New military strategy in the fight against PKK

30.10.2011 Vatan
Translated by: Daily News / www.hurriyetdailynews.com/new-military-strategy-in-the-fight-against-pkk.aspx?pageID=438&n=new-military-strategy-in-the-fight-against-pkk-2011-10-30
Orjinal Metin (tr-10/30/2011)

Upon the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) intensifying its attacks with some kind of a full-scale war concept, a similar retaliation perception emerged within the state. When it is the case, a frequently asked question became this: Does the state return to the years of the 1990s? (When the years of 1990s are mentioned, it means the period when legal boundaries in the struggle against terror was carelessly exceeded with the approval of the state.)

Upon the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) intensifying its attacks with some kind of a full-scale war concept, a similar retaliation perception emerged within the state. When it is the case, a frequently asked question became this: Does the state return to the years of the 1990s? (When the years of 1990s are mentioned, it means the period when legal boundaries in the struggle against terror was carelessly exceeded with the approval of the state.)
I can, without hesitation, answer this question No, based on my observations in Hakkari and Çukurca. As a matter of fact, I can go further and say the state has learned its lesson so well that it is extremely difficult for it to revert to the 1990s.
In Hakkari and even in Çukurca, an extremely calm, relaxed and more importantly a “civil” life was dominant, at a time when Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) was carrying out a very intense military operation focusing on rural Çukurca, a few days after the PKK attack. Except for one or two simple identity checks, as journalists, we were able to go anywhere we wanted, we freely spoke to whoever we wanted and took photos.
Whereas in those infamous 1990s, it was just the opposite: People would be afraid of going out or opening their shops. Consequently, it was uniforms and arms that dominated the streets. The media at work was not thought much of. Reporters had a hard time finding people willing to talk and because those they could find were only uttering “official” views. Healthy information on what was going on was unable to be obtained.
Especially if the case was a drastic PKK attack, such as the Çukurca ambush, the state would take its revenge first on the region’s population: houses would be raided; scores of people would be detained. And because of the maltreatment they were exposed to, the public would focus on the cruelty exerted on people by the state more than the PKK attacks.

Lesson learned from the 1990s
Three days after the PKK attack, we were chatting with people at an outdoor café. We learned from them that house searches had been conducted but nobody from the public was detained. If it were in the past, based on the assumption that the PKK would have never organized such a complicated and difficult ambush without the help of citizens, the town center would have been shredded. As a matter of fact, the people we were talking to explained how they were detained many times in the past and tortured. Moreover, they claimed that many young people joined the ranks of PKK after such pressure and oppression.
Whereas today, it is as if the PKK had not executed an ambush only two or three days ago, as if the TSK was not conducting an extremely intense operation against the PKK a few kilometers away, in which there might be relatives of the Çukurca townspeople. There was a calm atmosphere.

PKK and TSK head to head
Together with my companion Hüseyin Yayman from Gazi University who knows the region very well, we remember the basic slogan the state had adopted for years while fighting with the PKK, the principle of “being able to distinguish between the terrorist and the civilian people.” We now know, thanks to the media to a large extent, that state officials have opted for that slogan basically to cover up the oppression deemed proper for the people. However, today, we hear less of that slogan from officials. But recently, as we have witnessed in Çukurca, security forces exert maximum care not to involve ordinary people in the fight against the PKK in rural areas. In other words, the era of organizing operations against the locals using PKK attacks as an excuse has ended to a large extent.
It is possible to sum up the situation as such: The state, especially the TSK, has learned the necessary lessons from the past. In the fight against the PKK in rural areas, the new strategy rises on the principle of warring with the organization head to head. That means the state has finally learned to distinguish the PKK and the people.
But there is another serious problem: The people in the southeast do not, at all, view the PKK as the state wants or expects it to view it.…
The locals are extremely worried about the KCK (the urban wing of the PKK) arrests.

Destek olmak ister misiniz?
Doğru haber, özgün ve özgür yorum ihtiyacı
Bugün dünyada gazeteciler birer aktivist olmaya zorlanıyor. Bu durum, kutuplaşmanın alabildiğine keskin olduğu Türkiye'de daha fazla karşımıza çıkıyor. Halbuki gazeteci, elinden geldiğince, doğru haber ile özgün ve özgür yorumla toplumun tüm kesimlerine ulaşmaya çalışmalı ve bu yolla, kutuplaşmayı artırma değil azaltmayı kendine hedef edinmeli. Devamı için

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