KURDS ACKNOWLEDGE CONFLICT BETWEEN HUMAN RIGHTS,

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 ANKARA 004315

SIPDIS


DEPARTMENT FOR EUR/SE


E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/09/2008
TAGS: PGOV PREL PHUM TU
SUBJECT: KURDS ACKNOWLEDGE CONFLICT BETWEEN HUMAN RIGHTS,
TRADITIONAL KURDISH CULTURE

Classified by Polcouns John Kunstadter; reasons 1.5 b and d.



1. (C) Summary: Leftist Kurdish human rights activists see
some aspects of traditional Kurdish culture as major
impediments to growth of individual liberty, human rights,
and modernization. They note that the majority of Turkey's
rural Kurds in the southeast continue to follow traditional
practices miring Kurdish society in violence and perpetuating
a feudal system inconsistent with economic development. Our
contacts accuse the Turkish State of failing to develop the
southeast, and of deliberately propping up the feudal system
as part of its campaign against the PKK. In asserting the
need for Kurds to reform their own culture, however, they
fail to account for the central role religion plays in
Kurdish life. Our contacts also criticize the GOT for
failing to help Kurds displaced from the southeast during the
PKK conflict return to the region, but believe many of the
displaced would not choose to return even if the GOT provided
adequate support. End Summary.


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Kurdish Culture Impedes Human Rights
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2. (SBU) As Turkey pursues human rights reform in the context
of its efforts to join the EU, international attention
continues to focus on the need for the State to normalize
relations with Turkey's Kurds. To this end, the U.S., EU and
others press for the lifting of long-standing legal
restrictions against use of Kurdish (without distinguishing
between Kurmanci and Zazaca) and ending of official
harassment of Kurdish political parties and cultural
organizations. At the same time, however, certain aspects of
traditional Kurdish culture constitute some of the greatest
impediments to the growth of individual liberty and human
rights in Kurdish society. In the Kurdish-dominated
southeast -- as well as in neighborhoods of Istanbul, Ankara
and other major cities where migrants from the southeast have
settled -- a significant proportion of Kurds continues to
follow traditions relating to "honor killings" (the killing
by immediate family members of women suspected of being
unchaste),blood feuds, and the role of women in society. In
rural areas of the southeast, the majority of Kurds still
lives under a tribal/feudal system whereby thousands of
laborers serve a single landowner (aga).


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Kurds Decry "Deep-Rooted" Violence
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3. (U) Though reluctant at first, a number of leftist Kurds
active in the human rights field have been remarkably open
with us on these highly sensitive topics. "Violence is
deeply rooted in Kurdish culture," said Sedat Aslantas, an
attorney, originally from Diyarbakir. Aslantas recalls
carrying a gun at age 11, and said one of his uncles killed
his wife because he suspected her of cheating on him. Yusuf
Alatas, an attorney and Human Rights Association vice
chairman, also cited violence, particularly against women and
children, as a problem plaguing Turkey's Kurds. Alatas,
originally from Malatya, said discussion of internal problems
among Kurds was taboo during the height of the PKK conflict
in the mid-1990s. But he believes these issues must be
addressed now. "Kurds want democratization and EU
membership, but how will we democratize ourselves?" he
pondered.


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Feudal Structure Locks Southeast in "Vicious Circle"
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4. (U) Our contacts agree the problems start with what they
call a "primitive" Kurdish feudal/tribal system incompatible
with modernization of any kind. Suavi Aydin, Hacettepe
University professor of anthropology and expert on Anatolian
minorities, said this feudal system prevents capital from
flowing to the economically depressed southeast. Aydin
described a vicious circle whereby: a lack of capital mires
Kurds in primitive agricultural farming; which obviates the
need for skilled workers; which discourages Kurds from
seeking education/training; which, in turn, mires Kurds in an
enterprise that cannot attract capital. Aydin, who is not a
Kurd, estimated about 70 percent of Kurds living in rural
areas of the southeast live under such a system, while those
living in urban areas have left these traditions behind.
Like our Kurdish contacts, he believes breaking this circle
is the key not only to modernizing the economy of the
southeast, but also to liberalizing Kurdish society.


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State Blamed for Exacerbating Problems
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5. (C) While acknowledging that these are essentially
internal, Kurdish problems, our contacts also blame the
Turkish State for deliberate polices aimed at blocking
Kurdish progress. Yavuz Onen, Human Rights Foundation
president, said the State continues to view the southeast as
a region to be controlled, not developed. Though the state
of emergency in the region was lifted in November 2002, the
notorious Village Guard -- a 65,000-strong civil defense
force established to maintain order in the southeast --
continues, noted Onen, a Kurd originally from Midyat, Mardin
Province. Hasim Hasimi, a Kurd and former mayor of Cizre in
Sirnak Province and subsequently an M.P. -- and scion of an
influential family of Naksibendi tarikats shaykhs -- recalled
that when he was growing up in Cizre there was only one
school in the region, and there was no transportation
available for children outside the immediate area. Onen said
the State should develop a program of special projects aimed
a modernizing the region's agricultural sector. (Note: EU
membership criteria call on the Turkish authorities to
"develop a comprehensive approach to reduce regional
disparities, and in particular to improve the situation in
the southeast." End Note). Aydin said the State propped up
the feudal system in the southeast in the 1990s as part of a
strategy to counter the influence of the PKK, by hiring
feudal leaders as Village Guards for example, and as a result
revived what had been a dying tradition.


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Displaced Kurds: How Many Would Choose to Return?
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6. (C) One of the most controversial aspects of the Kurdish
problem is the question of the right of return for Kurds who
were forcibly displaced by the State or chose to flee between
1984 and 1999 as a consequence of the war against the PKK.
Estimates on the number of IDPs range from 1-3 million.
Turkish authorities have been widely criticized for a
secretive return program, dating from before the current

SIPDIS
government, that international donors have rejected as
inadequate. But it is not clear what proportion of the
displaced population wants to return to the region, or
whether the region's frail economy could sustain a large
influx. Baskin Oran, an Ankara University international
relations professor who has studied the Kurdish issue, said
most exiles from the southeast, especially the young, have
adapted to urban life and would not choose to return even if
the GOT paved the way. Alatas disagreed, but still
acknowledged that as many as half the IDPs would not return.
Rather than focusing on returns, Oran argued, the State
should develop programs for creating jobs for Kurds in
western Turkey, as the southeast no longer holds any hope for
them. "Of course, as a human being I want them to be able to
return," said Oran, who is not a Kurd. "But to return to the
southeast is to return to peasantry." Unfortunately, Oran
said, the State has different motives for not wanting Kurds
to return. Like all our contacts, he believes the State,
fearful of Kurdish nationalism, wants Kurds to disperse into
other regions and assimilate.


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Kurds Need to Change Mentality
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7. (U) If human rights reform and EU membership change the
Turkish authorities' approach to the Kurdish question, can
Kurds reform their own culture? "The Kurdish mentality will
have to change. That might be harder than getting into the
EU," lamented Aslantas. Alatas said Kurds must engage
urgently in an internal dialogue, challenging themselves to
change. "Kurds need to change their family relationships and
interpersonal relationships. Otherwise we might as well
close down the Human Rights Association and all move back to
the southeast," he said. Onen is confident Kurds will
change, if the State lifts restrictions on Kurdish culture
and supports economic development in the southeast. If
Turkey's Islamist politicians can adapt their ways, he
reasoned, so can the Kurds. "The Kurds are not a retrograde
people," he said. "They are progressive in general, though
Islamic ideology is very strong."



8. (C) While agreeing that Kurds must adapt, Hasimi and other
right-of-center Kurdish interlocutors disagree that Kurds'
strong attachment to Islam inhibits their ability to function
well in the contemporary world. At the same time, Hasimi
attributes the Kurds' ability to survive centuries of Ottoman
and then Republican Turkish pressure to their attachment to
traditions our left-of-center contacts call "primitive".


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Comment
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9. (C) International attention to the Kurdish problem
focuses, with good reason, on the discriminatory treatment of
Kurds by the Turkish State. However, even as we call on the
Turkish authorities to remove restrictions against Kurdish
culture, we must remember that elements of that culture are
incompatible with human rights and social development.
Kurdish feudal/tarikat/tribal traditions have long been a key
factor in the Kurds' ability to preserve their distinctive
identity in the face of the Turkification program first begun
by Ataturk. Nevertheless, the Kurds, as our interlocutors
readily agree, need to change. Part of the problem lies in
the prism through which many westerners and western NGOs
continue to address the problem. While most such
organizations are on the left of the political spectrum, and
thus evince little direct sympathy for "feudalism," their
representatives have too often have either romanticized the
Kurds or adopted a qausi-anthropological approach that
confuses "Kurdishness" with the current state of affairs in
the region. Preserving and fostering cultural development is
a human right and worthy goal; preserving feudalism is not.



10. (C) Turkish and international human rights NGOs also
oversimplify the IDP/returns issue. It is true that the GOT
does not have a legitimate returns program, and that
displaced Kurds should have the right to return if they so
choose. But NGO reports give the impression that the
southeast can be made whole simply by helping the displaced
return to their homes. The truth is that the southeast that
existed before the PKK conflict cannot, and should not, be
restored. More than returns, the region needs social reform
and economic development.



11. (C) A final note: our left-of-center Kurdish contacts
display too ready an instinct to look to the Turkish State,
rather than private capital -- domestic or foreign -- as the
engine of economic development.
PEARSON