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Al-Ahram Weekly 18 - 24 March 1999 Issue No. 421 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 18 - 24 March 1999 Issue No. 421
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Features Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Turkey braces for PKK vengeance
By Gareth JenkinsOver the past week, Turkey has been shaken by a series of bombings and arson attacks, which threaten to shift the battleground of the government's 15-year war with the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) from the barren mountains of the south-east to the sprawling metropolises of western Turkey.
Most of the attacks have been concentrated in Istanbul, with a population of more than 12 million, including what is reportedly more than two million ethnic Kurds.
Fifteen civilians were killed in Istanbul in the past week. In the worst attack last Saturday, 13 people died when three unidentified assailants entered a shopping mall in the fashionable residential area of Goztepe, doused the ground floor with petrol and set fire to it. Most of the victims were women, who died as a result of smoke inhalation. The previous Wednesday, a taxi driver was killed when a bomb exploded in his cab outside another shopping mall in Bakirkoy on the European side of Istanbul. There have also been numerous other Molotov cocktail and bomb attacks on large stores, shopping malls, restaurants and places of entertainment.
The PKK has denied responsibility for the attacks, preferring to describe them as spontaneous expressions of Kurdish anger following the capture of the group's leader Abdullah Ocalan in February. Ocalan, who was snatched by Turkish secret service agents in Kenya, is being held in a high security island prison in Turkey awaiting trial.
But there is little doubt that most of the attacks have been coordinated or instigated by the PKK. In late February, Osman Ocalan, a member of the PKK National Executive and younger brother of Abdullah Ocalan, told the pro-PKK MED TV based in Europe: "Every kind of action is now justified."
Rigorous self-censorship by the press and travel restrictions have shielded most Turks from the often brutal nature of the conflict. But the recent bombings and arson attacks have shattered this complacency. Many people are now afraid to leave their homes and the number of people visiting cinemas and shopping malls has fallen to less than half the normal levels.
"There is already a recession in Turkey and if this terrorism continues, many companies will face bankruptcy," warned one of the partners at a leading multinational accounting firm in Istanbul.
"We've just become so tense, so nervous, we're shutting ourselves up in our homes," said Meral Guler, a 38-year-old software analyst. "Now even my six-year-old daughter is asking why we can't move to her grandmother's house in England where such things don't happen."
Last Sunday, Dr Osman Ucarer, a 56-year-old professor at Gaziantep University, wrapped himself in the Turkish flag and shot himself. In the note he left behind, he wrote: "I can't take what is happening to our country. We don't deserve this."
For many Turks, the bombing campaign has also eroded what little faith they had left in their politicians. Last Saturday, the day 13 people died in Goztepe, 90 dissident MPs forced an extraordinary convening of parliament in an attempt to postpone the general elections, scheduled for 18 April, until early 2000. All of the dissidents had been omitted from their parties' candidate lists for the elections, but, they claimed they were not acting in their own interests. They said the country needs to pass laws to increase democratisation and reform the social security and banking systems, even though none of those MPs had made any efforts in this direction in the more than three years they had been in parliament.
On Monday, the dissidents secured the support of the pro-Islamist Virtue Party, which wants the cancellation of Article 312 of the Turkish Penal Code banning the movement's former leader Necmettin Erbakan from politics for attempting to erode the secularist character of the Turkish state. Yet, even if, as expected, the dissidents and the VP table a vote of no confidence in the government, Turkish president Suleyman Demirel has already stated that he will use his veto to prevent any postponement of the elections.
"Who do they think they are?" asked Inci Can, 27, who works in an export company. "These people are supposed to be representing us, but we are being killed and all they care about is another year's salary."
It is not only the politicians who have reason to fear growing public anger. There is little doubt that when he comes to trial, Ocalan will be found guilty and sentenced to death. The only question is whether the sentence will be carried out. Even though the death penalty remains on the statute book, nobody has been hanged in Turkey since the early 1980s.
Most analysts have argued that the Turkish Parliament would commute a death sentence for Ocalan to life imprisonment. But, with their reputation already severely damaged, Turkey's politicians may find it impossible to resist growing public demands that Ocalan pay the ultimate penalty. If PKK supporters persist in their campaign, they may find that they have not only created panic among the Turkish population, but that they have also effectively signed their leader's death warrant.
