Special Army/Units Debate
We have been a country and a society busy with terrorism and separatism actively for 30 years and for the last two hundred years in various means. Insurgences in the Ottoman Empire and the separatist, ethnic terrorism that had started especially in the Balkans had taken many lives and the state had established a defence mechanism against these activities. The foundation of the Republic afterwards and the struggle of the young Republic with the following wars and insurgencies, let it act with a motivation inherent form the Ottoman Empire. Afterwards, the attacks of the Armenian ASALA Terrorist Organization against Turkish diplomats had revealed the international feature of terrorism. Turkey had taken different methods for ASALA. In the 1980’s we observe the PKK terrorism stepping in after ASALA ceased the terrorist activities and faded away from the scene.
In spite of the history and experience with the terrorist organization named PKK, the organization was unfortunately evaluated as “a bunch of bandits” by statesmen and required measures were not taken. In fact, the PKK terrorist organisation was part of a global game incorporating many terrorists from different countries. In the current situation, loss of more than 30 thousand lives in nearly 30 years is at issue. This is, in fact, a prominent experience. A state which has fought against terrorism this long had to have established all the institutions and foundations and had to have trained human resources. However, the method and the means for the fight against terrorism have not yet fully determined. Instead, the subject has turned into a matter of domestic politics and though terrorism had sometimes come to a ceasing point, it gained strength again. Currently, PKK has become an organization comprising Armenian, Iranian, Iraqi, Syrian and Russians as well; utilizing hired Serbian soldiers and committing all kinds of drug, human and weapon smuggling.
Turkey has failed to determine a road map in the war against terrorism with military methods and with economic, social and psychological measures. Terrorism is thought to generate from interior dynamics and thus stress is given only on issues like ‘initiative’ and democratization. However, one should not forget that a global war is waged against Turkey and these kind of terrorist organizations are not likely to survive without foreign support and so foreign support must be maintained for the fight against terrorism and concurrently foreign support must be ceased.
The effectiveness of Syria which is lately in good terms with Turkey, in the terrorist organization is well-known. However, Syria has never turned over any terrorist to Turkey yet. Similarly, neither Iraq Central Government nor the local authority of the north gives an inch for cooperation with Turkey in spite of all the opportunities Turkey provided. Instead, they chose to support the organization secretly. Turkey-Iran-Iraq-Syria and the occupant force the United States have not realized a joint operation. This is a serious handicap. Intelligence sharing with the US is open to discussion and the effectiveness of Israel in northern Iraq and its role in PKK is contentious.
In this general framework, Turkey should put the “special army” debates aside at the first place. Because what we discuss today is not a special army. It is Special Forces. In our point of view, when the specialization is in all aspects of our everyday life, the forces fighting with terror should also be specialized. However, here a mistake is made again. We live in a time when the wars are reassigned to private security companies. Yet, in cultures like Turkish where military service is venerated, discussions on these are thought not to be right. On the other hand, border forces all around the world have different statutes in nearly all states and they have different establishments. Even, in the former USSR system, these forces are connected to the internal intelligence organization. It is also appropriate for Turkey to have these border forces under a different statute connected to the Turkish Armed Forces. However, this shall not solve the problem alone singly. Because Turkey needs separate mobile forces that can fight against terrorism. In our view, though some circles insult as ‘saggy moustache’ Special Operations Teams should be reactivated as they obtained the most successful results against terrorism.
Identifying Terrorism Correctly
One of the main problems in Turkey is the difficulty in the identification of the problem. Ethnic separatist movements and the generating terrorism neither arise from the lack of education nor it can be demobilized with economic motives. Neither in Bask nor in Corsica or neither in Chechnya nor in Tamil the problem originates from economic reasons or education. One can draw a correspondence between these mentioned problems but education and economy are not the main sources also in the PKK problem. The problem is ethnic separatism. Ethnic separatism is desired to be realized by terrorism. Thus above all, terror must be beaten militarily. Psychological superiority must be taken away from the terrorist organization and terrorist organization must be taken into the solution process. Merely following these, the other measures should be taken. On the contrary, any step taken against terrorism shall be perceived as a compromise.
The Efforts of NGO’s For the Acceptance of PKK Terrorist Organization as Addressee
It is seen that some Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO’s) in Turkey spend serious efforts to deal with PKK terrorist organization and its imprisoned leader Abdullah Ocalan as an addressee. This discourse was developed by the PKK at the first place and also BDP which acts as a political branch of PKK brought it forward as a current issue in Turkey. This issue which has tried to be imposed on people on BDP for a long time has started to be used frequently by NGO’s and some media members and some circles sympathizing with PKK.
Within this framework, some NGO’s in Southeast asserting that they want the combat condition to be ended convened in Diyarbakir and made a joint statement. 648 NGO representatives asserting that stressing on the security concept and establishing a special army shall not be a remedy wanted the sides to keep their hands off the triggers, start the negotiation process without excluding anyone who sees himself as a side of the problem, asserting that they want the combat situation to end.
Considering the above-mentioned statements one shall comprehend that the NGO’s do not offer anything novel other than pulling PKK to the process and accepting Ocalan as an addressee. The NGO’s which were founded by and acting within the laws of this country are, unfortunately, putting the offensive and blood shedder terrorist organization with the Turkish Armed Forces which is a responsible legal institution in the same pot by saying both parties should pull their fingers off the trigger.
It is seen that the volunteer spokesmen of PKK are imposing and pressing on PKK terrorist organizations’ speeches to Turkish people as if they are managed from a headquarter. The country has been put into a situation in which terror is taking lives on the one hand and the discourse on accepting PKK as an addressee is being pronounced more strongly. As the terror increases, debates on addressee discourse also increase. Is this swirl not exactly what the PKK terrorist organization wants? One should not forget that the increase of the addressee discourse shall encourage terrorism and shall result in an increase in the volume of terrorism. As the terror increases addressee discourse shall also increase. As a result, Turkey and Turkish society shall be dragged into a swirl.
In addition, we should also mention that specially trained units and the village guard system should be continued with expanding. Moreover, the village guard system should be improved and transformed into a combatant force.
Stone-Throwing Children
As the terror continues to take lives in our country parliament is striving for a legal regulation on the stone-throwing children issue. PKK terrorist organization is trying to establish a civil resistance by bringing women and children forward. Stone throwers are exploiting the innocence of women and children on the one hand and training these children as a terrorist candidate to establish troop basis in future. Certainly, we cannot go far from this reality. Stone-throwing, protesting and imprisoned children are falling into the hands of terrorists and they got directly related to the terrorist organization. This is a reality. However, the contrary situation and the forgiving of stone-throwing children, failing to judge them and/or putting them in a different statute shall not reduce the amount of stone-throwing children, instead, impunity shall encourage these children. Therefore, different solutions should be thought over.
From Jet Fadil to “Separatist” Fadıl
Turkey is passing through an extremely vulnerable period. In such periods, everyone must act sensibly in all speeches, statements and actions. One should asses the irresponsible statements of Jet Fadil who had got famous (!) by taking the honestly earned money of our workers in Europe by exploiting our sacred values and deceiving the market and reappearing as CEO of Siirt Sport. Jet Fadil is trying to politicize the problem about the Football Association and trying to scramble up sports to the politics in already a fragile situation. In his statement Jet Fadil by saying “Association has pushed the button for the elimination of the Eastern and Southeastern teams. We will stop this. We invited the managers of regional teams to Bingol. We will terminate the Turkish representation at FIFA and UEFA”, he almost waged a war against Turkey on the sport. However, the more sensible approaches of the executives of Eastern and Southeastern sports clubs prevented the issue to be more agitated.
This article is taken from TURKSAM –> http://www.turksam.org/en/a272.html
Sinan OĞAN