15 - 21 November 2001
Issue No.560
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 15 - 21 November 2001 Issue No.560 |
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A two-pronged crisis
Turkey's government is facing strong popular opposition to its decision to send troops to Afghanistan to take part in the US-led war against Taliban, Gareth Jenkins report from Istanbul
Over 30,000 Turkish trade unionists and civil servants took to the streets of Ankara last Friday chanting slogans opposing the government's decision to send troops to Afghanistan in support of the US campaign.
Refugees in a camp in northern Afghanistan
The protests took place amid growing public concern that Turkey is being dragged into a war which would only further damage its already battered economy and alienate other Muslim nations.
The demonstrators also chanted slogans against the government's failure to alleviate the worst economic crisis in Turkey's recent history.
Since the economic crisis occurred in February this year, the Turkish Lira has halved in value, annual inflation has soared to over 81 percent and more than one million Turks, approximately four percent of the total workforce, have lost their jobs.
In March the government reached a stand-by agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on a package of economic stabilisation measures backed by $19 billion in IMF and World Bank funds. But, eight months later, the economy remains mired deep in recession. Turkish Gross National Product is expected to contract by 8-10 percent this year and, with little prospect of an upturn before late 2002 at the earliest, more job losses appear inevitable.
Government officials have refuted accusations that they have wasted IMF and World Bank funds, claiming instead that funds were insufficient and that what they really need is another $13 billion. Earlier this month Turkey became the first Muslim country to promise to send troops to support the US military campaign against the Taliban when it offered to send 90 members of its special forces to train the Afghan opposition Northern Alliance.
Publicly, the government claimed that the decision was a demonstration of its commitment to combating global terrorism. But to most observers it looked like a straight swap of troops for cash; and prices on the Istanbul stock market soared accordingly.
"How many financial markets on the globe would cheer up on news of troops being sent on some international mission in a stone-age territory?" mocked columnist Burak Bekdil in the English-language Turkish Daily News.
On Sunday, in an interview with the BBC, Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit virtually admitted that the government had pecuniary motives.
"We don't have a claim that we should be provided aid in return for sending troops to Afghanistan," he said. "We hope that our allies will consider that themselves."
But there is little doubt that the government is taking a huge gamble. An opinion poll published last week showed that 80 percent of Turks were opposed to Turkish troops being sent to Afghanistan, while only 15 percent supported the decision. Perhaps more worryingly for the three parties in the coalition government, the same poll indicated that, if elections were held tomorrow, none of them would clear the 10 percent threshold necessary for representation in parliament. On the other hand, while the Islamist Justice and Development Party would win over 33 percent of the vote, which would be more than enough to form a comfortable majority in parliament.
Publicly, members of the government insist that there is no legal requirement to hold fresh elections before 2004, which gives them more than enough time to use the IMF money to pull the economy out of recession. But privately they admit that, regardless of whether they can put the money to good use, time is already running out.
"After the elections in April 1999 we reckoned that Ecevit's poor health would prevent him from remaining in office for more than two years and that when he went there would have to be fresh elections," said a leading member of one of the governing parties. "He is still there, but is now so weak that no one knows how long he can continue."
There are also signs that economic hardship and widespread public opposition to the US bombing of Afghanistan have emboldened violent radical groups in Turkey.
"How can we remain silent when the Turkish people are lining up to buy moldy bread that would otherwise be thrown away as being unfit for human consumption and when the government policy is being dictated by the IMF and US?" asked Haydar Bozkurt, a 27-year-old member of the outlawed leftist Revolutionary People's Liberation Front (DHKC), earlier this month.
Last Tuesday the police raided two houses in the Istanbul shanty town of Kucukarmutlu, where DHKC members were on hunger strike in protest at conditions in Turkey's prisons. Four DHKC supporters were killed when the house in which they were hiding was set on fire. Bozkurt set himself on fire and was gunned down when he walked towards police lines. He died later in hospital.
"There is a Turkish saying that one goes and a thousand come," said another member of the DHKC. "It is not a thousand, of course, but when young people see such killings, all the poverty and injustice in Turkey and US imperialism in Afghanistan, more and more of them are coming to join us. And we shall take our revenge on the Turkish state."
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