The Kurds in Turkey: EU Accession and Human Rights - Hardcover

Yildiz, Kerim

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0745324894 ISBN 13: 9780745324890

Publisher: Pluto Press, 2005

Synopsis

With a foreword by Noam Chomsky, this is the most up-to-date critical analysis of the problems faced by the Kurds in Turkey.

Turkey has a long history of human rights abuses against its Kurdish population – a population that stretches into millions. This human rights record is one of the main stumbling blocks in Turkey’s efforts to join the EU. The Kurds are denied many basic rights, including the right to learn or broadcast in their own language.

This book, written by a leading human rights defender, provides a comprehensive account of the key issues now facing the Kurds, and the prospects for Turkey joining the EU. Kerim Yildiz outlines the background to the current situation and explores a range of issues including civil, cultural and political rights, minority rights, internal displacement, and the international community’s obligations regarding Turkey.

About this title

About the Author

Kerim Yildiz is the Chief Executive of the Kurdish Human Rights Project, a human rights organisation securing redress for survivors of human rights violations and to preventing future abuses. A Kurd and former refugee from political persecution, he is a spokesperson for issues of human rights, minority rights and international law. He is the author of The Future of Kurdistan (Pluto, 2011) and The Kurds in Iraq (Pluto, 2007).

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The Kurds in Turkey

EU Accession and Human Rights

By Kerim Yildiz

Pluto Press

Copyright © 2005 Kerim Yildiz
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-7453-2489-0

Contents

Map of the area inhabited by Kurds, vii, 
Acknowledgements, ix, 
Foreword by Noam Chomsky, x, 
List of Abbreviations, xxviii, 
1. Introduction, 1, 
2. Background, 4, 
3. Turkey, the Kurds and the EU, 20, 
4. Civil, Political and Cultural Rights in Turkey, 41, 
5. Internal Displacement, 76, 
6. The Kurds and Human and Minority Rights, 89, 
7. Conflict in the Southeast, 104, 
8. The International Dimensions to the Conflict, 118, 
9. The EU and the Kurds, 133, 
Notes, 150, 
Index, 176, 

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

The decision by the European Union (EU) of 17 December 2004 that Turkey is to become a candidate for accession heralds a new era for the Turkish Kurds. The logic of ethnic nationalism in Turkey has long generated attempts to repress Kurdish identity. Subject to unremitting attempts by the Turkish government to disband Kurdish networks, suppress cultural expression and quell dissent, the Kurds residing in southeast Turkey have borne decades of persecution effected through discriminatory legislation, forced displacement, judicial harassment, arbitrary detention, torture and extra-judicial execution. Now, for the first time since the ascendancy of Atatürk in 1923, EU accession has the potential to offer them a real prospect of lasting security in an open, pluralist society.

EU decision-makers, spurred on by the perceived political imperative of advancing the EU accession process, have, though, adopted a rather over-optimistic interpretation of the pro-EU reforms currently being enacted in Turkey. It seems to be everywhere presumed that a modern, pluralist democracy will inexorably follow the tentative, if outwardly dramatic human rights restructuring so far enacted in Turkey. Indeed, there is a widely held perception in Europe that the Turkish administration is somehow benign, and has simply made a few small errors in relation to human rights and its treatment of the Kurds.

Will this really prove the case? And can the EU's decision to open formal accession negotiations with Turkey despite a multitude of very important reservations over her fulfilment of the relevant criteria thus be justified? Turkish society and political structures have for decades been steeped in conservative, highly reactionary nineteenth-century inspired notions of the primacy of the nation state and the central role of an official, mono-ethnic nationalism. These ideological precepts have informed the view that values and interests separate from the state are dangerous, and particularly that expressions of identity which depart from the official designation of Turkey as a nation of ethnic Turks jeopardize the integrity of the state, however peaceful or moderate. Elements of the 'deep state' in Turkey which lurk behind her democratic façade remain extremely influential in ensuring that these strands of thinking remain current.

Turkey's treatment of the Kurds must be seen in this context. Turkish nationalism incorporates the concept that national integration is predicated upon one nation and a unitary, indivisible state. There were accordingly deemed to be no minorities in Turkey, since the presence of non-Turkish ethnic identities within the country's borders was the very inverse of what Turkish state-builders were trying to achieve. Legislative provisions thus prohibited distinctions to be made between citizens on the basis of ethnicity, and the constitution outlawed self-determination and regional autonomy.

As a people making up over 20 per cent of the population in Turkey and inhabiting a large, contiguous region on Turkey's borders with the Middle East, the Kurds were seen to constitute the greatest threat to Turkish conceptions of the integral nation state. Accordingly, Turkey has ruthlessly suppressed all expressions of Kurdish culture and punished assertions of Kurdish identity or pro-Kurdish political viewpoints. She has also fought an armed conflict against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), accompanied by extreme brutality by state security forces towards Kurdish civilians, and sought to dissipate Kurdish regional dominance in the Southeast by destroying over 3,000 Kurdish villages and forcibly displacing their inhabitants. Turkey has doggedly refused to conceive of the Kurdish issue as a political one stemming from her repressive treatment of the Kurds, and instead sees only the much narrower, security problem in the Southeast arising from the Kurdish separatist threat. Consequently, she propounds only military solutions, is extremely reticent about broadening Kurdish cultural rights for fear of fuelling separatist tendencies, and steadfastly refuses to engage in political dialogue with representatives of the Kurds.

The situation of the Kurds is a touchstone issue for Turkey in the EU accession process. Given Turkey's autocratic leanings evidenced in her behaviour towards the Kurds, her paranoia over countenancing pluralism and her increasingly desperate attempts to cling to outdated notions of the primacy of the nation state, can she truly be said to be democratizing?

These questions are given added pertinence by events unfolding in Iraq. The new regime there has explicitly demonstrated the feasibility of state-based autonomous solutions for the Kurds, setting an important precedent and endowing Kurdish claims for similar outcomes across the Kurdish regions with added legitimacy. Turkey, instead of moving in this direction though, is forging an anti-democratic alliance with Iran and Syria, fellow oppressors of the Kurds, in order to prop up their increasingly untenable joint positions on this issue.

The key question which this publication seeks to address is whether, behind all the fanfare of reform and rejuvenation of democracy, Turkey is really changing. How appropriate is it to open formal accession negotiations for EU membership? What should be Turkey's next steps? What prospects does EU accession hold for the Kurds?

CHAPTER 2

Background

The Kurds, a tribal people with a cohesive and distinct identity who originate from the Zagros Mountains in northwest Iran, have endured a history of oppression and abuse. Ultimately denied the opportunity for independence provided for in the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres, the Kurds were later divided between the border areas of Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria where they were viewed with profound mistrust and hostility, their existence as a people was denied and they consequently endured decades of repression, violence and forced assimilation.

In Turkey, the birth of the new Republic under the tutelage of Kemal Atatürk in 1923 saw the imposition of a mono-ethnic nationalism which sought to extinguish the notion of a distinct Kurdish people. 'Security concerns', inspired by the location of Kurdish communities in Turkey's sensitive border regions, bolstered this aim. This came to a head after 1984, when a government-declared State of Emergency in the Southeast provided a framework for torture, killings, forced displacement, and severe restrictions on Kurdish cultural and political expression, against a backdrop of ongoing armed conflict.

THE KURDS

The Kurds, who are believed to number around 30 million, are widely believed to be the largest group of stateless people in the world. Despite this, they have maintained a strong ethnic identity for over two thousand years. As an ethnic group, the Kurds are the product of years of evolution stemming from tribes such as the Guti, Kurti, Mede, Mard, Carduchi, Gordyene, Adianbene, Zila and Khaldi, and the migration of Indo-European tribes to the Zagros Mountains some 4,000 years ago. The Kurds have a clan history, with over 800 tribes in the Kurdish regions. The Kurds have traditionally been organized into tribes and inhabited rural districts herding shepherds or goats, with some adherence to a nomadic or semi-nomadic lifestyle.

The Kurds do not have a single common language, but the most widely spoken Kurdish dialects are Kurmanji and Sorani which are usually mutually understandable. Kurmanji is spoken predominantly in Turkey, Syria and the Causcasus, as well as by some Iranian Kurds. Sorani is spoken by Iraqi Kurds south of the Greater Zab, and by Iranian Kurds in the province of Kordestan. To the far north of Kurdistan, the Zaza dialect is also spoken. The Kurdish language(s) belong to the Indo-European language family. They have been influenced by contact with surrounding modern languages and at times evolved accordingly, for example Kurdish in Turkey contains some Turkish words.

Likewise the Kurds do not share a common religion. Most are Sunni Muslims who converted between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries and are part of the Shafi'i school of Islam. Many of Iran's Kurds living in the provinces of Kermanshah and Ilam, though, are Shi'ite. Other Kurds follow Alevism, an unorthodox form of Shi'ite Islam, as well as the indigenous Kurdish faith of Yezidism. There are minor communities of Kurdish Jews, Christians and Baha'is.

The use of the name 'Kurd' dates back to the seventh century AD, and 'Kurdistan' or the land of the Kurds was a term which first appeared in the twelfth century when the Turkish Seljuk prince Saandjar created a province of that name in modern-day Iran. In the sixteenth century the term came to refer to a system of fiefs generally. The borders of Kurdistan have fluctuated over time, and the Kurds are now spread through Turkey and the Middle East with smaller populations to be found in the Caucasus. There are no fixed borders of the area commonly referred to as 'Kurdistan', but the heart of the Kurdish-dominated regions is the Zagros mountain chain which lies in the border area between Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey, as well as the eastern extension of the Taurus Mountains. It also extends in the south across the Mesopotamian plain and includes the upper reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Many Kurds have fled the brutality of the regimes governing the Kurdish regions to seek refuge in Western Europe where they form a sizeable and influential diaspora, particularly in Germany, France, Sweden, Belgium and the United Kingdom.

The term Kurdistan refers to more than merely a geographical area, though, and also denotes the culture of the people who inhabit the lands. As successive regimes in Turkey, Iran and Iraq have been extremely reticent about acknowledging the presence of the Kurds within their borders, and Syria has denied that Kurdistan stretches across its boundaries, drawing a map of Kurdistan is always contentious. However, there is no doubt that there exists a large, contiguous area of predominantly Kurdish-inhabited lands, and the idea of Kurdistan has a real meaning to the people who live there, as well as to Kurds forced into exile in Europe and across the world.

Ascertaining the numbers of Kurds is no easy task, largely because the denial of the existence of the Kurds or state desires to understate their numbers for political reasons throughout the regions they inhabit mar official census data. It is generally thought that the Kurdish population in Turkey is the largest in the regions, both numerically and in terms of the percentage of the overall population in the country it comprises. It currently amounts to approximately 15 million, and makes up around 23 per cent of Turkey's population of 69 million. Iraq is believed to contain 4 million Kurds, making up 20 per cent of the population, for Syria the figures are 1 million and 9 per cent, and for Iran 7 million and 15 per cent.

The Kurds in Turkey are concentrated into the South and East, and form a majority of the population in provinces there including Mardin, Siirt, Hakkari, Diyarbakir, Bitlis, Mus, Van and Agri. The provinces of Urfa, Adiyaman, Malatya, Elazig, Tunceli, Erzincan, Bingol, and Kars have also been traditionally dominated by Kurdish populations.

Most Turkish Kurds speak Kurmanji, but in the northwest of the Kurdish-dominated area, mainly in the provinces of Tunceli and Elazig, Zaza is spoken. With regard to religion, the Kurds in Turkey can largely be divided into two groups: Sunni Muslims and Alevis. 85 per cent of the Kurdish population is Sunni Muslim, while Alevi Kurds form the minority 15 per cent.

HISTORY OF THE KURDS

From the sixteenth century, the Kurds occupied the border lands between the Ottoman and Persian empires. The region was held by a varied string of rulers including the Seljuk Turks in the eleventh century, the Mongols from the thirteenth to fifteenth century, and then the Safavid and Ottoman empires. During these periods the Kurds occupied a fairly inhospitable land and, particularly under the Ottomans, were largely afforded autonomy and considerable freedom to manage their own affairs.

This was all to change, however, when the Ottoman Empire was carved up in the aftermath of the First World War, and the Kurds were divided between modern-day Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey. At this time, strategic political considerations generated a preoccupation among the Great Powers with self-determination and the protection of minority groups. Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Point Programme for World Peace accordingly included the provision that the non-Turkish minorities of the Ottoman Empire should be 'assured of an absolute unmolested opportunity of autonomous development.

As such, the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres, signed by the Allied Powers and the Constantinople government, had envisaged independence for minority peoples of the former Ottoman Empire including the Armenians, the people of Hejaz and the Kurds. Under Article 64 of the Treaty, the Kurds would be granted independence within a year. However, there persisted important factors with the potential to upset the realization of Kurdish independence. There were fears in Europe over the threat of the Soviet Union achieving influence over newly formed states, while the British maintained the unsubstantiated belief that a Kurdish leader could not be found who was willing to sacrifice his own tribal interests for the greater purpose of Kurdish nationhood. Britain was made the mandate power authority over Mesopotamia in 1920 and although she seemed at the start committed to the principle of keeping the Kurdish areas separate, pressure mounted to incorporate the area of Mosul into a new Iraqi state.

Ultimately, although the British signed a Joint Declaration with the Iraqi government in 1922 recognizing the rights of the Kurds, the emergence of the new Turkish leader Mustapha Kemal Atatürk and the war of national independence waged by the Turks turned the course of events. With the exception of Greece, the Treaty of Sèvres was not ratified by the signatory countries and the provision for Kurdish autonomy was thus never implemented. Sèvres had been seen as a humiliation by Turkey and was repudiated by the new republic. The aftermath of the Turkish War of Independence saw Sèvres superseded by a new accord in 1923, the Treaty of Lausanne, which largely established the current borders of Turkey. This new instrument ignored Kurdish claims to self-determination and recognized only religious minorities as in need of protection. However, it was recognized by the Allies, and Turkish sovereignty was restored over the Kurdish-dominated area accorded independence under the Treaty of Sèvres. The remaining Kurdish-dominated lands were divided between Iran, Syria and Iraq, with the Allied powers drawing up new national boundaries giving more heed to the allocation of oil resources and rewarding friendly Arab leaders than to the ethnic distribution of the Kurds and their right to self-rule. The Kurds had no real voice in the discussions over the future of their traditional lands.

The relative autonomy which the Kurds had enjoyed was thereafter substantially rescinded and Kurdish communities were everywhere treated with distrust. Deeply held suspicions over the ambitions of the Kurds, a large, non-Arab population inhabiting an area of significant strategic importance, came to dog the regimes governing the Kurdish regions and became a key factor informing their policies towards the Kurds. At the same time, these newly emerging, vulnerable nation states were keen to preserve their new-found independence by fostering a strong national unity and overcoming factionalism or perceived threats to their territorial integrity.

It is difficult to overstate the importance of these factors in dictating the course of Kurdish history over the following 80 years. From the start, expressions of Kurdish identity were discouraged and the Kurds were compelled to behave in accordance with the norms of the countries in which they now found themselves. In time, military incursions into Kurdish regions became common occurrences, with comprehensive attempts made to forcibly dissipate Kurdish networks in border areas and stamp out the notion of a separate Kurdish identity.

In Iraq, the ending of the British mandate with the 1930 Anglo-Iraq Treaty of Alliance did not result in the securing of Kurdish autonomy or basic rights. This was despite the fact that an International Commission of Inquiry set up by the League of Nations had specifically recommended in 1925 that Mosul remain under a League mandate for 25 years, and that due consideration be given to conferring responsibility onto the Kurds for local administration, the justice system and education, and having Kurdish as the official language. Kurdish petitions reminding the League of this undertaking were ignored, and Iraq became independent in 1932. A succession of weak leaders subsequent to the death of King Faisal of Iraq in 1933 ushered in an era of broken promises and betrayal for the Kurds. Conditions imposed upon Iraqi independence, including the recognition of the civil and political rights of the Kurds, were not fulfilled. The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), which was to come to play a key role in Iraqi Kurdistan, was formed under Mullah Mustafa Barzani in Iran during this time.

(Continues...)

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Edition details

• Publisher: Pluto Press
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0745324894
• ISBN 13: 9780745324890
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 216