Speakers
- Murat Gulem - Peoples Democratic Party (HDP) (Scottish Section) and Pete
Cannell (Stop the War Coalition) with apologies from Sarah Collins (Kurdish
Solidarity delegation to Diyarbakir).
Chair: Pat
Smith
Murat has lived in the UK since 2001. He had to leave Turkey because he refused
to do military service, which is compulsory. He left when he was 25 and is now
39 and is not able to return to Turkey.
Kurdistan was part of the Ottoman Empire. With
the break-up of the Empire after the First World War, most of Kurdistan became
divided between Turkey, Iraq and Syria, with a further section in the Persian
Empire (now Iran).
The Turkish government denies that the Kurds
exist. The Kurds were forbidden to speak their own language. In all four
countries where the Kurds live, the governments made them speak the state
language - Turkish, Arabic or Persian. During the Iran-Iraq War Kurds in
Halabja (Iraqi Kurdistan) were massacred by the Iraqi government in 1988. This
was reported in the British but not the Turkish press.
Abdullah Ocalan founded the Kurdish Workers
Party (KPP) in 1978 to fight for cultural and political rights for Kurds. When
the Turkish military took power in 1980 they targeted the Kurds. The PKK
initiated an armed struggle in 1984. This struggle put Kurdistan on the
political agenda, but the Turkish state wrote this off as terrorism.
In the 1990s the Turkish government verbally
conceded that Kurds should receive some right. However, the Turkish military insisted
that any party, in order to gain parliamentary seats, should have 10% support
in Turkey as a whole. They also declared Kurdish based parties illegal, so they
had to change their names frequently.
In 1991 several Kurdish MPs were elected to the
Turkish parliament. Despite supposed Parliamentary immunity, Leyla Zana was
arrested for wearing Kurdish colours and speaking a few words of Kurdish, then
jailed for 13 years. Other Kurdish MPs tried to stay in parliament but were
also arrested. After this, there was a further succession of Kurdish parties,
with different leaders, each made illegal in turn. The PKK renewed its armed
struggle. In 1998, the Turkish authorities captured Ocalan.
In 2002, the Islamist Justice and Development
Party, led by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, won the Turkish elections. They made some
inroads in Kurdistan by promoting a pan-Islamic, rather than a pan-Turkish
politics. However, this led to no improvement in the situation for Kurds. In
the 2007 election Kurds stood along with other Independents who won 26 (out of
550) seats in the Turkish parliament. In 2011, Independents won 35 seats.
There were still no substantial improvements for
the people of Kurdistan. Ocalan suggested from his prison cell that Kurds
should join with wider democratic forces in Turkey to field candidates as the
Peoples Democratic Party (HDP) for the June 2015 election. The agreed platform
recognised the 1915 Armenian genocide (which the Turkish government denies),
and women's and LGBT rights. The HDP has 50:50 male/female representation at
all levels. The PKK had also declared a ceasefire, hoping that there would be a
new democratic opening. In the election the dominant AKP failed to win an
overall majority, whilst the HDP won 80 seats.
Erdogan had hoped to use an AKP majority to
install himself at the head of a presidential republic. He now felt threatened
and worked hard to create the situation to force through another election. The
Kurds became his main target. The AKP government had been giving tacit support
to ISIS forces and their attempt to overthrow the Assad government in Syria.
When US pressure called for action against ISIS, the Turkish government
undertook some token actions against them but massively stepped up their real
action against the Kurds.
When ISIS attacked Kobane in Syrian Kurdistan,
the official Iraqi Kurdistan government, led by the corrupt Kurdish politician
Masoud Barzani, gave no help. This was left to the PKK. The Turkish government
put many obstacles in the way of PKK fighters trying to join the struggle in
Syria, whilst allowing ISIS fighters to travel over the border unimpeded.
Erdogan even claimed in Gazientep that Kobane was about to fall. This was a
breaking point for Kurds who had voted for the AKP.
On July 20th a suicide bomber killed 36 people
and injured a further 104 in Suruc, on the Turkish side of the border near
Kobane. Although this was undertaken by ISIS, the Turkish government arrested
far more Kurds in their subsequent operations. On October 10th a bomb was
detonated in Ankara, at a Labour, Peace and Democracy rally. 102 people were
killed and a further 400 people were injured. Although, most likely undertaken
by ISIS, the lack of any Turkish security at the event, and the anti-opposition
hysteria promoted by the government led many to question Erdogan's role in
this.
The Turkish government also imposed 11day
curfews in some Kurdish towns. The army killing anyone who broke this, even if
they were only going out for food. This included an 8 year old boy and 85 year
old man, who were called terrorists.
The main purpose behind the Turkish government's
offensive was to break away the HDP's wider non-Kurdish support through
accusations of terrorism, as the PKK tried to defend themselves from army
attacks; to intimidate other parties before a re-run election; and to win over
the Far Right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).
The new election was held on November 1st and
the AKP succeeded in winning an absolute majority. The Far Right MHP lost 5% of
its vote and 39 of its seats as its vote went over to the AKP. The HDP lost
2.5% of its vote and 21 of its seats, particularly in the non-Kurdish areas.
However, the HDP was not eliminated from the Turkish parliament, and despite
the Erdogan victory, the situation remains unstable, although it is difficult
to forecast the future.
(waiting
for electronic version of contribution from Pete Cannell)
Discussion
Pat said that she had been very impressed by the HDP's commitment to 50:50 at
all levels of the organisation.
Xara asked if after the Suruc and Ankara bombings whether people were getting
used to constant death, and also what had been the HDP's attitude to the Taksim
Gezi Park protests in Istanbul in 2013.
Murat replied that there had been 3 days of grief after the Ankara bombing,
although the state TV channels accepted the government ban on reporting. He
compared the lack of a Turkish government sympathetic response to the French
government and international response over the Charlie Hebdo killings.
Murat said that at Gezi Park it had been a HDP
MP who had first blocked the bulldozers coming to knock down the trees.
Subsequent attacks on the HDP for lack of involvement were misplaced, because
the HDP wanted to ensure that the protests were not seen as being organised by
Kurds, but were a joint protest by Turkish and Kurdish democrats.
Eric said that one thing that could be done was to look into where people's pension
funds were invested, and see if they were connected to Turkey.
? asked about the viability of the AKP's economic policy?
Murat said that there has been a bubble of development, which will burst. Saudi
Arabia had put a lot of money into Turkey .The AKP government had also imposed
n Earthquake Tax, which they have been able to manipulate for their own
purposes.
? asked what the relationship was between the PKK and the HDP and what are
the Kurds' current political demands?
Murat said that the HDP was an independent political organisation, It had
non-Kurdish support including the Armenian MPs, as well as support from Turks
who recognised its role in supporting women's and LBGT rights. The PKK is a
Kurdish guerilla organisation with its own agenda.
The Kurds want democratic autonomy. However,
even when the HDP raised the issue of increasing the powers of local councils
they were taken to court by the Turkish government.
Kobane in Syria has its own democratic council.
They have won their autonomy in the civil war in Syria.
Iran, like Turkey is ruthless against the Kurds.
Barzani, in Iraqi Kurdistan, is mainly concerned
with lining his own pockets. His nephew is the fifth richest man in the world.
Barzani has worked with the Turkish,
Iraqi and Iranian governments in the past. He
ees the PKK as a threat to his capitalist interests. There is no real
opposition to Barzani in his local parliament. He has refused to attend the
Kurdish National Congress.
Steve
Kaczynski, who had spent over 5 moths in a Turkish prison
this year gave a brief account of hi experiences. A fuller version of this can
be at:-
http://republicancommunist.org/blog/2015/10/06/my-imprisonment-in-turkey-steve-kaczynski/
