30 August 2001

1. "Ocalan's case in the ECHR postponed to September 28", the case of PKK President Abdullah Ocalan, which was scheduled to begin being heard in the European Court of Human Rights on August 31, has been delayed once again.

2. "HADEP applies court to reverse Governor's office decision", People's Democracy Party (HADEP) has applied to court to reverse the decision of Ankara Governor's Office to ban their meeting that was to be held on the occasion of "World Peace Day," the party's press office declared on Wednesday.

3. "Turkish Islamists move to oust housing minister over alleged fraud", deputies from Turkey's pro-Islamic Felicity Party submitted a motion in parliament Wednesday demanding the dismissal of Public Works and Housing Minister Koray Aydin for alleged corruption at his ministry, officials said.

4. "Ecevit fears Israeli escalation will harm Turkish-Arab ties", Turkey's ties with its Arab neighbours could be harmed if "Israel continues to use excessive force", Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit said in a report here Wednesday, renewing his criticism of Israel's escalation against the Palestinians.

5. "Quit blocking peace, Ankara!", the "Hand in Hand for Peace" meeting planned to be held on September 1 World Peace Day by HADEP and many other nongovernmental organizations has run into the obstacle of Ankara's prohibitive mentality.

6. "Difference between civilian and military bureaucracy increasing (2)", the civilian state and municipal bureaucracies are in a shambles. In contrast to this, the quality of military bureaucracy is increasing all the time. As a result and whether you like it or not, the military's influence in the running of the country is also increasing.


1. - Kurdish Observer - "Ocalan's case in the ECHR postponed to September 28":

The case of PKK President Abdullah Ocalan, which was scheduled to begin being heard in the European Court of Human Rights on August 31, has been delayed once again. Ocalan's attorneys asked for an extension of time due to great difficulties in preparing the defense because of illegal practices, and said they would ask for another extension if necessary.

The hearing of the case of PKK President Abdullah Ocalan in the European Court of Human Rights has been postponed from August 31 to September 28 at the request of his attorneys.

Attorney Hatice Korkut from the Century Law Firm, answering questions on the subject for our newspaper, said that they had asked for an extension due to the difficulties they were encountering in preparing the defense due to illegal practices. Korkut said that the possibility existed that they would ask for another postponement as well, and pointed out that prison administration still had not handed over all the defense material over to them. Korkut said that they were only able to meet with their client to go over his defense once a week, and occasionally were not able to meet with him at all for extended periods, saying that this was not sufficient time to discuss the defense and exchange information. Korkut said that despite the fact that it was required that Ocalan's defense material be delivered directly to them, prison administration was keeping it to inspect themselves.

Another delay possible

Attorney Korkut said that Ocalan was experiencing difficulties preparing his defense, largely because of lack of means and material for putting his defense into writing and that, therefore, the one-month extension could prove insufficient as well. If that is the case, Korkut said, they could request another extension of time for defense preparation.


2. - Turkish Daily News - "HADEP applies court to reverse Governor's office decision":

People's Democracy Party (HADEP) has applied to court to reverse the decision of Ankara Governor's Office to ban their meeting that was to be held on the occasion of "World Peace Day," the party's press office declared on Wednesday.

Earlier, HADEP had decided to hold a meeting in Ankara and had filed a petition to the Ankara Governors Office and to the Ankara Police Office for permission.

After completing the legal procedure to hold a meeting, the party prepared banners and made an announcement stressing the importance of peace.

The governor's office and the interior ministry on Tuesday rejected HADEP's demand saying that the military will be using the Hippodrome to celebrate Victory Day on Aug. 30 and they would not be able to clear out all their equipment in time for World Peace Day two days later.

In addition, it was announced that as there was a high probability that the meeting would disrupt public order and lead to unwanted ugly incidents, it was being banned in accordance with Article 17 of the Meetings and Protest Marches Law, Number 2911 and a resolution numbered 748/2001 dated Aug. 28, 2001, issued by the Ankara Governor's Office.

The party said the intention of the meeting was peace and pointed out that they were ready to hold the meeting any place that either police office or governor's office may offer.

HADEP said it was impossible for them to accept the reason for the ban on their meeting.

"There is a two-day period between Aug. 30 and Sept. 1 and that will be enough for preparations. The probability of disrupting the public order is out of question," HADEP said.

Both the Interior Ministry and Ankara Governor's Office noted that the military units to be stationed at the Hippodrome for Aug. 30 Victory Day celebrations would not be able to move out by Sept. 1 and so there would be no possibility of HADEP being able to hold the meeting it wanted there.

Minister Yucelen noted that all of the governor's offices would take the necessary precautions to ensure that World Peace Day was celebrated in an appropriate manner. He said that the governors would evaluate all requests for meetings within the scope of the Law on Meetings and Protest Marches and be as facilitating as they could.


3. - AFP - "Turkish Islamists move to oust housing minister over alleged fraud":

ANKARA

Deputies from Turkey's pro-Islamic Felicity Party submitted a motion in parliament Wednesday demanding the dismissal of Public Works and Housing Minister Koray Aydin for alleged corruption at his ministry, officials said.

The motion, put forward by two Felicity Party members, claims Aydin damaging state interests through the issue of fraudulent tenders for public works projects by his ministry, parliamentary officials said. The move came a week after the launch of an investigation into suspected widespread corruption at the public works and housing ministry. Several dozen people, including ministry officials and contractors, have been detained over the past week in connection with the probe, but have not yet been formally charged.

The probe centers on alleged practices over the past decade involving collusion between ministry officials and contractors in the submission of bids to allow some firms to win contracts at inflated prices. In their motion on Wednesday, the two deputies accused Aydin of promoting officials who had been accused of misuse of power by state inspectors and who had breached tender procedures in favor of certain contractors, the officials said. The Felicity party said Aydin had cost the state significant losses by turning a blind eye to irregularities in a series of tenders that included a project to build about 42,000 homes for victims of two devastating quakes in 1999.

Aydin, a member of the far-right Nationalist Movement Party, already survived a censure motion in February that alleged corruption in the construction of the quake victims' homes. Parliament will now schedule a vote to decide whether the new motion should be taken up for a debate. Opposition moves against Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit's government have little chance of success since the three ruling parties in the coalition hold a comfortable majority of 344 seats in the 550-member house. The Felicity Party, created in July by a conservative faction of the outlawed Islamist Virtue Party, holds 49 seats.


4. - AFP - "Ecevit fears Israeli escalation will harm Turkish-Arab ties: Haaretz":

JERUSALEM

Turkey's ties with its Arab neighbours could be harmed if "Israel continues to use excessive force", Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit said in a report here Wednesday, renewing his criticism of Israel's escalation against the Palestinians.

"If the situation in Israel continues as it does today, it will create many difficulties for our relations with several countries in the region," he told Israel's Haaretz daily, a day after Israel assassinated a Palestinian faction leader and stormed the autonomous Palestinian village of Beit Jala. "We hope Israel recognizes the problems that will be created for our relations if Israel continues to use excessive force," said Ecevit, who added: "we are, after all, in a region where sensitivity to holy places is very high". Turkey, a mainly Muslim but non-Arab secular state, has been Israel's chief regional ally since 1996 when the two Middle Eastern heavyweights signed a military cooperation agreement that sparked harsh criticism from most of the Arab world and Iran.

But Turkey also maintains full-fledged diplomatic ties with the Palestinians and supports their demands for statehood. On August 8, Ecevit had called on visiting Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to soften his stance against the Palestinians and told him the "demand for an absolute cessation of violence is unrealistic". Israeli forces moved into Beit Jala in a pre-dawn operation Tuesday, following Palestinian shooting on the nearby Jewish settlement of Gilo, and showed no sign of pulling out Wednesday despite US and international pressure.

On Monday, an Israeli helicopter launched missiles against the Ramallah office of the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Abu Ali Mustafa, in the highest-level assassination by Israel in the 11-month-old intifada, and the first against a Palestinian political leader.


5. - Ozgur Politika - "Quit blocking peace, Ankara!":

The "Hand in Hand for Peace" meeting planned to be held on September 1 World Peace Day by HADEP and many other nongovernmental organizations has run into the obstacle of Ankara's prohibitive mentality.

AYDIN BOLKAN

The great "Hand in Hand for Peace" gathering planned to be held in Ankara's Hippodrome on September 1 World Peace Day has been banned by the Ankara Governor's Office. The reasons given for the prohibition were noteworthy in their baseless nature, which were August 30 (Victory Day) celebrations and "the possibility that [the meeting] would disturb public order in a serious fashion and provide cause for the eruption of unwanted incidents." Interior Minister R. Kazim Yucelen likewise issued a circular containing similar rationales for banning the event. HADEP, for its part, has applied to the Regional Administrative Court to have the decision overturned.

Ignoring the demands for peace of hundreds of thousands of people, demands for the peace that is one of Turkey's most urgent societal needs, Ankara has instead extended a bit more the life of the war lobbyists laying in wait.

Following application last week to the Ankara Governor's Office, the meeting planning committee set up by HADEP Ankara Provincial headquarters also met with Interior Minister Rustu Kazim Yucelen. The committee realized the next day that the positive impression given to them by Minister Yucelen, who had said there were no objections, did not reflect the reality.

Baseless grounds

Baseless and even comical grounds for prohibiting the meeting were listed in a written communication sent to HADEP Ankara Provincial Chairman Veli Aydogan Tuesday afternoon by Ankara Deputy Governor M. Vedat Muftuoglu. According to the Governor's Office, this meeting, aimed completely at accelerating the establishment of societal peace, carried "the possibility that it would disturb public order in a serious fashion and provide cause for the eruption of unwanted incidents." The communique additionally said that the Hippodrome, which had been requested as the site for the meeting, would be the site of August 30 ceremonies, and therefore it would not be empty in time for September 1.

The communique from the Governor's Office also indicated that the only appropriate spot for the meeting would be the Hippodrome, clearly sending a message as to the fate of additional requests that the meeting be held in another area such as Kizilay, Tandogan, Etlik or Sihhiye instead.

Minister Yucelen's shame

Meanwhile, immediately following the communique from the Governor's Office, a similar one was sent out by Interior Minister Yucelen, in direct contradiction to the positive reaction he had exhibited just the day before. Yucelen sent a circular concerning September 1 World Peace Day to the Governor's Offices of OHAL (Emergency Rule) and all 81 provinces on Tuesday, and gave the following reasons for the prohibition of the HADEP September 1 meeting in Ankara. "The Hippodrome would have to be emptied by August 31 at the latest for a meeting to be held on September 1. In view of occurrences in past years, it would take at least a few days for units tied to the Garrison Command, which will be placed in the area for Victory Day ceremonies, to be removed. Therefore, it has been evaluated as impossible to fulfill the request of HADEP Ankara Provincial Headquarters for a meeting for September 1 World Peace Day." Yucelen also said in the circular that the provincial governor's would take the necessary precautions to assure that September 1 was celebrated in an appropriate fashion, asserting that perusal of "Right to Meetings and Demonstration Marches" would ease the governors' duties in this regard.

Double standards for HADEP

Meanwhile, the real reason behind the prohibition of the meeting planned by HADEP is the state's viewing the meeting of 300,000 Kurds in Ankara, immediately following the shows to be put on by the military for August 30 Victory Day, as a "show of force." It has been learned that top-level administrators met to discuss the HADEP peace meeting in Ankara and decided not to grant permission for "the Kurds' peace meeting" right after the military shows.

HADEP determined

The central administrative board of HADEP met late Tuesday to go over developments, and decided to apply to the Regional Administrative Court to reverse the decision. The determination to continue preparations for splendid celebrations of World Peace Day to be held throughout Turkey was also underscored at the meeting.

Peace detained

Showing "peace posters" as grounds, police raided the HADEP Provincial Offices and city representation of Yedinci Gundem newspaper in Urfa. Seven people were detained and remain in custody at security headquarters. Another 10 HADEP members were detained in Amed (Diyarbakir) on the same grounds.

The provincial headquarters of HADEP in Urfa and the office of the Yedinci Gundem (7th Agenda) were raided the other afternoon by police. Police showed the "100s of 1,000s Hand in Hand for Peace" posters printed by party headquarters and which had been banned a while ago by the Urfa Governor's Office as grounds for the raid. Police from general security and the Anti-Terrorism department searched party offices for three hours and checked IDs, detaining six people including Provincial Chairman Musa Farisogullari and Central District Chairman Mehmet Ural. Police raided the Yedinci Gundem offices during the same hours and detained regional correspondent Ramazan Pekgoz. All concerned were brought down to central security headquarters in Urfa.

Meanwhile, 10 of the 50 HADEP members who were carrying out works for home visits in the Ofis neighborhood of Amed were detained about 9:30 the other evening. Those detained included members of the HADEP Diyarbakir Youth Commission and Women's Wings. Those detained were Edip Polat, Salih Tekin, Gulay Tekin, Halis Batki, A. Rezzak Akin, Seher Yildirim, Irfan Ozen, Muazzez Leygara, and two other persons whose names have not been learned.


6. - Turkish Daily News - "Difference between civilian and military bureaucracy increasing (2)":

The civilian state and municipal bureaucracies are in a shambles. In contrast to this, the quality of military bureaucracy is increasing all the time. As a result and whether you like it or not, the military's influence in the running of the country is also increasing.

In my column yesterday, I pointed out that the poor governance of the country was not solely the result of incompetent politicians and party leaders but stemmed from the bureaucracy being on the point of collapse.
By bureaucracy, what I meant with the exception of the military was all civil servants including municipal workers.

We are wading knee-deep in ignorance.

For many years every government saw the bureaucratic cadres which it used to employ its own supporters simply as sources of funding. No skill was sought, men were not employed because they were right for the job; instead jobs were created for the men. Ultimately, what we got was the calamitous situation we are in today.

A good many of our civilian bureaucrats are not trained to do the job they are in. They have little knowledge, earn little wages (and try to make up for this by accepting bribes), shirk responsibility, are timid and lack vision.

Quite the opposite in the army

Then, there is the military bureaucracy. By saying "military bureaucracy" I mean all ranks working at the General Staff and various Service Command headquarters. Just look at the way the military cadres have been raised over the past 20 years.

Putting the facts of life as they are in Turkey aside, what we have here is a bureaucracy that is worldly wise, does its homework, prepares files and adapts them according to changing conditions, that prepares scenarios that can be given to the commanders so that they can take decisions and that implements those decisions once taken then, most importantly, continues to ensure their continuity.

If we add the great discipline and seriousness with which all work is carried out, the gulf between the civilian and military bureaucracies becomes all too apparent.

This being the case, the influence of the military bureaucracy over the civilian one is steadily increasing.

The military's influence in the running of the country does not stem from force of arms or public support. Its true power lies in having staffs of quality and that work with seriousness and discipline. This is how the public's confidence in them grows.

In this situation, they can be very influential over the highest levels (leaders and politicians) and the civilian bureaucracy.

What needs to be done?

It is natural to seek the military's opinion on specific subjects. But there is also the day-to-day running of things and that is where the civilian bureaucracy should come into play.

If Turkey really is going to be governed soundly, then bureaucratic reform should be undertaken.

1. Reducing overstaffing (by firing surplus people) and entirely stopping politically motivated appointments, with the exception of the most senior positions, is unavoidable.

2. More satisfactory wages should be given to those in key positions (this money being found by firing surplus staff).

3. Men should be employed according to their ability to do the job and moves made to employ only people of quality and education.

Civilized, Western countries also have political crises and months can pass without governments being able to be formed but the mechanisms of the state continue ticking over smoothly. Ministers come and go. Even if a minister comes who does not know the first thing about the post, the policies never change.

Why?

Because the gears of the bureaucracy are lubricated with years of experience. Every new minister is given new ideas and new scenarios. Mistakes are blocked and long-term policies are run.

If Turkey cannot pull its socks up, we will not even be able to play in the second division.