· ANKARA ADMITS AT EUROPEAN HUMAN RIGHTS COURT TO ILL-TREATMENT
DURING DETENTION. On 18 December 2001, the Turkish Government chose to
compensate, in an out of court settlement, two people suspected of being
members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) who had suffered from
ill-treatment during detention. In a statement, Ankara said it "regrets the
occurrence, as in this case, of individual cases of ill-treatment,
inflicted by the authorities upon persons in detention", despite "existing
Turkish legislation and the determination of the Government to prevent such
incidents". Furthermore, it commits itself "to publishing appropriate
instructions and to adopting all necessary measures for guaranteeing that
the interdiction of ill-treatment - which implies the obligation of
conducting really effective enquiries - be observed in the future".

One of the victims, Nimet Acar, will receive a total compensation package
of 28,660 euros and the other, Kemal Gundu, 29,117 euros.

The two men had been arrested in February 1994, along with about forty
other suspects. They stated they had confessed under torture to links with
the Kurdish PKK organisation.

The two petitioners had complained, in particular of "blows, hanging,
electrocution, beatings on the soles of their feet and cigarettes being
stubbed out on their bodies" - which were broadly confirmed by medical
certificates. The policemen involved have been declared "not guilty.
 

·  POSSIBLE US MILITARY INTERVENTION IN IRAQ EXACERBATES
TURKISH NIGHTMARES ABOUT  KURDISH STATE. The rumours and
leaked information circulation about the next country to be hit by the
United States in their anti-terrorist campaign, following their defeat of
the Taliban in Afghanistan, has revived, in Turkey, an old nightmare: the
creation, on its Southern borders, of a Kurdish State. The spectre of a
breaking up of Iraq, following an armed confrontation with the United
States, has returned to the forefront, and Turkish military and civilian
leaders have being hastening, over the last few days, to express their
opposition to such an eventuality.

Thus, on 26 December 2001, the Chief of Staff of the Turkish Armed forces,
General Huseyin Kivrikoglu, considered that an extension of the US
anti-terrorist campaign to Iraq could provoke the creation of an
independent Kurdish State on the territory of that country - an event which
Turkey categorically opposes. "Such an eventuality could provoke the
creation of an independent Kurdish State" he declared to the journalists.
He specified that not only are all the Arab countries but also Russia are
against dividing Iraq and the creation of a country on an ethnic basis.

The Turkish general, moreover, considered that American military
intervention in Iraq would have even more serious repercussions for Turkey
than at the time of the Gulf War in 1991. "There would be more problems for
Turkey - and they are not limited to trade and the oil pipeline" between
Iraq and Turkey, he added.

Moreover, during a Press Conference on 26 December, with the Emir of Qatar,
Hamad ben Khalifa al-Thani, Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer declared
that "Turkey attaches great importance to the territorial integrity of Iraq
and to the protection of its national unity". However, Mr. Sezer called on
Baghdad to co-operate with UNO and the international community so at to put
an end to his people's "sufferings".

Turkey considers that its economy has lost over $ 35 billion since the
beginning of the embargo on Iraq. An oil pipeline links Iraq's Kirkuk oil
fields to the Turkish terminal of Ceyhan, on the Mediterranean. The
pipeline, closed y decision of the Security Council following Iraq's
occupation of Kuwait, was reopened in 1996, in the context of the "Oil for
Food" programme. Thus, the chief of the Turkish Employers Association,
TUSAID, Tuncay Ozilhan, declared his op position to any air strikes which
might damage Turkish economy. "A military operation would put Turkey in a
difficult position" he stressed.

Since the 11 September terrorist attacks, Ankara has repeatedly expressed
to the United States its opposition to strikes against Iraq. But the
Minister of Defence, Sabahattin Cakmakoglu, has recently stated that "new
conditions" could lead to "new evaluations".

The Turkish authorities fear any destabilisation of Iraq which could result
is the creation of a Kurdish State in Northern Iraq, which has been
controlled, since the end of the Gulf War in 1991, by two Kurdish parties.
Such a state, according to Ankara, would stimulate the separatist aims of
Kurds in Turkey, whereas Ankara is ferociously opposed to any mention of
Kurdistan or even of the Kurds themselves. This Turkish fear goes back to
an attempt in this direction, sponsored by the West at the beginning of the
20th Century, and described in the 1920 Treaty of Sevres between the
victorious Allies and the Ottoman Empire. This Treaty formalised the
dismembering of the Ottoman Empire and the creating of an independent
"Kurdistan" in accordance with US President Woodrow Wilson's principle of
the self-determination of nations.

Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit is preparing, for his part, to visit
Washington where the subject will be extensively discussed with his
American partners.
 

·  PRIME MINISTER CRITICISES  EUROPEAN UNION FOR FAILING TO
INCLUDE  PKK AND  DHKP-C ON LIST OF TERRORIST ORGANISATIONS.
On 29 December 2001, the Turkish Prime Minister violently attacked the
European Union for failing to include, on its list of organisations
considered to be terrorist, the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and an
illegal extreme Left group the People's Revolutionary Liberation
Front-Party (DHKP-C), describing this omission as "unpardonable". "It is
inconceivable. No one doubts the fact that the PKK and the DHKP-C are
terrorist organisations " he declared.

Bulent Ecevit stated that he could not "understand " how these
organisations were absent from the list published by the E.U. on 28
December, which also includes named individuals, as part of its decisions
aiming at strengthening the activity of the European Union against
terrorism following the 11 September attacks in the United States. "We are
told that the PKK and DHKP-C are included in a second list. But the fact
that they are not mentioned in the first list in unpardonable " added Mr.
Ecevit.

This list, published by the Official Journal of the European Community
contains about thirty names of individuals, including about twenty "ETA
activists " and thirteen European and Near Eastern ""Groups and bodies ".
 

· CONSTITUTIONAL COURT WILL SHORTLY RULE ON CASES OF
PRO-KURDISH HADEP PARTY AND OF RECEP TAYYIP ERDOGAN.
On 2 January 2002, the Public Prosecutor of the Court of Appeals, Sabih Kanadoglu,
applied to the Constitutional Court for it to examine, "urgently " the proceedings for
banning the pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HADEP). "According to
the Constitution, it is the duty of the Courts to conclude proceedings as
rapidly as possible" the Prosecutor stressed in a letter addressed to the
Constitutional Court. He also asked for the "speeding up " of these
proceedings, which have dragged on for the last three years, so that they
could be discussed "urgently " by the Court.

Proceedings were started against HADEP, which is the principle pro-Kurdish
organisation, in January 1999 by Mr. Kanadoglu's predecessor, Mr. Vural
Savas, who accused the Party of "having organic links " with the Kurdistan
Workers' Party (PKK). Now, in his turn, Mr. Kanadoglu accuses HADEP of "not
being afraid of describing the leader of the organisation (Ed. Note:
Abdullah Ocalan, boss of the PKK) as if he were the President of a legal
organisation ". Mr. Kanadoglu asks the Court to decide either to ban HADEP
and "eliminate it from democratic life " of end the threat of closure that
"hangs like the sword of Damocles " over this party.

HADEP, which has no seats in Parliament because it failed to obtain the
necessary 10% of the overall national vote, has been running fifteen
municipalities in Kurdistan since the 1999 Local Council elections. It
states that it stands for a peaceful solution to the Kurdish question and
rejects all accusations of links with the PKK. Several HADEP members have
already been sentenced for alleged links with the PKK. It was created in
May 1994 as successor to another pro-Kurdish party, the Party for Democracy
(DEP) which was to be banned a month later and four of whose Members of
Parliament (Leyla Zana, Orhan Dogan, Hatip Dicle and Selim Sadak) are still
serving 15 years prison sentences.

The following day, the President of the Turkish Constitutional Court,
Mustafa Bumin, decided to re-open discussions on the proceeding to ban
HADEP. "The Constitutional Court has decided to include the banning
proceedings against HADEP in its agenda for the first fortnight in January
" Mr. Bumin stated in the course of a Press Conference. Hasim Kiliç,
Vice-President of the Court stated, on 8 January, that the Court would hear
the final arguments for the defence of the People's Democratic Party
(HADEP) at the end of January. The Court, empowered to ban political
parties, should hand down its verdict a few weeks after this final defence.
 The Public Prosecutor's speech to the Court is set for 17 January and the
final pleas of the HADEP leaders or their lawyers will be on 30 January,
Mr. Kiliç stated to the Press.

Moreover the Constitutional Court is also due to examine, in the middle of
January, the proceedings started against the former Mayor of Istanbul,
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, leader of the opposition Islamic Party for Justice
and Development (AK), who had already served four months of a jail sentence
for "calling for sedition ". Public Prosecutor Kanadoglu had also
petitioned the Court in his case, asking it to strip Mr. Erdogan of his
office as President of the Justice and Development Party and banning him
from all political activity.
 

· 45TH VICTIM OF  HUNGER STRIKE IN TURKISH PRISONS.
Zeynel Karatas, aged 25 years, detained in the new high security prison of
Tekirdag for "links with several banned leftist movements " died on 6
January as a consequence of the hunger strike launched in the Turkish
prisons at the end of the year 2000 against the government's reform of the
prison system. His death brings the number of detainees who have died since
the beginning of the campaign.

The hunger strike movement is intended to denounce a prison "reform" mainly
aimed at replacing the big dormitories by small cells holding only one to
three prisoners. The European Union, which Turkey aspires to join, has
criticised the government's management of this crisis by the Turkish
government and judges the number of victims intolerable. The Turkish
authorities retort that the new prisons conform to European standards and
refuse to negotiate with the protesters, that it describes as "terrorists".
 

· TURKISH PRESS:  NEW ORGANISATION  TO FACILITATE MORE
SUBTLE INTERVENTION OF ARMY IN POLITICAL LIFE.
Beaker Coskun, a journalist on the Turkish daily Hurriyet, turns, in his column of
10 January 2002, his caustic pen on the subject of the creation of the
Centre for Strategic Studies and Research (SAREM). Here are extensive
extracts from his article.

"(...) A few days ago, the SAREM started work after its inauguration by the
Turkish General Staff. What is the SAREM?

It is the Centre for Strategic Studies and Research, under the control of
the General Staff and consisting of a handful of officers and many
civilians. A club for reflection where 57 academics and military
specialists will permanently sit to elaborate the strategy-thought which
will be put before the civilian authority (...)
 

Turkish Chief of Staff, General Kivrikoglu, stated during the inaugural
ceremony, that the advice put forward by SAREM was consultative, that it
was just a sort of club for alternative reflection and information, such as
is called in the West A THINK TANK.

The TANK part we have already experienced.

It has now been refined with some THINK.

Let us suppose: a strategy-thoughts, drawn up under the control of the
General Staff and presented to our civilians could it fail to "think" in
their heads?

Of course it could...

Here are some strategy-thoughts expressed by General Kivrikoglu, Chief of
Staff since the inauguration:

"Corruption absolutely must be uprooted. (...) In Argentina, the political
leaders, accused of the economic depression, are tried and sentenced, here
we let them be tried by elections. Which is the better solution? (...)

In my opinion the SAREM is an important development.

It is a blow against the 28 February coup.

Putting a "THINK" in from to the customary TANK is nothing else but a
concealed intervention against those who, by innumerable blunders, have led
the country into this crisis (...)"
 

-End-