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III. HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Turkey's human rights violations are inextricably linked to its historically contentious and often violent relationship with its Kurdish population, whose ethnic distinction has been long perceived as a threat to the country's national unity. More recently, the rise in popularity of Islamic political parties has been described by the military as a threat that surpasses even that of the Kurdish conflict. While steps to combat the growth of the Islamic movement have led to numerous human rights violations, the most egregious violations continue to be associated with the Kurdish conflict in the Southeast.
In 1923, the Treaty of Laousanne was signed, creating the Republic of Turkey. Kurds were omitted from Turkey's minorities listed in the treaty, thereby depriving them of any special protection as an ethnic group. Instead, the nation's founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who rallied the Turkish army in the early 1920s, driving the British, French, and Greeks from the country,[1] set about to create a mono-cultural state from the remnants of the multi-cultural Ottoman Empire. These ruthlessly pursued ambitions have led to the oppression of not only the Kurdish population but many others who oppose Ataturk's ideology and Turkish government policies instituted to achieve his goals.
Ataturks' views continue to shape Turkish politics and national identity. Turkey's constitution, adopted in the midst of a military coup in 1980, states that "the nation will follow the direction of the concept of nationalism as outlined by Ataturk," and goes on to assert that, "no protection shall be afforded to thoughts or opinions contrary to...the nationalism, principles, reforms, and modernism of Ataturk."[2]
The military has proclaimed itself the protector of the Turkish State. As such, it has staged three military coups since WWII, in 1960, 1971, and 1980.[3]
Ataturk and the Kurds
Ataturk enlisted the Kurds in his fight for the creation of a Turkish state. He embraced them "as brothers and as equals," as they fought with him to expel the Allied forces.[4] However, "by 1922, he turned on his Kurdish allies who had helped him defeat the French and Greek occupation troops and the Armenian forces.[5]
Prior to 1923, Ataturk explicitly recognized the existence of minorities within Turkey. Later, his design for a Turkish State included the denial of ethnic minorities within Turkey's new boundaries.[6] He instead set about the task of assimilating Kurds into Turkish society.[7] He instituted policies that not only ignored the existence of Kurdish culture but also brutally quashed any form of its manifestation, including the practice of Kurdish culture, education, and traditions.
Kemalist philosophy, denying the existence of ethnic minorities, was based on Ziya Gokalp's 1920 publication, The Principles of Turkism, which asserted that,
...since race has no relationship to social traits, neither can it have any with nationality, which is the sum total of social characteristics...social solidarity rests on cultural unity, which is transmitted by means of education and therefore has no relationship with consanguinity...a nation is not a racial or ethnic or geographic or political or volitional group but one composed of individuals who share a common language, religion, morality or aesthetics, that is to say, who have received the same education.[8]
"[Ataturk] viewed cultural autonomy by national minorities, along with Islamist politics, as the two greatest threats to his vision of a modern, western-oriented, secular Turkey."[9] In an effort to fulfill his objective-the "Turkification" of Kurds living within Turkey's borders-in March 1924, less than a year after signing the Treaty of Laousanne,[10] he banned Kurdish culture, language, and even place-names."[11]
The Kurdish response to Ataturk's oppressive policies took the form of decades of revolts, making the Turkish authorities deeply suspicious of nearly all Kurdish political, social, and cultural movements.[12] The government's early response to these revolts evolved into permanent policy. Instead of quelling Kurdish resistance, oppressive practices have stimulated resistance.
The policies employed in the 1920s were echoed in the 1970s and 1980s and have now become permanent features of Turkey's political landscape. Current Kurdish demands for political, cultural, and economic rights are today greeted with tactics similar to those used when Sheikh Said, the leader of the short-lived 1925 Kurdish rebellion, was hanged.[13] The governmental response to Said's revolt also included systematic deportations, village razing, killing and torture of civilians, widespread massacres, and the imposition of martial law.[14]
Response to Kurdish Revolts
In response to Kurdish revolts, Ismet Inonu, Turkey's first prime minister, instituted two "Tribunals of Independence," one in the east and the other in Ankara. They were implemented under the Law for the Restoration of Order -the precursor to future legislation limiting the rights of Turkish citizens-according to which:
the government is directly authorized, with the approval of the president, to stifle all reaction and rebellion, as also all instigation or encouragement thereof, or the publication of anything susceptible of troubling the order, tranquillity or social harmony of the country. The authors of such movements will be brought before the Tribunals of Independence.[15]
Following a series of Kurdish revolts against the Republic, Turkish authorities rounded up hundreds for judgment before the tribunals. Two years of independent tribunals resulted in the arrest of 7,440 Kurds and 660 executions, and the burning of hundreds of Kurdish villages.[16] The use of restrictive legislation to address Kurdish resistance was supplemented with a ruthless military response.
Ironically, to achieve Ataturk's goal to Europeanize Turkey, the government used forced deportations to diversify the population and thus obliterate Kurdish resistance, a practice used in the Middle East since antiquity.[17] Mass deportations were formalized in 1934 by Law No. 2510, which divided Turkey into three zones: 1) localities to be reserved for the habitation in compact form of persons possessing Turkish culture; 2) regions to which populations of non-Turkish culture for assimilation into Turkish language and culture were to be moved; and 3) regions to be completely evacuated.[18] The law's function was to disperse Kurdish populations to areas where they would not constitute more than five percent of the population.
Deportations were used in addition to the imprisonment, execution, and forced exile of intellectuals and civilians. According to one commentator, Turkey had unmistakably intended genocide of the Kurdish people.[19] At the same time, "Ataturk seized the occasion to snuff out experimental political opposition and a free press for the Turks themselves."[20]
Modern Turkey
In 1961, President Gursel, who led the previous year's military coup, announced that Kurds were in fact of Turkish origin.[21] The statement led to mass protests in the Southeast. These resulted in 315 dead and 754 wounded.[22] Despite the President's hard line, he supported a return to civilian rule and charged a group of intellectuals with the task of drawing up a new constitution.[23] The 1961 Constitution guaranteed freedom of thought, expression, association, and publication, and promised social and economic rights.[24] However, the constitution was all but ignored when it came to the expression, association, publication, and social and economic rights of Kurds.
Political liberalization resulting from Turkey's new-found freedom led to the creation of various political parties, including leftist parties. As the clash between rightists and leftists grew increasingly radical, leftist groups gained the support of university students in Ankara and Istanbul. The clash led to widespread political violence spearheaded by right-wing death squads.[25] These death squads, which continue to operate with impunity, are believed to be connected to Turkey's internal security forces.[26] Rightist groups were different from leftist ones in three vital ways: they were more united, more disciplined, and most vital of all, being anti-Communist and anti-Kurd, they were perceived as useful by the state.[27]
In 1971, the military, responding to major political disturbances that were followed by extremist violence in the university and on the streets, led a coup d'etat during which immense human rights violations were committed throughout the country.[28] The reasons given for the military intervention were: 1) the rise of extreme leftists and urban guerrillas; 2) the response of the extreme rightists and those wanting dictatorship; and 3) the separatist question in the east.[29]
While political and economic unrest gripped western Turkey, disturbances continued in the east. Ankara dispatched commandos to capture separatists from village to village. These security operations share characteristics of past and future operations in their use of arbitrary brutality and torture.[30] In the mid-1970s, right-wing death squads continued their killings, while left-wing groups went underground and embarked on a series of terrorist acts.
In 1978, Abdullah Ocalan founded the PKK, which had a two-stage program: the establishment of an independent Kurdistan, and the building of a "democratic and socialist" society.[31] The harsh Turkish repression of Kurds and Kurdish organizations after the 1980 military coups, including the arrest of 33,000 "leftist secessionist activists," sparked the growth of the PKK, as well as its decision to launch guerrilla attacks on Turkish security forces.[32]
The Military and the Southeast
By 1982, two thirds of the Turkish army was deployed to the southeast of Turkey to halt the separatist movement. The PKK responded in 1984 by launching a series of attacks on Turkish forces.[33] Since that time, Turkish security forces have been involved in a violent conflict against PKK guerrillas in southeastern Turkey.[34] Critics contend that while the authorities said they were fighting just a small group of terrorists, their plan was to suppress a whole people.[35]
The government created a temporary village guard system to assist in their struggle against the guerrillas. Villagers are usually conscripted into the guard against their will and forced to patrol the surrounding areas, engage the PKK in firefights, and report guerrilla movements to the military.[36] Some are enticed to becoming village guards by high salaries.[37] For example, "by 1995, as many as 60,000 village guards were earning as much as $200 per month and often terrorizing their Kurdish neighbors with impunity."[38] However, many villagers are threatened with retaliation by the army if they refuse to join.[39] "Failure to join is often judged as prima faci proof of pro-PKK sentiments and grounds for destroying or evacuating villages."[40] The number of village guards rose from 20,000 in 1990 to about 60,000 in 1996.[41] For the past fourteen years the Southeast has been plagued by extreme violence on both sides.
While military engagements ensued, the government continued its legislative attempts to wipe out Kurdish culture. In 1983, the Kurdish language was outlawed, Kurdish folk songs were only permitted if sung in Turkish, children with Kurdish names could not be legally registered, and 2,842 out of 3,524 villages were renamed.[42]
Consequences of Kurdish Conflict
The battle between the Turkish military and the PKK has not only had profound mortal consequences but it has also completely altered Turkish demographics. In addition, the conflict has ensured the military's role as a central player in the political arena.
In the conflict's first decade alone, more than sixteen thousand Kurds died, more than a thousand villages were razed or forcibly abandoned, and hundreds of thousands of Kurdish villagers were forced to seek refuge in Diyarbakir, or Adana [in eastern Turkey or further west in] Ankara, Istanbul, or Izmir.[43]
Pervasive brutality coupled with official efforts to wipe out Kurdish culture contributed to the growth of the PKK. By 1994, Turkish military officials estimated that active support and sympathizers of the PKK in the Turkish southeast alone numbered more than 400,000.[44]
In 1992, the security forces adopted a policy of overwhelming and disproportionate response to PKK actions.[45]
Over the past several years, the Turkish military has expanded and intensified its counterinsurgency tactics. Several thousand villages have been depopulated and the countryside denuded of crops and forests. The logic behind the strategy is obvious: to deny civilian support and natural cover to the Kurdish guerrillas.[46]
Military sweeps, degrading treatment, beatings, widespread and arbitrary arrests and the wholesale use of torture drove thousands into the arms of the PKK.[47] Only pro-government villages were free from routine security sweeps in which hundreds were arbitrarily arrested and beaten to confess to assisting the PKK.[48]
Since 1987, the civilian toll from the conflict in the southeast of Turkey, according to a report prepared in 1996 by the Turkish military for the Subcommittee of the Ministry of the Interior, has been the following: *
4,113 civilians killed *
4,735 civilians wounded *
2,000 schools closed *
2,614 villages evacuated
The same report indicates that of the 200,000 soldiers in the region 2,214 have been killed; of the 20,000 general police, 456 have been killed; and of the 59,000 village guards, 773 have been killed.[49] Estimates place the total killed during the fourteen-year conflict at 28,000.[50] In addition,
Turkey's great western cities-Ankara, Adana, Antalya, Istanbul, and Izmir-teem with Kurds, many of them recent arrivals forced from their villages by Turkish security forces, which have emptied great swaths since the current Kurdish rebellion irrupted in 1984.[51]
The consequences of the Kurdish conflict extend well beyond the southeast of Turkey. The government's military response to guerrillas in the Southeast has been coupled with political actions that have crippled Turkey's so-called democracy. The conflict has assured the military's continued participation in the country's governance. The government almost always obeys recommendations made by military staff sitting on the National Security Council.[52] The military thus has influence in all sectors of society, including the parliamentary and judicial organs.
Recent Political Developments
In 1995, the Welfare Party (Rafah), headed by Necmettin Erbakan, was elected as Turkey's first Islamist-led government. Erbakan's policy to improve Turkey's relations with Islamic states, which included visits to Iraq and Libya shortly after taking office, troubled the military establishment. Erbakan's support of religious education and the use of head scarves for women, in addition to the placement of Islamic allies in important bureaucratic posts, and his intention to build a mosque in Taksim Square, which has been described as "the secular heart of Istanbul,"[53] led military officials to declare "fundamentalism" Turkey's number one threat in February 1997.[54]
In response to the threat of fundamentalism, the military, Turkey's self-appointed guardians of secular tradition since the 1920's,[55] laid down an eighteen point ultimatum to the then ruling Welfare-True Path coalition."[56] Among the changes demanded by the military were the closure of religious secondary schools and tougher legislation to restrain Islamic fundamentalism.
Dubbed in the Turkish press the country's "first post-modern coup," under intense pressure from the military, which included threats of the use of weapons in the struggle against fundamentalism, the Welfare-True Path coalition stepped down in June 1997.[57] Erbakan's resignation was followed by a constitutional court ruling in January 1998 banning the Welfare Party under charges of planning to overthrow the secular republic and replace it with Islamic rule.[58] The former prime minister was barred from politics for four years. The minority three-party coalition of Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz took office in July 1997.[59]
The Turkish embassy issued a press release stating that the Party's closure was a legal decision, adding that, "Turkey's Constitutional Court has voted to ban political parties across a wide spectrum of ideologies throughout the country's seventy five year republican history."[60] The military closed down political parties in 1982 and banned politicians from office, including Suleyman Demirel (now President), and Bulent Ecevit (now Deputy Prime Minister).
Contributing to the political turmoil are extensive reports linking the state with illegal gangs. The reports surfaced when a truck crashed into a Mercedes Benz, killing three Turkish passengers: a fugitive heroin smuggler and hit man, a former high-ranking police officer, and a former "Miss Cinema." The lone survivor was a right-wing member of parliament. In the car's trunk, police found a forged passport, police identification papers, ammunition, silencers and machine guns.
Equally troubling is the rise in political violence attributed to radical right and left wing groups, such as the attack against the president of the Turkish Human Rights Association, Akin Birdal. According to statements attributed to the two gunmen, members of a shadowy ultranationalist group planned the attack,[61] which took place just days after media reports accused Birdal of taking orders from Abdullah Ocalan, leader of the PKK. Ties between extremist right-wing groups and officials of security agencies have been the subject of widespread speculation for the last year and a half.[62] Human rights groups in Turkey accused the media of contributing to the attack by printing unsubstantiated allegations made by a PKK guerrilla who was captured by the Turkish military in April. Rights groups considered the attack to be a warning to others who speak out against official policy. Thousands took to the streets in protest, accusing the government of complicity in the attack.
[1] Ciment, The Kurds-State and Minority. Return to Text
[2] Albert P. Blaustein and Gisbert H. Flanz, "Turkey," Constitutions of the Countries of the World (Dobbs Ferry, NY: Oceana Publications, 1976). Return to Text
[3] Ciment, The Kurds-State and Minority. Return to Text
[4] Jonathan C. Randal, After Such Knowledge, What Forgiveness? Return to Text
[5] Jonathan C. Randal, After Such Knowledge, What Forgiveness? Return to Text
[6] David McDowall, A Modern History of the Kurds (London: I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd, 1996). Return to Text
[7] McDowall, A Modern History. Return to Text
[8] McDowall, A Modern History. Return to Text
[9] Ciment, The Kurds-State and Minority. Return to Text
[10] Article 38 of the Laousanne Treaty states that "no restrictions shall be imposed on the free use by any Turkish national of any language in private intercourse, in commerce, religion, in the press, or in publications of any kind or at public meetings." As cited in Randal, After Such Knowledge, What Forgiveness? Return to Text
[11] Randal, After Such Knowledge, What Forgiveness? Return to Text
[12] Stephen Kinzer, "Kurds Fashion Two Identities in a Fearful Turkey," The New York Times, 27 July 1997. Return to Text
[13] Randal, After Such Knowledge, What Forgiveness? Return to Text
[14] McDowall, A Modern History. Return to Text
[15] McDowall, A Modern History. Return to Text
[16] Randal, After Such Knowledge, What Forgiveness? Return to Text
[17] Randal, After Such Knowledge, What Forgiveness? Return to Text
[18] McDowall, A Modern History. Return to Text
[19] McDowall, A Modern History. Return to Text
[20] Randal, After Such Knowledge, What Forgiveness? Return to Text
[21] McDowall, A Modern History. Return to Text
[22] McDowall, A Modern History. Return to Text
[23] McDowall, A Modern History. Return to Text
[24] Part II of the 1961 Constitution contains fifty-two articles concerning individual, political, social, and economic rights. "Turkey," Constitutions of the Countries of the World, 15. Return to Text
[25] Ciment, The Kurds-State and Minority. Return to Text
[26] In 1996, a broad-based delegation investigating the murder of eleven villagers attributed the incident to security forces apparently attempting to discredit a unilateral cease-fire declared by the PKK in December 1995. Amnesty International, Amnesty International Report 1996, (Amnesty International, 1996) 316. Return to Text
[27] McDowall, A Modern History. Return to Text
[28] According to official statistics, more than 60,000 people were arrested while the military was in power; fifty-four percent were leftists, fourteen percent rightists, and seven percent Kurdish separatists. McDowall, A Modern History, 414. Return to Text
[29] McDowall, A Modern History, 410. Return to Text
[30] McDowall, A Modern History, 425. Return to Text
[31] Ciment, The Kurds-State and Minority. Return to Text
[32] Ciment, The Kurds-State and Minority. Return to Text
[33] Kinzer, "Kurds Fashion Two Identities." Return to Text
[34] Ciment, The Kurds-State and Minority. Return to Text
[35] Ciment, The Kurds-State and Minority. Return to Text
[36] Ciment, The Kurds-State and Minority. Return to Text
[37] McDowall, A Modern History, 423. Return to Text
[38] Randal, After Such Knowledge, What Forgiveness? Return to Text
[39] McDowall, A Modern History, 423. "Some villagers alleged that the security forces evacuated them for refusing to participate in the paramilitary village guard system." US Department of State, Country Reports on Human Rights for 1997. Return to Text
[40] Randal, After Such Knowledge, What Forgiveness? Return to Text
[41] 1997 Annual International Helsinki Federation. Return to Text
[42] McDowall, A Modern History. Return to Text
[43] Randal, After Such Knowledge, What Forgiveness? Return to Text
[44] Imset, "The PKK-Terrorists or Freedom Fighters?" Return to Text
[45] Human Rights Watch/Arms Project, Weapons Transfer and Violations of the Laws of War in Turkey (Human Rights Watch/Arms Project, November 1995). Return to Text
[46] Ciment, The Kurds-State and Minority. Return to Text
[47] David McDowall, The Kurds (Minority Rights Group International, 1996). Return to Text
[48] McDowall, A Modern History. Return to Text
[49] These numbers were revealed to the AAAS sponsored delegation in July 1996. To assure the safety of the individual his name will not be revealed. Return to Text
[50] Daren Butler, Kurds Protest at Closure of Istanbul Cultural Center (Reuters World Report, 8 August 1998). Return to Text
[51] Randal, After Such Knowledge, What Forgiveness? Return to Text
[52] Daniel J. Wakin, "Turkey Military in Charge," Associated Press (21 June 1997). Return to Text
[53] "US press negative on RP closing," Turkish Daily News (19 January 1998). Return to Text
[54] Human Rights Watch, Human Rights Watch World Report 1997. Return to Text
[55] "US press negative on RP closing." Return to Text
[56] "Military Elite Experiments with Turkish Democracy," Inter Press Service (21 January 1998). Return to Text
[57] Human Rights Watch, Human Rights Watch World Report 1997. Return to Text
[58] "Military Elite Experiments with Turkish Democracy," Return to Text
[59] Human Rights Watch, Human Rights Watch World Report 1997. Return to Text
[60] "Turkey's Constitutional Court Closes Down Refah Party," Press Release, Turkish Embassy, Washington, DC, 16 January 1998. Return to Text
[61] Stephen Kinzer, "Unanswered Questions in Shooting of Turkish Rights Advocate," New York Times, June 11, 1998. Return to Text
