EREN KESKIN TO SPEAK IN MINNEAPOLIS

"I believe that the ideology of the perpatrators of the Armenian Genocide, the Committee of Union and Progress, and its special organization Teskilat-i Mahsusa, are the “founding ideology” of the Turkish Republic."
~ Eren Keskin.

For those of you in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, there will be a free conference on the Armenian Genocide this Friday, 5 February 2010, at the University of St. Thomas School of Law. It will run all day, from 0900 in the morning until 1700 in the evening.

There's more information at The Armenian Reporter.

Among the speakers will be Eren Keskin, who I have written about previously and it would be a great treat to be able to hear her speak.

Word is also that the Turkish embassy and the Turkish American Legal Defense Fund (TALDF) will have representatives present at the conference. Rastî readers will remember that the TALDF represented Jean Schmidt in the Krikorian case, for which Sibel Edmonds was deposed last summer.

If you can go, please go and show your support for a legitimate and open discussion of the Armenian Genocide, to support the Armenian community in the face of the Turkish government and its lobbyist watchdogs, and to hear Eren Keskin. Then let me know how everything went by posting something in comments.


UPDATE: Unfortunately, due to visa issues, Comrade Eren will be unable to attend the conference at the University of St. Thomas in person but she will participate by video link. If you're wondering what Comrade Eren will have to say, please check out her current column at The Armenian Weekly:

Yes, in Turkey, all together, the genocide committed against the Armenian nation has been “swept under the carpet.”

Everybody has a share in that. And everybody is guilty.

Those who don’t explicitly say “genocide,” those who are still ambivalent, who remain silent, who are afraid, I want to remind you of the words of Dr. Nazim in a secret meeting of the CUP in the beginning of 1915: “…Armenians are like a deadly wound. This wound is first thought to be harmless. But if it is not treated by a doctor in time, it definitely kills. We must act immediately. If we act as in 1909, it will do more harm than good. It will awaken the other groups we have decided to eliminate, the Arabs and the Kurds, and the danger will become threefold…”

Apparently the TALDF has exchanged "words" with the law school and were rebuffed by the school (Bravo for UST!), so now TALDF claims that it will bring protestors. If you're in the area and you have a Kurdish flag (or a picture of Önder Apo), take it along and wave it at the TALDF.

SERKEFTIN!

ARMENIANS, KURDS, AND THE RECALCITRANT TURKISH NATION

"I write upon Kurdish-Armenian relations with a mingled feeling of regret and of gratitude. That, through the sinister influence of the Turk and the ignorance of the Kurd, the Armenian, in certain localities and at certain periods, has suffered is a cause for deep regret. That we have already buried the past is cause for congratulation and gratitude . . . "
~ Sureya Bedirxan, The Case of Kurdistan Against Turkey, 1928.

In the past I have said that unless Turkey acknowledges the Armenian Genocide and settles its situation with the Armenian people, the survivors of that genocide, then there will be no precedent for Turkey to acknowledge the atrocities it has carried out and continues to carry out against the Kurdish people.

I'm not the only one who thinks this way. Taner Akçam spoke in just this same way on 4 January in Lebanon. There's a video below and a partial transcript, which begins at about the 3:50 minute in the video:

"The main flaw of this concept [the Turkish national security concept] is its perception that the promotion of basic democratic rights such as equality, and social reforms and freedom of speech are a threat to national security. So, this is very important. In the past, the emergence of the so-called Armenian Question was the result of Armenian demands for equality and for social reforms which arguably would have led to a better Ottoman society. Their demands and the Armenians themselves were considered as a security threat by the Ottomans, which led to them being targeted for massacres and deportations. Today the demand for an honest account of history is being handled in the same way--as a security problem.

"The irony is that criminalizing historical injustices for national security reasons is not only a huge obstacle on the path to democracy, but also is counterproductive and leads directly to real security problems for the Turkish state. The self-fulfilling prophecy, as it's called, can be shown not only in the Armenian Genocide of the past but in the Kurdish problem of today. Just as the Armenians and their social and political demands for a more just society were considered a threat in the past, a democratic future for Kurds today is also considered a threat to security

"So, instead of solving the Kurdish problem by seeking solutions that would lead to a more democratic society, the old--I would argue now useless security concept--has been resurrected and and has declared that the Kurdish demands are essentially a security problem for the Turkish nation. [ . . . ] As long as Turkey continues to regard moral principles, one of which is facing historic injustices with honesty, and national security as two opposing foes that are mutually exclusive, and refuses to come to terms with the past for national security reasons, indeed as long as Turkey's national security is defined in opposition to an honest historical recounting, further problems will be created in Turkey.

"So, there is a security aspect for the Middle East. A non-democratic, authoritarian Turkey creates more security problems than it solves when it makes the consistent denial of historical injustices an integral part of its security policy. It is exactly this attitude that delays not only democratization in the region [ . . . ] You cannot solve any problem in the Middle East today without addressing historic wrongdoings because history is not something in the past; it is the present in the Middle East today.

"So, my conclusion is that Turkey should stop going around and threatening other countries who wants to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide and only acknowledge historic wrongdoings, acknowledge the Armenian Genocide, pave the way for Turkey for a democratic, secure future for the region."

Now who does he sound like?

Many thanks to the friend who sent the link to the video.

On a related item, someone else sent a link to this interesting article at Asbarez.com. Here's a teaser:

I was given a seat in the front row. There was an empty chair to my left; I thought it might have been planted there deliberately, because Kurds, all from Turkey, came to shake my hand, and sit on that chair to share thoughts and “Secrets” with the “Representative of the Armenian People”, which I was not, nor did I claimed to be. A few of them posed a rhetorical question: “Why are the Kurds Muslims, what have we gained by being Muslims?” at least a dozen or so told me, on promise of anonymity, that their grandmother is Armenian. I was not shocked. A few years later I heard the Kurdish explanation of kidnapping our girls, which I will discuss later.

[ . . . ]

I said my word, loud and clear, from the podium, the gist of which was: yes we have the same cause, yes we have a common enemy, yes there should be an alliance between us, but each party has its own interests and rights for which to struggle. There should be no dispute between our two Nations, we are partners in destiny, our rights were spelled out, in detail, in the provisions of the Sevres Treaty, which was then refined and mapped by President Woodrow Wilson. It is to our advantage, and in detriment to Turkey, to stick to this map and the provisions of the Sevres Treaty.

I got standing ovation all three times, but not necessarily as endorsement of my expressed ideas. They were, I believe, happy for my exposing Turkey for what it is: an occupier, an oppressor of other nations, and a violator of human rights.

[ . . . ]

Our relationship with the Kurds is a complex one:

1. We are allies by necessity; the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

2. They definitely look up to us, yet we look down upon them. We are wrong; Kurds have advanced in every imaginable field beyond anyones imagination, certainly beyond mine.

3. Whether we like it or not, they are our neighbors, we better understand them.

4. Other than Western Armenia, there is, for them, the issue of the “Red Kurdistan”-Lachin, Kelbajar, Fizuli. For us the case is closed!

So, are the Kurds friends or foe? Probably both! Smart approach to this seemingly impossible situation will make them, in my opinion, our friends, much more than our foes.

Food for thought and the basis for dialog, my friends.

FRIDAY UPDATES: TURKISH LOBBY, ARMENIAN GENOCIDE, KURDS

"No national security considerations can be an excuse for the annihilation of a population by means of forced displacement and massacres."
~ DTP parliamentarian Selahattin Demirtaş on the Armenian Genocide.

A few updates:

First, Sibel Edmonds, Peter B. Collins, and I have a chat together over at Sibel's place.

Second, at the end of October it was announced that Brent Scowcroft would be stepping down as the chairman of the American Turkish Council (ATC), to be replaced by Richard Armitage.

I have been doing some digging into Armitage's background and will have three posts up at Sibel's Boiling Frogs Post. The first is here and the second is here. The third installment will be up in the very near future.

Finally, there is a very good interview with Taner Akçam at The Armenian Weekly. The focus of the interview is the Turkish protocols with Armenia, but Akçam is also asked quiestions about the wider picture. Akçam compares the Armenian situation of the past with the current Kurdish situation:

VEK: Will any of these developments impact current discussions related to the Kurdish Opening in Turkey?

TA: Definitely. We can only understand the Turkish-Armenian protocols if we consider the big picture. The Kurdish issue certainly is another part of this big picture. The Kurdish Opening is a direct product of the transition we are experiencing in Turkey. In terms of the Armenian issue, the Turkish government should follow the exact same steps that it has pursued regarding the Kurdish issue. If we examine how the Turkish government has been trying to solve the Kurdish issue, we will find ways to solve the Armenian issue. For example, what does it mean when we discuss the concept of acknowledging the truth? Until 2000 or 2002, or even as late as 2007, the Turkish government denied that the Kurdish people even existed. I was put in prison in 1975 because I wrote about the Kurds in Turkey. So acknowledgment of the truth is a central aspect in solving the Kurdish Question. With the reforms introduced after 2002, the Turkish government has acknowledged that there are Kurds living in Turkey. It should be the same for Armenians; something terrible happened and a crime occurred in 1915. By acknowledging the existence of the crime you can solve 1915.

Secondly, in the process of solving the Kurdish Question, the government has tried to establish justice. If you want to solve a problem related to injustices in the past you have to rectify it. There must be a way of compensation for this injustice. There are two possibilities, two ways of establishing justice: One is retributive justice, which is exactly what is going on in the Kurdish areas right now. Some officers have been charged with killing Kurdish civilians in the past, and those officers have been detained or lost their positions. In addition, mass graves have been opened up. This is important for the establishment of justice. In the case of the Armenians, this approach is useless because the killings happened 100 years ago. But there is another way of approaching justice; justice can be achieved through the principles of restorative justice. Restorative justice can also play a role in the Kurdish issue. Many perpetrators are fearful that the crimes they have committed will be disclosed. You can follow the South African model and give amnesty to those who reveal their crimes, for instance.

I see a very strong correlation not only regarding the solution but also regarding the origins of the Kurdish and Armenian issues. If I may put it bluntly, the Armenian issue was the Kurdish issue of the 19th century. Or the Kurdish conflict today is the Armenian conflict of the 19th century because in both cases the same mentality produced similar outcomes. In both centuries, the Turkish and the Ottoman governments considered the democratic demands of minority groups as a security threat. In the late 19th century and early 20th century, Armenian demands for social reform and equality were framed as a trap for the Ottoman state’s pursuit of security and territorial integrity. In the 1970’s, 1980’s, and 1990’s, and even until very recently, the Turkish state considered the Kurdish demands for cultural rights and equality as a challenge to its national security and territorial integrity. In both cases, the demands of the minority groups were suppressed. This caused the radicalization of both minority groups, and this very radicalization is ironically creating the security problems the governments were most scared of. The separatist movements and the challenges to territorial integrity became a problem as a direct consequence of governmental policies to repress these minorities. The parallels between the two cases are important to consider.

The interview is fairly long but it's definitely an excellent read. And lets remember DTP's position on the Armenian Genocide as stated by Selahattin Demirtaş in the TBMM:

“During the last period of the Ottoman Empire, in 1915-16, the Union and Progress Party systematically pursued a policy of extermination of the Christians who had been the native peoples of the country for centuries.”

[ . . . ]

“No national security considerations can be an excuse for the annihilation of a population by means of forced displacement and massacres,” he said. “Governments, in an effort to clear themselves of the guilt, resorted to denial and to distortion of historical facts to conceal the truth. They rewrote the history. In school books, Armenians are portrayed as hostile figures, exaggerating the incidents of violence by Armenian activists and never telling the truth about the massacred Armenians.”

“The word ‘Armenian’ has been used as an insult in this country,” continued Demirtas. “Even the president of the Republic of Turkey was accused of having secret Armenian ancestors, as if this was a sin. They did this to humiliate him. And what a shame that the president himself answered this ‘accusation’ in such a way as to confirm the humiliating connotation of the word, by trying to prove that this was not true.”

Demirtas suggested the formation of a history committee, consisting of independent historians from both sides, that would aim at revealing historic truths. “Without doing this, no real policy of peace can be pursued in foreign or domestic policy and no real resolution can be reached by ignoring the tragedy, by acting as if the loss of lives was a result of unwanted adverse circumstances. I know that what I say upsets those who remain loyal to the status quo. However for us to avoid recognizing historical truths just for the sake of the status quo would mean betraying our conscience and taking a politically unethical stance. So Turkey should lead the way to uncover the historical facts instead of continuing to carry the burden of a tragedy caused by the Committee of Union and Progress. In order for truly friendly relations between the two countries, it should be acknowledged that this is the only way for mutual trust.”

The author of the piece, Ayşe Günaysu, notes the following:

This was a first for the Turkish Parliament. There may be parts in Demirtas’ speech where one would disagree. But for me, these points of disagreement are less important than the declaration— in the Turkish Grand National Assembly—of the systematic extermination of Armenians in 1915. And it was a Kurdish MP who made this happen. The Kurds, some of whom actively took part in the Armenian Genocide, were also the first in Turkey to talk and write about the genocide of the Armenians and Assyrians.

Again, it's long but is another excellent read. And to Selahattin Demirtaş, I have this to say: You go, heval, you GO!!

Unfortunately, it looks like the Kurdish "opening" that Taner Akçam refers to is about to collapse.

WHO SPEAKS FOR ISLAM IN THE US?

“You must move in the arteries of the system without anyone noticing your existence, until you reach all the power centers, until the conditions are ripe."
~ Fethullah Gülen.

I came across something interesting the other day that I first noticed in an unusual place, the details of which are another story. However, there is a new book published called Who Speaks for Islam? It's the published results of a poll conducted by the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies. The woman in charge of that center is Dalia Mogahed who was mentioned in Sunday Zaman as the Obama's appointee to the White House Advisory Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Mogahed was quoted in Zaman as saying:

. . . [T]he Gülen movement, a faith-based social movement named after Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, is a model and inspiration for all those working for the good of the society.

The guy who writes the book with her is John Esposito. He edited a book with Hakan Yavuz on the "Gülen Movement". Hakan Yavuz is running the Armenian Genocide denial program at the University of Utah, which Luke Ryland noted back in May. The Middle East Center at U of U, under which Yavuz's Armenian Genocide denial project falls, is also involving itself in the Kurdish issue through its PhD program (See page 5), notably mentioning one of their candidates as Emrullah Uslu, who claims to be a "terrorism expert" in the Turkish press, but that may be because he's police. Uslu publishes articles at a wide variety of websites, including the pro-terrorist Jamestown Foundation and Taraf.

Yavuz is also connected to the wider Turkish lobby system in the US, which continues to spread big bucks around--especially if the big bucks are meant to fuel Armenian Genocide denial. At this Turkish Cultural Foundation (TCF) page, under the grantee listings for 2007, there are two grants to the Turkish Coalition of America (TCA) listed, one for $150,000 and another for $750,000. These were passed to Hakan Yavuz's Armenian Genocide denial program at the U of U. That's a grand total of $900,000, almost $1 million. Here's a CV for Yavuz. Under "Grants" about midway down, we see that the TCA handed over the $900,000 in 2009. Here's a mailing list page from the U of U political science faculty notifying everyone that the grant was approved for Yavuz:

Second, Hakan Yavuz has just been notified that his proposal titled "Memory, Migration and Trauma" was awarded $900,000 from the Turkish Cultural Foundation to advance Turkish Studies at the University of Utah. This award is through the Middle East Center and College of Humanities and will provide funds to support scholarship, conferences, graduate students, and community outreach related to the topic of the shaping of Turkish identity in the Republic of Turkey.

The Turkish Studies Project at the U of U doesn't want you to know that its funding originally came from the TCF, though; it issued a retraction of the fact here. Isn't that strange, especially when it was listed so prominently on Hakan Yavuz's own CV and announced through email to the political science faculty at the U of U?

It might be worth remembering that Utah and the Fethullahçı were linked to "electronic leakage" in a campaign to "harm the prestige" of the TSK. Now with the information about the $900,000 grant from the TCF to the TCA to the U of U, we can see that these Turkish groups have a network of their own in the US and the usual principle of Islamist v Secularist don't totally apply.

There's another tidbit to this story: Who was it that was among those luminaries who wrote reference letters for Fethullah Gülen when he was asking for a green card? John Esposito.

There we have Daria Mogahed and John Esposito neatly wrapped in the Fethullahçı web and, by now, most of you are probably wondering if I'm ever going to make a point. I am.

Daria Mogahed is making some tours of World Affairs Councils in the US to speak about Who Speaks for Islam? and not only in San Francisco, but in Montana and Florida.

So who's going to speak for Islam in the US? Fethullah Gülen.

FOLLOWING THE BLOOD MONEY TRAIL

"And, yes, I refer to it as blood money because where I come from, when you take money to deny the killing of innocent women and children, that is blood money."
~ David Krikorian.

Luke Rosiak at The Sunlight Foundation has more information on the Turkish lobby in the US and it's relationship to US defense contractors. Rosiak focuses on someone who's been highlighted here at Rastî--Yalçın Ayaslı of Hittite Microwave:

Turkey’s efforts have now been augmented by a domestic effort launched by a Turkish-American entrepreneur. Yalcin Ayasli founded Hittite Microwave in 1985 as a one-man company with a grant from the U.S. Air Force, and built the electronics company into a firm worth $1.2 billion, with half of its products sold overseas, according to a company presentation. The company had $180 million in revenue in 2008, according to SEC filings.

Since 2004, Hittite Microwave has received roughly $30 million in contracts directly from the government—mostly to sponsor research and development—and has also done business with Lockheed Martin and other prime contractors, many of whom use Hittite electronics in their jets and other equipment, sold to both the U.S. military and Turkey.

In 2007, Ayasli transferred $30 million in stock to fund a new endeavor, the nonprofit Turkish Coalition of America. The organization is headquartered in a Washington suite that has also been listed as the address for the Turkish Coalition USA PAC, the lobbying firm of Lydia Borland (who has represented the Turkish government), and the law firm of Bruce Fein and Associates (Fein comprises half of the Turkish American Legal Defense Fund).

The family of Hittite founder Ayaslin contributed nearly half a million dollars to federal politics in 2007-2008, donating near the maximum amount to the House campaign committees for both parties, but largely neglecting the Senate.

Read the rest and make sure to check out the great mind map Rosiak created to illustrate the connections of this web. Toward the end of the piece, Rosiak highlights the role of major US corporations that have lobbied Congress for their own interests in Turkey.

David Krikorian was completely on target when he labeled lobby money as "blood money", with that blood first being Armenian and then being Kurdish, and that's something that Sibel Edmonds confirmed on the day of her deposition.

This time, there's no need for me to ask what Sibel would think because she's got her own opinion of Rosiak's piece up at her place, 123 Real Change.

For more on Ayaslı, Hittite Microwave, and Schmidt v. Krikorian, see these:

Turkish Espionage Operations Target Congress

Who Is Paying the Piper?

THE SUNLIGHT FOUNDATION ON SCHMIDT V. KRIKORIAN

"Chase after the truth like all hell and you'll free yourself, even though you never touch its coattails."
~ Clarence Darrow.

It looks like The Sunlight Foundation is taking an interest in the Schmidt v. Krikorian Ohio Elections Commission hearing. From The Sunlight Foundation:

Backed by lawyers from the Turkish American Legal Defense Fund, Rep. Jean Schmidt, R-Ohio, filed a false claims complaint against David Krikorian, who ran against her in 2008 as an independent and garnered 18 percent of the vote. Schmidt’s complaint stems from campaign literature in which Krikorian claimed she “has taken $30,000 in blood money from Turkish sponsored political action committees to deny the slaughter of 1.5 million Armenian men, women and children by the Ottoman Turkish government during World War I.”

Though Jean Schmidt doesn’t sit on the subcommittee responsible for the Armenian Genocide legislation, it’s clear that she’s a favorite of the Turkish community. With $18,450 in contributions from three Turkish-focused PACs since 2007, the second-term House member has received far more than even influential senior members, and nearly twice as much as the second-highest recipient, Virginia Foxx, whose son-in-law is Turkish. A list of fundraisers compiled by the Turkish Coalition USA PAC shows that the group held several events for Schmidt, raising thousands more. And four individuals who gave to Turkish PACs also donated a combined $8,700 directly to Schmidt’s campaign.

At issue before the Ohio Board of Elections is whether Krikorian’s language holds up—whether it was accurate to describe three Turkey-focused political action committees as “Turkish sponsored.” The false claims complaint against Krikorian comes after the board censured Schmidt for a “reckless disregard for truth” in her own campaign literature.

I don't know whether this part is funny or sad:

Schmidt expressed little familiarity with the workings of her campaign as well as the complex ties between Turkish groups, including the Turkish American Legal Defense Fund, whose lawyers, she says, are being paid in campaign funds. (The latest expense reports don’t reveal the amount.)

“What is the Turkish American Legal Defense Fund?” she is asked.

“It’s a U.S. organization that has a PAC,” she answers.

“The Legal Defense Fund does?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know. I guess it doesn’t. I don’t know. I don’t know what it is.”

Ignorance is a killer.

I think truth will reign supreme soon. Very soon. For those with eyes to read, let them read this very carefully.

SIBEL EDMONDS ON THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE AND THE KURDS

"But with what's going on with the Kurdish population today in Turkey and what they're doing to the Kurdish population, you can see that it's not a matter of history, that it's being repeated."
~ Sibel Edmonds.

Here's a longer video from Deposition Day on 8 August with Sibel Edmonds, the lawyers involved, and David Krikorian. Run time is almost 25 minutes and, again, thanks to the friend who passed this little nugget along.

Pay attention to what Sibel says when she is asked about her personal ideas on the Armenian Genocide (about 11:50 minutes):

"As a person, I have never denied it [the Armenian Genocide]. . . I accept it and I think it's even twice, three times more important because people . . . they think of it as something that happened a hundred years ago and should be forgotten or shouldn't matter today . . . But with what's going on with the Kurdish population today in Turkey and what they're doing to the Kurdish population, you can see that it's not a matter of history, that it's being repeated. And as they did a hundred years ago and they're doing with the Armenian Genocide. Especially the United States is turning a blind eye on the Kurdish issue, which is a big, major human rights issue in Turkey. So it hasn't gone away and it's not something that happened only a hundred years ago. We see the effects of it today and unless the international community, including the United States, really takes a strong and firm position on this, they're going to get away with it and they'll never respect human rights."

Çok yaşa Sibel! Bijî Sibel! Getztzeh Sibel!

THE ATAA: DEEP STATE AND PSYCHOSIS

"Psychosis, with adjective psychotic, literally means abnormal condition of the mind, and is a generic psychiatric term for a mental state often described as involving a "loss of contact with reality". People suffering from psychosis are said to be psychotic."
~ Wikipedia.

Last week someone kindly brought to my attention the fact that Günay Hakkı Övünç (Evinch, according to his Americanized spelling) had become the president of the Assembly of Turkish American Associations (ATAA). Rastî readers will remember Övünç in connection with an American-based Turkish mercenary company that has a training facility in Silopi. More on that from Yeni Özgür Politika:

On some 1,000 acres of land between Silopi and the Habur Border Crossing the Black Hawk Security Company is working feverishly using up to 20 trucks carrying sand, five heavy plant and various other vehicles to get the base finished. The company was reportedly structured according to a model used by the Special Forces. The Washington-based company is shaping its organizations in Turkey and Iraq in order to meet the requirements of a low intensity war. With a cadre comprised of retired soldiers and intelligence operatives taken from special units the company provides a broad spectrum of activities including armored convoy security, defense tactics, low intensity combat, counter-terrorism and intelligence, air operations and hostage rescue.

The company, which has named its site in Habur "Black Hawk 1 Headquarters," will also have three other HQs in Zakho, Kirkuk and Baghdad.

The company will also have over 1,000 "retired" military personnel from the Turkish army attached to it. They will undergo a short refresher training course at the HQ in Silopi. At the Habur HQ, where some 300 service personnel will also be on duty, there will be a mobile hospital, a helipad, one casevac helicopter, one escort helicopter, and 300 vehicles including armed Hummers, and a truck park for 8,000 vehicles.

[ . . . ]

Günay Hakkı Övünç: Company partner and legal architect Günay Hakkı Övünç owns a law practice in Washington. Övünç, who for years has pursued law suits in the United States filed by the Turkish Embassy and the General Staff, is also the American-Turkısh Assembly's deputy chairman in charge of Washington.

Also involved in Black Hawk Security, Inc. is the TSK's retired Lieutenant General Köksal Karabay, who was in charge of Turkish special forces when American marines "bagged" them on 4 July, 2003.

YÖP asks some pertinent questions about the purpose of "Black Hawk 1 HQ" at the Habur border crossing:

The company will also have over 1,000 "retired" military personnel from the Turkish army attached to it. They will undergo a short refresher training course at the HQ in Silopi. At the Habur HQ, where some 300 service personnel will also be on duty, there will be a mobile hospital, a helipad, one casevac [medevac] helicopter, one escort helicopter, and 300 vehicles including armed Hummers, and a truck park for 8,000 vehicles.

[ . . . ]

There are many unanswered questions such as how did the partners meet one another, why did they take on this job, how did they get permission, what kind of relationship do they have with the US authorities, with whom do they share the intelligence they obtain, when the day comes how are they going to use "Turkish-Kurdish-Arab" and perhaps even American personnel, and are they simply going to be escorting trucks and nothing more? As part of an agreement made with this company the Koc Group and Milangaz Company send 1,600 tankers of LPG into Iraq every month. They send 200 tankers of aviation fuel ever day. They provide 70 percent of the United States requirement for diesel fuel via this crossing. When they talk about "security for Turkish trucks" they mean these tankers. However, this much military hardware and these names beg other questions.

Indeed.

Another interesting fact about Övünç is that he's from Chicago. According to the Sibel Edmonds case, Turkish nationals were apparently deeply engaged in covert activity in two major American cities and one of those was Chicago:

It may be more than another embarrassing security scandal. One counter-intelligence official familiar with Edmonds’s case has told Vanity Fair that the F.B.I. opened an investigation into covert activities by Turkish nationals in the late 1990’s. That inquiry found evidence, mainly via wiretaps, of attempts to corrupt senior American politicians in at least two major cities—Washington and Chicago. Toward the end of 2001, Edmonds was asked to translate some of the thousands of calls that had been recorded by this operation, some dating back to 1997.

[ . . . ]

. . . in December 2001, Joel Robertz, an F.B.I. special agent in Chicago, contacted Sibel and asked her to review some wiretaps. Some were several years old, others more recent; all had been generated by a counter-intelligence that had its start in 1997. “It began in D.C.,” says an F.B.I. counter-intelligence official who is familiar with the case file. “It became apparent that Chicago was actually the center of what was going on.”

I wonder how close a relationship there is between Övünç and another Turkish Chicagoan, Mehmet Çelebi, whose fundraising for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign was eventually dropped faster than a hot potato.

We know that sometime in 2005 or, perhaps, very early 2006, Övünç was "summoned" to Iraq, in Övünç's own words:

I was summoned to Baghdad. As I did not want to worry my wife, I told her I was going to Turkey for a conference on the Armenian matter – which was true. But, the complete truth was that after the conference I would continue to Iraq via Istanbul Atatürk International Airport, one of the safest routes to Baghdad for civilians. Passengers go through four levels of security checks, and the pretty woman sitting next to you in the plane might be a Turkish sky marshal who can break your neck faster than you can say, “Turkish Delight.”

So who "summoned" him and for what purpose? Inquiring minds want to know.

What may be even more scary is the ATAA's president-elect, Ergün Kirlikovalı (Check the ATAA's board of directors page for verification). He should be Övünç's successor as president of the ATAA in the not-too-distant future. You can get an idea of some of the things Kirlikovalı believes in these comments to a Forbes opinion piece asking, "Should Turkey Apologize to the Armenians".

Or check out a blog entry at the Orange County Weekly, which has a lot of interesting links to comments Kirlikovali is making all over the Internet . . . Like his psychotic babbling here or his anti-Mexican rant here.

And there's more raving at the Huffington Post. Or check out comment #168 here:

Turks are the new Jews. Genocide crowds are the new KKK.

Although there has been no due process or a jury verdict by any competent tribunal, these genocide crowds have already made up their minds about the characterization of the Turkish-Armenian conflict during WWI. Facts, figures no longer matter to them as they are all classified under the heading denials.

These genocide lynch mobs burn crosses not on Turkish lawns (yet,) but in public conscience. They claim, scream, and attack… They insult, intimidate, and terrorize… They already have their chosen verdict in their minds which comforts their anti-Turkish bias: Turks are guilty and there is no need to discuss this lay verdict; it is execution time… get the rope!

Or how about comment #173:

If Turks wanted to kill all Armenians why did they let one go? If Turks were afraid of foreign political pressure, why did they go ahead with the tereset (temporary resettlement?) What is wrong with defending your home when certain elements are trying to destroy your home from within, in total callusion [sic] with forced from outside? If Turks wanted to kill all Armenians, why would they save the ones in Istanbul? and Izmir? and Edirne? and Aleppo? and many other city centers (Urfa, Marasah, Anteb, and more?) Why would they exclude Catholic or Protestant Armenians? Why would they exclude many other Armenians like those dwelling in city centers, and clerks, etc.? And then why would Turks allow Armenians to use the trains where there were railroads (Konya, Adana, etc.?) Why would they allocate ox, horse, donkey carts where available? Why would they assign soldiers to protect them? Why would they allow American aid to help Arenians [sic]? Why would Turks invite an investigation of the charges by an international committee, other than those who started the tragedy in the first place, like Russia, Britain and France?

Can someone explain to me how Kirlikovalı's ranting squares with Övünç's vision for the ATAA in a statement last month, in which he says, "ATAA is a proud interlocutor, as the voice of reason and credibility in Washington DC for nearly 500,000 Turkish and Turkic Americans nationwide"? And why is it that we should believe the psychotic ravings of the future president of the ATAA on his word alone?

WE REMEMBER

"On April 24, 1915, the decision of mass genocide and annihilation of the Assyrian-Syrian and the Armenian peoples was taken by the Ottoman Empire. The blueprints of and the logistics for this genocide being prepared ahead of time, they employed Hamidiye Alaylari from Kurdish tribes (Similar to the present day Village Guards system who kill our people) to commit history’s, until then unknown, Genocide. In this Genocide, millions of Armenians and Assyrian-Syrians were killed, and millions others were deported from their homes and land and scattered to the four corners of the world."
~ Zübeyir Aydar.

Discovering truth:

ISTANBUL, Turkey (CNN) -- Fethiye Cetin was 25 years old when she discovered her beloved grandmother's secret.

The little old lady in the white headscarf was Armenian. Her real name was not Seher, but Heranus Gadarian.

Cetin says at the age of nine, a Turkish gendarme captain ripped Heranus from the arms of her mother while they were on a brutal death march into the desert. A Turkish couple later adopted the Armenian girl, and gave her a Muslim name.

When Cetin first learned about her grandmother's Armenian origins, she was shocked.

"I felt deceived," she says. "I felt like going out into the street and screaming 'they are lying to us.'"

Source.

AMERICA'S EDUCATION: FUNDED BY THE TURKISH REPUBLIC

"The movie is done in the style of a documentary, the central thesis being the immutable racial personality traits that, according to Nazi doctrine, characterize the Jew as a wandering cultural parasite. Throughout the film, these supposed traits are contrasted to the Nazi state ideal. . . "
~ The Eternal Jew.

The other day I posted a short item on a disgusting documentary that the Turkish general staff produced and has forced on the school children of Turkey. In the comments to that post, JB, a regular reader of Rastî, dropped a dime on an organization that works for the Turkish general staff, and is attempting to brainwash American children and university students in the same manner that they're attempting to brainwash Turkish school children.

That organization, the Turkish Coalition of America, is closely linked to the Deep State and has created and founded an "academic" program to officially deny the Armenian genocide:

TCA and University of Utah Establish Turkish Program

The University of Utah and the Turkish Coalition of America are pleased to announce the establishment of a major new academic program, “The Origins of Modern Ethnic Cleansing: The Collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the Emergence of Nation States in the Balkans and Caucasus.”

This novel program will advance scholarship on a critical period in a region that continues to make headlines, in part due to the turbulent forces unleashed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. According to Project Director, Professor M. Hakan Yavuz, “Our new program will explore the shaping of modern Turkish identity through scholarly work, conferences, community participation, and support for new research, much of which will focus on a series of traumatic formative events including crises in the Balkans and the Caucasus, the loss of major territories, and forced migration that presaged the establishment of the Turkish Republic.”

Lincoln McCurdy, President of the Turkish Coalition of America expects this program to be particularly vital because it will produce a new cadre of scholars who will impact the study of Turkey and the surrounding region for years. To provide insight and guidance, a Partnership Board composed of recognized experts and leaders has been formed: Dr. Sukru Elekdag, Member of the Turkish Grand National Assembly and former Ambassador to the United States, Rifat Hisarciklioglu, President of the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey, Professor Yusuf Sarinay, Director of the State Archives of Turkey, Professor Norman Stone, Historian and Professor of International Relations at Bilkent University, and Alev Alatli, journalist and writer. The project is made possible thanks to a generous multi-year gift from the Turkish Coalition of America.

"The project is made possible thanks to a generous multi-year gift from the Turkish Coalition of America." Let me translate that for you: "The Turkish Republic is footing the bill to bring genocide denial to an institute of higher education near you". The news is found at TCA's website, but do the Google thing for that. Don't expect a link here.

Let's note something right off the bat. Lincoln McCurdy has a long history with the American Turkish Council (ATC), including having earned a "distinguished career award" from them. YOWZZA!! I mean, that would be like getting a "distinguished career award" from Şeytan himself. Here you go:

G. Lincoln McCurdy has over 30 years of leadership and management experience in both U.S. government service and the private sector. He has extensive experience in dealing with bi-national boards; working with senior officials of the governments and military of the United States and Turkey; leading trade/investment missions and U.S. congressional delegations to Turkey; co-sponsoring activities with the State and Commerce Departments, Environmental Protection Agency, Smithsonian Institute and National Public Radio; and fundraising.

He served as the senior advisor to the Turkish American Chamber of Commerce and Industry in New York in 2005 and 2006.

McCurdy was the president and chief executive officer, 1998 - 2004, and executive director, 1989 – 1998, of the American-Turkish Council (ATC) in Washington, the leading business association in the United States devoted to the promotion of U.S.-Turkish commercial, defense and cultural relations. He received ATC’s Distinguished Career Award in 2005.

Before joining ATC, Mr. McCurdy served in the American Consulate General in Istanbul as the Consul for Commercial Affairs, 1980 – 1984. In this capacity, he received the Department of State’s Meritorious Honor Award for “re-establishing American pre-eminence in the Istanbul International Business Community.” After government service, he consulted in Istanbul for five years for the Bank of Boston and several Turkish companies. In the late 1970s, he worked at the U.S. Department of Commerce in Washington, DC, organizing trade shows in Brazil.

Oh, yeah, he's in there deep. Real deep. He's one of those auctioned-off statesmen that Sibel Edmonds talked about. He's spent his life engaging in some serious licking of paşa backside to get where he is, and he's seeing to the education of young Americans?? Jaw-dropping. Absolutely jaw-dropping; but this little arrangement with the University of Utah confirms that most intellectuals, and academia in general, don't have a lick of sense.

The University of Utah Press published one of Justin McCarthy's books, The Armenian Rebellion in Van. McCarthy, who wrote a 284-page teachers' manual on Turkey--helpfully including the URL to the TSK's website, among others--addressed the TBMM on the Armenian "Question" in 2005, in which he basically said that the Armenians were asking for "It". "It" being the genocide. "It" being self-defense on the part of Ottoman Turks.

The University of Utah Press also published Guenther Lewy's The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey: A Disputed Genocide. Lewy is a weird kind of guy--a professional genocide denier. He denies not only the Armenian genocide, but also the Nazi genocide of the Gypsies, the American genocide of the Native Americans, and he contends that American atrocities in Vietnam were faked. He also writes for--surprise, surprise, surprise!--the official publication of the American Enterprise Institute, The Middle East Quarterly, edited by Michael Rubin (a rebuttal by Armenian scholar Vahakn Dadrian to Lewy's article may be found halfway down the page here).

It looks like the University of Utah is ground zero for scholarly genocide denial. In what seems like another coincidence, in April 2007 Yusuf Kanlı mentioned that many of the leaks against the TSK were coming from Utah. Could it be that the Fethullahçı are also involved in the denial? It wouldn't come as a shock to me.

Interestingly enough, as late as November 2008 Lewy brought a lawsuit against the Southern Poverty Law Center. The suit that is being funded by the Turkish American Legal Defense Fund (TALDF). Bruce Fein and David Saltzman, among TCA's board of directors and officers, are Lewy's attorneys in the action. Coincidentally, Fein and Saltzman are the contact guys at the TALDF. Isn't that cozy? But why is Lewy suing the SPLC? Because they wrote the truth:

Early this year, the Toronto District School Board voted to require all public high school students in Canada's largest city to complete a new course titled "Genocide: Historical and Contemporary Implications." It includes a unit on the Armenian genocide, in which more than a million Armenians perished in a methodical and premeditated scheme of annihilation orchestrated by the rulers of Turkey during and just after World War I.

The school board members each soon received a letter from Guenter Lewy, a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts, rebuking them for classifying the Armenian genocide in the same category as the Holocaust. "The tragic fate of the Armenian community during World War I," Lewy wrote, is best understood as "a badly mismanaged war-time security measure," rather than a carefully plotted genocide.

Lewy is one of the most active members of a network of American scholars, influence peddlers and website operators, financed by hundreds of thousands of dollars each year from the government of Turkey, who promote the denial of the Armenian genocide — a network so influential that it was able last fall to defy both historical truth and enormous political pressure to convince America's lawmakers and even its president to reverse long-held policy positions.

The SPLC goes on to describe the Ankara regime's efforts to wipe the Armenian Genocide from America's history books:

The first unassailable evidence of the extent of the Armenian genocide denial industry's reach in academic circles arrived in 1990 in an envelope addressed to Robert Jay Lifton, a professor of psychology and psychiatry at the City University of New York's Graduate Center and John Jay College. It contained a letter signed by Nuzhet Kandemir, who was then Turkey's ambassador to the United States, protesting Lifton's inclusion of several passing references to the Armenian genocide in his prize-winning book The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide.

"It is particularly disturbing to see a major scholar on the holocaust, a tragedy whose enormity and barbarity must never be forgotten, so careless in his references to a field outside his own area of expertise," Kandemir wrote. "To compare a tragic civil war perpetrated by misguided Armenian nationalists, and the human suffering it wrought on both Muslim and Christian populations, with the horrors of a premeditated attempt to systematically eradicate a people is, to anyone familiar with the history in question, simply ludicrous."

There was nothing out of the ordinary about Kandemir's letter. Academics who write about the Armenian genocide were then and still are routinely castigated by Turkish authorities.

What Lifton found intriguing, however, was a second letter in the envelope, which the Turkish ambassador had included quite by accident. It was a memo to Kandemir from Near East historian Heath Lowry, in which Lowry provided Kandemir with a point-by-point cheat sheet on how to attack Lifton's book, which Lowry chummily referred to as "our problem."

Lowry at the time was the founding director of the Institute for Turkish Studies. He resigned that position in 1996 when he was selected from a field of 20 candidates to fill the Ataturk Chair of Turkish Studies at Princeton University, a new position in the Near Eastern Studies department that was created with a $750,000 matching grant from the government of Turkey.

Prior to joining the Princeton faculty, Lowry had never held a full-time teaching position and had not published a single work of scholarship through a major publishing house. As a result of that and of what The Boston Globe described in 1995 as his work as "a long-time lobbyist for the Turkish government," his appointment sparked a firestorm of controversy. A protest group called Princeton Alumni for Credibility published a petition decrying Lowry's appointment that was signed by more than 80 leading scholars and writers, including Kurt Vonnegut, Arthur Miller, Cornel West, Joyce Carol Oates and many historians and experts in genocide.

This may be just another coincidence, but Justin McCarthy is currently a member of the board of The Institute of Turkish Studies.

There was something on the matter from the History News Network:

Turkey’s government also has been quick to identify American scholars (there are only a handful, but Turkey knows them all) who back its view that the right approach to 1915 is not to call it genocide, but to figure out what to call it, and what actually took place.

Normally, you might expect historians to welcome the interest of governments in convening scholars to explore questions of scholarship. But in this case, scholars who study the period say that the leaders of Turkey and the United States — along with that handful of scholars — are engaged in a profoundly anti-historical mission: trying to pretend that the Armenian genocide remains a matter of debate instead of being a long settled question. Much of the public discussion of the Congressional resolution has focused on geopolitics: If the full House passes the resolution, will Turkey end its help for U.S. military activities in Iraq?

This article notes that the Ankara regime has stepped up its denial efforts at a time when access to Ottoman documentation is beginning to provide "even more solid evidence of the intent of the Turkish authorities to slaughter the Armenians." Furthermore, many of those breaking ground in this field, are ethnic Turks:

Among the scholars attracting the most attention for work on the genocide is Taner Akçam, a historian from Turkey who has been a professor at the University of Minnesota since 2001, when officials in Turkey stepped up criticism of his work. Akçam has faced death threats and has had legal charges brought against him in Turkey (since dropped) for his work, which directly focuses on the question of the culpability of Young Turk leaders in planning and executing the genocide. (Akçam’s Web site has details about his research and the Turkish campaigns against him.) Opposition to his work from Turkey has been particularly intense since the publication last year of A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility.

[ . . . ]

Another scholar from Turkey working on the Armenian genocide is Fatma Müge Göçek, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Michigan. Until she came to Princeton to earn her Ph.D., Göçek said that she didn’t know about the Armenian genocide. For that matter, she said she didn’t know that Armenians lived in Turkey — “and I had the best education Turkey has to offer.”

Learning the full history was painful, she said, and started for her when Armenians she met at Princeton talked to her about it and she was shocked and angry. Upon reading the sorts of materials she never saw in Turkey, the evidence was clear, she said.

So are these Armenian Genocide deniers working purely out of the goodness of their hearts? I find that impossible to believe, especially when former ATC presidents and CEO's are involved. I find that impossible to believe when the Ankara regime is funding all of these lies, and not only against the Armenians. The regime, hand-in-hand with the TCA, is doing the same thing regarding Macedonia:

Today, the Cyprus Action Network of America (CANA) was informed of major Turkish lobby financing of “The United Macedonian Diaspora (UMD)” . The UMD is a newly formed organization in Washington DC, dedicated to advancing false historical revisionism on Macedonia, in support of the irredentist, fascistic, and anti-Hellenic Skopje government.

According to a press release issued by the UMD today “The United Macedonian Diaspora (UMD) and the Turkish Coalition of America (TCA) are pleased to announce a generous challenge-matching grant of $150,000. Over the next three years, TCA will match every dollar donated to UMD up to a maximum of $50,000 per year equaling a total fundraising goal of $300,000. This gracious gift will allow UMD to expand its work dramatically and, for the first time, retain a full-time Executive Director.” (Full comments can be read below).

The Turkish Coalition of America (TCA) is another recently formed organization in Washington DC following on the heels of scandals surrounding testimony by FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds, and reports of FBI wiretaps of the Turkish Embassy and its allies the Assembly of Turkish American Associations (ATAA) and the American Turkish Council (ATC). Articles in Vanity Fair and Sunday Times, and in 2007, public advocacy requests for a Congressional hearing on the Sibel Edmonds case bring up charges of illegal arms deals, illegal drug activities, money laundering, influence-peddling, and racketeering, obstruction of justice, bribery, espionage and treason. David Rose, contributing editor to Vanity Fair, wrote the expose on the FBI wiretaps of the Turkish Embassy and its allies in relation to the scandal. (An Inconvenient Patriot by David Rose, Vanity Fair/September 2005).

Wow! Could it be that the ATC, ATAA, and others, are pushing their initials around into new configurations because Sibel's determination to out them and all of their shitty laundry has damaged their credibility? Bijî Sibel!

The Ankara regime's efforts to deny the Armenian Genocide is not just an Armenian problem. Until the regime comes clean on what happened in 1915, it's not going to come clean on what happened in 1925. Or in 1937. Or in 1980. Or in 1984. Or in the 1990s. Or today. For those reasons, in addition to the fact that some Kurds did take part in the Genocide, denial of the Armenian Genocide is not an option for Kurds. It must be acknowledged and admitted, as it was by Öcalan and the Kurdish Parliament in Exile in the 1990s.

Otherwise, as JB commented, "THE ETERNAL ARMENIAN" will become "THE ETERNAL KURD".

ALIVE AND WELL IN TURKEY

"Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind."
~ Henry Miller.

Oh, well, wouldn't you know it? Those great experts on the Armenian Genocide, the Turkish general staff, has produced a documentary video on the Armenian Genocide that is being distributed and shown to school children in Turkey. Bianet has some information on it:

The General Staff of the Turkish Army has prepared a six-part “documentary”, which was sent to all primary schools through the province authorities of the Ministry of Education. The DVDs are to be shown to children “at a convenient time”, and schools are to report back on the effects of the film by 2 March, so a letter sent to schools by the Ministry in January.

[ . . . ]

The education trade union Eğitim-Sen has demanded that schools immediately stop showing this film. Trade union leader Zübeyde Kılıç told bianet that their report on the film would be published within a week, and that they may go to court in order to prevent further screenings at schools.

According to Kılıç, the film would teach 12 million children, aged 6-14, to hate Armenians and anyone who is different. It would “create a generation fed on hatred.”

She added, “These children are at an age when they accept information without interpreting it, when they accept what they are told as the truth, and when things are stored in their memory. It will be impossible for a child watching this film not to feel hatred for Armenians.”

“As for the Armenian children (i.e. citizens of Turkey who will also be exposed to this film), they may be marginalised or discriminated against afterwards. This worry may lead to them hiding their identities.”

Kılıç has called on an education which would teach the events of 1915, as well as other controversial parts of Turkey’s history, in a way that would heal wounds. “But this film encourages conflict.”

Jeez, what a shock.

Among those who collaborated on the documentary are Samuel A. Weems, who is closely associated with the website "Tall Armenian Tale" and Dr. Justin McCarthy, who published teaching materials to spread Turkish propaganda in the US. McCarthy also wrote a manual on the Armenian Genocide for the Education Committee of the Assembly of Turkish American Associations (ATAA), another branch of the Deep State that's active in the US.

It goes without saying that Turks like Taner Akçam, Halil Berktay, Elif Şafak, Fatma Müge Göçek, and Orhan Pamuk were not consulted for the documentary by the Turkish general staff.

No doubt, I thought, the documentary will be outrageous, but I didn't realize how outrageous it would be until I saw a recent opinion piece by Hasan Cemal at Milliyet. This is really way over the top:

The idea of the Armenian who eats human flesh is being promoted in the video tapes that are delivered by the Turkish National Education Ministry to schools to be watched.

Are we going to learn our history like this? Are we going to teach our kids by brainwashing with hatred and revenge? Or by pouring the poison of racism into their minds?

Please, Mr. Prime Minister, tell me, do you really care about societal peace? Are we going to raise our children with an understanding that derives hatred from history?

Well, I dunno . . . do ya think maybe the idea of cannibalism would traumatize kids or make them hate . . . all based on the lies of the assholes on the Turkish general staff and the disgusting little "expert" toadies they rounded up to glorify their crap? But, hey, at least they're all consistent. The theme of officially sanctioned racism and hatred is one we've heard not too long ago. Reference Mithat Sancar:

In terms of political culture and daily life, Turkey is becoming a society that has a powerful racist vein. Daily racism has increased a lot in Turkey. I mean racism became normal. The disasters which are created by the normalization of racism can be understood by looking at world examples and the pains that result [from racism]. This racism destroys the base of democracies and it makes it easier in Turkey to polarize society and then drag people to the point that they can slaughter each other. In fact, in the last year, torture incidents in Turkey, deaths in prison and in detention, and shooting on the streets have increased. All these incidents are related to each other.

Obviously Katil Erdoğan's "Love It or Leave It" policy applies not only to Kurds.

And for an example of the "Love It or Leave It" policy in action, make sure to stop by Hevallo's place where he has a link to a BBC item on the latest regarding JITEM's acid wells.

LIES AND LOBBYISTS

"If you can't drink a lobbyist's whiskey, take his money, sleep with his women and still vote against him in the morning, you don't belong in politics."
~ Unknown.

A friend in Amed (Diyarbakır) sent a link from Yüksekova Haber which says that Katil Erdoğan is planning a trip to Amed on 21 February in support of the AKP mayoral candidate Kutbettin Arzu. According to Yüksekova Haber, Katil Erdoğan may reveal a "new incentive package" for the region.

Everyone take a trip in the time machine with me back to almost one year ago when Katil Erdoğan was talking the same BS in the NYTimes:

Turkey’s government is planning a broad series of investments worth as much as $12 billion in the country’s largely Kurdish southeast, in a new economic effort intended to create jobs and draw young men away from militancy, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.

The program is intended to drain support for the militant Kurdish group, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, by improving the lives of Turkey’s impoverished Kurdish minority, Mr. Erdogan said in an interview with The New York Times on Tuesday.

[ . . . ]

Mr. Erdogan is still identifying funds for the economic effort, which was started years ago by a previous administration but languished. The state will invest between $11 billion and $12 billion over five years to build two large dams and a system of water canals, complete paved roads and remove land mines from the fields along the Syrian border, he said.

Plans for the project will be completed within two months, he said, at which point construction on the two dams will begin. He said he had dedicated one of his deputy prime ministers to visit cities across the largely Kurdish southeast to work on it.

“Everything we can see in the western part of the country we can see in the east,” he said.

Yeah, right. Tell me another one.

As I mentioned at the time, not even the extremely pro-status quo, pro-terrorist Jamestown Foundation was fooled by Katil Erdoğan's hot air:

It is unclear whether, in his interview with the New York Times, Erdogan was being disingenuous in presenting the promised $12 billion as a new initiative or whether the reporters were unaware of the project’s background and thus assumed it was a new initiative. In fact, the dams, water canals, and roads form part of what is known as the Southeast Anatolia Project (GAP), which was first formulated in the 1970s and began to be implemented in the early 1980s.

[ . . . ]

One only has to fly over the region to see the effect of GAP on agriculture in the Tigris and Euphrates basins, transforming large tracts of what was previously semi-arid land into cultivated fields. In areas such as the Harran plain, annual yields of cotton, wheat, barley, and lentils have tripled. However, GAP has had a greater impact on agricultural productivity than on employment. Even though it has undoubtedly created jobs in local service industries, GAP’s overall impact on employment in southeast Turkey has been minor.

As well as being the poorest region in Turkey, the southeast also has the highest rate of population increase. Even in some of the richest areas in the GAP region, the pace of job creation has lagged behind the growth in available workforce. In most of the cities of southeast Turkey the unemployment rate is double or triple the 9.9% average in the country as a whole. Among young people in the cities of southeastern Turkey, unemployment often reaches 50-60%. There is no reason to suppose that, even if they can be completed, the Ilisu and Silvan dams and their associated irrigation systems will have a major impact on employment in the region.

[ . . . ]

Many Kurds already resent not only the displacements resulting from GAP, but also what they regard as the resulting destruction of their heritage through the filling of the dams, which are also used to produce electricity for the rest of the country.

It is also difficult to see how the completion of a project that was originally formulated in the 1970s will be interpreted as demonstrating the AKP’s commitment to the region. Perhaps more significant, although it is impossible to be sure of the precise impact of the two-thirds of GAP that has been completed to date on recruitment to the PKK, what is certain is that it has not prevented it. Whatever else the PKK and other militant organizations in southeast Turkey – which is also the main recruiting ground for violent Islamist groups – may be short of, it is not recruits.

We didn't buy it then; we don't buy it now. If Katil Erdoğan unveils a "new incentive package" in Amed on the weekend, it will be the same, old, warmed-over crap.

In other news, it looks like the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) has had complaints filed against it by some ethics "watchdog" in DC:

Today, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a complaint with the Department of Justice, the Internal Revenue Service, the Clerk of the House and the Secretary of the Senate urging an investigation into whether the Armenian National Committee of America-Western Region (ANCA-WR) and the ANCA Endowment Fund violated their status as charitable organizations, the Foreign Agents Registration Act and the Lobbying Disclosure Act.

Both ANCA-WR and the ANCA Endowment Fund, which share offices and a common website, have participated in political campaigns in violation of federal tax law, which specifically bars groups organized under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code from participating in political campaigns. Nevertheless, on October 24, 2008, ANCA announced its endorsements of 15 candidates for the United States Senate and 211 candidates for the United States House of Representatives and published these endorsements on its shared website with ANCA-WR: www.anca.org. ANCA also endorsed the Obama-Biden ticket for the presidency.

The Foreign Agents Registration Act (“FARA”) requires agents of foreign political parties to register with the Department of Justice, periodically report and describe their activities aimed at influencing policies of the United States and to disclose the dissemination of information, including testimony before Congress.

Just a few short weeks ago, Turkish parliamentarians scrambled in the wake of Katil Erdoğan's Davos temper tantrum in order to contain the fallout with Jewish lobby groups . . . and the Armenians:

The Ruling Justice and Development Party's, or AKP’s, Cüneyt Yüksel and Suat Kınıklıoğlu, and the Nationalist Movement Party's, or MHP, Mithat Melen, were in the United States between Jan. 29 and Feb. 6 to lobby against any genocide resolutions.

Following their talks with U.S. officials, as well as a roundtable meeting with representatives from 10 Jewish organizations, the AKP deputies drafted a report emphasizing the "Jewish lobby-Armenian alliance" and submitted it to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

The report included a host of other topics relating to Turkey, ranging from Turkish-Armenian relations to the Israeli offensive in Gaza and the Davos summit, as well as Turkey's bid to join the European Union, and further reaching topics such as terrorism and international security.

The deputies warned that the heated panel debate with Israeli President Shimon Peres in Davos, which ended when Erdoğan walked off stage after being interrupted by the moderator, drew the Jewish lobby in the United States closer to Armenian lobby groups.

[ . . . ]

The deputies highlighted a campaign prepared to be launched by four congressmen in the U.S. House of Representative in support of the Armenian thesis and warned, "Armenians believe an opportunity to pass the draft resolution has emerged after Davos."

The report called for lobbying activities and encouraged deputies to visit Washington more frequently.

The four congressmen are named elsewhere:

In a message to fellow members of Congress, Reps. Adam Schiff (D.-Calif.), George Radanovich (R.-Calif.), Frank Pallone (D.-N.J.) and Mark Kirk (R.-Ill.) are urging them "to re-affirm the U.S. record on the Armenian Genocide by cosponsoring a bipartisan resolution" on the subject, according to a February 10 electronic letter made available to the Armenian Reporter.

Not to worry, though; an agreement appears to have been reached between the Turks and the American pro-Israel lobby:

Last week, two members of the Turkish parliament from the ruling party, Suat Kiniklioglu and Cuneyt Yuskel, were in the United States to lobby against the resolution. According to the Jamestown Foundation's translation, the two, having met U.S. officials and Jewish-American leaders, told Zaman newspaper that the "pro-Israel lobby will stay neutral if a genocide resolution is brought to the Congress; in case a resolution passed, Turkey should not hold Israel responsible as such a policy would make the Congress upset; and in order to prevent such genocide resolution, Turkey should open its Armenian border."

So, is the news today about the ANCA complaints a coincidence or a conspiracy? Remember, the lobbying "problem" wasn't a problem when Lockheed Martin lobbyist--registered with the Senate under the Lobbying Disclosure Act--Joseph Ralston was appointed as "special envoy to coordinate the PKK for Turkey".

PUSHING THE LIMIT

"The policy of denial, assimilation and eradication has affected people. Only the Kurds resisted. They still resist."
~ Ahmet Türk.

Mmmm . . . It looks like there was yet another altercation in the TBMM between Turkey's only opposition party, the DTP, and everyone else, from the Armenian paper, Asbarez (Thanks to the heval who sent the link!):

A Turkish parliament member's request Sunday that the legislature apologize to Armenians for the “events of 1915” has caused an uproar in parliament, with members hurling personal insults at one another.

Democratic Society Party (DTP) member Osman Euzcelik (Osman Özcelik) brought the matter up during parliament's discussion of the education ministry budget and went on to recall the Armenian massacres by using the Kurdish word that describes Genocide.

He also said that he had heard stories about the Armenian killings as child growing up in Turkey and added that the killings were planned by the sultan of the Ottoman Empire and were carried out by groups called Hamiddiye, which also had Kurdish members.

Euzcelik likened the campaign to kill Armenians to the current campaign waged against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

“These groups killed a large number of Armenians. A lot of times they would line up the Armenians and shoot them in the chest. All Armenians of Martin were killed and some fled to Syria,” said Euzcelik, who added that his grandfather's family provided refuge for Genocide survivors.

Nevzad Pakdil, who was presiding over the parliament session, interrupted Euzcelik, blasting him for “insulting the society in which you live.”

Euzcelik said that he was apologizing to Armenians on his own behalf.

Pakdil intervened again attempting to stifle the parliament member. Members of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) applauded the Pakdil while another DTP member, Surru Saken (Sırrı Sakık) directed his anger to Paktdil by saying, “Mr. Chairman, you represent the Marash district and you know full well the extent of the tragedy that unfolded there.”

This comment prompted a member of the AKP to walk toward DTP members and begin screaming at his fellow parliamentarians. Another parliament member intervened to stop what could have become a physical altercation.

“Should we not talk about the facts? There is not one Assyrian left,” screamed another DTP member during the commotion, which was followed by several DTP members leaving the parliament.

The unprecedented demonstration in Parliament came less one a week after 200 Turkish intellectuals launched an internet petition apologizing to the Armenians for what they called the "injustice" of the "Great Catastrophe" of 1915. The petition, which sparked controversy in Turkey, had garnered over 20,000 signatures by Monday, stirring a media storm on the topic and challenging long-held taboos on the Armenian Genocide. It has drawn the ire of Turkey's ultra nationalists, provoking also Turkey's powerful generals, former diplomats, the Foreign Minister, and the Prime Minister to denounce the campaign.

Asbarez also provides a link to a recent ANCA statement on the attempts to confront the Armenian Genocide in the TBMM.

And while we're on the subject, another non-event that has been going around Turkish media is the alleged scandal against AKP's Abdullah Gül by İzmir's CHP parliamentarian, Canan Arıtman. Apparently, she implied that Gül's mother was Armenian and the press has taken the news and run with it. This has cause considerable mental anguish for Gül, who is now suing Arıtman for 1YTL. From Bianet:

President Abdullah Gül filed a mental anguish lawsuit against Canan Arıtman, Izmir deputy for the People’s Republican Party (CHP), in the amount of 1 YTL (about 0.5 euro).

CHP deputy Arıtman had implied that President Gül’s mother was Armenian, when the President had made the comment about the campaign to apologize to the Armenians that ability to discuss every opinion is the policy of the state.

Arıtman had continued her comments after the reactions to her initial comments: “When some people agree with or support the claim that we committed the crime of genocide against the Armenians, the others would ask them if they were Armenians. They would ask this question even if that person is a president.”

President Gül claims that his identity as a statesman, which he has been trying to maintain with utmost responsibility and meticulousness, was defamed.

Oh, right. As if the worst thing that could be said about anyone is, "Your momma's an Armenian"? Well, this is the AKP, the party of "Love it or leave it!", the party that has done more than any other to encourage the normalization of racism in Turkish society. Naturally, I could say something about Gül's mom that would cause him considerably more "mental anguish" and it wouldn't have anything to do with her being an Armenian.

The increase in racism within Turkey is just one of the subjects DTP parliamentarian Sebahat Tuncel recently discussed with Jake Hess at ZNet (again, thanks to the heval who sent the link):

Sebahat Tuncel is a prominent Turkish Kurdish human rights activist, member of parliament and foreign affairs representative for the Democratic Society Party (DTP), one of Turkey's largest and most important leftist and pro-Kurdish formations. On the streets of Diyarbakır - the center of the Kurdish movement in Turkey - she's known as an especially tenacious and courageous advocate for freedom and human rights.

Although she calls for a peaceful, negotiated solution to the Kurdish issue within Turkey's existing borders, the Turkish state is evidently intimidated by Tuncel. Young and articulate, she was elected to parliament from a prison cell in July 2007 - having been incarcerated for supporting the armed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a charge commonly used to suppress dissent in Turkey - and has been targeted for assassination by the Ergenekon organization, a shadowy paramilitary group with links to the Turkish military. Although she was released from prison upon being elected, the proceedings against her continue.

The Turkish constitutional court is currently considering shutting down the DTP on the basis of its alleged connections to ‘terrorism' and ‘separatism.' You can DTP's proposed solution to the Kurdish question here.

The following interview, which took place in November 2008, focuses on the DTP's struggle for a peaceful and democratic solution to the Kurdish issue in Turkey. In it, Tuncel critiques the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), discusses recent events in the region, the rise of what she calls ‘fascism' in Turkey, and the many challenges facing the DTP, including the closure case. It's presented here in the interest of increasing international public awareness of the DTP, which is usually marginalized in Western commentary on Turkish affairs.

The DTP has been in parliament working for a democratic solution for more than a year now. Reflect on the experience so far. What do you consider to be the party's greatest achievement? Are you more or less optimistic now than you were in July 2007 [when the last elections took place] that the Kurdish issue can be settled in a peaceful, negotiated way?

Before the elections of 2007, the atmosphere was more relaxed and optimistic in terms of a solution to the Kurdish problem than it is now. The AKP and Erdoğan were claiming that the Kurdish problem was their problem, that they would take some steps toward a peaceful solution to the issue. As you know, the AKP was challenging the military over the headscarf issue, and because of this challenge, people were thinking that it would be the first government to try to challenge the military's role in politics. Because of this, the AKP was powerful all around Turkey, including in the Kurdish region. But when the AKP announced its sixteenth government program, it became obvious that they wouldn't be confronting the military over the Kurdish issue.

Seventy-five Kurdish AKP deputies were elected in July 2007, and they created the impression that after the DTP came to the parliament the two parties could work together to solve the Kurdish problem. But then, afterwards, as I said before, they announced the government program, and in this program they supported the war against the PKK in northern Iraq. The first thing they said to the DTP was, ‘you should first call the PKK a terrorist organization, and then we can sit at the table and talk about this issue.' And then they authorized cross-border operations in northern Iraq. As a result, they showed that they're a party of war. The AKP has surrendered to the military more than any other Turkish government.

There was a bargain over the headscarf issue. Since AKP wasn't closed down, they decided to go along with the military politically, and during this period AKP became the first party to ask the general commander of the Turkish army to parliament and talk with a ministerial council. This means that the military is managing and administering the [government's approach to the Kurdish issue] and giving orders to the ministries.

While the AKP and Erdoğan are saying that the biggest problem in Turkey in terrorism and telling Europe and the US that he supports democracy and freedom, the AKP is actually the one that is terrorizing people in the Kurdish region of Turkey. They have given greater authority and leeway to the security forces, to ‘resolve' this issue through terrorizing people.

In light of recent developments we can say that the AKP government is really the government of war. In his recent [November 2008] visit to the US, Mr. Erdoğan stated that ‘I am proud of my people' - meaning nationalist demonstrators who go into the streets, meaning those people who were throwing stones at DTP buildings and harassing Kurdish artists or attempting to lynch Kurdish students at schools.

And this political chaos is still going on. For instance, in his recent speech in Hakkari, Mr. Erdoğan said ‘love Turkey or leave it. The concept of one state, one nation and one flag is essential for us, if you accept it accept it. If not, you must leave.' This simple statement shows how fascistic the AKP is in its core.

In his latest statement - saying that [normal people] can ‘defend' themselves and use weapons [against demonstrators] -- could bring Turks and Kurds against each other, and that would be the result of AKP policies.

All this unrest was caused by the mistreatment of Mr. Ocalan, who is held [in solitary confinement] in a high-security prison on Imralı island. He has been tortured, confined to progressively smaller cells, his head was shaved and there was an incident with poisoning.

Three and a half million Kurds who live in Turkey have said that Mr. Ocalan is their political representative. The maltreatment of the people's representative resulted in such an organized reaction by Kurds. The mistreatment of Ocalan was a provocation of the AKP government.

Now, violence is everywhere, organized by everybody. We now know that one-hundred children were arrested in the first few days after the November 1-2 sit-down protest in Diyarbakır. The police are treating Kurds violently not only in the streets, but in the prisons as well. Right now Kurdish political prisoners are being attacked by ordinary prisoners in the prison - the guards see this going on but they don't prevent it. Another face of the violence is the violence against the DTP, such as the closure trial and the attempts to marginalize us politically. All this shows that fascism is rising in Turkey.

A few years ago, it was only ultra-nationalist people who were saying that you should either ‘love or leave' your country. But now, if you look at Turkey in general, you can see that most people are saying that. So, in the public, there's a general tendency to isolate Kurdish people and rally people under the idea of a unitary Turkish state, without recognizing other cultural identities.

The DTP and PKK have both called for a peaceful, democratic solution to the Kurdish issue within Turkey's existing borders. Why has the state refused to negotiate with the DTP? Who benefits from the continuation of the conflict?

The PKK is not insisting on the continuation of this war. They've announced ceasefires five times. The last time they did so was when the DTP asked them to do so. However, these efforts were not welcomed by the state, and the reason they don't want to solve the issue is the state's interests in the Middle East. They have interests in Iraq and its petroleum resources, and they want to have a pretext for intervening there. The continuation of the war with the PKK provides the state with such a pretext. The problem of PKK ‘terrorism' wins Turkey sympathy in the international arena, as well. It helps Ankara resist pressure to expand freedoms, democratization and recognition of human rights.

The PKK is saying that it is prepared to accept a solution within Turkey's borders, that Kurds and Turks can live together. The war could end easily, according to the PKK, if its efforts at negotiation were recognized. But since there are still some interest groups who want the war to continue, the war is continuing. So, paradoxically, it could be easy to end the war, but at the same time it is not easy.

Do you think the DTP is going to be closed? What are you going to do if it is?

The outcome of the closure trial will be a political decision, not a legal one. In the current environment it seems likely that we will be shut down. But a significant group of people are against the closure, so we'll see what happens. We're prepared for the closure; we have a replacement party established already.

Procedurally, it's not important for DTP if we're closed down, but it will be important in that there will be a rupture if that happens. The anger of the Kurdish people is increasing intensely now, and this anger will be heightened. The slogans in demonstrations have changed incrementally over the last year, because of the policy of war by the AKP. Last year, Kurdish people were speaking out, saying ‘long live peace'. Now, they're shouting, ‘the rebels are shooting and Kurdistan is being established' and ‘Erdoğan is a murderer.'

After the last election, Mr. Erdoğan said that 55% of people in Diyarbakır supported him. But when he came here a few weeks ago, people shut down their shops. People are changing their minds.

During the 1990s, scores of politicians connected to pro-Kurdish parties were murdered, tortured, and harassed in every way. What kind of conditions do you work under now? Is the DTP able to go about its business in a normal way? Do you feel safe?

In terms of human rights violence and torture even normal people in the street do not feel safe from violence, it's common everywhere in Turkey. You can be shot and killed at any moment. As you can see on the news, Ahmet Ozcan, a youngster at the age of 20 was shot and killed by the police during a recent demonstration in Ağrı; also, in Antalya a boy named Çağdaş traveling on his motorcycle was shot by the police.

Violence and threats against Kurdish politicians and parties are still common. Because the DTP is equalized with terrorism and because of the rise of fascism, there is always a risk that we'll be assassinated. Even though there are risks, we are not giving up. We know that there are risks, and we're always threatened with e-mails and trials. The DTP is mission is a democratic and peaceful solution of the Kurdish question and it has always stood by the Kurdish people and struggled for the rights of the Kurds. Whatever the consequences may be - death, re -imprisonment - it is our mission to achieve these goals.

For every word we utter they open a new case against us. Although under law an MP cannot normally be tried, there are cases against us still going on. Although there are those risks we believe in peace, freedom and democracy and we will not give up on our struggle. We are stronger than these threats, and we will struggle for freedom, for democracy and for peace.

I don't feel safe. It has been revealed that the Ergenekon organization was targeting [DTP co-chairperson and MP] Ahmet Turk, [DTP member and Mayor of Diyarbakır] Osman Baydemir and myself for assassination. At any moment, someone from Ergenekon could come and kill.

Last time we spoke you told me the DTP was trying to open a political bureau in Washington. What's the status of that project?

We're planning on opening the bureau within a few months, but it will depend on the outcome of the closure trial, for sure.

Go, Sebahat, you go, girlfriend!

If you liked the interview with Heval Sebahat, go on over to ZNet and let Jake know.