Army is not satisfield with Gül's candidacy

I just put my column of this week's Gulan here in the blog. I sent it last Friday from Brussells to Hewler, and it was published today - and the text has got a little bit old during the week-end. It has become clear that Turkish army does not like either Abdullah Gül to go to Cankaya.

So it seems that I will continue about this issue also next week.... I am now back at Helsinki, I came a few hours ago from Germany to home and have been by the internet since that.

Gulan: Turkey is waiting

http://www.gulan-media.com/h632/g29.pdf

In Turkey last week's most important news was the surprise announcement of Recep Tayyip Erdogan. He gives up his campaign to become the next president. But his AKP party fellow, foreign minister Abdullah Gul registered himself as a candidate. Comments to this have been mixed.

AK party has the majority of seats in parliament so it is easy to quess who will be the next president in Turkey. Army seems to be pleased that Erdogan changed his mind. But why army accepts Abdullah Gul?

Public discussion about an AKP representative as the next president has not been so much about what kind of president he would be. Most polemic has been about what the wife of president has on her head. And in this sense Mrs Gul is similar than Mrs Erdogan. Also she wears a scarf. Some weeks ago General Yasar Buyukanit said Turkey must have secular president. So why army is satisfied when Abdullah Gul will be the next president of Turkey?

Because the biggest problem in Turkey is the Kurdish question. "Deep state" is fighting against the Kurds, not against Islamists. In this perspective Erdogan is reformist whose target is clear: the democratization of Turkey. August 2005 he went to Diyarbakir and spoke about solving the Kurdish question. I do not remember that Abdullah Gul would have spoken in such a way.

Erdogan will not be the next president but he is still the prime minister. AKP is running election campaign so that they have both the seats of president and prime minister. AKP has good possibilities to win the elections and to build also the next government.

This is very important year for Turkey. Now everybody is just waiting for the elections. In them the direction of Turkey's future will be decided. Some foreign observers think that the present tension is caused by the coming elections and the situation will cool down after them. I am afraid that they are wrong. It can turn to the opposite. Maybe the elections lead to a very uncear situation. Maybe the winner will be the ultra nationalist party MHP. Or there can be the opposite situation, MHP get much less votes than they expect and the disappointment will lead to violent reactions among its supporters.

From the Kurdish perspective the most important thing is that the elections are not free when hundreads of Kurdish politicians are in prison. The election campaign is going on now. How any party can run a campaign from prison? Arrested DTP leaders must be released immediately.

If elections are arranged under such conditions Kurds can not expect much of the new parliament. Remember that the biggest problem in Turkey is the Kurdish question. If Turks do not understand this and start to find a peaceful solution to this problem what other possiblities the Kurds in Turkey have? It was a surprise that Erdogan changed his mind about becoming the president. More surprises will surely occur during the next weeks and months.

Gulan: Tension becomes more hot on the boarder

I am now in London and I have not been using internet so I put Gulan's column of this week a little bit late here. It was published Monday the 23rd April.

http://www.gulan-media.com/h631/g27.pdf

The leaders of South Kurdistan surprised the whole world by building an ally with US. Ten years ago no one could believe that US would make cooperation with Kurds instead of Turkey.
However, in long perspective this is no good solution. What will happen when American army leaves Iraq?

Some people from South Kurdistan said to me that life there is now good but every one is afraid for the future. I understand this very well when I listen the aggressive talks of General Yasar Büyükanit and many Turkish politicians. They just wait that US army leaves Iraq so that they can occupy South Kurdistan.

It is easy to imagine how life of Kurds would be then. Just look at North Kurdistan! Kerkuk and other areas which are rich with oil would be turned into a Turkish colony same way as North Kurdistan.

Turkish army claims that it will go to Kandil to make the final solution of the Kurdish problem. Last decade Turkish army came and went across the boarder as it liked. Now this has changed.
Still Turkey seems to think that it would be easy to take even Kerkuk. They say that Masoud Barzani has very small army so he can not fight against Turkey.

They close their eyes from the problems of the American army in Iraq. Do people in Turkey really think that their army would be doing better than the Americans? American people demand that their soldiers must come home from Iraq. But Turkish mothers and fathers want to send their sons to die in Iraq.

Turkish people do not know what is the real situation in South Kurdistan. There is self-censorship in Turkish mass media. It does not give correct information but such propaganda as the army wants.

To make it clear: I am not telling anyone to start a war. Absolutely the opposite. These problems must be solved by negotiations and diplomacy. But from the militaristic point of view the situation is not at all so clear as the Turkish army claims.

If Turkish army attacks South Kurdistan it would lead to guerrilla warfare. Just imagine how attractive target oil pipeline from Kerkuk to Turkey would be for guerrillas. Turkey could not protect the pipeline even by sending thousands soldiers to patrol it. Turkish troops would fall into even bigger problems in Iraq than the American army.

There is one group who has the same problems and same enemy than the people of South Kurdistan. It is the people of North Kurdistan. Cooperation between them would benefit all Kurds.

There are many signs of this kind of development. KRG leader Masoud Barzani warned that if the Turkish army enters Kerkuk, "then we will take action for the 30 million Kurds in Turkey".

The atmosphere in North Kurdistan is now very tensed. Any incident can start a fire there. Turkish army's military operation to South Kurdistan could do it. Turkish Kurds have responded that Masoud Barzani's words are correct.

Such speeches are new from Kurdish leaders. During the Sévres times Kurdish leaders were not united. So they could not protect the rights of Kurds. When Kurds make cooperation with each others they are not any more weak. We live historical moments.

The immigrant policy in Finland - 1

There is new government in Finland. One day before Easter, during the last days of the old government two young Kurdish women were arrested and now they wait deportation in the closed refugee centre in Helsinki. The father of the girls is Finnish citizen. He has a restaurant where is work for both of her daughters.

What is the effect of this kind of policy? Finland is not any dream country for immigrants. Not even for asylum seekers.

Like in other European countries, the population is getting older in Finland. Our country needs immigrants. Until now, the immigrant policy has been among the strictest in Europe. Now this must change. It was target also of the old government to create new immigrant policy. Finland needs immigrants - but not who ever. People from the neighbour countries - like Russia and Baltic countries - are welcome.

Of course, it is another question if there are people in these countries willing to come to Finland. The population gets older also in these countries.

This kind of policy makes the image of Finland even darker among immigrant candidates. While the ministry of labour tries to find new ways to attract immigrants to Finland the ministry of interior affairs sends away young people whose biggest dream is to live and work in Finland.

Here are the mother and father of the Kurdish women. Some days ago they went to receive papers from interior ministry and about fifty Kurds accompanied them. Mother of the girls will have a medical operation after one week and their grandmother died two months ago. So, welcome to work and live in Finland!

Gulan: Who is provocative, Masoud Barzani or Yasar Büyükanit?

http://www.gulan-media.com/h630/g27.pdf

Leyla Zana said in her newroz speech in Diyarbakir that Kurds have three leaders: Abdullah Öcalan, Masoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani. This caused a storm in Turkey. The biggest fear for Turks is a possibility that Kurds make cooperation with each others. Until now they have been controlled by the policy of "divide and conquer".

But this is changing. It can be seen from recent statements by Masoud Barzani and DTP leaders. For example Ibrahim Aydogdu sayid last February that an attack to Kerkuk is like one to Diyarbakir. He is the DTP chairman in Diyarbakir.

The tension in Iraq-Turkey boarder is the hottest topic of columns in Turkish newspapers. Unfortunately the columnists understand very little about the problem. And even less they want to search a political solution to it. For example Ekrem Dumanli from "Today's Zaman" says that Erdogan was obliged to tell Barzani his limits.

Tufan Türenc from Hürriyet finds it reasonable that General Büyükanit refuses to meet leaders of KRG. By not speaking with them Büyükanit shows that he does not recognise them.
Instead of giving rights to the Kurds in Turkey, Turkish columnists want to deny them also from the Kurds who live in other countries. Ibrahim Kalin from "Today's Zaman" denies from the Iraqi Kurds even the right to use the traditional name of their area. He wants to drop "Kurdistan" from the name of the autonomous area and call it "Northern Iraqi Region". If the negotiations have such a starting point one can not expect much of them.

The timing of General Yasar Büyükanit's enthusiasm to send troops to South Kurdistan is not a coincidence. The Parliament will soon decide who will be the next president in Turkey.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan went to Diyarbakir the 12th August 2005 and talked about solving the Kurdish question. Since that the army has made provocations every time when Erdogan has tried to continue the democratization process in Turkey. Do the generals watch quietly when the Parliament votes him to the Cankaya President Palace? It was not a surprise that General Büyükanit said in his television speech last Thursday, the 12th April, that Turkey's next president should be committed to secularism "in earnest".

If Turkey would attack Kandil even a short time one consequence of it might be a wave of riots in Turkey. This would be a good excuse to the army to announce an emergency rule in Turkey - and put their own man in Cankaya President Palace.

I think that in Büyükanit's provocative speech about sending troops to South Kurdistan the most important message was to make his opinion clear about who will not be the next president.
Büyükanit can not attack Kandil because US does not accept it. As Yavuz Önen, the chairman of Turkey's Human Rights Foundation TIHV, said: "Büyükanit targeted everybody from academics, the government, the European Union to human rights activists but avoided to mention anything about the policies of United States".

Ekrem Dumanli of "Todays's Zaman" claimed that Mesud Barzani is playing with fire. Who is playing with fire? Who is provocative? Turkish generals. They are surprised when Kurds are not any more afraid of them. It is a normal reaction that Kurds want to defend themselves.

Moreover, the game of Turkish generals can lead to consequences what they can not imagine. Instead of announcing how divided Kurds are Turks should sit with them in a negotiating table to solve this problem.

Operation Metal Storm?

Today's Zaman claims that Turkish troops have crossed the boarder and entered North Irak. Other media has not yet heard about it.

The 22nd January 2007 I wrote in Gulan about Orkun Ucar’s and Burak Turna’s book "Metal storm". Two years ago it was the most sold book in Turkey. It tells about war between Turkey and America. It starts in North Iraq when American army arrests Turkish soldiers near Kerkuk. In the novel Turkish army enters North Iraq to help Turkmens.

This book came to my mind when I read in The New Anatolian the interview of retired Chief of Joint Staff of the U.S. Army General Richard Myers. I borrow the interview which was published the 9th April:

Asked on the possibility of a military operation against PKK in northern Iraq by Turkey, Myers said that the forces of the Turkish and the U.S. armies may confront one another.

"Such a possibility that has also occurred at past makes me anxious. If Turkey raises an cross-border operation, that would be a ominous ciscumstance," Myers said, referring to the Sulaymaniya sack case.

When the war between USA and Turkey starts in Ucar’s and Turna’s book?

It starts May 2007.

I had the book but I gave it to a friend. I think I will go and take it back.
****
Today’s Zaman’s article is here:
http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=107995

The interview of General Richard Myers is here:
http://www.kurdish-info.net/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=6848

Gulan: The roots of Islamic terrorism

http://www.gulan-media.com/h629/krestina629.pdf

President George W. Bush is running a crusade against Islamic terrorism. Who created this monster? Believe me or not: his father George Bush in cooperation with his predecessor Ronald Reagan.

Who gave weapons to Islamic militants? CIA, the American intelligence service. CIA also trained them to kill. It was the period when many African and Asian countries had got their independence after colonialism. It was the cold war era.

Open involvement in other countries policies had not given CIA the results it wanted. CIA replaced the democratically elected government of Mohammad Mosaddeq in Iran 1953 by Shah Reza Pahlavi. But it was only a short term solution to get American minded administration in Iran. And of course the Vietnam war was the real catastrophe.

So CIA learned its lesson. When the government of a third world country made cooperation with Soviet Union CIA’s strategy was to arm their opponents like The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Jamaat-i-Islam in Pakistan.

The peak of these activities was the war in Afghanistan. Soviet Union soldiers entered there 1979 and CIA started to arm Mujahedins to fight against them. Mahmood Mamdani calls this war an American jihad: CIA armed militant Muslims from all around the world to a holy war against Soviet Union. Mamdani is professor of anthropology in the American Columbia University. He is born and grown up in Uganda. He lived in South-Africa during the change period from apartheid to democracy. Now Mamdani lives in New York. He observed there the 11.9. attack and has written a sharp analysis about it.

The name of Mamdani’s book is ”Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror”. He criticizes CIA for running secret military operations against the will of the American congress.

The Vietnam war caused an anti-war movement in USA. Many senators who wanted peaceful foreign policy were elected to the congress. Most famous of them were John Tunney and Dick Clark. The congress accepted the so called Clark Law 1976. It gave the congress good possibilities to get information and control American military operations abroad. Due to ”the Clark Law” CIA could not involve openly in wars abroad. So it started to finance secretly Islamic groups abroad. This law was annulled 1985 during the second era of president Ronald Reagan. Mahmood Mamdani pays attention that CIA’s secret operations abroad are an attack also against the American democracy.

CIA tried to turn the Afghan war into Soviet Union’s Vietnam. But then happened something CIA had not expected: the cold war ended to the collapse of Soviet Union. There were thousands Islamic fighters in Afghanistan. It became the training centre of Islamic militants. When the war ended they returned to their home countries. They were well trained and had built an close network. Islamic terrorist groups were formed from these troops.

In South Kurdistan the situation is totally different than in the wars during last decades in Laos, Angola, Nicaragua and Afghanistan. US army is making openly co-operation with a well functioning administration, not with marginal groups fighting against the legal administration. CIA’s target in Afghanistan was to win the Soviet troops, not to form a new government. They knew it was impossible. By using Mamdani’s terms the cooperation between the Afghan clans was ”like putting five different animals into one cage”. Taliban movement is a consequence of this war.

Islamic militants have not arrived to South Kurdistan. But in America there are now some similarities to the post-Vietnam war period. Anti-war movement is growing. And so are the demands to remove American troops from dangerous Iraq.

I am sure that every politician in both South Kurdistan and the Arab parts of Iraq think all the time what to do when American troops go home from there. I hope they will do anything else but not secret deals with CIA.

Mamdani, Mahmood: Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror. Pantheon Books, New York 2004.

Gulan and Serhat Castles

This week my column in Gulan tells about the Serhat castles. I put it in this blog in English already last week, but it was in Gulan only the 2nd April. Last week Gulan was not published due to Newroz. Here is a link to the column in Kurdish:

http://www.gulan-media.com/h628/g45.pdf

Van Bostaniçi Mayor Gülcihan Simşek in Helsinki

Bostaniçi Mayor Gülcihan Simşek came yesterday the 2nd April for a short visit to Helsinki. She came from Sweden where she had raised funds for projects of her town.

She came to Finland for three days to meet the Kurdish community in Helsinki. She had also a short meeting with Pekka Sauri, Helsinki Mayor for Public Works and Environmental Affairs. Mr Sauri is on left in this picture.

Here is Gülcihan in front of the Helsinki main cathedral.

Bostaniçi is a suburb of Van. You can call it a gecekondu. One of the poorest towns in Turkey, maybe the number one in this list. Most of people who live in Bostanici moved there last decade from villages which Turkish army burnt. They are from seventeen clans. Bostanici is a big refugee camp.

Gülcihan didn’t have any good news from Turkey. Almost 500 DTP members have been arrested during recent weeks, including the chairman of DTP in Diyarbakir, Van and Batman. Cizre Mayor Aydin Budak was arrested yesterday.

Gülcihan had one important message: lots of observes should come to Turkey during the elections. I think that election observation should be going on already now because also the campaigning should be free. When hundreds of politicians are behind the bars how the elections could be free?