THE PAŞAS AND CORPORATISM

"The political power of the pashas would not be so deeply rooted if it did not also draw on substantial economic and financial resources."
~ Eric Rouleau, former French ambassador to Turkey.

Gordon Taylor has an important post up at his place about OYAK: and TSKGV, the business entities of the paşas:

No one is quite sure of the exact rank of the two funds' holdings. Like the tides of finance, they ebb and flow, claiming new divisions while leaving others behind. Oyak Bank, for example, was recently sold to ING of the Netherlands, while they have made other moves with their steel operations. But there is little doubt, as the excerpt I am about to quote will make clear, that together they occupy a place in the very top echelon of Turkish corporations.

Any reader can find out more from this article in Fortune, or simply by Googling "OYAK Group" and scrolling through the vast hit list. OYAK (an acronym for Army Pension Institution) makes steel; it makes cars, roads, and buildings out of that steel; it makes portland cement for concrete, uses that concrete (and of course their own steel) to build hotels and businesses, runs the businesses themselves to make more money, uses their own banks to fund more businesses, builds golf courses, apartment blocks, and vacation villages for retired military officers, sells insurance to those businesses, builds and runs supermarkets, grows food for those markets, makes pesticides for the crops that it makes into food that it sells in its supermarkets--have you heard enough? They even own professional soccer and basketball teams. Oh, and all of their profits are tax-free.

He also quotes Eric Rouleau, who usually writes pretty well on Turkey:

The triumvirate formed by the army, big business and state bureaucracy is protected by a battery of constitutional and legal provisions. Its influence increases when the balance of political power leans in its favour, when opposition in society declines, or when - as has been the case in recent years - politicians are increasingly discredited. Under these circumstances the political parties, parliament, government and media merely acquiesce when the military disregard the rule of law.

Read the whole thing as there are plenty of links throughout for further enlightenment.

Of course, the paşas' business interests are not confined to the "territorial integrity" of Turkey, as mentioned on Rastî in January of this year:

Turkish corporations in South Kurdistan provide heavy financial support to KDP- and PUK-affiliated press and broadcast organizations in order to divert the people from the real face of current military operations, by broadcasting advertisement and variety programs.

Turkish corporations in South Kurdistan began to support KDP- and PUK-affiliated press and broadcasting organizations. At first, the KRG warned Southern media to cut off broadcasting about PKK. Now it has been revealed that Turkish corporations have given over $1 million as "gifts", for advertisement, and as tax.

Immediately following Turkish military operations in South Kurdistan, Turkish corporations which have marketing shares there, such as Oyak, Arçelik, Ülker, Nursoy, and Gürbağ, started to broadcast variety programs on TV, radio, and other satellite-based broadcast media which are affiliated with the KDP and PUK. It is believed that the goal of these attempts is to distract people from Turkish military operations.

KDP General Secretary Fadil Mirani's broadcast organs, such as Vin TV, are heavily supported by Turkish corporations.

Arçelik-Ülker and OYAK corporations organize street competitions and variety programs through Korek Telecom and AsiaCell telephone service operators, which are affiliated with KDP and PUK. These operators promise to give gifts ranging from $100 to $1,000 USD for text messages sent.

Arçelik had promised to deliver large appliances and electronics through the regional and satellite-based TV. As an example, when Turkish military operations began on 16 December, Arçelik started delivering large appliances, such as refrigerators, televisions, washing machines, ovens, and the like, to the people.

In addition, Arçelik is operating a lottery in South Kurdistan. Using the Bayram and New Year holidays as a pretext, it promised to give a brand new car, money, and such gifts to the people.

In addition to this, OYAK, Ülker, and the other Turkish corporations are arranging competitions on the streets where golden Kurdistan flags, made by Southern Kurdish jewelers, are delivered to people.

Note that Arçelik, Ülker, Nursoy, and Gürbağ are Fethullahcı companies, and I'm willing to bet that the leadership of South Kurdistan won't stiff the TSK or the Fethullahcı like it did İlnur Çevik.

Also, take a look at a possible imminent execution of a Kurdish teacher by the evil mullah regime and possible action that can be taken to stop it. I have not seen anything yet to indicate the execution has been carried out. More on Farzad Kamangar, from HRW:

“Farzad Kamangar’s case highlights how human rights abuses have become routine in Iran,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Kamangar was tortured, subjected to unfair trial and now faces execution.”

On February 25, Branch 30 of Iran’s Revolutionary Court sentenced Kamangar to death on charges of “endangering national security.” The prosecution claimed that Kamangar is a member of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

According to Kamangar’s lawyer, this trial violated the Iranian legal requirements that such cases must be tried publicly and in the presence of a jury. He also told Human Rights Watch that court officials ridiculed his requests that they follow mandated legal procedures.

Authorities arrested Kamangar in Tehran in July 2006 and held him in various detention centers in Kurdistan, Kermanshah, and Tehran. Kamangar claims that during a period of detention in Unit 209 of Evin Prison in August 2006, officials tortured him to such an extent that they had to transfer him to the prison clinic to receive medical attention. Kamangar also alleges torture and ill-treatment while in detention in the cities of Sanandaj in Kurdistan province and Kermanshah.

Kamangar’s lawyer told Human Rights Watch that the first time he met his client, Kamangar’s hands and legs were shaking as a result of mistreatment during detention and interrogation. Kamangar himself outlined the details of how he was tortured in a letter written from prison. Human Rights Watch has obtained a copy of this letter.

Prior to his arrest, Kamangar worked for 12 years as a teacher in the city of Kamyaran, where he was on the governing board of both a local environmentalist group as well as the local branch of the teachers’ association. Kamangar wrote for the monthly journal Royan, a publication of the Department of Education of Kamyaran. He was also a writer with a local human rights organization that documents human rights abuses in Kurdistan and other provinces.

Just another fine example of why PJAK fights.

PKK, OIL, AND ERDOĞAN'S PIPE DREAM

"Iraqi Kurds generally sympathize with PKK fighters. It is a force that has been demanding and fighting for the rights of Kurds in Turkey for tens of years now, and the Turks have been very harsh to their Kurdish community by forbidding them from rights."
~ Asso Hardi

There has been a lot of information let loose lately, so I will point out a number of items for your perusal and consideration that I have been collecting over the last few days.

The first item is more those good people based out of Qendil:

Up a winding series of switchbacks lies Mardu village, northeast of Sulaymaniya. Kurdish farmers tend livestock and harvest peaches, apples and grapes. A few houses among dotted oak trees serve as a makeshift headquarters for the PKK. Male and female fighters, dressed in traditional billowing shalwar pants and olive combat tops, walk freely. Local Iraqis openly support them, and some Iraqi Kurds have left city life and their families to become soldiers with the Turkish Kurd rebels and their Iranian sister movement, Party for Free Life In Kurdistan, or PEJAK.

The villagers toast the guerrillas as champions of Kurdish rights. They say they are willing to endure sacrifices as the price of their association with a movement fighting to establish Kurdish self-rule in Turkey and Iran, where they believe their minority's basic privileges are denied.

[ . . . ]

Some describe the PKK as a vital trading partner and protector in a lawless area. Hussein Rashid, 45, regularly hauls gasoline and kerosene from Iran to sell to the guerrillas. He warned, "If the PKK is not here, then this will be a place for terrorism and Iran will send Ansar al Islam," a Sunni extremist group with links to Al Qaeda.

Shereen Sulaiman, 39, a mother of three, worried about what Turkey might do to the PKK. The rebel fighters "respect the people and serve the area. They even supply the area with electricity. I don't want them to be hurt," said Sulaiman, wearing a red dress with her hair covered by a black veil. "They are Kurds like us."

More on that, with a description of a PKK fighter from Silêmanî, at the LA Times.

Whoever thought that PKK was strictly a Kurdish operation, or even a Turkish Kurd operation, will have a shock coming to them in the next item:

BRITONS are among foreigners fighting Turkish troops with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in northern Iraq, The Sunday Times can reveal.

According to PKK fighters holed up in one of the natural fortresses of the Qandil mountain range which runs along Iraq’s Turkish and Iranian borders, several Europeans have joined forces with their group.

At least three Britons were in the PKK’s 3,000-strong force, boasted one fighter as he and a group of men huddled in a room discussing the latest clashes with the Turkish army. Others include Russians, Germans, Greeks, Iranians and Arabs. The PKK is labelled by both Europe and America as a terrorist organisation.

As diplomatic efforts to avert war falter, the PKK’s fighters now lie in wait for the mechanised Turkish divisions gathering menacingly along the border. Previous Turkish incursions have failed to deal a mortal blow to the PKK and geography again conspires against them.

This isn't new so I can't call it news, but there's more where that came from at the Times Online.

Sometimes reality can be like a very cold shower:

Welcome to the latest regional war in the Middle East — Turkey's contemplated invasion of northern Iraq. Among other things, this latest Turkish aggression, preceded years ago by the invasion of Cyprus, threatens to:

• Send energy prices through the roof. With oil prices already at a record $90 a barrel, they will easily keep setting new highs as winter arrives in Europe and America.

• Set back American military and political efforts to stabilize an already convulsed Middle East, inviting even more meddling by Iran and Syria.

• Bring doom upon the Turkish invaders, who failed for more than 30 years to subjugate their Kurdish minority of 7 million, or 10% of Turkey's population. Now they would expand the fight to all 25 million Kurds, who share the mountainous border areas of Iraq, Iran, and Syria. These well-armed Kurds live in a contiguous area the size of Germany and Britain combined.

Okay, the author probably shouldn't use 1950's census figures for today's Kurdish population in Turkey, but he does go on to talk about the "pompous Turkish army". Check it out at The NY Sun.

Anonymous left a nice little link in comments. Following the link, I found this:

Current tightness in the oil markets (peak oil?) has presented the PKK, the Kurdish guerrilla group fighting the Turkish government, with an amazing opportunity. It can become responsible for sending oil prices over $100 a barrel and sowing panic in global markets.

How? This objective can be accomplished through a series of attacks on the BTC pipeline that runs from Azerbaijan to the Turkish port of Ceyhan (in a fashion similar to earlier attacks that PKK has made on less substantial pipelines). With over 750,000 barrels of oil flow a day (1 m a day next year) over 1,092 miles of pipeline, ongoing disruption would result in:

* An immediate price spike that would likely exceed $100 a barrel, an important psychological barrier. This is pricing power in the oil market on par with Saudi Arabia (see the 2004 brief: "A Shadow OPEC" for more).

* A major loss of income for Turkey from pipeline fees, as contractual caveats kick in. Also, substantial disruptions and price hikes for not only Turkish customers, but European customers too. This could put the final nail in coffin for Turkey's EU bid.

* Global recognition of their situation/cause and immediate international pressure on Turkey to resolve the crisis. At a minimum, if Turkey opts for violence, the disruption of the BTC would be a strategic timer on the conflict -- as in the longer it persists, the greater the international pressure to end it.

Okay, actually the PKK hasn't sent the price of oil skyrocketing; the jackasses that run Ankara have done that. But I'm not averse to taking advantage of a situation set up by said jackasses. Don't forget that Turkey has pipelines running natural gas from Iran, too, and PKK sent a warning to the jackasses on that last August. For more on the current speculation, see Global Guerrillas.

Americans love Kurds, right? Think again. Check out the story of Hamid Sayadi:

His story is one of the many that have both nothing and everything to do with 9/11. A witty and eloquent Kurdish-American in his 50s, Sayadi waved the flag of his adopted country and cheered its military for three decades — all to end up stripped to his underwear one day, in the boiler room of his workplace, he says, a ragged and sobbing husk of his former self.

The truth of what happened to him, and why, lies shrouded in the fog of endless war, and in the fog of work as well — that odd space where strangers are forced to co-exist for years on end. In that double blindness, even if the parties involved could agree on facts, who could say for sure what was appropriate and what was cruel, even unlawful?

Find the rest at SFGate.com.

Just in case you don't keep up with R. Tayip Erdoğan's social calendar, he'll be visiting in Washington next week. Word is that he's got ducks in order and plans to present them to Bush. You can read about that from the Fethullacı rag, Zaman. Note a few things, though:

1. Doesn't the list of arms allegedly seized from the PKK resemble some of the stuff found in the train cars HPG derailed back in May? To refresh your memory, check out DozaMe's information--complete with links to the original Turkish media sources. The paşas allowed the contents of one train car to leak briefly into the Turkish media and then the matter was censored, and we never learned what the entire contents was. My money says Erdoğan is bringing the list of all that weaponry and is going to pass it off as "seized from PKK."

What is conspicuously absent from this list of weapons are the American tanks which Erdoğan has insisted are in the PKK arsenal. Obviously the man is a victim of his own media propaganda.

2. The alleged affiliation of the American Kurdish Information Network (AKIN), the Washington Kurdish Institute (WKI), and the Kurdish National Congress of North America (KNCNA) with the PKK would be laughable if it weren't so pathetic. These organizations have no affiliation with PKK.

3. As for Barzanî's alleged small business loans to PKK members, Erdoğan should not confuse the PKK with the Turkish General Staff and OYAK.

THE TROJAN HORSE GOES SOUTH

"But come now, change thy theme, and sing of the building of the horse of wood, which Epeius made with Athena's help, the horse which once Odysseus led up into the citadel as a thing of guile, when he had filled it with the men who sacked Ilium."
~ Homer, The Odyssey.

Still think talk of a Turkish invasion of South Kurdistan is all about PKK? Think again. If there will be any invasion, a good portion of the reasoning for invasion will have to do with the TSK protecting its own business interests in South Kurdistan, from Zaman:

While Chief of General Staff Gen. Yaşar Büyükanıt repeatedly argues that a cross-border operation against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) is necessary to severe its support from northern Iraq, the Armed Forces Pension Fund (OYAK) is gleaning ever-increasing profits from its businesses in and with Iraq.

Of the 1,200 Turkish firms participating in the reconstruction of Iraq, OYAK has had the biggest piece of the pie. The firm has been selling cement produced in its facilities in Mardin, Adana, Bolu and Ünye to Iraq and exporting iron bars there from its steel and iron plants in İskenderun and Ereğli (Erdemir).

According to the article, Turkish companies are working throughout South Kurdistan, but OYAK is working their through front companies "such as Bakra and Başkent Uluslararası Nakliyat and Dış Ticaret Ltd Şirketi, RE-BA Dış Ticaret Ltd. Şirketi, Nur Ticaret, Fefoğlu, Yüksel, Barkınlar, Saki İthalat and İhracat Gümrükleme Nakliyat Sınır Ticareti, etc. The transportation of materials exported by OYAK to northern Iraq is operated by Has Nakliyat. Construction materials sent by OYAK are stored in the UN storage depot, located near İbrahim Halil Highway, in Zaho."

Just as American companies such as Dick Cheney's Halliburton, KBR, or Fluor Corporation are linked to high-ranking people in the American regime, so too the Turkish General Staff is doing the same with OYAK, without even going into the mercenary business. And just as American companies are raking in the big bucks from their government contracts in Iraq, so the Paşas' OYAK is doing the same in South Kurdistan by raking in the lion's share of overall profits:

The history of Turkey’s exports to Iraq are as follows: $371.2 million in 2000; increasing to $839 million in 2001; dipping to $649 million in 2002 before the invasion; shooting back up again to $829 million in 2003, the year of the invasion; then $1.82 billion in 2004; $2.75 billion in 2005; and an impressive $3 billion in 2006.

The Zaman article echoes similar information that was published in TDN last year.

Compounding the problem are Fethullah Gülen's racist schools which are springing up in South Kurdistan like toadstools on manure. In fact, Gülen's schools may be a worse problem because with them comes the spread of Turkish racist ideology and an emphasis on Turkish language in South Kurdistan, a fact that threatens to severely undermine Kurdish culture and language in that one part of Kurdistan where Kurds are free to express Kurdish identity. Hîwa wrote something on that last year, too.

The incredible thing about both OYAK's business and Gülen's schools is that, when it comes to South Kurdistan, both are spreading and benefiting on a purely voluntary basis--nay, they've been invited--whereas in North Kurdistan they impose themselves by force.

It would appear that the Turks learned well from their experience with the Trojan Horse. Will South Kurdistan take a lesson from history before it's too late?