[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 156 (Saturday, November 8, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2251-E2252]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 TURKEY LOOKS OUTSIDE ITS BORDERS TO SOLVE ITS KURDISH QUESTION, WHEN 
                    THE PROBLEM CLEARLY RESTS WITHIN

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. STENY H. HOYER

                              of maryland

                    in the house of representatives

                        Friday, November 7, 1997

  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, over the past several years, Turkey, a NATO 
ally and United States friend, has made repeated incursions into Iraq. 
The invasions, which violate international law, are undertaken 
ostensibly against Kurdish guerillas waging a violent insurgency in 
Turkey. In reality, these military campaigns result in countless 
civilian casualties, widespread population displacement, severe 
economic hardship, and if anything, encourage local support for the 
guerrillas. While the Turkish military declares the guerrillas 
eradicated after each incursion, repeated cross-border attacks expose 
this as a fiction.
  The latest invasion raises new cause for concern. For more than three 
weeks, Turkish forces have actively supported the Kurdistan Democratic 
Party (KDP), which has been engaged in years of bloody fighting with 
its rival, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). Widespread reports 
indicate Turkey is using napalm and cluster bombs, despite 
international covenants banning their use. The PUK receives significant 
United States funding, so in effect, our ally Turkey is attacking a 
party which receives funds from the United States Government. I 
question why our Government refuses to acknowledge this inconsistency. 
And even more importantly, I question our Government's silence when a 
United States-supplied ally violates a United States-imposed `no-fly 
zone' to kill Kurdish civilians and destroy their villages in the so-
called safe haven.
  Mr. Speaker, Turkey along with the United States and Great Britain, 
had been participating in the ``Ankara Process'' in an effort to bring 
the two feuding Kurdish factions to the negotiating table. Turkey's 
military support for the KDP ends any hope that it can serve as a 
neutral regional peace-broker. Furthermore, Turkish plans to establish 
a ``buffer zone'' in Iraqi Kurdistan, with at least 8,000 troops, will 
destabilize the entire region and invite intervention by Iraq, Iran and 
Syria. Mr. Speaker, I would like to submit for the record an editorial 
by Jim Hoagland from last Sunday's Washington Post that further 
questions the logic of U.S. policy in this area.
  It is tragic and ironic that Turkey seeks answers to its ``Kurdish 
question'' outside its borders, when in reality it should be working 
these issues out at home. Turkey's 15 million Kurds have faced 
oppression since modern Turkey was forged in 1923. Since then, there 
have been 28 major Kurdish uprisings. The most recent, underway since 
1984, has claimed almost 30,000 lives. According to Turkish Government 
sources 3,185 Kurdish villages have been evacuated and up to three 
million people have been internally displaced from southeast Turkey. 
Dispite the severity of the conflict, Turkey refuses access by the 
International Red Cross to the stricken region. The conflict costs 
billions of dollars each year and destroys hopes of economic 
development that is greatly needed in the region.
  Mr. Speaker, the Turkish regime must put flesh on its skeletal 
democracy, or the Kurdish problem and other pressing issues will fester 
and continue to prevent Turkey from moving closer to Europe. Turkey's 
civilian and military leaders have repeatedly stated their intentions 
to address human rights problems, yet the problems persist and reform 
efforts seem little more than public relations exercises. Meanwhile, 
our Government continues business as usual, sending billions of dollars 
worth of security assistance to Ankara while refusing to acknowledge 
increasing signs of political instability. Such unequivocal support is 
unwise because it reinforces the military and other non-democratic 
forces in Turkey, and sends a message that the United States Government 
will support the Turkish Government no matter how deficient it remains 
in human rights areas.
  Mr. Speaker, as I stand before this distinguished body, a group of 
Kurds and Americans, including Kathryn Cameron Porter, are fasting in 
front of this building to protest human rights violations in Turkey. 
They too believe our Government has remained silent in the face of 
growing threats to democracy in Turkey. A major impetus for their 
protest is the continued imprisonment of four Kurdish parliamentarians, 
including Leyla Zana, whose indictment included charges related to her 
appearance at a Helsinki commission briefing. All Kurdish-based 
political parties in Turkey are suppressed, even though Kurdish 
political opinions must be considered if political institutions are to 
be truly representative. Non-violent Kurdish parties must be allowed to 
participate in political life. Individuals should not be jailed for 
expressing opinions deemed harmful by the Government. Open debate and 
dialogue is imperative.

  Mr. Speaker, another democratic measure is freedom of the media. On 
October 21, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) issued a report 
entitled ``The Anatolian Archipelago'' which details the fate of 78 
journalists jailed for speech crimes in Turkey. CPJ, which does 
meticulous research and seeks Turkish Government input before 
publishing, has concluded in each of the last 3 years that more 
journalists are jailed in Turkey than in any other country.
  Human rights defenders and Kurdish peace activists are also subject 
to harassment, imprisonment or worse. This past week, Yavuz Onen and 
Akin Birdal, two internationally recognized rights leaders, and Ahmet 
Turk, a Kurd, were charged for reading in public a report detailing the 
ongoing scandal linking officials to death squads and face up to 3 
years in prison. On October 20, well-known peace activist, Esber 
Yagmurdereli, was jailed for 22 years. On October 21, the president and 
7 other Human Rights Association (HRA) executives were sentenced to 
between 1 and 2 years in prison for speeches made during human rights 
week in 1996. In recent years, 20 HRA branches have been closed, 
including all that serve Kurdish communities in Southeast Turkey.
  Free expression is only one area where Turkey is deficient in meeting 
its stated human rights commitments. Local NGOS, Amnesty International, 
Human Rights Watch, and our own State Department conclude that torture 
remains widespread and few accused of torture are brought to justice. 
Last week, a panel of judges presiding over an internationally 
publicized trial, refused to make police accused of torturing 14 young 
people, some as young as 13, appear in court. Also pending is the legal 
appeal of the human rights foundation doctor who refused to turn over 
to the government information on victims of torture.
  Mr. Speaker, I have joined more than 160 of our colleagues in signing 
a letter calling for the release of imprisoned parliamentarians in 
Turkey. At the very least, as Members of an elected legislature, we 
should demand that our colleagues in Turkey be freed, for it is 
unthinkable that legislators in a democratic society would be jailed 
for speaking out on behalf of democratic society would be jailed for 
speaking out on behalf of their constituents. I urge my colleagues to 
sign the ``Dear Colleague'' letter and to visit those fasting on the 
steps of this building.
  I have also joined my colleagues on the Helsinki Commission in 
introducing a resolution expressing the sense of the Congress that 
Turkey should not be chosen as the host of

[[Page E2252]]

the next summit meeting of the Organization for Security and 
Cooperation in Europe. As long as Turkey continues to violate 
international law and its own commitments to OSCE principles, Turkey 
should not be considered an appropriate venue for a human rights 
summit. Such a privilege, Mr. Speaker, should be reserved for 
participating States that have demonstrated, in word and in deed, 
steadfast support for Helsinki principles and standards, particularly 
respect for basic human rights.

                [From The Washington Post, Nov. 2, 1997]

                       Before Turkey Joins Europe

                           (By Jim Hoagland)

       Friend and ally to Turkey for half a century, the United 
     States today plays a new role: pusher. The drug of choice is 
     unrealistic ambition, fed by Washington to Ankara to keep the 
     Turks cooperative.
       The Clinton administration has correctly identified Turkey 
     as the new ``front-line state'' in global conflict. It is the 
     major crossroads of the religious, social and nationalist 
     fractures of new-era politics, and gateway to the oil fields 
     of Central Asia, Iraq and the Persian Gulf. Turkey counts.
       But Washington is as weak at remedy as it is strong on 
     diagnosis. In no other region of the post-Cold War world is 
     the imbalance greater between a region's declared importance 
     to U.S. interests and active, sustained U.S. involvement.
       Instead the Clinton administration offers diplomatic opium 
     to the Turks, suggesting that the answer to their problems is 
     quick membership in the European Union, and then presses the 
     Europeans to admit the Turks and overlook a few flaws here 
     and there.
       There is nothing inherently wrong with the U.S. goal of 
     Turkish membership in the 15-member club of Europe's most 
     affluent nations. A Turkey that fits into Europe economically 
     and socially would be a more stable nation, as U.S. diplomats 
     argue at international conferences and in increasingly 
     acrimonious private exchanges with their European 
     counterparts.
       But Washington turns a blind eye to the self-destructive, 
     addictive behavior of the Turkish military that makes EU 
     membership in the near future a pipe dream. Worse: Washington 
     denies its own responsibility for conditions that feed that 
     behavior.
       The Turkish military, which dominates the weak coalition 
     government in Ankara, is not interested in harmonizing value 
     added taxes, a perennial hot topic in the EU. The Turkish 
     military expends its energies persecuting dissidents at 
     home--a new wave of arrests of human rights activists was 
     launched last week--and plunging deeper into a nasty civil 
     war in neighboring northern Iraq.
       For several weeks Turkish warplanes have been 
     strafing Kurdish guerrillas in Iraq on a near-daily basis. 
     Turkey has moved U.S.-supplied artillery into Iraq to fire 
     on one Kurdish faction, and is dropping napalm on them 
     from U.S.-supplied warplanes, Kurdish spokesmen say.
       Turkey's involvement in the Kurdish civil war demolishes 
     the notion that this is a distant, small conflict with no 
     consequence for the United States. The White House pretends 
     otherwise in its misleading reports to Congress and in its 
     anesthetizing public statements playing up the ``success'' of 
     U.S. policy in northern Iraq and Turkey.
       The confusion of American purposes and methods is made 
     clear by this officially unacknowledged, bizarre reality: The 
     main targets of Turkey's current attacks inside Iraq are the 
     guerrillas of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, an 
     organization that receives at least $500,000 a month in 
     covert support from the Central Intelligence Agency.
       Official American money intended to finance peacekeeping 
     has also been flowing to the PUK's Kurdish opponents, led by 
     Massoud Barzani, who has allied himself with the Baghdad 
     regime of Saddam Hussein.
       The Turks are now weary of the vacuum that the United 
     States has let develop in northern Iraq, a U.S. protectorate 
     after the gulf war. They are also understandably upset about 
     the heavy financial sacrifices the long U.S.-led economic 
     blockade on Saddam has imposed on them. Frustrated and 
     confused about U.S. goals, the Turks follow policies that 
     will result in both Kurdish groups reconciling with Saddam, 
     who will resume operational control of the north.
       On top of this disastrous scenario, the brutal Turkish 
     campaign pushes further and further away the day when Ankara 
     would be accepted by the European Union. U.S. abdication in 
     northern Iraq, and its self-imposed blindness to the regional 
     consequences of that abdication, undermine its proposed 
     solution for Turkey's problems.
       This large, developing Muslim nation already faces nearly 
     insurmountable hurdles in gaining EU membership. Germany, 
     with 2 million Turkish residents and 500,000 Kurds on its 
     soil, is terrified of new waves of immigration. The Europeans 
     are also keenly aware that they are being asked by the 
     Americans to provide more financial support for Turkey so 
     U.S. help can decline.
       Washington needs to acknowledge the damage its vacillating 
     policy on Iraq has caused Turkey and offer financial 
     compensation to Ankara. The deal must include Turkey's ending 
     its human rights abuses at home and the border war on the 
     Kurds, as part of a self-help program to get ready to join 
     Europe.
       Friends challenge self-delusion. They do not feed it.

       

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