Turkey Heads for Dictatorship

By Sarah Parker and Phil Hearse

On March 21 hundreds of thousands of Kurdish people in Diyarbakir, unofficial capital of Turkish Kurdistan, flocked to celebrations of Newroz, the Kurdish New Year. The celebrations this year had a more than usual political angle – not just a celebration of Kurdish identity but a demonstration of opposition to the brutal dictatorial actions of Turkish president Recep Erdogan and his ruling AKP (Justice and Development Party).

The politics of the Newroz are well understood by the regime. In Istanbul tens of thousands of people from across the city tried to reach the Bakirköy district to join the massive Newroz celebration which had been banned by the city governor. In a scene repeated in many cities, people who did reach the celebrations were attacked by the police. Dozens of people were arrested and many injured.

Erdogan and the AKP are carrying through an all-out attack on civil liberties, opposition parties and media, critical academics and most of all against the Kurdish population of South East Turkey and northern Syria.

Linking together the different aspects of this offensive is an overarching ‘strategy of tension’ which is using streets bombings – probably carried out by agents of the regime – to justify the AKP’s own ‘war on terrorism’ – a wave of mass imprisonment and torture, closures of newspapers, legal action against the opposition HDP (People’s Democratic Party) and military assaults on Kurdish towns and cities.

In a speech on February 16 Erdogan said that concepts of freedom and democracy in Turkey “have no value” and “these conversations are useless”. In a statement eerily reminiscent of George W. Bush he stated, ““Those who stand on our side in the fight against terrorism are our friends. Those on the opposite side, are our enemies.”

The dictatorship offensive has an important international dimension. The AKP government is using the migrant crisis to pressurise the European Union states into stopping any criticism of Turkey’s human rights violations; it is also demanding that the EU states clamp down of supporters of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) in their own countries.

Erdogan’s strategy of tension was started after the June 2015 elections robbed his Islamic AKP party of its parliamentary majority and gave 80 seats to the pro-Kurdish HDP. Massive bomb attacks on a socialist youth conference and an HDP-led peace rally followed in October 2015, bizarrely blamed by the government on the PKK.

While a re-staged election in November 2015 was successful in giving Erdogan a parliamentary majority (although not in removing HDP parliamentary representation), the offensive against all Erdogan’s opponents continues as he prepares to change the constitution to reinforce presidential power.

This year there have been bomb attacks in Istanbul and the capital Ankara. On 14 March a car bomb exploded in an Ankara shopping street killing 37 people and wounding 125 others. That evening the Turkish army launched attacks against Kurdish self-defence militias defending the cities of Nusaybin, Sirnex and Gever. Tanks, artillery and mortars have been used to attack civilian residential areas.

Responsibility for this car bombing and some other attacks has been claimed by a shadowy organisation calling itself the Kurdish Freedom Falcons (TAK), which claims to be a split-off from the PKK, though the PKK leadership have denied any connection with it. Selahattin Demirtas, HDP co-chair, has repeatedly condemned the street bombings, as has the co-ordination of the self-governing councils in south-east Turkey.

To justify the suppression of democracy Erdogan is redefining terrorism. He says, “It is not only the person who pulls the trigger, but those who made that possible who should also be defined as terrorists, regardless of their title.” He particularly has in mind his critics of whatever stripe, academics, journalists but in particular the leadership of the HDP.

Moves are underway to deprive joint HDP leaders Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yüksekdag and four other HDP deputies of their parliamentary immunity. Introducing this measure into parliament AKP Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu claimed that everyone had the right to express their opinion but it could not be used “to justify terrorist acts”.

The demand for the removal of immunity, which was prepared by a prosecutor in Diyarbakir and accuses the deputies of “provoking the people” and “being a member of an armed organisation,” – i.e. the PKK, is now being driven through Parliament by the AKP, and attempts so far to defeat it have failed. The move to remove parliamentary immunity is likely to be the first step to outlawing the HDP. Hundreds of its supporters have already been imprisoned.

The clampdown on the media was highlighted by the March 5 occupation of the best-selling Daily Zaman newspaper, owned by the network associated with US- based cleric Fethullah Gulen. Gulen, leader of a major Sufi Muslim sect, was previously supportive of the AKP, but fell out with Erdogan two years ago to adopt a more critical stance.

The paper was not closed down but the editor in chief Abdulhamit Bilici and columnist Bulent Kenes were fired: the staff now work under the supervision of hundreds of soldiers, and unsurprisingly the paper is now very friendly to the AKP. Throughout the media, newspaper and television owners – mainly directors of big conglomerates – have been told that if they want government business they have to rein in their staff. Total compliance and total support for the government are required. As a result dozens of journalists have been sacked.

The military clampdown in southeast Turkey comes in the wake of bitter fighting in many towns. For more than six months since early September 2015 more than 10,000 troops have been deployed to attack Kurdish towns and cities, including Cizre and the Sur area of Diyarbakir, the de facto ‘capital’ of Turkish Kurdistan. The repression here intensified in late August 2015 when People’s Councils began to declare autonomous self-rule in defiance of the Ankara regime.

Supporters of the pro-PKK Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Movement (YDG-H) began to dig ditches and put up barricades in the self-governing areas, but they were met with a massive military assault, using tanks and artillery, mortars and heavy machine guns against residential areas. Hundreds of Kurdish civilians have been killed and hundreds have been arrested.

On March 19 according to HDP MPs from the area, local people claimed a chemical attack killing 40 people had been launched in Gever, a mountain town in the province of Hakkari, near the Iranian and Iraqi borders.
According to Jesse Rosenfeld, one of only two Western journalists to get access to the besieged area of Cizre:

“The streets here are almost desolate, except for the armoured personnel carriers that patrol this war-wrecked Kurdish city. The few children who have recently returned or withstood two and a half months of curfew and intense fighting kick around a ball, while their parents salvage the remnants of their homes, scorched black and blown apart by intense shelling. Pavement ripped up by tank tracks is pocked with craters where Kurdish rebels detonated improvised explosive devices (IEDs) against their enemy. Pain and suffering are etched on the faces of survivors, who now live under the close surveillance of an invading army.” (http://www.thenation.com/article/turkey-is-fighting-a-dirty-war-against-its-own-kurdish-population/)

The Turkish regime’s ultra-violent response to the attempts by Kurdish youth to defend the self-governing areas is indicative of their fear of the process of setting up self-government councils in Kurdish areas. The same violent reaction against any sign of Kurdish self-government has led the regime to shell forces of the pro-Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) across the border with Syria. YPG units have distinguished themselves by being the only force capable of standing up to and defeating Islamic State in their heroic defence of the besieged town of Kobani, where with the support of US air strikes, ISIS was defeated. In this and other battles against ISIS women fighters have been to the fore of the YPG’s actions.

Turkey’s government is facing the fact that the YPG, the militia of the PYD (Democratic Union Party), is trying to link up the three ‘cantons’ it controls on the Turkish border, and that on 17 March a Constituent Assembly of 200 delegates and 31 other representatives meeting in Rmeilan in Hasakah declared the “Democratic Federal System of Rojava-Northern Syria”, a self-governing region for the Kurds and other peoples of Northern Syria. The intention is that this region would be a part of an overall federal Syria, and the model is being put forward as something that the rest of the country could follow as a way out of the deep crisis that the peace talks in Geneva have so far not been able to resolve. http://anfenglish.com/kurdistan/final-declaration-of-the-federal-system-constituent-assembly-announced

Erdogan and the AKP are open about their view that any Kurdish/ independent self-governing entity across the Syrian border is a dagger pointing at the heart of Turkish domination of the Kurdish areas in Turkey. Given the presence of Russian forces, and given de facto US military support for the YPG, an all-out military assault by Turkey across the border is for the moment impossible, however shelling is likely to continue. In addition on 8 March an attack involving what was thought to be phosphorus was launched on Kurdish fighters and civilians in Sheikh Maqsud in Aleppo (See the YPG account of this on their Twitter feed https://twitter.com/RedurXelil/status/707208737979768832)

Turkey’s policy in Syria tilts towards sympathy with ISIS and other jihadi groups. Kurdish fighters accuse Erdogan of allowing weapons and equipment for ISIS to go across the Turkish border, buying oil from ISIS which is a key part of their funding and sending Turkish special forces to train the ISIS fighters.

In addition to attacks in southeast Turkey, Turkish planes have stepped up their attacks on the mountain bastions of the PKK in the Qandil mountains of northern Iraq. Virtually impregnable, these mountains are known to be the headquarters of the PKK military leadership.

The AKP government has repeatedly cut access to social media sites as a way of controlling the news about bombings and its repression. Facebook and Twitter have both been suspended in the last 10 days, just like journalists academics have come under harsh attack from the government, especially those who organised the Academics for Peace’ petition. According to the Academics Freedom Monitor website:

“Turkish authorities have reportedly placed more than 1100 Turkish scholars under investigation after they signed a petition calling on the government to end its crackdowns targeting Kurdish rebels in the south-eastern part of the country.  Following the publication of the petition on Monday, January 11, 2016, signatories have reportedly been arrested, charged with terrorism and related crimes, and suspended and/or forced to resign their positions.

“The petition, signed by 1128 scholars from 89 Turkish universities, as well as more than 300 scholars from outside the country, demands an end to fighting between Turkish forces and members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).  It accuses the government of the “deliberate massacre and deportation” of civilians, and calls on the government to allow independent observers into the region, end curfews, and renew peace efforts.”

(http://monitoring.academicfreedom.info/reports/2016-01-11-various-institutions)

Erdogan has called the academics “pseudo intellectuals” who are traitors to Turkey and supporting terrorism.

A key part of the ‘strategy of tension’ is to garner European and American support for the AKP regime. Erdogan has personally denounced the United States for giving the Kurdish fighters air support in the battle for Kobane and for their perceived tactical support for the YPG as the best fighters against ISIS.

But Erdogan’s strongest card with the Europeans is his ability to turn the tap of refugees crossing into the EU on and off. Officially the deal between the EU and Turkey gives Turkey €6 billion and concessions on visa free travel to Europe in exchange for Turkey controlling the flow of refugees from its shores. Unofficially Turkey is demanding political support against the PKK, silence about its human rights abuses, a speeding up of the process of admitting Turkey to the EU, and a clampdown on PKK supporters inside the European Union.

The Turkey-EU deal to send back refugees landing on Greek shores is shameful. If it is followed by the EU making the political concessions Turkey demands it will be doubly shameful.

Solidarity Links

Peace in Kurdistan campaign
http://peaceinkurdistancampaign.com/

Stop the War on the Kurds
http://www.stopwaronkurds.org/

Solidarity with the peoples of Turkey https://www.facebook.com/groups/868318019911351/

Plan C Rojava solidarity
http://www.weareplanc.org/blog/rojava-solidarity-cluster-assessment-of-our-work-so-far/

Bianet news site (carries news on Academics for Peace etc)
http://bianet.org/english

Kurdish Red Moon (collects money for material aid)
http://www.heyvasor.org.uk/