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

REVUE DE PRESSE~PRESS REVIEW~BERHEVOKA ÇAPÊ~RNISTA STAMPA~DENTRO DE LA PRENSA~BASIN ÖZETi
Turkish/Kurdish intellectuals. Whatever the reasons,
news getting out is worrisome. . _ . .
Amnesty, for instance, has cl31medon the IßtematlOnal
platfo~- withou.t~ny~~,wn response fr~~ T~~~eythat
,vJ!lagers are hVlßg Iß appalling conditions . Iß .the
newly set up containment areas. What country sconng
success agalßst terrorism and pursuing correct policies
would require internment anyway? '
cAinnesty also claims there have been several severe
cases of 'torture and iIIctreattnent,i.e. sexual harassment,
murder, kicking etc. in these camps. Coul~ this be true?
Out own TDN sources confirm the stones and actually
outline an even worsepicture. .
, .Says one on the telephone ~rom an ~ast~~. provlßce:
"Only seven out of some 40 Villages rem31n mtact. The
others have been evacuated and destroyed."
Says another: "The villagers refused to join the village
guards and were sent away. Their houses were torched."
And yet another: "We moved o~t of the region fearing
terrorism but have been told that our houses were burned
down. We have also lost our crops."
Just how much of this is related to "fighting terrorism,'"
,is the most likely questionany individual of sound mind
would ask: The PKK, a separatist organization which has
long resorted to terro~st tactics! is indeed quite acti.vc.
But none of what is belßg heard Iß the West has anythmg
to do directly with the PK.K. . '. . .
What is being heard IS qUIte clear: ,1,550 CIVIlians
kiIled, 2 million Kurds displaced, at least 10,000 KUrds
who have run away from Turkey to Iraq, about 1,300,villages
destroyed, some 300 Kurdish activists including 78
-'members, oia defunct legal Kurdish-based party kiIled,
torture;''ill-treatment, mass migration, children under
detention and so on.
In the words ofTurkey's younger ~eneration pOlitician
Cern Hoyner, "We have been bomblßg our ow~ mou~tains
and villages for 10 years. What have we achieved Iß
return?" ,
Turkish tourism is crippled. And the country is spending
as much a~ $7 billi?n per annum on the Southea~t
military camp31gn.The hra has been devaluated dranlaltcaIlyand
inflation has hit the ceiling with attempts made
to adjust the whole country to this picture. . . -
Worse, observers expect a complete SOCial,economic
and political crash as early as the end of next Sept~mber.
And now, amid all of these problems, up pop the mternment
camps. " .
But what is internment in the first place?,Internment IS
the arbitrary detention of individuals againsttheir wilI~
and without any judicial action taken or to be taken .•
Internment is the detention of men as well as women as
well as their children. Internment is amethod which has
98
Tollé en Allemagne autour d'un
avis d'expulsion contre un bébé
La demande d'asile a été refusée (...) Le defnandeur
est sommé de quitter l'Allemagne
dans un délai d'un mois»: l'un des derniers
desnnataires de cette lettre de l'Office fédéral allemana
de reconnaissance des réfugiés, datée de
Zirndorf (Bavière) le 6 juillet, est un... bébé de 5
mois, né en Basse-Saxe. Ses parents, Turcs ~urd~s.
sont arrivés il y a deux ans en Allemagne, oiiîts ilttendent
encore la réponse àleur demande d'asile et
_tremblent aujourd'hui de voir leur bébé victime de
la nouvelle sévérité des autorités allemandes. La
mobilisation d'une association locale a fait du bébé
-BerivanYavuz un cas «scandale», remonté jusque
backfired in every way -and- throughout the world for
many years. Internment is a last resort, resulting from
frustration, which has in the past led to further frustration
-andworse results.
Internment is thus a dangerous "instrument," one cer-
_tainlybound to bum the hand of its "holder."
From Britain to Iraq, Algeria to Vietnam, things seem
hardly ever to change, despite altof the lessons that history
brings. And now we have to tackle internment a la
Turea. -
How come, we shOUldask again?
Were we not all told that terrorism had already been
crushed? How far does the world need to go to understand
there is always the other side of the coin:
As Tom Marks exp,lained in David Scoli Palmer's
"Shining Path of Peru, ' the answer to terror with terror or
what officials prefer to describe as "to guns with guns,"
is never the true answer in social conflicts. -
"The use of terror by the security forces," says Marks,
summing up the situation in Peru and Vietnam, "has generally
been ineffective orhas had disastrous consequences
for them because tlfey claim to represênt a higher
standard of conduct and morality."
Where does internment stand in terms of that standard
of conduct and morality? How can any administration -
andJ~r!orce -le~itiIruzethe mass detention of civil!ans,
restncltons on their freedom of travel and forcefullntgration
to other areas? Is it possible, on the verge of the 21st
century,. to explain to that world the necessity for arbitrary
detention of women and children?
It seems hard to do so.
In one part of the world, great rebel songs were written
some 20 years ago about armOlIredcars, tanks and cars as
well as never returning sons.
In another and closer part, only three years ago, a different
poem of a similar nature was written, based on _
experience, by a close and reliable Iraqi Kurdish friend of
mine. A poem which I somehow now recall and find fit
to put into print in part:
"Oh how they came so early one morning
...their boots trampling on our prayer mats
How they looked down at us with despisement
...fearfully calling us the 'mountain rats'
We gathered in the yards to listen to their chanting
... never once ~iven a chance to'look at the flames
Farewell, we s31d, forced onto trucks while still crying,
...no land, no home, no forest, no crop.
Oh, it is such a great shame.
Farewell we said to what we had to abandon
...lost is everything behind us in the agonizing flames
-But as we wail now for our lost ones in pain,
...we have all learnt the rules of this new game." -
If internment worked, it would have worked before...
dans les colonnes de la presseinté'rnationaJe.
Le risque d'expulsion du bébé n'est pourtant que
théOrique: « Il est cou ven par l'article 6 de la Loi
fo!uJamentale allemande qui protège les familles
_d'une telle séparation», dédramatise le directeur
del'OfficedeZirndorf, Klaus Blumentritt. De plus,
-plusieurs Länder, dont Ja Basse-Saxe, ont actuellementgelé
les expulsions de réfugiés kurdes. « Le
scandale vient plutôt de l'insensibilité totale avec
laquelle l'administration envoie ces avis d'expulsion,
même lorsqu'ils ne sont pas applicables, s'insurge
la militante de l'Initiative droits de l'homme
de Basse-Saxe, Bärbel Stechel. Après avoir reçu
:une telle lettre, les réfugiés redoutent de voida po- .
lice surgir à chaque instant. Aujourd'hui encore,
nous devons dénoncer l'inhumanité de l'adminis-
,tration allemande. » L.M.