Two Kurds killed in protests

The ban of the Democratic Society Party (DTP) has only brought more confrontation in Turkey: Kurds, who are 15-20% of Turkish citizens but whose homeland is in the southwest, crossing also into Syria, Iraq and Iran, have reacted angrily at this decision, taking to the streets.

The protests ended in violent repression at Bulanik, where two people were killed apparently by a shopkeeper with an AK-47, reports Al Jazeera.

As Zeina Khodr reports at The Europe Blog of Al Jazeera, the banishment of the DTP has only caused further legitimacy for the Communist Party of Kurdistan (PKK), which has led armed struggle against Turkey for decades now:

I met a group of old men drinking tea at one of Diyarbakir's cafes. They seemed to have the answer to that question.

"Now that they banned the DTP … our real representative is the PKK. The PKK is our party and our leader is Abdullah Ocalan. He was the person who woke up Kurds to their rights," Hajj Moustapha Alay told me.

See also my previous entry on the latest developments at Kurdistan.

Update (Dec 19): a reader has corrected me, mentioning that the two victims in this particular case appear to have been shot by a civilian, a shopkeeper armed with battlefield weapons. I have corrected the corresponding sentences - and my apologies for the confusion.

On the Turkish "parade" in Southern Kurdistan

Again La Haine has quite interesting article recopilating different views on what the heck was the Turkish army launching a massive operation against the PKK in the midst of winter. The article by K. Zurutza is in Spanish and, while it's all very interesting, I will not attempt to translate it but some quotes can still be very illustrative.

To begin with, Hassan a former PKK guerrilla says:

No one can believe the figures of Ankara: they are unbelievable. A guerrilla is like a rabbit running through the mountains (...)
I remember one day in 1996 when we surrounded some fifty soldiers. They had no chance and we killed all them and only four of our men died. Two days after, Turkish TV announced that they had "eliminated 70 terrorists" and lost four soldiers.

Abdullah, an elderly man from Dohuk believes that:

An operation into the mountains in full winter is a nonsense.

Haci, a mobile telephone worker makes a suggestive analysis:

It's all because of Kirkuk, it has nothing to do with the PKK. The Turks have been nervous since some time ago, as the referendum about the integration of Kirkuk into Southern Kurdistan approahches. They don't want to even hear of a Kurdish neighbour controlling one of the largest oil reserves of the Middle East.

In the final (appendix-like) part of the article, originally from the Basque newspaper Gara, Khider Domle, journalist and professor at the University of Dohuk, suggests that the Western powers, do not have a real plan for the region, that Turkey is oil hungry and that fears that what has happened in Kosovo might happen in Northern Kurdistan as well.

Kurds claim victory against Turkey.

Kurdish Media reports that the PKK claims victory against Turkey in the recent combats in Southern Kurdistan (Iraq). While the Turkish figures talk of 23 soldiers (27 according to BBC) 237 peshmergas (more that 240 for the BBC) killed in the fight, the PKK claims that 130 Turkish soldiers were killed along with a downed Black Hawk helicopter, while giving no figure of their own casualties.

It is still not clear why the Turkish army retreated just after the visit of US secreatry of defense, R. Gates. My own hunches go in three possible directions:
1. That the offensive was being a disaster, as the PKK claims.
2. That the Southern Kurdish autonomous government blackmailed the USA in one way or another, maybe threatening to attack Turkish troops along with the PKK.
3. That it is related somehow to the developements in Lebanon (danger of Hezbollah takeover) and Palestine (Israeli genocidal impunity).

In any case it seems that the Middle East is becoming something too hot for the USA to handle properly.

Turkish army in Southern Kurdistan (1)

I've been following as much as possible the latest Turkish invasion of Southern Kurdistan (Iraq). I say "as much as possible" because there seems to be a blanking of information not just by Turkey but also by the Kurdish autonomous government in Kirkuk. Journalists have been forbidden to head to the border to report on the invasion. That doesn't mean that Southern Kurdistan is happy about the Turkish intervention and in fact there was a standoff when Turkish troops stationed in Iraq (since 1991) attempted to leave their bases to join the operations: the Kurdish peshmergas surrounded them and eventually they had to turn back.

One thing that makes little sense to me is why these operations are being carried out in the midst of Winter. The PKK militias are deep in the mountains and these are true ice cubes in this time of the year, not the best scenario for the Turkish army to make fast gains, right?

It is worth mentioning that the Kurdish authorities at Kirkuk and the PKK do not really get along: historically regional and global powers have played the Kurds selectively against their rivals and the parties in power in Southern Kurdistan, supported by Turkey and the USA historically are not sympathetic of USSR and Syria backed PKK (PKK stands for Kurdistan Workers Party, though nowadays they are less Communist than they used to). Nevertheless the sister organization PJAK, that acts in Iran (Eastern Kurdistan) has support from the USA and is not listed by them as "terrorist organization".

Right now, the situation seems to be as follows: the PKK has shooted down a Turkish helicopter, while the Turks have destroyed 5 bridges in northern Iraq. Casualties' figures are confuse: the Turkish soldiers killed by the PKK may be between 15 and 47, depending who you believe; Turkey claims 112 PKK casualties but I suspect many are actually civilians (if the figure is not inflated).


One of the five bridges bombed by Turkey and map of Kurdistan (Kurdish ethnic majority).

Ref: Al Jazeera: 'Turkey ignores Iraq pull-out plea'.