Effects of the Kurdistan Workers Party

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Contents 1 Human Casualties 2 Economy 2.1 Total cost 2.2 Regional economy 3 Way of life 3.1 Social structure 3.2 Education 3.3 Psychology 3.4 Fear of weapons of mass destruction 4 Political/Justice 4.1 HEP/DEP/HADEP 4.2 Non Governmental Organisations (NGO) 4.3 Language Act Ban 4.4 Terrorism Law (1991) 4.5 Amnesties 5 Administrative

[edit] Human Casualties

Casualties of the Turkish-Kurdish conflict

[edit] Economy

[edit] Total cost

	Human				Monetary
	Newspapers		Government			Newspapers
	Dead	Wounded	Dead	Wounded		Fully	Partially
Junior Officer	420	1027	�		Public Machinery/Transportation	262	238
Soldier	3024	6999	�		Outpost Buildings	9	80
Officer	220	527	�		Bridges	5	21
Total	3664	8553	4027	8676	School Buildings	114	127
Village Guard	1177	1823	1265	1725	Private Machinery/Transportation	278	346
Police	199	661	254	986	Public health clinics	6	8
Guardian	1	2			Derailing (Train)	45	40
Total Security	4041		5546		Post Office/Power Station/Mosque	112	193
Medical Doctor	2	4
Nurse	12	32
Prosecutor		2
Judge	1
Governor	119	90
Teacher	45	96	155
Imam		2
Muftu		1
Civil Servant	11	70
Engineer		4
Mayor	9	2
Child	508	660
Male	3439	4011
Female	519	803
Total	4466	5474	4561	5860
PKK(D/W)			18958	706
Grand Total			29065	17953

It is hard to find statistics about the total cost of this conflict. One has to be careful when interpreting the values reported as the coverage of the reports and activities differs.

According to the Turkish Government, from 1984 through November 1997, 26,532 PKK members, 5,185 security force members, and 5,209 civilians lost their lives in the fighting. Another study which was performed through analysis of news articles on national newspapers between 19 July 1987 and 31 May 2001, this data is available on the table right. The table also has a second column that reports the numbers from another government source roughly covers the same period. Newspaper numbers are generally lower as some of the activities may not be reported based on the news activity of that specific day.

The damage to infrastructure and the money spent to end the conflict is claimed by the Turkish government to stand at US dollars200,000 million. This number should be accepted as the minimum level of cost. The reason total cost numbers fall short was systematic analysis of the case did not develop before the 1990s. From the government's perspective, this was related with the budget issues as correct breakdown could only be formulated with the development of administrative branches specifically dealing with the terrorism (see Administrative), otherwise costs were distributed on unrelated sections. Such as there are no statistics on how many investigation hours had been spend on PKK's first assassination, as it is listed under general item that can not be broken down, and added to the total cost summaries.

200,000 million US dollars is also questionable as the breakdowns per victim, aggregates for different sections of society, etc. is missing. The government needed a law to pay back to the victims (the terrorism insurance), so that the government could account for the public side. Turkey passed a "decree 5233" (17 July 2004) and "return to home" (199?) regarding these questions. However, because of their nature, they are not effective for measuring the loss due to disability, long term aggravation of existing conditions, fear of crime, reduced activity, unseen losses of local business, etc. In dealing with these issues the push for a "General Insurance" policy in Turkey has been recommended. The private sector can define the effects case by case, summarize the outcomes, and try to collect the liability in the name of victims. In collecting the losses, private sector could collect liability from the perpetuator, which would be an addition to the victims' government compensation. Only with general insurance correct statistics could be aggregated easily and correctly.

Any data regarding this conflict should be accepted with caution as it is easy to measure the direct costs (imposed by PKK) but hard to measure how much the society paid for the preventive measures (deterrence, rehabilitation, etc), how much the PKK used to inflict the terrorism (cost of activity) and most interestingly how much Turkey spend on the PKK for punishment of its crimes.

[edit] Regional economy

From a regional economy perspective PKK's actions were targeted to stop the Southeastern Anatolia Project (G.A.P). It is important to recognize not just what has been destroyed in terms of rail roads, communication centers, etc. but also what could have been achieved if the destruction had not happened. There is another section Transboundry Freshwater Disputes, that covers the international dimensions of this topic.

Region's income is derived from agriculture. In 1981 (Köy Envanter Edütleri), 8% of the families controlled 50% of the land. Thirty-eight percent of the region's population do not own any land. Forty-one percent of the population had no more than 5 hectares to farm. Direct farming subsidies were turning into subsidies to the landlords that control 41% of the land. Land reforms during the 1930s and 1950s did not reach this region. Turkey dealt with the poverty problem by other means. It was dubbed as "Poverty Reduction Through Water Development". Initial stages of were developed after 1960s coup. At that time, its name was Southeastern Anatolia Development Project. Under the economic structure of 1960s, government subsidised small scale business, such as poultry. The idea was to enable other economic paths to the region. The current form of the project was developed during the 1970s Süleyman Demirel government. It was visualized as a large scale hydro-electric and irrigation system. This sought to solve the land problem by turning the land fertile by irrigation. The plan also included improving the output of the land using the cheap energy coming from the dams. During the 1980s, Turgut Ozal extended the economic and social dimensions of the project. You can read more under the G.A.P. page. An important note about the project is before the structural change of 1987, it did not include significant local discussions. Even though during the 1990s there was a special T.V. channel assigned to the region, most of the reaction was because of the misinformation that was shaped along tribal lines. As a last point; after Harran Ovası was opened to irrigation, in 1995, large land owners 5%, medium size land owners 25%, small size land owners 58%, and the farmers who rent the land was 12%. These ratios are a significant change when compared to 1981 values.

The G.A.P was seen by PKK as harmful to Kurds and their villages. PKK perceived G.A.P as a method to eliminate its social base by increasing the income of the region. Higher income would have improved the support of impoverished people for the government. Irrigation was transforming the geography of the area which these changes was obstructing PKK's free movement and destroying villages. PKK claimed that some of the dams in the system were designed to flood its pathways. Generally such development projects tend to move mountain people into planned urban areas, which PKK was using this group as a camouflage. Turgut Özal's legacy of telecommunication was seen by PKK as elimination of its propaganda methods, and a way to inform the military about their movements. New industries and farms would give a chance to young and bright people of the region a future besides guerilla warfare. And most importantly, Turkey was building an infrastructure which will be utilised in a capitalist system to change the social structure. This was totally odd to PKK's communist ideology. Government was trying to modernise and westernise the region. These activities were perceived as part of longstanding determination to crush all expression of Kurdish identity. The PKK had targeted GAP with sabotages and abductions of engineers, without the infrastructure (power lines, transportation, communication, irrigation channels etc) development stops.

[edit] Way of life

The activities of PKK focused on generating fear to force changes in the behavior of the population. Even though PKK activities seem to be "random attacks", its perpetrators were highly selective in the choice of place and people attacked. The intention of taking victims by surprise and demoralizing the larger public was apparent. By disturbing the movement of the goods, PKK attacked the public way of life, under the claim of attacking government property (train).

PKK claimed that its views are absolute. Under the image of Ocalan it constructed an ethnic identity. Those who belong to the ethnic community are considered members of community of law. Foreigners or renegades from the PKK, on the other hand, are seen as a threat to fundamental identity of the community. The very existence of these "enemies" and their actions is portrayed as an acute threat to fundamantal interests of the group, which this definitional inversion turns the group into victims of aggression.

In making their own violence, as it were, merely a counter-violence in self-defense. The Kurd to Kurd inflicted violence in the region, and difficulties of Kurds to generate alternative positions is attributed to this policy. The groups in Beqaa valley share this absoluteness in their world views.

[edit] Social structure

To understand the effect of PKK on the social level to the region, it is important to understand the dynamics of the region. It is no surprise that PKK in the late 1970s choose the communist-socialist ideology with the rise in urban population in the region. Specially among the young people of the region that had to leave traditional culture to fit to the newly developing industrial urban life.

↑		Urbanization
Year	Population	Total	Region
1950	20,947,000	18.50	15.00
1960	27,755,000	25.90	16.00
1970	35,605,000	33.20	19.00
1980	44,737,000	45.40	~29.80
1990	56,473,000	56.20	~58.80
Source: State Statistical Institute

As can be seen from the table during the 1980s, the region's urbanization reaches national levels. This change generates the dissolution of social relationships and social control among Kurds, like it did to other groups. Tribal control in the region was strong as it was but 1980s generated another social strata that culturally belong to a tribe but economically not bind to a land. Immigrant groups in the region were under great pressure to conform to the new conditions. This leads to difficulties in orientation. PKK used these new circumstances. It added the cultural hatred to its fliers. The reasons of Kurds difficulty was because "Turkey hates Kurds." The Kurds who have just escaped from tribal control to ghettos (Turkish: gecekondu) of the cities, found themselves under control of political, police and economic institutions. It was easy to believe the fliers as these institutions did not exist in their original conditions.

The effective educational system, judicial system, financial support are the main ingredients to social ethics, as ability to communicate, ability to trust, and ability to plan for future is fabricated with these systems. Turkey, from onset, implemented mandatory education and health programs. New professionals in education, health, police, judicial, etc, can not work under government institutions if they do not work specified period in these locations. During 1990, these mandatory services became very controversial. Even though the Government paid three to four times more salary in compensation, the families did not want to send their children as they were targeted by PKK. Even the graduates of the region did not want to work in their birth place. There were Kurdish dentists working in Istanbul, but no one can find a dentist in the region.

[edit] Education

There is a direct relationship between literacy level and civil liberties. People have a good judge of their conditions, given the correct and unbiased access to information. From 1926 Turkey has given high priority to literacy. However, in the 1980s, the south east literacy level was lagging behind.

PKK's revolutionary program depended on peoples following PKK's activities without any secondary voice. There is a relationship between Maoist peoples war and literacy levels. A peoples war is very effective in the regions where there is no other voice. The 1980 coup recognized this fact and opened another campaign to increased the literacy levels and improved access to telecommunications and mass media. A strategic goal for PKK was to keep this condition as it is.

Year	Total	F	M	South-East	Aegean	Black Sea	Central	Marmara	Mediterranian
1970	43.8	58.2	29.7
1975	36.3	49.5	23.8
1980	32.5	45.3	20.0
1985	22.6	31.8	13.5	44.0	18.6	24.7	18.3	14.2	22.1
1990	19.5	28.0	11.2
1995	12.7	19.4	6.1
Breakdown table of Illiterates % to population.

By looking to the number of teachers killed and schools destroyed PKK’s second target in the region was education. PKK sees it as indoctrination. Education in the Turkish state schools is mandated as always being through the medium of the Turkish language.

As can be seen from distribution of the activities on teachers, PKK aimed to keep the all educational system in the region under the feeling of threat. The threat of losing a child during a conflict inside or around the school brought a dilemma between the state and the public. Primary education is mandatory and families who do not send their kids are punished by jail time. However, it was impossible for the security system to negotiate with a parent under these conditions and jail time to a parent would be prosecuting the parent for the failures of the state. Even if students were forced to come to the institutions, they could not be channeled to involve with the educational activities.

Year	Total	Mardin	Batman	Erzurum	Tunceli	Diyarbakir	Bitlis	Bingol	Sanliurfa	Siirt	Mus	Van	Elaziğ	Şırnak	Ağrı	Tokat
1988	19	4	3		12
1989	4
1990	10				4
1991	4			2	2
1992	24
1993	51	1			12	24	5	4	2	1	1	1
1994	31	4	4	4	10	5		1					1	1	1
1995	7	2	1			2								1		1
1996	8
Total	158	Breakdown table of teachers murdered with respected to provinces.

Another interesting point from this table is the situation with Tunceli. This province had the highest casualties. There are two apparent reasons for being a target. First Tunceli has the highest education rate in that region, as most the Kurds in that region is Alevi. Second this province has the smallest population, under the correct conditions that could be easily turned into a province that can be claimed.

[edit] Psychology

A system with future social expectations, such as a secure place for next generations, able to solve social conflicts (car accidents) with restraining from violence, has to develop social/medical/criminal mechanism to control the extent of unwanted behaviors. A good example from Turkey is the driving points. If a member of society constantly drives badly, the system suspends their license for a given time. In this respect; the concept of an agent "leaving violent behavior" is very simplistic. A person who had lived in training camps, involved in raids can not say, "I'm off", and became a law abiding, socially reliable person. The expectation of victimization ending with the end of crime is unrealistic.

• It is estimated by a veterans organisation that during the conflict Turkish Military used two million soldiers for the operations against the PKK. This number does not specify the active engagement and it is only rough estimate that also includes the logistic and other functions. There is no specific number for the clinically diagnosed and treated patients for Post-traumatic stress disorder, both from the Turkish Military and the PKK and Kurdish civilians.
• We assume, or build our concept of a normal person who refrains from engaging in behaviours that violate international values of human rights. PKK members are not crazed fanatics or psychopaths. When we look at them, they have developed a justification and rationalization toward their actions. PKK used training programs to teach moral disengagement to its followers. In the Turkish medical system, there is no rehabilitation program for moral disengagement. It is reported that people who engage in violent activities have hard time in regaining their ability to empathise with others.
• PKK agents, which number in thousands, given their training are not simply criminals. The rehabilitation of these people cannot be performed in isolation from society. However, they are a high risk group. Turkey's experience has shown that these agents turn back to crime again. In the criminal system, there is a law that demands government guidance for these agents. However, the opposite side of the equation is missing. There is no system that informs common people about the risk levels. There is no Uniform Crime Reports, that inform the common people about their neighborhood status. A form of reporting system that assess and classify the nature and extent of the roles played by individual agents is needed. This should be covered as a preventive measure.
• PKK generated regions in Turkey that their populations have high rate of involving with crime. In a stable and peaceful societies, joining to a violent group should be seen as a dramatic, alien and highly deviant action. There are programs to economically improve these regions, but there are no programs to produce hope to curb down the despair in the region, which was pointed as the reason. This should be covered as a preventive measure.

[edit] Fear of weapons of mass destruction

There were two cases that radically shifted the attitude of the public, as they involved non-conventional methods.

• March 28, 1992 (no arrest): A lethal dose (50 mg/l) of cyanide was added to three water tanks in Istanbul that were mainly used by the Air Force.
• August 27, 1996 (Emin Ekinci): 20 containers of mustard gas and a container of sarin in Istanbul.

[edit] Political/Justice

According to PKK, its methods are unilateral self-help from covertly inflicted mass violence by Turkish state on the Kurd identity, throughout time. The PKK presented its methods as a form of social control on their life (Kurd identity) to achieve a life (in Kurdistan) that is beyond the deviant behaviors of Turkish State (it added Iraq, than Iran, than Syria to this equation). PKK perceived that the deviant behaviors of the Turkish state was the result of its political and justice system.

From onset, 1924, the Turkish political system believed that democracy cannot survive in the face of “ethnic divisions”. The government should be built on Milliyetcilik where in the spirit everyone should be treated the same. Aligned with that idea, the Turkish State gave high priority to representation. The ratio of candidates originating from their own constituency, accepted as the sign of regional representation, is very high from the onset of the state. This ratio fall down between 1935-1951, which was attributed to World War II and Milli Şef period. The Turkish parliament has never lacked parlementarians with Kurdish origins.

Representation is only one side of democracy, the other side is the group affiliation. After four decades, the 1961 constitution marked a separation between “ethnic divisions” and “ethnic group”. The 1961 constitution created more space to political parties showing religious and ethnic colours. New Turkey Party (1960), YTP, during the 1960s received 30% of the votes coming from the region and 14% from the country, where the majority of them are of Kurdish origin. It was formed mainly by local landlords from southeastern Turkey. The Workers Party of Turkey (1961) TIP was a left wing organisation and it was interested in the newly generated section of the Kurdish society, workers. In its 1970 congress TIP openly talked about the southeast regional problems of workers. It was first the TIP named the “Kurd problem”. As defined by TIP and recognised by the governments of 1970s, “Kurd problem” was the problem of living standards and expression of self.

[edit] HEP/DEP/HADEP

During the 1970s, when we look at the urbanization values ^[1], it was apparent that there was a need for new formations in the Turkey's political representation. Under social changes, the government systems can only do to a limit with planned activities. The real driving factor originates from political processes towards the needs of the region through the social participation. The political processes were shaping in the region late 1960s and during 1970s were align with the region's transformation from its tribal structure to urban structure. However, during 1980s, and early 1990s was shaped by PKK. Mainly PKK's fight against other kurdish organizations (see Urban War). PKK claimed "no other Kurdish organization can play a significant role, or have a different view", on the regional issues. By the late 1990s, aligned with the PKK's termination of activities against the regional people, PKK become undisputed.

The importance of HEP/DEP/HADEP can be explained with happened after 1980. It was with PKK, the “Kurd problem” was defined as an ethnicity problem associated with communist separationist ideology. It brought the “ethnic division” issues over kurdish ethnicity. The 1982 constitution wrote specific articles to protect the state under the perceived separationist movement. These laws have been received much criticism. The Turkish security system, at that period, perceived any terminology associated with “Kurd problem” as the manifestation of separationist ideology, and rejected even using the word. When it came to 1990s, Turgut Ozal’s presidency tried to separate the ethnic separationist problem to the ethnic problem. The famous “I recognise the Kurdish Reality” was stated under these conditions. However the existence of a regional political party, that is tied to a territory, embracing only part of the state, with goals of mobilising ethnic support would end up promoting the right to secede. The problem that the Turkish political establishment had in the 1990s was trying to bring Kurdish expression to the parliament (as an ethnic group) without the suggestion of secession or regional autonomy. The movement of HEP/DEP/HADEP is shaped under interaction of these issues.

The path that enabled HEP/DEP/HADEP was passed through the concept of civil society. Civil society has a life if its own. Different from the state. Lies beyond the boundaries of the family, clan and locality. By referring to activities during the 1970s, 1982 constitution had emphasized the states factor. However, civil society lies short of state, but not as close as constitution was demanding. End of 1980s the problems with the civil society were getting apparent. The region was falling behind the developments in the country. The politics originating from the region and the economics of the region were deformed. SHP report on July 1990 demanded suspension of the military measures and a limited decentralization of the administration and reinforcement of the communication between government and people. Report pointed out that government in its pursue for establishment of security should not forced people to take sides. The spirit of the report was without the civil society there will not be any healthy discussion and realistic conclusions. This report was followed with 1991 terrorism law, which Turgut Ozal's support behind this law was significant. Another interesting development after these discussions were the increase in the numbers of NGOs.

On the political front, to find a solution within the Turkey's parliament was failed. The political party associated with the PKK, Democracy Party, was banned from operating as a political institution. Some members, most prominently Leyla Zana, were arrested and charged with treason and membership in the PKK but were released 10 years later in 2004.

[edit] Non Governmental Organisations (NGO)

The Turkish government, in theory, should be transparent to cultures. The Turkish system depends on NGOs to perform cultural and social functions.

However, related to PKK, there are a group of NGOs that played a large part in communication between the state, the public and PKK. These organizations generally have names relating to human rights and/or freedoms. They are organized by province, and their organizational structure and goals reflect those of their western counterparts.

Liberalism in the Turkish system implies a voluntarist framework for social organization. The organization should be biased only toward its goals. Also, human rights and freedoms demand that Ankara should protect the rights of prisoners performing hunger strikes. However, after 22 years of an act, if an NGO gives a press release "saluting the martyr of ... hunger strike", it bring questions regarding the purpose of the NGO. Any NGO distances itself from others who are also in need by taking a political side. Turkish human rights organizations are becoming interested in issues related to a wider base. Crimes against females were brought to public attention through NGOs. This change might be a sign that leadership of these organizations is moving away from communitarian (Marxist) and ethnic concepts of the nation, to a human-centered concept with a goal to improve living conditions.

It is only fair to say NGOs had (have) a significant effect in the extension of state activity in the region. In a violent situation, NGOs helped the system sort out cases and performed a checking function.

"Most of the Kurdish activists known to Amnesty International were charged with violent offenses, but some were prisoners of conscience imprisoned because of their non-violent political or cultural activities. In April and October an Amnesty International observer attended several trials in military and civilian courts, including state security courts. Between August 1984 and July 1987, 9,512 people had been detained in the provinces of Diyarbakir, Mardin, Siirt, Hakkari, Van and Sanliurfa, where most of the population is of Kurdish origin. 2,811 cases were reportedly transferred to military courts and a further 1,612 went to civilian courts. The remainder [53%] had reportedly been released." (1988 Amnesty report)

Another issue related to NGOs in Turkey was the limitations imposed on them through the 1982 constitution.

[edit] Language Act Ban

Main article: Turkish Language Act Ban

[edit] Terrorism Law (1991)

During the 1980s, the social polarization between the government and PKK was not conductive to social control through law, especially when PKK turn itself to international form. Inability to deal with terrorism through criminal law was apparent even before 1980, and this was stated among the reasons of the coup. By looking 1970s and 1980s, defending its existence as a nation state, through Turkish law had produced results on terrorists and their supporters that were very hard. PKK’s terrorism is not merely a form of crime, so trying to defined it through a criminal justice was unrealistic.

The primary aim of the 1991 law was to bring coherence to a set of laws that had been used to deal with terrorism (primarily by the PKK) under criminal law. This terrorism law(s) was passed to define structure and organise the response of the government, in addition to specifying rules of punishment. This law defined an organised crime section that was handled before within the individual sections of the criminal law that deals with the crime itself.

This law is significant as the Turkish government claimed that it would not deal with terrorism through military coups, though it accepted the idea that terrorism will be part of life in Turkey for a while. Terrorism law brought a specific set of regulations and powers to deal with terrorists and their actions. Turkish parliament with the experience of the inability to combat the sources of the terrorism through coups brought extra measures from previous coups in its laws.

[edit] Amnesties

Turkey as explained in this text classified PKK's activities as another category than ordinary crimes. As explained in the section Syria, criminal trials were very hard to explain, with the mothers outside crying and members had their own rhetoric inside. The separation opened a way to treat them differently from ordinary criminals. Ordinary criminals were punished for failing to respect the right of the members of the society, but with terrorism law it is recognized that they fail to respect the state. This opened a reconciliatory approach which is amnesty.

[edit] Administrative

Further information: Administrative reforms against terrorism

The one of the administrative decision was to implement Village guards, against the PKK insurgency. The goal was two fold; the villages that were hard to reach areas would not be left without protection and it showed the size of the resistance against the PKK insurgency, which at one point the amount of guards reached 150,000^{[citation needed]}.