Friday 20 May 2016

The “Sri Lanka Model” in Northern Kurdistan: Counterinsurgency As Genocide





















Photo: A memorial for Mullivaikkal Remembrance Day at University of Jaffna in Tamil Eelam (Northeast Sri Lanka) on May 18, 2016 – Credit: Tamil Guardian

The “Sri Lanka Model” in Northern Kurdistan: Counterinsurgency As Genocide

Every year on May 18th since 2009, Tamils come together for “Mullivaikkal Remembrance Day” to remember all Tamils who died in the final stages of the Sri Lankan Civil War. During this period, the Sri Lankan Army (SLA) perpetrated unprecedented levels of violence on Tamils, both combatants and civilians alike, to push through a decisive military defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The fact that a recent investigative report by Vice magazine claimed that 146,000 Tamils disappeared is enough to show why Tamils consider the so called end of the Sri Lankan Civil War as a genocide that is still not recognized by many. What is distinctive about the conclusion of the military conflict between the SLA and the LTTE though is not only its brutal nature but also how it was the culmination of implicit and explicit support by regional and world powers, especially the U.S. and India. Such international backing enabled the Sri Lankan state to destroy Eelam Tamils’ counter-hegemonic force, the LTTE, and thus turn the balance of power in favor of the Sri Lankan state’s genocidal solution to the Tamil national question.

Since then many other governments racked with similar conflicts, especially Turkey, have expressed a desire to replicate Sri Lanka’s so-called success. Thus, it comes to no surprise that the AKP-led government is currently attempting to pursue a military solution to the Kurdish question. Similar to justifications put forth for the Sri Lankan state’s “last war”, the discourse constantly reiterated in rationalizing the Turkish state’s war policy is that the government wants to destroy terrorism in Turkey by annihilating the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) and its affiliates. Since the U.S. and EU have refrained from taking the PKK off their list of proscribed terrorist organizations, Turkey’s “War on Terror” discourse still has some legitimacy. In contrast to Turkey’s position on the war in Northern Kurdistan, the Kurds and their supporters claim that Turkey is repeating its habits of conducting genocidal war against the Kurds to suppress them as a meaningful political force. In supporting this claim, evidence of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and analyses of the Turkish State’s present behavior as a continuation of past atrocities against the Kurds have been put forth.

And so, the present conflict between the Turkish State and the Kurds is not only a war between NATO’s second largest army and Kurdish militants, but also a war of words. On the surface, the narratives of both sides are competing to be the view of what is really happening on the ground. When one considers the Counterinsurgency (COIN) dimensions of the conflict though, Turkey’s claims of fighting terrorism just ultimately lends more support to the Kurdish discourse.

What the Kurdish struggle in recent times has reminded the world of is how the so-called War on Terror is used as one of many other ideological and repressive state apparatuses to justify neo-imperialism at the expense of the rights of peoples struggling against oppressive states. While much of alternative media has played a large role in exposing this systemic trend, what is often missing in writers’ analyses is just how pervasive the theory and practice of COIN is in our international world order from the military practice of states to the ideological language used by so called independent observers and more. Therefore, discussing the COIN dimensions of the conflict between the Turkish State and the Kurds helps us understand the more hidden political machinations behind Turkey’s wish to do a “Sri Lanka” on the Kurds.

COIN As An Ideological and Repressive State Apparatus

It was the late Tamil journalist Dhameratnam ‘Taraki’ Sivaram who largely wrote about how COIN was a salient feature of the war between the Sri Lankan state and the LTTE. He was especially instrumental in demonstrating how the Sri Lankan state’s last war against the LTTE and the peace process prior to it was an internationally sanctioned and coordinated COIN campaign intended to obliterate the LTTE in the short term and set the stage to keep Tamil resistance permanently suppressed in the long term. In theorizing about COIN, he contended that modern nation-states are never interested in genuinely resolving a conflict with an insurgent group when engaged in a COIN campaign because doing so would require fundamentally restructuring the state in such a way that cedes power away from the state-controlling group, especially its monopoly on violence. The state’s monopoly on violence was especially important to Sivaram’s discourse on COIN since he argued that the persisting challenge to the state’s monopoly on violence by an insurgency with its ‘counter-violence’ was what made an insurgency a potent threat to the state. Thus, the monopoly on violence is the last aspect of its power that a state-controlling group will give up.

As a practice, COIN originates in colonial wars of the 19th century. It began to take shape as a body of knowledge during this period as a way of colonial powers figuring out how to suppress rebellions that frequently took place in colonies and fighting forces of Communism. It is only during Britain’s successful war in Malaysia and other colonial wars after World War II that COIN started to assume the more modern form as we know it today. The writings of British army commander Frank Kitson gives a disturbing but reliable history of what went on in COIN campaigns including counter-terror by the army, recruiting informants, and torture. Furthermore, COIN has continued to be refined in the post-Cold War era with studies on terrorism, with the very idea of terrorism becoming part of the conceptual tool box of COIN theory and practice.

It must emphasized though that COIN is not a purely military phenomenon, but a politico-military phenomenon. It is about “forcing the target population to lose its collective will to achieve the objective you are trying to destroy or head off…the state is always focused on destroying the political will of the target population, and…the art and science of doing that is counter-insurgency, including its political components”. [1] The political components of COIN goes beyond the parties to the conflict within a given country since there are always geopolitical conditions. Other states may either support the main state fighting against an insurgency or support the insurgents in order to destabilize the state they are fighting against depending on their interests.  Furthermore, while each COIN campaign has its own circumstances and particularities, in each case the State is ultimately looking to maintain the status quo for the most part. Usually this means only reduce the insurgency to a more tolerable level rather than substantially incapacitate their organization as Sri Lanka did in its last war against the LTTE while at the same time keeping obscured the real key issues that caused the insurgency in the first place. [2]

A Summary of the Sri Lanka Model as a COIN Strategy

In developing his discourse on COIN, it must be kept in mind that Sivaram articulated all this in the context of the conflict between the Sri Lankan state and the LTTE. In fact, by the mid-nineties Sivaram had come to view Sri Lanka’s civil war as “a kind of military-political laboratory in which the various repressive forces of late modernity (local and international) were testing their clever, often cruel, counter-insurgency tactics”. [2] The results of the last of these experiments, Sri Lanka’s final war against the LTTE, was militarily successful due to a confluence of international support for the Sri Lankan government while the LTTE was largely isolated in the international arena and the genocidal intentions of the Sri Lankan state serving as an ideological motivator.

Traditional COIN theory would not deem Sri Lanka’s military success over the LTTE a complete victory since Sri Lanka has failed to resolve the underlying political causes of the conflict to this day, the Tamil national question, in any decisive manner. However, many people from the COIN establishment have gone as far as hailing Sri Lanka’s military defeat of the LTTE as a complete success, saying that the traditional “winning-hearts-and-minds” precept may need to be reconsidered in light of the Sri Lankan experience. [3] It is these kind of arguments that are being used to justify a “Sri Lanka Model” of COIN, which can ultimately be reduced to the following axioms as articulated by Tamil academic R.M. Karthick:

- Military solution first. Display ruthlessness in securing your hegemony and the population will be willing to accept any political solution you throw at them later.

- Winning ‘hearts and minds’ is outdated. Break the spine of the population; throw fear in their hearts and numb their minds. They will be grateful to you for letting them to just live.

- The press does nothing to influence public opinion that you don’t want it to. If they are against you, they are with the ‘terrorists’ and are to be dealt accordingly. [4]

While genocidal violence against an opposing group it not anything new within human history, the COIN establishment’s embrace of Sri Lanka’s methods of war sets a dangerous precedent for all resistance movements that have been forced to take up arms. Furthermore, the above principles seem very much to be in play in the Turkish state’s COIN campaign against the PKK and its affiliates with tactics being used such as massacres of civilians and crackdowns on any press and civil society that would dissent from the Turkey’s official line on the war. But it must be emphasized that there is no pure model of COIN so it not should be assumed that Turkey is simply “applying” the Sri Lanka model to its conflict but is implementing it in its own way with a mind towards the specific context it is operating in as well as the specific tools it has at its disposal. Thus, in order to discern how Turkey is implementing the Sri Lanka model, we must analyze how its COIN campaign is operating.

Key Issues and Geopolitical Conditions of Turkey’s COIN Campaign

In discussing the macro trends of Turkey’s COIN campaign that help us to make sense of the State’s violence against the Kurds and their supporters, there are two sets of questions that need to be answered: 1. What are the real key issues from which the PKK and other Kurdish insurgent forces are given a reason to exist, and what are the ways in which the state tries to conceal these key issues?  2. What geopolitical conditions exist, who are the actors connected to these conditions, and where do their interests lie with respect to the conflict? The key issues of the conflict between the Turkish State and the PKK can be summed up in the following manner: a historical denial of the Kurds as a distinct people different from the Turks due to how the modern Turkish State was founded on a centralized state which included in its ideological foundation a concept of “Turkishness” as being the only nationality that really existed within the borders of the modern Turkey. Such a monocultural conception of the Turkish state can be gleaned from how Ataturk himself referred to the Kurds as “Mountain Turks”. In the past, the way the Turkish State attempted to make this national myth a reality with respect to Kurds includes policies of forced assimilation and even outright denying that the Kurds ever existed as a people ethnically distinct from the Turks. Such state practices not only constitute structural genocide of the Kurds but are also processes of obfuscation enacted by the state to hide how the state’s foundations on a conceptual level as well as the political tradition of the state generates the Kurdish national question in Turkey despite repeated attempts to suppress the Kurds as a political force.

What stands at the forefront of Turkey’s current attempt to obscure the key issues that lie at the heart of its conflict with PKK is its narrative that its current military campaign against the Kurds is seeking to end terrorism in South East “Turkey” once and for all. The Turkish State is essentially saying the Kurdish national question will be resolved in due time once the PKK and its affiliates are eradicated. This War on Terror rhetoric is a common COIN tactic today since the concept of “terrorism” or “terrorists” allows a state to posit that the insurgent group fighting them are actually separate from the people they claim to be fighting for since they are merely “terrorists” that need to be either contained or destroyed entirely.

But Turkey’s efforts to make this conceptual dichotomy as representative of the reality of the situation are not holding water as the war progresses. Unlike the LTTE, which was isolated internationally in Sri Lanka’s last war, the PKK has some degree of international support even though it remains proscribed as a terrorist organization by significant regional and world powers.

Furthermore, the Kurdish people also have enough international awareness and sympathy for their plight that is growing by the day than Tamils did in 2009 that the assertion that the PKK is essentially a terrorist organization that has no legitimate cause to fight for can be constantly challenged. Concurrent with this process of growing sympathy with the struggle of the Kurds is the increasing international isolation of Turkey which further delegitimizes its criminalization of the PKK.

While discerning the key issues and how the Turkish state obfuscates them helps to lend support to that Turkey wants a genocidal solution to the Kurdish Question, it is important to also consider the geopolitical conditions. As a particularly important actor in the current geopolitical dynamics of the Middle East, the Kurds not only have to contend with the state and non-state actors they are fighting against on the ground but also the geopolitical battles played out between regional and world powers. Considering that the people-centered resistance and political paradigms of the PKK and Democratic Union Party (PYD) in Syria are anathema to maintaining Saudi Arabia and Turkey as regional hegemons that provide a counterbalance to the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah alliance, the lack of significant action by the US and EU to force Turkey to halt its genocidal war on Kurds can be construed as nothing less as an implicit endorsement of Turkey’s wish to resolve the Kurdish question in a genocidal fashion. The support of programs of extermination enacted by states like Sri Lanka and Turkey is part and parcel of the current world order where the interests of regional and world powers are prioritized above all else. With respect to oppressed nations like Tamils and Kurds, neo-imperialism ultimately seeks to subjugate or keep subjugated any national liberation movements fighting for people-centered political paradigms that run counter to the status quo and interests of regional and world powers. Thus, not only is the destruction of Kurdish resistance and autonomy in Turkey in the cards, but also dismantling the PYD’s governance and its military arm, the YPG and YPJ, is also on the agenda of the West-Saudi-Turkish alliance in addition to continuing efforts to overthrow the Assad regime. [5]

Solidarity with the Kurdish Struggle as a Necessary Solidarity

Recently, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein urged Turkish authorities to allow independent observers unimpeded access into “South-East Turkey” to verify reports of severe human rights violations committed by Turkish military and security forces. While this is a welcome development from the UN since it means that all the evidence put forth by media, activists, and human rights organizations is forcing them to respond, one should still keep a critical eye at what is said by mouthpieces of establishments like the UN. What is interesting is how Zeid puts forth concerns over reports of human rights violations in Northern Kurdistan while at the same time adhering to Turkey’s line that they are fighting against terrorism and not the armed resistance of the Kurds in using terms like “terrorist acts” and “counter-terrorism operations”. What this choice of words reveals is the integral part COIN plays in our international world order today. This is why it is all the more important to be in full solidarity with the Kurdish struggle and revolution at this critical juncture. Given their place in the Middle East right now, the Kurdish people are not just fighting for their people’s freedom. They are fighting to preserve all peoples’ right to resist oppression, including armed resistance when need be, against an international world order that seeks at every interval to keep national liberation struggles and other people-centered movements subdued for the benefit of the oppressors over the oppressed even to the extent of supporting the genocidal programs of nation-states like Sri Lanka and Turkey.

[1] Mark P. Whitaker, Learning politics from Sivaram: the life and death of a revolutionary Tamil journalist in Sri Lanka (London: Pluto Press, 2007), 135-150.
[2] Whitaker, 118.
[3] Ibid., 138-141.
[4] R.M. Karthick, “UK author eulogising  Sri Lanka COIN backfires exposing USA”, http://tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=79&artid=36295
[5] R.M. Karthick, “Genocide as Counterinsurgency – Brief Notes on the ‘Sri Lanka model’,” http://sanhati.com/excerpted/5663/
[6] “West endorses regional allies as State violence against Kurds escalates”, http://tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=79&artid=38179

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rojava Solidarity Worldwide.

The author of this article Sitharthan Sriharan is an Eelam Tamil American activist, political writer, and graduate student at Columbia University.

Tuesday 10 May 2016

Melbourne: Protest by Pink Bloc at the Turkish Consulate in Solidarity with LGBTI Peace Initiative







On Tuesday, May 10th a demonstration was held outside the Turkish Consulate in Melbourne by Pink Bloc Narrm / Melbourne calling for an end to the Turkish state's war against the Kurds. The protest was organized in response to an international call for action from LGBTİ Barış Girişimi (LGBTI Peace Initiative) in Turkey. Pink Bloc were also joined by members of Rojava Solidarity Worldwide and Australians For Kurdistan. Speaking at the event were Professor John Tully from Victoria University as well as Nae from Pink Bloc and Rojava Solidarity Worldwide.

Here is the brief speech that was given by Nae from Pink Bloc and Rojava Solidarity Worldwide:

We're here in response to a call that was issued recently by the LGBTI Peace Initiative in Turkey.

The LGBTI Peace Initiative are an activist group who are involved in various grassroots anti-sexist, anti-fascist, anti-homophobic, anti-transphobic and anti-capitalist initiatives. They have been especially active for the past 9 months raising their voices in opposition to the war in Turkey's south east - known to the Kurds as Bakur or Nth Kurdistan and the war in Northern Syria, known to the Kurds as Rojava.

They have lost many comrades to death, torture and imprisonment at the hands of the Turkish state due to the war mentality of President Erdogan's so-called 'Justice & Development Party' that has resulted in a full scale genocidal assault against the Kurdish Freedom Movement and a harsh crackdown on anybody who dares to oppose their brutal policies - including LGBTI activists in Turkey.

To quote the LGBTI Peace Initiative themselves:

"War means continuous discrimination, tyranny and violence against the Other, and a war is being waged on LGBTI people in Turkey. If there is no peace, there is no chance of a free and equal life. Today we believe that peace is an urgent neccessity for everyone in Turkey. The war and violence of the presidential palace feeds on militarism and a patriarchal mindset, it valorizes masculinity and preaches hate. We, as LGBTI people, are united against the war of patriarchy." 

Pink Bloc stand in solidarity with the LGBTI Peace Initiative, the Kurdish Freedom Movement and all progressive organizations in the region and join them in their call for the international community, including people here in Australia, to start putting some serious pressure on the Turkish government to fulfill the following demands:

- A ceasefire with the PKK and a return to peace negotiations

- An end to the isolation of imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan so he can resume his role in the peace process

- An immediate halt to all military operations and curfews in Kurdish cities and towns in south east Turkey

- An end to the Turkish state's military and economic blockade of Rojava so that essential humanitarian aid and reconstruction materials can be delivered

- An end to Turkey's covert support of the so-called Islamic State and other extremist groups active in Syria

- And an end to the crackdown on journalism and freedom of expression in Turkey including the right to express dissent

BRING DOWN ERDOGAN!
STOP THE WAR IN KURDISTAN!









Monday 2 May 2016

Call For International Solidarity To Stop The War In Kurdistan From The LGBTI Peace Initiative
















LGBTI Peace Initiative is a group of activists who have been involved in various social and grassroots movements with anti-sexist, anti-fascist and anti-capitalist agendas. After the Suruç Bombing on July 20, 2015, the war between Turkish state and the Kurdish Freedom Movement escalated, the politics of the ruling party AKP (Justice and Development Party) lead to the death, injury, imprisonment and torture of our friends. 

With the elections in June 7, 2015, a pro-Kurdish party, HDP, gained 80 of 550 MPs, despite attacks against the party and its supporters during electoral campaign period, including multiple arson attacks to party buildings and a bombing in the rally in Diyarbakır, on June 5, killing 5 people. The visibility gained by the minority and progressive groups of Turkey with the success of HDP frightened AKP, which lost its absolute majority in the parliament for the first time since 2002, the year when they first came into power. Nonetheless, none of the parties in the parliament were able to come up with a coalition, hence the parliament not being able to function lead to another general election on November 1, 2015. 

Right after the deadly suicide bombing in Suruç district of Urfa, a town 10 km from Kobanî, Turkish government one sidedly ended the ceasefire with the outlawed Workers’ Party of Kurdistan (PKK). The bombing lead to the death of 33, the majority of whom were university students. On 10 October, in Ankara, another bombing lead to the death of 102. Those who were killed in this attack, were gathered for the “Labour, Peace and Democracy March” to protest against the growing conflict between the Turkish Armed Forces and PKK.

After highly controversial elections, AKP once again gained the power in 1 November 2015, as the ruling party. 

As the legal political activity of HDP grew weaker under war conditions, PKK guerrillas took the initiative as Turkish Army continued bombing the rural areas and mountain bases. PKK started declaring autonomy in the cities of Turkish Kurdistan. Turkish army attacked civilians as well as the PKK members, with devastating and ruthless military operations in the cities. In 7 cities, more than 60 curfews have been declared since June 2015, lasting for more than 100 days in some areas. Humanitarian aid groups were prohibited to access the wounded civilians who get caught in the crossfire, the wounded were left to die. The official numbers do not reflect the correct number of casualties (both civilian and armed), as observers and journalists were denied access to the conflict areas, with threats of deportation or physical force. The locals who communicated with the press had to take the risk of brutal consequences. According to the Turkish Human Rights Foundation (TIHV), at least 310 civilians were killed in the conflict during the various curfews imposed in parts of the region between August 2015 and March 2016. As of 16 August 2015, at least 1,642,000 people in the curfew areas are deprived of their fundamental rights, including right to life and health care. 355,000 people had to leave their homes as a result of the conflicts. At least 59 unidentified bodies were buried by the state in Cizre district of Şırnak.

Instead of employing peaceful means to respond to these conflicts, AKP used ISIS as a means to weaken the Kurdish autonomous region in northern Syria and let ISIS forces to have access to weapons and military equipment, health care in hospitals in Turkey, and allowed ISIS to recruit people to join their forces by opening the border between Syria and Turkey.

The free press is the biggest enemy of AKP in this war, so journalists Can Dündar and Erdem Gül are now facing terrorism charges for  publishing documents and footage proving the transportation of weapons to ISIS soldiers under the supervision of Turkish Intelligence Agency (MIT). They were arrested and imprisoned for a while. They are released now, but there are still 29 journalists who are in prison in Turkey.

AKP also favoured the repression of free speech: In January 2016, a group of academics called for a petition to the campaign “We will not be a party to this crime,” claiming this war was a crime committed by the Turkish state. More than 2000 academics signed the petition, and Erdogan accused them for being terrorists. With Erdogan’s call, the academics were with terror charges and four of them were arrested and have been held in prison since then. Their case is still on trial.

Recently, with a “decree” of Erdogan, the definition of terror in Turkish penal system will be extended so as to include “terrorist activities without arms,” which clearly targets to silence those who speak up for peace in non-violent ways despite the oppression and the threats they face.

CALL FOR ACTION AND SOLIDARITY

Creating international pressure on Turkish government is crucial for the peace talks to start again, a ceasefire between the Turkish State and PKK to be declared, and curfews in the Southeast of Turkey to end. 

Please share the information above, and organize your own solidarity actions.

The asylum seekers face threats of deportation as a consequence of the refugee agreement made between the EU and Turkey. We should break the silence of the EU-member states and their institutions, show them that they shouldn’t turn a blind eye to this violence and human rights violations with the aim of stopping the refugees coming to Europe. Refugees are a result of this war, in which Turkey plays an important part. 

SAY NO TO WAR IN TURKEY, SAY NO TO WAR IN SYRIA!

What can you do?
 

2) Organize fundraiser events, and contribute to the campaign supporting the reconstruction of Sur and Cizre. (All activities under this campaign will be shared on the website: http://en.kampanya.barisicinkadinlar.com

3) Organize demonstrations and sit-ins in front of the Turkish Embassy buildings in your city/county. Join the LGBTI groups from all around the world who will protest this war in front of the Turkish Embassy buildings on 10 May 2016. You can choose the most suitable time for you. Please shoot the announcement and take beautiful pictures of your demonstration. And don’t forget to send us the text of your announcement, and any other news on the media. :)

Contact us via lgbtibarisgirisimi@gmail.com if you require further information.