Kurdish survey warns of trouble in

[kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu]

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at etext.org>
Subject: Kurdish survey warns of trouble in western Turkey

Kurdish survey warns of trouble in western Turkey

    By Firat Kayakiran

    ANKARA, Nov 7 (Reuter) - A report by a large Turkish union
on Tuesday warned of unrest in western Turkey after years of
migration from the southeast, scene of an 11-year-old Kurdish
insurgency.
    The report, released by the Turk-Metal union, said the
hundreds of thousands of Kurds who had migrated to the west had
developed a radical brand of Kurdish nationalism due to
disillusionment in their new environment.
    ``Turkey must prepare itself for a problem in the west,''
Umit Ozdag, who oversaw the report, told a news conference.
    ``It will soon be difficult to talk of the 'Kurdish problem'
(only) in the southeast, but...we can see that the elements of
the problem are even more valid in the west,'' the report said.
    Turk-Metal's report includes a rare survey of 10,660
mainly-Kurdish people in 10 southeastern provinces under
emergency rule and six western provinces, where many Kurds from
the southeast have migrated to escape the effects of the
insurgency.
    A report released by an influential business group in August
included a canvass of 1,200 people -- also mostly Kurds. Until
that report, past high-profile studies had largely neglected the
views of Kurds affected by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK)'s
fight with the army, in which over 18,000 people have died.
    Turk-Metal's report says Kurds from the southeast, moving
into a strange, more Western-oriented environment, lived in
``ghettos'' and faced discrimination and alienation.
    ``Under these circumstances...they take refuge in the
'Kurdish identity'. This leads to radicalisation.''
    Kurds in western Turkey were more likely to have links with
the PKK than those in the southeast, Ozdag said.
    The report said more than 20 percent of the Kurds asked in
western Turkey said they only accepted Turkish nationality for
lack of choice and many more sought greater ethnic freedom. Most
in the southeast said they wanted to remain part of one nation.
    Turk-Metal is Turkey's third-biggest trade union.
    Its report said the real problem in the mainly- Kurdish
southeast -- and the main impetus behind migrations to the west
-- was more about economics than ethnicism or security problems
in a region where investment and employment were low.
    ``As the main reason for terror in the region, 58.2 percent
of those asked said ``the poverty of the people,'' 22.7 percent
said 'lack of state interest in the region,''' it said.
    Most Turkish leaders refuse to see the problem as anything
more than a security issue caused by separatists. The state's
hardline methods have led the European Parliament linking a
planned customs union with Turkey to Ankara improving its human
rights record.
    Turk-Metal's report said Turkey should accept that the PKK's
fight was not about to end, and plan accordingly, offering tax
incentives to the private sector as compensation for working in
difficult conditions in an unfashionable part of the country.
    The government should provide the southeast with skilled
employees able to develop a dialogue with the people, rather
than using it as a place of exile for junior, incompetent or
misbehaving bureaucrats, the report said.
Reut11:30 11-07-95

Reuter N:Copyright 1995, Reuters News Service