KAYSERI COMMANDO GARRISON DESTROYED BY PKK!

Who am I, you ask?
The Kurd of Kurdistan,
a lively volcano,
fire and dynamite
in the face of enemy.
When furious,
I shake the mountains,
the sparks of my anger
are death to my foes.
~ Cigerxwîn, "Kîme Ez".

Oh, SWEET!!

A brigade of Kayseri commandos has been destroyed early this morning Kurdistan time by the beloved freedom fighters of the People's Defense Force (HPG)!

U-LULULULULULULULULU!!!!

Before we get to the announcement, let's review the role of Kayseri commandos in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan [emphasis in the original]:

The decision to ‘train’ alongside Turkey’s mountain commandos in 1997, we should note, was also made two years after Human Rights Watch had publicly disclosed that “two special Commando Brigades, Bolu and Kayseri, [we]re heavily involved in counterinsurgency operations. Unlike the regular Turkish Army forces, the Bolu and Kayseri [mountain commando] units [we]re more highly trained and [we]re expected to engage in closer contact with PKK fighters and with civilians suspected of supporting the guerrillas. [Witness] B.G. told Human Rights Watch that during his April 1994-May 1995 stint in the southeast, he learned that the Bolu and Kayseri were considered by soldiers and civilians alike to be far more abusive of the civilian population than the regular Army. ‘Nasty behavior toward the population [wa]s encouraged in the Bolu and Kayseri brigades’, he explained, ‘while the Piyade (infantry) Commando tend[ed] to be kinder. The commanders want[ed] there to be a kind of good guy - bad guy situation, which they then use[d] to threaten the locals. They sa[id] be good or we’ll send the Bolu after you!’ Bolu and Kayseri Commandos were prevalent throughout the 1994 Tunceli [Dersim] campaign, during which tens of villages were destroyed. Witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch said they were able to identify Bolu and Kayseri soldiers, and reported that they were involved in numerous violations of the laws of war, including village destructions, indiscriminate fire, and kidnapping civilians who were then forced into serving as porters during Army patrols … The Bolu and Kayseri Commandos”, furthermore, “appear to have incorporated a significant number of U.S.-designed M-16 assault rifles and M-203 grenade launchers into their regular arsenal … According to Reuters, 5,000 Bolu and Kayseri commandos joined 35,000 other forces in the Tunceli campaign [See ‘Turkish Army Torches 17 Villages, Residents Say,’ Reuters, October 5, 1994]”.

Now that we know these bastards have received what they have so richly deserved, on to the news report, from ANF:

Garrison Destroyed in Çukurca!

It has been announced that HPG guerrillas, who conducted an operation against a mobile military garrison in Çukurca, destroyed the entire garrison and killed 30 soldiers. It was also reported that the guerrillas confiscated a number of weapons and munitions.

The clashes started between 0100 and 0200 hours. The mobile garrison that was targeted by the guerrillas was located 30 km from Çukurca district in Hantepe, between Bilican and Talise villages and the military unit was the Kayseri Commando Military Brigade Command.

30 Soldiers Killed

According to HPG sources, in the operation against the Bilican mobile garrison the entire garrison was destroyed. In the operation, in which 30 soldiers were killed, many weapons like artillery and artillery shells were destroyed.

Weapons Confiscated

While the TSK came to pick up their wounded soldiers with helicopters they too encountered guerrilla intervention and it was reported that the helicopters were fired at [by the guerrillas]. HPG sources also indicated that the helicopters were forced to retreat.

In addition, during the guerrilla operation, the guerrillas went into the military units and confiscated many weapons and munitions.

Clashes Continue

Clashes in the region, in the Uzundere area are still ongoing under the control of the guerrillas. Details of the clashes are expected from HPG soon.

One would presume that these Kayseri commando-types are the same types that would fill the ranks of a so-called professional army within TSK, which would be posted to Turkish-occupied Kurdistan to fight our guerrillas.

Sweet!!

Bijî Gerîla!


Çok Yaşa Gerilla!


Çok Yaşa Önder Apo!

TURKISH ARMY CONTINUES TO MUTILATE CORPSES

"We are deeply rooted in the mountains and hearts of the people of Kurdistan. We are able to live another 50 years like this."
~ Murat Karayılan.

I remember that last spring and summer two Turkish journalists pushed for a dialog on the Kurdish situation. Hasan Cemal wrote a series of articles from Kandil which were published in Milliyet. Later, both Hasan Cemal and Cengiz Çandar hosted a discussion live on Turkish TV from Diyarbakır, in which they spoke to Kurdish leaders and--surprisingly--actually seemed to listen. Until I find out otherwise, at this point I have to give them credit for trying to open a public dialog on the situation.

Of course, at the time, DTP members were being rounded up by the AKP government for two simple reasons: 1. They were Kurds; 2. The DTP had badly beaten the AKP in the March 2009 local elections . . . in spite of all the bribes AKP had dispensed to villagers in the preceeding months and in spite of Katil Erdoğan's hypocritical show at Davos.

Now Cengiz Çandar has called out Beşir Atalay, the Interior Minister (the ministry responsible for Turkey's domestic "security" affairs), on this whole "democratic initiative" farce, stating correctly that "[t]he democratic initiative is not going anywhere." I would add the fact that the "democratic initiative" was stillborn.


Çandar describes the signs of the times:

First of all, the military concentration continues at the Şemdinli border line. The Kurdish administration in Iraq is pressurized. Fighter jets bomb northern Iraq. In the presence of the United States and Arbil, efforts are being made for the handing over of 248 outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, militants over to Turkey. The pre-1990 conditions settle in the Southeast again. We are going back to a state in which people are fed up with check points and barricades.

If these are called “efforts,” there were more of them in the 1980s and the 1990s. The point we have reached is crystal-clear.

Yes, indeed, I agree. The point that we are at is excruciatingly crystalline.

And then Çandar quotes a recent editorial by Radikal's Oral Çalışlar:

“Here is a letter for you: ‘I am sending photos and information. They belong to guerillas who died in the clashes that took place in Şemdinli. They were handed over to the Şemdinli Municipality as they were. People are washing the bodies in the river.’ I couldn’t look at the photos, burned young bodies in pieces… the Günlük daily has been publishing the photos for a few days. In another letter, an article published in Günlük daily was sent. It is on the same topic. ‘…The images the cameraman recorded are detailed. The cameramen who recorded every single detail of the corpses of the guerillas will leave their mark in the history. That’s for sure. Or rather, the cameramen record acts of violence the state is involved in against Kurds, Kurdish bodies, corpses in the 21st century… I cannot look at the photos. My eyes are shut. Yes, we are at the end… where humanity ends. In the 21st century such acts are flat violence. Their goal is to destroy the willpower of the Kurdish people, scare away Kurdish women and the Kurdish youth.’ For days, funeral ceremonies are being held for the PKK members in Hakkâri, Şemdinli, Diyarbakır, Van and in many other southeastern cities. Groups to pick up the bodies are waving placards writing ‘Welcome our martyrs’ on them. The corpses are not being returned to the families. They are buried at the scenes of encounters. For this reasons, demonstrations are held, people fight against police officers. The PKK members who are killed in the regions mostly driven by a political trend advocating the Kurdish identity are welcomed not as ‘terrorists’ but as ‘martyrs.’ They are treated like martyrs. This is the latest picture in the Southeast… In other words, a completely different psychology and public opinion is settling in the region…”

Indeed.

The daily Günlük has a photo of one of our guerrillas who's body was mutilated and had something to say about the situation:

HPG member Özgür Dağhan's family was shocked when they went to the morgue to identify their son, who was killed in a clash in Gümüşhane. Özgür Dağhan's head had been completely deformed. The things remaining from his head were some hair and his teeth.

[ . . . ]

The family saw that inhumane act not only against their son but in two more HPG members' bodies. There weren't any deformations on the other parts of Dağhan's body, which indicates he was caught alive and was tortured after he was killed.

The article goes on to say that the bodies of Hamit Ulaş and Bayram Dün, HPG fighters who were killed in Karadeniz and Diyarbakır Silvan on 23 June, had also been tortured. Their heads were also smashed and the bodies tortured.

At Dağhan's funeral, which saw a turnout of thousands of mourners, BDP Diyarbakır Provincial Chairman Nijad Yaruk asked, "What kind of fire is that in your heart to make you attack the bodies of dead people?"


In addition to these recent mutilations, Selahattin Demirtaş also forwarded information to Katil Erdoğan on the TSK's mutilation of Rojhelati guerrilla, Abbas Emani, from Zaman:

BDP leader Nurettin Demirtaş [sic. Note: It's not Nurettin Demirtaş but Selahattın Demirtaş who is the BDP co-chair referred to here--Mizgîn] earlier this week sent a CD to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan filled with images of Özgür Dağhan, who was recently killed in Gümüşhane, and Abbas Emani, an Iranian militant who was allegedly killed when he was captured in Batman five years ago. According to the BDP’s claims, PKK member Emani was captured by the Special Forces. He was interrogated and then executed near a vehicle parked in front of a gendarmerie post. Later, his body was dragged to the site of a clash between the military and PKK terrorists, where it was mutilated by Turkish soldiers.

Demirtaş also enclosed a note to the prime minister that said: “These incidents [corpse defilement] are common, to our knowledge. Are you thinking of apologizing to the people and the families and punishing those responsible?” He said many witnesses in the area had confirmed the truth of these acts of disrespect for the dead.

I might add that I personally know people who can confirm similar behavior from the 1990s. There's more at Zaman from Mehmet Dağhan, the father of Şehîd Özgür Dağhan, via Taraf:

The Taraf daily spoke to Mehmet Dağhan, father of Özgür Dağhan, who said: “When my son was killed I went to Trabzon to identify him. They showed me about 10 pictures. There was blood on his face in the picture, his hair had been neatly combed and he was vaguely smiling. I said it was my son. Then I went to the Council of Forensic Medicine’s (ATK) morgue to identify the corpse. They brought my son’s body. His skull had been smashed and burnt. His body was completely black. I said I was not able to identify him. I talked to the prosecutor who was following up on the autopsy. He was about the same age as my son, and he was very nice to me. He was very respectful. He showed me pictures. There was not a blemish on his body in those pictures. He was dead, but his body was intact. It is natural for him to die in a clash. But later, I don’t know if they charred his body with gasoline, chemicals or some kind of acid. You wouldn’t even do this to an animal.”

Of course, none of this is new behavior on the part of NATO's second largest army, nor of Turkish state officials charged with the remains of guerrillas. As Heval Selahattin said, "These incidents [corpse defilement] are common, to our knowledge." Earlier photos of atrocities carried out against guerrilla corpses were posted on Rastî in March 2008 and in August of the same year, I posted information that appeared in the daily Taraf on the same subject:

Terrifying confession of a sergeant


"They threw a PKK member from a helicopter . . . A police special operations member raped the dead body of a female PKK member . . ." Former sergeant Çakan wrote this, including the name, date, and place, in his book; however, he was the one prosecuted.

Former Sergeant Kasım Çakan assembled information in his book on murders he witnessed which were committed by unknown perpetrators while he was on duty in The Southeast. Demanding that Çakan's book be accepted as an informant's document, Çakan's publisher, Mehdi Tanrıkulu, made a criminal complaint against the soldiers and police named in the document.

Being a Soldier While a Sergeant

Kasım Çakan, who used to work in the East and Southeast as a sergeant, compiled information about incidents that happened to him just after he was discharged from the army, in a book called Being a Soldier While a Sergeant. While Cakan wanted the incidents mentioned in his book to be considered as an informant documentation, Istanbul's chief prosecutor charged Çakan and his publisher with the charge of "making terror propaganda" [Article 7/2 of the new and improved Anti-Terror Law]. The trial of Çakan and Tevn Publications owner, Mehdi Tanrıkulu, is still ongoing.

A criminal complaint

Publisher Mehdi Tanrıkulu made a complaint to the Istanbul chief prosecutor's office based on the writing in the book. Tanrıkulu did so with the rationale that starting an investigation about such incidents would reveal several murders by unknown perpetrators.

More on that is available here. Other photos documenting TSK atrocities can be found at this page at Yeni Özgür Politika. Atrocities committed by TSK have also been disclosed by TSK conscripts in Nadire Mater's book, Voices from the Front (Turkish title: Mehmedin Kitabı).

While Katil Erdoğan was, no doubt, crying his eyes out in Bosnia and Herzegovina over the victims of the Srebrenica massacre:

I remember all the martyrs of Srebrenica with great respect and hope that they are all in heaven, Erdogan said.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Sunday that the massacre of 1995 in Srebrenica dealt a heavy blow to human dignity.

[ . . . ]

The victims of the Srebrenica massacre lost lives for their homeland, honor and humanity. They were massacred in a bloody, ruthless, lawless, and wild war, Erdogan stressed.

[ . . . ]

Erdogan referred to the International Court of Justice in The Hague which ruled that what took place in Srebrenica was a genocide.

Now, this is the same son-of-a-bitch who has never bothered to shed a tear for Kurds but, in fact, was the one to authorize the murder of Kurdish women, children and elderly during the Amed Serhildan in 2006. This is the same son-of-a-bitch who refuses to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide. This is the same son-of-a-bitch who replied to Heval Selahattin's letter and CD thusly:

"They have sent me a letter on [BDP] letterhead with a CD attached, stating that the situation of these corpses was a crime against humanity and asking what are we going to do about this. Is it left to you, BDP, to advocate for an organization that has been declared a terrorist organization by a majority of the world's countries? . . . Where are we going to put the armless, legless veterans in GATA [Gülhane Askeri Tıp Akademisi--TSK's hospital in Ankara] then?"

So this murdering son-of-a-bitch continues to ignore the incidents which are endemic to NATO's second largest army. He lies about PKK being a "terrorist" organization according to "a majority of the world's countries"--only state-sponsors of terror like the United States and Turkey and their little f***ing lapdogs in the EU think that PKK is a "terrorist" organization and these bottom-feeders are hardly "a majority of the world's countries". And then this son-of-a-bitch, Recep Tayyip Katil Erdoğan goes on to deflect any accountability for war crimes and crimes against humanity by referring to some "armless, legless veterans in GATA". Oh, and I can guarantee you that the sons of Katil Erdoğan are never going to be found among those GATA unfortunates, nor will they ever be quoted in any future Mehmedin Kitabı, and you, dear reader, can easily guess the reason why.


Here's how Heval Selahattin responded to the Murderer's idiotic statement:

"This is an unfortunate statement. If a PM is thinking this way then he has lost his legitimacy. It is a confession that he is not the PM of a certain part of the country. . . . We do not distinguish the dead bodies, the pain. There is not your pain or my pain. There is our pain. Guerrillas are also the sons and daughters of this country. They are all our people. The parents of guerrillas are also citizens of this country. But if a PM is doing this then he will pass into history as the PM defending brutal treatment on dead bodies."

Well, all I can say is that Heval Selahattin is a much better man than I. As far as I'm concerned, what this comrade said.

THE NEXT GENERATION TO BE BORN IN PRISON

"Diyarbakır Prison is not only the wildest chapter of the Kurdish issue, but it is also the wildest face of Sept. 12. It is certain that the horrible incidents encouraged people to join the armed fight. The fury among Kurdish people due to Diyarbakır Prison has long remained one of the most important resources for the PKK."
~ Mithat Sancar, Professor, Ankara University.

While most people will protest Israeli treatment of Palestinian children, including R. Katil Tayyip Erdoğan. In fact, this great and noble defender of children's rights had this to say last year:

I saw with my own eyes young Palestinian children being killed in Gaza.

Yet there has been little or no discussion of Katil Erdoğan's own treatment of Kurdish children--who also happen to be citizens of Turkey--in Western media. Here's something to help make up for the corporate media lap dogs' cover up of the Turkish state's official policy of Kurdish child abuse:

In April of last year--just days before Katil Erdoğan spoke about the killing of Palestinian children at Oxford, as mentioned above--these evil, stone-throwing, juvenile threats to the indivisibility and territorial integrity of the great and democratic Türkiye Cumhuriyeti were visited by a human rights delegation at their new home in the Diyarbakır E-Type prison. Here's what was noticed, among other things:

"Because the children are washing their clothes by hand, they are not clean. The beds are old, dirty and contain several bacteria. The tables are not hygienically clean, and because the children wash their dishes in an unhygienic environment (on the bathroom floor), this brings serious health problems."

There is no prison doctor. According to the manager, a doctor comes once a week, and an ambulance is called for emergencies. In general, children are transferred to hospital "if the gendarmerie is not busy on that day."

The delegation noted that one child had had a detached finger stitched back on, but that the stitches had not been removed for three months. Another child had cuts on his head and hands. He said that they had been stitched six days earlier, but that the wounds had not been bandaged since his detention.

Does this surprise you? It shouldn't. Diyarbakır's prisons have always been notorious and these days it ranks as one of the ten most notorious in the world. This is where the Turkish state puts Kurdish children after charging them with political "crimes".

Fast forward one year later and how do we find these young Kurds? Unsurprisingly, again, as follows:

Juveniles detained in the Diyarbakır E Type Prison who protested against the fact that their sick fellow inmates were not taken to the hospital were all punished for their protest by the prison management. The young prisoners are convicted and imprisoned in the scope of the controversial Anti-Terror Law (TMK).

Özgeder, the Association for Solidarity with Young People Deprived of Freedom, sent a letter to the Directorate for Prisons and Detention Houses within the Ministry of Justice to make an inquiry about the children that participated in the protest action.

No reply for torture inquiry

The letter said, "We were informed that the children were punished heavily and that officials applied physical violence from time to time. We also learnt that they were sent to neighbouring provinces". Özgeder requested according information.

The Directorate for Prisons and Detention Houses did not respond to the allegations of "torture" in their written reply. The juveniles who had joined the protest were called "criminals". The letter furthermore put forward that they damaged public property.

By protesting prison conditions, these young Kurds are following in the footsteps of Mazlum Doğan, Kemal Pir, M. Hayri Durmuş, and many others who died in Diyarbakır Military Prison in protest of the treatment in the prison and its conditions. For this reason, it has been said that Diyarbakır Military Prison is the birthplace of the PKK.

The Turkish state and the international community had better pay attention and act on behalf of the young Kurds now serving sentences as political prisoners in Diyarbakır and elsewhere in Turkey. Otherwise, this new generation may soon pick up their own matches.

PKK AND THE SCOTUS

"Hypocrisy in anything whatever may deceive the cleverest and most penetrating man, but the least wide-awake of children recognizes it, and is revolted by it, however ingeniously it may be disguised."
~ Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy.

On June 21 the SCOTUS [Supreme Court of the US] determined that providing "training, expert advice or assistance" to teach the PKK how to file human rights complaints or to engage in peace negotiations is the same thing as providing material support to a "terrorist" organization. From The Washington Post, amazingly:

WHICH OF the following is illegal under the law that bars providing "material support" to terrorists?:

1. Giving money to a terrorist organization.

2. Providing explosives training to terrorists.

3. Urging a terrorist group to put down its arms in favor of using lawful, peaceful means to achieve political goals.

After Monday's Supreme Court ruling in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project the answer is: all three.

The material support law prohibits U.S. citizens from providing "services," "personnel" or "training, expert advice or assistance" to U.S.-designated terrorist groups. It has long been understood that funding and providing weapons training were off limits. What was less clear was how far the law could reach to punish activities with no link to terrorism.

The court's answer: Very far. In our opinion, it is the court that went too far.

From Foreign Policy:

And although it seems like attempts to convince terrorist groups to use non-lethal methods to pursue their political agenda would be a no-brainer, the US Supreme Court concluded otherwise. How could this be? According to the Supreme Court, an FTO such as the PKK could misuse such training to feign an interest in peace while in the meantime it builds up its strength as it awaits a more opportune time to resume terrorism. In addition, it could use its newly-gained knowledge of international law to subvert the legal system by manipulating it to prevent successful campaigns against terrorism. Finally, when an FTO such as the PKK learns skills such as peaceful political advocacy and the norms of international law and international humanitarian and human rights law, there is the substantial risk that it will obtain greater legitimacy, thereby making it harder to defeat them.

The Atlantic continues:

. . . But as Justice Breyer suggested in dissent, it makes no sense: Independent speech about a designated group may legitimize the group as much (or more) than advice to the group on conflict resolution. Breyer was equally dismissive of the assertion that such advice enables terrorism by "freeing up" the group's resources: "The Government has provided us with no empirical information that might convincingly support this claim." Nor did it make a factual showing that the speech proposed by the plaintiffs in HLP would confer any particular "legitimacy" on a designated group.

One of the original court documents in the challenge to the Patriot Act can be found here, and the document contains the argument of the plaintiffs in the case, including that of Judge Ralph Fertig. Here's a sample:

Since 1991 the HLP [Humanitarian Law Project] and Judge Fertig have devoted substantial time and resources advocating on behalf of the Kurds living in Turkey and working with and providing training, expert advice and other forms of support to the PKK. Judge Fertig and other individuals associated with the HLP have conducted fact-finding investigations on the Kurds in Turkey and have published reports and articles presenting their findings, which are supportive of the PKK and the struggle for Kurdish liberation. They assert that the Turkish government has committed extensive human rights violations against the Kurds, including the summary execution of more than 18,000 Kurds, the widespread use of arbitrary detentions and torture against persons who speak out for equal rights for Kurds or are suspected of sympathizing with those who do, and the wholesale destruction of some 2,4000 Kurdish villages. Applying international law principles, they have concluded that the PKK is a party to an armed conflict governed by Geneva Conventions and Protocols and, therefore, is not a terrorist organization under international law.

There's much more in the court document that outlines some of the work of the HLP and Judge Fertig on behalf of the Kurdish people. Take a look so that you can get a better idea of what it is to be a "terrorist" in the mind of the United States in general and of the fascist Black Robes of the SCOTUS in particular.

At the same time that the fascist Black Robes of the SCOTUS determined that helping the PKK negotiate peace was an act of terrorism, news reports were discussing the fact that the US military and its civilian contractors were handing out beaucoup bucks to warlords and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

It's apparent from Le Monde Diplomatique that not only do US military officers like to flash the cash in the Taliban's direction, but NATO commanders are somewhat taken with the Taliban personally:

Sadly for the US, almost everyone supports the Taliban rebels. Even Nato commanders. A senior officer said: “If I was a young man, I’d be fighting with the Taliban.”

The same article says that, until recently anyway, the entire goal of the US military in Afghanistan was not even to defeat the Taliban:

For Nato soldiers, the fight is confusing. General Stanley McChrystal – their commander until President Barack Obama accepted his forced resignation last month, the result of his candour – told the troops that, in the counter-insurgency campaign, their primary goal is not to kill or even defeat the Taliban but rather to secure the population. The enemy is not even the Taliban, said Major-General Nick Carter, the British general in charge of the Kandahar campaign, but rather a “malign influence”, a code for corrupt government.

In light of a recent House subcommittee investigation into the matter, the Pentagon is taking the allegations "seriously". The entire congressional report can be found here and a larger news report on the investigation can be found at The Nation.

It makes one wonder whether or not such fine, upstanding Americans as US military officers and "free-market" contractors should, perhaps, be the first to be charged with offering material support to terrorists under the SCOTUS ruling. Alas, it's not to be for the simple reason that the Taliban is not listed as an FTO on the State Department's infamous List.

Now why is that?

On the one hand you have the PKK, an organization that has never targeted Americans or even talked about targeting Americans--unlike the MEK, pet organization of so many Republican congressmen--and on the other hand you have the Taliban, which manages to blow up or otherwise kill Americans every few days. Or at least every week. So why is the PKK on the List and the Taliban is not? It all sounds so very arbitrary to me.

Of course, the reason the Taliban has so far avoided being listed is because it was the guest of the Americans back in the 1990s:

Late in 1996, however, the Bridas Corp. of Argentina finally signed contracts with the Taliban and with Gen. Dostum of the Northern Alliance to build the pipeline.

One American company in particular, Unocal, found that intolerable and fought back vigorously, hiring a number of consultants in addition to Kissinger: Hamid Karzai, Richard Armitage, and Zalmay Khalilzad. (Armitage and Khalilzad would join the George W. Bush administration in 2001.)

Unocal wooed Taliban officials at its headquarters in Texas and in Washington, D.C., seeking to have the Bridas contract voided, but the Taliban refused. Finally, in February of 1998, John J. Maresca, a Unocal vice president, asked in a congressional hearing to have the Taliban replaced by a more stable regime.

The Clinton administration, having recently refused the PNAC request to invade Iraq, was not any more interested in a military overthrow of the Taliban. President Clinton did, however, shoot a few cruise missiles into Afghanistan, after the al Qaeda attacks on the U.S. embassies in Africa. And he issued an executive order forbidding further trade transactions with the Taliban.

Maresca was thus twice disappointed: The Taliban would not be replaced very soon, and Unocal would have to cease its pleadings with the regime.

Unocal's prospects rocketed when George W. Bush entered the White House, and the Project for the New American Century ideology of global dominance took hold.

The Bush administration itself took up active negotiations with the Taliban in January of 2001, seeking secure access to the Caspian Basin for American companies. The Enron Corp. also was eyeing a pipeline to feed its proposed power plant in India.) The administration offered a package of foreign aid as an inducement, and the parties met in Washington, Berlin and Islamabad. The Bridas contract might still be voided.

But the Taliban would not yield.

It would appear that the Americans are holding out to continue pipeline negotiations with the Taliban, and are, therefore, not "Listing" the group.

If so it means that former HPG Commander Comrade Bahoz Erdal's repeated comments about the targeting of oil and gas pipelines takes on a much greater sense of urgency. Since the Taliban refusal to go along with American oil companies and its continued targeting of US military personnel have kept it off the List, maybe the same tactics could benefit HPG and the PKK and, finally, force Turkey and the US to negotiate for a peaceful settlement of the Kurdish situation.