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

REvuE DE PRESSE,PRESS REVIEW,BERHEVOKA ÇAPÊ,RMSTA STAMPA,DENTRO DE LA PRENSA,BASIN ÖZETi
News Analysis
Who ..really controls the
By Ismet G.lmset as a clandestine form Of retaliation Mumcu's car, killing the famous sec-
Turkish Daily News . 'for separatist activities. and with the ular writer and researcher, their igno-
AN KARA- Pro- Kurdish Dem- aim of terrorizing the local people. r~ce would perhaps have continued.
ocracy Party (DEP) deputies claim According to a district governor Smce then, however; officials appear
that at least 500 people have become interviewed by .the TDN earlier,. in to have found it in their new interests
victims of "unsolved murders" in the areas where the Hezbol-conira has. to accept the existence of the
troubled Southeast region since 1991, organized or carried out attacks, Hezbollah, and thus have come up
when radical Islamic activists sus- ."investigations related to this organi- with an explanation for the continupected
of having links with the localzation are being slowed down." .. ing wave of murders in the troubled
security forces launched an anti- Unti11ast year, Turkish officials Southeast.
Kurdish armed campaign. completely ignored that such an orga- Under increasing pressure from the
Human rights actiVIsts in Ankara nization even existed - continuously p,ublic, and apparently aware of the
currently put this figure at slightly. denying such reports and claiming 'publicity" it wouldbring, Turkish
under 400, with a dramatic decline in .they were part of separatist propagan- security forces last February even
new killings after a brief unilateral da:. There was so much ignorance thatl~unched a massive operation -the
cease-fire declared by the outlawed this was part of the reason for fIrSt ever- on the "Kurdish
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) last Hezbol-contra's unavoidable expan- Hezbollah" in Batman, and made
March. sion in the region. Officials of that sure that news of the operation was
. Locals, civilians as well as govern-. 'time, including then Prime Minister broadcast on TV.
ment officials in the area, agree that Süleyman Demirel, refused to accept . ~ore than 40 people were
the core of the problem is located in that such a movement could exist. detamed. But, even to date, it is Îlot
the refinery city of Batman and in "We have no record of an orO'aniza- clear how many of them were true
and around the township of Silvan in tion by that name," Interior Minister radical Islamicactivists and whether
Di arbakir: . tsmet Sezgin had told the TDN in an members of theoutlawed Kurdistar.
~ 1992 alone, a total of 360 people interview conducted last October. A Workers' Party (PKK) were also
died in "unsolved murders" through- month later, Regional Governor Ünal among those taken into custody. The
out the region; 1.40 of the victims fell Erkan was to bluntly say "such an pr?gag.an~a.drixe f~ded ~ut. .
dead in Batmai . . organization does net exist." . COIIlcldmg ~Ith thIS operatIOn,
Among the high-priority .targets of For two years, and at the cost of at however, the polIce leaked a special.
gunmen using the name of Hezbollah least 500 lives, a figure which has. and supposedly secret report to the
to cover up their clandestine cam- also been backed by the results of a press, allegedly summanzing what
paign are not PKK militants but pro- fact-finding delegation of the main the Hezbollah organization truly is
Kurdish politicians, activists, journal" opposition Motherland Party and confessing that despite the extent
ists, writers and local merchants. .. (ANAP), officials chose to ignore of "Hezbollahi" activitIes, little was.
Terrorism experts believe this for- this threat, as it grew out of propor- .known about this organization.
mation, often using the name tion. . . The report was not ollly outdated
"Islamic Fist," is tolerated by local And, in various SoUtheastern but appeared to cover up for the
security forcés 2the police and gen-provinces, where self-styled death Kurdish Hezbollah (accused of havdarmerie-
as an alternative to squads abducted civilians and shot~ng relations with the local security)
Ankara's failing policy on the them after lengthy torture, or used m the Southeast, and went out of ItS
Southeast issue in general. Makarov guns to assassinate them way to prove that the overall move-
In Batman,locals have even identi- often with asingle bullet to the head, ment had nothing against the state. In
fied what they refer to as an organization disguise.d as the other words, it did not even refer to
Hezbollah/Contra-guerrilla . (or Hezbollah flourished because of this the Hezbollah as a direct threat to the
Hezbol-contra for short) activists, as officiai tolerance: In areas such as Turkish ~tate but noted, qpite politely
well as their alleged contacts in the Batman and DiyarbakIr' s town of and buned somewhere ID thé back
security apparatus. . Silvan, where the increasing popular pages, that "it (Hezbollah) could be
. In Silvan, they suspect the gen- support for the PKK was observed as evaluated as a potential threat in the
darmerie is knowingly ignoring the a major threat by local officials, the future." .
strengthening of this movement with dose of violence carried out under the Hezbollah's target, said the report,
the arm of using it against villagers mask of the Hezbollah increased.. was "limited to adjusting the TurKish
an~or villages which may be sup- . Turkishofficials, themselves state's political system to Islamic regportmg
the PKK. Muslim believers, avoided any con-. ulations." Short of an appraisal, a
A recent parliamentary commis- frontation which would put them section entitled "The allllS of the
sion report on Hezbollah activities face-to-face with the believufg mass- Hezbollah circles" also claimed that
observed a difference between the es and apparently agreed that it was because it divided the believers and .
Iranian-backed original Hezbollah, in their best "politIcal interest" to would weaken the strength of
kn~wn to the 'Y0rld, and the .organi- remain ignorant of the developmentS Muslims, the Hezbollah "did not.
zatton based ID Turkey usmg the - if, indeed, there was not an. inten-. approve of' the separatist views. of
same name. tional cover up for political reasons. tne PKK. At least tliis 71-page report
Both the PKK and Kurds suspect On Jan. 24,,l99J, hadn!>U~ C.-4 accepted on the record that su ch a
that the latter was created on purpoSe, . typé plastic explosive blown up Ugur formation "did exist."
130
Locals now claim that groups in
the re~ontake shape around specific
IslamIc. magazines and publications, '
gradually taking the form of decentralized
organizations. Groups of people
following the same ideas, as in
the classic Leninist organizationalstructure,
united only under a superficial
roof (the goal of Shariah) but actingindependently.
Everywhere; from Ceylanpmar to
Cizre, Silvan to KlZlltepe and
DiyarbakIr to Van, the poor and
unemployed youth of the Southeast
gather for perhaps the only substantIal
solution to their problems.
They gather not under the name of
the Hezbollah, as attributed to them
for convelÛence by the press, but the
Islamic Movement - an overall reference
for all rriovements oil behalf
of Allah and his prophet;
Mohammed, .
And, às in the example of the inter~
national Hezbollah, they gather under
the supervision of Muslim scholars.
In DiyarbakIr, locals identify the
Islamic Unity, orsanized under the
efforts of ~irin (ShIrin) Hodja, a mullah.
In .ßIlvan, under "theoretician"
Rernzi Ozdemir. In Nusaybin,under
Mullah Meshen. In Mardin's town of
KlZlltepe, under theoretician
Abdürrezak ylldIZ.
According to sources, various
names connected with the local
Islamic Movement - or Hezbollah
- are known to the public in the
region.
For over a year now,locals in these
towns have been reporting increased
Hezbollah activity ID style with the
teachings of Khomeim: spreading
first amon~the grassroots and in specific
neighoorhoods.. .
In DiyarbakIr, such activities could
openly be spotted around the
Ulucami mosque, where Sheik Sait
and his comrades were assassinated.
The Menzil book store ~as long been ,
a target for pro-KurdIsh actIvists,
who accuse It of bein8 a center for
meetings and organizational activities
for the Islamic Movement. Shops
near the minibus stop at
Ba1ikcilarbasi district, the Dogukamp
karate school, at least three shopping
malls, several. shops run by Islamic
foundations and a house (owned by
the sons of Sheik B.B.) immediately
across from the Emergency Law
Regional Governor's Office are cited