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

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Baszn Özeti
sands of soldiers. They have overwhelmed
the rebels, who probably
never had more than 10,000guerril.
las
Ṫhe number of attacks by the
rebels in recent months and the area:
in which they operate are greatly
reduced from the level of two or
three years ago. Army intelllgencf'
officers say they bel1eve that fewer
than 3,000 guerrillas remain inside
Turkey, with perhaps another 4,000
encamped in neighboring countries.
Published estimates suggest that
the war against the Kurdish rebels
costs Turkey $7 blllion to $8 bUlion ..'
year.
decapitated the Kurdish elite in
southeastern Turkey. It may also
have crippled the rebels' efforts to
huild an organized base among civilians.
The next blow against the rebels
was struck by the army, which beginning
in 1993flooded southeastern
provinces with. hundreds of thousurviving
organlzatlon that upholds
the concept of Kurdish Identity.
"People are not for the P.K.K.,
because the P.K.K. kllls chlldren ann
schoolteachers and commits aH
'kinds of violence," said a university
student in D1yarbàklr, the largest
city in the region. "But there is a
certain sympathy, because we share
the same blood.
"We want to be able to express
ourselves as Kurds, with books and
newspapers and radio and television
stations. What the Government has
done makes us think they are against
any peaceful Kurdish movement.
The P.K.K. is all we have left."
As many as one-fourth of the 60
mlllion people in Turkeyare fully or
partly Kurdish, tracing their lineage
back to tribes that have Ilved in this
region for more than 2,000years.
Despite repeated. efforts, Kurds
have never had a state of their own,
and today not only the Turkish Gov-
Apoce Fr_Presle
Many Kurds from Turkey have taken refuge in Iraq. One Kurdish
family walked through a refugee camp northeast of Mosul Wednesday.
ernment but also the Governments of
Iran, Iraq and Syria, all of which
have substantial Kurdish populations,
strenuously oppose efforts to
create one on their territory.
The group leading that effort is the
Kurdish Workers Party, tapping a
deep strain of Kurdish nationalism
that has persisted since the founding
of the Turkish Republlc 73years ago.
The first evidently organized
Turkish response to the rebels was a
campaign of murder and kidnapping
that has taken the lives of hundreds
or perhaps thousands of Kurdishnationalists
since 1991.
This wave of killings effectively
Turkey Fears Its Land
Could Be Carved Up
Despite that cost, despite the social
upheaval caused by the hundreds
of thousands of Kurds who
have abandoned their vlllages volun..
tarlly or on orders from the army,
and despite the political pricethat
Turkey has had to pay for the accusations
of human rights violations
that have been lodged against it In
Europe and the rest of the world.
most Turks seem to believe that
their leaders have no alternative.
"Turks have never forgotten how
the West tried to dismantle the Otto.
man Empire," said A. liter Turan, a
political scientist at Koc University
in Istanbul. "They see the P.K.K. 3.'1
trying to cut away a part of Turkey
to create a separate state, and they
don't tolerate that. The view is:
'You've pushed us as far as you can.,
You've taken all you're goiftg to be
able to take. Turkey isn't going to get
any smaller.' "
This Intense fear of losing part of
The New York TIIMS
Some of the Kurdish villagers near
Batman still support the P.K.K.
the country has led many Turks 10
oppose granting Kurds a measure of
cu.I~U~alor political autonomy.
First they ask for innocent~
sounding cultural rights like beln81
allowed to speak Kurdish, which is no
problem for us," said Mecati Bilican l
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