3 April 2002

1. - Ozgur Politika - "Turkish “democracy” in action: The adventures of a minibus driver who played a Kurdish music cassette":

Sulhattin Onen, a minibus driver from Cinar, because he played Kurdish music for his passengers, was sentenced, first for “separatist propaganda”, and then afterwards for “aiding and abetting the PKK”.

MHA/AMED / 1 April

What has befallen a minibus driver from the Cinar district of Amed [Diyarbakir] province merely because he played Kurdish music is sufficient to take one’s breath away. Sulhattin Onen was a minibus driver in Amed. When he took a non-commissioned officer as a passenger, his last stop turned out to be the police station. He was then convicted of “separatist propaganda” for having “played a Kurdish cassette numerous times” during the 20-minute trip. Then, when the Supreme Court of Appeals found his sentence to be insufficient, a trial against Onen on “aiding and abetting the PKK [Kurdistan Workers Party] was initiated.

On 11 September 1999, minibus driver Sulhattin Onen was transporting passengers from Amed to Cinar, just as he did every other day. He put a newly-purchased music cassette, Soze Feleke (“The Words of Heaven”), by local artists Welat and Zozan, into his cassette player. By the time they arrived at Cinar, only one passenger was left in the minibus. He asked to be dropped off in front of the Security Directorate. But the passenger in question was non-commissioned officer Omer Sener, and he didn’t just get out of the minibus. He also forced the driver to get out, and he took him into the police station. Non-commissioned officer Sener said that the driver had “forced the passengers to listen numerous times to the Kurdish cassette.” The police immediately took Sulhattin Onen into custody and began to interrogate him. Two days later, they took him before the prosecutor, after which he was released. And the prosecutor, having the cassette played, opened a case against the driver for “separatist propaganda by means of a publication”.

With this, Onen became a marked man, and began to be stopped at every control point by the police and the gendarmes; his passengers were searched diligently and held up for hours. The harassment got so bad that, in the end, no one would get into minibus. He lost money day by day, and in the end he gave in and sold the minibus. Now he is unemployed.
“Separatist propaganda”

Sulhattin Onen’s trial took a year. The Diyarbakir State Security Court Number Two had the cassette translated into Turkish and determined that the word “Kurdistan” was cited repeatedly in it. The driver offered the defense that he had bought the cassette as a cassette of wedding party music, and that due to having had to occupy himself with his passengers and collect money from them, he had not paid attention to the words.

The court also heard testimony from the non-commissioned officer. Sergeant Omer Sener, told how, on the trip of 33 kilometers, driver Sulhattin Onen had made the passengers listen “numerous times” to the 60-minute cassette.

The State Security Court judges Ethem Ucan, Ali Akyan, and Mustafa Kutu ruled that Sulhattin Onen, while driving his passengers in his minibus to the Cinar district of Amed, “by playing a cassette which contained Kurdish words against the indivisible unity of the state, had caused his passengers to listen to it a number of times during the trip, and thus had engaged in the crime of propaganda against the indivisible unity of the state.”

The State Security Court sentenced the driver, in accord with article 8/1 of the Law on Counter-Terrorism, to one year’s imprisonment and a monetary fine of 800 million Turkish liras. It later reduced the sentence to 10 months’ imprisonment and then suspended this, saying that “He has gotten a good lesson.” Even so, the court still collected 26 million and 25 thousand liras from the driver in court costs.

Prosecutor finds sentence too light

Following this ruling, the driver’s attorney, Sedat Yurtdas, filed an appeal. After reviewing the case file, the Ninth Criminal Court of the Supreme Court of Appeals, ruled that not the crime of “separatist propaganda”, but rather that of “aiding and abetting the PKK” had in fact been committed, and thus overturned the State Security Court’s decision. The file was sent back to the Diyarbakir State Security Court Number Two, and this time a case was opened against the driver in which a prison sentence of from 4 1/2 to 7 1/2 years was sought. Sulhattin Onen’s most recent court appearance before the Diyarbakir State Security Court was on 26 March 2002. This time, because he had played the tape cassette, he was being tried on the charge of “aiding and abetting the PKK”.

His attorney Sedat Yurtdas explained to the court that the cassette in question, produced by the Aydin Cassette Company, had a state-issue seal on it, and was sold freely on the market. He filed a motion for an investigation as to whether or not this cassette has ever been banned or whether any other court case has transpired in its regard. Attorney Yurtdas also presented to the court a copy of the cassette Soze Feleke that he himself had purchased from a cassette dealer in Diyarbakir. He also noted that the cassette bore an official seal with the number “KB KU CGK KIE 400583”. Calling for the acquittal of his client, Attorney Yurtdas stated that it would be entirely unjust to punish his client merely because he had played a Kurdish cassette. Prosecutor Ahmet Guven, however, also spoke at the hearing and, presenting a view in parallel with the decision of the Supreme Court of Appeals, charged that, by playing the cassette, the driver had “aided and abetted the PKK”.

The trial has been adjourned until 9 April 2002, when driver Sulhattin Onen and his attorney, Sedat Yurtdas, will offer their defense.

Source: Translated by Kurdish Media from Turkish; originally published in “Ozgur Politika” daily newspaper, 1 April 2002.

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2. - Turkish Daily News - "What's this, given the development of democracy in Turkey so far?":

April 3

American journalist and writer Jonathan C. Randal as Noam Chomsky did previously will appear at the trial of Abdullah Keskin, the publisher of his book, 'After Such Knowledge, What Forgiveness? - My Encounters with Kurdistan'

David Fromkin: Randal has a very interesting story to tell and no one has told it better than he

In his own words, Jonathan C. Randal decided 'to offer a solution for this forgotten region of the Middle East and to organize a 19th century-style march to a nonexistent country' with the mission of a journalist

GUL DEMIR

The fashion in recent days, especially where sensitive topics are concerned, is to confiscate the translations of books published abroad. When we look at the cases opened against the publishing houses of confiscated books we see that books written by world-renowned writers are forbidden in Turkey. The most recent example of this was American professor Noam Chomsky. Chomsky came to Turkey from America in order to attend the trial of the publisher of a book in which an article of his appeared. Even as the court closed the case finding the publisher not guilty, a case was opened against, not a professor, but a well-liked, world-famous journalist in America, Jonathan C. Randal. His book was being confiscated and his publisher, Abdullah Keskin, accused. So Randal has come to Istanbul in order to follow the legal case.

When books are confiscated one after the other like this, it increases the number of famous writers coming to Turkey. We don't know whether to be pleased or distressed at this. After the efforts to develop democracy this far, doing things that cause us to say, "What's this?", should never happen to us. Moreover in Turkey, which is a candidate to become a full member of the European Union, which is preparing national reports and taking big strides on the road to democratization, not abandoning book banning and opening cases over publishers in courts are the reason for our having a negative image on the world's agenda.

Jonathan C. Randal in Istanbul

Jonathan C. Randal is a journalist and is known for his tragic news on civil wars, conflicts and tumults in Third World Countries. His book "After Such Knowledge, What Forgiveness? - My Encounters With Kurdistan," was published in the United States in 1997. Randal's book about the Kurdish problem, a very sensitive matter for Turkey, was also published in Britain and Italy. Additionally, it was translated into the Arabic, Persian and Kurdish languages, but it has not caused any problems in any countries other than Turkey.

The application to the Istanbul State Security Court (DGM) to ban the book, which was published by Avesta Publishing House, was evaluated by DGM No.5. The court ruled, "The book mentions the existence of a different Kurdish nation and state of Kurdistan in the Turkish Republic and makes propaganda against the integrity of the country and the nation by means of publication." It was decided to ban the book and to try publisher Abdullah Keskin in the Istanbul DGM.

On 'After Such Knowledge What Forgiveness-My Encounters With Kurdistan'

Randal developed an interest in the Kurds and their problems when he realized that Kurds, of whom he said, "I've spent 10 years with them," were involved with events in Middle Eastern countries such as Iraq, Iran and Syria, where he had visited as a journalist. It is clear that he was affected by what he saw and experienced. In his own words, Randal decided "... to offer a solution for this forgotten region of the Middle East and to organize a 19th century-style march to this nonexistent country," with the mission of a journalist.

Randal takes up many topics that include relations between Celal Talabani and Barzani and range from Barzani's sad days in America to Ocalan's "Imrali Period," from Hendren's war to Kurdish-Israeli relations, from the "Kurdish solution" to the Kurdish problem for America and other Western powers. He brings readers the stories of politics in the Middle East, he knows Kurdish history well and as a journalist he enjoys easy communications with Kurdish leaders, diplomats, intelligence agencies, fighters and journalists. David Fromkin says of his book: "A very interesting book including colorful details and individual anecdotes. Kurds, who are warriors, always lost what they gained in the area of war, but this never daunted them. Randal has a very interesting story to tell and no one has told it better than he."

We understand in the book that during the years when he had been in Turkey, he researched the beginning point of conflicts in the Southeast and he focused on Turkish history. He met leading figures in Turkish political circles to understand policies that he had faced during his historical research. Randal narrates the perspectives of politicians on the Kurdish problem in changing conditions, interspersing them with his own observations. Randal, seeking the reasons behind the immigrations of Kurds to metropolitan areas during events caused by conflicts, handles the political life in Turkey on the basis of the Kurdish problem. Of course he expresses his thoughts, but it is not easy to express thoughts in Turkey.

Randal was born in New York and graduated from Harvard College. He has worked for United Press, The New York Herald Tribune, Time and The New York Times and has been working for the Washington Post as a senior foreign reporter since 1969. He has worked on most of the serious problems of our time: The Congo in the 1960s, Algeria, Vietnam, Poland, Eritrea, the African Republic, Zaire, Iran when the shah was overthrown, civil war in Lebanon (It is not necessary to talk about Israel's occupation of Beirut.) and the Gulf War. He is also the writer of the book "Going All The Way: Christian Warlords, Israeli Adventurers, and the War in Lebanon" (1983). He lives in Paris when he not at the front line.

In the book, "After Such Knowledge, What Forgiveness? - My Encounters with Kurdistan," there are numerous battles, poisonous gas attacks and later migrations. We can understand the tragic and shocking meaning of politics and diplomacy in the Middle East, a fascinating adventure story of a war correspondent in the 1990s. As for the book's being confiscated, well perhaps we could make a statement now, but there's no way to think that future generations will be able to understand it very well.

It is necessary to consider the international effect of the court after such democratization in Turkey. Everyone knows that the Kurdish problem is very sensitive for Turkey, but this does not give the right to ban books and to send writers and publishers to prison. Perspectives on democracy develop by lifting bans. It is necessary to determine reasons behind problems in order to consider events from many perspectives. In this sense, Randal's book is a kind of document.

Joint statement of international organizations

Reaction has been coming from international organizations concerning the case opened against publisher Abdullah Keskin in the DGM. The World Press Freedom Committee, Interdependent Journalist Foundation, Reporters Without Frontiers, the Committee for the Protection of Journalists and the Committee of Journalists for Press Freedom have made their views known to the public in a joint statement. The latter notes that Randal is a journalist and the defendant, Abdullah Keskin, is his publisher and continues in summary:

"The book is a journalistic coverage of a newsworthy political topic, written by a career reporter and published solely for commercial and educational purposes."

"This court (DGM) has to pardon Keskin. Because these legal proceedings plainly violate Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)."

"The book at issue in this case simply details an American journalist's memoirs of his travels and encounters in south-eastern Turkey. It makes a number of observations concerning political and cultural tensions between the Turkish State and a segment of the Kurdish population, tensions which the Court (European Court of Human Rights) has recognized are at the center of contemporary Turkish political debate."

"It is the work of a private individual who published a mere 1,000 copies of a book, in a nation of more than 50 million citizens. This limited circulation cannot pose a credible threat to Turkey's national security or territorial integrity absent of other aggravating circumstances. Nothing in the context of the book's publication indicated that the book threatened to cause civil disorder or compromise Turkey's territorial integrity, and no such disorder has emerged as a result of it. Only when a government demonstrates a close causal nexus between a statement and potential resulting violence, will the (European) court withhold Article 10's protection.

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3. - Guardian - "Turkey unmoved by sacrifice of hunger strikers":

Two more left-wingers wait in a 'house of death' to join 49 others who have died in a protest at jail conditions. Jonny Dymond reports from Istanbul

ISTANBUL / by Jonny Dymond / Sunday March 31, 2002

In Gazi, a cheerless suburb of Istanbul, two young men are starving themselves to death. Here the streets really do have no names. Instead, numbers are painted in red on rough, unfinished concrete. Rubble and rubbish lie thick on the ground. In the damp grey of Istanbul's cold spring, it's a depressing place to visit, let alone to die in.

But nothing it seems will stop Deniz Bakir and Fikret Lule from going to their deaths; Deniz is 23 years old, he's already spent six years in jail. Today will be his seventy-sixth day on hunger strike. Fikret is 29 years old; he too has spent six years in jail and is now only a month short of a year without solid food. Both of them say they are unafraid of death.

They are members of a tiny left-wing group called the MLKP - the Marxist-Leninist Revolutionary Party. Eleven of their comrades have starved themselves to death; in all, 49 men and women have died in the world's longest and bitterest hunger strike. They were all, according to the Turkish government, terrorists.

The hunger strike sprang from the government's attempt to break up the communal dormitories in prisons that it said were breeding grounds for radicalisation - effectively schools of terror. It proposed moving political prisoners to new jails, called 'F-types', which would hold between one and three prisoners to a cell.

But the prisoners, along with Turkey's legal associations, would have nothing to do with the new jails; they thought the F-types were recipes for either brutalisation or for never-ending spells of solitary. In October 2000 the hunger strike started.

As men and women have died, their comrades have stepped in to fill their places; as they have been released from prison, they have recuperated and then rejoined the hunger strike in 'death houses' in Turkey's cities; as the government raided the death houses, they have spread out into smaller groups. They eat nothing but Vitamin B1 tablets, and drink sugar and salt solutions to stop themselves slipping into a coma.

In the flat in Gazi, sitting beneath the pictures of his dead comrades, Deniz speaks slowly and carefully. He has none of the vitality of a 23-year-old. But he is unwavering in his commitment to what he is doing. His family are worried, but he has been forced into the position he is in, he says. 'Despite our positive attitudes, the government is continuing the pressure, insisting on death'.

Fikret is in bad physical shape. He shuffles into the room; he can't sleep more than a couple of hours a night; his feet burn and have to be bathed in ice water. 'You feel great pain', he says, 'but you have a mission, a responsibility that overcomes your pain. There's a relaxation brought on by being aware of what you are doing.'

In another part of Istanbul there is a counterpart to the death house - a 'life house' where survivors are recuperating. Eight former hunger strikers sit around a table; their combined hunger strikes add up to just under four and a half years.

In the worst shape is Gulnaz Kurucay, a tiny, dark-haired 27-year-old woman; with high cheekbones and a wide smile, she would once have been beautiful. Now she shuffles into the room. She can barely walk unaided. Her youth has gone, drained by 140 days without food.

'I have no serious problems,' she says slowly. 'I may have some problems on my body, but we know that one has to pay a high price in revolutionary struggle. I have never regretted it. It's very good to have been part of such a struggle.'

Selcuk Uklu, a man who looks 40 but is in fact 25, explains how the conflict has come about. It is, he says, the result of the class struggle in Turkey. 'The reason that this clash has lasted so long has social grounds. The organisational level of Turkey's working class determines the nature of the conflict between the government and revolutionary prisoners.'

It sounds like the Marxist gobbledegook of another era; and if it weren't for the fact that these people have suffered terribly they might be dismissed as throwbacks from the Cold War. But after 18 months there is a terrible sense that the hunger strikes will never end.

The Turkish government, which ruthlessly repressed an insurrection by Kurdish paramilitaries in the 1980s and 1990s, ignoring protests from Europe and beyond, is not going to give in to the demands of tiny groups which operate without public or international support. And the prisoners themselves are locked into a mindset whereby withdrawal would be not only a defeat for their stated aims, but a betrayal of their comrades.

In his office at Cumhuriyet, Turkey's oldest newspaper, columnist Oral Calislar has been involved in negotiations between the government and the strikers since the beginning. He knows what he is talking about when it comes to prisons: the outspoken commentator has spent a total of seven years inside Turkey's jails.

His language is devoid of any talk of class struggle. 'Young people who make a demonstration in the street - they're arrested and called terrorists. Europe doesn't know how it is here. I understand the prisoners' objections to the F-types; they're worried about getting 15 years in solitary for just causing a small problem.'

Deniz Bakir remains defiant. 'We want a solution and this solution can only be humane. But we are determined to resist and die until our last friend dies. I don't want to die, but the current conditions do not give us any other alternative.'

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4. - Pravda - "Turkey accused America of assistance to terrorists":

Oleg Artyukov / 29 March

The guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers Party (or PKK, the title has been recently changed to the Party of national freedom), which are referred to as terrorists on the part of the Turkish government, fell back into the shadow. After their leader Abdullah Ocalan was arrested on February 16, 1999, there were massive actions of the Kurds all over Europe, who wanted their leader to be released. Several people even committed self-immolation acts.

The situation settled down after a certain period of time and PKK started going into the background. A lot of observers believe that this organization has stopped its existence. Their leader is in prison and it is so good that he has not been executed.

But as it turned out, PKK is still live and kicking, it is even ready to act something out again. After the news about the new title of the organization, the leaders of the Kurds claimed that they were still ready to struggle with Turkey. Moreover, they repeatedly demanded Ocalan should be released.

The Turkish special services informed several days after that one of the PKK leaders, Jemil Bayik carried $1.4 million in cash via the territory of northern Iraq, which was also populated by the Kurds, by the way. Bayik transferred this money to Iran, and Turkey asked the Iranian government to deliver that person. But the Turkish special services discovered other channels, which were used for backing up the Kurds guerrillas. According to their information, the American tobacco companies were maintaining the links with PKK, which was rendering its assistance to sell the smuggling cigarettes. Turkey believes that the USA was turning a blind eye on smuggling the tobacco production for the sake of its profit, and that is why it was helping terrorist organizations like PKK to prosper.

There is a share of truth in this assertion. However, if the USA really supports someone, then this is not the Kurdistan Workers Party, but their brethren in northern Iraq, which can act as a supporting force during the operation against Saddam Hussein’s regime. It is an open secret that the USA counts on the Iraqi Kurds. But there is another curious detail. There has been the longstanding rivalry between the organizations of the Turkish and Iraqi Kurds, which was gradually heated up by Washington. PKK, by the way, put the USA on the list of terrorist organizations, and the Iraqi Kurds leaders’ groups are not on that list. If the Turkish special services are right, then it happens so that Americans re-considered their relations with PKK for the sake their goals in Iraq; of course, this is hidden from the public eye. So, Ankara and Washington will have to explain a lot to each other. One may assume that the veiled report from the Turkish special services expressed the discontent of the Turkish government with the USA’s plans to strike a blow on Iraq. However, the army bases, from which the American aircraft are going to bomb Iraq, are located on Turkey’s territory. Therefore, Washington will have to say something back to Turkey’s claims. We wonder, what the White House will make up this time.

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5. - Kathimerini - "Turks say Greeks their worst enemy":

2 April

Greece is Turkey's worst enemy and the most likely source of a potential attack, say more than one-third of Turks interviewed by Istanbul's Bosphorus University in a study to determine Turkish public opinion on matters of foreign policy.

The study, whose results were made public yesterday, focused on Greek-Turkish relations and was conducted on a cross-section of 3,086 people from 20 Turkish prefectures. Of these respondents, more than a third - 34 percent - reckoned Greece was their country's worst enemy while the same proportion believed «Turkey has no friends,» and 37 percent opined Greece was more likely than any other nation to launch a military offensive against Turkey (although 47 percent believe there will be no attacks against Turkey in the near future).

The most Turk-friendly nations were deemed to be Azerbaijan and Japan, with Greece and Armenia considered the most hostile. The USA was deemed by a minority - 27 percent - as «the most favorably disposed» toward Turkey, with 7 percent citing Muslim countries. After Greece, Turkey faces its greatest threats from Syria, said 5 percent of respondents, followed by Russia, Iran and Iraq.

Over half - 51 percent - said the Cyprus problem was the biggest barrier to Greek-Turkish relations, although nearly as many - 49 percent - approved of diplomacy as the way to solve the two countries' differences. Questioned on Turkish-EU relations, the majority - 74 percent - said they would vote for Turkey's accession to the EU.

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6. - AP - "Iraq Invasion Scenarios Pondered":

WASHINGTON / 1 April

It would start with a fierce air bombardment. Next, special forces could fan out to create "no-movement" zones and then search for biological and chemical weapons. Predator remote-controlled planes would patrol for Scuds on the ground.

In the end, however, it would take a much more massive military commitment than in Afghanistan if the United States were to attack Iraq.

In all, analysts say, 100,000 or more American troops might be needed against Saddam Hussein, who could shield his elite Republican Guard troops by placing them among Baghdad's civilians — and who might retaliate with chemical attacks.

"It is a major, major decision," Sen. John Warner warned the Bush administration last week. If the government is contemplating full-scale military action against Iraq, "We've got to prepare the American people for what the consequences would be," said Warner, R-Va.

U.S. officials say they have not decided whether to attack Iraq. The administration accuses Saddam of developing weapons of mass destruction and sponsoring terrorists, and says it is considering options from diplomatic pressure to covert action to military strikes.

If Bush did decide on military action, he would have options ranging from isolated airstrikes to support for Iraqi rebels to a full-scale assault aimed at overthrowing Saddam.

"Anything short of a ground invasion would run a high risk of failure," said Philip Gordon of the Brookings Institution, who echoes many analysts in saying that if military action is taken, it must be decisive.

An attack generally would feature more special forces and more precision bombs than were used in the 1991 Gulf War.

Most analysts believe an attack would not come before the fall because the administration would give Saddam a chance to readmit U.N. weapons inspectors first. The United States also would need several months to build up troops in the region, as well as restock precision-guided munitions depleted during the Afghan fighting.

Iraq is much more robust militarily than the Taliban who ruled Afghanistan, although Iraq is weaker than before the 1991 war. It now has an estimated 2,000 tanks, several hundred aircraft, about 350,000 to 400,000 troops and a fairly sophisticated air defense system.

If an air campaign were to begin, Saddam might try to launch Scud missiles, perhaps with chemical or biological weapons on them, against Israel or U.S. troops, said retired Rear Adm. Stephen Baker of the Center for Defense Information in Washington.

The United States could use unmanned, armed Predator aircraft to try to search for and destroy Scud launchers and the missiles themselves before they are fired.

"Handling this threat will be one of the hardest, most challenging missions in Iraq," Baker said.

The United States also might try to insert special forces teams to create areas under U.S. control where the Iraqi army could not operate and where Americans could search for elusive biological, chemical and nuclear weapons sites.

Several carrier battle groups probably would be in the area — one or two in the Red Sea and two or three in the Persian Gulf — to launch airstrikes or perhaps serve as a base to insert special forces, Baker said.

The Air Force would want to operate bombers from bases in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Turkey and the British-controlled island of Diego Garcia — depending on who allowed that. Ground operations might be staged mostly from Kuwait.

Only cooperation from Kuwait is necessary to begin an invasion, but cooperation from Saudi Arabia would help immensely, said Kenneth Pollack, director of national security affairs for the Council on Foreign Relations.

U.S. officials say they are taking steps, including moving equipment to a base in Qatar, to ensure they could spearhead a war in the Gulf, even if Saudi Arabia refused to allow U.S. operations on its soil.

U.S. forces have been increased in recent months in Kuwait — from 5,500 to about 10,500 — but only to warn Iraq not to make threats against its neighbors, defense officials say.

The number of U.S. military personnel in the Gulf region and Central Asia — from Saudi Arabia to Pakistan — has increased from fewer than 25,000 to nearly 80,000, since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The U.S. military also might send special forces teams to work with Kurds or with Iraqi dissident groups in the north, where Saddam's army cannot operate because of a no-fly zone.

One hope is that once U.S. military action began, those groups would rebel. If Saddam seemed in jeopardy, regular army soldiers and officers might rebel. It is unclear how loyal the Republican Guard would prove.

Another problem would loom if Saddam tried to place the Republican Guard in Baghdad. The United States would have to decide whether to attack at the risk of killing Iraqi civilians.

And, there is always the wild card that Saddam might launch other attacks with weapons of mass destruction if he felt personally threatened.

In the end, many analysts believe America would succeed if it launched a full-scale invasion, although it probably would mean casualties.

But then, the tough job of stabilizing Iraq would begin — an effort that could mean placing tens of thousands of U.S. military troops in Iraq for years to come as America and others scramble to find a stable leader.

"Removing Saddam will be opening a Pandora's box, and there might not be any easy way to close it back up," Gordon said.