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

REVUE DE PRESSE-PRESS. REVIEW-BERHEVOKA ÇAPÊ-RwISTA STAMPA-DENTRO DE LA PRENSA-BASIN ÖZETi
14
Turkish Probe August 3, 1993
As the PKK Grows... and Grows
;, ,
.ismet G.imset
The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) is, hope-
. fully,. releasing all foreign hostages in its
_. hands, partly for tacticalreasons, and partly
out of goodwill. But this tloes not mean the crisis is
over. In fact, it is only deepening.
The party's leadership has already revised its policy
for the rest of 1993, in yet another bid to outrun
Turkey. Knowing of Ankara's pledge to crush its activities
within a one-year deadline, it is now focusing
on survival.
In.gued:ill~ jargon, alt~oughit has reached the "active
resistance" stage, and believes it could even reach
the stage of "balances of forces," it is preparing
to take a position somewhere between passive and
activ,e resistance by the winter. It will keep a lower
profile, avoid all high-risk operations, but continue
attacks in areas where it is strong.
The reason for this tactical change is awareness
that the ongoing military campaign in the Southeast
. actually --and painfully-- serves the longer term inte-.
rests of the PKK. Government troops are requiting
for the PI(K, producing new guerrillas or "fighters:' by
the day. Even more successfully than the PKK could
manage by itself.
The party leadership, which has managed to survive
over the years without former East Blok manipulation
,like other organizations, and which boasts of
not having "a bureaucraticmechanism" like the polit- -
buro, has already
near future.
assessed Turkey's strategy for the
As far as PKK leaders are concerned, the war on
them is closely related to the war for power in Anka-
_ ra. They intend now to make the most out of such.
weaknesses. And, the recent changes in the military
power structure in Ankara have, frankly, raised ho- .
pes in rebel ranks.
Gen. Dogan Güre~, perhaps aware that his term in
office-as the chief of general staff would be extended
for another year, has pledged to eliminate the PKK
in this time span, or rather, "by the end of winter .•
His alternative is possible martiallaw. Ethically, this
is no legitimate argument. First, because there appears
to be no chance that the army's current campaign
alone, without the support of political-cultural
reforms as much as the restoration of human rights,
can solve the problem. Secondly, because the justification
for martial law is in the nature of authority.
The military already has full authority, as much ä.s
authority can be delivered within boundaries of the
minimum standards of human rights.
Mostly, however, the army has a free hand and
may do whatever it likes, as long as the repercussions
are not too outrageous. Some officials in Ankara,
mainly those of the moderate pro-government
flank, would argue against this. They would challenge
the view that the Tansu Çiller government has given
full authority to the.army, and claim that it still
seeks to solve the crisis in peaceful ways.
Their argument, in complete goodwill, is actually
one of a dangerous nature. For it is based mainly on
the claim that "full authority,. the real "full authority,.
means giving the military permission to go ahead
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