Kurds on the move As Turkey prepares the trial of Abdullah Öcalan ("Apo",) a powerful propaganda machine is trying to reduce the "Kurdish question" to the military struggle between Turkey and Öcelan's separatist PKK. The western powers who delivered Öcalan to Turkey's military strongmen are quietly reinforcing this "terrorism" discourse. Behind the scenes, they plead with Turkey to weaken some of the more outrageous signs of discrimination, such as the virtually total repression of the Kurdish language in the media, education and public life. Meanwhile, Kurdish immigrants across western Europe have mobilised huge demonstrations to remind people of the reality of Turkey's "dirty war" against the Kurds. Over 30,000 lives have been lost since 1985. Hundreds of villages have been destroyed, and their people scattered. Relations between the Turkish left and the Kurdish national movement have often been difficult. Öcelan's arrest may sharpen the tensions, or lead to more efforts to combine the national and social questions in modern Turkey. Fuat Orçun looks back on the Kurdish struggle, analyses the Kurdish question in 1999, and outlines the difficulties facing the Turkish left and Kurdish nationalists. [JD]
Kurdish nationalist politics in Turkey The ups and downs of the war between the PKK and the Turkish state have had little direct effect on the political struggle of Turkey's Kurdish parties. In 1989, a number of Kurdish MPs were expelled from the social-democratic SHP, after they participated in a Kurdish nationalist congress abroad. They formed 2 International Viewpoint #310 April 1999
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MILITAN the People's Labour Party (HEP), along with Kurdish trade-unionists from the leftist trade union confederation DISK.
HEP negotiated with the ruling ANAP party of Prime Minister Turgut Ozal, but finally decided to form an electoral alliance with the Islamic party. But they were unable to agree on the division of the candidate lists, and the HEP switched its allegiance to an alliance with the SHP, just in time for the 1991 elections. (The
Islamists formed their own alliance with the fascist Grey Wolves, the most savage enemies of Kurdish aspirations)!
The SHP greatly increased its vote, particularly in the Kurdish areas, where e people hoped the party would be able to introduce the Kurdish question into the
Turkish parliament. Twenty-two Kurds were elected on the SHP-HEP list. They gave a vote of confidence to the social democrat-conservative coalition government, which made a historic, very
P popular announcement that "Turkey n recognises the Kurdish reality." The government even suggested a "Spanishstyle solution," with Kurdistan receiving autonomous powers like those of the
Basque region in the Spanish state.
Nothing came of these hopes and declarations. This was also the high-point
C
D of PKK activities. The Newroz (Kurdish
B new year) was marked by the beginnings of an Intifadah-style popular uprising.
Some of the new Kurdish MPs tried to use the Kurdish language during their investiture into the Turkish parliament.
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They were physically pushed from the eI platform, and intimidated into silence.
T
Four months later, they left the SHP, rejoining HEP. In 1993 the party was a
K dissolved by the constitutional court. It reformed as DEP, but in 1994, many of the Kurdish MPs were arrested for
SC
"cooperation with the PKK"
in
The Kurdish national movement di boycotted the 1994 municipal elections, arguing that "the political atmosphere is pr not democratic." (Was it ever?). As a
HUNGERS T REIK GREVE DE STRUGGLE * TAG LA FAIM FUND-MAY SAND
Paris, 1991. Kurdish hunger strike in protest at Saddam Hussein's use of poison gas against the Kurdish population of northern Iraq. result, the Islamists rose from third place to become the largest institutional party in the Kurdish region, winning almost all the municipal elections. The social democrats, who had dominated the 1989 elections, sank into fourth place. Even the right wing Turkish parties did better than the lelt.
Unlike the 1970s, the Kurdish electorate abandoned the left, and voted for the Islamists. Despite their left wing roots, the Kurdish nationalists were increasingly sensitive to Islamist ideas, and so was the Kurdish electorate. Hardly surprising, since the Islamists were the only institutional party with a programme not based on Turkish nationalism. Political independence
Like its predecessor, DEP was dissolved by the constitutional court. In its place, Hadep was formed. Kurdish nationalists were confident that they could win 16% of the vote in the December 1995 parliamentary election. But despite high scores in the Kurdish capital, Diyarbakir (almost 50%), the party only scored 16% in the Kurdish region itself. Nationwide, Hadep polled 4.2%, falling short of the 10% hurdle to enter the Turkish parliament.
(By banning the Kurdish party, Turkey's military strongmen unwittingly allowed the Islamists to sweep up Kurdish votes, giving them exaggerated role on the Turkish political scene, and enabling them to spread their influence in all sectors of the population.)
Kurdish nationalists claimed this disappointing result was the result of pressure during the campaign, and the huge number of citizens who are not registered to vote. But these factors do not explain everything. Hadep's best score was in those districts with the highest level of repression and intimidation by the Turkish regime. And the party's worst scores were in cities like Istanbul and Kocaeli, where Kurds form a large minority of the population.
Even in Diyarbakir, Hadep scored less than the nationalist-SHP alliance in 1991.
The message of the 1995 elections is clear. The migration of half of Turkey's
Kurds to the towns and cities of western Turkey means that the Kurdish population faces a range of social problems which the traditional Kurdish nationalist discourse is unable to answer.
In 1997, the army used a constitutional "coup" to remove the Islamic and Turkish-nationalist government of Prime Minister Erbakan and conservative leader Tançu Çiller. Many people close to the PKK mistakenly predicted that the army would take over where the civilians had failed, and negotiate a solution to the Kurdish question. PKK leader Ocalan recently admitted to the newspaper Ülkede Gündem that the PKK and the Turkish general staff had had indirect contacts, throughout 1998 (U.G., 5 January 1999).
The Kurdish nationalists are unlikely to pass the 10% barrier in the April 1999 elections. But their real goal is to win as many town halls as possible in the Kurdish region. Like the Islamists in 1994, they hope to benefit from the atomisation of the political spectrum to emerge as the largest in a field of small parties. Such a victory will give the political wing of the Kurdish national movement a new institutional legitimacy at the regional, Turkish and international level.
Until Ocelan's arrest, the PKK hoped that the west European countries and the USA would press Turkey to negotiate. Turkey's military victory in the Kurdish region would only increase foreign pressure on the regime, they argued. Wrong. Not only did Italy and the other European countries refuse to give Öcalar asylum, but they contributed to his kidnap by the Turkish police. There was not and is not the slightest indication that the western powers are willing to recognise the PKK as a bargaining party in any eventual solution to the Kurdish question.
The loss of supply lines in Syria, and that country's expulsion of Ocalan after 14 years residence in Damascus, represented a terrible blow to the PKK. Tension is rising within the organisation, particularly since Ocalan has blamed the guerrilla leaders in the held for any and all atrocities and errors committed in the past. The guerrilla leaders know that the prestige of the PKK is based on their activities, and that, with Ocalan in prison in Turkey, they have more autonomy than ever. PKK cadre inside Turkey are trying to sense the possibilities of the new neitze contents kurdistan report
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Kurdistan on the move
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The Turkish left
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Solidarity now!
• Fuat Orçun europe
6 1
Who pays for Russia's debts?
• Andrei Kolganov
Finland: new left list
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• Peter Lindgren
10 NATO: America sovereign
• Gilbert Achcar
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Sweden: bus strike
• Peter Lindgren americas
14 Mexico: unions form political wing • the pitfalls of labor politics in Mexico
• Dan La Botz
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Feminizing the Latin Labor
Struggle • James D. Cockroft asia
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Australia: East Timor's false friends • Jon Land
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Migrants and the Asian crisis
• Kakampi
20
Links censored
21
India: Furore over Fire
• B. Skanthakumar africa
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The World Bank's friendly face for Africa • George Dor
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Remember Diego Garcia
• Lalit
24
Zimbabwe's misfortune
• Patrick Bond reviews
Ill World Debt: "Your Money
26 or Your Life!" • Eric Toussaint
Conference listing
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36
Music for the Liverpool dockers history
Chile's bad memory
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• Alberto Pagan
Allende's experiment
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• Tariq Ali
International Viewpoint #310 April 1999
Kurdish question
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