Mainstream News on the Classwar in Turkey

[Press]

From: "Press Agency Ozgurluk <Press Agency Ozgurluk" <ozgurluk at xs4all.nl>
Subject: Mainstream News on the Classwar in Turkey

Turkish Daily News 


Public workers begin industrial action 

While Turk-Is and government officials reached agreement to a great
extent late on Thursday night, Reuters reported that member trade
unions of Turk-Is began industrial action on Thursday with the aim of
forcing the government to accept their pay terms.

While more than 22,000 workers at Turkey's leading state oil and
petrochemical plants began to obstruct the shipment of goods from
factories, 34,000 workers from the military sector held marches and
highway workers in the Istanbul region slowed operations.

"Our members do not want us to step back from where we are and they
are pressuring us to act if there is no progress in the collective
bargaining negotiations," Semsi Denizer, general-secretary of Turk-Is,
told Reuters.

"I do not have any hope of an agreement with the government, because
they just want to put us off to gain one more month."

A sign of the determination of Turk-Is members to get what they want
was certain union representatives' remarks that a strike was possible.

"We want all our workers to be ready for any form of action, including
a strike," Seluloz-Is union Chairman Mithat Sari said.

The latest actions show that trade unions are urging Turk-Is to
coordinate a general strike. "The confederation should start to
coordinate general actions now," Izzet Cetin, president of the
military base workers' union, Harb-Is, told Reuters.

Bayram Yildirim, president of the petroleum sector union, Petrol-Is,
said Thursday's action by the union's 22,000 members would continue
next week if there was no progress in the talks.


Susurluk Commission member Saglar: 'Ciller and Agar must be
investigated'

     Expressing his reservations about the commission report, Saglar
     says a complaint must be filed against Ozer Ciller and Prime
     Minister Erbakan too



By Ayla Ganioglu / TDN Parliament Bureau 

Ankara- The parliamentary commission looking into "state gang" claims
triggered by a mysterious road accident which occurred in Susurluk on
Nov. 3, 1996, completed its work and published its report. But now the
opposition representatives in the commission are expressing their
reservations to the report adopted with the votes of the ruling party
representatives. On Friday, Republican People's Party (CHP)
representative in the commission Fikri Saglar said in Turkey there
existed "illegally founded gangs supported morally and materially by
certain segments of the state."

Saglar said, in his 20-page "reservations," that a parliamentary
investigation should be started into True Path Party (DYP) leader
Tansu Ciller, a former prime minister currently serving as Deputy
Prime Minister and Foreign Minister. He recalled that Ciller had
declared, "Those who fire bullets and who get hit by bullets for the
sake of the state are honorable persons," referring to Abdullah Catli,
the former Ulkucu (member of an ultranationalist movement) chief who
was wanted by the Interpol for a variety of crimes. He said, "A motion
for a parliamentary investigation of Ciller must be tabled with the
conviction that she must have known about all the relevant incidents,
as can be deduced from these words, and has failed to act with the
wisdom administrators should have in a state upholding the rule of
law."

Saglar maintained that Ciller carried a bigger "political and criminal
responsibility" than anyone else in the "politics and economy becoming
Mafia-like." He noted that DYP Deputy Mehmet Agar, who resigned as
interior minister due to the pressure he came under following the
Susurluk accident, is "one of the names at the peak of these
incidents." He said that a parliamentary investigation should be
started against Agar too.

Referring to the DYP Deputy and clan leader Sedat Bucak, the sole
survivor of the Susurluk incident, Saglar said that Bucak too should
be investigated because of the claims about his "illegal activities in
the Southeast," and about his role as a village guards chief.

Saglar said that an independent investigation is needed also into
Tansu Ciller letting her husband, Ozer Ciller, in on state secrets and
involving him in many state activities despite the fact that he is not
a public official. He stressed that the commission should have filed a
complaint against Ozer Ciller with the relevant prosecutor's
office. He noted that Nuri Gundes, a former National Intelligence
Organization (MIT) official, had told the commission that during the
time he served as the chief adviser for security affairs at the Prime
Ministry, he could not gain access to then-Prime Minister Tansu
Ciller, and, as a result, he used to present to Ozer Ciller the
reports he drafted.

Another issue on which Saglar expressed reservations about the
commission report involved the Istanbul State Security Court
prosecutor's bid to have DYP deputies Mehmet Agar and Sedat Bucak
stripped of their legislative immunity so that criminal charges could
be brought against them. Saglar noted that the prosecutor's reports to
this effect have been kept at the Prime Ministry since end of January,
effectively blocking this process. He said, "This has been the latest
and most substantial example of the behind-the-scenes political
protection behind the Susurluk phenomenon. Looking at the positions of
Agar and Bucak, one observes that political protection has been at
force in all these incidents. For its own future the government is
resisting the legal requirement."

Saglar stressed that the commission should file a complaint with the
prosecutor's office against RP leader and Prime Minister Erbakan too
for keeping the reports against Agar and Bucak in his possession
without doing anything about them, and without giving any legal reason
for his failure to duly relay these to Parliament.

Saglar pointed out that when investigating the "gang relationships
within the state," one should start from "Gladio" the organization
said to have been established in NATO countries. Noting that in Turkey
these relationships have not been "solved," Saglar said, "In light of
the information presented to our commission, we have come to hear, to
our great surprise, that in the early 1990s, a decision had been made
to resort to illegal means in the fight against terrorism, which was
escalating in the Southeast and in the wake of the Newroz incidents."
Saglar stressed that after Ciller, prime minister at that time, said,
"We know about the businessmen supporting the PKK (outlawed Kurdistan
Workers' Party) and we will do what is required," came a series of
suspicious deaths.

Maintaining that the bloodshed in the Southeast was continuing due to
the gangs which have infiltrated the state, Saglar said, "The
instability in that region facilitates such activities as narcotics
and arms smuggling, robbery and abduction for ransom, that is, the
main sources of the hot money generated in the region." He noted that
due largely to the authority vacuum in the region, narcotics base
materials coming from Afghanistan and Pakistan can be brought into
Turkey and processed in the country. He claimed that there were
illicit narcotics labs in many parts of the region. As a result of
these activities, hot money amounting to some $ 50 billion is
circulating in Turkey, he stressed.


Prosecutor asks 22.5 years for HADEP Chairman in flag trial 

Turkish Daily News 

Ankara- The trial of 47 defendants charged with tearing down the
Turkish flag and putting up the poster of the Kurdistan Workers' Party
(PKK) leader at the pro-Kurdish People's Democracy Party (HADEP)
congress on June 23, 1996, continued on Friday in Ankara State
Security Court, the Anatolia news agency reported.

The two witnesses, heard in court, said the party administrators
immediately showed reactions to the incident and asked the Turkish
flag to be hung back in its place from the rostrum. Both of the
witnesses said people wearing masks tore down the flag and threw it on
the floor.

HADEP Chairman Murat Bozlak, one of the defendants, said HADEP was
being unfairly tried to be shown as a political branch of the PKK in
the prosecutor's indictment.

The prosecutor is asking for capital punishment for two of the
defendants, 22 years and 6 months of imprisonment for 23 of them
including Bozlak, 15 years of imprisonment for 21 defendants and three
years for one of the defendants.

By Jonathan Lyons 

Megaköy, Turkey (Reuter) - Turkey's "Saturday Mothers" rallied for
their 100th weekly vigil in a Megaköy plaza, their demand for an
accounting of missing loved ones a symbol of the country's seemingly
intractable record of human rights abuses.

About 200 people gathered Saturday in the European heart of Megaköy,
holding aloft black-and-white photographs of sons, daughters, fathers
and brothers last seen in the hands of the security forces.

They have met there every Saturday since May of 1995, and vow to carry
on until the disappearances stop and their relatives are accounted
for.

"We will come here each week until the missing our found," said the
father of Hasan Ocak, whose body was later found in a municipal
grave. We must find the bones of all the 'disappeared.'"

Turkey's Human Rights Association says it is investigating 792 reports
of disappearances from 1992 through 1996. Amnesty International says
its investigators have solid documentation of at least 135 cases.

However, experts say many 'missing' go unreported altogether in nine
restive eastern provinces, which remain under emergency rule
restrictions. Most are believed dead, either at the hands of the
security forces or right-wing death squads. Rights workers say they
have found some bodies that still bore the ink from police
fingerprinting.

The authorities report they have no records of most of those said to
be missing, suggesting many have joined outlawed guerrilla groups,
such as the Kurdistan Workers Party, or are already in prison. Poor
record-keeping complicates the search.

"Human dignity will defeat torture," chanted the Saturday Mothers. "If
you stay silent, they'll come for you next."

Busloads of police waited around a corner but did not
intervene. Plainclothes officers loitered on the edge of the crowd.

A special police "outreach" team set up to help families track down
their relatives sat by idly, mistrusted and spurned by the families as
another in a string of cosmetic measures on rights abuses.

"They are using up the gasoline and salaries that we pay for," said
one demonstrator, waving a hand at the police mini-bus. "They should
save our money and just answer our questions."

To date reforms designed to clean up Turkey's human rights record, a
sore spot in its relations with the West, have foundered amid what
critics say is lax enforcement.

The period of detention during which prisoners can be held
incommunicado -- a time, rights workers say, they are most vulnerable
to torture or extrajudicial killing -- has been reduced but not
eliminated.

Few police have ever been convicted in abuse cases, with those found
guilty often given light sentences.

"It's our opinion that (the reform) is more of a farce, a theater of
the rule of law," said Bernd Marschang, a German attorney from the
International Association of Democratic Lawyers on hand for the
rally. "There is no interest in punishing those responsible for
political killings," Marschang told Reuters.

Nonetheless, the Saturday Mothers and other Turkish rights activists
say they will return each weekend until they learn the truth, no
matter how grim.

"We will turn out until the government accepts that these people were
lost in custody," said Eren Keskin, a lawyer and deputy chair of the
Human Rights Association. "But we will never be able to find them
because all are gone," she said.


ANKARA, Turkey (Reuter) - A number of Kurdish and leftist militant
inmates are near death after more than a month on hunger strike in a
prison in the eastern Turkish city of Erzurum, officials of a Kurdish
party said Friday.

"The hunger strike has entered it 33rd day. It is a critical
situation," Abdulmelik Okyay, head of the pro-Kurdish People's
Democracy Party, told Reuters in Ankara.

Thirty-seven people, mostly members of the Kurdistan Workers Party
rebel group and left-wing urban guerrillas, are taking part in the
strike for better jail conditions.

"There could be deaths as of Monday or Tuesday because there are a few
people in a very bad way," Okyay said. Twelve leftist prisoners at
jails in western Turkey starved themselves to death last year to
demand an end to mistreatment and better access to family and lawyers.

ANKARA, April 11 (Reuter) - Turkey's Islamist Prime Minister Necmettin
Erbakan has approved the establishment of a human rights body to
monitor possible rights abuses, his office said on Friday.

The statement said this was an opportunity for public bodies,
institutions and officials ... "to apply legally appropriate human
rights practices, regularly observe them and make changes in
legislation if necessary."

Turkey's human rights record has attracted criticism internationally
and is partially responsible for a European Parliament block on
millions of dollars in aid to Ankara.

The planned rights body will consist of representatives from the
interior, foreign and justice ministries and will be chaired by the
undersecretary at the prime ministry, according to a declaration
signed by Erbakan on April 9.

The statement said the body would evaluate claims of human rights
abuses and decide upon the choice of action on matters brought up by
the United Nations, Council of Europe and other international
organisations. It said the council would also consider the
establishment of working groups on particular rights subjects.

Last month, Turkey passed a law cutting the maximum period a suspect
can be held without charges to 10 from 30 days in the nine emergency
rule provinces and to seven from 14 days in the rest of the
country. Ankara has promoted the law as evidence of its seriousness
about dealing with human rights problems.


ANKARA, April 11 (Reuter) - The leader of Turkey's only Kurdish
political party denied on Friday that it was involved in a flag
protest incident which has prompted charges of links to separatist
Kurdish rebels.

"The Turkish flag was lowered out of our control by masked persons who
did not belong to our party," Murat Bozlak, leader of the Peoples'
Democratic Party (HADEP), said at a hearing in the Ankara state
security court.

"The (Turkish) flag was seized, the incident was temporary," he added,
rejecting the prosecutor's accusations that his party has links to the
separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

Bozlak and 47 people, including some other party executives, were
charged after a HADEP congress in June when the Turkish flag was torn
down by youths and replaced with PKK banners.  Many of the accused,
charged in September, would face 22 years in jail under article 168 of
the Turkish Penal Code if found guilty.  The court rejected defence
lawyers' demand to release 16 of the accused, including Bozlak, and
adjourned the trial until next Monday. The lawyers said the final
verdict may be announced at Monday's hearing.

HADEP was formed in 1994 after another Kurdish party was closed by the
constitutional court for alleged separatism and 13 of its deputies
were expelled from parliament. Six Kurd MPs were sent to jail for
links to the PKK.

More than 22,000 people have died in a 12-year-old conflict between
Turkish troops and PKK rebels, fighting for autonomy or independence
in the mainly-Kurdish southeast.

Turkey-trial : Trial of police suspected of killing journalist postponed

            ANKARA, April 11 (AFP) - The trial of 48 Turkish policemen
            charged with the killing of a journalist was postponed
            until late May after the court failed to deal with the
            essence of the matter at a hearing Friday, correspondents
            said.

            Metin Goktepe, a 26-year-old journalist from the left-wing
            Istanbul daily Evrensel, died in police custody in
            Istanbul on January 8 last year. He was understood to have
            been beaten to death.

            Forty-eight policemen were later indicted, with 11 of them
            being charged with premeditated murder.

            But at Friday's hearing in the western town of Afyon, the
            prosecutor, judges and lawyers of Goktepe's family and the
            policemen only discussed technical matters for two hours,
            including whether the court room was suitable for the
            trial's continuation.

            As a result the court had no time to handle the essence of
            the case and the trial was postponed until May 28.

            The policemen who are not under arrest were not present at
            Friday's hearing, the third of its kind since November.

            "This was a useless day, practically nothing happened
            today as the heart of the matter was not discussed," Jean
            Chichizola, secretary general of Reporters Without
            Borders, told AFP by telephone after attending the
            hearing.

            Although Goktepe's death took place in Istanbul, the
            justice ministry ruled that the trial would be held in
            Afyon for security reasons.

            Goktepe's family has accused the justice ministry of
            protecting the accused policemen by deliberately causing
            delays in the trial process.

-- 
Press-Agency Ozgurluk: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk
Turkey Contra-Guerrilla-State: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk/contrind/
Searchable Database: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk/ml.html
KURTULUS HAFTALIK SIYASI GAZETE: http://www.kurtulus.com