Turkey: 2 items from AFP

[ozgurluk at xs4all.nl]

From: Press Agency Ozgurluk <ozgurluk at xs4all.nl>

by Kadri Gursel

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey, April 22 (AFP) - The Turkish army seems to have
gained the upper hand in its war against Kurdish terrorists, but local
civilians are paying a heavy price for the bitter conflict.

Hundreds of thousands of them expelled by the military from their
villages in southeast Anatolia are living in total misery in this
regional capital.

The population of the city has swelled from 380,000 in 1990 to 1.5
million today, and the infrastructure has proved completely inadequate
to cope with the influx.

Forced to abandon their livestock, their houses and their fields, the
villagers live in deplorable shanty-towns with no facilities, or
crammed into apartments in the poorer districts.

They suffer from unemployment, malnutrition and disease.

Turks were shocked earlier this year when they saw on television
dozens of women and children fighting in the mud for a few sacks of
flour, donated by a local businessmen and thrown from a truck.

Diyarbakir mayor Ahmet Belgin, estimating that half the population
lived below the poverty line, said the situation was a threat to
social order.

A third of the region's 9,000 villages and hamlets were emptied or
destroyed by the security forces in operations designed to deprive the
rebel Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) of support.

Villages that were spared were generally those that agreed to form
pro-government militia against the PKK, which is seeking a separatist
state in the majority Kurdish region.

Human rights groups heavily criticised the tactics of a dirty war
which has killed more than 23,000 civilians, soldiers and PKK
terrorists in 13 years.

Felemez, a father-of-eight from the province of Lice now living in a
Diyarbakir shanty-town divided by muddy streets and an open sewer, was
expelled from his village in 1995. The money he got from selling his
livestock before the village was destroyed by the army is now
exhausted and he has no job.

"I just don't know what to do," he said. "I cannot carry on."

Seyfettin Kizilkan, head of the chamber of Diyarbakir's doctors, said
diseases linked to poverty were rife among the displace people. Cases
of typhoid have been noted in 45 percent of families, while the rate
of cholera and dysentery is around 30 percent. Unemployment stands at
67 percent, and the average annual income per head is 204 dollars, an
opinion poll showed.

The army meanwhile claims to have the PKK under control, without
succeeding in ending the terrorism completely.

Necati Bilican, the overall coordinator of the struggle against the
rebellion, said the guerrillas had lost their strength and their
influence among the population, although they still had the support of
"a small minority."

They had been reduced to hiding in small groups in the woods and
mountains, launching lightning raids from time to time, and many had
moved across the border into Kurdish-populated northern Iraq, Bilican
said.

Kurdish officials and journalists based in Diyarbakir confirmed that
the army had the upper hand, adding that the population had become
tired of the war.

Abdullah Akin, head of the local branch of the pro-Kurd People's
Democracy Party, denied that the PKK had lost its strength, but he
admitted that most clashes nowadays were prompted by army operations
against the terrorists.

While such operations continue, the residents of Diyarbakir's slums
have little prospect of going back home.

A repopulation project launched a few months ago seems unrealistic,
with some 160 villages and hamlets reoccupied so far. "Security
considerations" means that this number will no more than double in the
near future, officials said.

Felemez said that in any case he could not return to his home without
state aid. "I have no livestock, no house and no electricity," he
said.

BERGAMA, Turkey (AP) - A provincial governor suspended operations at
Turkey's first gold mine Tuesday after thousands of villagers occupied
the site in an environmental protest.

Some 5,000 villagers ended their 10-hour occupation of the
French-based Eurogold mining company after Gov. Kutlu Aktas ordered
operations suspended for a month.

The villagers fear cyanide used in the mining process will pollute the
environment around Bergama, a western city with ancient ruins that
attracts thousands of tourists.

Bergama is 50 kilometers north of the Aegean port city of Izmir in a
region prone to earthquakes.

Aktas, governor of Izmir province, ordered Eurogold to suspend its
operations - now in the preliminary stages. Mining is to begin in
November, but Eurogold is currently constructing a waste pond.

Villagers fear cyanide could escape from the pond; Eurogold says they
are exaggerating the risks.

Aktas said he wanted time to relay local concerns to the central
government, which has already authorized the mining project. "The
governor's decision is an important step," Noyan Ozkan, a lawyer for
the villagers, said in a telephone interview. "But the struggle has
not ended yet."

Area residents, who have sued Eurogold in a bid to stop the mine, want
the government to call a nationwide referendum on the project.

-- 
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Turkey Contra-Guerrilla-State: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk/contrind/
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