A bold tolerance is what we need
by
MÜMTAZ’ER TÜRKÖNE

Growing risks of the initiative

First, 34 PKK militants wearing uniforms returned to the country in order to pave the way for the terrorist organization to eventually lay down its arms, and they were released three hours after their surrender. The existing legal order in Turkey does not allow PKK members to be released with such haste. Article 221 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK), which is cited as justification for releasing the arriving PKK members, can be applied only if there is evidence of their effective remorse. Moreover, such offenses as being members of an illegal organization and wearing military uniforms can also be applied to their cases. The prosecutors receiving the PKK militants and the judges releasing them acted in unison, and this has grounds not in laws but in the “democratic initiative” project. In this case, the risk that the government took is really big. Indeed, there are many people inside the country who were investigated for being members of an illegal organization. As insistently put by the opposition parties, being a PKK member is no longer an offense after this incident. It is really a great risk to withstand the widespread abuse of legitimization of the PKK.

The second risk is like an extension of the first. The method employed in order to encourage the PKK to come down from the mountains has brought the general public to a point of explosion. The militants wearing uniforms being welcomed with celebrations and their statements that they are not regretful for their actions have created a deep running emotional reaction among people who have suffered from PKK terrorism for many years. The pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party’s (DTP) show triggered a massive explosion. This means that popular support for the government is diminishing.

In the face of these growing risks, the prime minister has only one anchor: to get a result. In trying to get a result, he still reminds us, in an effort to mitigate the risks, that this project is backed by the state. “We, as politicians, provide guidance and draw the course that will be pursued. The work is being implemented through the agency of state institutions and organizations. Our task is to maintain our determination,” Hürriyet quotes him as saying.

Trickery of the opposition

The judges’ decision to release the arriving PKK members by stretching the laws to the extreme is proof that this project is a project that belongs not to the government but to state institutions. The government cannot instruct prosecutors and judges to act in a certain way. And the opposition parties are fully aware of this fact. The Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and the Republican People’s Party (CHP), too, know this well. Still, they choose to play on the sentiments of the general public and add fuel to social reactions, which shows that they are after political gains. The government is going through a difficult time in terms of popular support, and the opposition is trying to take advantage of this situation.

What Turkey faces as it attempts to solve its most fundamental issue is not the opposition but the problem of lack of seriousness. They came, surrendered and were released, and after this try, more will come. What Turkey has been dreaming of for the last 25 years is finally becoming true: The PKK is laying down its arms. But the oppositions asks, “Why did you come?” They urge, “Why do you lay down your arms?” Is this what they expect us to say, “Take up your arms and go back where you come from?” Really?

What we are trying to solve is not a problem of the last 25 years but of the last 86 years. The AK Party is trying to solve this issue, which we tended to ignore, and it is stuck between two sides. The general public should unite around common interests.

MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli says, about the 34 people who surrendered, “These people are traitorous terrorists whose hands are stained with the blood of infants, mothers, women and martyrs and whose weapons are tainted with the blood of thousands of our innocent citizens.” Prosecutors take the testimony of these “traitorous terrorists,” and judges release them.

CHP leader Deniz Baykal depicts them as follows: “They say: ‘We will not lay down our arms, and we will not abandon violence or our fight against you. We have come here in order to carry our proposals, and we have letters to take to Ankara. Tell the authorities. You should act accordingly. If not, you will see what will happen’.” If we interpret the PKK’s laying down its arms and surrendering its members to the authorities as Baykal describes, what are we supposed to do?

Increased provocation

The opposition parties continue to provoke the general public. If “traitorous terrorists with bloodstained hands” have come to threaten us and if, in addition, they have been released, what are we supposed to do? If we lend an ear to the responses Bahçeli and Baykal give to the questions “Why have they surrendered?” and “Why have they been released?” then we must immediately take up arms.

In the western parts of Turkey, an anti-Kurdish wave is effervescing as the initiative makes progress. There is a basic problem with this widespread social tendency on which the MHP and the CHP base their harsh opposition. This wave contains some diseases which the MHP or the CHP cannot carry. When these people are asked, “What is your solution?” they ultimately propose dividing the country, which even the PKK cannot dare say. This is what they say: “Let us give the Southeast to the Kurds and send the Kurds in the western provinces to the Southeast.” This reaction against the initiative is not a nationalist reaction. Rather, it aims to discriminate and ostracize Kurds. Progress in the initiative has given this existing anti-Kurdish wave an opportunity to express itself more loudly.

The dynamics that tend to divide the country are at work not in the Southeast but in the west. And the CHP and the MHP misjudge this anti-Kurdish wave. Let us repeat: This is not a nationalist wave or a trend that favors “national unity and territorial integrity.” Rushing to act as the mouthpiece of these groups, both the MHP and the CHP are destroying the very values that make them what they are. As it tries to represent this emerging wave, the MHP is running away from its responsibility of preserving the territorial integrity of Turkey.

The PKK members will come and deliver themselves to authorities. Moreover, methods for recovering the people in prisons and on the mountains will be sought. Turkey will solve this 86-year-old structural issue by acting in unison. There is a huge opportunity in front of us. Will this opportunity be sacrificed to the populism of the opposition? The debates about Turkey’s initiative are rapidly focusing on the answer to this question.

The initiative has many risks, and the major player that may cause these risks to lead to failures is the DTP. Taking into account the sensitivities of the general public, the DTP should refrain from provocative stances and try to make sure that the Kurdish public opinion is calmed and acts in cool-headed manner.