Why do assassins choose France?

By Mufid Abdulla:

The recent tragic, brutal events in Paris serve as a stark reminder of other political assassinations that have happened in recent decades in Paris and France.

The Belgian police told the PKK and the French authorities that they believed that there were two hit squads in Europe planning to strike against the PKK leadership.  But France did not take any measures as such apart from installing CCTV cameras around the Kurdish information centre in Paris.

The world has watched the murder of three unarmed pro-democracy activists who all contributed to the Kurdish cause in the north of Kurdistan. Who stood to gain from their loss? An obvious suspect is the ‘Gladio’ network of Turkish generals (present and retired), commandos and gangsters who are opposed to peace for two reasons. First, they are parasites who live off the spoils of war. Second, as Turkish ultra-nationalists they are blinded with an intense hatred of the Kurdish nation.

However, this tragedy has revealed a vicious circle for the enemies of Kurds. If she or he dies, there are others to take their place with equal dedication. The killers have not gained anything. On the contrary, they have created another million supporters for the PKK and, as we saw on Thursday, as the three coffins were taken through Dyarbakir, the mass of the people followed them.

Sadly, these murderers took an opportunity to put the gun back into the heart of Turkish politics where it has been embedded for so many years that it is difficult to remove. The PKK and AKP have given signs that they want to take the gun out of politics but the army and its generals want to carry on their campaign against the PKK fighters.

A puzzling question is why the enemies of the Kurds chose to strike in Paris. In recent years France has been like a natural terrain in Europe for the bloody settling of political scores and for mysterious deaths.

In 1988, the ANC organiser Dulcie September, who campaigned against the South African apartheid regime, was gunned down on the streets of Paris. Her killers have never been found and there have been rumours of the involvement of French mercenaries or the French intelligence service.

In 1991, Shapour Bakhtiar, a former prime minister of Iran and advocate of democracy, was shot dead in a Paris suburb by agents of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

In 1997, there was the tragic death of the British Princess Diana and her companion Dodi Fayed, son of the then owner of Harrods, in a car crash that still generates controversy.

Last year, there were the murders of Saad al-Hilli and his family while they were holidaying in the French Alps. Hilli was an Iraqi businessman who had moved to Britain where he worked for a company that develops satellite communications for international military use. Initially, the French police focussed on the idea of a family feud over money and tried to blame the victim’s brother. But others have maintained that the attack bore the hallmarks of a state-sponsored assassination. Now the French police seem to be getting nowhere with their investigation and no doubt they will soon forget it.

Prior to the murders of Sakine Cansiz, Fidan Dogan and Leyla Şaylemez the police had shown signs of cooperation with the Kurdish political leadership in France. On the day of their murders, French premier Hollande said he had met with two of the women, provoking protests by Turkish premier Erdogan.

On Friday there were reports from ‘judicial sources’ that the Paris police had arrested two suspects in relation to this tragedy. It is too soon to know whether the investigations will make any real progress or whether the authorities are simply buying some time before they try to go back to their old ways and ignore the case.

Copyright © 2012 Kurdistantribune.com