Fowl Play

As reported in the Chicago Tribune, the European Union has delivered a "bitterly disappointing" blow to Turkey, in failing to invite it to join the EU. Despite "a strong endorsement of the Bush administration", Europe was scared off by Turkey's high rate of inflation and "a poor human rights record".

As the U.S. and Britain gear up to blitz Iraq, in part because of its poor human rights record (uh, never you mind that the U.S. was a major enabler of the Beast of Baghdad, and is now trying to hide this fact), one can't help but wonder why Turkey would receive "a strong endorsement of the Bush administration".

Ironies abound, but let's start with a review of Turkey's human rights record. Throughout the '90s, Turkey was, after Israel and Egypt, the top recipient of U.S. military aid. At the time, it was conducting a campaign of true genocide against the Turkish Kurds, not only committing massacres and tortures, but outlawing the teaching of Kurdish in schools, confiscating Kurdish newspapers, shutting down radio stations, etc.. In other words, an attempt to eradicate the Kurdish people as a cultural entity. Both Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have decried the situation, while The Terror Report of Turkey, 1980-2000 reveals the record in grisly detail.

So while the U.S. was supporting and arming Saddam's brutal repression of the Iraqi Kurds, it was at the same time providing support for Turkey's brutal repression of Turkish Kurds right across the border (and continued to do so even after it became politically useful to publicly champion the cause of the Iraqi Kurds -- although even then, the U.S. allowed Turkey to violate the Northern "No-Fly Zone" in crossing the border to bomb Iraqi Kurds several times during the '90s).

Today, in exchange for the use of Turkish territory to stage bombing runs in Iraq, the Washington Post reports that, "Turkey wants guarantees that the Iraqi Kurds will not establish an independent state, or even achieve a degree of autonomy that could awaken the crushed separatist dreams of Turkey's Kurdish minority." Of course, the Post doesn't explain how and with whose help the Turkish Kurds were crushed, but this much is plain for all to see: Iraq's sordid human rights record elicits U.S. bombs, while Turkey's equally sordid record elicits U.S. favours and "strong endorsements".

What You Can Do: If your newspaper carried this article, write a letter to the editor pointing up the hypocrisies of U.S. policy. And send a copy of the letter to the White House.

Posted by Eddie Tews at December 16, 2002 02:22 PM