AMERICA NEEDS SERHILDAN

“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.” ~ Thomas Jefferson,
3rd President of the United States and author of the Declaration of Independence.

Late last night I noticed that the Washington Post had come out with an article on the Harrisonburg Kurds. Previously, a report on the Harrisonburg Kurds was featured on BBC's The World program (run time: 7 mins)--thanks to a heval for that information; you know who you are.

There have also been a couple of blog posts about the article today, one at Max Speak, You Listen! and one at Instapundit. Let's note that Max has been the one on this story since the beginning, so he deserves many thanks from the American Kurdish community, Kurds worldwide and all lovers of freedom, wherever they happen to be. Gelek sipas, bijît û serkeftin, Max!

The people of Harrisonburg, Virginia, also deserve great thanks for their support of Rashid Qambari, Fadhil Noroly, Ahmed Abdullah and Amir Rashid, as well as their families and the rest of the Kurdish community in their midst. At least these Americans are able to use common sense to see that their Kurdish neighbors are anything but a threat; the fact is that the Kurds of Harrisonburg have been an asset to their community. Isn't this what immigration to the United States is supposed to be about, so that the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free--especially these Kurds who suffered so much under the evil Saddam regime--can have the opportunity to live in, and contribute to, a wider community, another country, whose foundational values were created for this very end?

There is a great inconsistency here, between those very foundational American values and the infamous law which has trapped innocent men and their families, both here and in Kurdistan, in a web of fascism. The same inconsistency exists between the people of Harrisonburg and those who wrote and established the same infamous law. Is this not an indication that there is a growing divide between those who would remove the basic freedoms, the very liberty, guaranteed by the Constitution and the people themselves? Who are these fascists in government who have the temerity to attempt to enforce this Patriot Act, an act which is more in accordance with dictatorships such as Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia, and therefore erodes the foundational values of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution?

How is it that anyone can permit a law like the Patriot Act to exist, a law in which intent of an act is totally disregarded? The case of the Harrisonburg Kurds proves that intent is crucial in determining the justice of this law. The act of sending money to someone is not, by its nature, a crime (as contrasted to crimes such as murder, which most people will agree is always wrong). Since the act of sending money can be a completely innocent act, intent must be taken into consideration.

Let us take an example from the Washington Post article to illustrate the faulty fascist reasoning behind disregard for intent, an example given to us by the great legal brain at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, Dean Boyd:

Through spokesmen, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia and the FBI, which led the investigations, declined to comment. But Dean Boyd, a spokesman for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, said it does not matter whether unlicensed transmitters help criminals -- they are soft targets all the same.

"Yes, many of them are used by immigrants to send money home to relatives," Boyd said. "But we found that a lot of the criminal element will go to those that operate underground. It's a backdoor way to get your money into the financial system."

What Mr. Boyd is advocating is the punishment of the majority, a majority who are innocent of any criminal activity, because a minority of criminals can also use the act in question--money transfer--for criminal purposes. By this reasoning, we can also declare all car owners or users in the United States must be tried and convicted for owning or using a car, because although the vast majority of car owners or users in the US do not commit any crimes with their vehicles, a tiny minority, the "criminal element" does own or use cars while committing crimes. It does not matter what the intent of car ownership or use is, because, after all, we wouldn't want a guilty person to get away with a crime, would we? Better that milliions of innocent are punished than one guilty should evade the grasp of the law!

Did anyone check item 7 (Obsession with national security) or item 12 (Obsession with crime and punishment) on our list of characteristics of a fascist state?

The entire basis of law in the US has traditionally been that of the presumption of innocence, the legal reasoning being that it is better to allow a guilty party to go free than to commit the injustice of prosecuting an innocent. In other words, the rights of the innocent have been of much higher value than the punishment of the guilty. Not so anymore. The Patriot Act was supposed to assist law enforcement in apprehending terrorists but it hasn't worked that way at all. In fact, all convictions to date under the Patriot Act have been for ordinary crimes, and that is its problem: The Patriot Act permits the state to wield too much power, power that comes down like a hammer on innocent people and it looks like this trend will continue, as it did this week against the 4th Amendment's protection of the innocent from unreasonable searches and seizures. The Supreme Court has begun to favor the power of the state over the people, from the Boston Globe:

"Rights do not grow smaller or larger," Scalia said last year at Texas A&M University. But Scalia was abridging rights when he wrote last week that police professionalism no longer means they have to knock. Had the ruling come last year, he might have been in the minority, but the replacement of Sandra Day O'Connor with Samuel Alito has shifted the court away from the protection of defendants' rights, just what the country doesn't need when the War on Terror has loosened restrictions on law enforcement agencies.

Fadhil Noroly is still trying to think through his dilemma:

Noroly, who faces trial in July, is still mulling a plea. He sat on a recent day in the muffler factory where he works, its machines clanking around him, and shook his head in bewilderment.

"I cannot say guilty," said Noroly, who worked for an American medical team in Kurdistan. "At the same time, it's better to say guilty."

Fadhil must make his own decision, with advice from his legal counsel, and taking into consideration his family. However, personally, I sincerely hope that he will be able to stand in the courtroom with head held high, and say, "I am not guilty." To do so will mean a fight, something Kurds have never shied away from in the face of fascist oppression. Besides, this fight will not be for Fadhil, or Kurds, alone; it will be for all Americans.

It is clear that it is time for an American serhildan, and to that end, I direct your attention to that old revolutionary, Thomas Jefferson, who wrote: " What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?"

Serkeftin!

THOSE LOW-DOWN DIRTY BLUES

The thrill is gone
It's gone away for good
Oh, the thrill is gone baby
Baby its gone away for good
Someday I know I'll be over it all baby
Just like I know a man should

~ B.B. King

Ouch! Did the US just backhand Erdogan, or what?

For the last few weeks there had been mentions in the Turkish press of Erdogan's desire to visit Washington, and speculation had it that the outcome of requesting a visit would show where the US stands in relation to the AKP. On Tuesday, commentator Cuneyt Ulsever made the following remarks, from TDN:

In recent times Turkey has been playing a very active and guiding role in both Iraq and Iran.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who justifiably wanted to utilize this state of affairs, wanted to visit U.S. President George W. Bush.

The Foreign Ministry told the United States, Our prime minister would like to visit at the first opportune time.

[ . . . ]

However The urgent visit Erdoğan wanted to make to discuss Iran, Iraq, Israel and Palestine was postponed until the autumn due to the failure of the White House to send an invitation. When asked by journalists yesterday at Parliament whether it was possible for him to go to the United States sometime in July, Erdoğan said, As of today, it doesn't seem possible.' When asked about the timing of the visit, he said, In the autumn at the latest'. (Hürriyet, June 7, 2006)

Erdogan has been rejected, something that was foreshadowed back in the spring, at the American Turkish Council (ATC) conference in Washington, from MEMRI:

Two emissaries sent by Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan on a fence-mending mission to Washington following the ATC conference also failed in their mission. The emissaries, PM Erdogan's personal advisor Cuneyt Zapsu and AKP Party Deputy Chairman and MP Saban Disli, came under fire from senior U.S. officials with whom they met on April 7, 2006 at the American Enterprise Institute. During the meeting, the U.S. officials expressed their anger regarding several issues: the AKP government's unpredictable policies, Turkey's February 2006 hosting of a Hamas delegation, and the release of the anti-American and antisemitic Turkish film Valley of the Wolves - Iraq, which had the endorsement of high level AKP figures at the level of the wife of the PM, cabinet ministers, the parliamentary speaker, and other dignitaries who attended the film's festive opening gala.

The U.S. officials also told Zapsu and Disli that the U.S. had considered the AKP government unreliable since March 1, 2003, when it had rejected a parliamentary motion to allow U.S. forces passage to northern Iraq through Turkey - which damaged the U.S.'s war plans and resulted in U.S. losses. Zapsu argued in response that since there was no alternative to the AKP in Turkey, the U.S. would just have to live with it for the next six to seven years - and that it should utilize PM Erdogan instead of trying to have him removed.

It looks like old Cuneyt and Saban really did fail, but that seems to be something consistent with the AKP. Remember Erdogan in Amed? Remember Erdogan after Semdinli?

Condoleeza Rice doesn't appear to have been a failure, though. Her April visit was preceded by a number of other visits between Washington and the pashas since December, 2005. Even Brent Scowcroft and the ATC got into the act, a fact noted here on Rastî at the time. By late April, the stage was set for Condi's appearance, which happened to coincide with the deployment of TSK on the border with South Kurdistan. This led to speculation that the US had given the green light for the Turkish deployment, a deployment which appeared to be coordinated with Iran's deployment at their border with South Kurdistan.

Perhaps one of the most important outcomes of the meeting between Condi and the AKP government was the proposal of a Common Strategic Vision (CSV) document, an agreement of understanding between Ankara and Washington over certain key issues, among them the fight against "terrorism," relations with the EU, and the Greater Middle East Initiative. This matter of the strategic vision agreement was discussed, along with a number of other things of importance to Kurds, in the Russian press.

Pravda is now reporting that the official invite went out, and Foreign Minister Gul will be going to Washington, instead of Erdogan. Both Pravda and a Greek news agency, Reporter.gr, state that the object of Gul's visit will be more discussion on the production of the CSV.

So, the work that was actively begun back in December continues, but let's not forget that the initial work took place between the Americans and the pashas; Gul's visit will serve to carry the pashas' will to Washington. In August, the month following Gul's visit, Buyukanit will take over as the new chief of the Turkish General Staff. As such, it would be naive to suggest that Buyukanit does not have a strong hand in crafting the CSV. When, or if, Erdogan does come to Washington later this year, he will not be adding his own vision to any of this business. He will be confirming Buyukanit's vision.

What does it all mean for Kurds? Nothing good. Condi issued no public statement that would have indicated US displeasure at Turkey's massive deployment to Kurdistan, a deployment which also signaled that the pashas had had enough of the civilian AKP government's antics. In Baghdad, Talabanî was left bleating in vain against the renewed Turkish threat. Within weeks of the deployment, an attack on the Council of State occured, an event which the pashas used to drum up public support for a much purer expression of Kemalism than has been seen under AKP's watch.

Meanwhile, Ferhat Sarikaya is still out of work, Erdogan's singing the blues, and Buyukanit waits in the wings. Will Ali Kaya be reunited with his old commander after the trial?


By the way, if anyone is interested in Turkey's and ATC's connections to the Plame scandal, take a look at this archived post from Strata-Sphere.com. Take some time to check out the links in the post as well. I have previously suggested that Turkey is not interested in "peaceful" nuclear acquisition, but rather in acquiring something a bit more . . . terrifying. We all know how important it is to keep up with the neighbors, right? You can find more info on that subject at the post and at its links.

SETTLING FOR FANTASIES?

“Abandon the search for Truth; settle for a good fantasy” ~ Anonymous.

I have never been too much of a fiction reader, although there were those works of fiction that I have enjoyed and returned to several times, such as Albert Camus' The Plague or To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I also recall a bizarre little work by American existentialist Paul Bowles, called The Sheltering Sky, but I only read that one once because it was, well, bizarre. The characters in that one were not at all easy to warm up to, but I found that I had become hooked by the story and had to continue to see how everything would turn out. It was the kind of book that left one feeling empty at the end, sort of a triumph of the absurd, I suppose and, therefore, the whole point of the story.

Just the other day, I read a very short work of fiction by Onder Aytac and Emre Uslu, and published by The New Anatolian. A librarian might classify it as fiction, sub-genre "fantasy." It's titled, The PKK, Kurds, and the EU".

They begin with a description of the "massive military deployment along Turkey's border with Iraq," and they stress that the TSK has not crossed into "Northern Iraq" even though they claim that PKK has bases there. What a sly way to put it! But TSK's artillery did cross into "Northern Iraq," striking a Christian village and, more recently, wounding a Kurdish shepherd and killing seven of his sheep. So this "massive military deployment" of the TSK has committed aggression against Kurds, and we might take this as a clear example of what the Ankara regime considers to be "PKK terrorists"--Kurdish Christians and shepherds. . . as well as Kurdish sheep.

Following this lie, Onder and Emre want to know if PKK "attacks" are helping Kurds or helping the Turkish fascists, and they claim that the rise in Turkish fascism is directly attributable to these PKK "attacks."

WRONG.

Turkish fascism began to rise in March, 2003, when the US sphere of influence expanded itself into Iraq, a piece of real estate that Turkey considers its own. The defining moment in this sudden rise in Turkish fascism took place on July 3, 2003, in the city of Silêmanî, when US Marines bagged, literally, one of the great and glorious Turkish Special Teams as it was on its way to assassinate the Kurdish governor of Kerkuk. This little incident was the huge embarrassment of the mighty TC, something akin to parading around with your fly down in public, but on a national level. Imagine, a Special Team given the special treatment normally reserved for "war detainees" and by lesser mortals who commonly refer to each other as "Jarhead."

Here we have an international incident in which the murderers, rapists, and ethnic-cleansers--activities of the Ozel Timler that in no way differ from the activities of their brother Serbs in Bosnia--risked being exposed for the scum that Kurds know they always have been.

But it hurt Turkey's feelings!

Let's think now, what was PKK doing in 2003? Oh, yeah, they were busy engaging in a unilateral ceasefire. In other words, there were no PKK "attacks" to get the bozkurtlar frothing at the mouth.

Imagine the perturbance of the pashas--the only power in the TC--who, for years, had become accustomed to monitoring and controlling American military activity on American bases in Turkey, and now, just a short, four-hour drive from Amed, it was possible to enter territory in which US power was free-wheeling as it never had before in the Middle East. The pashas had become irrelevant in their own backyard. There would be no more nixing USAF sorties (sorties heading for some very deserving Iraqi targets under the aegis of Operation Northern Watch) just so some Turkish pilots could get in a little bombing practice on Southern Kurdish villages under the pretext of crushing PKK. What's more, the burlap bag would soon become the internationally recognized symbol of the TSK.

And this is the cause of the rise of Turkish fascism. Hell, they even made a movie about it!

Fast forward to 2005, since Onder and Emre are doing their level best to avoid the truth, and instead let's watch them lay the blame for everything that happened that year on PKK. What we have is an exercise in denial about the emergence of TAK, and an exercise in denial about the fact that there are other groups in Turkey who have their own vendettas against the Ankara regime But the greatest denial of all is the denial of black operations reinitiated by the state against the Kurdish people. Example? They mention that four "incidents" were carried out in November, 2005, "incidents" which they blame on PKK.

However, the only "incidents" that occurred during the month of November took place in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan and bear a remarkable resemblance to the Deep State activity which characterized Susurluk, Turkish Hezbollah and the recent Council of State attack. The most significant of these events was the Semdinli bombing, an event which was carried out by JITEM, or perhaps JIT, operatives, with the approval of Yasar Buyukanit, in broad daylight. The biggest mistake of Buyukanit's boys was that they had the misfortune of being witnessed and apprehended by Kurds just moments after the attack. The second biggest mistake of Buyukanit's boys was leaving so much evidence in their vehicle, a vehicle which happened to be registered to JIT.

How selective memory can be when you spend most of your time barking at the moon. They bother to mention certain PKK kidnappings from 2005, but fail to mention that all the kidnapees were returned safely, without so much as one hair on their heads being out of place. If PKK were anything like the TC, we'd hear Murat Karayilan making press statements, demanding compensation for having hosted their guests, in a way similar to what the TC is going to do to Greece for having the nerve to fly into Greek airspace last month. But we don't hear Murat demanding compensation like some anal errand boy of the Turkish government. After all, Murat is a Kurd, and Kurds know how to show their guests a good time, even if they are Turkish commandos.

Another short-term memory issue for Onder and Emre is the Amed serhildan. Well, maybe they were on vacation that week and didn't bother to read their email, but you would think that they had heard something about it, anything about it, by this time. But, no such luck. Better to skip over this event than to venture into a domain that includes provocation, murder, and torture on the part of Turkish security forces and sounds something like this:

Between March 28 and April 5, police detained 551 people, 199 of them minors. On April 4, lawyer Cengiz Analay, chief of the Diyarbakır Bar Children’s Rights Centre, said that 95 percent of the children they had represented during those days had made allegations of torture or ill-treatment, including being made to sing the national anthem while being beaten, being stripped of their clothes, hosed with cold water, and deprived of food and then offered bread that had been spat on.

The Diyarbakır branch of the Human Rights Association interviewed A.T., a fourteen-year old boy, on April 3, 2006. He said: “I was detained on March 29. About fifteen police beat me with truncheons. My right arm was broken, but they dragged me in that condition for about 100 metres, and then took me to the sports hall of the Security Directorate... They beat me with truncheons, refused permission for me to use the toilet, and made me constantly stand and sit... In the morning at 3:00 am they made me go to sleep, and then woke me up at 5:00 and beat me with truncheons again.” F.K., a forty-six year old woman, gave the following account on April 5, 2006: “On March 28 I went to collect my daughter from school. While going to the Koşuyolu district, police stopped me, insisting that I had been throwing stones. Giving me no opportunity to respond, they beat me and detained me. They first took me to the sports hall at the Security Directorate, and then to the Anti-Terror Branch. They constantly beat, cursed and insulted me ... They hit me, struck me with truncheons on every part of my body (my back, my arm, my legs, but especially my head). I felt constantly nauseous from the blows I received... they gave me one meal in three days but I could not eat it... a policewoman pulled my hair.” She also described perfunctory medical examinations at which police insisted on being present.

The physical abuse of demonstrators detained in Diyarbakır at the time of the disturbances flagrantly violated international and Turkish law and was completely at odds with your government’s declared policy of zero tolerance of torture.

And yet, in their own little work of fiction, Onder and Emre insist that "Turkey's EU accession process is the best option for the Kurds in Turkey and would help them gain their cultural rights." That quote is a lie, and these two fantasy writers, who ignore all the TC's atrocities against Kurds, exepect us to believe that the EU is going to ensure Kurdish cultural rights?

For one thing, cultural rights are not enough, and never will be enough. For another, since the Amed serhildan, it has been crystal clear that the EU has no intention whatsoever of guaranteeing Kurdish cultural, or any other, rights. It has fully supported the government's position since the serhildan and has done nothing to act as a negotiator between the government and the political representatives of the Kurdish people. Cemil Bayik best described the entire Kurdish situation vis-a-vis the EU.

When was the last time anyone heard of the EU doing anything substantial about Turkish atrocities against Kurds? When was the last time anyone heard, for example, that the EU was going to partner with the UN to send peacekeepers to "The Region?" Something like that would really be putting the family jewels on the line, wouldn't it? And it would certainly get Ankara's attention. Instead of substance, Kurds get clowns like Joost Lagendijk and Cem Ozdemir, the pashas' errand boys in the EU parliament.

Every Kurd should question the value of EU accession after reading the desperation and the thinly-veiled threat between the lines of Onder and Emre's nonsense. Why are they so desperate to press for accession, unless it serves only to benefit their kind?

Every Kurd should remember what happened the last time some desperate Turk came begging for help. That Turk is known as Ataturk today, and he was desperate for Kurdish help to establish a state in which Turks and Kurds would be equal citizens. Every Kurd should remember that the Amed serhildan is only the most recent in a long line of abuses and atrocities Ataturk's government has inflicted on the equal citizens of the Kurdish sub-identity.

The last 83 years are the thanks the Kurds have received for helping desperate Turks, a fact of history of which the Greek Cypriots, at least, may be well aware.

THE SOUND OF CONDESCENSION

"You can have power over people as long as you don't take everything away from them. But when you've robbed a man of everything, he's no longer in your power."
~ Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn.

I have noticed something about a certain way the West speaks about Kurds and Kurdistan and it bothers me because it isn't at all pleasant. It makes me wonder if these kinds of speakers realize how bad, how condescending, they sound. My case in point comes from a daily stroll through Technorati, which revealed a comment that puts into few words the entire problem, from a comment to a post on Israpundit, 12 June:

It’s time that the Kurds were given their own country. They have been friends of Israel for a very long time. This country should be made up with Kurds from Syria, Iran and Iraq. There are good reasons for this arrangement. The Kurds of Turkey are hostile so I would not include them. Reasons: 1. In Iraq, they would control the oil resorces down to Kirkuk and militarily very strong. They are not Arabs and should not be in the same government, 2. in Iran, they have a majority of the people in the north, along with other ethnic groups and could put very strong pressure on Tehran, 3. In Syria, they have been persecuted so badly that as a unity of the others could overthrow the Syrian government. If not for Winston Churchill, Kurdistan would have been a fact.

Let's think about this.

Certainly the Başurî have been "friends" of Israel for a very long time. If we want to be slightly more precise, however, we would correctly say that Southern Kurds have been regional allies of Israel for a period of time in the not too distant past. The Rojhelatî, too, have a history of encouraging active involvement of the Kurdish Jews of the Mehabad Republic, so that the Kurdish Jews were accepted in that republic as full citizens, quite unlike anything any Jew has ever experienced in Iran.

How is it, though, that the Kurdistan that the West is prepared to "give" should only be made up of Rojava, Rojhelat and Başur? How is it that someone dares to say, "You can have this piece and this piece and this piece but not the biggest piece?" Part of you can have freedom, but the majority of Kurdistan must remain occupied by the fascist government of Turkey.

How are the Bakurî hostile? This is the biggest mischaracterization of Kurds I have ever come across, and it's a function of someone who has swallowed Turkish propaganda entire, the same Turkish propaganda that says Kurds are "terrorists." Of course, those who believe this are those who pretend they don't know what's been going on in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan for the last 83 years. They pretend that Kurds have no right to self-defence against a regime that has been engaged in genocide against them. Funny, it was Turkey who invented the whole concept of genocide as political tool, or has everyone, after all, forgotten the Armenians?

But maybe this total mischaracterization is this the sound of a guilty conscience. Let's refresh our memories: Who was it that helped to capture Ocalan? In the years that have followed this betrayal by the international community, and especially by the US and Israel, the Bakurî still engage in no hostility toward Israel or Jews. On the other hand, maybe labeling the Bakurî as hostile is a simple way of hiding Israel's deal with Turkey, a deal which helps to satisfy Israel's need for water. The deal for that water, water which comes from Turkish-occupied Kurdistan, was concluded with a contract Israel signed with the fascists in Ankara not long ago:

. . . [O]n March 25, 2004, Israel finally signed the agreement to buy water from Turkey. The contract is a 20-year contract in which Turkey will ship 40,500 (50 MCM) acre feet of water annual from Manavgat. Price is still being negotiated and the water may be partly paid for in military hardware. Jonathan Peled, spokesman for the Israel Foreign Ministry, said this landmark agreement turns water into an internationally accepted "commodity,"

In addition to this transaction when finally completed, Turkey plans to sell water to other countries including Malta and Cyprus.

For this, the resources of Kurdistan, the Kurdish people under Turkish occupation must wait for at least another twenty years to be considered worthy of freedom? For this, the Kurdish people under Turkish occupation must endure more of the gross human rights abuses that Turkey has perpetrated against them for the last 83 years, with the assistance of the US and Israel?

Tell me again who it is that is characterizing the Kurds under Turkish occupation as hostile?

Oh, but such a deal! It can partly be paid for in military hardware! Against whom will that military hardware be used? Against the Kurdish people!

Will the hardware only be used against the "hostile" Kurds under Turkish occupation, or is it possible that some of that military hardware is deployed right now along the border with South Kurdistan, and has been used to bomb civilians in the South--the very same Kurds that are deemed worthy of having a state?

But in dealing with fascists, one always gets one's comeuppance. Relations between the Ankara fascists and the Israeli government--a government which is not willing to pay for water with justice--have been, well, strained. Erdogan never misses an opportunity to hypocritically criticize Israel over Palestine, military contracts have been cancelled, ambassadors have been recalled, security at Istanbul airport is not always what it should be for Israelis, and the Turkish government leaked information gleaned from Arab propaganda about the Israelis creating their own militia of Kurds in South Kurdistan. The timing on all this has been interesting, to say the least:

Unfortunately, one must cynically add a couple of additional points here. These actions come immediately after Turkey got two big things it wanted from Israel--the long-negotiated deal for Israel to import Turkish water and a major contract for construction on an Israeli power plant. Thus, it was a moment when a Turkish government could score some domestic and regional points by criticizing Israel's defensive war against the Palestinians at little cost or risk.

More broadly, this series of events is part of a global pattern in which countries love to bully Israel while proclaiming that it is acting as a bully. Israel is an easy target because bashing it wins applause at home, may help relations with the Arab or Muslim world, and Israel is unlikely or unable to retaliate. This situation has some parallels with how Jews were treated in the Middle Ages and later times in Europe, except that today such behavior rarely affects their well-being or security.

Pardon me if I appear less than sympathetic, but my lack of sympathy has good reason. I do not lack sympathy for Turks as Turks, nor for Americans as Americans, nor for Israelis as Israelis. I lack sympathy because these, and others, have engaged in actions which maintain an intolerable position for almost 20 million Kurds in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan. These actions also affect all other Kurds in the world and no amount of sweet talk about "granting" Rojavayî, Rojhelatî and Başurî a unified state of their own can change anything about the unjust occupation and suffering of the other half of the world's Kurds.

Pardon me for rejecting the condescension of the powers that be which would "allow" Kurds to have their own city, their own heart, their own "Jerusalem"--as Mam Celal once said--Kerkuk, Dilê Kurdistan. I do not recognize the authority of these powers, the same powers who divided Kurdistan in the first place and relegated the Kurdish people to enslavement under cruel and tyrannical regimes. Kerkuk is Kurdish and no one else has any right to give, grant, permit, or allow Kurds to have it or not. Kerkuk should be reclaimed by Kurds at this very moment, and if no one likes it, let them come to the mountains and fight for Kerkuk for the next forty years.

The same can be said about a greater independent Kurdistan: It is no one's to grant. The Kurdish people, as a people, have an inalienable right to a free and independent Greater Kurdistan. Make no mistake, as long as the majority of the world's Kurds continue to suffer the brutality inflicted upon them by the fascist Ankara regime, there will be no peace in the region, nor will the region deserve peace.

Pardon me for completing the thought begun by the remark, "Kurds are not Arabs and should not be in the same government." Neither are Kurds Turks or Persians nor should Kurds be in those governments. Kurds are Kurds, Kurdistan is one, and it should be ruled by one Kurdish government from the Kurdish capital, Amed.

Pardon me for my lack of enthusiasm for doing the West's dirty work of overthrowing regimes that are hostile to Western interests. If the West had ever engaged Kurds transparently over matters like this, instead of forever treating Kurds worse than third-rate field hands in a cotton field on a plantation in the American South, perhaps I would see some room for dialog. However, an agreement on this, or any other subject, must be negotiated and concluded only in the interests of the Kurdish people and not for the sake of the West nor for the sake of any of the occupying states.

Kurds really do have nothing to lose by refusing to cooperate with the West unless such cooperation serves Kurdish interests alone.

After all, we still have the mountains.

TWO MURDERS, A GANG BUST, AND THE BIG, BAD PKK

"As you can imagine, there's a fair amount of infighting and clawing behind the scenes in the PUK politburo. Yes, they still call it a politburo." ~ www.comebackalive.com

Ah, well, it seems that we have more information published about the murders of Kani Yilmaz and Sabri Tori, but it seems that the information raises more questions than it answers, although, once again, the flimsy implication is that the all-powerful, all-knowing, all-present PKK is behind these murders. Yes, flimsy, as in unsubstantial, fragile, rickety, diaphanous, and weak.

But what's a little substance among friends, eh?

We don't have to look far into the statement, published on KurdishMedia to begin with our questions, the third line down will do, for starters. Who is this "European Investigation Team" that apparently authored the statement? Is this an official agency, commission, organization, committee or tea party of the European Union? If so, with what investigative or judicial body is it affiliated and who are its members? In short, who is this team and what are the credentials of its members? Or is this team a function of the EU at all?

If this is a function of the EU, it is interesting to me, very interesting, because for three solid years, since the initiation of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the EU has taken a completely hands-off approach to "Iraq," and that includes South Kurdistan. This is so, first of all, because certain leading countries of the EU had all their little business ties to Saddam suddenly and irrevocably severed by OIF. Secondly, these same leading countries have their own issues with the US, so they have been conspicuous by their absence in "Iraq," especially as regards any assistance toward rebuilding the country--a thin hypocrisy given all the histrionic hand-wringing and crocodile tears shed by the European Lunatic Fringe for the poor, suffering, Iraqi people.

Another point to consider--if this team is somehow affiliated with the EU--is that of the EU's relationship with the Kurdish people, a people that may be divided by borders drawn up by the West, Europe in particular, defended now by the US, and clung to with a death grip by the imperialist Turkish, Persian and Arab states, but a people that is otherwise one people. Why would the EU spend its time and energy to investigate the murder of two Kurds in Silêmanî, while it does nothing to insist that the Ankara regime immediately address the Kurdish situation in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan, a situation in which some 40,000 Kurds were murdered, some 5,000 villages destroyed, and an estimated 3 to 4 million Kurds forcibly resettled from their homes? Why does the EU not investigate the reasons why Turkish-occupied Kurdistan lags miserably behind development of Turkey proper? Why does the EU stand by while Kurds are murdered by Turkish security forces in the cities of Amed, Qoser and Êlih, Kurdish children are tortured in Amed, or the Deep State blows up bookstores in Şemzînan? Where is the EU when Erdogan delivers the pashas' message that Kurdish women and children are legitimate targets of the TSK?

Where is the EU and the US when it comes to Rojava and Rojhelat, and the oppression of the Kurdish people under the two evil regimes of the Syrian Arabs and the Persian mullahs? Why no outcry against arabization or the murder of Kurds in "Iraq?"

But no, all of these millions of Kurds are meaningless.

What we really have in the third line down of the statement is a flimsy implication, a bit of false advertising, given that there is no information about the "European Investigation Team." What is mentioned in the statement is that a UK forensic lab conducted tests to identify the explosives. Fair enough. Let them conduct forensic tests, by all means, however, lets not magnify a forensics lab until there reaches a critical mass of suggesting a "European Investigation Team" a la EU.

What does the forensics lab tell us? It confirms that there was an explosion in the car, something that we already knew. That is all that the forensics test tells us, because the mention of RDX is not news to anyone who is familiar with explosives. The use of RDX as a trigger is not news, because the majority of blasting caps produced in the world, contain RDX. RDX is a crucial component of a number of explosives beside C4, including landmines, artillery rounds and bombs. It also has civilian uses, such as in fireworks and rat poison.

Given its ubiquitous use in explosive products, it should come as no surprise that the Ba'ath had supplies of RDX or that it has been known to be used by TSK. It is used by the US, as well, and is manufactured by the US military.

None of this is, therefore, news. What then, is the point of the statement?

It is another attempt by unnamed sources to put the blame for these murders on PKK without evidence. 40,000 Kurds have been murdered under Turkish occupation, but those 40,000 rather work against the Ankara regime, don't they? On the other hand, here we have two murders that can work for the Ankara regime. Therefore, we are again reminded, by this piece of propaganda from a UK forensics lab, that Kani Yilmaz was on a so-called PKK "death list," that circumstantial evidence is the basis for believing in fairy tales of the global power of the all-powerful PKK--something hugely reminiscent of all the nonsense of a World Zionist Conspiracy, a fantasy generally held by the same kinds of people who believe in a worldwide cover up of UFO visitations and alien abductions.

And what of Veli Çat? Unsurprisingly, he seems to have disappeared from the face of the earth--or he was buried on the back page, of the last section, of an obscure paper, with a little news item saying he turned up dead in PUK territory. No details, naturally! This is all circumstantial evidence! I wonder, did Veli Çat overstay his welcome with his PUK hosts?

Has no one bothered to consider the possiblitiy that Çat was abducted by aliens or that the World Zionist Conspiracy has spirited him away to a villa on the beach near Tel Aviv? Or is the possibility greater, and much more probable, that JITEM executed him after using him? Or that JITEM has him protected in an undisclosed location? Given the resurgence of the Dirty War against the Kurdish people, the massing of TSK at the border, the bombing of Southern Kurdish villages by the TSK, and the renewed activity of the Deep State within Turkey itself, is not all of this enough to suggest the possibility that Veli Çat is an agent of the same old enemy of Kurdistan?

This scenario, in which we consider the possibility that the Turkish regime is behind yet another assassination of Kurds, is far more probable than suggesting that the big, bad PKK had its hand in this dirty business. Still, for some, it is far more convenient for the purposes and agenda of certain quarters to believe fantasies. These would be the same quarters that propagate stories concocted by PKK "informers" like Şemdin Sakik, or former PKK cadres like Selim Çurukkaya, who have sold themselves to the Turkish propaganda machine and now write memoirs of their time in the mountains, memoirs that are published by the TSK and distributed for free in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan. Naturally, too, it is another example of the reach of the all-powerful PKK, that sales of these publications are down in "The Region."

Geez, what a shock.

What of the PUK's role in all this? Is it surprising that the PUK has been less than transparent in getting to the bottom of this, especially when we consider that the PUK has engaged in severe repression of legitimate protests on its own turf? What of the role of that great ally of the TC, the US, and in particular the role of the CIA? The original PWD statements on the murders of Kani Yilmaz and Sabrî Torî, in February, mentioned that a CIA bomb expert was on hand to have a look at the car:

A CIA expert stated that the car was detonated by a remote control.

We know that from 2003, the CIA made visits to Qandîl, while most of the old guard was still there, and these CIA officials spent time talking to Osman Ocalan. We know that there was an agreement made between the US and Osman by October, 2003. We know that Talabanî had been involved with urging the failed amnesty of 2003, and that by June, 2004, Osman Ocalan had left Qandîl, although other possibilities suggest that he left earlier, in February, that year.

Is it mere coincidence, then, that this CIA "expert" was on hand? Is it mere coincidence that after visits by the CIA to Qandîl that the PWD was formed? Can anyone explain how PWD's goals and the goals of the KONGRA-GEL differed? It didn't sound like PWD had put a whole lot of original thought into their platform. Can anyone point out to me where and when PWD founders ever faced the opposition that DTP does right now, a Kurdish-dominated party that everyone loves to link to PKK, and that is heading down the same legal road to state-enforced dissolution that HADEP and DEHAP did? Or has PWD faced opposition similar to the opposition that IHD has faced--and we all know who has tried to link IHD with PKK, don't we?

If anyone wants to find who murdered Kani Yilmaz and Sabrî Torî, they are going to have to look elsewhere, not to Qandîl.

Would Dohuk be a good place to look? It's a reasonable question, since waiting for transparency and results from PUK investigations is like waiting for Godot, no matter how much PWD protests that incontrovertible evidence will be immediately forthcoming. Instead, perhaps we can find some transparency with the KDP, from DozaMe:

KDP police in the city of Dohuk in southern Kurdistan (northern Iraq) has busted a gang consisting of high-ranking KDP officials, officers from the newly formed Iraqi army and several high-ranking PWD members, KDP official sources in southern Kurdistan reports. The members of the gang are accused for over 100 economically and politically motivated murders in southern Kurdistan in the last couple of years.

The official, who wanted to remain anonymous, said that the gang was exposed after an investigation to the murders of the PWD member Zerdest Navyani and the Turkish businessman Mehmet Simsek. Navyani and Simsek were killed on March 14 this year in the Berderes area outside the town of Aqre close to Dohuk by a high-ranking officer of the Iraqi army and former creator of the KDP special forces named Ekrem Ciziri and Ciziri’s bodyguards.

[ . . . ]

Ekrem Ciziri was named as the gang leader and arrest warrants have been issued for several of his networks operational in Hewler and Suleymani. Ciziri, a former PKK guerrilla commander, was arrested in 1997 after a PKK crackdown on internal gangs. Ciziri was disgraced and stood trial for mishandling captured KDP peshmergas. Knowing that he would be sentenced for his crimes, Ciziri managed to flee and ironically, sought refuge with the KDP. The KDP assigned the war-savvy Ciziri to set up special forces units for the KDP and gave him a commander rank.

I suppose it's too late now for PWD to blame all these murders on the big, bad, all-knowing, all-powerful, all-present PKK--and I have no doubt that this will break more than a few hearts--but, in the meantime, a few questions come to mind. First, will Silêmanî, i.e. the PUK, cooperate with the arrest warrants issued by the KDP? Is it a coincidence that the "European Investigation Team" issued its statement at the same time that the news of the KDP's big bust started to break? Will PWD begin attempts against the lives of KDP officials, like they have against former HADEP officials? Where will all this lead, to Veli Çat or to others?

Maybe KDP should take up the investigation of the Yilmaz murder.

Stay tuned.

PROFILE IN KURDISH COURAGE

Eren Keskin, courageous Kurd.

"Courage, sacrifice, determination, commitment, toughness, heart, talent, guts. That's what little girls are made of; to hell with sugar and spice."
~ Anonymous.

In keeping with what appears to be a theme recently on Rastî, more news reports have come out in connection with IHD and Eren Keskin. Earlier in the week, I pointed out an incident in which a letter was sent to the Istanbul office of the IHD, which contained a suspicious brown powder. The letter was signed by TIT, a known Gray Wolf organization that has been involved with assassinations and has links to the Turkish military.

It appears that the former chief of the Istanbul IHD, Eren Keskin, has become the target of women Gray Wolf organizations, as reported by Bianet in two articles. The first is titled, "Rights Activists Rise to Defend Keskin" and "Keskin: 'The Campaign Is Manipulated'".

According to Bianet, the day the TIT letter arrived at the Istanbul IHD was the same day the advertisements against Keskin came out in the Hurriyet and Cumhuriyet papers, which means that this campaign of threat and intimidation is most likely planned and derive from the same source--the Turkish military establishment, otherwise known as the Deep State.

In late March, Keskin was convicted of "insulting" the TSK, under Article 301 of the new and improved TCK, which resulted in a sentence of ten months' imprisonment. All of this was for a speech she gave in Koln, Germany, in 2002, titled "Sexual Violence Perpetrated by the State", about the systematic use of torture against women detainees by Turkish security forces. As a lawyer and human rights defender, this subject has been Keskin's forte in recent years, as she is the founder of her own project to help women who fall victim to these kinds of state-sponsored predations.

One of those who filed a complaint against Keskin for her speech in Germany was none other than Gray Wolf professor Necla Arat, founder of the Women's Studies Center of Istanbul University and a former president of the Istanbul Women Associations Union. Arat was a supporter of Afghan women's rights at a human rights conference in Marmara back in December, 2001. I would be curious to know how well Arat supported the human rights of her Afghan "sisters" after RAWA came out five months later with concerns over Turkish troop deployment in Afghanistan, concerns specifically expressed as a result of the horrendous human rights abuses Turkish security forces have inflicted on Kurdish women. I wonder if Gray Wolf Doctor Professor Arat will be filing any charges against RAWA?

In this latest campaign against her, Keskin is accused, by advertisement, of having "spread PKK propaganda" while serving as IHD-Istanbul chief. From the first Bianet article:

The advertisements, which appeared in the mass circulation Turkish daily Hurriyet and the Cumhuriyet newspapers, claimed that while Keskin was head of the IHD Istanbul branch, she used every meeting she attended "to voice the factitious slander of the [outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party] PKK". The advert also claimed she was involved in activities "to spoil the atmosphere of peace".

[ . . . ]

Meanwhile, the Human Rights Agenda Association (IHDG) issued a statement in protest of the women organisation's advert saying that an attempt was being made to display Keskin as if she was a terrorist in the public eye and noting that the "slander against her" had come after the case on insulting the army.

[ . . . ]

The campaign to support Keskin has been branded "a campaign to support the PKK" while communiqués have been issued online declaring the human rights activist as a "persona non grata".

Very interesting. A number of years after having served as one of Abdullah Ocalan's lawyers, and having acted as a defense attorney in numerous PKK cases, the Gray Wolves are now bringing up the issue as if Eren Keskin were a member of PKK herself. This kind of accusation is more indicative of the state of legal affairs in Turkey, a state of affairs which focuses everything on the protection of the state and not on the people, and the disdain for which the state holds the principle of the presumption of innocence. But the accusation is a threat as well, from the second Bianet article, in Keskin's own words:

". . . They have declared me a persona non grata, they are condemning me 'violently'. As it is, declaring someone as persona non grata means getting rid of them. Because, in the year 98, such articles, advertisements came out against Akin Birdal and a short while later Akin Birdal was shot. Because of this I invite them to rethink this. Will they be able to get out from under such a responsibility? There are people in this society who could read this advertisement and act in rage."

Indeed, Keskin makes a valid point. In April, 1998, Hurriyet and Sabah published the "confessions" of PKK traitor Şemdin Sakik, who had been handed over to the TSK by the KDP in March of the same year. No doubt the "confessions" were an attempt on the part of Sakik to avoid a death penalty conviction, something which didn't quite work out as planned. Since then, Turkey has had to abolish the death penalty as part of the Copenhagen Criteria, so Sakik now spends his time writing books for the TSK (through OYAK-owned publishers), as part of a larger state-sponsored propaganda campaign to deny the existence of Kurds.

This was the plan back in 1998, as well, and the Sakik "confessions" were used in an attempt to rid the TC of the troublesome presence of another Kurd, and legendary human rights campaigner, Akin Birdal, largely by attempting to falsely associate Birdal with the PKK, from a report made to the UN Commission on Human Rights:

Various articles were written with the aim of blackening the reputation of a tireless defender of human rights. One such, quoted below, appeared in Hürriyet - one of the largest-circulation daily newspapers in Turkey - trying to prove that disappearances do not take place in Turkey. Comically, this assertion is based on a book published by the police authorities and portrays the Association as "playing into the hands of the terrorists".

The report to the UNCHR makes reference to a book published by the anti-terror section of the Turkish Criminal Investigation Department, a book which was used to target IHD, and which propaganda Hurriyet was all too eager to spread:

"It [the book] is the product of honest and meticulous research carried out on the basis of allegations published in the monthly bulletins of the Human Rights Association [IHD] covering a period of three years. The findings were that most of the people mentioned are in prison for having given assistance and shelter to PKK militants or for having been active in the PKK campaign; some of the allegations made are groundless and others relate simply to people who have never existed. It is extremely harmful to the interests of the country in which they (those in charge of the Association) live to use the Association's name to make false allegations, allowing suspicion to fall unjustly on the security forces and trying to turn public opinion against the police." Hundreds of names are mentioned in this book. Either the Association's allegations regarding disappearances turn out to be imaginary or the people concerned are in prison or else installed in PKK camps. It makes one wonder whose side the Association is on ... . " (Hürriyet, 15 April 1998, from an article by Emin Cölasan)

At the time, the accusations of the traitor Sakik knew no bounds, and in its thirst for sensationalist anti-PKK propaganda, the Turkish media tripped all over itself to publish and broadcast the most absurd claims, including such wild stories as a Turkish BBC journalist transmitting coded PKK messages through his reports, claims that international currency fluctuations were indicative of imminent PKK attacks, the accusation that PKK had murdered Swedish Prime Minister, Olaf Palme, or that journalists, such as Mehmet Ali Birand , were PKK supporters. The truly amazing thing is that there are still those who believe in the likes of Şemdin Sakik.

It was during this government-inspired media feeding frenzy that the attempted assassination of Akin Birdal took place.

Not so oddly enough, Eren Keskin was no stranger to these events either. As the vice president of IHD, Keskin began to receive death threats, along with Osman Baydemir, a trend which continued throughout 1999, from Bianet's second article:

"But in the year 1999, at the time [outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party leader] Abdullah Ocalan was brought [to Turkey], I was one of his lawyers. At that time Osman Baydemir and I were receiving a lot of threats. The state proposed to give us protection. At that time we rejected this. They have to protect us anyway. This is their duty. I did not see it necessary to constantly go around with policemen."

Keskin began receiving threats again in 2001, beginning in February, when she traveled to Silopî as part of a delegation investigating the disappearance of Kurdish political activists. She identified the voice of the caller as one who had called Akin Birdal before the assassination attempt on his life. More recently, in April, 2005, Keskin began receiving death threats from TIT, the same group who claimed the assassination attempt on Akin Birdal.

Are similar voices on the telephone coincidental? Are similar tactics by the power of the state coincidental? Is it coincidental that Gray Wolf women's groups begin a public propaganda campaign on the same day TIT's threat arrives at the IHD-Istanbul office, in a climate of increased media frenzy that is set off by the Council of State attack, with all it's Susurluk undertones, or when the state has made the positive decision to re-engage the dirty war against the Kurdish people?

A reminder from the statement to the UNCHR:

In spreading false or tendentious information, therefore, the Turkish authorities played a central role in the attack on Mr. Birdal; the accusations against him were communicated to the press with total disregard for the secrecy of the inquiry and, despite their lack of substance, they were presented as if they were established fact. Even before a proper inquiry had been launched, the Turkish authorities - and first and foremost the Prime Minister - quickly decided on a policy of releasing highly diversionary information that would create complete confusion. There can thus be no doubt that those truly responsible for the attack on Akin Birdal will remain unpunished and will never be brought to justice. The truth of this has already been demonstrated following the murders of numerous human rights defenders or Kurdish activists - Vedat Aydin, Musa Anter, Medet Serhat, Mehmet Sincar and others - whose deaths were not seriously investigated and for whom justice was never done.

Let's recall, too, that the Law to Fight Terrorism (1991) prescribes punishment for those who publish any information that makes anyone a target, even if such persons are unnamed (Article 6.1), or discloses information about "informants" (Article 6.3), and it protects the identities of interrogators, investigators and "informants" even during trial (Articles 12 and 14), but the same concern for the innocent is nonexistent, as the case of Akin Birdal and Eren Keskin prove.

If anything negative happens to Eren Keskin, we will know where to lay the blame, and we will begin with the following Gray Wolf organizations:


İstanbul Kadın Kuruluşları Birliği
Kadın Araştırmaları Derneği
Çağdaş Eğitim Vakfı
Türk Kadınlar Birliği İstanbul, Kadıköy, Adalar şubeleri
Türk Üniversiteli Kadınlar Derneği
İstanbul Barosu Kadın Hakları Komisyonu
Cumhuriyet Kadınları Derneği
Boğaziçi Soroptimist Kulübü
Kadın Haklarını Koruma Derneği
Türk Kadınlar Konseyi Derneği
İstanbul Kız Lisesi Eğitim Vakfı (İKLEV)
Fatih Kız Liseliler Derneği
Notre Dame de Sion Mezunlar Derneği
Emekli Subay Eşleri Derneği
CHP İl Kadın Kolları
DYP İl Kadın Kolları
Ada Dostları Derneği
Türk Hukukçu Kadınlar Derneği
Türk Anneler Derneği

KURDISH WOMAN VS. DUBYA

Okay, I don't know how many of you have seen this video from FOX, but I think it's great to hear from a Kurdish woman on a major American cable network.

The Kurdish woman, whose voice you will hear, is great! She is persistent and determined that Dubya gets the message, and forget about that microphone! She prefers the old-fashioned way of getting the message across, by sheer lung-power.

You go, girlfriend!

I think Dubya's worst nightmare would be that of being tied to a chair and enclosed with a room full of Kurdish women who are determined to get their message across, and I have the suspicion that if his nightmare ever came to pass, we'd have a free and independent Greater Kurdistan in a New York minute.

Hehehe . . . you're not in Kansas anymore, Dubya.

Bijîn jinên Kurdan!

MAKING THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE

"Some mornings, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps."
~ Emo Phillips

You can find another good reason for separatism at the JURIST, which has the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about the Syrian Ba'ath regime and Kurds.

Internet writer, Mohammad Ghanem, got himself into a bit of trouble for telling the Ba'ath to end the repression of Kurds in Little South Kurdistan--haven't heard that phrase in a while, have you? Some of the "crimes" for which he was charged include insulting the Syrian Ba'ath president--and ostrich look-alike--Bashar Assad, "fomenting sectarianism," opposing the unity among Arab countries (since when was Kurdistan ever an Arab country?), opposing the aims of the Arab (Ba'athi) revolution, etc., ad nauseum.

What? No "insulting Arabness?"

I wonder if the Iraqi Embassy in Damascus recognizes the new Iraqi government? That's a serious question because back in 2003 or so, reports had it that the embassy did not recognize the new Iraqi government. Given that Iraq was, and Syria still is, Ba'athi, I wonder what the situation is with Saddam's old embassy. Given, too, that a number of the foreign terrorists in Iraq have come through Syria, I wonder how helpful the embassy has been in facilitating their activities.

Speaking of all this, no doubt everyone has heard that Zarqawi bit the big one or, rather, the big one bit Zarqawi. Personally, I think it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy, and it seems like most Kurds are feeling the same way. This doesn't make me feel as overjoyed as I did when I learned that Uday and Qusay were enjoying new digs in hell, but it is nice news.

However, not so from other quarters, and perhaps one of the most ridiculous items I came across on the subject of Zarqawi's untimely demise was from a place that wants to make the world a better place, Tikun Olam. Here, the surprise comes from the US decision to wax Zarqawi, instead of capturing him for his excellent intelligence value. Please, this is ridiculous. It's true that there were some Kurds who were disappointed with Uday and Qusay exiting stage left the way they did, and there are many Kurds in the South who are very indignant that Saddam is still sitting in his cell, sipping tea. In the case of Saddam, I would have preferred that some Kurdish women had found him instead, so that they could have made fishbait out of him with their kitchen knives. Then everyone could have gone down to the Dicle, get in a little fishing and a barbeque, and a good time would have been had by all.

We all know that if Zarqawi had been captured, the US wouldn't have had the guts to drop him off in some Shi'a neighborhood in Baghdad to let Shi'a women do the same thing to him, so it's better that he was blasted. As for all this nonsense about "intelligence value" and putting him on trial to prove to the world what a bad guy he was--that's all nonsense. Look at Saddam's trial. It hasn't changed anyone's mind. Those who know for a fact that Saddam is a butcher don't need the trial and those who still support him don't believe any of it. These people, the Arab world, the CIA, the Army War College, the Lunatic Fringe, they still believe Iran did Helebçe, and when Saddam is tried for this crime in, oh, twenty or thirty years at the rate things are going, these idiots will still cling to their fantasy that Iran did Helebçe.

Tikun Olam doesn't think anything will change in Iraq now that Zarqawi is dead. The idea there is that nothing will change until the US withdraws or everyone in "Iraq" decides to live together as one big, happy family, just like in the US. Unfortunately, the Lunatic Fringe doesn't get that "Iraq" is not the US, it never has been the US, and it never will be the US. Kurds still long for, and deserve, an independent Kurdistan and that is what the goal ought to be in the long term, if not in the short. The Iraqi Sunnis and Shi'a form an Arab country and they will want to be part of the Arab world. Hey! Maybe they could link up with Syria.

TDN is engaging in quite a bit of smarminess today, in an article about some European investigation claiming that Turkey helped the CIA transfer prisoners to secret prisons. The Europeans claim it's a veritable "'spider's web' of human rights abuses."

Geez, what a shock! Not a word on the "spider's web" of abuses spun by the Deep State and CIA against Kurds. Even the phrase "spider's web" reminds me of Ertugrul Kurkcu's article about Turkey being trapped in a "web" of covert killers, an article which discussed the Deep State in the wake of the Susurluk scandal. Ask yourself, did the West pick up on that? Between 30,000 and 40,000 dead Kurds, some 5,000 or so destroyed villages, 3 to 4 million forcibly displaced, but some European investigative committee is worried about the human rights abuse of a relative handful of prisoners from somewhere else. If anyone were seriously concerned about human rights abuses, they would be addressing the situation in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan.

The smarminess continues in a final item, again from TDN. Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer went to Israel to jump-start the peace process and get Israelis and Palestinians talking again.

How would Sezer know anything about jump-starting any kind of talking over anything vaguely resembling peace, when he represents the same government that has never bothered to attempt any kind of peace with some 17 million people that the same government claims are equal citizens of the TC? Sezer represents the same government that refuses to talk to any of the Kurdish politicians in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan, who have attempted to do any work for the Kurdish people lately, and he's preaching "peace" to Israelis and Palestinians?

After all, the Kurdish people made a choice by electing DTP politicians so perhaps the Turkish government should respect that choice before it sends its errand boys off to preach to others. In the meantime, the Turkish government's behavior toward Kurds is a punishment aimed directly at the Kurdish people because of their choice.

The report mentions that Sezer had no plans to talk with anyone from HAMAS. Of course, the Turkish government and HAMAS had some nice, long talks in Ankara, so there probably wasn't any need for any more talks right now.

Besides, Sezer and Mishal probably text-message each other on their mobile phones. Cute.

BAD BOYS, PROPAGANDA AND ANTHRAX

"No matter how cynical you are, you can't keep up." ~ Woody Allen.

We've got some more DTP bad boys in the news today.

The first is Amed Sur municipality mayor Abdullah Demirbas, whose trial began yesterday. What's he accused of? Well, this bad boy has been spreading "terrorist" propaganda--you know, PKK propaganda. He spread PKK propaganda in Vienna and then he posted PKK propaganda on the municipality's website.

What was the nature of this PKK propaganda? You can get a little idea of it from The New Anatolian:

In a paper he presented at the European Social Forum in Vienna, Austria in January, Demirbas argued that the "single nation, single language" perspective should be abandoned in Turkey and that municipalities should be granted more autonomy and be able to function in different languages.

[ . . . ]

Stating that he rejects the indictment's accusations, Demirbas said that the aim of the paper wasn't to spread propaganda for a terrorist group. "I don't think saying Turkey is a country with multiple identities, multiple cultures and multiple languages constitutes separatism," said the mayor.

The claimants said that the arguments advanced by the suspect in his paper are similar to the views of the PKK.

Aha! How many more PKK propagandists do we have out there, spreading separatism like that, saying things like there is more than one language spoken in the TC, or that there are multiple "identities." Frankly, I think the use of that term, "identities," is ridiculous. Why not just use "ethnicities" instead? This is what we all mean by that, but "ethnicities" are a threat to the "indivisible unity" of the state, so Newspeak rules supreme.

Where is the EU on this, by the way? All I hear in that direction is the sound of crickets.

It's no secret that DTP wants Kurdish to be recognized as another official language of the TC, so it should be no surprise that Abdullah Demirbas wants to use Kurdish to conduct municipal business. Abdullah was one of the 56 DTP mayors who signed the petition for Roj TV back in December, a petition which was sent to Danish PM Rasmussen. A teacher by training, once upon a time, Abdullah had been the head of the Amed branch of Egitim-Sen, the teacher's union. He was fired from that job for speaking in support of mother-language education. Abdullah also got himself into trouble for setting up a statue to commemorate the murder of two other infamous PKK "terrorists," Ahmet and Ugur Kaymaz.

Bijî heval Abdullah, û serkeftin!

Today's second Kurdish bad boy, also DTP, is Mahmut Alinak and, believe me, this guy has some real cojones. Check this out, again from The New Anatolian:

Pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) Kars branch head Mahmut Alinak said yesterday that the strategy of dialogue and peace followed since 1990 for a resolution of the Kurdish problem should be abandoned.

Speaking at a conference entitled "Primary Problems of Democracy" organized by the Kafkas University student association, Alinak said that Kurdish politicians have been unable to generate any solutions to their problems.

Underlining that the major problem of democracy in Turkey is the Kurdish problem, Alinak said that they've complained about the police and the state for years but have yet to suggest anything, adding that the only person to have come up with a project about the Kurdish problem is Abdullah Ocalan (inmate leader of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party, PKK).

Charging that Kurdish should be accepted as an official language, Alinak accused all state officials, including the prime minister and deputies, of committing war crimes.

"People in Turkey voted for the government and the main opposition so that they would solve problems," said Alinak, charging that all officials who can't prevent violence are responsible for it. Alinak referred to PKK members as "guerillas," a term which led to probes into a number of DTP members in the past.

During Alinak's speech, tension rose between the police and students in the conference hall.

I bet that last line is a bit of an understatement and I bet that they've already got the indictment written up. Back in January, Mahmut Alinak called for a referendum among Kurds for Roj TV. He was also one of those originally arrested with the DEP deputies back in March, 1994. He was eventually tried and sentenced under Article 8 of the old anti-terror law, an article which made making "propaganda" against the "indivisible unity of the state" a crime, regardless of the intent--sort of like the PATRIOT Act.

I can't complain about the things Alinak said, because the strategy of dialog and peace has been totally one-sided. Apo's PKK was the only thing to have forced an admittance of the existence of Kurds under the TC. Kurdish should be accepted as an official language in Turkey. The people did vote for the government in order to address their needs and nothing happened. The government has never been a negotiating partner. It is returning to the dirty war and increased repression. Since the serhildan, it refuses to even communicate with DTP. Meanwhile, the EU, the great facilitators of dialog and peace, seems to have fallen off the face of the earth.

There is really no point in dragging out the farce of dialog.

We'll have to watch to see what the fallout will be as a result of his statements but, in the meantime, bijî heval Mahmut, û serkeftin!

Finally, there's another kind of bad boy to consider. It appears that an envelope containing some brown powder was sent to the Istanbul IHD, causing some concern about the possibility of the powder being anthrax. The envelope was apparently sent by the Turkish Revenge Brigade, Turkcu Intikam Tugayi--or TIT for short.

Now, I know you're wondering, "What's TIT?" Well, TIT is a Gray Wolf organization that sent threatening letters to the Istanbul IHD last year, as reported on page 51 of this KHRP report:

Dayanan and three of his colleagues (Eren Keskin, a prominent human rights defender and head of İstanbul branch, Dogan Genç and Kiraz Biçici, both board members) received intimidatory letters all posted on 13 April 2005, from the same post office at Bakırköy, İstanbul. His letter and that of one of his colleague’s were sent to the İHD İstanbul office, while the other two were sent to the recipients’ home addresses.

The identical, printed letters accused the human rights defenders of being agents, spies and pro-Kurdish traitors. It accused them of defending those who were responsible for the deaths of “40,000 sons of the Motherland” in the Kurdish conflict. It referred to the alleged flag-burning incident at Mersin and to the İHD’s defence of “traitors like Orhan Pamuk” who had made comments earlier that Turkey should face up to unpleasant aspects of its recent past such as acknowledging the Armenian genocide.

The letters were signed by an organisation calling itself TİT (Türk İntikam Tugayı- Turkish Revenge Brigade).

Dayanan believes TİT to be a very dangerous organisation. It was formed in the late 1970s to “save the Turks from enslavement”. According to the interviewee, the group organised assassinations of intellectuals in the 1980s and 1990s and maintains links with the army. He cites evidence gathered relating to one attempted assassination. The individual who planned the assassination was a low-ranking officer while financing for the operation was provided by a retired colonel. Dayanan believes that TİT’s interest in the İstanbul branch of İHD is proof that elements within the army wish to silence them.

TIT has been active in Turkish-occupied Cyprus, claiming responsibility for the murder of Kutlu Adali, as well as the murder of Ozgur Gundem's Ferhad Tepe. TIT was also involved with the attempted murder of Akin Birdal:

Shortly after midday on 12 May 1998 two men entered the headquarters of the HRA in Ankara and asked to speak to Akin Birdal. Once in Birdal's office they shot him repeatedly before fleeing the building. He was wounded six times in the chest, shoulder and legs. After surgery and long hospitalization Akin Birdal has been slowly recovering. However, the effects of ten broken bones in his foot and extensive nerve damage to his shoulder continue to require medical attention.

There was immediate worldwide condemnation of the assassination attempt. However, in the immediate aftermath of the attempted murder the then Prime Minister claimed that the shooting was an ''internal settling of accounts'', linking the HRA to the PKK. In fact, investigations led to the indictment of members from an ultra-nationalist group, the ''Turkish Revenge Brigade'' (TIT), including a retired army officer and a serving gendarmerie officer. On 29 December 1999 nine men were sentenced to prison terms from one to 19 years in relation with this crime.

Notice the army and gendarmerie connection there? Sound familiar? It should, because TIT has been linked to the Council of State attack, and it wouldn't surprise me if those recently arrested in the PM assassination plot were also linked to TIT.

As my Armenian friend said: "What do you expect from a bunch of guys who call themselves TIT?"

WE'VE HAD ENOUGH

"Turkey aims to defeat the Kurds through military aggression, isolation and repression against our movement. We have no other option but to resist such attacks. Resistance is our legitimate right. Resistance is a right enshrined under international law. As long as the Kurdish Question remains unresolved we will resort to our legitimate right to resistance." ~ Cemil Bayik.

The first thing out of the box today, is a report from Hurriyet about local Kurds near Wan attempting to lynch six suspects who had raped a Swiss tourist. TDN characterizes the local "mob" as "furious." You're damned right, I'd be furious too. In fact, I am furious. Okay, actually, this was the second attempt to lynch the suspects, and what's my advice to our hevals in Muradiye? If at first you don't succeed, try, try again! I mean, who are these scumbags to do this to guests in Kurdistan? In another little news blurb, from TDN, the suspects were apparently captured in Cizîr.

I wonder if the suspects are Village Guards. . .

In other news, The Guardian has run a couple of articles in the last few days pertaining to the mood in Amed (Diyarbakir), and I have to say that if you have been to Amed within the last year, the only thing surprising about the first article is that it provides a peek of the reality on the ground. The mood of Amed became even more serious at the end of March with the serhildan. It remains so.

Both articles are by Ian Traynor, with the first titled, "Children of the repression". It is common knowledge among Kurds that, during the dirty war of the 1990's, millions of Kurds were ethnically cleansed by the Turkish army and thousands of villages destroyed. The first stopping point for many of these "internally-displaced persons" (Newspeak for what used to be called "refugees") were the larger cities of Turkish-occupied Kurdistan. Amed is the largest of all of them, and its population grew from almost 400,000 in 1990 to 1.5 million in 1995. A current estimate stands at approximately 1.04 million, meaning that much of the population from 1995 has moved on, further West, into Turkey itself.

That fact should set off a little alarm bell, especially since Traynor's article is all about the attitudes of the children (now entering adulthood) whose families were ethnically cleansed:

Sevder is seething. Growing up in poverty and squalor, he has seen schoolmates shot dead by Turkish security forces and had to put up with the vulgar taunts of Turkish policemen towards his mother and sisters. His grudges have been nourished by endless tales of family and friends burnt out of their villages in the hills and decanted into the slums of Diyarbakir.

"We've had enough," says the 17-year-old Kurd, wearing a Ronaldinho Brazil T-shirt and crouching in the heat and dirt of the teeming city, a couple of hours from the Iraqi and Syrian borders.

Sevder and his friends are part of a new wave of militancy among young Turkish Kurds. "There is a different generation now in Diyarbakir," says Sezgin Tanrikulu, a lawyer. "These youths are aged 14 to 20. They've grown up in this place feeling they don't belong. We can't communicate with them."

Hisyar Ozsoy, an anthropologist and expert on Kurdish politics, says: "There is something new here. These are the children of serhildan [the Kurdish word for intifada or uprising]."

It's really not enough to say, "we've had enough." These children and their families have had too much and, obviously, a bunch of cheap talk is not going to work anymore, as the lawyer and anthropologist verify. Of course, the whole thing about cheap talk has been nixed anyway. Erdogan came last August and made cheap talk. Erdogan went to Şemzînan (Semdinli bombing) and made cheap talk. What did anyone get out of that? Nothing. Now, neither Erdogan nor anyone else in government will bother to speak to DTP. The state is drawing on all its past failures to confirm that stupid is as stupid does. It never bothered to avail itself of PKK ceasefires and calls for negotiation. It never bothered to improve the situation during the last ceasefire. It offered a joke for an amnesty in 2003, which meant that it wasn't serious then either. In fact, the state has never been serious about anything but murdering Kurds.

What to do then? Obviously, there is only one answer: The HPG.

"Going into the mountains" is a common phrase in Diyarbakir. It means going to join the PKK fighters, thought to number around 5,000, in their bases in nearby northern Iraq.

At least 100 local youths have gone into the mountains in the past month, says Mr Ozsoy. "Guys I know have just disappeared. They're like ghosts. You would see them in the cafes and now they're not here."

In young Sevder's crowd, everyone supports HPG, and the wider organization that used to be known as PKK, because everyone has or has had a family member in the organization. Sevder's crowd isn't alone in this; many families in Amed have family members in HPG or are families of HPG, or older PKK, şehîds. These facts have made Amed the heart of Kurdish resistance in the North. The father of Enes Ata, who was murdered by the Turkish state in the Amed serhildan has this to say:

Selamettin Ata, a 44-year-old grocer whose seven-year-old son, Enes, was shot dead by Turkish police on March 30, said at least 90% of the city sympathised with the PKK.

Let's repeat that: At least 90% of the city sympathized with the PKK. Oh, yeah, that's what I'm talking about, boyfriend. Anyone who says differently falls into one of two categories: They have been lied to by Kurds who don't want to make more trouble for themselves and their families, or they are simply lying. If they are simply lying, they fall into one of three categories: They are totally ignorant of the reality on the ground; they are spinning the official propaganda; or they stand to gain somehow. For that last, you have to know Kurdish politics in order to get it.

I did mention an alarm bell earlier, didn't I, in reference to the fact that some of the ethnically-cleansed population has moved on into Turkish cities? Right. Well, with that in mind, think about this:

The Turks emptied the mountain villages partly to try to destroy the rural base of the guerrillas. Instead, they have created an urban guerrilla movement.

OOPS! The policies of ethnic cleansing that started with the Dersim rebellion have become a longstanding Turkish tradition that is about to blow up in the faces of the enforcers of this policy. When they cry, it will be in vain. . . isn't that how it goes?

The one thing that annoyed me about this article was the fact that even though the term, "serhildan," was explained in the fourth paragraph, it was never used once thereafter, although the word "intifada" was used later. Kurds are not Arabs, therefore Kurds don't have "intifadas." Kurds have serhildans or raperîns, but never "intifadas." Intifadas are what the Turkish state supports, especially if the intifada is conducted by HAMAS, widely considered a terrorist organization by the US and the EU. That fact, however, has never stopped the US or the EU from pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into the PA, despite the fact that HAMAS has not renounced violence or recognized Israel. Nor did it stop the TC from inviting HAMAS to tea in Ankara. Turkey directly, and the US and EU indirectly, support an organization which is on The List®.

Not so for Kurds, though. Turkey, the US and the EU are hypocritical, racist states and state sponsors of terror when it comes to Kurds.

Ian Traynor has another, related, article at The Guardian blog, Comment is Free. This one is called, "Diyarbakir blues." Again he comments on the mood of the city, and points out an interesting fact that most people might miss. It is the fact that there is only one kind of ethnic Turk in Amed, the government Turk. Very true. Everyone knows that no ethnic Turk is feely going to choose to live in Amed, no matter how fabulous they think the city's watermelon festival is.

Unfortunately, Traynor falls into the trap of blaming Amed's justified responses against state provocations on the PKK:

Since the end of March when the city's youth went on the rampage and were met by Turkish gunfire, tear gas, and truncheons that left 10 dead, hundreds injured, and hundreds arrested and beaten, the city has been on edge, waiting for the guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers' party or PKK to ignite the next explosion. Just a matter of time, after the worst outbreak of violence here in more than a decade.

It's all the fault of the big, bad PKK! Everything that goes wrong in Turkey is the fault of the PKK! One wonders if Traynor really did understand what the young Kurds in Amed were telling him, or what Traynor himself would do, if he had grown up under this same, repressive and fascist regime. How differently would the situation look to him if instead of merely asking the questions, he were the one giving the responses?

If, as Traynor's liberal Istanbul friend claims, DTP officials have "PKK minders," why doesn't this friend turn them in? They are "terrorists," right? But this claim is simply another link in a long chain of events manufactured to reach the goal of shutting down another Kurdish-dominated political party--the DTP.

Traynor refers to the Semdinli bombers as "maverick gendarmes," when the fact is that they were not maverick at all. They were behaving in the same, consistent way that the state has always behaved in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan. What the Semdinli bombers did was conduct business as usual. The Parliamentary Commission's investigation was business as usual. The dismissal of Sarikaya was business as usual. The result of the trial of the peons who did the bombing will be business as usual too. What did Susurluk finally result in? The conviction of a couple of peons, and that's it. Business as usual.

No mention here of the other November bombings, nor of the death threats mailed to DTP co-chairs and politicians. No mention either of the murder of Fatma and Ferho Akgul, nor of Ugur and Ahmet Kaymaz--to mention just a few. It's also absurd to claim that PKK has "a vested interest in wrecking any chance of a settlement" when there has never been any chance of a settlement, as the state's refusal of numerous PKK unilateral ceasefires and calls for negotiation have proved. Absurd, too, is any expressed disappointment with Erdogan's statements in Amed last August. Everyone knows Erdogan is not a pasha, which means he cannot deliver on anything that he says. Thus is Turkish "democracy."

If we really believe in the farce of Turkish "democracy," what should we make of these statements:

The Turkish newspapers in recent weeks have reported a series of local incidents, with Kurdish settlers being pushed out of big western cities like Izmir on the Aegean. The southern port city of Mersin, for example, saw an influx of tens of thousands of Kurds in the 1990s as a result of the Turkish army's depopulation campaign in the east. The result in Mersin is that slowly the Kurds are taking over local government and administration, triggering friction with the host community.

If everyone in Turkey, especially non-minority Muslims, are equal citizens, how can Izmir and Mersin be referred to as host communities? If these are host communities, does that make Kurds the parasites?

In this piece of writing, Traynor comes off as a European liberal who saw Erdogan and the AKP as their great Islamic hope: "With Erdogan came a positive jolt to Turkey's European prospects and a blizzard of reforms aimed at facilitating integration." Unfortunately, the Europeans are as ignorant of state-sponsored Turkish Islam (secularism, anyone?) as they are of the Treaty of Lausanne, a treaty which formalized the non-minority status of Kurds, effectively took away all rights from Kurds, and signaled the beginning of the severe repression of Kurds. Since the EU is merely a commercial organization, there is no reason to believe that human rights abuses in Turkey will change under accession.

On the contrary, the EU has remained silent over recent abuses and has made no effort to bring the AKP and DTP together for discussions about the situation, signaling continued EU support for AKP and Erdogan, at the expense of Kurds. Moreover, the EU's Green Party, under Cem Ozdemir, has been hard at work trying to establish some legitimacy for the illegal Turkish invasion of Cyprus. The EU is firmly in the pashas' pockets.

The hope of Kurds continues to lie with their only friend.