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

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro
de la Prensa-Basm Ozeti
Kurds will say, but of democracy itself." Generations of Turkish leader~ havesought to force the Kurds' assimilation into
the larger Turkish population. For decades, speaking Kurdish was outlawed and Kurds were officially designated
"mountain Turks."
Kurds say the repression is the main reason for more than two dozen revolts in the last 80 years. An estimated 30,000
people died in the fighting that erupted in the 1980'safter the Kurdistan Workers' Party took up arms and Turkey responded
with emergency rule that turned the southeast into a network of army checkpoints.
Even today, with emergency rule - a limited form of martiallaw - lifted in all but two Kurdish cities, travelers are stopped
and checked by soldiers about every 10 miles, and many towns remain off limits to outsiders without government
approval. In Tunceli (pronounced toon-JEH-lee), armored personnel carriers still stand sentry on the approach roads and
heavily armed soldiers continue to keep watch from hilltop bunkers.
At the last checkpoint before Tunceli - which residents still call Dersim, its Kurdish name - foreigners are required to sign
a form stating that they will not stray from the main road. The town itself is an isolated outpost reminiscent of Wild West
towns, and the mood is tense.
A former farmer whose village was burned down eight years ago said the town had been brutalized by the military. In
1996, he said, soldiers dragged the body of a 25-year-old man through the streets as a warning to others after the man
was caught giving bread to two Kurdish fighters, who were also killed.
''The government is a criminal gang," said a middle-aged man late one night at a table crowdedwith bottles and cigarette
butts ~ a Tunceli restaurant. "All we want is democracy and to live peacefully with everyone else."
At the local Hadep office, a party official, Ali Can Unlu, explained that the Kurds felt robbed of rightful control of their
town. When the vote was being counted for mayor three years ago, he and other witnesses say, the police cleared the
room with three ballot boxes yet to be opened and the Hadep candidate leading by 100 votes. The Hadep candidate lost.
"If they start to deny language and cultural rights again, people will return to a revolutionary state," Mr. Unlu said.
To some extent, the denial of cultural rights is routine. Berdan Acun, for example, a fresh-faced lawyer in nearby Ergani,
went to record his son's birth at the local registrar nine months ago. But the office refused to accept the name he had chosen
for his child, Hejar Pola, which in Kurdish means "valuable steel." The office director, a woman he had known for
years, would not give a reason. The authorities regularly reject Kurdish names. Most people do not want trouble, so they
choose another. But after being repeatedly rebuffed, Mr. Acun is preparing to take his case to court. "He has no name
yet," said Mr. Acun as his son played on the family's living room carpet, 'but he will." "
The subgovernor of nearby Silopi, Unal Cakici, grew visibly angry when asked about the rules on Kurdish names. "If
someone applies to me with a name that I don't understand, I will refuse it, too," he said. "Terrorists are trying to use all
sorts of methods to create problems and this is one of them." Mr. Cakici said the outside world had failed to appreciate
the depth or viciousness of the threat posed by Kurdish separatists. .
Although the Kurdishmilitary threat has largely abated, the European Union finally put the Kurdistan Workers' Party
on its list of terrorist organizations this year. In the past, the group assassinated officialsand.killed entire Kurdish families
for collaborating with the government.
Political gains by Iraq's Kurdscould revive Turkish separatism and renew that threat, Turkish officials say. Turkish Kurds
dismiss the government's fears, saying they are dedicated to finding a political solution. Yetin time that could well inclu"
de a federal Kurdish state in southeastern Turkey, ~ prospect that sends shudders through governing circles in Ankara.
Kurdish-language programming produced in Belgium and beamed into Turkey on Medya TV,a Paris-based satellite station,
refers frequently to Kurdistan, and occasionally shows maps giving the outlines of the idealized Kurdish state covering
parts of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran.
The staff in a small office at Hadep headquarters in Ankara, listening raptly to the programming, said Turkish Kurds
recognized that an independent Kurdistan was an impractical dream.
"Personally," said a young hazel-eyed man, "I think it would be better to have a federal system."
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