1N.Sixty guerrillas in south Kurdistan take a stand against Commander Ocalan's policies (KurdishMedia.com Jul 11)

2G.National capital (By Yasar Kaya) (KurdishMedia.com Jul 10)

3G.AKIN Office Ransacked: The Police Does Not Rule Out Hate Crime (AKIN July 10)

4E.Khamenei gathers rival factions together (AFP 9 Jul 9)

5E.Khatami starts German visit amid tight security (Reuters Jul 10)

1. Sixty guerrillas in south Kurdistan take a stand against Commander Ocalan's policies

KurdishMedia.com – Jul 11, ‏2000

By Ahmet Tas

(Translated from Turksih – INTERNAME)

A group of 60 sixty guerrillas took an open stand on 19 May 2000 against Ocalan's policy which they labelled as one of liquidation and betrayal. Of this group some 30 were seized by a division loyal to Ocalan and imprisoned in caves. The other 30 took refuge in the mountains. In a statement to his lawyers about the situation of the group Ocalan ordered those opposed to his policies to be given the maximum penalty. Notes of the meeting taken on 7 June 2000 with Ocalan are reported in the last issue of Serxwebun on www.serxwebun.com in Turkish.

On 19 May Dr. Sulyeman, Little Zeki, Yilmaz and a group of five women that were part of their force beforehand assembled to form a new team and escaped. Two of them were given the task of arranging meetings with Iran and the PUK when they were apprehended by the Party and when interrogated gave the information that those who escaped are calling upon Iran and the PUK to find a safe place of refuge for them; that they'd left the PKK due to political reasons and would not stay with the PKK after this ... these three had made their position of opposition known at the Congress and had spoken out against Ocalan's statement on history and the uprisings being included in the report of the Congress.

Ocalan goes on to denounce them in his meeting saying, "Their offence is very grave. This is a betrayal. It must be opposed vigorously, these are conditions of war, we're in the most critical period, the most severe penalties must be imposed. It's a matter of internal treason. ... Is it possible to brand these escapees as enemies?”...

When Ocalan himself has been sentenced to death and is sparing no pains in the campaign in Europe to have the death penalty abolished, how can he pronounce the death penalty on guerrillas who are opposed to his policies and do it with the full knowledge of the Turkish state and by the means of his lawyers, then inform the organisation of it?

We make public as below the names of those guerrillas whose lives are in danger and held prisoner in the caves of south Kurdistan:

The matter is being investigated by Amnesty International and other  international human rights groups.

Guerrillas held prisoner in the caves of south Kurdistan

1- Faruk Bozkurt,

2- Feyman Devrim

3- Sükran Deniz 

4- Reyhan Yildirim 

5- Sehnaz Altun

6- Veloz Tepe

7- Hurie Bingol

8- Hatun Turhalli

9- Nazime Adtürk

10- Derya Kül

11- Sirin Dalduman

12- Zübeyde Ersoz

13- Etem Karakurt

14- Remzi Palyecin

15- Engin Karaaslan

16- Mesut Buldan

17-Mahmut Karadag

18- Enver Hasan

19- Murat Tutal

20- Mahmut Evran

21-Yücel Zeydan

22- Erzan Dürre

23- Casim Elma

24- Demirhan Aslan

25- Feridun Yazar´s nephews

26- Nuray Sen´s son

27- Mayor of Van's son

28- Semdin (Yüksekova Mayor's nephew)

List of names of guerrillas who have escaped

1- Sait Cürükkaya (Dr.Süleyman)

2- Ayhan Ciftci (Little Zeki)

3- Yildirim Kaya (Yilmaz)

4- Rabi Güler

5- Fesih Haran

6- Ahmet Kirboga

7- Hakan Aydemir

8- Edip Ates

9- Süleyman Kayran

10- Ali Can Isik

11- Cahit Ayaz

12- Arif Bazencir

13-Mehmet Bayar

14- Mehmet Sah Gümüs

15- Sirin Nesne

16- Engin Catak

17- Metin Sehir

18- Mehmet Sogüt

19- Abdullah Güzel

20-Memduh Kentas

21- Zahit Zdemir

22- Yusuf Alicioglu

23- Oya Bayran

24-Leyla Süner

25- Halime Ucar

26- Fatos Zkan

2. National capital

KurdishMedia.com – Jul 11, 2000

By Yasar Kaya

(Translated from Turkish: "Ozgur Politika" Jul 11, 2000)

(Note from KurdishMedia.com: Yasar Kaya, former publisher of "Ozgur Gundem" newspaper in Turkey and more recently former President of the Kurdistan Parliament in Exile.)

It could be said that the “fifth part” of Kurdistan consists of Kurds living in Europe.  These live in a dozen different countries, have a population of up to a million, and possess considerable economic potential as well. But in terms of capital, organization, research and development, and public relations, the Turks in Europe are ahead of them.

In past years, starting in Germany, we brought a number of businessmen together and established associations; I myself attended a number of meetings of these groups. The Kurdish businessmen in each country were to unite, and then these groups were to form a Europe-wide federation of Kurdish businessmen. In this way, we would pool the available experience and knowledge, and would also facilitate the integration/combination of resources. But this organizational effort didn’t succeed, and never really got off the ground.

There were various reasons for this, such as the small-business-owners’ inability to escape from the idea of having “a snack-bar, a house, and a car”, the lack of large-scale businessmen, the fact that Kurdish businessmen were unfamiliar with international import-export and contracting, and that some were already involved with Islamic capital formations, the lack of a Kurdish middle class, etc.  All these factors hindered us from making a leap forward in terms of Kurdish capital.

Except for some isolated individuals, no progress was made along the path of forming Kurdish corporations and large companies. The Islamic sector succeeded at this, and now they own over fifty large companies such as Kombasan and Yimpas.

The Kurds also had such an opportunity, and they haven’t yet lost it.  According to some realistic assessments, Kurds living in Europe have some eight billion German Marks on deposit at the Turkish Central Bank. With this sort of capital, one can establish a country’s entire infrastructure. Kurdish contractors could win important contracts in Russia, Libya, the Caucasus, and the Central Asian Republics, but no such efforts are there.

In fact, even in South Kurdistan, all sorts of projects are to be constructed, from dams to airports, from water-purification projects to electrical generating stations, from roads to sewage systems, and from telecommunications facilities to housing. I think I can say that Kurdish contractors are currently not prepared for such projects.

After this general introduction, let us note that there is no Kurdish national market yet, and consider how one could be formed. I’ll take Diyarbakir as an example. If there were three factories in Diyarbakir and the surrounding area that manufactured refrigerators and washing machines, or cars, then the owners of this capital could say to companies such as Koc-Arcelik, Profilo, and the others that “This is my market, I’m going to supply it.”  And in fact, since goods manufactured there wouldn’t have the costs of transport in their prices, they would be cheaper, and could undersell goods brought in from farther off.  In this way, the exploiters would lose their markets, and Kurds could take possession of their own national market.

Why is it that big Istanbul holding companies are buying land in the Southeast Anatolia Project (GAP) region, and making investments there?

There will be large profits made from irrigated agriculture, and this money will now flow to the Istanbul holding companies, it will finance them; this is a capital transfer from agriculture to industry. This is but one way for them to acquire new cash.

Maybe you’ve noticed that since about 1939 the only factory established in North Kurdistan, which they call the Southeast, was the woolen goods factory which was dismantled from the Golden Horn section of Istanbul and moved to Diyarbakir.  After all, there were no Ottomans left, and so who was to wear fez hats anymore?  Since 1960, every new government puts out the same nonsense saying they’ll build factories in the East and Southeast; they reheat the same old promises and serve them warm to the Kurdish people.  Private enterprise, that is, capital, seeks safety and profitability.  For that reason capital is always very timid.

The world is moving in a certain direction.  In the past, books could be prohibited, the prohibition was published in the Official Gazette, and those books and magazines couldn’t be brought into Turkey.  But now we have the Internet.  People in Ardahan and Sirnak can read things on the Internet, and so now’s there’s essentially no such thing as banning publications within a given country.

Companies are merging.  Today’s world is dominated by two hundred corporations. So where are we in all this?  We have to go beyond the scale of “my snack-bar, my house, my car”.  We have to move toward the formation of Kurdish national capital.  This step is necessary but long overdue.  It’s also very difficult to accomplish.

Today there are lots of Kurdish businessmen from Van to Mersin, from Agri to Bodrum, but to Europe they’re invisible. Now there’s no war in Kurdistan, but with the peace, what projects are the Kurds developing? What are they going to do?  That’s what’s important.

One of the most important dynamics in the nation-building process is the formation of national capital, and taking control of your own market. Most of the time the national market is the national country, the homeland.  Whatever the model of national liberation movement, whether it’s autonomy, federation, independence, or whatever, as long as no support is given to national capital, one of the legs of the movement simply isn’t there.  After all, the national movement exists in order to organize and mobilize all that various classes and levels of society, to stand up for them, and to get them all marching together along the same path.  Otherwise, that movement is just the movement of a single party.

Over the past century, we’ve seen a number of party movements, from Khoybun onward.  Certainly one day these parties will take an objective look at themselves and write their histories.  But in summary, the economic dimension plays an important role in the process of forming a nation.

A party without funds, a national movement without support, and a country without a budget are all unthinkable.

3. AKIN Office Ransacked: The Police Does Not Rule Out Hate Crime

AKIN - July 11, 2000

For Immediate Release (# 48)

202.483.6444

The American Kurdish Information Network (AKIN), an advocacy office for Kurdish political rights in Washington, DC, was found ransacked this morning.  Kani Xulam, the director of AKIN, who arrived at the scene of crime at 8:52 a.m., reported the break-in immediately.  The Washington police who showed up at about 9:12 a.m. undertook a through investigation.  After about an hour, the police officers questioned Kani Xulam about the possibility of a hate crime and wanted to know if he had ever been threatened.

Kani Xulam told the police officers that he had received over at least 100 threats directed at him through e-mails, phone calls or letters in recent years and that he had notified the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) about some of these threats.

The police officers noted that the burglars usually go for the valuables, but here, there seems to be open hatred directed towards the property.  He went on to say, "The broken door and destroyed book shelves certainly give one this impression.  In addition, thrashing the place in this manner is not the way intruders who seek valuables operate."

Kani Xulam who was allowed into his office at about 10:30 a.m. later noted that, "When I saw the broken glass and paper all over the floor, I felt sick.  Kurds have gotten used to expecting this kind of treatment in the Middle East; in America, I could not believe what my eyes had just witnessed."

Asked what if he thought of the break-in, Mr. Xulam said, "It feels like being violated.  Thank God, our computers were intact.  But then, it is also too early to be sanguine.  The appearance could be rather deceiving.  I want to believe that the damage is reparable.  It could be that those who wanted to a copy of our records got away with their catch."

One of the missing items was a VCR with a copy of videotape called Coup. "Last night, I had watched it, a documentary about the Turkish military's perennial take-over in Turkey by the Turkish filmmaker, Elif Savas.  The too-long film felt like a horror story.  In the morning, to my utter dismay, I discovered that its horror had hit AKIN as well.  It felt surreal."

The following link will show you how you could watch Kurdish news on an American TV

http://www.scola.org/schedules/C1WE2.html

4. Khamenei gathers rival factions together

AFP - 9 Jul 9, 2000

TEHRAN, July 9 (AFP) - Ayatollah Ali Khameini, Iran's supreme leader, gathered the heads of the country's reformist and conservative movements Sunday to encourage mutual understanding, state television said.

 The meeting, held at Khameini's home, included pro-reform President Mohammed Khatami and conservative former president Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, who controls the powerful Expediency Council.

 State telvision, which called the meeting "a sign of reconciliation and solidarity," said Khameini led the leaders in prayer together.

The meeting comes one day after violent clashes outside Tehran University between fundamentalists and reformist students who support Khatami.

The demonstration, which injured at least 10, was broken up when the Bassijis, a militia loyal to Ayatollah Khameini, moved into the crowd and began clubbing the reformist students, witnesses said.

Khameini, who is officially neutral in political disputes but is widely viewed as favoring the conservatives, has called together Iranian leaders several times over the past year, including after the February elections that brought reformists to power.

 Also present at the Sunday meeting were Mehdi Karubi, the new centrist speaker of parliament; Ayatollah Mahmud Hashemi-Shahrudi, head of the conservative-dominated judiciary, and Akbar Nategh-Nouri, a former parliamentary speaker and Khatami's conservative rival in the 1997 presidential election.

5. Khatami starts German visit amid tight security

Reuters – Jul 10, 2000

By Douglas Busvine

BERLIN, July 10 (Reuters) - Iranian President Mohammad Khatami arrived on Monday for a landmark visit to Germany, where his hosts took extraordinary steps to contain protests by émigré opponents of the Islamic government.

Khatami was welcomed with full military honours at Berlin's Tegel airport by President Johannes Rau, becoming the first Iranian leader to visit since a turbulent trip by the late Shah in 1967, when a German student was shot dead by police.

The pair then boarded a helicopter to fly to Rau's residence in one of many security measures designed to shield Khatami from protests by Iran's exiled opposition in the German capital

Before leaving Tehran, he told reporters

``Relations between Iran and Germany have seen many ups and downs in the past years. But Iran pursues an active diplomacy for political detente with other countries...We look more to the future than the past.''

The moderate cleric's three-day state visit follows trips to France and Italy and is Berlin's strongest gesture of support to date for a democratic reform process which is being resisted by Iran's conservative theocratic elite.

TIGHT SECURITY

Security was extremely tight in Berlin, where the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCR) – the political wing of the Iraq-based Mujahideen Khalq armed opposition -- said it expected 20,000 people to protest against the Tehran government.

German authorities have turned back Iranians at the border, ordered others to report to police and searched the homes of activists suspected of planning violence. The NCR said 10,000 people had been stopped from reaching Berlin for the protest.

``Freedom of expression is being curtailed at the heart of Europe for the sake of Khatami,'' complained Perviz Khazai, who represents the NCR in Scandinavia.

Police estimated the noisy but peaceful crowd demonstrating in rainy weather near Berlin's central Brandenburg gate -- just a stone's throw away from Rau's residence -- at a few thousand.

The city's interior minister, Eckart Werthebach, said he did not expect large-scale violence and had no evidence to back up media reports that reactionaries in Tehran might deploy agents provocateurs to spark trouble in a bid to discredit Khatami

``We would be ready if that happened,'' he told ZDF public television.

Germany's domestic security service, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, has described the Mujahideen Khalq, led by Massoud Rajavi, as a sect-like movement ``exhibiting a democratic deficit coupled with a heightened readiness to commit violence.''

DOMESTIC UNREST

While the Paris-based NCR accuses Khatami of complicity in reactionary policies at home, international human rights groups back the German government's policy of diplomatic engagement to assist the reform movement of which he is the standard-bearer.

``Since President Khatami took office the atmosphere has improved considerably,'' said Barbara Lochbihler of Amnesty International's German chapter. ``But the situation is very precarious.''

That view was confirmed by clashes between secularist students and Islamic vigilantes in Tehran on Saturday, the first anniversary of the bloody suppression of a pro-democracy rally.

Khatami was due to meet Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer on Monday before seeing German business leaders on Tuesday in a bid to revive investment and trade which have tapered off in recent years

Germany is determined to ensure that the visit passes off without incident to complete a thaw in relations that chilled in 1997 when a Berlin court accused Iran's political leadership of ordering the assassination of Kurdish dissidents in Berlin.

An Iranian court also strained relations by passing a death sentence, later revoked, against a German businessman accused of illicit sexual relations with an Iranian woman in Tehran.

Khatami, who ran an Islamic centre in Hamburg for a year before the 1979 Islamic revolution, will on Wednesday visit the eastern city of Weimar, home of 18th-century German playwright Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

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