7 April 2004

1. "Kurdish group complains as PKK offshoot makes EU terror list", a Kurdish organisation complained Tuesday that the European Union had hurt democracy and human rights by placing the Kurdistan People’s Congress (KONGRA-GEL) on its list of terrorist groups.

2. "European court finds Turkey guilty of violating Kurd activist’s rights", Turkey must pay Kurdish activist Mehdi Zana 7,500 euros (9,000 dollars) in damages for violating his freedom of expression, the European Court of Human rights ruled Thursday.

3. "European court finds Turkey guilty of violating Kurd activist’s rights", Turkey must pay Kurdish activist Mehdi Zana 7,500 euros (9,000 dollars) in damages for violating his freedom of expression, the European Court of Human rights ruled Thursday.

4. "Greek half leery of U.N.'s unity plan", the word has historic significance to all Greeks. It was used in the shortest diplomatic cable in history by the Greek government in October 1940 in answer to an Italian capitulation ultimatum. Thus Greece entered World War II.

5. "Cyprus can’t ignore EU assessment of Turkey", in November 2004, the European Commission, in its regular annual report, will provide an assessment of Turkey’s progress as a candidate country for accession to the European Union. The Commission’s reports, like those it had produced for the 10 acceding countries in preceding years, are detailed evaluations of every aspect of a country’s political and legal culture and of its administrative capacity to absorb and implement the Union’s body of law, the acquis communautaire.

6. "Forgetting the Lessons of the Past", why not just bag Bush's goal of creating one grand democratic Iraq and create instead three autonomous entities: Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish? Because, even a whiff of a notion of a solution that includes an independent Kurdistan will cause America's NATO ally, Turkey, to go ballistic.

1. - AFP - "Kurdish group complains as PKK offshoot makes EU terror list":

BERLIN / 6 April 2004

A Kurdish organisation complained Tuesday that the European Union had hurt democracy and human rights by placing the Kurdistan People’s Congress (KONGRA-GEL) on its list of terrorist groups.

"The EU decision to place KONGRA-GEL on the list of terrorist organisations is a blow against democracy and human rights, as well as defamation of the Kurdish people," the Kurdistan National Congress said in a statement in Berlin.

The EU added KONGRA-GEL to a revised version of its terror list agreed last Friday, noting that it was a synonym for Turkey’s outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

"The People’s Congress is civil, democratic and engaged in the search for a peaceful solution to the Kurdish issue" in Turkey, the statement said.

It said the EU had made the move to placate Turkey over the reunification of the island of Cyprus, which is scheduled to join the bloc on May 1.

The US state department has also ruled that KONGRA-GEL, which was founded last November, is an offshoot of the PKK.

2. - Amnesty International - "Amnesty International calls on Syria to end repressive measures against Kurds":

7 April 2004

Amnesty International today called on the Syrian authorities to establish an independent judicial enquiry into the recent clashes between Kurdish protesters and security forces and to urgently review the cases of hundreds of Syrian Kurds who have been detained after mass arrests across the country in March.

"Unless they are to be charged with recognisably criminal offences and brought to trial without undue delay, they should be released immediately," said the organisation today.

Amnesty International repeated its appeal, of 16 March, to the authorities to make known the whereabouts of hundreds of those people detained. As far as the organisation is aware, almost all of the people detained are being held incommunicado without charge and at unknown locations. A number of children are also detained: Mas’oud Ja’far, 16 years old, from al-Qahtaniya, is one of those reportedly still held.

"The incommunicado detention at unknown locations of many hundreds of Syrian Kurds is of serious concern, not least as it puts detainees at greater risk of torture or ill-treatment," added Amnesty International. Amnesty International has already received descriptions of torture of named individuals, including children. Seventeen year-old Qane’e Muhammad Ramadan was reportedly tortured with electric shocks while held for nine days.

The human rights organisation also called for the Syrian government to establish an independent judicial enquiry to investigate how friction at a football match escalated into the killings of tens of people, and a wave of protests, riots and arrests across much of the north of the country. Amnesty International believes that only an adequately resourced public, independent and impartial judicial enquiry can reveal the full truth.

"For justice to be done and to be seen to be done, the truth must be uncovered and the suspected perpetrators, whether from the security forces or the protestors, of serious crimes and human rights violations should be brought to justice. Such an enquiry should include investigation of the root causes of grievances, and propose recommendations to alleviate them, so as to prevent similar occurrences happening in the future," the organisation said.

The organization is also concerned about the expulsion of at least 24 Kurdish students who have been expelled from their universities and dormitories, including a number expelled from Damascus University on 18 March, reportedly for participating in peaceful protests. Amnesty International has received reports suggesting a pattern of increasing persecution of Kurdish people. Syrian Kurds are reportedly being arrested or attacked solely on the basis of their ethnicity or for speaking Kurdish. Reportedly, a Kurdish army recruit named Khayri Jendu Bin Barjas died of his injuries in hospital, around 23 March, after being beaten by soldiers reportedly for having spoken Kurdish to a colleague.

BACKGROUND

On 12 March clashes broke out between Arab and Kurdish fans at a football stadium in Qamishli, in north-eastern Syria. Syrian security forces responded by firing shots into the crowd resulting in the deaths of at least 20 people and dozens of injuries. Police attacked Syrian Kurdish mourners the next day resulting in two days of rioting by Syrian Kurds in several towns in the mainly Kurdish north-eastern area of Syria. In ’Amouda around 13 March, the head of the town’s police station was reportedly beaten up by Kurdish protesters. He later died of his injuries. Hundreds of individuals, mostly Syrian Kurds, including children, remain in detention. Most of these are being held in incommunicado detention and thereby are at risk of torture or ill-treatment.

An estimated 1.5 million Kurds live in Syria mostly in the Jazira area in the North East of Syria. Today, at least 150,000 Kurds in Syria are denied Syrian nationality and civil rights.

Torture and ill-treatment is routinely inflicted on political detainees, including Kurdish activists, while they are held incommunicado in Syrian prisons and detention centres. Eight Syrian Kurds are being held in solitary confinement in cruel and inhumane conditions in the political wing of ’Adra Prison, near the capital Damascus. Their detention followed their participation in a 25 June 2003 peaceful demonstration outside the UNICEF headquarters in Damascus, calling for civil and political rights for the Syrian Kurdish population, including the right of Syrian Kurdish children to be taught in the Kurdish language.

There has been previous violent confrontation between the Syrian authorities and Syrian Kurds. In March 1986, during the Festival of Newruz, clashes between both sides resulted in several deaths and injuries. In October 1992 Kurds marked the 30th anniversary of the census which deprived many Kurds of their Syrian nationality and basic civil rights. In response Syrian security forces carried out mass arrests. In 1995 the Syrian authorities banned the traditional Newruz celebrations and dozens of Kurds were arrested.

3. - AFP - "European court finds Turkey guilty of violating Kurd activist’s rights":

STRASBOURG / 6 April 2004

Turkey must pay Kurdish activist Mehdi Zana 7,500 euros (9,000 dollars) in damages for violating his freedom of expression, the European Court of Human rights ruled Thursday.

Zana was jailed by a court in Ankara in 1994 for disseminating "separatist propoganda" and for statements he had made to the European Parliament in 1992.

At the time, Zana told the parliament about his fight for Kurdish rights in Turkey, and condemned what he called the violent actions of Turkish authorities in the south-west of the country.

The sentence has now been ruled as an "infringement of his right to freedom of expression."

The European Court also awarded him 2,500 euros for his legal expenses.

The 63-year-old is the husband of Leyla Zana, who was a member of parliament of the now-defunked pro-Kurdish Democracy Party (DEP), accused in 1994 of supporting the Kurdish rebellion and sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Winner of the European Parliament’s 1995 Sakharov prize, Zana has been in jail in Turkey for the past ten years.

She is now awaiting a verdict on her retrial, which has been delayed until April 21.

4. - The Washington Times - "Greek half leery of U.N.'s unity plan":

NICOSIA / 6 April 2004 / by Andrew Borowiec

T-shirts with large letters "OXI" -- "no" in Greek -- are being snapped up in shops across the Greek-speaking area of Cyprus.

The word has historic significance to all Greeks. It was used in the shortest diplomatic cable in history by the Greek government in October 1940 in answer to an Italian capitulation ultimatum. Thus Greece entered World War II.

In Cyprus this month, OXI (pronounced okhi) means refusal of a United Nations blueprint on how to unite this divided East Mediterranean island in a referendum on April 24.

Amid the clamor to reject the proposal, Greek-Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos will address the island tonight to give his government's official view.

According to opinion polls, more than 70 percent of Greek-Cypriots regard the U.N. plan as unfair to their side, and favoring the Turkish-Cypriots who control the northern 37 percent of Cyprus with the backing of a 35,000-strong Turkish military garrison.

The mood on the Turkish side of the barricades appears to tilt in favor of "yes" although Rauf Denktash, the 80-year-old president of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, has called for a rejection. Many Turkish-Cypriots see the plan as a key to membership in the European Union, which Cyprus will join on May 1.

Most Greek-Cypriots consider the referendum as tantamount to a U.N. ultimatum after politicians from both communities refused to accept the U.N. compromise formula at a nine-day conference in the Swiss mountain retreat of Burgenstock.

The latest, somewhat amended, U.N. plan calls for a bizonal confederation with a rotating presidency, reductions of Turkish and Greek military forces, territorial concessions by the Turkish-Cypriot side and only a limited return of Greek-Cypriot refugees to their homes in the north of the island, now inhabited by to Turks.

A sampling of Greek-Cypriot views shows considerable bitterness.

"We asked for crumbs and we got crumbs, the Turks asked for apples and got apples," said Stathis Efstathiou, an orthodontist.

"The Turks invaded us in 1974 and now the U.N. wants us to pay them for it," said Matheos Mavros, a driver, referring to proposed Greek-Cypriot subsidies to raise the standard of living of the Turkish zone.

Bishops of the influential Orthodox Church, the island's biggest land owner, have thundered against "the satanic plan," and "treachery." Some leaders of communist Progressive Party of the Working People, the largest party, have spoken of "national suicide."

U.S. and European Union officials have called for acceptance, considering the U.N. plan -- pushed by Secretary-General Kofi Annan -- as a step forward after 30 years of fruitless negotiations. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell urged the Greek-Cypriots to seize "this historic opportunity."

In Turkey, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said if the Greek-Cypriots reject the plan, Turkey would ask for international recognition of the Turkish-Cypriot entity, row recognized only by Ankara.

5. - Cyprus Mail - "Cyprus can’t ignore EU assessment of Turkey":

7 April 2004 / by Nicholas Karides*

In November 2004, the European Commission, in its regular annual report, will provide an assessment of Turkey’s progress as a candidate country for accession to the European Union. The Commission’s reports, like those it had produced for the 10 acceding countries in preceding years, are detailed evaluations of every aspect of a country’s political and legal culture and of its administrative capacity to absorb and implement the Union’s body of law, the acquis communautaire.

The objectivity and thoroughness of Progress Reports is undisputed. It will determine whether the European Commission, as the guardian of the Union’s treaties, shall recommend to the European Council of 25 Member States in December the opening of accession negotiations with Turkey.

But one Member State, Cyprus, will have already made up its mind, regardless of the Commission’s conclusions. Article 1 paragraph 5 of the United Nations Comprehensive Plan for a Cyprus settlement, which will come into force on April 25 if the two communities vote it in, obliges Cyprus as an EU Member State to support the accession of Turkey to the Union. This raises the question of why Cyprus should lock itself into supporting the accession of a candidate country before the Union’s institutions and the Member States themselves decide in favour.

It also raises the point whether Cyprus would continue to insist in favour of Turkey’s accession if the Commission or the other Member States decided against that prospect and, if so, whether Turkey would exploit Cyprus’ predicament to serve its purposes.

The other Member States of the EU should therefore pay attention. Not that Cyprus’ vote is defining. In fact under ‘normal circumstances’ Cyprus would never contemplate going against the collective will of the Member States on this. President Tassos Papadopoulos has gone public on this.

But this new and rather anomalous state of affairs is important because through Cyprus and the Annan Plan, the United States, with the assistance of the United Kingdom, is gradually pushing Turkey’s membership door open.

Germany, France and Spain are certainly wary. If other Member States are not interested – at least at this juncture – Greek Cypriots as EU citizens are obliged to ask why their country should be forced to support Turkey’s accession before they get real evidence that Turkey is able to abide by and implement the Copenhagen criteria on democracy, rule of law and human rights, principles upon which the EU is founded.

More selfishly, Greek Cypriots could go as far as asking why their country should be obliged to enter into an agreement with an as yet unqualified candidate country for the purposes of the Annan plan. The plan sustains Turkey’s, the UK’s and Greece’s rights over their country, entitling all three to keep troops on the island indefinitely at a time when Cypriots had hoped accession and a solution would have rid them of antiquated Treaties of Guarantee. One could argue that the UK and Greece are Member States and their troops are EU contingents in the context of the developing European Security and Defence Policy. If not welcome, they are at worst acceptable.

The bottom line, however, is that Cypriots should be given the chance to assess the Commission’s Regular Report on Turkey. They should wait also for the deliberations of their EU partners to whom they have looked up for guidance and support and with whose principles and legal order they have painfully harmonised, before they make their own assessment. In fact, it is crucial for Cypriots to verify whether Turkey will be able in the end to gain membership and how fast, given that many of the UN plan’s provisions containing transitional periods are linked to the prospect of Turkey’s eventual membership.

After having diligently followed the Commission’s findings in five consecutive Regular Reports relating to their own accession, Cypriots have too much respect for the Commission’s work to ignore its opinion and not wait for its confirmation.

In the spirit of consensus-building that European partners have always told Cypriots would be the name of the game when they join the EU, a potential refusal by the Greek Cypriots to endorse the UN Plan in the forthcoming referendum should not only be seen as an attempt to safeguard their own independence and their right to determine their our own political positions but should be seen as safeguarding the European Union’s and its institutions’ own credibility.

* Nicholas Karides is director of Ampersand Communications, EU public affairs and communication consultants

6 . - Capitol Hill Blue - "Forgetting the Lessons of the Past":

7 April 2004 / By Martin Schram

The Balkanization of Iraq is happening right before our eyes on the nonstop TV news.

It is painful to see -- in part because of the very deja vu factor that made it possible to foresee.

America's once-grand notion of democratizing a grateful Iraq has degenerated into news pictures of blood and carnage that spill out of the Great News Funnel and into our living rooms day and night. As we view the horror that Iraq's warring factions are inflicting -- upon each other, upon U.S. soldiers and civilian contractors -- we can only hope that what we are seeing is just temporary. A blip, not a harbinger.

But then we remember the lesson of the Balkans. Yugoslavia was never one united nation, but three bitterly divided peoples who were pressed into one by the iron grip of a strongman, Marshal Tito. When Tito was gone, Yugoslavia came unglued. The Balkan whole could never again be the sum of its parts -- Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia. The Balkan solution was to make them three independent nations.

Like Yugoslavia, Iraq consists of three distinct and fractious peoples who were pressed into one by the brutal grip of a dictator, Saddam Hussein. In the south, the Shiites are fundamentalist Muslims who are Iraq's overwhelming majority. They were brutally oppressed and slaughtered into submission by Saddam's regime. They favor a theocratic government.

In the central triangle, the Sunnis, also Muslims, are a distinct minority. They favor sectarian rule but cannot countenance a government run by majority (translation: Shiite) rule.

In the north, the Kurds, who were horrendously gassed and slaughtered by Saddam's regime, have good reason to distrust the Sunnis and a Shiite-dominated Islamic fundamentalist regime.

If the democratization of Iraq turned out to be anything approaching one person, one vote, the Shiites would dominate Iraq -- which is unacceptable to the Sunnis and the Kurds. If Shiite radicals create a militant Islamic fundamentalist government, that would be unacceptable to the United States. So, President Bush's team worked out a complex Iraqi constitution that provides for a representational sharing of power. The Shiite Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani reluctantly agreed; but others insist they will push for dominant power once the United States hands over sovereignty to Iraqis on June 30.

Strangely, one unifying force has emerged that seems to bond radical Shiites and Sunnis who would otherwise be at each other's throats. Unfortunately, it is their hatred and mistrust of the United States, especially Bush, that is uniting them.

One day, Sunni radicals in Fallujah slaughter four U.S. civilian contractors -- and thousands cheer as these radicals mutilate the corpses of the men who were rebuilding their nation for them. The next day, Shiite Muslim radicals, led by a renegade ayatollah, kill U.S. soldiers and denounce the nation that liberated them from their ruthless oppressor.

So some might ask: Why can't we simply adopt in Baghdad the solution that worked in the Balkans? Why not just bag Bush's goal of creating one grand democratic Iraq and create instead three autonomous entities: Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish? Because, even a whiff of a notion of a solution that includes an independent Kurdistan will cause America's NATO ally, Turkey, to go ballistic.

Turkey has a sizable Kurdish population just over the border from the Kurdish sector of Iraq. Turkey's government fears that an independent Kurdistan will ignite a new push for autonomy among Turkey's Kurdish population. Bush has given his assurances to the Turks that Iraq's Kurds will remain Iraqi. Somehow.

Meanwhile, Bush may go down as a great unifier after all. For he has also forged a new bipartisan spirit in, of all places, Washington. Democrats and Republicans are increasingly uniting in their concern that the administration is entrapping itself between Iraq and a hard place in its insistence that it will hand over sovereignty to some undefined, unformulated Iraqi authority June 30, even as casualties mount.

Two Senate wise men -- Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar, R-Ind., and ranking Democrat Joseph Biden of Delaware -- have teamed to work the TV news circuit, warning jointly that a U.S. rush to meet this artificial date set long ago by the president could be disastrous. A proper foundation must be laid before sovereignty occurs. After all, U.S. troops will be there for several years -- and the generals are saying they need many more.

At every news stop, Lugar and Biden are talking statesmanship, not partisanship. Unfortunately, Bush is ignoring their wise counsel.

The good news is that the president's advisers insist that their boss indeed has an Iraq strategy. The bad news is that, so far, it looks like a geopolitical rope-a-dope.