30
March 2004
2. "Election Defeat: the Kurds in the local elections", the local elections in Turkey, held yesterday, were a sweeping success for the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) which gained a total of 56 provinces out of the possible 81 . Many commentators expected the AKP victory but what they did not expect was the poor showing that DEHAP received, even with its multi-party coalition with SHP, ODP, EMEP, OTP, and SDP, commonly referred to as the Democratic Power Union.
3. "Turkey's Kurdish rebels face uncertainty", once championing an independent Turkish Kurdistan, the PKK now settles for cultural rights and local administration.
4. "Students raped in Turkish detention, examination delayed for 2.5 years", they were students in high schools, when they were taken under police custody and were subjected to rape.
5. "EU Offers Turkey Guarantee on Cyprus Exemptions, Sabah Reports", the European Union assured Turkey that an accord over the reunification of Cyprus will be exempted from EU laws, Sabah daily reported, without saying how it got the information.
6. "Cyprus Peace Plan Could Be the Last", U.N. chief Kofi Annan says both sides win, but Greek and Turkish Cypriots are less certain.
1. - Reuters - "Kurds pin hopes on Turkey's ruling party after poll":
DIYARBAKIR / 29 March 2004 / by Ayla Jean Yackley
Pro-Kurdish politicians have seen their local power-base halved in Turkey's municipal elections, losing out to a national ruling party that has expanded minority rights in its push for EU membership.
Turkey's centre-right Justice and Development Party (AKP), in power since 2002, won a strong mandate for its economic and political reforms in Sunday's local elections, taking some 45 percent of votes across the country and sidelining most rivals.
Pro-Kurdish parties have traditionally triumphed in the poor, conflict-stricken and mainly Kurdish southeast of the country, despite failing repeatedly to send lawmakers to parliament. But this time they too lost major ground to the AKP.
Turkey's main Kurdish party DEHAP had joined an alliance of left-wing parties in a bid to widen its base, but its candidates retained posts only in the regional capital Diyarbakir and three other cities, losing mayoral seats in five Kurdish centres.
"Our performance was below our expectations. This is partly because we failed to convey our message," DEHAP's Diyarbakir mayor-elect Osman Baydemir told Reuters. "We hope this does not result in the Kurdish issue being put on the back burner."
Around 12 million Kurds live in Turkey, a country of 70 million people. Most live in the southeast, which has only recently emerged from separatist fighting that claimed more than 30,000 lives in the 1980s and 1990s.
Official state policy long denied Kurds their separate identity. But reforms aimed at meeting the European Union's political standards have included lifting a ban on Kurdish language broadcasts and education and tougher penalties for torture, widespread during the conflict in the southeast.
While some of the reforms have yet to take root in daily life, many Kurds now see their destiny tied to the government's drive to begin membership talks with the EU, observers said.
"With its determination in the quest to join the EU, the AKP appeals to Kurds, who want to explore their fortunes in the EU," said Cengiz Candar, a commentator for CNN Turk television.
"Kurds believe basic freedoms might increase with the AKP."
CLOSURE CASE
An ongoing legal case to ban DEHAP for alleged links with Kurdish separatists may have undermined the party's performance, analysts added. Each of DEHAP's predecessors has been outlawed, leaving many Kurds feeling frustrated and disenfranchised.
"The voter does not want to waste his vote on a party that may disappear," said Bosphorus University's Kemal Kirisci.
And with relative peace restored, Kurds may no longer feel compelled to cast a "protest vote" at the ballot box, he said.
"As life normalises, people are more engaged. The message is: 'We want to stick with this country, things are moving in the right direction, we don't support extremist politics.'"
DEHAP's Baydemir said many feared the southeast would be punished if it failed to support the party in power.
"These people are starved for investment. There was pressure to vote for the AKP or risk falling further behind," he said.
Diyarbakir shopowner Adem Uluisik said nothing would come to the southeast without government support.
"We have been forgotten for years," he said.
"People took a deep breath and said: 'Our hearts are with DEHAP,
but our only hope is with the AKP.'" 
2. - Kurdish Media - "Election Defeat: the Kurds in the local elections":
29 March 2004 / by Mutlu Civiroglu
The local elections in Turkey, held yesterday, were a sweeping success for the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) which gained a total of 56 provinces out of the possible 81 . Many commentators expected the AKP victory but what they did not expect was the poor showing that DEHAP received, even with its multi-party coalition with SHP, ODP, EMEP, OTP, and SDP, commonly referred to as the Democratic Power Union. The results showed, however, that the “Power Union” was all but bereft of power. Let alone strengthening DEHAP’s power, it actually received less votes than it had in the previous elections held in2002 . In the latter election, DEHAP by itself received nearly 2 million votes, which equalled nearly6 .2% of the total votes.
In these elections, much attention was given by the DEHAP administration to the alliance between leftist Turkish parties and DEHAP under the banner of SHP. Many officials commented that they expected the alliance to win around 150 municipalities across Turkey. In the last local elections in1999 , HADEP had won 37 municipalities including the major cities of Diyarbakir, Wan, Batman, Hakkari, Siirt, Bingol, and Agri. This year not only has DEHAP failed to increase its votes by receiving a total4 .8% of the votes, or gain new cities, it has incredibly lost previously won cities like Wan, Bingol, Agri, and Siirt, which were the strongholds of DEHAP. In the previously mentioned cities, as well as the rest of Kurdish cities (excluding Mardin, which was gained by the Felicity Party (SP) due to a technicality which prevented AKP from entering) the governing party AKP achieved a victory. AKP’s victory is not only limited to the major cities but also includes the towns surrounding the cities. For example, even in Diyarbakir, AKP managed to win 3 municipalities in the country and one in the metropolitan city center. In Wan, DEHAP could not get a single municipality save a small hamlet whereas AKP not only obtained the city mayorship but also 8 out of the 11 towns. In Siirt, once again DEHAP lost the mayorship and could only obtain the municipality of Kurtalan, the majority going to AKP.
These elections one more time proved that Kurdish people do not support the policies of DEHAP. The Kurdish people showed a reaction to DEHAP headquarters’ decision of integrating their party platform with SHP and consequently, entering the elections under the banner of SHP. In the general elections of 2002 , DEHAP tried a similar unity with marginalized Turkish parties and faced a similar failure. One would have expected DEHAP administrators not to repeat the same policies and listen to their voters, however, this time the voters loudly demonstrated their disturbance. It is a message that will be hard to ignore by DEHAP officials. The message is clear: Kurds want DEHAP to own their Kurdish identity and give up the current policies of unifying with marginalized Turkish parties. The voters may also have shown a reaction against what they perceive as DEHAP’s policy of imposing its own candidates to cities and disregarding the wishes of the constituency.
This election taught important lessons to Kurdish people.
It is evident that the “Democratic Power Unity” has not served
the Kurds, since it appealed neither to Turkish nor Kurdish people.
First of all, SHP and the other parties do not have a voter base and
its program is not attractive enough to bring in new voters. Many Turkish
people continue to be suspicious of the Kurdish identity of DEHAP, despite
the vigorous denials of the DEHAP administration. On the other hand,
Kurdish people are very irritated by DEHAP’s eagerness to become
a party of Turkey when the Turkish state has made no changes in its
outlook towards the Kurdish problem. They expect DEHAP to identify itself
as a Kurdish party, for the Kurdish people and by the Kurdish people.
One would think that the time has come for DEHAP to strongly own its
Kurdish identity rather than pretending to be a Turkish party. As long
as the Kurdish question remains unaddressed by the Turkish state, the
Kurdish people will ask for a pro-Kurdish party that is vocal about
struggling for their democratic and cultural rights. The best thing
is that DEHAP headquarters should look for ways to make collaboration
with other Kurdish parties and individuals to strengthen the Kurdish
unity. If DEHAP administrators do not seriously question their policies,
they may face even a greater defeat in the next elections. The losers
will be both DEHAP and the Kurdish people.
3. - The Christian Science Monitor - "Turkey's Kurdish rebels face uncertainty":
Once championing an independent Turkish Kurdistan, the PKK now settles for cultural rights and local administration
QALAT DIZAH / 30 March 2004 / by Nicholas Birch
A photo of David Beckham hangs on the wall above the sink where Comrade Yado is doing the dishes. "Football's true gentleman," he says, shoveling lunch leftovers into a bin. "If you get a chance, tell him and his wife we'd love to have them to stay. We're all big fans."
It's an incongruous thought: A multimillionaire soccer player and a former pop star bedding down in the Qandil mountains that prop up the northern end of Iraq's border with Iran. But at the headquarters of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, incongruity is the name of the game.
Like Ankara, many governments see Comrade Yado and his friends as terrorists, responsible for a brutal war in Turkey which killed 35,000 people, mostly Turkish Kurds, between 1984 and 1999. Yet, for a sizable minority of Turkey's Kurds, and probably a larger proportion of Europe's Kurdish diaspora, they are champions of the people's rights.
The militants themselves, less than 5,000 according to their leaders, no longer seem entirely sure what they are. By 1990, they controlled vast expanses of southeast Turkey. Now, they are confined to a hundred-odd square miles of pasture and crag at their camp in Iraq. "Even our own countrymen don't accept us," complains one veteran, after hostile questioning at an Iraqi Kurdish roadblock near the camp.
"I have been fighting since I was 18, and will fight until I'm 80 if I have to," says 35-year-old camp commander Comrade Cudi. In fact, he hasn't seen action since 1999, when PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan called a unilateral cease-fire after his trial and solitary confinement on an island prison off Istanbul.
Mr. Ocalan's gesture was an attempt to persuade Turkey to allow the PKK into politics. Faced with Ankara's unyielding hostility, his successors have made further concessions. Where the slogan was once independence for Turkish Kurdistan, today's leaders ask only for cultural rights and a strengthened local administration.
"Iraqi federalism would suit us fine, but we have to be realistic," says Zubeyir Aydar, chairman of the PKK's second reincarnation in two years, the Kurdistan People's Congress, or Kongra-Gel.
"The PKK was an extreme-left wing, Turkish Kurdish military organization," says Mr. Aydar, a former Turkish MP who fled to Switzerland in 1994 to avoid imprisonment. "Ours is civilian run, and [we are] determined to find a democratic solution to the Kurdish problem throughout the region."
But it's difficult to say if the ideological about-face has rubbed off on the guerrillas. While many of the more educated display a penchant for dialectic, others, like Comrade Cudi, call themselves humanists.
In the school, several dozen men and women debate the merits of the French and British political systems. The wall behind them is covered with letters to "our beloved president," Abdullah Ocalan.
One party unconvinced by the transformation is Turkey, adamant that the US must root out the PKK before it relaxes its grip on Iraq this summer. That doesn't surprise Aydar. What did pain him was Washington's decision to brand Kongra-Gel a terrorist organization.
"I personally think we share a lot with the US," he says. "We supported its overthrow of Saddam [Hussein], and plans to spread democracy throughout the region. But if [the US] wants Turkey to play a central role in this transformation, [Turkey] needs to have solved its Kurdish problem."
In the camps scattered around the mountain, guerrillas whisper that Baghdad may offer them asylum if they lay down their arms. But they react with equanimity to widespread rumors that a US-led assault is due in May.
There could yet be an alternative to confrontation, though. Since late February, the Kurdish media have talked of a deepening split in the PKK high command, culminating in the expulsion of three veterans, one of them Osman Ocalan, Kongra-Gel deputy chairman and Abdullah's brother.
"[They] aimed to destroy our organization," Duran Kalkan, PKK's senior military commander, told the Kurdish Mesopotamia News Agency March 9.
Zubeyir Aydar is more moderate. "For a long time they had not been working efficiently," he says, "so we removed them from their functions." He laughs off talk of a power struggle between hawks and doves. Others do not.
"The party has reached a critical juncture," says one member. "Eighty percent of younger members want change speeded up. These resignations were a coup by older leaders unwilling to give up power and the leftist, anti-imperialist ideology they were brought up with."
"In a sense they have a point," the member adds.
"Without ideology the organization will fold, and yet the time
has come to change it. It is quite possible little will be left of the
PKK in six months' time."
4. - HUMAN RIGHTS ASSOCIATION (IHD) - "Students raped in Turkish detention, examination delayed for 2.5 years":
30 March 2004
They were students in high schools, when they were taken under police
custody and were subjected to rape.
National Institute of Forensic Medicine has been delaying the necessary medical examination for 2.5 years.
Two high school students, Nazime Ceren Salmanoglu and Fatma Deniz Polattas, were taken under custody on 8 March 1999 at Yenisehir Security Directorate in Iskenderun Province and they were raped during the detention period. The trial against police officers who were involved in the rape crime is still pending. Next hearing will be held on 30 March 2004 at 09:00 a.m at the Iskenderun Heavy Penal Court.
Relevant medical reports were forwarded to the National Institute of Forensic Medicine on July 2001. However, the National Institute of Forensic Medicine has not examined the victims yet. Although the victims have had medical treatment in the Çapa Hospital in Istanbul, the National Institute of Forensic Medicine has not carried out required medical examination yet. Accordingly, we believe that this attitude of the institute indicates it is not impartial.
We invite the National Institute of Forensic Medicine
to take necessary steps to change its attitude concerning torture cases
and to end its role to protect criminals.
5. - Bloomberg - "EU Offers Turkey Guarantee on Cyprus Exemptions, Sabah Reports":
30 March 2004
The European Union assured Turkey that an accord over the reunification of Cyprus will be exempted from EU laws, Sabah daily reported, without saying how it got the information.
Guenter Verheugen, the EU's enlargement commissioner, told Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul yesterday that the EU had ``in principle'' accepted exempting the elements of the Cyprus accord by writing them into its ``primary laws,'' Sabah said. Verheugen said the EU will need a year to do that and will pass temporary exemptions until then, according to Sabah.
Verheugen yesterday joined United Nations-brokered reunification talks held in Switzerland between Turkey, Greece and the two Cypriot communities. Turkey has been seeking exemptions that rule out legal challenges to some points of the agreement, such as restrictions on the number of Greek Cypriots allowed to reside in the Turkish-controlled north, which may conflict with EU law.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan yesterday
said an agreement on Cyprus would be meaningless if the EU doesn't agree
to exempt its elements from EU laws.
6. - Associated Press - "Cyprus Peace Plan Could Be the Last":
U.N. chief Kofi Annan says both sides win, but Greek and Turkish Cypriots are less certain.
FUERIGEN / 30 March 2004
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan revealed his latest — and probably final — plan Monday for the reunification of Cyprus, promising a "win-win" deal.
The Greek delegation immediately expressed reservations. Turkish Cypriot Prime Minister Mehmet Ali Talat was cautious, saying it was too early to express an opinion.
The 220-page document — accompanied by 9,000 pages of annexes — was handed to the parties at a ceremony in the mountain resort of Buergenstock.
"There is a sense of destiny today …" Annan told negotiators. "I believe this is a win-win proposal."
The United Nations did not reveal details, but negotiators laid out the main points.
The Annan plan envisages a federation of two states — one Greek and the other Turkish — with a loose central government.
Theodoros Roussopoulos, a spokesman for the Greek foreign minister, said, "From the first reading, we can say that there are some clear concerns."
Kypros Chrysostomides, spokesman for the Greek Cypriot government, said, "Some of the points are satisfactory, but some of the basic points for our side are not." He said the Greek Cypriots would continue trying to get the plan amended.
Officials at the talks said the plan ensured that the northern region would continue to be run by Turkish Cypriots even when Greek Cypriots return.
It also reduces the number of Greek Cypriot refugees allowed to return and settle in the north to 18% of the Turkish Cypriot state's population, compared with 21% in a previous proposal.
The island has been split into the Greek Cypriot-controlled south and the occupied north since Turkey invaded in 1974 in the wake of a short-lived coup by supporters of union with Greece. The breakaway state is recognized only by Turkey, which maintains 40,000 troops there.
Turkish troops would be able to stay on the island indefinitely, in line with Turkish demands. The number would gradually be decreased to 650 after Turkey joins the European Union.
Annan told the parties to study the document and to come back to him today with their views. Negotiators have until Wednesday to agree on the plan. If they don't, Annan will finalize it himself. It will be put to the two Cypriot communities in referendums on April 20.
If either side rejects the plan, only the Greek Cypriots
will join the EU on May 1.