Watching Turkish television nowadays is a painful experience. I am a news junkie, and as you may surmise, my eyes have always been glued to the screen, however, I haven''t really been able to watch TV news programs for quite some time now, for the simple reason that my stomach cannot take what I see -- dead bodies of young soldiers, their coffins on shoulders, religious ceremonies in the hometowns of the martyrs and the sad faces of their loved ones. The Kurdistan Workers'' Party (PKK) has struck again. Last week it killed 12 villagers in Şırnak, a small city in southeast Anatolia, by attacking their minivan from afar. Another PKK strike occurred again at the end of the week, once more in Şırnak, killing 13 soldiers who belonged to a unit of 18 inexperienced infantrymen.
We do not have a professional army; every Turkish male who does not further their studies at university and has reached the age of 20 is enlisted, and after a short military training is sent to faraway places to serve their country and to participate in combat if necessary. Those who are sent to areas where the PKK is most active are in a position to engage in combat with militants who are fierce professionals, ready to shed blood and be killed.
Turkey has been afflicted by the separatist terror of the PKK for the last 25 years. According to official figures, those who fell victim to separatist terror number no fewer than 30,000, and many of them are civilians. The PKK has changed its strategy in recent years and has started to target mainly men in uniform. But in a country in which military service is compulsory for every young male, this strategy makes little difference. On the contrary, deaths of those who have fallen victim to separatist terror resonate in every corner of the country. The latest terrorist act, for instance, had a direct impact on at least 10 cities; they sent their youth to military duty and received their coffins in return.
Separatist terror is not unique to Turkey; there are more than enough countries suffering from atrocities of terrorist organizations with an ethnic footing, but the PKK has been the most brutal and cunning of all. Even though its leader is serving a life sentence, the militants, hiding in mountainous areas within and outside of Turkey, have been making inroads with their deadly activities. They use remote-control devices to detonate land mines hidden under asphalt roads, killing and maiming whoever uses these routes. In May this year a PKK suicide bomber created havoc in the center of Ankara, targeting a crowded shopping mall and killing nine innocent people.
Why is the PKK opting for deadly activities, killing as many as 30 people in a week, and why now?
The answer to these questions is simple -- the PKK has lost faith in its success after the latest election, in which the people in southeast Anatolia voted overwhelmingly for the Justice and Development (AK Party) rather than the Democratic Society Party (DTP). The people in the region, who are not really happy with their sorry state of affairs due to the PKK terror, channeled their votes from independent candidates belonging to the DTP to the AK Party. AK Party votes in some cities in southeast Anatolia have reached 65 percent, and this is a clean break in Turkish politics. The day after the election, Ahmet Türk, a leading figure at the DTP, in a candid moment, confessed that their post-election game plan had been ruined.
The PKK has been trying to compensate for its loss in popular support by exerting its muscle and killing as many people as possible. It is a desperate act which will lead nowhere, but it has the potential to create a political atmosphere which could make it impossible for people in responsible places to think and act properly. Outcries to send our troops to Iraq to eradicate the PKK members there have already been voiced, and I would not be surprised if a demand for declaring “martial law” in the Southeast was also uttered.
This is exactly what the PKK has been hoping to get as a reaction to its bloody assaults.
The timing is also important.
Anti-US and anti-West feelings are on the rise in Turkey, and people who are in mourning because of the loss of their loved ones hold the West, the US in particular, responsible for the atrocities of the PKK. The terrorist organization uses northern Iraq as its political base and trains its recruits in the mountains of Iraq. It is a common perception in Turkey, whether right or wrong, that the PKK, which had received a deadly blow before the US came to “rescue” the Iraqis from Saddam Hussein, has been reinvigorated by the occupying force in Iraq.
This is not the perception of just ordinary folks but also the military. Some high-ranking generals have been saying publicly that Turkey has been suffering from PKK terrorist activities mostly because of the chaotic situation in Iraq, and also because of the US lenience towards Kurdish leaders in the north, who are seen as PKK culprits. Land Forces Commander Gen. İlker Başbuğ recently warned Washington that Turkey has the power to obstruct moves intended by the US in Iraq.
It is conceivable that we may start discussing the possibility of a “Metal Storm situation,” a situation envisaged in an infamous novel titled “Metal Storm,” published immediately after the American intervention in Iraq, predicting a confrontation which would lead to an all-out war between US forces and the Turkish army in northern Iraq.
Especially after watching heart-breaking scenes about the PKK atrocities on Turkish television, any conspiracy theory is not absurd.
During the month of Ramadan, where any hostile action is forbidden for Muslims, and with only a couple of days until bayram, the religious holiday, we have been forced into mourning over our losses and to contemplate hostilities against our enemies, whoever they are.
This is really unfair.
