As Generals Seek Military Solution, Kurdish Problem Poisons Turkish Life

by Marvine Howe

Diyarbakir, a dusty frontier post encircled by powerful Roman ramparts on the banks of the Tigris River, has changed unbelievably over the past few years. Ungainly, hastily built cement apartment blocks and administrative buildings have sprawled out of control beyond the city walls. Along every street and vacant lot, children and men are trying to eke out a livelihood selling anything from pencils and chewing gum to shoe soles. Turkey’s government admits that Diyarbakir’s population has swollen since 1990 from 200,000 to about a million today. (Human rights sources put this unnatural population explosion at 1.7 million).

Most of the newcomers come from villages and hamlets that have been forcibly evacuated and destroyed “for security reasons.’’ In an attempt to eradicate Kurdish insurgents, the Turkish armed forces have emptied large Kurdish-inhabited areas, turned them into no-man’s-lands or declared them forbidden military zones. Villagers suspected of sheltering guerrillas or charged with refusing to participate in the officially-promoted Village Guard system are forced to leave their homes and farms, which then are often burned to the ground to deprive guerrillas of shelter.

No one knows for sure how many people have been displaced in the conflict, which has dragged on since 1984, because the Turkish authorities have rejected offers of assistance from outside organizations like the International Red Cross. But the Turkish Human Rights Association charges that 2,657 villages have been destroyed in Turkey’s southeast and an estimated three million people turned into refugees.

What seems to be happening is the Kurdization of Turkey. One-fifth of the population, or about 15 million people, are said to be of Kurdish origin and many of these have long since been assimilated into Turkish society. But since the early 1990s large numbers of unassimilated Kurds, who used to be concentrated in the southeast, have been uprooted and dispersed around the country. Those with the means to do it move westward and cram into the shantytowns around such large cities as Mersin, Adana, Antalya, Izmir and Istanbul. The poor seek shelter with extended relatives in southeastern cities: Mardin, Van and Diyarbakir.

Although I had not planned to go to the southeast during a June visit this year to Turkey, reports on the Kurdish conflict were so sketchy and contradictory that I felt obliged to make at least a brief trip to Diyarbakir, capital of the area that Kurdish nationalists call Kurdistan.

There had been a Kurdish problem when I had last visited Diyarbakir in the early 1980s as bureau chief in Turkey for The New York Times, but in those days almost no one talked about it. People were afraid to admit they were Kurds, except in private. There were no Kurdish political parties or newspapers, and no Turkish Human Rights Association. Even then, however, the region was under a state of emergency. The Beirut-based Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) had publicly declared its intention to fight for a national homeland in southeastern Turkey, but had carried out only isolated terrorist attacks.

Since then, the Kurdish question has poisoned Turkish life, resulting in more than 20,000 deaths, draining the economy through unending military expenditures, and devastating a large section of the country. It has triggered a mass migration to cities and tremendous social problems, blackened the country’s human rights record, and strained relations with Turkey’s Western allies and neighbors.

The late President Turgut Ozal initiated a slight political opening in 1990, with the legalization of pro-Kurdish political parties and Kurdish-language publications. However, the first Kurdish parties soon were outlawed for sympathizing with the PKK, their publications seized and some leaders, including parliamentarians, were assassinated or jailed.

A Taboo Lifted

But the taboo was lifted on the concept of a Kurdish identity. In last December’s national election, the People’s Democratic Party (HADEP), a reincarnation of the earlier Kurdish groups, made a strong showing in the southeast, winning 1.2 million votes. That was only 4.2 percent of the nationwide total, however, well below the 10 percent threshold needed for party representation in parliament.

From the Turkish capital of Ankara, it is not clear what is happening at the front. Military experts claim that the Turkish army, with better training and a huge increase in forces, has turned the situation around in the past two years. Having abandoned conventional warfare in favor of counter-guerrilla tactics, the army is said to have cleared the area of PKK guerrilla groups, which never numbered more than a few thousand.

A Western diplomat who follows the Kurdish issue closely recalls the situation was so insecure at the end of 1993 that he was not authorized to drive between the major towns of Erzurum and Elazig. Since then, a new chief-of-staff, General Ismail Hakki Karadayi, has doubled the size of Turkish forces to 200,000, issued new rules of engagement and “achieved an acceptable level of violence,’’ the diplomat said.

Yet every week military dispatches continue to report 20, 50 or 100 PKK terrorists killed in action. And of late a spate of terrorist acts has been claimed by the PKK. In fact, Turkish political and business leaders increasingly concede there is no military solution to the Kurdish question and call for additional political measures. Akim Birdal, head of the Human Rights Assocation in Ankara, calls the Kurdish problem “the top human rights issue in Turkey today.’’ He provides monthly statistics showing high levels of deaths by torture, detentions, disappearances under detention, mystery killings, and deaths of people, mostly Kurds, in armed classes.

“The military operations have only made things worse,’’ Birdal says. “Every time they kill a guerrilla, the whole family turns PKK.’’

On first impression, the military presence in Diyarbakir is not particularly conspicuous, except for soldiers stationed at key points atop the 5.5-kilometer circle of Roman walls and occasional patrols down the main streets. An American photographer and I were free to walk about the city, even at night. The atmosphere was generally relaxed with bustling mosques and markets and makeshift cafés in alleys crowded with men on tiny stools, sipping tea or coffee at all hours. (Women tend to stay at home in this traditionally Muslim society.)

With recommendations from Turkish friends, we contacted several local journalists, but they seemed extremely nervous and urged us to go to the Foreign Press Office. They also advised us to get a special press passin addition to the Turkish press card if we wanted to travel outside Diyarbakir.

Seddik Algul, director of the Foreign Press Office, readily gave us passes, but said only the super governor is authorized to speak about “regional security’’and he was out of town. Mr. Algul did assure us that since the massive incursion into northern Iraq to get rid of PKK bases in May 1995, the armed forces “have restored security and normal daily life in Diyarbaker.’’

“The government knows this is a weak, under-developed region,’’ the official spokesman continued, citing an unemployment rate of 20 percent. He spoke of new housing for 2,050 families and a newly opened industrial zone on the road to Elazig, but acknowledged the need to expand private and government investments. By the year 2000, he said, work would be finished on five new dams in the area, providing 200,000 jobs in agriculture and industry.

Since we had many people to see in our five days in Diyarbakir, we limited our excursions to a bus trip to Mardin, seat of an ancient Christian community, near the Iraqi border. During the journey of some 60 miles, there was almost no civilian traffic and the countryside appeared deserted. But we passed five military posts with either armored personnel carriers, troop carriers or tanks. Twice, soldiers with assault rifles entered the bus to check everyone’s identity. We were encouraged not to travel at night.

Old Mardin, known as Marida since pre-Roman times, hangs precariously on a peak overlooking the Mesopotamian plain. Around the base of this natural fortress an entirely new city is rising. When we asked how refugees could afford these new confortable-looking dwellings, we were told they were destined mainly for military and police families.

Most of the touristic sites at Mardin were closed, as was the state tourism office. The only other visitors we encountered were soldiers strolling in formation along the main street, apparently on a shopping expedition. Outside of town, the Syrian Orthodox Dezafaren Monastery, built in the eighth century, is still functioning with a handful of monks. And there are still 60 Syrian Orthodox families and 10 Chaldean families who appear determined to stay in this tenuous border area.

There is no sign marking the Diyarbakir branch of the Human Rights Association. Yet a large crowd was gathered in its spartan sixth-floor offices in a building in the center of town. Mostly refugees from evacuated villages, they were seeking any kind of help. There also were frantic relatives of prisoners who had come to find out what was happening in Diyarbakir’s central prison, where they had seen clouds of smoke. (Later, the association said 19 prisoners had set themselves on fire in protest against prison treatment and 14 had died from their wounds.)

Kadri Bilen, a 37-year-old farmer, told the Human Rights Association representative how, on the previous night, soldiers surrounded his village of Hiskamerg, 36 miles east of Diyarbakir. Most of the 450 inhabitants fled to save their families and their tractors. Bilen left his wife and five children in another village and walked through the fields to get a bus for Diyarbakir. Only old and sick people stayed behind, along with four shepherds and 1,000 sheep, which were confiscated by the military. Security forces had raided Hiskamerg many times before, accusing the villagers of helping the PKK because they refused to join the Village Guards. But this time, Bilen said, was different because there had been a clash and two neighboring Village Guards were killed. He was sure the army would burn Hiskamerg so nobody could go back. Bilen owns 200 acres of wheat and barley but was unable to plant this year becuse of the insecurity. Under questioning, he admitted that “70 to 80 percent of the village is pro-PKK.’’

Sara Ara, wearing traditional flowered bloomers and headscarf, was suffering sharp pains in her chest and stomach and had come to the Human Rights Association for medical help. She already had been to the state clinic, where she was given a handfull of pills. They had done no good, and she couldn’t afford to go to a private doctor.

Mrs. Ara, who was accompanied by her eight-year-old daughter but doesn’t know her own age, described her situation through a Kurdish interpreter with little show of emotion. She and her husband, Hanza, owned a 50-acre wheat and grape farm and lived with their 10 children in the village of Huseynik near Lice. Guerrillas had come many times to Huseynik and she had cooked bread for them.

One night in February 1995, the guerrillas came to the village to get food and left about midnight. At 4 a.m., her husband left the house and at 7 a.m., soldiers surrounded the village looking for her husband.

She heard gunfire and shortly afterward the soldiers took her 11- and 9-year-old sons and forced them to stay in the river until evening, although it was very cold. Her husband didn’t return and she didn’t know what had happened to him.

In May, the military returned and burned down the village, over 100 houses. The soldiers warned that if she didn’t leave, they would keep her sons. She sent two boys to relatives in Mersin and moved into a cellar in Diyarbakir with the rest of her children. Then, eight months after her husband disappeared, a neighbor found his body buried in the cow pasture.

“We have suffered too much,’’ she concluded quietly. “How can we forget?’’

Across town, more people crowded into the well-marked offices of HADEP, the Kurdish nationalist party. Some had come to ask for help but others were there to volunteer.

“HADEP wants peace and equal rights for Kurds and Turks,’’ a 19-year-old student volunteer told me, warning that if I used his name he would go to jail. “It’s a crime to call for equal rights or read a Kurdish newspaper or look at Kurdish TV, but HADEP is the number one party at the university.’’

Abdullah Akin, chairman of HADEP in Diyarbakir, laughed when I asked if the military had things under control: “That’s a comic idea,” he said. “If things are under control, why have they emptied 3,000 villages? Why have 3,500 civilians been killed in the past three years? Why are more than 10,000 people in jail, including many deputies and writers? Why has the army stepped up operations in the past two years?’’ Commenting on the social and economic situation, the 30-year-old lawyer said southeast Turkey is the country’s poorest area, with a $200 per capita income compared to $2,000 for the rest of the country. “Sure, they’re building dams,” he said, “for western Turkey. Many towns, villages and gecekondu [shantytowns] here don’t have electricity and even luxury neighborhoods get cuts.’’

Akin said the main reasons for HADEP’s poor showing in the recent Turkish elections were difficulties in registering the uprooted population and military pressures preventing HADEP from opening offices in a number of towns like Mus and Bitlis. “Refah came in first because of the Kurdish vote but it’s no different from the other parties on the Kurdish question,’’ Akin said, referring to the victory of the Islamist Welfare Party. “We’ll be better organized next time.’’

What about the PKK, I asked? The HADEP leader did not miss a beat: “In my opinion and that of the party, the PKK is not a terrorist organization but a resistance movement.’’

Most people we talked to, from random taxi drivers and shopkeepers to teachers, students and refugees, referred to the PKK with respect. They unhesitatingly described themselves as ``Kurdsnot Turks,’’ and chafed at the prolonged state of emergency and the government’s unfulfilled promises.

“People are very angry,’’ said a Diyarbakir rug dealer, complaining there haven’t been any tourists since the Gulf war. “Refugees from the villages live here like animals ten to a room and nobody helps them. America should get the Turkish government to talk to PKK.’’

From this albeit cursory visit, I came away with the feeling that the Turkish armed forces have indeed gained the upper hand against the guerrillas and established order at least in cities like Diyarbakir and Mardin and along the highways. But clearly they have a long way to go to win the struggle for the hearts and minds of the local population.