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

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-:Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Basm Özeti
the Governor of the nine southeast-the confÏièt. l.you build roäds, and
ern provinces thatare under emer- the next day they are tom up. You
,gency' rule. "Then it is a Kurdish è8n't plant anything, because the
television stätIon, then cultural au- P.K.K. will kill the farm laborers and
tonomy, then political âutonomy. Tne bum the crops.The GOvernment has
end goalls t? create a Kurdish state, '. turned the corner mllitarily, but now
'~hiCh" is something we will never what they need is a political and
allow. ' cultural de-escalation."
Only with great difficulty can
some Turkish officers and politicians
Army Tries to Win
Hearts and Minds
With the tide running clearly in'
favor of the army, there is wide
agreement that the Government
should now make stronger efforts to
win the sympathy of Kurds in the
southeast. Some local army com':
manders are taking steps in that
direction by assigning lloldiers to clvillan
tasks ranging from digging
irrigation canals to clearing pasture
land for sheep and goats.
..If I can do something for these
villages, I do It," said Gen. Ergin ,
Saygqp, the army commander in
Kars '1>rovince and one of the pioneers'.of
such civil action programs.
"It works so well that now some of
;the villagers want us to stay forever."
, Finding official spokesmen for the
,Kurdish Workers Party is all but
:Impossible. Nonetheless, it ispossi~
ble to make some guesses about the
3trategy that the party follows.
It eVidently seeks to disrupt devel~
'opment projects, viewing them as
efforts by the Government to tighten
its hold on southeastern Turkey. By ,
making schools and their teachers
targets, it seeks to prevent what it
views as indoctrinationof Kurds by:
an educational system that denies:
their identity and seeks to turn them'
into Turks. .
"You open up a school, and the
,\lext day the teachers are killed,"
$lJid,a, (j)glomat who çlose~y watches, '
bring themselves to concede. that the
party may have any popular support.,
A few, gently testing the limits of
debate, suggest that perhaps the
Government should stop insisting
that Kurds identify themselves first
and foremost as Turks.
, "In the days of the Ottoman Empire,
we ruled places like Serbia and
Hungary and Bulgaria," said Musa
Okcu; who represents Batman. in,
Parliament. "People there were nev.
er forced to abandon their cultura1
heritage. There was also respect between
the Ottomans and the Kurdish;
people. We need to use this historical
experience and look for a solution
along these lines."
Such views are aboutas extreme
as may be legally voiced in Turkey.
Officiai sensitivity to the threat of
Kurdish nationalism is so strong that
journalists and writers are jalled for
seeming to support it. Because many
points of view are taboo, it is Impo~
sible to have a public debate that
copsiders the range of possible solu-,
tions.
"If I criticize this war or demand
peace talks or talk about the legit!-
:mate rightsof the Kurdish people,
-this is high treason," sald Haluk
Gerger, a leftist intellectual in Anka-
'ra who lost his teaching job after the
]980 military coup and has beén tak.
en to court six times for expressing
his views, serving a,year in prison Ini
1995-96.
"IU:ask
the .Turkish Gove~ment
to abide by the legal or moral rules of
warfare, it is a serious crime. You
cannot even talk about the niost serious
problem facir.g your country."
Rebels' New Tack:
Role as Holy Fighters
Rec~ntly the Kurdish Workers
Party has taken a new propaganda
tack, seeking to portray itself as a
devoutly religious organization fight-
Ing a godless state. The party-influenced
television channel that operates
in Europe has begun broadcasting
religious programs and referring
to the gùerrillas as fedayeen, or holy
fighters. '
That is an odd turnaround in view
of the Marxist-Leninist principleson
which the organization was founded,
but It could strike a responsive chord
because many Kurds are more traditionally
IslamiC than TurkS in the
western part of the country. It may
also be an indirect overture to the
Islamic-based Government of Prime
Minister Necmettin Erbakan.
The party has been all but wiped
out in some eastern provinces, but
the fact that emergency rule remains
in place In much of the region
suggests that peace Is not yet near.
"The level of fighting is far lower
that It was a few years ago, and the
human rights sltuati.on is also better/'
said Mahmut Sakar, director of
the Human Rights Association office
In Diyarbakir. "But that doesn't
mean the trouble is over. .
"If the soldiers leave, everything.
will go back to the way it was. There
have been Kurdish insurrections for
as long as there has been a Turkish
state, and the Government has given
no response except guns. Somehow
we have to break out of this cycle."
DES KURDES SONT UTILISÉS COMME DES DÉTECTEURS
HUMAINS DANS DES OPÉRATIONS DE DÉMINAGE
C
'est ce qu'a déclaré, le 19 février, le député de Batman Musa Okcu au nom de la
Commission parlementaire des droits de l'homme du Parlement turc appelée à
mener une enquête sur cette affaire. L'affaire a eu lieu à la fin du mois de décembre
dernier lorsque des soldats turcs ont contraint une cinquantaine d'hommes du village
de Tekevler, dans le 'district de Sason, de les devancer dans leurs opérations de déminage
dans cette région. Interrogé par Reulers, M. Okcu a déclaré que "les villageois
m'ont expliqué que les forces de sécurité les ont forcés d'être leurs détecteurs
humains", Les villageois ont porté plainte auprès du sous-préfet de Sason qui leur a
déclaré "Je ne suis pas compétent pour intervenir dans les affaires des militaires". Selon
le quotidien Ozgur Politika du 20 février, le 31 janvier des habitants des villages Gundê
Nû et Kelhesna, toujours dans le district de Sason, ont subi le même sort.Ces paysans
ont tous un point commmun: leur refus de devenir des protecteurs de village, malgré la
menace de destruction de leurs villages par l'armée, Celle-ci semble vouloir les punir en
les utilisant comme des cobayes.
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