The Kaya family keeps photographs of
their son Mehmet displayed in the
living room of their house. The
photos show a young man in a grayish
brown uniform, wearing a red star on
a yellow background, the symbol of
the banned Kurdish Workers' Party,
or PKK. Draped over the pictures is
the red, yellow and green flag of
Kurdistan; simply displaying the
Kurdish flag is a crime in itself.
PHOTO GALLERY: TURKEY TAKES
ON THE PKK
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Two female students have set up a camera in the Kaya family's living
room. They are filming the interview
for Roj TV, a pro-PKK satellite
network that is also banned under
Turkish law, even if its
headquarters are in faraway Denmark.
In early February, before Turkey
launched its
ground offensive in northern Iraq,
Mehmet Kaya was killed in an
exchange of fire with government
troops. The family drove from
Diyarbakir into the mountains to
identify the son's body. "He had
already written me a farewell letter
a long time ago," the mother says
into the camera, her voice choked
with emotion. "In the letter he
wrote: 'You have four other
children. Let them fight for our
cause.'"
The students are pleased with
their recording. It will soon be
aired on the channel, as an example
of the injustices Kurds face in
southeastern Turkey.
No one knows how many Kurds in the
region are even receptive to such
messages anymore. Even the
government of Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan can only guess how
popular the PKK, founded in 1978 and
classified as a terrorist
organization by the United States
and the European Union, is in
Diyarbakir. Diyarbakir, considered
the unofficial capital of Turkey's
Kurds, is one of Turkey's poorest
and most neglected cities.
Unemployment generally ranges
between 60 and 70 percent; in some
neighborhoods, it is as high as 90
percent.
This is the epicenter of the
ongoing conflict between the Kurds
and the Turks, 200 kilometers (124
miles) from the Iraqi border and
worlds away from Europe. The region
is also home to Turkey's most
important military base, where its
F-16 fighter jets take off, emitting
a dull booming noise that sounds
like thunder, on their missions to
bomb PKK camps as part of Turkey's
Operation Sun. It is also a place
where Kurdish youth still volunteer
to join the PKK, and where the AKP,
Erdogan's conservative Islamic
party, is trying to gain a foothold.
So far it is the pro-Kurdish
Democratic Society Party (DTP) which
enjoys the trust and captures the
majority of the votes of residents
in and around Diyarbakir. It was the
only party to criticize the
government's military campaign in
northern Iraq, and in recent days
the DTP has called for
demonstrations in major Turkish
cities. Public prosecutors accuse
the party of being too closely
aligned with the PKK, and a petition
to ban the DTP is currently before
Turkey's Constitutional Court.
Nejdet Atalay, 32, doesn't deny
the association with the rebels at
all. "They have grown out of the
history of our people, and they come
from within our ranks." Atalay,
wearing a sand-colored suit, is the
DTP's new chairman in Diyarbakir. He
says that he operates within the
tradition of the "Kurdish struggle
for freedom," but that he pursues it
with democratic means. This, Atalay
explains, is why his party has
abandoned the old Kurdish demand for
an independent state.
People like Atalay envision the
Kurds being granted the kinds of
rights that minorities like the
Scots, the Basques and the Catalans
have already been granted: their own
regional parliament, a regional
government and recognition of the
Kurds as a civilized people in the
Turkish constitution. But what would
happen to the PKK fighters in the
mountains? "We need a peaceful
solution," he says. "They must be
granted amnesty."
The rebels in northern Iraq see
things differently.
PKK commander Murat Karayilan
has threatened to "take the war into
the cities." Karayilan is one of the
PKK's leaders who are said to be
hiding out somewhere in the
impassable mountains of northern
Iraq. With words like these,
Karayilan awakens memories of the
civil war the PKK fought against the
Turkish army in the 1980s and 1990s,
in which the official death toll
reached 40,000.
The PKK has also been taking the
war to Diyarbakir lately. In early
January, a remote-controlled bomb
exploded near a luxury hotel in the
city's downtown area, killing five
and injuring dozens.
Although the attack was meant for
Turkish soldiers, most of the
victims were civilians. The PKK
later announced that it was a
"horrible mistake," which it
regretted deeply. Since then the
anti-government group's reputation
has suffered tremendously in a place
that would normally be its
stronghold.
The Turkish prime minister's
party has been trying to make
inroads in Diyarbakir for some time.
Abdurrahim Hattapoglu, a 43-year-old
Kurdish business consultant, is the
local head of the AKP. Like his role
model Erdogan, Hattapoglu wears a
moustache and necktie. Standing in
front an oversized portrait of the
prime minister, he talks about how
he plans to conquer the "Kurdish
stronghold."
Of course, he admits, mass
unemployment here in the southeast
is devastating, but the planned dam
on the Tigris River, scheduled to
begin operation in five years, will
bring change to the region. "It will
provide an additional 300,000
hectares (741,000 acres) of usable
land," he says. "That will create at
least as many jobs." What he
neglects to mention, however, is
that hundreds of villages and the
historic sites of the town of
Hasankeyf will have to be flooded --
the price of progress.
The AKP captured an impressive 41
percent of the vote in Diyarbakir in
the 2007 parliamentary elections, an
enormous gain over the 16 percent it
garnered in elections only five
years earlier. Prime Minister
Erdogan did not introduce this
massive shift by investing in the
region, but by uttering a few
overdue words. In 2005, he became
the first prime minister in Turkey's
history to travel to Diyarbakir,
where he conceded that Turkey has a
"Kurdish problem," adding that it
was also his problem.
"That was a historic moment,"
says Irfan Babaoglu, a reserved man
who is chairman of the Kurdish
Writers' Association. "He gave us
hope. But then he took it away again
when he didn't keep his promises."
A sign in Babaoglu's office
reads: "Ji Kerema Xwe Re Cixare
Neksinin," Kurdish for "Please do
not smoke." He was careful not to
have the sign printed on official
paper, because that would have been
a potential offence. All official
statements, signs or brochures in
the Kurdish language are still
forbidden, even though many
residents of Diyarbakir speak and
read almost no Turkish. Abdullah
Demirbas, the mayor of Diyarbakir,
was suspended because he had service
brochures printed in Kurdish, even
though he also had them printed in
Arabic and Armenian. He will soon go
on trial on charges of distributing
"propaganda for the goals of the PKK
terrorist organization."
"Of course, it is no longer
forbidden to speak Kurdish on the
street," says author Babaoglu. "But
Kurdish classes are still banned in
public schools. Often Kurdish
speeches are forbidden during
election campaigns, as are the use
of Kurdish names for newborn babies,
because the Kurdish letters W, X and
Q do not exist in the Turkish
alphabet." He says that he too is
torn between Turkish and Kurdish,
between the official and the
vernacular language. According to
Babaoglu, many Kurds have, like him,
the same schizophrenic relationship
with their own culture.
"Assimilation is a crime against
humanity," Erdogan
told Turks during a visit to Germany
in mid-
February. Back home, he
faced journalists asking whether the
roughly 15 million Kurds were also
permitted to apply this brazen
statement to themselves. A short
time later, the government announced
that Kurdish-language programs could
now be broadcast nationwide on TRT,
the government-run television
network. Was it a new beginning, or
just another promise that will not
be fulfilled?
Until now, only heavily regulated
local stations have been permitted
to broadcast in Kurdish, but for no
more than 45 minutes a day and only
with Turkish subtitles. Gün TV is
one of those stations. Its
commissioning editor, Diren Keser,
29, recently appeared in court
because the word "Kurdistan" was
used in one of the station's
programs. The misstep could cost him
€50,000 ($75,000).
Getting their own state of
Kurdistan is no longer the dream of
most Kurds. If there is a Kurdistan
at all, it is the region across the
border in northern Iraq, which is
why the Turkish army is a thorn in
its side. Officially, at least, the
targets of the ground offensive that
ended last Friday were the PKK camps
in the mountains. It was by no means
a permanent withdrawal. Indeed, the
Turkish military leadership now
plans to build 11 permanent bases in
the mountains, to keep the PKK on
its toes. "There are further lessons
that we need to teach," Turkish
General Yasar Buyukanit told
reporters Monday at a briefing on
Turkey's incursion into Iraq. "There
will be operations when needed. We
will continue. We will try to
inflict heavier blows on the PKK."
According to official sources, 24
soldiers and 237 rebels died in
Operation Sun. One family or another
will likely be leaving Diyarbakir
soon, to pick up the body of a son.
Translated from the German by
Christopher Sultan
