2 July 2001

1. "Toll in Turkish prison hunger strike hits 26", a long-standing hunger strike over Turkish prison reforms claimed another life, bringing the death toll among prisoners and their supporters to 26, the Turkish Human Rights Association (IHD) said Saturday.

2. "Turkish parliament extends emergency rule in southeast", Parliament voted Friday to extend emergency rule in four overwhelmingly Kurdish provinces of southeastern Turkey, at the request of military leaders.

3. "Turkish nationalists flex their muscles", the nationalists' ambitions, however, may threaten the coalition's frail balance and imperil an IMF-backed economic programme vital for Turkey to overcome a financial crisis.

4. "34 hunger-striking inmates in Turkey freed over ill health", Turkish authorities have provisionally released 34 inmates who have been on hunger strike to protest controversial prison reforms due to their failing health, local media reported Friday.

5. "UK drops Turkish dam plan", the government is to abandon its support for the controversial Ilisu dam in Turkey after an official report that it commissioned on the environmental and human rights impact of the project found that it had failed to meet international standards.

6. "Military said to be preventing Democracy in Turkey", a new study says the military is the leading element in preventing Turkey from becoming a true democracy.


1. - AFP - "Toll in Turkish prison hunger strike hits 26":

ANKARA

A long-standing hunger strike over Turkish prison reforms claimed another life, bringing the death toll among prisoners and their supporters to 26, the Turkish Human Rights Association (IHD) said Saturday.

Zehra Kulaksiz, whose uncle was in jail, died Friday on the 223rd day of her hunger strike in support of the prison protest launched by mainly left-wing inmates in October to protest the introduction of new jails with tighter security, the IHD said in a written statement. She died in an Istanbul house where she was hunger striking with other prisoners' relatives, it added. In an interview with AFP in April, 22-year-old Zehra had defended her deadly protest as a "humanitarian duty" in a bid to improve conditions in Turkish prisons. "We will not abandon our fast as long as the demands of the prisoners are not met and until they themselves have stopped the movement," Kulaksiz had said at the time.

Her sister, Canan, a 19-year-old university student, had also died in the same house in April on the 137th day of her strike in solidarity with the prisoners. Friday's death means that 21 inmates, four prisoners' relatives and one former inmate have starved themselves to death since March. The prison protest is aimed against new jails, commonly known as "F-type" prisons, which consist of cells holding a maximum of three people, in contrast to existing jails with large dormitories for up to 60 people. The prisoners and human rights activists claim that confinement in smaller units would alienate inmates from fellow prisoners and leave them more vulnerable to ill-treatment and torture by prison officials. Despite the mounting death toll and international pressure, the government has refused to back down on the introduction of the new prisons. Ankara maintains the packed dormitories are the main factor behind frequent riots and hostage-taking incidents in its unruly jails.

In December, thousands of paramilitary troops raided scores of prisons across the country in a bid to break the hunger strike during a four-day crackdown which left 30 prisoners and two soldiers dead. Since then, more than 1,000 inmates have been transferred to F-type prisons despite a government pledge that the new jails would not become operational until a social consensus has been reached on their introduction. The government has recently adopted a series of laws to improve conditions for its inmates, but the moves have been brushed aside by rights activists and civic groups as insufficIent. The prison strike has placed Turkey's bleak human rights record in the international spotlight at a time when the country needs to make far-reaching democratic reforms in order to promote its bid for European Union membership.


2. - AP - "Turkish parliament extends emergency rule in southeast":

ANKARA

Parliament voted Friday to extend emergency rule in four overwhelmingly Kurdish provinces of southeastern Turkey, at the request of military leaders.

The National Security Council, made up of top generals and ministers, agreed earlier Friday that emergency rule in the provinces of Diyarbakir, Tunceli, Hakkari and Sirnak should be extended for another four months when its current period expires on July 30.

Parliament, which is due to begin a three-month summer holiday Saturday, backed the extension, on the council's recommendation. Voting took place with a show of hands, and it was not clear if there were any votes against the extension.

Emergency rule was imposed in 13 provinces in 1987, as the army battled with Kurdish rebels demanding autonomy for the southeast. It allows provincial governors to impose curfews, call in soldiers to suppress illegal demonstrations, and ban rallies.

As fighting subsided, emergency was gradually lifted in nine provinces.

An estimated 37,000 people, mostly Kurds, died in the 15-year conflict, which has been reduced to sporadic clashes since rebels announced a cease-fire in 1999. Most of them have since crossed the border into neighboring Iraq and Iran.

The army has rejected the cease-fire and says it will continue fighting until all rebels surrender or are killed.


3. - Reuters - "Turkish nationalists flex their muscles":

The nationalists' ambitions, however, may threaten the coalition's frail balance and imperil an IMF-backed economic programme vital for Turkey to overcome a financial crisis.

Turkey's rightist Nationalist Action Party (MHP), hungry for a bigger say in the country's three party coalition, is flexing its muscles and moving to attract deputies from rival parties to its own ranks.

The nationalists' ambitions, however, may threaten the coalition's frail balance and imperil an IMF-backed economic programme vital for Turkey to overcome a financial crisis.

The MHP, currently the second largest government party, has already shown a record of opposition from inside the government by publicly challenging some IMF-sought reforms. Turkey needs to implement the reforms in return for $15.7 billion of loans.

Communications Minister Enis Oksuz in particular has become a thorn in the side of Economy Minister Kemal Dervis, the architect of an IMF-backed economic programme.

They clashed this week over the appointment of an executive board to run state-owned Turk Telekom, leading Dervis to issue a stern warning that appointments should not depend on political party allegiance -- for years standard practice in Turkey.

Last week's ban on the country's main opposition party, Virtue, for Islamist subversion has left nationalists' mouths watering at the prospect of new members, analysts say.

The ban on Virtue left 100 Islamist MPs independent. A member of the True Path Party, since the banning of Virtue the only opposition party in parliament, announced on Thursday he was joining the MHP.

"Each party should be able to leave its door open to people who share its beliefs, ideals and affections," MHP leader Devlet Bahceli said at the weekend.

But Bahceli trod a fine line between the MHP's ambitions and the coalition balance and said his party was loyal to a 1999 government protocol that allows no change in the power share even if the numerical strength of the parties is altered.

Currently, the MHP has 126 seats in parliament. Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit's Democratic Left (DSP) has 132 and the third coalition partner, Motherland, 88.

Waiting for the turn?

Since sweeping into government two years ago, Bahceli has done much to change the MHP's reputation for street fighting and militancy. Ritual wolf howls and wolf's head salutes -- a reference to a nationalist legend of Turkey's foundation -- are discouraged and party officials have toned down their rhetoric.

The nationalist leader has been an impassive presence next to Ecevit at key parliamentary debates, loyal but with the look, perhaps, of a man awaiting his moment.

Cracks in the coalition have been showing since Turkey's financial crisis broke in February. That, analysts say, brought the MHP under strong pressure to return to traditional "hardline nationalism" in order to save its heartland support.

The party has already upset its grass roots by failing to fulfil a pre-election promise that a death sentence against PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan be swiftly carried out.

Opinion polls say the nationalists, who emerged as the second biggest party at 1999 elections with 19 percent of the vote, would be bundled out of parliament at new polls.

"There is concern in the party because of a serious decrease in the number of votes for the MHP," says Kemal Can, a commentator and an expert on the nationalist movement.

"Turkey's (IMF-backed) economic programme mainly hurts the MHP's grassroots who are farmers, tradesmen and civil servants. These people make calculations on their daily bread."

Among many MHP supporters, the International Monetary Fund is seen as a foreign organisation insensitive to Turkey's needs and traditions and bent on securing only its own interests here.

IMF concerns were raised when the MHP-controlled agriculture ministry forced through higher than inflation price hikes for wheat purchase. The MHP also dragged its feet on two other key IMF reforms -- privatization of Turk Telecom and liquidation of the state-owned Emlak bank.

Senior MHP officials say their role as "opposition within the government" is simply a reflection of their sensitivities, not a political calculation to drum up public support.

"The MHP has always had a compromising attitude and tried to be constructive," says MHP's Sevket Bulent Yahnici. "There are some who are ready to do whatever they're told. But we could not do that," he added in a reference to the IMF-backed reforms.

Avoiding the risks

Knowing that parties in Turkey need not only ballot-box victory but also the tacit approval of the state apparatus, including the armed forces, to exercise power, Bahceli has avoided publicly clashing with rivals.

Instead he has focused his efforts on steering the MHP away from its street-fighting image of the 1970s, when 5,000 died in political violence that ended in an army coup. He has cultivated the image of a man fit to succeed 76-year-old Ecevit when the time comes.

The nationalists' new "push-hard" policy has its limits and is not expected to go as far as toppling the coalition as the country fights off crisis even if the MHP emerges as the biggest parliamentary grouping with new "recruits", observers say.

"The MHP is now a candidate to become an internal opposition in the coalition in the long term," says Can. "But it cannot take such a shape immediately because this will cost it its coalition seat and risks drawing reaction from the state.

"I don't think Bahceli plans to become the premier under such risky circumstances."

But Turkey's volatile financial markets are nervous about reports of Ecevit's health which at some point could lead him to withdraw from power.

Bahceli may not need to wait long. If more than six new MPs join the MHP, he could come under pressure from the party base to press for the position of prime minister. At the very least, nationalist ministers might be encouraged in pressing their views, thereby stirring friction in the coalition.

Bahceli's moment may, however, have passed in the electoral arena. Pulled back to the right, he may be unable to achieve his aim of establishing the MHP as master of the centre-right.
There are other candidates.

Popular Islamist figure and former Istanbul Mayor Recep Tayyip Erdogan is preparing a centre-right political party that is expected to draw at least half the independent Islamist MPs left out in the cold after Virtue was banned.


4. - AFP - "34 hunger-striking inmates in Turkey freed over ill health":

ANKARA

Turkish authorities have provisionally released 34 inmates who have been on hunger strike to protest controversial prison reforms due to their failing health, local media reported Friday. Twenty-eight prisoners, held on charges of "terrorism" and who have been on a hunger strike for 210 days, were released for six months and handed over to their families overnight Thursday from the Kandira prison in northwest Turkey, the Anatolia agency reported.

A further six inmates were expected to be released from the same jail. The provisional release, allowed under the country's laws, followed a deterioration in the prisoners' health, the NTV station said. Hundreds of mainly left-wing inmates launched the hunger strike in October last year against the introduction of new jails with tighter security and small cells. On Tuesday, the total death toll from the strike reached 25. The new jails, commonly known as "F-type" prisons, consist of cells holding a maximum of three people, in contrast to existing jails with large dormitories for up to 60 people. Backed by human rights activists at home and abroad, the prisoners argue they would be alienated from fellow inmates and be more vulnerable to mistreatment and torture by prison officials when locked up in smaller units.

Despite the mounting death toll and international pressure, the government has refused to back down on the introduction of the new prisons. Ankara maintains the packed dormitories are the main factor behind frequent riots and hostage-taking incidents in its unruly jails. In December, thousands of paramilitary troops raided scores of prisons across the country in a bid to break the hunger strike during a four-day crackdown which left 30 prisoners and two soldiers dead. Since then, more than 1,000 inmates have been transferred to F-type prisons. The government has recently adopted a series of laws to improve conditions for its inmates, but the moves have been brushed aside by rights activists and civic groups as insufficient. The prison strike has placed Turkey's bleak human rights record in the international spotlight at a time when the country needs to make far-reaching democratic reforms in order to promote its bid for European Union membership.


5. - The Observer - "UK drops Turkish dam plan":

The government is to abandon its support for the controversial Ilisu dam in Turkey after an official report that it commissioned on the environmental and human rights impact of the project found that it had failed to meet international standards.

The report was commissioned in 1999 by Stephen Byers, who was then Trade and Industry Secretary, as the 'definitive assessment' of the project which campaigners say will ruin the lives of tens of thousands of local people.

The study, which arrived on the Government's desk on Friday, is said to be 'very negative' about how well Turkey has dealt with allegations that building the dam would lead to the displacement of more than 70,000 Kurds in the south-east of the country and the destruction of the archaeologically significant town of Hasankeyf.

The Observer has also been told by senior government sources that the report makes for 'difficult reading' and that it would be impossible to provide export guarantees for British firms involved in the project with such a damning indictment hanging over it.

'There would need to be significant changes in Turkey's attitude to Ilisu if the Government was to continue backing this,' said one official.

Although the Department of Trade and Industry will insist no final decision has been taken and that there will now need to be a long period of consultation, officials admitted that human rights concerns were central to their support.

Just before the general election, Richard Caborn, then a Minister at the DTI, said: 'If these [the report's] conditions are not satisfied, then there will be no support.'

Doubts have also been raised in the report about the ability of the Turkish economy, which has been undermined by a recent currency crisis, to support the £1.25bn project. 'We have always argued that the impact of this would be terrible for both the Kurdish people and the environment,' said Matt Phillips, the senior campaigns manager with Friends of the Earth.

'The test is now whether Tony Blair puts the interests of big business ahead of the interests of human rights.'

Two years ago the Government said that it was 'minded' to back the construction of the dam. The Prime Minister overruled concerns raised by the Foreign Office that the building of the dam across the River Tigris would lead to increased tension with Turkey's neighbours, Syria and Iraq. Both countries rely on the river for scarce water resources.

Byers was also concerned by the negative ethical message that supporting the dam sent out.


6. - Middle East Newsline - "Military said to be preventing Democracy in Turkey":

TEL AVIV

A new study says the military is the leading element in preventing Turkey from becoming a true democracy.

"Today the military remains the most reticent actor on topics of political liberalization, and overcoming military opposition is a formidable challenge to all elected leaders," the study said.

The study, published by the Middle East Review of International Affairs, cited Turkish support from the electorate. A 1997 survey asserted that 97 percent of respondents expressed trust in the military.

"Nonetheless, civilian politicians lack control over the military while the military can veto some government policies or decisions," the report, authored by Paul Kubicek, a U.S. professor who has taught in Turkey, said.

The report called Turkey a "delegative democracy" built on personal connections and rampant with corruption and graft. Ankara is being asked to reform its institutions, particularly the military for entry in the European Union.

But the military has opposed EU demands to reform such bodies as the National Security Council and state security courts. The study said the military feels these changes could damage the country.

"Even minimal concessions on the Kurdish issue, legal changes, or limits on the army's political influence could bring down governments," the report said.