these territories to agriculture.”

Lurking beneath what both are saying is the fact that Israeli companies are expected to bid on the tender to clear the mines (and stand a good chance of winning the job). Writing in the daily Aksam, columnist Husnu Mahalli had this to say on the Israeli angle:

No matter what kind of precautions Turkey takes, Israelis who are equipped with the latest technological means may share all the information regarding Turkey's security during the time they work in the region and they may engage in dangerous acts. The Israelis, who will possibly come from a military background, will collect information for Mossad and perform special studies not only on Turkey, but also Syria, Iran, Iraq and the Kurds. We should not forget the fact that the Israeli state commissions nearly all of its citizens who go abroad, including Israeli tourists, with special tasks. So the Israelis who will be working along the Turkish-Syrian border will first lead to damage in Turkish-Syrian relations.

As far as I can tell, the "special tasks" the Israeli state commissions its citizens with doing while abroad is to shop like crazy, but it seems like Mahalli is worried about other, more nefarious things. That a column like this appears in a mainstream, mass-circulation daily certainly raises a host of troubling questions.

Prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has certainly done his part to stir up anti-Israel sentiment in Turkey, is now playing the role of fireman, telling the opposition to cool it. "It is easy to say 'you are selling our land to Israel', but do not forget that it is Turkish people who will be working for the company responsible for the project," he said a few days ago. President Abdullah Gul has also stepped into the debate, warning against "taking the issue to extreme points." It might be too late for that.

Jail the Children, Pt. II

In a previous post, I linked to a report that talked about the problem of minors being jailed as part of strict new anti-terrorism laws passed by the Turkish parliament in 2006. I recently went down to southeast Turkey to do some reporting on this issue and filed a story which was just posted on the Christian Science Monitor's website. From my article:

Hebun is one of hundreds of minors, some as young as 13, who have been arrested and jailed in Turkey over the past few years under strict new antiterrorism laws that allow for juveniles to be tried as adults and even be accused of "committing crimes in the name of a terrorist organization" for participating in demonstrations. Critics and rights defenders say the amended antiterrorism laws are deeply flawed and also violate international conventions on the detention of children.

"There is a lack of proportionality between the crime and the sentence," says Emma Sinclair-Webb, Turkey researcher for the New York-based watchdog group Human Rights Watch. "Counting what these children do, such as throwing stones or damaging property, as a terrorism offense is a problem."

"You are subject to a court system that doesn't see you as a child," adds Ms. Sinclair-Webb.

As part of its European Union membership drive, Turkey has updated its penal code to more closely reflect European and international standards. But observers say the country took a step backward with a 2006 amendment to the country's antiterror law that made it possible to try minors between the ages of 15 and 18 as adults when the crime is deemed to involve terrorism.

That same year, Turkey's Supreme Court of Appeals ruled that children taking part in demonstrations supported by the PKK could be charged with aiding or acting in the name of the organization.

According to Turkish officials, 1,572 minors were prosecuted under the antiterror law and 174 of them were convicted during 2006 and 2007. Hundreds more court cases against minors have been launched since then.

"The court's decision is very dangerous for the rule of law and for individual freedoms," says Tahir Elci, a Diyarbakir lawyer who is defending several of the jailed children. "According to the high court's decision, prosecutors don't need evidence to claim that somebody committed crimes on behalf of the PKK. Just participating in a demonstration is evidence enough.

"We accept that these kids may have thrown stones, but they didn't do it in the name of the PKK," he adds. "They are children...."

....Turkish prosecutors have defended the heavy sentences given to the children arrested in protests, saying they are a response to an effort by the PKK to mobilize Kurdish youth against the state.

But Sinclair-Webb, of Human Rights Watch, says that sending children off to jail could backfire.

"It's a very hardening process for children and psychologically very damaging," she says. "If you go in as a child who was just having a lark throwing some stones, you may come out as a full-fledged militant.

"If you are trying to win hearts and minds and get people to not join the PKK, this is not the way to do it," she adds.

One teenager, imprisoned for 13 months after participating in a demonstration and now out on bail while he awaits trial, says he was "changed" by his experience in jail.

"I became more aware," says the 16-year-old boy, who asked not to be named because of his upcoming court case, where he could face seven years in prison if convicted.

"The things I learned in prison about myself, about the Kurds, about the PKK, it was like an awakening."

You can read the full article here.

Borderline Nationalism

A proposal to clear the multitude of mines along the Turkey-Syria border has become a political minefield for the Turkish government and has given its opponents a chance to flex their nationalist muscles. 

Turkey has a serious mine problem; there are an estimated 600,000 anti-personnel mines buried along the border with Syria, and another 300,000 in other areas. After signing the 2003 Ottawa Convention on the destruction of anti-personnel mines (APM's), Turkey pledged to destroy its mines by 2014. Although the Turkish military had initially started doing some of this work already before 2003, it was determined that it lacks the equipment and expertise to finish the job. One solution, proposed by the government, was to subcontract the work to a private company that specializes in mine clearing. The proposal has a kind of beating mines into plowshares angle, with the subcontractor also getting a 44-year lease on the land to use it for organic farming.

But the possible involvement of foreign companies -- particularly Israeli ones -- in the project has complicated things. From a new report by the Jamestown Foundation:

The plan to sub-contract the clean-up project to private companies has long been featured on the government's agenda. The MHP and CHP opposition parties expressed concern that foreign companies, especially Israeli firms, might become involved in the project. An earlier tender was canceled by the council of state owing to such objections. The government has delayed parliamentary discussions on a revised bill, which is intended to provide a more solid legal framework to conduct the project (www.rotahaber.com, March 17, 2008). Since it has also come under increasing pressure to meet the deadline set by the Ottawa Convention, the bill was finally presented to parliament last week, prompting heated discussion.

The opposition parties raised several objections. They claimed that allowing foreign companies to operate on Turkey's borders might pose a threat to its national security. Consequently, they demanded that the TSK should be given the sole responsibility for mine-clearing. Moreover, they alleged that the TSK also harbored reservations over the bill. In their defense, government officials referred to "classified" correspondence with the TSK in which the latter expressed a preference for sub-contracting to private companies. Equally, they noted the military's concerns had been incorporated into the draft bill. According to the government, land required for ensuring border security will not be leased to the contractor (Anadolu Ajansi, May 14). However, those statements failed to satisfy the opposition, who argued that the government had misled the public. One CHP representative invited the TSK to issue a statement clarifying its stance on the bill. He also called for its withdrawal, saying that if approved in parliament, the party will refer the issue to the constitutional court (Anadolu Ajansi, May 18).

Moreover, some opposition deputies claimed that the wording within the bill indicates it was drafted to favor awarding the tender to Israeli companies. They alleged that this proved the hypocrisy of the AKP's foreign policy, given Erdogan's earlier anti-Israeli rhetoric (ANKA, May 16)....

....Moreover, given the continued controversy over the possible involvement of Israeli firms, the conservative press favoring the AKP has also joined the rising criticism of the bill (Yeni Safak, May 20). Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan held a hastily convened closed door meeting to allay the concerns of the AKP deputies. In a bid to reassure them that bill adequately protected Turkish national interests, Erdogan allegedly claimed that "the controversy was a product of the opposition parties, trying to wear us down through their unfair accusations" (Hurriyet Daily News, May 20).

You can read the full report here. Speaking to Today's Zaman, Mehmet Günal, a MHP MP from Antalya had this to say on the subject:

"Awarding the contract to a foreign company will threaten our national security. Demining is a matter of national security, not of agriculture," he said. Günal underlined that the problem was that the tenders for demining and for agriculture were to be simultaneously held.

"We suggest that agricultural use of such a big and strategic stretch of land should not be merged with the mine-clearing tender. If such merging is made, we see that Israeli companies are being described. It would be a big thing for the Turkish-Syrian border to be controlled by Israel for a period of 44 years. We have identified that out of 14 applicants, seven have ties with Israel. Three more have indirect connections with Israel. If demining is merged with agriculture, there is no other company to do this besides the Israel companies," he said. 

You can read the rest of the Today's Zaman article, which has some very good background on this story, here.

Ultimately, it seems like the demining issue has become hostage to a combination of nationalist reflexes and the ongoing power struggle between the AKP government and its opponents. "It’s turned into a mess, simply because of a kind of anachronistic, nationalistic approach," one Ankara-based analyst I spoke with told me. "They are diverting attention from the real problem of mines in the southeast."

(Photo from Today's Zaman)

After Massacre, Village Guards Under Fire

The fallout continues from last week's massacre in southeast Turkey, in which 44 people were killed at an engagement ceremony in a small village near the city of Mardin. Perhaps the most significant debate about the the event has revolved around the involvement of "village guards" -- members of govnernment-sponsored, paramilitary force created to fight the PKK -- in the attack. As mentioned in the previous post, the village guard system has long been criticized by human rights groups, who say it has created a violent division in Kurdish society and has allowed militia members to use their power to settle scores, expropriate land and engage in criminal behavior. Both sanctioned by law and above the law, the village guards -- armed and funded by the state -- operate with little supervision or accountability.

In the wake of the attack, there has been call for reforming or even eliminating the village guard system. Both will be difficult to do. According to government figures, there are more than 50,000 village guards on the state's payroll. In a certain respect, the system is a kind of public works project in the impoverished southeast. Meanwhile, decommissioning a force this large -- as well as then protecting them from revenge attacks -- seems like an almost impossible task, although one that will have to be part of any comprehensive solution to Turkey's ongoing Kurdish problem.

The Jamestown Foundation has a good roundup about the new debate over the village guard issue. From the report:

Village guards, numbering around 90,000 at the height of the PKK's campaign, are currently around 58,000-strong. Although the system began as a temporary measure, it has become an integral part of Turkey's security apparatus. The guards, however, have frequently been criticized for their alleged involvement in criminal activities or human rights abuses. According to Interior Ministry records, village guards were the target of over 5,200 criminal investigations and as a result 853 guards were arrested for various crimes (Cihan Haber Ajansi, May 8). A recent report released by the Human Rights Association revealed that between January 1992 and March 2009 village guards committed various human rights violations, including forced evacuation, burning villages, kidnapping and rape. In the last seven years guards have killed 51 people and wounded 83 (ANKA, May 9)....

....A spokesman for the Turkish military, Brigadier-General Metin Gurak defended the village guards during his weekly press briefing. He said that it would be unwise to hold the entire institution responsible (Milliyet, May 8). Interior Minister Atalay supported this view and defended the village guards. Though noting that the government will take into account the criticism of the guards, Atalay added that the dissolution of this institution was not on the agenda (www.cnnturk.com, May 9).

The deputy prime minister and government spokesman Cemil Cicek, also supported the system, arguing that it had emerged out of necessity and these conditions remained. Cicek added: "It is necessary to avoid hasty conclusions. If some of them are involved in wrongdoing, then necessary action will be undertaken... It is wrong to attack the entire institution, because of the recent incident" (www.ntvmsnbc.com, May 10).

The debate on the village guard system is likely to continue and the opponents of Turkey's anti-terrorism policy will repeat their demands for its dissolution. However, many security experts regard it as a necessary counter-terrorist tool and argue that Turkey will need this institution as long as the PKK remains active. Since the government and the Turkish military appear to share this view, and PKK terrorism is unlikely to end soon, a partial reform of this system may be more realistic rather than its complete dissolution.

You can read the full article here.

Behind a Massacre, Ancient Traditions and Volatile Politics

I filed a report today from the small Kurdish village that was the scene of a massacre Monday where 44 people were killed. In the massacre, a group of masked gunmen raided a home where an engagement party was taking place. The horrifying attack, although blamed on a decades-long family feud, is also very much connected to the southeast region's troubled politics. From my report:

An attack by masked gunmen on an engagement party in a small village in southeast Turkey, which resulted in the deaths of 44 people, is being seen as a reflection of both the troubled region's ancient traditions and volatile modern politics.

According to locals in Bilge, a village that sits on a small hilltop about 12 miles from the city of Mardin, there was a decades-long dispute between the attackers' family and the family of the would-be groom. The semi-official Anatolia news agency reported that the masked attackers had wanted the bride-to-be to marry one among their own group of friends or relatives, but that her family would not allow it….

"….Honor is very important in this region, and it's very difficult to change the traditions that deal with honor. They are a very strong part of this society," says Mazhar Bagli, a professor of sociology at Dicle University in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir.

Experts believe dozens are killed each year in "blood feuds" in rural Turkey. Efforts to stop the feuds' violence have been limited, mostly left to individuals such as Sait Sanli, a former butcher in Diyarbakir who helps broker peace treaties between warring families.

But Professor Bagli says the fact that the families involved were part of the "Village Guards," a well-armed militia set up by the Turkish government in the 1980s to fight the rebels of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), meant something more than tradition was to blame for the massacre.

Observers have long criticized the "Village Guard" program, saying it created a violent division in Kurdish society and allowed militia members to use their power to settle scores and even expropriate land.

"[The village guard system] has changed the balance of the society here," Bagli says.

"The problems created by the political situation and the traditions – I think both of them are part of this crime…."

….In Bilge, tractors were busy digging graves in the small cemetery near the entrance to the village. Inside the village, relatives of the murdered individuals and residents of nearby villages gathered near the one-storey house where the killings took. Inside the house, bullet holes riddled the walls.

"This comes from ignorance, nothing else. What's the reason for coming to this point and killing so many people?" said one relative who lives in a neighboring village and who asked not to be named. "How can life come back to normal here?"

You can read the whole article here. Also, take a look at this article from last year if you want to read more about Sait Sanli, the Diyarbakir-based peacemaker.

(Photo - Graves being dug at the cemetery at the entrance to Bilge village, the day after a massacre of 44 people in the village. By Yigal Schleifer)