Editorial
The Boston Globe

Founded 1872

Wednesday, November 15, 2000

Kurdish Rights

The Balkan wars of the past decade ought to have thought all onlookers an unforgettable
lesson: that no modern state can be democratic or stable if it does not tolerate and protect the
rights of minorities.

The European Union is trying to teach these lessons to Turkey.  Earlier this month, the EU
presented Ankara with requirements for membership in the European club.  These include
political and economic reforms and standards for human and minority rights.

The European lesson-givers asked, diplomatically, that the Turkish government and the
military high command that has been the true power in the Turkish state begin to grant
minority rights to the 12 million Kurds who comprise a fifth of Turkey's population.

Without mentioning the Kurds, the EU indicated in a report last week that Turkey would
have to end its prohibition against broadcasts in the Kurdish language.  Although this
granting of a basic cultural right might seem the least Turkish authorities could do to ease
the repression of Kurds who wish to retain their language, the EU's request caused something
of a crisis among political leaders who profess attachment to the secular, nationalist ideology
known as Kemalist  --  after General Kemal Ataturk, called Ataturk, who founded the
modern Turkish state in 1923.

Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit said that since Kurdish broadcasts from northern Iraq or
Europe cannot be stopped from reaching Turkey, the government will "sooner or later" have
to comply with the EU's request and permit Kurdish language broadcasts in Turkey.  For this
mild recognition of reality, Ecevit was excoriated by nationalist politicians.

Behind this political quarrel lie the horrors of the military's brutal campaigns against the
Kurds of southeastern Turkey, where thousands of villages have been burned, 35,000 people
killed in military actions and another 17,500 killed by death squads over the last 15 years,
according to Ankara's own Justice Ministry.  Even after the Kurdish guerilla group, the
PKK, changed its political aim from separatism to cultural autonomy heeded by the call of
its captured leader Ocalan to end the armed struggle, the Kurds are subject to the army's
scorched-earth tactics in the southeast.

If Turkey is to become acceptable to the EU, it will have to respect the rights of its Kurdish
minority.  It is hard to imagine that Ankara may cease treating Kurds like traitorous enemies
unless Turkey's military surrenders its control of politics, the enormous conglomerates it
runs, and its censorship of free expression.  These changes will not be easy to accomplish,
but they will be beneficial to Turkey and its allies in Europe and Washington.

The Kurdistan Observer
www.kurdistanobserver.com

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