12
October 2004
2. "Torture Remains Tricky Issue in Turkey", Turkish leaders remain convinced that systematic torture in the country's prisons no longer exists. Some of the country's human rights activists beg to differ.
3. "UN to report on situation of Turkish rights activists", the envoy’s report and recommendations would be tabled with the UN Human Rights Commission’ 2005 session.
4. "Germany plans to sell hundreds of tanks to Turkey", Germany plans to sell hundreds of heavy battle tanks to Turkey in a major change of recent defence policy, two respected newspapers reported on Tuesday.
5. "German opposition considers petition against Turkey-EU talks", Germany's main opposition party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), are considering organising a petition opposing negotiations for Turkey's entry into the European Union.
6. "Turkey's EU bid haunted by Armenian ghosts", Turkey's desire to join the EU was boosted last week, when the European Commission recommended opening membership talks with the country. EU membership promises increased foreign investment and expanded trade within Europe for Turkey.
7. "Kurds Disillusioned By The Main Parties But See No Alternative", their past is dogged by betrayals. On various occasions the parties sided with their avowed foes - Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime, Iraq’s Iranian and Turkish neighbors - in their drive to crush each other.
8. "A Kurdish Jerusalem", Kurdish politicians accused of failing to work for reforms that would redress historical injustices in Kirkuk.
1. - AP - "Kurds hail EU green light for Turkey":
ISTANBUL / 11 October 2004 / by Louis Meixler
The European Union's historic recommendation to put Turkey on the
road to membership was a bittersweet victory for Kurds like Mevlut
Cetinkaya.
Cetinkaya, the director of a Kurdish language institute in Istanbul,
says the decision shows the country is moving toward granting greater
Kurdish rights, but only at the bloc's insistence.
``I wish the changes had been made long ago and by Turkey's free will
... and not because the EU wanted Turkey to make them,'' said Cetinkaya,
whose school in Istanbul is one of only six in Turkey authorized to
teach Kurdish, a language banned until 1991. Classes begin tomorrow.
But while EU membership would help guarantee Kurdish rights, for some
Turkish Kurds it would also signify the end of the dream for a separate
pan-Kurdish state encompassing parts of Syria and Iraq.
``If Turkey enters the EU, then separatism would be impossible because
Turkey would enter as a whole ... and that is how it should be,''
said Sefika Gurbuz, head of Gok-Der, an association for internally
displaced Kurds.
That could be welcome to many Turks, who fear Kurdish nationalists
want to dismember the Turkish state.
Turkish nationalists have long opposed increased cultural rights for
the country's estimated 12 million Kurds, fearing that would embolden
separatists. Turkish soldiers have battled Kurdish guerrillas in the
southeast since 1984, a conflict that has left 37,000 dead.
Under EU pressure, the Turkish parliament in 2002 granted Kurds limited
rights for teaching in Kurdish but classes are just now beginning
after what Kurds say was two years of bureaucratic foot-dragging.
The government also approved broadcasting in two Kurdish dialects
on state-run television for a half hour each week.
Turkey was rewarded for those steps on Wednesday when the European
Commission recommended the bloc begin entry talks with the country.
But the EU executive body called for continued reforms and warned
Turkey that any backtracking on democracy or human rights could lead
to a halt in the negotiating process.
The report also urged Turkey to help facilitate the return of people
displaced by the fighting, estimated in the hundreds of thousands,
and to do more to develop the overwhelmingly Kurdish southeast.
Abdelkerim Aslan, a Kurd who fled the southeast six years ago to escape
the fighting, said the report pointed toward a bright future for Kurds.
``We've been wanting this for a long time,'' he said in a crowded,
noisy section of Istanbul that is home to many refugees like himself.
``The people in the southeast of Turkey want the EU more than the
rest of Turkey,'' he added. ``We expect peace from the EU.''
That peace would come through the increased foreign investment that
many Turks hope will flood in once the country begins membership talks,
possibly as early as the start of next year.
Turkey is also expected to expand on the limited Kurdish cultural
rights that it has already granted.
But there is opposition.
Radical Kurdish groups are active in Europe, collecting money and
printing publications, and some Turkish nationalists suspect that
European countries could be supporting Kurdish rights in Turkey to
destabilize the country.
Fighting recently picked up in the southeast after Kurdish guerrillas
announced an end to a unilateral five-year cease-fire, saying Turkey
had not responded in kind.
``A majority of the Kurds do not want to have a separate, independent
Kurdish state,'' said Nazmi Gur, vice chairman of the pro-Kurdish
DEHAP party. ``Turkey should pass over this paranoia. We want equal
citizenship.''
For Aslan, the push for EU membership raises some intensely personal
issues.
Aslan fled his village in 1998 after Kurdish guerrillas and Turkish
soldiers fought a battle on its outskirts, a shootout that left 15
people dead.
After the increase in fighting, Aslan said he is afraid to go back.
`It's a good thing that I can go back,'' he said, ``but only if it
is safe.'' 
2. - Deutsche Welle - "Torture Remains Tricky Issue in Turkey":
ANKARA / 12 October 2004 / by Andreas Tzortzis
Turkish leaders remain convinced that systematic torture in the country's
prisons no longer exists. Some of the country's human rights activists
beg to differ.
On the door leading into Hünsü Öndül's office there are seven bullet holes, each circled in black marker. Inside the office of the president of the Turkish Human Rights Association there are two more on the bookcase, and another in a chair.
The murder attempt by a paramilitary group took place in 1998, when his predecessor sat behind the simple wooden desk. Akin Birdal escaped the assassination attempt, but the event's horrifying legacy remains.
"We decided to keep this door, as a sort of bad memory," Öndül told DW-WORLD.
See-saw battle
That's not to say all recent memories have been good. Since he took over the leadership of the organization he helped found 18 years ago, the human rights lawyer has himself been roughed up by thugs. Employees working in the organization's branch offices throughout Turkey are also the subject of harassment and the organization is constantly under the legal microscope, said Öndül.
"In the last five years, the operations against us are not physical,
but are done through the law," said Öndül.
The words are unwelcome in the halls of Turkish government buildings
nowadays. In the past three years, the country has undertaken massive,
society-changing reforms as part of its single-minded drive to join
the European Union.
The death penalty has been eliminated, rights given to Turkey's large Kurdish minority and laws passed that aim to stop systematic torture in Turkish prisons. The steps are among the reasons the EU's executive body last week recommended the European Union take up membership negotiations with Turkey in the near future. Now it's up to European leaders to give final approval when they meet in December.
Just a little "ill treatment"
The country's chances are good. What Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has achieved through his AKP Party's absolute parliamentary majority, has taken the country light years ahead, say Western diplomats and observers.
"Five years ago we thought we were a democracy," Ahmet Acet, the Turkish foreign ministry point man for European Union affairs, told a group of foreign journalists recently. "After going through this process we realized we were less democratic than we thought."
When Acet talks about human rights violations, he uses the words
"ill treatment" instead of torture. It's a favorite term
among government leaders who are especially touchy on the subject.
In a recent interview with a group of journalists, Erdogan reacted
testily to a question that suggested torture was still widespread.
"If you want to see what is happening please be my guest and
come to Turkey and investigate for yourself," Erdogan said, echoing
a speech he gave before the European Parliament. "Because a claim
is not enough on this position. The claim has to be proven."
Numbers say torture still widespread
Öndül is happy to do so. According to IHD's numbers, there were 1,391 cases of torture across 32 provinces in 2003.
"It is important for the EU for the government to say that they don't support torture," said Öndül, a soft-spoken man who has spent more than 20 years working in human rights. "But that does not mean there is no torture in Turkey."
Officials acknowledge privately that more needs to be undertaken. Since the Turkish republic's founding in 1923, successive governments have preached that the citizen is there to serve the state, not the other way around. The philosophy meant that rights violations were duly ignored for the greater good of stabilizing the republic, said observers.
But the EU perspective has helped change minds, said Öndül. More than promises and pledges of governments past, the prospect of actually getting into the European Union, the region's most desireable club, has been an amazing catalyst.
"The progress made towards the EU has spread the idea to people that the state can be changed," said Öndül.
He's hopeful that the course will hold.
"Democratization in Turkey is unavoidable," said Öndül,
before ushering a few reporters out of his office. "And it will
continue, whether the EU opens negotiations or not."
3. - NTV/MSNBC - "UN to report on situation of Turkish rights
activists":
The envoy’s report and recommendations would be tabled with
the UN Human Rights Commission’ 2005 session.
12 October 2004
The United Nations is to prepare a report on the situation of human rights activists in Turkey, with a special envoy of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan arriving in Ankara Monday for a ten day visit.
Annan’s envoy, Ms Hina Jilani, is to hold meetings with government officials and representatives of human rights organisations in Ankara, Istanbul, Izmir and the eastern Turkish provinces of Diyarbakir and Bingol. His meetings will form the basis of a report on how to improve the position of human rights activists and provide them assistance in their work.
“The purpose of my visit is to be able to assess and evaluate the legal framework as well as conditions within the country to be able to see how human rights defenders are able to carry out their functions, especially that of advocacy and monitoring,” Jilani told reporters after his arrival.
While she said that there were some concerns with regards to the situation of Human rights defenders, Jilani said she did not want to discuss these until she had had the opportunity to talk with all parties.
“I cannot arrive at a conclusion until I have the responses of the state and I am able to inquire into the concerns I have,” the UN envoy said.
Saying that Turkey was going through a phase of reformation, Jilani said it was very important for her to assess how the reforms are affecting the work of human rights defenders.
Jilani said her report on her findings would be submitted, along
with her recommendations, to the UN Human Rights Commissions’
2005 session.
4. - AFP - "Germany plans to sell hundreds of tanks to Turkey":
BERLIN / 12 October 2004
Germany plans to sell hundreds of heavy battle tanks to Turkey in a major change of recent defence policy, two respected newspapers reported on Tuesday.
The sale of the Leopard II tanks is expected to take place if European Union leaders, scheduled to meet in December, decide that Turkey has undertaken enough democratic reforms to begin EU membership talks.
According to the daily Financial Times Deutschland, German Defence Minister Peter Struck plans to travel to Turkey next month to discuss Ankara's military needs with his counterpart there, Vecdi Gonul.
The Die Welt newspaper reported that Germany's security council -- a forum of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and his defence, foreign and interior ministers -- will soon discuss the sale.
On Monday, a foreign ministry spokeswoman told reporters that Germany was considering loosening restrictions it has placed on arms exports to Turkey once Ankara begins its long-awaited negotiations to join the EU.
"The question hasn't arisen yet," the spokeswoman said at a routine government press conference, but a positive decision on Turkey's membership by EU leaders in December "would play a decisive role."
Under German law, arms cannot be exported to countries where they might be used to aggravate domestic conflicts. The government was prepared in 1999 to sell around 1,000 tanks to Turkey but opposition from the Greens party, the junior partners in the ruling coalition, brought the deal to an end.
The party feared the tanks might have been used against the minority Kurds. There were also doubts about whether Ankara could afford the equipment.
According to Monday's Handelsblatt newspaper, Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer -- himself a Green -- no longer supports export restrictions because they would contradict any EU recommendation that Turkey begin accession talks.
Leaders of the 25 EU countries will convene on December 17 to finally decide whether Turkey should start negotiations. Many are under public pressure to bar the entry of a relatively poor, predominantly Muslim country of 70 million.
The Leopard II tank is made by the Munich-based firm Krauss-Maffei Wegmann. Variations of it have been sold to Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. Finland and Greece have also placed orders.
Turkey would be sold second-hand tanks rather than new ones, the
press said, at an estimated value of around seven billion euros.
5. - AFP - "German opposition considers petition against
Turkey-EU talks":
BERLIN / 11 October 2004
Germany's main opposition party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), are considering organising a petition opposing negotiations for Turkey's entry into the European Union.
"I think we can consider a petition in favour of a privileged relationship with Turkey rather than its entry into the EU," CDU leader Angela Merkel said on Monday.
Edmund Stoiber, the leader of the CSU, the CDU's ultraconservative sister party in the powerhouse state of Bavaria, also threw his weight behind the idea of a petition.
The leader of his regional parliamentary party, Michael Glos, said in an interview with SuperIllu magazine that a petition "would give people an opportunity to make their concerns known to the federal government".
According to opinion polls, the conservative Christian Union parties are well placed to win the next general election in 2006.
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, whose Social Democrats govern in a coalition with the Greens, has said he will vote in favour of Turkey beginning membership talks at an EU summit in mid-December.
A representative of the two and a half million Turks who live in Germany warned the opposition against mounting a petition.
"It would be taken as a declaration of war against Turkey and Turks living in Germany," said Hakki Keskin, the president of the country's Turkish community.
Merkel has said that although Turkey has made great progress in its reform process, its customs and traditions are not European enough for it to be given membership.
Last Wednesday, the European Commission said accession talks between
the EU and Turkey should begin, but warned that accession could still
be many years away.
6. - The Tufts Daily - "Turkey's EU bid haunted by Armenian ghosts":
12 October 2004
Turkey's desire to join the EU was boosted last week, when the European Commission recommended opening membership talks with the country. EU membership promises increased foreign investment and expanded trade within Europe for Turkey.
The EU must hold Turkey to strict human rights standards, as Dr. Glendale-Hilmar Kaiser's speech on the Armenian genocide reminded students. The Turkish government continues to refuse to recognize that there was a state-sponsored genocide against the Armenians at the beginning of the 20th century.
Additionally, Turkey has not won praises for the treatment of its Kurdish minority. It has recently been easing its restrictions on the group - it is no longer illegal to broadcast the Kurdish language on television, and some Kurdish leaders are able to call for more rights without being thrown in jail. But there is still a way to go.
Fears have recently risen that Turkey may move in the wrong direction. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan wanted to re-criminalize adultery, which drew enough European criticism to drop the efforts in the 23rd hour. The country has been condemned for a poor record on religious freedom and women's rights. Turkey will have to meet stiff economic and legal criteria to gain admission to the EU.
The prospect of joining the EU will be an impetus for Turkey to modernize both its economy and legal system. Entrance into Europe's elite club is a popular goal with the Turkish population, if the press is anything to go by, and politicians can find support to pass the necessary measures.
Adding Turkey would reflect well on the EU, if only because it will show that the EU is not a Christian organization. Millions of Muslims already live within the EU, but Turkey would be the first majority-Muslim nation to join the Union. It is quite a secular nation, but it would be a step towards proving that liberal democracy and Islamic cultures can mix.
Critics of Turkey's admission cite fears that large numbers of poor Turks will flood into Western Europe. The free movement of people, however, is a necessary tenant of the EU to allow for complete economic integration. However, there were similar fears concerning the 10 Eastern European countries that joined this past May. Western Europe was not swamped with economic migrants from Eastern Europe, nor were they inundated with those from Turkey.
Others fear the economic ramifications of inviting in a poor country like Turkey, where nearly a third of the population works in agriculture. The point of the EU is to benefit all of the countries that join, not just rich ones like France and Germany. Membership turned Ireland and Spain into strong economies, and will hopefully do the same to new member countries. Turkey's large population and resources show that there is potential for growth.
The biggest obstacle that could block Turkey's EU bid is its human
rights record. It needs to continue easing up on the Kurds and expanding
women's rights. It also needs to admit its involvement with the Armenian
genocide once and for all. If Turkey is to spend its future in the
EU, it needs to come clean about its past.
7. - AP - "Kurds Disillusioned By The Main Parties But See
No Alternative":
SULAYMANIYAH / 11 October 2004 / by Scheherezade Faramarzi
Maliha Barzanji says that the last party she voted for ended up arresting her son and she never saw him again. This time around, she plans to cast no vote at all, saying she hates both of the two big parties that run the Kurdish north of Iraq. "If they give me their blood," she says, "I will gladly drink it."
Ata Mohammed, a writer, says he’ll vote, but will cast a blank ballot as a protest against both parties because they are "corrupt and have blood on their hands."
Grievances like these hang heavy in the air ahead of the three-tiered January ballot - national, gubernatorial and Kurdish regional - which will test the Western-protected enclave’s democracy and its future in postwar Iraq.
Bearing the brunt of voter anger are the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party, which have ruled in tandem since coming out roughly equal in the last election, 12 years ago.
Their past is dogged by betrayals. On various occasions the parties sided with their avowed foes - Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime, Iraq’s Iranian and Turkish neighbors - in their drive to crush each other. Their attempt to establish a joint administration after the 1992 election was followed by four years of civil war.
In 1998 each set up a government in separate cities and a shared parliament took office in 2002. Many Kurds are willing to acknowledge that under the KDP and PUK, and under U.S.-British aerial protection since the end of the 1991 Gulf War, their enclave has flourished and today is the safest part of Iraq.
But they also accuse the two factions of nepotism and corruption, and Kurdish political leaders aren’t trying to hide their shortcomings.
Barham Saleh, a Kurdish PUK man and a deputy prime minister in the Iraqi interim government, agrees that the parties need to clean up their act.
He says they can be proud of the rights they have achieved for the Kurds, "But now, with Saddam Hussein gone, and with the opportunity of building a federal democratic Iraq and after 12 years of self- government, we no longer can use Saddam Hussein for maintaining some of the unacceptable ways of politics."
Saleh knows the voters want "Political reforms, genuinely fighting corruption, eliminating cronyism and nepotism." He also says it is "shameful" that the parties haven’t come clean on the question of the missing Kurds such as Barzanji’s son, Yousef, who was 24 when KDP security men raided the offices of a newspaper he worked at in Irbil on July 17, 1997, and hasn’t been heard from since.
His mother doesn’t know if he is dead or in jail. She has made seven futile trips to KDP headquarters, 100 miles away in Irbil, sometimes accompanied by 38 mothers of vanished children. She said KDP officials promised to investigate. She’s still waiting to hear from them.
"They behave exactly like Saddam," said Barzanji, a graceful 59-year-old. "At least Saddam used to show off his dead, boast about it! But it’s the total silence that makes it so much more difficult to bear."
The regional election is supposed to end the split of Kurdish administration between the KDP in Irbil and PUK in Sulaymaniyah to the east, and usher in a single Irbil-based administration. KDP officials say they may form a coalition with the PUK against Islamic and leftist groups.
"I think it’s better to form a coalition," said Karim Rowsch, a KDP official in Sulaymaniyah. "We went through a bitter experience in the past. This may be a guarantee that there won’t be more bloodshed."
They agree on the principle of being part of a federal Iraq, but also want control of the oil city of Kirkuk, something the Arabs of Iraq may resist.
The merging of their politics makes it harder for voters to tell them apart. In the past, each group tried to play on emotions, flaunting its martyrs and heroes of the strife-ridden past.
But voters like the grieving Barzanji, and the writer Mohammed, feel they have a lot to answer for.
"How can such parties transform into a democratic entity and
then expect us to support them?" Mohammed asked. "They have
a fantastic ability to make people forget their past, even though
it was dotted with murder and torture of the population. And the Kurdish
people have a fantastic ability to forget."
8. - institute for war & peace reporting - "A Kurdish Jerusalem":
Kurdish politicians accused of failing to work for reforms that would redress historical injustices in Kirkuk.
SULAIMANIYAH / 11 October 2004 / by Twana Osman
Throughout the 40 years of the Kurds' armed struggle against a succession of Iraqi governments, their political leaders have always ranked control of the city of Kirkuk top on their list of priorities.
Kurdish political parties raised the issue of Kirkuk time and again, calling the oil-rich city "the heart of Kurdistan", and more recently "the al-Quds (or Jerusalem) of Kurdistan".
But these long-touted political slogans have not translated into practical action on Kirkuk since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime. The two main Kurdish parties have done little of significance to reverse the impact of decades of ethnic cleansing in the Kirkuk governorate.
The two appear to have once again placed party interests above the people’s by competing against each other for political dominance in Kirkuk, instead of forming a united front to reverse the area's artificially created ethnic situation.
Through their inaction, they have allowed a de facto endorsement of decades of ethnic cleansing.
High on the agenda of the political parties, we hear, is the return of Kirkuk to its natural demographic state - in other words, to a population mix resembling the position before the ethnic cleansing of Kurds, Turkoman and Christians, and the influx of Arabs from the south, that began in the early Sixties.
This reinstatement is made all the more imperative as talk of a census circulates and the country moves toward elections in January.
As a first step to addressing the ethnic cleansing, the old administrative map of Kirkuk that existed before the Baath party came to power in 1968 should be restored.
But Kurdish leaders, along with the whole of the former Governing Council, voted to defer the issue when they accepted the wording of the Transitional Administrative Law, TAL.
The former Baathist regime altered Kirkuk's demographic profile through a three-pronged approach.
First, they expelled Kurds and other minority groups through a variety of mechanisms, both subtle and crude. Second, they settled poor Arabs in the Kirkuk governorate, mostly through a series of incentives.
The third point, and the one that is now most relevant, is the redrawing of regional boundaries by the Baathist government. This was achieved by slicing off Kurdish-dominated areas of the governorate, such as Chamchamal, Kifri and Kalar, and assigning them to other governorates. At the same time, boundaries were revised so as to incorporate Arab areas, for example Hawija, from neighbouring governorates.
At a stroke, this carefully conceived gerrymandering administratively detached hundreds of thousands of Kurds from the Kirkuk governorate, and added Arabs.
This three-pronged process must be reversed.
Expelled populations must be allowed to return; the "brought Arabs", as we Kurds call them, should be given opportunities to go back to their original homes where that is possible; and, most importantly, the governorate must have its original administrative contours reinstated.
On the first point, the Kurdish political parties have verbally encouraged the return of the displaced Kurds and others, such as Turkomans and Christians, but they have done little more.
Kurds in Kirkuk read this as a betrayal of the cornerstone of the parties' long-term agendas.
On the second point, under the TAL, Kurds who find that their lands have been occupied by Arabs can take legal action to reclaim their property - although to date no one has won such a case.
Another group of Arab migrants brought in by Saddam are less likely to move, because they were settled on government-owned land. One such community lives in a large urban quarter of Kirkuk city known as the "10,000 dinar area" - after the money (roughly 500 US dollars) each member of the group was given, along with free housing, to settle here. That alone resulted in a substantial demographic shift.
The third pressing need - redrawing the boundary lines - suffered a grave setback when Kurdish representatives on the former Governing Council signed the TAL and thus gave their consent for provincial borders existing as of March 2003 - in other words as altered by the Baathist regime - to stay as they are, at least for now. Article 53 of the TAL says, "The boundaries of the eighteen governorates shall remain without change during the transitional period." It later states that changes may be included in a permanent constitution, once that is adopted.
The TAL also postpones discussions on the status of the governorate, "The permanent resolution of disputed territories, including Kirkuk, shall be deferred until... a fair and transparent census has been conducted and the permanent constitution has been ratified."
The problem is that a permanent constitution may be many years away, but the census that will have a crucial influence on any future decisions that are made about Kirkuk may be imminent.
It appears that the Kurdish leadership in Baghdad did little to lobby for a swift redrawing of governorate boundaries.
Inexplicably, they have also failed to help communities in Kurdish areas cut off from Kirkuk to lobby for reinstatement of their former position. Chamchamal - a district that was lopped off the eastern side of Kirkuk and added onto Sulaimaniyah governorate - has a population of about 180,000. That number of people, if reintegrated into Kirkuk governorate, would radically alter the result of a census, since it is close to the total of Kurds expelled from Kirkuk city in the Nineties. And Chamchamal is just one of several such areas.
If a census is held in Kirkuk in the next few months, it will simply set in stone a demographic situation that was artificially created by the former regime. It will not be the "fair" census envisaged by the TAL.
That is unacceptable to the Kurdish people - one wonders why it is not unacceptable to their leaders.
* Twana Osman is an editor with the Hawlati newspaper in Sulaimaniyah.