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By Rebwar Rashed:
With a portfolio comprising the Copenhagen criteria, respect for national, democratic and human rights and a little understanding that other people also need freedom, peace and friendly neighbors, Turkey could have gone a great way towards sustainable peace and a wellbeing future.
Turkey’s situation, however, is exactly the opposite.
Turkey slides slowly but surely into authoritarianism, dictatorship and a state of mental illness caused by overconfidence in conspiracy theories that everything that happens in Turkey and to Turkey is being prepared previously in foreign capitals working to destabilize and disintegrate Turkey. The problem is that Erdoğan in tilting at windmills doesn’t fight “imaginary enemies”, but rather he kills, imprisons and harasses Kurdish people and destroys Kurdistan.
There wasn’t, and still isn’t, a single person in the government cabinet or among hundreds of pro-government MPs to tell Erdoğan that the war against Kurdish people goes back to the days of October 1923 when the Turkish state was born following the demolition of the Ottoman Empire. (The PKK started its armed struggle as late as 1984!). By making tremendous national sacrifices to countries like Israel, Russia and the US, Turkey hopes to get extra fire power to eliminate the Kurdish people totally.
Erdoğan’s attempt to exterminate the Kurdish people by integrating terrorist organizations such as ISIS, Jabha Al-Nusra, Sultan Murads Brigades and dozens more into the Turkish Army, or into Turkish Special Forces which are called “Police” and are camouflaged by Turkish intelligence, didn’t help Turkey either. Yet it has cost many Kurdish lives, occupation of Kurdish lands, enslaving of Kurdish women and destroying the nature of Kurdistan.
Besides the support for these terrorist groups, Turkey has organized (originally a CIA idea) the so-called Free Syrian Army, FSA, which consists of at least 100 varied, anti democratic, small groups. The FSA is labeled as “Moderate opposition”, without political leadership and with intent only to kill and destroy Syria. The FSA has cost American tax payers many millions of dollars while it has served Turkish “neo-Ottoman” interests.
This so-called “Moderate opposition” has proved at least comparable to ISIS & Co. when it comes to fighting Kurdish national and democratic rights, human rights, women’s rights, diversity, secularism, pluralism and respect for the Syrians’ wellbeing. They have been harassing and forcing hundreds of thousands of Syrians to leave Syria and head to Turkey to become political asylum seekers or refugees, a smuggler-business that has gained Turkey billions of dollars.
Turkey is committing not just serious human rights violations, but atrocities and genocide; it is encouraging and supporting sectarian war and deliberately promoting the culture of subjugation and humiliation of women.
Turkey’s racist war against Kurdish people in Rojawa and other parts of Kurdistan is an effort to halt Kurdish national and democratic gains inside Turkey. By using ISIS and other terrorist groups of the FSA, Turkey hopes to enlarge its army’s combat capacity against Kurdish guerrilla forces inside Turkey.
A Turkish tank on its way to Jarabulus in Syria.
The people of Kurdistan, in at least three parts of Kurdistan, has been struggling against terrorism, not on behalf of outsiders, but rather to defend their own lives, democratic rights and preserve pluralism and multiculturalism in Kurdistan while these terrorist groups fight every color of humanity under the name of a certain religion.
Despite the Rojawa Kurds’ friendly attitude towards Turkey and their call for mutual respect and sisterhood, and despite the PKK’s many calls for a truce and for solving the Kurdish question by peaceful democratic methods — i.e. the recent call of Mr. Ocalan, the leader of the Kurdish national movement, to the Turkish state to end hostilities and turn a new page for negotiations — and again, despite the DTP’s and HDP’s call for peace instead of war, Turkey intensifies its military, political and diplomatic attacks on Kurdish people.
Instead of giving a positive answer, Turkey is now occupying Kurdish lands inside the national territory of Syria, using the FSA as a cover, and Erdoğan is vowing to push on further into Syria’s al-Bab. Erdoğan is saying loud and clear that he will not allow the Rojawa cantons to unite territorially and threatening to fight any Kurdish entity.
It is not a secret that Turkey is living its worst days of national and political division and the splits between all kinds of segments of Turkey get larger with each day. Erdoğan’s Salafisim ideology has caused Turkey deep political and social polarization. Turkey will become a new Syria if the power conflicts between various far-too-numerous Islamic groups and Erdoğan’s radical and insane Islamization process continues.
The Western allies of Turkey must make a clear decision on Turkey’s racist war against Kurdish people and its expansion policy to revive Ottoman dreams. It is not a secret that Turkey will resist leaving any occupied territories, as we have seen before.
Stopping Turkey’s state terrorism is not only a Kurdish cause, but also a cause for all democratic-minded people, for socialists, communists, liberals, feminists and freedom lovers all around the world.
In the east, Turkey has only Kurdistan as a neighbor, not Iran, Iraq or Syria. This is a fact that the Turks must realize and accept. The politics of racism and denial will not bear fruit. The Kurdish people will carry on their struggle as they have already have paid a heavy price fighting for their liberation.
Freeing Mr. Ocalan, stopping the war of destruction, recognizing Kurdish national and democratic rights, respecting human rights: these are steps which must be taken by Turkey.
Over the last 40 years there have been millions of causalities, the destruction of cities and civilization and the loss of many generations, as a result of war in the Middle East. Kurdistan lies at the center of this conflict. Kurds have made enormous sacrifices and also a great contribution. Free democratic confederacies in the Middle East based on sisterhood and friendship are a realistic and desired solution. Rojawa is a living example.
Turkey must not be allowed to destroy Kurdistan’s democratic and pluralistic project!
Rebwar Rashed is Co-Chairman of the Kurdistan National Congress – KNK
