From kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu  Wed Jan  1 03:44:29 1997
From: kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu (kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu)
Date: 01 Jan 1997 03:44:29
Subject: Ozgurluk News Agency Page
Message-ID: <bac1c849.Pine.NEB.3.95.961231224..@burn.ucsd.edu>

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at locust.cic.net>

Hello everybody,

New and under permanent construction: The homepage of the new press
agency Ozgurluk!

http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk/turkey/ozgurluk.html

Check it out!

It is to be expected that these pages will move again in a while but
this will be taken care of in a descent way.

Hasta!

-- 
Classwar in Turkey and Kurdistan: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk
Kurtulus Nachrichten Zentrale: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk/knz
Turkey Mailinglist Mirror: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk/ml.html
KURTULUS HAFTALIK SIYASI GAZETE: http://www.kurtulus.com




From kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu  Thu Jan  2 19:55:57 1997
From: kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu (kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu)
Date: 02 Jan 1997 19:55:57
Subject: Disappearances In Turkey - By Kathr
Message-ID: <bac1c849.Pine.NEB.3.95.970102145..@burn.ucsd.edu>

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at locust.cic.net>
Subject: Disappearances In Turkey - By Kathryn C. Porter

From: AKIN <akin at kurdish.org>

Disappearances; An Alarming Trend

On December 8, 1996, the representatives of the International League for
Human Rights, a Paris-based NGO, gave its annual award to the
representatives of what are in Turkey called "Saturday Mothers" a group of
women who have been protesting the disappearances of their loved ones since
May 27, 1995.  The ceremony was held in Berlin; two members of Saturday
Mothers were flown in from Istanbul.

A permanent fixture in Istanbul for a year and an half now, these mothers
gather in front of Galatasaray High School every Saturday holding the
pictures of their sons, husbands, and in some cases daughters with the
hopes that someone in authority will hear their agony and give them back
their loved ones.  Mostly Kurdish and recent refugees to this large
metropolis, they now also are joined by some Turkish mothers.

The award bestowed on them is named after a German journalist who died in a
Nazi concentration camp.  Carl von Ossietzsky, a pacifist in the course of
the First World War, fought against fascism in the Weimar years.  He was
arrested by the Gestapo when Hitler came to power in 1933.  Awarded the
1935 Nobel Peace prize in his absentia, he died on May 4, 1938.

Both Mr. Ossietzsky and the mothers were honored at Berlin's World Cultures
House.  Alisa Fuss, the President of International League for Human Rights,
spoke of the need to stand against state sponsored oppression in our times.
Human rights organizations undertook a week long program of  activities to
highlight the phenomena of disappearances in Turkey.

These mothers first became the subject of international news on June 8,
1996.  Again, they had gathered to pay homage to their loved ones at the
local high school.  This time their gathering coincided with the large NGO
conference, Habitat II, a United Nations meeting on human settlements in
Istanbul.

The members of the fledgling human rights organizations in Turkey urged the
participants of the conference and members of the world press who had
accompanied them to the city to pay a solidarity visit to Saturday Mothers.
The urging worked; a large group visited the site.

The mothers were elated that they had visitors who were willing to
recognize and respond to their grief.  Perhaps, they thought, these
representatives would do something to help them find their loved ones.
Instead, they were beaten for merely attracting attention to their pain.

The authorities did not want these women to blemish the image of Turkey as
a "well functioning democracy." The police were ordered to disperse the
crowd.  A melee erupted.  In the ensuing pandemonium, the women were
arrested. Some of those unwilling to cooperate were pulled by their hair to
police vans.

So, it was a fitting recognition of their grief and suffering that these
mothers received an award in honor of a German pacifist who met a violent
end in his life.  These women wish that their loved ones will be spared
such an end.  Nimet Tanrikulu, the guest mother who accepted the honor on
behalf of her sisters, had this to say through her Turkish translator:
"This award is a warm greeting across the borders."

She went on to say that 827 people have been reported missing after being
seized by the police in Turkey since 1990.  All were known as the opponents
of  the government.  Many were Kurds accused by the authorities as being
the sympathizers of Kurdish rebels, the PKK.  Amnesty International, on its
part, in its reports, attributes a few of the missing to the rebels as
well.

The saga of the Saturday Mothers still continues in front of Galatasaray
High School at Taksim in Istanbul.  Next Saturday, January 4, 1997, will
mark the 85th week of their weekly communion.  Observers of international
events note the eerie similarities between what is happening in Turkey and
what happened in Argentina, Chile, South Africa and Guatemala.  An act of
decompressing has started in these countries.  Will Turkey follow in their
footsteps?

Kathryn Cameron Porter

----
American Kurdish Information Network (AKIN)
2623 Connecticut Avenue NW #1
Washington, DC 20008-1522

Tel: (202) 483-6444
Fax: (202) 483-6476
E-mail: akin at kurdish.org
Home Page: http://www.kurdistan.org
----

The American Kurdish Information Network (AKIN) provides a public service
to foster Kurdish-American understanding and friendship



-----------------------------------------------------------------
Arm The Spirit is an autonomist/anti-imperialist information
collective based in Toronto, Canada. Our focus includes a wide 
variety of material, including political prisoners, national 
liberation struggles, armed communist resistance, anti-fascism, 
the fight against patriarchy, and more. We regularly publish our 
writings, research, and translation materials in our magazine and
bulletins called Arm The Spirit. For more information, contact:

Arm The Spirit
P.O. Box 6326, Stn. A
Toronto, Ontario
M5W 1P7 Canada

E-mail: ats at etext.org
WWW: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~ats
MRTA Solidarity Page: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~ats/mrta.htm
FTP: ftp.etext.org --> /pub/Politics/Arm.The.Spirit
ATS-L Archives: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~archive/ats-l
-----------------------------------------------------------------

 ++++ stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal ++++
   ++++ if you agree copy these lines to your sig ++++
     ++++ see http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/spg-l/sigaction.htm ++++



From kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu  Fri Jan  3 15:59:23 1997
From: kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu (kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu)
Date: 03 Jan 1997 15:59:23
Subject: Joint Statement From The DHKP And P
Message-ID: <bac1c849.Pine.NEB.3.95.970103105..@burn.ucsd.edu>

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at locust.cic.net>
Subject: Joint Statement From The DHKP And PKK

Our Call To Form A Revolutionary Front!

     We, the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) and the DHKP
(Revolutionary People's Liberation Party), would like to make the
following statement public:

     As the result of the discussions and talks which we have
been holding for some time now, once again our parties are
forming a united front, which will be active on all levels in the
interest of the liberation of our peoples.
     The preparation of such a revolutionary front is a
fundamentally significant expression of the process we are
currently engaged in, namely the cooperation and alliance of our
parties.
     The democratic and revolutionary struggle of our peoples and
the creation of a revolutionary front are important tasks. We are
well aware of how significant this task is, and that simply
stating "we have formed a front" is by no means enough.
     The DHKP and the PKK will undertake, within their
organizations, to foster unity among cadre and supporters at all
levels, and we call on all progressive and democratic forces to
join us in this task. The first step towards this is this
protocol, which we are now publishing.
     The enemy's strength lies in the disorganization and
disunity of the people's forces. With each passing day, our
responsibility to unify our peoples and organize the popular
forces becomes greater, and each day we are called upon to take
bigger steps.
     The enemy is able to continue its war against the people and
the revolutionary and patriotic forces, even at a time when the
system is on edge and its dirty business has been exposed, and
despite all of its internal struggles, the system is able to
sustain itself on the basis of its own interests. So shouldn't we
- revolutionary, patriotic, and democratic organizations and
institutions - unify ourselves as well?
     There is no reason whatsoever not to.
     One of the most important factors in this seems to be the
negative tradition of unity here.
     But our duty for our peoples and our striving towards
revolution and the seizure of power demands that we overcome this
negative tradition.
     While the discontent and anger among the people is growing
everywhere - except among a handful of collaborators, who are
enemies of the people, and the members of the bourgeoisie - as a
result of the cover which was given to the murderous, fascistic,
and destructive face of the regime, it is important for the
people's forces to become united, to organize their solidarity,
and to develop a common struggle. But this has not yet become
reality. That is the main reason why, despite the perfect
conditions, a massive popular movement has not yet arisen.
     Our call is directed at all popular forces: those who demand
democracy and independence, those who demand freedom and justice,
those who demand freedom of worship and freedom of the press,
those who demand the right of self-determination for all peoples,
those who demand a end to the unjust war, all those who wish to
live in a land where there is no torture, no executions, to
disappearances, no murders by unknown assailants, a country where
villages are not burned, a country where there are no persons
forced into exile, where there is no prostitution, drugs, or
mafia gangs. Our call goes out to all those who don't want our
country to be a satellite of imperialism and to all those who are
struggling against the exploitative and repressive regime.
     All of these demands can only be realized if all those who
are making the demands are organized into one unit.
     It is our duty and our responsibility to our peoples to
struggle against this regime which is waging a war on our
peoples. Our struggle must be on all levels, legal and illegal,
peaceful and armed, military, political, cultural, economic, and
democratic. We must develop all forms of solidarity and a common
struggle and take steps forward in each of these areas.
     Our parties, who recognize the importance of this, are
making this call as allies, and we call on everyone to develop a
revolutionary front and unity between our peoples.
     The face of our country is a bloody picture of brutality.
This picture is ripe with the necessary conditions for
revolution: The regime is at its end. It is trying to extend its
existence by oppressing the people and by increasing poverty and
degeneration. This has deepened the contradictions within the
regime.
     Without hesitation, we can say that the preconditions for
revolution in our country have been fulfilled. The problem is to
organize and unite the revolutionaries, the peoples, and the
progressive forces.
     We must be united in our opposition to fascism, which is
responsible for the brutality, for depriving the people of their
rights and freedom, and for terrorizing those who stand up and
demand rights and freedoms. This unity is necessary at all
levels. Only in this way can the nations, peoples, and
organizations fighting for the liberation of the peoples achieve
victory.
     All oppressed people, all nations and minorities, all
workers, and even individual persons, patriots, democrats, and
progressives - whom the regime seeks to oppress and destroy - all
those who are against this regime and who are against
imperialism, yet who cannot freely express their opinions, must
become united.
     These alliances must seek to serve all of these people.
Exclusionary tactics only broaden the front of the enemy.
     The freedom of our peoples will be gained by overthrowing
the system. But this system can only be destroyed if the people
struggle together. It is always the same ruling class which
exploits and blackmails both the Turkish and Kurdish peoples.
Both peoples have the same enemy. This enemy is the central
ruling authorities in Turkey and Kurdistan.
     Although the Turkish and Kurdish ruling classes have
propagated numerous campaigns of chauvinistic and nationalistic
hatred, they have never been able to turn the two peoples against
one another. They have sought to suppress the strengthening
national liberation struggle of the Kurdish people by means of
terror. When terror alone was not enough, they turned to
chauvinistic and nationalistic policies and attempts to turn the
Turkish and Kurdish peoples against one another and thereby
prevent the independence and freedom of the two peoples. But
despite all their attempts, they could not make enemies out of
the Turkish and Kurdish peoples.
     The future and destiny of both the Kurdish and the Turkish
people are mutually dependent upon one another.
     All forces which believe in revolution and socialism must
accept this fact. Now more than ever it is clear that no strategy
or tactic which ignores this fundamental truth has a chance of
reaching its goal.
     Because of this fact and necessity, the PKK and the DHKP see
the formation of a revolutionary front as a precursor to
achieving and building a free future for our peoples. We are
proud and happy to have taken this step of building an alliance.
     The task of building a revolutionary unity between our
peoples and their revolutionary, democratic, progressive, and
fighting forces can not be put off any longer.
     The unity of our peoples is a necessity. Without taking up
this great and historic responsibility, which necessity has
forced upon us, no unity can be achieved.
     We realize that an organization without answers to the
goals, hopes, and aspirations of the people has no chance of
survival. Recognizing that, an organization which does not
address the demands for organizing resulting from burning
necessity will be confronted with its own demise.
     Every step, every resulting organization must have answers
to the needs of the nation and the society. That is their very
reason for existence. Our peoples have sensed the desire for
joint organizing and common methods of struggle which have arisen
from national and social needs. Our people need a very broad
front of organization. Since even the smallest of demands have
been crushed with violence, the thoughts and languages of peoples
banned outright, people wallowing in torture, disappearing, being
executed, villages burned to the ground and forcibly evacuated,
since murders by unknown assailants are now part of daily life,
the fight against our common enemy must be carried out on the
basis of unity, solidarity, and a joint struggle. No one can flee
from this urgent and historic task or fail to address it.

As the PKK and the DHKP, we declare:

Our Goal Is A United Front Between Our Peoples!

     The main goal of this unity is to join together our peoples
in one front and to link up and develop the struggles of our
peoples on all levels. This alliance, along with the necessary
courage and commitment from us, will allow us to create a
revolutionary front between our peoples and all legal and illegal
groups, parties, and institutions who are suffering under this
system and who are struggling or who wish to struggle against
this system. We seeks to unite all of these people under one
roof.

Our Goal Is Common Resistance And A Joint Popular Power

     Every where we live, we are mercilessly attacked by the
enemy. The central authorities are seeking to eliminate our
struggle. The division of our peoples is a serious setback to our
struggle. For independence, democracy, and the right of
self-determination for all peoples, our peoples must fight the
enemy together and overthrow it. Only an independent, democratic
popular power can secure the rights for all nations, national
minorities, and classes of people.

Our Goal Is To Guarantee The Free Exercise Off All Rights For The
Kurdish People, Including The Right To Form An Independent State

     A joint struggle for the shared liberation of our peoples is
a means of increasing the brotherhood and unity of our peoples.
We accept, without preconditions, the right to self-determination
for the Kurdish people, including the right to form an
independent state.

One Of The Foundations Of Our Unity Is To Oppose Imperialism And
To Defend Our Independence

     Today, the imperialists are directly or indirectly
responsible for all the attacks being carried out against our
peoples. The continuing unjust war of the ruling classes in
Turkey against our peoples is being kept in motion with the
support of imperialism. Imperialism is primarily responsible for
the picture which exists in our country today. It is the enemy of
independence, democracy, and the peoples' right to
self-determination. It is clear that we cannot achieve these
goals without struggling against imperialism. We state that we
are against imperialism and for the independence of our lands and
for the defense of our peoples, that we wish to drive out and
remove all military installations in our country which belong to
the imperialist states, and that we will not grant the
imperialist powers the right or privilege to establish military
bases on our territory, and that all of the united patriotic
forces are prepared to enforce this. Our alliance views our
peoples as the true owners of all our natural resources and all
the fruits of our land, and our peoples and we see that an end to
exploitation and plunder is a precondition of independence.

Our Goal Is To Unite All Popular Forces

     Countless contradictions exist between the various classes
of peoples and the regime. We accept that one of the
fundamentals, from the perspective of power as our goal, is to
broaden the revolutionary front and to make more narrow the front
of the enemy, and on the basis of the contradictions we will
unite all nations and nationalities, all religions and faiths,
and all occupations and classes of people.
     We view our alliance as a democratic undertaking and we aim
to create the conditions in which all national minorities and
religious groups and freely express and develop their cultures
and faiths.

The Demand For Democracy And Independence Is The Actual And
Concrete Foundation Of The Unity Of The Popular Forces

     Bearing that in mind, we seek to undo all anti-democratic
practices and as well as the fascist Constitution of the
September 12th putsch, which ignores the will of the people, bans
forms of organizing, and robs the people of their right to free
speech and decision making. A new draft Constitution will be
prepared by the broadest of popular forces, with the goal being
democracy and independence. All anti-fascist and anti-imperialist
groups and all those organizations, parties, and persons on the
side of freedom and justice will be involved in this process.

Our Goal Is To Practice Unity In All Areas

     In light of the concrete tasks which lie ahead, we have
established the following goals, namely to organize the
democratic opposition of our peoples, to develop a Parliament
which represents all of the popular forces, to give our people
the right to speak and make decisions by means of this
Parliament, and to create the possibility of establishing popular
assemblies from every tiny settlement to the largest of the
metropoles so that people can put their destiny into their own
hands.
     Our alliance, which seeks to establish and extend a common
front between our peoples, requires both parties - in all legal
institutions, such as labor unions and various associations, in
which our parties are organized, in all democratic fields of
struggle among workers and bureaucrats, in the villages, in the
press, on the cultural front, among the students and youth, in
the prisons, in the factories and neighborhoods, and in countries
abroad - to wage a joint struggle against our common enemy, to
increase shared organizing efforts, and to give each other
assistance and develop mutual solidarity.
     All of this is necessary to build up the revolutionary
front, at the base, among the masses, step by step in the
struggle. This is how the revolutionary front of our peoples will
come about. Our alliance has decided to create unity in the
democratic struggle in all areas of life, and to take steps to
build up the democratic front. Now is the time to unite all
forces on the basis of this unity into the revolutionary front.
     We, the PKK and the DHKP, see this first step as a way to
begin bringing all revolutionary, democratic, and progressive
organizations and institutions together, on all levels and in
every form, without excluding any form of struggle or
organization, and we call on all peoples, organizations, and
institutions to join us in this and thereby make it stronger.

DHKP (Revolutionary People's Liberation Party)
PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party)

December 22, 1996

-- 
Classwar in Turkey and Kurdistan: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk
Kurtulus Nachrichten Zentrale: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk/knz
Turkey Mailinglist Mirror: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk/ml.html
KURTULUS HAFTALIK SIYASI GAZETE: http://www.kurtulus.com

(Translated from the German-language version into english by Arm The
Spirit)

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Arm The Spirit is an autonomist/anti-imperialist information
collective based in Toronto, Canada. Our focus includes a wide 
variety of material, including political prisoners, national 
liberation struggles, armed communist resistance, anti-fascism, 
the fight against patriarchy, and more. We regularly publish our 
writings, research, and translation materials in our magazine and
bulletins called Arm The Spirit. For more information, contact:

Arm The Spirit
P.O. Box 6326, Stn. A
Toronto, Ontario
M5W 1P7 Canada

E-mail: ats at etext.org
WWW: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~ats
MRTA Solidarity Page: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~ats/mrta.htm
FTP: ftp.etext.org --> /pub/Politics/Arm.The.Spirit
ATS-L Archives: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~archive/ats-l
-----------------------------------------------------------------

 ++++ stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal ++++
   ++++ if you agree copy these lines to your sig ++++
     ++++ see http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/spg-l/sigaction.htm ++++




From kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu  Mon Jan  6 00:14:46 1997
From: kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu (kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu)
Date: 06 Jan 1997 00:14:46
Subject: Thousands March To Protest Corrupti
Message-ID: <bac1c849.Pine.NEB.3.95.970105173..@burn.ucsd.edu>

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at locust.cic.net>
Subject: Thousands March To Protest Corruption In Turkey

Thousands march to protest corruption in Turkey
 January 5, 1997
 12.42 p.m. EST (1742 GMT)

 ANKARA, Turkey (AP) -- Nearly 100,000 workers marched in the Turkish
 capital Sunday to press for anti-corruption measures after reports
 linking mobsters, politicians, and police. 

 "We are here to show the gangs trying to overtake our government
 that we, the workers, are the real owners," said Bayram Meral, head of
 Turkey's largest confederation of labor unions, which organized the
 rally. 

 A November traffic accident involving a car carrying a legislator, a
 police chief, a wanted hitman and a beauty queen, drew allegations of
 state ties to the underworld. 

 The fugitive was Abdullah Catli, who allegedly provided a gun and
 false passport to Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turk who shot Pope John
 Paul II in 1981. 

 The scandal has already cost the jobs of an interior minister, several
 police chiefs and officers, who were accused of ties to Catli. 

 Workers marching Sunday also expressed their dissatisfaction with
 the 7-month-old Islamic-led government on many fronts, including
 soaring inflation and what they said were attempts to undermine
 secularism. 

 Police said they detained 26 people suspected of belonging to
 outlawed leftist groups. 

-- 
Classwar in Turkey and Kurdistan: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk
Kurtulus Nachrichten Zentrale: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk/knz
Turkey Mailinglist Mirror: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk/ml.html
KURTULUS HAFTALIK SIYASI GAZETE: http://www.kurtulus.com




From kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu  Tue Jan  7 04:43:42 1997
From: kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu (kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu)
Date: 07 Jan 1997 04:43:42
Subject: U.S. Official To Meet Kurdish Trait
Message-ID: <bac1c849.Pine.NEB.3.95.970106233..@burn.ucsd.edu>

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at locust.cic.net>
Subject: U.S. Official To Meet Kurdish Traitor Factions

U.S. Official To Meet Kurdish Factions 

05:18 p.m. Jan 06, 1997 EST 

WASHINGTON, Jan 6 (Reuter) - A senior U.S. diplomat will meet officials
of northern Iraq's two rival Kurdish factions in Washington this week in
a further attempt to reconcile them, the State Department said on
Monday. 

Spokesman Nicholas Burns said Assistant Secretary of State for Near
Eastern Affairs Robert Pelletreau would meet officials of the Kurdistan
Democratic Party (KDP) and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). 

Burns told reporters the meeting was part of "our ongoing attempt to
reconcile those two groups to each other and to provide for stability in
northern Iraq."

KDP leader Massoud Barzani and PUK leader Jalal Talabani would not
attend the mid-week meeting but would be represented by aides, he said. 

U.S. policy in Western-protected northern Iraq suffered a major setback
last August when the KDP invited assistance from the Baghdad government
to help it oust the PUK from the region's main administrative centre,
Arbil. 

The increased influence this gave Baghdad in the enclave ended the
Western military presence there and Washington also evacuated more than
6,000 local aid workers and Iraqi opposition figures. 

Fighting continued between the KDP and the PUK until Pelletreau
negotiated a ceasefire in October. 

He held further talks with the two groups in Ankara in November, but
they remain divided over oil trade revenues on the Turkish border and
the status of Arbil.


From kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu  Tue Jan  7 05:22:51 1997
From: kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu (kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu)
Date: 07 Jan 1997 05:22:51
Subject: Tupac Amaru's Web Page Is Hot Spot
Message-ID: <bac1c849.Pine.NEB.3.95.970107002..@burn.ucsd.edu>

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at locust.cic.net>
Subject: Tupac Amaru's Web Page Is Hot Spot On The Internet

Tupac Amaru's Web Page Is Hot Spot On The Internet

Radical Groups Spread The Word On-Line

By Wall Street Journal staff reporters Tom Vogel and Matt Moffett
in Lima, Peru, and Jed Sandberg in New York.

While leftist guerrillas holding scores of hostages at the
Japanese ambassador's residence in Peru find themselves hemmed in
by crack government troops, rebel sympathizers around the world
are carrying on the struggle in cyberspace.

Supporters of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement are filling
dozens of pages on the World Wide Web with rebel propaganda,
including the rebel group's official on-line newspaper, Voz
Rebelde, or Rebel Voice. The sympathizers' computer link, which
even includes detailed drawings of the rebels' plan of assault on
the Japanese ambassador's residence, has almost overnight become
a hot spot in cyberspace. Internet surfers have logged on more
than 16,000 times to one site set up by Tupac Amaru sympathizers
in the U.S. and Canada 10 days ago.

Tupac Amaru's efforts are the latest example of the burgeoning
use of the Internet to advance the political and ideological
agendas of radical organizations. For years, fringe groups have
turned to the global computer network to post information about
their organizations, recruit new members and organize rallies.
Groups of all political persuasions, from neo-Nazis to militant
environmentalists to the National Organization for the Reform of
Marijuana Laws, have taken to cyberspace to get their message out
to millions around the globe without fear of censorship.

Audience Of 70 Million

Among the most electronically sophisticated of these extremist
groups are Latin American guerrilla movements, which have enjoyed
something of a renaissance the past few years. Mexico's Zapatista
guerrillas have been rallying support on-line since shortly after
their 1994 uprising. Outlawed in Colombia, the Revolutionary
Armed Forces guerrilla group fields press queries through
electronic mail.

With the Internet, "you solve a logistical problem without having
to create a risk," says Mike Godwin, a lawyer for the Electronic
Frontier Foundation, a Washington-based group specializing in
Internet privacy and freedom-of-speech issues. "It's an obvious,
cost-effective way to put your material out there, not only to
communicate with the world but also to communicate your
legitimacy."

Tupac Amaru's Internet presence may be one of the most
comprehensive of any Latin American subversive group. Their Web
page for Rebel Voice includes copies of two communiques issued
since the crisis started. It has a conciliatory message composed
by one group of hostages freed by the guerrillas. Another
section, filled with articles from Peruvian and international
publications, boasts: "Tupac Amaru isn't afraid of either
criticism or the truth."

There are even Web sites dedicated to ancillary players in the
Tupac Amaru drama. One such site is operated by the family of
Lori Berenson, the American who was sentenced to life in prison
last year for her alleged involvement with Tupac Amaru. The Lori
Berenson Home Page continues the extensive documentation of her
legal appeals, the Peruvian justice system, as well as links to
other Web pages for human-rights groups.

Attempts To Censor Sites

Some Latin American governments have tried suppressing the
guerrillas in cyberspace. At the behest of Colombia's government,
Mexican authorities squashed a Web page run by the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia last fall through a server based in
Mexico. The group has continued communications through electronic
mail while it tries to set up a new site, perhaps through another
host in another country.

In the past, the Peruvian government has cracked down on
traditional forms of subversive propaganda, such as newspapers.
Peruvian security forces were widely thought to be behind the
fire bombing of the offices of El Diario, the now-defunct
newspaper of the Shining Path, a larger, more violent Peruvian
rebel group. But countering propaganda on the Internet is much
more complicated, authorities concede. "We can't very well cut
phone lines and confiscate computers," says one Peruvian
government official.

Tupac Amaru's cyberspace allies include some at the University of
California at San Diego. One site run by Tupac Amaru
sympathizers, the Solidarity Page, is located on that school's
computer network. Officials at the university were unaware of the
site and said that, because of the holiday break, they weren't
able to reach personnel knowledgeable about it. But Bruce Miller,
assistant university librarian, indicated that universities don't
traditionally object to the use of school computers for free
speech.

"Generally, among universities, there is a principle of academic
freedom, and a researcher writes and publishes whatever is
appropriate within his area of specialization," Mr. Miller said.
He added that he didn't "have a clue" about the Tupac Amaru
information.

Rebels On The Web:

Voz Rebelde Page:
http://www.cybercity.dk/users/ccc17427/

Solidarity Page:
http://burn.ucsd.edu/~ats/mrta.htm

(This article appeared on page A8 of The Wall Street Journal,
Monday, January 6, 1997)


----
Free All Political Prisoners!
MRTA Solidarity Page - http://burn.ucsd.edu/~ats/mrta.htm





From kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu  Wed Jan  8 08:26:54 1997
From: kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu (kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu)
Date: 08 Jan 1997 08:26:54
Subject: Turkish Police Charged For Prison R
Message-ID: <bac1c849.Pine.NEB.3.95.970108032..@burn.ucsd.edu>

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at locust.cic.net>
Subject: Turkish Police Charged For Prison Riot Deaths

Turkish Police Charged For Prison Riot Deaths 

06:44 a.m. Jan 07, 1997 EST 

ANKARA, Jan 7 (Reuter) - A Turkish court has charged 68 members of the
security forces with manslaughter in the beating deaths of 10 Kurdish
rebel prisoners during a jail riot last year, Justice Minister Sevket
Kazan said on Tuesday. 

"The files have reached the Diyarbakir chief prosecutor's office and
they have pressed charges. (The 68 defendants) will be tried for
manslaughter," Kazan was quoted by the state-run Anatolian news agency
as saying. 

Kazan did not say why the lesser charge of manslaughter, which carries a
jail sentence of between eight and 15 years, was brought. Capital
punishment or jail terms of up to 30 years can be passed for
first-degree murder. 

Turkey's parliamentary human rights commission last month called for the
trial of 30 soldiers and 38 policeman for their part in the bloody
duelling of September's riot in a high-security jail in the
southeastern city of Diyarbakir. 

The commission said security forces, armed with shields and batons, used
force to break up a protest about food supplies by jailed members of the
rebel Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). 

An autopsy report released last month gave the cause of death of most of
the 10 prisoners as "brain damage" but did not explain how the injuries
could have occurred. The bodies had bruising and wounds, the report
said. 

More than 21,000 people have been killed in the 12-year fight between
the Turkish army and the PKK, which is seeking autonomy or independence
in southeast Turkey.


From kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu  Wed Jan  8 13:10:20 1997
From: kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu (kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu)
Date: 08 Jan 1997 13:10:20
Subject: Interview With ARGK Commander Cemil
Message-ID: <bac1c849.Pine.NEB.3.95.970108075..@burn.ucsd.edu>

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at locust.cic.net>
Subject: Interview With ARGK Commander Cemil Bayik

"For A Kurd [Of Turkey] Turkish Democracy Means Terrorism"

An Interview With Cemil Bayik, An ARGK (People's Liberation Army
Of Kurdistan) Commander - Spring/Summer 1996

By Sheri Laizer

Cemil Bayik was born in Elazig, north Kurdistan in 1955, the
eldest of four children. A brilliant student, he was sent on a
state scholarship to study at Teacher Training College in Malatya
and then continued on to university in Ankara. It was there that
he became acquainted with a Turkish classmate, Kemal Pir, who
later introduced him to Abdullah Ocalan. The three became friends
whose political choices would change each other's lives for ever.
Like Ocalan, Bayik was also the victim of an assassination
attempt - just days before the latest Turkish elections on
December 24, 1995.

On Being A Kurd

     To become a Kurd is to throw yourself into the fire -
economically, mentally, physically. Once it was considered
shameful to be Kurdish; it meant you were not a full human being.
For example, as a younger man and writer, Yasar Kemal saw there
was no life, no future as a Kurd (Kemal achieved success and fame
in exchange for forsaking his identity), but no sooner had he
denounced the dirty war going on in Turkey than he lost
everything - his fame and his name. Compare this with the
predicament of any ordinary Kurd and ask what Turkish democracy
means to him. It is terrorism that is being practiced against
him.

The Role Of Women

     We say that it is the women who have allowed us to carry on
our struggle so long. Without them fighting at our side it would
have been much harder. It is also the women who are both the
source of our Kurdish-ness and of our humanity. Man have lost
half of both. Sometimes I say this at meetings and the women
applaud. But it is a fact. Because of this, they are successful.
Because they are closer to people, their humanity is stronger;
deriving from the lives they lead, quick to feel both pain and
compassion, quick to respond. Their sensitivity is the source of
life.

The Turkish Government's Assassination Campaign

     As part of their pre-election campaign, that department of
the regime responsible for organizing the special war against
Kurdistan also directed special operations against the PKK's
leadership. They publicized this during the campaign itself:
there were to be attempts at our abduction as well as our
assassination, whether they brought us in dead or alive. Their
strategies were centered around this at the election rallies, but
they were unsuccessful. The Special War Team (Ozel Savas Ekibi)
included Prime Minister Tansu Ciller, Unal Erkan (The former
Emergency Region "Super" Governor), Mehmet Agar (former police
chief), Necdet Menzir and their close allies. I was in Arbil when
the assassination attempt against me was made, just one week
before the elections. A package containing enough plastic
explosive to topple a multi-storey building, attached to a timing
device which had been concealed near the wall of the building in
which I was staying. When the bomb was discovered, there was only
one hour left to blast-off. In the recent assassination attempt
against Abdullah Ocalan in May of this year, we were aware of the
possibility but not the timing. The Turkish regime had published
a target list last year in which they deliberately mixed up the
upper levels of the PKK's leadership with the lower as a trick to
confuse people. They would list someone who held no position
whatsoever as one of the top level leaders.

Another Cyprus

     The Turkish Government is very active in south Kurdistan.
The census figures for Turkomans are deliberately boosted by the
Turkish Red Crescent which operates there. They take them to be
brain washed for special training in death squads (infazlar) in
order to carry out disruptive activities back in the south. The
situation is very dangerous. A number of prominent personnel from
MIT are logged in the south in the offices of the Red Crescent,
as well as enjoying the protection of the two main parties. These
include the General Staff (whose most effective and active
officer in planning is under special protection in Salahaddin).
These people even play a role on some local committees. After the
war between ourselves and the KDP in 1995, some of these agents
from MIT were allowed to interrogate our prisoners. If the local
parties allow the region to be turned into another Cyprus they'll
realize what they've done.

Israel-Turkey Agreement

     This new agreement is clearly extensive and has implications
for the entire Middle East as well as upon the Kurdish movement.
It is an attempt to create a new bloc in the region. The
influence extends far beyond the region itself and will also be
reflected in Europe. It would seem that France and Germany, among
other nations oppose the Turkey-Israel-USA bloc. It could also
pose a considerable problem for relations between USA and Europe.
Within the terms of this agreement, the PKK is designated as
target. Israeli experts are currently educating the Turks and
taking part in their operations. Israel is supplying landmines,
rolled barbed wire and trip wires which illuminate the border.
Mines are attached to the wires which light up illuminating the
area where tripped. There is a large force in position on the
hills above Isikveren where this work has been carried out
already. Turkey's invasion of south Kurdistan in March 1995 was
conducted with the support of Israeli officers. They played a
role in both the planning and technical aspects.
Intelligence-sharing is directed against both Iran and Syria.
This literally cuts Turkey off from its neighbors. Although the
Refah Party expressed discomfort it made no attempt to oppose the
pact. Syria, Egypt and Iraq also expressed approval and
threatened Turkey. Jordan, as an ally of America, was however
supportive. This line-up opens a wider front for our struggle
politically. Turkey is becoming isolated in the region and
opposed by its neighbors because it has targeted Iran, Iraq, and
Syria. The Kurdish movement can gain a breathing space from this,
as the Arab countries now view the Kurdish Question as a major
card. This is one of the most important development we have
witnessed in the region in recent times and may prompt big
changes to the status quo. The PKK's importance also clearly
emerges. The PKK takes on grater significance, whether as friend
or foe. New political opportunities are opening up for us. For
the first time, a number of Arab countries have joined the same
side as the Kurds, in opposition. The PKK can extend its front
and carry on its struggle more comfortably. The two blocs depend
on the PKK's position as a significant force in both north and
south Kurdistan.

A Lamentable Situation In South Kurdistan

     After the Gulf War, America's influence was clearly exposed
because the other Kurdish parties were not prepared for, nor
planned to be, in power, they lost their opportunities. We have
tried to make those same possibilities useful for the Kurdish
people. This was the main reason for the war between us, in 1992,
and again in 1995. It is a little different now as the influence
of the KDP and PUK is waning. But to this day the new party in
the south is not allowed the freedom to move. Democracy is in
crisis. The old parties attempts to remain in power in the same
old form has held the region back and inhibits the development of
South Kurdistan. These parties encourage internal collapse and
are in fact allowing the region to decline.

The PKK And The Development Of The South

     The lack of a political solution and of development makes
for an uncertain future for south Kurdistan. Neither can economic
development occur without a democratic federation. The other
problems cannot be resolved without resolving the status of south
Kurdistan in relation to Iraq. Although the National Congress
cannot solve everything, it could still have been an opening. The
KDP and PUK obstructed it as it didn't serve their interests
because the people would then be bound to the congress and not to
them. It would bring about an end to the power of the militias.
The PUK says, "Yes we are in favor of the Congress", but opposes
it in practice. The KDP says "its too early!" They were presented
with all the necessary opportunities to run south Kurdistan in
1991; everything they needed to run a government was there after
Saddam left the region. After all this time we are still trying
to revive the south Kurdistan parliament and get them back on
their feet. Either there will be a democratic federation or it
will be end of the road.

My Own Position

     I didn't go to the mountains for this, for so many villages
to be burnt down and people murdered, that the wishes of this or
that government could be implemented at the expense of our people
and our children. Since the end of 1975, I've been active whether
in the mountains or the cities. But it is worse now. We are here
to make sure that the events of 1975 in south Kurdistan are not
repeated, even if Saddam returns. The two local parties accused
us of having relations with Saddam which we didn't have. How dare
they criticize us when they were the ones who had such relations
with him. We didn't say anything. For example, Jalal Talabani
saying "Turkey is a democracy!" When in 1993, the Turks attacked
us with 50 jet fighters in Zele it was because a senior PUK
member had shown them exactly where we were. Their aim was to
wipe us out full-scale and leave no one alive.

Southern Kurds In The PKK

     There are more recruits now but the southern Kurds find the
discipline tough, or join because of the problem of hunger. Then
they take their guns away and sell them. It is the same with the
KDP and PUK. They join each other's parties taking their weapons
to sell.

POW's And Political Impasse

     The Red Cross came a number of times to see the prisoners we
had captured. The prisoners are now all staying in one place and
have become part of the way of war life there, dressed in the
same clothes as everyone else and treated as guests rather than
as prisoners. They willingly joined us. They don't want to go
back to Turkey, especially without some international guarantees.
Some want to go to Europe. They would have left before now had
there been any international progress or someone to take
responsibility for them. Others want to stay and fight on our
side anyhow. They are mostly Turkish by origin. The Turkish
government has not responded to their families' requests despite
the mediation of the Red Cross. They ignore them. Some letters
have been exchanged with their families. We invited their
families to come and visit them but the Turkish government
wouldn't allow them. Even so, some families came and saw them.
Some of these mothers of soldiers and guerrillas are also uniting
to work together for peace, but the Turkish government behaves
aggressively as usual. The CHP (People's Republican Party) also
reacted negatively. There us a new endeavor for families to work
together for peace. After some meetings with German delegations
we have considered a German proposal that Nelson Mandela mediate
between ourselves and government. We consider that this could be
positive.

Peace And The Cease-Fire

     At present the operations which the Turkish government is
carrying out in Kurdistan are intensely destructive despite the
unilateral cease-fire. We want to carry on with the cease-fire
but it is very difficult. It can not continue much longer. The
Turkish government says the PKK is finished and that we are
playing for time, whereas it is they who are doing it. The
international organizations know our position. The Kurdish people
and the outside world have responded positively to our initiative
and to the various international peace movements campaigning for
peace in Kurdistan. But these are still insufficient in response
to the massive use of force against us. Turkey has not changed at
all. Their operations continue daily. What clearly emerges is
that Turkey does not favor a political solution and relies solely
on a military solution. From our point of view, we have achieved
considerable success a proving we want peace. Conversely, the
militaristic face of Turkey has been exposed. Turkey advances
against us with the sole object of annihilation and we can but
defend ourselves against her. A massive devastation of the
natural environment is taking place. The army poisons the wells,
kills the crops, burns the forests-even the birds and animals are
slaughtered. How much longer are we to wait?

(Source: American Kurdish Information Network (AKIN)
<akin at kurdish.org>)

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Arm The Spirit is an autonomist/anti-imperialist information
collective based in Toronto, Canada. Our focus includes a wide 
variety of material, including political prisoners, national 
liberation struggles, armed communist resistance, anti-fascism, 
the fight against patriarchy, and more. We regularly publish our 
writings, research, and translation materials in our magazine and
bulletins called Arm The Spirit. For more information, contact:

Arm The Spirit
P.O. Box 6326, Stn. A
Toronto, Ontario
M5W 1P7 Canada

E-mail: ats at etext.org
WWW: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~ats
MRTA Solidarity Page: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~ats/mrta.htm
FTP: ftp.etext.org --> /pub/Politics/Arm.The.Spirit
ATS-L Archives: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~archive/ats-l
-----------------------------------------------------------------

 ++++ stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal ++++
   ++++ if you agree copy these lines to your sig ++++
     ++++ see http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/spg-l/sigaction.htm ++++



From kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu  Thu Jan  9 06:58:00 1997
From: kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu (kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu)
Date: 09 Jan 1997 06:58:00
Subject: Mourners Commemorate Killed Turkish
Message-ID: <bac1c849.Pine.NEB.3.95.970109015..@burn.ucsd.edu>

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at locust.cic.net>
Subject: Mourners Commemorate Killed Turkish Journalist

Mourners Commemorate Killed Turkish Journalist 

ISTANBUL, Jan 8 (Reuter) - Hundreds of mourners on Wednesday demanded
the conviction of Turkish policemen charged in the beating death of a
left-wing journalist in a case seen as a test of Ankara's response to
human rights pressure from the West. 

Nearly 1,000 friends, relatives and supporters carrying banners and
chanting, "Metin lives on with us" marched through heavy rain to the
graveside of reporter Metin Goktepe to mark the first anniversary of
his death in police custody. 

His mother, Fadime Goktepe, tearfully laid flowers on his grave,
decorated with carnations and candles, in a hillside cemetery in
Istanbul's rundown Atisalani district. 

People in the crowd raised their fists in the air and shouted "We are
all like Metin!"

"Metin Goktepe was beaten to death by the police on the personal orders
of the (Istanbul) governor," Levent Tuzel, the lawyer for Goktepe's
family, told a news conference at the start of the day's commemorative
events. 

The journalist's home, in a poor area of the city, was festooned with a
giant poster of 27-year-old  Goktepe, found beaten to death after being
detained while covering the funeral of leftist militants killed in
a prison riot. 

Forty-eight policemen have been charged in connection with Goktepe's
killing but their trial has dragged on, prompting human rights activists
to accuse officials of unwillingness to act against the powerful
security
forces. 

The trial has been postponed several times and transferred twice to
towns hundreds of miles (kilometres) away from Istanbul for what
officials say are security reasons. 

Protesters in Ankara left a black wreath on the steps of the justice
ministry that read: "It has been a year since Metin was murdered. We
want his killers arrested."

There has been only one hearing of the Goktepe trial, in a southern town
a day's drive away, and the policemen were not required to appear in
court. The defendants have not been held in detention. 

Western observers who attended the hearing in a tatty sports hall
described it as a "comedy of justice", and said they believed the
constant moving of the case was a deliberate ploy to ensure there were
no convictions. 

Turkey has often been the target of criticism from its Western allies
over its human rights record. Allegations of abuse include extrajudicial
killings, torture in police custody, restrictions on expression and
foul play in the army's fight with rebel Kurds in the southeast. 

The independent Human Rights Association said last month that around
3,500 people had died in "mystery killings" in the country since the mid
1980s. Most of those killed have been Kurdish or leftist activists. 

Then prime minister Tansu Ciller pledged widespread reform ahead of a
customs union deal with Europe, which went into effect in January last
year. But little progress has been made, and rights activists claim the
situation degenerated once customs union was in the bag. 

The six-month-old coalition of Ciller's conservative party and the
Islamists -- who campaigned on a platform of "Just Order" and equality
-- has also failed to make any impact. 

Last month police beat human rights activists who had travelled to the
southeastern town of Lice to investigate claims the military had
threatened to raze the town and kill its inhabitants if they refused to
join a state-paid militia. 

The militia is used in the fight with the rebel Kurdistan Workers Party
(PKK), which is seeking autonomy or independence in southeast Turkey.
More than 21,000 people have died in the 12-year-old insurgency.


From kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu  Fri Jan 10 13:44:33 1997
From: kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu (kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu)
Date: 10 Jan 1997 13:44:33
Subject: ATS Press Release To The Mainstream
Message-ID: <bac1c849.Pine.NEB.3.95.970110083..@burn.ucsd.edu>

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at locust.cic.net>
Subject: ATS Press Release To The Mainstream Media

Arm The Spirit Press Release - January 10, 1997

Comments Regarding Media Articles On The "MRTA Solidarity Page"
On The World Wide Web

On January 3, 1997, the Reuters News Agency distributed an
article entitled "Peruvian Rebels Wage Propaganda War On
Internet", which dealt with our organization's MRTA Solidarity
Page on the World Wide Web. This article was reprinted in many
newspapers and appeared on the WWW pages of media outlets such as
CNN and MSNBC. A few days later more articles appeared in various
newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal, Newsday, etc. There
are a few misconceptions and errors in the Reuters article, and
the others that followed, which we would like to clarify.

First of all, we are NOT the MRTA, and we do not in any way speak
on their behalf. We are a group of North American
anti-imperialists (not "anarchists" as we were incorrectly
indentified as being in the January 3rd Reuters article) who have
created a Web Site in solidarity with the MRTA and their current
struggle. The MRTA's own official web page is in Europe
(http://www.cybercity.dk/users/ccc17427/) and their European
Representatives can be reached directly via e-mail
(voz_rebelde at cl-hh.comlink.de).

We first learned of the MRTA raid on the Japanese ambassador's
residence in Lima from the mainstream media and as the situation
developed we realized the importance and magnitude of their
action. Considering the present state of world politics today,
and the usual tendency of the capitalist media to distort
liberation struggles and dismiss them as "terrorist", we felt it
would be important, as the standoff dragged on, to provide
information from the MRTA's point of view.

The day after the occupation of the Japanese ambassador's
residence, we began a search of the Internet for authentic
material from or about the MRTA. We were only able to locate the
MRTA's Spanish-language page "Voz Rebelde Internacional".
(Reuters incorrectly attributes that title to our page, which is
simply called "MRTA Solidarity Page".) We could not find any
sites providing information on the MRTA in English, so we
undertook the task - as a gesture of internationalist solidarity
- to create one ourselves. This page now receives thousands of
hits every day, and it has, as was our intent, become a useful
resource for activists, news agencies, and concerned individuals
around the globe.

Some of the articles written by Reuters, Newsday, and
others, seem to imply that we have a direct communications link
to the compound. This is utterly ridiculous. All of the
information displayed on our page was gathered from the public
domain and sources are cited. We are an information collective.
Our political work entails collecting, translating, and
disseminating information. Our MRTA Solidarity Page is nothing
more than this. Much of the information on the page is even from
mainstream sources. We have done this in order to give people
some idea of how the standoff is being reported in the United
States, Europe, and Japan. Implying that we have direct contact
with MRTA members in the ambassador's residence based on the
content of our WWW page is sloppy journalism. Reporters and
editors in the mainstream media should take more care in their
research and report the facts, not hype and conjecture.

What are some these facts? One is that millions of Peruvians live
in desperate poverty. Perhaps the diplomats and government
officials inside the residence, who have had their comfortable
lives interrupted, can get a glimpse of the daily reality of a
majority of the Peruvian people. And though these prisoners are
being detained against their will, their conditions are worlds
apart from the living tombs in which hundreds of political
prisoners - both guerrilla members as well as thousands of
falsely imprisoned Peruvians - are wasting away in.

Peru's prison conditions are among the worst in the world. After
being sentenced by masked, anonymous judges in "trials" lasting
only a few minutes, prisoners are kept in total isolation for
months at a time. They are kept in their tiny cells for more than
23 hours every day. One 30 minute visit from a family member each
month is all the contact with the outside world which they are
granted. Many prisoners are sick and scores have died from
tuberculosis, digestive disorders, and other maladies which are a
direct result of the inhumane conditions in which they are kept.
The Peruvian government and military has been cited by numerous
human rights organizations as being some of the worst violators of
human rights in this hemisphere. The world should take note of
the fact that despite all of this, the MRTA militants have not
taken any steps of retribution against the prisoners they are now
holding inside the residence - even though a number of the
Peruvian government officials are war criminals and torturers
guilty of a multitude of human rights violations.

As activists in North America, groups like ours have access
to technology and means of communications which many
organizations and movements in the "Third World" cannot access.
One of these is the Internet. We see it is as our responsibility
to make use of the resources at our disposal to help create
public awareness of issues such as the ones now on the table in
Peru. This has allowed us to disseminate the perspective of the
MRTA through statements, interviews, etc. across the globe. By
collecting and translating information on the MRTA and their
struggle, we feel we have provided a necessary balance to the
overabundance of disinformation provided by the other side,
namely the Fujimori regime and its imperialist backers (Japan,
the U.S., the E.U., etc.).

Of course, our political stance is not a neutral one. We support
the MRTA's call for the release of all MRTA political prisoners
in Peru and fundamental changes in Peru's economic system.

In closing, we would urge all those interested in the Lima
standoff to contact the MRTA's official representatives directly,
and to investigate the root causes of the conflict, namely the
brutal repression, widespread poverty and horrible prison
conditions which exist in Peru. We will continue to do our part
in this struggle by providing uncensored information in English
about the MRTA, their beliefs, and their demands.

Free All Political Prisoners!
Arm The Spirit
January 10, 1997

"Venceremos!"


Journalists with further questions should consult our web site for
more information: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~ats

ENDS

Below is the original Reuters article for your reference:
----

Peruvian Rebels Wage Propaganda War On Internet

January 3, 1997

WASHINGTON (Reuter) -- Marxist guerrillas holding 74 hostages in
the Japanese ambassador's residence in Peru are waging a
propaganda war on the World Wide Web.

Like many other radical or revolutionary groups in the developing
world, the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, or MRTA, has found
allies in cyberspace. 

On a Web page created the day after MRTA guerrillas stormed a
diplomatic reception December 17, supporters of the rebels post
communiques issued from inside the besieged mansion, giving
updates on the drama and even photographs. 

The electronic publication "Voz Rebelde" (Rebel Voice) includes
interviews with the group's leaders, messages of solidarity from
leftist groups around the world and links to other Web sites on
the MRTA in Japanese and Italian. 

Fujimori Is Target Of Broadsides

President Alberto Fujimori, who long boasted of having crushed
Peru's left-wing guerrillas, is the target of most of the MRTA's
propaganda broadsides.

"Fujimori's government proclaimed a great victory over the armed
movement," said Isaac Velazco, the MRTA's spokesman in Europe.
Velazco was interviewed by the German publication Junge Welt, and
it was then posted on the Internet.

"The government deceived itself and went as far as believing that
the guerrillas, particularly the MRTA, had been defeated,"
Velazco said. "We were never so weak as the government supposed." 

Adorned with the MRTA shield bearing the head of Tupac Amaru, the
Peruvian Indian who led an 18th-century uprising against Spanish
conquerors, "Rebel Voice" is one of many guerrilla spaces on the
Internet. 

Zapatista rebels, who launched an uprising in southern Mexico
three years ago, were among the first to stake out revolutionary
cyberspace, and became enthusiastic guerrilla hackers.

Shining Path Also On Internet

The Shining Path, a Maoist guerrilla group in Peru that has
killed thousands of people during a decade of armed violence, has
had its own Web page for six months, maintained by a support
group in Berkeley, California.

The MRTA page site was built by "Arm the Spirit," an anarchist
group based in Toronto that calls itself an "anti-imperialist
information collective."

The Internet even draws together groups separated by bitter
ideological differences. The Shining Path's page can be used to
access the Web page of its MRTA rival.

----



-----------------------------------------------------------------
Arm The Spirit is an autonomist/anti-imperialist information
collective based in Toronto, Canada. Our focus includes a wide 
variety of material, including political prisoners, national 
liberation struggles, armed communist resistance, anti-fascism, 
the fight against patriarchy, and more. We regularly publish our 
writings, research, and translation materials in our magazine and
bulletins called Arm The Spirit. For more information, contact:

Arm The Spirit
P.O. Box 6326, Stn. A
Toronto, Ontario
M5W 1P7 Canada

E-mail: ats at etext.org
WWW: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~ats
MRTA Solidarity Page: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~ats/mrta.htm
FTP: ftp.etext.org --> /pub/Politics/Arm.The.Spirit
ATS-L Archives: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~archive/ats-l
-----------------------------------------------------------------

 ++++ stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal ++++
   ++++ if you agree copy these lines to your sig ++++
     ++++ see http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/spg-l/sigaction.htm ++++



From kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu  Fri Jan 10 15:59:58 1997
From: kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu (kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu)
Date: 10 Jan 1997 15:59:58
Subject: Kurds Leave Atrush Camp, Head For P
Message-ID: <bac1c849.Pine.NEB.3.95.970110105..@burn.ucsd.edu>

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at locust.cic.net>
Subject: Kurds Leave Atrush Camp, Head For PKK Territory

Kurd Refugees Quit UN Camp For Rebel Areas

ANKARA, Jan 9 (Reuter) - More than 1,000 displaced 
Turkish Kurds have left a U.N. camp in northern Iraq 
and taken refuge among Kurdish rebels, a news
agency close to the guerrillas said on Thursday. 

"More than a thousand...have set off for areas under 
the control of (Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK) 
guerrillas," the Germany-based DEM news agency said in a 
statement. 

It did not say whether the refugees were headed for 
Turkey or other areas of northern Iraq where the rebels 
have bases. 

A senior Turkish security official on Thursday reiterated 
an invitation for the refugees to return to Turkey from 
the Atrush camp, adding that more than 100 families had 
already accepted the offer, state-run Anatolian news agency
reported. 

Atrush was set up in 1994 for Kurds fleeing into northern 
Iraq from southeast Turkey, where villagers are caught 
in the middle of fighting between Turkish troops and the PKK. 

More than 21,000 people have died in the 12-year-old conflict. 

The U.N. refugee agency UNHCR announced on December 21 
that it would phase out its operations at
Atrush in a month because of rebel activities in the camp. 

Necati Bilican, the governor of Turkey's emergency rule 
region, told Anatolian the camp would be empty within 
a month. He said 121 families have returned to Turkey 
from the camp, situated 60 km (38 miles) from the Turkish
border. It housed about 14,000 refugees at its peak. 

Ankara has made housing and aid arrangements for those 
returning to Turkey, the regional governor said, but 
added that nobody would be forced to return. 

UNHCR chief Sadako Ogata said in December the agency 
would assist those refugees who chose to stay in northern 
Iraq. 



From kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu  Sat Jan 11 19:13:42 1997
From: kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu (kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu)
Date: 11 Jan 1997 19:13:42
Subject: The Susuluk Accident In Turkey
Message-ID: <bac1c849.Pine.NEB.3.95.970111140..@burn.ucsd.edu>

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at locust.cic.net>

Turkey: The Susuluk Accident (November 1996)

November 16, 1996 Tuncer Gunay, investigative journalist states that
after the coup of 1980 Abdullah Catli, Huseyin Kocadag, Alaatin Cakici
and Oral Celik were given the task by the state to lead special units
in actions against the Armenian organisation ASALA. According to
Gunay, Catli murdered Agoc Agopyan. Furthermore Catli is said to have
taken Agca out of prison and he played an active role in the murders
of Behcet Canturk and Savas Buldan. Gunay states he knows Catli since
1979 and he met him last in August, 1996. Catli is said to have gone
abroad in 1980. In that period suddenly the attacks against ASALA
started. ASALA is said to have not possessed a mass base and
supposedly consisted of units of some 20 militants. During meetings of
the general staff with leaders of the Special Operation Units it was
discussed how ASALA could be destroyed. In that period there were only
2 organisations in Turkey who would have been capable of doing that:
the Turkish secret service MIT and the police. But it was impossible
for both to conduct actions abroad, considering the laws of that
time. In stead these two forces were to establish special units who
were going to do the job.  The legendary MIT deputy-chief Hiram Abas
was also involved in leading these units. The developments after the
murder of "Casino King" Luftu Topal show the relations between
State-Mafia-police even more clearly. According to the statements of
the policemen from the 3. Special Unit, who were interrogated, Topal
was also involved in drug trafficking. As the responsibles for the
murder, they named Tansu Ciller and Mehmet Agar. Mehmet Agar stated to
the chief-editor of the Harriet, Ertugrul Ozturk: "We've carried out
thousands of operations. But I can not tell more about this. The
result of our operations was peace for the people. It has been quiet
in Turkey for 3 years now. But from now on we can not take anymore
risks. In Cizre it was even impossible to walk peacefully across the
street. But now there is no difference anymore between the West and
the East." Sadik Avunduoglu, chairman of the parliamentary
investigation committee for murders by unknown perpetrators, stated
the wealth of Ciller was clear evidence for her involvement with the
Mafia.

As a result of the accident in Susurluk: - the MIT report and the
accusations it contains became public, - it became known that Interpol
had a international arrest warrant issued against Abdullah Catli, - it
was revealed that Catli received a diplomatic passport anyway, - it
becomes likely that Bucak, Catli and Kocadag met Agar in the Princess
Hotel, - it is thought that the nephew and the brother of the leader
of the Soylemez gang, Sene Soylemez, were murdered by a gang, led by
Bucak, - it became known that the murderer Haluk Kirici, wanted for
the massacre in Bahcelievler - 18 years ago, carried a card with him,
signed by Mehmet Agar, identifying him as a protege, - it was revealed
that an assault was planned against Abdullah Catli in 1996, involving
a policeman, - it was discovered that the members of the Special
Operation Teams, Tekdemir from Ankara and Mehmet Hadi Ozcan met Catli
in Catli's villa, - it became clear that Catli was taken out of a
Swiss prison, where he was jailed because of drug trafficking, most
likely by the CIA, - it became clear that Turgul Turkes, the deputy
chairman of the MHP (and of the leading drug traffickers) met Catli in
Nachavan Elcibey, - Omer Ay, one of the closest friends of Catli in
the `70s, stated that Catli co-operated with the state since the coup
of September 12, 1980, carrying out special operations, - it became
known that the gun which Catli had registered belonged to Nihat Yasak
who recently lost his life during a confrontation.

November 17, 1996 Demirel to the press: "Let's not burn down the whole
house because of one mouse.  Susurluk was a mistake by the state."
According to the putschist general Evren, they used the Grey Wolves
for special actions. The MIT even made use of enemies, and if this was
going to continue, soon nobody would want to work for the state.
Necdet Menzir is said to have phoned chief of police Mehmet Agar,
warning him not to send his people to Menzir's area.

Bodyguards of Sedat Bucak on trial for executions.  Ayhin Carkin and
Omer Kaplan, official bodyguards of Sedat Bucak, are being prosecuted
for murder in five different cases, killing 13 people died. One of the
cases is the attack against the coffee-shop Beyaz Saraz in Okmeydani,
August 13, 1993, in which 5 people were murdered. Witnesses testified
that Selma Catlak (Tan) was shot in front of their eyes, after she had
surrendered herself. In the 2 trials against both bodyguards, the
prosecutor demanded 48 imprisonment in total. The trials still
continue. The courts are still busy with the operation of January 27,
1992, in Mahmutbey in which Servet Sanim, Ismail Cengiz Gizenek and
Huseyin Yasar were murdered, the operation of March 24, 1992 in
Bahcelievler in which Ibrahim Yalcin Arikan, Avni Turan and Recia
Dincer were murdered (for the 2. Court for Capital Crime in Bakirkoy),
the attack on March 6, 1993 in Kartal in which Bedri Yagan, Gurcan
Ozgur, Menekse Meral and Rifat-Asiye Kasap were killed. The massacre
in Okmeydani, mentioned above, in which Selma Catlak, Mehmet Salgin,
Sabri Atilmis,Hakan Kasa and Nebi Akyurek were murdered, is now tried
by the 2. Court for Capital Crimes in Istanbul. The massacre of April
16-17 in Ciftehavuzlar in which Sabahat Karatas, Sinan Kukul, Taskin
Usta and Eda Yuksel were murdered, is tried by the Court for Capital
Crime in Kayseri.  The murder of Ibrahim Ilci is tried by the 4. Court
for Capital Crime in Istanbul. The murder of Nurten Demir and Ismail
Akarcesme is tried by the 1.  Court for Capital Crime in Beyoglu...

November 21, 1996 Sedat Bucak is on HBB Television. Bucak, claiming he
has 30.000 armed men under his command, says he loved Catli like a
brother. While he covers Catli with compliments, he warns Yilmaz to be
very careful. Mesut Yilmaz states there are even ministers who give
orders to the Mafia: "These people are used for jobs which do not
benefit the state, they benefit the interests of certain political
tendencies. They co-operate with criminals for the money." The papers
report that Agar had a secret meeting on September 2, 1993, with the
leaders of the Bucak clan. On this occasion, 1.500 Kalashnikovs were
given to the clan. The same offer was made to other clans, but most of
them declined. The members of the Bucak clan received the assurance
that there would be no unpleasant investigations into the affairs of
the clan members in case they agreed to fight against the PKK. Agar is
said to have ordered the murder of the Soylemez gang which is in
jail. For this reason, Sedat Peker, convicted for the possession of
drugs, murder and manhandling - and probably member of the Grey Wolves
-, went to the prison where he beats up the prison director, saying:
"Why have they not been killed yet?" Agar is said to have been Haluk
Kirici wedding's witness. When pictures of the wedding were published
in the papers, Agar claimed he did not have any idea who's wedding
witness he had been.

November 22, 1996
The office of Mesut Yilmaz is said to be bugged.

November 23, 1996 Catli's widow about the connections of her late
husband: "It's possible some state officials helped my husband. He did
work together with the state. But he didn't have a high opinion about
that. It was known who Catli was, and therefore they never disturbed
him. My husband did not escape from this prison in Switzerland, he was
liberated, as everybody knows." The CHP-chairman Deniz Baykal states:
"When the events in Susurluk are solved, Ugur Dundar (television
journalist) and Dogu Perincek (publisher of the paper Aydinlik) will
die.  Everybody will get his turn. The state kills people. We must get
rid of this burden, the state is executing its people. In Turkey,
people are blackmailed, kidnapped and murdered."

Ciller calls Bucak, who plays a major role in the triangle of
Mafia-state-police, a hero: "He fought against terror like a hero,
nobody should make the mistake to forget the past of these people."

November 25, 1996 The people are protesting. Several mass
organisations set up committees to show their reaction to the
public. The democratic mass organisations started to set up
associations against organised crime. Mehmet Gul, former chairman of
the Ulku Ocaklari (association of the Grey Wolves) in Istanbul, says
Catli escaped from prison in Switzerland in the time that ANAP was in
government and that Catli co-operated in the ANAP party
congress. Party chairman Yilmaz is said to have met Catli before the
congress. Yilmaz needed the support of the 300-500 fascist orientated
delegates to win the congress, and that is where Catli came in. Catli
primarily worked for Akbulut, but he also gave his support to
Yilmaz. A former member of parliament and former minister of Culture
in the period Catli was in a Swiss prison, says: "Everybody who has
been prime-minister or minister of the Interior in Turkey should know
Catli travelled abroad as an agent, and they do know." ANAP party
chairman Mesut Yilmaz is attacked by former fascists (at present Mafia
members) in the Hilton hotel in Budapest.

November 27, 1996 Police director Alaatin Yuksel reports
investigations in the last 6 months revealed the existence of several
gangs where some 30 policemen belonged to.  Yuksel says 350 policemen
were suspended in on e year and some 100 files still had to be
treated. It was again said that the death of Gendarmerie commander
Esref Bitlis had not been the result of an accident, but that his
plane had been sabotaged. It is said that Bitlis was murdered by a
uniformed gang in Yuksekova.  PKK-traitor Kahraman Bilgic is supposed
to belong to that gang as well.

These are no village guards, these are criminal gangs.  The village
guards present a disturbing picture. In 11 years 23.000 temporary
village guards were sacked, primarily because of murder, kidnapping,
drug trafficking and arms dealing. There are 76.906 village guards in
Turkey, 14.872 of them are volunteers. Ciller defends Catli: "Those
who fire bullets for this state, or who are shot, are remembered with
respect, they are honourable."

November 28, 1996 Refah-delegate Firat says: "Sedat Bicak has
connections with the contra-guerrilla, when the truth about the gangs
is revealed, the oppression in the East will also come to light. Sedat
Bucak and his clan are doing nothing that could be of benefit for
Turkey, they are only involved in organised crime and murder." In
1982, Abdullah Catli went the Latin America, together with the Italian
delle Chiaie, from there they went to Miami. The Turkish and the
Italian Gladio work together in the US.

A law to save Gladio.  The minister of Justice is preparing a new
law. According to this law, the number of crimes which are tried by
the State Security Court will be reduced.  Membership of a criminal
association (the Mafia) will in future no longer be a case for the
State Security Court ("to reduce the workload of the State Security
Court"), it will become a case for the normal courts.

A newspaper publishes the following article: "The victims of the gangs
were Kurds and Armenians. The first job a A. Catli and his gang, used
in Turkey for murder and trained by the Special Units, was the murder
of Vedat Aydin through torture. Later, at the funeral, these people
opened fire at the then party chairman Fehmi Isiklar and his
friends. A. Catli and his friends committed this murder, controlled by
state institutions. Musa Anter, a critical author, was murdered by
these gangs. Sedat Bucak sheltered these murderers. It would be naive
to think the governor of the region knew nothing about this." After
the office of the paper Ozgur Gundem was bombed, the police director
of Istanbul Menzir pointed at Agar as the one who gave the order, but
nothing was done. Thousands of people were murdered by these criminal
gangs. High-ranking officers, governors in this region and the former
National Police Director Agar knew about it. Almost all papers report
about these accusations.

November 30, 1996 The expert about the drug trade between Germany and
Turkey, Harald Luder, explains that morphine is processed to heroin in
laboratories in Istanbul.  Turkey has been transformed into one
gigantic drug laboratory. A parliamentary investigation commission
began looking into the connections between the Mafia, the police and
the state. But the democratic institutions have no hope the commission
will unearth the truth. The chairman of the European Islam Association
(ATIB), and accused of being an accessory in the plot against the
pope, Musa Serdar Celebi, states in the press: "The murders smell of
the state.  In Turkey, murders by unknown perpetrators are committed
by a dark force. You can call it Gladio or the Department for Special
Warfare if you like, but they really exist in Turkey. They accused the
Ulkucus (Grey Wolves) then, but in reality it was Gladio. Gladio is
walking around freely."

-- 
Classwar in Turkey and Kurdistan: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk
Kurtulus Nachrichten Zentrale: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk/knz
Turkey Mailinglist Mirror: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk/ml.html
KURTULUS HAFTALIK SIYASI GAZETE: http://www.kurtulus.com



-----------------------------------------------------------------
Arm The Spirit is an autonomist/anti-imperialist information
collective based in Toronto, Canada. Our focus includes a wide 
variety of material, including political prisoners, national 
liberation struggles, armed communist resistance, anti-fascism, 
the fight against patriarchy, and more. We regularly publish our 
writings, research, and translation materials in our magazine and
bulletins called Arm The Spirit. For more information, contact:

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P.O. Box 6326, Stn. A
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-----------------------------------------------------------------

 ++++ stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal ++++
   ++++ if you agree copy these lines to your sig ++++
     ++++ see http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/spg-l/sigaction.htm ++++



From kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu  Sun Jan 12 13:31:49 1997
From: kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu (kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu)
Date: 12 Jan 1997 13:31:49
Subject: No More Reuters News
Message-ID: <bac1c849.Pine.NEB.3.95.970111121..@burn.ucsd.edu>

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at locust.cic.net>

Dear ats-l and kurd-l subscribers,

It seems that our MRTA Solidarity Page has truly upset the powers that be,
even within the capitalist media establishment. The Reuters News Agenecy
recently threatened to sue both us as well as our Internet service providers
due to our "illegal use of Reuters material". But thanks to the great
support given to us by our friends at BURN!, this crisis has been averted.

But, there will no longer be any mainstream news from Reuters on our lists.

Revolutionary greetings,
Arm The Spirit


>From: Jim Hohman <jim.hohman at reuters.com>
>Date: Fri, 10 Jan 1997 16:08:20 -0400 (EDT)
>Subject: ILLEGAL USE OF REUTERS MATERIAL
>
>Dear Arm the Spirit,
>
>My name is Jim Hohman. I am vice president for sales at Reuters NewMedia, 
>responsible for the sale of Reuters content to traditional and online media in 
>the United States. I am writing to let you know you are stealing our content,
>in violation of copyright law. We will pursue legal action against your group 
>and your sponsors if you do not immediately (by that I mean today, Friday, 
>January 10, 1997) remove all Reuters content from any and all sites where it 
>may be currently viewable or archived.   




From kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu  Thu Jan 16 00:21:06 1997
From: kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu (kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu)
Date: 16 Jan 1997 00:21:06
Subject: DHKC Statement On The Situation In
Message-ID: <bac1c849.Pine.NEB.3.95.970115191..@burn.ucsd.edu>

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at locust.cic.net>
Subject: DHKC Statement On The Situation In Turkey

DHKC Statement On The Situation In Turkey

January 6, 1997

A HANDFUL OF TYRANTS ARE GUILTY TOWARDS OUR PEOPLE AND THE WORLD.
LET'S STOP THEM!

The world public opinion should know that the violations of human
rights and the laws in Turkey are much more widespread as they appear
to be. Now, after the recent events have reached this point, it would
be a grave mistake to view the human rights violations and crimes as
the acts of just a few criminals, because the Turkish state is
organised crime itself. What crashed into the lorry in Susurluk was a
criminal organisation. But the horrible facts, becoming public because
of this accident, are merely the tip of the iceberg. In other words:
just a part of the darkness became visible. It shows the part of
internal retaliation within the oligarchy which rules the land. But
behind this is a sheer, never-ending darkness which still has to be
revealed. Behind this is the darkness, created by the war against the
people. Those who watch the evidence, confessions, and witness accounts
which came forward up until now will see that those who wage a cruel war
against the people are the same who simultaneously carry out terror
operations abroad, ordered by the state, and deal in drugs. Nowadays,
members of this gang, the Prime Minister, the Minister of Foreign
Affairs, the Minister of Home Affairs, the Minister of Justice, etc.,
are on a diplomatic mission to the European Parliament and the
European Council.

SINCE 1980, TURKISH FASCISM HAS BEEN EXPORTING TERROR

A single name, Abdullah Catli, is sufficient to show how the
activities of the contra-guerrilla were spread to foreign
countries. Abdullah Catli is a fascist, wanted for the murder of 7
members of the Turkish Workers Party (TIP) and other terrorist acts,
among them the assault against the pope, and he has been officially on the
run since 1977. Catli was imprisoned in France and Switzerland for his
proven involvement in drug trafficking. Mehmet Eygur, deputy chief of
the secret service department of the MIT, and chief of the Anti-Terror
Department of that same organisation, said about Catli, who was in the
unlucky Mercedes together with True Path Party MP and Kurdish clan leader
Sedat Bucak and the chief of police Huseyin Kocadag: "The MIT used
Catli abroad since 1983. From 1994, he was run by the General Police
Directorate." Also Korku Eken, a retired lieutenant colonel, former
MIT agent, and counsellor of the former Minister of Home Affairs Mehmet
Agar, confirmed that Catli "was used in operations". He, furthermore,
stated that Catli was not only used after the coup of September 1980, but
that he had already been used before that period. With this, he hinted
at operations abroad, such as assaults and bomb attacks against Armenian,
Kurdish, and Turkish revolutionaries who lived abroad. The Minister of
Foreign Affairs and Deputy Prime Minister Tansu Ciller, during a
statement in parliament about this murderer who got killed in the
accident, said: "These people who shoot and get shot for the Fatherland are
honourable people." It is known that Catli was member of the group
which was sent to Azerbaijan to carry out a coup against Haydar
Aliev. After the putsch attempt failed, the group returned to
Turkey.

The dirty acts carried out by the contra-guerrilla in Cyprus are also
no longer a secret. Last year, Catli was sent to Cyprus with a group
of Turkish fascists to organize provocations and attacks at the
border, as people later learned from the media. Besides these armed
attacks, political party buildings and houses were bombed, and Kutlu Adali,
a journalist of the paper Yeni Duzen (New Order), who wrote critically
about the para-military gangs, was murdered. The public learnt that
Catli was the one who organized all these events. It became public
also that Catli frequently travelled to Cyprus, using a false passport
with the name of Mehmet Ozbay, and that his hotel expenses were paid by
OYAK, the military-owned conglomerate.  Catli was paid 65 billion TL
(approx. $600.000) by Tansu Ciller for his activities in Cyprus. As
documents revealed, Catli travelled to Cyprus together with the "King
of the Casino's" and Mafia-boss Omer Liftu Topal and both spent their
time the same hotel. Later, Omer Luftu Topal was killed by Catli and
members of the Special Units because of a "difference of opinion" with
the contra-guerrilla on orders of Mehmet Agar and Ibrahim Sahin,
deputy chief of the Special Units. It's obvious that these forces only
constitute a small part of the criminal network. Abroad, especially in
Europe, sabotage, provocations, assaults, and attacks against Turkish
and Kurdish opposition members are acts which are committed by
para-military organisations, of which the Grey Wolves are well-known,
covered up by diplomacy and economical relations.

THE MAFIA STATE CONTROLS THE DRUG TRADE

Those who really want to act against the drug trade have to fight
it. The drug trade in Turkey is organised by the Turkish
contra-guerrilla. Mrs. Dilek Ornek, arrested with a suitcase full of
money when she entered Turkey, stated she acted on orders of Ayhan
Akca, the bodyguard of the deputy chief of the Special Units, Ibrahim
Sahin. And the boss of Ibrahim Sahin is Mehmet Agar. Mehmet Agar and
Sedat Bucak are part of the same gang. The city of Lice is the centre
of the heroin trade in Turkey. Sedat Bucak, whose base of support is
Lice, is Number One in the drug market with his army of 10,000
armed village guards.  According to the former department chief of the
Special Operation Units, Korkot Eken, the drug trade in Turkey
annually amounts to $25 billion. Without doubt, this drug market
extends to Ciller, also mentioned in connection with the gang chiefs,
the generals, who share the war loot among each other, and the other
police chiefs. It is no coincidence that the names of policemen and
military officers make the headlines in this war about loot. For
example, it became known that the chief of the Yuksekova Gang, which
controls the drug trade, kidnappings, and murders on contract in the
region of Hakkari, is the gendarmerie commander of Hakkari. These
regional gangs constitute the lower level of the gang
hierarchy. Because of their internal confrontations, they became known
to the public as the Soylemezler Gang, the Kocaeli Gang, the Ankara
Gang, the Adana Gang, the Izmir Gang, and the Balikesir Gang.

THE TIES GO UP TO THE PRIME MINISTER, THE MINISTERS, THE NATIONAL
SECURITY COUNCIL (MGK), THE PRESIDENT, AND THE GENERALS

Mehmet Agar, whose name is mentioned in connection with all murder
cases, drug deals and other kinds of dirty business, chooses to
attack as a means of defence: "All these things make me untouchable."
And he threatens his rivals: "We will have to sit together to talk about
it, because we all know what has happened in the past..." The Minister
of Foreign Affairs and Deputy Prime Minister Tansu Ciller visited the
School of the Special Operation Units, the strike forces of the
contra-guerrilla, as an act of public support. These units have,
according to Mehmet Agar himself, carried out "thousands of
operations", that is to say: sabotage, torture, bombardments of
villages, and murders. Tansu Ciller's words to these units, in presence
of the press: "You do not receive your orders form those who attack
you, you receive them from the state. This country is in your hands. The
nation is very proud of you. (...) I respect your work. Keep your heads up
high. All those who are against you will have to fight hard, we can not
allow them to win. I will always be behind you." The Special Units of the
contra-guerrilla can rest assured that the whole state apparatus and all
their rivals are in the same quagmire. The same kind of crimes, and the same
kind of filth, already existed during the times of the governments of Mesut
Yilmaz, Deniz Baykal, and Bulent Ecevit. The junta chief of the September
coup in 1980, Kenan Evren, covered the filthy affairs of the state and he
emphatically rejected the disclosure of the latest events. But the
revelations, beginning with Susurluk, continue. Even summit meetings
or meetings of the National Security Council will not change this,
even if they wanted to. While the circles of those who are involved
become larger and larger, the balance of the crimes and the murders,
which makes the state "untouchable", becomes clearer and clearer.

THE DARKNESS OF THE "THOUSAND OPERATIONS" - THE MASSACRES, THE
DISAPPEARANCES, THE BURNING DOWN OF VILLAGES, AND THE MURDERS BY
UNKNOWN PERPETRATORS - MUST BE LIFTED

The evidence which became known and the discussions in the media are
only covering a small part of these "thousand operations". It has tried
to steer attention to the known cases to keep the rest in the dark. Among
the gangs who participate in all these crimes, a war is going on to secure
and expand territories. The revealed filth stems from these power struggles
within the oligarchy. Several circles of big capital, the military, the
police, the bureaucracy, and large landowners are forming an alliance to
deal with the complicated circumstances. They try to get rid of their
opponents by leaking information and evidence about the deeds of their
rivals to the press. But in the end they all still benefit from the war of
all forces of the contra-guerrilla against the people. The balance of
human rights violations of the first 11 months of 1996 is abundantly
clear:

- 2,395 people were shot during armed confrontations
- 59 people were executed by unknown perpetrators
- 191 people disappeared while in custody
- according to official figures, 309 people were tortured
- the actual number of tortured people is more than 17,600
- 95 bomb attacks carried out by the state
- 67 villages were forcibly evicted and burned down
- 170 people were arrested because they voiced their opinion
- 12 prisoners lost their lives in the Death Fast
- 5 prisoners set themselves on fire as a protest against the inhuman prison
conditions
- as a result of attacks by the police and the Gendarmerie against the
prison of Umraniye/Istanbul, 4 prisoners were murdered, and 11 more
prisoners were murdered in Diyarbakir; because they were refused medical
treatment, K. Kayapinar, U.D. Gonul, M. Kaya, and 3 other prisoners lost
their lives in
Turkish jails
- 108 buildings of associations and unions were raided by the police
- journalists were sentenced to 164 years in prison and fined 9 billion 401
million TL

WHAT DO WE WANT?

The source of the terror, which the Turkish and Kurdish people are
subjected to, is the system of the guilty and the criminals called
the "state". Nowadays, more and more concrete evidence is becoming
public. One has to monitor the crimes which are coming to light, the
violations of international and national law, and the human rights
violations. The Turkish oligarchy maintains power with an apparatus
that openly breaks its own national law. Against governments which
ignore their own laws and refuse to honour human rights, international
law and international treaties have to be applied. Otherwise, when the
Turkish state is allowed to act in the international arena officially
and undisturbed, the balance of the human rights violations in Turkey,
will deteriorate accordingly. The true face of the state, the face of the
Mafia, torture, trading drugs and women, and massacres (in short: the
contra-guerrilla) became visible for all. Susurluk has shown that the
oppressors of our people are the Special Units, the village guards, and the
traitors of the homeland. Everybody can see who governs our people and
how they are governed. The Turkish contra-guerrilla state is sinking
into the swamp which it has created itself with the war it wages
against the people with all its institutions and all it means. In this
swamp, human life, future, health, and the possessions of those who are
on the side of the people, those who love their land, are no longer
secure. Our people can no longer sleep quietly in their homes. It has
even become impossible to determine whether behind the uniform of a
policemen hides a gangster, a drug dealer, a trafficker in women, or a
certified murderer. The handful of collaborators and exploiters who
identify themselves with massacres, torture, immorality, intrigues, and
extortion, the ruling parties, cannot remove the filth of this
system. It's obvious that they are the representatives of the Mafia
state, the gang state.

Now, a broad opposition of large segments of the people is rising up. It
demands democracy and freedom. We, as the Revolutionary People's Liberation
Party and Front (DHKP-C), have the same demands. We support them, and we
fight for them.

THIS LAND DOES NOT BELONG TO THE GANGS, IT BELONGS TO US!

WE WANT AN INDEPENDENT AND DEMOCRATIC COUNTRY IN WHICH:

- we do not have to be afraid to go out on the streets
- we do not have to suffer torture, executions, disappearances, and murders
by unknown perpetrators
- people, looking for their rights, are no longer beaten, arbitrarily
arrested, and imprisoned
- all people and all nations can live together in fraternity, using their
languages and cultures in freedom, and where they can exercise their
religions
- the Kurdish people can exercise their right of self-determination
- there is no state of emergency, no martial law, no village guards, and no
traitors
- there is no forced migration, there is no burning of villages, no food
embargoes
- workers are not sacked and civil servants are not transferred
- there are no large landowners, who keep the peasants as slaves, no master
classes and exploiting merchants
- the producers receive a fair reward
- the roofs are not torn away above the heads of the poor inhabitants of the
slums, and where the people are not forced to live in slums
- where there is no prostitution, no drugs
- the Mafia can not roam around freely
- nature is not destroyed and where people do not become the victims of
"natural disasters"
- thoughts are not punished, democratic associations and parties are not banned
- people are not kept hostage in hospitals
- our pupils are not beaten
- the people receive scientific training at school
- national honour is not trampled upon
- the natural resources are not given away to the imperialists, a country
which is not ruled by the IMF and the Worldbank!

We demand that all traitors, kidnappers, and murderers be held
responsible!
We demand justice for our poverty and demolished houses!
We demand justice for the burned down villages and the people who were
forced to move!
We demand justice for the blood that has been spilt for decades!
We the demand the rights of nations!
We want freedom for all religions!
We demand freedom of ideas!
We want freedom for the prisoners who fought against oppression and
exploitation and who were incarcerated for that reason!

WE WANT FREEDOM, JUSTICE AND EQUAL RIGHTS!
WE DEMAND INDEPENDENCE AND DEMOCRACY!

WE MUST KNOW THAT NOBODY IS GOING TO GIVE US THESE RIGHTS JUST
LIKE THAT, AND THE GOVERNMENT OF THESE GANGS WILL DO ANYTHING TO
PREVENT THIS.

Those who have oppressed our people, tortured and massacred them, made
them "disappear", who burned down villages and abandoned the people in
poverty and disease, should be sentenced by a court which is established and
confirmed by all patriots, people, institutions, and forces which are on the
side of the people and this court should be open to all of them.

THE ONES THAT RULE ARE THE ONES WHO ARE GUILTY!
WE WANT THE GUILTY TO BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE!

Revolutionary People's Liberation Front
Devrimci Halk Kurtulus Cephesi
DHKC European Representative

-- 
Classwar in Turkey and Kurdistan: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk
Kurtulus Nachrichten Zentrale: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk/knz
Turkey Mailinglist Mirror: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk/ml.html
KURTULUS HAFTALIK SIYASI GAZETE: http://www.kurtulus.com


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Arm The Spirit is an autonomist/anti-imperialist information
collective based in Toronto, Canada. Our focus includes a wide 
variety of material, including political prisoners, national 
liberation struggles, armed communist resistance, anti-fascism, 
the fight against patriarchy, and more. We regularly publish our 
writings, research, and translation materials in our magazine and
bulletins called Arm The Spirit. For more information, contact:

Arm The Spirit
P.O. Box 6326, Stn. A
Toronto, Ontario
M5W 1P7 Canada

E-mail: ats at etext.org
WWW: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~ats
MRTA Solidarity Page: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~ats/mrta.htm
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 ++++ stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal ++++
   ++++ if you agree copy these lines to your sig ++++
     ++++ see http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/spg-l/sigaction.htm ++++




From kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu  Thu Jan 16 15:54:37 1997
From: kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu (kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu)
Date: 16 Jan 1997 15:54:37
Subject: Report On The Deaths Of Ten Kurdish
Message-ID: <bac1c849.Pine.NEB.3.95.970116104..@burn.ucsd.edu>

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at locust.cic.net>
Subject: Report On The Deaths Of Ten Kurdish Inmates In A Turkish Prison

An Investigative Report Of The Events In Diyarbakir Prison Where Ten Kurdish
Inmates Were Beaten To Death By Turkish Soldiers And Police

By members of the [Turkish] Prisons Oversight Committee

There are conflicting reports circulating in the air as to what really
happened on September 24, 1996 in the Diyarbakir prison. Officials
have offered one version. The press accounts have varied. Some of the
latter accounts have produced scenarios that accord with the government's
version of events. They support the government. Some say that there was
an uprising in the prison. Others claim that the inmates wanted to visit
the women's section of the jail. Still others point to the belligerence of the
inmates towards the guards as the principal cause of the disturbance. There
is still one other explanation which says that the authorities wanted to end
the impasse by a decision to transfer the rebellious inmates to another
prison and their disobedience to these orders brought about the altercation.
All these reports cite government officials as their sources. None make a
reference to the views of the inmates. None note that the attorneys for the
inmates were not allowed to visit their clients. None say that the families
of the prisoners were barred from visits to the jail. None state that
journalists were not even allowed to enter the prison.

As a result, the need for an investigative report became apparent. Those who
witnessed the events and those who lived through them needed to be
questioned to get to the facts of the event. The public needed to know the
truth. To that end, on behalf of Prisons Oversight Committee, we, the
attorneys Esber Yagmurdereli, Mustafa Ucdere, Eren Keskin, Gulizar Tuncer,
Mercan Polat and Dr. Umit Erkol, Yusuf Cetin and Fikriye Kilinc undertook a
trip to Diyarbakir on September 26, 1996. Ms. Tuncer and Mr. Polat were
representing Istanbul Human Rights Association (IHD). Dr. Erkol was
representing the Turkish Human Rights Foundation. Yusuf Cetin was the
representative of Cinema Employees Union. Ms. Kilinc was representing Grup
Yorum, a popular music band.

In the city, our group met with emergency security measures and our
work was hampered. We were not allowed to meet with the inmates. We met
with the members of the Diyarbakir Human Rights Association, members
of the Diyarbakir Bar Association, members of the Diyarbakir Democratic
Platform, members of the Diyarbakir Medical Doctors Association, and the
families of the inmates.

Five members of our group were attorneys and they wanted to meet
with some of the inmates. They were not successful. First we were told we
were not the attorneys on record for the inmates. Then we were told we
were not members of local bar association. Still later we were told it was
meal time. We insisted that these reasons did not bar us from visiting
the inmates. The response of two colonels in civilian clothes who were in
charge of the prison -  a disturbing fact in itself  -  left us wanting.
We then met with the prosecutor for the prison, Mehmet Tiftikci, and
informed him of our desire to meet with the inmates. He refused to
entertain our request and simply told us we were not the members of
Diyarbakir Bar Association and therefore could not meet with the inmates.

We wanted an investigation to be undertaken about these individuals. We did
not get very far. Our desire to meet with the District Attorney, despite an
appointment, did not materialize, even though we waited for more than an
hour at his office.

It is our shared opinion that the prison officials, the prison
prosecutor, and the District Attorney's office were trying to hide certain
facts from us and the public. In our opinion, their agitation over our
investigation was, in itself, quite telling.

As a matter of fact, we were proved correct when finally the members of
Diyarbakir Bar Association were permitted to visit the inmates. They brought
out stories that differed markedly from those of the Minister of Justice
[Sevket Kazan], the official pronouncements, and the press accounts. A
summary of their findings follows. It should also be noted that these
attorneys hold high offices in the Diyarbakir Bar Association.

On the day of the event, the inmates of halls 18 and 29 had their
visitation day with their families. The first group of inmates met with
their loved ones and returned to their cells without incident. Then the
second group of inmates were called. As they were walking to the visiting
room, some among the group stopped before hall 35 and asked the inmates
inside for a large container to carry their food to their cells. The
guards told the inmates not to take the containers. The arguments that
followed were settled between the inmate representatives and the guards.
Despite the resolution of the problem, the chief guard decided to lock the
inmates in the walk way. Thirty inmates with visitation rights and three
inmates who had visited the doctor and were on their way back to their
cells were trapped in the walk way. They were kept there for about five
hours.

During this period, the representatives of the inmates made attempts to
resolve the impasse with the authorities but reached no conclusions. They
asked that they be allowed to go back to their hall but made no headway.
They told the guards to press charges on the inmates that had asked for the
container and that did not alter the situation as well. As this unfolded,
some of the prison officials among them the guards began to verbally harass
the inmates. The soldiers began shouting slogans. At about 3:30 p.m. in the
afternoon the inmates were attacked on both entrances to the walk way. As
the beating went on, many realized that this beating may result in their death.

This information just cited was given to us by the members of the
Diyarbakir Bar Association members.

According to the Secretary of the Diyarbakir Chamber of Medicine,
Dr. Necdet Ipekyuz, the following events happened.

1. There were 33 victims. Ten were dead. Ten injured ones were
treated in Diyarbakir State Hospital and 13 injured inmates were
transferred to the Gaziantep State Hospital.

2. One of the inmates who had been critically injured died on the way
to Gaziantep State Hospital.

3. The first day doctors operated on three inmates. Now no one needs an
operation.

4. Three of the 10 inmates who were treated in Diyarbakir prison are
in critical condition.

5. None of the casualties were as a result of gun shots, cuts, or
penetrating wounds.

6. All of the killings were as a result of head injuries.

7. The autopsy reports plus our conversations with the doctors who
operated on the patients reveals that the victims had only head injuries.

8. Since the incident only 72 hours have passed, therefore we can not
now predict how many more of the injured may die.

9. On the day of the incident, two prison guards visited the hospital
at about 10:00 a.m. They had very light bruises. The doctors on duty did
not know why these guards were sent to the hospital for such minor things.

10. Just before the attack on the inmates, the hospital staff received
a call from the district attorney's office. The staff was told to be ready
for an emergency to receive a large group of injured inmates.

When the various pieces of this puzzle are put together, the testimony of
the inmates, the findings of the doctors, and the statements of the
officials who were trying to hide certain things, an awful picture emerges.
The evidence makes it clear that the attack was premeditated. And it is also
clear that the attackers wanted to kill some of the inmates. These victims,
defenseless, locked in a walkway with no where to go, were beaten on
mercilessly. The evidence also makes it clear that the statements of the
officials were trying to legitimize the attack.

Those Who Were killed

1. Mehmet Aslan
2. Cemal Cam
3. M.Sabri Gumus
4. Ahmet Celik
5. Hakki Tekin
6. Ridvan Bulut
7. Erkan Perisan
8. Nihat Cakmak
9. Edip Donekci
10. Kadir Demir

Those Who Were Critically Injured And Kept In Diyarbakir Prison

1. Ramazan Nazlier
2. Yasin Alevcan
3. Ramazan Korkar
4. Mehmet Batuye
5. M. Emin Izra
6. Iskan Osal
7. Kenan Acar
8. Abdullah Eflatun
9. Hakki Bozkus
10. Emin Mizrak
11. Bedri Bozkus

Those Who Were Transferred To Gaziantep

1. Ahmet Sever
2. Ali Yerme
3. Sehmus Kaya
4. Muharrem Deger
5. Yavuz Eken
6. Cemal Tas
7. Halil Suren
8. Ali Kaya
9. A. Vahap Uyanik
10. Muhlis Altun
11. Nusret Yelboga
12. Irfan Korkan
13. Mehmet Pehlivan

Our committee believes that the authorities in the government had
prior knowledge of this incident and in fact some of them took part in its
implementation. The hunger strikes of this past summer which lasted 69
days and culminated in the death of 12 inmates brought about some reforms,
but these reforms are now once again being violated by the government of
Turkey. We, therefore, ask the government officials to honor the pledges
they made to the inmates over the summer about the prison conditions. We
also ask the government officials to find those who were responsible for
these events. We ask that charges be brought against them. We believe the
Minister of Justice, Sevket Kazan, needs to resign immediately. His
constitutional immunity should be lifted. He should be prosecuted.

Mustafa Ucdere
Attorney

Esber Yagmurdereli
Attorney

Eren Keskin
Attorney

Gulizar Tuncer
Attorney

Mercan Polat
Attorney

Dr. Umit Erkol

Yusuf Cetin
The Human Rights Foundation of Turkey

Fikriye Kilinc
Grup Yorum

(Translated by the staff of the American Kurdish Information Network)

----
American Kurdish Information Network (AKIN)
2623 Connecticut Avenue NW #1
Washington, DC 20008-1522

Tel: (202) 483-6444
Fax: (202) 483-6476
E-mail: akin at kurdish.org
Home Page: http://www.kurdistan.org
----

The American Kurdish Information Network (AKIN) provides a public service
to foster Kurdish-American understanding and friendship


-----------------------------------------------------------------
Arm The Spirit is an autonomist/anti-imperialist information
collective based in Toronto, Canada. Our focus includes a wide 
variety of material, including political prisoners, national 
liberation struggles, armed communist resistance, anti-fascism, 
the fight against patriarchy, and more. We regularly publish our 
writings, research, and translation materials in our magazine and
bulletins called Arm The Spirit. For more information, contact:

Arm The Spirit
P.O. Box 6326, Stn. A
Toronto, Ontario
M5W 1P7 Canada

E-mail: ats at etext.org
WWW: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~ats
MRTA Solidarity Page: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~ats/mrta.htm
FTP: ftp.etext.org --> /pub/Politics/Arm.The.Spirit
ATS-L Archives: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~archive/ats-l
-----------------------------------------------------------------

 ++++ stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal ++++
   ++++ if you agree copy these lines to your sig ++++
     ++++ see http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/spg-l/sigaction.htm ++++




From dhkc at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl  Thu Jan 16 08:36:41 1997
From: dhkc at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl (dhkc at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl)
Date: 16 Jan 1997 08:36:41
Subject: Turkey a Contra-Guerrilla-State part IV
Message-ID: <bac1c849.m0vkuTB.000Fq6C@ozgurluk.xs4all.nl>

From: DHKC Informationbureau Amsterdam <tabe at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl>
Subject: Turkey a Contra-Guerrilla-State part IV

Part IV of a serie on the Turkish Contra-Guerrilla taken from the
Kurtulus.

THE CONTRA-GUERRILLA: HOW DO THEY OPERATE?

For securing the existence of the state, all means - massacres,
provocations, torture, and all kind of cruelties - are justified. This
view is the basis for the organisation and the manner of operation of
the contra-guerrilla, and this determines their degree of
unlawfulness. The contra-guerrilla should not be conceived as an
organisations which destroys and burns down everything, which commits
massacres and plans provocations and intrigues. Of course, in their
war against the people they'll make ample use of these methods, but
this is just one side of the medal in this war. The contra-guerrilla
should be conceived rather as one of the many organisations which were
set up for the war "against the people, it should be seen in the
context in the entirety of this war, waged on several levels by these
organisations to oppress the revolutionary struggle.  This was is a
total war, and with its economical, democratic, political,
ideological, psychological and military dimensions, it covers almost
all fronts.  With the growth of the revolutionary struggle, the
contra-guerrilla will apply new means, that's the rule of war. The
"Village Guards" (the para-military) - set up after 1985-, the
increasing number (since the beginning of the `90s) of executions,
mass murders, kidnappings, murders by "unknown perpetrators", the
institutionalisation of treason (deserters), the growing activities if
undercover agents and informants, the special teams, the legalisation
of the village guard system, the recruitment of special teams, the
state of emergency, and the anti-terror laws constituted, together
with all the other attacks, an increasing aggression by the
contra-guerrilla, opening the total war against the people.

EXECUTIONS, DISAPPEARANCES AND THE VICTIMS OF "UNKNOWN PERPETRATORS":

Executions, abductions, and murders by "unknown perpetrators" were
"practices" of the contras which intensified rapidly after 1991. This
development did not come out of the blue sky, of course. 1990 and 1991
were the years Devrimci Sol rose quickly. The strengthening of the
revolutionary opposition shocked the oligarchy on its foundations with
mass protests, dozens of armed actions and punishments. The Kurdish
national movement, which they said to "exterminate" "in spring" could
not be exterminated. Furthermore, 1990 and 1991 were the years of the
mass protests and the "Intifadah" in Kurdistan. The state, feeling
cornered by the expansion of the revolutionary movement and losing its
psychological superiority, initiated a new wave of aggression. The
chapter of disappearances started with Yusuf Eristi, taken into
"custody" on May 14, 1991, in Belgradkapi-Istanbul. Although witnesses
testified they saw Yusuf Eristi in the police station, the police
never acknowledged officially that he had been arrested. Since
then,. the reports about "disappearances" increased
continuously. Although the exact number is unknown, the balance of the
past three years shows more than 400 people who disappeared. Between
1980-1991, there were just 13 cases, in 1991 4 people disappeared, in
1992 there were 8, and in 1993, as far as can be established: 23. This
means that there wasn't a "systematic policy" of "disappearances" in
that period, whereas the number of "disappearances" grew explosively
since 1993 and disappearances, as a method of the contra-guerrilla,
became calculated state policy. In 1994, 24 people
disappeared. Furthermore, 229 people were "abducted" in Kurdistan and
they were never seen again. In 1995, 213 people disappeared in police
custody. The method is a CIA method. In earlier years they tested and
applied this method in other countries, such as: * Guatemala: since
1966, tens of thousands of people were abducted of killed by the
state. * Uruguay: the Junta, seizing power in June 1973, had thousands
of revolutionaries disappeared in the depths of the jungle and in the
sewers. * Chile: General Pinochet, who overthrew the government of
Allende, elected by the people in 1973, imprisoned thousands of
revolutionaries and opponents in stadiums and had them massacred. *
Argentina: The generals took power in !976. The junta arrested and
killed an estimated 30.000 people.  Thousands were thrown from planes
into the sea. * Peru: In the past 10 years, some 4.500 people
disappeared in a systematic policy.

Why did the Turkish state think it necessary to apply such a policy as
well?  There are many possible answers. The method of disappearances
was preferred to imprisonment and uncertain convictions, and as
phrased by the leader of the coup, general Evren: "Should we feed them
in stead of hanging them?" As a conclusion, this is certainly
accurate, but the goal is not merely the physical annihilation of the
opposition, they also want to intimidate the people. The "murders by
unknown perpetrators" are used as an element of psychological
warfare. Revolutionaries, democrats and patriots are taken away from
their houses, their work, or from the street, and their dead bodies
are thrown in ditches or river beds, usually after torture. The marks
of torture are usually clearly visible and the contra-guerrilla does
not make any effort to hide the bodies, they are rather put at places
where they are easily found. Not as if they wouldn't have time to
"hide" them. The state officials, time and time again, swear that the
police, the security organs, act against terror "within the framework
of the law", but the contra-guerrilla openly shows its impudence, they
will not be hindered by a law or a decree to massacre and torture.

The rise of the number of executions since 1991 is a result of this
policy. The murder of the Dev-Sol fighters Olcay Uzun and Faruk
Bayrakci on April 9, 1991 in Izmir, of Hatice Dilek and Ismail Oral on
May 19, 1991 in Bayrampasa-Istanbul, of Perihan Demirer on May 28,
1991 in Besiktas-Istanbul, and the massacre of 11 people (among them
10 Dev-Sol members) on June 12, 1991 in Balmumcu, Nisantasi, Dikilitas
and Yeni Levent-Istanbul, revealed that the state developed its policy
of executions into a systematic general policy. Since then, hundreds
of alleged revolutionaries and patriots were murdered all over Turkey
under the pretext of razzias against revolutionary cells. The aim was
to kill them, not to arrest them. Weapons were placed next to unarmed
people to suggest an armed confrontation. The executions went as far
as targeting democratically working sympathisers and supporters. One
of the most recent examples was the murder of Irfan Agdas, in the
middle of the street, who was distributing the Kurtulus weekly. In a
similar manner patriots in Kurdistan, teenagers, who distributed the
papers Ozgur Ulke and Ozgur Gundem, were murdered. The policy of
executions was not restricted to the major cities, it was a state
policy which covered the whole country. The state took a stand of
totally annihilating the guerrilla, of not taking them alive. Except
for those who surrendered themselves, they started the execute the
guerrillas who were captured alive after a fight, in stead of
arresting them. The executions and massacres were extended from the
guerrilla to the village population, suspected of logistically
supporting the guerrilla.  People who were taken from their villages,
or who were summoned to the police station, were never seen again or
their bodies, often tortured, were found next to the street. Looking
at the increasing number of executions and "murders by unknown
perpetrators", one recognises -besides the physical annihilation-,
that the state wants to unleash a wave of terror among the
opposition. It's their intention to intimidate, to subdue the
revolutionaries, to make them drop their goals, to show them what they
have to expect in case they continue their struggle for the people,
against the state. The massacres of the past years in the prisons of
Buca, Umraniye and Diyarbakir must be seen in this context as
well. The people were imprisoned already, but it's not the detention
that counts for the contra-guerrilla, it's the resistance. They want
to break the resistance which they can not suppress by attacks,
culminating into mass murders. This is a threat, not just to those in
prison, but also to those who continue the struggle on the
outside. The message from the contra-guerrilla to the revolutionaries
and patriots is this: "Don't belief you'll only have to come through
the torture alive, we can kill you in prison any time we want. In
here, there is no guarantee for your life." Like us, all
revolutionaries, democrats and patriots know about the high price for
revolutionary work in a fascist environment. taken into custody and
getting tortured, being arrested and thrown into jail, falling in the
struggle against the enemy. These are almost natural consequences of
the struggle and the confrontation with the enemy. As a revolutionary,
ones accepts this price and one takes a stand in this struggle. But
the contra-guerrilla wants to increase this price with its practice of
oppression, terror, massacres, disappearances, executions, "murders by
unknown perpetrators", and by demonstrating that they are not bound by
laws or judicial regulations, they want to erect a wall of fear in the
minds, not just of those who are directly active in the struggle, the
guerrilla and the militias, but rather in the minds of all, also those
who work in the democratic field, revolutionaries, patriots, democrats
and even normal workers, union members. Although it is impossible for
them to kill all revolutionaries, patriots, sympathisers and
supporters, they want to tell the people this: "To get killed,
kidnapped or beaten to death, it's not necessary to carry a weapon
yourself." To become a target for the contra-guerrilla, it's enough to
distribute a revolutionary paper of magazine, to be active in a legal
association, to show solidarity with the revolutionaries. Because it's
the law of the contra-guerrilla not to know any laws. They lost all
measure for guilt and punishment, for them an enemy is just an enemy,
no matter what he has done, no matter whether his deeds are punishable
be present law, or not. An enemy is an enemy, and all kinds of
punishment are justified. And thus: "Watch your steps, if you're a
revolutionary, then quit. If you're not, then keep away from them, do
not participate in acts against the state, otherwise it will end badly
for you." Well, now the questions arises whether the state succeeds
with this policy, or whether the true character of the state is
revealed even more forced because of this policy? The state applies
more modern methods and develops new strategies to get results at any
price, an act which also means the failure of its formerly practised
strategy to suppress the revolutionary struggle. It did not succeed to
suppress the revolutionary, democratic opposition with its policy of
extra-judicial executions, the murders by "unknown perpetrators" and
the disappearances. But claiming that this policy has had no effect at
all on the people would be extremely optimistic. It has played a
"constraining" role in certain places. It's obvious that the spread of
fear and the height of the "price" which has been paid, caused the
strengthening of the tendency of the petite-bourgeoisy, who did not
separate themselves totally from the system, even of the
petite-bourgeois revolutionary organisations, to return back to the
system. As often as the state denies this policy, it can not prevent
its revelation. To lengthen the "life" of the status quo, of having to
choose between preventing a revolution and risking to get exposed, it
chooses for the latter, of course. It's forced to take these risks,
because it does not have the capability and the reserves to invoke
democratic and economic reforms to fulfil the needs of the people. And
so it does not have an alternative but to suppress the opposition, the
people, by repression and terror.

IS IT POSSIBLE TO PREVENT THE MASSACRES, THE "DISAPPEARANCES", THE
MURDERS BY "UNKNOWN PERPETRATORS"?

One must realise that a total elimination of this policy of terror is
not possible. Not only in countries, like ours, were fascism controls
the state, but even in the bourgeois democracies in Europe a total
prevention of these practices has been impossible. They are
particularly applied against organisations which advocate the armed
revolutionary struggle.

The absolute elimination of this policy is only possible through a
revolution.  Only a revolution is capable to end this terror system of
the ruling classes.  But this doesn't mean that this state policy can
not be restrained, or even "paralysed". It is possible. The panacea is
constant engagement and insisting on the struggle. Because the goal of
all the aggressions by the enemy is to crush the struggle. Exposing
the state is important, of course, but in itself it will remain
useless. When we are capable to expand the struggle despite all the
offensives by the state, it's policy will collapse. We will confront
every attack by the enemy with resistance: when they attack our bases,
we will continue our tradition of surrendering never, when they attack
our democratic positions, we will not clear the way. We will stand up
even more for our "disappeared", the murdered comrades, the
revolutionaries, the democrats and the patriots. Despite all the
aggression, we will continue to organise the people, to connect it
with the struggle. With achieving this goal, the policy of the enemy
will collapse, they will only succeed in turning all their attempts
into a weapon which will turn against them.


APPENDIX

SOME OF THOSE WHO "DISAPPEARED":

HUSEYIN TORAMAN He left his house in Istanbul, Kocamustafa Pasa
Demirci Sokak nr. 8/1 on October 27, 1991 to do some shopping. In
front of the people, and his wife, he was dragged into ca car, license
plate 34 AT 256, and kidnapped by 3 plainclothes policemen. From
October 29, 1991, all questions to the authorities remained
unanswered. He was never seen again. 

ISMAIL HAKKI KOCAKAYA He was arrested on November 23, 1991, in
Diyarbakir when he was taking a walk with his family.  People in
civilian clothes, claiming to be policemen, dragged him into a car,
license plate 21 E7 916. His body was found on November 27 in the
region of Karadag. It was established that the car which was used in
the kidnapping was part of the car park of the police directorate of
Diyarbakir. 

AYHAN EFEOGLU He was arrested on October 6, 1992. Although those who
were arrested at the same time testified Ayhan Efeoglu was in police
custody, his arrest was not admitted by the Political Department of
the Police Directorate in Diyarbakir. 

AYSEL MALKAC As a fellow-worker and reporter of the paper Ozgur
Gundem, she went on her way on August 7, 1993, to do some
research. Since then she was not seen again. All questions remained
unanswered. The police denies to have her arrested until
today. 

LUTFIYA KACAR She is disappeared since October 5, 1994. Although
policemen of the Anti-Terror Department in Istanbul phoned the
Kurtulus office and said Lutfiya Kacar was in their hands and that
they were going to make her "disappear", all inquiries at the proper
authorities remained unanswered until today. 

BEHCET CANTURK A Kurdish businessman. Found dead on January 15, 1994,
in Spanca, a suburb of Sakaraya. 

KEREM GENCER Kerem Gencer, a clergy, was found dead on January 17,
1994, near the village Tatvan in the region of Kirkbudak.  

YUSUF ZIYA EKINCI A lawyer in Ankara and member of the Lawyers
Guild. He was also the lawyer of Behcet Canturk, a Kurdish businessman
who was also murdered.  Yusuf Ziya Ekinci's body was found near
Golbesi-Ankara. 

MEHMET SERIF AVSAR. A merchant. Found dead on May 7, 1994 in the
village of Tepebasi, near Diyarbakir.

IKRAM MIHYAS Unionist. His body was found on July 6, 1994, in the
village of Yaka, near Izmir.

THE IDEOLOGY OF THE CONTRA-GUERRILLA IS BEING FED WITH FASCISM.

"We should hang them, in stead of feeding them", said junta chief
Kenan Evren, having the revolutionaries in mind. In December the
general staff handed over its "Kurds report" to the government. This
report is based, from the beginning to the end, on racist
propositions. The report states that the Kurdish population is growing
very fast and that measures are needed against this. The entire
Kurdish population is seen as an enemy. If we look closely, we see the
MHP (Grey Wolves) behind the Mafia and the contra-guerrilla. The
assertion that there are more fascists like Catli who are being used
by the state is proofing to be more and more accurate. It is known
that the contra-chiefs Mehmet Agar, Kemal Yazicioglu and Ibrahin Sahin
belong to the MHP or have close ties with it.  The members of the
Special Units who've committed gruesome massacres like cutting of ears
and noses, chopping of heads, torturing and raping their victims, are
almost all MHP-fascists. Before September 12, 1980, the fascists
killed hundreds of revolutionaries and democrats. They attacked
workers on strike. Nowadays it are the fascists again who attack the
revolutionaries and democrats in the schools and universities. Is it
mere coincidence that all of them, from the contra-chiefs till the
school officials are racists? That they look at all those who have a
different opinion as the enemy? Of course not. The contra-guerrilla as
well is based on an ideology from which it draws its strength: the
ideology of fascism. It doesn't matter whether of not a
contra-guerrilla member belongs to the MHP, their ideology is always
the same.  Because they all serve the same goal. Under the pretext of
protecting the state, they use all means to defend the interests of
the oligarchy and the system, keeping the regime in power. So they
play the role they were given: continuing the gruesome policy of
fascism.

THE COERCION TO SPY.

In the regions and places where the revolutionary struggle is rather
intensive, spying has become one of the activities of the
contra-guerrilla. They try to expand their network of spies, anyway
they can. In this manner they try to gain control over these regions,
receiving immediate information about revolutionary activities. They
want to expand this possibility as far as possible. The spies are
usually selected by people who live or work in these areas. All
intelligence services, the contra-guerrilla, and even the policemen at
the police station try to set up a network of spies of their own. At
first, they try to find volunteers among the reactionaries, the state
loyalists, or the fascists. They prefer people who live among the
population and who quickly receive information about developments in
the region. Village chiefs and small merchants are intensively
canvassed. Those who are not prepared to spy voluntary, are promised
personal advantages. As a last resort, repression and threats are
applied. In the rural areas, especially the village chiefs are forced
to spy. These people receives telephones or even radio equipment. The
network, consisting of the village chief and other inhabitants, also
has a structure of its own. Networks of spies are also set up in state
institutions and factories. An example: to secure his livelihood, a
spy could be employed as a workers or a foreman in a factory or a
state institution, working at the same time as a police spy. Street
merchants are often used in this manner. It's difficult to unmask a
spy in case they do not have open contacts with the police. Like
anybody else, they do their job. In the end they only have to pick up
the phone. The best precautionary measure is to known the people in
our environment very well, watch them closely, something which is
necessary anyway when we work with the masses. But we should not see
all people, especially not all the right-wing people, as
spies. Furthermore, we should only carry out our activities overtly as
far as is needed, also in the legal work. We should not discuss
certain information in the presence of others and we should not
unnecessarily disclose connections.  Before every action and every
protest we have to realise ourselves that denunciations could occur
and appropriate security measures should be taken. Our people has
always objected every kind of spying and collaboration. It's no
coincidence that the police chiefs complain now and again about the
lack of support among the population.  This doesn't mean that the
police is not continuing its spy activities. In case a spy is
unmasked, he should be presented to the people and be punished, we can
not allow to legitimise spying.

-- 
Classwar in Turkey and Kurdistan: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk
Turkey Contra-Guerrilla-State:http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk/pub/contrind.html
Turkey Maillinglist Mirror: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk/ml.html
KURTULUS HAFTALIK SIYASI GAZETE: http://www.kurtulus.com



From sot at vd.antenna.nl  Fri Jan 17 17:43:05 1997
From: sot at vd.antenna.nl (sot at vd.antenna.nl)
Date: 17 Jan 1997 17:43:05
Subject: Conference_Stop_the_War_in_Turkey
Message-ID: <gate.ia7o1D1w165w@vd.antenna.nl>

The Campaign "Stop the war in Turkey" organises a conference on 

Saturday, 15 February 1997

How to achieve a breakthrough in the impasse in the war between
the Turkish state and the Kurdish opposition?

Place: Amsterdam, Netherlands.
At: Arena, 's Gravezandestraat 51.
Time: 10.00 - 17.00 hrs.
Entry fee: NLG 10,-
Languages: Dutch, Turkish (German and English at request)

If you want to attend the conference, please let us know. Below
you'll find our address and telephone number, but you can also
send an e-mail message.

Directions
Coming from Amsterdam, Central Station, take the metro to station
'Weesperplein'. From there take tram 6 or 10 (eastward) to the
next stop in or near 's Gravezandestraat; or walk through
Sarphatistraat and turn second street right for 's Gravezande-
straat, cross bridge and street, and find Arena on the left side.


Programme of the conference

1. An obstructed dialogue

What has been the recent development in the Kurdish movement and
how did the Turkish government react?

a.   Martin van Bruinessen, professor of Kurdish Studies at the 
    Free University of Berlin, will explain the developments   
  inside the Kurdish movement in Turkey at the end of the '80s 
    and the beginning of the 90's.

b.   Y?cel Yesilg?z will show how the Turkish state has reacted 
    to the growth of the Kurdish movement. He will go into the 
    reasons why the Turkish state has chosen a 'military     
solution'. Y?cel Yesilg?z is a criminologist at the
     University of Utrecht.


2. Towards a political solution?

Are there any possibilities for a political solution? If so, what
are its chances? Three speakers from Turkey will give their views
from their own background and tell what can be expected of others.

a.   A speaker from the HADEP party will give an overview of   
  attempts by the Kurdish movement to promote a political     
solution to stop the war. His or her speech will focus on     
future possibilities and the role third parties (for     
instance, NGO's, states) can play.

b.   A member of the Human Rights Association and the Institute 
    for social research will give a perspective how social and 
    political organisations in Turkey can contribute to a     
political solution.

c.   Aziz K?zgin, a Turkish war resister from Germany, will    
 discuss the movement of conscientious objectors in Turkey     
and Germany.


3. The European role.
What role can European policies play to further a political
solution?

a. A Netherlans politician will elaborate on the role the
Netherlands (presently acting chair of the European Union) can
play.

b. Claudia Roth, member of the European parliament, will go into
the role the European Union should play to promote the necessary
conditions that can lead to a political solution. What measures
should be taken to press for change in Turkey? Claudia Roth is
actively involved in the questions of Turkey's development, she
has an office in Istanbul.


Activities of the campaign group

The campaign 'Stop the war in Turkey' does research into various
aspects of the Turkish-Kurdish conflict and supports groups in
Turkey that actively and non-violently resist the war.
The campaign advocates a weapons embargo of Turkey as long as it
refuses a peaceful and political solution of the conflict. It sees
such a political solution based on the recognition of the Kurdish
right to self-determination in and outside Turkey.

In 1993 one its founders (AMOK) published 'The Turkey connection:
military build-up of a new regional power'(translated and
published by Pax Christi International), which deals with the
Turkish army and its western supporters, the development of the
arms industry in Turkey and the trade in weapons with Turkey. This
book was updated and translated in German in 1996, as: 'T?rkei-
Connection: wie die T?rkei international aufger?stet wird',
published by Komzi Verlag, Idstein.
Another publication came out in 1996 and is in English, called
'War in Turkey: military aspects, the Kurdish question, and the
conscientious objectors' movement'. It is also available on our
homepage.
We also do research into the consequences of the war, such as
forced migration.

Next to publications which aim to inform the general public the
campaign also aims to promote objection to military service in
Turkey. It supports the war resisters in Turkey itself and aims
to stimulate a war resisters movement of Turks and Kurds in the
Netherlands. For this purpose we have published 'Askere Gitme'
(Do not join the army) in Turkish and Dutch. A guide for objectors
to military service in Turkey.

Stop the War in Turkey
P.O.Box 94802
1090 GV Amsterdam, Netherlands
E-mail: sot at vd.antenna.nl
http://huizen.dds.nl/~veedee/sot/index.html
Tel. +31-20-6680999; Fax +31-20-6652422

From sot at vd.antenna.nl  Fri Jan 17 18:02:45 1997
From: sot at vd.antenna.nl (sot at vd.antenna.nl)
Date: 17 Jan 1997 18:02:45
Subject: American_missiles_for_Turkey
Message-ID: <gate.a87o1D1w165w@vd.antenna.nl>

                 P R E S S  S T A T E M E N T



      Rocket crisis Turkey and Greece threatens to go on


The Turkish paper Milliyet, January 16, claims, according to
American and Turkish diplomatic sources, that the USA will deliver
ATMC missiles to Turkey next month. Objections in Congress raised
in 1995 to the sale are supposed to have been withdrawn. 

ATMC missiles are tactical land-to-land missiles that operate
within a range of 30 to 165 kilometers. They are ballistic
missiles with warheads containing clusterbombs. These clusterbombs
can have a devastating effect on 150 km2. Being ballistic missiles
they are virtually unstoppable. As such they would be a dangerous
step in the weapons race in the region. For this reason and
because of their possible use against the Kurds (which is not
likely) American senators have raised objections to the sale. The
sale would also undermine the American objective to limit the
spread of missile technology and clusterbombs. At present it would
be a new step in the arms race between Greece and Turkey.

Why are the Americans deciding to deliver these systems now that
there is a crisis concerning the sale of Russian S 300 anti-
aircraft missiles to Greek-Cyprus going on? Is this an anti-
Russian move of the Americans? Do they want to commit Turkey to
themselves which is looking for other friends and other arms
providers, like Russia or China?

The United States secured a deferrence of the deployment of these
Russian weapons on Cyprus for 16 months. In effect they helped
the Turks with this solution.

In the beginning of this week it became known that Turkey was
going to buy HAWK air defense missile systems from Belgium and
the Netherlands. 
According to the American journal 'Defence News'of Januari 6-12,
Turkey was going to sign a deal with the French firm Thomson-CSF
to buy 18 units of the Improved HAWK air defense systems coming
the inventories of Belgium and the Netherlands.
At the present Turkey has no such air defense system and the HAWK
would mean an improvement of its defense comparable to the Russian
S 300 missiles.

When the campaign-group 'Stop the War in Turkey' and the Belgian
member of parliament Lode Vanoost publicized this information
Belgium and the Netherlands decided to defer the sale. 
Dutch minister of Foreign Affairs, Hans van Mierlo, stated that
the Netherlands wants to sell the HAWKS at some time, but not at
present because of the crisis situation regarding the sale of
Russian missiles to Greek-Cyprus.
If the Netherlands and Belgium decide to sell the HAWKS they will
have to have permission of the Americans, because these missiles
are American weapons.

According to Belgian laws and Dutch export guidelines weapons
sales to countries in crisis areas or to those that violate human
rights are forbidden. These designations are applicable to Turkey.
Between Turkey and Greece there is a weapons race going on.
According to SIPRI Turkey and Greece during 1990-1994 held third
and fourth place on the list of arms importers in the world.
The USA is the major arms provider of both Turkey and Greece. It
seems to favor Turkey because of its strategic importance.

Amsterdam, January 17, 1997.

Stop the War in Turkey
P.O.Box 94802
1090 GV Amsterdam, Netherlands
E-mail: sot at vd.antenna.nl
http://huizen.dds.nl/~veedee/sot/index.html
Tel. +31-20-6680999; Fax +31-20-6652422

From kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu  Mon Jan 20 06:48:18 1997
From: kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu (kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu)
Date: 20 Jan 1997 06:48:18
Subject: Kurdish Activist Arrested...For Mis
Message-ID: <bac1c849.Pine.NEB.3.95.970120014..@burn.ucsd.edu>

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at locust.cic.net>
Subject: Kurdish Activist Arrested...For Missing Student Loan Payment?

American Kurdish Information Network (AKIN)
January 19, 1997
Press Release #18
Telephone: (202) 483-6444

KURDISH ACTIVIST ARRESTED ... FOR MISSING STUDENT LOAN PAYMENT?

WASHINGTON, Jan. 18, 1997 - The Reuter News Service reported yesterday that
Kani Xulam, a Kurdish human rights advocate, was arrested yesterday in
Washington, D.C. on charges of illegally obtaining $ 13,000 of student
loans.  However, perhaps sensing the lack of sensationalism, the report
recounted Mr. Xulam's previous day in court regarding charges of falsifying
information on a U.S. passport application.

In response to his recent detention, Mr. Xulam has issued the following
statement to correct the misleading information given by the Reuter report:
"I have cooperated fully with the authorities in every instance and find
the continuos harassment by the United States State Department unjustified.
The county of Santa Barbara [which issued the warrant] had no problem with
my having received the loans.  They only took action when I failed to make
several payments.  However, had they checked with my attorney, they would
have found that these matters were being taken care of.  I believe that my
arrest had more to do with the fact that a Federal Court recommended that I
not be extradited to Turkey and possibly with the recent visit to
Washington by a high ranking Turkish trade representative."

In fact, the judge presiding over the previous charge, brought by the
United States at the behest of the Republic of Turkey, ruled that the court
recommends that Mr. Xulam not be deported, that he be placed on three years
probation and that he serve 400 hours community service by continuing his
activities at the American Kurdish Information Network (AKIN).  AKIN is a
non-profit human rights organization promoting the human rights of the
Kurds all over the globe.  Despite Reuter's allusions to the contrary,
neither Mr. Xulam nor AKIN is affiliated with terrorist organizations, a
fact to which more than twenty members of Congress signed in a recent
letter to the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

As for the recent charges, Mr. Xulam acknowledges that he has been
delinquent in repaying state and federal grants and throws himself on the
mercy of the court.


----
American Kurdish Information Network (AKIN)
2623 Connecticut Avenue NW #1
Washington, DC 20008-1522

Tel: (202) 483-6444
Fax: (202) 483-6476
E-mail: akin at kurdish.org
Home Page: http://www.kurdistan.org
----

The American Kurdish Information Network (AKIN) provides a public service
to foster Kurdish-American understanding and friendship




From kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu  Mon Jan 20 19:13:53 1997
From: kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu (kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu)
Date: 20 Jan 1997 19:13:53
Subject: Why Is The State Department Harassi
Message-ID: <bac1c849.Pine.NEB.3.95.970120141..@burn.ucsd.edu>

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at locust.cic.net>
Subject: Why Is The State Department Harassing Kani Xulam?

Why Is The State Department Harassing Me?

By Kani Xulam, American Kurdish Information Network (AKIN)
January 19, 1997

On Friday, January 17, 1997, I was working in our office at the
American Kurdish Information Network. Two special agents of Office of
Diplomatic Security at the State Department came to our door. They greeted
me courteously and told me they wanted to return me my personal telephone
notebook in the afternoon and if I would be around to accept it in person.
I checked my calendar and answered them in the affirmative. They had taken
my telephone book along with my files and computers when they had raided
our office on April 12, 1996. I was happy to finally get my personal
telephone book back which also had a sentimental value for me. Or was I?

At about 2 p.m., they showed up. This time there were four of
them. Surely, it did not take four people to deliver a telephone book, the
size of a human hand. These people were after something. The State
Department security officer who had served me my papers in the earlier raid
spoke first. He said, "Kani, we have bad news for you, and also some good
news." I snapped back, "What is the bad news?" He said, "We are going to
arrest you again." I asked why. He said, "You have not paid your student
loans and there was an arrest warrant for you and we are here to execute
it." The "good news" turned out to be they had brought along my telephone
book.

I said, I needed to make a telephone call to my attorney. They
said, "No."  I said why did you have to wait for Friday afternoon when we
both knew, from my previous experience, the judges leave their chambers at
about 3 p.m. which means I may have to spend the long weekend in the
District of Columbia jail. (I had made plans to see President Clinton take
the oath of office.) He said, "He was just following orders and his
superior had ordered him to 'get' me and he was doing his job." He added,
he could not technically arrest me but that he had gone to the district
police and found someone there to accompany him to do the arresting!

I told the officer I wanted to see the arrest warrant. They said
the arrest warrant was in the car outside. They also told me I was
prolonging the arrest and that we better rush for we might catch a judge at
his chambers before three o'clock. They had a point. But the point also
broke my resistance to belabor on their cavalier attitude. I left all my
valuables in the office and accompanied them to the car handcuffed behind
my back. Once in the car, I saw my pictures on the front seat with a
computer print out, apparently my arrest warrant from the county of Santa
Barbara, California. Because the neighbours were watching me, for a second
time in less than a year, to be taken away, I forgot to ask if I could see my
arrest warrant.

The ride from my office to the lower Wisconsin Avenue police station took a
detour. First the officer said he made the wrong turn and we ended up going
all the way to the Friendship Heights metro station. We then made a u turn
and instead of just driving straight south on Wisconsin Avenue, we took
another detour and ended up going away from Wisconsin Avenue. Then, when I
questioned where we were going, we made another u-turn to get back on the
Wisconsin Avenue. By then, it was already three o'clock. The judges at the
Superior Court were certainly gone. I was to spend the night and possibly
the weekend in jail. Which is, I felt, what the superior at the Department
of State had wanted all along.

I did spend the night in a cell just a iron bench with 9 other accused who
were rather amused by my presence in their company. I did not look rough,
nor did I use profanities in my speech. They treated me all right.

The next day, we were driven to the Superior Court of District of
Columbia to face a judge. My attorney, Dan Alcorn, had heard the news and
showed up to represent me. He said, the Court of Appeals last year had
ruled that I should not be kept in custody while awaiting trial on the
earlier charge and he wanted to see me released on my own recognizance.
The government's attorney wanted a bond in the amount of $ 5,000.00. The
judge ruled that I be released without a bond. I was set free; boy, was I
happy! At the time, more than anything else, I wanted to share a part of
my happiness with the State Department person who wanted to see me locked
up in the Washington jail.

Long-time Washington observers and friends of Kurds were surprised
that the agents of Office of Diplomatic Security would go out of their way
to participate in arresting me on a charge totally outside of State
Department jurisdiction. They asked me if a Turkish official had recently
visited Washington. I told them the State Minister Fehim Adak had just
concluded his trip here to put a finishing touch on the controversial
Turkish government's decision to buy natural gas from Iran. Some suggested
that I was perhaps harassed to please the minister and his entourage.

I sure am grateful that there is an independent judiciary in this
country to protect my civil liberties as a human being, since I don't have a
country to speak for me and protect me. I have paid part of my student
loan already and was working with my attorney to devise an installment plan
through which I would pay back the rest of my debt to the society. If the
speculations that I may have been sacrificed to please a foreign guest are
accurate, I resent them unequivocally. The higher up at the State
Department who ordered his underlings to help the officers of the District
of Columbia police arrest me may not like our work of airing the dirty
laundry of the Turkish government. The short way to stop that is not to
harass us but to tell the Turks to stop their genocide of the Kurds. This
is the mark of statesmanship; what was done to me at AKIN was far from that
and unbecoming of a great country.


----
American Kurdish Information Network (AKIN)
2623 Connecticut Avenue NW #1
Washington, DC 20008-1522

Tel: (202) 483-6444
Fax: (202) 483-6476
E-mail: akin at kurdish.org
Home Page: http://www.kurdistan.org
----

The American Kurdish Information Network (AKIN) provides a public service
to foster Kurdish-American understanding and friendship


-----------------------------------------------------------------
Arm The Spirit is an autonomist/anti-imperialist information
collective based in Toronto, Canada. Our focus includes a wide 
variety of material, including political prisoners, national 
liberation struggles, armed communist resistance, anti-fascism, 
the fight against patriarchy, and more. We regularly publish our 
writings, research, and translation materials in our magazine and
bulletins called Arm The Spirit. For more information, contact:

Arm The Spirit
P.O. Box 6326, Stn. A
Toronto, Ontario
M5W 1P7 Canada

E-mail: ats at etext.org
WWW: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~ats
MRTA Solidarity Page: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~ats/mrta.htm
FTP: ftp.etext.org --> /pub/Politics/Arm.The.Spirit
ATS-L Archives: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~archive/ats-l
-----------------------------------------------------------------

 ++++ stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal ++++
   ++++ if you agree copy these lines to your sig ++++
     ++++ see http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/spg-l/sigaction.htm ++++



From dhkc at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl  Wed Jan 22 15:16:56 1997
From: dhkc at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl (dhkc at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl)
Date: 22 Jan 1997 15:16:56
Subject: Turkey: REPORT HUMAN RIGHTS ASSOCIATION 1996
Message-ID: <bac1c849.m0vnB3L.000FlfC@ozgurluk.xs4all.nl>

From: DHKC Informationbureau Amsterdam <tabe at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl>
Subject: Turkey: REPORT HUMAN RIGHTS ASSOCIATION 1996


REPORT HUMAN RIGHTS ASSOCIATION 1996

TURKEY:


. 2395 people were killed in armed conflict.

. 59 people were murdered by "unknown perpetrators".

. 191 people disappeared in custody.

. According to the official numbers 191 people were tortured in police
  custody.  17.604 people were actually tortured, although this number
  is not officially confirmed.

. 109 people were murdered.

. 95 bomb attacks were carried out by state forces.

. 67 villages were depopulated and burned down.

. 170 people were jailed because of their conviction.

. 12 political prisoners died in prison during the Death Fast.

. 5 prisoners put themselves on fire in protest against the conditions
  in prison.

. In the attack against Umraniye Prison 4 prisoners died, in the
  attack against Diyarbakir Prison 11 prisons were killed. The
  prisoners Kalender Kayapinar, Umit Dogan Gonul, Mustafa Kaya and
  three others died because they were not medically treated.

. 108 associations and unions were attacked.

. 97 press organs and publications were banned.

. 342 journalists were arrested.

. 167 editions of papers and magazines were confiscated.

. Journalists and writers were sentenced to 164 years in prison and a
  fine of 9, 401 billion TL in total.


-- 
Classwar in Turkey and Kurdistan: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk
Kurtulus Nachrichten Zentrale: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk/knz
Turkey Mailinglist Mirror: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk/ml.html
KURTULUS HAFTALIK SIYASI GAZETE: http://www.kurtulus.com



From dhkc at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl  Wed Jan 22 15:20:45 1997
From: dhkc at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl (dhkc at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl)
Date: 22 Jan 1997 15:20:45
Subject: Turkey: Childeren sentenced, torturers expected to go free. PROTEST!
Message-ID: <bac1c849.m0vnB15.000FlfC@ozgurluk.xs4all.nl>

From: DHKC Informationbureau Amsterdam <tabe at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl>
Subject: Turkey: Childeren sentenced, torturers expected to go free. PROTEST!

THE OUTCOME OF THE MANISA-TRIAL: THE PUPILS WERE CONVICTED, NOT THE
TORTURING POLICEMEN.

10 GRAMMAR SCHOOL PUPILS SENTENCED TO 76 YEARS AND 3 MONTHS
IMPRISONMENT BY THE STATE SECURITY COURT.

The outcome of the Manisa-Trial (as it has become known), in which 16
grammar school pupils stood trial after being arrested in their
villages in Manisa and subsequent torture, accused of being DHKP-C
members: 76 years and 3 months imprisonment.

On January 16, 1997, the imprisoned Ali Goktas (30, teacher), Faruk
Deniz (24, works in a coffee-shop), Levent Kilic (25), Emrah Sait Erda
(23, student) and Askin Yigin (19, student) were sentenced to 12 years
and 6 months imprisonment.  Sema Tasar (18, grammar school pupil) and
Ozgur Zeybek (17, grammar school pupil) were sentenced to 2 years and
6 months imprisonment. Jale Kurt (19, grammar school graduate) was
sentenced to 3 years and 9 months imprisonment and she is not allowed
to work in her profession for another 3 years.

The 16 grammar school pupils were arrested on December 25, 1995, and
interrogated and tortured for 12 days in the Anti-Terror Department in
Manisa.  That they were tortured was a proven fact. The case was then
carefully followed by the press and the public and so the history
began of this trial which became known as the "torture Trial". Because
of the statements by the pupils that they were tortured, the state
prosecutor indicted 10 policemen for "torture to force confessions".

The youngsters stated they were treated with electro-shocks, were
hosed with high-pressure water and that they were threatened with
rape. The pupils were called as witnesses, but the policemen denied
the torture charges. The trial against the 10 policemen is still going
on, but the trial against the pupils has now ended with long-term
prison sentences. This has caused huge protest among the public. After
the trial, the youngsters and their relatives protested against the
verdict of the judges, shouting: "You're just like the torturers" and
"Where is justice?", "We demand justice!" The lawyers stated: "The
court has now finished the scenario, The youngsters were convicted on
the basis of allegations, without any proof. We have witnessed a
"judicial comedy" in the past year."

The CHP-delegate from Izmir, Sabri Ergul, representatives of Amnesty
International, the German vice-consul, representatives of democratic
grass root organisations, as well as the foreign press and television
witnessed the trial.

As is known, the European Human Rights Court followed the trial as
well. In November 1996, they wrote a letter to the Turkish government,
demanding their statement about the accusation of torture before
January 10, 1997. It is interesting to see that the answer was given
on the very last day, January 10, 1997.

This is the Susurluk state, the face of the contra-guerrilla mobster
state, it is the justice of the MGK (the National Security Council) -
the justice of fascism.

The face of torture, this notion of justice of the contra-guerrilla
state, clearly visible for the people, has been revealed once again
because of this verdict. The trial before the DGM (the State Security
Court), which started on March 12, 1996, ended in long prison
sentences for the grammar school pupils, although they reported that
their statements were a result of torture (as was proven by medical
examination) and threats. This verdict reflects the notion of justice
of the MGK and of fascism.

But the sun can not be smeared with dirt. Everybody sees what's
happening. It's not the pupils, charged with "forming a gang" in front
of the State Security Court, who are guilty, it's the Susurluk state
which is guilty. The real terrorists, the real gangs are the
contra-guerrilla, the Mafia and the torturers. Most of the
indisputable criminals, like Catli, Sedat Bucak, Mehmet Agar, the drug
traffickers, the murderers.... are being protected.

Turkey has become a country in which fascist murderers, who've made
hundreds of our people "disappear" and who've killed thousands, are
being rewarded and in which the trust in the official justice is
totally lost. The conviction of innocent grammar school pupils saddens
all. The only thing the youngsters from Manisa did was writing some
slogans on the wall: "Long life the fraternity between the peoples"
and "We want an education, free of charge". The severe sentences force
those who know at least a little about justice to stand up.

If those who incarcerate non-guilty people belief they can silence the
opinions of the grammar school pupils, if they belief they can quell
the anger of our people against the contra-guerrilla Mafia state, then
they are wrong. Confronted with human dignity, they are condemned to
lose.

This is the reason why these youngsters were punished: the state wants
to encourage the policemen by saying: "Just continue the torture,
continue the murder."

We protest against this inhuman verdict and we call upon all to voice
their protest against this illegitimate Mafia-contra-guerrilla
state. Show your solidarity with the pupils and their relatives!


  Indictment

1. Throwing a Molotov-cocktail into a hair-dresser's shop.

  * The owner, as well as the fire-men stated the fire started from a
   gas-stove.

2. Writing slogans on walls.

   * The lawyers requested an analysis  

3. Writing slogans on a train carriage. 

   * The station director stated there had been no writings.

4. Distributing leaflets.

   * There is not a single witness who can testify that leaflets were
   indeed distributed.

5. Forming a armed gang.     
    
   *Not a single weapon was found, not on the pupils, nor in their
   houses.

6. Being a member of the DHKP-C.

   *Not a single shred of evidence was  presented in court.

The prison sentences

5 youngsters:    12 years and 6 months
4 youngsters:     2 years and 6 months                 
1 youngster:      3 years and 9 months
in total         76 years and 3 months


THE STATEMENT OF JUVENILE:

When the student Huseyin Korkut (who was acquitted) testified, he fell
unconscious, with tears in his eyes. After he was released he went to
Istanbul and said: "I was put under pressure by the police. Two days
before the last court session they came into my house and destroyed
everything. They arrested me and they threatened me: `You scum! You
think you'll achieve something with your lawyers-whores and this pimp
Sahri (meaning the CHP-delegate), don't you? We've made a lot like you
disappear.' That time I was not tortured." As if this is something
completely natural...

STATEMENTS OF SOME RELATIVES:

The mother of Emrah Sait Erda, Asuman Erda: "Actually its me who's
guilty. I offer my apologies to the state and its leader Demirel for
not having raised my child as they wanted me to, for not having raised
my son to become a fake-exporter, to become someone who kills in the
name of the state, for not having raised him to become a thief or a
gang member! I was not able to raise such a child, forgive me!"

The mother of Munire Apaydin, Nevin Apaydin: "Our children bear no
guilt. They say `armed gangs', but there are no weapons. They say the
children threw Molotov-cocktails, and the owner of the hair-dresser's
shop receives a fine because he was responsible for the fire.  The
fire originated form the gas-stove. They say there were slogans
written on the carriages, but the station director testified he never
saw them. So on what basis were the children convicted? We've seen in
this trial that there are many more children like those from Manisa."


THE STATEMENTS OF THE LAWYERS:

The lawyer Pelin Erda: The court has convicted these innocent
children, based on the first statements by the police. The severely
tortured children (as confirmed by medical reports) are still being
treated." The lawyer Erol Ozcan: "It's a scandal the State Security
Court convicts my clients even before the trial against the "torturing
policemen" has ended." A group of lawyers who participated in the
trial: "The statements of the children that they have been tortured
were substantiated by the prison sentence of 700 years, demanded
against the torturing policemen. Seen from this side, the accusations
and the verdicts show a double standard." "It's against the law and
European Human Rights Treaty that these clients, many of them are
still children, were put before the State Security Court." The lawyer
of the indicted pupils (and CHP-delegate from Izmir) Sabri Ergul:
"This decision in the name of justice constitutes a massacre. This
verdict allows further torture and convictions of innocent people. It
was clear from the beginning that the children were going to be
convicted. The torturers should have been convicted, but no: the
children are being convicted."


THE CHAIRMAN OF THE EUROPEAN YOUTH COMMITTEE (consisting of 36
organisations), Willy Borsus, in a letter to state president Suleyman
Demirel: "We determined the arrested children were exposed to
ill-treatment inside the police station, as well as inside jail. We
show our concern and we call upon you to be aware of the judicial
rights of these children and to make sure that they are released."


Send your protest to:

State president Suleyman Demirel		Fax: 0090-312-427 13 30
Prime-minister Necmettin Erbakan		Fax: 0090-312-417 04 76
Deputy prime-minister Tansu Ciller		Fax: 0090-312-287 88 11
Minister of the Interior Meral Aksener	Fax: 0090-312-418 17 95
Minister of Justice Sevket Kazan		Fax: 0090-312-425 40 66
State Security Court in Izmir			Tel:  0090-232-462 35 46
      Fax: 0090-232-462 35 49


Please send a copy of your protest to us:
Information Centre for Free Peoples
Kalkarer Str. 2, 50733 Cologne
Fax: (0049)-221-760 28 87 (you can send a mail to us offcource)
------------------------------------------
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about the classwar in Turkey and Kurdistan
KURTULUS HAFTALIK SIYASI GAZETE: http://www.kurtulus.com



From dhkc at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl  Wed Jan 22 15:23:25 1997
From: dhkc at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl (dhkc at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl)
Date: 22 Jan 1997 15:23:25
Subject: Turkey Contra Guerrilla State, Dec. 1996
Message-ID: <bac1c849.m0vnAnG.000FlfC@ozgurluk.xs4all.nl>

From: DHKC Informationbureau Amsterdam <tabe at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl>
Subject: Turkey Contra Guerrilla State, Dec. 1996

December 2, 1996 A reporter of the news agency Reuters interviews
Sedat Bucak, the only survivor of the Susurluk accident. He reports:
"Bucak, leading one of the strongest clans in Eastern Turkey, lives
like feudal landlord. He has thousands of armed men under his command
to fight against the PKK. The government in Ankara, which has a policy
of oppressing Kurdish rebellions by using clans applied the same
policy already in 1925 against the rebellion which was led by Sheikh
Said. The state granted the clans which fight the PKK social and
military privileges, thus creating a state within the state. For
example: Sedat Bucak doesn't supply more than 2.000 village
guards. But he claims to have 10.000 village guards in arms, so he
receives 1,3 million dollars each month." The money which was extorted
from Omer Lutfu Topal was taken from the bank by the murdered MIT-spy
Tarik Umit. Although the police discovered the money transfers, no
measures were taken.

December 3, 1996 There are at least two gangs within the state. The
minister of Industry said: "The state is surrounded by gangs. It looks
like there are at least two gangs, fighting each other." It is
reported that at least 3.200 people were murdered by "unknown
perpetrators" in the Southeast of the country, hundreds of people in
this region make a living by murdering people. Besides intellectuals
and democratic journalists like Musa Anter, Vedat Aydin and Ferhat
Tepe, also gang members like Ahmet Cem Ersever from the JITEM
(Gendarmerie Intelligence Service) became victims of internal gang
wars. The papers write about three major gangs among many other, one
of them is the Diyarbakir group, the second is the Sirnak group and
the third one, considered the most dangerous, is called "Sakallilar"
(the "Full-bearded"). This information is said to have come from Cem
Ersever, before he was murdered. Cem Ersever, a long-time MIT-agent,
then founder and chief of the JITEM, stepped down and told his friends
and relatives that traitors were involved in criminal affairs. They
were said to be active in drug trafficking, robbery and car theft. No
state official can say these facts are false, that Cem Ersever was
lying. The Turkish Republic depends on traitors.  Most unsolved
murders were committed by these traitors.

December 5, 1996 The party chairman of the MHP (fascists), Alparslan
Turkes concedes: the state has used Abdullah Catli. It is claimed that
Ciller ordered Ahmet Demir (known as Yesil) to kill Abdullah Ocalan,
giving him 25 billion TL from a secret fund.  Yesil supposedly got
scared and did not carry out the assault. However, he kept the
money. The murder should have been carried out by Yesil and Abdullah
Catli.  The former Refah-deputy (Welfare Party) Hasan Mezarci claims
prime-minister Necmettin Erbakan belongs to the Special Warfare
Department, the source of all the gangs. Erbakan's statement, he would
take apart the gangs if they really existed, is called untrustworthy
by Mezarci: "Erbakan does not want to solve this case. He just wants
to cover it... Nobody is sincere, concerning solving the case. The
gangs are not important, the Special Warfare Department is... This
department right-wing, left-wing, fundamentalist and nationalist
gangs, it uses and protects them, until they are of no more use. Then
they produce new gangs.  The problem is not Catli, there are thousands
of Catli's who work for the state."

December 6, 1996 The minister of the Interior, Meral Aksener, suspends
police chief Kemal Yazicioglu, the chief of the Special Warfare
Department, Ibrahim Sahin, the deputy-chief of police Bilgi Unal and
the three bodyguards of Sedat Bucak, Ercan Ersoy, Ayhan Carkin and
Oguz Yorulmaz. Ugur Dundar presents his program: the murder of Omer
Lutfu Topal was solved, but the investigations were stopped by
Ankara. Yazicioglu was suspended because he passed his information
about the murder of O. Lutfu Topal to prime-minister Erbakan. New
accusations: - There were two more persons involved in Omer Lutfu
Topal's casino in the Sheraton Hotel in Istanbul: Sami Hostan
("Arnavut Sami") and Mehmet Ozbay (Abdullah Catli). - Catli wanted to
buy Topal's share, but he refused. - It was decided to kill Topal. The
major roles in this murder were played by Arnavut Sami and one of his
men. Ali Tevfik. The murder was committed by the three bodyguards of
Sedat Bucak. - After the murder, phone calls were made with mobile
telephones.  One minister was phoned as well. "The operation has been
completed successfully", the murderers said. - The Istanbul police
arrested the three bodyguards, Arnavut Sami and Ali Tevfik. - Arnavut
Sami and Ali Tevfik confess the murder when interrogated. They say to
have received the order by a minister and the wife of a well-known
politician. - These statements are passed on to Ankara. - The
deputy-chief of police and Ibrahim Sahin, leader of the Special
Warfare Department, arrive in Istanbul to bring the arrested to
Ankara. - Police chief Kemal Yazicioglu opposed this. - Thereupon
Mehmet Agar, the minister of the Interior himself, gives the order to
bring these 5 people to Ankara. - The day before yesterday, Kemal
Yazicioglu passed on all his information about the murder of O.Lutfu
Topal to Erbakan. - Kemal Yazicioglu is suspended because he solved
the murder of Topal.

Mesut Yilmaz, chairman of ANAP (Motherland Party) says: "There are three gangs
within the state.. They're killing each other because they don't want to share
the money from the heroin trade."

After the massacre in the Diyarbakir Prison, in which 11 prisoners
were murdered, parliament sets up an investigation committee. The
Refah-deputy Okcu, member of this committee, states that even
governors do not have any control over the acts of JITEM and the
intelligence service in the Southeast. He said certain forces were
influencing the state and that the state was having contacts with
circles of traitors and fascists in the region, allowing the existence
of gangs like the Soylemezler and Yuksekova gangs. The attacks inside
the prisons were organised by these forces. Okcu described the
massacre in Diyarbakir prison as "a massacre which was carried out by
traitors, supervised by the state."

December 7, 1996 It was revealed that Sedat Bucak's bodyguards (also
members of a special unit) took a leave a few days before the
murder. One of the policemen yelled at Ibrahim Sahin, the leader of de
Special Warfare Department: "Did you come to kill us, or are you going
to save us?" The minister of the Interior, Meral Aysener, states no
fingerprints were found on the weapons which were secured in Susurluk.

December 8, 1996 Journalists are attacked at the Catli's funeral. The
police watches the attack but does not intervene. The attack was
carried out by supporters of Ali Yasak.  According to another
accusation, the Ozgur Gundem journalist Nazim Babaoglu was kidnapped
and murdered by members of the Bucak clan on March 12, 1994, in
Siverek. He was found murdered and his body showed marks of severe
torture.  Bucak's village guards supposedly called Babaoglu. telling
him to come to Siverek for a story. Thereupon Babaoglu was kidnapped
by the village guards Gani and Ahmet Karakaya.

December 10, 1996 On March 16, 1978, 7 revolutionary students were
murdered in a bomb attack at the entrance of the Istanbul
University. The trial is still going on at the Istanbul Criminal
Court. According to statements of accused policemen and some fascists
who gave statements to the press after the attack, the massacre was
organised and led by Catli personally. The state prosecutors demands
punishment of the supporters and accomplices of Catli. A retired MIT
agent who took part in several major operations said Catli and his
friends were not ordered by the MIT in the Asala operation. The orders
came from a group, organised by Kenan Evren, then state
president. Hiram Abas and Mehmet Aymur played the major roles. A
high-ranking bureaucrat, active during the presidency of Ozal, claims
the failed assault against prime-minister Ozal was carried out by the
same gang and the assailant Kartal Demirag was supported by fascists
and the police chief of Ankara in those days, Mehmet Agar. The accused
in the Topal murder case are accusing Ozer Ciller, Tansu Ciller's
husband, and Mehmet Agar. "They knew about the murder plan", they
stated against the Istanbul police. Sedat Bucak is protecting his
bodyguards and rejects the accusations against them.

December 12, 1996 On the day of the accident Catli carried papers
which were signed by the minister of the Interior himself. Catli's gun
permit said: "The person on this photo, Mehmet Ozbay, works at the
police directorate as a specialist and is allowed to carry guns."
Investigations by the Criminal laboratory showed the signature was
authentic. After this, state prosecutor Nihat Artiran requested the
immunity of Mehmet Agar to be lifted to make a trial against him
possible.

December 14, 1996 According to new reports, fingerprints of Abdullah
Catli were found on the cartridge, found at the scene of the murder of
Topal. The ANAP chairman, Mesut Yilmaz, states: "This is just the tip
of the iceberg." Abdullah Catli is said to have founded three firms,
using a false name. After he was elected in the board of the
association Ulku Yolu (a fascist association), he led the organisation
and the actions from Nevsehir. This is also the place where he became
friends with the later chief of the Special Warfare Department. It was
revealed that Ibrahim Sahin was convicted of torture during his time
of office in Nevsehir.  Sahin is said to have been a militant member
of the MHP and involved in the murder of the CHP (social democrats)
chairman in Nevsehir. Agaca and Catli received false passports from
the police directorate in Nevsehir in that period.

December 16, 1996 According to a paper's investigation, 18 organised
gangs exist in Turkey. While many abduction cases in the Southeast
could not be solved, Necip Barkan was kidnapped on September 22 by
persons who dressed like PKK-guerrillas. The kidnappers demanded
$130.000 from Barkin's family in the name of the ERNK. Later it became
known that the kidnapping was organised by the chief of a special unit
of traitors and village guards. Proof of this was presented to the
parliamentary commission which investigates the Susurluk
incident. According to these documents, village guards, traitors and
special units, dressed up like PKK-guerrillas, carry out murders, deal
drugs, burn down villages, kidnap people and make them disappear. The
evidence is clear. The gangs were supervised by the state and their
acts became known because of internal feuds. According to the same
documents, 430 investigations were started against members of the
police force between April 30 and October 31, 1996. Among them were 71
police presidents and 15 chief commissioners. 119 policemen were tried
already, the cases against 371 others are still going on.

December 17, 1996 It was revealed that Abdullah Catli received
"special attention" when he was given a diplomatic passport. According
to a police statement, the preferential treatment was ordered by a
police president, but they didn't remember the name of this official,
they claimed. Dozens of Mafia gangsters received diplomatic passports
in the same way. The file of state prosecutor Nihat Artiran,
requesting the immunity of Mehmet Agar to be lifted, was handed over
to the Justice Department. Artiran was taken off the case. Catli
worked for Mehmet Agar in the 1995 elections. The MHP lost 6% of their
vote in Elazig. (Mehmet Agar stood for the DYP)

December 18, 1996 The order to bring the policemen, suspected of
murder, from Istanbul to Ankara was given by Mehmet Agar. Ibrahim
Sahin, in the meanwhile suspended as chief of the Special Warfare
Department, said he received this order from Mehmet Agar.  The chief
of police in Istanbul, Kemal Yazicioglu, is said to have sent an
invitation to Abdullah Catli for a religious festivity during his
office in Izmir. The fascist A. Kirici, wanted by the police, is said
to have been in the car which was behind the Mercedes of Bucak when it
crashed in Susurluk. He is said to have done the most to save
Catli. After Catli's death, Kirici supposedly took over the
organisation. Kirici is said to have been Catli's right hand. He took
part in several operations, next to Catli. After Catli's death, Kirici
disappeared out of sight. He is said to have good relations with Sedat
Bucak and once in a while he is said to hide in Siverek. The chief
prosecutor of Istanbul, Ciftci, said the police are not passing on
their information. A fax, sent by the state prosecution to the police
directorate in Istanbul, shows information is passed on very late, and
the names of the arrested isn't even given to the
prosecution. Investigations are carried out in the name of the state
prosecution without their knowledge. The minister of Defence, Turan
Tayan, stated 400 billion TL were spent daily for the anti-terror
campaign. In 1996, the Turkish government spent 80 billion daily for
the Gendarmerie, 40 billion for the land forces, and 5 billion for the
air forces. According to the MGK (the National Security Council)
report weapon smugglers pay billions of bribe money to members of
parliament which use their immunity to carry out their deals without
being disturbed.

December 19, 1996 The evidence against the Yuksekova gang disappeared.
Video tapes and documents about the Yuksekova gang, consisting of
members of the special units, traitors and village guards, have gone
missing. The officer Huseyin Oguz, who discovered this gang, was
threatened with death and he was transferred to another city. His
lawyer, Yasar Alturk, said the first investigation took 9 days and the
tapes and the documents were handed over to the appropriate
officials. Some of these officials then made this evidence disappear.

December 21, 1996 The report of the MIT (National Intelligence
Service) to the MGK (National Security Council) says the village
guards in the Southeast are no longer under the control of the
state. They are said to have become criminal gangs.

December 22, 1996 According to the deputy department chief of the MIT,
M. Eymurs, the MIT killed Tarik Umit after he was interrogated by
Catli. Mehmet Agar and Ibrahim Sahin, the chief of the Special Warfare
Department, are said to be responsible for this case. After 1980, the
MIT used Catli abroad. Eymur: "When we heard Catli was dealing in
drugs, we dropped him, then the police directorate used him." During
an operation in Kocaeli a gang of 27 people was caught. This gang is
held responsible for 7 murders, 5 disappearances, 2 kidnappings and 7
cases of extortion. The leader of this gang is said to be Mehmet Hadi
Ozcan, a close friend of Catli.

Meral Aksener charges village guards.  Aksener is sacking 23.000
village guards. Until now it was determined that 296 village guards
committed murder, 4 village guards kidnapped men, 77 village guards
were guilty of kidnapping women and girls and many village guards were
involved in the smuggling of drugs and weapons.

Catli is said to be trained by the MOSSAD and the CIA. His weapon
originated from Israel. It was found in the car in Susurluk. Because
this kind of weapon is not used in Turkey, it became known these
weapons originated from a deal between the Turkish police and Israel.

December 25, 1996 Yasar Oz's gun permit, handed over by ANAP leader
Mesut Yilmaz to the parliamentary commission, was of the same fabric
as the gun permit which was issued to Abdullah Catli. It was
established that it was printed on the same kind of paper, carrying
the same text and the same signature. Sevket Kazan opened the case
against Haluk Kirici who was recently arrested but immediately
released because he possessed a special document. Haluk Kirici,
accused because of the Bahcelievler massacre, was released on
probation in 1989. Later he was wanted because of another crime. He
was arrested in April, but he managed to escape, helped by two
policemen. When his papers were checked, a policemen discovered Haluk
Kirici was in the possession of a document, signed by Mehmet Agar,
with the request to help the owner. Agar also phoned and prevented
Kirici was taken into custody. But Agar denies all of this. The MIT
report states Haluk Kirici was arrested, together with Ayhan Akca
(member of a special unit), because of the murder of Tarik Umit. A
phone call was made to the police station to have him released
again. During his time as governor of Erzurum, Mehmet Agar was Haluk
Kirici's wedding witness.

December 26, 1996 The national chief of police Alladin Yuksel broke
his silence. Yuksel reported the police was in the possession of
Catli's fingerprints: "Surely the friends in Istanbul have some
explaining to do how these fingerprints were misplaced", accusing the
Istanbul chief of police, Kemal Yazicioglu. In a television program of
HBB, Yuksel stated Catli's fingerprints first showed up in the attack
against a student home in 1977, and for the last time in
Susurluk. According to Yuksel the Gendarmerie came into action
immediately after the accident in Susurluk: "After the incident the
Gendarmerie came into action. The files in this case, containing all
the information from the car, were secured by the Gendarmerie."
Yuksel said the investigations were started immediately upon requests
by the state prosecution and the state security court. Yuksel also
said that the three policemen, wanted because they belonged to the
Soylemez gang, had not been apprehended yet: "That depends on the
methods of apprehension. Because of their tasks they have a lot of
acquaintances, it's possible they hide with friends."  Huseyin
Baybasin, arrested in 1995 in the Netherlands in the case of the drug
ship Lucky-S, claims to have smuggled drugs together with relatives of
Mehmet Agar: Yumus Agar and Yalcin Akcadag (Mehmet's uncle) using the
oil trade as a cover. Baybasin states they were transporting petrol
from Libya, taken drugs on board along the way, smuggling these into
the Netherlands. Baybasin also states: "Nobody was allowed near the
ship by the police. Suleyman Basgol, chief of police in that time, was
there as well. Nobody can claim to have seen nothing.  This was all
done under the supervision of the Istanbul police." According to
Baybasin, Mehmet Agar was making $500.000 a month and he demanded Agar
should explain where all his wealth came from.

December 28, 1996 The Special Units Academy in Golbas was visited by
Tansu Ciller, together with the minister of the Interior Meral
Aksener, minister Bekir Aksoy, DYP-delegate Hayri Kozakciogly, Unal
Erkan, Saffet Arikan Beduk and the national chief of police. Ciller
made a statement about the recent reports about the police, the MIT,
the Special Units and similar organisations: "Your orders are not
coming from those who attack you, they're coming from the state. This
country is grateful to you. The nation is proud of you, now they're
trying to denounce you.  They are the enemies of the fatherland, we
have many who fell, who were murdered by the enemies of the
fatherland. I know you'll save the country. I call upon all who
falsely accuse you: Stop, do not cross the line. The persons who are
conspiring against you will be ashamed one day. I know you love our
nation and your country very much. I respect your work. Keep your
heads up high. All those who are against you will have to fight,
because we will not allow them to win. I will always be behind you."
Tansu Ciller and the others also dressed in the Special Unit
uniforms. The former MIT member Korkut Eken, who later became advisor
of the minister of the Interior Mehmet Agar, stated he was a friend of
Catli. He said so on December 27 in front of the parliamentary
commission. Catli had been his friend, and Eken added that Catli had
been used by the state since 1980, claiming it was impossible that
MIT-chief Eymur had not known Catli. Eken: "Catli was used as an
informant about the PKK after 1994 in Germany. I know Catli did some
jobs for the state." He also said: "I know Tarik Umit, but I haven't
seen him in three years. I did not kill Tarik Umit."


------------------------------------------
Visit HTTP://WWW.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk
For regular news and information
about the classwar in Turkey and Kurdistan
KURTULUS HAFTALIK SIYASI GAZETE: http://www.kurtulus.com



From kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu  Wed Jan 22 22:42:38 1997
From: kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu (kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu)
Date: 22 Jan 1997 22:42:38
Subject: The Story Of Turkish Soldiers In Th
Message-ID: <bac1c849.Pine.NEB.3.95.970122163..@burn.ucsd.edu>

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at locust.cic.net>
Subject: The Story Of Turkish Soldiers In The Mountains Of Kurdistan

The Story - Tragedy - Of A Turkish Soldier In The Mountains Of Kurdistan

By Oktay Yildiz
(First appeared in Ozgur Politika, September 1996)


"On a rainy Saturday afternoon, we went shopping in the suburb of Ulus in
Ankara. I unconsciously threw myself on the ground when I heard gun shots.
When I got up off the ground, faces in the crowd around me were looking
strangely at me. I then realized that I was covered with mud. I asked my
wife, who was guiding me away from the crowd, 'Who shot us?' Looking at my
face with deep sympathy, she answered, 'It was the sound of the jack hammer
digging the concrete on the sidewalk.' "

It is a rather difficult feeling to explain; the fear of living with fear.
Jumping out of bed from a nightmare only to find your pajamas are drenched
in sweat. Huseyin Guclu, a seargant serving in the military in Kigi,
Bingol, in 1987, was telling us this story in an interview.

Ali Riza Eker, another seargant who served in the Turkish military in
Kurdistan, committed suicide a month ago after finishing his military
service. He had post-traumatic stress disorder, or the so-called "Vietnam
syndrome." He was a victim of the psychological damage that is created when
one is exposed to a war environment. This syndrome was experienced by the
American military cadets in Vietnam, the Russians in Afghanistan, United
Nation forces in Somalia, and the Turkish troops in Kurdistan. That is why
the United States, which lost thousands of people to this syndrome, has
produced movies like "Rambo" to eradicate the effect of this disease from
the minds of their young people. Turkey will suffer from this syndrome in
the years to come; who would have expected that soldiers decapitating and
mutilating innocent people would lead a normal life after such experiences?
Doctors from the military hospital have reported that between 20-30
soldiers are treated every month for the symptoms of this syndrome,
according to Nokta weekly magazine. According to one doctor, these people
are having a hard time adapting to civilian life; they think that they are
still in the military and engage in pseudo-militaristic activities such as
dodging bullets, patrolling the streets, and awaiting a military offensive.
According to one of the military doctors, civilian life represents an
unadaptable form of living, an inescapable trench, and the more they try to
get out of it, the deeper it gets. Every object they come across and every
sound they hear is perceived as the enemy and they become soldiers all over
again. They live this trauma of war even when they are asleep.

What was the premilitary life of Ali Riza Eker like? He was young, healthy,
handsome, and an individual full of life who was considered to be the best
hunter in Mahmudiye village in Balikesir. One day he was summoned to the
military to serve in one of the gendarmarie battalions in the province of
Mardin (Kurdistan). He was put in charge of managing an automatic weapon
with heavy artillery. He was appointed "Hunter of the Kurds." He would tell
his family of his heroic military stories and, particularly, of how he
killed over 30 Kurds and how proud he was of these killings. Whether he
truly believed his actions to be heroic or not is unknown. He was
conditioned to act on orders and he did. In a letter to his best friend,
Bulent Koroglu, who was serving in Tunceli province (Dersim) in Kurdistan,
he described his participation in one of the military actions against PKK
guerrillas where he jumped off a military helicopter, dodged behind a rock,
and sprayed the PKK guerrillas with his automatic weapons and, before long,
he had fired off 1,600 bullets and killed 7 people. "You should have been
there, Rambo was nothing compared to us!" As he continued with his heroic
actions of killing Kurds and decapitating them, he thought that it was all
for the benefit of his people and his country, without knowing that he was
not only committing harm to his people and his country but also to himself.
He was on a journey with no return. He later realized that he had no choice
but to put the barrel to his own head and pull the trigger.

"Whatever happened, happened in the last three months of his military
service" explained his father Husamettin Eker. He asked his mother to get
his coffin ready as he may not have much time to live during his last phone
conversation with his mother 20 days before being discharged from the
military, an event that put the family on the edge. He went to Istanbul
with one of his cadets for a few weeks, then to Balikesir for several days
where he was found drunk and unconscious in a coffee shop by some relatives
who later took him to his village. Ali Riza had now discovered the truth
that what he did to other human beings in the military was not for the
benefit of his country, but it was too late. He would not speak, except for
giving short answers to questions he was asked. He would wake up in the
middle of the night and rush outside and engage in military-style actions,
such as holding imaginary weapons, digging trenches, and shooting at
imaginary enemies in the night. He had been engaged to be married before
going to the military, but would not speak of his fiancee and did not care
about his dream house that was under construction. When his father asked
him if he would like to get married, he answered by saying "I killed my
fiancee". He then went on to say that 7 days before he was discharged he
was given the responsibility of killing a captured female guerrilla and
that she turned into his fiancee when she was killed. He would rush into
his brother's bed in the night and tell him about how one of his best
friends exploded into pieces upon stepping on a mine and how one religious
cadet taught them about the code of honor and then died with 8 others in
one of their operations, and how one of his friend committed suicide in
Ankara after being discharged from the military, and how they all are
asking him for his company and how he cannot turn them down. He told his
family how he killed 35 people during his military service and how he was
brain-washed into committing these killings and how he had no choice but to
do so. "We were forced to enjoy the killing. I now know that the people I
killed were human beings just like me." He knew that he was one of tens of
thousands of young Turkish soldiers that were made the hunters of the
Kurds; his conscience would not leave him alone. He knew now that the ones
who made him commit these crimes were getting rich from this dirty war and
were enjoying their money while he could not even get a good night's sleep.
He eventually lost the battle to his conscience and decided to take his
life on one October night while attending a wedding ceremony. His body was
discovered by his fiancee outside of the wedding hall with a bullet in his
head. As this dirty war continues, there will be many more Ali Riza's who
will become the victims - unfortunately.

(The American Kurdish Information Network is grateful to a Kurdish doctor
for the translation of this article.)


----
American Kurdish Information Network (AKIN)
2623 Connecticut Avenue NW #1
Washington, DC 20008-1522

Tel: (202) 483-6444
Fax: (202) 483-6476
E-mail: akin at kurdish.org
Home Page: http://www.kurdistan.org
----

The American Kurdish Information Network (AKIN) provides a public service
to foster Kurdish-American understanding and friendship



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From dhkc at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl  Wed Jan 22 16:16:53 1997
From: dhkc at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl (dhkc at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl)
Date: 22 Jan 1997 16:16:53
Subject: Turkey: State murders and massacres in 1996
Message-ID: <bac1c849.m0vnCH2.000FlfC@ozgurluk.xs4all.nl>

From: DHKC Informationbureau Amsterdam <tabe at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl>
Subject: Turkey: State murders and massacres in 1996

MURDERS, ARMED ATTACKS AND MASSACRES IN TURKEY: 1996

Murders by unknown perpetrators, executions in open daylight and
slaughtering defenceless people in their houses were used increasingly
as means of Turkish national policy to suppress the people's demands
for justice. To police uses armoured vehicles and guns against
demonstrations, wounding and killing people to sow panic. With all
these means, the Turkish state tries to intimidate the voice of
resistance, the voice of the people who are starting to get organised.
But in vain. The anger of the people is increasing. 1996 has not only
been a year of increasing repression, it has also been a year of
increasing resistance.
When more than 50.000 people - only armed with bricks and sticks -
took on the struggle against the heavily armed police and when they
stormed the police barricades, one after the other, it became obvious
what the powers that be in Turkey had been fearing for a long
time. Their rule begins to waver, confronted with the unified anger of
the people. Their machine of terror with all its brutalities can no
longer intimidate the people...

January 1996
Ercan Ozceken massacred
On the evening of January 17, the Izmir police and the JITEM started
an operation. To legitimise the planned massacre, and to neutralise
possible reactions after the massacre, several houses are searched
that evening and around 60 people are arrested. During the next two
days, another 40 people are arrested. Ercan Ozceken was murdered in
the course of this operation.

January 19, 1996, Evrensel
He was thrown out of the window H.G., who was brought to the Yuzyil
police station together with two other people, accused of car theft,
jumped out of a window on the 2nd. floor, the police claims. But
H.G.'s mother, Emine Guc is convinced the policemen threw him out of
the window. The mother thinks it is improbable that her son jumped out
the window without his statement being recorded. "My son is no thief
like the police claims. He has no criminal record. They police says
they did not take down his statement. Okay, but why should a young
person, whose statement wasn't even recorded, jump out of a
window. The policemen have thrown my son out of the window. I will
file charges against them," the mother continued.

January 30, 1996
Sivas
7 DHKC fighters were massacred on the night of January 29-30 in the
region of Sivas Hafik. That same night operations were carried out in
nearby villages and 43 people were arrested. The villages were sealed
off from the outside world. 15 days ago, 24 guerrillas were massacred
in the same region. They were secretly buried in the area.

February 10, 1996
Massacre in Bahcelievler
3 DHKC fighters (Ayten Korkulu, Meral Akpinar and Fuat Perk) were
massacred on January 9, 1996, in Istanbul Bahcelievler. Their house
was surrounded by the police. The inhabitants of the neighbourhood
were forced to stay in their houses. After the 10 minute operation,
the 3 revolutionaries were murdered. Like in all other operations, the
police came, heavily armed with bombs and armoured vehicles, with the
aim of murdering the people. They removed all the evidence which could
have been used against them. The three revolutionaries were stripped
naked, and the police took their clothes with them.

April 17, 1996, Ozgur Politika
"The state security forces executed 4 Kurds"
On April 15, 1996, 4 people were executed by the police and the
Special Units in Mersin Gunes Mahallesi. The police claims these
people came into the city carry out armed actions and the supposedly
answered the call by the police to surrender with opening
fire. However, witnesses state that two persons, Selahattin Eken and a
woman, came out of the house with their hand up when the house had
been surrounded. Thereupon they were executed by the police. Two other
persons, Haci Yusuf Daloglu (19) and Kadriye Ozay (17) were executed
in a orange yard, although they had surrendered themselves. The
inhabitants of the neighbourhood stated they were forced by the
Special Units and the police to stay in their houses after noticing
that people were witnessing the massacre.  They threatened to kill the
inhabitants in case they would obey their orders.

May 14, 1996
Irfan Agdas massacred
On May 13, 1996, the Kurtulus reader Irfan Agdas was shot in Istanbul
Alibeykoy.  Irfan was selling the Kurtulus when suddenly policemen of
the Anti-Terror Department opened fire on him from a car with the
license number 34 FT 322. The 17 year old grammar school pupil was
murdered on the open street in front of many eye-witnesses.

May 18, 1996
Kemal Yaziciogly at work!
Kemal Yazicioglu, known for the executions and torture in the areas
where he is active, was recently transferred to Istanbul. After Orhan
Tasanlar, police president of Istanbul and also known as a
"brain-worker", was transferred, Kemal Yazicioglu was appointed as new
chief of police of Istanbul. His now 1-month old praxis gives us a
clue of what can be expected from him in the future. During his first
month, 4 people were murdered by the police. During the May-Day
demonstration, the police consciously opened fire upon the
people. Hasan Albayrak, Dursun Adabas Odabas and Yalcin Levent were
killed by police bullets.  On May 13, 1996, a 17 year old distributor
of the Kurtulus was shot by the police in Istanbul Alibeykoy.

July 6, 1996, Demokrasi
Special Units murder in Tokat
The people of Tokat are being terrorised by Special Units. The
villages of Karadere and Kapici (near Almus) were riddled with bullets
with the pretext: "There are terrorists inside these villages". The 60
year old Durmus Karahan was killed.

July 16, 1996
Massacre in Gultepe
During the night of July 15, DHKC fighters carried out some armed
actions in solidarity with the prisoners on Death Fast. Operations
were carried out in several neighbourhoods of Istanbul after these
actions. Around 1 a.m. the house of the revolutionaries in Gultepe was
surrounded by the police. During the armed confrontation the 4
people's liberation fighters Hasan Huseyin Onat, Gulizar Simsek, Emine
Tuncal and Ali Erturk were massacred. The order for this massacre was
given by the police chief of Istanbul, Kemal Yazicioglu himself.

July 20, 1996
17 year old shot by the police
When the police opened fire upon a protest action against the
treatment of the prisoners in the Turkish jails, the 17 year old
Levent Dogan died in a hail of bullets.

August 21, 1996, Evrensel
Senem Adali and Muhammed Kaya massacred
In the early morning hours of August 20, the two revolutionaries Senem
Adali and Muhammed Kaya were executed in their house in Istanbul
Alibeykoy. Although nothing was found in the house, except for the
Kurtulus, the police claimed in their press statement that an armed
confrontation had occurred inside the house and that several weapons
had been secured. Two days earlier, the police chief of Istanbul
Yazicioglu announced an act of revenge at the funeral of a police
officer who had been punished by the revolutionaries.

August 28, 1996, Cumhuriyet
Police arbitrariness (1)
Yesterday the police shot Emin Albay in the neighbourhood of Zeytinburnu in
Istanbul. Albay drove a stolen car and didn't stop at a police barricade.

Police arbitrariness (2)
Yesterday the police shot the mini-bus driver and father of three,
Sabri Yesilbag, in the neighbourhood of Bakirkoy in Istanbul. The bus
driver refused to change his route to drive the policemen home.

September 7, 1996
Again murder by unknown perpetrators
Nedim Ataman, arrested an taken into custody in May, who went missing
10 days ago, is dead. By coincidence, Sabahattin Ataman heard about an
unidentified body. Later he recognised his dead brother at the
Forensic Medical Association.  The physicians stated there had been no
signs of violence on the body, but Nedim's family voiced their
suspicion that he had been poisoned. Furthermore the relatives stated
that Nedim had been arrested frequently and that the police had tried
to force him to co-operate with them, threatening to kill him.

September 11, 1996, Evrensel
11 year old child shot by soldiers
An 11 year old child was shot by soldiers in Agri. The child ran away
when it saw the smoke of a fire and was thereupon shot by the
soldiers.

September 28, 1996, Kurtulus
Bus driver murdered in police custody
On September 23, 1996, the IETT bus driver Erdem Cayiri was murdered
while in police custody. He was late that day because of a traffic jam
and he wasn't able to leave at time from a bus stop. Because of the
delay, four journalist of the paper Sabah, Mehmet Durupinar, Ersin
Karaca, Yuksel Gursoy and Oktay Irmak started a fight with
him. According the an eye-witness, Ziver Yilmaz, the journalists hit
the bus driver. All five were then arrested by the police. The four
Sabah journalist were allowed to go after they had testified, but
Erdem Cayciri was held in custody. Later it was announced that he had
died because of a heart attack. It is assumed though that he has been
tortured to death.

October 9, 1996, Kurtulus
Ismet Guvenc murdered in police custody
Istanbul, the People's Lawyers Office: Ismet Guvenc (30), arrested by the police
on October 3, 1996 in Istanbul, was found dead on October 6 on a building site
in Esenler/Istanbul. According to the autopsy he died because of a cerebral
haemorrhage, caused by a bullet. Guvenc was an active member of the human rights
association TIYAD (Solidarity Association of Relatives of the Political
Prisoners) and he had been arrested, tortured and threatened frequently by the
police before. Ismet's brother, arrested the same day, has been released in the
meantime. Ismet Guvenc has been the most recent victim of the human despising
Turkish state. On August 20 this year, TIYAD members Senem Adali(22) and
Muhammed Kaya were shot by the police in their home in Istanbul. 

October 16, 1996
Arslan Bilgin
Arslan Bilgin, who fought for a life in dignity and a free country in
the ranks of the DHKC, his father Mustafa Bilgin and his mother Sakine
Bilgin were massacred in their home in Tokat by the military during
the night of October 15.

October 17, 1996, Evrensel
3 peasants murdered in Dersim
In Dersim 3 peasants were murdered by soldiers. Before, the soldiers had shot 9
horses of the peasants because they feared the horses could be stolen by the
PKK.

October 19, 1996, Evrensel
Torture and executions have become facts of daily life
5 people were found dead 3 days ago in Diyarbakir, they were killed by
bullets after been dragged behind a car. Yesterday 4 bodies were found
of people who had been executed. 2 bodies were found outside the
village of Soganli (near Diyarbakir). Most of the people who were
murdered had been arrested by the police before they were killed.

October 19, 1996, Evrensel
Pupils shot at by police at school party
Plainclothes policemen opened fire upon pupils who attended a school party.

November 11, 1996, Kurtulus
2 peasants murdered by the contra-guerrilla
Kamber Gunes, kidnapped on October 24 by village guards and the
contra-guerrilla, was found dead on October 26 in Cemisgezek/Yakri
Peydere. His body had been mutilated. Kamber came from the village of
Xardisar which was burned down by the military in 1994, he had been
threatened frequently and he had been incarcerated for 9 months twice,
together with his brother. Aziz Karakus was also murdered in
Cemisgezek by the contra-guerrilla. His mutilated body was found near
the village of Ulukale. Karakus was a democratic farmer and he was
murdered 3 months after he was kidnapped. The DHKP-C prisoners in
Malatya Prison protested against this massacre and said their grief
was great, but their hate against the enemy was even bigger.

December 26, 1996, Demokrasi
Petty officer Oguz testified that the Yuksekova Gang usually kills
traitors and he told what had happened with 2 women guerrillas: "In
the police district of Uzumlu, 2 women of the guerrilla were captured
after a fight in which 13 people fell. One was from Mardin, the other
from Syria. Their weapons are now in the possession of the
brigade. The women were first bathed and then handed over to Kahraman
Bilgic. He first raped them and then he murdered them. These are not
mere assertions, I know it."

December 28, 1996, Kurtulus
Contra-guerrilla murderers at work again

On December 28, 1996, at 00.01 a.m., the police shot a15 year old
child, in Bagcilar Yavuz Selim/Istanbul. The police said to have shot
the 15 year old Bulent Korkmaz because they believed he was a car
thief.

------------------------------------------
Visit HTTP://WWW.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk
For regular news and information
about the classwar in Turkey and Kurdistan
KURTULUS HAFTALIK SIYASI GAZETE: http://www.kurtulus.com



From kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu  Fri Jan 24 20:05:56 1997
From: kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu (kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu)
Date: 24 Jan 1997 20:05:56
Subject: Turkey: State murders and massacres in 1996
References: <bac1c849.m0vnCH2.000FlfC@ozgurluk.xs4all.nl>
Message-ID: <bac1c849.Pine.NEB.3.95.970124145..@burn.ucsd.edu>

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at locust.cic.net>
Subject: Turkey: State Murders And Massacres In 1996

Turkey: State Murders And Massacres In 1996

Murders by unknown perpetrators, executions in open daylight, and
slaughtering defenceless people in their houses were used increasingly
as means of Turkish national policy to suppress the people's demands
for justice. Police used armoured vehicles and guns against
demonstrations, wounding and killing people to sow panic. With all
these means, the Turkish state tries to intimidate the voice of
resistance, the voice of the people who are starting to get organized.
But in vain. The anger of the people is increasing. 1996 has not only
been a year of increasing repression, it has also been a year of
increasing resistance.

When more than 50,000 people - only armed with bricks and sticks -
took on the struggle against the heavily armed police and when they
stormed the police barricades, one after the other, it became obvious
what the powers that be in Turkey had been fearing for a long
time. Their rule begins to waver when confronted with the unified anger of
the people. Their machine of terror with all its brutality can no
longer intimidate the people...

January 1996 - Ercan Ozceken Massacred

On the evening of January 17, the Izmir police and the JITEM started
an operation. To legitimize the planned massacre, and to neutralise
possible reactions after the massacre, several houses were searched
that evening and around 60 people are arrested. During the next two
days, another 40 people are arrested. Ercan Ozceken was murdered in
the course of this operation.

January 19, 1996 - Evrensel

He was thrown out of the window, H.G., who was brought to the Yuzyil
police station together with two other people, accused of car theft,
jumped out of a window on the 2nd floor, the police claimed. But
H.G.'s mother, Emine Guc, is convinced the policemen threw him out of
the window. The mother thinks it is improbable that her son jumped out
the window without his statement being recorded. "My son is no thief
like the police claim. He has no criminal record. They police say
they did not take down his statement. Okay, but why should a young
person, whose statement wasn't even recorded, jump out of a
window? The policemen have thrown my son out of the window. I will
file charges against them," the mother continued.

January 30, 1996 - Sivas

7 DHKC fighters were massacred on the night of January 29-30 in the
region of Sivas Hafik. That same night operations were carried out in
nearby villages and 43 people were arrested. The villages were sealed
off from the outside world. 15 days before, 24 guerrillas were massacred
in the same region. They were secretly buried in the area.

February 10, 1996 - Massacre In Bahcelievler

3 DHKC fighters (Ayten Korkulu, Meral Akpinar, and Fuat Perk) were
massacred on January 9, 1996, in Istanbul-Bahcelievler. Their house
was surrounded by the police. The inhabitants of the neighbourhood
were forced to stay in their houses. After the 10 minute operation,
the 3 revolutionaries were murdered. Like in all other operations, the
police came, heavily armed with bombs and armoured vehicles, with the
aim of murdering the people. They removed all the evidence which could
have been used against them. The three revolutionaries were stripped
naked, and the police took their clothes with them.

April 17, 1996 - Ozgur Politika
"The State Security Forces Executed 4 Kurds"

On April 15, 1996, 4 people were executed by the police and the
Special Units in Mersin Gunes Mahallesi. The police claimed these
people came into the city to carry out armed actions and they supposedly
answered the call by the police to surrender with opening fire. However,
witnesses state that two persons, Selahattin Eken and a woman, came out of
the house with their hand up when the house had been surrounded. Thereupon
they were executed by the police. Two other persons, Haci Yusuf Daloglu (19)
and Kadriye Ozay (17), were executed in a orange grove, although they had
surrendered themselves. The inhabitants of the neighbourhood stated they
were forced by the Special Units and the police to stay in their houses
after noticing that people were witnessing the massacre. They threatened to
kill the
inhabitants if they would disobey their orders.

May 14, 1996 - Irfan Agdas Massacred

On May 13, 1996, Kurtulus reader Irfan Agdas was shot in Istanbul
Alibeykoy. Irfan was selling the newspaper Kurtulus when suddenly policemen of
the Anti-Terror Department opened fire on him from a car with the
license number 34 FT 322. The 17-year-old grammar school pupil was
murdered on the open street in front of many eye-witnesses.

May 18, 1996 - Kemal Yaziciogly At Work!

Kemal Yazicioglu, known for the executions and torture in the areas
where he is active, was recently transferred to Istanbul. After Orhan
Tasanlar, police president of Istanbul and also known as a
"brain-worker", was transferred, Kemal Yazicioglu was appointed as new
chief of police of Istanbul. His now 1-month old praxis gives us a
clue of what can be expected from him in the future. During his first
month, 4 people were murdered by the police. During the May Day
demonstration, the police consciously opened fire upon the people. Hasan
Albayrak, Dursun Adabas Odabas, and Yalcin Levent were killed by police
bullets. On May 13, 1996, a 17-year-old distributor of the Kurtulus
newspaper was shot by the police in Istanbul-Alibeykoy.

July 6, 1996 - Demokrasi
"Special Units Murder In Tokat"

The people of Tokat are being terrorised by Special Units. The
villages of Karadere and Kapici (near Almus) were riddled with bullets
with the pretext: "There are terrorists inside these villages". The
60-year-old Durmus Karahan was killed.

July 16, 1996 - Massacre In Gultepe

During the night of July 15, DHKC fighters carried out some armed
actions in solidarity with the prisoners on Death Fast. Operations
were carried out in several neighbourhoods of Istanbul after these
actions. Around 1 a.m. the house of the revolutionaries in Gultepe was
surrounded by the police. During the armed confrontation the 4
people's liberation fighters Hasan Huseyin Onat, Gulizar Simsek, Emine
Tuncal, and Ali Erturk were massacred. The order for this massacre was
given by the police chief of Istanbul, Kemal Yazicioglu, himself.

July 20, 1996 - 17-Year-Old Shot By The Police

When the police opened fire on a protest action against the
treatment of the prisoners in the Turkish jails, 17-year-old
Levent Dogan died in a hail of bullets.

August 21, 1996 - Evrensel
"Senem Adali And Muhammed Kaya Massacred"

In the early morning hours of August 20, the two revolutionaries Senem
Adali and Muhammed Kaya were executed in their house in Istanbul
Alibeykoy. Although nothing was found in the house, except for Kurtulus, the
police claimed in their press statement that an armed confrontation had
occurred inside the house and that several weapons had been secured. Two
days earlier, the police chief of Istanbul Yazicioglu announced an act of
revenge at the funeral of a police officer who had been punished by the
revolutionaries.

August 28, 1996 - Cumhuriyet
Police Arbitrariness (1)

Yesterday the police shot Emin Albay in the neighbourhood of Zeytinburnu in
Istanbul. Albay drove a stolen car and didn't stop at a police barricade.

Police Arbitrariness (2)

Yesterday the police shot the mini-bus driver and father of three,
Sabri Yesilbag, in the neighbourhood of Bakirkoy in Istanbul. The bus
driver refused to change his route to drive the policemen home.

September 7, 1996 - Again Murder By Unknown Perpetrators

Nedim Ataman, arrested an taken into custody in May, who went missing
10 days ago, is dead. By coincidence, Sabahattin Ataman heard about an
unidentified body. Later he recognised his dead brother at the
Forensic Medical Association. The physicians stated there had been no
signs of violence on the body, but Nedim's family voiced their
suspicion that he had been poisoned. Furthermore the relatives stated
that Nedim had been arrested frequently and that the police had tried
to force him to co-operate with them, threatening to kill him.

September 11, 1996 - Evrensel
"11-Year-Old Child Shot By Soldiers"

An 11-year-old child was shot by soldiers in Agri. The child ran away
when it saw the smoke of a fire and was thereupon shot by the
soldiers.

September 28, 1996 - Kurtulus
"Bus Driver Murdered In Police Custody"

On September 23, 1996, the IETT bus driver Erdem Cayiri was murdered
while in police custody. He was late that day because of a traffic jam
and he wasn't able to leave on time from a bus stop. Because of the
delay, four journalist of the paper Sabah, Mehmet Durupinar, Ersin
Karaca, Yuksel Gursoy, and Oktay Irmak started a fight with
him. According the an eye-witness, Ziver Yilmaz, the journalists hit
the bus driver. All five were then arrested by the police. The four
Sabah journalist were allowed to go after they had testified, but
Erdem Cayciri was held in custody. Later it was announced that he had
died because of a heart attack. It is assumed though that he has been
tortured to death.

October 9, 1996 - Kurtulus
"Ismet Guvenc Murdered In Police Custody"

Istanbul, the People's Lawyers Office: Ismet Guvenc (30), arrested by the
police on October 3, 1996 in Istanbul, was found dead on October 6 on a
building site in Istanbul-Esenler. According to the autopsy he died because
of a cerebral haemorrhage, caused by a bullet. Guvenc was an active member
of the human rights association TIYAD (Solidarity Association of Relatives
of the Political Prisoners) and he had been arrested, tortured, and
threatened frequently by the police before. Ismet's brother, arrested the
same day, has been released in the meantime. Ismet Guvenc has been the most
recent victim of the inhumane Turkish state. On August 20 this year, TIYAD
members Senem Adali(22) and Muhammed Kaya were shot by the police in their
home in Istanbul. 

October 16, 1996 - Arslan Bilgin

Arslan Bilgin, who fought for a life in dignity and a free country in
the ranks of the DHKC, his father Mustafa Bilgin and his mother Sakine
Bilgin were massacred in their home in Tokat by the military during
the night of October 15.

October 17, 1996 - Evrensel
"3 Peasants Murdered In Dersim"

In Dersim 3 peasants were murdered by soldiers. Before, the soldiers had
shot 9 horses of the peasants because they feared the horses could be stolen
by the
PKK.

October 19, 1996 - Evrensel
"Torture And Executions Have Become Facts Of Daily Life"

5 people were found dead 3 days ago in Diyarbakir, they were killed by
bullets after being dragged behind a car. Yesterday 4 bodies were found
of people who had been executed. 2 bodies were found outside the
village of Soganli (near Diyarbakir). Most of the people who were
murdered had been arrested by the police before they were killed.

October 19, 1996 - Evrensel
"Pupils Shot At By Police At School Party"

Plainclothes policemen opened fire upon pupils who attended a school party.

November 11, 1996 - Kurtulus
"2 Peasants Murdered By The Contra-Guerrilla"

Kamber Gunes, kidnapped on October 24 by village guards and the
contra-guerrilla, was found dead on October 26 in Cemisgezek/Yakri
Peydere. His body had been mutilated. Kamber came from the village of
Xardisar which was burned down by the military in 1994, he had been
threatened frequently and he had been incarcerated for 9 months twice,
together with his brother. Aziz Karakus was also murdered in
Cemisgezek by the contra-guerrilla. His mutilated body was found near
the village of Ulukale. Karakus was a democratic farmer and he was
murdered 3 months after he was kidnapped. The DHKP-C prisoners in
Malatya Prison protested against this massacre and said their grief
was great, but their hate against the enemy was even bigger.

December 26, 1996 - Demokrasi

Petty officer Oguz testified that the Yuksekova Gang usually kills
traitors and he told what had happened with 2 women guerrillas: "In
the police district of Uzumlu, 2 women of the guerrilla were captured
after a fight in which 13 people fell. One was from Mardin, the other
from Syria. Their weapons are now in the possession of the brigade. The
women were first bathed and then handed over to Kahraman Bilgic. He first
raped them and then he murdered them. These are not mere assertions, I know it."

December 28, 1996 - Kurtulus
"Contra-Guerrilla Murderers At Work Again"

On December 28, 1996, at 00.01 a.m., the police shot a 15-year-old
child in Bagcilar Yavuz Selim/Istanbul. The police are said to have shot
the 15-year-old Bulent Korkmaz because they believed he was a car
thief.

------------------------------------------
Visit http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk for regular news and information
about the class war in Turkey and Kurdistan.
Visit http://www.kurtulus.com to read the newspaper Kurtulus.


-----------------------------------------------------------------
Arm The Spirit is an autonomist/anti-imperialist information
collective based in Toronto, Canada. Our focus includes a wide 
variety of material, including political prisoners, national 
liberation struggles, armed communist resistance, anti-fascism, 
the fight against patriarchy, and more. We regularly publish our 
writings, research, and translation materials in our magazine and
bulletins called Arm The Spirit. For more information, contact:

Arm The Spirit
P.O. Box 6326, Stn. A
Toronto, Ontario
M5W 1P7 Canada

E-mail: ats at etext.org
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From kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu  Fri Jan 24 04:20:21 1997
From: kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu (kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu)
Date: 24 Jan 1997 04:20:21
Subject: An Urgent Appeal For The Kurds Of A
Message-ID: <bac1c849.Pine.NEB.3.95.970123231..@burn.ucsd.edu>

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at locust.cic.net>
Subject: An Urgent Appeal For The Kurds Of Atrush Camp

Kurdish Red Crescent, medico international, Hannover Appeal, Danish
Helsinki Committee and Peace in Kurdistan campaign

MAKE THIS LAST MINUTE APPEAL

To save the 15,000 Kurdish refugees living in Atrush camp; the threatened
closure endangers their lives.

URGE

The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR)
the governments of the world
and the international public

TO HELP PREVENT THE CLOSURE OF THE ATRUSH CAMP!

January 1997

        In defiance of the growing chorus of international criticism by
human rights and aid organisations, the UNHCR plans to shut down the Atrush
refugee camp in south Kurdistan (northern Iraq). This was officially
announced on 21 December 1996.
        Atrush is no ordinary camp. It is the only sanctuary for
approximately 15,000 Kurds from north Kurdistan (south east Turkey) who
fled the destruction of their villages, torture and brutal persecution
carried out by Turkish soldiers and gendarmes in the last few years.
        The closure of this camp, which has an internationally recognised
status, by the High Commissioner for Refugees, is tantamount to denying
these refugees the minimum internationally recognised humanitarian
standards of treatment. It also betrays a callous contempt for human
rights. The temporary transfer of the camp's refugees to the transit sites
Balqus and Muqible can only be construed as their deliberate surrender into
Turkish hands. Both these sites are situated on the Iraqi-Turkish border
where Ankara's troops have repeatedly staged incursions and border
operations on a massive scale since March 1994.
        This policy is in stark and revealing contrast to that pursued by
the USA and the United Nations last year when 7,500 PUK Kurdish supporters
were hastily evacuated, with adequate transport by the CIA, via Guam, to
the U.S. in order to protect them from possible reprisals by Saddam
Hussein's regime. But for the Kurds from Turkey new standards and
different criteria apply. 15,000 Kurdish refugees are now quietly and
expeditiously sacrificed to suit Turkey's barbaric aims - with the
apparent approval of the UNHCR, following Ankara's intervention in
Washington.
        The closure of Atrush camp and the threatened transfer of the Kurds
to the "protection" of Turkey means that they face acute danger and
enormous hazards.

We urgently request your help.

* Appeal to the UNHCR to immediately stop their plan to close the camp.

* Appeal to the Foreign Offices of Western governments to guarantee the
protection of these people and keep Atrush camp open.


Signatures so far:

United Kingdom

Lord Avebury (Chairman Parliamentry Human Rights Group), Lord Rea, Lady
McNair, Lord McNair, Baroness Gould, Lord Hylton, John Austin-Walker MP
(Labour Party), Tony Banks MP (Labour Party), Tony Benn MP (Labour Party),
Jeremy Corbyn MP (Labour Party), Cynog Dafis MP (Plaid Cymru, Welsh
National Party), Margaret Ewing MP (SNP, Scottish National Party), Alan
Simpson MP (Labour Party), David Atkinson MP (Conservative Party), Jenny
Jones (Chair Green Party), Lesley Kipling (Socialist Labour Party), Ken
Cameron (General Secretary Fire Brigades Union), Tim Gopsill (Editor
National Union of Journalists 'The Journalist'), Harold Pinter (Playwright)
Tom Stoppard (Writer and a Vice-President of International PEN), Margaret
Drabble (Writer and a Vice-President of International PEN), Edward Mortimer
(Journalist), Victoria Brittain (Journalist) Maria O'Shea (Centre f. Near
and Middle E. Studies) Louise Christian (Human Rights Lawyer), Sheri Laizer
(Writer), Miranda Watson (Human Right! s Campaigner), Estella Schmid (Peace
in Kurdistan), Mark Campbell (Kurdistan Trade Union Committee), Cath Kelly
(Human Rights Campaigner), Andy Keefe (Halkevi Kurdish and Turkish
Community Centre), Lobby for Cyprus, George Eugeniou (Cypriot Advisory
Service), Lib Peck (National Peace Council), Micheal Feeney (Refugee
Adviser for Cardinal Hume), John Josset (Policy Officer for Refugees,
Catholic Bishops Conference England and Wales).

Germany

Hans Branscheidt (medico international/Hannover Appeal), Prof.Dr med Ulrich
Gottstein (IPPNW-Germany and International), Prof Dr jur Erik Siesby
(Chairman, Danish Helsinki Committee), Joachim Gerstecki (General
Secretary, Pax Christi), Angelika Beer (MP, The Greens), Prof Norman Paech
(College for Economy and Politics, Hamburg), Dr med Gisela Penteker
(Executive Committee, IPPNW Germany), Dr Dagmar Lill (Foreign Relations,
Bremen), Dr H Jochen Zenker (psychiatrist, Bremen), Gerhard Diefenbach
(Chairman of the Aachen Peace Prize Committee), Heidi Lippmann-Kasten
(MP/The Greens), Prof Dr Gunter Matthiessen (University Bremerhaven), Dr
Arendt Hindriksen (The Greens), Karoline Linnert (The Greens), Maria
Spieker (The Greens), Association of Democratic Medical Practioners,
Eckhard Held (Doctor, Hamburg), Prof Dr Jurgen Blandow (University Bremen),
Hans Eberhad Schultz (Lawyer Bremen),Renate Schultz (Lawyer, Bremen),
Friedel Grutzmacher (The Greens), Hella Siburg (lawyer), T! orsten
Ruckholdt (Lawyer), Pastor Helmut Frenz, Reinhold Kuhnrich (Council member,
Oldenburg), Armin von Dollen (Lawyer), Andreas Schmidt-Schellong (Pastor),
Heike Krause (Lawyer), (Bremen), Hartmut Drewes (Pastor), Dr Rolf Gossner
(Lawyer), Ulla Jelpke (MP, PDS), Yayla Monch-Bucak (Oldenburg University),
Hans Gerd Klatt (Pastor), Bremen Information Centre for Human Rights and
Asylum Rights, Peter Vogel (Media Agency for Human Rights), Elisabeth
Abendroth, Herbert Kramm-Abendroth, Klaus D.Bufe (Executive Committee of
the Association for Social Defence), Peace Initiative "One million
signatures for peace", Armin Stolle (Teacher, Foundation for Peace
Research), Rolf Kohne (MP, PDS), Dip Ing Ibrahim Bruska (Kurdish Academy
for Sience and Art), Steffen Tippach (MP, PDS), Solidarity Committee
Against Disappearances and Torture, Prof Dr. Phil Rudolph Bauer, Halle
Hartwig (SPD), Monika Morres, Mark Holzberger, Gudrun Heniges, and many
others.



Please add your name to this appeal!


Write to:

Mrs Ogata, High Commissioner for Refugees
UNHCR fax 011-41-22-739-7336 or 739 7377

Your Senator or Representative in the United States Congress  --  call us
or the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at 202.224.3121 for their name and address.

RETURN THIS APPEAL TO

UK: Peace in Kurdistan Campaign 44 Ainger Road, London NW3 3AT
Tel: 011-44-171-586-5892 or 011-44-171-250-1315 fax: 011-44-171-250-1317

Co-ordination Bureau: Germany: Heyva Sor a Kurdistane (Kurdish Red
Crescent), In der Stehle 26, 53547 Kasbach-Ohlenberg, Germany.
Tel: 011-49-2644-8891 Fax: 011-49-2644-7845


----
American Kurdish Information Network (AKIN)
2623 Connecticut Avenue NW #1
Washington, DC 20008-1522

Tel: (202) 483-6444
Fax: (202) 483-6476
E-mail: akin at kurdish.org
Home Page: http://www.kurdistan.org
----

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to foster Kurdish-American understanding and friendship



-----------------------------------------------------------------
Arm The Spirit is an autonomist/anti-imperialist information
collective based in Toronto, Canada. Our focus includes a wide 
variety of material, including political prisoners, national 
liberation struggles, armed communist resistance, anti-fascism, 
the fight against patriarchy, and more. We regularly publish our 
writings, research, and translation materials in our magazine and
bulletins called Arm The Spirit. For more information, contact:

Arm The Spirit
P.O. Box 6326, Stn. A
Toronto, Ontario
M5W 1P7 Canada

E-mail: ats at etext.org
WWW: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~ats
MRTA Solidarity Page: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~ats/mrta.htm
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 ++++ stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal ++++
   ++++ if you agree copy these lines to your sig ++++
     ++++ see http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/spg-l/sigaction.htm ++++



From tabe at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl  Fri Jan 24 10:12:18 1997
From: tabe at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl (tabe at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl)
Date: 24 Jan 1997 10:12:18
Subject: German Judge says Turkish Minister Ciller is in Drugsbussiness
Message-ID: <bac1c849.m0vnp5m.000FoqC@ozgurluk.xs4all.nl>

From: <tabe at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl>
Subject: German Judge says Turkish Minister Ciller is in Drugsbussiness

ANKARA SENDS PROTEST NOTE TO GERMANY

Following yesterday's claims by the Frankfurt  Provincial  Court  that
Turkey  was involved in drug trafficking, the Turkish Foreign Ministry
sent a late night protest note to the German government  refuting  the
court claim.  The note was sent through the German Embassy in Ankara.

Ankara has also taken serious exception to the Frankfurt  Court  claim
that Foreign Minister Ciller had "personal connections" with the trade
in drugs.  The court claim  was  the  leading  evening  news  item  in
Germany yesterday and has created waves of reaction throughout Turkey.

The German claim that Turkey protects drug smugglers and even benefits
from  the  proceeds  has  been  described  as  "scandalous" and in his
protest note Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Onur Oymen said that  the
German claim was damaging to Turkey's national pride.  /Sabah/

-- 
Classwar in Turkey and Kurdistan: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk
KURTULUS HAFTALIK SIYASI GAZETE: http://www.kurtulus.com



From kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu  Fri Jan 24 20:06:10 1997
From: kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu (kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu)
Date: 24 Jan 1997 20:06:10
Subject: Turkey: IHD Human Rights Balance Fo
Message-ID: <bac1c849.Pine.NEB.3.95.970124145..@burn.ucsd.edu>

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at locust.cic.net>
Subject: Turkey: IHD Human Rights Balance For 1996

Human Rights Association (IHD)
Balance Of Human Rights Abuses In Turkey - 1996

2,395 people were killed in armed conflict.

59 people were murdered by "unknown perpetrators".

191 people disappeared in custody.

According to official figures, 191 people were tortured in police
custody. 17,604 people were actually tortured, although this number
is not officially confirmed.

109 people were murdered.

95 bomb attacks were carried out by state forces.

67 villages were depopulated and burned down.

170 people were jailed because of their political convictions.

12 political prisoners died in prison during the Death Fast.

5 prisoners set themselves on fire in protest against the conditions
in prison.

In the attack against Umraniye Prison 4 prisoners died, in the
attack against Diyarbakir Prison 11 prisoners were killed. The
prisoners Kalender Kayapinar, Umit Dogan Gonul, Mustafa Kaya and
three others died because they were not medically treated.

108 associations and trade unions were attacked.

97 press organs and publications were banned.

342 journalists were arrested.

167 editions of papers and magazines were confiscated.

Journalists and writers were sentenced to 164 years in prison and given
fines of 9,401 billion TL in total.

-- 
Classwar in Turkey and Kurdistan: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk
Kurtulus Nachrichten Zentrale: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk/knz
Turkey Mailinglist Mirror: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk/ml.html
KURTULUS HAFTALIK SIYASI GAZETE: http://www.kurtulus.com


-----------------------------------------------------------------
Arm The Spirit is an autonomist/anti-imperialist information
collective based in Toronto, Canada. Our focus includes a wide 
variety of material, including political prisoners, national 
liberation struggles, armed communist resistance, anti-fascism, 
the fight against patriarchy, and more. We regularly publish our 
writings, research, and translation materials in our magazine and
bulletins called Arm The Spirit. For more information, contact:

Arm The Spirit
P.O. Box 6326, Stn. A
Toronto, Ontario
M5W 1P7 Canada

E-mail: ats at etext.org
WWW: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~ats
MRTA Solidarity Page: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~ats/mrta.htm
FTP: ftp.etext.org --> /pub/Politics/Arm.The.Spirit
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-----------------------------------------------------------------

 ++++ stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal ++++
   ++++ if you agree copy these lines to your sig ++++
     ++++ see http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/spg-l/sigaction.htm ++++



From kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu  Fri Jan 24 20:08:20 1997
From: kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu (kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu)
Date: 24 Jan 1997 20:08:20
Subject: Turkey Blasts German Court's Drug C
Message-ID: <bac1c849.Pine.NEB.3.95.970124145..@burn.ucsd.edu>

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at locust.cic.net>
Subject: Turkey Blasts German Court's Drug Claim

Turkey Blasts German Court's Drug Claim

Judges Allege Evidence Showed Ankara Protected Traffickers

By Kelly Couturier
Special to The Washington Post
Thursday, January 23 1997; Page A24
The Washington Post

ANKARA, Turkey, Jan. 22 -- The government protested to
Germany today after two German judges alleged that
high-ranking Turkish officials, including Deputy Prime
Minister Tansu Ciller, have protected heroin traffickers.

"These accusations are very ugly and we denounce them,"
said Foreign Ministry spokesman Omer Akbel, adding that
protests had been made to the German Embassy in Ankara
and to German Foreign Minister Klaus Klinkel.

On Tuesday, a judge in Frankfurt, presiding over the
sentencing of three convicted drug smugglers, said the
court had found -- based on evidence presented in the
case -- that there were close ties between the Turkish
government and heroin traffickers operating in Turkey and
in Europe. Judge Rolf Schwalbe was quoted in press
reports as saying that two Kurdish clans known to be
involved in the heroin trafficking through Turkey had
"excellent relations with the Turkish government" and
"personal contacts with a woman minister in the
government."

Asked today to name the woman minister, another judge in
the case, Dox Neveling, was quoted as saying that the two
Kurdish clans had influence at "the highest levels of the
government, and the name of Mrs. Ciller was cited during
the hearing of the case."

The allegations come at a time when Turkey's government
is being shaken by accusations that officials in the
government and security apparatus have ties to a network
of criminal gangs. In exchange for helping the government
eliminate people deemed enemies of the state, including
Kurdish separatists, the criminals are said to have been
protected by officials and allowed to enrich themselves
through drug trafficking, money laundering, extortion and
other criminal activity.

The scandal emerged in November, when an automobile
accident revealed that a militant ultranationalist and
convicted drug smuggler had been riding in the same car
with a top police official and a member of parliament
from Ciller's True Path Party. The press and opposition
politicians claimed that the accident was an indication
of widespread corruption involving public officials,
including Ciller and Mehmet Agar, who was forced to
resign as interior minister.

A report from the prime minister's office has called for
a judicial investigation of Agar and Sedat Bucak, the
lawmaker who survived the car accident, but the report
cleared Ciller, saying it had found no evidence tying her
to any criminal gang.

Ciller, who is also foreign minister in Turkey's
coalition government, reportedly is seeking an apology
from the German government, but a well-informed source
said that Bonn is unlikely to comment on the case beyond
saying that the German government's general policy is to
respect the independence of the judicial system.

West European nations have signaled that they expect more
help from the Turkish government in stemming the flow of
heroin into Europe. A British official said last year
that heroin coming from Turkey accounts for more than 80
percent of all that is confiscated in Britain and urged
the Turkish government to crack down.

According to Western and Turkish officials, a number of
large Kurdish clans based in southeastern Turkey are
believed to control the heroin trade through Turkey and
into Europe. The Baybasin clan, one of the two clans
named in the German case, is from the town of Lice,
believed to be a center of the trafficking.

The clans have settled members throughout Europe,
officials say, as part of the smuggling operation.

The Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), a Marxist guerrilla
group that is waging a separatist war against government
troops in the southeast, also is known to be involved in
drug smuggling.

Although Western officials acknowledge that Turkey has
stepped up its anti-drug efforts, they say privately that
corruption among public officials, especially in the
southeast, is the main obstacle to stopping the drug
traffic. A government policy of employing members of the
Kurdish clans as village guards in its 12-year fight
against the PKK has allowed the drug smuggling to
flourish, critics say.

A statement by the Turkish Interior Ministry today said
that allegations of government involvement in the drug
trade were part of a smear campaign begun by PKK
militants and known drug smugglers who are frustrated by
the government's "determined and successful fight against
[PKK] terrorism and smuggling."

Copyright 1997 The Washington Post Company

----
American Kurdish Information Network (AKIN)
2623 Connecticut Avenue NW #1
Washington, DC 20008-1522

Tel: (202) 483-6444
Fax: (202) 483-6476
E-mail: akin at kurdish.org
Home Page: http://www.kurdistan.org
----

The American Kurdish Information Network (AKIN) provides a public service
to foster Kurdish-American understanding and friendship


-----------------------------------------------------------------
Arm The Spirit is an autonomist/anti-imperialist information
collective based in Toronto, Canada. Our focus includes a wide 
variety of material, including political prisoners, national 
liberation struggles, armed communist resistance, anti-fascism, 
the fight against patriarchy, and more. We regularly publish our 
writings, research, and translation materials in our magazine and
bulletins called Arm The Spirit. For more information, contact:

Arm The Spirit
P.O. Box 6326, Stn. A
Toronto, Ontario
M5W 1P7 Canada

E-mail: ats at etext.org
WWW: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~ats
MRTA Solidarity Page: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~ats/mrta.htm
FTP: ftp.etext.org --> /pub/Politics/Arm.The.Spirit
ATS-L Archives: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~archive/ats-l
-----------------------------------------------------------------

 ++++ stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal ++++
   ++++ if you agree copy these lines to your sig ++++
     ++++ see http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/spg-l/sigaction.htm ++++



From dhkc at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl  Sat Jan 25 08:58:29 1997
From: dhkc at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl (dhkc at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl)
Date: 25 Jan 1997 08:58:29
Subject: Turkey, 1996: Destruction of villages
Message-ID: <bac1c849.m0voBDt.000FgzC@ozgurluk.xs4all.nl>

From: DHKC Informationbureau Amsterdam <dhkc at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl>
Subject: Turkey, 1996: Destruction of villages

DESTRUCTION OF VILLAGES

Thousands of villages in Kurdistan have been destroyed, the
inhabitants were murdered or driven away. The rural areas of Kurdistan
are depopulated. A humane life in the cities has become impossible,
the struggle for survival has rendered other thoughts a
luxury. Hundreds of operations were carried out in the Kurdish areas
in 1996 again against the PKK. Every time a village was completely
destroyed, the Turkish media proudly reported a "new success in the
struggle against terrorism". When dozens of civilians are shot, they
talk about a victory against the guerrilla. The food supplies for the
civilian population are being rationed to prevent food is given to the
guerrilla. Thousands of people, even 15 year old children, are forced
to become "village guards". But even with these methods of
annihilation the Turkish military is not able to win the struggle
against the guerrilla. More and more people are going into the
mountains to confront this system. In 1996, the Turkish military even
had to endure criticism by the loyal media why 2.000 heavily armed
soldiers were needed to attack a single village...

Houses and villages are not only destroyed in the Kurdish areas. In
the major cities, especially in Istanbul, the houses of the poorest
among the poor, the Gececondular, are being attacked and
destroyed. According to Turkish law, a house which is built on state
owned land overnight becomes the legitimate property of the
builder. Contrary to this law, also in 1996 countless Gececondu-houses
were demolished by the state, leaving the inhabitants, whose most
valuable (and often only property) is their house, without any means.

February 1, 1996, Politika
Solidarity with Sivas continues

The Platform for Solidarity with the People in Sivas made a press
statement on the Ozgurluk Meydani in Bakirkoy in which they protested
against the depopulation of the area, the arrests and the torture. 63
villages have been depopulated in the area of Sivas. 111 primary
schools were closed in Divrigi, 63 in Zara. 500 peasants, among them
75 village mayors, were arrested and tortured.  Some 300 villages were
surrounded by the state security forces. At present there are around
200 soldiers and members of the Special Units in the villages of
Baloca and Dikmecay... "We demand an end to the oppression of the
population and an end of the embargo against the villages. We demand
that these villages are not depopulated any longer and that the
governor of Sivas will be suspended", the statement reads.

February 1, 1996, Politika
11 Villages raided in Sivas

During the last 5 days the state security forces raided 11 villages in
the area between Sivas, Divrigi, Zara and Kangal. 20 peasants, among
them mayors as well, were arrested. Three peasants are still
missing. It is reported that temporary guards were deployed in several
villages in Divrigi. The soldiers are conducting house searches. The
peasants are not allowed to leave the villages. After sundown, they
are not even allowed to leave the house.

September 12, 1996, Cumhuriyet - Sabah - Zaman - Aksam 
Gececondu houses destroyed again

Yesterday the police destroyed 28 houses in Buyuksehir in Akatlar
Karanfilkoy.  The inhabitants resisted the 1.000 policemen who invaded
the neighbourhood, using barricades and bricks.

September 14, 1996, Cumhuriyet
Food embargo against Tunceli

Mayor Mazlum Aslan stated the whole city was surrounded. A delegation
of representatives of the Human Rights Association (IHD) and
democratic organisations went to Tunceli to monitor the situation. The
delegates requested information from several official institutions
about the food embargo and executions.

October 19, 1996, Kurtulus
Gececondus destroyed in Eskisehir

Like in the Gececondular (slum areas) of Istanbul, the houses of the
poor are destroyed in other cities as well. In Eskiseher, 21 houses
were destroyed by the state. The inhabitants said the state had
promised to leave their houses in peace, but this promise had been
broken.

October 29, 1996, Kurtulus
Protest against the food embargo in Dersim

On October 12, the district mayors of Dersim and Tunceli staged a
protest in Guven Park (Ankara) against the food embargo in
Dersim. Banners were shown with the texts: "We want to return, are we
not human beings?" and "We demand compensation". A message for the
prime-minister was drawn up as well, demanding the end of the food
embargo in Dersim. It is also said that the people who were driven
away from Dersim want to go back, they do not want to be treated as
criminals any longer. Furthermore they demand that the massacres are
being stopped.

November 1, 1996, Kurtulus
Houses demolished in Eskisehir again

In the last two months, 54 Gececondu houses were demolished on orders
of the city administration of Odunpazari. During the last two days, 8
other Gececondu houses were demolished in Tepebasi. Hundreds of people
are now homeless, thrown out on the streets, with winter approaching.

December 25, 1996, Demokrasi
Again demolition of Gececondu houses

After an eviction order, 400 houses were appointed to be smashed in
Sarigazi in the neighbourhood of Yenidogan. The inhabitants of the
neighbourhood resisted and attacked the Gendarmerie. 12 people were
arrested by the police. The inhabitants threw up barricades to prevent
the demolition vehicles from entering the area. Around 200 people
defended the barricades. Nevertheless, around 30 houses were
smashed. Around 500 Gendarmes took part in the demolition act. 10
women climbed the roof of a house and resisted the Gendarmerie. The
barricades remained intact until the demolition vehicles left the
area. Around 150 people stood guard at the barricades until dawn.

December 30, 1996, Demokrasi
Lice isolated from the outside world

Because the inhabitants of Lice refuse to become village guards, Lice
was occupied by hundreds of soldiers. Passports are being confiscated
by the mayor, and the people are not allowed to leave the
town. Journalist and a delegation from Italy with Dara Delt Antonia,
Gaetano Lo Porto and Dana Frisullo weren't allowed to enter the
city. On December 20, 200 people were taken into custody in
Diyarbakir-Lice and they're not yet released. There has been no word
from 7 people who have been tortured. The health situation of 8 people
who are tortured is getting worse. They were asked to become village
guards, but they refused.  Even 15 year old children are forced to
become village guards. The soldiers are trying to force the people and
try to learn them how to use guns. In case the people refuse, they are
beaten up with sticks.

December 31, 1996, Demokrasi Delegation in Lice attacked by the police

The police attacked a delegation in Lice which wanted to talk to
inhabitants who are tortured to become "village guards". 104 men in
Lice were taken into custody, tortured and forced to join the village
guards. A delegation of journalists, unionists and representatives of
several human rights associations was hindered by the police in Lice
to speak to the people who had been released.
The assertion by the governor that nobody was forced to become a
village guard could be disproved despite the police attacks against
the delegation. Delegation members were able to speak to 6 people who
showed the torture marks on their body. The delegation also witnessed
that people in custody were still being tortured.

-- 
Classwar in Turkey and Kurdistan: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk
Turkey Contra-Guerrilla State: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk/contrind/
Turkey Mailinglist Mirror: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk/ml.html
KURTULUS HAFTALIK SIYASI GAZETE: http://www.kurtulus.com



From dhkc at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl  Sun Jan 26 07:18:11 1997
From: dhkc at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl (dhkc at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl)
Date: 26 Jan 1997 07:18:11
Subject: Turkey 1996: THE PRISONS
Message-ID: <bac1c849.m0voKvT.000FZ1C@ozgurluk.xs4all.nl>

From: DHKC Informationbureau Amsterdam <dhkc at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl>

From: noelr at dds.nl
To: tabe at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl
Subject: Prisons in Turkey in 1996
Date: Sun, 26 Jan 1997 00:37:16 +0000

THE PRISONS

One of the most important events in Turkey in 1996, causing
international attention and solidarity, has been the Death Fast by
more than 300 people, accompanied by an indefinite hunger strike by
1.500 prisoners and solidarity hunger strikes by tens of thousands,
in- and outside the prisons.

69 Days in which the world held its breath

In July 1996 the political prisoners in Turkey ended their Death
Fast. After 69 days, in which more than 300 prisoners joined the Death
Fast and in which 12 prisoners died, the Turkish state was forced to
give in and it had to promise it would fulfil the demands of the
prisoners. The survivors of the Death Fast were brought to
hospital. The victory of the Death Fast is a victory of human dignity
over cruelty. It was reached because of the will of the prisoners to
make the sacrifice of giving their life for human dignity. The Turkish
state had no other option, confronted with the pressure by the world
public opinions and the resistance of the prisoners, it had to
capitulate.

Nevertheless, to get public opinion on their side, the prisoners had
to fight al long time. Only after the first of them fell, the media
abroad began to report extensively about the events inside the prisons
which shook Turkey.  Thousands of people in Turkey expressed their
solidarity with the prisoners.  Everywhere in Turkey they went onto
the streets to show their solidarity by protests. And everywhere they
were confronted with attacks by the police. The brutality of the
Turkish security forces knew no borders. 70 year old mothers were
beaten with truncheons, arrested and tortured. Once again, Turkey
showed its real face.

The resistance was also supported in Europe. Solidarity committees
emerged spontaneously in many places, largely consisting of Turkish
women and men who lived in Europe. What was not done by the media at
that time, was done by the solidarity committees: making the people in
Europe aware of what was happening in the struggle of the Death
Fasters. In time, also politicians, democratic associations, unions,
lawyers and intellectuals in Europe began to take a stand concerning
the events in Turkey. In the European Parliament and in the UN, voices
were heard which condemned the Turkish policy and which called upon
the Turkish government to fulfil the demands of the prisoners.

But those supported the demands of the prisoners on the streets of
Europe were brutally attacked as well. The guardians of the existing
order, caring more for the good relations with NATO-partner Turkey
than for the life and the rights of the political prisoners, tried to
crush the protests which began to effect public opinion. Several times
demonstrations in support of the prisoners were banned or attacked by
the police. Associations of Turkish leftists were raided by the police
as "prevention", its members were beaten up and arrested. The events
on the Dome Square in Cologne, where more than 500 people were
arrested on July 20, 1996, were reminiscent of scenes as we know them
from Turkish television.

When the first martyrs of the Death Fast made clear to the world that
the prisoners would rather die in the struggle for their dignity than
to give up, the events could no longer be ignored or played down. Now
the Death Fast became headline news in all the papers. The pictures
from the Bayrampasa Prison, shot by the prisoners and smuggled out of
prison, shocked the television viewer all over Europe.

Finally pressure was applied on Turkey. Because of this pressure,
built up with the lives of 12 prisoners, the Turkish government had to
give in and they had to promise they would fulfil the demands of the
prisoners. Thereupon the 326 prisoners ended the Death Fast.

The Death Fast was a huge success in the struggle for human rights in
Turkey. It showed the rulers in Turkey they can only loose in the end,
confronted with a resistance which is prepared to pay with the lives
of the prisoners.

But the Death Fast has an significance which goes beyond defending
rights and improvement of the prison conditions of the political
prisoners. Starting from the prisoners, the resistance in Turkey was
extended by the hungerstrike and it reached a new dimension. For the
first time many of the revolutionary organisations, which conceive
themselves as the avant-garde of the struggle, worked together. And
beyond the co-operation between the DHKP-C, MLKP, TKP(ML), TKP-ML,
Direnis Hareketi, TIKB, TDP, Ekim and THKP-C/HDO inside the prisons,
the discussion about a co-operation outside the prisons
progressed. And it weren't just the revolutionary organisations who
resisted outside the prisons and who supported the prisoners. Human
rights organisations, unions, many democratic groups and institutions
supported the resistance with countless protest actions and solidarity
hunger strikes. The progress in the co-operation between democratic
and revolutionary organisations is one of the important political
successes of the Death Fast.

Another important political success of the Death Fast was the exposure
of the new government, led by Erbakan. After the REFAHYOL coalition
was built, led by the Refah Party, many protest voters hoped the
situation would change, according to the election promises. These
hopes were bitterly disappointed by the brutal attacks, led by the
minister of the Interior Mehmet Agar and the minister of Justice
Sevket Kazan. The mask of justice was removed from the Refah Party's
face by the Death Fast. Behind the mask, the face of fascism became
visible.  Against this face, the resistance, on a new level because of
the Death Fast, will be continued.

July 28, 1996, Yeni Yuzyil
Death Fast ended

Yesterday night...the Turkish government promised to fulfil ALL
demands of the prisoners. After 11 death fasters died the struggle for
their rights in prison and one death faster died in hospital today,
their demands were met. In the Death Fast have fallen: Aygun Ugur
TKP(ML), Altan Berdan Kerimgiller DHKP-C, Ilginc Ozkeskin DHKP-C,
Huseyin Demircioglu MLKP, Ali Ayata TKP(ML), Mujdat Yanat DHKP-C,
Tahsin Yilmaz TIKB, Ayce Idil Erkmen DHKP-C, Hicabi Kucuk TIKB,
Yemliha Kaya DHKP-C, Osman Akgun TIKB and Hayati Can TKP(ML). The
Death Fast inside the Turkish prisons was ended on the 69th. day after
12 revolutionaries fell. The struggle of the resisters to get their
rights, reached its goal. The fulfilment of all demands was promised.

The Death Fast ended, the struggle continues

The death fasters in Turkey achieved a victory. The government in
Turkey had to promise the fulfilment of the demands of the
prisoners. But this has not ended the human rights violations in
Turkey. Even after the transport of sick prisoners to hospital, the
rights of the prisoners were violated. In the hospitals the prisoners
complain about the treatment being hindered. Visits by relatives of
representatives of international delegations are not allowed or
hindered. Contrary to the promises, prisoners are cuffed during the
transports which take hours. Contrary to the promises, the transfer of
the prisoners from the isolation jails back to their former prisons is
going very reluctantly. The police keeps on hitting people outside the
prisons who stand up for the human rights in Turkey. Oya Gokbayrak,
the chairperson of the human rights organisation "Platform for Rights
and Freedom", was arrested in the beginning of August when she was
waiting in front of Bayrampasa Prison for a permit to visit the
prisoners. The lawyer Ahmet Duzgun Yuksel was arrested when he wanted
to hand over written charges against minister of Justice Sevket Kazan
to the court in Sultanahmet/Istanbul. These are only some examples of
the continuation of human rights violations by the Turkish state, even
after the end of the Death Fast. But it was clear from the beginning
that this regime of oppression would neither honour its own laws, not
keep its promises. The fulfilment of every single promise, forced from
this regime, must be monitored. Every success in the struggle for
human rights in Turkey is like victory in one round which can only be
kept through continuous defence. The task of world public opinion has
not come to an end with the end of the Death Fast. Now the time has
come to force Turkey step by step to actually realise the promises to
the prisoners.  After the surprising events during the last moments,
it has to be feared that Turkey will slowly be forgotten by the media,
the political parties and the human rights organisations. As soon as
interest falls back, the attacks by the oppressive regime will start
to increase again. To prevent this, it's important to stay alert and
the events in Turkey must be actively monitored. The history of
oppression, and the history of resistance as well, have a long
tradition in Turkey. Again and again, partly with great sacrifices,
progress was gained, again and again new attacks have to be fought
back and even defeats have to be endured. But the process of
democratisation is going on, against the will of the rulers. The Death
Fast has been a major step in this development. Now the time has come
to secure this step, making it a basis for future progress in the
struggle of human dignity against cruelty.

January, 1996
Massacre in Umraniye Prison

After 3 prisoners had been massacred in Buca Prison on September 21,
1995, the prisoners in Umraniye Prison were attacked by the state
security forces on January 4, 1996. 4 prisoners were killed in this
attack, 40 prisoners were wounded, several of them severely. Led by
the state prosecutor, the prison director and officers of the
Gendarmerie, a bloody attack was carried out against the prisoners,
ordered by the department of Justice. Prisoners were hit with iron
bars, especially on their heads. Three prisoners, Riza Boybas, Orhan
Ozen and Abdulmecit Seckin were killed at the spot, 40 other prisoners
were wounded, may seriously. One prisoner, Gultekin Beyhan, died the
following day.

July, 1996
Torture increases

According to figures of the IHD (Human Rights Association) and the
Torture Investigation Commission, 1238 people were tortured in a
period of 6 months, in Istanbul alone. In the beginning of 1996 six
people died because of torture. The cases of torture increased this
year. In January, during the funeral of Riza Boybas and Orhan Ozen who
were massacred in Umraniye Prison, 1040 people were locked up in a
sports stadium and tortured. Istanbul is the city where torture is
most frequent. A unborn child, 1.5 month old, was killed as well
because of torture.

July 6, 1996
I can still see the cruelty in Usak

Mahmut Abayli, who was wounded in an attack by fascists, reports about
the cruelty in Usak Prison. An investigation by the Justice department
revealed that the assertion that the Gendarmes could not intervene
because the cell doors had been blocked by beds was a false. The
Gendarmerie report states the prisoners had been sympathisers of
Devrimci Sol and Devrimci Yol who had started a indefinite hunger
strike one month ago. The daggers with whom the prisoners were
murdered were found under a bed inside the cell. The beds, claimed to
have been put in front of the doors, are bunk-beds which can not be
moved because they are fixed to the floor. Mahmut reported: "I woke up
at night with a sudden pain in my face. I tried to get up, but I was
held back. They kept stabbing me with a sharp object until they
thought I was dead. During the entire attack the guards and the
Gendarmerie did not intervene, only after they were convinced we were
all dead did they open the door. I witnessed under what pain my
friends were murdered. I can still see it."

July 7, 1996, Demokrasi
Poison for the HADEP-prisoners

The women who were arrested during the action of July 24, 1996, in
front of the HADEP office in Osmaniye/Adana, report they found strange
tablets in their tea water.

August 8, 1996, Yeni Yuzyil
Prisoners discharged from hospitals to soon

8 Prisoners are still being treated in the Istanbul University

Hospital. Turkish associations of physicians complained the prisoners
were discharged from the hospitals too soon. From the 14 prisoners in
total, 6 were discharged yesterday.  Before the weekend, 5 more are to
be discharged

September 7, 1996, Demokrasi
Nail Demir is not being treated

The PKK-prisoner Nail Demir is still denied medical treatment, despite
a serious spine injury. The health damages, caused by brutal abuse,
were the reason for his wife to call the Prison Monitoring
Committee. Mrs. Demir states: "My husband is nearing death step by
step." This is based also on the fact that his friends have to feed
Demir and that he must be helped when he needs to go to the toilet.
Despite all the requests and the graveness of the situation, the
prison administration does not grant permission for treatment.

September 13, 1996, Demokrasi
The Erzurum Prison

A PKK-prisoner, Mutlak Kozan, put himself on fire in the Erzurum
Prison in protest against the violation of the Death Fast
agreement. He survived, severely burned, but he refuses every medical
treatment.

September 21, 1996, Cumhuriyet
Attack against the prisoners in Aydin

The Turkish state is not honouring the agreement which led to the end
69 day long Death Fast in the prisons. In protest against these
violations, prisoners in the prison of Aydin refused to get
counted. Thereupon the Gendarmerie attacked the prisoners. 5 Prisoners
were wounded.

September 23, 1996, Kurtulus

The DHKP-C prisoner Murat Mesut Uzun, suffering from cirrhosis, is not
being treated After the Death Fast the state is attacking the rights,
won by sacrifices. Murat Mesut Uzun was only brought to hospital once
since his illness became apparent. There he demanded that his
handcuffs were loosened a bit, which caused heated discussions. He was
beaten up and subjected to a humiliating treatment. Murat Mesut Demir
stated he would refuse treatment until the prison administration would
put an end to their inhuman conduct. He will start a diet in his cell,
together with his friends and he needs urgent medical examination.
The prisoners Umit Dogan Gonul, Kalender Kayapinar, Mustafa Kaya and
most recently Mehmet Yazan died because medical treatment was denied
to them.

September 27, 1996, Sabah
Number of deaths in Diyarbakir risen

After the police attack against the prisoners in Diyarbakir the number
of deaths rose to 11. The prisoner Kadir Dal, brought to hospital
after the attack, died today in the State Hospital in
Diyarbakir. Minister of Justice Sevket Kazan did not give a statement
about this new development. It was reported that the damages to the
building, caused by the attack, have been repaired already. The
prisoners are afraid the attacks will now be continued in the prisons
of Buca, Bayrampasa and Canakkale.

September 27, 1996, Zaman
Prisoners start warning strike

Because the Turkish state is not honouring the agreement with the
prisoners, more than 10.000 prisoners in the prisons in Turkey will
start a 3 day warning hunger strike today. The agreement was reached
after negotiations between the Turkish government and representatives
of the political prisoners. The prisoners then ended their 69 day long
Death Fast in which 12 prisoners died.

September 30, 1996, Demokrasi

Prisoners put themselves on fire in the Istanbul Bayrampasa Prison On
September 27, 1996, 3 PKK-prisoners tried to put themselves on fire in
the Bayrampasa Prison as a protest against the massacre by the Turkish
police in the prison of Diyarbakir, against the banning of the Kurdish
television station MED-TV in Europe, and against the bad treatment in
prison. Gulbahar Koker, wrapped herself in paper and put herself on
fire but her burning to death was prevented. Vedat Aydemir and
Hamdullah Senguler, who had wrapped themselves in plastic bags, were
also noticed by friends and saved. All three had written a letter to
justify their act of despair.

September 30, 1996, Demokrasi
The massacre was planned

According to the Chamber of Physicians in Diyarbakir the state
prosecutor called the City Hospital of Diyarbakir already before the
massacre to inquire if there were empty hospital beds. The state
prosecutor said their could be wounded from the prison at any moment,
the number was unknown. This means the massacre was planned in
advance, carried out with the knowledge of the state prosecutor.

October 4, 1996, Ates
Hunger strike continues

The prisoners in Canakkale Prison are again on hunger strike. After
the 69 day long Death Fast, conditions inside the prisons have not
improved. Thereupon 77 political prisoners started a 3 day long
warning hunger strike which was transformed into a hunger strike for
an indefinite period after the events in the prison of Diyarbakir. In
Diyarbakir, 11 people died and many were severely after a police
attack.

October 4, 1996, Demokrasi 
Treatment refused for Abdulmelik Tanas

Abdulmelik Tanas was arrested on January 23, 1996 in Istanbul by
policemen of the Anti-Terror Department. Tanas was brought to
Bayrampasa Prison and severely tortured. Medical investigation showed
his bone structure was deteriorating, he needs urgent medical
treatment to prevent permanent disability. This treatment has been
refused until now. Concern about the health situation of Abdulmelik
Tanas was made voiced in a IHD press statement by his brother Ahmet
Tanas, his lawyer Naciye Kaplan and the members of the IHD Prison
Monitoring Committee Mukaddes Alatas and Nurten Ozdemir.

October 5, 1996, Demokrasi
Continuing actions inside the prisons

After the events in Diyarbakir Prison, with 11 deaths and several
seriously wounded, and after the agreement after the 69 day long Death
Fast, in which 12 people fell, was not honoured., political prisoners
started a 3 day long warning hunger strike. In the meantime this
action was transformed into an indefinite hunger strike in 9 prisons.

October, 1996
400 Prisoners on hunger strike in the prison of Koya

400 Political prisoners started a sequential hunger strike. The
action, started by 4 prisoners, was taken over by others and
transformed into an action for an indefinite period. In protest
against the events in Diyarbakir Prison and the violation of the
agreement after the Death Fast, they also refused to take part in
their trials.

October 11, 1996, Demokrasi
Hamdullah Senturk dies after putting himself on fire

In protest against the massacre in the prison of Diyarbakir, 3
prisoners put themselves on fire in Bayrampasa Prison a couple of
weeks ago. All 3 were brought to hospital, seriously burned. Today the
prisoner Hamdullah Senturk died in hospital. The prisoner Vedat
Aydemir died already yesterday.

December 27, 1996, Demokrasi
Kurdish prisoner murdered

Fascist prisoners in the Nazilli special type prison in Izmir murdered
a Kurdish prisoner. 4 other prisoners were wounded in the attack. The
Kurdish prisoners were attacked in the canteen. In the morning of
December 27, fascists armed with sharp objects and daggers attacked
the Kurdish prisoner Abdul Kacar and murdered him. 4 other prisoners
were wounded and taken to hospital.

------------------------------------------
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From kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu  Sun Jan 26 20:31:38 1997
From: kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu (kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu)
Date: 26 Jan 1997 20:31:38
Subject: Diary Of A Kurdish Guerrilla Fighte
Message-ID: <bac1c849.Pine.NEB.3.95.970126152..@burn.ucsd.edu>

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at locust.cic.net>
Subject: Diary Of A Kurdish Guerrilla Fighter

Memoirs From The Diary Of Kurdish Freedom Fighter Ayhan Kaya

Part I

     Every day in Kurdistan, as the liberation struggle under the
leadership of the PKK gains in strength, colonialism and its
institutions are breaking down.
     National consciousness is blooming in the minds of the
people. The Kurdish people are coming one step nearer to their
reality every day and our hatred of the enemy grows deeper. This
has meant that these people are becoming more closely and
actively involved with the national liberation struggle. As the
struggle grows stronger, our freedom gets nearer.
     The year was 1991. It was fall. Fall in our country is very
beautiful. But the real beauty of our country are the freedom
fighters in the mountains. They are influencing people everywhere
they go. They are models for everyone, they are loved by
everyone, everyone wants to see them and everyone knows that
their liberation will only be achieved by the guerrilla. The
guerrilla represents liberation, hope, freedom, and revenge after
thousands of years.
     We, too, were very much affected by the guerrilla. We wanted
to be like them. We wanted to carry weapons over our shoulders,
to walk freely over mountain cliffs, and to struggle. I always
thought of them before I went to sleep. I, too, wanted a
Kalashnikov in my hand, to be free, to fight for my people. There
was only one way to realize this dream: to come into contact with
the guerrillas and to join them.
     We, a group of school students, had already arrived at this
conclusion. We told ourselves it was time to join the guerrilla.
We didn't want to go to school anymore and learn what they
taught. I thought about the guerrillas all the time, and about
the mountains. Finally, I went to visit a friend in his village,
because some guerrillas were supposed to be there that night to
meet with us. Once in the village, I could hardly control myself.
I couldn't sit still for more than a minute, because for the
first time ever, I was about to meet some guerrilla fighters. I
experienced joy, excitement, and liveliness all at once. What
should I say to them? How should I conduct myself? How should I
approach them? As I ran over all these questions in my mind, we
were notified that the guerrillas were ready to see us. We then
went to the house where they were. At first, I wasn't able to
utter a single word due to my joy and excitement. We greeted one
another. Only after they had put me at ease did we introduce
ourselves. I asked all the questions that popped into my head.
They answered all of them, not seeming the least bit annoyed.
They had quite an impact on me. Later on I informed them of our
decision, of our wish to join the guerrilla. They reacted in a
positive manner. After deciding on a time and a place, we
departed. I didn't want to part from them, although it was only
to be for one day. After that one day, I would be with them
forever.
     As we parted, I was just as happy as my new guerrilla
friends. Me, because I had finally taken the first step towards
my dream of freedom, and they, because they had won over some new
fighters. It was our natural right to be happy on this day. The
following day, I called together all the friends. There were
seven of us, including two women. We were all classmates. We all
felt very bonded together, and that's why we wanted to join the
guerrilla together. Our guerrilla contact wanted to call us to
arrange a meeting point, so that we could hook up with one of the
militia members. He was going to call either in the morning or in
the evening. At the appointed time in the morning, he did not
call. This made us uneasy. Then I contacted a man from the
militia to see if something had happened, like maybe there had
been a battle or something. A thousand things ran through my
mind. After a while, the friend from the militia said: "Let us go
to our village, they will surely come to the village today, then
you can join them there." So we went to the village, without
waiting for the friend to call.
     There were seven of us. We were so curious and full of
energy, as if we had just tasted happiness for the first time.
Once we had reconciled in our minds what we wanted to do, we were
sure that we would be serving our people and that we would be
able to meet all the demands of life in the guerrilla. As it
became dark in the village, our excitement grew and we couldn't
stay still any longer. The friends who hadn't yet met the
guerrillas were in a different state of mind. You could sense it.
As the hours passed, I didn't want to imagine that maybe the
guerrillas weren't coming back after all. But on this day, they
did not come. What would we do if they never came back? But we
kept telling ourselves they would come. We waited until late in
the night, but they did not come. Now it was sure they weren't
coming. We asked our militia friend: "What should we do now?" He
proposed we set off for their camp in the mountains, that surely
we would find them. So we set off for the mountains under the
light of the moon. True, we hadn't seen them today, but surely we
would soon. With this in mind, we trusted this friend's advice.
     We walked until early morning, then we reached a wooded
area. But we didn't find the guerrillas. We searched all day
long, to no avail. In the meantime, the weather had become
disagreeable. It started to rain. We said to ourselves:
"Hopefully the friends will come soon and take us with them."
When it started to rain again in the evening, we went back to the
village. All the residents in this village were patriots. They
took care of us and tried to keep our spirits high. Some, who
were on their way to the city, visited us. "Your families are
looking all over for you. If the police find out you are in this
village, they will come here and kill you. So you'd better return
home. The guerrillas aren't coming back here today anyway." Both
the militia contact and the other villagers thought it was best
for us to return home, given the circumstances. We all also
realized that we had no choice but to return home.
     What a horrible situation! Our morale had reached rock
bottom. How could we ever look other patriots in the eyes again?
What should we do? What should we say if the police picked us up?
After thinking about these things, we decided upon what we would
say. We looked at one another, but no one wanted to speak.,
because we had not yet achieved freedom. We would have to return
to our unfree lives.
     As the sun started to rise, we were already reaching the
city. Each of us went home and then on to school. We had hardly
reached the city when we noticed that Turkish flags were flying
everywhere. This atmosphere was a rude awakening for us. Today
was September 29th, Republic Day. I went to the shop first. My
father greeted me. He couldn't believe it, because he thought he
would never see me again. As I talked with him, some neighbors of
ours came in and out of the shop. They asked where we had been,
what we had done, they all wanted to know something from me. I
lied and told them we hadn't gone anywhere, that we had just went
with some friends for a day trip, as was our right. Finally I
went home, where I was confronted with the same situation. But
they were happy to see me again.
     The next day when I went to school and I met my other
friends. We were all sent to the head master's office. A police
commissioner was there as well. He wanted to interrogate us. He
took down our names and said to us: "We know where you all went.
You will have to be punished for that. Starting today, you must
show up for school every day." He tried to frighten us by
speaking in a loud voice. After he had threatened us, he left.
Then we went home, too.
     Following that day, the police were constantly watching us.
Our former friends distanced themselves from us. I asked myself
if we had done something wrong, since our friends no longer
trusted us. Yes, we had been wrong, because due to our haste and
impatience, we had not waited for the telephone call from our
guerrilla contact. Later on we learned that they had in fact
called us on the evening we left from the city. Our school
friends were now afraid and they distanced themselves from us,
but this was a time when we needed lots of support. After all of
this happened, some of our close friends were sent by their
families into one of the major cities. My family wanted to send
me away for a holiday, both for my own safety, but also so that I
could get myself back together. Strange. We were trying to get to
the mountains, to the nest of freedom, yet now we had almost lost
our homeland. Now they wanted to send us into exile. There could
be no greater sorrow than this!
     Perhaps we didn't know very much about revolution, but we
all loved our homeland very much. Just for wanting to be one with
the mountains, the stones, the wolves, and birds, they wanted to
drive us out of our own land.
     For the first time, I was to leave my homeland and travel
into the Diaspora. I couldn't imagine that. But the decision had
already been made. In the eyes of my family, I was guilty, so
there was nothing left for me to do but to go. Perhaps the
biggest pain was when I went to Izmir. Everything I knew was in
Kurdistan. But instead of dreaming every day about Kurdistan, I
resolved to make contact with the Party as quickly as possible so
that I could finally make it to the mountains of my homeland.
     I went to Izmir. There, I knew some people who were
patriots. After a short while in Izmir, I contacted them. They
helped me, because they knew what had happened. They gave me
books so that I could educate myself. They let me share my
homesickness with them. Finally, we contacted the Party.
Following this, we were given training and then we joined the
Party. Once again, there were seven of us. For a short time, we
lived with some patriots, because it was a state holiday and all
the bus lines were closed. After the holiday, we were on our way.
As we stood at the bus stop, I spotted my brother-in-law. He was
looking for me. He even looked inside the bus we were about to
get on. I couldn't let him see me! He eventually gave up and
left, and soon we were on our way to Dowubeyazit.
     I was very excited. This time there must not be any
problems! During the trip, we all laughed with one another. We
weren't even tired! Ferhat was at least as excited as I was. The
next afternoon we arrived in Dowubeyazit. We went to the home of
a patriotic family. Once we were there, I knew we would make it
to the guerrillas. The next day we traveled by car towards
Ararat. We came into a very small village with only three houses.
We were very excited, because we knew we would soon meet with our
guerrilla friends. We smoked one cigarette after another to calm
our nerves. After an hour of waiting, the militia friend
suggested that he would drive on to another location and bring
the friends to us. As we waited, another militia friend arrived.
He had a wounded friend with him. We went to the car and carried
the friend into a house. I assumed the friend had been shot. As I
opened the car door and removed the blanket, I saw it wasn't so.
I could hardly believe my eyes! Even Ferhat was shocked. Only Pir
remained composed. For the first time in my life, I saw a human
being with no feet whose hands were burned black.
     Once we had gotten the friend inside, we stood back and
observed. The friend must have sensed immediately that we were
afraid. He called Ferhat and me to his side. We sat by him. He
introduced himself. After we told him our names, he began to tell
us what had happened. His name was Haki. The enemy had attacked
their camp in the winter. As the friends retreated, their feet
froze in the snow. He had cut one of his feet off himself and a
friend amputated the other. He has so full of life and in such
high spirits that we soon cheered up as well. I admired his
heroic resistance. I decided I was very fortunate to have met
such a person as I was about to join the guerrilla.
     For the first time in my life, I met a human being who was
waging resistance, who loved life, and who had to put up an
incredible fight just to survive. The friend Haki showed
incredible courage in his situation.

(to be continued...)

(Translated by Arm The Spirit from Kurdistan Report #9/10,
September/October 1996)


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 ++++ stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal ++++
   ++++ if you agree copy these lines to your sig ++++
     ++++ see http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/spg-l/sigaction.htm ++++



From dhkc at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl  Mon Jan 27 20:09:26 1997
From: dhkc at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl (dhkc at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl)
Date: 27 Jan 1997 20:09:26
Subject: TURKEY: Scandal in Mus
Message-ID: <bac1c849.m0votrO.000FhDC@ozgurluk.xs4all.nl>

From: DHKC Informationbureau Amsterdam <dhkc at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl>


Scandal in Mus

SABAH reported that police had raided seven labor union premises in
Mus on Jan. 14 and detained a total of 26 people, three of them young
female teachers. The three were stripped naked at the police
headquarters by three policewomen who verbally insulted them, pinched
them, made debasing remarks about their morals and their personal
lives, and subjected them to a "virginity test" by hand. Their ordeal
lasted for more than four hours.


-- 
Classwar in Turkey and Kurdistan: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk
Turkey Contra-Guerrilla-State http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk/contrind
Turkey Mailinglist Mirror: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk/ml.html
KURTULUS HAFTALIK SIYASI GAZETE: http://www.kurtulus.com



From dhkc at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl  Mon Jan 27 20:17:37 1997
From: dhkc at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl (dhkc at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl)
Date: 27 Jan 1997 20:17:37
Subject: Turkey 1996: The Triangle of the Mafia, the Police and State Officia
Message-ID: <bac1c849.m0votTJ.000FhDC@ozgurluk.xs4all.nl>

From: DHKC Informationbureau Amsterdam <dhkc at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl>
Subject: Turkey 1996: The Triangle of the Mafia, the Police and State Officials

THE TRIANGLE OF THE MAFIA, THE POLICE AND 
STATE OFFICIALS

The most significant event of 1996 in Turkey was marked by the
accident in Susurluk and the developments and revelations it caused. A
simple traffic accident lifted the veil over the network of ties
between the contra-guerrilla, the Mafia, the police and official state
representatives. The existence of the contra-guerrilla in Turkey has
always been denied, now everybody had to concede it has gone its evil
ways for decades. And even more: the network of relations, uncovered
till the end of the year and only showing the top of the iceberg,
suffices to show that it is the contra-guerrilla which in effect rules
Turkey...

November 5, 1996
The Turkish secret service MIT breaks its silence. A report, published
by the MIT, states that special units were formed to combat the PKK
and Dev-Sol. These groups, largely manned with Grey Wolves, also made
use of methods like extortion, robbery, threats, drug trafficking and
murder. Some members of these Special Units were given diplomatic
passports and police identification by police chiefs. Some of them
were used to fight "terrorist groups" abroad.  Furthermore they made
money abroad by trafficking drugs. Police chiefs are said to be the
heads of these para-military contra-guerrilla units.

November 9, 1996
The ANAP-delegate Carsancakli stated: "This is not about Agar alone. These acts
are ordered by Ozer and Tansu Ciller. They are the actual gang leaders. Catli
phoned me a couple of times and said: "Yesterday I had dinner with Ciller. If
you want to have something done, I can do it for you", he was somebody who met
Agar and had dinner with Ciller."

November 11, 1996
According to the present ANAP-member Avni Carsancakli (a former member
of the MHP), Catli had ties with the Department for Special Warfare
and he supposedly had regular meetings with Mehmet Agar.

November 14, 1996
The Lawyers Guild in Istanbul says the attempts to shed light into the
Susurluk case are in vain: "This accident has dimensions, reaching
from drug trafficking to executions, and it is the state which is
behind these actions." The CHP-delegate from Erzincan, Mustafa Kul,
stated Abdullah Catli belonged to the staff of advisors of Agar and
that Catli was offered a seat in parliament by Ciller before the
elections in December 1994. Yellow-white powder, wrapped in aluminium,
wad found in the crashed car. First it was thought to be heroine,
later it was established in laboratory tests that it was cocaine.

November 17, 1996
Demirel states in the press: "Let's not burn down the whole house
because of one mouse, Susurluk was a mistake by the state." The coup
general Evren about the Grey Wolves which were used by the Grey Wolves
to carry out actions: "The MIT even used enemies and if this goes on,
nobody will want to work for the state anymore."

November 21, 1996
Sedat Bucak appears in a HBB-television program and says he has 30.000
men under arms. He claims he loves Catli like a brother. While he
covers Catli with compliments, he warns Yilmaz not to be
"careless". Mesut Yilmaz states there are even ministers who give
orders to the Mafia: "These people are used for tasks which benefit
the interests of certain political tendencies, not the state. They
work together with criminals in dirty jobs for dirty money."

December 5, 1996
The chairman of the MHP (Fascists) Alparslan Turkes concedes, based on
his long experience: "The state has used Abdullah Catli." It is
claimed that Ciller ordered Ahmet Demir (also known as "Yesil") to
kill Abdullah Catli, giving him 25 billion TL from a secret
fund. Yesil got scared and did not carry out this task, but he kept
the money. The assault was supposed to be carried out by Yesil and
Abdullah Catli. The former Refah Party (Welfare Party) delegate Hasan
Mezarci claims prime-minister Necmettin Erbakan works for the
Department for Special Warfare. Mezarci describes this department as a
place where gangs are produced. The statement by Erbakan that he would
dismantle the gangs in case they existed within the state is thought
to be unbelievable by Mezarci: "Erbakan does not want to solve this
event, he does not want to punish those who are responsible. He just
wants to cover up the case... Nobody is sincere when the disclosure of
this case is concerned. It's not the gangs which are important, it's
the Department for Special Warfare... This Department produces
right-wing, left-wing, fundamentalist and nationalist gangs, it uses
and protects them until they are no longer needed. Ten they set up new
gangs. The problem is not Catli, there are thousands like Catli who
work for the state."

December 6, 1996
After the massacre in Diyarbakir, in which 11 people were killed,
parliament installed a investigation committee. The Refah-delegate
Okcu, member of this committee, stated that even the governors do not
have any control over the JITEM and the intelligence services in the
South-east of the country. He said certain forces had much influence
on the state and that the state had ties with certain circles,
traitors and fascists, in the region. This facilitated gangs like the
ones from Soylemezler and Yuksekova. The events in prison were
organised by these forces. Okcu described the massacre in the prison
of Diyarbakir as "a massacre, carried out by traitors, supervised by
the state."

December 12, 1996, Hurriyet
Ciller's Mafia Bodyguards
The bodyguards of the minister of Foreign Affairs and deputy
prime-minister Tansu Ciller are certified Mafia members. It was proven
they participated in illegal actions.

December 12, 1996, Sabah
The affluence of gangs in Turkey 
The chapter "Organised crime and gangs" of the report by the
parliamentary investigation committee gives a list of connections
between the Mafia, the police and the military: Policemen and soldiers
are said to be active in 18 different gangs. The report mentions 6
police presidents, 2 police commanders, 23 chief commissioners, 13
commissioners, 5 deputy commissioners, 294 policemen and 4 employees
of departments which are subordinated to the police as gang members.

December 12, 1996
At the day of the accident, Catli had papers with him which were
signed by the minister of the Interior himself. Catli's gun permit
said: "The person on this photo, Mehmet Ozbay, works as a specialist
for the Police Directorate and he is allowed to carry guns." Tests in
the Forensic Laboratory of the Police Directorate show the signature
is genuine.

December 18, 1996
According to the MGK (National Security Council) report, illegal
weapon traffickers are paying billions to bribe members of
parliament. They use their immunity to carry out their deals without
being disturbed.

December 19, 1996
Evidence against the Yuksekova Gang disappeared
Video tapes and documents of the Yuksekova Gang, consisting of members
of the Special Units, traitors and village guards, have gone
missing. The officer Huseyin Oguz who discovered this gang was
threatened with death and transferred to another city. His lawyer
Yasar Alturk said the first investigation took 9 days and the video
tapes and documents were handed over to the appropriate
officials. Then some officials made the evidence disappear.

December 12, 1996

The gun permit of Yasar Oz, handed over by ANAP chairman Yilmaz to the
investigation committee, is of the same fabric as the one which was
issued to Abdullah Catli. It was revealed that the permit was printed
on the same paper, showed the same text and carried the same
signature. Sevket Kazan opened the file of Haluk Kirici who was
recently arrested but released again because he carried a special
identification. Haluk Kirici, indicted for the massacre in
Bahcelievler was released on parole in 1989. Later he was wanted for
another crime. He was arrested in April, but he managed to escape with
the help of two policemen. When they looked through his papers, a
policemen discovered that Kirici carried a document, signed by Mehmet
Agar, asking to give support to Haluk Kirici. Furthermore, Agar phoned
and prevented the arrest of Kirici. Agar denies this. The MIT report
states that Haluk Kirici was arrested together with a member of the
Special Operation Units, Ayhan Akca, for the murder of Tarik
Umit. However, his detention was prevented by a phone call to the
police station. During his office as governor of Erzurum, Mehmet Agar
was the wedding witness of Haluk Kirici.

December 12, 1996

Huseyin Basbasin, arrested in 1995 in Holland for smuggling drugs on
board of the Lucky-S, claims he smuggled drugs together with Yunus
Agar and Yalcin Akcadag (Mehmet Agar's uncle) under the cover of the
oil business. Baybasin stated they were transporting oil from Libya,
took drugs on board on route, shipping it to Holland. Baybasin further
said: "Nobody was allowed near the ship by the police. The police
president Suleyman Basgol was there as well. Nobody can claim to have
seen nothing. It was all controlled by the Istanbul police."
According to Baybasin, Mehmet Agar makes $500.000 a month and he
demands that Agar should give an explanation where all his wealth came
from.


-- 
Classwar in Turkey and Kurdistan: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk
Turkey Contra-Guerrilla-State http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk/contrind
Turkey Mailinglist Mirror: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk/ml.html
KURTULUS HAFTALIK SIYASI GAZETE: http://www.kurtulus.com



From dhkc at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl  Mon Jan 27 20:19:27 1997
From: dhkc at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl (dhkc at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl)
Date: 27 Jan 1997 20:19:27
Subject: TURKEY 1996: Attacks Against the Press
Message-ID: <bac1c849.m0votQC.000FhDC@ozgurluk.xs4all.nl>

From: DHKC Informationbureau Amsterdam <dhkc at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl>
Subject: TURKEY 1996: Attacks Against the Press

ATTACKS AGAINST THE PRESS

The war against the people demands, next to extensive propaganda
against the opposition in general and the revolutionaries specifically
by means of the own press organs and television stations, the
categorical oppression of the opportunity to publish opposite or
revolutionary analysis and demands. The effectiveness of a paper in
taking up and discussing the needs of the people in Turkey, helping
the organisation of the people's opposition, also reflects its danger
for the Turkish state. And this is reflected in the harshness and the
amount of attacks against the press and its workers. There was no
freedom of opinion and freedom of the press in Turkey in 1996. Papers
were banned, editions confiscated, offices raided and destroyed,
journalists arrested, tortured, put in custody, incarcerated for
years, or even murdered. On July 24, 1996, the day the media
celebrated the 88th. anniversary of the freedom of the press, the
central offices of the socialist weekly Kurtulus in Istanbul were
stormed by heavily armed special units. 15 co-workers, and 4 other
people who were present, were arrested.

Besides the murder of the Evrensel journalist Metin Goktepe, probably
the internationally best known example of oppression against the free
press, we especially want to point at the attacks against the
Kurtulus, the paper that was subjected the most to repression in
1996. Despite all the attacks, the people who publish the paper every
week will not be intimidated. The publication of the paper was not
interrupted, not even for a week. Kurtulus, the voice of the
resistance, the voice of the people can not be silenced...


On May 4, Bulent Bagci, journalist of the socialist weekly Kurtulus,
was arrested in the Sultanahmet Park in Istanbul, together with Saray
Akgul, interpreter for the International May-Day Delegation, as well
as Derya Kartal and Emel Tok, co-workers of Haziran Publishers. The
arrested were brought to the torture centre of the Political Police in
Vatan Caddesi. All were released that same day, except for Bulent
Bagci who was kept in custody. Bulent Bagci was heavily tortured for
two weeks with all means which can be imagined. His health was very
bad and he could not stand on his feet anymore because of the beating
of his foot-soles. Bulent's life was in danger for two weeks, before
he was brought to the State Security Court (DGM) on May 13. He was
then transported to the isolation prison in Eskisehir, re-opened in
May, 1996. During the Death Fast, Bulent Bagci took part in the first
group of Death Fasters in the 69 day long resistance, from the
beginning till the end. After the Death Fast was ended, with the
transfer of all political prisoners from Eskisehir to Umraniye as one
of the promises, Bulent was indeed transported to Umraniye.

On December 17, 1996, Bulent Bagci was sentenced to 12,5 years
imprisonment by the State Security Court.


Imprisoned co-workers of the Mucadele and the later Kurtulus (and the
known sentences):

Ali Sinan Caglar: Cankiri Prison - 12,5 years - Ankara reporter Aysel
Bolicek: Canakkale Prison - 12,5 years - Ankara reporter Hulya Tumgan
- B. Ecevit Ozdemir: Konya Prison - Adana Kurtulus reporter Fatma
Bilgin: Malatya Prison - 12,5 years - Anatkya Kurtulus reporter Ali
Yolcu: Antakya Prison - 3 years, 9 months - Antakya Mucadele
representative Burhan Gardas: Aydin Prison - 15 years - Ankara
Mucadele representative Gulcan Sarloglu: Nevsehir Prison - 3 years, 9
months - Antaza Mucadele reporter Hanim Harman: Sakarya Prison - 12,5
years - Malatya Mucadele reporter Ilhan Caloglu: ... Kamber Inan:
Sagmalcilar Prison - 12,5 years - Kars Mucadele reporter Murat Kirsay:
Adana Saimbeyli Prison - Adana representative Ozgur Gudenoglu: Konya
Prison - Mucadele representative Sadik Celik: Bartin Prison - 12,5
years - Zonguldak Kurtulus representative Semiha Topal: Malatya Prison
- 12,5 years - Antakya Kurtulus reporter Serdar Gellir: Yozgat Prison
- 12,5 years - Ankara Mucadele reporter Ufuk Dogbay: Sagmalcilar
Prison - 12,5 years - co-worker of the central offices in Istanbul
Huseyin Solak: Cankiri Prison Sevket Dolbay: Sagmalcilar Prison -
Kocaeli reporter Hamide Ozturk: Sagmalcilar Prison - Istanbul central
offices Yazgul Guder Ozturk: Sagmalcilar Prison - Istanbul central
offices Necla Can: Umraniye Prison - Elazig representative Bulent
Bagci: Umraniye Prison - 12,5 years - Istanbul central offices Yildiz
Gemicioglu: Konya Prison - Adana Kurtulus representative Mehmet
Kargilar - Asaf Sah: Nevsehir Prison - 3 years - Antakya Kurtulus
reporter Esra Yildirim: Ankara Central Closed Prison - Kurtulus
representative in Trabzon Tekin Aygun: Umraniye Prison - Kocaeli
reporter Serife Dogan: Sakarya Prison - Cozum (first name of the
Mucadele, later known as Kurtulus) reporter in Kocaeli Songul Cinar:
Ankara Central Closed Prison - Zonguldak reporter


January 10, 1996, Turkiye
Evrensel journalist massacred

Metine Goktepe, reporter of the daily newspaper Evrensel, was murdered
on January 8 by the police. Goktepe was arrested by the police at the
funeral of the political prisoners who died in the attack by state
forces against the Umraniye Prison. Like all the other people who were
arrested, he was brought to the Eyup Sports Stadium. According to
eye-witnesses, he was beaten to death there by the police.

January 16, 1996, Evrensel
Turkey: The country with the most murdered journalists

With 46 murdered journalists, Turkey occupies the first place on the
list of world countries.

January 18, 1996, Politika
Conspiracy against Kurtulus co-workers

The office of the weekly Kurtulus in Sivas was raided by the
police. The representative of the paper, an editor and a reader were
arrested. Around 20 people occupied the party building of the CHP
(social-democrats) in Sivas in protest against the arrest. The police
attacked the occupants and arrested all 20.

April 17, 1996, Evrensel

The owner of the paper Ozgur Cukurova (Free Cukurova) and 4 readers of
the paper were arrested.

July 15, 1996, Demokrasi
Kurtulus reporter Danaci arrested

The Kurtulus reporter Danaci in Eskisehir was kidnapped on the street
by plainclothes policemen and detained.

July 26,  1996, Demokrasi
Journalists arrested

The journalist of the magazine Kultur ve Sannatta Kalktan Yana Tavir,
Aynur Cihan was arrested in the early morning hours, accused of
"suspect behaviour".  Aynur Cihan has been threatened and arrested
arbitrary frequently before.

August 6, 1996

Association of Journalists: Number of attacks against the press risen
in July In a written press statement of the Association of Journalists
it is stated that the number of attacks against the press is rising:
"Last month, 39 journalists were arrested, 14 journalists were
attacked by the police. There were prison sentences in 10 trials
against journalists. 9 television stations received conditional
sentences."

September 24, 1996, Demokrasi
Kurtulus office raided

Since the Kurtulus office in Adana was opened, it has been frequently
attacked by the police. Since then, 10 co-workers of the paper were
sent to prison. On September 22, the Adana office was attacked again
and all papers and magazines were confiscated. The same night, the
houses of the Kurtulus journalist Mehmet Kargilar and the Tavir
journalist Eylem Ileri were raided. The journalists were beaten up and
held in the police station for two days. Yesterday the state
prosecutor ordered custody for both. On September 23, Ceyhun Sertel,
M. Fatih Demir, Berke Nehir and Sultan Ozdemir were arrested when they
wanted to bring editions of the Kurtulus to the prison of Buca. The
same evening, the police attacked the "Aegean Cultural and Arts
Centre" as well as the Kurtulus office in Izmir. During this raid, the
police arrested the co-worker of the cultural centre Meliha and Seyhan
Yildiz. All books and magazines were confiscated.

October 7, 1996, Kurtulus
Kurtulus journalist kidnapped by contra-guerrilla

On October 6, at 11.30 p.m., the Kurtulus journalist Canan Gurz and
the Kurtulus distributor Bektas and a guest were kidnapped when they
left the Kurtulus building in Istanbul.

October 8, 1996, Kurtulus
End of the attacks against the Kurtulus not yet in sight

The attacks against the socialist weekly Kurtulus are continuing. This
week, the paper was attacked in several places again. On October 1, at
noon, the Adana office was attacked and destroyed by plainclothes
policemen, the last edition was confiscated. The police kept the
office occupied for two hours. Within 24 hours the police raided and
occupied the office again. On October 1, the car of the Kurtulus
co-worker Deniz Fidan, Emrah Sonmez, Zeliha Coban ans Selma Topcuoglu
was stopped by the police. After checking the identification papers,
the police searched the car. When the police found copies of the legal
Kurtulus, all were arrested. On October 2, their release was achieved
with the help of their lawyers. The same week the police stormed the
paper's office in Eskisehir, the co-workers of the paper were
threatened. The office in Gazi/Istanbul, opened 1.5 year ago, is
subjected to constant attacks. Most recently, the police attacked the
office on September 30 and arrested the editor Bulent Gorgulu and 3
visitors, among them an editor of the magazine Kervan. One day later,
the Kervan editor and 2 visitors were released. The Kurtulus
journalist Bulent Gorgulu and the other visitor, Ahmet, are still in
police custody.

November 1996, Kurtulus
Attacks against free press continue

According to the monthly report of the Association of Journalists and
the Press Council, 17 attacks against journalists were carried out in
November, 18 journalists were arrested and 3 journalists were
jailed. Offices of left-wing papers were raided 6 times. The central
offices of the Hurriyet was shot by unknown perpetrators. According to
information, received by the press, 12 new court cases were opened
against the press in November, 6 cases are still in progress. 15 cases
were closed: there were 11 prison sentences and 4 acquittals.  11
editions of papers and magazines, most of them from the left, were
confiscated in November.

November 8, 1996, Kurtulus
Attacks against Kurtulus offices in Anatolia

On October 26, the Kurtulus office in Eskisehir was attacked by
civilian fascists. The fascists, 15-20 men strong, entered the
shopping centre where the office is situated around 4 p.m. They spread
leaflets of the MHP-campaign "Let's decorate our country with our
flags" and yelled slogans like "This is Turkey".  Then they attacked
the office with fire extinguishers ans iron bars. Our co-workers
Zeynel Danaci, Emrah Tanir and the Kurtulus reader M. Serif Ersoy were
hit. They left after they had completely destroyed the office.

November 8, 1996, Kurtulus
Kurtulus representative in Zonguldak arrested

On October 23, the police attacked the Kurtulus office in
Zonguldak. The co-worker Songul Cinar was arrested and put into
custody by the DGM (State Security Court) under false charges. The
papers Kizil Bayrak, Kervan, Atilim and the SIP party protested in a
press statement and demanded the immediate release of Songul Cinar.

November 11, 1996, Kurtulus
Kurtulus offices in Adana and Gazi attacked

The Kurtulus office in Adana was attacked by the police on October
23. 5 copies of the Kurtulus, 1 copy of the paper Kizil Bayrak and 1
copy of the paper Akinci Yolu were confiscated. The Kurtulus office in
Gazi was attacked by the police on October 26 at 2 p.m. The Kurtulus
co-worker Ali Ihsan Kilic and Kurtulus readers who were present were
beaten up They were brought to the police station in Kucukkoy. They
were tortured psychologically and offered collaboration with the
police. One by one, they were released again that same evening.

November 23, 1996, Kurtulus
Kurtulus offices in Adana and Gazi attacked again

On November 19, the police attacked the Kurtulus office in Adana. The
office was totally messed up. They confiscated 100 copies of the
Kurtulus and 410 copies of a special Devrimci Genclik edition. The
office was used as a police station for 45 minutes and the Kurtulus
journalist Ferit Yildiz was beaten. The Kurtulus office in Gazi was
raided by a police unit of the Anti-Terror Department on November
10. They smashed everything and confiscated books and papers. The
Kurtulus reporter Mahir Polat, the distributor Songul Ozbekir and a
visitor, Fadime Colak were beaten and then arrested. They were
severely tortured while in police custody. They were released late at
night.

December 17, 1996, Milliyet
83 Turkish journalists in jail

According to Journalist without Frontiers, 83 out of the 187
incarcerated journalists are in Turkish jails.

December 25, 1996, Kurtulus
Kurtulus journalist arbitrary arrested

On December 21, the police arrested the Kurtulus journalist Murat
Kuyumcu in Istanbul/Inonu when he wanted to bring some copies to the
post office. Although Murat Kuyumcu was held for 3 days, nobody was
warned about his arrest. Murat Kuyumcu was tortured while in police
custody.

December 25, 1996, Kurtulus
Kurtulus office in Zonguldak raided by the police

On December 23, the Kurtulus journalist in Zonguldak Hafze Sayran was
arrested by the police. On December 24, the office of the paper in
Zonguldak was raided by the police and the journalist Ayse Peynir, as
well as the reader Selim Dundar (a member of the Egitim-Sen, Teachers
Union) was arrested. The police also confiscated the whole archive
without any reason.

December 27, 1996, Kurtulus
Devrimci Genclik journalist arrested

33 people were arrested at a meeting of the KESS union in Ankara. The
arrested were members of a delegation of the human rights organisation
"Platform for Rights and Freedom". After the arrested were released on
December 16 by the state prosecutor, but one of them, the journalist
of the paper Devrimci Genclik Sezgin Ozturk was arrested again and
brought to Sakarya. Sezgin Ozturk is still in detention.



-- 
Classwar in Turkey and Kurdistan: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk
Turkey Contra-Guerrilla-State http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk/contrind
Turkey Mailinglist Mirror: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk/ml.html
KURTULUS HAFTALIK SIYASI GAZETE: http://www.kurtulus.com



From dhkc at dds.nl  Tue Jan 28 18:07:22 1997
From: dhkc at dds.nl (dhkc at dds.nl)
Date: 28 Jan 1997 18:07:22
Subject: Turkey 1996: ATTACKS AGAINST LAWYERS AND CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS
Message-ID: <bac1c849.m0vpP94.000FZTC@ozgurluk.xs4all.nl>

From: DHKC Informationbureau Amsterdam <dhkc at dds.nl>
Subject: Turkey 1996: ATTACKS AGAINST LAWYERS AND CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS


ATTACKS AGAINST LAWYERS AND CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS

According to the maxim "he who defends a terrorist must be a terrorist
himself", Turkish "security forces" now attack the lawyers of
political prisoners as well.  They are not only hindered in doing
their task, defending the prisoners, they are even arrested and
tortured themselves. Many lawyers of political prisoners spent years
behind bars. Culture has no right to raise its voice as soon as it is
in contradiction to state ideology. Songs in the Kurdish language are
banned, just like concerts by disapproved musicians, artists disappear
in jail or they are arrested, tortured for days and haunted with
lengthy trials and huge fines.  The following documentation is by no
means complete. Reports about the prosecution of critical authors and
the censoring of books are not included. The absurd demand by a judge
to indict Kafka because a prosecuted writer referred to "The Trial" is
just mentioned aside. In stead we documented the statement of "Grup
Yorum", probably the best-known political band in Turkey, about the
trial against four of its members. In an impressive manner, it shows
the unbroken courage and creativity of the critical artists in Turkey
who refuse to be robbed of their voice.

Our campaign has started!
Free Grup Yorum!

In the night of June 21, 1996, our friends Kemal Sahir Gurel, Ufuk
Luker, Irsad Aydin and Ozcan Senver were arrested. While Kemal Sahir
Gurel and Ufuk Luker were fired upon on open street, Irsad Aydin and
Ozcan Senver were arrested in their houses. All of them were
interrogated under torture for 13 days. Kemal and Ufuk were put in
custody with false charges. They are now imprisoned in the Sakarya
Prison in Istanbul. Our songs are now written behind iron bars and
concrete walls. Our fiends, our songs, are to be tried on September
13. Until now they were not able to convict our songs, to convict Grup
Yorum. On the contrary, our songs condemned the oppressors and the
exploiters. We will wage a campaign until the day of the trial,
September 13, 1996. The voice and the name of Grup Yorum must be heard
everywhere, it should frighten the oppressors until their eardrums
burst. The slogan "Free Grup Yorum" should adorn the walls all over
Istanbul, the workers should encounter our posters everywhere. A Grup
Yorum sticker should beautify all collars, our songs will reverberate
from all directions. We sang our songs for the people, for the sacked
workers, the civil servants, the population of the slums, the
Gececondular. That's why our friends stand trial now, that's why they
want to convict them. We call upon all intellectuals, artists,
workers, civil servants, our entire people: It's the people they want
to convict! If you don't want them convicted, then come to the State
Security Court on September 13. Let us take back Grup Yorum, our
songs, our stolen rights and our culture! We'll meet in the State
Security Court on September 13! Grup Yorum

The accused members of Grup Yorum were freed by the State Security
Court in Istanbul on September 13. The trial against them will be
continued.

July 9, 1996, Evrensel
Two members of Grup Yorum detained

Kemal Sahir Gurel and Ufuk Satilmis Luker, members of the band Grup
Yorum, who were arrested with the charge that they were members of the
outlawed DHKP-C, were put into custody by the State Security
Court. Two other members of the band, Irsat Aydin and Ozcan Senver,
who were also arrested 15 days ago, were released.

August 20, 1996, Sabah
Lawyers arrested

Ahmet Duszgun Yuksel, a lawyer of the Halkin Hukuk Bureau in Istanbul
was arrested, together with two other persons. He wanted to file
charges against the minister of Justice, Sevket Kazan, in the name of
the relatives of the political prisoners.

August 31, 1996, Ates
55 Lawyers accused of being couriers

Lawyers in several Turkish cities were accused by the State
Prosecution of being couriers for the PKK and the DHKP-C. 27 lawyers
were charges in Diyarbakir, 10 in Istanbul, 4 in Konya, 3 in Ankara, 2
in Izmir, 1 in Kayseri as well as in Malatya.

November 24, 1996, Demokrasi
Concert in Izmir banned

The concerts by the bands Grup Ekin and Grup Gunisigi, planned for
November 25 in the Ismet Inonu Centre for Culture and Art, were
banned. The members of both bands gave a press statement in the Aegean
Cultural Centre, stating that numerous manifestations had been banned
since May 1 this year without any justification.

-- 
Classwar in Turkey and Kurdistan: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk
Turkey Contra-Guerrilla-State http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk/contrind
Turkey Mailinglist Mirror: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk/ml.html
KURTULUS HAFTALIK SIYASI GAZETE: http://www.kurtulus.com



From dhkc at dds.nl  Tue Jan 28 18:07:23 1997
From: dhkc at dds.nl (dhkc at dds.nl)
Date: 28 Jan 1997 18:07:23
Subject: Turkey, 1996: DISAPPEARANCES
Message-ID: <bac1c849.m0vpP6R.000FZTC@ozgurluk.xs4all.nl>

From: DHKC Informationbureau Amsterdam <dhkc at dds.nl>

DISAPPEARANCES

"Nobody will be arrested anymore in the middle of the night", promised
state president Suleyman Demirel before the elections in 1991. If he
meant that people in Turkey would no longer disappear while in police
custody, he lied. In 1996, 191 people disappeared while in custody,
according to the Human Rights Association IHD. But there is another
sinister truth behind Demirel's promise.  The disappeared are no
longer secretly lifted of their beds in the middle of the night, now
they are rather kidnapped by plainclothes policemen in broad daylight,
in front of eye-witnesses. The number of people who disappear is
increasing year by year. The Turkish regime is increasingly applying
the most cruel form of terror against the people: making people
disappear. The mothers of the disappeared daughters and sons can not
visit a grave to mourn, they can not raise their fists and say: "Our
children are immortal!". Their children are neither alive, nor
death. They are not even granted the right to have a tomb-stone with
the text "Nobody shall be picked up by the police in the middle of the
night", promised state president Suleyman Demirel before the elections
in 1991. If he meant that people in Turkey would no longer disappear
while in police custody, he lied. In 1996, 191 people disappeared
while in t "They were murdered, but they did not surrender". They
"disappeared"... The relatives of the political prisoners are being
attacked as well. The sit-down protest by the Saturday Mothers of the
disappeared and the prisoners, which has become an institution, is now
being attacked by the police. 70 year old mothers are beaten, dogs are
set on against them. One of the most famous mothers of the disappeared
and imprisoned, Oya Gokbayrak, was arrested and indicted by means of a
conspiracy with the absurd accusation that she was in the possession
of drugs.

Thanks to the help of international public attention, she was released
on the first day of the trial, December 2, 1996, because of
"insufficient evidence". In 1996, the "International League for Human
Rights" granted her annual award, the "Carl von Ossietzky Medal" to
the Saturday Mothers of the disappeared and the imprisoned. We only
documented the cases of which we are completely sure.  Disappeared
persons whose bodies were later discovered are listed in the chapter
about murders, not here. In stead we documented some reports about
police attacks against the relatives of the disappeared.

March 20, 1996, Politika
They want to make Duzgun Zengin disappear

There are no traces of Duzgun Zengin who was arrested in Izmir 16 days
ago.  Aslan Zengin. Duzgun's brother, and his lawyer Ibrahim Ergun
gave a press statement in the office of the Istanbul Human Rights
Association. They stated that Duzgun Zengin was arrested during a
police operation, together with two other persons. "We asked the
police directorates in Izmir, Kocaeli and Gebze.  Without result. The
policemen of the Anti-Terror Department in Izmir said Duzgun managed
to escape during the police operation and that they were not able to
apprehend him. But they also said Duzgun was a police murderer and
that they would kill him immediately in case he fell into their
hands. We are convinced that Duzgun is in their hands and that they
want to make him disappear."

March 28, 1996, Milliyet
"This is the police!'
"If they would only bring back my disappeared children"

This is not Latin-America in the `70s. This is Turkey, 1996. Mothers
and fathers are looking for their "disappeared" children. Silent cries
shatter against the wall of desperation. Nobody of them has any hope
left to find his or her child back alive. They voice their modest
demands: "If they would only say where they buried our relatives, if
we only knew where there graves are..."

June 10, 1996, Politika
Attack against the relatives of the disappeared

The sit-down action of the relatives of the disappeared in front of
the Galatasaray Gymnasium was attacked by the police. Several people,
among them Malaysian and Norwegian participants of the international
HABITAT conference were arrested.

June 17, 1996, Politika
The Mothers will no be intimidated by police terror

The action of the relatives of the disappeared, every Saturday in
front of the Galatasaray Gymnasium, was again attacked by the
police. Hundreds of people were beaten up and arrested. There were
many journalists among those who were arrested.

September 12, 1996, Cumhuriyet
Saturday Mothers of the Disappeared and Imprisoned indicted

688 mothers, who have been protesting in front of the Galatasaray
Gymnasium since 1.5 year against the disappearance and imprisonment of
their children, were indicted by the Turkish State Prosecution for
violating the manifestation law.  The trial will be held tomorrow,
September 13, 1996.

September 28, 1996, Kurtulus
Disappeared: Dogan Ayhan, taxi driver

The taxi driver Dogan Ayhan disappeared on September 18 when he wanted
to pick up a customer from Esenler, Istanbul. His wife, Mufide Dogan,
gave a press statement on September 24 in the office of the human
rights association IHD in which she voiced her complaints against the
police conduct. She told the press that the police didn't care about
her report that her husband disappeared. The Turkish state did not
react. Her husband's colleagues complained as well that the state did
not react. They said the state was badly organised and could not take
care of their rights. The family and the colleagues of the disappeared
are very worried about his life.

October 18, 1996, Cumhuriyet
Oya Gokbayrak sent to prison

The spokesperson of the Platform for Rights and Freedom, Oya
Gokbayrak, who was arrested on October 14, 1996, accused of possessing
drugs, was taken into custody in the Bayrampasa Prison. Oya
Gokbayrak's lawyers say this case was a conspiracy against her.

November 17, 1996, Hurriyet
The unbearable pain

Elif Teken, one of the Saturday Mothers who already have been
protesting against the disappearance each Saturday for 78 weeks by
means of a sit-down action in front of the Galatasaray Gymnasium,
fainted during the action when she saw a picture of her son among the
other pictures of the disappeared.

December 14, 1996, Demokrasi
The number of disappearances is climbing

The national deputy chairman of the human rights association and
president of this association in Diyarbakir, lawyer Mahmut Sakar,
called in a written statement upon the public to be sensitive for the
fate of the disappeared. "The human right violations, and especially
the cases of disappearances, continue, even in the Human Rights
Week. Some of those we are responsible for the political murders,
especially in this region but also in the rest of Turkey, were
revealed by a traffic accident ... We call upon the public to be
sensitive for the fate of the disappeared." The names of the people
who were arrested in Diyarbakir in November alone: Hidir Ozturk (18),
Ramazan Tekin (55), Hakki Kaya (47), Ramazan Yazici (36), Selahattin
Gumurcu (45), Tevfik Kusus (26) and Mahmut Mordeniz (46).



-- 
Classwar in Turkey and Kurdistan: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk
Turkey Contra-Guerrilla-State http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk/contrind
Turkey Mailinglist Mirror: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk/ml.html
KURTULUS HAFTALIK SIYASI GAZETE: http://www.kurtulus.com



From warresisters at gn.apc.org  Wed Jan 29 06:03:00 1997
From: warresisters at gn.apc.org (warresisters at gn.apc.org)
Date: 29 Jan 1997 06:03:00
Subject: Turkey: Osman back in detention after trial
Message-ID: <6PmlbbwC.TB@oln-68.apc.org>

Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

--=====================_854469738==_
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"



--=====================_854469738==_
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

January 28, 1997
TURKEY: OSMAN BACK IN DETENTION
Osman Murat Uelke is again back in detention in following his
trial today in Ankara Military Court.  The Court sentenced Osman
to six months in prison (under Article 155, "alienating the
people from the military"), but as he had already served more
than two months in prison, he has not returned there and this
case is now concluded.=20
However, Osman is back in detention. Military police arrested
Osman in court and took him from the court to the military police
station.  Supporters expect that in a few days he will be taken
to his military unit in Bilecik.

Osman used the trial to explain his objection:
      "Military service is the last point where the state has
      unlimited power over a young man. And by this the state
      hopes to complete the process of compulsory socialisation.
      In that institution a man is separated from his
      humanitarian responsibilities and rights. Imposed on the
      young man are chauvinistic and patriarchal values related
      to unlimited obedience, an authoritarian view and hatred of
      the `other'. Through its function in this socialisation
      process, military service is really `the school of the
      nation'".
He went on:
      "Having the right to live is also having the responsibility
      not to cause death. Killing a person is the most obvious
      way of violating the right to live. In this context,
      conscientious objection is not only a right for me but a
      responsibility".

After this speech, Osman was asked about events since his trial
on 17 November: how he had been taken to Bilecik, refused to
soldier, was put in detention and then brought to trial for
"disobedience" in Eskisehir on 27 December, and ordered to return
to his unit in Bilecik.  When the judge heard that Osman did not
report to the unit in Bilecik after the hearing in Eskisehir, the
judge called him a deserter.  Osman replied:=20
      "I'm not a deserter.  I'm a conscientious objector."

Finally, he was sentenced to six months in military prison.  As
he has already spent more than two months in detention before
this trial, he is not obliged to return to prison under Article
155.  He still faces a charge of "Disobedience" under Article 87
of the military code from his previous time in Bilecik.  That
trial, originally scheduled to take place in Eskisehir on 30
January, will now be re-scheduled.  A further charge might be
expected when Osman arrives at Bilecik. =20

About 20 visitors, including Rudi Friedrich from Connection-eV
in Germany and Agust=A1n Yugueros de la Torre from Objeci=A2n
Fiscal/MOC in the State of Spain, attended the trial.   Rudi and
Agust=A1n, along with Turkish friends and lawyers, hope to visit
Osman in the Military Gendarmerie in Ankara tomorrow (Wednesday,
29 January), and expect that Osman will be transferred to Bilecik
in the next few days.

Protests can be sent to:=20
      The office of the Prime Minister              +90 312 417 04 76
      The General Staff                             +90 312 418 53 41
      Minister of Justice                           +90 312 417 39 54
      Ministry of National Defence                  +90 312 324 46 27


Posted by          War Resisters' International
                   5 Caledonian Road
                   London N1 9DX
                   England
                   tel: +44 171 278 4040
                   fax: +44 171 278 0444
                   email: warresisters at gn.apc.org=1A

--=====================_854469738==_--

## CrossPoint v3.0 ##

From WRI-AG.FOEGA at OLN.comlink.apc.org  Wed Jan 29 06:38:00 1997
From: WRI-AG.FOEGA at OLN.comlink.apc.org (WRI-AG.FOEGA at OLN.comlink.apc.org)
Date: 29 Jan 1997 06:38:00
Subject: Turkish CO, Report from Ankara
Message-ID: <6PmldJAC.TB@oln-68.oln.comlink.apc.org>

Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

WRI-AG der FoGA                            Tel.: +49-441-203864
Brahmweg  178                              Fax: +49-441-2489661
D- 26135 Oldenburg      email: WRI-AG.FOEGA at OLN.comlink.apc.org
---------------------------------------------------------------
This is a forwarded fax from the international observers  
delegation to the trial against the Turkish conscientious  
objector Osman Murat Uelke.

Report from Ankara, January 29, 1997

Regarding: Osman Murat Uelke

_Osman Murat Uelke is staying in Mamak prison in Ankara_
_The trial in Eskisehir will be held in absence of_
_Osman Murat Uelke_

Today in the morning five persons tried to visit Osman Murat  
Uelke in the Mamak prison in Ankara, where the military  
gendamerie brought him yesterday. Our entrance wasn't permitted  
from the officer at the entrance. One of the lawyers succeeded to  
speak with an high range officer who gave his permission to visit  
Osman. But the entrance officer again denied the permission for  
the visit. It looks that this entrance officer gave false  
information to the higher officer and this made troubles for our  
visit. At last and after a long argument two lawyers and Ferda  
from War Resisters of Izmir could visit Osman. The two  
international observers couldn't participate.
Osman Murat Uelke is staying in the standard condition of Turkish  
prisons and he is alright. He is waiting for his transport to the  
9th Gendarmerie Unit in Bilecik. He is sending regards to  
everybody.
Later on, a press conference has taken place at the Human Rights  
Association Ankara. Two lawyers of Osman spoke about his case,  
the two observers declared the international solidarity and spoke  
about the movement of Spanish total resisters as well as about  
solidarity actions in front of different Turkish embassies and  
about Turkish citizens who declaired their CO abroad.
A member of ISKD spoke about the military system linked to the  
state which creates a patriarchal and chauvinistic discourse  
which named the conscientious objectors as traitors. "Due to the  
fact that the 'patriots' are the violators of all human rights ad  
the ones who have economical and social profits from the war  
situation we are very proud of being named as traitors."
Also a member of the Human Rights Association spoke about their  
work and the unjust system which permits political murderers  
while people working for human rights get in prison.
Tomorrow we will go to Eskisehir to observe the trial. It will be  
held at 2 pm. We expect that there will be a decision about the  
crime 'continued disobedience.'

Augustin Yugueros de la Torre   (MOC, State of Spain)
Rudi Friedrich                  (Connection, Germany)


-----------------------------------------------------------
Graswurzelrevolution    Kaiserstra?e 24     26122 Oldenburg
Tel.: 0441/2489 663                     Fax:  0441/2489 661
-----------------------------------------------------------
## CrossPoint v3.0 ##

From kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu  Thu Jan 30 09:05:29 1997
From: kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu (kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu)
Date: 30 Jan 1997 09:05:29
Subject: PUK Sets Up Administration In Parts
Message-ID: <bac1c849.Pine.NEB.3.95.970130003..@burn.ucsd.edu>

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at locust.cic.net>
Subject: PUK Sets Up Administration In Parts Of South Kurdistan

Kurdish Faction Forms Second Government In Northern Iraq

Associated Press, 01/29/97

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - The Patriotic Union of
Kurdistan, one of two rival Kurdish factions in
northern Iraq, said Wednesday it has set up a
government to run areas under its control. 

The administration will be the second
government in Iraq's Kurdish areas, which
became virtually autonomous after the 1991
Persian Gulf War. The Kurdistan Democratic
Party, the PUK's rival, has its own
government. 

Kusrat Rasoul, who was prime minister of the
Kurdish region before Iraqi-backed Kurdish
Democratic Party guerrillas drove the PUK out
of the provincial capital of Irbil in August, will
head the government, the PUK said in a
statement. 

The 14-member PUK Cabinet, which includes
one woman, will be running the day-to-day
affairs of some 1.5 million Kurds in its areas. 

The PUK and KDP have fought for years. A
U.S.-brokered cease-fire took effect in
October to end their latest bout of strife. It
largely has held. 

The Iraqi government in Baghdad never has
recognized any of the Kurdish governments
and often calls on them to accept limited
self-rule under Iraqi control. 



From greenscreen at gn.apc.org  Fri Jan 31 00:25:43 1997
From: greenscreen at gn.apc.org (greenscreen at gn.apc.org)
Date: 31 Jan 1997 00:25:43 +0000 (GMT)
Subject: TURKISH CO ULKE IN MILITARY PRISON
Message-ID: <APC.2.0.4a152695.66b@gn.apc.org>

From: greenscreen (Umit OZTURK)

29 January 1997

TURKEY: OSMAN MURAT UELKE IN MAMAK MILITRY PRISON 
- TO BE TRIED IN ESKISEHIR IN HIS ABSENCE

After his trial yesterday, Osman was taken to Mamak Military
Prison where hs is being held, awaiting transport to the 9th
Gendarmerie Unit in Bilecik.  Meanwhile, tomorrow, his trial
for disobedience under Article 87 of the Military Code will 
take place in Eskisehir, as originally planned, but without 
Osman being present.

This morning five persons, including international delegates 
Agustin Yugueros de la Torre and Rudi Friedrich, tried to visit
Osman in prison.  After a long argument, two lawyers and a
Turkish friend were allowed in.  They reported that Osman is
being held in standard conditions.  He sent greetings to 
everyone who has sent messages.

A press conference was held at the Human Rights Association
in Ankara, where two of Osman's lawyers spoke about the case,
and the two international observers spoke about international
actions.

A member of Izmir SKD presented an analysis of the military
system and the patriarchal and chauvinist discourse that calls
conscientious objectors "traitors":
        "As `patriots' are the people who violate all human
        rights or who make economic and social profit from 
        war, we are proud to be called `traitors'".  

A member of the Human Rights Association spoke about their work.

Yesterday, in a solidarity action with Osman in front of the Turkish 
consulate in Frankfurt Germany, five Kurds from Turkey declared their
conscientious objection to military service.   A sixth spontaneously 
joined them.

Background:
Osman's trial yesterday under Article 155 of the Turkish Penal Code
("alienating the people from the military") ended with him being
sentenced to six months' imprisonment.  However, as he had already
served over two months (and Turkish prisoners normally serve only
one third of their sentence), he was adjudged to have served his
term.   

The remaining trial, under Article 87 of the Military Penal Code,
is for "disobedience" following Osman's refusal to soldier when
he was taken from court to a military unit last year.  A further
charge could be brought against him when he is again to "his"
unit, the 9th Gendarmerie in Bilecik.


Posted by:     

      --------------------------------------------------
     |  Umit Ozturk, Editor, Green Screen News          |  
     |  PO Box 10386, London N16 8RQ, United Kingdom    |
     |  tel/fax: +44-(0)171-2493624                     |
     /) email: greenscreen at gn.apc.org                   (\
    /                                                     \
  _( (+-------------------------------------------------+) )_
 (((\ \   /_)                                     /^)   / /)))
 (\\\\ \_/ /                                      \ \_ / ////
  \       /                                        \       /
   \   __/                                          \__   /
    |   |                                            |   |


From greenscreen at gn.apc.org  Fri Jan 31 00:26:33 1997
From: greenscreen at gn.apc.org (greenscreen at gn.apc.org)
Date: 31 Jan 1997 00:26:33 +0000 (GMT)
Subject: TURKEY: OSMAN BACK IN DETENTION
Message-ID: <APC.2.0.4a152696.6a1@gn.apc.org>

From: greenscreen (Umit OZTURK)

January 28, 1997
TURKEY: OSMAN BACK IN DETENTION
Osman Murat Uelke is again back in detention in following his
trial today in Ankara Military Court.  The Court sentenced Osman
to six months in prison (under Article 155, "alienating the
people from the military"), but as he had already served more
than two months in prison, he has not returned there and this
case is now concluded.=20
However, Osman is back in detention. Military police arrested
Osman in court and took him from the court to the military police
station.  Supporters expect that in a few days he will be taken
to his military unit in Bilecik.

Osman used the trial to explain his objection:
      "Military service is the last point where the state has
      unlimited power over a young man. And by this the state
      hopes to complete the process of compulsory socialisation.
      In that institution a man is separated from his
      humanitarian responsibilities and rights. Imposed on the
      young man are chauvinistic and patriarchal values related
      to unlimited obedience, an authoritarian view and hatred of
      the `other'. Through its function in this socialisation
      process, military service is really `the school of the
      nation'".
He went on:
      "Having the right to live is also having the responsibility
      not to cause death. Killing a person is the most obvious
      way of violating the right to live. In this context,
      conscientious objection is not only a right for me but a
      responsibility".

After this speech, Osman was asked about events since his trial
on 17 November: how he had been taken to Bilecik, refused to
soldier, was put in detention and then brought to trial for
"disobedience" in Eskisehir on 27 December, and ordered to return
to his unit in Bilecik.  When the judge heard that Osman did not
report to the unit in Bilecik after the hearing in Eskisehir, the
judge called him a deserter.  Osman replied:=20
      "I'm not a deserter.  I'm a conscientious objector."

Finally, he was sentenced to six months in military prison.  As
he has already spent more than two months in detention before
this trial, he is not obliged to return to prison under Article
155.  He still faces a charge of "Disobedience" under Article 87
of the military code from his previous time in Bilecik.  That
trial, originally scheduled to take place in Eskisehir on 30
January, will now be re-scheduled.  A further charge might be
expected when Osman arrives at Bilecik. =20

About 20 visitors, including Rudi Friedrich from Connection-eV
in Germany and Agust=A1n Yugueros de la Torre from Objeci=A2n
Fiscal/MOC in the State of Spain, attended the trial.   Rudi and
Agust=A1n, along with Turkish friends and lawyers, hope to visit
Osman in the Military Gendarmerie in Ankara tomorrow (Wednesday,
29 January), and expect that Osman will be transferred to Bilecik
in the next few days.

Protests can be sent to:=20
      The office of the Prime Minister              +90 312 417 04 76
      The General Staff                             +90 312 418 53 41
      Minister of Justice                           +90 312 417 39 54
      Ministry of National Defence                  +90 312 324 46 27



Posted by:


      --------------------------------------------------
     |  Umit Ozturk, Editor, Green Screen News          | =20
     |  PO Box 10386, London N16 8RQ, United Kingdom    |
     |  tel/fax: +44-(0)171-2493624                     |
     /) email: greenscreen at gn.apc.org                   (\
    /                                                     \
  _( (+-------------------------------------------------+) )_
 (((\ \   /_)                                     /^)   / /)))
 (\\\\ \_/ /                                      \ \_ / ////
  \       /                                        \       /
   \   __/                                          \__   /
    |   |                                            |   |


From kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu  Fri Jan 31 08:43:20 1997
From: kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu (kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu)
Date: 31 Jan 1997 08:43:20
Subject: Kurdish Refugees' Lives At Risk
Message-ID: <bac1c849.Pine.NEB.3.95.970131031..@burn.ucsd.edu>

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at locust.cic.net>

Kurdish Refugees' Lives At Risk

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees announced on December 21
that the Atrush refugee camp, inside the "safe haven" in northern Iraq,
would be closed within a month. The camp houses 15,000 Kurdish refugees who
fled Turkey when the Turkish army burned and destroyed Kurdish villages
after April 1994.

The UNHCR has issued letters to camp residents informing them of a program
of "voluntary repatriation" to Turkey. 

The Atrush camp, 60 kilometres from the Turkey-Iraq border, has continued to
receive new arrivals seeking protection from Turkish attacks right up to the
closure announcement. Camp residents began an indefinite hunger strike. 

The London-based Kurdish Information Centre said that the UNHCR "has finally
bowed to pressure from the Turkish authorities to close the camp which has
long been an political embarrassment to them. The threatened closure
endangers the lives of 15,000 Kurds. These civilian, 80% of whom are women,
children and elderly villagers, deserve the same protection under the Geneva
Convention as any other refugees. All are Kurds who have already lost their
homes, livelihood and members of their families during attacks on their
villages by Turkish forces. More than 3,400 villages have been destroyed and
3 million Kurds forced out of south-east Turkey during military operations."

The Kurdish Red Crescent said the decision to close the camp exposed the
hypocrisy of the international community towards the Kurdish people. "This
policy is in stark and revealing contrast to that pursued by the USA and the
United Nations last year when 7,500 PUK [Patriotic Union of Kurdistan]
supporters were hastily evacuated, with transport by the CIA, via Guam, to
the U.S. in order to protect them from possible reprisals by Saddam
Hussein's regime. But for the Kurds from Turkey new standards and different
criteria apply."

On January 9, more than 1,000 refugees chose to leave the Atrush camp for
protection in areas controlled by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). 

(Source: Green Left Weekly, http://www.peg.apc.org/~greenleft)

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From kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu  Fri Jan 31 09:30:00 1997
From: kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu (kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu)
Date: 31 Jan 1997 09:30:00
Subject: Kurdish Refugees' Lives At Risk
References: <bac1c849.Pine.NEB.3.95.970131031..@burn.ucsd.edu>
Message-ID: <bac1c849.Pine.NEB.3.95.970131031..@burn.ucsd.edu>

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at locust.cic.net>


From tabe at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl  Fri Jan 31 12:22:40 1997
From: tabe at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl (tabe at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl)
Date: 31 Jan 1997 12:22:40
Subject: Turkish police-chief did not die because of his firsth lie...
Message-ID: <bac1c849.m0vqPEn.000Fb8C@ozgurluk.xs4all.nl>

From: <tabe at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl>
Subject: Turkish police-chief did not die because of his firsth lie...

  	  				 
	 ANKARA, Turkey (Reuter) - Turkey's police chief Tuesday  
played down accusations of disappearances in police custody, one 
of the country's most emotive human rights matters. 
	 ``Most of the allegations about the disappearances in  
custody are baseless,'' national police chief Alaaddin Yuksel 
told a human rights conference. He did not say whether any 
people had gone missing in custody. 
	 Turkey's Human Rights Association (IHD) says 114 people have  
disappeared, many of them after being detained by the police, 
since last June. 
	 International rights group Anesty International has also  
expressed concern over disappearances. 
	 ``Applications to our offices for disappeared people are  
continuing,'' IHD chairman Akin Birdal told Reuters. 
	 Yuksel said police had determined that most of the  
disappeared had actually been jailed for crimes committed or had 
gone underground with what he said were terrorist groups. He did 
not give any figures or examples. 
	 Many of the people alleged to be missing were linked to  
Kurdish or left-wing activism. 
	 More than 21,000 people have been killed in the 12-year-old  
fight between the Turkish army and Kurdistan Workers Party 
rebels seeking self-rule in the southeast of the country. 
	 Last December, the interior ministry said it had found 187  
people whose families charged they had disappeared and were 
probably killed by security forces for their political ideas. 
	 ``Suspects are registered to police stations, doctors and  
many places so it is not possible for us to make a person 
disappear,'' anti-terror police official Ahmet Demircan told 
journalists. 
	 Turkey, under pressure from Western rights organizations and  
governments, promised last year to cut the period of detention 
in custody and change the state security court system. 
	 But a draft law for the reforms is still waiting for  
parliamentary approval. 
  	   	

-- 
Classwar in Turkey and Kurdistan: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk
Turkey Contra-Guerrilla-State: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk/contrind/
KURTULUS HAFTALIK SIYASI GAZETE: http://www.kurtulus.com