The judicial system has also played a major role in the deepening of the conflict. The Turkish political system has always paid a great deal of atten- tion to its legalistic side. Many laws, whether pertaining to political parties or associations, are restrictive enough to easily invite investigations by state prosecutors. Because the Kurdish question is defined by the Kurds them- selves in terms of a separate ethnic identity, almost any type of political
activity runs afoul of the law. As a result, if state institutions are to function according to their mandate, they have no choice but to prosecute.
With respect to the Kurdish question, two institutions have played an important role: the Constitutional Court and the State Security Courts. While the Constitutional Court decides questions such as the banning of political parties, the National Security Courts, as mandated by the consti- tution, try cases that deal with sedition and attempts to destroy the unity of the state. The president of the Constitutional Court, Yekta Gu¨ngo¨r O¨ zden, for instance, chided President Demirel when he floated the trial balloon that the government ought to consider the notion of ‘‘constitu- tional citizenship.’ O¨ zden thought that such a concept contradicted the constitutional premise of a unified state and the notion that all citizens of the Turkish Republic are Turks.52
The State Security Courts are unusual in that they are composed of a president and four members, two of whom come from the military. Set up in different parts of the country depending on need, these courts have taken the lead in pursuing Kurdish activists—both violent and nonvio- lent—thus stifling dissent. The state security courts have also taken the lead in the closing down of newspapers and in narrowly interpreting the limits of free speech. The courts have provided the regime with a veneer of legality in the pursuit of Kurdish nationalist thought and behavior. The judicial system as a whole and these institutions in particular are at the core of defending the ideological purity of the state. And no one was more at the front of this ideological fight than Nusret Demiral, the former head of the Ankara State Security Court, who zealously prosecuted Kurds, and especially the members of the pro-Kurdish political parties, and who once jailed people for sedition after a noisy celebration in his building. But he divulged his true political sympathies when he presented himself as a can- didate of Tu¨rkes’s Nationalist Action party in the December 1995 elec- tions.
In sum, the heart of present state policy toward the Kurds seems to reside primarily in the security organizations and institutions of the state, which have been given a free hand by the civilian leadership to deal with the ‘‘terror problem’’ as the heart of the Kurdish problem. The bureaucracy has always regarded the southeast and east as undesirable regions—areas to which bureaucrats and ordinary civil servants could be exiled for punish- ment, or simply a temporary way station in pursuit of career advancement. Today, many state employees who work there receive danger pay. Hence
the state’s attitude, down through the lower ranks, has never been one of great sympathy or understanding. Few if any of the high-ranking adminis- trators of the state, whether in foreign affairs or domestic security branches, have an understanding of the problems confronted daily by Tur- key’s Kurdish citizens. In part because of misinformation and deliberate distortion of facts, or simply a refusal to recognize these facts—a ‘‘cogni- tive dissonance’’ of sorts—the gap between the two sides is enormous. The present Turkish state, while not monolithic, is dominated by a core for whom the southeast and the Kurds are more an ideological abstraction than a complex reality.
Notes and References
1. Derya Sazak, ‘‘O¨ zal, HEP, PKK,’’ Milliyet, March 14, 1993. For a discus- sion of this period and Turkish policy in the area, see Gu¨rbey, ‘‘Options for and Hindrances to a Resolution of the Kurdish Issue in Turkey’’; Barkey, ‘‘Turkey’s Kurdish Dilemma’’ and Philip Robins, ‘‘The Overlord State: Turkish Policy and the Kurdish Issue,’’ International Affairs 69, no. 4 (1993). O¨ zal also made sure that the Kurdish-based party HEP would not be cut off from the state funds it was legally entitled to, despite the controversies surrounding it.
2. Hu¨rriyet, April 28, 1992.
3. Interview with President Demirel, Yeni Yu¨zyil, May 22, 1995.
4. Some have ascribed Demirel’s turnabout to the army’s opposition. Three hard-line parliamentary deputies were reportedly dispatched to him with a warning from the generals.
5. Sabah, August 9, 1996.
6. Kemali Saybasili, DYP-SHP Koalisyonu’nun U¨ c¸ Yili (Three years of the
DYP-SHP coalition) (Istanbul: Baglam Yayinciliik, 1995), 62–63. The ‘‘Basque model’’ proposal was subjected to severe criticisms. For a published attack on the Basque model’s applicability to Turkey, see former minister Mehmet Turgut’s Tu¨r- kiye Gerc¸egi ve Bask Modeli (The Turkish reality and the Basque model) (Istanbul:
Bogazic¸i Yayinlari, 1994). Many of our interviewees suggested that C¸ iller, by virtue of the fact that she was ill-informed about the subject matter, allowed the military, specifically Chief of Staff General Dogan Gu¨res, to sway her in favor of the hard- line position.
7. In her 1994 campaign she often stressed that a vote for her was a vote against the PKK, which, as a tactic, may have been self-serving, but it also indi- rectly elevated the stature of the organization.
8. As Oktay Eksi argued, her 1995 proposal was almost identical to her 1994 one, which, in turn, was a copy of the 1993 one. In effect, no moneys were spent, despite the allocations, and few believed C¸ iller, as the government had been experi-
encing severe revenue shortages. ‘‘Mu¨jde C¸ ok da Sonucu Bilen Yok’’ (There is plenty of good news but no one knows the final results) Hu¨rriyet, July 16, 1995.
9. Gu¨res admitted in an interview before the 1995 elections that C¸ iller had improved the morale of the armed forces (Milliyet, November 19, 1995).
10. Mehmet Turgut argued that it was not inconceivable—just as with Nixon’s initiating contact with China or de Gaulle’s resolving the Algerian crisis—for C¸ iller to execute another turnabout in policy. In fact, Turgut suspected that the contro- versial 1995 TOBB report was the first salvo along this course. ‘‘Dogu Sorunu
Raporu’’ U¨ zerine, 176–77.
11. For more on this issue, see Henri J. Barkey, ‘‘Why Military Regimes Fail: The Perils of Transition,’’ Armed Forces and Society 16, no. 2 (February 1990); George S. Harris, ‘‘The Role of the Military in Turkey in the 1980s: Guardians or Decision-Makers?’’ in State, Democracy and the Military: Turkey in the 1980s, ed. Metin Heper and Ahmet Evin (Berlin: deGruyter, 1988); and U¨ mit Cizre Sakalli- oglu, ‘‘The Anatomy of the Turkish Military’s Political Autonomy,’’ Comparative
Politics 29, no. 2 (January 1997).
12. Hasan Cemal, ‘‘Yasar Kemal, Mesut Yilmaz, Ku¨rt Sorunu . . .’’ (Yasar Kemal, Mesut Yilmaz, and the Kurdish question . . .) Sabah, March 10, 1996.
13. Welfare Party MP and chair of the parliamentary commission on border security, Hanifi Demirkol, argues that the problem of ‘‘terror’’ can be solved only with the cooperation of Turkey’s neighbors (Zaman, December 13, 1996).
14. Milliyet, April 21, 1997. The plan also included ‘‘psychological’’ measures designed to improve the image of the region domestically and internationally.
15. Former Defense Minister Mehmet Go¨lhan’s figures quoted by Christopher Panico, ‘‘Turkey’s Kurdish Conflict,’’ Jane’s Intelligence Review, 7, no. 4 (April 1995). Human Rights Watch Arms Project estimates that there are approximately 300,000 security forces in the southeast, of which 140,000 to 150,000 are regular army troops, 50,000 are part of the Jandarma (Gendarmerie), 40,000 are police, and 67,000 are village guards. Human Rights Watch, Weapons Transfers and Viola-
tions of the Laws of War in Turkey (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1995), 44.
16. Tammy Arbuckle, ‘‘Stalemate in the Mountains,’’ Jane’s International De-
fense Review (January) 1997, 49.
17. Le Figaro, March 25, 1997. Tunceli was also the location of one the deadliest suicide bombings of the summer of 1996.
18. Associated Press, March 8, 1997. In fact, in the public campaign initiated by the military high command against the Welfare party–led government in the spring of 1997, the message was that the Islamists had replaced the PKK as the most serious threat forcing the state to become a dominant theme.
19. This is not to say that the army is blameless when it comes to human rights abuses. For details and case studies, see the Human Rights Watch report, cited above.
20. A gendarmerie officer who testified at a parliamentary investigation com- mittee reportedly pointed out that ‘‘in the southeast one need not be a sympathizer of the [PKK] to warrant his execution. It is sufficient that he be close to its ideol-
ogy.’’ He also recounted how mass and indiscriminate retaliation was conducted on a pro-government village that was unfortunate enough to lie close to the loca- tion of a firefight between the PKK and the security forces. Osman Gu¨zelgo¨z, ‘‘Gu¨neydogu Gerc¸ekleri’’ (Realities of the southeast), Zaman, March 1, 1997.
21. Cumhuriyet, June 14, 1996.
22. T. C. Genelkurmay Baskanligi, Ic¸ Gu¨venlikte Halkla Iliskiler ve Halkin Ka- zanilmasi: Davranis Ilkeleri Rehberi (Public relations and winning the public in in-
ternal security: A behavioral guide) (Ankara: T. C. Genelkurmay Baskanligi, 1995). The chief of staff of the armed forces, Ismail Karadayi, is reported to have taken over completely the totality of the military operations in the southeast, eclips- ing the supergovernor of the area. See Stephen Button, ‘‘Turkey Struggles with Kurdish Separatism,’’ Military Review (December 1994–January/February 1995), 76.
23. The military leadership has also been sensitive to any discussion of increased draft resistance. In its most extreme form, this was displayed during the prosecu- tion of a well-known TV and print journalist for having aired a program that featured draft dodgers.
24. In one of the few criticisms levied at the army by journalists, former chief of staff Dogan Gu¨res received much ridicule for his statement that the ‘‘Turkish flag was again flying in the Cudi mountains’’—hardly an accomplishment on Tur- key’s own soil, even if the area was a stronghold of the PKK.
25. Hasan Cemal, ‘‘Dogan Gu¨res Pasa’dan: Tero¨r Baska Ku¨rt Baska, Bunu Go¨r- mek Lazim!’’ Sabah, April 13, 1996.
26. A retired general interviewed by Mehmet Ali Birand argued that the mili- tary cannot accept the notion of ‘‘Kurdishness.’’ According to long-held official views, now largely discredited in most people’s eyes, the Kurds are descendants from a Central Asian Turkish tribe. The military never uses the word Kurd because if it does it will have indirectly accepted the existence of the Kurds. Mehmet Ali Birand, APO ve PKK (APO and the PKK) (Istanbul: Milliyet Yayinlari, 1992), 102.
27. An added worry is potential PKK infiltration of military ranks. In the sum- mer of 1996, the army initiated an operation against the PKK after discovering that two master sergeants had been passing information to the insurgents (Yeni
Yu¨zyil, August 19, 1996).
28. A recently published lengthy volume by the general staff argues that Kurds are nothing but the creation of imperialists, including the U.S., whose main pur- pose is to create a Kurdish state, destabilize Turkey, and eliminate it from future competition in Central Asia. Mehmet Kocaoglu, Uluslararasi Iliskiler Isiginda Orta-
dogu, 263–332. While the author claims that these are his ideas and not the general
staff ’s, the publication is accompanied by a recommendation from the commander of the air force that it be used as a source. These ideas are not atypical, and they are shared by civilians and military alike. For an important civilian’s rendition of the same idea, see former interior minister and speaker of the parliament Ismet Sezgin, who, in a March 1992 interview, simply stated that in the southeast ‘‘the
West is trying to achieve what it could not with Se`vres [the 1920 Se`vres Treaty that partitioned Turkey among the allies]. The aim is to create a Marxist-Leninist autonomous Kurdish state’’ [sic] reprinted in Ahmet Taner Kislali, Atatu¨rk’e Sald- irmanin Dayanilmaz Hafifligi (The incredible lightness of attacking Atatu¨rke) (An- kara: Imge Kitabevi, 1994), 295.
29. Analysis by the weekly magazine Tempo, November 10, 1993, quoted in Saybasili, DYP-SHP Koalisyonu’nun U¨ c¸ Yili, 75.
30. Prior to 1960, there existed a body entitled the Supreme National Defense Council. The coup members not only changed the emphasis from national defense to security, but they also elevated it and made it a constitutional body. See TU¨ SIAD, Tu¨rkiye’de Demokratikles¸me Perspeklifleri, p. 72.
31. For an analysis of this institution, see Hikmet O¨ zdemir, Rejm ve Asker (Sol- diers and the regime) (Istanbul: Iz Yayincilik, 1993), 99–140.
32. Ali Bayramoglu, ‘‘Asker Yetkili Olunca . . .’’ (When soldiers have the author- ity) Yeni Yu¨zyil, June 15, 1996. Bayramoglu, a critic of the NSC, also argues that
the NSC decides what kind of programs are aired on state-run TV and changes in the penal code, and that it interprets the meaning of citizenship. According to existing law, the Council of Ministers may approve instruction in a foreign lan- guage only at the recommendation of the National Security Council. Presently, in middle schools throughout Turkey, only English, French, German, and Japanese can legally be taught. The NSC in 1994 recommended that instruction in Russian, Arabic, Spanish, and Italian could be considered by the Council of Ministers (Cumhuriyet, August 23, 1996).
33. Tempo, September 6–13, 1993, quoted in Saybasili, DYP-SHP Koalisyonu’-
nun U¨ c Yili, 55. One exception to this consensus rule occurred on February 28,
1997, when the military, over the objections of Prime Minister Erbakan, pushed through a list of twenty demands on de-Islamizing Turkish society.
34. In his memoirs, General Necip Torumtay, the chief of staff who resigned during the Gulf Crisis because he disagreed with O¨ zal on the nature and method of the foreign policy being followed, describes how the president almost from the beginning set out to impose his vision on the NSC. Orgeneral Necip Torumtay’in
Anilari (The memoirs of General Necip Torumtay) (Istanbul: Milliyet Yayinlari,
1993), 111.
35. Milliyet, August 17, 1994.
36. Saybasili, DYP-SHP Koalisyonu’nun U¨ c¸ Yili, 62–65. C¸ iller’s idea resembled one offered by Ecevit a year earlier. While he too wanted to reduce the role of the military, his ultimate aim was different from hers. Nokta, March 29, 1992, 22–23. 37. For a full statement, see Anadolu Ajansi, April 1, 1997, and the daily papers. 38. For more on the MIT, see, Cu¨neyt Arcayu¨rek, Darbeler ve Gizli Servisler (Coups d’etats and secret services) (Istanbul: Bilgi Yayinevi, 1989), 59–65; Say- basili, DYP-SHP Koalisyonu’nun U¨ c¸ Yili, 56; and O¨ zdemir, Rejim ve Asker, 189– 209.
39. So far, however, the behavior of the intelligence organization has been mixed. There are indications that at least during Demirel’s prime ministership, the
MIT as well as the armed forces may have deliberately withheld crucial information from him about their own activities in the southeast.
40. The most often cited example is of one notorious non-Turkish-speaking village guard leader, Tahir Adiyaman, who is reputed to have killed seven gendar- merie soldiers before being amnestied in return for his services.
41. Sedat Bucak, the DYP parliamentarian who also commands large numbers of village guards, for instance, argues that the only solution is to fight the PKK to the bitter end (Yeni Yu¨zyil, August 23, 1996).
42. Milliyet, July 28, 1995.
43. Tu¨rkiye Odalar Birligi, Dogu Sorunu: Teshisler ve Tespitler, 63.
44. Credit for this innovation goes to Mehmet Agar who, in 1993, became the chief of the National Security Organization and later minister of Justice Interior. Accordingly, the special teams were to fight the PKK with tactics borrowed from the PKK and treat all PKK sympathziers as terrorists (Show-TV, December 24, 1996).
45. A number of parliamentarians from different parties have complained about the relationship between these teams and MHP, including one DYP member, Mustafa Zeydan, who comes from a tribal family with many village guards. See
Yeni Yu¨zil, July 21, 1995.
46. Estimate by former CHP parliamentarian Sinan Yerlikaya, Ibid. Other esti- mates have put the number as low as 10,000.
47. For more on the special teams, see Tammy Arbuckle, ‘‘Winter Campaign in Kurdistan,’’ International Defense Review 28, no. 2 (February 1995).
48. These events came to light after special team members, incensed at the kill- ing of three of their own, dumped the naked and mutilated bodies of seven alleged PKK members at the city center and also attacked a variety of public officials, including medical personnel. Eventually, the perseverance of some parliamentari- ans paid off (Yeni Yu¨zyil, July 23, 1995).
49. One such example is Antalya, where the team members have harassed Kurds who have recently migrated to that city from the southeast. ‘‘O¨ zel time Antalya’da ‘tedavi’ tatili’’ (A ‘‘treatment’’ holiday in Antalya for members of the special team)
Cumhuriyet, August 8, 1995.
50. Sabah, June 25, 1996.
51. Milliyet, December 18, 1996. The NSC’s criticisms of the teams are also part of a widening concern by the military over the competition for resources between themselves and the internal security services controlled by the Ministry of the Interior.
52. Hu¨rriyet, April 26, 1994. O¨ zden qualified his remarks by pointing out that