·  SECOND HEARING OF RETRIAL OF LEYLA ZANA  AND THREE COLLEAGUES
BEFORE ANKARA STATE SECURITY COURT ON 28 APRIL. A delegation of 6
Members of the European Parliament will visit Ankara to attend the second
hearing before the State Security Court on  28 April. The delegation
consists of Mr. Joost LAGENDIJK, Mr. Richard BALFE, Ms. Anna  KARAMANOU,
Baroness Emma NICHOLSON, Mrs. Feleknas UCA and Mr. Luigi VINCI and is due
to meet the Turkish Minister of Justice and Human Rights defence
organisations. One of the judges sitting at the first trial has reported
sick and will be replaced fore the second sitting. It is not excluded that
this is an unofficial manoeuvre. Furthermore, the Turkish authorities have
refused access to the courtroom to any journalists with still or cine
cameras which is quite unprecedented.

A Press Conference took place on 23 April, attended by Mrs. Danielle
Mitterrand, President of France-Libertés and of CILDEKT, by Mrs. Segolène
Royal, Member of Parliament of Deux-Sèvres and Kendal Nezan, President of
the Paris Kurdish Institute, and the Centre d'accueil de la Press Etrangère
(Foreign Press Reception Centre) to bring the public up to date on the
situation of the imprisoned ex-Members of Parliament and to remind it of
the fate of prisoners jailed solely for their opinions in Turkey. The Press
Conference was followed by a showing of the film by Kudret Gunes, devoted
to Leyla Zana, "Leyla Zana, the cry of a gagged voice".

· FRENCH FOREIGN MINISTER ON OFFICIAL VISIT TO TURKEY.
Dominique de Villepin, the French Foreign Minister, on an official visit to Ankara, was
received by his Turkish opposite number, Abdullah Gul. "France has very
much appreciated the restraint and maturity which Turkey has shown" during
the Americano-British offensive in Iraq, declared Dominique de Villepin,
who expressed France's support for Turkey's membership of the European
Union. "There are many arguments in favour of such membership, be they
strategic, economic or linked to security and cultural diversity" noted the
head of the French Foreign Office. "We see Turkey's deep desire to join the
Union and France expects to remain at your sides along this road, which is
the road of democracy, of economic development and of social cohesion" he
declared. The E.U. us due to announce whether the situation is ripe for
opening negotiations with Ankara  at the end of 2004.

For its part, Ankara strongly protested against the decision by the Paris
Council, on 24 April 2003, to erect a statue of the Armenian musician
Komitas in a Paris square, in commemoration of the Armenian genocide. "This
is not friendship" headlined Hurriyet on 22 April to greet Mr. Villepin's
visit.

· TURKEY  SPENDING $1.2 BILLION  TO BUY AWACS. Despite the
recession hitting Turkey, the Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
signed the decision to buy four AWACS type air surveillance aeroplanes from
Boeing for a sum of $1.2  billion. The negotiations had began in 2001 and,
according tom the Turkish press, delivery should be in four years time.

·  IMF RELEASES  $701 MILLION TO TURKEY.  The International Monetary
Fund (IMF) announced on 18 April that it was opening a credit of $701
million in Turkey's favour. This instalment is made in the context of a
stand-bye agreement approved by the IMF in February 2002 which planned the
granting of a line of credit of $18 billion to help Turkey face a serious
recession following two consecutive financial crises. Turkey has so far
drawn about $14 billion of this $18 billion line of credit.

Turkey is expecting the IMF and the World Bank to release credits totalling
$5.2 billion between now and the end of 2004, the Turkish Minister for the
Economy, Ali Babacan, indicated on 6 April, announcing the signature of a
letter of intent to the IMF, describing the economic policy that Ankara has
committed itself to carrying out. Following the present instalment of $701
million, seven others of $500 million each will be released by the IMF
until December 2004, according to Mr. Babacan.
 

· FROM TURKISH PRESS:  "THE  STATUES".  Ahmet Altan, a writer and
journalist well known in Turkey, has, following the fall of Saddam Hussein,
analysed the personality cult imposed on certain societies, drawing a
parallel with that of Ataturk, officially described "Father of the Turks".
Here is the whole of the article, published on 14 April on the Internet
site of an electronic periodical, Gazetemnet:

"Whenever I see films and documentaries describing sufferings, massacres,
wars and, again today, the realities of war, I always think of Phineas
Fogg, the hero of Jules Verne's "80 days around the world". In a hurry to
reach London in time, Fogg buys an old boat and, running our of coal near
the end of his journey, he breaks up the boat to use its wood as fuel. Thus
the boat sails in while burning itself up.

Humanity is probably reached the point of advancing while burning itself
up, like Fogg's boat, burning up human lives in its path. I think that we
should at least draw some lessons from this strange journey and from the
sufferings of being consumed like fuel, draw some lesson to make this
"journey" safer and less painful. This latest Americano-Iraqi war has
probably been an opportunity for both sides to reach certain conclusions
and for enriching their experience with new data. Amongst other things,
speaking for myself and from my own experience, I found this an opportunity
to forge myself a general theory about the relationship between statues and
societies. I think that if statues of a single man are set up in a country,
they are doomed, in the end, to being toppled. Moreover, counties that
build statues to a single man always lose wars. In my travels I have not
come across, at every street corner, statues  of Napoleon in France, of
Washington in New York, of Cromwell in London, of Garibaldi in Rome nor of
Bismarck in Berlin. Were these men of so little importance to their
respective countries? No, far from it, but every plot of land available was
not filled with their statues. And those that I did see were either of
great artistic and sculptural value or were the work of outstanding
artists. Why don't we find masses of statues to a single person in
developed countries while certain other countries are only supplied with
statues of a single person?

In my view, these statues, in developing countries, are key items in a
system of decoration that serves, essentially, to hide realities. Behind
these statues, representing canonised people who may not be subjected to
any criticism, hide frightening realities that must not be discussed.
Behind statues of Lenin in the ex-Soviet countries, of Ceausescu in Rumania
and Saddam in Iraq are sheltered enormous swindles. We are also amongst the
countries furnished with statues of just one man. You can't walk a step
without seeing statues of Ataturk. Mustafa Kemal is one of the great
figures of our history, but he is not the only one ­ in the six centuries
since the creation of the Ottoman Empire other men have made their mark in
this country. Moreover Washington, Napoleon, Garibaldi, Bismarck and
Cromwell are all major historical figures in the history of their
respective countries. So why do we only set up statues of Ataturk? What are
the realities we are hiding behind these statues? Are we ennobling Ataturk
by setting up statues of him, or are we setting him up as an indisputable
sanctified subject, so as to hide, behind these statues, some known
anomalies about him?

In my view, these statues are used to conceal the anomalies and swindles
current in Turkey. A series of legal and economic anomalies, beginning with
the Army's interference in political life, which  are associated with
Ataturk and Ataturkism, hide behind these statues and behind this
canonisation that these statues are intended to create. Being unable to
discuss the role of the Army in political life, you are prevented from
mentioning the weight of the defence budget on the Turkish economy and on
Turkey, nor the reason for maintaining such a huge Army in the world today,
nor the responsibility for the Cyprus problem which has led to a breach
between Turkey and Europe. And why can we not put forward the idea of any
discussion on the Kurdish problem? Nor why we consider ourselves close to
the Turkomen in Iraq and consider the Kurds as our enemies? Nor can you
discuss the fact that, by making a distinction between the Turkmen, who are
ethnically close to some of our citizens, and the Kurds, who are ethnically
close to other citizens of our country, we are falling into the position of
a racist State ­ nor the fact that we declare the American attack on Iraq
is illegal and at the same time envisage attacking Mossul and Kirkuk
without the slighted legal justification

These statues are thus hiding all these bizarre quirks and tabooed subjects
of discussion. They are poisoning our life and are pushing us every day
into a poverty of incomprehensible and chaotic ideas. If Turkey cannot talk
about "its taboos" it will be unable to save its future and its fate will
be determined by others. Without denying the importance of Ataturk in our
history, I think that we must take from him his role of "sanctified shield"
of all these anomalies.

Life will, and must, ensure that these statues become less and less
numerous, even if this does not happen in as violent a manner as in other
countries. There is no pleasure in drawing parallels between Saddam
Hussein's Iraq and ourselves. In societies where sanctified persons are to
be found, there are always anomalies. Development arrives and gets rid of
these sanctification. It is time to save not only Turkey but also Ataturk.
Being a country supplied with statues of only one person augurs no good.
Freeing Turkey from this ill omen and ensuring that Ataturk ceases to be
used as a screen to hide bad news would be to act against whom? Why not set
up other statues? Beautiful statues. Statues worthy of a developed country,
where the reality of matters can be discussed. Perhaps then, the founding
of a Republic and of its constructions would become a source of pride for
us all."
 

· FROM TURKISH PRESS : "DO  RETIRED GENERALS LOVE ARABS  THAT
MUCH?". Ertugrul Ozkok, Editor in Chief of the Turkish daily Hurriyet, in
his editorial of 22 April criticised the position of the Turkish Army on
the post-war situation in Iraq. Here are extensive extracts from this
article "Do  retired generals love the Arabs  that much?".

" I have long wanted to write an article on those retired Army commanders
who have been appearing on television since the start of the war in Iraq.
But, to tell the truth, embarrassed at the idea of having to interrogate
the Turkish Army, I thought I would only be able to write such and article
by being exceedingly circumspect.

An interview conducted by Nese Duzel and published in the daily Radikal
yesterday has enabled me to find an answer to my questions and has made it
easier for me to write this article. Listening to the analyses of senior
Army officers in Television, I always had this question at the back of my
mind "Are our Generals expressing themselves this way because they want
Saddam to win or do they really  believe what they are saying?"
If they really do believe what they are saying, then there is a serious
problem with Turkey's defence policy.

Thus the interview with General Nejat Eslen, conducted by Nese Duzel for
the daily Radikal, is important. The retired General clearly declared his
disappointment that the Iraqi Army had laid down its arms so quickly. "I
was very upset for the Iraqis.  But, today  I am sad at having been so
saddened" he declared. The General wanted a Saddam victory so much that he
expressed himself  with anger and disillusion.

If the Iraqi Army had  put up a greater resistance, if there had  been more
loss of life, the General would have rejoiced. Did this retired General
express this wish "out of love for the Arabs"? No, since his opinion of the
Arabs is not very sympathetic: "One never knows what an Arab may do. These
people are the ones who stabbed us in the back during the First World War.
There is probably  some treacherous blood  in the veins of these Arabs". So
now I ask the question: "Can watching the war with such feelings lead to
objective military  comment?".

"The views expressed by our Army officers reflect neither their knowledge
nor their theories, but just their personal feelings.