Bankers rush to aid Turkish oppressors
IN FEBRUARY much attention focused on Turkey over the hunting down and arrest of Kurdistan Workers Party leader Abdullah Ocalan, which sparked off massive protests world-wide.
Now, the spotlight has turned on the proposed Ilisu dam project in the south east of the country, which would flood over 50 Kurdish towns and villages, leaving 15,000 people homeless and causing widespread environmental damage.
In the first case, the hounding and kidnapping of Ocalan through the combined efforts of Turkish security forces MIT, Mossad and the CIA resulted in him being delivered up bound, blindfolded and humiliated, to his probable state executioners.
No less shameful than this pursuit was the supine collusion and compliance of most of the rest of the world’s leaders, none of whom were prepared to offer the liberation struggle leader a refuge. Whatever happened to the right to political asylum? And why was Britain’s "ethical" foreign secretary, declared defender of human rights, so silent on this matter?
The same lack of criticism has surrounded the dam building in the south-east. In fact, the Ilisu project is yet another of the past and present schemes whereby Turkey is seizing control of the scarce water resources of the Middle East and securing its own electricity supplies at other countries’ expense.
Euphrates
Key to this are the mighty Euphrates and Tigris rivers, which start in north Kurdistan (south east Turkey) and flow through Syria and Iraq. Already in the past, the completed dams (there will be 15 dams and 18 hydro-electric power stations when all the projects are finished) have been used by Turkey to cut off water supplies in both these neighbouring countries.
Undoubtedly, such power was also used to blackmail Syria into expelling Ocalan from his place of exile there last autumn – an expulsion which led to his flight around the world and final capture. Indeed, one journalist had recently summed up Turkish policy towards Syria as "Send us the PKK in the form of Abdullah Ocalan, and we will give you water".
In its aspirations to control the vital water supplies of the region, both for its own sake and for the levers it provides in terms of the geo-politics of the region, Turkey is following closely in the footsteps of its close ally Israel. The two countries have had common interests for some time and in recent months their military alliance has deepened.
Since Robin Cook has recently turned green, adding environmental friendliness to foreign policy goals, one might have expected a word of condemnation of Turkey’s behaviour. Instead, we learn that Britain’s Department of Trade and Industry is set to actually back the Ilisu project if it goes ahead by underwriting it to the tune of £200 million! So much for both the human, land and environmental rights of the Kurds!
There are over 30 million Kurds, the majority living in Turkey (around 14 million), the rest mainly in Iraq, Iran and Syria, as well as 1½ million dispersed throughout Europe. Despite having their own history, culture and language, Turkey has never recognised their separate identity, officially calling them "mountain Turks", and their language a deformed Turkish/ Persian dialect.
Besides being denied expression through their own language and organisations (Kurdish publications, associations and political parties are continually closed down and banned), the Kurdish areas of the South Coast have always been starved of government funding – only 10 per cent of the development budget goes to them, although the Kurds constitute over 20 per cent of the population.
As a result, the majority live in poverty in the often barren and mountainous regions of the south east, and elsewhere, are subject to harsh discrimination and racism, often through the violence of the fascist Grey Wolves, especially prevalent within the police and the military.
Kurdish resistance to this forced assimilation and underdevelopment was always met with brutal suppression by the state. In 1984, this escalated into a full-scale war, with the newly-formed PKK prepared to take up arms in self-defence.
Since then, 30,000 people have been killed, 3,000 villages destroyed and 3½ million made homeless. Such is the state terror, genocide and ethnic cleansing of a government about to conduct a show trial which will end by calling for the death penalty for someone who has opposed and organised resistance against it.
Nor is this military offensive confined to the areas of Kurdistan which is within the Turkish state but is an offensive against Kurds in northern Iraq – the very people in whose name the undeclared imperialist war against Iraq is being fought. Turkey has sent 40,000 troops into southern Kurdistan (northern Iraq) in recent weeks.
While this apparently to pursue PKK supporters, the effect is undoubtedly to strengthen their control in the region.
This is not only a war which affects the Kurdish areas. In the manner of all dirty wars, its chickens have come home to roost within and throughout Turkish society as a whole.
The war divides people. While some Turks are infected with the anti-Kurdish chauvinism which government policies create and sanction, others are being persecuted for their support and solidarity with the Kurds.
The 1998 Turkish Human Rights Association report on human rights violations in Istanbul records a shocking 23,312 detentions, 560 of which resulted in formal arrests, 21 people disappeared, 79 killed by unknown perpetrators, 310 publications confiscated, the premises of 100 political parties, associations and cultural centres raided by police, and 29 journalists and writers formally arrested.
Many of these, both Kurds and Turks, are members and supporters of the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HADEP) which the government is presently seeking to ban – as was the fate of its forerunners.
Since Ocalan’s arrest the crack down on dissent has deepened further; there have been many thousands of people arrested in the provinces where Kurds live and in the Kurdish areas of the cities. More than twenty leaders of the KESK teachers’ union have been arrested, and there is grave concern for their safety.
In addition to these human costs, everyone in Turkey pays financially for the war, on which millions of dollars are squandered annually. With inflation exceeding 100 per cent last year, foreign debt at around $75 billion and government borrowing soaring, there is plenty to criticise in terms of current erosion of living standards.
Last November, a privatisation corruption scandal brought down the ruling Turkish coalition government of Mesut Yilmas, and early elections are expected this April. Ocalan’s capture and trial will certainly be used during this period to try to weaken, discredit and split opposition.
This could, of course, backfire, and instead reveal more starkly the plight of the Kurds and thus the legitimacy of their struggle. Further more Turkey’s failure to deal with this issue except through repression will surely be questioned, since this has long contributed to crisis within the society as a whole.
Favourable treatment
Western support is, as we see, very easy to come by for Turkey. Its strategic position between East and West has always afforded it favourable treatment within big power politics.
Brought into NATO and bolstered by massive arms supplies from the West, Britain especially, Turkey has long acted as the main ally of the US and Israel in domination and control of the Middle East, whether this be through access to oil supplies and water resources, or in subduing states such as Iran and Iraq.
Many of the daily air strikes in the US’s present undeclared war on Iraq (over 100 strikes since December) fly from the Incirlik base in Turkey. An additional prize being fought over at present is the opening up of the Caspian basin oil and gas reserves, which promise enormously rich pickings for multinationals.
The Ocalan and Isilu dam affairs, the widespread human rights abuses, the role of the military and the running sore of the Kurdish war all show Turkish society today to be a parody of a democracy where neither fair trials nor free elections are possible. In their uncritical backing and collusion, Western governments are condoning savage injustices and allowing Turkey to get away literally with mass murder.
For further information about the arrests of trade unionists and others contact Kurdish Solidarity Trade Union Committee, 42 Southall Court, Lady Margaret Rd, Southall, UB1 2RQ, Tel: 0171 250 1315, Fax 0171 250 1317
Send protests to: Emergency Regional Governor tel 0412 228 6301/224 3572, Diyarbakir governor: tel 0412 222 2288 fax 0412 228 4872.