Erdogan, a Runaway Man!

By Rebwar Rashed:

Despite Mr. Ocalan’s call for a peaceful solution of the Kurdish question on the Kurdish New Year, Newroz, in 2013, Erdogan instead chose steps in the opposite direction, for instance: to militarize the Kurdistan region even more than previous governments; to build military outposts everywhere, even on top of those mountains which he could reach; to organize a special “security” police force with every kind of rights, including the right to kill. This “security” police force is armed with sophisticated weapons and armored vehicles, to force the Kurdish leftovers of tribes-people to submit themselves to the MIT and stand against their own people and, last but not least, to force the AKP’s Turkish Muslim Brotherhood ideology onto the Kurdish people. Kurds had to choose the identity of the Turkish ultra-nationalist Muslim Brotherhood; otherwise they were “terrorists”.

Between June 29th 2014, when ISIS proclaimed itself as a Worldwide Caliphate, and the first few months of 2015, Turkey had intensified its war against Kurdish people, using its jets to bomb Kurdish guerrillas and villages, not just inside Turkey but also deep inside KRG areas, in order to frighten Kurdish people and force them to leave.

Not so strange that, during the same period, Turkish jets were also violating Greek air space and bombarding different military posts inside Syria.

Already on November 6th 2014 the International Crisis Group reported their fear of a possible of breakdown of the PKK’s unilateral ceasefire which had been working since March 2013. The aggressive behavior of the Turkish government against Kurdish people and its neighbors could be explained by the victories ISIS was winning, especially its genocide against the Yazidis, and also by the tremendous help and support which the AKP was getting from the Obama Administration, NATO, the EU and the Muslim World.

The list is long. The atrocities in Kurdistan can fill thousands of pages.

Abroad, Erdogan had already established relations with the unhappy Sunni Muslims in Iraq and Syria and also with the KRG. It took at least five years for the Obama administration and even more time for some Arab countries to realize that Erdogan was running his own special agenda in Syria and Iraq.

Erdogan´s special agenda, which is not a secret anymore, was the revival of the Ottoman Empire with only one difference: that’s the AKP’s version of Muslim Brotherhood ideology, a blend of Turkish ultra-nationalism and ‘Hanafi’-Sunni Islam; an aggressive, narcissistic and complacent ideology.

Erdogan became a pioneer in organizing ISIS, Jabha Al Nusra, Sultan Murad Brigades, and probably nearly one hundred different, small Islamic terror groups. Erdogan succeeded in nourishing these terrorist organizations through financial help, weapons and logistics offered to him by NATO, US and other countries, presumably meant for the “democratic” and “Moderate Islamic” opposition and not Erdogan’s “project”.

Erdogan’s game was and still is dangerous as it has cost the people of Syria and Kurds from Iraq and Syria hundreds of thousands of lives, the destruction of their homes and properties and lives of horror. Nothing really is the same anymore!

Thus Erdogan, despite the contribution against Islamic radicalism and terror by the Russians and by the USA-Coalition, got a kind of an upper hand in the terror game, for instance: occupying Syrian territories in the North to make enclaves in the Rojava cantons; giving intelligence information and organizational tactics to the terrorist groups still operating in many areas including close to the Mediterranean; placing obstacles in the path of a democratic and peaceful solution in Syria, etc.

Erdogan is playing many dirty games at the same time. Reminding us much of Ayatollah Khomeini, by promising to give people democracy, prosperity and peace, since 2002 Erdogan has successfully made Turkey into a prison for intellectuals, journalists, feminists, Turkish democrats and his opponents in general. Erdogan’s total war on Kurdish people and on the HDP, the only democratic political party with no historical guilt and bad conscience, has beaten even previous anti-Kurd and anti-democratic records.

Having NATO’s sophisticated weapons in his arsenals and with the West’s unwillingness to recognize the Kurdistan liberation movement as a “freedom and a liberation movement”, Erdogan has got more wind under his wings. But, despite this art of engineering in fascistic behavior, things have started to go wrong for the AKP. The policy of blackmailing the EU on the refugee issue got stopped; the prospect of EU membership has stayed at the level of fantasy; the dream of becoming a “Muslim-World”-leader is limited only to calling the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) for “emergency meetings” paid for by Ankara; the phase of cheating the democratic opinion and the International community on the Syrian question is over since everyone knows now where Turkey stood and still stands; the violation of the Iran sanctions for many years is now at the courthouse; and the support for sectarian war in the region has already led to a series of diplomatic failures and political backfire for Turkey.

Trying to mobilize the Muslim poor masses in the world in an aggressive and destructive manner and the flourishing Ankara-Tehran axis means cooperation against Kurdish people and intervention in regional and international issues in a terrorism agenda. In a very unstable region like the Middle East, the last thing we need is the religious sectarianism that Iran and Turkey represent.

Now, with the benefit of past experiences, we can imagine that a runaway man, aggressive and sadistic as he is, and with so much fire power could make 2018 a very bad year.

The Middle East needs democratic and decentralized regions and political structures with guaranteed freedoms for every kind of religion, belief, ethnicity and identity.

Democratic-minded Turks and the International democratic opinion are obliged to work hard in 2018 for peace, liberty, freedom and political solutions.

Political resolutions for 2018:

1. The Turks must end their threats towards the Kurds and Arabs in Rojava and Northern Syria. Harassing Afrin, Kobani and other border cities will only weaken the future mutual-interest of two sovereign neighbors.
2. Mr. Ocalan’s health and security conditions, because he is held in provocative and forced isolation by the Turkish state in the İmralı Island Prison, are suspected to be bad. Mr. Ocalan’s life is the ultimate guarantee for a peaceful solution of the Kurdish question. Mr. Ocalan must be released so that he can contribute to a peaceful and a political solution of the Kurdish question.
3. Unlawful arrests of HDP members must be stopped and the Co-chairs and other arrested members must be freed. The MHP party with its fascistic path already has severe internal problems and the CHP, with its opportunistic and recreant rhetoric, will no longer pose an election-threat. So, by having the HDP members behind bars and accusing them of terrorism, the AKP might win the next election in the current political situation, although that would harm Turkey badly in the long term.
4. The Turkish government’s enmity against Kurdish people in Iraq, Iran and Syria is getting more hostile by each day, as it sees any Kurdish gains there as a moral motivator for Kurds in Turkey: this approach must cease immediately. The neighbor of Turkey from the South East is only KURDISTAN, not Iran, Iraq or Syria. The Turks will gain much by remapping their national strategy and thinking twice before they continue.
5. To demand that the arrestees and convicts will wear single-type uniforms at their court appearances, according to a regulation introduced by a recent state of emergency decree, is insane and driving Turkey into fascism. The Kurdish political prisoners and the arrested HDP members are honest and decent human beings who cry for equality, brother and sisterhood and freedom and liberty. Harassing and humiliating great people will bring curse and destruction to Turkey. It’s important to mention that there are no ISIS members in Turkish prisons contrary to the AKP claims.
6. Erdogan has started to bomb cemeteries, shattering Kurdish graves and punishing people who attend cemeteries for the funerals of the departed, using the excuse of “terrorism” against everyone just as he pleases. This kind of uncivilized and sick behavior must come to an end. Democratic, progressive and secular Turks cannot let themselves be fooled by an insane man.
7. Erdogan has become a master in closing every gate of opportunity to find a democratic and peaceful solution of the Kurdish issue. Let’s see what good Turks can make for a difference.

Today, December 28th, as I write these words, Kurdish people remember with deep sorrow the Roboski massacre of 2011 when Turkish jets killed 34 Kurdish youths just because they “looked like terrorists”. The wounds are still fresh!

The Eritreans’ proverb says, “Any oppression but not the Turkish”. Some African peoples, the Balkan peoples, Arabs, Assyrians, Armenians, Kurds and others have all witnessed Ottoman colonialism’s uncivilized behavior. We all — Arabs, Kurds, Bulgarians, Greeks, Armenians, Assyrians, Jews and so on — understand what the Eritrean proverb means. The wounds are still fresh!

Let’s all wish that 2018 will bring justice, peace and stability to all of us.

Amen!

Rebwar Rashed is Co-Chair of the Kurdistan National Congress – KNK