TURKEY: BATMAN SEES LOCAL POLITICAL TENSIONS RISING

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 ANKARA 003051

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/02/2017
TAGS: PGOV PHUM PREL OSCE TU
SUBJECT: TURKEY: BATMAN SEES LOCAL POLITICAL TENSIONS RISING


Classified By: A/Princial Officer Layla Ones, reasons 1.4 (b),(d)


1. (U) This is a Consulate Adana message.


2. (C) SUMMARY: Two prominent Batman Bar Association leaders
in southeast Turkey told us during a recent visit that local
political tensions between the ruling Justice and Development
Party (AKP) and pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP)
have increased in recent months. They said Batman residents
increasingly resent AKP's aggressive national and local
political ambitions and believe there is a growing perception
among southeastern Kurds that, since July elections, AKP has
morphed into the state itself. They charge that police
abuses are rampant, and that last year's amendment of the
detention law invites police to deny citizens, primarily
Kurds, access to legal representation. For successful
resolution of the "Kurdish issue," the Bar pins all hope on
the EU accession process, which it hopes will promote changes
to the Turkish constitution, rendering it a more inclusive,
democratic document that will pave the way for expanded
Kurdish cultural rights. END SUMMARY.

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DTP MAYOR AND GOVERNOR AT ODDS
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3. (C) Batman Bar Association President Sedat Ozevin (former
IV program participant) and attorney Zekeriya Aydin told us
local political tensions between the AKP and DTP, long
simmering before the July 22 elections, have now come to a
full boil. In the past few months, a growing feud between
DTP Mayor Huseyin Kalkan and Batman Provincial Governor Recep
Kizilcik (who assumed the governorship early in 2007 from his
popular predecessor) has escalated. According to the Bar,
Kalkan's municipality brought charges against the province
for denying education funds to Batman city. The provincial
directorate for water and electricity returned the favor and
sued the municipality for unpaid bills. The Bar believes the
ongoing disputes may have a significant political dimension
-- while the centrally-appointed governor (a civil servant
under the Interior Ministry; generally truly apolitical) is
supposed to be apolitical, the public perceives him to be in
cahoots with the AKP. (In fact, Batman governor Kizilcik has
been a civil servant since long before AKP came to power and
is a relative newcomer to Batman who has expertise on the EU;
Mayor Kalkan hails from DTP's more radical, pro-PKK wing.)

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BATMAN POLICE USE LEGAL LOOPHOLE TO PERSECUTE KURDS
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4. (C) Batman citizens turned out in the thousands to support
DTP's November 19 "Enough" rally, organized to demonstrate
Kurdish solidarity in the face of Ankara's efforts to shut
down the party. The Bar representatives said police used
excessive force when detaining 28 youths during the rally,
including many minors. Eleven remain in prison, three of
whom are minors. The Bar maintains police in Batman
routinely use excessive force in dealing with Kurds, and
recurrently abuse the December 2006 amendment in the law
allowing police the discretion to waive a detainee's right to
an attorney if the alleged offense carries a potential
sentence of less than five years. In their view, this
discretionary power means the police now have, in effect,
free rein to persecute Kurds and DTP supporters. The lawyers
said this further fuels political tensions and nurtures a
growing resentment against "the state."

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THE "STATIFICATION" OF AKP
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5. (C) Ozevin and Aydin are of the opinion that recent
military operations in the Southeast and an overall increase
in nationalist rhetoric have led the Southeast's Kurdish
population to increasingly identify AKP with the state,
including the military. This "statification" process has
been facilitated, they believe, by the EU's cold-shoulder
treatment and opposition parties' potshots emphasizing AKP's
inability to protect the Turkish people. Both led AKP to
adopt a more nationalist posture, and allow the flexing of
the country's military might to quash accusations of

ANKARA 00003051 002 OF 002


weakness. To survive politically, AKP found a common thread
with the military - the Kurdish issue. Meanwhile, Kurds in
the Southeast, Aydin said, are seeing how hard ethnically
Kurdish AKP politicians in Ankara are trying to prove their
"un-Kurdishness," making them ethnic sell-outs. The two
attorneys believe these factors, together with the continuing
military offensive, will translate into a significant erosion
of AKP's political sway in Batman province, where it received
some 70,000 votes in the last election.

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EU ACCESSION PROCESS PROBABLY STILL THE ONLY VIABLE HOPE
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6. (C) The Bar representatives posit the only hope for
resolution of Turkey's Kurdish issue is EU accession, but
they question the government's sincerity in seeing it
through. Ozevin noted AKP no longer speaks about the
importance of pushing the military back into their barracks
and out of politics, and resolving the Kurdish issue. He
added the military clearly has no interest in seeing
constitutional changes that would diminish its status as the
patron and protector of the motherland. The attorneys
acknowledged DTP's failure to do anything beyond complaining
and chanting slogans about freeing imprisoned PKK leader
Ocalan and a general amnesty for PKK fighters. Still, DTP is
fulfilling a democratic role necessary to the process, they
said, even if it sings with disparate voices.

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COMMENT
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7. (C) The frustration expressed by Ozevin and Aydin has been
echoed by other Kurdish contacts in Sanli Urfa and
Diyarbakir. While the March 2009 local elections are still
far off, if AKP does not make good on its promises of
palpable progress on the Kurdish issue, it could lose
ethnically Kurdish votes to a DTP bent on capitalizing on any
disenchantment in the region. Several Consulate contacts in
the Southeast believe DTP is actively agitating for closure
in order to turn this disenchantment into sympathy for both
the party and the PKK in advance of the March 2009 elections.
In the face of these political power plays, AKP may continue
one strategy that some contacts say was successful last July
-- use of the religious card to target young Kurdish voters
who privately hold the PKK responsible for the loss of life
and home, yet openly blame the government for continuing
poverty and economic hopelessness. Some contacts claim the
AKP will continue to work secretly through Turkish Hezbollah,
the Gulenists and the Nurcu tarikats in the Southeast to form
financial and social networks that capitalize on the tribal
structure in villages -- where, when you win the heart of the
"aga" or chieftain, you win the votes of the village. END
COMMENT.

Visit Ankara's Classified Web Site at
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/ankara/

WILSON