TURKEY’S US-BACKED "WAR ON TERROR" PART 1

"The US did not ‘fail to protect the Kurds’ or ‘tolerate’ the abuses they suffered” during the Turkish state’s ‘War on Terror’ “anymore than Russia ‘fails to protect’ the people of Grozny or ‘tolerates’ their suffering."
~ Desmond Fernandes.

I have graciously been given permission to present a new article by Desmond Fernandes which questions the use of the War on Terror® by the Turkish state, backed by the US. The question which lies at the essence of the article is: Who really are the terrorists?

This is a question that I have asked many times on Rastî, and therefore I feel that it is fitting to attempt to answer it through Desmond Fernandes' painstaking research into the very same question.

The article will be presented here in a series for most, if not all, of the week. The article prints out to 47 pages, with footnotes, and this work, presented here as an article, forms Chapter 5 of Desmond's upcoming book, US, UK, German and NATO ‘Inspired’ Psychological Warfare Operations Against The Kurdish ‘Communist’ Threat in Turkey and Northern Iraq (Apec Press, Stockholm), due out early next year.

The article is also featured in the current issue of Variant, in both the print version and online. When the online information is available, I will post it.

Both Variant and Desmond Fernandes have consented to Rastî featuring the article. As such I would like to acknowledge the following:


The article has been reproduced, with permission, from the October 2006 electronic edition of Variant: Cross Currents in Culture, No. 27, Winter 2006 (http://www.variant.randomstate.org/) and from Chapter 5 of the book by Desmond Fernandes and Iskender Ozden (2006) US, UK, German and NATO ‘Inspired’ Psychological Warfare Operations Against The Kurdish ‘Communist’ Threat in Turkey and Northern Iraq (Apec Press, Stockholm).


With that, here is the first in a series on Rastî, of TURKEY’S US BACKED ‘WAR ON TERROR’: A CAUSE FOR CONCERN? - By Desmond Fernandes (1).


With the US government’s stated aim of vigorously assisting the Turkish state with its ‘operations’ that are aimed at ‘hunting down’ and ‘eradicating’ the ‘rebel’ Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), many human rights organisations, concerned Kurdish and Turkish civilians, peace campaigners and public interest groups are justifiably concerned that the genocidal and ‘psychological warfare’ linked ‘policies and practices of the recent past’ may all too chillingly reappear once again in the region. (2) It is important to appreciate why there is concern about a resurgence of ‘intensive’ US backed support for the Turkish state’s ‘War on Terror’. Chomsky observes that the last time such support was provided - during the 1990’s - “there was no ‘looking away’ in the case of Turkey and the Kurds: Washington ‘looked right there’, as did its allies, saw what was happening, and acted decisively to intensify the atrocities” against Kurds, “particularly during the Clinton years. The US did not ‘fail to protect the Kurds’ or ‘tolerate’ the abuses they suffered” during the Turkish state’s ‘War on Terror’ “anymore than Russia ‘fails to protect’ the people of Grozny or ‘tolerates’ their suffering. The new generation” of ‘humanitarian’ western leaders “drew the line by consciously putting as many guns as possible into the hands of the killers and torturers - not just guns, but jet planes, tanks, helicopter gunships, all the most advanced instruments of terror - sometimes in secret, because arms were sent in violation of congressional legislation. At no point was there any defensive purpose, nor any relation to the Cold War … In the case of the Kurds” in Turkey, “helping them would interfere with US power interests. Accordingly, we cannot help them but must rather join in perpetrating atrocities against them”. (3)

The US Backed ‘Counter-Terrorism/Counter-Guerrilla’ Offensive of the 1990’s.

During this major US backed Turkish ‘counter-terrorism/counter-guerrilla’ offensive, supposedly directed only against ‘the terrorist PKK organisation’ (4) and its ‘militant members’, thousands of Kurdish civilians were tortured and extra-judicially executed by state linked paramilitary forces. Many women were subjected to rape by Turkish state linked forces. “Turkish counter-guerrillas would commit crimes and blame them on opposition [i.e. ‘terrorist’] groups”(5) in what are known as ‘false flag’ operations. “Often, they disguised themselves as PKK guerrillas and went to villages to torment and kill people, burning houses, crops and animals, then blaming it on the PKK”. (6) These ‘false flag’ ‘operations’, one should note, were all in keeping with the type of advice that had been imparted from US ‘training manuals’ that the Turkish state had been provided with for years: “Among the instruction manuals was also the notorious classified Field Manual 30-31 together with its appendices FM30-31A and FM30-31B written by US terrorism experts of the Pentagon secret service Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) … On some 140 pages the manual offers, in non-euphemistic clear-cut language, advice for activities in the fields of sabotage, bombing, killing, torture, terror and fake elections. As maybe its most sensitive advice, FM 30-31 instructs … secret soldiers to carry out acts of violence in times of peace and then blame them on the Communist enemy in order to create a situation of fear and alertness”. (7)

Reports in The Turkish Daily News (13 July 1994), furthermore, have confirmed that Turkish military officials, commanders and Chiefs of Staff continued to be briefed, advised and even awarded ‘Legion of Merit’ medals by US Pentagon staff (8), high ranking members of the US armed forces and psychological warfare organisations including the US Army ‘Special Operations Command’ (Concerning the ‘Legion of Merit’ medal, this is, indeed, an ‘honour’ of sorts - Colonel George S. Patton III and notorious de facto psychological warfare operational death squad leaders such as General Alvarez of Honduras have also been bestowed with such ‘illustrious’ medals). (9) Between 3-5 million Kurds were forcibly displaced, Kurdish forests were deliberately set alight and between 3,500-4,000 villages and hamlets were evacuated and bombed, and wholly or partially destroyed in the Kurdish ‘south east’ by Turkish state forces, creating devastation on a horrific scale.

Bill Hartung, from the World Policy Institute, confirmed that he could “‘think of no instance since the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 … where American weaponry has been put to this concentrated a use’ … 75 percent of the Turkish arsenal was made in the United States, according to [many] estimates … In 1992 and 1993 the Pentagon quietly facilitated a mammoth military shipment to Turkey at no cost. According to the UN arms registry, the U.S. government turned over 1,509 tanks, 54 fighter planes, and 28 heavily armed attack helicopters to Turkey. The weapons were slated for reduction after the Cold War under a 1990 treaty on conventional forces in Europe. Instead of scrapping them, the United States simply gave them away. There was no congressional oversight or public debate about the transfer, nor was there much question about the purpose of the unprecedented arms shipment. As Jane's Defence Weekly revealed as early as 1993, ‘a high proportion of defense equipment supplied to Turkey is being used in operations against the PKK’ … Military assistance to Turkey has even included the use of American soldiers … Hartung estimates US taxpayers … paid ‘tens of millions of dollars’ to train Turkish forces to fight the Kurds”. (10)

Atrocities were also committed by the Turkish state against Kurdish civilians during ‘anti-terrorism, anti-PKK inspired incursions’ into the US-UK ‘protected safe haven’ in northern Iraq during this period, without formal complaints being issued by the US-UK governments (Indeed, President Clinton is known to have given permission for a major Turkish incursion into northern Iraq in 1995). Hartung confirms that, with Clinton’s ‘clearance’ of the 1995 incursion, “Turkish troops did plenty of things in Northern Iraq, including a number of documented cases of killings and displacement of Kurdish civilians”. (11) According to John Pilger: “In 1995 and 1997, as many as 50,000 Turkish troops, backed by tanks and fighter aircraft, occupied what the West called ‘Kurdish safe havens’. They terrorised Kurdish villages and murdered civilians. In December 2000, they were back, committing the atrocities that the Turkish military commits with immunity against its own Kurdish population”. (12) As John Deere noted with concern in 2000: “Were this Kosovo, we would be hearing words like ‘genocide’ and ‘ethnic cleansing.’ You see, to kill Kurds”, in his opinion, in Turkey and northern Iraq, “all you need is the proper hunting license. In this case that license is a perk of NATO membership”. (13)

According to Chalmers Johnson, we need to be aware that, “in 1991, Congress … passed a law … authorising something called the Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET) program. This allowed the Department of Defence to send [US] special operations forces on overseas exercises with military units of other countries … The various [US] special forces … interpreted this law as an informal invitation to train foreign military forces in numerous lethal skills … Stripped of its euphemistic language”, this ‘Foreign Internal Defence’ (FID) programme “amount[ed] to little more than instruction in state terrorism”. (14) Ted Galen Carpenter has revealed that, “in 1997, the US European Command’s special operations branch”, as part of this programme, “conducted joint training exercises with Turkey’s Mountain Commandos, a unit whose principal mission is to eliminate Kurdish guerrillas. That unit” had, however, in its ‘War on Terror’, actually “been responsible for atrocities against Kurdish civilians and the razing of Kurdish villages”. (15) An article in Kurdistana.com describes the manner in which “the Washington Post ran a three part series titled, ‘Free of Oversight, U.S. Military Trains Foreign Troops’. It said, a little known 1991 law, Section 2011 of Title 10 of the U.S. code, ha[d] allowed the military to send special operations forces on overseas exercises on the condition that the primary purpose [wa]s to train US soldiers. It added, as a result of this law, Pentagon has established ties with over 110 countries in the world. Dana Priest, the author of the series, cited the trip of an American SEAL team to Turkey who were training the Turkish Mountain Commandos, to show the lack of concern on the part of civilian authority in this country over the misuse of US forces and their skills. According to the declassified after-action report, the purpose of a 1997 trip was noted as, ‘to foster friendships and establish a good working relationship ... to ascertain the future needs of the Turks ...’. The report goes on to say, the SEALS ‘conducted a presentation on weapons, night vision, laser designation and sniper operations. We then allowed the Turks to operate all of these systems. It was a very productive day’. It adds, ‘The Turks ... admired the physical stamina and motivation of the SEAL element. We in turn were impressed with their capabilities and incredible endurance’.

“What were these incredible capabilities of the Turkish commandos sharpened as they were by the members of the SEAL teams that according to the Washington Post may still be training these Turkish soldiers? A while back, The European newspaper ran some of their photographed work in its front page, with a warning: pictures that will shock the world. Members of the same Turkish Mountain Commandos had posed for camera with the decapitated heads of the Kurdish guerrillas they had hunted in their war against the Kurds … One has to wonder if the SEAL team was taken to the mountains of Kurdistan to do or witness some of the beheading of the Kurdish guerrillas … I do know [that] … to train those who are beheading the Kurds is a crime against humanity. In other words, by these [‘training’] acts alone, the United States [wa]s in violation of international humanitarian law”. (16)

The decision to ‘train’ alongside Turkey’s mountain commandos in 1997, we should note, was also made two years after Human Rights Watch had publicly disclosed that “two special Commando Brigades, Bolu and Kayseri, [we]re heavily involved in counterinsurgency operations. Unlike the regular Turkish Army forces, the Bolu and Kayseri [mountain commando] units [we]re more highly trained and [we]re expected to engage in closer contact with PKK fighters and with civilians suspected of supporting the guerrillas. [Witness] B.G. told Human Rights Watch that during his April 1994-May 1995 stint in the southeast, he learned that the Bolu and Kayseri were considered by soldiers and civilians alike to be far more abusive of the civilian population than the regular Army. ‘Nasty behavior toward the population [wa]s encouraged in the Bolu and Kayseri brigades’, he explained, ‘while the Piyade (infantry) Commando tend[ed] to be kinder. The commanders want[ed] there to be a kind of good guy - bad guy situation, which they then use[d] to threaten the locals. They sa[id] be good or we’ll send the Bolu after you!’ Bolu and Kayseri Commandos were prevalent throughout the 1994 Tunceli [Dersim] campaign, during which tens of villages were destroyed. Witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch said they were able to identify Bolu and Kayseri soldiers, and reported that they were involved in numerous violations of the laws of war, including village destructions, indiscriminate fire, and kidnapping civilians who were then forced into serving as porters during Army patrols … The Bolu and Kayseri Commandos”, furthermore, “appear to have incorporated a significant number of U.S.-designed M-16 assault rifles and M-203 grenade launchers into their regular arsenal … According to Reuters, 5,000 Bolu and Kayseri commandos joined 35,000 other forces in the Tunceli campaign [See ‘Turkish Army Torches 17 Villages, Residents Say,’ Reuters, October 5, 1994]”. (17)

Ward Churchill has concluded that “both US and British pilots” were even “assigned to provide air support to Turkish military forces conducting a large scale counterinsurgency campaign in northern Iraq against Kurdish guerrillas … With regard to air support missions flown in support of the Turks, violations of the 1923 Hague Rules of Aerial Combat, the 1949 Geneva Convention IV and Additional Protocol 1, UNGA Res. 2444, and the 1978 Red Cross Fundamental Rules of International Humanitarian Law Applicable in Armed Conflicts are apparent. In view of the non-self-governing status accorded the Kurds by both Turkey and Iraq, violation of UNGA Res. 1514 (XV) - the 1960 Declaration of the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples - is also at issue”. (18) The US administration and intelligence agencies were also actively involved in facilitating the illegal capture and abduction of Abdullah Ocalan (the Chairman of the PKK) in Kenya in 1999. (19) It has also been established that Huseyin Kocadag, Chief of the Special Forces in Hakkari and Deputy Chief of Police in Diyarbakir, who has been identified as “one of the most bloody enemies of the people who organised the units of the ‘head-hunters’ in Kurdistan … was trained at a CIA school in the US”. (20)

The Human Rights Watch Arms Project has additionally exposed the way in which “US troops, aircraft and intelligence personnel … remained at their posts throughout Turkey, mingling with Turkish counterinsurgency troops and aircrews in southeastern bases such as Incirlik and Diyarbakir … throughout Turkey’s wide-ranging scorched earth campaign” against Kurdish civilian settlements and PKK hideouts/encampments. (21) This ‘campaign’, indeed, in many peoples and organisations’ view, clearly was ‘genocidal’ in nature: Article 19, in 1997, stated that it believed there was “ample evidence to indict the Turkish government of gross violations of human rights which constitute infringements of … the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, among other treaties to which Turkey is a party”. (22) The UK Parliamentary Human Rights Group, after field visits to the region and detailed analyses, also concluded that “the depopulation of the Kurdish region is, we believe, part of a deliberate strategy aimed not merely at eliminating a few thousand [PKK] guerrillas, but to extinguish the separate identity of the Kurdish people … (23) In Britain, as elsewhere, the question of Turkish Kurdistan is often presented” - for instance, by the US-UK governments and the mainstream press - “as one of a reasonably democratic government seeking to cope with an intractable problem of terrorism. We believe that the reality is one of military terrorists aiming to extinguish the identity of a people, and we were much alarmed by the parallel drawn with the Armenian holocaust of 1915-1916. The PKK, like some Armenians during the First World War, took to arms because they could see no prospect of gaining their legitimate political objectives by peaceful means. The response of the Turkish state, as in 1915 and earlier with the Armenians, was to use conciliatory language for external consumption, while unleashing huge military force against the virtually defenceless civilian population … To characterise the revolt of a subject people against their oppressors as ‘terrorism’ is a woeful misunderstanding which could only arise from ignorance of facts and history”. (24)

To Fevzi Veznedaroglu, chairperson of the Turkish Human Rights Association (IHD) in Diyarbakir, “especially since 1991, the counter-insurgency forces targeted the leaders of the democratic struggle … The aim” was to also “target a wider group of people … It [was] not only Kurdish intellectuals and leaders” who were “targeted, but villagers, women and students have been murdered … These human rights violations” were “not just aimed at fundamental rights, at the right to life”, but were “aimed at reducing the Kurdish people to refugees in their country ... The torture chambers” were “kept busy” even as the state, intentionally, waged “a dirty war against the whole [Kurdish] population”. (25) Margo Schulter has observed the manner in which “the killing of innocents … as has been documented by human rights investigators … has been a deliberate policy of the Turkish ‘counterinsurgency’ effort in Kurdistan. As one former soldier put it, to be a victim, you didn't need to be a guerrilla or even a PKK supporter - to be Kurdish was enough”. (26)

Mark Campbell, a Kurdish rights reporter and photographer who visited the Kurdish ‘south-east’ during the 1990’s, describes what he saw with his own eyes: “What the Turkish state was responsible for against the Kurds in the early 90’s … [was] a policy of forced depopulation. There was mass and systematic terror inflicted on the Kurdish population, often including the most barbaric forms imaginable, beheadings, lynchings, castrations, cutting off of ears and limbs. Extra-judicial executions were commonplace, carried out by ‘contra-guerrillas’, Hizbullah and ‘Village Guards’. I walked through the ashes of [the Kurdish town of] Lice one month after it had been razed to the ground. Teams of flame-throwers had marched through the town burning all the shops and houses. Eye witnesses spoke of soldiers shovelling a chemical out of the back of a trailer attached to Land Rovers into some shops which ignited spontaneously. People were shot as they ran for cover. We were finally detained when we went to another Kurdish village that was still burning. Women were picking out burnt kettles from their smouldering remains of their houses. All the villagers had been pulled by their hair out of the houses and gathered in the village square where they were urinated on. Three were randomly pulled out and put against a wall and shot. All the men had been taken into custody and two died under torture. How do you define terror? This is terror, is it not?” (27) A disturbing testimony from a death squad killer named Murat Ipek, if true, further suggests that US forces were directly implicated in the training and coordination of some of the genocidal death squads: “An American … controlled and instructed the contra-teams”. (28)


To Be Continued . . .


1.Desmond Fernandes is the author of The Kurdish Genocide in Turkey (2007, Apec Press, Stockholm, forthcoming), Colonial Genocides in Turkey, Kenya and Goa (2006, Apec Press, Stockholm, forthcoming) and co-author of US, UK, German and NATO ‘Inspired’ Psychological Warfare Operations Against The Kurdish ‘Communist’ Threat in Turkey and Northern Iraq (2006, Apec Press, Stockholm). He has written a number of articles on genocide, Turkish state terror, tourism and the ‘Kurdish Question’, and was a Senior Lecturer in Human Geography at De Montfort University, Bedford (1994-2006). This article is dedicated to Iskender Ozden, Musa Anter, Ismail Besikci, Anthony Tingle, Ray Sibbald, E. Francis, Florence, Yasser Salihee and Ayse Nur Zarakolu.
2. For a detailed insight into the whole ‘genocide’ issue, and the applicability of the term to the Kurdish situation in Turkey (using definitions provided by the United Nations’ 1948 Genocide Convention and other bodies and academics), refer to: Fernandes, D. (1998) ‘The Kurdish Genocide in Turkey, 1924-98’, Armenian Forum, Vol. 1 (4), p. 56-107; Fernandes, D. (2001) ‘Postscriptum: A Propos De La “Petite Question” Du Genocide Kurde En Turquie, 1924-2001’, L’Appel du Kurdistan, Number 28, October 2001, p. 45-60; Fernandes, D. (2006) Colonial Genocides in Turkey, Kenya and Goa (Apec Press, Stockholm) and Fernandes, D. (2007) The Kurdish Genocide in Turkey. Apec Press, Stockholm.
3. Chomsky, N. (2000) A New Generation Draws The Line: Kosovo, East Timor and the Standards of the West. Verso, London and New York, p. 12-14.
4. The PKK has not only been criminalised by the US and Turkish governments. Under the UK Terrorism Act 2000, provisions have resulted in the ‘proscription’ of the PKK. Under the Act, for instance, it is now an offence to belong - or profess to belong - to the PKK, to invite support for it, to arrange a meeting that is to be addressed by a member of it, or to address a meeting to encourage support for it (This is even if the meeting is being held privately, with only three people attending). The penalty is up to ten years imprisonment. “It is also an offence to wear any clothes or any other article which might arouse ‘reasonable suspicion’ that the wearer is a member or supporter of a proscribed organisation. The penalty is up to six months imprisonment and a fine of up to £5,000” (The Campaign Against Racism and Fascism [2001] ‘The Terrorism Act - embracing tyranny’, CARF No. 62, June/July 2001-http://www.carf.demon.co.uk/feat51.html). Under such criteria, it is now possible to ‘officially’ criminalise asylum seekers and refugees who even wear ‘traditional Kurdish costumes’, on the grounds that the colours of the clothes worn may ‘arouse suspicion’ that they are ‘nationalist PKK sympathisers’. The PKK can no longer “fundraise or organise meetings, not even to discuss why it shouldn’t be banned. In fact, under clauses 13-(1) (a) and (b), anyone” - be they a Kurdish refugee or not - “wearing a T-shirt” in the UK “that carries images or symbols supporting the PKK is liable to six months in prison” (Thomas, M. [2001] ‘The Terrorism Act is so Vague that Jesus Christ Himself would class as a Terrorist. Churchgoers, Watch Out!’, New Statesman, 23rd April 2001). The Campaign Against Racism and Fascism (CARF) further warns that “the Act’s provisions are drawn so widely as to give police and prosecutors freedom to arrest most people who are involved in any way in refugee communities’ activities or in solidarity work” (The Campaign Against Racism and Fascism [2001] ‘The Terrorism Act - embracing tyranny’, CARF No. 62, June/July 2001 - http://www.carf.demon.co.uk/feat51.html). For Kurdish refugees and asylum seekers - as with anyone else in the UK, be they academics or playwrights – “writing an article or speaking in support of … Kurdish self-determination could be construed as inviting support for a proscribed organisation. A rally or meeting” in any public venue - be it in a Kurdish refugee/community centre or a hotel reception hall - which is “in support of asylum rights (but) which is addressed by a member of one of the organisations” which has been proscribed (e.g. The PKK) “could land the organisers in prison … The battery of new powers, new offences and proscribed organisations allows refugee communities to be even more closely controlled and monitored, and the criminalisation of the refugee communities has been formalised … The Act will allow the government to extradite ‘political offenders’ to their home state - something which was not permitted a century ago, when it was accepted that those fighting oppression abroad should be allowed a safe haven in Britain. Anyone convicted of an offence under the Act” is likely to be targeted, criminalised and “excluded from refugee status in Britain as a terrorist supporter, and could face deportation on national security grounds, since … the Court of Appeal accepted the Home Secretary’s argument that a threat to a friendly government abroad was a threat to Britain’s national security” (The Campaign Against Racism and Fascism [2001] ‘The Terrorism Act - embracing tyranny’, CARF No. 62, June/July 2001 - http://www.carf.demon.co.uk/feat51.html). Turkey is ‘a friendly government abroad’ that is a fellow member of NATO. “Amnesty International” clarifies that it “has in the past expressed deep concern over the introduction of draconian anti-terrorism laws” not only in Turkey but “in other jurisdictions. Not least among these has been legislation introduced in the UK, including the Terrorism Act 2000 and, most recently, the Terrorism Act 2006 introduced at the end of March 2006” – See: Amnesty International (2006) ‘AI against the draft revisions to the Law to Fight Terrorism’, Info-Turk, June 2006, No. 334 (http://www.info-turk.be/334.htm#IHD_). The Peace in Kurdistan Campaign and the Campaign Against Criminalising Communities (CAMPACC) have also noted that “Britain has banned Kongra-Gel as an organisation that ‘glorifies terrorism’. The move was announced on 17 July [2006] by Home Secretary John Reid under the new law outlawing the ‘glorification of terrorism’. It marks a further escalation of attempts to criminalise and silence the Kurds. Anyone expressing support for the group or [even] simply wearing clothes implying support will be committing an offence … The UK action follows similar moves taken earlier this year by both the European Union and the US. Thus, whether living inside or outside Turkey, Kurds are now facing ‘anti-terror’ laws used to deter, suppress and criminalise political activities … The ban ignores Kongra-Gel’s aims and activities since it was founded on 15 November 2003. Kongra-Gel’s main objective is the attainment of ‘peace, democracy, freedom, equality and justice for a solution to the Kurdish Question’ and the promotion of a ‘democratic and ecological society’ through peaceful and political struggle” (The Peace in Kurdistan Campaign and Campaign Against Criminalising Communities [2006] ‘Petition: End the Criminalisation of the Kurds - No to UK Ban on Kongra-Gel’, The Peace in Kurdistan Campaign and CAMPACC).
5. Hakki Hayri (2001) ‘A Foot in Australia, Three Souls in Kurdistan: Interviews with Ayce Akturk, Hakki Hayri and Ahmed Tigran’, in Fire, Snow and Honey - Voices from Kurdistan, edited by Gina Lennox. Halstead Press, New South Wales, Australia. p. 485.
6. Hakki Hayri (2001) ‘A Foot in Australia, Three Souls in Kurdistan’, p. 485.
7. Ganser, G. (2005) NATO’s Secret Armies: Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe, Frank Cass, London and New York, p. 234-235.
8. The Turkish Daily News (13th July 1994 edition) reported that “Karadayi, Commander of the Turkish land forces [who was to become Turkey's Chief of Staff] was officially invited to receive the US Legion of Merit medal at a ceremony held at the Pentagon”.
9. Colonel George S. Patton III described his troops in Vietnam as “‘a bloody good bunch of killers’. Patton went on to reflect upon how he considered their ‘present ratio of 90% killing and 10% pacification just about right’. Celebrating Christmas 1968 with a card displaying the photo of a dismembered Vietnamese over the legend ‘Peace on Earth’, Patton returned to the US carrying a polished human skull, complete with a bullet hole over the left eye, presented at his farewell party by adoring subordinates” - Churchill, W. (2003) ‘“To Judge Them By The Standards Of Their Time”: America’s Indian Fighters, the Laws of War and the Question of the International Order’, in Perversions of Justice: Indigenous Peoples and Anglo American Law. City Lights, San Franscisco, p. 326, 327. For further details about General Alvarez, refer to Fernandes, D. and Ozden, I. (2006) US, UK, German and NATO ‘Inspired’ Psychological Warfare Operations Against The Kurdish ‘Communist’ Threat in Turkey and Northern Iraq. Apec Press, Stockholm.
10. McKiernan, K. (1999) ‘Turkey's War On The Kurds’, The Atomic Scientists, Vol. 55, No. 2, March/April 1999 (http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/1999/ma99/ma99mckiernan.html).
11. Hartung, W. (1995) Arms Trade Resource Center Reports - Weapons at War. A World Policy Institute Issue Brief (http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/reports/wawrep.html#weapons).
12. Pilger, J. (2002) ‘The “secret” war which has seen a 300 per cent increase in bombing raids on Iraq’, 20 December 2002 (http://www.johnpilger.com/page.asp?partid=354).
13. Deere, J. (2000) ‘A License to kill Kurds’, Antiwar.com, 28 August 2000 (http://www.antiwar.com/orig/deere1.html).
14. Johnson, C. (2000) The Costs and Consequences of American Empire, p. 72-74.
15. Carpenter, T. G. (1999) ‘U.S. Policy toward Turkey: A Study in Double Standards’, The HR-Net Forum, January 1999 (http://www.hri.org/forum/intpol/carpenter.html). Carpenter cites the following as his source: Dana Priest, ‘Free of Oversight, U.S. Military Trains Foreign Troops’, Washington Post, July 12, 1998, p. A1. See also: Human Rights Watch Arms Project (1995) Weapons Transfers and Violations of the Laws of War in Turkey. New York, Human Rights Watch, and ‘Turkey and the Charge of Genocide - A Submission to the Independent Commission for International War Crimes Tribunal’, Fashion Institute of Technology, New York, July 31, 1999 (as reproduced in: http://www.kurdistanica.com/english/humright/articles/hum-article-01.html).
16. ‘Turkey and the Charge of Genocide - A Submission to the Independent Commission for International War Crimes Tribunal’, Fashion Institute of Technology, New York, July 31, 1999 (as reproduced in: http://www.kurdistanica.com/english/humright/articles/hum-article-01.html).
17. Human Rights Watch Arms Project, Weapons Transfers and Violations of the Laws of War in Turkey.
18. Churchill, W. (2003) ‘A Government of Laws?’, in On The Justice of Roosting Chickens: Reflections On The Consequences of US Imperial Arrogance and Criminality. AK Press, Oakland and Edinburgh, p. 209-210.
19. Refer to Fernandes and Ozden, US, UK, German and NATO ‘Inspired’ Psychological Warfare Operations Against The Kurdish ‘Communist’ Threat in Turkey and Northern Iraq and Clark, W. ‘Byzantine Politics: The abduction and trial of Abdullah Ocalan’, Variant: Cross Currents in Culture, No. 8 (www.ndirect.co.uk/~variant).
20. Devrimci Sol (1997) ‘Who Are Guilty?’, Devrimci Sol, January 1997, p. 31.
21. Human Rights Watch Arms Project, Weapons Transfers and Violations of the Laws of War in Turkey, p. 4.
22. Article 19 (1997) Letter to the Secretary General, The Council of Europe, dated 8th September 1997, p. 1.
23. UK Parliamentary Human Rights Group (1994) The Kurdish Region in Turkey: The Most Destructive Conflict in the Northern Hemisphere. Kurdistan Solidarity Committee/Kurdistan Information Centre, London, p. 10.
24. UK Parliamentary Human Rights Group (1993) A Desolation Called Peace: Report by the Parliamentary Human Rights Group On A Mission To Turkish Kurdistan, 12-17 October 1993. Kurdish Information Centre, London, November 1993, p. 28.
25. As quoted in Fernandes, D. (1996) Beyond the Paradise of Infinite Colours: Turkish State Terror, Tourism and the Kurdish Question. R&B Bookshop, Bangalore, India.
25. Schulter, M. (1999) ‘Genocide against Kurds and Ocalan Trial’, 30 May 1999 (http://www.kurdistan.org/Trial/schulter.html).
27. Campbell, M. (2006) ‘Messages of Solidarity for Mark Thomas Demonstration’, 22 June 2006 (http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:tsv0xk-eXcwJ:www.campacc.org.uk/Library/msgs_of_solidarity_220606
.doc+%22glorification%22+Kurds&hl=en&gl=uk&ct=clnk&cd=2&ie=UTF-8). For a detailed analysis of the genocidal context of this targeting, see: Fernandes, The Kurdish Genocide in Turkey and Fernandes, Colonial Genocides in Turkey, Kenya and Goa.
28. As interviewed by Temel Demirer in ‘Impression’, Kurdistan Report, No. 25, p. 11.