26
February 2003
2. "IHD: “An extraordinary solitary confinement in the island of Imrali", the Human Rights Association Ankara Branch announced its “Prison Report 2002”. The report stressed that KADEK President Abdullah Ocalan was held in extraordinary solitary confinement.
3. "Tensions rise between Turkey, Iraqi Kurds over troop deployment plans", hostility between Turkey and the Kurds of northern Iraq spiralled on Tuesday over Ankara's plans to bolster its military presence in the breakaway region ahead of a possible US-led war on Baghdad.
4. "Kurds Ask U.S. Not to Allow Turkish Military Inside Iraq", in a vote that exposed frustration over elements of the United States war plans, the Kurdish parliament in northern Iraq asked Washington today to prevent Turkish military forces from entering Iraq in the event of a war to oust Saddam Hussein.
5. "The rush to war", there is a maddening rush to war that is unparalleled in recent human history.
6. "Turkey's governing party looks to boost trade with central Asian and Caucasus states", the new initiatives are driven less by the desire to affirm traditional ethnic and cultural ties, and more by a desire to establish a solid framework for the regulation of commerce.
1.
- AFP - "Lawyers protest at Kurdish leader Ocalan's prison
conditions":
ISTANBUL / February 25, 2003
Lawyers for Abdullah Ocalan on Tuesday renewed protests against the
prison conditions of the Kurdish rebel leader, who remains isolated
as the sole inmate of a Turkish island jail.
"Abdullah Ocalan, held in conditions of extreme isolation, has
been kept from his lawyers and family for three months under pretext
of adverse weather conditions," lawyer Ercan Kanar told a press
conference held in front of the Sultanahmet courthouse in Istanbul.
Ocalan's lawyers have previously suggested that the toughening in
his jail conditions is linked to the looming war in neighboring Iraq,
which Ankara fears could spark unrest in the Kurdish-populated area
straddling the Turkish-Iraqi border.
"Illegal activities must cease at Imrali," said Kanar, referring
to the Marmara Sea prison near Istanbul where the leader of the separatist
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) is serving life without parole, after
his death sentence was commuted in 2002.
"Despite our protests, Turkish law concerning the prisoner's
detention and international rules are not being applied," he
said, summing up the key complaints contained in a letter sent to
Prime Minister Abdullah Gul.
A delegation from the Council of Europe including members of an anti-torture
committee visited Imrali last week to inspect Ocalan's jail
conditions.
But Kanar said Ocalan's lawyers had received no information from the
pan-European rights watchdog except that the Kurdish leader was in
good health.
The PKK has threatened to initiate a civil disobedience campaign among
Turkey's sizeable Kurdish minority unless Ocalan's jail conditions
are eased.
Thousands of Kurds staged rallies in Turkey, France and Greece in
early February to demand Ocalan's release. The protests came on the
fourth
anniversary of his capture by Turkish undercover agents in Kenya on
February 15, 1999.
Ocalan was sentenced to death for treason in June 1999 but his sentence
was commuted to life in prison in 2002 when Turkey abolished capital
punishment as part of reforms designed to boost its bid to join the
European Union.
The PKK declared an end to its 15-year war for self-rule in southeast
Turkey in 1999 in favor of a democratic resolution to Kurdish grievances.
The conflict, which has claimed about 36,500 lives, has since then
significantly abated.
2. - Kurdish Observer - "IHD: “An extraordinary solitary confinement in the island of Imrali":
The Human Rights Association Ankara Branch announced its “Prison Report 2002”. The report stressed that KADEK President Abdullah Ocalan was held in extraordinary solitary confinement.
ANKARA / 25 February 2003
The Human Rights Association (IHD) Ankara Branch held a press conference the other day and made its report on prisons public. The report read by member of the board Saadet Erdem, stated that isolation became chronic in F-Type Prisons. Erdem expressed that at a time at which war was on the agenda they found it difficult to bring problems in prisons into the agenda and charged the AKP government of “collaborating in the concept of US to annihilate all the Iraqi people”. Erdem said that they had used statements of prosecutors, courts, the Turkish Human Rights Foundation (TIHV), lawyers and applications to IHD to prepare the report. The report dealt with degrading, arbitrary and inhuman treatment in prisons, ban on the right to communication, defence and submitting petition, rights violations families suffered, health problems of detainees and convicts, bans in F-Type Prisons, health conditions of prisoners on death fast in detail.
Medical intervention made legitimate
The report stated that 21 detainees and convicts lost their lives on death fast last year, 4 prisoners committed suicide due to solitary confinement and 2 of them lost their lives as they were not treated. IHD also stressed that problems became chronic because of repression of the state.
Extraordinary solitary confinement in Imrali”
While Imrali Prison was not included in the report as it was in Marmara
Region, Saadet Erdem emphasized that KADEK President Abdullah Ocalan
was held in a extraordinary solitary confinement. “The same conditions
are witnessed in Imrali. Ocalan is held in solitary confinement and
has not been able to see his family members and lawyers for 12 weeks
under the pretext of bad weather conditions,” said Erdem.
3.
- AFP - "Tensions rise between Turkey, Iraqi Kurds over troop
deployment plans":
ANKARA / February 25, 2003
by Hande Culpan
Hostility between Turkey and the Kurds of northern Iraq spiralled
on Tuesday over Ankara's plans to bolster its military presence in
the breakaway region ahead of a possible US-led war on Baghdad.
As the Turkish government asked parliament to authorise the deployment
of thousands more troops across the border in northern Iraq, the regional
parliament in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq demanded international
action to keep Ankara in check.
Underscoring the growing tensions between two US allies, who will
be crucial in a military campaign against Baghdad, the Kurdish parliament
issued a declaration saying it "rejects any military intervention
by Turkey or other countries in Kurdistan for any pretext".
Turkey immediately denied it had a "secret agenda" to take
control of the region, which has been outside Baghdad's control since
the 1991 Gulf war, and accused Kurdish MPs of "provocation and
misleading remarks".
"It would be very misleading and unjustified to interpret any
military measures Turkey might take to ensure its own security and
to provide
humanitarian aid to a possible wave of refugees as having a design
or intentions over Iraq," a foreign ministry spokesman said on
Tuesday.
Tuesday's row was an indication of the deep distrust between the two
camps. Turkey claims its troops will go to northern Iraq for humanitarian
purposes but the Iraqi Kurds fear Ankara may be seeking to extend
control over their region.
A senior official of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), which controls
the strip of northern Iraq adjacent to the Turkish border, recently
warned there could be armed conflict if the Turkish army intervened
in the region.
"We will oppose any Turkish military intervention... Any intervention,
under whatever pretext, will lead to clashes," the faction's
chief spokesman, Hoshyar Zebari, was quoted by the Turkish media as
saying.
Another KDP official, Sami Abdul Rahman, said on Monday the Kurds
felt "less threat" from the Baghdad regime than from Turkey's
plans to deploy troops in the region.
His warning came as the Turkish authorities prevented some 400 journalists
crossing into Iraq to report on a Iraqi opposition meeting in the
city of Arbil.
Several Turkish newspapers suggested the KDP had barred the journalists
from the meeting. But the Kurds issued a statement denying the allegation
and accused the Turkish authorities of seeking to send large numbers
of security officials to accompany the reporters.
"The proposed large escort is not necessary," the statement
said.
The mood over Turkey's plans to extend its control over northern Iraq
is no different in the ranks of the second main Iraqi Kurdish faction,
the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).
If Iraqi President Saddam Hussein were toppled by a US-led war, "there
must be no intervention aimed at limiting our right to freely determine
what kind of a system we want", the PUK's Barham Salih, "prime
minister" of the regional government in Kurdistan, said in an
interview with a Turkish television in late January.
Turkey, which has sided with the United States after months of publicly
opposing a US war on its neighbour, already has up to 2,000 troops
in northern Iraq.
It wants to send in thousands more, on the heels of US forces, saying
they are needed to stop a possible wave of refugees crossing into
Turkey.
But Ankara's main concern is to prevent Iraqi Kurds from declaring
independence in their region if Saddam is overthrown.
Turkey fears that an independent Kurdish state next door to its own
Kurdish-dominated southeastern region could reignite a rebellion for
self-rule which only recently abated after 15 years of bloodshed.
Ankara has threatened military action to prevent such a development.
The Turkish government is also none too happy that Iraq's Kurds have
identified the oil-rich cities of Kirkuk and Mosul, currently controlled
by Saddam's forces, as part of a future federal Iraqi Kurdish region.
4. - The New York Times - "Kurds Ask U.S. Not to Allow Turkish Military Inside Iraq":
ARBIL, Iraq / February 26, 2003
by C. J. CHIVERS
In a vote that exposed frustration over elements of the United States war plans, the Kurdish parliament in northern Iraq asked Washington today to prevent Turkish military forces from entering Iraq in the event of a war to oust Saddam Hussein.
The Parliament's unanimous vote, for a resolution demanding noninterference in Iraq from regional countries, formalized misgivings in the Kurdish zone about the Bush administration's negotiations with Turkey to allow American troops to open a northern front against Iraq's army.
It was carefully timed, coming hours before Zalmay Khalilzad, President Bush's special envoy, arrived in northern Iraq to meet with opposition leaders.
Tensions between Turks and Kurds, already high, have escalated since Yasar Yakis, Turkey's foreign minister, suggested recently that while on missions in Iraq, Turkish troops might attempt to disarm Iraq's Kurds.
It was regarded here as nearly the perfect insult to Kurdish sensibilities. Iraq's Kurds are proud of their armed resistance to Mr. Hussein and distrustful of the Turkish military, which has fought a long war against Turkey's own Kurdish minority.
Minutes after the vote today, members of Parliament said they would fight a Turkish military incursion themselves. "I carried weapons for 12 years against the Iraqi regime," said Rizgar Haji Kayil, a former guerrilla who is now a legislator. "If the Turks enter Kurdistan, I will carry weapons all of my life."
Mr. Kayil warned that Mr. Bush risked alienating a staunch ally. "If Turkey enters into Kurdistan, the United States will lose its best friend, which is the Kurds," he said.
A State Department official said Kurdish concerns, while genuine, were premature, because the United States and Turkey had not yet completed plans.
"These are not things the United States has signed on to," the official said. "The Kurds do not have to feel that there is some sort of separate peace between the United States and Turkey."
Events today were indications of a turnabout in Kurdish attitudes. For months Kurds have enthusiastically supported American plans to remove Mr. Hussein. The principal Kurdish parties, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party, have acted as hosts to American intelligence teams since last fall and toned down nationalist oratory to comply with the administration's will.
Kurds still largely support military action. But in recent weeks, as the United States has signaled a willingness to allow Turkish forces into Iraq, many Kurds have soured on America's notion of how to conduct the war, and said Washington has been too compliant in acquiescing to Turkish demands.
Kurds worry that the Turks will use a presence in Iraq as a pretext for campaigns against them. The Kurdish government, which has administered northern Iraq since it broke free of Mr. Hussein in 1991, fears that Turkey wants to squelch Kurdish advances before the example spreads to Turkish Kurds.
The vote today also gave voice to frustrations that Kurdish parties had tried to solve by more quiet means. In a joint letter to Mr. Bush on Feb. 13, Massoud Barzani, leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, and Jalal Talabani, leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, wrote that Kurds fear "Turkey's real agenda is to crush our experiment in democratic self-government."
The leaders, both former guerrillas, warned: "Should Turkish military forces come in contact with Kurdish populations, there is a real risk of clashes."
They asked the United States to sign a memorandum of understanding,
specifying, among other things, American support for nonintervention.
A Kurdish official involved in negotiations with the United States
said Mr. Bush had not replied, a sign some here take as an untimely
snub.
5. - The Yellow Times - "The rush to war":
By Firas Al-Atraqchi, YellowTimes.org Columnist (Canada)
February 26, 2003
There is a maddening rush to war that is unparalleled in recent human history.
There are many reasons why the phrase "rush to war" is apt in describing the current socio-political environment. However, the rush has little to nothing to do with the fact that Iraq has allegedly not disarmed in 12 years, or that Iraq has allegedly flaunted 17 United Nations Security Council resolutions. War pundits and the cabal behind the war machine continue to argue that "Saddam has had plenty of time to disarm." We hear phrases from U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice that "enough is enough," that "Saddam is toying with the inspectors as he routinely has done in the past decade."
However, while the Bush administration persistently refers to the past 12 years, there is no mention of the next 12 years. Who will run Iraq? What will Iran do about a U.S. military force in Iraq? What happens to the world economy if Saddam destroys Iraq's oil fields? How much will the war cost? Who will clean up the mess? What of the irradiated uranium shells and casings littering the battlefield in Gulf War I? If 80,000 U.S. military personnel have "mysterious ailments" as a result of the first Gulf War, what does that imply about the impending conflict? Will Iraqi Shiites rebel? Will the Kurds declare an independent state? Will Turkey invade the north while Iran invades the south? How does this play into Osama bin Laden's "conspiracy against Islam" theory? What role does the opposition Iraqi National Congress play in a new Iraq?
None of these questions have been answered. All we hear from the likes of Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz et al, is that once Iraq becomes a democracy, the rest will follow.
To the informed Middle East analyst, the above sounds like a comic scene from A Midsummer Night's Dream.
In recent days several "events" may paint a picture of how impractical this drive to war really is.
1. Tension builds in northern Iraq:
On February 18, an Iranian-backed Iraqi heavy mechanized division of Iraqi troops under the guidance of Iraqi Shiite Cleric Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir Al-Hakim crossed into northern Iraq, near the village of Darbandikhan. "The Badr brigade has been trained and equipped by Iran's Revolutionary Guards and could be regarded as a proxy force of the Iranian government. Analysts close to the administration of President George W. Bush said the U.S. was concerned about the intentions of this new element in an increasingly complicated patchwork of forces in northern Iraq," the Financial Times reports.
Most readers have never heard of Al-Hakim, nor are they aware that he is very influential among Iraqi Shiite opposition groups. The fact that he is fervently supported by Iran indicates that Iran is indirectly telling the world that it wants a role to play in the future of Iraq.
Turkish Prime Minister Abdullah Gul announced on February 19 that Turkish military units will occupy northern Iraq to prevent Iraqi Kurds from declaring an independent state. According to Reuters news agency, "Turkish generals want broad freedom to act in northern Iraq to protect a Turkish-speaking minority and prevent any moves by Kurds to form an independent state out of the chaos of a war."
The Kurds, however, have protested to the Turkish presence in northern Iraq and have vowed to resist it. According to ArabNews.com "the chairman of the Kurdistani Democratic Party, Masoud al-Barazani, has expressed total rejection of any Turkish military interference in northern Iraq."
Northern Iraq also hosts the Mujahideen Khalq (MKO), a heavily armed Iranian military opposition group fighting to overthrow the Muslim clerics in Iran. Al-Hakim's forces have vowed to pursue the MKO throughout Iraq. Ansar-al-Islam, an Islamic militant group ideologically tied to al-Qaeda, also has an organized military unit in the north of Iraq. Other Kurdish factions in northern Iraq include the PKK, a militant group bitterly opposed to Turkish control of Turkish Kurdistan; 34,000 Turks and Kurds have died in the ensuing conflict since 1984. PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan is currently incarcerated in a Turkish jail.
The Iraqi army has mobilized 11 divisions to northern Iraq and has heavily fortified the ancient city of Mosul. Possible U.S. military scenarios include launching an attack from Turkey using 40,000 troops.
With so many forces, all bitter enemies of one another, fortifying positions in northern Iraq, the situation is akin to a lit powder keg.
The U.S. has apparently also dispensed with the once friendly Iraqi opposition. Stark differences remain between the INC vision of a future Iraq and current plans to install a U.S. military governor in Iraq (likely General Thomas Franks).
According to London's Times, "Ahmad Chalabi, the head of the Iraqi National Congress, complained that Washington was planning to stay in control of Iraq after President Saddam Hussein had been driven from power and was even considering keeping in place parts of the existing regime."
2. The financial equation:
February 21: Reserve Bank of Australia board member Warwick McKibbin and Center for International Economics executive director Andrew Stoeckel conducted a study outlining the cost of conflict in Iraq: "A short war with Iraq could cost the world one percent of its economic output over the next few years and more than $1 trillion by 2010, Australian researchers said in a report Thursday."
Another Australian research outfit had more depressing news: "A protracted war with Iraq could cut 2 percent from global growth by 2005 and cost major economies up to US$3.6 trillion by 2010, almost half coming at the expense of the United States," says the Center for International Economics in Canberra, Australia.
And that's the good news. If Iraqi forces carry out a plan to blow up Iraqi oil fields and refineries, rebuilding Iraq's oil infrastructure could rocket to 300 billion dollars. In the interim, oil markets would be void of Iraqi oil, and Iraq would not be generating any revenue to feed its people. Sixty-five percent of the Iraqi people currently depend on handouts and rationing from the Iraqi army. Although rationing has kept food and oil prices very low, ordinary Iraqis have no other source of sustenance.
The World Health Organization (WHO) recently estimated that an invasion of Iraq would likely knock out vital water filtration plants and re-introduce typhoid and cholera. Sewage would clog up the streets of Baghdad and Iraqis would be left without water until the plants are refitted or rebuilt. However, if Iraqi oil fields have been blown up, there will be no revenue to fund such initiatives.
Where will the money come from? The U.S. is already facing a record deficit, the stock markets are in decline, U.S. taxpayers have to cough up billions of dollars to buyout Turkish "alliance and support," and oil prices are nearing the 40-dollars-a-barrel mark.
3. The humanitarian equation:
The WHO, as outlined in the BBC, estimates that 500,000 Iraqis will be killed, wounded, and/or be inflicted with disease and harm as a direct result of a war in Iraq. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has also informed the Security Council that, "Nearly half of the Iraqi population may be left without food or water in the aftermath of a war against the country." The U.N. has estimated that it is in an 80 million dollar shortfall in meeting an Iraqi crisis.
The U.N. has also called on countries bordering Iraq to keep their borders open for an expected flood of at least one million Iraqi civilians.
Let's not forget the psychological trauma ordinary Iraqis are currently facing, both as a result of 12 years of U.N. sanctions and the fear of imminent war.
London's Independent reported last week that "A team of international investigators -- including two of the world's foremost psychologists -- have conducted the first pre-conflict field research with children and concluded that Iraqi children are already suffering 'significant psychological harm' from the threat of war. The team was welcomed into the homes of more than 100 Iraqi families where they found the overwhelming message to be one of fear and the thought of being killed. Many live in a news void, with little information concerning the heightened threat of war."
Trafficking in women, also known as white slavery, will also be introduced into Iraq as a result of a war. "Without a doubt you will find women who will be brought in to service the warriors as well as the peacekeepers in these operations," Michele Clark, co-director of the Protection Project of Johns Hopkins Foreign Policy Institute, recently reported.
Meanwhile, CBS recently reported that UNMOVIC inspectors in Iraq had found U.S. intelligence on suspected Iraqi efforts to hide illicit weapons and research worthless. "So frustrated have the inspectors become that one source has referred to the U.S. intelligence they've been getting as 'garbage after garbage after garbage.' In fact, Phillips says the source used another cruder word. The inspectors find themselves caught between the Iraqis, who are masters at the weapons-hiding shell game, and the United States, whose intelligence they've found to be circumstantial, outdated or just plain wrong," said the CBS report.
[Firas Al-Atraqchi, B.Sc (Physics), M.A. (Journalism and Communications), is a Canadian journalist with eleven years of experience covering Middle East issues, oil and gas markets, and the telecom industry.]
Firas Al-Atraqchi encourages your comments: fatraqchi@YellowTimes.org
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6. - EurasiaNet - "Turkey's governing party looks to boost trade with central Asian and Caucasus states":
by Mevlut Katik / February 25, 2003
Turkey’s governing party, the Islamic-based Justice and Development Party (AKP), is working to boost trade with states in Central Asia and the Caucasus. The new initiatives are driven less by the desire to affirm traditional ethnic and cultural ties, and more by a desire to establish a solid framework for the regulation of commerce.
While relatively small on a global scale, Turkey’s trade with former Soviet republics has increased dramatically in the decade-plus since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Turkey traded just over $1 billion during the first 10 months of 2002 with Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. It exported nearly three times as much to the region as it did in 1992.
More than 500 Turkish companies have invested in the region, and the Turkish Eximbank has extended credit worth about $1.2 billion in the region. Experts believe that if Turkey can avoid another financial crisis like the one that struck in 2001, and if Central Asian states solidify the legal framework that protects investments, these numbers could expand meaningfully.
During a mid-January tour of Central Asia, AKP leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he hoped to jointly develop "measures to improve bilateral economic relations." As Erdogan’s words suggest, Turkish leaders are hoping a new model can power regional trade. The goal is to work with Central Asian governments to develop legal and economic policies that encourage sustained investment. At the same time, Turkey is trying to seize on Russia’s relatively lightened touch in the region to become an important financial player in key industries.
Turkey has followed an export-led growth strategy since the early 1990s, and fledgling Central Asian economies have welcomed Turkish goods. Between 1992 and 2002, Turkey’s exports to Azerbaijan amounted to over $2 billion. Turkey also sent roughly $1.4 billion each to Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Most of this consisted of food products, light machinery and textiles. Since Central Asian economies have not made much progress in developing industry, these exports could grow if Turkish businesses see favorable conditions in the region.
At a broad level, such conditions are starting to become discernible. Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, for example, are aggressively developing gas and oil resources at a time when Turkish energy consumption appears set to increase. Construction and completion of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline should substantially increase bilateral trade. [For background information see the Eurasia Insight archive].
The main challenge now for AKP, say experts, may have more to do with building taxable transfers where unofficial trade currently prevails. A brisk "luggage tourism" or "suitcase trade," through which citizens travel across state lines to buy and sell their own products, is believed to be as big as official trade between Turkey and its neighbors. Some Turkish firms also invest in Central Asia through stakes in companies registered in countries like Germany that offer sounder regulations and more experienced leadership. If Turkey can continue to strengthen its financial controls and if its export agency can develop stronger financing packages, meaningful opportunities for intensified trade might develop.
Experts are counting on large-scale projects, in particular the BTC pipeline, to produce a trickle-down effect, creating ancillary jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities that, in turn, boost trade. The AKP will be challenged to ensure that Turkey offers sound financial regulations and a stable currency, while at the same time encouraging Central Asian states, which have much weaker financial frameworks, to do the same. If the AKP succeeds, individual investors are likely to move energetically from idea to business plan to investment. Officials say that trade in the region, broadly measured, can follow a similar path.
Editor’s Note: Mevlut Katik is a London-based journalist
and analyst. He is a former BBC correspondent.