Having always tended to label the Turkish government's sensitivity toward Gaza and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's criticisms about the humanitarian situation in the strip as a pro-Hamas policy and as the ruling Justice and Development Party's (AK Party) attempt to alienate the country from the pro-Western axis, some circles are trying to exploit the Darfur case, believing they have detected a weak point in the government's policies. How can Turkey, having challenged Israel with its sensitivity toward the human rights situation in Gaza, choose to side with the Sudanese administration with respect to the case of Darfur, where similar human rights violations are seen? Here is further proof that the AK Party is pursuing an Islamist foreign policy, they argue.Seen from a distance, this may seem a very reasonable argument. The situation in Darfur, where, according to the UN statistics, some 300,000 people have been killed and 2 million have been displaced, is nowhere near acceptable. It is perfectly natural and expected for the international community and international courts to be sensitive to the situation in Darfur.
Both public organizations and nongovernmental organizations in Turkey have mobilized to help the people of Darfur. The Turkish Cooperation and Development Agency (TİKA) has been sending significant aid to the region. The relief organization Kimse Yok Mu (Is Anybody There) has been building a town named Orhaniye in Darfur. Several voluntary doctors are making great sacrifices to provide medical services to patients in Darfur. The Humanitarian Aid Association (İHH), too, has been conducting active relief work. Accordingly, no one can argue that the Turkish people or the Turkish government are doing nothing to address the tragedy in Darfur.
The argument that Turkey views the Darfur case from an Islamist perspective, thereby siding with the Sudanese government, is groundless. As a matter of fact, all parties to the conflict in Darfur are Muslims, and this conflict has been going on for ages between the established clans and nomadic clans. Given the fact that the Sudanese administration consists of Arabs while the people victimized in Darfur are Africans, one can describe the conflict as an Arab-African one. Yet, how can we ignore the fact that the 22-member Arab League, the largest Arab organization, and the 53-member African Union, the largest African organization, are against the ICC's decision on al-Bashir? Added to this is the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), which also raised objections to this decision.
Supposing that the Turkish policy is contradictory, isn't the Western policy more contradictory, particularly given the fact that while they acted as a bloc concerning the Darfur case, they just sat and watched the massacre in Gaza? As you know, Sudan, like Israel, does not recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC and normally the court has no right to enforce this decision in Sudan. To do this, an exception in the Rome Statute, which founded the ICC, should have been used. The proceedings regarding al-Bashir were started by a resolution from the UN Security Council. In order for the Muslim world to find the ICC's decision fair and support it, a similar method should have been followed to refer Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to the court. However, the UN failed to issue even a simple resolution to condemn Israel for many days. Even for a simple call for a cease-fire we had to wait for many days. Let us recall the death toll announced by the UN: During the 22 days of Israeli attacks, 1,330 Palestinians, including 437 children, 110 women, 123 elderly men, 14 medical officials and four journalists, died in Gaza. Out of 5,450 wounded people, 1,890 were children.
Moreover, the attack on Gaza was a direct attack by a powerful state with state-of-the-art weapons against a people under embargo without differentiating between children, women or the elderly. The case in Darfur, on the other hand, relates only to the indirect role played by the Sudanese government in the conflict between the clans. Khartoum accepts that human rights violations in the region were carried out by the Janjaweed militia. It acknowledges the lack of its authority in this region, which is around the size of Turkey and far away from the country's center.
Firsthand observations by the people who visited Darfur add fuel to suspicions about the facts of the incidents. One such observer is Abdurrahman Şanlı, who took active part in the relief activities of Kimse Yok Mu. Şanlı is of the opinion that the incidents in the region were intentionally provoked. In an interview published in the Turuncu journal, Şanlı draws parallels with the incidents in Darfur and those in Turkey's Southeast: "The people in the region insistently stressed that there were planned activities to create fears among the people --The dissident groups would kill everyone except one who would be released to tell the incidents to other villagers." While there are major doubts and contradictions and while the stance adopted by Asia, Africa and the Middle East is known, how can it be regarded as a correct policy to adopt the Western stance as absolute truth? As officials have said, both Khartoum and Darfur trust Turkey because of our Ottoman heritage. Similarly, Turkey, which is active both in the West and in the Muslim world, has other alternatives than taking sides with respect to this issue.
