They were 19 government officials, 8 of which were policemen. Mustafa Yazgan, Suleyman Altun, Ramazan Arslan, Mehmet Taner, Mustafa Gulyuz, Yahya Gocer, Erdogan Mus and Ziya Ergun mainly limited themselves to repeating their previous statements. Another witness, Eyup Karakeçi, a farmer from Urfa and member of the  DEP party, for his part stated: “the Director of the Urfa anti-terrorist branch at the time, Mustafa Tekin, asked me to put an end to my political activity and leave Urfa within the week. Since I refused to give way, the police searched my home and detained me in Ankara, where I was tortured, in 1994. They then proposed to drop all proceedings against me in exchange of my testifying against L. Zana and H. Dicle. But I refused”. Another witness, Kerem Ok, a bread and sesame street seller, in reply to the question “In your statement to the police you declared that the money went to the PKK”replied “I never made such a statement” declaring that he had simply signed a document already prepared by the police.

Mehmet Tahir Babat, chief of the Babat tribe, reaffirmed his statement stressing that he had witnessed a speech being made “in Kurdish, but I don’t remember anything else”. Five witnesses from the same tribe simply stated that “this was all too long ago ” and they didn’t remember anything.

Selim Sadak, who was sentenced on the basis of just this evidence retorted “the Babat Tribe slandered us. This tribe is implicated in murders, drug trafficking and smuggling”.

Mehmet Sevki Temel, father of three children, two of whom were “village protectors” and the third a policeman, said that as one of his sons had been kidnapped, he kidnapped someone himself and that as a result he was visited by L. Zana and so he wanted to file a complaint against L. Zana and H. Dicle. Another witness, Abdullah Dursun, repeated his earlier statement, declaring that Leyla Zana and H. Dicle had harmed the Kurdish people.

All the Court did was to issue subpoenas to the absent witnesses for the next hearing, to rule against releasing the former M.P.s on bail and set the date for the next hearing at 23 May.

This hearing was watched by a delegation of five Members of the European Parliament, chaired by Joost Lagendijk and also by Mrs. Claudia Roth, from the German Green Party, by Murat Bozlak, former President of the HADEP party (pro-Kurdish, banned in 2003) and a number of observers from Human Rights defence organisations. Mr. Lagendijk, who is also Chairman of the E.U.-Turkish joint parliamentary commission, stated to the press that they were closely watching the reforms being undertaken by Turkey “but from what I can see, this retrial is just a carbon copy of the 1994  trial. I hope that the retrial will take place in a fairer manner and that we will be able to see the really effective carrying out of the reforms adopted  on paper”.  The Court, moreover, refused to allow into the courtroom the roses that Mrs. Roth had brought. She herself said “This trial is most important for Human Rights and for the democratisation of Turkey. I think that Turkey will take a step forward with this trial”.
 

• GENERAL SECRETARY OF NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL (MGK) WAGING CAMPAIGN IN EUROPE  AGAINST EU AND  ISLAMISTS.  During a tour of Europe by the General Secretary of the all-powerful National Security Council. General Tuncer Kilinç, has been shown to be an openly and officially anti-European campaign  and, as such,  denounced by the Turkish press. Thus some dailies have particularly highlighted a meeting on 15 April at the Turkish Embassy in Brussels, bringing together a number of Turkish organisations. According to Fikret Bila, a journalist on the daily Milliyet (22/4/2003) General Kilinç, who, for the last two years, has been organising such encounters to rally people and organisations loyal to the Turkish Army’s particular conception of secularism and the unity of the State, publicly insulted representative of Milli Görüs (Editor’s Note: “National Vision”, a Turkish fundamentalist organisation) violently shouting, at this meeting “Shut up! you sectarians, you imprudent fanatics”. Hurriyet, in its 24 April issue reported the event under the headline “Altercation over sectarianism at the Embassy”. According to the paper, General Kilinç launching into a sermon, declared “There is no clergy in Islam. We do not need Mullah or Sheikhs. Adapt yourselves to your host country, learn the language”. To which a group in the hall retorted “You are asking us to forget our language and our religion. You are against religion. We refuse to recognise you”. “You are fanatics! I thought there were clear-sighted people in Europe!” the General vehemently retorted.

Ertugrul Ozkök, Chief Editor of the paper, revealed in his column on the same day a sentence from the official report from the Turkish Embassy in Brussels to Ankara: “General Kilinç expressed views hostile to the European Union to officers of Turkish organisations  met here”. Ozkök continued “We know General Kilinç’s views of the European Union. In the course of an earlier meeting at the Military Academy, he had declared that Turkey should abandon the idea of joining the European Union and seek a completely different union with Russia and Iran! Are the Pasha’s remarks a message to Turkish representatives calling on them to work to prevent Turkey from joining? In that case, while the Turkish Parliament is engaging in reforms to align itself with the E.U. the General Secretary of the body that discusses the Security of the State campaigns  against the E.U! ”

Moreover, once the major dailies had opened up the subject, the daily Zaman, on 25 April, added that its correspondent was in the hall where the Brussels meeting took place and reported other remarks by the General, who is used to codifying everything, even styles of dress: “I have nowhere in the world seen what I saw in the Schaerbeek quarter. This is the only place in the world where you see women wearing trousers under their skirts. This way if dressing is not even to be found in Anatolia”.  The journalist reports that someone in the audience replied: “Sir do you think you are in an army  barracks and that you can treat us like your soldiers? ”

As the atmosphere became very tense, General Kilinç decided to walk out of the hall but was dissuaded at the last minute and returned to finish his sermon: “I am in favour of joining the E.U., but have not hopes on the question. Since we conquered Istanbul, Europe as always considered us to be enemies! They will never accept amongst them the Turks, heirs of a nation that reached the very gates of Vienna. The E.U. has never been close to Turkey, whether for cultural or religious reasons. Europe has put the Armenian question on its agenda since 1850. By making us enemies of the Armenians after the First World War, they build the reasons for unleashing dozens of events. The PKK organisation is a creation of the European Union. It is the E.U. that is responsible for the deaths of 35,000 of our inhabitants. The E.U., openly or in a more obscure manner, has supported the terrorist organisations in Turkey. The E.U. is frightened at the idea that Turkey strengthen itself as in the time of the Ottomans!”

“The Moslem religion is very suited to secularism. There can be no democracy without secularism. The State exists for the individual! Recently the issue of the Islamic veil, used as a political symbol has become a problem! Those women who so wish can cover themselves when out of doors, as in Anatolia, but never in public buildings! The Prime Minister declares that his daughters study in the United States because there is no democracy in Turkey. I retorted to him “If you chain your feet, you won’t be able to run. If you veil your daughter you can’t make her study” declared General Kilinç.
 

• US FORCES IN KIRKUK ARRESTS 23 MEMBERS OF TURKISH SPECIAL FORCES SUSPECTED OF ACTS OF PROVOCATION.  According to the US weekly Time, the American forces in Kirkuk have arrested 23 members of the Turkish Special Forces (TIM) suspected of provocations and manoeuvres to destabilise the region. Arrested in plain clothes during a routine check, they were heavily armed, with many Kalashnikovs, M4s, grenades and even anti-personnel mines.

Bill Mayville, the US Air Force Commander declared that they had received information that the Turkish Special Forces were expected. “Their aim was to create a situation that would require the sending of Turkish troops to Kirkuk” he said, adding that the “Turks at first did humanitarian  work but then engaged in other actions”. He also added that the organisations acting under the umbrella of the Iraqi Turkoman Front (ITC) obeyed Turkish orders and requests and that they planned, with the help of the Turkish Special Forces to provoke Turkish intervention. The members of the TIM were handed over to Turkey that, at first, expressed astonishment that its American ally reveal this information and later satisfied itself by denying the facts, invoking humanitarian reasons for the presence of these heavily armed shock troops.

On the other hand, on 6 May the Iraqi Kurdistan Parliament asked that a Turkish “peace  keeping” force, deployed in the autonomous region of Kurdistan since 1996, be withdrawn. The Turkish contingent, of 800 men, equipped with light and semi-heavy weapons, was deployed in the Areas of Amadiya and Bamarnê.
 

•  TRIAL OF A HISTORICAL WORK WRITTEN BY MASSUD BARZANI. The trial, on the grounds of “separatist propaganda”,  of two publishers and a Turkish translator of a book on the history of the Kurds, written by the Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani, began before the Istanbul State Security Court. The Prosecutor, demanded up to seven years imprisonment for Ahmet Zeki Okcuoglu and Bedri Vatansever, respectively publisher and printer of this book, that come out in January 2003, and for Vahdettin Ince, who translated the work from Arabic.

The crime the book (entitled “The Kurdish National Liberation Movement”) is alleged to have committed is that of using the term “Turkish Kurdistan” “to describe South-Eastern Turkey”. The Public Prosecutor’s Office also considers that the book, by the leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), criticises the founder of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. The book contains a letter from the Indian  leader, Jawaharlal Nehru, to his daughter, Indira Gandhi,  who later became Prime Minister of India. The incriminating passage in this letter says: “Kemal Pasha brutally massacred the Kurds after the 1925 uprising. He set up special Independence Courts to try thousands of Kurds and sent the Kurdish leader and others to the gallows. Even as they breathed their last, their hope for an independent Kurdistan was unshaken. The Turks, who had fought for their freedom, are today, through an irony of history, eliminating the Kurds who are, in turn, demanding their own freedom. It is so surprising to see how suddenly nationalism stops being a reflex of defence of one’s country to be transformed into an aggression against the rights of others”.

None of the accused was present at the hearing, and the Court subpoenaed Mr. Okcuoglu to give evidence. The Court was adjourned to a later
 

• CONSTITUTIONAL COURT GRANTS DEHAP 45 DAYS TO PREPARE ITS DEFENCE. The Constitutional Court granted the People’s Democratic Party (DEHAP) a further 45 days to prepare its defence in two cases started by the Court’s Public Prosecutor, Sabih Kanadoglu in April 2003, Announced the Court’s Vice-President, Hasim Kilic.

Mr. Kilic indicated that DEHAP’s President, Mehmet Abbasoglu, had asked for three months in which to prepare his organisation’s defence, but the Court had decided on 45 days. Of the two charges, one accuses it of having falsified the documents filed to enable it to open offices in the country and present candidates at the General Elections in November 2002. The second concerns charges of “collusion with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party” (PKK, renamed KADEK). DEHAP, which  denies any relations with the PKK, was unable to win any seats in Parliament not having reached the threshold of 10% of the vote at national level. The party was founded in 2002 by sympathisers of the Democratic Party of the People (HADEP) which was banned on 13 March by the Constitutional court for “association with rebel Kurdish secessionists”.
 

• WOLFOWITZ  DISAPPOINTED  BY TURKEY’S ATTITUDE DURING THE WAR IN IRAQ AND DEMAND ITS FULL CO-OPERATION. On 6 May, the Assistant Defence Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, severely criticised Turkey’s refusal to support US military intervention and demanded that Ankara henceforth conform to the line laid down by Washington regarding Syria and Iran. The Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, retorted before some journalists “Turkey from the very state made no mistakes and took all the measures necessary, in all sincerity”.

In an interview on the private TV channel CNN-Turk, Mr. Wolfowitz said he was very disappointed by the Attitude of the Turkish Army. “I think that, for some reason or another, they did not play the key role not behaved in the way we expected of them” he declared. Mr. Wolfowitz warned that it was henceforth up to Turkey to make amends by its attitude on Iraq as well as with respect to Syria and Iran. “If we want to turn over a new leaf, this would depend on Turkey’s co-operation. Instead of saying “We are not concerned by America’s problems in Iran and Syria — they are our neighbours” it should come forward and say “We have made a mistake, we should have realised how bad things were in Iraq but now we know. Let us see what we can do to help the Americans” ”.

“I would like to see a different attitude from that which I have noticed” he continued, adding “perhaps it is already here, I haven’t been to Turkey for some time”. The refusal of the Turkish Parliament to allow American troops to land on Turkish soil had forced the Bush Administration to change its war plans and cancel 6 billion dollars of aid for Ankara. “It is true that we did not have the complete support we expected, but I think that , all in all, Turkey paid a heavier price than we did” commented Mr. Wolfowitz. Last week the United States closed their principal military mission in Turkey, as part of a global restructuring of their Near Eastern military arrangements.

• OFFICES OF TURKISH HUMAN RIGHTS ASSOCIATION SEARCHED AND ARCHIVES AND EQUIPMENT  SEIZED.  The Secretary General of the Turkish Human Rights Foundation (TIHV), Sedat Aslantas, in an open letter to the Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, sharply criticised the searches carried out by the police on 6 May at the offices of the Turkish Human Rights Association (IHD). “In the course of these searches, which lasted two hours, the police seized many archives, but also computers and disquiets at the IHD offices, then proceeded to carry out the same searches at the Ankara branch of the Association”.

The documents seized cover the 17 years of the Human Rights Association’s history, and contain their assessments of Human Rights Violations, the testimonies and correspondence with Human Rights Defence organisations and officials. Sedat Aslantas, while denouncing the fact that these searches were a breach of several International Conventions, pointed out that they took place at the same time as The Turkish Foreign Minister, Abdullah Gül, was making the opening speech at a meeting of the consultative meeting organised by the General Secretariat of the E.U. with the IHD.
 

• NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL (MGK) DECIDES TO OPEN THREE TURKISH CONSULATES  IN IRAQI KURDISTAN.  According to the 1st May issue of the Turkish daily Hurriyet, the National Security Council, at its monthly meeting on 30 April, decided to open three Turkish consulates in Iraqi Kurdistan, in the cities of Mossul, Kirkuk and Suleymaniah. “A warm dialogue will be opened with the Kurds, to avoid conflicts between Kurds and Arabs” pointed out the MGK, which also decided to send a special emissary to Massud Barzani
 

• FAILURE OF TURKISH BANKS  COST TURKEY $40 BILLION, ACCORDING TO IMF. At a meeting organised by the Control Council of Turkish Banking (BDDK) in Istanbul, the principal Assistant of the IMF President, Mrs. Anne Krueger, stated that speculative management an poor control of the banking system had cost Turkey $40 billion. “If the necessary organisation and control had been set up first, we would not have been faced with such great losses” she declared.
 

• TURKISH MINISTER DEMANDS SCHOOLS  ORGANISE ACTIVITIES TO REBUT ANY DEBATE ABOUT ARMENIAN GENOCIDE.  According to the 12 May issue of the Turkish daily Hurriyet, a circular from the Turkish Ministry of National Education, dated 14 April 2003 and sent to all the schools in Turkey, including in Armenian schools, calls for the organisation “of lectures and competitions of composition writing” with the aim of “fighting against any arguments regarding the Armenian genocide”.
The circular specifies that reports on the organisation of lectures must be sent by the School directors to the Ministry of National Education before 30 May 2003 and cites the books of reference (according to the Turks) on this question such as “The massacres perpetrated by the Armenians at Adana  and Franco-Armenian relations” by Yusuf Ziya Bildirici and also “The Armenian Church and terrorism” by Erdal Ilter.

The document also envisages the organisation of essay writing competitions on the theme  “The revolt and activities of the Armenians during the First World War”. The results should be announced by 1st September and the winners published in the Review of Education and Scientific and Intelligent Enlightenment.
 

• EUROCOURT  FINDS TURKEY GUILTY OF NOT HAVING CONDUCTED AN “ADEQUATE  INVESTIGATION” INTO DEATH OF A KURDISH JOURNALIST.  On 9 May, the European Human Rights Court sentenced Turkey to compensate the father of a journalist who was killed, considering that Ankara had not carried out an “adequate investigation” into his death.
On the other hand the Court rejected the plea of violation of the right to life put forward by the father, who accused members of the State Secret Services of having kidnapped , tortured and killed his son, Ferhat Tepe, a reporter on the pro-Kurdish daily Ozgur Gundem working in Bitlis, or of having procured these actions. “The circumstances of Ferhat Tepe’s death, and the fact that he worked for a pro-Kurdish paper argue in favour of his father’s allegations” the court considered, in its ruling. However, the Court could not “conclude beyond reasonable doubt” that he had been the victim of an agent of the State, or of someone acting in its name.
The government maintained that Ferhat Tepe had been assassinated by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). To try and elucidate the controversial circumstances of the journalist’s death, three representatives of the Court heard 24 witnesses in Ankara  in October 2000. The court stressed that the enquiry had not been able to go any deeper, and that the police had not taken any measures to identify possible witnesses. It concluded that there had been violation of the European Convention on Human Rights “in so far as the national authorities had failed to conduct an adequate and effective investigation into the circumstances of the death of the petitioner’s son”. It granted the petitioner 14,500€  damages and 14,500€  in costs.
 

• FORMER PM ERBAKAN BACK ON POLITICAL SCENE AFTER 5 YEAR BAN.  On 11 May, former Turkish Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan was elected to the leadership of his pro-islamic party after having been banned from any elected office for five years. He was unanimously elected head of the new Islamic party, the Happiness Party (Saadet Partisi) meeting in a special congress. His return, however, should not basically change the Turkish political situation.

In 1988, a court decision had excluded him from national political life after ordering the dissolution of his party, the Prosperity (Refah) party, then Turkey’s only Islamic party, which he had presided for the previous 30 years. Necmettin Erbakan had been elected Primer Minister of the Turkish government in 1996, only for it to collapse a year later before the threats of the all-powerful Turkish Army. The Happiness Party did not win enough votes to win any seats in the November 2002 General Elections, which were carried with an overwhelming majority by another Islamic party, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), created by a majority of the members of parliament who had previously supported Mr. Erbakan.

At 76 years of age, Mr. Erbakan represents the old guard, compared with the younger and more charismatic Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the present Prime Minister, who had broken away from the Happiness Party.
 

• DEATH OF KURD FROM RENNES, WHO WAS EXPELLED BY FRANCE. Siddik Kaya, a Kurd from Turkey, 43 years of age and father of 6 children, was found dead on 25 April at Varto, in Mus province. Victim of persecution and fearing for his life, he had applied for the status of political refugee to the OFPRA (French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons), but his application had been turned down and he was expelled from France in 1992.

No sooner was he back in Turkey than Siddik Kaya was again subjected to persecution and violent attacks and disappeared on 20 November 2002, after being taken to the Varto gendarmerie. His body was found on 25 April, in a state that left no doubt about the circumstances of his death — “a summary execution” declared the “Kurdistan” “Delegation Rennaise Kurdistan” (a Rennes NGO) who had known him when he was living in Rennes. The body, at first taken to Mus mortuary, was removed in the middle of the night without his family’s knowledge and taken to Istanbul.