Kani Xulam Saturday, October 19, 1996 The Turkish newspaper headlines read, “twelve,” a reference to the number of inmates who were dying due to hunger strikes over prison conditions in the days leading to the agreement of July 28, 1996. The night before, on July 27, 1996, the Turkish Justice Minister Sevket Kazan would agree… Continue reading
Commentary
The Story – Tragedy – of a Turkish Soldier in the Mountains of Kurdistan
By Oktay Yildiz [First appeared in Ozgur Politika, September 1996] “On a rainy Saturday afternoon, we went shopping in the suburb of Ulus in Ankara. I unconsciously threw myself on the ground when I heard gun shots. When I got up off the ground, faces in the crowd around me were looking strangely at me.… Continue reading
A Washington Arrest
By David A. Korn June 1, 1996 First came the sound of shattering glass. Then the office door burst open and a dozen beefy men, several with shotguns at the ready, charged through it. As he turned from his desk to learn what was happening a command rang out: “Freeze!” He was grabbed, thrown face… Continue reading
Mrs. Clinton at Topkapi Palace
By Kani Xulam March 26, 1996 Hillary Rodham Clinton is on a tour of five countries for ten days. Among the places she is scheduled to visit is Turkey. While in that country, she is going to give a speech on the coexistence of secular governments and religious societies. A better topic for a speech… Continue reading
Who Committed The Guclukonak Massacre?
By Bernice Rubens The dire sufferings of the Kurdish people are largely unknown in this country. In Turkey, a country not overly concerned with human rights, their plight is appalling. The war between the Turks and the Kurds is now entering its twelfth year, with over 20, 000 countable casualties. This figure does not take… Continue reading
Turkey’s War Crimes
By Kani Xulam January 28, 1996 Just a few weeks ago, “The European”, a weekly newspaper published in London, England, had a picture with a warning on its front page. It showed a Turkish soldier holding the decapitated heads of two Kurds. The caption read: “Pictures that will shock the world.” A closer look at… Continue reading
For a Kurd, Turkish Democracy Means Terrorism – Interview with an ARGK Commander, Cemil Bayik
By Sheri Laizer Cemil Bayik was born in Elazig, north Kurdistan in 1955, the eldest of four children. A brilliant student, he was sent on a state scholarship to study at Teacher Training College in Malatya and then continued on to university in Ankara. It was there that he became acquainted with a Turkish classmate,… Continue reading
Turkey’s Kurdish Policy in the Nineties
By Eric Avebury Parliamentary Human Rights Group Chairman This paper was presented at the Middle East Studies Association in Washington, DC December 1995 When the Ottoman Empire finally disintegrated, following the allied victory in the war of 1914-18, and the birth of Armenian and Kurdish states appeared at first to be inevitable, Ataturk’s response was… Continue reading
The PKK: Freedom Fighters or Terrorists?
By Ismet G. Imset Thursday, December 7, 1995 The Crisis A burning war: When in 1984 Turkey found itself faced with a series of armed attacks on military installations in the dominantly Kurdish-populated rural Southeast region, it immediately resolved on a traditional policy, to deal with these so- called “handful of bandits” in style, with… Continue reading
Campaign Of Lies
By Yasar Kemal “Increase your cruelty and thereby hasten your decline.” – Anatolian proverb Perhaps for the first time in history, a century has acquired a name before it has even begun: the 21st century will be called the “century of human rights”. In our century, we have made no progress in this… Continue reading