Why are the Kurds the target? Turkish Kurdish separatists have been battling for an independent state in southeastern Turkey since 1984 (map). That’s why the Turkish government is attacking them. But the Iraqi Kurds are now battling the Turkish Kurds, too. The Turkish separatists’ organization, the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK), was long given sanctuary in Iraqi Kurdistan by Kurdish guerrillas, the Peshmerga, fellows in arms. The PKK used those northern Iraqi bases to pursue its fight against Turkey-a war that has claimed 5,100 lives since 1984, 2,000 of them in the last year. But last month the Kurdish regional parliament bowed to Turkish demands and voted to expel the PKK from Iraqi Kurdistan. “PKK violence and terrorism endanger our whole cause,” says Khoshar Zebari of the Iraqi Kurdish Democratic Party. “But this is not to justify why we are fighting against our brothers.”
Like any battle between brothers, this one has been particularly bloody. Kurdish leaders say they have no idea of casualty totals, but local commanders admitted to 100 Peshmerga dead in just two of the major battles, and they claim many hundreds of PKK dead. Wintry weather has already begun in the high mountains where Iran, Turkey and Iraq meet at the Hakurk Triangle, compounding supply problems for all sides. The Peshmerga insist they’ve been doing their own fighting, but foreign observers saw Turkish military advisers assisting the Iraqi Kurds in battle. And a Turkish blockade of possible PKK escape routes turned the tide strategically, especially in the mountains north of Zakho, where 40 Turkish armored vehicles crossed the Hezil River border. Last week, a few days after the Turks intervened, the surrounded PKK forces sued for a cease-fire.
The Iraqi Kurds say they made the decision to attack their fellow Kurds reluctantly, after the PKK ignored ultimatums. “They’re causing us a hell of a problem,” says Zebari. “We depend on the good will of Turkey to keep international protection. That’s a fact of life,” he says. “And [PKK attacks are] giving Turkey an excuse to come here and bomb us.”
The fighting upstaged what the Iraqi Kurds had hoped would be a political and diplomatic showcase, a meeting of the Iraqi National Congress held deep in Kurdistan at Salahuddin. The congress, a new coalition of mostly anti-Saddam groups, was expected to approve a federated state in Iraq, and a joint presidency representing Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish groups. Instead it was delayed nearly a week by the fighting.
Even more worrisome was the potential harm to civilian Kurds. The PKK’s forces in Turkey embargoed truck traffic to Kurdistan and threatened to kill the families of any truckers who defied it. That choked off nearly all supplies, just when seeds and fertilizer are needed. to plant winter crops. Thousands of Kurds abandoned their homes again, moving into towns where supplies are stretched thin. “If the road isn’t opened,” said UNICEF’s Bidab Nazar in Zakho, “it could be another humanitarian crisis.” Donor nations have pledged more aid to get the Kurds through the winter but without another major U.S. airlift, or a lifting of the PKK embargo, help can’t arrive.
The Turkish Kurds remain defiant despite their reverses-and the costs. PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan said Turkish involvement would only free his forces to attack farther north in Turkey. The PKK is already at it, blowing up a bridge under a passenger train near Lake Van last week, killing at least three and injuring 47, many of them soldiers. The Turks vowed their troops would be finished and home before the snows set in. But when brother faces brother, fights rarely end soon.
title: “Brother Vs. Brother” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-21” author: “Rosa Winn”
Perhaps it’s fitting that as Home minister, Advani is now responsible for quelling the violence: his governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) truly does face a crisis of its own making. Its allies in the Hindu-nationalist Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) are the ones leading the charge to build a temple to the god Ram in Ajodhya, his supposed birthplace. The BJP itself has shied away from the issue since first taking power in 1998. But desperate to win recent elections in the populous state of Uttar Pradesh, where Ajodhya is located, the party campaigned on a fire-breathing nationalist platform centered on the government’s tough stand against Muslim Pakistan. The VHP simultaneously rallied its followers by whipping up the temple issue.
The strategy failed: the BJP was trounced in the elections, and the VHP has been emboldened by a feeling that the ruling party, which leads a fragile coalition in New Delhi, now cannot afford to alienate its hard-core supporters. Activists have set a deadline of March 15 for construction to begin. “The government’s in a trap,” says Zoya Hassan, a political-science professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. “On the one hand, its religious supporters are holding a sword over its head, while there’s a considerable volume of sensible public opinion that wants them to stop this.”
The violence, which continued in Gujarati villages even as the Army was deployed in several cities and towns, could hasten the BJP’s decline. Moderate voters had already abandoned the party in the recent elections; Gujarat is now the only major state the BJP controls. Even though Advani and Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee have vowed not to let construction of the temple go ahead–and have the troops to back up that promise–most of those mainstream voters are still likely to associate the party with zealotry. During its nearly four years in power, the administration has at least tolerated the more extreme elements in the VHP and its sister organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, who have spread their pro-Hindu message through schools, voluntary associations and occasional campaigns against suspect writers and filmmakers. Coalition partners, most of whom are thoroughly secular, may start to rethink their support if the BJP looks like a lost cause.
Even if not, those small parties should be able to dictate the government’s agenda for the remainder of the BJP’s term. Already, financial analysts have panned the government’s new budget, released last week, for backing away from pledges of serious reforms. Interest rates were reduced only slightly, while the government’s goal for revenues to be earned from privatizing state corporations–$2.5 billion–is no different than last year’s (when only $1.1 billion was actually raised). Given the need for the BJP to satisfy the various populist demands of its coalition partners, the chances for more dramatic liberalization are slim. “With right-wing economic policies, the BJP can’t keep the votes of the masses,” says Kandiyur Panikkar, vice chancellor at Kerala’s Sri Sankaracharya University. Even if police do manage to restore calm in Gujarat, the BJP faces some stormy months ahead.
