> _____________________________________________________________________
> CTHEORY          THEORY, TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE        VOL 22, NO 1-2
>
> Event-scene 78   99/04/12       Editors: Arthur and Marilouise Kroker
> _____________________________________________________________________
>
> Sharpeville, Cizre and Pristina
> ===============================
>
> ~Robert Miller~
>
> I would suspect that most middle aged liberals with a social
> conscience and politically aware younger folk would be able to react
> in some way if they were challenged to explain what they knew about
> the Sharpeville massacre or the bombing of Pristina. One a poignant
> historical moment in the quest for democracy in South Africa, the
> latter a present day human catastrophe which seems to me at the time
> of writing this article a major humanitarian blunder on the part of
> the NATO strategists. After forty years the horror of Sharpeville is
> still ingrained in the psyche of a generation as a turning point in
> the freedom struggle of the black majority in South Africa at the
> height of the apartheid regime. Pristina is currently the centre of
> the struggle for self-determination by the ethnic Albanian majority
> in Kosovo; events in Kosovo packaged for us within the sanitized
> rhetoric of CNN sound bites. The purpose of this article is to
> highlight another recent set of events involving thousands of Kurds
> who chose to demonstrate across Europe and around the world in recent
> weeks. Cizre (pronounced "Jizeereh") is a Kurdish town. What can the
> average person tell me about this dusty town close to the border
> between south east Turkey and Syria, an area referred to on many
> maps as North Kurdistan.
>
> Unfortunately for the Kurdish people, the world does not know of what
> happened in Cizre on March 21, 1992, coincidentally the anniversary
> of the horrendous massacre of March 21, 1960 in Sharpeville. I came
> across a videotape of the Cizre massacre, filmed by a German
> documentary team, whilst I searched for the reason for such a well
> organised and spontaneous wave of demonstrations by Kurds around the
> world in the wake of the recent abduction of Guerrilla leader
> Abdullah Ocalan in Kenya. My investigations designed to get to the
> root of the anguish and draw conclusions in an attempt to explain the
> tremendous outpouring of despair by Kurds of all political
> persuasions throughout the Kurdish Diaspora, following the arrest of
> Ocalan. The most shocking manifestation and most difficult aspect for
> many westerners to understand were the many cases of self-immolation
> in protest at the abduction of Ocalan. What could drive so many human
> beings to such despair and frustration as to commit this ultimate
> act? I directed my investigations into the Kurdish psyche in an
> attempt to understand what could drive so many people to articulate
> their inner pain in inflicting upon themselves such agony.
>
> I intended to visit the south east of Turkey during the recent
> Kurdish New Year "Newroz" celebrations. However, due to a complete
> media clampdown journalists were strictly forbidden from entering the
> region. An action which brought no outcry from Turkey's NATO allies
> even though similar tactics in Kosovo by the Serbian authorities of
> course drew international condemnation about the suppression of press
> freedom. So given the restrictions in Turkey I began to carry out
> research to try and get close to the problem at hand. I started by
> carefully reading the Turkish constitution. Having visited Turkey as
> a journalist in the past I know the beauty of Turkey. A country with
> so much to offer the world and strategically so important to western
> interests in the Middle East. However, I did find the constitution a
> little draconian to say the least. The constitution can be found on
> the website of the Turkish Embassy in Washington.
> <www.turkey.org/politics/p_consti.htm> This constitutional document,
> drawn up following the military coup of September 12th 1980, is very
> much the legacy of a man who in the words of the document is
> described as Turkey's "Immortal leader and unrivalled hero" Mustafa
> Kemal, known to the Turkish people as "Ataturk" - father of the
> Turks.
>
> As a member of NATO with the second largest armed forces in the
> alliance one may be forgiven for believing that the current
> excursions into Serbian airspace and the threat of ground troops
> being sent into Kosovo is being fully supported by Turkey. However,
> the current conflict has led to many allegations in the western press
> and television phone in programmes on CNN of double standards.
> Turkey's position in NATO and the treatment of the estimated 12
> million Kurds within Turkey's borders being analogous to the attitude
> of the Serbs to the ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. The Turkish attitude
> to the ethnic Kurds who make up an estimated one quarter of the
> Turkish population minorities being curiously similar if somewhat
> larger in scale to the situation in Yugoslavia. In Turkey it is
> claimed that all people are equal under the constitution and it is a
> fact that Kurds can play a role in Turkish life at all levels as long
> as they agree to one precept. This precept is written in the
> constitution and as an ideology seen by many Kurds and western
> observers to be equally as abhorrent as apartheid. Namely, the
> Turkish policy of enforced assimilation and attempted extermination
> of the existence of the Kurdish identity. During a press briefing on
> CNN (second of April, 1999) Emma Bonino, European Union spokesperson on
> Humanitarian Affairs stated that it is equally as much an act of
> genocide to strip a people of their homes, identities and culture as
> the total extermination of the people themselves. Of course she was
> talking of the stripping of identity from the Kosovo ethnic Albanians
> fleeing the carnage in Pristina and throughout Kosovo, not the Kurds.
>
> Article Three of the Turkish constitution states that "The Turkish
> state, with its territory and nation, is an indivisible entity. Its
> language is Turkish". In some ways I can understand the simplicity of
> this aspiration. When the Turkish state was formed following the
> collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the trauma of the first world war,
> Ataturk must have felt the need as a leader for consolidation. The
> many ethnic peoples would have to give up their identity in the
> interests of a strong Turkish nation. Social engineering was not a
> new concept in the region; recognition by the French government
> recently of the genocide in Armenia is ample evidence of the Turkish
> policy of ethnic cleansing in the first quarter of this century. The
> Turkish constitution states that although all citizens have rights,
> the constitution states that these rights are withdrawn once a
> Turkish citizen expresses the need to exhibit the culture and
> language of their specific subculture within Turkish territorial
> boundaries. These acts are deemed by the constitution to be
> separatist and therefore terrorist in nature. The message is clear,
> direct and rigorously enforced. This means that the Kurds in the
> south east of the country have since 1922 been forced to submit to a
> policy of assimilation to the prescribed identity of the Turkish
> constitution. If Turkey's NATO ally the United Kingdom enforced a
> similar policy as lain down by the Turkish State authorities, it
> would mean that the Welsh language would be banned. Tanks could be
> deployed on the streets of Welsh villages, if in defiance of the
> constitution, Welsh people gathering to sing using the Welsh
> language, dance and dress in accordance with Welsh culture, be at
> risk of death, incarceration and torture; celebrating St. David's day
> would be seen as a separatist act, all participants would immediately
> be stripped of their rights under the constitution.
>
> In 1992, the Kurdish New Year celebrations in Cizre witnessed, as
> every year, undaunted by savage repression, a gathering of thousands
> of Kurds. They come together as they have for centuries to celebrate
> their culture in defiance of the ban. Watching the documentary about
> Cizre reminded me so much of the Sharpeville massacre, I was
> transported back in time to the evening I first watched the scenes of
> that grim day in the Townships of the Apartheid regime. I recalled
> the discussions around me, the measures that should be taken against
> such a regime, and the expressions of disgust and indignation at the
> act perpetrated on people protesting with dignity in peaceful
> defiance of an ideology both repugnant and indefensible. However,
> that was the sixties and now due to world pressure the people in the
> Townships have their President released and the truth and
> reconciliation commission tries to smooth the path toward the
> "Rainbow" nation. The world took action in the case of South Africa
> and the apartheid regime was dismantled as the South African
> government was forced to come into line with world opinion.
>
> I interviewed the South African Member of Parliament and spokesperson
> on Justice and Foreign Affairs, Mr. Imam Gassan Soloman in Istanbul
> some 18 months ago. I was in Turkey on assignment and chose to attend
> a press conference called by Mr. Soloman and other's who had attempted
> to visit the stricken Kurdish areas in vain. Turkish police stormed
> the press conference for the meeting was deemed illegal as promoting
> separatism; many western journalists were beaten and arrested
> including my colleague Julia Clarke, a freelance photographer from
> London. Mr. Soloman, was convinced that there were indeed great
> similarities between apartheid and the assimilationist policies in
> Turkey, primarily the methods used to implement both ideologies. "The
> Kurdish population of Turkey is in exactly the same position that
> the black majority in South Africa found themselves in 1974. The
> patterns of repression and achievable goals for the 12 million Kurds
> in Turkey are those we faced at that time," he told me in the
> Istanbul hotel which had its revolving door completely destroyed by
> riot police in an attempt to stop him addressing those assembled. Mr.
> Soloman was a participant on the "Musa Anter Peace Train" initiative.
> An initiative within which many leading political figures and human
> rights representatives, of all political persuasions, attempted to
> travel to the capital of the predominantly Kurdish south east for a
> cultural festival, only to be turned back by tanks 40 miles short of
> their destination. An estimated one thousand Kurds were
> arrested as immeasurable numbers gathered in Diyarbakir to greet the
> delegations who were prevented from arriving by the Turkish
> authorities.
>
> Like the people of Sharpeville in their day, the people of Cizre
> suffered greatly during the Newroz celebrations of March, 1992, so
> vividly captured by the German documentary team of Michael Enger and
> Hans-Peter Weymer. Some 150 people died in the mayhem that day in
> Cizre including a journalist accompanying the German duo, as in
> Sharpeville, many of those who died were shot in the back. This
> year's news blackout of the happenings in the Kurdish areas of Turkey
> during the Newroz celebrations has raised renewed cause for concern.
> Turkish Prime Minister, Bulent Ecevit stated in a recent interview
> circulated by Reuters that "There is no Kurdish issue in Turkey just
> a PKK problem". The PKK being the Kurdistan Worker's Party whose
> leader Abdullah Ocalan's arrest sparked the protests within the
> Kurdish Diaspora in Europe. The Turkish Prime Minister chose to
> ignore the CNN reports of 8000 arrests during the Newroz
> celebrations.
>
> In an attempt to put things into context I visited the website of the
> United States, State Department and looked for documentation on the
> Human Rights record in Turkey for the past year. I found a document
> drawn up by the State Department Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights,
> and Labor, dated 26th of February, 1999.
> <www.state.gov/www/global/human_rights/1998_hrp_report/turkey.html>
> The document some 29 pages long, a litany of human rights abuses
> against the Kurdish population in Turkey that makes the footage of
> Cizre and Sharpeville combined seem feeble evidence in comparison.
> No PKK propaganda here just hard facts from the United States,
> State Department a document that surely lies in the files of U.S.
> Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's office. Six extracts from
> the report:
>
> "The (Turkish) constitution does not recognise the Kurds as a
> national, racial, or ethnic minority."
>
> "Extrajudicial killings, including deaths in detention from the
> excessive use of force "mystery killings" and disappearances
> continue. Torture remains widespread."
>
> "The government continued to use the 1991 Anti-Terror Law, with its
> broad and ambiguous definition of terrorism, to detain both alleged
> terrorists and others on the charge that their acts, words, or ideas
> constituted dissemination of separatist propaganda."
>
> "In January (of last year) journalists Mehmet Topaloglu, Selahatin
> Akinci, and Bulent Dil were killed in a police raid on an alleged
> militants' house in Adana. According to Human Rights Foundation, the
> evidence of witnesses did not support the police version of events.
> An autopsy on Topaloglu found 11 bullets and a broken shoulder.
> Cigarette burns, drill marks, multiple fractures and traces of
> strangulation were noted on Dil's body."
>
> "In April (of last year) the Istanbul Chamber of Doctors certified
> that two and a half year old Azat Tokmat showed physical and
> psychological signs of torture after detention at the Istanbul branch
> of the anti-terror police. The child was burned with cigarettes and
> kicked in an effort to make Azat's imprisoned mother confess to PKK
> membership."
>
> "The exact number of persons forcibly displaced from villages in the
> south east since 1984 is unknown. Most estimates agree that 2,600 to
> 3,000 villages and hamlets have been depopulated. A few non-
> governmental organisations (NGO's) put the number forcibly displaced
> as high as 2 million."
>
> It seems that NATO countries "depopulate" while NATO's enemies
> "ethnically cleanse". We are not talking about Serbian attacks on
> Kosovo here, but Turkish policy in the Kurdish regions of the south
> east and throughout Turkey. So as a westerner I now start to
> understand what will make a Kurd living in alienation in the west
> turn to the action of self-immolation, to commit an act of
> premeditated suicide in protest. There can be no more painful way to
> die than in a ball of flames followed by agonizing hours on operating
> tables. To be viewed as so worthless that the world fails to act when
> atrocities such as Cizre take place. There have been countless
> Cizre's in Kurdistan not to mention the horrors of Saddam Hussein's
> Anfal campaign in Northern Iraq, (South Kurdistan) typified by the
> chemical weapons attack in Halabja, in which 5000 persons died. The
> singer, much loved amongst the Kurds, Shivan Perwer composed a song
> about Halabja entitled "Hawar". I spoke to one Kurdish journalist and
> asked him to define the word "hawer" to me. "It is difficult he said,
> wait one minute". He returned with a picture of Iraqi motorists
> applauding at the roadside as Kurds were being lined up and shot
> during the "Anfal" campaign. He pointed to the look of terror on the
> face of one woman, screaming skyward as the bullets hit her body.
> "This is "hawar", sheer hopelessness, sorrow, dejection, with no road
> to safety, whichever way you run. This is the plight of the Kurds".
>
> Maybe one day the Kurds may gain the right to live within their own
> culture in a greater Turkey, or within the "safe havens" of Northern
> Iraq. The average Kurd being offered the same rights as their
> European minority counterparts such as the Welsh, Scots, Flemish and
> Wallonians, or those within the cantons of Switzerland. Surely, that
> will be the day Turkey can become a genuine European partner, and a
> respected member of the NATO alliance, not before. Surely, Turkey
> will firstly have to become a "Rainbow" nation inclusive of the
> yellow and green of the one quarter of the population to add to the
> red with white crescent of the Turkish majority. Only when the Kurds
> feel that the world genuinely sees them as worthy of cultural
> identity, human rights and dignity like the black South African
> majority and the people of Kosovo. Only when the feeling of being
> ignored by the world dissipates, will the protests and
> self-immolation stop, the Kurdish issue is not going to go away,
> freedom is a process not an event. It is time the United States and
> Europe acted to ensure that the process gets under way for the Kurds.
>
> _____________________________________________________________________
> Robert Miller is a freelance journalist.
> _____________________________________________________________________
>
> * CTHEORY is an international journal of theory, technology
> *   and culture. Articles, interviews, and key book reviews
> *   in contemporary discourse are published weekly as well as
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