by Ahmed E. Souaiaia*
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Casualties of Syria's war |
Without
doubt, economic, sectarian, and security concerns motivated the Turkish leaders
to help oust a leader that cannot be trusted given his connections to Russia and
Iran. But Turkish leaders did not mention those reasons to explain their
enthusiasm for the overthrow of Assad. Instead, the Prime Minister, Recep
Tayyip Erdoğan, took the moral path. He argued that his government can no
longer support a president who kills his own citizens. On the face of it, that
sounds reasonable and commendable. But a close examination of Turkey’s own actions
toward its citizens of Kurdish ethnicity shows a different reality. The fact is,
for three decades or so, all Turkish governments—including the current one—have killed Turkish citizens.
According
to official figures released by Turkey’s own military, 32,000 PKK members,
6,482 soldiers, and 5,560 civilians were killed between 1984 and 2008. The same
data estimated that more than 14,000 Kurdish people were imprisoned.
Human
rights organizations show a darker picture of state brutality. It is reported that
4,000 Kurdish villages have been destroyed, displacing between 380,000 and
1,000,000 civilians. Other NGOs estimated that 119,000 Kurds have been
imprisoned by Turkish authorities. One specific NGO, the Humanitarian Law
Project, has determined that 2,400 Kurdish villages were destroyed and 18,000
Kurds were executed by the Turkish government.
According to the Hacettepe University Institute for Population Studies, between
950,000 and 1.2 million Kurds have been displaced for security-related reasons.
These
staggering figures show the level of brutality on the part of the Turkish state
and the appalling suffering the Kurdish people have endured. At the heart of
this ongoing crisis is the struggle of the Kurdish people who are seeking a
degree of autonomy that would allow them to preserve their culture, language,
and way of life.
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Kurdish fighters in Qandil mountains |
Importantly,
it should be noted that the Kurds who took up arms against the Turkish
government attempted to spare the villages and towns the horror of war by setting
camps in the mountains and carrying out attacks from those camps—not from
cities. Despite the legitimate grievances of the Kurdish people the current
Turkish regime insists that Kurdish fighters are terrorists and must lay down
their arms and leave the country or be killed. No one asked the Prime
Minister: leave what and go where? Was he forgetting that they are fighting for
their land and people?
Turkey’s government, this same government that portrays itself as a victim of terrorism, is
now providing support to Syrian rebels who are not fighting from the mountains
and who are not fighting for self-determination. Rather, they are moving from
town to town and from city to city occupying residential neighborhoods,
displacing civilians, declaring Syria “land of jihad,” and targeting religious
and ethnic minorities. Moreover, Turkey is not only supporting Syrian Sunni rebels,
but it is facilitating the transit of foreign fighters into Syria.
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Rebels in Syrian cities |
The
contrast is clear: Kurdish fighters are fighting for self-determination. In
their struggle, in most cases, Kurdish fighters live and train in mountains. In
most cases, they do not invade residential neighborhoods, occupy civilian
homes, and they do not endanger the lives of civilians.
Syrian rebels on the
other hand, are intentionally and systematically are engaged in urban warfare
wherein fighters move into towns and cities that are not theirs, risking the
lives and property of civilians. Many of the fighters are motivated by sectarianism
and hatred to people of different ethnicities. They blow up vehicles in markets, places of worship, and residential neighborhoods in acts of indiscriminate killings. These
practices are clear violations of international and humanitarian laws.
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Outcome of urban warfare |
Turkey,
the armed groups it supports, and the Syrian regime all three ought to be held
responsible for practices that risk the lives of non-combatants, acts of
torture, and acts with genocidal intent. Turkey must respect the rights of all
its citizens instead of arming fighters (who are motivated by sectarianism) to destabilize its neighbors.
Indeed, no leader should be allowed to kill his own citizens, and that applies
to the Turkey’s as well.
_________________
* Prof. SOUAIAIA teaches at the University
of Iowa. He is the author of a number of books and articles. Opinion herein are
the author’s, speaking on matters of public interest; not speaking for the
university or any other organization with which he is affiliated.
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