15 ŞUBAT

"In the category of small nations without any rights, it is best not to be Kurdish. It is better to be an ethnic Albanian or a Palestinian.... Because they do not fit with the interests of any superpower...and because they happen to be under Turkey's rule, a U.S. ally and NATO member, the Kurds will not have their Madrid conference or their Dayton agreement or Rambouillet talks.... While everyone has been recalling that Ocalan's organization is a terrorist organization, everyone has been forgetting that the Kurdish people of Turkey are the victims of state terrorism...called ethnic cleansing. The same thing that has the United States and Europe up in arms when it is done in the Balkans, leaves them cold when it is done in Turkey."
~ Le Monde, 18 February 1999.

Eleven years ago today Turkey thought its Kurdish problem was solved. It wasn't. Cengiz Çandar, writing in Radikal, doesn't think Turkey's Kurdish problem is solved either:

Oppression and Disappointment in the Southeast


If you make your way to the Southeast often--and not only talk to officials but also particularly have a relationship with the street--if you open up your heart and listen to the region's people, there is a result that you can easily arrive at: the ruling party's regional parliamentarians are not representing the region in Ankara but are representing Ankara and their party in the region.

I've stated this on every occasion when I met with important people in the state and in the government. The AK Party's Southeastern parliamentarians are not representing their regions; they do not convey the pulse of the Southeast to Ankara. Whenever they go to their election districts, they represent Ankara and their party.

Therefore, PM Erdogan's statement, "There are 75 Kurdish parliamentarians in my party," or the AK Party's receiving the greatest amount of votes in the region doesn't mean anything.

Have you ever heard these 75 "Kurdish" parliamentarians open their mouths to say anything about the Kurdish question? Have you ever heard them mention the unbearable oppression in the region in Ankara in front of the public?

A couple of days ago, Diyarbakır's Special Heavy Penalty Court convicted a fifteen-year-old girl called Berivan for "throwing stones at police" in addition to "cheering party slogans" during the events that took place on 9 October in Batman. She was convicted to 13.5 years at the first hearing. Yes, at the very first hearing.

Since she was a minor, the court showed mercy and reduced its punishment to seven years and nine months! At the event [during the protest in Batman], Berivan's face was covered with a scarf but police were determined that the girl with the scarf was Berivan. That girl with the scarf may very well be Berivan; but while there is more solid and concrete evidence for the generals who gathered to overthrow the government, which is a crime against the state, and while they've been released pending trial, have you ever seen any Southeastern AKP parliamentarian object to Berivan's conviction of 13.5 years for stoning police and cheering party slogans?

Do you know that there are over 1,000 children in prison in the Southeast?

In a condition where belief in justice is damaged so deeply, can we talk about the "Democratic Initiative" or the "National Unity and Brotherhood Project"?

In the Southeast there is no justice but oppression!

The other day, one of the members of AKP's executive council told me that in the council meeting PM Erdoğan was informed that people in the Southeast are very happy and very excited about the ongoing events [the "democratic" initiative]. Based on the PM's sources, everything is going well in the Southeast. Whereas the contrary is the case and the "political decision maker" [Erdoğan--i.e. Turkey's "decider guy"] is being deceived or prefers being deceived. Again, another piece of information I received from a similar source: AK Party's executive council is expecting very important incidents about Kandil around Newroz. If there are AKP members that believe this, I'm curious about what planet they're living on. Newroz is only one and a half months away; is there any indicator that thousands of armed people from Kandil will come and surrender?

Well, is there any little indication of a general amnesty to come out for the ones at Kandil? There are only two possibilities left so far. 1) America and Iraqi Kurds will have a joint military operation and finish PKK's military existence--for those who believe this, they are living in a dream. 2) The ones at Kandil disappear unexpectedly.

There are no such situations and there isn't the slightest sign that these will happen.

Meaning, within one and a half months, related to Kandil, it is impossible for any incident to happen, for PKK to disarm. A "climate" for such a thing has been removed in Turkey anyway. In the region [Southeast], in addition to 1,000 children, more than 1,000 people in political groups, including elected mayors, have been arrested.

The PKK members who came from Kandil three months ago are free; mayors have been handcuffed and arrested for having connections with PKK.

There are two ways to make the armed cadres give up on armed struggle:

1. Regarding Kurdish identity, you have to take such unilateral democratic steps that will remove the armed group's masses of supportö and the support will completely be removed. There won't be support of the masses for armed forces.

2. Open up ways for armed groups to become involved with peaceful [without arms] politics.

Until now, regarding the first, there are positive but insufficient steps. Regarding the second, just the contrary is being done. Elected people, who are involved with peaceful politics, are jailed. It is a politics of "to the ones in the cities calling 'go to the mountains'; meanwhile, to the ones in the mountains, 'stay there'" is being made.

The "negative atmosphere" and the "disappointment" in the region were reflected to Ankara as "information to the state in the governors' meeting". The governors in the East and Southeast told Interior Minister Beşir Atalay that, "initially, the democratic initiative raised expectation and excitement to their peaks in the region. Citizens became very hopeful. When the package ["democratic" initiative's packages] was presented, a serious disappointment took place. The citizens are expecting more concrete steps."

They are right.

For months, we have been saying and writing this. I forgot exactly how many articles I wrote specifically about this issue and specifically in this way. The governors who work in the region mentioned that our people's expectation became lively in March of last year due to Abdullah Gül's statement of "soon there will be good things on the Kurdish question" and with the initiative, their expectation is at its peak.

President Gül said those words to three journalists--of whom I was one--in the plane on the way to Tehran. Since that day, I am among those who've been keeping an eye on the pulse of the region. I spent a remarkable amount of the summer months in the Mardin, Van, Doğubeyazıt, and Kızıltepe regions. On 1 August [2009], I was among the attendees for the Kurdish Workshop. One month later, in September, I traveled 1,000 kilometers between Diyarbakır and Şemdinli.

Today's atmosphere is 180 degrees different from the atmosphere of those days.

It is as much a deep disappointment and negative atmosphere [now] as it was equally positive in those days.

How in the world will "national unity and brotherhood " come about without including our Kurdish citizens who live in the Southeast, who want to join with great enthusiasm and an expectation of an optimistic future?

How will a "national unity and brotherhood" will come about from a region where 1,000 children are currently living lives of misery in prisons?

The Interior Ministry said "İnşallah, soon good things are going to happen" to the governors and wanted them to wait for a while. I wish this problem could be solved with "İnşallahs" and empty promises. This is not a kind of problem that can be solved with "İnşallahs" and "Maşallahs".

And god forbid the potential of the disappointment is so great as to overwhelm the struggle against the junta members in Ankara and Istanbul, and to overwhelm Turkey's successful foreign politics that present Turkey as a "rising regional power".

PM Erdoğan needs to open up his eyes to the ongoing things in the Southeast and, without any delay, he must change track.

Çandar's piece reminds me of something else from history, something that happened four years ago tomorrow--the visit of Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal in Ankara. Let's recall what was said at the time:

Although they feared that too open an endorsement of Hamas's victory would antagonise both Israel and the international community, Turkish Foreign Ministry officials were privately discussing intensifying behind-the-scenes contacts with Hamas in preparation for more contacts in Palestine. But they advised the Turkish government that it should delay any public contacts with Hamas until it had formed a government. In this way they could argue that they were meeting not with representatives of a group which is included on both the US's and the EU's list of terrorist organisations but with representatives of the democratically elected Palestinian government.

What was said by the AKP government in defense of the Hamas visit?

The Turkish government justified its decision to invite Meshaal, who is based in Damascus, by arguing that Hamas had won free and fair elections in the Palestinian territories. The Turks stressed the importance of having a dialogue with Hamas in order to moderate its position.

The AKP government has not changed its position on this subject as Katil Erdoğan was on Turkish media last week crying for Palestinians again. It should be noted, however, that Katil Erdoğan has yet to shed any tears for the Kurds of Turkey. What's more is that Katil Erdoğan's government continues to carry out mass arrests of Kurdish politicians who were, in fact, members of a legal and peaceful political party in Turkey and who had been overwhelmingly elected to their positions by the people of their constituencies during last year's 29 March elections. While I'm at it, let me reiterate that neither DTP nor BDP have been listed on anyone's "Terrorist" List . . . except perhaps for some super secret List which may have been filed in Gladio's Kozmik Odası.

Since the ruling party has completely ruled out any possibility of a political solution for the Kurdish people, there is only one approach left.

NOTES FROM KANDIL 1

"It's not our goal to make propaganda. We have hope for peace. That's why we decided to meet you . . . "
~ Murat Karayılan.

Here is the first part of Hasan Cemal's interview with KCK Executive Council Chairman, Murat Karayılan, which will be carried here on Rastî. I'd like to extend my thanks to the comrade who volunteered to work on this translation, and the ones that will follow. This work and his tenacity in completing the task while I have been too busy in the last week to attend to it, is much appreciated by me and I'm certain it will be much appreciated by all the others who read it.

This translation is a portion of the original piece, which can be found at Milliyet.

Karayılan: We have hope for peace

PKK's number one man Murat Karayılan says 'The first thing is to silence the weapons; nobody should attack. Let's talk this issue ourselves... Let's start the work with talks, not with weapons'. Karayılan offers a mechanism composed of [unbiased] intellectuals, if necessary. He said "We are at an important juncture. There was opportunity for peace in 1993 [and] it was missed. Let's not miss it again. We don't want blood to be spilled anymore'.

Qandil Mountain, North Iraq [South Kurdistan]

For many years now the PKK is being managed from Kandil mountain. They say "the leadership's office is İmralı [Öcalan's island prison]," but today PKK's number one man is in Kandil, living in the mountain, Murat Karayılan.

I met Murat Karayılan in a short, two-room village house made of mud bricks on the skirts of Mount Kandil last Monday for four hours.

Where we were was not at a PKK base but, as they [the PKK] call it, in 'PKK territory'. This was obvious from the women and men PKK members with arms on their shoulders, whom we saw while arriving at our meeting location through picturesque views.

Murat Karayılan came with two members of the PKK's Leadership Council, which is made up of five people. They were assistant commander Bozan Tekin, who was from Urfa, Bozova. He went to the mountains after staying in jails for 20 years, from 1980 to 2000. The other assistant commander was Sozdar Avesta, whose real name was Nuriye Kesbir. While living in The Netherlands, her extradition to Turkey came up and she ran away and came to Kandil. The third person with Murat Karayılan was Ahmet Deniz, who is in charge of PKK's communications with the media and civilian organizations.

[...]

Saturday at 12, Murat Karayılan met us in front of the village house.

Karayılan said "I think it's your first time at the PKK's rural area". If we don't count Zeli, my meeting with Öcalan at Bekaa, that was the case.

[...]

I said to Karayılan:

"I am here as a reporter. I am not bringing any kind of message or anything like that from anyone in Turkey. Don't think like that. I came as a reporter to learn what PKK's administration thinks".

Then I added:

"Please don't record this meeting on camera. As reporters, we make news rather than being news".

Karayılan:

"We will make a 5 to 10 minute recording for our archive, that's all."

They put their tape and we put ours on the plastic covered table and started the conversation.

Murat Karayılan's first sentence:

"It's not our goal to make propaganda. We have hope for peace. That's why we decided to meet you . . . "

Positive messages

Karayılan gave positive messages. He didn't speak negative but positive. He said "The first thing is to silence the guns, nobody should attack anyone". He said this when he offered a definitive mechanism for dialogue:

"We are at an important juncture!"

He stated that in 1993, too, with the ceasefire at the time, there was a "big opportunity for peace"; however because of the "lack of political willpower," the government of the time forwarded the issue to the military and the opportunity was wasted.

He continued: "Let's not miss the peace opportunity this time".

He added:

We don't want blood be spilled any more. Because years will pass and we will end up at the same point. Turkey will lose blood. PKK cannot be finished with military methods; they were tried for 25 years and they didn't work."

Karayılan, who didn't say anything about whether they would extend their unilateral ceasefire beyond 1 June, said this:

"The first thing is to silence weapons."

"Not laying down arms?"

Karayılan:

"Laying arms down is a later phase . . . First weapons must be silenced. Nobody should attack anyone. Let's talk this issue ourselves . . . Let's start the work with dialogue, not with weapons; let's talk among ourselves'.

I interrupt:

"How is this going to happen? On one side the state and on the other the PKK? Is this possible?"

Intellectuals Mechanism

Karayılan's mechanism is like this:

"At the first phase, the weapons will be silenced . . . Then dialog will begin . . . İmralı is the place for dialog . . . If that's not accepted, we are the party for dialog . . . If we are not accepted, it is the elected political party (He is not mentioning the name of DTP but when I mention he nods in agreement) . . . If this is not workable either, then a joint commission will be formed somewhere and intellectuals will meet. For example, people like İlter Türkmen (former Minister of External Affairs and Ambassador) and you will gather; a mechanism like this will start and begin to work . . . A mechanism like this will be accepted by the state as an addressee for dialog . . . "

Murat Karayılan adds:

"Why not, why shouldn't a mechanism like this be formed?.."

Karayılan asks then:

"Is there no political willpower? Is there a vacuum in the political area? One wonders where the Prime Minister of 2005 is . . . "

"We are sorry for the 10 martyred soldiers"

I asked Karayılan this:

"You declared a unilateral ceasefire, you said no attacks, and you said you were extending this until 1 June. But on the other hand, what were the PKK attacks in Diyarbakır and Hakkari that martyred 10 soldiers about?"

His first reaction was this:

"We are sorry for that too."

Karayılan continued:

"It wasn't a move planned from the headquarters. It was in the field, a decision taken at the local level with their own incentive. They see soldiers in the field and feel that soldiers are coming at them with an operation and they take measures to protect themselves. They lay a mine. We are sorry too."

For a little more on what you might expect from Murat Karayılan through Hasan Cemal, check this short overview from Bianet.

Some seem to think that "indirect negotiations" have already started. Apparently Abdullah Gül, Cemil "Chicken Little" Çiçek, and the new foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu, wanted to meet Hasan Cemal on his return from South Kurdistan and Gül stated last week that the Kurdish "question" is Turkey's priority.

For Ahmet Türk's recent comments on the subject to the DTP parliamentary group, check here.

There is also a great post at Zerkesorg that addresses the discussion about the possibility of peace talks between the Ankara regime and the PKK. I agree with his conclusions there and would like to point out this quote:

PKK doesn't need to rush. PKK doesn't have a Kurdish problem, Turkish state has a Kurdish problem it needs to solve.

And being that the Turkish state is the state, and since the founding of the PKK is an effect of state policies (as opposed to the cause of state policies), the Turkish state has the moral burden of finding a peaceful solution to the problem it has caused.

But, then, I'm the skeptic; I won't believe anything before I see it. We all need to see concrete steps from the Turkish state before we can believe anything. Given what Karayılan and Türk have said, it seems to me that the proper first concrete step would be an end to TSK operations in North Kurdistan in order to allow HPG to keep its side of this most recent unilateral ceasefire.

There are other "hidden hands" involved here, belonging to groups that can be trusted as much as the Turkish state, and the Americans are not the least of those untrustworthy "hidden hands".

In other words, the time for unilateral ceasefires has ended. Now is the time for that first monumental opportunity--a bilateral ceasefire.

KURDISTAN NATIONAL CONGRESS STATEMENT ON TURKISH BOMBING

Kurdistan National Congress issues a statement on recent Turkish bombings of Qendil.

To the public opinion:

The Turkish state does not cease carrying out military operations passing through the borders of Iraqi Kurdistan. The Turkish army yesterday night held an air raid against the positions of PJAK’s (Kurdish Iranian Party for a Free Life) militants on the mounts of Qandil. During this attack where chemical gas was used, 6 journalist members of the PJAK press service lost their lives. Thus, Turkey does not recognize any right regarding to the international war rules.

According to the information that we have obtained, a meeting was held on 30th April 2008 between Turks and Iranians right on the Iranian border where they planned identifying the PJAK targets to be attacked.

We would like to draw the attention of the international public opinion to the fact that the decision of an air raid was made due to this meeting held between Turkish, Iranian and Iraqi forces, yet in relation with Iraqi Kurdish authorities as well. It clearly means that these states agreed on annihilating the Kurdish people’s struggle for freedom.

It should be known that the Turkish government has only a one-year authorization given by its Parliament and which expires in October 2008 for carrying out military operations against the Kurds through its borders. Since, the United States, alliance of Turkey within NATO, assists Turkish authorities by providing some real-time information about Kurdish military movements on Iraqi territory.

The Kurdistan National Congress condemns Turkish army’s barbaric attack. We call on the international public opinion, especially the European institutions and the NGOs to not remain silent against Turkish barbarism which aims to tear down Kurdish people’s fight for freedom.

Kurdistan National Congress (KNK)
04th May 2008

COUNTDOWN TO ANOTHER INEFFECTIVE INVASION?

"For many Turkish intellectuals, freedom of speech has become a struggle in North America as well as in our native country. What is happening to me now could happen to any scholar who dissents from the official state version of history."
~Taner Akcam.

Dogu Ergil has some information on possible upcoming Turkish operations in South Kurdistan, at Zaman:

After a meeting of retired Gen. Joseph Ralston, US special envoy on countering the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) -- a title that the Turkish press has transformed into “special envoy for counterterrorism” -- held on Jan. 29 with Massoud Barzani, the president of the Kurdistan regional government, and his vice president, Kosrat Rasul, Turkey has reportedly been given a green light from the US to attack PKK positions on the Kandil Mountain.

The same sources say that the military invasion will start in the beginning of April 2007. This was critical news that both the Turkish establishment and a part of the public have long been anticipating.

Will it bring relief as expected? Or will the operations get rid of the gangrene that is referred to as the “Kurdish problem”? That remains to be seen. However both the Americans and the Turkish establishment must be quite relieved to have convinced the Kurdish leaders of Iraq to give the green light to a Turkish military operation on Kandil, where the PKK contingency camps are and from which it conducts armed forays into Turkish soil.

Getting "rid of the gangrene that is referred to as the 'Kurdish problem'" will only happen when Turkey finally genocides the last Kurd from Turkish-occupied Kurdistan; however he does question the effectiveness of yet another Turkish invasion of South Kurdistan. He is correct that Qandil is far from the border with Turkish-occupied Kurdistan and that it's not likely that the TSK will engage in infantry operations in the mountains against PKK. This leaves only air operations as an option, something that is not likely to have much effect on the gerîlas but will certainly result in casualties in the civilian population, as happened during Turkish bombing of South Kurdistan during the so-called "safe haven" of Operation Northern Watch.

Ergil mentions the cooperation that Barzanî and Talabanî have given to the Ankara regime during its military operations in South Kurdistan against the Kurdish gerîlas. What he does not mention is that the Southern leadership's cooperation with the Ankara regime against Northern Kurds began long before the 1990s or even the founding of the PKK in 1978. That cooperation goes back at least to 1971.

Referencing a survey of the Turkish population, it appears that the majority of over 300,000 respondents do not want a military engagement. Given that the Ankara regime has never been successful in its 20-odd military pacifications of Northern Kurds, and given that military engagements will never solve what is essentially a political problem, it looks very much like the Ankara regime, with US backing, is setting itself up for failure yet again.

Ergil recognizes that "[t]he US infatuation with dealing with terrorism through military means has reinforced the traditional Turkish attitude and allows no other option than organizing cross-border operations as if the root cause of the problem lies in Iraq." The fact that one of Lockheed Martin's directors is the "PKK coordinator" for Turkey and it should be brilliantly clear exactly what it is that fuels the American "infatuation." It is none other than the worship of the Dollar, as discussed by former CIA Istanbul base deputy chief, Philip Giraldi, last week:

Companies that make armaments need war to be profitable. Constant war is even better, producing an unending flow of money. President George W. Bush's 2002 National Security Strategy is best of all – with its embrace of a vaguely defined preemptive war doctrine and the promise of a series of unilateral wars.

[ . . . ]

The military industrial complex also sustains and feeds off the Bush administration's so-called "global war on terror," or GWOT. Most experts on terrorism would agree that the GWOT is largely a fiction created to simplify a multifaceted problem and heighten fear so that the flow of taxpayer money will continue unabated. Fighting terrorism worldwide, even where it does not exist, isn't cheap, particularly as the increasing reliance on contractors is much more expensive per man-hour than using full-time government employees.

Giraldi estimates that the War on Terror, Inc. has cost the American taxpayer approximately $200 billion since 2001, a figure which does not include military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. He figures that if there are 5,000 "terrorists" worldwide, the American taxpayer forks over an amazing $40 million per "terrorist." To reiterate, that figure does not include Iraq and Afghanistan. Giraldi adds the following observation:

No other country attacks terrorism in such a disproportionate fashion, and many of America's allies have successfully combated it using police and intelligence resources. . . . That's using an elephant to squash a fly. Considering that the fly can move a lot faster than the elephant, no victory is likely to happen soon, apart from the odd "Mission Accomplished" banner here and there.

Having lived and worked in Turkey, Giraldi might appreciate the irony of his remarks if they were spoken with Turkey as the subject instead of the US. According to Ergil, some 40,000 Mehmetciks will be involved in TSK operations in South Kurdistan in order to fight less than 4,000 Kurdish gerîlas which Turkey claims are resident in the South. I recommend a good long read of both articles. Giraldi in particular names names of think-tanks, corporations, and individuals associated with this for-profit orgy instigated by the military-industrial complex--along with Eisenhower's prophetic quote from 1961.

Over at ZNet, Taner Akcam has a recent article in which he explains the situation surrounding his detention by Canadian customs officials in February and the harassment he's undergone from Turkish fascists located in the US. He goes into detail about the efforts of three Gray Wolf organizations against him--the Assembly of Turkish American Associations, Tall Armenian Tale, and Turkish Forum--especially regarding their efforts to paint him as a "terrorist" by posting manufactured and photoshopped propaganda against him on sites like Wikipedia. They even tried to pass Taner Akcam off as a PKK gerîla.

But what does anyone expect of the same type of scum who murdered Hrant Dink?

Theoretically, it's always an honor to be passed off as a gerîla, but it's not so bad to be labeled a "terrorist-communist" either, especially when the labeling is done by the likes of the fascists at ATAA, Tall Armenian Tale, and Turkish Forum, but I understand the practical problems that such a label causes Akcam when dealing with Americans--especially the idiots working at American customs. After all, if it's not on American Idol, Americans don't know anything about it.

A last item also from ZNet, comes from Professor Edward Herman. Compare his piece on mass-murderer Richard Holbrooke with something posted recently on Rastî, about Holbrooke's visit to Maxmur. Keep in mind that Lockheed Martin's Joseph Ralston recently lied in his testimony to Congress regarding Kurds in general and Maxmur in particular. We also have Danny Fried's big lies about Maxmur during the recent US/Turkish attacks against Kurds in Europe.

It's clear that the US policy toward the refugees at Maxmur is to adopt the Ankara regime's lies about the camp being inhabited by "terrorists" and never mind the facts of the situation. The intention of the US is to forcibly repatriate the 11,000 refugees to Turkey as "terrorists."

We all know what that means, don't we?

PHOTOS FROM THE MOUNTAINS 2

The goal is not to change your subjects, but for the subject to change the photographer.
~Author Unknown

Commander Hussein Afsheen of PJAK, the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan, a member group of the PKK, the Kurdistan Workers Party, sits in front of a picture of Abdullah Ocalan, the founder of PKK in the PJAK training camp in the Qendil mountain range, northern Iraq. Recruits are training to fight Iran, one of the four countries that rule the fractured Kurdish people. And although they belong to an organization officially outlawed as terrorist by Washington, they appear to be operating unhindered from Iraqi territory controlled by U.S. forces. (AP Photo/Yahya Ahmed)

PJAK recruits. (AP Photo/Yahya Ahmed)

Women PJAK recruits. (AP Photo/Yahya Ahmed)

Bijî Serok Apo!