Variant issue 27    www.variant.org.uk    variantmag@btinternet.com    back to issue list

TURKEY’S US BACKED ‘WAR ON TERROR’: A CAUSE FOR CONCERN? - By Desmond Fernandes¹

With the US government’s stated aim of vigorously assisting the Turkish state with its ‘operations’ that are aimed at ‘hunting down’ and ‘eradicating’ the ‘rebel’ Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), many human rights organisations, concerned Kurdish and Turkish civilians, peace campaigners and public interest groups are justifiably concerned that the genocidal and ‘psychological warfare’ linked ‘policies and practices of the recent past’ may all too chillingly reappear once again in the region.² It is important to appreciate why there is concern about a resurgence of ‘intensive’ US backed support for the Turkish state’s ‘War on Terror’. Chomsky observes that the last time such support was provided - during the 1990’s - “there was no ‘looking away’ in the case of Turkey and the Kurds: Washington ‘looked right there’, as did its allies, saw what was happening, and acted decisively to intensify the atrocities” against Kurds, “particularly during the Clinton years. The US did not ‘fail to protect the Kurds’ or ‘tolerate’ the abuses they suffered” during the Turkish state’s ‘War on Terror’ “anymore than Russia ‘fails to protect’ the people of Grozny or ‘tolerates’ their suffering. The new generation” of ‘humanitarian’ western leaders “drew the line by consciously putting as many guns as possible into the hands of the killers and torturers - not just guns, but jet planes, tanks, helicopter gunships, all the most advanced instruments of terror - sometimes in secret, because arms were sent in violation of congressional legislation. At no point was there any defensive purpose, nor any relation to the Cold War … In the case of the Kurds” in Turkey, “helping them would interfere with US power interests. Accordingly, we cannot help them but must rather join in perpetrating atrocities against them”.³

During this major US backed Turkish ‘counter-terrorism/counter-guerrilla’ offensive, supposedly directed only against ‘the terrorist PKK organisation’⁴ and its ‘militant members’, thousands of Kurdish civilians were tortured and extra-judicially executed by state linked paramilitary forces. Many women were subjected to rape by Turkish state linked forces. “Turkish counter-guerrillas would commit crimes and blame them on opposition [i.e. ‘terrorist’] groups”⁵ in what are known as ‘false flag’ operations. “Often, they disguised themselves as PKK guerrillas and went to villages to torment and kill people, burning houses, crops and animals, then blaming it on the PKK”.⁶ These ‘false flag’ ‘operations’, one should note, were all in keeping with the type of advice that had been imparted from US ‘training manuals’ that the Turkish state had been provided with for years: “Among the instruction manuals was also the notorious classified Field Manual 30-31 together with its appendices FM30-31A and FM30-31B written by US terrorism experts of the Pentagon secret service Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) … On some 140 pages the manual offers, in non-euphemistic clear-cut language, advice for activities in the fields of sabotage, bombing, killing, torture, terror and fake elections. As maybe its most sensitive advice, FM 30-31 instructs … secret soldiers to carry out acts of violence in times of peace and then blame them on the Communist enemy in order to create a situation of fear and alertness”.⁷

Reports in The Turkish Daily News (13 July 1994), furthermore, have confirmed that Turkish military officials, commanders and Chiefs of Staff continued to be briefed, advised and even awarded ‘Legion of Merit’ medals by US Pentagon staff,⁸ high ranking members of the US armed forces and psychological warfare organisations including the US Army ‘Special Operations Command’ (Concerning the ‘Legion of Merit’ medal, this is, indeed, an ‘honour’ of sorts - Colonel George S. Patton III and notorious de facto psychological warfare operational death squad leaders such as General Alvarez of Honduras have also been bestowed with such ‘illustrious’ medals).⁹ Between 3-5 million Kurds were forcibly displaced, Kurdish forests were deliberately set alight and between 3,500-4,000 villages and hamlets were evacuated and bombed, and wholly or partially destroyed in the Kurdish ‘south east’ by Turkish state forces, creating devastation on a horrific scale.

Bill Hartung, from the World Policy Institute, confirmed that he could “‘think of no instance since the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 … where American weaponry has been put to this concentrated a use’ … 75 percent of the Turkish arsenal was made in the United States, according to [many] estimates … In 1992 and 1993 the Pentagon quietly facilitated a mammoth military shipment to Turkey at no cost. According to the UN arms registry, the U.S. government turned over 1,509 tanks, 54 fighter planes, and 28 heavily armed attack helicopters to Turkey. The weapons were slated for reduction after the Cold War under a 1990 treaty on conventional forces in Europe. Instead of scrapping them, the United States simply gave them away. There was no congressional oversight or public debate about the transfer, nor was there much question about the purpose of the unprecedented arms shipment. As Jane's Defence Weekly revealed as early as 1993, ‘a high proportion of defense equipment supplied to Turkey is being used in operations against the PKK’ … Military assistance to Turkey has even included the use of American soldiers … Hartung estimates US taxpayers … paid ‘tens of millions of dollars’ to train Turkish forces to fight the Kurds”.¹⁰

Atrocities were also committed by the Turkish state against Kurdish civilians during ‘anti-terrorism, anti-PKK inspired incursions’ into the US-UK ‘protected safe haven’ in northern Iraq during this period, without formal complaints being issued by the US-UK governments (Indeed, President Clinton is known to have given permission for a major Turkish incursion into northern Iraq in 1995). Hartung confirms that, with Clinton’s ‘clearance’ of the 1995 incursion, “Turkish troops did plenty of things in Northern Iraq, including a number of documented cases of killings and displacement of Kurdish civilians”.¹¹ According to John Pilger: “In 1995 and 1997, as many as 50,000 Turkish troops, backed by tanks and fighter aircraft, occupied what the West called ‘Kurdish safe havens’. They terrorised Kurdish villages and murdered civilians. In December 2000, they were back, committing the atrocities that the Turkish military commits with immunity against its own Kurdish population”.¹² As John Deere noted with concern in 2000: “Were this Kosovo, we would be hearing words like ‘genocide’ and ‘ethnic cleansing.’ You see, to kill Kurds”, in his opinion, in Turkey and northern Iraq, “all you need is the proper hunting license. In this case that license is a perk of NATO membership”.¹³

According to Chalmers Johnson, we need to be aware that, “in 1991, Congress … passed a law … authorising something called the Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET) program. This allowed the Department of Defence to send [US] special operations forces on overseas exercises with military units of other countries … The various [US] special forces … interpreted this law as an informal invitation to train foreign military forces in numerous lethal skills … Stripped of its euphemistic language”, this ‘Foreign Internal Defence’ (FID) programme “amount[ed] to little more than instruction in state terrorism”.¹⁴ Ted Galen Carpenter has revealed that, “in 1997, the US European Command’s special operations branch”, as part of this programme, “conducted joint training exercises with Turkey’s Mountain Commandos, a unit whose principal mission is to eliminate Kurdish guerrillas. That unit” had, however, in its ‘War on Terror’, actually “been responsible for atrocities against Kurdish civilians and the razing of Kurdish villages”.¹⁵ An article in Kurdistana.com describes the manner in which “the Washington Post ran a three part series titled, ‘Free of Oversight, U.S. Military Trains Foreign Troops’. It said, a little known 1991 law, Section 2011 of Title 10 of the U.S. code, ha[d] allowed the military to send special operations forces on overseas exercises on the condition that the primary purpose [wa]s to train US soldiers. It added, as a result of this law, Pentagon has established ties with over 110 countries in the world. Dana Priest, the author of the series, cited the trip of an American SEAL team to Turkey who were training the Turkish Mountain Commandos, to show the lack of concern on the part of civilian authority in this country over the misuse of US forces and their skills. According to the declassified after-action report, the purpose of a 1997 trip was noted as, ‘to foster friendships and establish a good working relationship ... to ascertain the future needs of the Turks ...’. The report goes on to say, the SEALS ‘conducted a presentation on weapons, night vision, laser designation and sniper operations. We then allowed the Turks to operate all of these systems. It was a very productive day’. It adds, ‘The Turks ... admired the physical stamina and motivation of the SEAL element. We in turn were impressed with their capabilities and incredible endurance’.

“What were these incredible capabilities of the Turkish commandos sharpened as they were by the members of the SEAL teams that according to the Washington Post may still be training these Turkish soldiers? A while back, The European newspaper ran some of their photographed work in its front page, with a warning: pictures that will shock the world. Members of the same Turkish Mountain Commandos had posed for camera with the decapitated heads of the Kurdish guerrillas they had hunted in their war against the Kurds … One has to wonder if the SEAL team was taken to the mountains of Kurdistan to do or witness some of the beheading of the Kurdish guerrillas … I do know [that] … to train those who are beheading the Kurds is a crime against humanity. In other words, by these [‘training’] acts alone, the United States [wa]s in violation of international humanitarian law”.¹⁶

The decision to ‘train’ alongside Turkey’s mountain commandos in 1997, we should note, was also made two years after Human Rights Watch had publicly disclosed that “two special Commando Brigades, Bolu and Kayseri, [we]re heavily involved in counterinsurgency operations. Unlike the regular Turkish Army forces, the Bolu and Kayseri [mountain commando] units [we]re more highly trained and [we]re expected to engage in closer contact with PKK fighters and with civilians suspected of supporting the guerrillas. [Witness] B.G. told Human Rights Watch that during his April 1994-May 1995 stint in the southeast, he learned that the Bolu and Kayseri were considered by soldiers and civilians alike to be far more abusive of the civilian population than the regular Army. ‘Nasty behavior toward the population [wa]s encouraged in the Bolu and Kayseri brigades’, he explained, ‘while the Piyade (infantry) Commando tend[ed] to be kinder. The commanders want[ed] there to be a kind of good guy - bad guy situation, which they then use[d] to threaten the locals. They sa[id] be good or we’ll send the Bolu after you!’ Bolu and Kayseri Commandos were prevalent throughout the 1994 Tunceli [Dersim] campaign, during which tens of villages were destroyed. Witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch said they were able to identify Bolu and Kayseri soldiers, and reported that they were involved in numerous violations of the laws of war, including village destructions, indiscriminate fire, and kidnapping civilians who were then forced into serving as porters during Army patrols … The Bolu and Kayseri Commandos”, furthermore, “appear to have incorporated a significant number of U.S.-designed M-16 assault rifles and M-203 grenade launchers into their regular arsenal … According to Reuters, 5,000 Bolu and Kayseri commandos joined 35,000 other forces in the Tunceli campaign [See ‘Turkish Army Torches 17 Villages, Residents Say,’ Reuters, October 5, 1994]”.¹⁷

Ward Churchill has concluded that “both US and British pilots” were even “assigned to provide air support to Turkish military forces conducting a large scale counterinsurgency campaign in northern Iraq against Kurdish guerrillas … With regard to air support missions flown in support of the Turks, violations of the 1923 Hague Rules of Aerial Combat, the 1949 Geneva Convention IV and Additional Protocol 1, UNGA Res. 2444, and the 1978 Red Cross Fundamental Rules of International Humanitarian Law Applicable in Armed Conflicts are apparent. In view of the non-self-governing status accorded the Kurds by both Turkey and Iraq, violation of UNGA Res. 1514 (XV) - the 1960 Declaration of the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples - is also at issue”.¹⁸ The US administration and intelligence agencies were also actively involved in facilitating the illegal capture and abduction of Abdullah Ocalan (the Chairman of the PKK) in Kenya in 1999.¹⁹ It has also been established that Huseyin Kocadag, Chief of the Special Forces in Hakkari and Deputy Chief of Police in Diyarbakir, who has been identified as “one of the most bloody enemies of the people who organised the units of the ‘head-hunters’ in Kurdistan … was trained at a CIA school in the US”.²⁰

The Human Rights Watch Arms Project has additionally exposed the way in which “US troops, aircraft and intelligence personnel … remained at their posts throughout Turkey, mingling with Turkish counterinsurgency troops and aircrews in southeastern bases such as Incirlik and Diyarbakir … throughout Turkey’s wide-ranging scorched earth campaign” against Kurdish civilian settlements and PKK hideouts/encampments.²¹ This ‘campaign’, indeed, in many peoples and organisations’ view, clearly was ‘genocidal’ in nature: Article 19, in 1997, stated that it believed there was “ample evidence to indict the Turkish government of gross violations of human rights which constitute infringements of … the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, among other treaties to which Turkey is a party”.²² The UK Parliamentary Human Rights Group, after field visits to the region and detailed analyses, also concluded that “the depopulation of the Kurdish region is, we believe, part of a deliberate strategy aimed not merely at eliminating a few thousand [PKK] guerrillas, but to extinguish the separate identity of the Kurdish people²³ … In Britain, as elsewhere, the question of Turkish Kurdistan is often presented” - for instance, by the US-UK governments and the mainstream press - “as one of a reasonably democratic government seeking to cope with an intractable problem of terrorism. We believe that the reality is one of military terrorists aiming to extinguish the identity of a people, and we were much alarmed by the parallel drawn with the Armenian holocaust of 1915-1916. The PKK, like some Armenians during the First World War, took to arms because they could see no prospect of gaining their legitimate political objectives by peaceful means. The response of the Turkish state, as in 1915 and earlier with the Armenians, was to use conciliatory language for external consumption, while unleashing huge military force against the virtually defenceless civilian population … To characterise the revolt of a subject people against their oppressors as ‘terrorism’ is a woeful misunderstanding which could only arise from ignorance of facts and history”.²⁴

To Fevzi Veznedaroglu, chairperson of the Turkish Human Rights Association (IHD) in Diyarbakir, “especially since 1991, the counter-insurgency forces targeted the leaders of the democratic struggle … The aim” was to also “target a wider group of people … It [was] not only Kurdish intellectuals and leaders” who were “targeted, but villagers, women and students have been murdered … These human rights violations” were “not just aimed at fundamental rights, at the right to life”, but were “aimed at reducing the Kurdish people to refugees in their country ... The torture chambers” were “kept busy” even as the state, intentionally, waged “a dirty war against the whole [Kurdish] population”.²⁵ Margo Schulter has observed the manner in which “the killing of innocents … as has been documented by human rights investigators … has been a deliberate policy of the Turkish ‘counterinsurgency’ effort in Kurdistan. As one former soldier put it, to be a victim, you didn't need to be a guerrilla or even a PKK supporter - to be Kurdish was enough”.²⁶

Mark Campbell, a Kurdish rights reporter and photographer who visited the Kurdish ‘south-east’ during the 1990’s, describes what he saw with his own eyes: “What the Turkish state was responsible for against the Kurds in the early 90’s … [was] a policy of forced depopulation. There was mass and systematic terror inflicted on the Kurdish population, often including the most barbaric forms imaginable, beheadings, lynchings, castrations, cutting off of ears and limbs. Extra-judicial executions were commonplace, carried out by ‘contra-guerrillas’, Hizbullah and ‘Village Guards’. I walked through the ashes of [the Kurdish town of] Lice one month after it had been razed to the ground. Teams of flame-throwers had marched through the town burning all the shops and houses. Eye witnesses spoke of soldiers shovelling a chemical out of the back of a trailer attached to Land Rovers into some shops which ignited spontaneously. People were shot as they ran for cover. We were finally detained when we went to another Kurdish village that was still burning. Women were picking out burnt kettles from their smouldering remains of their houses. All the villagers had been pulled by their hair out of the houses and gathered in the village square where they were urinated on. Three were randomly pulled out and put against a wall and shot. All the men had been taken into custody and two died under torture. How do you define terror? This is terror, is it not?”²⁷ A disturbing testimony from a death squad killer named Murat Ipek, if true, further suggests that US forces were directly implicated in the training and co-ordination of some of the genocidal death squads: “An American … controlled and instructed the contra-teams”.²⁸

The Nature of the US Backed ‘War on Terror’ in Turkey, Post-9/11 - A Cause for Concern?

Despite the problematic nature of this type of past US ‘psychological warfare assistance’ to the Turkish state (which has not been meaningfully addressed in any international court of law or, apparently, in any formal EU-Turkey accession discussion documents or negotiations), what is equally of concern is that there has been no attempt by the US government to meaningfully take responsibility for its past actions or to even guarantee the Kurdish/Turkish or even its own public that there will be no repeat of such criminal and deeply unethical behaviour again. Indeed, there are now suggestions that the US government, in the name of the ongoing post-9/11 linked ‘War on Terror’, is increasingly supporting the Turkish state once again in its highly questionable ‘anti-terrorism’ offensive against Kurdish civilians, human rights activists, peace campaigners and ‘PKK militants’ in the region.

US ‘special forces’ and intelligence agencies, it needs to be recognised, are, even at this moment in time, extensively liaising with their Turkish counterparts in publicly unaccountable ‘anti-PKK targeting’ and ‘internal defence’ actions that deploy ‘irregular’, covert ‘psychological warfare methods’. The Turkish state, moreover, in recent months, once again appears to have been issued with the appropriate US government ‘hunting licence’ that seemingly enables it to intensify its violence against ‘suspected’ Kurdish ‘terrorists’ and targeted civilian communities in northern Iraq (south Kurdistan) and the south-east of Turkey (north west Kurdistan), now that the PKK and Ocalan have been officially likened by US administration officials to the arch ‘evil doers’ and enemies ‘Osama Bin Laden’ and ‘al-Qaeda’.

Within the context of the post-9/11 ‘global War on Terror’, US administration officials in September 2005 absurdly stated that they viewed the ‘PKK threat’ as gravely as the ‘al Qaeda one’: “Nancy McEldowley, representing the US embassy at an 11^th September [2005] commemoration service in Ankara, said in a speech that there was no difference between al Qaeda and the PKK, or between Abdullah Ocalan and Osama Bin Laden. ‘Turkey and the United States’ joint battle will continue. There will be no areas for them to retreat where Turkey and the US cannot go. Together we shall hunt the terrorists and destroy them’”.²⁹ Such a statement was in keeping with the stance which has been taken by the Bush administration ever since 9/11: “US President George W. Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney have been very clear, repeatedly proclaiming that America and its friends must ‘wage war on terrorism’, that they must ‘hunt down the terrorists’ and destroy them. In his State of the Union speech in January 2002, Bush summoned all nations to ‘eliminate the terrorist parasites who threaten their countries and our own’. After the bombings in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in May 2003, Cheney advised an audience in Washington ‘to recognise the fact that the only way to deal with this threat ultimately is to destroy it. There’s no treaty can solve this problem, there’s no peace agreement, no policy of containment … [W]e have to go find the terrorists’” and destroy them! “The idea is that evil must be physically eliminated. As Bush put it, ‘our responsibility to history is already clear: to answer these attacks and rid the world of evil’”.³⁰

But as the Socialist Party of Kurdistan has noted with alarm, in the post-9/11 period as much as during the period before that, “what is clear is that Turkish politicians and the Turkish media don’t just mean the PKK when they speak of ‘terrorists’ but all Kurdish organisations, Kurdish associations and even the Kurds themselves”.³¹ Kurdish organisations, Kurdish associations and even the Kurds themselves and their ‘pro-Kurdish human rights supporters’, to many within the Turkish ‘deep state’, are the ‘terrorist parasites’ who are to be targeted in the name of this US backed ‘War on Terror’. With US state linked comparisons to Bin Laden and al-Qaeda that conveniently place ‘the PKK’ and its ‘supporters’ and ‘members’ at the ‘ultimate threat’ and ‘enemy’ level that can be imagined, it is evident that any and every type of method of targeting this ‘abhorrent, illogical other’ will now be legitimated in the US backed ‘joint hunt’ to destroy ‘the terrorists’. The following examples of ‘who’ the ‘terrorists’ are and how they are being ‘targeted’ in the US backed ‘War on Terror’ makes for disquieting reading:

• At Adana, on May 28^th 2004, “Siyar Perincek … who is the Human Rights Association’s (IHD’s) representative for eastern and southeastern Anatolia, was killed … in front of the IHD building … According to witnesses, a grey-coloured civilian car went after Perincek and his friend Mehmet Nurettin Basci, who was driving the motorcycle. The car approached the motorcycle and the men in the car opened the car’s doors, hitting the motorcycle and causing the two youngsters to fall on the ground. Witnesses added that Basci got up immediately and ran away. A man, who got out of the car put his gun against Perincek who was still lying on the ground and fired it … Witness testimonies” state “that Perincek was shot as he was lying on the ground by a police officer”. ³² According to the BIA News Centre, “the IHD announced that the police in Adana murdered Siyar Perincek … During a press conference in the IHD Istanbul office, it was announced that police fired at Siyar Perincek … as he was driving a motorcycle in Adana. Police then stepped on his back when he fell off from the motorcycle and killed him with a bullet to his back. IHD said there were witnesses who saw the incident. ‘Executions without trials are continuing ... The murderers are free among us,’ said the IHD press statement”.³³
• Twelve year old Kurdish “Ugur Kaymaz and his father, Ahmet, were killed” in November 2005 “in the south-eastern town of Kiziltepe … in what [Turkish] officials said was an operation against ‘armed terrorists’. Preliminary investigations, including one by parliament’s human rights committee, concluded that the two were unarmed and may have been innocent civilians …[A] group of intellectuals rejected the official account of the incident - that the police suspected the two were armed and preparing a terrorist operation, and that identification was difficult in the dark. Media reported that Ugur Kaymaz was hit by 13 bullets, and that his family said he was helping his father, a truck driver, to prepare for a trip to Iraq. ‘A 12-year-old boy who had been playing with his friends two hours earlier did not represent a clear and present danger’ to the security of Turkey, the intellectuals said. ‘Are we living in a country where everyone [i.e. every Kurd who goes about] in the dark gets shot?’”³⁴ or, indeed, gets accused of being an ‘armed PKK terrorist?’
• In terms of proposed anti-terrorist actions, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared that the Turkish “security forces will intervene against the [Kurdish] pawns of terrorism, even if they are children or women.”³⁵ General Yas¸ar Buyukanõt, who officially took over as the new Turkish chief of general staff on August 28, 2006, also provided the following warning: “The military was not like a small fire that could be extinguished by wind but was rather a huge blaze that became even bigger … No one can hide behind human rights or democracy to attack this country or its regime”.³⁶
• Concerning “a bombing allegedly carried out by Turkish security forces against a bookstore” in Semdinli “patronized by Kurdish nationalists, … allegations that rogue [?] elements in the security forces were involved in the bombing emerged November 9^th 2005, after angry residents of Semdinli chased down … three men suspected of planting the bomb that killed two people and wounded more than a dozen. The suspects turned out to be intelligence agents of the gendarmerie, or paramilitary police”.³⁷ “Esat Canan, an opposition deputy from Hakkari province, where Semdinli is located, who travelled to the town within hours of the bombing, said the car” belonging to the bombers “also contained a [death] list of names of 105 ‘potential targets’ that included … the owner of the bookshop. ‘I saw the list and my name had a red X drawn through it,’ Yilmaz told the daily Radikal”.³⁸ Others included in the ‘list’ included City Council member Emin Sarõ and [pro-Kurdish] DEHAP Province [Party] President Emrullah Ozturk”.³⁹

Human Rights Association Chairman Yusuf Alatas noted with concern that “some illegal criminal organizations within the state [apparatus] acting in the name of ‘counter-terrorism’” and the ‘War on Terror’ “are active in Turkey. He said: ‘The Semdinli case was the last link of this chain. We, the people are aware that the Semdinli case was not an isolated incident … Th[e]se events should be questioned; otherwise Turkey will not see democracy’”.⁴⁰ However, when these ‘events’ were seriously questioned and investigated by two key individuals - Sabri Uzun (Director of the Police Security Intelligence Bureau) and Ferhat Sarõkaya (prosecutor in the S¸emdinli bombing case) - they were removed from their posts under highly questionable circumstances that suggested that a major cover-up was underway.⁴¹ Their findings, however, are worth reflecting upon: “Sabri Uzun … raised concern about possible military involvement in the bombings in S¸emdinli when he was questioned by a parliamentary commission. He indicated in coded but quite clear terms that the [Semdinli] explosion had possibly been the work of people within the security forces, and expressed doubt that the gendarmes indicted for the bookshop attack could have been in S¸emdinli without the knowledge of higher ranking officials, as claimed. Within a month, Sabri Uzun was removed from his post … [Prosecutor] Sarõkaya, issued an indictment in which he … suggested that a motive for the original killing may have been ‘[t]o bring the local [Kurdish] population to a state where it can be lured with ease into action … then exaggerating this threat beyond its true level” in the ‘War on Terror’, “in order to prepare the way for violent measures by the state” to be undertaken against them “and to permit emergency rule to” once again - as during the genocidal period of the 1990’s – “take precedence over the administrative system in the region, … permitting security chaos in the region to be used to apply pressure on the political authority, and thereby … to frustrate Turkey’s fundamental political [democratising] directions … and to protect the power and place of the core political/ bureaucratic governing elite’. The indictment also referred by name to a general who had reportedly described one of the alleged [military] perpetrators as ‘a good offõcer’. On March 20, the Office of the Chief of General Staff issued a statement that the indictment was ‘political … aiming to undermine the Turkish Armed Forces and the fight [i.e. ‘war’] against terror’, and made a complaint against the prosecutor. By April 21, the High Council of Judges and Prosecutors”, in seeking to smooth the path and objectives of the US backed ‘War on Terror’, “had taken Prosecutor Sarõkaya off the case, removed him from his job, and stripped him of his status as a lawyer for ‘abuse of his duty and exceeding his authority’”.⁴²  
• Even as “Turkish authorities” immediately “blamed the bombing” that took place in Diyarbakir on 12^th September 2006 “on [the] PKK”,⁴³ “the notorious Turkish ultra-nationalist terrorist group ‘Turkish Revenge Brigade’ (TIT)”, with extensive connections with the Turkish ‘deep state’ and the security forces, “on their homepage” accepted “responsibility for the bomb attack … A set of pictures” was “added to the homepage, showing the preparation of the bomb that was used in the attack. The bomb consisted of a 12-litre blue thermos container, a walkie-talkie relay detonator, an activator, the top of a metal gas container as a balancing weight that was placed in the bottom of the thermos and a case believed to contain C-4 plastic explosive. DozaMe.org identified the walkie-talkie as the cheap, high quality … ‘Aselsan MT-725 Cobra’ with a maximum reach of 3 km … The walkie-talkie is manufactured by Aselsan, a Turkish company owned by the ‘Turkish Armed Forces Foundation’ … The blast killed seven Kurdish children and three adults, … wounded … another 13 people, … ripping through a crowd consisting of Kurdish families … ‘For every Turk that [the] PKK kills … we will kill 10 Kurds in Diyarbakir’” as part of the ‘war’ on ‘PKK terror’, “the[ir] statement read. It ends with the slogan, ‘A good Kurd is a dead Kurd’”.⁴⁴ TIT members, Dozme.org News points out, were “integrated with the Turkish military intelligence agency JITEM and used in black operations against Kurdish political and cultural figures during the Kurdish insurgency in the mid-80’s and throughout the 90’s”.⁴⁵
• “The government has launched its new practice of burying dead [Kurdish ‘terrorist’] suspects where they are killed without bringing them back home for a proper autopsy. The first example of the policy change was witnessed recently in the [Kurdish] Southeast province of Sirnak although it was decided upon during a Counter-Terrorism Supreme Commission meeting earlier [in April 2006] … Professor … Fincanci, who previously headed the Istanbul University Forensic Medicine Department”, stated that this ‘War on Terror’ related “practice itself was a violation of international human rights and that Turkey could be convicted at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) for it … Fincanci told Bianet that in each and every death resulting from clashes, a formal autopsy needed to be conducted and that only this could reveal the true reason of death. ‘Only an autopsy can answer questions such as whether a person was killed in a clash, or … killed while running away, or [as a] result of torture after being captured’ … She referred to the international Minnesota Autopsy Protocol covering the effective investigation of extra-judicial killings saying, ‘The conditions of an autopsy are clearly stated in this protocol, accepted by the United Nations. Because these conditions are not being met” in the US backed ‘joint’ Turkish ‘War on Terrorism’, “Turkey could be sentenced at the ECHR for failing to conduct an effective investigation’”.⁴⁶

Just as troublingly, “Turkish Human Rights Chairman Alatas recalled on his part that there were [now] numerous allegations related to the killing of PKK militants in the recent months … ‘There are claims that the bodies are being mutilated, that their organs are being cut off, that even if they are caught alive, they are tortured and killed as well as allegations that chemical weapons are being used. How are these going to be [meaningfully] investigated [in these circumstances]?’ he asked”.⁴⁷ “‘This comes to the same meaning as the state saying, ‘I have the right to kill you without being monitored’ … The IHD Chairman argued that the practice also meant punishing those relatives and families that had a right to the bodies and noted, ‘This is something that does not even happen in [‘regular’] wars … What happens to the body is an issue that concerns the family’. Pointing out that this … practice effectively meant violation of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which governs respect towards family and private life, Alatas concluded: ‘In essence, this is a practice to punish the Kurdish people. It is a practice that provokes enmity and hatred’”.⁴⁸

It needs to be understood that in this US backed ‘War on Terror’, schoolchildren, students, poets, musicians, writers, publishers, human rights campaigners, academics, lawyers and artists are all being targeted in a manner that surely must be questioned and opposed. Huseyin Kizilocak, for example, has detailed the following situation that highlights just how ‘pro-Kurdish’ people in this post-9/11 US backed ‘War on Terror’ period, are being scandalously ‘targeted’ as ‘PKK linked terrorists’ in Turkey. The US government’s commitment to ‘jointly’ assist and substantially back the Turkish state in this ‘War on Terror’ that is aimed at ‘hunting’ down and eradicating ‘the PKK terrorist threat’ in Turkey needs to be analysed in this wider context in which a whole range of people come to be defined as ‘PKK linked terrorist threats’:

Moreover, “according to a report in the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet a case has begun before the state security court in Diyarbakir against 27 children aged between 11-18, because they had demanded the right to native [Kurdish] language tuition … The state prosecutor … accused the children and adolescents of ‘aiding [i.e. ‘sponsoring’] a terrorist organisation’ [sic] through their demands, and has called for prison terms of 3 years and 9 months”. ⁵⁰ In 2002, students’ petitions calling for the right to merely receive some optional instruction in the Kurdish language, were incriminated “on grounds of being instrumental to the [‘terrorist’] PKK’s efforts to establish itself as a political organisation. State Prosecutors were briefed by the Ministry of the Interior in January, 2002, to bring charges of ‘membership in a terrorist organisation’ punishable with 12 years imprisonment against any students or parents who lodge[d] petitions demanding optional Kurdish lessons. By 23^rd January 2002, a total of 85 students and more than 30 parents ha[d] been imprisoned and over 1,000 people (among them some juveniles) detained” for merely “having demanded optional first language education in Kurdish”.⁵¹

In addition to this, a “case against the members of KESK Music Group … who were charged with having sung in Kurdish during a festival organised by teachers’ union Egitim-Sen in Diyarbakir in 2002, was restarted on 2^nd April (2004)”.⁵² In a European Commission 2004 report, it was confirmed that “in March 2004 … RTUK ordered the closure for 30 days of ART TV, a local television channel broadcasting from Diyarbakir, on the grounds that it had violated ‘the principle of the indivisibility of the state’ when, in August 2003, it broadcast two Kurdish love songs”.⁵³ Jon Rud notes that “RTUK issued a warning to one TV channel which had shown a music programme with songs in Kurdish. This was based on a provision which prohibits programmes that are ‘in breach of the general principles of the Constitution … national security…’, etc”.⁵⁴

In the US backed ‘war’ against ‘PKK terrorists’, it has become apparent that “one line of reasoning” currently used “in Turkish legal practice is”, indeed, “guilt by association. One example:

• The terrorist organisation the PKK is making propaganda for the right to use the Kurdish language, including in education.
• Consequently, anyone who advocates the right to use the Kurdish language is guilty of supporting (‘aiding and abetting’, Article 169 of the Turkish Penal Code) a terrorist organisation”.⁵⁵
  

Within the context of this type of US - and, indeed, UK state - supported ‘post-9/11 War on Terror’, ‘pro-Kurdish’ teachers who have sought to simply ‘learn the Kurdish language’ in preparation for a time when they might be allowed to teach it in schools, have also been targeted by the ‘Anti-Terror Police’ and tortured by them for their seemingly ‘terrorist inspired’ activities: “12 people, of whom 11 were teachers”, we are told, for instance, “were allegedly tortured while being detained by police after having been arrested in Kiziltepe for learning Kurdish together. The 12 people, 11 of whom were members of the teachers trade union Egitim-Sen, were arrested in an apartment … in Mardin on May 7^th. A magistrate had issued warrants for their arrest. The Mardin branch of Egitim-Sen said in a written statement that: ‘Our colleagues were subjected to various methods of torture; they were sprayed with high-pressure water, they had plastic bags pulled over their heads, they were forced to sing marching songs and to do the goose-step, they were brutally beaten, left for 3 days without food or water, they were stripped naked, had their testicles crushed and were verbally abused’. One of the teachers … was not spared the torture despite being pregnant. Because of her poor condition she was taken to Diyarbakir’s Medical Faculty on the evening of her detention. According to the statement, her condition remain[ed] serious. Egitim-Sen … pointed out that there was a complete disregard for legal procedures following the arrests. Despite complaints from their lawyers, between 25-30 police were involved in the questioning”.⁶⁷ As another report on the affair confirmed: “In a private apartment in the district of Kiziltepe, 11 teachers and an agricultural engineer were arrested for breaching anti-terror laws (sic) and then detained, following 6 hours of questioning … According to their lawyer, … ‘There were lawful publications in the flat from the Kurdish Institute. [Yet] the teacher [‘A’] was taken to hospital when she miscarried after having been tortured.’ (Source: Radikal, 12.05.2002) … Their arrest was part of a raid on an apartment where the 11 were [merely] learning Kurdish ... (Source: Özgür Politika, 15.05.2002)”.⁶⁸

Parents who have simply, as a basic human right, attempted to legally name their children using Kurdish names, have come under suspicion as potential terrorist threats who deserve to be placed under surveillance and appropriately ‘targeted’: “In 2003, a new law was passed allowing Kurds to”, theoretically, “use their Kurdish names”. But “it is indicative of the attitudes of the authorities that the Commander of the Gendarmerie” - at the forefront of waging the US-UK backed ‘War on Terror’ in the country - chillingly “requested from the Attorney General the full list of people who had applied to use Kurdish names” for their children. “He considered such persons as ‘potential threats to the social order’”.⁶⁹ Other ‘parents’ have been murdered in the ‘War on Terror’ simply because their children have been involved in legal ‘pro-Kurdish’ cultural and political activities overseas. As Derwich Ferho, the chairman of the Kurdish Institute in Brussels has noted, his parents - who were in their eighties - were murdered in grisly fashion by state-linked contra-guerrilla death squads in south-eastern Turkey in March 2006 because of his work and that of his brother (who works for the Kurdish satellite Roj TV station, also in Belgium): “They were killed in a horrible way in their village … Earlier they were threatened, because of the activities of my brother and me in Belgium … My father was sick and bedridden … He was killed in his bed and his ribs were broken. My mother must have resisted, because her throat was cut and she had many wounds inflicted by stabbing … My parents were threatened several times last month … People were saying: your sons must be wiser”.⁷⁰ “According to Derwich, there is no doubt that the Turkish state is behind the murder: ‘… The contra-guerrilla is operating … These are the same death squads, which committed a lot of assassinations in the nineties ... Now it looks like the hunt is opened again, also on aged people” uninvolved in any war.⁷¹

The Human Rights Agenda Association has also detailed the manner in which attacks are being made on human rights activists, academics and observers. “During a promotional press conference in Istanbul” for the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation’s (TESEV) new book on enforced Kurdish ‘internal migration’, it noted with concern that one such attack had been made. And who was it directed by?: “In their condemnation of the attack, both IHD and the Foundation for Human Rights and Solidarity with the Oppressed (MAZLUMDER) stressed that those behind it … were being protected. ‘It is now very evident’ said the IHD, ‘that this group has now targeted civilian institutions’. The association stressed that an ‘extreme tolerance’ shown to this group by” ‘War on Terror’ linked “security forces, despite their actions, needed to be taken into account and added, ‘The increase of attacks and harassment of these groups, … we believe are being organised and financed by circles of power’”.⁷² Equally troublingly, Amnesty International has ascertained that “the Turkish Government tries to discredit it’s critics at home and abroad by suggesting that they sympathize or collude with the PKK”,⁷³ which remains the designated ‘enemy’ in the US-UK backed ‘War on Terror’.

Charges are also being levelled at peace campaigners in the name of the ‘War on Terror’: Most recently, in June 2006, for instance, “three Kurdish activists” were placed on trial “on anti-terrorism charges after they attempted to stage a peaceful protest near the Iraq border … They were arrested on May 2^nd as they prepared to walk to the border of Iraq to peacefully protest the recent killings of civilians by security forces in south-eastern Turkey and express their concern about tensions between the Turkish government and the Kurdish-led administration in northern Iraq … All three are officials of Kurt-Der, a Kurdish association that Turkish authorities closed last month for” the crime of “conducting its internal business in the Kurdish language”.⁷⁴

A report by Sevend J. Robinson on behalf of the Commission for Democracy, Human Rights and Humanitarian Issues, which was accepted by the annual OSCE Assembly in July 2002, additionally confirmed that, “in Turkey, HADEP [‘pro-Kurdish’ party] mayors are continually” being “persecuted. For example, the mayor of Hakkari was prosecuted for issuing a calendar in the Kurdish and English languages - because it was a risk to the state … The Kurdish language continues to be banned in education and in the media … In Van, security forces have detained 500 students because of a petition in which they requested the right to Kurdish language tuition”.⁷⁵ A collective of journalists and researchers on behalf of Aram Publishers in Istanbul, also observed the way in which, “on 14^th January, 2002, the Turkish Security Forces issued a statement” which absurdly clarified “that any initiatives taken with regard to the right to have optional Kurdish lessons in school or university were”, automatically, deemed to have been “orchestrated” and sponsored “by ‘the terrorist organisation PKK’ and were, far from being ‘an innocent claim for cultural rights’, part and parcel of ‘the plan to split Turkey’ [sic]. Once one claimed that Kurds should have the right to education in Kurdish ‘just because they are Kurds’, the statement continue[d], the reasoning that ‘Kurds should learn Kurdish history and geography on every level of their educational careers, that Kurdish businessmen should associate or a Kurdish Bar Association should be established’ cannot be far away. This then, it goes without saying, would create division and separation that would ‘reflect upon society’. That would amount to terrorism.

“What, then, should the Kurds do to prove” to the ‘deep state’ and to the Turkish security forces waging their US-UK backed ‘War on Terror’ “that they do not harbour the [‘terrorist’] intention to rip off the chunks of land east of the Taurus mountains? All Kurdish ‘organisations operating abroad have to omit the word Kurdistan from their names’; the news broadcast on the satellite [arts, culture and politics] channel Medya TV from Belgian exile has to ‘refrain from referring to our [i.e. the security forces’] Southeast and East Anatolian areas as the Kurdish provinces in items broadcast in Turkish and the two dialects of Kurdish’; the same TV channel has to stop ‘showing exclusively the meteorological situation of our above mentioned areas in its weather forecast’; the ‘[exiled] Kurdish National Congress has to be disbanded’; projects as devious as ‘an institute of Kurdish philology, ... a Kurdish encyclopaedia and a Kurdish economic congress have to be abandoned’; and finally, ‘no support should be given to Armenian and Syriac groups campaigning against Turkey on an international level [on issues relating to an acknowledgement of the Armenian, Assyrian or Pontic Greek genocides, for instance], and all members of the terrorist organisation have to lay down their arms and surrender to the security forces’. Anything short of that is, the tone of the statement implies, a casus belli”.⁷⁶ One in which they will be ‘hunted down’ and appropriately targeted …

Kerim Yildiz (Executive Director of the Kurdish Human Rights Project) and Mark Muller (as barrister and Vice President of the UK Bar Human Rights Committee), in 2005, observed - with concern - that Turkey was, indeed, refusing “even to concede that the armed conflict in the [Kurdish] South-east is symptomatic of the broader issue of her subjugation of the Kurds, defining the situation purely in terms of security and/or terrorism and refusing to become involved in bilateral negotiations with the Kurds”⁷⁷ On 25^th August 2006, for example, “Turkish officials … dismissed” yet another “offer from the terrorist PKK … for a … conditional cease-fire … The PKK’s second in command, Murat Karayilan, proposed a … conditional cease-fire to the Turkish government, saying, ‘We are ready to observe a cease-fire on September 1st, coinciding with World Peace Day, and opt for a peaceful and democratic settlement to the Kurdish issue in Turkey’. He requested Turkey put forward a ‘political project’ that will meet their demands … Karayilan also made a similar offer last June, saying, ‘We appeal to the Turkish government, asking it to end military operations in order to open the path for dialogue, and we are ready, on our side, to declare a cease-fire’”.⁷⁸ “Kongra-Gel” had also “appealed its armed forces to take a [unilateral] decision of ‘No Action’ between 20th August and 20th September 2005”.⁷⁹ Mustafa Karahan, the head of DEHAP - the pro-Kurdish Democratic People’s Party - in Diyarbakir, described the way in which his party was even being restricted in its dialogue with the press, let alone the ‘deep state’: “The pressure faced by DEHAP is very obvious. When we want to say something to the press, our members get arrested. Many members of DEHAP are now arrested and in prison”.⁸⁰ According to Mizgin, writing in June 2006, “neither [Prime Minister] Erdogan nor anyone else in government will bother to speak [directly even] to [the legal pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party] DTP. The state … never bothered to avail itself of PKK ceasefires and calls for negotiation. It never bothered to improve the situation during the last ceasefire. It offered a joke for an amnesty in 2003, which meant that it wasn’t serious then either”.⁸¹ The Turkish state, during all this time, has continued to refuse to negotiate with any ‘terrorists’.

Meanwhile, “the official view of the Kurds in Turkey”, in writer Mehmed Uzun’s opinion, remains “one of deep hatred. The phobia of Kurds is evident; ultra Turkish nationalism is nurtured by their abhorrence of Kurds”.⁸² Mark Thomas, in April 2006, observed the marked “failure of the Turkish state to work with the Kurds to take advantage of the PKK ceasefire. Ankara has refused to negotiate. ‘We will not talk to terrorists,’ the Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, declares. And he has done so with the backing of the EU. Instead of urging dialogue, the EU has followed the UK and the United States in proscribing the PKK, even though it announced a ceasefire and formally renounced violence. Just about every attempt by grass-roots Kurdish groups to form inclusive democratic movements has been regarded by the EU and the UK as merely another group to add to the list of terrorist organisations”.⁸³

Even as the Blair government and Bush administration have continued, post-9/11, to vigorously endorse the initiatives of the Turkish state in its ‘War on Terror’, Behic Asci, a member of the Turkish Association of Progressive Lawyers⁸⁴ has sought to alert people to the repercussions of these highly questionable types of activities, which are never mentioned by Bush’s or Blair’s aides publicly: “The Turkish legal system provides no protection for … political prisoners [many of whom have been questionably charged with ‘terrorist offences’] held in isolation. In one instance, when a guard demanded one of Asci’s clients stand up for a prisoner count, she responded that given [that] she was in an isolation cell, there was no need for her to stand to be counted. Enraged at this small show of defiance, the guard attacked the prisoner, crushing her skull against the cell wall. When Asci appealed to the court to protest his client’s mistreatment, his suit was rejected as part of a ‘terrorist campaign’ against F-type isolation prisons. The court concluded that the prisoner must have crushed her own skull … Many of the prisoners Asci represented have [also] had their feet taped together and their hands taped behind their backs. Left alone, immobilised, for hours or days at a time and unable to avail themselves of toilet facilities, they are forced to endure the indignity of repeatedly soiling themselves. Many of Asci’s clients, both men and women, had been raped while in custody, often by prison guards using batons. Asci related another experience of one client during a court hearing who had been held in isolation and who had to halt midway through reading a statement to the court. He had lost his hearing” through mistreatment “and could no longer hear his own voice. Prisoners in the[se] F-type prisons typically suffer from a range of psychological illnesses including stress, anxiety and depression. The authorities also routinely deny [‘terrorist’] prisoners medical assistance and access to legal representation. According to Asci, prisoners are arbitrarily refused visits from family members that they are legally entitled to. Their books, newspapers and other reading material are confiscated. The letters sent to their families are heavily censored - if they ever arrive at all”.⁸⁵

The Nature of US ‘Psychological Warfare Assistance’ in the ‘War on Terror’.

In this context in which the Bush administration has agreed to jointly act to ‘hunt’ down and ‘destroy’ the ‘PKK terrorists’ and to vigorously support the Turkish state’s ‘War on Terror’, we need to recognise and confront the fact that there does not appear to be any effective public oversight into the nature of accountability of these ‘deep political’ US-Turkish ‘arrangements’ and ‘operations’.⁸⁶ Such joint ‘US-Turkish’ arrangements are of deep concern to many individuals, human rights and community based organisations and communities living in the Kurdish ‘south-east’ in particular. Key questions arise: Will US special forces continue to provide JCET ‘training’ or any other types of ‘special forces’ linked assistance to Turkey’s notorious mountain commandos? As Chalmers Johnson has noted: “Republican representative Christopher Smith, chairman of the House of Representatives Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights, says: ‘Our joint exercises and training of military units - that have been charged over and over again with the gravest kind of crimes against humanity, including torture and murder - cry out for explanation’. But the US Secretary of Defence seems to be unconcerned”.⁸⁷

There is certainly concern that the US state will, intentionally, choose to keep collaborating with Turkey’s notorious mountain commando brigades and other ‘special military/paramilitary/police forces’ that are at the forefront of the counter-insurgency struggle against the ‘PKK terrorists’, thereby providing a US-linked ‘legitimacy’ to their often murderous activities. Already in recent months, it has been announced that, “after completing a six-month intensive training course, 242 [Turkish] Special Forces personnel have been appointed to posts in the [Kurdish] east and southeast [of Turkey]. Reports say that with the newly appointed personnel, there are now 3,500 members of the Special Forces in Hakkari, Sirnak, Tunceli and Bingol”.⁸⁸ An April 2006 report in The Turkish Weekly suggests that Turkish ‘special forces’ have, indeed, been given ‘the green light’ by the US to intensify the basis of their ‘offensive psychological warfare operations’ against the ‘PKK threat’ in northern Iraq: “Reports have been confirmed that it was actions taken by Turkish troops this past Saturday which were the spark for specific complaints from Baghdad about increased Turkish military presence and action along the Northern Iraqi border. According to these reports, Turkish armed forces, using infra-red cameras, spotted PKK terrorists crossing the border near Cukurca town, after which a special force team of around 100 soldiers proceeded to cross the border into Iraqi territory. The go-ahead to send in the special forces team was reportedly given from Ankara over the weekend. Recent meetings between Turkish and US officials have indicated that the US has given the nod to Turkish action on this front”.⁸⁹

US psychological warfare operational support to target PKK ‘leaders’ in northern Iraq - as recently as July 2005 - has been, apparently, also confirmed from a leading Turkish military source: “The Turkish army said Tuesday the United States had ordered the capture of commanders of the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party in Iraq … The United States ‘have issued a direct order for the capture of the leaders’ of the PKK, General Ilker Basbug, the army number two, told a group of journalists”.⁹⁰ According to a 21^st April 2006 report by the Cihan News Agency, “The Turkish NTV news channel report[ed] … that the US has been providing intelligence to Turkish security forces carrying out anti-terror operations in southeast Turkey near the Iraqi border. NTV claims that the CIA and US army intelligence have tipped off the Turkish security forces during operations in which a total of 31 PKK terrorists were killed in two separate areas. ‘US satellites monitoring the Middle East screened southeast Turkey and spotted the PKK terrorists,’ the report claims, stating that the US is also tapping communications among the PKK authorities. Turkey and the USA have already been cooperating to curb the financial resources of the PKK, designated as a terror organization by the USA and EU”.⁹¹

According to an April 2006 Zaman.com report: “The Turkish armed forces have launched [a] … military operation along the Iraqi border where Turkish troops have concentrated for days. The Northern Iraqi cities of Amedi and Zaho, sheltering PKK militants, were hit with mortar attacks in ‘Operation Crescent’. First reports say that locations where militants were lodged in the regions of Geliye, Pisaxa, Pirbela, Sheshdara, Sheranish and Elanish were demolished. The‘Burgundy Beret’ units”, a Turkish special forces team which reportedly had been involved in the US state linked capture and illegal abduction of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan in Kenya, “performed a reconnaissance mission in the area a while ago as part of the Special Forces Command. Troop deployment to the region from different parts of the country continues. Along with the transfer of commandos, heavy construction equipment” was “also being brought to the border for use during a possible cross-border operation”.⁹²

We also know that US International Military Education Training (IMET) courses were conducted with Turkish forces in 2001, 2002 and were requested for 2003:⁹³ “Created by Congress in 1976, IMET grew out of the Vietnam-era Nixon Doctrine that aimed to avoid U.S. casualties by preparing ‘Asian boys to fight Asian wars’.⁹⁴ This programme has been “harshly criticized in Congress for having [previously] trained soldiers in Colombia and Indonesia who went on to commit human rights violations”.⁹⁵ We also know that the US Congress approved IMET training with Turkish forces for 2005 and President Bush requested further IMET funding for the financial year 2006. It is also known that Turkey was the recipient of a US Foreign Military Financing (FMF) programme in 2005, and President Bush, again, requested further FMF for Turkey in 2006.⁹⁶ FMF, it needs to be appreciated, “provides grants for foreign militaries to buy US weapons, services, and training … Although the majority of these funds are used to buy weapons, mobile training teams are often deployed as a facet of weapons sales packages to train the foreign country’s forces in the operation and maintenance of the weapon system(s). In other cases, aid recipients use this money to buy training for their soldiers in specific skill areas. In such cases, U.S. mobile training teams, usually made up of Special Operations Forces, are sent to the host country for up to six months”.⁹⁷

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) have also provided ‘assistance’ to Turkish forces involved in their ‘War on Terror’: “The … FBI … is … involved in training foreign police and paramilitary forces. This training is [ostensibly] justified primarily as part of its efforts to counter drug trafficking, terrorism, and organized crime … No annual report”, however, “provides public information on FBI foreign training programs … The DEA, also part of the Justice Department, conducts international police training as well … The international police training programs of the FBI and the DEA are funded at least in part out of the annual appropriation for Justice Department operations and are, therefore, technically exempt from the Leahy Law vetting requirements (which currently cover only programs funded by the foreign aid and Defence Department appropriations)”.⁹⁸

According to one report: “The FBI is committed to cooperating with Turkey in its fight against armed rebels of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). FBI director Robert Mueller said, ‘We are working with our counterparts elsewhere in Europe and in Turkey to address the PKK and work cooperatively, to find and cut off financing to terrorist groups, be it PKK, al-Qaeda’, or others … ‘There have been concrete results and there will continue to be concrete results around the world, in Europe and elsewhere’, he added. Mueller spoke after a day of talks with senior Turkish police and national intelligence officials, which he said served to strengthen bilateral ties and enable the two countries to cooperate in facing terrorist threats”.⁹⁹ Another report has also clarified that, “at the FBI, the Office of International Operations oversees the Legal Attaché Program operating at 46 locations around the world. The operation maintains contact with … other US federal agencies such as the CIA and military agencies such as the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), and foreign police and security officers…It coordinates its activities with all US and foreign intelligence operations. In 2000, it opened offices in Ankara, Turkey”.¹⁰⁰
That the DEA and FBI are providing extensive and ongoing ‘anti- terrorist’ and ‘anti-narcotics’ assistance to the Turkish ‘secular state’, its embassies, security, military and paramilitary forces is rather ironic, given that ‘deep political’ circles in these very Turkish sectors apparently are - and have been - heavily involved in the organised crime, state terrorism and drugs trade.¹⁰¹ In debating the issue of public accountability, we also need to be aware that valid concerns have been raised over the highly questionable and disturbing ways in which the FBI and DEA have been allowed to operate overseas (let alone within the United States) without adequate oversight mechanisms being put into place.¹⁰² Writing in 1980, Henrik Kruger, for instance, detailed the way that “the White House appears to have sponsored a secret assassination programme under the cover of drug enforcement. It was continued by the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), which seemingly overlapped with the CIA in political rather than drug enforcement”.¹⁰³ Kruger, again, in analysing the nature of US linked psychological warfare operations in Mexico during the 1970’s, further discovered that “a 1975 Narcotics Control Action Plan for Mexico, drafted by the DEA, CIA and State Department, opened the way for new appropriations for fighting narcotoics in Mexico through INC. Thirty helicopters as well as other aircraft and computer terminals were brought in, and extensive training programs were initiated. The notorious Operation Condor began in January 1976 with an army of DEA trained Mexican narcotics agents and their US supervisors, mobilised to fight the drug traffic in the countryside. Reports of the operation reveal that US taxpayers’ money has, in fact, been used for political extermination; that DEA helicopters are used by private landowners to attack peasant revolutionaries with rockets, small arms fire and napalm; that large groups of farmers and independent narcotics dealers have been murdered or tortured while the major narcotics families have been protected … DEA supervised killing and torture had not stopped as of 1978, when the Mexican Bar Association documented eighteen forms of torture applied by Mexican narcotics agents. Prisoners and Mexican agents alike affirmed that DEA agents not only knew of the torture, but at times were also present at the interrogations”.¹⁰⁴

Confirmation that the FBI and CIA were co-ordinating their ‘anti-PKK’ initiatives with the Turkish state came in a December 2005 Hurriyet report: “Following the visit of FBI director Robert Mueller to Turkey on Saturday, CIA chief Porter Goss followed in Mueller’s footsteps and paid a visit to Ankara for talks with officials from the Turkish General Staff and the intelligence service MIT … The two visits took place soon after US Ambassador Ross Wilson announced that there were some secret aspects to the visit over cooperating in the fight against PKK. The visits have triggered speculations that the US might start a [major] serious initiative for the neutralization of PKK after the Iraqi elections. The talks between Goss and Turkish officials will focus on al Qaeda, and on developments in Iraq, Iran and Syria. The Turkish side will submit to Goss a file containing intelligence information about top-level PKK militants in Northern Iraq. Turkey will also convey to Goss its concerns about developments that might pave the way for the founding of a Kurdish state in Northern Iraq … Turkish Land Forces Commander General Yasar Buyukanit was [also] currently in the US for talks with US officials” over these matters.¹⁰⁵ Columnist Semih Idiz, from the Turkish Milliyet, interestingly also revealed the following information in an article dated 12^th December 2005:

A report from Winds of Change further observes that “the most interesting details of the [December 2005] meeting seem to have appeared in Cumhurriyet, which states the following”:

“The implication here is that the US believes that it’ll be using [the Turkish] Incirlik [airbase] in any aerial operations against Iran and wants to secure Turkish cooperation on that score - the visit of Turkish Chief of Staff General Yasar Buyukanit to DC is likely related here. I would also note that the issue of Iranian support for the PKK has long been the official position of both the US and Turkish governments”.¹⁰⁸ The Bush administration’s need to secure Turkey’s assistance in its joint plans with the Israeli state to restructure the Middle East [in particular, in southern Lebanon,¹⁰⁹ Syria and Iran] has probably also meant that it will, in return, have had to commit itself towards, once again, aggressively supporting the Turkish state’s ‘war against PKK terrorists’ [i.e. ‘Turkish Kurds’, as many see it], irrespective of any ethical concerns that others may have over the matter. Such aggressive military assistance will, initially, probably be provided in a more covert manner, however, as it is probably not keen to be seen to be publicly providing the ‘green light’ to both Israel and Turkey at the same time to devastate both regions that they are keen to enter into.¹¹⁰ In these circumstances, the strategy will probably, for the next few weeks at least, be restricted towards provision of substantive covert US military and CIA/FBI/DEA/DIA support to Turkey’s ‘anti-terrorism forces’, even as the US will exert its influence over KDP and PUK Kurdish leaders in northern Iraq, other Iraqi politicians¹¹¹ and Israeli leaders to exert as much ‘anti-terrorist, anti-PKK support’ that they can offer to Turkey in the coming months.¹¹²

This may, indeed, explain why an Israeli army chief visited Turkey’s military leaders so soon after the FBI and CIA Directors’ visits to the country. It may also explain why the same Israeli army chief reportedly requested that Israeli special forces commandos could soon ‘train’ in the very mountainous areas in which Turkey’s notorious ‘anti-PKK’ mountain commandos also just so happen to be training and operating in,¹¹³ and why former Israeli commandos were also intensively training Kurdish security forces in northern Iraq who were ostensibly committed towards combating the PKK: “The CIA and FBI visits were followed by the Israelis. Israeli Army Chief Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz arrived in Turkey in a week. According to the Israeli officials the reason for the visit is to develop the dialogue and co-operation between Turkey and Israel. However the questions were similar to those of Americans. Iran, Syria and Iraq were the foremost priorities. The Israeli Army Chief further asked permission for training the Israeli commandos in Turkey's Bolu and Hakkari mountains. Halutz said ‘our commandos cannot see snow, the weather in Israel is quite hot. If they can be trained in Turkey, they would be ready for the winter conditions’ … The problem is why Israel wants to be ready for the mountain and winter circumstances? There is no cold neighbouring country around Israel. The only places Israeli commandos could use their training are Turkey, Iran and Northern Iraq [all areas where Kurdish PKK forces also happen to coincidently be based]¹¹⁴… Three weeks ago Israeli Yedioth Aharonot reported that dozens of former Israeli commandos have [also] been training Kurdish security forces [i.e. presumably the very KDP and PUK linked forces that have committed themselves to jointly working with Turkey to target and eradicate the ‘PKK terrorist threat’] in northern Iraq, supplying them with equipment worth millions of dollars. And now the Israelis want to come to the other side of the border. The Hakkari Mountains are on Turkey-Iraq and Turkey-Iran borders and the surrounding region is sensitive Kurdish populated areas”.¹¹⁵

John Stanton’s analysis is also worth reflecting upon:

Given the nature of this type of US support for Turkey’s ‘War on Terror’, it seems reasonable to conclude that a ‘new intensified phase’ of ‘joint’ US-Turkey psychological warfare operations is underway. The Embassy of the US in Ankara, for instance, recently confirmed that “General Joseph W. Ralston (USAF, retired) ha[d] been appointed as Special Envoy for Countering the PKK. General Ralston will have responsibility for coordinating US engagement with the Government of Turkey and the Government of Iraq to eliminate the terrorist threat of the PKK and other terrorist groups operating in northern Iraq and across the Turkey-Iraq border. This appointment underscores the commitment of the United States to work with Turkey and Iraq to eliminate terrorism in all its forms”¹¹⁷- apart from, of course, those ‘forms’ of terrorism that are promoted by the US-Turkish-Israeli and US backed Iraqi states. Local news sources in northern Iraq (south Kurdistan), for instance, reported on 14th August 2006 that “over 100 Turkish MIT (National Intelligence Agency) agents” had been permitted to cross over into the region “together with members of the Turkish Special Forces”.¹¹⁸

These cross-border military incursions into the “US protectorate of Iraq”¹¹⁹ are unlikely to have taken place without a ‘green light’ having been provided by the US government. In all of this, there does not appear to have been any adequate public oversight into the nature of these ‘approved’ incursions and US-Turkey ‘anti-terrorism’ collaborative ‘special operations’ that have taken the lives of so many ‘suspected’ PKK ‘terrorists’. On 13^th September 2006, we are also informed that “after a meeting with [the] Turkish Prime Minister”, Ralston clarified that “the United States would take tangible measures on the PKK, … adding that all measures would be taken for an influential fighting … He ruled out the possibility of meeting with [the] PKK … ‘Meeting with the PKK is out of the question for me. I never meet a terrorist organization. We want to get rid of them. I am intend[ing] to meet Turkish, Iraqi and U.S. governments and thus get rid of the PKK organization’, he said … [He also] met with Turkish Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Ali Tuygan and retired General Edip Baser, who was appointed as Turkey’s anti-PKK coordinator. Ralston said that he would travel to Baghdad from Ankara for talks with Iraqi officials”¹²⁰ to take matters further.

If, as we are now informed, the Bush administration, in its wisdom, is committed to jointly ‘hunting down’ and ‘destroying’ the ‘PKK terrorists’ using the full might of its military and intelligence agencies, additional questions arise. Will there be, as many Kurdish and human rights analysts contend, a resurgence of US-Turkish state inspired ‘false flag’ operations that will blame ‘the PKK’ for massacres and disappearances of Kurdish civilians that were perpetrated by state inspired forces? Will initiatives that seek to resolve the ‘Kurdish question’ through ‘military/paramilitary means’ rather than through peaceful dialogue, be intensified even as public interest organisations, peace groups and human rights organisations oppose such measures? Will there be a resurgence of US-Turkish state ‘inspired’ anti-terrorist ‘abductions’, ‘disappearances’, massacres, and torture sessions for Kurdish civilians, intellectuals, schoolchildren, students, journalists, politicians, lawyers and other perceived ‘pro-Kurdish’ supporters in Turkey and northern Iraq (south Kurdistan)?

Other concerns also arise: In jointly targeting, tracking and ‘hunting’ down and capturing the ‘terrorists’, how will these ‘terrorists’ - ‘civilian’ and/or ‘combatants’ - be treated? Given that the PKK has officially been described by US administration staffers as being ‘no different’ to al-Qaeda, are PKK members or ‘suspected PKK’ members likely to be treated during ‘interrogation’, ‘targeting’ and ‘incarceration’ in the same way that al-Qaeda suspects or members have been treated? If so, there is certainly cause for concern.¹²¹

Concerns Over The New ‘Anti-Terrorism Law’.

We also need to ask ourselves whether the Bush administration will keep accepting the ‘definition’ of ‘PKK terrorists’ and ‘terrorism’ that will have been provided to it by its ‘deep political’ Turkish hypernationalist and military/paramilitary/‘special forces’ linked ‘allies’. Certainly, Condoleezza Rice, during her most recent visit to Turkey, did not publicly express any concern over such definitions when she provided assurances that the Bush administration was fully supportive of Turkey’s ‘War on Terror’. The Bush administration appears to be ‘minded’ to accept the absurd and dangerous ‘definitions’ that are being provided and used under the new Turkish ‘Anti-Terrorism Law’ and by Turkish military officials to criminalise people and organisations. These definitions, specifically created to facilitate the ‘War on Terror’, have the capacity to criminalise the non-violent activities of many Kurdish and non-Kurdish people.

Concerns over this matter were even recently expressed by the UN Special Rapporteur: “[A] letter, sent on May 21 [2006] to the Parliament Justice Committee by Martin Scheinin, UN Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms while Countering Terrorism, informed Turkey that the new [proposed anti-terrorism] law fails to meet the requirement of proportionality in the use of force by security forces, introduces ‘improper restrictions on freedom of expression’ and reflects the danger of punishing civilians not involved in violence. ‘This danger is exacerbated by the very broad definition of terrorism’” that is being used “‘and the very long and wide list of terrorist offences’ … Scheinin’s letter assessed the draft” - which is now law -“according to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and also with reference to certain provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights. He said the very definition of ‘terrorism’ and ‘terrorist offences’ in the draft were contrary to the spirit of his comments and recommendations after his country visit to Turkey on 16-23 February 2006 as UN Special Rapporteur, adding that ‘such indiscriminate use of the terms terrorism and terrorist”, raised concerns about, “ the principle of legality”,¹²² as well as other issues.

This new ‘Anti-Terrorism’ law, as the Bush administration well knows, has also been criticised from several other quarters for dangerously enabling ‘deep political’ circles in Turkey to potentially target and criminalise anyone they do not like as a ‘terrorist’. Ayhan Bilgen, the Deputy Chairman of MAZLUMDER, for example, forcefully argues that “we need to see from today that this [law] will target every section of the society. In the past, they said only leftists would be put on trial under Article 312, that the State Security Courts would be involved in the struggle against separatism. But none of these happened. They should not think they can get away with it, saying that it will specifically effect [only] religious groups, the PKK and left-wing organisations … This framework” suggested by the draft bill - which is now law in Turkey - is such that, in “using human rights advocacy, you will be” targeted and defined as a terrorist, for “‘defending terror or something else [like that]’, and because of this, it will incriminate” even those who are “defending human rights, allow[ing] for the[ir] conviction” as terrorists. Human Rights Association Chairman Yusuf Alatas has “argued that the bill [is] ‘incompatible with human rights’ and said it [is] intended to bring back all of the country's past suppression laws and create a silent society … He said, ‘Not even Parliamentarians are free. Everyone standing up against the law will be accused of supporting terrorism and standing up against the regime’”.¹²³

“In a statement dated 14^th July [2006], International PEN wrote that the passing of these amendments threatens to broaden ‘the definition of terrorism and brings with it the possibility of many more prosecutions of writers and journalists for writings that cannot be construed as supporting or advocating violence’”.¹²⁴ A letter from the representatives of 15 organisations including political parties and democratic mass organisations stated that the Anti-Terror Law “surrenders personal rights and freedoms to the conscience of the security forces and eliminates basic human rights”. It stated that fundamental rights and freedoms were under threat:

The former head of Turkey’s Prime Ministry Human Rights Advisory Board, Professor Ibrahim Kaboglu, also concluded that the controversial Anti-Terror Law “violated the constitution … ‘I’m worried about thought being punished … My worry is that in the name of preventing terror, opinion will be punished … That the press, intellectuals and journalists who express their views by using mass communications will be placed under pressure’, he said. Kaboglu added that in this situation, the additional authority granted to security forces and prosecutors” in their ‘War on Terror’ “would boost the current trend against freedoms” and fundamental rights in Turkey.¹²⁶

Info Turk confirms that even “Turkish media criticized the government’s proposal … saying the draft defined too many actions as terror and could easily be misused … The Cumhuriyet newspaper devoted its front page to criticizing the proposed law: ‘The reforms passed in the European Union process will be erased by a definition of terror that encompasses all crimes … There is nothing left out in the definition’”.¹²⁷ According to Izmir Bar Association Prevention of Torture Group (IOG) lawyer Nalan Erkem, “‘The arrangements that the draft makes with regard to access to an attorney takes away all of the rights of the defendant … While it opens the way for torture and mistreatment, the draft also aims to prevent lawyers from proving their existence’. Erkem argued that the draft was in the nature of an insult to lawyers in Turkey, stripping away the defence rights that were brought forth under Turkey's accession plans with the EU”.¹²⁸ “Representatives of … 17 non-government organisations (NGOs)”¹²⁹ have also “read a press statement in front of Istanbul's Sultanahmet Justice Hall … where an appeal was made to … reject it. The move came after similar appeals from leading Turkish human rights groups including IHD and MAZLUMDER … The country's Human Rights Foundation (TIHV) joined in the criticism and said the law would not only shift Turkey from its previous EU projections but also meant a turn to a ‘tolerance policy towards torture’”.¹³⁰

Conclusion

In reflecting upon the current situation, it is also worth noting that the Bush administration has set in place a series of arrangements that are aimed at securing immunity from prosecution of all US, Turkish and Israeli forces who may be charged with ‘war crimes’ or ‘genocidal crimes’ for any questionable actions that they may have been found to be undertaking. The US government, it seems, has not only been seeking to unethically provide immunity from prosecution to its government, military forces and citizens at the International Criminal Court (ICC), but also those of its ‘client’ and ‘favoured’ states - Israel and Turkey in particular: “Senior (US) officials have stated repeatedly and quite categorically that they will continue to reject any jurisdictional arrangement allowing international prosecution of its own civilian authorities or military personnel for war crimes as ‘an infringement upon US national sovereignty’ (thereby recapitulating the previously noted premise of the Third Reich). Objections have also been raised with regard to any curtailment of self-assigned US prerogatives to shield its clients - usually referred to as ‘friends’ - from prosecution for crimes committed under its sponsorship - e.g. … Turkish officials presiding over the ongoing ‘pacification’ of Kurdistan”.¹³¹

The information gathered in this article does, unfortunately, disturbingly support Keen’s contention that “an important part of the political function of the ‘War on Terror’ has been the way it legitimises political intimidation by a range of allies beyond the Bush/Blair/Aznar axis. In effect, the ‘War on Terror’ has given a licence to internal repression in countries supporting this war”¹³² - such as Turkey. “As in many civil wars, demonising one party” - the ‘terrorist PKK’, in this instance - “has created space for the [hidden] abuses of others. As Michael Mann observes, labelling opponents as ‘al-Qaeda’” - or, indeed, as being no different to ‘al-Qaeda’ - “‘allows repressive governments’”, such as Turkey, “‘to do what they want with limited international criticism’”.¹³³ Not only has the US governmental stance dangerously allowed the Turkish government to repressively ‘do’ what it wants with regard to the ‘Kurdish question’, it has actively endeavoured to actively ‘assist it’, as it did throughout the genocidal period of the 1990’s, with its highly questionable ‘anti-terrorism initiatives’. We need to seriously reflect upon these issues and act to expose and end the nature of these types of unacceptable ‘actions’ and ‘activities’.
- Desmond Fernandes, 15^th September 2006.

POSTSCRIPT

Since this article was written, other reports and assessments have, similarly, concluded that there is certainly cause for concern over the nature of Turkey’s US backed ‘War on Terror’. Outgoing Ambassador Hansjoerg Kretschmer, head of the European Commission’s Delegation to Turkey, conceded on 23^rd September 2006 that the behaviour of the Turkish military and security forces - the very forces that the US-UK governments aggressively support and collaborate with in their ‘joint’ War on Terror - was disturbing: He sharply criticised “security organs for having ‘played their own games outside the control of the civilian authorities, disrespecting the legal and institutional order … In a democracy the ultimate decision rests with … the people, which must have power to define this service. It is they who decide which kind of state they want to have, which role the state should play and how much money they wish to pay for security. In other words, the state is at the service of the people. It is not an end in itself … [But] they [the military] consider themselves the guardian of the fundamental tenets of the Turkish Republic and express their views on all almost every aspect of public life which they consider relevant from the perspective of a very wide concept of national security. Education, religious instructions, cultural rights, university issues, just to mention a few … These expressions of [their] views have’”, he noted, “‘of course more weight than the legitimate expression of the views of individual citizens … Opening his remarks about the Semdinli case, Kretschmer described the incident … as the ‘tip of an iceberg, as indicated by the subsequent confession of a retired general’. He was referring to Lt. Gen. Altay Tokat's statements in which he indicated that he had ordered the bombing of state property while on active duty in the [Kurdish] Southeast in the 90’s” in order to further heighten tensions and advance the agendas of the ‘deep state’ and military.¹³⁴

“‘In my view, the big challenge for Turkey during the accession process’”, Kretschmer noted with concern, “‘is to create such stable institutions, able to deliver their services - including security - [but] to the citizens of the country in a way respectful of democratic principals. [Only] then, it can be hoped that the security organs, the security sector, will be put in to its appropriate provision as a service provider, fully controlled by the institutions and indirectly by the people of Turkey’”.¹³⁵ But we have to ask ourselves: So long as the US and UK governments - under the guise of the ‘War on Terror’ and the fight for ‘democracy’ and ‘Free World values’ – openly, as well as covertly, endorse and reinforce, rather than politically challenge or question, the existing, hardly satisfactory ‘arrangements’ and ‘deep political’, unaccountable, structures and ‘actions’ of the ‘anti-terrorist security and police forces’, how are the structures and democratically accountable ‘stable institutions’ that