View Full Version : Arab Spring, Kurdish Summer
Ought Six
06-17-2011, 10:39 PM
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/18/opinion/18tuncel.html?_r=1
A lot of Syrian Kurds live in the border region with Turkey. There is a lot of army action going on there. After Assad's man left Turkey recently, the Turks announced they were going to create a military buffer inside Syria. Turkey has about 10,000 Syrian refugees in camps and refuses to allow international monitors or human rights groups inside. How many are Kurds? And why wouldn't the Turks want assistance and transparency concerning the refugees?
I can't help but wonder if Turkey's camps and military zone is less about concern for refugees and more about rounding up Kurds.
The Syrian dicatator and Turkey government are acting together in this matter.
Kurds in Syria are concentrated on north east of the country, the 10.000 refugees have crossed the border on north west, well it is very early to speculate and we should concentrate on the well being of all Syrians. Turkey currently is taking a tremendous risk and spending lots of effort to stop a full scale civil war and save maybe millions of lives, please respect thar and save your speculations for later.
On the ny times article, only thing i will say is this man has been elected to the parliment, the PM has promised a total change in the constution of 1982, prepared by the junta, which has ultra nationalistic articles, there will be lots of debate and i believe Kurds will get as they ask for. A Kurdish revolt, other than escalated attacks of PKK, is unlikely as Half the Kurds voted for Ak party in the region and they have learned how much to use their own stick and carrot.
The first paragraph of the article ends with a claim, "Tukey has ignored the Kurdish problem", no Kurdish problem was tried to solve as much as the constution and the military-bureaucrcy allowed, i have written a short history of Turkey, please refer. in the last 5 years everything from kurdish tv broadcasts to kurdish language schools have been opened. The last step is to change the constution to allow a decentralized federal statw in Turkey, that is allright with Erdogan and BDP, not all right with rest of the opposition, wait and see the debates, it will not be easy but it will be done
Turkey has opened the door for speculation and accusations because they have closed the door for journalists and aid organizations. International human rights groups nor any other outside groups are allowed near the camps. The hypocrisy is thick.
Turkey has made a secret deal with the Syrian dictator, supposedly to let Turkey military manage the border area. Turkey's and Syria's bloody history can not be ignored when viewing their current behavior.
Turkey must open the refugee camps up for international inspection.
Dyrt : Turkey may have kept the refugees at the borders like Europeans have let them multiple times at the mercy of the sea as recent as 2 months ago and drown. insyead of thanking for the tremendous effort to host now 11,000 people at best conditions what kind of courage do you have to question and criticise at your spoiled poinr of view.
Edit : link
http://article.wn.com/view/2011/05/09/Aircraft_carrier_left_us_to_die_say_migrants/
Brihard
06-18-2011, 09:54 AM
Dyrt : Turkey may have kept the refugees at the borders like Europeans have let them multiple times at the mercy of the sea as recent as 2 months ago and drown. insyead of thanking for the tremendous effort to host now 11,000 people at best conditions what kind of courage do you have to question and criticise at your spoiled poinr of view.
Edit : link
http://article.wn.com/view/2011/05/09/Aircraft_carrier_left_us_to_die_say_migrants/
That's a B.S. argument. Historical precedents of someone doing something equally bad do not justify doing so again. While I appreciate that Turkey is letting people in, there is no conceivable reason not to allow access by the UNHCR, Red Cross, and journalists. Turkey can claim credit or gratitude when they are open and transparent about the conditions in which those refugees are being kept.
The issue is not Turkey keeping refugees at the border. That's perfectly understandable. The issue is that Turkey is, as a formal matter of policy, hiding its own actions and conduct from international scrutiny. That immediately raises red flags about their motives. If anything, Turkey should be proud to highlight the efforts it's making, and also to point out what it's deficient in so it can solicit some sort of international aid to help the situation of the refugees. Nothing good has ever come of hiding these sorts of things from the media or from international monitors.
You're reflexively defending your country, but clearly something is suspicious here, and any reasonable person would accept that there is probable cause to suspect that some sort of wrongs may be occurring.
What kind of motives do you have in mind ? Speak out ! Hide crimes of Esad ? Everyone know them. While not questioning how other countries treat sudden influx of big refugee groups your motives to qurstion Turkeu are as suspicious.
Please also as the moderator, process my application before writing answers on topics you are least related
Dyrt : Turkey may have kept the refugees at the borders like Europeans have let them multiple times at the mercy of the sea as recent as 2 months ago and drown. insyead of thanking for the tremendous effort to host now 11,000 people at best conditions what kind of courage do you have to question and criticise at your spoiled poinr of view.It is too bad you have to make personal attacks in the discussion.
In addition, your attempt at hijacking the thread by pointing at the Italians will not work.
Secret military deals with the Syrian murderer and closed refugee camps is making Turkey look less like an enlightened Arab democracy and more like their medieval neighbors.
Why would Turkey not want help from human rights groups?
Turkey currently is taking a tremendous risk and spending lots of effort to stop a full scale civil war and save maybe millions of lives, please respect thar and save your speculations for later.Yeah right. That is what Obama and the EU said about bombing Libya. lol
Here are your no journalist camps ...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-13823730
ukmum
06-18-2011, 01:14 PM
Here are your no journalist camps ...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-13823730
the BBC have been in the camps from day 1, quite a bit of coverage on BBC news channel.
Wow. Things are really going well for the refugees. Thanks for bringing all those happy and fun people to my attention.
"Journalists and photographers were admitted to one of the five Syrian refugee camps in Turkey for the first time on Saturday -- the first official access to any camp or refugees since the exodus of Syrians began two weeks ago."
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/18/us-turkey-syria-camps-idUSTRE75H1GS20110618
Gee UKmum. Looks like Reuters is trying to make you out to be a liar and Oric, journalists were let in only today in one camp . . . and lead around like cattle with rings in their noses.
All the camps should be opened to human rights organizations and journalists and not for contrived photo shoots.
Ought Six
06-18-2011, 02:29 PM
d:Gee UKmum. Looks like Reuters is trying to make you out to be a liar and Oric, journalists were let in only today in one camp . . . and lead around like cattle with rings in their noses.They may have taken two weeks to turn one of the camps into as much of a Potemkin Village as possible for reporters.
Brihard
06-18-2011, 02:31 PM
What kind of motives do you have in mind ? Speak out ! Hide crimes of Esad ? Everyone know them. While not questioning how other countries treat sudden influx of big refugee groups your motives to qurstion Turkeu are as suspicious.
Please also as the moderator, process my application before writing answers on topics you are least related
When a government takes in refugees of an ethnicity that that government is known to historically and currently politically repress, and when those refugee camps are not opened up to all normal scrutiny - as I said, journalists, the red cross, and the UNHCR - many questions will inevitably be raised. It's perfectly correct, and I would argue is necessary, to question why the Turkish government does not want the refugee camps to be subject to scrutiny.
I'm not attacking your country, and I'm certainly not attacking you, but you insist on taking it personally. My motives are no more sinister than wishing to see such access to refugee camps by appropriate agencies as a universal norm. The reason I've not brought up other countries in this discusison is because they are not relevant. The question at hand is why Turkey is trying to keep a lid on what's happening in refugee camps holding Syrian Kurds. Turkey's history with the Kurds makes this well worth asking, and any lack of transparency is inherently suspicious. It would be akin to Bosnia not allowing access to camps full of Serbian refugees (obviously a hypothetical), or Israel restricting journalist and red cross access to Gaza. Turkey's reputation with regards to treatment of the Kurds is poor. They must expect and accept such scrutiny if they wish to appear to be acting benevolently. There is, unfortunately, little room for presumption of good faith in either direction in relations between Turkey and the Kurds.
I will know the story when Michael Totten is allowed into any of the camps.
The complaints are obviously beginning to sting Turkey's ego and this is the first piece of PR to directly counter them.
http://thisbluemarble.com/showthread.php?p=296055#post296055
Brihard
06-18-2011, 03:07 PM
http://thisbluemarble.com/showthread.php?p=296055#post296055
...and? This does not contest a single one of the points I've raised.
Brihard : you make up a hypothesis and then start accusing on that assumption. I explained in my previous post that the refugee camps are in the north west of syria where the ethnic make up of the syrians are sunni arabs ( nor kurds), why do you still repeat that Turkey has a plit with the Kurds in the refugee camps, second even if the refugees were Kurds you have to explain what intentions Turkey is supposed to have by secluding the refugees. We have 10 million + Kurdish citizens, almost 2 million of them voted for the Kurdish party to send their mp s to the parliment, northern iraq which is basically an autonomous Kurdistan is one of the top trade partners of Turkey, does it seem pkausible that we will be afraid to hide a few thousand Kurdish refugees ? In 1992, when the word got out that Safdam was going to attack Kurds almost 200,000 kurdish refugees crossed the border into Turkey. You know how much europe, the best friends of the Kurdish people helped ? ZERO, madam mitterand, wife of french president paid a visir to the refugee camps and later she said she did not like the state of refugees in the camps but france did not send a euro cent to aid this people.
I am not angry to you in person, i am angry at the attitude like a school master "why nor this, why not that ?", we are not here to be pushed around. Learn it.
I will know the story when Michael Totten is allowed into any of the camps.
The complaints are obviously beginning to sting Turkey's ego and this is the first piece of PR to directly counter them.
Whose complaints ? Who are you ?
...and? This does not contest a single one of the points I've raised.
You have to explain why the subtle details like which journalists have been allowed to enter a refugee camp has been made a crisis here while millions slept on bare soil for months and has not become an issue because the reason they were there had to do with your countries or coalitions attack.
Bri : i am still waiting for your moderator work ... if you dont have the authority, resign. İ will be more thhan happy to moderate this board.
Brihard
06-18-2011, 03:28 PM
Oric- you continue to focus on irrelevancies and fictions.
I have not accused Turkey of any 'plot'. I haven't made any accusations. I have stated - accurately - that they have not allowed access to refugee camps sufficient to ensure that international norms are being observed in all of them. That some of those refugees likely are or soon will be Kurds. That Turkey has a poor history with the Kurds, and that repression is ongoing. There should be no hindering of the media, or NGOs that generally take such an interest.
There are Syrian refugees in Turkey. Turkey is not allowing proper access to the camps. Turkey has not offered a compelling reason for not allowing such access. Therefore, the obvious question is 'Why won't Turkey let the press into the camps'? You answer that for me. What benign reason could the government of Turkey have for not allowing people to know what's happening in the camps? All they need to do is allow free access to reporters, and if all is well, all will be reported as such. Turkey will only turn out looking better for it.
I have no interest, in the context of this thread, about what Europe has or hasn't done, or about the Turkish parliament. The issue is solely that Turkey seems unwilling to be forthcoming about what is happening in the camps. As I said, that is cause for suspicion.
Regarding your 'demand' (your words) that this thread be moderated and that Ought's 'byline' be removed, no I will not, and this is irrelevant to my own participation in this thread. Turkey does have a record of political oppression against other groups (see the invasion and ethnic cleansing of northern Cyrpus), and is currently engaged in political repression against the Kurds according to a variety of international monitors. I will not remove Ought's subheading because it bothers you, as the presumptions appear to be factually accurate according to any reputable sources.
Whose complaints ? Who are you ?There are an increasing amount of complaints from human rights' monitors because they are kept out of Turkey's military camps. The story is spreading in the news.
Lots of people want to know the status of the 10,000 displaced Syrians, especially any Kurds among them, that Turkey now controls.
I feel confident that the Turkey military is doing all they can to feed and entertain the Syrians, therefore they should immediately open the camps for inspection by human rights and other aid groups. Then we can all have a sigh of relief and see the evidence that the Turks have shed some of their past behaviors.
Ought Six
06-18-2011, 04:38 PM
The Armenian genocide was the example, the blueprint that the Nazis used for their 'Final Solution'. There was a massive ethnic cleansing of large regions of Turkey during that period that included the forced 'relocation' of over 700,000 Kurds. Those who resisted were butchered. During the 1920s and 30s, Kurds were ruthlessly suppressed under a state of martial law. After WWII, things got better for awhile until the military coup in Turkey in 1960, and then repression of the Kurds was reinstituted. In the period from 1984 to 1999, warfare between the PKK and Turkish military again resulted in large regions of Turkey being 'depopulated'; ethnically cleansed of Kurds. Kurd villages were indiscriminately bombed and shelled, and others were permanently destroyed. There were a number of massacres of Kurdish civilians. Death squads protected by the Turk government 'disappeared' over 3200 Kurds. Many Kurdish refugees fled to northern Iraq and Iran.
So now, when Turkey bans all aid workers and journalists from camps full of Kurd refugees that are being operated by the Turkish military, you are goddamn right the world is suspicious. We would be insane to blindly trust a government and military like yours with its history of butchery, brutality and ethnic cleansing with this very group of people. I hope it turns out that the Turkish military acted honorably and fairly in this case, but to suggest that we must just trust them when they deny access to the camps is idiotic.
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