GOOD KURDS, BAD KURDS
The horrific treatment of the Kurds in Turkey dates back to
the establishment of the Turkish republic in 1923.
While Ataturk, the founder of Turkey, originally stated that year that
predominantly Kurdish provinces would administer their
own affairs "in an autonomous manner," he quickly changed his
mind.
The very next year he abolished the Caliphate, i.e. all Kurdish schools,
associations, publications, cultural activities, religious fraternities and
teaching foundations were banned.
This led to the first great Kurdish rebellion of 1925 led by Shaikh Said. The response was brutal, i.e. from 1925-1928 over 10,000
houses were destroyed, 15,000 Kurds killed, and 500,000 became
refugees of whom it is estimated 200,000 perished.
This rebellion caused a relatively liberal prime minister to be
replaced by Ismet Inonu, who stated:
We are openly nationalist. Nationalism is
the only cause that keeps us together. Beside the Turkish majority, none of
the other ethnic elements shall have any impact. We shall, at any price,
turkicize those who live in our country, and destroy those who rise up
against the Turks and Turkdom.
A larger rebellion from 1928-1930 - which started in the area
around Mount Ararat - led to more deaths and deportations.
The deportations started as reprisals against specific rebelling
tribes, but eventually become part of a policy for the
"turkification" of the region, which also included banning the
Kurdish language, dress, folklore, and even the word "Kurd."
Another 40,000 are estimated to have been killed from the
fallout of this rebellion, along with probably another half-million
refugees.
The estimated total up until the permanent state of siege was
relaxed in 1950 was 1.5 million deported or massacred, with
the death rate among refugees being extremely high.
The entire area of Turkey populated by Kurds was declared
out of bounds to foreigners until 1965, at which point things
were relatively peaceful until a military coup in 1980, at which
point the repression and slaughter was pursued with renewed
vigor. The legal status of the Turkish Kurds is well summed up by:
In the Turkish Constitution the phrase "anybody who opposes the
indivisibility of the Turkish Republic with its nation and its country, will
be deprived of their basic human rights and freedom" is mentioned
thirty-three times. In addition to this, and according to the Turkish
Criminal Law (para. 125), the Anti-Terror Law (para. 8) and a number of the
other Laws, anyone who tries to divide the country, who says that there is
more than one nation in Turkey, who acts on or organizes on the basis of
this matter, can be punished by various penalties including imprisonment and
execution.
The post-coup renewal of repression led to the formation of the
Kurdish Worker's Party (KPP) in 1984, at which time the KPP
began attacking police posts and other state installations.
The state responded with increased ferocity with mass arrests,
interrogation, torture, and trials in martial law courts that were
travesties of international standards of justice.
The military government admits that it can't tell a PKK activist from
someone who isn't, so the entire Kurdish population is subjected
to "security raids" in which people are abused, tortured,
disappeared and extrajudicially executed.
These tactics have increased PKK recruitment, and the violence
increases as the cycle continues.
An especially worthless program was the military government's
"provisional village guards" program. Villages were asked to
"volunteer" people who would be armed to ostensibly guard their villages
against PKK attacks. If a village said yes, then their guards were
used for raids against neighboring villages and they would be
added to the PKK hit list. If a village said no, then they received at
best frequent "security raids" and at worst were forcibly evacuated
and burnt to the ground.
This "damned if you do or don't" program led to the partial or
complete depopulation of 3185 settlements between 1984 and 1997,
according to a Turkish Deputy Prime Minister.
This has of course gone hand in hand with thousands killed and
tens to hundreds of thousands living (and dying quickly) in
shanty towns.
But what Kurds do we hear about in the media? The "good"
Kurds in Iraq who are being repressed and killed by Saddam
Hussein. If there is any report at all about the Turkish Kurds it
will contain the phrase "communist insurgents" in an attempt to
paint the reaction to nearly 70 years of institutionalized ethnic cleansing
by the Turkish government as something invented by Karl Marx.
This leads to a ridiculous mental picture of a Kurd standing at
the Turkey-Iraq border and alternately becoming a vicious
Marxist insurgent killer or a pitiful helpless refugee as he jumps
back and forth across the border.
When it comes to the slaughter of Kurds, the Turkish government
makes Saddam Hussein look like a piker. But not only is Turkey
not demonized like Iraq, but it is seen as a friend and sold massive
quantities of armaments to continue the slaughter. And, while
official State Department reports contain the usual phrases about
"regrettable excesses" regarding the slaughter of Kurds by Turkey,
it is not listed as a "terrorist state" along with Iraq, Libya, Cuba
and the other usual suspects. (Although even Iraq has only
been an official enemy for about 12 years, before which the
"Hitler of our time" was stocked generously with weapons - with
which to fight then-evil Iran - by the same countries who
later formed the coalition to stop him after he invaded the Bush
Oil Company, er, Kuwait.)
Sources:
Turkey: Focus on Human Rights;
A Brief History of the Kurds
in Turkey;
Mad Dreams of Independence: The Kurds of Turkey and the
PKK
posted by Steven Baum
5/17/2000 11:09:30 AM |
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