AN INVESTIGATION OF GENOCIDE

"It was a year after Turkey's generals in 1993 formally banned the use of the Kurdish language altogether and launched one of the most ruthless repression campaigns in the Kurdish regions that the PKK seriously took up arms and systematically challenged these forces. It was the same year, that in the province of Van, I spotted a Turkish Major with my own eyes beating a 10-year-old boy in the street for speaking Kurdish. It was evident then, as it is now, that the PKK was destined to strengthen and expand, out of natural reaction if nothing else."
~ Ismet Imset.

Somebody tell me why they bother to have the Internet in Turkey at all. On Friday, Hürriyet reported that "The world's biggest blog site was closed down". "Youtube wasn't enough, now access to Blogger has also come under a ban."

The order to ban Blogger.com came from Diyarbakır's First "Criminal Court of Peace"--how's that for Newspeak--on 20 October. Hürriyet asks if shutting down websites is really a solution? Well, I guess those that are scared shitless think so.

Rastî's site statistics confirm the ban. The last visitors from Turkey were on early Friday morning, whereas in the last few weeks this site had been receiving around 30% of its visitors from all over Turkey.

Ahmet Türk's remarks earlier in the week, about Kurds suffering a political, social, and cultural genocide in the wake of the 12 September coup has caused an investigation to be started by a prosecutor in Diyarbakır.

By all means the regime should investigate Ahmet Türk's words. Absolutely! Yes, Mr. Prosecutor, you go and delve deeply into the results of the 12 September coup. Delve deeply into the events at Dıyarbakır Military Prison, the true birthplace of the PKK. Delve deeply into the gross human rights abuses committed by the American trained and sponsored contra-guerrillas. Let all the crimes against humanity by the current regime be fully exposed.

Then we'll compare notes and see if the regime's prosecutor comes to the same determination as Ismet Imset did in the 1990s:

Yet, another development in 1980, added to the overall history of repression of the Kurds, provided the true jus ad bellum the PKK required in order to use the overall Kurdish right to go to war. This was non other than the military coup in Turkey, supported by Washington, which gave not only the Kurds but also the Turks the unquestionable right to legitimately pursue any method of struggle against an illegitimate, foreign supported, military junta; its leaders and its forces.

Immediately prior to the take-over, several senior PKK leaders had predicted what was going to happen and in fear of persecution had escaped from the country like many other intellectuals.

By the morning of September 12, 1980, when tanks moved into capital Ankara and a nation-wide curfew was imposed by the junta, Turkey's martial law-based system had already banned most legal left-wing, radical Marxist activities as well as propaganda and had jailed thousands of Turks under the US-indoctrinated concept of "preventing the spread of Communism." Hundreds of Turks and Kurds were facing systematic torture sessions throughout the country as even school children at the age of 12 were being detained and promptly beaten to extract confessions -- incidents which have all been placed on the record.

With the military takeover though, the conditions for a "just cause" to launch a war for freedom and democracy if nothing else, were stronger than ever and the very fact that a group of generals, using their force and weaponry had ousted an elected civilian regime and abolished the country's constitution, spoke for itself in way of legitimacy for any form of resistance. The generals had taken over the country, closing down parliament, banning all political parties and placing their leaders, including the prime minister, under "protective custody."

A summary of that period was recently published in a Turkish news magazine and is highly important in the context of the PKK's own struggle and its reasons. It is, in reality, a full explanation of the immediate circumstances in which the organization launched its armed struggle and thus claimed that it was a legitimate one or a just war: Throughout the coup era in which the PKK launched its first organized operation in Turkish territory, a total of 650 thousand people were detained and most suspects were either beaten or tortured; over 500 people died while under detention as result of torture; 85,000 people were placed on trial mainly in relation to thought crimes or guilt by association; 1,683,000 people were officially listed in police files as suspects; 348 thousand Turks and Kurds were banned from traveling abroad; 15,509 people were fired from their jobs for political reasons; 114 thousand books were seized and burned; 937 films were banned; 2,729 writers, translators, journalists and actors were put on trials for expressing their opinions. One can hardly argue, as we enter the 21st century, that such a regime had any legitimacy other than to conform with the financial and political expectations of its foreign supporters.

Amir Hassanpour points to the assimilationist policies of the post-1980 coup regime, which have as their goal the destruction of the Kurdish identity:

The 1980 Coup d''etat Regime

The Turkish regime has made no secret of its intention to eliminate Kurdish ethnic distinction (cf., e.g. van Bruinessen 1984; Nezan 1984; Helsinki Watch 1988). The suppression of manifestation of Kurdish, as well as Armenian or Greek, existence has been extended to such places as the Lufthansa airline office in Istanbul and the American Library in Ankara. An old globe, for example, carrying references to Kurdistan and Pontus had been used as part of a publicity photograph in the Istanbul Rotary Club magazine. This led to a demand of a three-year prison sentence for the company's Istanbul deputy manager (London Guardian, march 23, 1984). The Turkish embassies in Europe have regularly used diplomatic and other pressures to prevent the participation of Kurdish groups in cultural programs sponsored by European states. Similar pressure on the broadcast media has been documented.

Increased militarization and political control of the Kurdish provinces has been accompanied by new assimilation programs: "A general campaign to improve literacy in Turkish, and intensive Turkish-language courses were introduced in primary schools. Provicial commanders had their own programs to stamp out the use of Kurdish, at least in the towns. Traditional Kurdish clothes, which had reappeared in the 1970s, have been banned again" (van Bruinessen 1984: 12).

The armed resistence led by a leftist Kurdish political party, Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan (Kurdistan Workers Party), in the early 1980s has led to massive deployment of the army in the Kurdish provinces. To prevent the spread of the movement among the rural population, a project of setting up strategic hamlets is being carried out in the rural areas. (14) Another project is the resettlement of thousands of Turkish-speaking Kirghiz refugees from Afghanistan in Kurdistan. The government suggested that the area was chosen because of its similarity to the mountainous homeland of the refugees. Since there is no shortage of mountainous terrain in the Turkish-speaking regions, the real reason has more to do with Turkification of Kurdistan than considerations of landscape (de Manuelian 1986).

Interpreting the crime of genocide as it's written in international law includes the following ideas:

The crime of genocide has two elements: intent and action. “Intentional” means purposeful. Intent can be proven directly from statements or orders. But more often, it must be inferred from a systematic pattern of coordinated acts.

Intent is different from motive. Whatever may be the motive for the crime (land expropriation, national security, territorrial integrity, etc.), if the perpetrators commit acts intended to destroy a group, even part of a group, it is genocide.

The phrase "in whole or in part" is important. Perpetrators need not intend to destroy the entire group. Destruction of only part of a group (such as its educated members, or members living in one region) is also genocide. Most authorities require intent to destroy a substantial number of group members – mass murder. But an individual criminal may be guilty of genocide even if he kills only one person, so long as he knew he was participating in a larger plan to destroy the group.

Ahmet Türk is absolutely correct. There has been a genocide campaign against the Kurdish people, especially since the 12 September coup. Nothing has changed.

After Katil Erdoğan's disastrous visit to Turkey's internal colony Kurdistan last week, he had some comments:

The use of children in recent activities involving the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) demonstrates the [ ] group's ignorance and ferocity, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said.

I may be the only one who remembers what Katil Erdoğan said during the Amed Serhildan:

"Security forces will intervene with every possible means indiscriminately, including against women and children."

And so the ignorant and ferocious killed ten during the serhildan, including five children, and imprisoned over 100 children.

Sayın Başbakan, no one is as ignorant or ferocious as you.