BISMIL, Turkey (AP) -- At Ramazan Koc's tricycle factory in the war-ravaged southeast of
Turkey, frequent power blackouts cause the yellow plastic used for handlebars to harden in
the molds and crack.

That costs Koc thousands of dollars a year in wasted plastic and even more in lost contracts
from frustrated buyers who fear he will not be able to supply his "Kobra" tricycles on time.

Turkey's economic program to build up the devastated Kurdish-dominated southeast is
faltering. The national government has done little to improve ruined roads or the dilapidated
health care system, and the electrical grid is in such poor shape that blackouts are common.

A government proposal to extend $115 million in loans to the region was slashed by about
three-quarters after politicians from other areas demanded most of the funds for their own
underdeveloped regions.

This is raising fears that frustrated, impoverished Kurds could again take to the mountains
and help rebuild the largely defeated Kurdish rebel army whose 16-year uprising has
claimed 37,000 lives.

Fighting has largely died down since Turkish security forces captured rebel leader Abdullah
Ocalan last year and most of the guerrillas in his Kurdistan Workers Party withdrew to
Kurdish areas in neighboring Iraq and Iran. The rebels had been demanding autonomy in
Turkey's southeast.

The potential for renewed fighting and the area's deep poverty not only threaten the stability
of Turkey, a member of NATO, but could also unsettle Iran, Iraq and Syria, which also have
restive Kurdish minorities.

"The government must win over the Kurdish population and cure the economic wounds
instead of dressing them," said Salim Ensarioglu, a legislator from Diyarbakir, the largest
city in the southeast. "Otherwise, new Kurdish uprisings are inevitable."

Kurdish businessmen like Koc, whose factory is in the small town of Bismil outside
Diyarbakir, are vital to the future of the southeast, a region where unemployment runs as
high as 50 percent in some areas.

Koc, who employs about 15 workers, said he could easily sell the 4,000 Kobra tricycles that
his factory would produce each month if electricity supplies remained constant. But he
quickly noted he recently had to shut down for 10 days due to power shortages.

"It is difficult to survive here because of the constant blackouts," he said.

Koc also faces severe problems getting supplies for his business. Southeastern Turkey is
largely agricultural and the raw plastic and machinery that he uses must be brought by truck
from Turkey's industrial region, more than 900 miles to the west.

Tens of thousands of Kurds fled the southeast for western Turkey during the war and
migration out of the region continues despite the falloff in fighting.

Koc says he'll stay put. "I could easily have invested in the west, but I won't leave like others.
This place is my home."

The government has offered tax breaks, low-cost loans and free land to investors but that has
failed to lure new business to the region.

Meanwhile, herding and farming, the two pillars of the region's economy, are still struggling
to recover from the army's campaign to depopulate rural areas considered havens for rebels.
Hundreds of thousands of villagers were forced from their homes and more than 2,000
villages were destroyed or evacuated, human rights groups have said.

"Whoever says peace has come is lying," said Hasan Huseyin Karakoc, a local official in the
town of Tunceli. Karakoc was forced from his village by the military in 1994.

To many Kurds like Karakoc, the poverty and deep alienation in the southeast will not be
easily solved.

"We need a magic wand," he said.
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The Kurdistan Observer
www.kurdistanobserver.com

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