13 - 19 September 2001
Issue No.551
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 13 - 19 September 2001 Issue No.551 |
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Battle of wills
The 11-month-old battle of wills between the Turkish state and militant leftist groups over the country's prison system has entered a new phase. Gareth Jenkins reports from Ankara
A suicide bombing that took place on Monday in central Istanbul has left three dead and 20 wounded ó three of them seriously.
The explosion took place on one of the approach roads to Taksim Square in the heart of Istanbul. Taksim Square has traditionally been a favourite venue for public protests by Turkish leftists, Kurdish nationalists and Islamists. In recent years the Turkish authorities have taken to deploying squads of riot police on stand-by in the sidestreets, ready to intervene at the first sign of a demonstration.
Shortly after 5.30pm on Monday, as the streets were filled with people beginning their journeys home from work, Ugur Bulbul, a 25-year-old member of the outlawed Revolutionary People's Liberation Party Front (DHKP-C), approached one of the squads of riot police as they milled about in a sidestreet, idly chatting in the warm evening sun. When he was challenged by two of the policemen, Bulbul detonated the bomb he was carrying. A massive explosion scattered blood and body parts over an area of 150 metres. Both Bulbul and the two policemen, Halil Dogan and Tuncay Karatas, were killed instantly. Another 13 policemen and seven passers-by were injured. One of them, a 23-year-old Australian tourist named Amanda Rigg, lost an arm. Three others were reported to be in critical condition.
The bombing demonstrates the DHKP-C's increasing frustration at the government's refusal to abandon the introduction of a new prison system, which is based on small cells rather than the traditional wards containing up to 100 inmates. The DHKP-C claims that the small cells make prisoners more vulnerable to torture. The government argues that the old-style wards enabled the organisations to indoctrinate inmates and were being used as virtual terrorist training centres.
In October 2000 the DHKP-C, in cooperation with other extremist leftist organisations, launched a series of hunger strikes by inmates to protest the impending introduction of F-type prisons. On 19 December 2000, Turkish security forces stormed prisons across the country in an attempt to force the inmates to abandon their hunger strikes and forcibly transfer them to the new jails. The botched and bloody operation, which was ironically entitled "Return to Life," resulted in the deaths of 30 prisoners and two soldiers. Although the security forces succeeded in transferring the inmates to new prisons, the hunger strikes not only continued but spread to include both sympathisers and family members outside the prisons. Bulbul had been in prison on charges of DHKP-C membership at the time of the Return to Life operation and since his release had worked for Vatan magazine, a DHKP-C publication devoted to the hunger strikers.
Initially, the hunger strikers were prolonging their lives by taking vitamin supplements. But over the last few months, in an attempt to increase the pressure on the government to abandon the F-type prisons, they have begun drinking only water. As a result, the death toll has begun to rise rapidly. On Saturday, Gulay Kavak, a 29-year-old DHKP-C member, became the 33rd hunger striker to die this year.
"We chose this passive method so that the government can't accuse us of being terrorists or hurting other people," said 42-year-old Resit Sara, who was released from prison late last year but has been continuing his hunger strike in a cramped three-roomed bungalow in the shanty towns that surround Istanbul. Already too weak to move on his own, Sara calculates that he will probably die within a month.
"My death is unimportant," he said. "When I die others will take my place. We shall die one by one until the government meets our demands."
"We are an armed organisation. We have to expect to take casualties," said Umus Sahingoz, a 32-year-old DHKP-C militant who is now awaiting her turn to starve to death in the same house as Sara.
But Monday's suicide bombing suggests that, unless the government gives in to its demands, in the weeks ahead the DHKP-C is likely to try to ensure that it is not the only one taking casualties.
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