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

REVUE DE PRESSE-PRESS REVIEW-BERHEVOKA ÇAPÊ-RJYIsTA ~TAMPA-DENTRO DE LA PRENSA-BASlN ÖZETi
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cers decided to move out. One after another they
gave him a last kick.
Only one remained behind.
He turned, jumped up and landed hard with both
(eet on the victim's spine. Without once looking
back, the group of six uniformed policemen rushed
off to another Kurd..."
And, in the second: "The girl screamed as she
rushed through the street, four
uniformed policemen chasing her, their clubs
bouncing off her back after each blow. One blow
after another. Her screams echoed from television
screens into the homes of millions of Turks. Meanwhile,
police radioed their headquarters, asking
for 50 more truncheons to replace their broken
ones.
They kicked her -- she got a boot in the stomach.
Two officers grabbed her arms while another
swung at her. Throwing her aside -- she fell face
down on the pavement -- they ran to another
protestor..."
Indeed, what was seen ontelevision hardly fit in
with what officials explained as an attempt to disperse
crowds. Witnesses in front of the DEP headquarters,
including deputies and a TON reporter,
openly heard the police shouting "Long Live
Turkey, Death to the PKK" as they attacked the
groups and their victims shouting "The State is a
Killer" in reply.
Of all the Sincar-related violence, however, that
of Engin Atay, a 22-year-old university student arrested
miles away from the incidents at Eski!iehir's
bus terminal on his way to Ankara, was the deadliest.
Atay had wanted to attend the funeral ceremony
of Sincar but was detained. He was first taken to
the city security center to be questioned. Handcuffed,
he was later escorted to his own apartment
on the eighth floor of a building in the city. The last
that was seen of Atay was his corpse, crashing
through the ceiling of a parked car, after "falling
down" from the eighth floor with hishands cuffed
behind his back.
The police accused him after his death ofbeing
a leftwing activist -- but without any evidence.
They also claimed he had jumped out of the window
on his own.
Had a bomb attack not targeted Sincar's house
this Saturday, these three incidents would have
been the only dramatic developments after Sincar's
murder. .
But this was not the case. Indications now are
that attacks on the DEP, pro-Kurdish actIVists, journalists
and politicians, are to continue in the near
future.
The Sincar investigation itself shows hov.'"serious"
things are being handled by Ankara.
The previous Monday, in a live interview with
Mehmet Ali Birand's popular "32. Gün" (32nd Day)
program, senior government officials boldly announced
that Sincar's killer had been caught. According
to them, the murderer was with the police
and the case had nearly been solved.
Only two days later, local police and Emergency
Law officials announced that the two assassins of
Sincar had managed to get away.
Pictures and identities were passed on to the
Turkish Probe September 14, 1993
press. More than a week into the investigation, there
are only 16 suspects remaining in the hands of
the police, about half of those initially detained.
And there is no serious indication that anyone is
closer to finding the killers than they were a week
ago.
Kurdish activists in Turkey no longer believe the
Hezbollah in Southeastern Turkey is responsible
for the killings and sense that the Istanbul-based
press is also being used to cover up a clandestine
campaign against them.
Coinciding with Sincar's murder, for instance, several
newspapers claimed that a protocol signed
between the PKK and Hezbollah earlier this year
had fallen through.
They claimed the Hezbollah was once again
back to its feud with the PKK. Officials, on the other
hand, immediately blamed the murder on this
radical Islamic organization which, until last December,
did not even exist according to Ankara. In
November, the-then Interior Minister Ismet Sezgin
had said Turkey "has no record whatsoever of an
organization by that name.• In December, Emergency
Law Governor Ünal Erkan had said "such an
organization does not exis!."
Now, it seems that using the Hezbollah as a scapegoat
is in their best interests. It also serves to
distract attention from any possible involvement of
local security forces in the crime chain.
These developments, though, are actually fanning
the flames of the Kurdish crisis Turkey now faces
instead of diffusing tension nationwide.
It is also putting the DEP, a legal body in Parliament
which now has 17 deputies -- all on a covert
death list -- under a lot of pressure.
For one, statements made by senior state officials
recently have placed the DEP as a target for
the Turkish people, already frustrated over the deaths
of thousands of civilians and security personnel
in the Southeast as well as for local security
forces.
It has been made clear,intentionally or not, that
since the DEP sympathizes with the PKK, they are
also regarded as "killers" by Ankara.
Secondly, through the persecution of DEP, the
party's own radical grassroots have been strengthened.
There is immense pressure on party executives
to revise their moderate stance and even
suggestions that the party should withdraw from
Parliament altogether -- or openly support the
PKK.
Yielding to some of this pressure after the assassination
attempt on Zana, Kaya announced this
weekend that the party had decided not to continue
with its earlier appeal for peace. But the DEP and
especially the parliamentary flank is still resisting
the hardliners.
What happens in the days ahead will determfne
the future attitude 0f this party and how far it is willing
to go in persuing moderate policies (or rather
how far it can go). But the signals are worrying for
many and it appears more and more that the Kurdish
voice is being forced underground, for survival
if nothing else.
One can only but hope that the killingof Sincar is
not the beginning of another wave of clandestine
violence...