Ahmet Turk and Leyla Zana Testimony Before the Helsinki
Commission, May 17, 1993
Ahmet Turk and Leyla Zana
Testify Before the Helsinki Commission
In the United States Congress
May 17, 1993
On May 17, 1993, two members of the Peoples Labor Party, HEP, Mr.
Ahmet Turk and Mrs. Leyla Zana were invited to testify before the Helsinki
Commission in the United States Congress. What follows is their written
statement.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I thank you for the opportunity to address you on the plight of the Kurds. My
stateless, helpless and often persecuted people need all the attention you
could give. Your concern is gratifying. On behalf of some thirty million
Kurds, I appreciate it.
History is witness to the fact that we Kurds have been living in what today is
known as Kurdistan for about 4000 years. Sometimes free, sometimes not, we
have had our share of different neighbors and succeeding governments.
Today, we still live on our land, but subjected to the rule of others. The
Turks, the Arabs and the Persians have shared Kurdistan among themselves
as a colony without any rights. We have been exploited not only materially,
but also spiritually, to the degree that our existence as a distinct nation is in
jeopardy.
In Turkey, we Kurds, live a very precarious life. Though promised equality,
with the Turks, we have been subjugated to a policy of total assimilation. Our
language is banned, we can not write in our God-given mother tongue.
Those of us who come to terms with the truth and accept the fact that we are
Kurds face double standards in the so-called Turkish democracy. Instead of
promotions, we face demotions; instead of freedom, we face imprisonment
as potential separatists. Life has become a political struggle, one that ties the
individual to his people, because our people suffer and because we want to
end their suffering.
The individual or collective Kurdish response as could be expected has been
both violent and non-violent. In different parts of Turkish Kurdistan, year in
and year out, the Kurds of both sexes and all ages have risen in arms to let the
Turks know that they are Kurds and that they are not going to accept
assimilation, to be Turks. In Diyarbakir, in Dersim, in Kocgiri and in various
other parts of Kurdistan , they have participated in uprisings and invariably
they were silenced with violence. The Kurdish masses together with their
leaders were crushed or exiled. Today is no different. The fight is still for
freedom, for liberty, for basic human rights as 20th century citizens of this
world.
Turkish Kurdistan is in turmoil today. Some of us are engaged with a
nonviolent political struggle to redeem a people, to have it join the family of
nations on an equality basis. Others among us have resorted to armed
struggle, losing hope with the slow pace of reforms to validate a nation. Our
means are different; our goal is the same. My hope is that, I make you privy
to both struggles and have you side with the democratic forces and help us
expedite the work of nonviolence. All we are asking is to have you give
democracy a chance for stability of the region , and for the brotherhood of the
nations in the Middle East.
I am here as the leader of the People's Labor Party, an 18 member entity, in
the Turkish Parliament, dedicated to advocating the rights of the Kurds
through political means. But our road is blocked, our staff is harassed and
our party is prosecuted with a closure by the Turkish Constitutional Court.
This says a lot about the status of Kurds in Turkey. Our duty to our
conscience as Kurds, and to our people as their representatives, is putting us
at variance with the state laws.
Allow me to cite you an example to make my point. I and a number of my
fellow Kurdish Parliamentarians were elected on the Social Democratic Party
ticket to the Turkish Parliament. Some of us attended a conference in Paris.
Among its topics there was the issue of human rights abuses-- of the Kurds--
in Turkey. When we returned from the French Capital, we found ourselves
dismissed from our party for attending such meeting.
I give this example to make a point about the fragility of the democracy in
Turkey. Ours is the task to be truthful to the aspirations of our people as
Kurds and also not to be caught by the long arm of the Turkish law that
prohibits such an activity. Since 1980, we have been at odds with the Turkish
state laws, more than ever before. The Kurds have asked for more political
rights; the government in Ankara has responded with more force. First, a
military rule has replaced the civil administration in the South-East. Village
Guards system has been established to pit the Kurd against his fellow Kurd.
An Islamic fundamentalist group, Hizbi-Kontra, housed, trained by the MIT,
the Turkish Secret Service, and set free to gun down the secular and
democratic forces in the Kurdish movement.
To have you glimpse at the toll, the Kurds have suffered, just last year alone,
reminds one of Eli Weisel and his reflections on the Jewish Holocaust. 300
villages have been burnt and leveled to the ground for harboring Kurdish
freedom fighters. 600 of them have been evacuated of their inhabitants by
force. 640 Kurdish political activists, among them 46 members of my own
party, have been murdered under mysterious circumstances, sometimes with
a single bullet, from the back their head, indicating the callousness and
uniformity of the barbaric crimes. Six sizable towns, Sirnak, Cizre, Lice, Kulp,
Hazro, and Nusaybin have been bombarded with BRD tanks, courtesy of the
German government, and its shopping districts set afire without a declaration
of war.
Responding to the atrocities of this nature, and committed to eradicating the
very existence of the Turkish presence from the soil of Kurdistan, the PKK,
the Kurdistan Worker Party and its guerrillas have battled the Turkish army
for the last nine years. Notwithstanding the Turkish claims, both sides have
inflicted on each other deadly blows. Our rather unscientific reports indicate
that three thousand Guerrilla and as many Turkish soldiers have lost their
lives.
As many as four thousands of civilians have been killed by Special Units, the
death squads, sent to the region to deter the Kurds from aiding the freedom
fighters. And up to half million have been forced to relocate to other parts of
Kurdistan. All because of our inability as political leaders --both Turkish and
Kurdish-- to sit down and negotiate an end to this enduring Kurdish question
with candor and respect to the rights of the Kurds.
To end this vicious cycle, to bring an end to this violence, the leadership of
the PKK declared a unilateral cease-fire on March 20, 1993, until further
notice. Thank to this step, the Kurdish new year, New Roz, celebrations were
less bloody this year. To reassure the government in Ankara, and to let the
world know that, the Kurds have sided with the peace and nonviolence, the
cease-fire was extended again, on April 15, 1993, this time indefinitely, so long
as the political and nonviolent steps were pursued in a genuine manner.
I believe this cease-fire represents an opportunity for understanding and
peace in Turkish Kurdistan. It will stop mothers to shed their tears and their
sons to shed their blood. It will allow democracy to give deeper roots in
Turkey and contribute to the political stability of the region. The cease-fire
demands respect the territorial integrity of Turkish Republic and if pursued
will pave the way for the brotherhood of the Turks and the Kurds on an
equality basis. If I could sum them up for you:
1. The Kurdish identity must be recognized
2. The use of the Kurdish Language in conversation and in writing should be
legalized.
3. All cultural rights should be conceded
4. The Regional Governorship to be abolished
5. The Village Guard should be disarmed and disbanded
6. Kurdish political parties must be given full legal and constitutional rights
7. A general amnesty for all political prisoners
8. An open forum must be created to resolve the remaining issues in a
peaceful manner.
Ladies and Gentlemen, this conflict is not between the peoples of Turkey, the
Kurds and the Turks. It is rather between the Kurds and the politically
bankrupt and myopic government in Ankara, Turkey. The conflict is also a
crisis of the Turkish democracy because some twenty million Kurds are
treated with contempt and denied their most elementary human rights. In a
world that is truly becoming a global village, peace and democracy are no
longer the concerns of a few but rather the preoccupation of us all, that is if
we want to have truth, understanding and beauty in the world. Thank you.
American Kurdish Information Network (AKIN)
2623 Connecticut Avenue NW #1
Washington, DC 20008-1522