Sarah Glynn
On Thursday, hundreds of thousands of people crowded into Diyarbakir’s Newroz Park in intermittent rain to see the lighting of the Newroz fire, hear the politicians’ speeches, and dance halay on the muddy ground. Diyarbakir – Amed in Kurdish – is regarded as the capital of North Kurdistan, the part that has found itself within Turkish borders, and this was the culmination of six days of festivities across the region. Of course, it would have been nicer if the weather had been fine – Newroz is a spring festival after all – but the determination to celebrate, whatever the weather, serves as a metaphor of Kurdish resistance.
As always, it wasn’t just the weather attempting to dampen proceedings. The police were there too, ready to detain people who were wearing Kurdish clothes or colours: not everyone, but enough people to impose the stamp of Turkish authority. In Diyarbakır (Amed), police detained 204 people, including 38 minors. At the celebrations held last Sunday, policing was aggressive. Around fifty people were detained as they left the celebrations in Istanbul. In Kocaeli, police took a Amedspor football jersey from a child with Downes syndrome. When their actions triggered the girl into an epileptic fit, the police were seen laughing. More people were detained in police raids the next day in İzmir, Şirnak (Şirnex) and Batman (Elih).
These Newroz celebrations come at a time when Kurds and their culture are under a concerted attack from the Turkish government, which has promised to invade the Kurdish regions of Iraq and Syria, and continuously ramps up the pressure on Kurds in Turkey. As I described last week, President Erdoğan has threatened to begin major military action in Iraq after Ramadan, and Turkish ministers have been meeting their Iraqi counterparts, and also the American Secretary of State.
The Kurdish response to these threats is twofold. The PKK has declared itself ready to face what Turkey will throw at them. At the same time, every Newroz celebration has emphasised the need for a peaceful resolution to the Kurdish Question, so as to end a hundred years of persecution by the Turkish state and allow Kurds to live in dignity, according to their own culture.
In an interview on Wednesday, the PKK’s Duran Kalkan stated that the Turkish state “are not the only ones making preparations”, and claimed that the Turkish army is “stuck in a swamp” in Zap. The PKK promised “good news” for Newroz, and this proved to be the announcement that their fighters now possess anti-drone missiles, which they have used to bring down fifteen Turkish drones since February 2023. They detailed the fifteen incidents and have since been publishing video footage.
On Monday, it will be three years since any contact has been allowed with Abdullah Öcalan, but the words of the imprisoned Kurdish leader, and his call for peace that was read out in Diyarbakir eleven years ago, echo more loudly than ever. That time was a time of optimism, when the Turkish government showed willing to talk about peace negotiations, and Öcalan could write “The door is opening from the process of armed resistance to the process of democratic politics.” His speech emphasised “the law of brotherhood and solidarity”, and stressed, “Our struggle has never been and cannot be against any race, religion, sect or group. Our fight has been against oppression, ignorance, injustice, backwardness, all kinds of oppression and suppression.”
Calls for peace have been combined with calls for ending Öcalan’s isolation, and for his freedom. This is regarded as a vital part of successful peace negotiations, in which Öcalan would be expected to play the key role.
At this year’s Diyarbakir Newroz, MP Cengiz Çiçek, who had been part of Öcalan’s legal team, reread Öcalan’s speech. Also speaking, was former MP and political prisoner, Leyla Zana, who arrived at the celebrations with Öcalan’s brother, and spoke of Öcalan’s attempts to reach peace since 1993. She asked the crowd, “Are you ready to get back on the road?” And she received a resounding and repeated “yes”. “Peace is abundance,” she continued, “peace is love, peace is serenity.”
Negotiation was also the theme of the peace conference organised by the Human Rights Association in Diyarbakir last Saturday, where the association’s co-chair, Hüseyin Küçükbalaban, stressed, “we once again underline that the main issue of the country is the issue of human rights and democracy, and the most important link of this basic issue is the Kurdish issue. We need a new peace process and conflict resolution more than ever to solve the issue of human rights and democracy.” Cengiz Çandar – the veteran Turkish journalist who has written extensively on the Kurdish Question and is now a DEM Party MP – spoke of the importance of meeting with all political parties and observed “In order to hold these meetings, your own project must be ready. Read Abdullah Öcalan’s 2013 Newroz text, let’s read it, think about it again, and work on it. Let’s translate Abdullah Öcalan’s Newroz statement in 2013 to 2024 and hit the road.”
Turkish local elections
This year’s Newroz celebrations are also serving as election rallies for the pro-Kurdish, leftist DEM Party in their campaign for the local elections next weekend. The DEM Party (or its earlier incarnations) has been a central organiser of Newroz festivities, and their flags and pennants fly over the crowds. After the disappointment of the presidential election, they have reassessed their relationship with the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and listened to their supporters, and are standing their own candidates everywhere – not lending tactical support to the CHP, who anyway offered nothing in return. Bianet also observes that DEM candidates are beginning their speeches in Kurdish as a response to supporters who felt they were moving away from their roots.
The Kurdistan Region of Iraq, and Iraq’s Federal Government
While the PKK prepares to resist what is, effectively, a Turkish invasion of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, they know they have to contend with an even bigger problem than Turkish drones. The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), which dominates the regional government and has its own peşmerga forces, has bound itself to Turkish interests, and is dedicated to assisting Turkey take control of the northern strip of the region. The Barzani family, which occupies every significant role in the party, were leaders of a Kurdish independence movement in which many fought and died. Finally, with the support of the West, who wanted to weaken Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s Kurds achieved a high degree of autonomy for their region.
Now, that autonomy is doubly under threat. In exchange for boosting their personal and family wealth through numerous financial and business deals, the Barzani’s have turned themselves and their party into loyal servants of the Turkish state. The KDP builds roads and bases for the Turkish army, and acts as Turkey’s spies on the ground. At the same time, the region has seen endemic corruption, and irreconcilable antagonism between the KDP and the other main political party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). This has brought the regional government to a standstill and laid the region open to a power grab by the federal government in Bagdad.
Disputes between Bagdad and Erbil over oil revenues and budget share go back many years. Simon Watkins, a financial journalist who writes about the oil industry, observed of the agreement reached in 2014, “This arrangement never functioned properly, with the KRG [the Kurdistan Regional Government] frequently (and rightly) accusing the FGI [the Federal Government of Iraq] of underpaying budget disbursements, and the FGI frequently (and rightly) accusing the KRG of under-delivering oil revenues.” A more recent arrangement in the 2019 budget bill “never worked properly either”.
According to Watkins, Iraq’s 2005 constitution left room for conflicting interpretations over control of oil and gas from new oil fields in the KRG; and external powers, such as Russia, encouraged Iraq to exploit this at the expense of the US-friendly Regional Government.
But the first big blow was dealt by the Paris-based International Chamber of Commerce, in March last year. Iraq had filed for arbitration against Turkey in 2014 for making an oil deal directly with the KRG, and the arbitrators ruled in Iraq’s favour and ordered Turkey to pay Iraq $1.5 billion in compensation. Turkey has not paid the money, but they have shut down the pipeline used to export the oil and the KRG has lost an important source of revenue.
Kurdish autonomy has also been the victim of Iraq’s own Federal Supreme Court. Friction between the KDP and PUK ensured that the KRG was unable to agree on arrangements for a new election, which was due back in 2022. In May 2023, the court ruled that for the government to continue to work without an election was unconstitutional, and that all decisions made after the election was due were null and void.
This February, the Court ruled that all revenues from the Kurdistan Region of Iraq – from oil and otherwise – must be paid direct to the Federal Government, which will give the KRG its share of the budget after first paying all the KRG’s employees and pensioners.
And they ruled that, since it was not functioning, the KRG was not able to organise a new election, and that the federal government should do this instead. They also ruled that the region should be divided into four constituencies, and they removed the eleven seats reserved for ethnic minorities.
These recent rulings were the result of lawsuits filed by the PUK, who are closer to the pro-Iran Iraqi Government. The PUK believe that direct federal payments are needed to guarantee KRG salaries and pensions, which have been late or missing for years. Striking teachers welcomed the ruling, but they are still to receive their due payments.
The minority seats were organised in such a way that the KDP had been able to manipulate the system in favour of KDP placements. But eliminating these seats has not solved the problem of genuine minority representation.
I have discussed much of this before, but what is new now is that the Federal Government has picked an election date – 10 June – and the KDP, along with many of the minority parties, has announced that they will not take part in the election. By contrast, the PUK publicly acknowledges the authority of the court, and states that they will “exert every endeavour to ensure that elections are held as scheduled. The current priority, as well as the demand of the PUK, is the distribution of salary for the employees of the Kurdistan Regional Government”.
With the KDP being the biggest party, a boycott would add a new layer of complication. The US embassy has expressed their concern about the KDP boycott announcement, and urged “the Government of Iraq and the Kurdistan Regional Government to ensure that elections are free, fair, transparent, and credible.” The Prime Minister of Iraq is scheduled to visit Washington in mid-April, and no doubt this will be on the agenda.
South (Iraqi) Kurdish Newroz celebrations up the mountain at Akrê are visually stunning, but the photograph of Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani receiving a congratulatory message for Newroz from Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan is nauseating.
Newroz in Rojhilat and in North and East Syria
In Rojhilat, the Kurdish regions of Iran, Newroz was celebrated with defiant mass determination in the face of numerous threats and arrests. Participants wore traditional Kurdish dress, many women had their heads uncovered, and crowds chanted “Jin, Jiyan, Azadî” and “As long as there’s a Kurd, Kurdistan will remain”.
In North and East Syria, the festivities included people from the region’s different ethnic groups – Arabs, Syriacs, Armenians, Assyrians, and Circassians, as well as Kurds. And each wore their own traditional clothes.
International indifference
I want to finish with two worrying illustrations of international indifference with respect to Kurdish issues. The first is the statement put out by France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States a week ago, on the occasion of the anniversary of the start of the protests that evolved into the Syrian Civil War. This is particularly notable for what it doesn’t say. The four countries comment, “Northeast Syria has witnessed further escalation in violence. This includes attacks by Daesh, whose past atrocities must not be forgotten.” The writers know full well that the main perpetrator of violence in North and East Syria – violence that includes random shelling, targeted assassinations, and the deliberate destruction of vital infrastructure – is their NATO ally, Turkey, but they will not say so. They also describe themselves as “focussed on ending the suffering of the Syrian people”, while refusing to lift the sanctions that have driven the majority of Syria’s population into destitution.
My second example comes from France, where two Kurdish asylum seekers are threatened with deportation to Turkey and Turkish prison. Both are political activists and have been persecuted by Turkey despite not having done anything illegal. However, they rubbed the French authorities up the wrong way at a demonstration at the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) office in Strasbourg in February. Like millions of other Kurds, they are frustrated and angry that the CPT – the only people to have seen Öcalan (apart from prison authorities) in the last three years – have refused to give any information as to his health and well-being. In an attempt to persuade the CPT to talk, a small group occupied the lobby of the CPT building for a couple of hours, unfurling banners and flags and chanting for Öcalan’s freedom. Trade unionists and other activists protested outside the Prefecture in Metz on Thursday, but the future of the two men will be decided tomorrow.
More and more people are questioning the myth of Western “civilisation”. Here are two more reasons to do so.
*Sarah Glynn is a writer and activist – check her website and follow her on Twitter .
