The death sentence on Abdullah Ocalan fell, to no one’s surprise, on Tuesday 29 June 1999, after only 9 hearings. Turgut Okyay, the President of the Ankara State Security Court sitting on the island prison of Imrali, declared the leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) guilty of having "created an armed terrorist organisation and ordered acts that made thousands of innocent victims" with the aim of "separating a part of the territory under the sovereignty of Turkey so as to create a so-called Kurdish State". Abdullah Ocalan, in his final statement, stated that "I refuse to be described as a traitor. I did not fight to divide the country but to live in a democratic country".
The Court of three judges unanimously reached this decision and rejected any attenuating circumstances that might have allowed it to commute the sentence to life imprisonment. The sentence must be confirmed by the Turkish Court of Appeals, then the decision moves on to the political sphere, since the last word lies with Parliament that has to ratify death sentences. Several weeks, or even months, will be needed to go through this procedure. But Ocalan’s lawyers have also announced that they intend to appeal to the European Human Rights Court - however such an appeal would have no power to suspend the sentence.
Although no death sentences have been carried out in Turkey since 1984, most observers think that Ocalan’s case could be an exception to the rule. The staging, by the police, and the lavish coverage by the media, of the spectacular demonstrations of the "families of victims of the PKK" are all aimed at preparing people’s minds for Ocalan’s hanging. The former Turkish President, General Evren, in an interview given to the daily paper Hurriyet, said he was ready to act as hangman and put the rope round Ocalan’s neck himself. Another influential military chief, General Fusunoglu, head of the Army, demanded that, "for humanitarian reasons, the hanging take place very quickly". As soon as the sentence was announced, a great number of European Countries called on Turkey not to execute him. The Council of Europe has already threatened to expel Turkey from its ranks if the Kurdish chief is hanged. Europe as a whole has appealed to Ankara for clemency. The European Union, through its current Presidency, Germany, declared "we simply say : if Turkey wants to enter into Europe, it must come closer to prevailing criteria". In a statement made public at the Rio economic summit, the Heads of State and Governments of the Union condemned the verdict and reminded Turkey that capital punishment is not one of the "shared values" of Europe. Jacques Chirac stated that "France, like the European countries and many others, hopes that the death sentence will not be carried out and that it be commuted to some other punishment". The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, considered the sentence "worrying" given the doubts weighing on the equitable character of the trial. "Certain aspects of the legal procedure (…) deviated from international standards" she stated.
However, the United States took care not to criticise Ankara "We have long though Ocalan was an international terrorist who should be brought to trial" stated Joe Lockhart, the White House spokesman.
In the past, the Turkish regime has always ignored international protests, at the risk of a temporary diplomatic crisis – in 1961 it hanged the democratically elected Prime Minister, Menderes, and two of his Ministers.
Abdullah Ocalan’s trial began on 31 May at 10 am, in a specially arranged hall of the Imrali island prison, before the Ankara State Security Court which, for the occasion, moved to the site.
Of the 800 or so journalists and observers attending the trial, only twenty (12 Turks and 8 foreign) were allowed into the courtroom. The others were obliged to wait at the little beach resort town of Mudanya, about 25 Kms from the island and content themselves with selected pictures broadcast by the Turkish State television channel, TRT.
The lawyers, who had received death threats and been subjected to physical violence at the hands of the police (on the 30 April, six of them were beaten up by police officers appointed to protect them, and had to receive hospital treatment) and, on no occasion, had been able to meet their client in private or to hand him any of the charge documents on his case, had threatened to withdraw from the case so as not to legitimise a caricature of justice. At the request of Ocalan, who they were able to meet on 27 May, and of the government’s emissaries, who had let them think that the postponement they had asked for might be favourably considered, they decided to attend. However the judges, by rejecting any postponement from the start of the hearings, showed how little importance they attached to the opinion of the civilian government, and that, in accordance with the Army’s wishes, they would push ahead with this trial as planned with the object of killing Ocalan, physically and politically, and dissuading the Kurds from any form of protest about their condition. The two principal lawyers, in particular Mr. Kaplan, have decided to withdraw from the case so as "not to legitimise a caricature of justice before a Court whose legality is contested and in the face of massive and crude violations of the right of defense which constitute serious attacks on the honour and dignity of the legal profession".
In an initial statement made on the first day of the trial by the PKK chief, enclosed in a glass cage, he said in particular "I would like to state that I have been subjected to no sort of pressure and have suffered no ill treatment since my capture (...) I would like to live for peace and fraternity. I call for an end to the armed struggle. The PKK must no longer oppose the democratic Turkish state... The Kurdish and Turkish peoples must no longer confront one another. I want to end all this. I have reached the point where I understand, even though too late, that my life can have a meaning for Turkey (...) Let this revolt be the last rebellion of the Kurdish people in Turkey (...) I fully recognise my responsibility for all the actions with which I am charged, the opposite would be useless". Abdullah Ocalan also added: " I would like to address myself to the respectable families of the martyrs and tell them that I share their sorrow".
In a written plea, extensive extracts from which have been published by the press, A. Ocalan declares himself in favour of "the union and democratic cohabitation of the Turkish and, Kurdish peoples within the. Republic" Thus requires the refoundation of the Republic so as to allow the recognition of the Kurds’ cultural and linguistic rights as well as the possibility of their having their own political parties to defend their demands in a democratic framework. In exchange for such a peace solution, Ocalan promises to bring his supporters down from the mountains within 3 months and to put an end, once and for all, to the long period of Kurdish armed revolts. The Armed Forces General Staff, in a communiqué published on 7 June, categorically rejected this peace offer because "the State can never negotiate with terrorists". Here are some extracts from Ocalan’s plea:
"Over and above a clear rebuttal of the charges brought by the Public Prosecutor, the basis of my defense rests on the Kurdish question, that I consider much more important, and on the means of moving on from the latest Kurdish insurrection, led by the PKK, to a historic agreement and to the possibility of a solution. I have tried to expose the chances of a peaceful solution to this insurrection which can be understood as a medium intensity war. To tell the truth 1 had first tried to adopt this line of conduct at the request of President Ozal. On 15 March 1993 1 had declared the following at a press conference: "Our approach is not one of immediate separation from Turkey. We are realistic about this. This orientation must not be understood as simply a tactical one. It rests on many points. Those who understand the historic, political and economic situation of the two peoples agree in saying that there will be no split ( ... ).As I explained on a number of reports, we want a rearrangement in the relations between these peoples. The present situation spills the blood of Turks and Kurds and destroys their property".
In replying in this way to the charges made by the Public Prosecutor, I have tried, not only to in my own name but in that of the PKK. of which 1 am the leader, and in the name of a people that has revolted, to expose the problems. However much the charges may be based on documents, I have presented the existence of problems and reasons that require all our efforts for a solution. In the course of the revolt there may have been faults and mistakes on both sides. And 1 have shown the useless mistakes and cruelty of most of the operations ( .. ) In all peoples there is cruelty and oppression but our greatest consolation is to deliver the Republic from these evils ( ... ) That is why I say that this trial should be the occasion for a sacred peace pact. The debt towards the Republic can only be paid by the democratic union of our peoples (...) The Republic cannot be based on the servitude and negation (…)
Democratic union is a new historic march for the Republic. Even if the prosecution, basing itself on the first programme of our party and my various speeches, has concluded that it is the demand for a new State and translated my remarks "everything for independence and freedom " in this sense, I can say that, as one of the most important leaders of this historic experiment, 1 have tried, in my defense, to show that my aim is to advance towards Democratic Union. Even if I do not have, in my possession, the texts of the speeches 1 have made, 1 have specified, in the course of my unilateral cease-fires and in my indirect dialogues, that the conditions for independence and freedom, both individual and popular, could only be achieved in Turkey taken as a whole and with the democratisation of the Republic.
In a scientific approach, to argue for a the demand of a state cannot be realistic for the Kurdish people, hemmed in by four hostile neighbours, set in a mountainous geography divided as much economically and socially but also culturally and politically, inheriting a heavy burden of feudal values, not even yet having its own alphabet, and the majority of whose population work away, in great metropolitan cities. Moreover, the historic experience of the last two centuries, and finally of the PKK’s revolt have proved that an armed ‘solution’ with a view to dividing the land can only aggravate the situation. These means will place the two parties in difficulty and they will be faced with great sufferings and damage. This being the case, there will be no division, but the problem will not cease to exist for all that. The illness will continue and get worse, it cannot be cured by eliminating the patient nor can it be the subject of a partial treatment that leaves out the fundamental element, that is the State.
The most important consequence is that., historically, this is, or will be, the end of the period of revolts ( ... ) In a democratic republic system’ there can be no place for violence. The language used to express problems cannot be that of revolt or even of revolution, but in times of peace it is a constitutional evolution that is called for. That is what this end of the 20th Century requires (…)
In this framework, it behoves our people of the East to conduct its profound aspiration to a democratisation of the State in a new democratic unity (…) This is the road to reform that will progress, little by little but, in the end, will be a step forward. We must build and develop our democracy together.
Recognising as heroes all the martyrs who have worked for the creation and protection of the Republic, celebrating with respect and gratitude its founder, saluting its flag with pride is a principle (…) We really want to do this: we want to overcome the enormous backwardness, the naiveté, the servitude of the East for improvement, progress and freedom. But note this paradox, that today we are being tried (..)for the greatest crime against the Republic. It is a misfortune, not an expression of our essence (…)
Men can, if need be, draw lessons from the misunderstandings and mistakes of the past and attain the truth. In any case, history and society often advance in this way. Only Allah can advance on the straight road without sin. The prophets themselves have admitted that they were not immune to error and faults. We and 1 have committed faults. This has caused much suffering. I have tried, above all, to express this in the course of my deposition (…)
If we had been brought up and educated in a democratic context, would there have been such a revolt? One must expect this from a man whose very identity is denied (...) I would like to insist on just this point: if I fear to recognise myself, how could I recognise the Republic and its whole legislative system; how could I be a man of my time? The popular reality in which I live is that. Moreover, the great majority are not Turkised (i.e.; do not speak Turkish) – one cannot say that their fault. On the other hand it also shows that the system is not modern and that it cannot be imposed by force. Thus the mistakes have mutually multiplied and the cruel verdict con be read in the course of this last revolt.
All my efforts are concentrated on finding a solution to this question without ever having recourse to the language of arms (...)
This trial should be the most important hearing for peace in the history of the Republic ( .. ) We are forcibly showing that without peace, an honourable and just life has no sense, neither inside or outside the country, and this fact had been first of all proclaimed by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk: ‘peace in the country and peace in the world’. We believe that the Republic that he founded can only lead to peace in a democratic framework and that this is the greatest service that can be rendered to regional and world peace."
On a resolution adopted on 9 June 1999, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, for the first time censured Turkey "for repeated and serious violations" of Human Rights committed by the Security Forces in Kurdistan A member of the Council from its creation, Turkey has regularly been on the Council’s agenda, and that of its legal arm, the European Court for Human Rights, which has condemned it on a number of occasions, while dozens of petitions against Turkey by Kurds are under investigation by the Court. Furthermore, the Committee remarked that there had been "no significant improvement" and enjoined the Turkish authorities to take measures. in an "urgent" manner to stop the acts of torture, destruction, extra-legal executions and disappearances.
To date the European Court for Human Rights has had 9,979 cases involving Turkey put before it . The President of the European Council of Ministers, Halldor Asgrimsson, has called on Turkey to act upon the Court’s decisions, reminding it that the latter has enforcement authority. "Turkey must also honour its responsibilities" declared Mr Asgrimsson. Unlike other countries, nearly every one of the pleas accusing Turkey had a political basis; inequitable trial, violation of freedom of thought, of association, of the right to life, personal insecurity and torture. Ankara has already been sentenced to millions of dollars (fines and compensation) and the only concession it has made to date has been the demilitarisation of the State Security Courts, which makes no fundamental change to the question since Turkish freedom-killing laws remain and have not changed.
On an article published on 19 June 1999, Orhan Tokatli, a journalist on the Turkish daily Milliyet, gave an account of a meeting of the Council of Ministers on 22 February 1991, presided over by Turgut Ozal, to discuss a Bill to authorise the use of the Kurdish language in Turkey. President Ozal, who had initiated the project, "guaranteed that the multiplica-tion of Turkish language TV broadcasts would make people forget the Kurdish language". When a Minister, Cemil Ciçek, replied that "there are only Turks in Turkey", Turgut Ozal retorted "Look at yourselves! You are all different. Who amongst you can really claim that he originates from Central Asia? Who here has slanting eyes?"
Convinced that the teaching of Turkish at school and the influence of television in Turkish would overcome the Kurdish language, President Ozal argued thus: "We must not be afraid of liberalising Kurdish. In anycase it is spoken. Also, do not forget the influence of television. It exerts an enormous pressure. Kurdish will soon be forgotten. Moreover, because of its different dialects, even the Kurds cannot understand one another using a single language ( they use Turkish. Abdullah Ocalan himself uses Turkish for his propaganda because of these differences." When some protested by maintaining that Kurdish was not a language, T. Ozal stated "What is important is that the ban be lifted. You only need to write ‘language and dialects’ into the Bill (...) The new generation speaks Turkish. After a while, Kurdish will be forgotten."
In the end, no decision was taken at this stormy meeting. Later, Turgut Ozal, in hospital in Houston, decided to ask an eminent Kurdish writer, Yasar Kemal, to draw up a report on the Kurdish question. The next day, Yasar Kemal sent him a hand written report. The Kurds should be authorised to speak their language in private, but the Kurdish language would still be banned in government, teaching and news.
The formation, on 28 May, of the coalition government uniting the neo-fascist National Action Party (MHP) and the ‘Democratic Left Party’ (DSP – an ultra-nationalist "left" party) with the Conservative Motherland Party (ANAP) confirms the nationalist regression of a Turkey clinging to its past myths and to a hard line Kemalism.
The MHP has as many Ministerial posts (12, including those of Deputy Prime Minister and Defence) as Prime Minister Ecevit’s DSP, which retains the "sensitive" Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Justice and National Education, so as to give the government a more respectable image abroad. The ANAP holds 10 portfolios, including those of Ministry of the Interior and Finance, so as to reassure business circles. This party had also, earlier, won the post of Speaker of the National Assembly, by securing the election of its candidate, Yilderim Akbulut, by 332 votes to 191, on May 10. Mr. Ecevit demonstrated his "resistance" by ensuring that this symbolic and strategic position was finally held by a less extremist personality.
Presented by the Turkish media as "one of the strongest coalitions in Turkish history", this cabinet, result of a "historic compromise", claims to define its work on a long term basis, over the next five years. Having a comfortable majority, it should receive Parliament’s endorsement in the course of the week. Apart from an Nth law on ‘repentants’, the coalition programme envisages no measure to find a solution to the Kurdish problem in Turkey. A circular, dated 26 April 1999, that the daily paper Milliyet published in its issue of 20 May 1999, demands that the media cease to use the word Kurd even for describing those of Iraq, whose leaders must henceforth be described as "tribal leaders of Northern Iraq". A return to the ideological ‘Ice Age’ of the 1930s is apparently well under way.
Feridun Celik, the Kurdish mayor of Diyarbekir, who comes from the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HADEP) and was elected with 65% of the votes on 18 April 1999, is being prosecuted before the Ankara State Security Court for having stated that there was a state of war in Kurdistan. In his charge sheet, the Public Prosecutor, Dilaver Kahveci, accuses him of having stated, in the course of an interview in the Kurdish Med-TV station, "we have arrived here by renouncing war. We have reached this point with joy in order to advance the cause of peace and give it a voice. Slogans in favour of peace arouse great exultation amongst the people". The Prosecutor accuses Feridun Celik of "having maintained that there was a war on in South East Turkey" and demands, on these grounds and basing himself on Article 169 of the Turkish Penal Code and Article 5 of Law 3713 (The Anti-Terrorist Act), between 4.5 and 7.5 years imprisonment. Two months before the April General Elections, Feridun Celik, then President of the Diyarbekir Province organisation of HADEP, was thrown into jail by the Turkish Security Forces. Having failed to stifle HADEP in the womb politically, the Turkish authorities are continuing to hound this pro-Kurdish organisation by every possible means, even though Mr. Celik, like other Kurdish mayors, has chosen a more flexible approach, trying to "open communication channels" with the Turkish authorities.
Otherwise, a telegram of solidarity sent, on 4 May 1998, to the Ankara District Congress of the HADEP party may earn Leyla Zana and her fellow Kurdish M.P.s (who, since March 1994, have been serving a 15 year jail sentence for crimes of opinion) further legal proceedings before the Ankara State Security Court.
On May 24, in the course of a hearing held in the absence of the accused, the Public Prosecutor demanded five years imprisonment for Leyla Zana, Hatip Dicle, Orhan Dogan and Selim Sadak, accused of separatist propaganda in the short telegrammed message they had sent to the Congress.
The Public Prosecutor also called for sentences of 3 to 5 years against 5 musicians of the Mezopotamya group, accused of having sung in Kurdish during a cultural evening event organised at the end of the Congress. The musicians and an organiser have been arrested and locked up. Their trial has been postponed to a later date.
It should also be mentioned that on 3 June 1999, Akin Birdal, President of the Turkish Association for Human Rights (IHD) and Vice-President of the Fédération Internationale des droits de l’homme (FIDH – International Federation for Human Rights) was incarcerated in the Ankara Central Prison to serve a 10 months jail sentence. Mr. Birdal was sentenced by the Ankara State Security Court for the speeches he made at the "World Peace Day" organised on 1 September 1996. Accompanied to the prison by his family and officers of several humanitarian organisations, he declared: "we are being told to act like the three wise monkeys".
The machinery of repression is now reaching out to popular singing stars. Prosecuted for "separatist propaganda", the trial of Ahmet Kaya, singer of "genuine music", who faces 13.5 years jail, was resumed before the Istanbul State Security Court on 16 June 1999. The charge, drawn up by the Public Prosecutor’s office, shows that the proceedings were ordered following two speeches by Ahmet Kaya, one in Germany, in Berlin in 1993 in the course of a concert, and the other on 10 February 1999, on the occasion of a ceremony organised at the Maslak Princess Hotel by the Magazine Journalists Association to award him a prize. On the basis of Article 169 of the Turkish Penal Code and Article 5 of Law 3713 (The Anti-Terrorist Act), the prosecution demands 4.5 to 7.5 years imprisonment for "supporting an illegal organisation" and 2 to 6 years jail for "incitement to hatred by mentioning religious, linguistic or ethnic differences" under Article 312 of the Turkish Penal Code.
The 1999 Noureddine Zaza Prize (the 10th since 1989) was awarded to Ragip Duran, correspondent of the French daily Libération in Turkey.
Jointly created in 1989 by Noureddine Zaza’s family and the Kurdish Institute of Paris, "in order to encourage journalists not to forget this people so ignored by history", the prize is awarded every year to a journalist of the French language press who, by his talent and perseverance has made public opinion aware of the Kurdish cause.
It also has the aim of perpetuating the memory of Noureddine Zaza, writer, political figure and co-founder of the Paris Kurdish Institute, who has outlined his struggle in Ma vie de Kurde (‘My life as a Kurd’; pub. Ed. Labor et Fides). After Antoine Bosshard of the Journal de Genève, Bernard Langlois of Politis, Marc Kravetz of Libération, Jean Gueyras of Le Monde, Jean-Claude Bührer, of Coopération, Chris Kutchera, a free-lance journalist and author of several books on the Kurds, Alain Campiotti, of l’Hebdo, Phillipe Dumartheray of 24 Heures and Michel Verrier of Le Monde Diplomatique, it was the turn of Ragip Duran, a Turkish newspaper columnist, writer, Turkish correspondent of Libération (under the pseudonym of Musa Akdemir), who had just spent 7.5 months in a Turkish jail for his courageous reporting of the war in Kurdistan, to be honoured by the 1999 Noureddine Zaza Prize.
The ceremony took place in Paris, at the Forum des Images, in the course of an evening event, jointly organised by the SCAM (Société civile des auteurs multimedia) and the Kurdish Institute of Paris, and attended by several hundred guests.
It was Mrs. Gilberte Favre-Zaza who handed the Prize to Ragip Duran. The following are extracts from her speech:
"The chain of friendship encircles the world" these words are those of Claude Roy, humanist-writer, attentive to the songs of birds and the breath of the world. He, who was of Eluard and Nazim Hikmet, departed this life 18 months ago. He was one of those who denounced violations of Human Rights wherever they might occur on our planet.
He felt a sympathy for the Kurds mingled with admiration. "To be is a difficult enough task" he once wrote to me "but to be a Kurd is even more so".
Dear Ragip Duran, I have come to give you the Noureddine Zaza Prize from Switzerland, where coexist harmoniously no less than four different languages – German, French, Italian and Romanch (…)
I am not unaware of the realities of your country, and I know how much it costs those who contradict the official ideology, that anachronism called Kemalism.
You could, like most of your professional colleagues, have let yourself be anaesthetized by government propaganda, but you had the courage to refuse to remain silent. As Noureddine Zaza said: silence can kill. Indeed, he himself only escaped death in Damascus, where he had founded the DPSK, thanks to international petitions.
So you did not keep silent – and for that you spent seven and a half months in prison. I can imagine those seven times thirty days and nights… Having shared 17 years of my life with Noureddine Zaza, I have some small idea of what the hell of imprisonment can mean.
Over twenty years after the tortures he had suffered in the Syrian jails, my husband still suffered the consequences. There were pains in the shoulder, caused by the 100 strokes of the bull-sinew lash, there were the recurrent nightmares in which the Syrian prison torturer would reappear shouting "Well, you dirty Kurd, haven’t you yet become an Arab, after all this time?". No, nor a Turk either.
Dear Ragip Duran, I learnt a lot with Noureddine Zaza. I learnt how to rub shoulders with pain, to live with the infinite, interminable, Kurdish adversity. As a reminder, some of the landmarks of his life:
- Noureddine was only 3 years old when his nights, till then lulled by the folk tales told him by his mother or others, were shattered by the screams of Kurds being tortured in the neighbourhood, in Mardin.
- He was 5 and a half years old when his father and elder brother, Nafez, were imprisoned on the charge of Kurdish nationalism.
-He was 10 years old when he had to leave Turkish Kurdistan, tear himself away from his family and take the bitter road of exile to Syria. At the time it was said "There’s no future for Kurds in Turkey".
- He was dying of cancer in Lausanne when the pictures of Halabja were shown on the screen. Halabja, where 5,000 civilians were gassed while the world kept silent and looked away.
- Today, ten years after his death, my husband’s autobiography, which has been translated into Turkish, is still banned in Turkey.
"What have we done to offend God" this Kurdish family man asked "to earn Saddam’s bombs in the South and those of Turkey in the North? How come it that, at a time when Man can go to the Moon, no one in the world gives us a thought? Aren’t we Kurds also human beings?"
You will not hold it against me if, ten years after my husband’s death, half my heart is still Kurdish, even though open to all other forms of distress.
By sharing those years with Noureddine Zaza I can bear witness to his complete lack of resentment towards those who had made him and his people suffer. In fact, Noureddine Zaza felt solidarity with all human suffering: Cambodians, Jews, Armenians, Palestinians…
"So long as humanity continues to be trampled underfoot more or less everywhere throughout the world, we cannot really dream of better days" he wrote as conclusion to his autobiography…
When you return to Turkey, thank your country’s democrats for us. As for the others, tell them that Turks and Kurds, Asians and Europeans, we are all parts of the same people – that of humanity.
Tell them that violence is always suicidal.
Tell them that if we want to survive we have no other choice – we are condemned to peace. And peace is built by dialogue.
Tell them that we have had enough of misfortune and sorrow. That there are Kurdish mothers in jail (I’m thinking of Leyla Zana) who want to see their children growing up. And there are children who want to kiss their fathers.
You are the first Turkish journalist to receive the Noureddine Zaza Prize. I very sincerely hope that you will not be the last.
"Men will carry Mankind from evil times to better days" your compatriot Nazism Hikmet wrote. With him, with you, despite all the rest, we remain confident of the future of humanity and that of the Kurdish people.
Extracts from the speech of the prize winner, R. Duran:
It is only a little more than a hundred years ago that the first Kurdish paper, called, significantly "Kurdistan", appeared – unfortunately not in Kurdistan but in Cairo. Mikhdat Bedirhan, founder, owner, publisher, columnist, manager, book-keeper and distributor of this paper had finally achieved at least the first step towards the dream, the ideal, of all the Kurds, as expressed three centuries earlier by Ehmedê Xani: "The Kurds also want their own Sultan, their own Prince, their own government, their own State, instead of being ruled, that is to say oppressed, by Turks, Persians and Arabs"…
A paper is a collective voice. It receives and diffuses information, news, ideas… Thanks to a paper, thanks to writings, it s possible to organise a debate. It is, in a small way, a temple of political, cultural and social thought, be it daily, weekly or monthly. A paper is the mind, it is he memory, the guide for the near future. The poet Haji Qadari Koyi said in "The Land from Bohtan to Cezire", let me quote "Hundreds of epistles and odes henceforth are worthless – papers and reviews are more valuable and more respected". He probably hadn’t foreseen the ferocity of the Roum authorities against the Kurdish press… A hundred years later the Kurds now have their own media – daily, weekly and monthly – but also radio stations and TV channels – local, regional and even supranational. A paper is like a living being, a man or a woman… It has an odour, colour, attitude, feelings – a character, in effect… And, inevitably, the Kurdish papers are like the Kurds: they are mournful but combative, they are in exile but appear in Kurdish, they are savagely repressed but carry in struggling, they are intelligent but full of feeling, they are young but have acquired a lot of experience… Seeing the oppression to which the Kurdish media is subjected, the very fact that there are still dailies that come out in Istanbul is, I believe, in itself a good sign.
I was, and still am part of that Kurdish press, torn, I would even say mutilated, banned, exiled, snubbed, censored, destroyed, battered. We are, unfortunately in a situation were we learn from negatives. Why, then, does Ankara, as the Susurluk report clearly showed, so mortally attack the Kurdish press? Why do the Turkish police, Army, gendarmerie, Special Forces, counter-guerrilla units kill our correspondents, our columnists, even children of 10 to 15 who sell our papers in the streets of Diyarbekir? Why, then have the Turkish courts condemned people ever since 1925 who affirm the reality of Kurdish existence? The answer, I think, is quite simple – they are afraid of those who spread these realities! They think that they can censor them with bullets… They do not understand that truncheons cannot alter truths, they don’t understand that guns cannot distort facts. Our arms, that is our pens, our cameras, our microphones and our computers are stronger than their bombers, than their tanks… Musa Anter, to whom I owe so much, once said it very clearly: "The sword can cut the pencil, but it cannot erase what the pencil has written. But the pencil can neutralise the sword".
I would like, if you will allow me, to also speak about our weaknesses, our failings. My Kurdish friends and colleagues, that is to say all of us, sometimes have a tendency to confuse "figments and fig trees"! That is to say TV-Lecture-Monologue on the screen instead and in place of real Television, letters exchanged between activists or political leaders instead and in place of daily news and, finally, politico-ideological activism instead and in place of professional journalism… This infantile disorder would surely be cured if we better understood the policy and journalistic efforts of Bedirhan, of Khoyboun, of Sefif Pacha… This past should be married with the political and professional needs of today and the future. Finally, Mrs. Favre-Zaza, Mr. President of the Kurdish Institute of Paris, dear friends and colleagues, let me say how pleased and honoured I am to be given the Noureddine Zaza Prize. I believe nad hope that other colleagues from Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Russia, never mind what their nationality, will also receive this Prize. And I’m sure that if, one day, we are able to organise this Zaza Prize giving ceremony in Maden, the birthplace of he who has brought us together here today – well then, he would be the happiest Kurd on earth! I thank you all once again.
· TURKISH CIRCUS: A STORM OVER A HEAD SCARF. The opening session, on 2 May 1999, of the freshly elected Parliament was disturbed by Mrs. Merve Kavakçi, M.P. for the Islamic Virtue Party, who made her entry to the Turkish National Assembly her head covered by a scarf. Booed by hundreds of M.P.s, in particular those of Mr. Bulent’s "Democratic Left Party" (DSP) who shouted "Get out! Get out!") while beating their hands, the Member was obliged to leave the Parliament building, provoking a suspension of the session, during which every M.P. swears allegiance to the "secular republic" and "to the principles and reforms of Mustafa Kemal, called Ataturk". Besides himself, Mr. Bulent Ecevit demanded of one of the session’s Chairmen "I beg you, put that woman in her place", adding "No one may involve themselves in people’s private lives, but this is not a private place. We are here in the very foundations of the State. This is not the place to defy the State".
On 5 May, the Turkish President, Suleyman Demirel, indirectly warned against an Army intervention in the resulting crisis. "If she swears allegiance, that will provoke a reaction … I can say no more about it" he stated. No one doubts that he was talking about the Turkish Army, which considers itself the warden of the State’s secularism. The National Security Council, the country’s real executive, which had expelled Necmettin Erbakan’s Islamist government from office on 28 February 1997, had, on 1st May, personally warned the Member against the temptation of attending the inaugural session of Parliament wearing a head scarf. The crisis has also divided the Islamic Party because, its President, Recai Kutan, having given assurances, on 4 May, that his party would go "to the limit" in this affair, the party’s Vice-President, Aydin Menderes resigned from the party on Thursday 6 May.
The Turkish legal system began enquiries against the Member for "incitement to racial and religious hatred" on the basis of Article 312 of the Penal Code. The Turkish press declares that she is committed to the Jihad by quoting remarks she made at a congress of the U.S. based Union of Islamic Palestinian Women in 1997 when she is said to have declared she had "chosen politics as the field of activity for my jihad".
An intense press campaign, orchestrated by the political police who revealed that Mrs. Kavakçi, during her stay in the United States, had obtained U.S. citizenship, obliged this new Member to resign from Parliament, thus ending a crisis with the Islamic M.P.s.
• SEVEN IRANIAN KURDISH STUDENTS EXECUTED BY TURKISH SOLDIERS. Seven Iranian Kurds, coming from the village of Zargheh, near the Turkish border, and aged between 13 and 25 years, were arrested on 6 May 1999 by the Turkish security forces and summarily executed on the spot. The victims, all students on school holiday, had been visiting the village of Katuna, in Turkey, to trade and visit members of their family living in that village.
Almost 5,000 people from the Margavar region took part in the funeral, on 8 May. They demanded that the Iranian authorities make every effort to clarify this matter and punish the authors of this crime.
•MRS. ECEVIT SHARPLY ATTACKS THE MHP AND EXPRESSES HER DOUBTS AS TO THE RELEVANCE OF FORMING A COALITION WITH THAT PARTY. Considered to be the co-founder and co-President of the ‘Democratic Left Party’ (DSP), the Turkish Prime Minister’s wife, Mrs. Rahsan Ecevit, in an interview with the Turkish daily, Milliyet, on 15 May, threw hefty spanner into the Turkish political works by recalling the unsavoury past of the National Action Party (MHP). Here are some extracts:
"One day there appeared a group of people who said "We are Turks, descended from the mating of a Turk with a she-wolf called Asena, which is why it is our right to protect the Turkish State". They set up associations and political parties based on that assertion. They organised children, young people, exerted pressure on them and even armed them. ‘You must be with us or die’ they told them. For years they harmed innumerable people, they killed many. Is it that easy to forget the harm they did? Those who, in claiming ‘We are descended from the she-wolf Asena, we came here from Central Asia, the sovereignty of our country is our right’ and try to wage politics by brute force cannot be considered a ‘party’ in a democratic sense nor reinforce national unity (…). Moreover, they have used violence not only to organise politically, but also for material gain; they have been intimately involved with the mafias and the gangs".
After this unflattering reminder of the past and of the MHP’s character, Mrs. Rahsan Ecevit expressed her skepticism of that party’s evolution towards moderation. "Ever since the possibility of a government including the MHP has appeared on the agenda, some optimistic circles state that this party has now changed. Must we believe those who believe this or else believe that party’s leaders who, for their part, say: ‘We have not changed’ ? That is something I cannot tell". Mrs. Ecevit seemed, throughout that interview, to have little enthusiasm for seeing her party associated with the MHP in a coalition government.
• THE TURKISH ARMY IS SAID TO HAVE USED CHEMICAL WEAPONS AGAINST THE PKK. An internal document of the Turkish Army, stamped "Top Secret" and dated 27 February 1986, requests the manufacture and use of poison gases against the Kurdish rebellion. "If need be, infected insects could be specially bred to be used against the terrorists" the document specifies, in particular. Since then, many suspect cases have been noted, without drawing any attention from the media or giving rise to any enquiry.
The pro-Kurdish daily, Ozgur Politika, has just published, in its 26 May issue, a list of 17 Kurdish fighters who are said to have been killed on 11 May 1999, in the village of Ballikaya, Silopi district, Sirnak Province, by the Turkish Security Forces using chemical weapons. The paper gives a detailed description of the bomb fragments and cases, on which can be found the English language inscription "The transportation of this weapon is forbidden by military regulations".
•THE APRIL 1999 ASSESSMENT OF HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN TURKEY. The Turkish Association for Human Rights (IHD) has made public its report on Human Rights violations for the month of April 1999. The score is as follows:
‘Unsolved’ murders 15 ‘Extra-judicial executions’, deaths from torture or during provisional detention 24 ‘Disappearances’ 1 Number of people tortured 44 Number of people detained 7078 Number of press organs or political parties banned 21 Number of publications seized or banned 19 Number of people jailed for ‘crimes of opinion’ 148
•A SCANDAL AGAINST A BACKGROUND OF ‘PHONE TAPPING/ THE BIGGEST TURKISH CRIMINALS MAINTAIN RELATIONS WITH THE HIGHEST TURKISH OFFICIAL BODIES. A fresh politico-mafia scandal has been shaking Turkey since ‘phone tapping operations by the Turkish police have revealed that the highest authorities of the State maintain regular contacts with the mafia chiefs and criminals wanted by the police. Basing itself on these tappings, the Turkish daily Milliyet, in an article published on 7 June 1999, named some of the people receiving calls from these bigwigs of the drug trade, who are also implicated in political crimes. The taps reveal that Yesil, better known as "The Terminator", organiser of the assassination of several dozen Kurdish intellectuals, including the Member of Parliament, Mehmet Sincar, hired gun of the Turkish Intelligence services and wanted since
the Susurluk scandal, made several calls to the President of the Republic’s Office, the Prime Minister’s Office. the intelligence service attached to the Presidency, to the General Secretary of National Security Council, to the General Directorate of the Gendarmerie, to the Ankara Division of the Gendarmerie Directorate and the Police Directorates of the town of Locaeli and Izmir, to the Directorate of the War Academy and the Office of the Intelligence Bureau of the Police General Directorate.
Also, according to these tappings, Kursat Yilmaz, one of the biggest mafia chiefs, who has succeeded in escaping from two Turkish prisons, contacted the President’s Office, the Minister of Defence, the Ministry of Justice, the Directorate of the National Police and the Directorate for Agriculture and Rural Affairs
While the authorities, questioned about these phone calls, cry scandal that such high echelon Turkish authorities (going from the president’s office to the Prime Minister’s) should have their phones tapped, some voices are being raised to ask the real question, – why and how these criminals maintain such relations with top Turkish officialdom?
For the moment the only people who have been troubled are the police officers in charge of these phone tappings: the Director of the Ankara Police. Cevdet Sural, and his Assistant , Osman Ak, who were fired on 8 June 1999, as well as the Divisional Director, the Director of the Police Intelligence Bureau, an Assistant Director, three police superintendents and three policemen. The Turkish authorities seem in no way inclined to carry out a "clean hands" operation, despite the extent and seriousness of the scandals shaking the country.
• TURKISH TOURISM: ALREADY LOSSES OF 4.5 BILLION DOLLARS. Tourism, one of the key sectors of the Turkish economy with 10 billion dollars or direct receipts in 1998 and the supporting pillar of 34 other sub-sectors, is seriously compromised this year. Since the arrest of Abdullah Öcalan, the sector has already registered losses of 4.5 billion dollars, 600 tourist establishments are on the edge of bankruptcy and 50,000 employees have been fired. According to the 10 June issue of the daily paper Sabah, which provides these figures, firms are no longer able to keep up their installment payments on loans and trade leaders have announced that total receipts will barely reach 6.5 billion dollars this year. Despite cutting prices to the bone, the sector has been unable to recover. Over and above the danger of bomb attacks, it is the whole image of Turkey that has deteriorated in the eyes of the 10 million tourists who used to visit the country in previous years.
• ASSESSMENT OF HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS FOR THE MONTH OF MAY 1999 ACCORDING TO MAZLUM-DER. Mazlum-Der, a Human Rights defense organisation in Turkey that is close to the Islamists, has made public its report on Human Rights violations for the month of May 1999. The report can be summarised as follows:
Unsolved’ murders 10 Executions and deaths as a result of torture 9 Deaths in armed clashes 266 Number wounded in armed clashes 147 Number of kidnappings 2 Number of people tortured 77 Number of ‘disappearances’ 4 Number of people raped or sexually abused 2 Number of detentions 2,100 Number of arrests 248 Villages forcibly evacuated or burned down 7 Number of prisoners of opinion 134 Number of publications banned 24 Number of journalists detained 5
The Mazlum-Der Association is at present being prosecuted for separatist and islamist activity.
•THE TURKISH PARLIAMENT EXTENDS FOR A PERIOD OF SIX MONTHS THE AUTHORISATION OF THE INTERNATIONAL "NORTHERN WATCH" FORCE. On 23 June 1999, the Turkish Parliament extended for a further six months, the authorisation of the international "Northern Watch" force, deployed on the Turkish Air Force base of Incirlik.
This force, was created in December 1996 to replace the multinational American-British-French "Provide Comfort" force, which was responsible for protecting the Iraqi Kurds against Saddam Hussein and supervising the flight interdiction zone North of the 36th Parallel since the end of the Gulf War. The Turkish Assembly extends the authorisation of this force every six months
