20 June 2001
Turkish Daily News
By:  Mehmet Ali Birand

The series of observations made by columnist Hasan Cemal last week underscored one
important fact: the reality of HADEP. The Southeast in undergoing an important change.
However, the state still has not fully decided what it is going to do.

The articles Hasan Cemal wrote during his tour of the Southeast last week put into the news
a topic I had been meaning to cover for some time.

God willing, Cemal's findings and analyses have been read by certain people in Ankara
because this series of columns screams out one thing: the reality of the Peoples Democracy
Party (HADEP).

We are not aware of it, but the Southeast is changing.

The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) era of armed and bloody struggle is closing and a
period is beginning now where politics is dominant and where death is replaced by thought.

In my last trip to the Southeast, I too came across the same reality that met Hasan Cemal.
The guns are silent and people are living in more security. The streets can be walked without
fear. There is a general feeling of ease.

If we were to look back briefly, we would not be able to deny that what lay behind the PKK's
ability to act over 15 years was not only the provocations of foreign forces but also the
support it received from some of the people in the region.

Not everybody regarded the PKK as a terrorist organization. The murders were not
condoned and they were criticized but they were also tacitly supported.

For many, they were an organization that opposed the Turkish Republic state and fought for
their rights. It was an organization that brought others to account for the starvation, misery
and poverty. An organization that stood up to the oppression against their identity. That is
how the PKK sold itself to the people of the region.

Even though they rejected the bloodshed and the killing of children, they took the PKK in.

The fight lasted 15 years and saw a lot of blood spilt.

Turkey's tough reaction and in particular the change in position of both the United States and
the EU brought the organization to an end.

The PKK lost.

They stopped shooting and lay down their arms.

Has the swamp been dried out?

The region is more relaxed, but most of the problems that enabled the PKK to live over 15
years still exist.

People have still not realized their hopes.

There is no work and the streets are filled with people without hope.

No teachers and no doctors.

Those evicted from their villages live in plastic tents in towns like Diyarbakir. They live in
misery in their shanty towns.

The Emergency Rule (OHAL) conditions have been in place for 22 years and are still in
effect.
Just listening to music in Kurdish is enough to attract the security force's attention.
Promoting the Kurdish identity still creates problems.

Economy packages have been opened one after the other. Nothing emerged for the local
people though. Some $100 billion was spent on the war, but the poverty remained.

The swamp is still there, festering as always.

The side effects that nourished the PKK are still there.

HADEP enters the stage...

The new reality in the Southeast is the HADEP factor.

When the regional people saw they PKK card they had played to show their dissatisfaction
had failed to produce results, they began to play the HADEP card instead.

Just as even those who were not PKK sympathizers did give them a measure of support, so
today they are giving that same support to HADEP. If HADEP were to put forward a broom
for a candidate, the locals would vote for it.

The basic difference between the PKK and HADEP is that the latter does not use weapons
and stresses the unity of Turkey. HADEP is very different. They are struggling to ensure that
the people of Kurdish and of any other origin in the region have a decent standard of living.

Most of the time, the PKK sympathizers and HADEP are the same. Those who supported the
PKK in the past, with the exception of weapons, are now HADEP members today.

This is the reality in the Southeast.

So, what is the state doing about it?

It is alienating HADEP.

It sees HADEP as being under PKK influence or as a political offshoot of the PKK.

As state officials talking with Hasan Cemal said, they want to stop this politicization. They
want HADEP to draw a line between them and the PKK and to entirely renounce the PKK.

To be frank, they are denying the realities on the ground in the Southeast. They want to wipe
out HADEP so that the PKK does not get politicized under its umbrella.

It is the wrong attitude.

Don't dry out the swamp. Don't bring the necessary economic relief. Keep the people in
misery. Keep them living under oppression. Then, try and gag those who want to make
themselves heard politically rather than with guns.

If this approach is not abandoned and HADEP is alienated, Turkey will have opened the
path so that it will once again fall foul of terrorism.

Yet, what should be done is the exact opposite.

We shall take up this topic again tomorrow.

Mehmet Ali Birand's article is translated by TDN staff

mbirand@attglobal.net
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The Kurdistan Observer
www.kurdistanobserver.com