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Turkey has taken Sri Lanka’s policy against the Tamil Tigers as an example on how to deal with the Kurdish issue, but should be wary that the method did not work there, and will not work in Turkey either, said Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) spokeswoman Ebru Günay, speaking at HDP’s weekly press conference.
Sri Lanka’s chosen policy was one of total annihilation against the separatist Tamil Tigers. In 2009, ahead of the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) first major crackdown on Kurdish politicians since it came to power in what came to be known as the KCK trials, government and pro-AKP media circles discussed whether the policy could be useful for Ankara.
The idea appeared to be shelved when clashes subsided and talks began in 2013, but when the peace process between Ankara and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) failed in the summer of 2015, AKP officials seemed eager enough to return to it.
AKP MP Faruk Çaturoğlu in 2015 said the PKK would “either lay down their arms and surrender, or be annihilated like in Sri Lanka”.
“Arrests, oppression, war and military attacks are not the solution. Stop this policy,” Günay said. “This policy of repression will not yield results.”
Forcing Kurds to bow down to fascism, Günay said, or staying silent in the face of fascism is “a result of not confronting the reality of the Kurdish issue. Anybody who cannot confront this will eventually lose.”
HDP, as a Kurdish-focused multi-ethnic and left-wing coalition, will “never give up on peaceful solutions”, Günay said. “The first condition for peace is that the absolute isolation imposed upon Abdullah Öcalan is ended, and dialogue channels established.”
The HDP recently held a demonstration in Istanbul to demand PKK founder Abdullah Öcalan be allowed to regularly meet with his lawyers and family members. In the demonstration, party members faced police brutality and several HDP deputies were battered. Kurdish MP Saliha Aydeniz may lose her parliamentary immunity over an incident at the demonstration, where she slapped a police officer in the skirmish as they moved to disband the crowd.
“We gathered on that day to demand peace, demand an end to war, and to end the isolation so those things could come to pass. Our right to hold a march was violated. In no other country could you see a member of parliament stopped from marching together with the people,” Günay said.
According to the spokeswoman, the government was trying to criminalise the HDP and its actions. She also spoke about the history of Kurdish politics in Turkey.
An edited version for clarity of Günay’s speech follows.
TARGETING OF SALİHA AYDENİZ
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his alliance partner far-right leader Devlet Bahçeli targeted Saliha Aydeniz, co-chair of HDP’s sister Democratic Regions Party (DBP), for participating in the Gemlik March against Öcalan’s isolation on 12 June. Now they discuss whether to lift her parliamentary immunity.
Historically, Turkey’s parliament has of course lifted the immunities of other Kurdish politicians. On 2 March 1994, Democracy Party (DEP) MPs were targeted by the Chief of Staff at the time.
While the expectation was that the Kurdish political movement and its alliances would be destroyed by such attacks, they prevailed.
ATTACKS ON KURDISH PARTIES
The Democratic Society Party (DTP) was established in 2005, and shut down in 2009 by the Constitutional Court. At this time, 37 Kurdish politicians were issued a five-year politics ban.The Court also revoked the MP status of party co-chairs Ahmet Türk and Aysel Tuğluk.
Still, Kurdish politicians soldiererd on. In 2013, the HDP was founded. In this alliance, Kurds were represented by the biggest constituent, the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), but were on equal footing with the democratic and socialist forces in the country.
The HDP managed for the first time to clear the country’s unusually high election threshhold of 10 percent in the 7 June 2015 elections. Before, Kurds either ran from bigger, centre-left parties or as independent candidates.
The June elections was when the AKP lost its supermajority in parliament for the first time since 2002, when due to the only other party clearing the threshold being the Republican People’s Party (CHP), AKP’s 34.3 percent vote allowed it to win 66 percent of all seats. A summer of Islamic State (ISIS) suicide bombings followed, and the elections were repeated in November. This time around, the AKP won back the majority.
The following year, in November 2016, HDP Co-chairs Figen Yüksekdağ and Selahattin Demirtaş were arrested, along with nine other deputies.
Similar policies continued when HDP deputies Leyla Güven and Musa Farisoğulları lost their immunities in 2020, followed by Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu in 2021 and Semra Güzel in March this year. They all lost their status in conspiratorial lawsuits.
Meanwhile a significant portion of the 106 mayors elected from the DBP in the 2014 local elections were dismissed over terrorism charges, and replaced with government appointed proxies. The same repeated in 2019, when 48 out of 65 HDP mayors were dismissed.
All the mayors were sent to prison, with some being released since.
However, despite all these attacks and persecution, HDP continued to grow and resist. It continues its struggle among the people today.
