A chara, - There is a sinister theme of denial in Ambassador's Baytok's letter (September 11th) in which he voices his indignation at being coupled with Iraq where policies towards Kurdish people are concerned. The Northern Iraqis" who sought safety in the border regions of Turkey after the Gulf war were overwhelmingly Kurdish, being punished for rising up against the brutal Saddam. The refugees were greeted with leaflets distributed from a Turkish helicopter, warning them that they would be shot if they crossed the border into Turkey.
The message was written in a number of languages - recognising, as Mr Baytok rightly points out, the different backgrounds of the refugees. One language was mysteriously labelled "local dialect". Turkish officials could not write "Kurdish" even on a death threat.
Mr Baytok says that Turkey has never had problems with the Kurdish or any other ethnic minority since 1923, and ominously adds: "It will not have in the future either". He claims that the Turkish problem is terrorism. The fight against terrorism in Turkey, in particular the 1991 Anti Terror Law, has legitimated the arrest and torture of journalists, members of Parliament and lawyers, anyone who asserts the linguistic, cultural and political rights of the Kurdish minority. Over 2,000 villages in the southeast of Turkey have been destroyed, and up to three million Kurds displaced and the entire civic and judicial structure of the region has been destroyed.
"Restrictions were placed on the press, foreign journalists, political speeches, assemblies, demonstrations, academic publications, television and radio and the arts", according to the 1996 report of the UK Parliamentary Human Rights Group. Terrorism against the Kurdish people of south east Turkey is practised by the state and involves arbitrary arrest, routine torture, destruction of villages and homes, prohibition on the teaching of Kurdish in schools. There are over 221 cases of "disappearances" in Turkey - people who have gone missing after being taken into custody by the security forces.
On a recent visit to the Kurdish city of Diyarbakir, in south east Turkey, I met the Teachers' Union, which told me that 22 members had been killed by security forces. The postal workers' union said that 16 members had been imprisoned and two killed "mysteriously" since 1993. Journalists told us that 25 journalists with Democracy paper (closed down six times and formerly Ozgur Gundem/Ozgur Ulke/Yeni Politika) had been killed. HADEP (People's Democratic Party) has seen 106 members killed, three after the recent party congress and dozens imprisoned.
The Irish Times editorial of September 4th was quite correct in raising the issue of Turkey's brutal intervention across the Iraqi border. Indeed its treatment of its Kurdish population is as brutal as Iraq's and cannot be excused as a fight against terrorism, nor because Turkey participated in Operation Provide Comfort.
The fighting between the two Iraqi Kurdish factions must not obscure one urgent fact. Turkey, Iraq, Iran and US troops must stop military operations in the area, and negotiations between the Kurdish parties and the central governments of the region should be worked towards. Nowhere is this more likely to be successful than Turkey, where the Kurds are undivided. Is mise, le meas,
Kurdistan Information
Network, c/o to Upper Camden Street, Dublin 2.