136) Kurds of Turkey

 

Just as disconcertingly, the Kurds' alienation was successfully tapped into by special interest groups, from their very own leaders who used their collective pain for personal gain, to the Soviets, to the Greeks, Armenians, and Syrians, neighbors who coveted territorial expansion at Turkey's expense. Each harboring their respective agendas, however conflicting with the other, they nevertheless managed to pool their resources and kept gnawing along the edges of the land map that was today's Turkey.

 

From "The Horseman," a novel by Kristina O'Donnelly

 

Sometimes Kurds are brought up as an example of the Turks' oppressive nature, to further the case of the Armenian "Genocide." (Naturally, in recent decades, it's not the Kurds the Turks have had an issue with... but the Kurdish terrorist group [PKK]  that Europe and the USA only belatedly came to recognize as a terrorist group, after giving their blind support, mainly out of their desire to put down Turkey.) It's not the purpose of this web site to get into the Kurdish issue, but on this page articles will be included to shed some light on the Kurds of Turkey.

 

 
The Kurds Are Far From an Ethnic Monolith  

 

By Thomas Goltz

 

Los Angeles Times (Date: 7/99)

 

ANKARA - Television viewers around the globe were recently treated to the nearly nightly spectacle of Kurds attacking embassies and consulates throughout Europe in a passionate if confused display of solidarity and protest over the capture of the Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan.

 

First, Kurds occupied Greek and Kenyan facilities over the two countries' reported involvement in Mr. Ocalan's arrest by Turkish commandos in Nairobi on Feb. 15. After those assaults died down, diaspora Kurds attacked the Israeli consulate in Berlin, because of Israel's putative complicity in Mr. Ocalan's nabbing.

 

Then, almost as an afterthought, Kurds marched on overseas Turkish government missions and commercial offices, even coffee shops and restaurants owned or frequented by Turks in Europe.

 

Their message was unmistakable: Release the Kurdish leader or face the wrath of the united Kurdish nation. Mr. Ocalan was formally arrested and charged with treason. Turkish prosecutors are likely to seek the death penalty.

 

What was missing from the images of devotion to ''Apo,'' as Mr. Ocalan is known, and absent in most commentary, were the voices of the millions of Turkish citizens of Kurdish heritage who regard the chairman of the Kurdish Workers Party, or PKK, less as their leader than as a Stalinist villain who hijacked Kurdishness in the eyes of the world. Many of these Turkish Kurds express a hatred of Apo and the PKK that equals or even exceeds that of the Turks.

 

In the Military Martyrs' Cemetery in the Turkish capital, for example, lie 200 of the almost 5,000 Turkish soldiers who have been killed in action during the 15-year fight with the PKK, a conflict that has claimed some 30,000 Turkish citizens, although the vast majority have been Kurds.

 

The day after Mr. Ocalan's capture, the cemetery was filled with families of the fallen, come to give voice to their loss and to silently thank the Turkish government for, they hoped, bringing the long nightmare to an end, or at least the beginning of the end.

 

''We thank the state for having kept its word by bringing the baby-killing monster to face justice,'' said a woman named Sadet Isprili from Turkey's rugged northeast. ''But nothing they can do will bring back the light in our lives.''

 

When asked what she thought Mr. Ocalan's penalty should be, her response was that of many Turkish mothers who have lost their sons.

 

''He deserves execution, but that is too good for him,'' she said. ''The best thing would be for the state to deliver him into the hands of families who have been ruined by his terror, so we might rip him apart with our fingers.''

 

But such sentiments are misleading. When asked if it would be possible to forgive and forget and live once again as neighbors with Turkey's many Kurds, Mrs. Isprili snapped, ''What are you talking about? This war is not between Turks and Kurds, this is between our country and the PKK!''

 

Others at the cemetery expressed similar views. ''Please, please!'' pleaded a grieving father, who then ticked off a list of the different ethnicities that make up of modern Turkey. ''Tell the world that we are brothers! Turk, Kurd, Laz, Georgian, Circassian - all of us who live here! The PKK must not be allowed to get away with the its cheap propaganda and filthy lies!''

 

Yet, almost without exception, the Western media portrayed the Kurds as a uniform bloc of people who were solidly behind Mr. Ocalan in his hour of need, thankful for his courageous resistance against systematic repression by an oppressive colonial power, Turkey.

 

Kurds were not allowed to speak their own language or even identify themselves as Kurds, lest they be thrown into ghastly, ''Midnight Express''-style prisons, claimed a fellow from a ''Kurdish think tank'' in the United States.

 

The Kurds had rebelled against the Turks, reminded another expert in Germany. By invoking self-determination, Kurds were attempting to establish their own, ethnically defined country, the one they had been cheated out of by European powers at the end of World War I and the collapse of the Ottoman Turkish state.

 

Still, where were the other Kurds, especially those who can speak, read and write in their own tongue? Where, for example, were the Pesh Merga fighters, gallant in their baggy pants and cummerbund belts, associated with the Northern Iraqi Kurdish leaders Massoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani? They were fighting alongside the Turks in those areas of Northern Iraq outside of their control, in an effort to evict the PKK from the region.

 

The Kurds of Syria and Iran were also nowhere to be seen or heard, perhaps because both groups have been plowed, however imperfectly, into the national ideology of the countries where they live.

 

And where were the voices of those Kurds who ended up in the Caucasus region of the former Soviet Union? The vast majority of them are scattered in dismal refugee camps among the nearly 1 million ''internal displaced people'' in the post-Soviet republic of Azerbaijan. They were ethnically cleansed from their native homes by Armenia during the war over Nagorno-Karabakh.

 

What is notable about this little-known Kurdish tragedy is that the PKK and other European Kurds seen demonstrating over Mr. Ocalan's arrest played an active role in the cover-up of the Caucasus Kurds' disaster at the hands of the Armenians, the price, it would seem, for continued Armenian support in Europe, and the United States, for the anti-Turkish, Kurdish cause.

 

While hardly perfect, official Turkey's means of dealing with its domestic Kurds — including about one-third of its Parliament and three former presidents, among them the late Turgut Ozal — has improved vastly over the past decade, partly, if not largely, in response to Mr. Ocalan and his PKK. Most of the protesting diaspora Kurds in Europe would not recognize the country they fled a decade or more ago. They remain frozen in time.

 

The vast majority of Kurds, like those fallen soldiers who served in the Turkish military and fought the PKK, are an intimate if sometimes problematic part of the demographic landscape that is Turkey.

 

As for the protesting diaspora Kurds, they are increasingly a marginalized group of losers, who, aided by a Western media culture that relies on black and white answers to complex questions, might have been able to usurp the communal identity of the Kurdish people temporarily, but whose long-term claim to being the hearth keepers of Kurdishness is tenuous indeed.

 

 

Holdwater: By contrast, the Armenians are as single-willed an ethnic monolith as can be found in the world.

 

 

 A Point to Keep in Mind, in the Interest of Fairness

 

Who are the Kurds? Why are there no "Kurdic peoples" and "Kurdish peoples", and why no "Arabic" vs "Arabish", when everyone seems to be hell-bent on writing about the difference
between "Turkish" and "Turkic" languages and peoples?

 

There should be self-determination for everyone. That "everyone" should include the Chechens of Russia, the Turks of Russia (Tatars), Kurdic peoples of the world, Turks of Iran (Azaris), and
Turks of China (Uyghurs), Turks of the Crimea (Crimean Tatars). There are probably more "Turks" who do not have self-determination than "Kurds", and there is a time to be fair to
everyone, and that time is now.

 

So "who are the Kurds" is really related to the question of "who are the Iranians" and "who are the Turks". Ocalan is just a cog in the gears. The news media should not create a virtual reality solely by virtue of only continuing the past distortions and which does not accord with real reality. Reality is complex enough as it is without distortions caused by false use of language.

 

H.M. Hubey
Associate Professor,
Montclair State University
"KURDISTAN" 

 

 

Why does the U.S. press (among others) insist on calling areas where Kurds live (like Turkey and Iraq) "Kurdistan"?

 

I remember when I first saw "Kurdistan" named as a part of Turkey in a film by Yilmaz Güney, called YOL. This was the very film (not exactly pro-Turkish) that I cited as an example of how prison conditions in Turkey might be like, when discussing the "reality" of MIDNIGHT EXPRESS, with a friend whom I coincidentally had seen YOL with.

 

Lately, Northern Iraq is frequently referred to as "Kurdistan"; William Safire of The New York Times made reference to "Kurdistan" in an August 26, 2002 editorial entitled, "Of Turks and Kurds"; TIME Magazine has an article entitled, "Lying in Wait in Kurdistan," in its March 2, 2003 issue.

 

In yet another article ("Lost in Sweden: A Kurdish Daughter Is Sacrificed," Sarah Lyall, July 23, 2002) by the good old New York Times, "Kurdistan" was referred to, again. In response, Professor Mahmut Ozan wrote a letter (which appeared as part of his commentary entitled, "PHYSICIAN HEAL THYSELF"), excerpts of which are presented below:

 

------------------

 

I am an American citizen. After having read the story you ran in your esteemed newspaper, the New York Times, I was impressed. I felt like traveling this summer to the birth place of the murdered girl.this country to observe the plight of these people, and write a story about them for the Turkish Forum where I report about world affairs. The country mentioned toward the end of the story where it says: "...her mother, shattered, has moved back to Kurdistan" would be my objective I immediately called my travel agent and told her that I wanted to travel to Kurdistan and wanted to know if she knew where the closest 'Kurdistani' consulate would be located so that I could apply for a visitor's visa. Her reaction was very incredulous.

 

 

"Kurdistan"

 

She did not know what I was talking about. I had to tell her the story by Sarah Lyall which appeared in the July 23, 2002 issue of the New York Times. She listened to me and offered me the following remarks. " Mr. Ozan, it would be best for you to inquire from the New York Times about the location of the county you mentioned, namely Kurdistan, because I consulted every known world Atlas and yet I have no way of knowing where that place may be located."

 

It goes without saying that I won't be able to go to Kurdistan this year, or any other year for that matter, until a country called 'Kurdistan' is inaugurated as a nation and it is sanctioned as a member of the United Nations officially. The trouble is that this may take a very long time.

 

That reminds me of a popular Russian saying the former First Secretary of the Soviets, Nikita Khrushchev used to repeat in the General Assembly when he came to the United nations. Every time he had to give a negative answer to the US representative, he used his favorite proverb. " When the fish climbs the tree."

 

Now coming back to you Sir, as a longtime newspaper man, I know that the main function of a city desk editor is to check the veracity of all information stated within a potential story before he or she allows it to be published. I'm no longer an NYT subscriber, but if I remember correctly the New York Times' masthead slogan proudly displayed in every issue as follows:

 

"All the News Fit to Print". Well, this time the news was not fit to print. I hope we helped you learn a journalistic lesson today, which I also hope that your publication will remember in the days to come.

 

Sincerely

 

Mahmut Esat Ozan
The Turkish Forum

 

Take a Look at this Double Standard:
Spanish seek to shut Batasuna offices outside Spain

 

 

From euronews.net, Aug 30, 2002:

 

The Spanish judiciary are stepping up efforts to close down Basque radical National party Batasuna outside Spain such as here in Bayonne, southwest France.

 

The country's Supreme Court is to ask France, Belgium and Nicaragua to close offices of the separatist party following the crack down in Spain this week. The party's website is also to be closed as the Government of Jose Maria Aznar extends its political and legal campaign against terrorist group ETA. The news comes on the same day as the Spanish cabinet agreed to ask the Supreme Court for a total ban on Batasuna... It is currently suspended for at least 3 years. Vice President Mariano Rajoy says the ban on the party does not win the war against terrorism but it's an important success in the battle against those collaborating with ETA.

 

But the President of the semi autonomous Basque Government Juan Jose Ibarretxe sharply criticised the ban. He said prohibiting Batasuna was just what ETA wanted to justify a continuing campaign of violence for an independent Basque nation. In northern Spain, Basque National police have continued to close offices and bars accused of funding the guerrilla group. Batasuna says when the ban becomes official it will appeal to European court.

 

Holdwater adds: We in the USA almost never hear about such stories of "rights-suppression"... such as Greece's ugly treatment of her native Turkish population. Yet, in the media, Turkey was clearly presented as the villain in her fight against the PKK, which now is recognized as not being truly representative of the Kurdish people. What do you suppose is the reason?

 

 
"Mr. Hamparian (Holdwater: a representative of the multi-million dollar Armenian organization, ANCA... for example, given eight million dollars by Armenia in 2001, just one of many deep-pocketed Armenian organizations, spreading lies night and day) complains about Turkey's 'ongoing campaign against its Kurdish population.' This lie stems from the 'pits of hell!' This American writer spent time in a small fishing village in southern Turkey just last year. The Kurdish population of that village (some 400 of them) staged a very public and open festivity connected to the circumcision ceremony of a young boy of Kurdish heritage. The celebrations lasted a whole week. Neither in that village nor in any other part of Turkey did I see or hear of any 'ongoing campaign against Kurds'. Perhaps Mr. Hamparian was referring to the Turks' 'on-going campaign' against the despicable PKK terrorists in the southeastern mountains of Turkey where the Kurdish insurgents supported by the Armenian government were finally irradiated. Our U.S. government would have waged a similar campaign against such terrorists if they were operating here in the United States of America. Therefore, the statement made by Mr. Hamparian is simply outrageous and it is totally unfounded.

 

From Sam Weems' excellent essay, Armenia is Trying to Dictate U.S. Foreign Policy

 

 

Judge Weems Protests Biased Austrian TV Program on the Kurds

 

From: Sam Weems
To: birgit.kaufmann@orf.at

 

 

Subject: Kurdistan--High Plains Of The Gods

Dear Dr. Lindger: Director ORF TV

 

I am a Scottish American. I spent 8 weeks in Turkey during August and September producing a Christian video titled "The Seven Churches Of Revelation". I don't have a drop of Turkish blood in my veins.

 

I have read about what you are about to air at your ORF Austrian TV station. Please permit me to share an American experience with Turkish Kurds. I spent some time doing basic production work on my video and stayed at a resort town called Turgutreis near Bodrum. For one solid week more than 350 local Kurds held a circumcision ceremony at the beach, day and night, dancing and partying into the early hours of morning. They kept the entire neighborhood up and invited everybody in town to their celebration. Everybody was having a good time! This was as open and public as you can get and I took any number of photos. Based on the openness and public way the Kurds celebrated their ancient customs, just as much as Turks do, I can't understand how any European country can say the Kurds are persecuted in Turkey!

 

It is obvious that you are confusing the Kurds that live their lives in
Turkey, just as prosperous and peaceful as Turks do, with the terrorist Kurds who are members of the internationally recognized terrorist organization called PKK.

 

As an American I understand fully the words "liberty--freedom and
independence". However, to obtain such freedoms comes with a heavy price because liberty, freedom and independence are not for free! My question to you is just this — Who is going to pay for the "liberty, freedom and independence" your TV program advocates? Certainly, in this day in age, the Kurds can't pay the bills to obtain such things!

 

Permit me to say there is no "Kurdistan" in existence. In my judgment it would be a human disaster to create such a new state in the mountains of present day Turkey. First of all there is no economic opportunity and the people would be subjected to terrible poverty--just as the Armenians are in their corrupt little state. The people are suffering greatly while their dictators in charge rip off their own people!

 

Consider this basic fact: We, here in the United States, gave $100 million dollars to Armenia last year. The Armenian dictators spent only $16 million to benefit the people. The rest of the story is that the Armenian dictators gave the remaining $84 million dollars to their "friends" to create unnamed and unreported "development projects." Over the last ten years the United States of America has given more than $1.5 billion dollars to help the Armenians create an independent state. During this same time more than one million Armenians escaped from this tiny land-locked country, and there is no outward evident that the US $1.5 billion dollars has helped the people themselves.

 

Now, through your program "Kurdistan — High Plains Of The Gods" you want to create another tiny land-locked state disaster! Who is going to pay to keep up the Kurds if they get a state as you proclaim? As an American taxpayer I don't want to spend one more red cent of my tax money to keep up a gaggle of dictators and a people too small and without an economic base upon which to support themselves! There are enough problems in the Near East for you good folks in Austria to create new troubles for someone else to pay for!

 

The practical answer is what Turkey is doing today to develop the $30 billion dollar Ataturk dam projects in the region of Turkey where so many Kurds live and where you call "Kurdistan." To make the region an economic success there must be a nation as strong as Turkey to create economic progress. There is no way the Kurds can go it alone. It is simply folly to think there should be an independent land for the Kurds today! Well, that is unless you good people in Austria are willing to tax yourselves more and send those taxes to the new Kurdistan that you say should be created!

 

Common sense cries out to say that it isn't realistic nor practical to create a new country in the mountains anywhere, at least not with that bunch of terrorists that you are harboring in your lands. Where is the basic money going to come from to establish such a state? Are you good people of Austria going to foot the bill? If you are — fine! But if Austria isn't willing to spend the countless billions of dollars to pay to set up such a new state, then you shouldn't be running such programs to encourage rebellion, murders and poverty such as those terrible things going on in Armenia today! Without Austria spending billions of dollars there can't be a successful new Kurdish state.

 

If you good Austrians, who are encouraging the Kurds to rise up and be terrorists in an attempt to form a state, are not willing to fund the Kurds — don't expect nor ask for American taxpayers to do what the Austrians refuse to do! We have our plate full now just keeping up a gaggle of ungrateful Armenians!

 

Yours truly,

 

Sam Weems

 

A Kurdish-Turk Protests Biased PBS-TV Program on the Kurds 

 

 

A Turkish-American of Kurdish descent voices his displeasure with a program that aired on American's Public Broadcasting System that once again put Turks in a bad light. "Good Kurds, Bad Kurds" was at least aired on PBS' KCET, which is the Los Angeles (California) station... where PBS' "The Great War" and other pro-Armenian programs were produced. California is the state with the largest percentage of Armenian-Americans, and a lot of anti-Turkish PBS shows subsequently come out of KCET.

 

--------------------------

 

November 30, 2001

 

PBS Video

 

Kevin McKiernan, Producer
To Whom It May Concern,

I watched the show titled "Good Kurds, Bad Kurds" with great sadness and regret. The show was done very emotionally and referred as "DOCUMENTARY", giving the impression of thorough research and fair representation. It turned out, again, to be a one-sided propaganda to discredit Turkey, knowingly or unknowingly, totally ignoring all the positives Turkey has accomplished in the stabilization of the region. The film gave very little time to few American and Turkish officials' points of view, in highly edited and molded few second interviews.

 

I would have not felt the necessity to write to you if this film was presented as a fiction or a commentary. However, it seemed like an uncontested and unchallenged mud throwing contest, solely designed to defame Turkey.  KCET is a respected TV channel and I hope that you will keep this reputation by being fair and allowing equal time to the responsible opposing views. Or please don't call it a documentary.

 

Please...because you will be insulting me and many others whom are not only Turkish but also of Kurdish descent. Mr. McKiernan failed to interview any body from my village, or thousand of other villages similar to mine, whose inhabitants are of Kurdish descent and still speak Kurdish in their daily life. Thousands of other villages in similar situation would take and have gladly taken arms to fight against their own kind to stop the terrorism.

 

My village is in the eastern part of Turkey, near a city called Elazig and populated half and half by people of Kurdish descent and Turkish descent, with an exception of an Armenian family. One thing I am pretty sure of, is that this show would offend every single one of them.

 

We have been living together for many decades without any problem. If Mr. McKiernan's goal is not to provoke or create a problem but to genuinely help the people of the area, then he is welcome to visit my village any time.

 

Turkish people of the Kurdish descent in my village lived with the real fear of Kurdish terrorist groups, whom are overtly sponsored by neighboring Syria and even Greece. The main fear was what if these Kurdish terrorists came near our village, asked for ransom, shelter, food, and in the process, killed the only teacher in the village, as they have done in hundreds of villages throughout South-Eastern part of Turkey. And worst of all, what if they succeeded in their goal?.. What would happen to all the lives, properties, living standards (which are higher than any of the neighboring countries except Greece) and the freedom they had?... What if the entire area was destabilized, as a result of Kurdish terrorist actions, and run by dictators like in Iraq or Syria, or Taliban in Afghanistan, or Mullahs in Iran, or the many murderous factions in Lebanon? What if the only stabilizing element and the largest military force in the area were to fall into a chaos!.. I would like you to imagine a Middle-East like that. I am sure, McKiernan, would make another "documentary" and call it "Good Kurds won!". And KCET would again air it!

 

Turkey is not perfect nor will be perfect in very near future, however, with lots hard work and a little help from friends, we can build on what there is there. It should not be one's goal to tear down the existing democracy in Turkey, but to build on it, and improve it, if only for the sake of peace in the already tumultuous region.

 

I hope you can see that my village has a lot at stake in terms of life and liberties, and would not support the view point Mr. McKiernan is toying with, portraying internationally recognized terrorist groups as freedom fighters to unsuspecting audiences. He is entitled to his own opinion, but please, don't call it a documentary, suggesting that it is based on facts. It is not!

 

I am not sure if Mr. McKiernan understands the meaning of the Turk. The Turk means anybody who lives in the land called Turkey.. The word Turk, like the word American, indicates citizenship, not race, color, or creed. Considering the facts that Turkey is established on lands that were once part of the Ottoman Empire, (like 46 other member countries in the United Nations today) and that the Otoman Empire was a melting pot for many cultures, it is easy to understand that Turks are made of these many different ethnicities, including but not limited to Kurds, Greeks, Armenians, Slavic people, Azeries, Turks of Turkish descent etc. and the list goes on and on....

 

When one says "Ne mutlu Turkum diyene = Happy is the one who calls himself a Turk", a phrase symbolizing the nation building efforts since 1923, one means that we have melted in the pot into one; past is past; we are looking forward to a better future; and working hard for it. It is like saying, "Hey, I am an American first,
regardless of whatever heritage I come from.

 

Mr. McKiernan made reference to Ataturk and one of the Kurdish rebels being hanged. However, he failed to mention the hundreds of thousands of people of Kurdish descent, who fought alongside Ataturk during the war of independence, and died for their country, Turkey.

 

Mr. McKiernan also failed to mention that the Kurdish rebel was not the only one who was hanged, but many other rebels of Turkish descent and religious fundamentalist (Taliban-like rebels) were also hanged. It was a time of independence war. Mr. McKiernan made it sound like this rebel was singled out because he was Kurdish, thus deliberately misrepresenting the facts.

 

Mr. McKiernan made no reference to the fact that one of the recent Turkish presidents, Turgut Ozal, well liked and popular, was of Kurdish descent. Or that one quarter of the Turkish Grand National Parliament are made up of Kurdish-Turks. Kurds enjoy the same rights and liberties as anoy others in Turkey, no more, no less. Kurds are not "oppressed" for their ethnicity, as Mr. McKiernan claims, and Kurdish-Turks suffer as much as any other Turks.

 

My nick name in college in Istanbul, Turkey, for example, was "Kurd", but nobody discriminated against me or treated me any differently because of where I came from. However, I had some lousy economical experiences, like many other Turks, mainly due to the problems of a developing country, struggling to improve and perfect its economy and democracy.

 

If Mr. McKiernan would like to see the other point of view from the Kurdish-Turks, I would like to invite him to my village where many of them have higher than elementary school education. Let him see people speaking in Kurdish and listen Kurdish music and dance to it shoulder to shoulder with others, with no interference of any kind from anyone, state or private.

 

Turkey's democracy may not be perfect just yet and Turkey may still have many problems economically, but it is still a secular country, bent on freedom and democracy, and a free, capitalistic country with a market system. The life standards are higher in the Western part of the Turkey than they are in the Eastern part where my village is. The simple reason for this is because that the education, capital, and the investments are not flowing into these areas from the fear of terrorism. In other words, it is because of McKiernan's glorified terrorists (he calls them freedom fighters ! ), the entire eastern Anatolia is suffering from lack of education, products , and services.

 

I had hesitated to go back to my village and visit my family in the past because of the fear of terrorism, although in the past several years, it has been totally safe and worry free to travel there. If this stable state of affairs continue for a while, one can expect a lot more investment flowing into the East and improving the lives of many.

 

Mr. McKiernan also made biased references to many important events. One of them was, during the Gulf War in 1991, Iraqi-Kurds were receiving lot of attention, but the Turkish-Kurds were not, allegedly for their bad treatment by the Turkish government. Mr. McKiernan again missed the point. If the Turkish government did not like the Kurds, then why would they allow millions of Kurdish refugees to pass to the Turkish side for shelter and protection from Saddam Hussein?

 

Then there is the issue of villages being burned down. It is a harsh reality that when there are warlike conditions there will be a warlike results, although it is unfortunate. It is even worse when these PKK terrorists, trained in Syria, financed and armed by foreign interests like Syria, Iraq, Iran, Greece, Russia, and even Armenia, raid into your country and start killing indiscriminately first the teachers and then the other Kurds who do not side with them.

 

I would like to remind Mr. McKiernan the date 9-11-2001. People coming into our country from abroad, committing their heinous hate crimes, and then punished with the response of the USA.... I really would like to know what Mr. McKiernan calls Taliban or El-Kaida. Freedom fighters? I hope not!

 

Would McKiernan ask a young Taliban: "Did you ever kill an American marine?". What would the Americans feel if the uneducated, brainwashed, killing machine, Taliban, would nod his head with a disgusting grin on his ugly face? Well, that's how I felt when that PKK terrorist woman nodded with an arrogant smile to mean "Yes, she did kill a Turkish soldier."

 

Mr. McKiernan, I will be one of the first people to tell you that there are many problems in Turkey that need to be solved. I can personally tell you my few horrible experiences in Turkey, however, I can also tell you thousands of good experiences, too. So we need to evaluate bad versus good, weigh them, balance them, and make some tough choices. We have to , of course, be in touch with the harsh reality of the conditions. If we judge everything by American standards, the results will be different, than if we were to judge everything by Afghanistan or Iraq standards. Kurdish people having so many factions and tribal differences amongst themselves, in itself underlines the importance of the survival and why democracy in Turkey must succeed.

 

Mr. McKiernan, I am not sure if you even realize, that you put real terror and fear into many peoples hearts and minds, when you so arrogantly and sloppily showed a map of Turkey, split into pieces because it is the dream of some people you know. To those people who live in the villages you so shamefully split from Turkey in your toy map without even asking them, however, your lines conjure up images Taliban's Afghanistan or Saddam Hussein's Iraq or Mullah's Iran. To a person like me, who grew up in a Turkish-Kurdish village enjoying all the liberties, your heinous lines splitting Turkey are terrifying with thoughts of going back centuries in endless tribal or religious war of one kind or another.

 

Mr. McKiernan, I could not agree with you more when it comes to improving the lives of the people in the area and the human rights. However, I believe in the democratic struggle to improve it. You seem to approve of the armed struggle your PKK terrorists were waging. We also have to understand the correlation between the health of an economy to human rights and democracy. When we improve economic conditions, we will also improve the lives of many.

 

I would like to ask you, Mr. McKiernan, if you are really trying to improve the lives of the Kurds in South Eastern Turkey. If you are serious, then here are my suggestions:

 

Let's start a campaign for the acceptance of Turkey in to the European Union, which will greatly enhance the living standards, democracy, human rights, and the economy in Turkey in a very short time.

 

I also believe the most important help of all is to take education and investments in to the area. Mr. McKiernan please go back to Turkey, visit my village, and tell everybody: "Yes, Turks and Kurds are living now and have lived for decades, in harmony together, next to one another". Find a few positive aspects of the people who live there and accentuate those positives. Find all the areas of historical significance and natural beauty and show it to people in USA to encourage them to travel to this areas. When there are tourists going to this area, they will spend money, and investors will follow, improving the lives of all. That is, of course, if that is what Mr. McKiernan really wants to accomplish... to improve the lives of all the Kurds in this region.

 

I will be more than happy to help him and assist him in any way I can.

 

Respectfully

 

Verdi Tanriverdi

 

Santa Ana, California

 

 

KURDS LIVING IN SWEDEN DENOUNCE PKK/KADEK AS A TERRORIST GROUP

 

The Federation of Kurdish Organizations in Sweden announced last week that the successor to the PKK, the Kurdistan Freedom an Democracy Congress (KADEK), was no different from the PKK, an organization which has cost many innocent people their lives.

 

These words came from a formal declaration by the head of the Fedaration, Abdurrahman Gumdiki, Enver Karahan, former administrator of the People's Democracy Party (HADEP) and Vildan Tanrikulu, a member of the Kurdish
community in Sweden.

 

The declaration announced that the signatories considered the PKK to be a terrorist organization. The PKK, it said, had not only damaged the Turkish state but has caused great difficulties for thousands of Kurdish families living in Iran, Iraq, Syria and Europe. The declaration continued by stating that the PKK chief had ordered the slaying of members of the PKK that formed a democratic opposition to his leadership.

 

They said they would never forget the barbaric slaying of Kurdish intellectuals Cetin Güngör and Enver Ata by PKK units in 1984. It also said that Kurds would not recognize the decision of the 5th PKK congress, which said that the PKK and its leader are the sole entity pursuing the rights of Kurds.

 

Meanwhile, the Belgian newspaper De Standaard published an article on May 14 claiming that 17 PKK/KADEK members were to face a Belgian court for money laundering and forming a gang to forcefully collect cash.

 

The article also says that the Kurdish Medya TV station and the Roj NV organizations are believed to have links with the PKK.

 

The investigation began after an anonymous donation of 2.5 million euros was made to Medya TV. It was later revealed that the money came from a PKK/KADEK controlled froup operating in Denmark.

 

TURKISH NEWS. 23th, May 2002

 

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Why is the voice of a predominantly non-Kurdish communist terrorist organisation, the PKK with its various branches, more esteemed in Europe than the voice of the millions of Kurds who have been fighting for their existence along with Turks?

 

Anssi Kullberg, Turkey and the Rest of Europe

 

 

 

Why should I ask for an independent Kurdish state? Instead of independence, we want a Turkish state in disarray.  We want another military coup, we want an end to democracy in Turkey...

 

Abdullah Ocalan, PKK Leader, TIME December 6, 1993 p.37

 

 

Assyrian writer Fred Aprim has written an insightful article entitled, "Assyria or Kurdistan?"

 

He asks if Kurdistan is a Myth or a Reality ... and states "Regardless to the fact that the Kurds origination is ambiguous in history, one fact remains unequivocal, and that is, they are not the indigenous people of northern Iraq (Assyria)." He further declares "Deception is an art and the Kurds have perfected it." The article may be read at atour.com/.

 

 

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© Holdwater 

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