Tuesday, April 21, 2009

DEMOCRACY DOES NOT WORK

"I am for violence if non-violence means we continue postponing a solution to the American black man's problem just to avoid violence."
~ Malcolm X.


Last week we were told by the propaganda organs of the Ankara regime that the operations conducted against DTP were not really conducted against DTP but against KCK. DTP maintained that the state terror operations were directed against them and the reason for the operations was DTP's success during the 29 March elections.

Now, it appears that the truth is beginning to surface. Here's something from the hevals at KurdishInfo (http://www.kurdish-info.net/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=12996):


Unlike the fabrications seen in the Turkish media, the DTP members are charged with the party's campaign being illegal. The court is claiming that DTP's Democratic, Ecologically Sensitive, and Gender Equality Based Local Administrations Project and DTP's Local Administrations Office have been accused of being illegal and DTP members were questioned on them.

[ . . . ]

The DTP Projects are reason for the operation

Election campaign programmes prepared by DTP was treated as if they were illegal and the part members faced questions such as "why did you do this program?". DTP's Democratic, Ecologically Sensitive, and Gender Equality Based Local Administrations Project was treated as an illegal action and the phone conversations among party members regarding this project were presented as evidence of crime (DTP's project appeared in the media many times before). Talking about who should appear on Roj TV was presented as a crime as well.

[ . . . ]

Since the operation is classified the defence attorneys cannot get any information on the charges or evidence to be presented at the court. Nobody knows when this open ended investigation will end. Meanwhile the politicians are in prison.


For more on DTP's Democratic Autonomy Project, see here, here, and here.

DTP's bylaws are also being treated as criminal (http://www.kurdish-info.net/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=12998):


Prosecutors named DTP's organizational model as KCK's Turkey structure and included it in the list of crimes. However, DTP has prepared a project titled Democratic Autonomy Creation Project and had it approved at its congress much later than 8 November 2007. This model was handled as "Creation of Democratic Autonomy". In this project, it's proposed that Turkey should be split into 25 executive regions such that every region is to have its own council/senate to handle each region's education, health, social security services, agriculture, cultural services, telecommunications, etc issues. The project's organization was formulated as "The councils shall be called 'regional councils' and the participants shall be called 'regional representatives'. The council elects the chair and the members of the executive board. The chair and executive board members are responsible from execution of council's decisions. This structure doesn't imply federalism or ethnicity-based autonomy, but it's a new democratic executive support structure to bind central administration to the city-level administrations. Every region is to be called with its proper name or by the name of the largest city within the administrative borders of the region."

Despite the secrecy mandate put by the court, some newspapers have been claiming that DTP candidates have been identified by the PKK. However, DTP formed a 27 person Candidate Identification Committee six month before the March 29 elections. People forming this committee included old DEP parliamentarians, DTP administrators, representatives from NGOs, and Women and Youth Assembly members. The committee conducted a meeting during its administration, means of identifying candidates, and candidate identification criteria were decided. In order to comply with the decisions made by committee and fairness to everyone, in every city, town, belde, and metropolis, independent election platforms were formed. These platforms were formed by representatives from NGOs, DTP party members, and individuals who have contributed to democratic struggle in Turkey. Every candidate has come before these platforms. The platforms elected 3 names among these candidates and notified these names to the Candidate Identification Committee and DTP Central Management. DTP Central Management Council and the Candidate Identification Committee, among those 3 names, have picked the candidate with most votes (with one or two exceptions). DTP had identified its candidates for parliamentarian elections using the same procedure.


I mentioned above that the Ankara regime's propaganda organs had stated that the operations were not against DTP, but against KCK. It was Zaman that first came out with that lie, and both of the articles quoted above name Zaman and the Fethullahçı as the force behind the operation. Not surprisingly, MİT has been assisting (http://www.kurdish-info.net/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=12997):


Operation against DTP was decided at an Officer's Club

Firat News Agency (ANF), claimed that the operation against DTP was decided by the Turkish Secret Service (MIT). On April 12, a team of 7 MIT members went to Diyarbakır with 12 folders in their possession.

The MIT members met 5 prosecutors at Diyarbakir Army Officer's Club. 3 of the MIT members left Diyarbakır on a plane, on April 14, the day operations against DTP began.

The remaining 4 MIT members have directed the DTP members interrogations but didn't directly participate in the interrogations.


The articles may also be found at Özgür Gündem:

"DTP'nin faaliyetleri 'yasadışı' ilan edildi"

"İşte 'suç' sayılan DTP tüzüğü"

"Operasyona Ordu Evi'nde karar verildi iddiası"

Maybe someone can explain to me exactly what the point of democracy is, or where it has ever existed because, at this moment, I see democracy only as a propaganda tactic designed to reinforce repression and genocide.

Make sure to stop by Hevallo's place to read his report on Ahmet Türk's current visit to the UK and view some photos. Here's a sample:


“Turkey is now at a point where it has retreated farther into its own shell in comparison to the past,” Türk stated, refuting comments made by European politicians that the country now has a stronger democracy.

Türk’s remarks came on Sunday during a speech he delivered at the Kurdish Community Center in London.

Türk slammed the recent police operations against dozens of individuals suspected of ties with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which resulted in the arrest of several DTP members.

Officials said the raids and arrests were the culmination of a yearlong investigation into the PKK’s “urban extensions,” but the pro-Kurdish party said the police crackdown was the government’s revenge against the DTP because it defeated the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) in the predominantly Kurdish southeastern cities in last month’s local elections.

“A public cannot live peacefully with another public unless it is set free. ... We are evaluating the issue in terms of the brotherhood of nations rather than of ethnic nationalism,” Türk stated.

The DTP leader also complained about discrimination against his party’s deputies in Parliament. “We have been struggling to solve our problems through democratic means since we entered Parliament, but the other parties represented in Parliament turn a blind eye to our existence,” he said.


See? What did I say about democracy?

Check Gordon Taylor's new post at The Pasha and The Gypsy on "PKK confessor" Abdülkadır Aygan. It may very well be, as Gordon suggests, that Aygan lives now only to bear witness but I consider him a typical "confessor". He joined PKK before PKK existed and then developed cold feet because he claimed he was tired of "executions" within PKK and attacks on villages. But then he goes to work for JİTEM throwing people into acid wells. How is that for consistency? Oh, yeah, he also spent some time in prison doing a little creative writing for the paşas, just like Şemdin Sakık.


At Zerkesorg, there's an opinion about passive resistance and its relation to so-called democracy:


Let's now bring the recent "operations" of the AKPasha Inc against Democratic Society Party (DTP) to put things in perspective a little better. Turkey says "lay down the guns, come down from the mountains, and be a part of the democratic political process". So, you will detain over 240 people because they work at or belong to a legitimate party which kicked your as* in the elections? You will then put them up in jail and call that a democracy? That's AKPasha Inc's current Political Process for you. The detained and arrested people are politicians, lawyers, and alike who didn't touch a gun. God forbid if these people even had a toy water gun in their possession or be part of any corruption (AKPasha Inc, hint hint), I am sure the magazinews channels would be running stories 24/7. Does this revenge-for-losing-elections-in-Kurdistan campaign presented by AKPasha Inc give you an idea of what they would do to PKK guerrillas if they laid their arms and came down to cities without democratization of the fascist system?


For more on the utter futility of passive resistance, let me recommend "Arms and the Movement" for your perusal. Among the conclusions there:


The Madrid bombings do not present an example for action, but rather, an important paradox: Do people who stick to nonviolent tactics that have not proved effective in ending the war against Iraq really care more for human life than the Madrid terrorists? From India to Birmingham, nonviolence has failed to sufficiently empower its practitioners, whereas the use of a diversity of tactics got results. Put simply, if a movement is not a threat, it cannot change a system that is based on centralized coercion and violence.

Time and again, people struggling not for some token reform but for complete liberation -- the reclamation of control over our own lives and the power to negotiate our own relationships with the people and the world around us -- will find that nonviolence does not work, that we face a self-perpetuating power structure that is immune to appeals to conscience and strong enough to plow over the disobedient and uncooperative.


Amen, brother.


Oh. We haven't heard much from that son-of-a-bitch Murderer Erdoğan lately, have we? Apparently some jackass somewhere decided that Murderer Erdoğan deserved a "tolerance" prize--be careful not to barf on your keyboard--and some German politicians are stunned by the suggestion. Stunned politicians belong to the German CDU, CSU, Greens, and SPD are still trying to recover from the shock. The best remark came from the CSU general secretary Alexander Dobrindt, who said that Erdoğan deserved an intolerance prize instead.

8 comments:

Sancak Beyi Emre said...

poor poor terror supporting politicians face jail time... OHH WELL, its a post-9/11 world people get used to it! Supporting terrorizim resualts in jail time!

mishka said...

In that case Erdogan and the general staff should be locked up permanantly. But oh yeah we're living in a "post 9-11 era", (a phenomenon that predates the terror attack) were the worst criminals are hailed as ambassador of democracy.

And I can see your English is just as terrible as your Swedish "Emre". Keep at it chump.

Mizgîn said...

Hey, Emre, here's a question for you: Have you done your military service yet?

Sancak Beyi Emre said...

Serhat Daran:

It´s the world opinion in this case that decides who´s what on the international scen. And guess what friend, it´s not Erdogan who´s getting chased for terrorist allegations!

Mizgin:

Plutoon Sergant in a Ranger regiment !

Anonymous said...

It is tempting to think that the arrests of DTP members were purely an emotional reaction from the AKP for being publicly humiliated in the elections. However, what if it was planned all along?

There is no question that the arrests are politically motivated in order to generate the same sort of reaction that people like Sancak Bayi Emre felt -- that the DTP is merely a front for "terrorists" (who keep insisting on ceasefires :S) and it could never become a mainstream political party that represents minority rights for Kurds and democratization for Turkey.

Kurds (and Turks) are shown once again that those who get too close to Kurdish activism get burned. The arrests marginalize and discredit the DTP in the eyes of a public that was reticent and already had little trust to begin with. It also intimidates those Kurds who were in the sidelines and pushes them back to mainstream parties where they will be safer.

At a time when the Ergenekon trial is in full force it is easy for the public to group the DTP arrests as related to the same struggle against "embedded terrorists" within the Turkish state. The military and the AKP's mission by the arrests is to further marginalize the Kurdish civil rights movement into part of Turkey's "terrorism problem".

However, for these arrests to have reached its politically motivated psychological objectives, it was necessary for the DTP to be discredited in the elections. AKP had counted on a victory in the elections to demonstrate that the Kurds were firmly under its control and that it held all the reigns in "solving" the Kurdish problem. That is why my feelings are that these arrests were orchestrated well before the elections.

Now, the fact that Erdogan and the AKP failed to win the hearts and minds of Kurds (in the Kurdish region) changes the equation somewhat. Yes, the arrests will marginalize DTP for some, but for others, it will demonstrate how superficial Turkey's efforts have been to democratize and that it is business as usual in Terrorist State Inc.

~nistiman

mishka said...

As always you deliver profoundly intelligent comments, ”Emre”. The capitalist elite have decided, purely on an objective basis, that everything they and their cronies do is by definition right. Those who oppose their agenda are or in any way resist are vehemently fought against. This consists chiefly of a denial of international law and conventions and propaganda on different levels. You seem to have soaked it up real good. But then again fanaticism is one of your more distinguished traits.

Mizgîn said...

Good, Emre, then you have the experience the pasas are looking for for the new "commando" units. It would be your patriotic duty to volunteer--especially since you're someone who's so concerned about "terrorism" and life in the post-9/11 world.

They probably need a lot of help at Bezele. You're aware of what the situation's been like there for the last two years and you know you'd have a perfect opportunity at that garrison to engage "terrorists". But be careful not to become a prisoner of war because you know very well how badly TSK treats those repatriated to it.

Of course, there are lots of other opportunities in the area for someone with your experience since there's been a lot of TSK movement along the border. The pasas are frothing at the mouth for another cross border land invasion of Northern Iraq. Surely you'd be more than willing to join other great patriots in any potential fighting in the Zap region. You certainly know how successful TSK has been every time it's gone into Zap. This is your chance to earn yourself a lot of "terrorist" ears for your keyring and "terrorist" heads for promotion--aside from the fact that those activities are considered war crimes by NATO and the laws of land warfare.

Go, boy! And do your patriotic duty.

Anonymous said...

My humble suggestion is that Emre and his ilk don't have to leave the borders of Turkey. He can join the TSK in places like Hakkari and kill children in cold blood in broad daylight just like how one of his compatriots did today.

~nistiman