Tragicomic phenomena: Putting the blame on others

Terrorist operatives of the outlawed PKK have increased their violent attacks in recent months, targeting mainly security teams. The PKK became known to the public when it staged its first deadly attacks in Turkey's Eruh and Şemdinli districts in 1984. Now, 23 years have passed since those incidents, and we are still speaking of increased PKK violence.

There has been no substantial report prepared by decision-makers recording what lessons have been learned from PKK terror to help us avoid repeating mistakes. On the contrary, mistakes are being repeated on both the military and political fronts, playing right into the hands of the PKK.

In the meantime, there have been several studies conducted by independent analysts and NGOs in Turkey, diagnosing the PKK problem correctly and offering the right prescriptions. But such reports have never been taken seriously by decision-makers, who persistently repeat the mistakes regardless of the negative impact of this attitude on the Turkish public as a whole and Turkish Kurds in particular.

As I was watching two separate debates on the PKK issue yesterday night on NTV and CNN Türk, I once again told myself how sad it has been that those who have played and continue playing leading roles in the fight against the PKK continue to defend their anachronistic views.

Former commander of the Gendarmerie Regional Command retired Gen. Hasan Kundakçı, whose organization continues to play a leading role in suppressing violence in the terror-stricken eastern and southeastern regions*, for example, continues his rhetoric of, among other things, blaming "outside powers" for the PKK violence.

Similarly, retired Gen. Armağan Kuloğlu maintains his well-known views on the handling of the PKK, making discouraging remarks over the introduction of economic and social measures as part of solutions to marginalize the PKK. He, too, blames outside powers as the main cause of PKK terror.

It was worth watching to see the efforts of Ahmet Hakan, the host of the CNN Türk roundtable last night, to find an answer to the question he posed several times to the generals. He asked why, for example, outside powers cannot manage to divide into pieces Britain or Spain, who still are dealing with terror problems, while the generals have been blaming outside powers for the PKK problem and claim those powers have always sought to undermine Turkey's unity.

Hakan could not get an answer to his question from the retired generals, apart from repetition of their arguments for blaming others for Turkey's self-made mistakes.

It is also worth recalling last week's serial published by daily Milliyet, which ran interviews with former Turkish chiefs of General Staff and former top commanders who played a significant role in the fight against the PKK.

Almost all the former commanders interviewed admitted certain mistakes in the fight against PKK. But those revelations do not make sense if the current military top brass continues making the same mistakes while falling short of giving an account of their errors.

Ertuğrul Özkök, Hürriyet daily's editor-in-chief, also posed several questions to the military in his Nov. 13 column concerning the circumstances of the Oct. 21 PKK ambush in Hakkari's Dağlıca district in which 12 Turkish soldiers died.

Nevertheless, when I switched my television to NTV's roundtable taking place at the same time last night, I heard a reasonable voice giving the right recipe for dealing with the PKK problem: representing the voices in Turkey whose views are not taken into consideration.

He was Mustafa Sönmez, an independent economist and a researcher who recently released a survey that highlighted once again the problem of concentrating only on military means in the fight against the PKK, urging that an emphasis be put on economic and social programs.

Such voices are not heard by the decision-makers, while narrow-minded approaches such as blaming others for self-made mistakes have been proven ineffective as a remedy for solving the problems.

In addressing the PKK problem, state actors should first begin by giving an account of their own mistakes, in order to apply the right recipes to the problems. For example, if the military fails to explain to the public in a transparent fashion the circumstances that resulted in the Dağlıca ambush and if the political authority does not ask for an account for this incident, any discussions will continue to be irrelevant and further divert Turkey's attention from democratization moves.