DATE=4/3/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=TURKEY / RIGHTS (L-ONLY)
NUMBER=2-260890
BYLINE=AMBERIN ZAMAN
DATELINE=ANKARA
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: Turkey's constitutional court is deciding
whether to ban the country's largest pro-Kurdish party
the People's Democracy Party, known as Hadep.
Turkey's chief prosecutor is demanding the ban on
charges the party is acting as the political arm of
separatist Kurdish rebels. Amberin Zaman spoke to a
senior Hadep official about the latest developments
concerning the case and filed this report from Ankara.
TEXT: It is business as usual at the Ankara
headquarters of the pro-Kurdish People's Democracy
Party, Hadep. cores of party supporters file in and
out of the building to air their grievances and watch
banned Kurdish television broadcasts via a satellite
dish perched atop the building.
But behind closed doors, party officials ponder their
future as Turkey's constitutional court weighs its
decision on whether or not to ban the political party.
The party is charged with acting as the legal arm of
the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party, the P-K-K.
Analysts say the evidence is flimsy. It includes a
calendar published by the party, which Turkish
authorities say contains maps of an independent
Kurdish state. Party officials maintain it is just a
green blur. The tearing down of a Turkish flag and
the hoisting of a P-K-K banner in its place is also
being cited as evidence of the party's alleged
separatist agenda.
In a separate case, 18 party executives, including
Chairman Ahmet Turan Demir, are facing varying jail
sentences on charges of promoting Kurdish separatism
in speeches they made.
P-K-K leader, Abdullah Ocalan, was handed the death
sentence on treason charges last year. Among the
lawyers defending Ocalan during his courtroom trial on
a prison island near Istanbul was Mahmut Sakar.
Mr. Sakar is the secretary general of Hadep. He
acknowledges that ethnic Kurds who voted 37 Hadep
party mayors into office during nationwide elections
last year also feel sympathy for the rebels.
/// SAKAR ACT IN TURKISH, FADE UNDER ///
Mr. Sakar insists, however, that there are no links
between Hadep and the P-K-K. Yet he concedes that
both his party and the P-K-K have made what he calls -
mistakes.
Mr. Sakar is especially critical of a now abandoned
rebel campaign to murder the families of a Kurdish
militia siding with the state. Women and children
were not spared, their crops and livestock destroyed.
Hadep party officials say they wholeheartedly endorse
Ocalan's decision to end his armed fight for Kurdish
independence and to pursue a non-violent struggle for
greater rights for the Kurdish people within the
borders of a unified Turkish state.
Mr. Sakar says he believes that Turkey's approval last
December as a candidate for full European Union
membership means democratic reforms have become
inevitable.
/// SAKAR ACT, FADE UNDER ///
Mr. Sakar agrees that change will not come easily. He
says there are what he terms - various forces within
the ruling establishment who do not want the Kurdish
conflict to end, because if there is a peaceful
solution they will lose their influence.
/// SAKAR ACT THREE, FADE UNDER ///
Mr. Sakar says he sees the hand of those forces behind
the arrests last month of three Kurdish mayors accused
of links with the P-K-K. (SIGNED)
NEB/AZ/GE/RAE
03-Apr-2000 13:16 PM EDT (03-Apr-2000 1716 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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