Newroz 1999

20th March - At ten o'clock, they knock the door, with less patience than yesterday. Ten policemen come in the room, with their guns. One of them tell : "You are not tourists ! I don’t believe." They order us to get up. We come in the hall and we pay our bill, in spite of the sadness of the young man behind the desk. We ask him how much he wants : 3 millions (about 50 FF), so the third of the real price. We hope that he will have not problems because of us. We can see fear in his eyes, and painful too. We understand that he is not responsible of our arrest and regret to not help us. The police car that stood all tghe night front of the hotel is still here. They did not think that we sleep until ten hours and were probably sick of waiting for us ! On the road, we see tanks, army cars, masked soldiers at every check-points, on every roofs : these special commandos are free to comit every ! At the airport, there is a discuss between the policemen and the soldiers who let us go to Van yesterday. The soldiers affirm they did not see us and that we certainly came by bus. Then we show our ticket planes. An officer ask who let us pass the control, and because of his friendly attitude, we don't resist to declare that it was him, so he shut up. Now we have to buy our tickets planes, because the Turkish government refuses to pay for us. Good deal for Turkish Air Line indeed : Even if they know that nobody can enter in Van, they sell their flights.

After buying our tickets police examine our bags a second time, with always the same question : "What are you doing in Van ?" Do they hope that after a certain time we change our answers ? So we tell with a great smile : "For the cats ! Miaou ! The cats of Van". The photographers can hardly protect their material, when policemen try to open their 200 films !

In the plane, we met a journalist from El Mundo. He came at morning and could never go out the airport. By the window, we see helicopters and men in armed on the roofs. Undoubtedly, mountains become very hot. From our point of view, the Lake is blue and so clear… It is a wonderflu land ! How many time it will be forbidden, destroyed ? Cats are not alone to disappear : me, mountains, woods, towns, castles, some milleniums of civilisation have been burnt with napalm or crashed under bombs. Kurds go for living in the shantytowns of Istanbul orAnkara and cats are dying. That the foolidhness of this regime, its obsession : a desert land is better than a no-Turkish country. Many Turkmen families, from Turkey or Caucasus, have been guessed to populate these old Kurdo-Armenian towns. Massacres had epurated the country from its Armenians, deportations try to get rid of Kurds : Welcome to the next settlers !

In Istanbul, we go to the bar of an hotel where all the delegations make a meeting. In the streets, at the reception, in the bar, some civilians policemen, everywhere. We are waiting for that some spyes go away and give the name of an Italian woman. The recptionist 's face becomes strict. She answers coldly that she is at the bar. We get up the stairs and find alla the European delegations, except the French delegation that could reach Adana. We are the people that could go to the far Eastern point and stayed the more long time (24 hours), a challenge. So, we see the Newroz in Istanbul !

Our hotel is still but cold, it is worse than in …and no hot water ! We get down to the hall and wait for two Basques journalistes for exchanging our informations. The innkeeper and two other Turks speak about us. We hear "French" and "Newruz". We are cool, reading tourist's boocklets. The Basques should have to go discretly in their room, but they make a mistake and sit down directly at our table. Police always watch them and tomorrow we are a going to change our hotel ! For many years, Istanbul was a "normal" town, almost European. Today, there are tension and fear. The journalists – they have been expulsed yesterday from Diyarbakir – explain the situation in Spain : the Basque Parliament wants to invite the Kurdish Parliament in exile, and it creates some conflicts with their central government and troubles their economical and diplomatical relations with Turkey. The English, Dutch and German governments asked to their citizens to avoid this country for holidays !

21th March - The sun is shining, the weather is not cold. We are walking in Taksim, the place of much demonstrations. It is half obstructed, many police cars are waiting, some of them are ready to shot and we see army trucks too. We know that it could happen something to the North of Istanbul, in Gazi Quarter. We take a taxi : the young driver smiles when he learns that we are French. We show the policemen and question him. Else smile : "Newroz. Meeting. Police bad." We indicate the place where we want to go, and it is not easy, because it is just a Turkish adress trasmitted by phone. Gazi is already closed : tanks, soldiers, police cars. Our driver ask where we want to go exactly. Finally, we decide to speak Kurdish. He laughs then, happy and proud. During many decades, Kurdish was a banned language forbidden and negated too: Turkish officials maintained that it was just a dialect, without literature nor alphabet, though these literature and alphabet exist since the Middle Ages. How Kurdish people could know that, in this country where the History is falsificated, where people learn that Hittits, Sumer, all the great civilisations in Mesopotamie were already Turkish civilisations ?

Now he trusts us and we explain that we come for the Newroz, that there will be a feast in Gazi, but we don't know exactly the place. No problem, he nips in and out the police roadblocks, asking people. When we worry for his safety, he answers that danger is not more important than usually : "They arrested my brother, he works in Mezopotamia Center. I know that one day they will take me". With a wave of his hand he makes the gesture tu cut his throat. "I am Kurd, that is my problem". Though soldiers are not far, he turns up his record. Words sound with a revolutionnary hymn about Mazlum Dogan, the Kurdish Che. This day is a celebration of him, too. He was one of the PKK's foundators and people liked him. He was arrested in 80s and detained in the prison of Diyarbakir, one of the most terrible in the country. Exhausted by strikes hunger, tortured without rest because he refuses to repudiates his opinion in a publical confession, he decided to hang himself. But before, he burnt three matches, holding them as a message of hope, meaning that even if he died, his fight continues with other Kurds. It happened on 21th March 1982 and these matches were his Newroz fire. It explains the meaning of these distressing and so misunderstanding immolations of Kurds. It is not a fanatical act but a remember of Mazlum Dogan's death : a belief that beyond a certain abasement, suicide can be a act of Feedom and hope, way to say "I can not bear more, but some others will replace me".

All the afternoon, helicopters fly above this quarter where live together some hundreds of Kurdish refugees whose fileds and houses had been burnt, or thaht they fled from Kurdistan because they did not want to be "Village Keepers". A "Village Keeper" is a milician who works for the Governement and receives money for each suspected Kurd he shot. Some people who had refused to engage in theses milices had been sent as human detectors in fields infested by mines.

Far, we see black smoke : tyres burn but there is no music. It is a lure for the soldiers. The presence of army is important and we see many tanks. Like in Van, it is impossible to call by hand-phone, ondes are scrambling. The more surprising is that we walk during three hours in Gazi without being arrested ! Are they so persuaded that no European could enter that we become invisible ? At windows, in the streets, people look at us, terrified. Even children, who usually like so much to be pictured don't talk to us. Some women come, aske why we are here and want we open our bags for watching if they don't contain bombs ! Bevore we leave, the oldest warns us : "Don't stay here, it is dangerous !"

We leave Gazi about 4h p.m. for joininh the delegations. We learned that people try to gather in an other place, with riots and shot. A sixteen years old boy is dying in the Office of IHD and it is not able to bring him at the hospital, it was a direct way to prison. Turkish TV states that a policema is dead and there are many serious injured persons. In all the country, thousands of people have been arrested...

22th March - At morning, a press conference at the Office of IHD. The delegations come with gaged mouths and bound hands in the aim to protest against censureship. One read the bloody balance of this Newroz. We join a delegation of French advocates who want get in touch with Öcalan's lawyers. They want to watch how can work defencers in Turkey. We visit together one the Kurdish leader's advocates, Edip Yildiz. He explains that for the moment Öcalan has about two hundred lawyers. It is a way to resist against harassements and pressures. It is difficult for his lawyers to work and until now, they could not read the indictment. The Law against terrorism (that allows all abuses) is the basis of that case. The State want to judge Öcalan hastily and with a few witnesses.

We ask him about the Kurdish leader. He is well, but all these rumours against his bad health could be useful for disguising a murder in heart attack. He is not physically tortured, but denounced continuous psychological pressures "Öcalan knows that he will be condemned, but he does not seem to care of that. His main preoccupation is the trial that Turkey will do against of the Kurdish people. " Then the phone ring. Our translator hang on and stop our conversation : "MED-TV will be closed at 20 h !" We are dismayed ! MED-TV, the only Kurdish television is suspended for criminal incitments". In fact, it has been accused to be a militant channel. We decide to watch the closure, with our Kurdish friends. We know that millions of people are watching the last broadcast with the same feeling of injustice. "How will react people here ? MED-TV is their only resource of information, their only link with outside ! They will be deseperated !"

23th March - Accompanying the delegation of lawyers, we go to the HADEP office. The pictures of Mehmet Sincar, representitative of the DEP Party (forbidden in June 1994), shot in 1993, and the present General Secretary, Murat Bozlak, nowaday in prison, are haged to the walls. The First Secretary, Veli Haydar Güleç, a charming young man, welcomes us. The main topics of the interview is the future elections and the difficult campaign of the HADEP. Meetings are forbidden for this party and media boycott it. In spite if this, even army evaluate that it could have 10 % per cent of voices, that is the legal condition for gaining some sieges in the Parliament. Unfair arrests and electoral treachery are the handicaps of the HADEP. In the western part of the country, elections are quite regular, but in Kurdistan soldiers fill themselves the boxes. "Suspending Media-TV causes another difficulty : it was our only way of communication." Indeed, is it really just a coincidence if the Channel is suspended during the elections ?

Then we speak about the last years, the bloodiest, when 82 of their members had been murdered. "We ate at dinner with friends which we saw the next day at mortuary. Perhaps you saw in Europa these pictures of soldiers holding cut heads ? I can tell that there are not the cruelest acts of the war. Most of the time, bodies are dismembered and soldiers make key-rings with guerilleros'ears."

We ask news of Leyla Zana, One of the Kurdish MP's, condemned to fifteen years of prison, for having wished in the Parliament, in turkish and kurdish, peace and friendship between the both people. " She is not well. With other prisonners, she 've done a hunger strike and she is quite weak. In the turkish prisons, hungerstrike is the only protest with suicide. Number of people did it when Öcalan was arrested." What does he think about recent attentats ? " Of course we do not approve violence, even if today a lot of Kurds do not see another way." Veli Haydar Güleç finished with thanking the delegation, for its presence and support. "You have to know that the last months were very difficult for us. We feel abandoned. The left Parties even, that were our allies before, feared and cut our links. The support of Europa is very important for us !"

We leave him and visit the office of the main Öcalan's lawyer, Ahmet Zeki Okçuoglu, who ccordinates all the work of defence. He is friendly and smiling in spite of the seriousness of his conversation. "The turkish regime is totalitarian and Kurds and Turks have no sufficient ways for fighting. They need external support for obtaining democracy and justice in Turkey. Unfortunately, this system is accepted by Europa" We ask him what he expects from Europa. "The Öcalan Case is an opportunity to create a democracy and for that the Kurds' rights are recognized. We have to gather ourselves, organize and plane common actions. It would be very important if delegations could see the trial. Physicians of the Commission against Torture visited Öcalan ; We hope that they could come back, because his conditions of detention have been ameliorated." The Aix en Provence Branch of the Syndicate of French Avocates get in touch with Bernard Koucnher, who promised to atempt something. "The State accuses the Kurds to be terrorist, but we are going to prove the Terrorism of the State since 75 years." When we ask if he is submitted to pressures, Ahmet Zeki Okçuoglu smiles : "Yes, but the State knows me very well : I will never renounce, even front of threats" (On 9^th April, we will learn that he has been attacked with the Vice-président Of Human Rights in Turkey, Eren Keskin.)

25th March - At the end, our plane is one hour in late because of the attacks of OTAN against Serbia. The world cares of one million and half of Kosovars but accepts quite easily the genocide of twenty thousands millions of Turkish Kurds !

Roxane - Mars 1999

Summary