SINCE THE GULF WAR the plight of the Kurds has become internationally known. But for over a year before the war the Kurds in Turkey had been in revolt against president Turgut Ozal's government in their own 'schildan' - uprising.
This explains why Ozal's government was so brutal in its treatment of the Iraqi Kurds seeking refuge from Saddam, refusing to let them down from the freezing mountains and interrupting supplies destined for them.
It is fundamental to the ideology of the Turkish state that the Kurds in Turkey are 'mountain Turks', who speak a Turkish 'dialect' - and thus do not officially exist. In response to decades of repression, the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) began armed struggle against the Turkish state in 1984.
• Independence Their aim was to 'liberate Kurdistan imperialism and colonialism'. They called for a united and independent Kurdistan.
The government then tried to isolate the PKK through a system of 'village guards', whereby villagers were paid to act as informers against the PKK and those who helped them.
PHOTO: David Stewart-Smith (Insiaht' In villages where no-one would do this, people were tortured and murdered and deaths blamed on PKK separatists'. As the PKK continued to grow, the government responded with special counterinsurgency squads, who murdered, raped, and in- Peshmerga guerrilla timidated the villagers.
When it went on growing, villagers were forced out of their homes altogether, and made to face the harsh winters in makeshift tents.
March 1990 marked the turning point - the struggle was brought from the mountains to the towns.
Thousands marched in defiance of police blockades. Shops and businesses closed in protest. The government response was the 'Censorship and Exile' law, aimed at isolating the Kurds by preventing news from seeping out.
By 1991 the government could no longer keep the lid on. The constant round of protest and repression reached its climax with the open celebrations of the Newroz, the Kurdish new year, on March 21. Tens of thousands openly celebrated this Ozal made an about-face and decided to act as 'protector' of the Consternation government party, ANAP, and the distan Democratic Party (IKDP), marginalise the PKK and to cover This back, should the Kurds' Another important step in promise of linguistic and culuse of the Kurdish language the primary aim remains the leader, publicly stated in postponed indefinitely. that the PKK is open to dialogue and Oscalan has rightly criticised the PUK and the IKDP for their reliance But it is clear that the PKK leadertions, rather than regional or Ozal has come up with a shrewd package. The reforms lift restrictions on producing communist So there will be a margin for state by use of force, weapons or ties. The loose wording means that without access to defence or trial to torturers, who are immune from PKK members, among others, are The Guif war was convenient for an excuse for a clampdown. A ban were forced back to work.
But no sooner did the war end than action began, with airline and petrochemical workers leading the The massive mobilisations in January in the Zonguldak region are changed, but for Turkish and Kurdish workers, the 'new order' is the same as the-oid. Villagers continue remains rampant, and police still
INE PHOTOS by Abigail Domby