The Guardian
Chris Morris in Diyarbakir

 01/04/2001
Turks protest against hidden forces in the south-east

Saturday March 31, 2001

More than two years after the capture of the Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan, many
people living in south-eastern Turkey are convinced that influential forces in the region are
determined to maintain a permanent sense of instability.

"They like it this way," Hamdullah Aktas said in his tiny flat in the back streets of
Diyarbakir. "It gives them the freedom to do what they like."

The war between the Turkish state and the Kurdistan Worker's party (PKK) has all but come
to an end, and there are growing demands for political and social change. But the long years
of conflict have made some people very rich, and they are reluctant to let democratisation get
in the way.

"They are a minority, but they are very strong," Cuneyt Ulsever, a columnist with the
newspaper Hurriyet, said.

"Peace could be bad for business."

In the south-east, the profiteers smuggle guns, migrants and, above all, drugs. It is a vastly
lucrative business which produces billions of pounds in profits annually.

According to US government estimates, between four and six tonnes of heroin passes
through Turkey every month on its way to Europe.

Powerful gangs control the trade and have the money to recruit whoever they choose,
apparently including renegade members of the security forces, the PKK, and the Village
Guards - private armies funded by the state and controlled by feudal Kurdish lords. They
thrive in an unstable environment where guns wield more power than the law of the land.

Turkey's law enforcement agencies have stepped up their efforts against the smuggling, but
their honest members are often overwhelmed. Last year they made more than 6,000
drug-related arrests and confiscated nearly six tonnes of heroin and 25 tonnes of hashish.

At the beginning of this year, there was a series of troubling incidents in Diyarkabir. Its
popular police chief, Gaffar Okkan, who was trying to rebuild trust between the local
people and the state, was assassinated in a professional ambush in the city centre.

In the same week two political activists who were about to open a branch office of the
pro-Kurdish party People's Democracy in Silopi, a town near the Iraqi border,
disappeared after being summoned to a local gendarmerie base. They have not been
seen since.

The official explanation is that Okkan was murdered by the radical Islamic group Turkish
Hizbullah. On the streets of Diyarbakir, however, nearly everyone seems convinced that
what they call the "deep state" was involved.

"These incidents caused tensions among the people," the Kurdish mayor of Diyarbakir,
Feridun Celik, said. "But there have also been big protests against what happened, and that
is just as important. People are speaking out."

Thousands of Kurds paid their respects at Okkan's funeral in January: a rare tribute to
a Turkish policeman in a part of the country which remains under emergency rule.

But protest meetings linked to the disappearance of the two Kurdish activists have also been
supported by like-minded Turks in other parts of the country.

In Diyarbakir and elsewhere there is a desire for change. Tens of thousands of people
demonstrated in support of peaceful reform during the traditional Newroz spring festival last
week.

Standing against them, however, is a multi-billion pound smuggling network which will not
give up its privileged position without a fight.

"There could be more efforts to destabilise our region," Mr Celik said. "We all have to stand
together."
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The Kurdistan Observer
www.kurdistanobserver.com