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

REVUE DE PRESSE-PRESS REVIEW-BERHEVOKA ÇAPÊ-RIVISTA STAMPA-DENTRO DE LA PRENSA-BASIN OZETÎ
INTERNATIONAL HERAW TRIBUNE, WEDNESDAY, JULY 13, 1994
U.s. Urges
Ankamto
EndAbuse
O/Kurds
TM A$$ocioted Pras
ANKARA - Citing allegalions
of torture and abuses in
.lhe military campaign against
Kurdish rebels, a U.S. State Department
official on Tuesday
urged Turkey to move quickly
to improve human rights.
John Shattuck, an assistant secretary
of state, said: "The. reports
have grown more senous
recently, particularly in the areas
of alleged restrictions on
freedom of expression, allegations
on the use of torture
against pretrial detainees and
alleged abuses against civilians
in the militaryoperations
against terrorists in the southeast."
Mr. Shattuck, who deals with
questions of democracy, human
rights and labor, arrived here
Sunday to discuss the allegations
with Turkish officials and
civilian groups.
Turkey has come under increasing
criticism from the
United States, Western Europe
and various international institutions
for abuses during its
military campaign to crack
downfbn the Kurdish guerrillas;
who have been fighting for autonomy
Turkey's Kurds for the
past to years.
Turkey deriies human rights
violations.
"We recognize that some of
these problems are in the context
of Turkey's legitimate
struggle against terrorist acts,"
Mr. Shattuck said. But he
stressed that basic human rights
should not be abandoned in the
fight against terrorislJl.
The House of Representatives
has attempted to link U.S.
aid to improvement in Turkey's
humanrights status. The Council
of Europe's parliamentary
assembly voted to send a delegation
to Turkey to investigate
the Kurdish problem. The Con-
on Security and Coop-
o ferenee
eration in Europe also decided
on a fact-finding mission.
Turkey's image was further
damaged abroad after the Parliament
voted to lift the immu-
,nitYof six Kurdish deputies on
chargesofpropagating Kurdish
separatism, paving the way for
their imprisonment in March.
A state security court on
Tuesday arrested two more former
Kurdish deputies who lost
their parliamentary membershit>following
the shutdown of
theu pro-Kurdish Democracy
Party last month on similar
charges.
Mr. Shattuck said he visited
some of the jailed former deputies
in Ankara.
"There is widespread concern
in the United States, especially
in our Congress, about
their freedom of speech, their
freedom of expression and the
possibility that they have been
jailed for speeches that they
made in the United States when
they were visiting our Congress,"
he said.
turkish daily news Wednesday, July 13,1994
As we run out of explanations ...
IInur Çevik
EDITORIAL
President Süleyman Demirel met
with politicalleaders on Tuesday
to discuss the mounting Western
pressures on Turkey to meet the
norms of civilized parliamentary democracies
... Earlier, the president held a similar
meeting with high-ranking state officials
on the same issue in the absence of
Prime Minister Tansu Çiller ...
At last, Turkishstate officials have
come to terms with the realities of the
world: Turkey can no longer pretend to
be a full fledged parliamentary democracy
while it is actually a substandard
democracy where people are imprisoned
in an arbitrary manner for expressing
their views ...
The arrogant behavior of many people
in Turkey have contrIbuted to this sorrowfuloutcome.
Now the very same people
have been put in a position to seek solutions
to the impasse. We had warned
too many times in the past through this
column and through many others In the
TurkishDaily News that if Turkey insisted
on its negative attitude toward democracy
and human rights it would sooner or
later face isolation. Foreign friends visit-
ing Turkeyare issuing the same warnings
that Turkey is heading with great speed
toward isolation among the civilized
nations of the world because of its attitude.
The problem of course lies with the
fact that the hearts and minds of offi-.
cials. and especially a majority of the
parliamentarians, are not democratic.
For many of them, human rights is a luxury
while in Western countries it issimply a
wayoflife.
Now we have to face the bitter truth.
Either we play the game according to
the rules that prevail in all contemporary
democracies or we face isolation.
We and our friends in the West have to
iron out some of the misunderstandings.
We have to ÇJgreeto the fact that the
problem in Turkey is not really the Kurdish
issue but it is a more general issue concerning
the lack of democratic norms
and values that have to be instituted in
our country. So the West has to talk in
general terms about Turkey and should
not use the Kurdish issue as a trump card
because that will only antagonize Turkish
public opinion, causing people to say,
"The West wants to divide us and thus
we do not need their democracy or
their norms and values. N The West has to
tell Turkey it has a right to fight separatist
Kurdish terrorism with every possible
means. but also stress tbat Turkey has to
honor its word that every citizeh of the
TurkishRepublic is a first class citizen
which includes people of Kurdish ethnic
origin.
Turkshave to be told bluntly that they
had been treated too softly over the
decades with the expectation that they
would sooner or later make the necessary
reforms on democratization and
human rights. Thistreatment has been
misunderstood by certain circles here as
meaning that Turkishadministrations can
get away with anything and that the
West will tolerate this. So, military coups,
interventions, repressive civilian regimes
and authoritarian rule of any kind will no
longer be tolerated and Turkey will either
put its house in order or face moral and
financial isolation in the West
The TurkishForeign Ministry and Turkish
parliamentarians, who have recently visited
Europe, hove hod a very bad time
because of the lack of democracy and
human rights in Turkey. They have simply
run out of explanations ...
Demirel, Deputy Prime Minister
Murat Karayalçln, Parliament Speaker
Hüsamettin Cindoruk, Foreign Minister
Hikmet Çetin and Parliament Foreign
Relations Committee Chairman Erdal
Inönü seem to have realized the
urgency and seriousness of the situation.
Now it is the turn of the hawkish parliamentarians
and Prime Minister Çill~r to
come to terms with the bitter facts.
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