Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris

Tuikex'seeks more, Çobra hèI!copterS'and 50,A-1O
attack aIrcraft promised earherhut held up in
Congress. U.S:-based human rights groups issued
protests to reported excesses against the Kurds as
Çiller was making her visit. '
The position of Turkey's 12 million ,Kurds --who
comprise a fifth of the population-- iS'Complex.
Half are assimilated in ,urban centers in the west,
and Kurds crowd the list of Turkey's wealthiest people.
Foreign Minister Hikmet Çetin is a Kurd and the
late President Turgut Ozal advertised his Kurdish ancestry.,
' "
It ISa different story for the other half living in the
underdeveloped southeast, dispersed in 5,OOO-odd
settlements. ' '
Poverty, insufficient schools and isolation exist in
a rural culture. Many feel resentment.
The secessionist w~r was launched in 1984 by
PKK le~der Abdull.ah O~alan from his base in Syria.
Pledging to "fimsh-olf thêPK~ bY next' spring,"
the Turkish military has committed 140,000 elite
troops and police commandos, backed by 40,000
paid Kurdish villageguards.
They say the rebel strength has been depleted to
4,000 guerrillas in Turkey and a similar number
across ItSborders. "
Öcalan 'says his guerrillas could still soread their
control and expand their numbers to 15,oob. ,
Beside guerrilla tactics, the rebelleaderslùp is also
pursuing a campaign. '
It aims to capture 200 mayoralties in the somnéast
in local elections next March through a small but legal
Democracy Party set up by Kurdish deputies in
the Turkish parliament. Çil1er said she is "open to a
political solution." But she has backed off from proposals
of limited self-rule for Kurds similar to the
one g,ranted to Spain's Basques Kurdish schools or
Kurdlsh-contHSl'led' tHe'Vi~ioti'~(ât\ons 'b'edû~e of
stiff' oppösition'ft?frt''PreSi'dè'nt S'üle'VmahDemirel
and mIlItary hatd~lmers.
Turkish. police reshuffle
signals right wing turn
• Former torture suspect
becomes Ankara security chief
Turkish Daily News
ANKARA- A major reshuffle within
Turkey's police force has named Kemal
YazlclOglu, a police officer who stood
trial on torture claims, as the head of the
Ankara security force. YazlclOglu was a
former chief superintendent in the country's
Indepth Investigation Laboratories
(DAL) group which had exclùsive torture
chambers for left wing suspects. '
Observers say Yaz]clo~lu is only part
of a major reshuffle whic11is now bnnging
key right wing figures to the top echelons
of Turkey's security apparatus.
The left wing Aydmhk newspaper
claimed on Sunday the appointments
were a leg of a master plan arranged by
the Turkish-Islamic flank within the state.
It recalled that recently, 'appointments had
been made to shift Nationalist Movement
Party (MHP) supported nationalist governors
to the Southeast region.
According to a decree signed and ap-,
proved by President Süleyman Demirel,
late on Friday, a total of six Police chiefs
from Manisa, Antalya, Gaziantep, Elazlg,
Rize and Ordu have been called back to
the headquarters. Police Chief-Inspector
Hüseyin Çapkm has been appointed as
Gaziantef's new security chiet. Adana police
chie and .former dIrector of Turkey's
,0unter-terrOrIsm department Mete Altan
h~s been appo.inted to Antalya and
DlyarbakIr.secunty chief Ramazan Er has
been appointed to Adana. Van security
chief Ertugrul Caklr has been appointed
as head of the l{atay police force, Samsun
police chief Hasan Ozdemir is to head the
lçel police (9rce and Icel police chief Ha.
liltbrahim Ozkan is to head the Kmkkale
police.
Meanwhile, Sabit Çmarba~1 has been
~ppointed as police chIef of Elazlg, Fevzi
~rgun as the chief of the Çanakkale po.
hce, Mardin security èhief Aifan Kececi
as thé police chief of Mugla ând Rldvan
qüler as the chi~f of the DiyarbakIr po.
lIce. Yazlcloglu IS the most controversial
of those listed .in the appointments .decree
and news of hIS upcomll'tg promotIOn reo
.cently ~ppeared in Aydmhk m the form 01
a wammg.
Aydmhk said then that Interior Ministry
Undersecretary Bekir Atasoy, known
for his sympathy for the MHP, was trying
to place Yazlcloglu in charge of Ankara
where he had been accused earlier of kill.
ing Ya~ar Gündogdu under torture ort
April 19, 1980. Despite.a trial launched
against him for Gündogdu's death and
hundreds. of claims from suspects that.he
had personally attended the torture sessions,
Yazicioglu maintained his place in
DAL after the 1980 military coup. .
DAL, which in Ankara worked out of a .
special chamber in the basement of the
Ankara police directorate and a special intel!0gatlOn
barrack ~t the MarnaI( military
prIson, was responsIble for torturing numero~s
suspects. DAL t.ortures included
electrI' .shocks to the gem.talorgans, using
pressunzed .water, placmg suspects in
cages, beating on the feet (falaka) and
male-female rape with instruments.
Yazlcl~glu, as a chief superintendent of
DAL, ISknown by many prominent journalists
today as their torturer.
AydlnlIk stressed on Sunday that Bekir
Aksoy was brought to his current position
m the .Interior M.in,istry by Necmettin
Cevhen, a State MImster and close advisor
of Prime Minister Tansu çil\er.
The .newspaper identified Ankara deputy
Baki ~ug, Erzurum deputy tsmail Köse
and GaZIantep MP Ayvaz Gökdemir as
"u~seen members" of a clandestine sroup
~hlch appears to'be seeking ultranatlOnal-
.ISt control over the securityapparatus.
Tug was the prosecutor of the Martial
Law tribunal which executed in the early
1970s. popular left wing leaders Deniz
Gezml~, Hüseyin tnan and Yusuf AsIan.
. He was also theprosecutor of outlawed
Kurdistan Workers Party (i>KK) leader
Abdull~h .O~alan when he spent seven
months m pnson after a student boycott 'in
the 1970s.. ...
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