THE "REINTEGRATION LAW" AS PERCEIVED

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 ADANA 0240 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PHUM PREL PTER IZ TU ADANA SUBJECT: THE "REINTEGRATION LAW" AS PERCEIVED IN SOUTHEASTERN TURKEY REF: ANKARA 4499 ¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY: Most contacts affiliated with the possible beneficiaries of this law see no change between this law and previous versions. They told post's political FSN that the recently enacted law would not be successful in encouraging PKK/KADEK militants to disarm. As a result, only two groups appeared to be taking advantage of this law, PKK/KADEK supporters not guilty of any violent action and members of the (Turkish) Hizbullah. Reliable information on the numbers of persons who have applied for the benefit is difficult to come by-press reports vary and government officials are reluctant to give out information on the number of applicants. END SUMMARY. ¶2. (SBU) A senior official in the Siirt chapter of a respected, credible human rights NGO expressed the belief that many (Turkish) Hizbullah members are applying to benefit from this law because the current Interior Minister Abdulkadir Aksu (who held the same office during the early 1990s) allegedly has ties with the organization. The official believes that it is more likely that (Turkish) Hizbullah members, as opposed to PKK/KADEK militants, will apply to benefit from the law. ¶3. (SBU) A prominent legal association official with credible ties to the human rights NGO community in Diyarbakir stated that more militants would apply if not required to give information to the security forces. He claimed that, because PKK/KADEK is not an underground organization, the organization took responsibility for all of its actions and that these actions were well known to the government. Therefore, the militants' disclosure of information was not necessary. He believed that PKK/KADEK demonstrated willingness to lay down its arms, but the 12-year sentence imposed for previous participation in violence represented a serious deterrent. According to the official, the government's reluctance to establish a dialogue with NGOs while drafting the law also served as an impediment to PKK/KADEK militants laying down their arms and taking advantage of the "reintegration" law. ¶4. (SBU) A prominent Hakkari attorney described the beneficiaries of the law as belonging to the following two groups: prisoners charged with "sheltering and harboring PKK/KADEK militants" and a group of persons who had cut their organic ties with the organization about ten or fifteen years ago, previously lived in Iraq or Iran and were now married with children. The militants inquired about the law but no one applied to benefit from it after the PKK/KADEK's leadership's announcement that banned members from doing so. The Hakkari Mayor and the Mayor of Sirnak stated that, if the law had been presented in the form of a general amnesty, the organization's leadership would have applied. ¶5. (SBU) Information on the numbers of persons who have applied for benefit is difficult to come by. The Diyarbakir State Security Court (SSC) directed inquiries to the Justice Ministry. The Sirnak Deputy Governor stated that the daily figures could be obtained from the Interior Ministry. So far post has been unable to obtain any official figures. The reported numbers of people taking advantage of the "Reintegration law" vary widely in the press, anywhere from 100 to 547 in Diyarbakir. In the August 27, 2003 Milliyet, Army Corps General Ataman announced 279 applicants in Elazig, but only 2 from rural areas. ¶6. (U) According to a September 2, 2003, "Milliyet" report, 2,138 people applied to take advantage of the "reintegration" law that went into effect on August 6, 2003. The number of those who turned themselves in voluntarily was ¶211. The daily wrote that 1,507 of the total applicants were mostly PKK/Kadek and Hizbullah inmates in prison. The following is a list of their affiliations: PKK/Kadek 1169 Hizbullah 338 DHKP/C 22 Hizb-ut Tahrir 28 TKP/ML 4 IBDA-C 26 Sivas convicts 52 TKP/ML-TIKKO 26 Dev-Sol 22 TIKKO 21 Other organizations 240 REID