Turkey Struggles With Terrorism by Kurds

Middle East politics are replete with rivalries, sectarian conflicts, mutual hatred and ethnic struggles that transform into terrorism causing great human suffering. Struggle between Turkey and problem of Kurds is a live example that has contributed to destabilization of the region and conflicts in neighboring countries such as Iraq, Iran and Syria too apart from Turkey. Guerilla war now has been clubbed with terrorism globally and both have become synonymous although they are distinct from each other. The name “Kurd” was a generic term used to denote nomads and non-Arabs in particular. In Kurdish, the name “Kurd” means “warrior” or “ferocious fighter.” By the time of the Islamic conquest of the northern Middle East in the 7th century AD, the name “Kurd” was already in use as a term to designate the population of Western Iranians in the Zagros Mountains.

Kurds are demanding a separate nation called Kurdistan. They are distributed in Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran. Kurds live in the mountainous region of the Middle East where the borders of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran meet. There are an estimated 20-25 million Kurds throughout the Middle East. The Kurds have always been a stateless people. It is concentrated in the parts of eastern Turkey, Syria, Iran, and Iraq that make up the region known as Kurdistan that does not have any national status as a country. Kurds are distinct from the Arabs, Turks, and Persians (Iranians) of their region, but are ethnically and linguistically closest to Persians. Kurdish origins are commonly traced back to the Empire of the Medes in the sixth century BC. About 12 million Kurds live in the southeast region of Turkey alone. Twenty percent of Turkey's population is Kurdish. Iraq is 15-20 percent Kurdish; Syria, less than 10 percent; and Iran, 7 percent. The majority of Kurds is devout Sunni Muslims (1). .

Kurdish problem has long history of conflict for identity. By the beginning of the 16th century, the Shia Safavid (Iranian) Empire had emerged as a rival to the Ottoman Empire. The Kurds found themselves in the middle of the territories claimed by the Sunni Turkic Ottomans and the Shia Persian Safavids. The two empires fought at the Battle of Chaldiran in 1514, where the Ottomans defeated the Safavid Shah. The result of the battle established a boundary between the two empires that split the Kurds between Turkic and Persian empires. Almost all Kurds are Muslim. Kurdish Muslims are mostly of the Sunni branch, but mainly follow the Shafi’i school of Sunni Islam, which distinguishes them from the majority of the Iraqi Arab Sunni Muslim population, which is primarily of the Hanafi school of Sunni Islam. There is also a strong Sufi mystic following among the Kurds. Sufism contributes to a less orthodox practice of Islam among much of the Kurdish population. Most of the Kurds who are of the Shia branch of Islam are called Faili Kurds. The Faili Kurds live around Kirkuk and south to Khanaqin. Many of the Faili Kurds support the PUK. Over time, the Kurds’ physical location on the border of empires and modern nation-states has had a significant impact on Kurdish identity. Kurds see themselves as not only existing without a state, but as existing between and across states. They have been divided in all neighboring countries around Turkey without any country of their own. This is the main problem with them. This influences how they view external powers and gives them a highly tactical view of alliances (2).

The Kurds are the minority group with the greatest impact on national politics in Turkey. Because of the size of the Kurdish population, the Kurds are perceived as the only minority that could pose a threat to Turkish national unity. Indeed, there has been an active Kurdish separatist movement in southeastern Turkey since 1984. In Turkey, the Kurdish national movement dates back at least to 1925, when Atatürk ( Mustafa Kemal Pasha) ruthlessly suppressed a revolt against the new Turkish republic motivated by the regime's renunciation of Muslim religious practices. Uprisings in the 1930s and 1940s prompted by opposition to the modernizing and centralizing reforms of the Turkish government in Ankara also were put down by the Turkish army. Kurdish opposition to the government's emphasis on linguistic homogeneity was spurred in the 1960s and 1970s by agitation in neighboring Iran and Iraq on behalf of an autonomous Kurdistan, to include Kurds from Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. The majority of Kurds, however, continued to participate in Turkish political parties and to assimilate into Turkish society (3). Use of Kurdish language was strictly prohibited in all government institutions, including the courts and schools. Nevertheless, during the 1960s and again in the mid-1970s, Kurdish intellectuals attempted to start Kurdish-language journals and newspapers. None of these publications survived for more than a few issues because state prosecutors inevitably found legal pretexts for closing them down. Between 1980 and 1983, the military government passed several laws expressly banning the use of Kurdish and the possession of written or audio materials in Kurdish. Since the 1930s, Kurds have resisted government efforts to assimilate them forcibly, including an official ban on speaking or writing Kurdish.

Since 1984 Kurdish resistance to Turkification has encompassed both a peaceful political struggle to obtain basic civil rights for Kurds within Turkey and a violent armed struggle to obtain a separate Kurdish state. The leaders of the nonviolent struggle have worked within the political system for the recognition of Kurdish cultural rights, including the right to speak Kurdish in public and to read, write, and publish in Kurdish. Prior to 1991, these Kurds operated within the national political parties, in particular the SHP, the party most sympathetic to their goal of full equality for all citizens of Turkey. President Özal's 1991 call for a more liberal policy toward Kurds and for the repeal of the ban on speaking Kurdish raised the hopes of Kurdish politicians. Following the parliamentary elections of October 1991, several Kurdish deputies, including Hatip Dicle, Feridun Yazar, and Leyla Zayna, formed the HEP, a party with the explicit goal of campaigning within the National Assembly for laws guaranteeing equal rights for the Kurds.

The best known and most radical of the Kurdish movements, the Kurdistan workers party ( Partiya Karkere Kurdistan) ( PKK), which does not represent the majority of Kurds, sought to establish an independent Marxist state in southeastern Turkey where the Kurdish population predominates. The PKK's leader, Abdullah Öcalan, formed the group in the late 1970s while a student in Ankara. Prior to the 1980 coup, Öcalan fled to Lebanon, via Syria, where he continued to maintain his headquarters in 1994. Until October 1992, Öcalan's brother, Osman, had supervised PKK training camps in the mountains separating northern Iraq from Turkey's Hakkâri and Mardin provinces. It was from these camps that PKK guerrillas launched their raids into Turkey. The main characteristic of PKK attacks was the use of indiscriminate violence, and PKK guerrillas did not hesitate to kill Kurds whom they considered collaborators. Targeted in particular were the governments paid militia, known as village guards, and schoolteachers accused of promoting forced assimilation. The extreme violence of the PKK's methods enabled the government to portray the PKK as a terrorist organization and to justify its own policies, which included the destruction of about 850 border villages and the forced removal of their populations to western Turkey.

A resurgence of Kurdish attacks attributed to the PKK necessitated the deployment of Turkish army units and elite police forces with the initiation in 1984 by the PKK of armed struggle against the state with attacks on gendarmerie posts in the southeast. Fighting in the mountain terrain favored the insurgents, who could intimidate local Kurdish families and ambush regular troops. The violence has mounted since 1991, with PKK guerrillas from camps in Syria, Iran, and Iraq, as well as from inside Turkey itself, attacking Turkish military and police outposts and targeting civilian community leaders and teachers. In 1993, PKK gunmen sought military targets outside the southeastern region; they also conducted coordinated attacks in many West European cities, particularly in Germany where more than 1 million Kurds live, against Turkish diplomatic installations and Turkish businesses, often operated by Kurds. Such attacks on commercial firms can be seen as efforts at intimidation to gain contributions to PKK fundraising (4).

Mutual distrust continues to drive relations between the Turkish government and the Kurdish regional government in Iraq, prompting media speculation that armed conflict is just around the corner. This distrust can be seen in the array of comments -- ranging from outright threats to statements of support -- coming from Turkish officials, which points to possible confusion over how to deal with the Iraq issue.
Iraqi President and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan head Jalal Talabani addressed the status of PKK militants hiding out in northern Iraq's mountainous border area during a recent interview for the October 2 issue of "Newsweek" magazine. "We convinced the PKK to stop fighting and within days it will officially announce a cease-fire. This will help Iraq open a new chapter in relations with Turkey," he said. "We are urging the Turkish Kurds to be moderate, to wage their struggle through democratic means." (5)

Abdullah Ocalan, leader of rebel group, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), was convicted of treason and separatism on June 29, 1999, and sentenced to death. However the sentence was changed to life long imprisonment when Turkey abolished death sentence in the country. He was accused of leading a 15-year war that has left more than 35,000 people dead. The PKK has been the strongest Kurdish revolutionary organization for several years. This outfit has been listed as a terrorist organization on the list of foreign organization by United States of America. With their cultural identity under oppression and a scarcity of prominent Kurdish figures to advance their cause, many Kurds had invested their hope in Ocalan. The rebels have turned to terrorism that is a very common feature in the modern world to wear out and frustrate the government. In 2003, the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq led to developments for Iraq's Kurdish population. The Iraqi Kurds expressed interest in a federal system of government that would grant them a measure of autonomy. As of May 2003, the US had maintained that any government installed in Iraq would be voted on by a parliament, made of groups representing the Iraqi population. The Kurds would clearly represent a minority in that parliament. Kurds in Iraq make up 15-20 percent of the Iraqi population of 24 million, or about 4-5 million people. The number of Kurds in Iraq is a disputed issue, and the Kurds accuse the Iraqi government of undercounting the Kurds to reduce their status as a significant minority.

One of Turkey's most powerful generals was accused of setting up rogue units in the south-east of the country to provoke clashes between Kurdish separatists and security forces. The accusations, made by a prosecutor in the eastern city of Van, against General Yasar Buyukanit, the head of Turkey's land forces, have rattled the politically powerful military. It is thought the alleged activities are part of an effort to derail Turkey's bid to join the European Union. General Buyukanit , who was chief commander in the region from 1997-2000, was due to become chief of staff soon. The separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) launched an armed struggle for a homeland in the region in 1984. The conflict has claimed more than 35,000 lives. The charges were part of an indictment of two soldiers and a Kurdish informer over the bombing of a bookshop the south-eastern town of Semdinli, on the Iraqi border. The General cannot be prosecuted by civil courts (6).

Thus we find that Kurds who are distributed in different countries neighboring each other are not united and are pulling from each other in different direction. How can they achieve an independent Kurdistan which is their dream? Till they project a common front as one race, which seemingly is not possible due to various sects, cultures and nationalities, their dream of achieving an independent nation would be a mirage. They would be at loggerheads with their native governments leading to instability, human suffering and exploitation in Middle East.

Bibliography

1. Elissa Hany, Understanding the Turkey-- Kurd conflict, http://72.14.235.104/search?q=cache:UuFlvg496OYJ:www.infoplease.com/spot/kurds1.html

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2. Kurdistan-KurdishConflict, http://72.14.235.104/search?q=cache:TzcN8uF6_SIJ:www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/kurdistan.htm

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3. Kurdistan-Turkey, http://72.14.235.104/search?q=cache:L-xXuZ5g3KgJ:www.globalsecurity.org

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4. Ibid

5. 5..Kathleen Redolfo, Iraq: PKK, Turkomans Divide Turkey And Kurds http://72.14.235.104/search?q=cache:os97wT2cGmMJ:www.rferl.org

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6. Senior General stoked Kurdish conflict to keep Turkey out of European union, TinaMarch 7, 2006 - 9:24pm, http://72.14.235.104/search?q=cache:kGXJNT0y2lgJ:agonist.org/20060307

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