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
Bell's King Cobra became the favorite to win the award. Soon after it convenes, the new Congress will have to decide
whether to grant an export license for the weapons. About 80 percent of the Turkish arsenal is US-made, and
the Turkish Army has relied on Sikorsky Blackhawks and Apache and Cobra helicopters to win the long (and
underreported) war with Kurdish rebels in the southeast.
In 1997, the Clinton administration granted Boeing and Bell market licenses to build the attack helicopters, brushing
aside human rights objections from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch about Turkey's abuse
of its ethnic population. Since President Clinton took office in 1992, more than $6 billion in US weaponry has been
delivered to Turkey. Now that Bell has won the helicopter contract, the Bush administration may try to persuade
Congress to override human rights concerns, thus brokering the sale.
American-made helicopters are well known to the Kurds. I have often encountered refugees from destroyed villages
in southeast Turkey whose only English were the words Sikorsky and Cobra. Villagers know that the soldiers
who burn their houses arrive in Blackhawk helicopters, which are made by the Connecticut-based Sikorsky company.
And they easily recognize the rocket-equipped Cobras, which are manufactured at a Bell Textron plant in
Texas. Turkish Kurdistan is a rugged, mountainous region, and helicopters have proved essential in the army's
scorched-earth campaign. So far, more than 3,000 Kurdish villages have been burned, depriving the guerrillas of
logistical support. Estimates of civilian Kurds displaced by the war range from 500,000 to 2 million. It has been a
dirty war, and both sides have been guilty of atrocities.
The Kurds are a large, diverse group whose members spill across the borders of Iraq, Turkey, Iran, Syria, and parts
of the former Soviet Union. With a population of 25 million to 30 million, they represent the largest ethnic minority
in the world without their own state.
The first Kurds I met were in Iraq, where I was shooting television news at the end of the Gulf War. At that time,
the networks had an appetite for stories of Saddam Hussein's abuses (the Iraqi dictator had destroyed thousands
of Kurdish villages), and I had lots of work. But when I started covering the Kurdish uprising in Turkey, I couldn't
give the stories away. I was told that as far as the media were concerned, the Turkish-Kurdish war wasn't on the
radar. Today, Ankara continues to dispatch US- made F-16s and Cobra attack helicopters to bomb Kurdish rebels
in northern Iraq, where most of rebelleader Abdullah Ocalan's fighters have withdrawn. Last weekend, according
to Turkish newspapers, 10,000 Turkish troops crossed 100 miles into Iraq, the deepest cross-border penetration to
date. At last report, the US-equipped troops were trying to encircle 2,500 Kurdish fighters dug in along the Iraq-
Iran border.
Twelve months ago, the European Union voted to consider Turkey for admission to the EU, but only on the condition
that it clean up its human rights record. But the EU may be having second thoughts. Soon after the vote, Turkey
blocked an EU delegation from visiting Leyla Zana, the imprisoned Kurdish member of the Turkish Parliament
who has received the ED's peace prize. Then a Kurdish educational foundation was indicted on criminal charges
of inciting separatist propaganda because it advertised a scholarship for students who could read and write in
Kurdish.
Last year the government ordered a CNN television affiliate off the air for 24 hours because a reporter asked a
guest if history might one day regard Ocalan as a Turkish version of the South African revolutionary Nelson
Mandela. A few days later, Turkey arrested the Kurdish mayors of three cities on vague charges of separatism.
There are 37 elected Kurdish mayors, and many observers had hoped that their leadership would provide a nonviolent
alternative to the civil war in Turkey that since 1984 has taken 40,000 lives, most of them Kurds.
Turkey has hired a stable of former leading members of Congress to pave the way for licensing the King Cobras.
The lobbyists include former House Rules Committee chairman Gerald Solomon of New York and former
congressman Stephen Solarz, also of New York. Best known is former House speaker-designate Bob Livingston
of Louisiana, who has received a $1.8 million contract to lobby for Turkey. While Turkey is a valuable ally, what
US exports need is gun control, but that demands leadership from Washington. The sale of 146 attack helicopters
may be good news to Bell Textron, but human rights are also in America's national interest. The new White
House should use its influence to hold up the $4 billion in gunships until Ankara shows a willingness to deal
democratically with its own citizens.
Kevin McKiernan is a producer and director whose latest documentary is "Good Kurds, Bad Kurds."
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