KurdistanObserver.com

Silence is not golden for Turkey's Kurds

Daren Butler

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey, Sept 26 (Reuters) - Whenever Suleyman Yilmaz and his classmates spoke Kurdish at school in the 1960s, the Turkish teacher would rap their fingers with a ruler.

After decades-long repression of the Kurdish identity, last year he set up one of several Kurdish language schools opened amid fanfare as part of Turkey's bid to join the European Union.

But the classrooms now stand empty in the impoverished southeast and Kurdish language broadcasters are silent, a sign of the gap between the promise and implementation of EU-inspired reforms as Turkey prepares for accession talks.

"The state has made it hard for us and provided no support," Yilmaz complained in his office, where a television set shows a Kurdish music programme broadcast from western Europe.

"People have been subjected to an assimilation policy and that turned people off the whole idea of learning," he said. Lack of interest played a role in a decision to close the schools this summer.

Many of Turkey's 12-million strong Kurds want Kurdish to be used in normal schools as the language of instruction, he said.

Yilmaz rejected local talk that rebels from the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) had sought the schools' closure.

The sensitivity of Kurdish demands in Turkey can partly be explained by the violence that has racked the southeast since the PKK launched an armed separatist campaign in 1984. More than 30,000 people, mostly Kurds, have been killed in the conflict.

Under EU pressure, in 2002 Turkey lifted bans on teaching and broadcasts in Kurdish, but bureaucratic resistance delayed implementation of the reform.

Last year state TV and radio began regular, limited programming in Kurdish and other minority languages. Broadcasters in the southeast are yet to benefit from this easing of restrictions.

SMALL STEPS

At the Gun (Day) station in Diyarbakir, there is growing frustration at the failure of authorities to allow Kurdish programming 1-1/2 years after the channel made its application.

If permission is granted, broadcasts will be limited to 45 minutes a day or four hours a week with Turkish subtitles.

"These are small steps for us. They have something of a symbolic meaning for us and we are hoping that the restrictions will eventually be removed," said station director Cemal Dogan.

The station has fought some 20 court cases, mainly over Kurdish song lyrics. Most ended in acquittal but it has been shut down twice for a month, once when guests spoke Kurdish on a live programme.

The EU reforms have inspired greater confidence among the region's Kurds to express their political views, but not on air.

"People can now express themselves freely in the streets, even to the extent of defending an independent Kurdistan, but if I broadcast that, it is regarded as a crime," Dogan said.

The station has already prepared arts and culture programmes and Dogan speculated that permission to broadcast may be given before the Oct. 3 start of EU talks as a political gesture.

Ironically, the station can already broadcast Kurdish language advertisements. Women parade in brightly coloured Kurdish dresses in one advert for clothing. An advertiser extols a local book fair in another.

Locals can also watch Kurdish language satellite programmes from nearby Iraq or the pro-PKK Roj TV based in Denmark.

OLD HABITS

The Kurds have acquired a powerful advocate in the country's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, who last month became the first Turkish leader to refer to a "Kurdish problem", which he said should be resolved by democratic reforms.

In a visit to Diyarbakir, Erdogan vowed solidarity with the southeast and expressed disquiet at the failure of authorities to allow private channels to broadcast in Kurdish.

Many Kurds welcomed his initiative, which has coincided with a resurgence of separatist violence and nationalist tensions.

The regional head of the Human Rights Association, Selahattin Demirtas, said the main obstacle to progress lies in Turkey's judicial and bureaucratic apparatus, where old habits die harder than old laws.

"(They) have shown resistance, hence there has been a problem with implementation (of reforms). The problem is more one of mentality than of laws themselves," he said.

At the same time, the government is under pressure to revive restrictions under anti-terror legislation because of growing separatist violence, with militants attacking military targets in the southeast and even tourists in western Turkey.

"These are backward steps," Demirtas said. "We say that the best security is to increase democracy."