Monitoreo del clima

Since the PKK has been discussed in great detail in earlier sections of this work, here we take up only the question of counterviolence. The most important violent counterreaction to the PKK among Kurds has been the institutionalization of the village guard (ko¨y koruculari) system. These are Kurds in the pay of the state who have been co-opted by it to provide security for selected villages and to act as a front line of defense against PKK incursions. The village guard system is a direct outgrowth of the societal structure in the region. Aghas, who not only owned large tracts of land but also commanded the loyalties of the peasants residing in their ‘‘villages,’’ were willing participants in the village guard system. To them the PKK represented a genuine threat to their power and influence, espe- cially if they have also enjoyed the patronage of the state. Indeed, given

the PKK’s radical leftist origins, it was not surprising that it vehemently opposed the tribal system on ideological grounds.

Recruitment of village guards is not based solely on these primordial ties but also can contain a considerable element of coercion: The state will force villages and villagers to choose sides. Violence in the village often springs from class or personality differences within the village, and the ‘‘struggle against the PKK’’ has been used by both sides in part as a means of settling old scores.32 _{The village guard system also has an important}

economic motive; in the bleakness of the southeast, state salaries often represent the only source of income for many of these poorly educated and trained guards themselves. In addition, many of the aghas pocket as much as half of the salaries their guards receive. With the money they earn and the arms they carry, the guards exercise a degree of power in their areas. It is not surprising, therefore, that the guards have acquired a vested interest in conflict with the PKK; there are numerous anecdotal accounts of manu- factured incidents designed to keep their profile high.

Nor should it be assumed that all tribal elements are more ‘‘traditional’’ and hence pro-state. Indeed, there are tribal and clan groupings who for a variety of historical, regional, and even accidental factors are either pro- state or pro-PKK. The competitive and often conflictual nature of inter- tribal relationships and the long-standing feuds between them that have nothing to do with the state or the PKK explain their preferences.33_The

PKK itself was forced by practical considerations to abandon its anti-agha attitude and make alliances with ‘‘patriotic’’ ones against collaborators; in the process, by going after the village guards and their families, the PKK has actually transformed this aspect of their ‘‘struggle’’ into an extension of tribal warfare.34_{It has been particularly difficult for those residents of}

villages who have refused to join either the PKK or the state-sponsored village guard systems. Often, they have had no choice but to leave their villages for the towns, where they are not welcome.

The village guard system poses a serious long-term danger: State poli- cies to divide the Kurds politically on the PKK issue are sowing the seeds of long-term inter-Kurdish rivalries and hatreds, with many bitter political scores to be settled. Even if this conflict is resolved peacefully, the wounds created today will fester for long periods of time.

Another violent reaction against the PKK emerged among Kurdish right-wing religious nationalists who are strongly opposed to the leftist

and Marxist origins of the PKK. Most notable among them is the Hizbol- lah, operating in key cities (Nusaybin, Batman, Diyarbakir, Van) in the southeast, which is responsible for a large number of assassinations of PKK members and sympathizers; they have killed dozens of people since 1991, especially intellectuals and journalists. The name Hizbollah suggests the basically Islamist origin of the organization, probably reflecting its for- mation from a nucleus of Islamist police and security officials purged from government in 1991. Hizbollah itself split into two groups, those with a purely Islamist orientation opposed on principle to political ethnicity within Islam, and those who combined Islam and nationalism in seeking to found an independent Islamist Kurdish state.35 _{The group is sympa-}

thetic with Sunni Islam and opposed to Kurds who are not Sunni but Alevi in their religious beliefs. The Hizbollah soon began to emulate the tactics of the PKK and to extract ‘‘contributions’’ from businessmen and truck traffic.36

The state has often been held directly responsible for setting up or utiliz- ing these ‘‘hit squads’’—sometimes called ‘‘Hizbollah-contras’’—for extra- judicial handling of pro-PKK activism; there is no evidence available one way or another to prove or disprove this, and the general atmosphere of lawlessness today in the southeast facilitates all kinds of terror and vigilan- tism, including irregular activities by the state. One can only say that the Hizbollah represents a group of Kurds, probably small, with their own religious rightist nationalist Kurdish agenda. Given the nature of the con- flict, it is inconceivable that the Turkish state would not at least privately welcome Hizbollah activities, which have been so damaging to the PKK cause; indeed, until recently there have been almost no arrests or prosecu- tions stemming from the actions of the Hizbollah, further suggesting state disregard of, if not complicity in, the work of the hit squads. The situation may have changed with the reported accommodation reached by the PKK with the Hizbollah to cease assassination operations in 1993.37_{Despite the}

fact that Hizbollah in the past seemed to be pursuing the same agenda as the state, since 1995 confrontations between Hizbollah and security forces have begun, indicating that the state may have lost its control over the group. Nevertheless, the conflict between right- and left-wing Kurds is far from over. A spread of Hizbollah violence or Kurdish civil war to other parts of Turkey could be quite destabilizing.