PKK: WE ARE PREPARED

"We are prepared and we are stronger than ever."
~ Bozan Tekin, PKK spokesman.

First, there's a new Kurdish blog that I've added to the blog list in the right margin, and it's called Kurdish Review so you may want to check that one and bookmark it. It's a group blog with a number of authors, so a variety of opinions should be available.

Second, Gordon Taylor has more information on Cüneyt Ertuş, the 15-year-old who had his arm broken by Turkish security forces:


Cuneyt's father related his own story to DIHA, the Dicle Haber Ajansi (Tigris News Agency), a pro-Kurdish outlet which publishes in Turkish from Europe. Zubeyir Ertuş told DIHA that his son went on a shopping trip to the center of Hakkari (formerly Julamerk, or Colemerg), the capital city of Hakkari province, on March 22. After the events of that day he didn't hear from his son, and he thought that Cuneyt had been detained. "At last," he said, after two days of searching, "I found him on Roj-TV." If only he hadn't. Zubeyir: "The police were breaking my son's arm right in front of the representatives of the press. I looked away in horror. I didn't want to believe my eyes."

[ . . . ]

In the meantime, we have Zubeyir Ertuş and his son Cuneyt, who because of a satellite channel and the sharing of photos on the Internet, are suddenly not alone. In a past posting about the Turks' recent invasion of northern Iraq, I talked about another pro-PKK news outlet, Firat News, and the dozens of reports that they constantly get in detailing the movements of Turkish government forces. Here we see the same thing, as the Kurds have constructed their own "virtual Kurdistan" from the reports, videos, and digital photos of their own people.

Read the rest.

Also check out Hevallo's point of irony on the situation of Cüneyt.

Now on to some PKK news from Özgür Gündem . . .

There have been reports in Western media in the last couple of days, claiming that TSK had killed 15 guerrillas, but HPG denies the story:

HPG refutes Turkish media

HPG refuted news in Turkish media which claimed 15 HPG guerrillas were killed in the Turkish army's bombardment.

According to a statement by HPG's media center, HPG refuted the claim that 15 guerrillas were killed in attacks carried out against the Medya Defense Zones on 28 March 2008, in the Zagros region of the Medya Defense Zones.

HPG mentioned in its statement that general staff officials manufactured this kind of war scenario. "This and similar claims are ones manufactured by the special warfare desk; they are a part of psychological warfare and they are lies," HPG explained in the statement.

In Turkish-occupied Kurdistan over the weekend, HPG inflicted some casualties on the TSK. In the Amed (Diyarbakır) region, HPG guerrillas killed 4 Turkish soldiers and wounded 3 on 29 March 2008 around 0500 hours. While the Turkish army conducted operations on Mt. Cudî, HPG infiltrated TSK's area of operations around 0130 hours. During this infiltration, 2 Turkish troops were killed and one day after this infiltration, the TSK was forced to retreat.

In Şemzinan, also on 29 March, according to a regional source, 10 military support vehicles deployed to Rûbarok to reinforce TSK forces operating there

PKK spokesman Bozan Tekin recently spoke on upcoming spring operations, saying that TSK's operations will intensify. "We are prepared and we are stronger than ever," Tekin said. To emphasize the fact, Tekin stated that PKK has 8 to 10 thousand fighters today.

In his statement to AFP, Bozan Tekin said, "The Turkish state must hear the message of freedom of the Kurdish people, and immediately it must end its violence against civilians." He warned, "Uncontrollable reactions may occur. The Turkish state and the ruling party will be responsible for such incidents."

"Despite ongoing progress, if the Turkish state does not stop its attacks against civilians," Tekin continued, "PKK will retaliate."

Even though TSK has 9 military bases in South Kurdistan, Tekin said that if Turkish troops had been able, they wanted to reach further inside South Kurdistan during the February land operations. Since they were not able to achieve this desire, it underlines their lack of success. He also stressed that American intelligence efforts on Turkey's behalf were not very effective.

Tekin criticized the embargo on Qendil, saying, "However, PKK has a huge reaction capacity. In fact, it was not affected and adopted itself to the situation." He also called on the KRG to see their real interests and wanted KRG to possess a better political approach.

Ahmet Turk made a good observation that AKP parliamentarians from Wan (Van), Gever (Yüksekova), and Culemêrg (Hakkâri) have not spoken up at all about the violent incidents perpetrated against the citizens of those cities by Turkish security forces. "People who cannot show the courage to speak up for their people's problems, to show the democratic reflex for a solution to the Kurdish question, cannot be the representatives of the Kurds."

So there you go, Kurdistan; your AKP parliamentarians aren't doing a damned thing for you, are they? Consider, too, that it would have been very easy for AKP parliamentarians to get permission from the AKP-appointed governors to celebrate Newroz. But did they do that? Of course not! They did nothing while DTP attempted to avert disaster with the worthless AKP governors and security chiefs.

No, your AKP parliamentarians sat back and did nothing for the sake of their own son-of-a-bitch Erdoğan. What's their political platform? Vote for AKP parliamentarians and get tortured for Newroz.

Well, then, we might as well include the fake Kurd AKP parliamentarians on the list of those responsible for Turkish state violence against the Kurdish people on Newroz.