24
February 2005
1. "Turkish political cartoonists protest prime minister's defamation suit", artists say leader seeks to stifle free expression.
2. "IHD, TIHV to clarify human rights record in Paris", Representatives of international human rights organizations will participate in the meeting titled “Human Rights in Turkey: A Reality Under Construction?” as well as listen to torture accounts registered by human rights organizations in Turkey. Alatas, nonetheless, emphasized that they would not only focus on the issue of torture during the meeting in Paris but would also try to present a comprehensive view of human rights policy implementation in Turkey.
3. "Where is that ‘zero tolerance’ government?", Mardin - The play was about a “terrorist” 12-year-old boy and his “terrorist” father, who “attacked” a group of armed policemen. The two “terrorists” were killed in an “exchange of fire” by the brave policemen who heroically did not give them a chance to surrender. Security forces were so kind that the 12-year-old boy was not even shot in the face -- a horrific situation that could have left his features deformed – rather he was killed by a bullet to the back of his head. Naturally, some troublemakers accused the police of “using excessive force,” and some even went so far as to claim that the father and son were subject to a “summary execution.”
4. "Turkish bestseller depicts war on U.S.", it's the year 2007, and U.S. troops in northern Iraq fire on a group of Turkish commandos, setting off a war between the two NATO allies... Turkey's new hot-selling novel is Metal Storm, and although it is pure thriller, it highlights the deep fears that many Turks harbour that the U.S. invasion of Iraq will put the decades-long allies on a collision course.
5. "If Syria leaves Lebanon, shouldn't Turkey leave Cyprus?", what’s so difficult about insisting that Turkey end its illegal occupation of Cyprus before any more American tax dollars find their way into Turkey?
6. "Kurd who will seal Saddam's fate", Jalal Talabani, the former Kurdish guerrilla commander, prisoner and outlaw who seems likely to become Iraq’s President, has more reason than most to want Saddam Hussein dead.
1. - Los Angeles Times - "Turkish political cartoonists protest prime minister's defamation suit":
Artists say leader seeks to stifle free expression
ANKARA / 24 February 2005 / by Amberin Zaman
This nation's best-known political cartoonists gathered in Istanbul yesterday to protest legal action taken by the prime minister against artists who criticized him through their work.
Members of the Turkish Cartoonists Association accuse Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of trying to stifle free expression even as Turkey prepares to seek membership in the European Union.
"We cartoonists have long faced pressure from politicians," Metin Peker, the association's president, said at a news conference. "Just as we thought those dark days were over, we have been confronted with this."
Peker was referring to a defamation suit filed recently by Erdogan against Musa Kart, a cartoonist for the secular daily newspaper Cumhuriyet. Kart was fined $3,500 by an Ankara court last week on charges of assailing Erdogan's honor in a cartoon that depicted him as a cat enmeshed in a ball of wool.
The work was published by Cumhuriyet in May, when the Turkish leader proposed legislation to allow graduates of Islamic clerical training schools to enter secular universities. In the cartoon, Erdogan says in part: "Do not create tensions."
Turkish secularists accused the former Islamist leader of doing just that by trying to increase the role of Islam in public life. The bill was rejected by the country's secularist president, Ahmet Necdet Sezer.
Kart denies that he insulted Erdogan.
"I was merely trying to show that he had become trapped in his own rhetoric," Kart said yesterday in an interview, adding that he would appeal the verdict.
Erdogan spent a brief stint in jail in 1998 after being convicted on charges of trying to incite a religious uprising through a nationalist poem he recited at a rally. Since taking office, he has filed more than 50 cases against journalists and cartoonists.
"One would think that as a victim of repression, Erdogan would be the least likely leader to go after our friends," said Tuncay Akgun, the co-owner of Turkey's largest selling weekly cartoon magazine, Leman.
The Los Angeles Times is a Tribune Publishing newspaper. 
2. - Turkish Daily News - "IHD, TIHV to clarify human rights record in Paris":
ANKARA / 23 February 2005
As the French Parliament has paved the way for a referendum regarding potential new members of the European Union, which had been widely interpreted by Turkish public opinion as a discriminatory, particularly concerning Turkey's EU bid, human rights activists in Turkey are set to head to Paris next month in order to paint an objective picture of the current human rights situation in Turkey.
Human Rights Association (IHD) Chairman Yusuf Alatas, Turkish Human Rights Foundation (TIHV) Chairman Yavuz Önen and Diyarbakir Bar Association Chairman Sezgin Tanrikulu will participate in a meeting at the French National Assembly on March 7, upon an invitation from French parliamentarian Serge Blisko, secretary of the Turkish-French Parliamentary Friendship Group.
The meeting had actually been scheduled for a date ahead of the Dec. 17 EU summit, where EU leaders set Oct. 3 to be the official start date for entry talks between Turkey and the EU, Alatas told the Turkish Daily News. However, prospective Turkish attendees preferred to postpone the meeting to a date after the summit.
“In France, there have been heated debates concerning Turkey's EU bid, particularly before Dec. 17. We didn't want the meeting to be overshadowed by these debates, which have actually not been so supportive to Turkey,” Alatas said.
Representatives of international human rights organizations will participate in the meeting titled “Human Rights in Turkey: A Reality Under Construction?” as well as listen to torture accounts registered by human rights organizations in Turkey. Alatas, nonetheless, emphasized that they would not only focus on the issue of torture during the meeting in Paris but would also try to present a comprehensive view of human rights policy implementation in Turkey.
“We'll talk about positive improvements as well as shortcomings
in the implementation of human rights in Turkey,” he said.
3. - Turkish Daily News - "Where is that ‘zero tolerance’ government?":
23 February 2005 / by Yusuf Kanli
A comedy of errors was staged in Mardin on Monday. With a well-written script and an experienced cast, the entire world outside Ankara was shocked to see how far this country still is from being a truly law-orientated state with the principle of “equality for all” applying to how laws and norms of justice are applied.
The performance was followed by both Turkish and international human rights groups. Somehow, however, they did not applaud the excellent staging of the play. They were even angered by the performance, and indeed the non-performance -- or more accurately, non-attendance -- of some of the leading actors.
They were unaware that those key actors did indeed contribute to the staging of this comedy of errors by not participating. Education is a major problem in the country. We have to educate our human rights groups as well. They just could not understand the excellent farce being played out in front of them.
The play was about a “terrorist” 12-year-old boy and his “terrorist” father, who “attacked” a group of armed policemen. The two “terrorists” were killed in an “exchange of fire” by the brave policemen who heroically did not give them a chance to surrender. Security forces were so kind that the 12-year-old boy was not even shot in the face -- a horrific situation that could have left his features deformed – rather he was killed by a bullet to the back of his head. Naturally, some troublemakers accused the police of “using excessive force,” and some even went so far as to claim that the father and son were subject to a “summary execution.”
Fortunately, the country where this episode took place was a democratic republic, the government of which had announced a “zero tolerance to torture and ill-treatment” policy. The policemen accused in the ordeal were immediately transferred to another town by the Interior Ministry and were assigned to duty there -- as everyone is innocent until proven guilty -- and thus were saved from being the victims of a heinous plot against them in full conformity with the resolute government policy against ill-treatment in the country.
Naturally, the four policemen accused in the game could not attend the trial because they were, firstly, outside the city where the court had convened; and, secondly, in another city, where they were on duty. Anyhow, they were “free” pending the outcome of the trial and were therefore neither obliged to physically be in attendance during the court session nor prevented from performing their sacred job of protecting the citizenry.
Human rights advocates missed this crucial point… The poor police officers were so dedicated to their sacred duty to protect civilians that they could not even attend a court session at which they were accused of very serious crimes, facing up to four years behind bars each.
Come on, let's be realistic. The comedy of errors we have been describing
was not about something that took place in a country ruled by dictatorship.
We are talking about a Turkey that has achieved much over the past
few years in all fields of life and has secured a date for the start
of accession talks with the European Union. The court will eventually
determine the facts surrounding the Nov. 21 killing of 12-year-old
Ahmet Kaymaz and his 34-year-old father Ugur Kaymaz. We are confident
that those responsible will be punished. But what we cannot understand
is how it happens that the Interior Ministry relocates the accused
officers and keeps them on duty even though they stand accused of
serious charges. Where is that “zero tolerance” government?
Was it a joke?
4. - AP - "Turkish bestseller depicts war on U.S.":
ISTANBUL / 23 February 2005 / by Louis Meixler
It's the year 2007, and U.S. troops in northern Iraq fire on a group of Turkish commandos, setting off a war between the two NATO allies.
U.S. tanks quickly pour across the Iraqi border into Turkey, annihilating Turkish forces while U.S. warplanes target Istanbul. A Turkish agent, acting on his own initiative, exacts his revenge. He detonates a nuclear bomb in a park in Washington that levels the U.S. capital.
Turkey's new hot-selling novel is Metal Storm, and although it is pure thriller, it highlights the deep fears that many Turks harbour that the U.S. invasion of Iraq will put the decades-long allies on a collision course.
The mood of suspicion has become so serious that U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in a meeting with Turkish leaders earlier this month, raised concerns about the negative image of the United States in Turkey, diplomats said.
The book is "fiction but in Turkey everyone is questioning whether there will eventually be a conflict between America and Turkey," Cem Kucuk, an editor at Timas Yayinlari, the book's publisher, said in an interview Tuesday.
During the Cold War, Turkey and the United States saw their alliance as crucial to stopping possible Soviet expansion.
But now, the critical security issue to both countries is Iraq, where the two sides have vital interests that could conflict.
Washington sees Iraqi Kurds as key allies in bringing stability to the country. Turkey, however, is terrified that growing Iraqi Kurdish power could inspire Kurds in Turkey, where the army has battled autonomy-seeking Kurdish insurgents for decades.
A turning point for Turkey came in 2003 when U.S. forces seized 11 Turkish soldiers in northern Iraqi that they suspected of plotting to assassinate a top Iraqi Kurdish official. U.S. soldiers handcuffed the Turks and put sacks on over their heads, which many Turks considered an extreme humiliation.
"There is a perception that the United States is encouraging . . . Kurds in Iraq and they are not taking into account the concerns of the Turkish government," said Sami Kohen, a columnist for the Milliyet newspaper.
Criticism of U.S. policies is hardly new in Turkey and has long been championed by leftist and pro-Islamic groups.
"What is new and what makes this anti-Americanism so widespread now and so strong is the large mass which includes the elite and the intellectuals . . . and some of the military," said Kohen. "All of these elements who . . . had a lot of sympathy for the United States are turning against" America.
Turkish newspapers have recently been filled with stories of the increasing tensions. Kohen said that in questions that he has fielded at recent university lectures and conferences, the United States "is being portrayed more as a hostile country than an ally."
Also at issue is the fact that Turkey's ruling party, the Justice and Development Party, has its roots in the Islamic movement, whose members have sometimes identified more with besieged Iraqis than with the United States.
"The (party's) base is radically anti-American and is very sensitive to populist policies," columnist Cuneyt Ulsever wrote in the Turkish Daily News.
And many Turks fear that the United States may soon provoke a conflict with neighbouring Iran, further inflaming tensions in the region.
A BBC World Service poll taken in 21 countries, showed a chart-topping 82 per cent of Turks felt that U.S. President George W. Bush's re-election was a negative step for global peace and security. In France the figure was 75 per cent.
"It is impossible not to see the anti-American movement's rise," columnist Ismet Berkan wrote in the daily Radikal.
Turkish officials have been working hard to blunt the hostility on the street and have recently emphasized the importance of the relationship with the United States.
In Brussels, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was asked about anti-American sentiments.
"Let's not focus on this but on making friends," Erdogan said after meeting Bush on Tuesday.
"At the moment, our relations are just fine," he said, adding that it was "out of the question" for the government to contribute to such negative sentiments.
While criticism of Bush and U.S. policy has skyrocketed, there is little hostility toward Americans on the streets and officials have taken pains to point out that just a few years ago, president Bill Clinton was enormously popular in the country.
Burak Turna, co-author of the book, says he wrote Metal Storm to try to prevent a U.S.-Turkish clash.
"Our message to the United States is that we don't want chaos in the region," said Turna, who worked for a small U.S. textile company before writing the book. "The book is not anti-American but is a criticism of U.S. policy and shows how things could end up if we continue on this way."
The book has sold 100,000 copies in just two months, a record in Turkey, Kucuk said, and six of Turkey's largest bookstores say the book is one of their top 10 sellers.
Turna urged the United States to review its policies and consult more with its allies, but said he was not confident that Bush's reconciliation trip to Europe will have much of an impact.
"It is a very desperate attempt to mend fences," Turna
said, when asked about Bush's meetings this week with European leaders.
"As long as the U.S. goes on its way it is not possible to mend
fences."
5. - The Mercury - "If Syria leaves Lebanon, shouldn't Turkey leave Cyprus?":
What’s so difficult about insisting that Turkey end its illegal occupation of Cyprus before any more American tax dollars find their way into Turkey?
23 February 2005
There is growing international pressure on Syria to end its illegal occupation of Lebanon. Syria has been using Lebanon, once the jewel of the Middle East, as a terrorist base since 1976 when it sent 27,000 troops into Lebanese territory under the guise of establishing order after Lebanon’s bloody civil war.
The Syrians decided to stay and install a series of puppet regimes in Lebanon. The recent assassination of Lebanon’s former prime minister, a staunch opponent of the Syrian occupation, has brought a renewed effort at the United Nations to get Syria to leave Lebanon. Syria still has 14,000 troops stationed in Lebanon.
Just slightly to the west of Lebanon sits the island of Cyprus, a sovereign nation since 1960. It too has endured an occupation by a foreign power. Since 1974, Turkish troops have occupied one-third of the island. (Ironically, many Lebanese fled to Cyprus in the 1970s to escape the violence in their country.)
Turkey invaded Cyprus on July 20, 1974, under the guise of protecting the Turkish minority on the island from the Greek-Cypriot majority. The invasion followed an unsuccessful coup against the elected government of Cyprus by forces loyal to the military junta that was governing Greece at the time.
Greek-Cypriots put up a valiant effort to protect their homeland from the invading Turks, but it wasn’t much of fight. A few thousand Cypriot National Guard troops using Korean War-era rifles battled 40,000 heavily-armed Turkish troops equipped with tanks, helicopters and the latest American-supplied warplanes.
In a matter of days, Turkish troops drove 200,000 Greek Cypriots — 1 out of every 3 people living on Cyprus at the time — from their homes and businesses in the northern half of the island. A cease-fire was brokered by the United Nations on Aug. 16, 1974, just as Turkish troops was poised to enter the Cypriot capital of Nicosia.
More than 6,000 Greek-Cypriots were killed in the fighting. Another 1,600 people disappeared behind the Turkish lines. Three decades later, there has never been an accounting by Turkey of what happened to some 1,300 men, 116 women and 133 children caught behind the advancing Turkish army. Many are believed to have been killed, but others were probably taken prisoner. There is independent evidence that some of the hostages are still alive in Turkish prisons in the occupied part of the island or on the Turkish mainland.
Imagine being held prisoner by an occupying army for 30 years and your only "crime" is that you weren't fast enough to escape the soldiers who invaded your homeland.
The Turkish invasion and occupation of Cyprus, as well as the continuing violation of the fundamental human rights of the people of Cyprus, have been condemned by international bodies, including the U.N. General Assembly, the Non-Aligned Movement, the Commonwealth, the European Court of Human Rights and the Council of Europe. But Turkey doesn't care.
Fed by billions of dollars in U.S. aid, Turkey thumbs its nose at international law. This is the same Turkey that continues to have one of the worst records of human rights violations in the world. The same Turkey that denied the U.S. use of its bases and air space to launch a northern offensive against Iraq. Imagine how many more Saddam loyalists and insurgents could have been killed or captured in the opening days of the Iraq War had Turkey cooperated with the U.S.
Turkey simply refuses to leave Cyprus. It keeps 30,000 troops on the island to make sure the Greeks never return to their homes. It has ignored dozens of U.N. resolutions calling for unification of the island and a succession of U.S. presidents — Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton and now Bush II — always find excuses to look the other way as Turkey occupies a neighboring country.
Why should American taxpayers finance this rogue nation? Unlike Syria, where the U.S. has little leverage, the Turkish economy would collapse without U.S. dollars. What’s so difficult about insisting that Turkey end its illegal occupation of Cyprus before any more American tax dollars find their way into Turkey?
* E-mail Tony Phyrillas at tphyrillas@pottsmerc.com
6. - Times Online - "Kurd who will seal Saddam's fate":
SULAIMANIYAH / 23 February 2005 / from Anthony Loyd
JALAL TALABANI, the former Kurdish guerrilla commander, prisoner and outlaw who seems likely to become Iraq’s President, has more reason than most to want Saddam Hussein dead.
The enmity between the two men is such that on one occasion, during
the brutal struggle between Saddam’s forces and the Kurds in
northern Iraq, Saddam offered an amnesty to every Kurdish fighter
except Mr Talabani.
As President, Mr Talabani would have a chance to turn the tables on
the fallen dictator. If Saddam is convicted of war crimes, including
the slaughter of more than 182,000 Kurds, Mr Talabani would sign his
execution warrant.
But he has a problem. “I’ve thought about it and this is one of my big problems,” he told The Times in an interview at his base in Qala Chwallan, northern Iraq. “Why? Because as a lawyer I signed an international appeal against executions and now this gentleman will be sentenced to death, and Iraqi people want to sentence him, to kill him. What can I do?”
Asked if he can resolve the dilemma, he laughed. “I hope so.”
With the Kurds securing a strong second place in elections last month, and the victorious Shia having chosen Ibrahim al-Jaafari for the Prime Minister’s job on Tuesday, Mr Talabani, 71, is the favourite for the presidency.
Yet there would be many ironies in him becoming titular head of a country whose rule he has spent most of his life fighting to escape.
“In my life I didn’t think at all to be minister, or prime minister or president,” he said. “I was thinking that the Kurdish struggle is a prolonged one and it will continue for many, many decades.”
Since the 1991 Gulf War, the Kurds have enjoyed considerable autonomy and relative prosperity in the former no-fly zone of northern Iraq. As leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of the two main Kurdish parties, Mr Talabani refuses to acknowledge that most of Iraq’s five million Kurds now yearn for outright independence and appears to favour more realistic goals that would not lead to the break-up of Iraq.
“Ask Kurds: ‘Do you want independence?’ Of course everyone will say ‘yes’,” he said. “But is it possible to have independence now? There are two things: wishful thinking and reality. Most Kurds voted for a legislature to be part of a united democratic federative Iraq . . . a federation within the framework of Iraq.
“The Kurdish struggle will continue until it achieves self-determination. Right now, though, in Iraq the Kurdish struggle will continue for . . . the prosperity of our people, for economic development.”
Mr Talabani, nonetheless, has drawn up some tough conditions for accepting the presidency. They include federal status for the Kurdish lands, and the departure of Arabs sent by Saddam to populate the oil-rich city of Kirkuk in place of Kurds.
“We are not ready to accept posts without reaching agreement with our partners in the parliament on the main issues like federation, like democracy for Iraq, like the relation between religion and state,” he said.
“Kirkuk must be normalised and returned to the stature before Saddam Hussein’s ‘ethnic-cleansing’ policy.”
With the Kurds commanding 75 seats in the 275-member National Assembly and the Shia well short of the two-thirds majority required to enact legislation, Mr Talabani can afford to take a strong line.
He is withholding judgment on the nomination for the prime ministership of Mr Jaafari, who has strong Islamic credentials, and said that Kurds will not co-operate with a Shia-led government unless it supports democracy and federalisation.
He is emphatic that the Kurds will insist on secular government. “We will never accept any religious government in Iraq. Never,” he declared, thumping the table. “This is a red line for us. We will never live inside an Islamic Iraq. We respect Islam. Islam is our religion . . . The Islamic identity of Iraqi people must be respected, but not an Islamic government.”
Mr Talabani’s temper is notorious. “He shouts and swears at everyone if there has been a mistake,” one of his peshmerga bodyguards said. “One time I was driving him too fast and left the escort vehicle behind. I still haven’t forgotten the shouting now. When he’s in a vile mood, everyone wants to run from his sight.”
However, Mr Talabani is also renowned for the inspiration and courage he gave the beleaguered peshmerga guerrillas during their battles against Saddam. A connoisseur of good food and a cigar-smoker who has only recently given up alcohol, he is also well known for his humour and sensitivity.
“When you are punished, he will soon also reward you,” the bodyguard said. “And many times when I have seen him speak of friends who were killed in the struggle he has come close to tears and sometimes even cried.”
Mr Talabani’s fight for dominance in Iraqi Kurdistan has not always been pretty. During the internecine warfare between Kurds in the 1990s, he called on Iranian military support to oust rival Kurdish guerrillas, and critics note that his ostensible liberalism is underpinned by ruthless realpolitik.
“He is somewhere between an authoritarian and liberal,” Asos Hardi, chief editor of Hawlati, the leading independent newspaper in Iraqi Kurdistan, said. “You can see signs in him of both totalitarianism and tolerance. There is no doubt, though, that he is a smart politician, and a man of will.”
Britain bears some responsibility for the Kurdish problem. It ignored the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres, which promised Kurds their independence, and surplanted it with the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne with Turkey, leading to the division and subjugation of the Kurdish people. Restive Kurds in Iraq subsequently were bombed and gassed into acquiescence by the RAF and British Army.
Mr Talabani now looks to the British to make amends by safeguarding the rights of Iraq’s Kurdish minority. “When I met Tony Blair once, I told him that as a student I had taken part in many demonstrations saying ‘British go home’,” he said. “But when they came back we welcomed them. We hope, though, that they will compensate us for what they have done in the past to Kurdish people.
“British Forces and British planes once crushed our revolution. For that, now the British have a moral responsibility towards us.”
WAR AND PEACE
1933 Jalal Talabani born in Kelkan, Kurdish area of Iraq
1946 Forms clandestine Kurdish student group
1947 Joins Kurdistan Democratic Party
1950 Jailed for political activities
1956 Finishes law studies in Baghdad; briefly in army; back to clandestine politics
1960-64 War between Government and Kurdish peshmerga. Talabani rises through ranks; commands resistance units in Iraq for most of next 30 years
1975 Kurdish resistance collapses and splits. Talabani founds Patriotic Union of Kurdistan
1980s Central Government and peshmerga at war
1988 Iraqi forces gas Kurdish town of Halabja; at least 5,000 killed
1988-89 Iraqi campaign against Kurds leaves 182,000 Kurds dead
1991 Kurdish revolt crushed. Haven set up for Kurds in Iraq’s North
1993-96 Fighting between PUK and rival KDP, ended by Ankara agreement
1998 PUK and KDP agree to share power within regional government