1 May 2001

1. "Two MPs quit Turkish prime minister's party after convention", two deputies from the Democratic Left Party (DSP) of Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit resigned Tuesday to protest what they described as an anti-democratic mentality prevailing in the party.

2. "Turkey advances helicopter EW projekt", despite a fiscal crisis, Turkey has advanced a project to supply electronic warfare systems for the military's helicopter fleet.

3. "Analysis: Uncertain policy on Iraq and Kurds", shortly after taking office Secretary of State Colin Powell told the press containment of Iraq would be a top Bush administration priority.

4. "Consensus needs courageous steps", Murat Karayilan, member of PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party) Council of Leaders, stated that a lot of circles express more or less the same views as their party, adding, "It needs courageous steps. What is important is a consensus and to bring it on the agenda."

5. "EU asks Turkey to put a an end to prison hunger strike", a senior EU official on Monday urged Turkey, which is seeking to join the European Union, to take steps to end a hunger strike in its prisons that has so far claimed the lives of 20 people.

6. "The death fast on the 193rd day", Deaths 20, disabled 12.

1. - AFP - "Two MPs quit Turkish prime minister's party after convention":

ANKARA

Two deputies from the Democratic Left Party (DSP) of Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit resigned Tuesday to protest what they described as an anti-democratic mentality prevailing in the party. The resignations of Nazire Karakus and Mehmet Ozcan followed a stormy DSP convention Sunday at which a challanger to Ecevit's chairmanship was not allowed to speak and left the hall in protest amid boos and scuffles.

Ecevit, known for a tight grip on his party, won a landslide victory against his rival, human rights maverick Sema Piskinsut. The treatment of Piskinsut triggered a wave of criticism against Ecevit, putting further strain on him at a time when his popularity has nosedived due to a severe economic crisis and accusations of fraud at high state levels. "I was shocked by the stance of Mr. Ecevit, who remained mute in the face of this anti-democratic behaviour," Karakus said in a joint press conference with Ozcan.

The two MPs also charged that the DSP management pressured deputies at important parliamentary votes and that the government interfered with justice and protected high-level political figures in corruption probes. With the two resignations, the number of the parliamentary seats of the DSP, the senior partner in the three-way coalition, fell to 132. The government now holds 347 seats in the 550-member house.

2. - Middle East Newsline - "Turkey advances helicopter EW projekt":

ANKARADespite a fiscal crisis, Turkey has advanced a project to supply electronic warfare systems for the military's helicopter fleet.

Officials said the Defense Ministry has issued a request for proposal for EW systems for the entire fleet, reported at about 370 helicopters. These include attack and transport aircraft.

The program is said to be worth $500 million and will not be headed by a foreign contractor. Instead, the project calls for a Turkish prime contractor.

The EW system will include such components as a radar and laser warning receiver and radio frequency jammer for both active and passive protection.

Earlier this month, Turkey's military announced the suspension of 32 projects valued at $19.5 billion. Turkish military sources said the projects include a halt in plans to procure eight heavy-lift helicopters in an estimated $350 million deal.

3. - UPI - "Analysis: Uncertain policy on Iraq and Kurds":

WASHINGTON

Shortly after taking office Secretary of State Colin Powell told the press containment of Iraq would be a top Bush administration priority. The issue with Baghdad, he said, was Saddam's persistence in trying to develop nuclear and chemical weapons, and his territorial aspirations. "We have to keep reminding everybody that this is an arms control problem," he said on Feb.1.
Two and a half months later, on April 15, the Sunday Times of London reported that Saddam was rebuilding a chemical weapons factory at Daura, outside Baghdad. The news came as Powell was continuing a review of policy on Iraq that he hopes to have in place by June.

"Give the administration time," says Judith Kipper of the Center for International and Strategic Studies.

Meanwhile, Saddam, as well as continuing his pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, has become a street hero of the Arab masses as the champion of the Palestinian cause. At the same time businessmen and their governments, looking for deals, flock to Baghdad to do business.
When Saddam's son-in-law, Hussein Kamal, head of Iraq's unconventional weapons program, defected to the West in 1995, he revealed that Iraq already had a stock of chemical and biological weapons. Nuclear arms may still be a few years off, but according to Graham Fuller of the RAND Corporation, it is probably not realistic to think Iraq will not obtain them.
In an attempt to rescue the U.N. sanctions policy on Iraq from total collapse, Powell proposed new "smart" sanctions that would relieve the hardships suffered by the Iraqi people under the old sanctions, while denying Saddam material for weapons.

Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs Edward Walker describes it as replacing the sanctions regime with a control regime that would regulate the flow of money to Saddam and access to military goods and materials used to make weapons of mass destruction.

It's anybody's guess how the proposed controls regime could undo what Saddam has already accomplished in building up his capacity to unleash terror and destruction. Saddam has delivered a firm 'no" to re-admitting U.N. inspection teams to ensure Iraq was not producing nuclear or chemical weapons. Proposals to install verification posts in neighboring countries have not been met with enthusiasm in Turkey, Syria, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia -- not to mention Iran.

Nor is it clear how the controls regime would operate beyond Saddam's abilities to get around it, all the more so as there has been growing international sympathy for an end to sanctions, especially from Russia, France and China. Smart sanctions are seen as no better than the earlier sanctions by Iraq's neighbors -- as well as specialists on Iraq, like Laurie Mylroie, author of "Study of Revenge: Saddam Hussein's Unfinished War Against America." She is dismissive of a new sanctions regime being any more effective than the old one.

Sanctions are the first of three baskets that Powell says make up U.S. policy. The second basket, Powell told Congress in March, concerned military posture and involves enforcement of the northern and southern no-fly zones in Iraq. In line with this, the White House and State Department assured a delegation of senior Iraqi Kurds recently in Washington that the United States will continue to protect the Kurds as it has done since it established a safe haven for them in 1991 and in the following year for the Shia Arabs in the south of Iraq.

The third basket, which many observers currently consider little short of wishful thinking, is the toppling of Saddam Hussein.

The no-fly zones and U.S. readiness to enforce respect for the Green Line separating
Saddam's army from the Kurds, is the only substantial element left in the old policy of
containing Iraq. The U.S. military umbrella has been essential to the Kurds well-being and has permitted them to govern themselves, largely free of Baghdad, and, compared to the rest of Iraq, even to prosper.

The Kurds have direct experience of Saddam's use of weapons of mass destruction. In 1988, 5,000 men, women and children died in five minutes when poison gas was dropped on the village of Halabja. It was part of the Anfal campaign in which the Iraqi Republican Guards dragged 182,000 villagers from their homes, never to be heard of again, razed 4000 villages to the ground, and blew Kurdish towns to bits, building by building.

In recent months the Iraqi army has probed the periphery of the area under Kurdish control.
Although the Kurdish delegation said it was satisfied with what it had heard from U.S. officials, it nevertheless left an impression of being less than wholly convinced the United States would insure the Kurds safety. The touch of unease probably stems from the awareness that the United States does not have a firm policy at this time. One Kurd, asked if he was satisfied by the U.S. reassurance, replied dryly, "I have heard nothing to make me doubt it."

4. - Kurdish Observer - "Consensus needs courageous steps":

Murat Karayilan, member of PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party) Council of Leaders, stated that a lot of circles express more or less the same views as their party, adding, "It needs courageous steps. What is important is a consensus and to bring it on the agenda."

Karayilan said, "The economic crisis origins from political system. Probably a radical questioning helps to the solution," repeating their call for a Democracy Conference which they as PKK had proposed.

Karayilan stressed on the following points: "Democratic forces can make this easily (unions, political parties, labor platform, NGO's). HADEP (People's Democracy Party), for example, approaches narrowly in a political sense, labor platform does not have a full program and practice for it. But at least they can bring it on the agenda. Productive capitalist section has more plans on this matter, but it does not make progress. How nice if they success with only a meeting, but if not there can be a series of meetings. What is important is a consensus and to bring it on the agenda."

"A solution dependent on foreign aid is useless"

Stressing that trying to eliminate the crisis in Turkey depending on only foreign aid was useless, Karayilan said, "10 billion dollars USA will give may perhaps cause a temporary ease, but in case that main political and social problem are not solved, there might be developments which will cause social uprisings within a short while."

"Everybody suffered loss"

Karayilan said that the ways to solve the problems and realities which Kemal Dervis, Minister Without Portfolio in charge of Economy, had recently expressed had been expressed by their party since the beginning of 90's. "But they did not hear, pretend not to hear. Thus the existing system caused the dynamics of Turkish people to die as well as denying Kurdish people. Everybody suffered loss. Workers, democrats and patriots living in Turkey should take action according to realities we have been expressing for two years. The same thing is valid for masses in Europe."

First system, then money...

Speaking on transfer of savings of Kurdish and Turkish people living in Europe to Turkey, Karayilan continued as follows: "Kurdish and Turkish people living in Europe have more opportunity to observe the system and to find solutions. At least they can make a comparison. Otherwise there will be a plundering of their money. This can not be accepted. They should say "first you should strengthen your system, then wait money transfer."

Peace in the South could be sabotaged

PKK Council of Leaders member Murat Karayilan pointed out that there were those who were uncomfortable with the atmosphere of peace in South Kurdistan, especially in Turkey, and warned that the peace process could be sabotaged.

Karayilan said that they believed that the stepped up activity of the Turkish military in recent days could be an attempt to divert public attention.

Speaking by telephone on the Kurdish-language Rews program on Medya TV the other evening, the PKK Council of Leaders member discussed Turkey's search for a way out the present economic crisis and the latest situation in South Kurdistan [Iraqi Kurdistan]. Karayilan pointed out that Turkey had been trying to follow a new Kurdish policy over the past year and said that politics in South Kurdistan had developed on this basis. Karayilan said the following concerning the latest situation in the South: "There has been an atmosphere of peace in South Kurdistan in the last few months. The KDP [Kurdistan Democrat Party] and PUK [Patriotic Union of Kurdistan] are trying to overcome the problems between them. The PKK has such a relation with the two organizations. Thus, this situation is making the countries which are trying to keep Kurdistan under their power uncomfortable."

According to Karayilan, Turkey does not want to stand by and just watch this situation develop and is trying to work out plans to sabotage the process. Turkey is particularly targeting the PKK and KDP for this purpose. Karayilan said that therefore, the two organization must pull themselves together and bring the situation to a point where it could achieve a solution. Karayilan said that the KDP's stance in this situation was significant and that they would approach the KDP in accordance. "We do not want to take an opportunist approach during a period in which the state is in crisis. But if they come after us, the fault is no longer ours," Karayilan said, adding that they had made every type of sacrifice so that Turkey could solve its problems.

5. - AFP - "EU asks Turkey to put a an end to prison hunger strike":

ISTANBUL

A senior EU official on Monday urged Turkey, which is seeking to join the European Union, to take steps to end a hunger strike in its prisons that has so far claimed the lives of 20 people. EU Enlargement Commissioner Guenter Verheugen also called on Ankara to improve Kurdish minority rights and lift capital punishment.

"The worries and the horror of the people in the European Union -- and in Turkey -- over the months-long hunger strike in Turkish prison are growing," Verheugen said in a written message to a conference on Turkey-EU relations here.

"An urgent solution is needed to prevent the deaths of more people," he added.

The strike, initiated last October by far-left inmates against a controversial jail reform, has so far claimed the lives of 20 people -- 16 prisoners and four relatives who starved to death in solidarity with the inmates. The strikers say the single and three-man cells in the new jails, which replaced dormitories for up to 60 people, make them more vulnerable to maltreatment.
In a bid to end the strike, the government submitted to parliament last week a draft bill to ease isolation among convicts of terrorism, who under present law are banned from socializing in recreational areas.

But the move failed to end the protest. Civic groups backing the inmates blasted the draft as insufficient. Verheugen also called on Ankara to take more decisive action for the improvement of Kurdish rights and to lift the death penalty -- key reforms required from Turkey in order to catch up with EU norms. "I cannot stop myself from saying that more steps will be needed regarding the abolition of the death penalty and the substantial improvement of cultural rights for all citizens," the commissioner said in his message. Verheugen was referring to a Turkish calendar of accession reforms, announced in March, which remained vague on the said two issues. The program, which fell short of EU demands, did not make commitments on liberalizing media broadcasts and education in Kurdish. It only said that citizens can freely use different languages in their daily lives if this does not aim at separatist ends.

On capital punishment, the document said it was up to parliament to decide under what conditions to lift the death penalty, which has not been implemented since 1984 under a de facto moratorium. With its troubled human rights record and crisis-hit economy, Turkey is lagging behind the other 12 aspirants for EU membership.

6. - Turkish Daily News - "The death fast on the 193rd day":

Deaths 20, disabled 12

IZMIR

While the death fast passes the 193rd day, the number of people who have lost their lives is 20 on Monday. The Justice Ministry's change in Article 16 of the Anti-Terrorism Law, which allows inmates in F-type prisons to meet for education, sport, work, social and cultural activities, does not stop the fasters, whose poor health conditions brought them onto the door of death
While doctors expect additional deaths any moment because of the death fast, many people have also been disabled because of their worsening health conditions. According to the Ozgur Association for Solidarity for Inmates' Family (TAYAD), 12 inmates are disabled because of forced medical intervention. The Ozgur TAYAD spokesman said that Semra Askeri, Hatice Yazgan, Eylem Yesilbas, Serkan Aydogan, Baris Kaya, Atilcan Soday, Menmet Zincir, Yasar Demircan, Ramazan Cicek, Burhan Gardas, Mehmet Sahin and Sinan Gul are disabled, and most of the 12 inmates have lost their memory, some not remembering anything after 1987. According to doctors, in addition to more deaths, there will be an increase in the number of impaired inmates.

Meanwhile, TAYAD member Mehmet Ali Kaymaz, who has been on a death fast for more than 180 days, was hospitalized on Monday. Doctors said he is in serious condition. Izmir Chamber of Doctors Chairman Fatih Surenkok said that the inmates on the death fast were not impaired because of medical intervention: "None of the inmates on the death fast who are impaired were disabled because of forced medical intervention because doctors medically treated these inmates when they lost consciousness. The mental impairments are due to the lack of sugars, protein and vitamins. The number of disabled inmates increased after they quit taking vitamin B1, which was the most important element to keep them alive."

Stating that there was no precedent for such a long-termed death fast in Turkey, Surenkok said that this was the first time such a long death fast occurred in the world. He added, "The death fasts have continued so long because they have taken sugared and salted water and vitamin B1. When they quit taking sugared and salted water and vitamin B1 the deaths and disabilities started. If they had quit taking vitamins, deaths would have happened earlier."

Within the last two months of the death fast, 17 inmates and three TAYAD members whose relatives have been on the death fast in prison lost their lives. Erol Evcil died after fasting for 166 days; Celal Alpay died after fasting for 175 days; Abdullah Bozdag died after fasting for 175 days; Tuncay Gunel died after fasting for 115 days; Fatma Ersoy died after fasting for 171 days; Nergiz Gulmez died after fasting for 114 days; Cengiz Soydas died after fasting for 150 days; Adil Kaplan died after fasting for 170 days; Bulent Coban died after fasting for 170 days; the sister of a leftist prison inmate, Gulsuman Donmez, died after fasting for 147 days; Fatma Ersoy died after fasting for 185 days; Sedat Gursel Akmaz died after fasting for 173 days, Endercan Yildiz died after fasting for 171 days; Murat Coban died after fasting for 167 days; Sibel Surucu died after fasting for 124 days; Hatice Yurekli died after fasting for 185 days; Senay Hanoglu died after fasting for 160 days; Sedat Karakurt died after fasting for 177 days; Erdogan Guler died after fasting for 147 days and the latest, Fatma Hulya Tumgan, died after fasting for 187 days.

The 18 inmates on the death fast have been hospitalized because of their worsening health condition. Seven inmates are in Izmir Ataturk Hospital, five inmates are in Haseki Hospital, two inmates are in Bayrampasa hospital and four inmates are in Sisli Etfal Hospital.