How To Kill A Political Party

By Kani Xulam

Tuesday, October 22, 1996

Today, October 23, 1996, the Turkish State Security Court will open its trial in Ankara of 41 members of Turkey's pro-Kurdish People's Democracy Party, HADEP. Nuh Mete Yuksel, the prosecutor for the Turkish government, wants to see the top officials of this party, including its president, Murat Bozlak, behind bars for as many as 22 years.

Unless a miracle happens, the accused will witness the curtailment of their civil liberties for years to come. They will join the ranks of thousands of others in Turkey who have been forced into prisons because they desire to make the country they love a better place for all.

The trial is unprecedented in the history of the Turkish republic. It owes its origins to an incident that took place on June 23, 1996, the convention day for the HADEP followers. Some 30,000 people, mostly Kurds, had gathered in Ankara to elect new officers and a president.

According to various accounts, a masked youth lowered the Turkish flag that was hung on the wall of the hall. Turkish reporters videotaped the incident and played the scene for days to come. Turhan Dayan, the Education Minister denounced the act and decreed the last week of June 1996, as "Flag Week." Homes, businesses and government offices were ordered to fly flags.

On the convention floor itself, the act was denounced as well. The fallen flag was raised and hung on the podium facing the crowd. This gesture unfortunately was not noted in the Turkish press. The business of the day, the election of the various party members was completed. Murat Bozlak, the former president of HADEP was elected to the top job unopposed. As the convention delegates were getting ready to leave, the Turkish police closed the exits and arrested 70 individuals, the highest ranking party officials, including the president elect.

To those not familiar with Turkish politics, the response of the authorities may seem unduly harsh. It is not something that one would expect to see in a country that claims to be a democracy, flaunts its membership in NATO as an invaluable asset, and insists that it be accepted into the European Union because as Turkey's foreign Minister Tansu Ciller put it recently at a Washington National Press Club briefing, Turkey's institutions of civil society are more robust than the newly liberated countries in Eastern Europe.

And yet the flag incident is a page out of pre Ceausescu Romania. A political party that advocates a peaceful solution to the Kurdish-Turkish conflict is silenced on the flimsiest of charges, forcing millions of its members to lose faith in the efficacy of the democratic change. Wronging so blatantly a party with millions of followers bodes ill for the growth of pluralism in the multi ethnic Turkey.

HADEP is the third Kurdish political party in Turkey to be pushed into the abyss. On June 7, 1990, the Kurds formed the People's Labor Party, HEP, to voice their political aspirations through elected office. After a tumultuous start, with 18 members elected to serve in the Turkish parliament, the party was forced to shut down its doors on July 14, 1993.

A successor Kurdish party, the Democracy Party, DEP was formed. That too was targeted by the authorities. Mehmet Sincar, an elected member of DEP was murdered on September 4, 1994. Four of his friends, Leyla Zana, Hatip Dicle, Orhan Dogan and Selim Sadak were tried in State Security court each receiving sentences of fifteen years in jail. Six others, anticipating arrests and lengthy prison terms, fled the country and sought refuge in Europe as political refugees. The remaining deputies simply resigned or changed parties lest they too be an address to a merciless bullet. RIP sign went up for the second Kurdish party on June 16, 1994.

Anticipating the pending closure of their party, the Kurds had formed a new party, HADEP, on May 11, 1994. When Murat Bozlak addressed the HADEP convention for the second time as a free man, he spoke of the murder of 105 Kurdish and Turkish party members by shadowy groups since June 7, 1990. These Kurds and Turks believed in the democratic process but were silenced by the guns of assassins. The day after his arrest, three of the returning HADEP delegates were also murdered just outside of Kayseri on their way home to the troubled southeast.

Violence begets more violence. Kurds who make up 25 to 30 % of the country's population, are becoming impatient with the abuse of their duly elected representatives. Some have retreated into cynicism. Others are supporting the armed struggle, the Kurdish rebels, the PKK.

The claim that the institutions of civil society are robust in Turkey proper may be true but in Turkish Kurdistan they are definitely not working. Amnesty International recently undertook a worldwide campaign to highlight the abuses that are taking place in the country. Pierre Sane, Secretary General of AI startled his Turkish hosts on October 1, 1996, in Istanbul, Turkey when he asked, "Why doesn't the Turkish Government take steps to protect its citizens from its security forces? The international intergovernmental organizations also have a responsibility here: the Council of Europe, the Organizations for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OCSE) and the United Nations (UN) know what Amnesty International knows about torture, killing[s] and disappearance[s] - why do they choose not to act?"

The name of the United States government should have been on the list as well. Washington is the principal supplier of arms to Ankara. And yet, at the State Department the word is: "Business As Usual."