By Pinar Selinay
ISTANBUL — How easy is it to hide a war? In its rapidly escalating war against the Kurds, Turkey is careful to keep the matter as hushed as possible, while the Kurds lack the resources to make their cause known internationally. While the misdeeds of Saddam Hussein become the subject of outraged editorials, the dirty war on the northern side of the Turkish-Iraqi border is swept under the carpet.
Denial of Kurdish identity and brutal assimilation policies have been Turkish state policy since the republic was founded in 1923. Several mass revolts in the '20s and '30s ended in bloodbaths followed by massive deportations, with the entire area beyond the Euphrates kept under a permanent state of siege until 1950 and declared out of bounds to foreigners until 1965. A state of emergency imposed in 1978 in response to growing nationalist consciousness is still in effect.
After the '30s, there was no organised armed resistance against the government until the small guerilla group known as the PKK (Kurdish Workers Party) fought its first skirmish against government forces in 1984. Armed clashes spread throughout the eighties, and in the spring of 1989 the first mass demonstrations made it clear that the local population was in solidarity with the struggle for national liberation.
On the one side are the guerillas and the vast majority of the region's Kurdish population. On the other side are the relatively vast resources of the Turkish state, backed by the US. Washington has no intention of allowing a potentially destabilising force like the PKK to achieve victory in Turkish Kurdistan.
In addition to its army and police force, which in many Kurdish communities outnumber the local population, the Turkish state has built up an elaborate system of paid informants known as village guards, as well as roving death squads known as special teams. The latter have virtually unrestricted licence to murder, rape, torture and harass.
These forces are supplemented by a pseudo-religious gang of professional saboteurs and assassins known as Hezbullah. While the name is meant to conjure up images of the militant Hezbullah organizations active in other Islamic countries, this organisation is no more than a mask for Turkish secret service activities. Hezbullah operates by assassinating popular figures known for their sympathies with the national liberation struggle.
While Hezbullah terrorism has been widespread, popular outrage has focused on a wave of assassinations of journalists. This culminated in the murder of the 74-year-old Musa Anter on September 20. Known as a sort of living history of Kurdistan, Anter was admired and loved by Kurds and Turks alike for his boundless energy, keen sense of humour and gentle, resolute determination to struggle for his people.
Turkish authorities have driven hundreds of thousands of Kurdish villagers off their land and out of the mountains, forcing them into the already swollen ranks of the unemployed in the region's poverty-stricken towns. The mountains are subject to periodic heavy bombardment, and in many cases forests have been burned so that the guerillas will have trouble finding cover.
Nevertheless, the list of casualties inflicted on the government forces grows longer each week. The dismal economic situation and the total lack of human rights serve as further incentives for Kurdish youth to join the mountain camps.
The Kurdish population have developed their own methods of resistance, turning funeral processions into protest marches and organising widespread shutdowns of entire towns. On August 15 most of the Botan region, where the national liberation struggle is centred, shut down to mark the eighth anniversary of the beginning of the guerilla struggle. The shutdowns were accompanied by numerous demonstrations, including a demonstration of some 8000-10,000 people in the southern industrial city of Adana, which has the largest Kurdish working-class population in the country.
Shortly after, events made it even clearer that armed repression will be directed at the population as a whole. This strategy was first put into effect in the town of Sirnak, which from August 18 was subjected to three days of non-stop bombing and heavy artillery fire. Following the bombing, shops were looted and burned by soldiers and special team members.
By the end of the ordeal, the city had been reduced to a heap of rubble. The 25,000 residents were left with no choice but to take what they could carry and seek shelter in neighbouring towns and villages. A week later the town of Cukurca received similar treatment, while the town of Kulp was held under fire for 24 hours on October 3. Numerous villages have been bombed off the map.
Despite pleas by leading intellectuals, writers and artists for the problem to be solved within a democratic framework, and repeated calls for negotiations by the PKK itself, reliance on violence and a military solution has clearly become the government's preferred means to tackle the problem.