TURKEY: Political Graveyard May Get Extension

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Analysis by Hilmi Toros

ISTANBUL, Dec 7 2007 (IPS) - Turkey seems to have a far bigger ‘cemetery’ for political parties than many other democratic nations. Its next occupant could be a controversial pro-Kurdish party.

If shut down, the Democratic Society Party (DTP) will be the 26th political organisation banned in the past 25 years in what political researcher Murat Sevinc calls “an unenviable world record hard to beat.” He says closing down of parties is rare in democracies, but abundant in this country engaged in multi-party politics since 1946, and aspiring for full EU membership.

Turkey’s Constitutional Court will consider the case that DTP be shut down, as petitioned by the chief prosecutor. “The party has become a focal point of activities against the sovereignty of the state and indivisible unity of the country and the nation,” according to the charges.

The chief prosecutor also asked that 221 party members, including eight MPs, be banned from politics for five years.

The party is portrayed as being an extension, or political wing, of the outlawed and separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has been battling security forces on and off since 1984 in a conflict that has left over 30,000 dead.

PKK is branded a “terrorist” organisation by the United States, the European Union and Turkey. It is believed to have 1,500 guerrillas within Turkey, and some 3,000 holed up in the mountains in northern Iraq bordering Turkey. Its founder, Abdullah Ocalan, is serving life term in a Turkish jail on conviction of insurrection.

The DTP, like four previous pro-Kurdish parties eventually banned, abstains from calling PKK a terrorist group, and describes Ocalan, vilified by Turks as “chief terrorist”, a “leader.” It says it stands for increased autonomy for Turkey’s estimated 12 million Kurds, in a population of 73 million.

While there is little national sympathy for the DTP, and legal grounds may exist to close it, many Turks are not sure that would be in the country’s best interest.

“I think the Constitutional Court will close down the party, but in my view it should not,” Istanbul attorney Sanem Yunusoglu told IPS. “If closed, what next? They will just form another party with a different name.”

Can or should a political party be closed down?

No, says Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose own previous party was shut down because it was seen as pursuing an Islamic agenda against the secular order. But Erdogan asked the DTP to make a definite and public break with the PKK, and choose between “terrorism, and democracy.”

Turkey’s Human Rights Association and some civil society groups are also against closing down the Kurdish party. The European Court of Human Rights could overturn the verdict, says former parliament speaker Husamettin Cindoruk.

If on the other hand the party is allowed to function, many fear that the PKK would gain a voice in parliament through the DTP, and the party would be run by Ocalan from jail.

“Turkey should not have the image of a graveyard for political parties,” justice minister Mehmet Ali Sahin said in a statement. “But the biggest responsibility for this is on the shoulders of the politicians.”

Selahatin Demirta, DTP MP, said in a statement: “The closure of parties is something which should not take place in democratic countries. This is an unfortunate action not only for our party but also for the Turkish people.”

The DTP is a curious entity. It did not even exist during the Jul. 22 parliamentary elections, and was formed later. Had it been created before and participated in the national poll, it would not have cleared the 10 percent barrier required to enter parliament (it obtained 5 percent).

Instead, pro-Kurdish candidates ran as independents, with no obligation therefore to win 10 percent of the national ballot, and 20 were elected to the 550-member chamber. The party was formed after this.

In the election, the DTP would retrospectively be seen to have obtained one million of an estimated five million votes from people of Kurdish origin. That tally is considered low; the ruling AKP, accepting the country’s Kurdish problem and advocating solutions through economic and social reforms, made strong gains in the impoverished Kurdish-populated east and southeast.

The image of the DTP has taken a fall. Last month, what was intended to be a public relations coup went wrong after party members played a role in the sudden release of eight Turkish soldiers kidnapped by PKK forces. DTP deputies went to northern Iraq and claimed to have obtained their release. But Kurdish flags and pictures of Ocalan were prominent at the release ceremony, creating a furore among Turks.

Amidst suspicion of a staged kidnapping, the eight soldiers have been detained by the military, and are being questioned why they offered no resistance to kidnappers.

The DTP has picked Nurettin Demirtas as its new leader. Demirtas is considered a hawk; he has served a 10-year jail term after conviction for links to the PKK.

During his meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush in November, Erdogan obtained the first public U.S. pledge that the PKK is a “common enemy” of both countries. Turkey and the U.S. agreed to share real-time intelligence on PKK fighters. Since then, the Turkish military has carried out pointed strikes in northern Iraq in preference to a large military intervention opposed by the United States and the EU.

The United States is seen as attempting to accommodate both Turkey and the Kurds in northern Iraq. Turkey has been a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) ally of the United States for over half a century, but it also refused entry to U.S. troops from Turkey into Iraq against Saddam Hussein in 2003. The Kurds in northern Iraq, on the other hand, aided U.S. troops, and administer an area noted for its relative stability and pro-U.S. stand amid Shia and Sunni turmoil elsewhere.

The legal case against the DTP could last up to a year. “But the problem is not just legal,” says attorney Yunusoglu. “It is also political. There has to be acceptance of the identity and interest of people of Kurdish origin within a democratic society under the roof of Turkey. At the same time, within that roof, it must be accepted that there is no room for PKK.”