CounterPunch's
Scorching New Book on a Decade of War
Order Now / Available in April
Today's
Stories
April 2, 2004
Christopher Brauchli
The
Disturbing Case of Cpt. Yee
April 1, 2004
Ron Jacobs
Dying in Vain in Iraq
Harry Browne
No Smoke, Plenty of Fire: Ireland's Pubs Go Smokefree
Chris Floyd
Towel Boy: Bush Hits Workers with Chemical Weapons
Nicole Colson
Inside America's Concentration Camp: Tortured at Guantanamo
Charles Arthur
Haiti's Army Cracks Down on Workers
Laura Flanders
Elaine
Chao: a First Daughter for the First Son
March 31, 2004
M. Junaid Alam
Israel:
Suicide Nation?
John L. Hess
Condi
Under Oath: But What About the NYTs Reporters?
Fernando Suarez del Solar
A Year
Since My Son's Death in Iraq
Sofia Perez
Spain's
U-Turn on Iraq is Real Democracy in Action
David Vest
Stick 'Em Up: Put Cheney and Bush Under Oath
Tanya Reinhart
As in Tiannamen Square: Justice and the Yassin Assassination
Mike Whitney
Time to Dump the Pledge
Donald Kaul
Martha Stewart's Lesson: Never Talk to the FBI
Milt Bearden
Mired in the Tracks of Alexander the Great
Marjorie Cohn
The Illegal
Coup in Haiti: How the Kidnapping of Aristide Violated US and
International Law
Website of the Day
New Pentagon Papers Dropped at DC Starbucks
March 30, 2004
William S. Lind
An Occurrence
in Pakistan: the Battle That Wasn't
Ron Jacobs
Assassinations, Hate Mail &
Justice
Mickey Z.
Tommy Boy Friedman Does "Imagine"
Neve Gordon
Strategic Motives of the Yassin Assassination
Mark Scaramella
The Founding Scam: Insider Trading is the American Way
John Chuckman
The Countessa of Empire: Condi
Rice's Idea of Democracy
Greg Moses
Live from Pasadena: Silhouettes of New Order
Rai O'Brien
What Kind of Democracy to Expect if the Opposition Takes Power
in Venezuela
Bill Christison
The
9/11 Commission: Dangerous Harbinger for the Future
Website of the Day
Ghost Town: Riding Through Chernobyl
March 29, 2004
John Maxwell
Crisis
in the Caribbean: a Miasma Foretold
J. Michael Springmann
Email
Spying & Attorney Client Privilege
Robert Fisk / Severin
Carrell
Coalition
of the Mercenaries
The Black Commentator
Haiti's Troika of Terror
Doug Giebel
Candide in the Wilderness:
How Bush Policy Was Made
David Krieger
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Bargain
Mike Whitney
Rejecting the Language of Terrorism
Richard Oxman
The Pitts: a 9/11 Burrow of an American
Family
Kim Scipes
The AFL-CIO in Venezuela: Deja Vu All Over Again
Michael Donnelly
End Game for Northwest Forests
Norman Solomon
The Media Politics of 9/11
Kathy Kelly
Last Lines Before Vanishing
Website of the Day
Swans: Can Money Buy Everything?
March 27 / 28, 2004
Jeffrey St. Clair
Empire of the Locusts
Gary Leupp
The Yassin Assassination: Prelude to an Attack on Syria
William A. Cook
The Yassin Assassination: a Monstrous Insanity Blessed by the
US
Faheem Hussain
Some Thoughts on Waziristan: Once and Always a Colonial Army
Elaine Cassel
Is Playing Paintball Terrorism?
Larry Birns / Jessica
Leight
Disturbing Signals: Kerry and Latin America
John Ross
Bush Tells the World: "Drop Dead"
John Eskow
A Memo to Karl Rove from the Hollywood Caucus
Alan Maass
Who Are the Real Terrorists?
Dave Lindorff
Spineless of US Journalists
Joe Bageant
Howling in the Belly of the Confederacy
Dave Zirin
Reasonable Doubt: Why Barry Bonds is Not on Steroids
Craig Waggoner
Who Would Mel's Jesus Nuke?
The Kerry Quandry
Joel Wendland
Marxists
for Kerry
Josh Frank
Scary,
Scary John Kerry
Matt Vidal
Spoilers, Electability and the Poverty of American Democracy
Poets' Basement
LaMorticella, Hamod, Guthrie, Davies and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Say a Little Prayer
March 26, 2004
Christopher Brauchli
There's
a Chill Over the Country
Robert Fisk
The Man Who Knew Too Much: the Ordeal
of Mordechai Vanunu
Joe DeRaymond
Democracy in El Salvador? Think Again
Mike Whitney
Lessons on Apartheid from Ariel Sharon
Mickey Z.
Somalia and Iraq: Looking Back and Ahead
Chris Floyd
The Pentagon Archipelago
CounterPunch Photo Wire
Cheney's Close Shave?
John Breneman
Bush's Comic Bomb
Website of the Day
Dick
is a Killer
March 25, 2004
Lee Sustar
Who
is to Blame for Lost Jobs?
Standard Schaefer
An
Interview with Michael Hudson on Offshore Banking Centers
Roger Burbach
Lula vs. the IMF: Brazil Begins
to Throw Off the Austerity Planners
Jimmer Endres
Elections Without Politics: The Military Budget Is Not an "Issue"
Larry Tuttle
Acting in Your Name: Identity Theft and Public Interest Groups
Toni Solo
Misreporting Venezuela
Dan Bacher
A Memorial Wall for Iraq War's Dead and Wounded
Saul Landau
Is
Venezuela Next?
Website of the Day
The Spiral Railway
March 24, 2004
Gary Leupp
General
Musharraf's IOU
Richard Oxman
Shakespeare
for Kerry
William Lind
The Beginning
of Phase Three: 4G Warfare Hits Iraq
Rep. Ron Paul
Iraq One Year Later
Michael Dempsey
Killing Rachel Corrie Again
Alan Farago
The Bad Math of Mercury: Bush's War on the Unborn
Benjamin Dangl
and April Howard
Media
in Cuba
John L. Hess
No Lie Left Behind: Judy Miller Does Dick Clarke
Greg Weiher
Two Cheers for Dems: "We're Not as Bad as George"
Eva Golinger
An Open Letter to John Kerry on Venezuela
Grayson Childs
Where's Cynthia McKinney?
Steve Niva
Israel's Assassinations will Only
Fuel More Suicide Bombings
Website of the Day
The Bushiad and the Idiossey
March 23, 2004
Phillip Cryan
The
Drug War's Next Casualty: Colombia's National Parks
Ron Jacobs
They Shoot Men in Wheelchairs, Too?
Dave Lindorff
A Spanish Parallel: Scare Tactics and Elections
Mike Whitney
Richard Clarke and Teflon George
Brian McKinlay
Bush's Lil' Buddy in Trouble: John Howard Starts to Wobble
JG
Driving Mr. Koon: "Jim Crow Lives Next Door"
Phyllis Pollack
Gettin' Jigga with Metallica: the Battle Over the Double Black
CD
Ahmed Bouzid
Sharon's One-Way Track
Sean Carter
The G-Word Goes to Court: One Nation Under [Your Logo Here]
M. Shahid Alam
World's Greatest Country: Do the Facts Lie
March 22, 2004
Mazin Qumsiyeh
On Extrajudicial
Executions
Uri Avnery
The
Assassination of Sheikh Yassin is Worse Than a Crime
Gilad Atzmon
Sharon's Rampage
Mike Whitney
Guilty Until Proven Innocent: the Story of Captain James Yee
Jason Leopold
Firm With Ties to Cheney Faces Criminal Indictment in Cal Energy
Scam
Greg Moses
Stop
Walling and Stalling: a Report from Houston's Peace March
Phil Gasper
San Francisco: 25,000 March for an End to the Occupation
Lenni Brenner
Report
from NYC: Old and Young Parade for Peace
Julian Borger
The Clarke Revelations
Steve Perry
Karl Rove's Moment
Website of the Day
Enviros Against War
March 20 / 21, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Gay
Marriage: Sidestep on Freedom's Path
Jeffrey St. Clair
Intolerable Opinions in an Age of Shock and Awe: What Would Lilburne
Do?
Ted Honderich
Tony Blair's Moral Responsibility for Atrocities
Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen
The Plot Against Syria: an Irresponsibility Act
Gary Leupp
On Viewing "The Passion of the Christ"
William A. Cook
Fence, Barrier, Wall
Phil Gasper
Bush v. Bush-lite: Chomsky's Lesser Evilism
Ron Jacobs
Fox News and the Masters of War
John Stanton
Which Way John Kerry? The Senator's Inner Nixon
Justin Felux
Kerry and Black America: Just Another Stupid White Man
Mike Whitney
Greenspan's Treason: Swindling Posterity
Augustin Velloso
Avoiding Osama's Abyss
Lawrence Magnuson
Eyes Wide Open: Is Spain Caving in to Terrorism?
Kathy Kelly
Getting Together to Defeat Terrorism
Tracy McLellan
Scalia & Cheney: Happiness is a Warm Gun
Kurt Nimmo
Emma Goldman for President!
Luis J. Rodriguez
The Redemptive Power of Art: It's Not a Frill
Mickey Z
The Michael Moore Diet
Jackie Corr
When Harry Truman Stopped in Butte
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Great Trial of 1922: Gandhi's Vision of Responsibility
Poets' Basement
Stew Albert & JD Curtis
Website of the Weekend
Virtual World Election
March 19, 2004
Jeffrey St. Clair
Zapatero
to Kerry: Back Off, Senator, Our Troops are Coming Home
Ann Harrison
So
Protesters, How Well Do You Know Your Rights?
William MacDougall
Fortress Britain's War on "Economic Migrants"
Greg Moses
Sold American: Cowboy Nation Gets Ready to Vote
Cynthia McKinney
Haiti and the Impotence of Black America: Roll Back This Coup,
Mr. Bush
Norman Solomon
Spinning the Past; Threatening the Future
John L. Hess
"Missing" Evidence and the NYTs
Vicente Navarro
The
End of Aznar, Bush's Best Friend
Website of the War
Naming the Dead
March 18, 2004
Gila Svirsky
Rachel
Corrie, One Year Later: She Never Lost Faith in Decency
Christopher Brauchli
Drilling a Hole in the Sanctions: How Halliburton Made $73 Million
from Saddam
William Kulin
Report from Iraq: Just Another Baghdad Car Bombing
Mike Whitney
Resistance: a Moral Imperative
Rep. Ron Paul
Broadcast Indecency Act: an Indecent Attack on the First Amendment
Josh Frank
The Nader Question
Jack Random
They Lied & They Lost: Madrid and the Lessons of Democracy
Greg Bates
What Makes a Nader Voter Tick? A Survey
Sam Hamod / Alfredo Reyes
Contempt of the World: Hastert, Bush and Cheney on Spain
Gary Leupp
The
Madrid Bombings: the Chickens Come Home to Roost
Website of the Day
Privatizing Armageddon: Buy Your Own Doomsday Key
March 17, 2004
Marjorie Cohn
Spain, the EU and the US: War on
Terror or Civil Liberties?
David MacMichael
Untruth
and Consequences
Michael Donnelly
Wear the Green, But Skip the Green Beer
Tom Stephens
"Steady Leadership": Let the Buyer Beware
Wayne Madsen
Sen. Kerry, Let Me Help You Out
Karyn Strickler
Who Owns the Sierra Club? Anonymous Donors and Rigged Elections
Peter Linebaugh
Bush:
Blanc Blanc
March 16, 2004
Lenni Brenner
James
Madison: the Anti-Clerical Father of the Bill of Rights
Scott Boehm
Madrid
Diary: How to Change World Order in Four Days
Alexander Lynch
From Franco to Aznar: the History
Behind the Spanish Elections
Sam Hamod and Alfredo
Reyes
The Truth About the Spanish Elections: Aznar Was Going Down Anyway
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg
You Wouldn't Do a Dog This Way:
Executing David Clayton Hill
Mike Whitney
The Case for a Nuclear Iran
Robert Fisk
The Bloody Price of the "War
on Terror"
Bill Christison
The
Aftershocks from Madrid
CounterPunch Photo Wire
The Passion of St. Teresa
Website of the Day
Join the War on Art!
March 15, 2004
Harry Browne
Terror Nothing New to Europe
Mike Whitney
Justice
Not Murder: the Tragic Symmetry of Terrorism
Lidice Valenzuela
Haiti: a Coup without Consultation
Greg Moses
Lessons
from the Texas Primaries: Looking for a Coalition with Legs
Mickey Z.
Depraved Indifference: C-Sections, Patriarchy & Women's Health
Asaf Shtull-Trauring
AWOL
in New York: From Refusenik to Organizer
CounterPunch Wire
Gen. Gramajo Executed by Bees!
March 12 / 14, 2004
Gabriel Kolko
The
Coming Elections and the Future of American Global Power
Saul Landau
Oh, Jesus...It's the Movie!
William Blum
Neo-Con(tradictions)
William S. Lind
Why They Throw Rocks
Rahul Mahajan
The Meaning of Madrid: War on "Terrorism" Makes Us
All Less Safe
Neve Gordon
Demographic Wars
Kurt Nimmo
Kerry and the Progressive Interventionists
Mickey Z.
The "New" UN Blames the Poor
Mike Whitney
War Games: the American Media Leads the Charge
Helen Scott and Ashley
Smith
Aristide's Fall: What Led to the Coup?
Justin E.H. Smith
Loïc Wacquant: Against a Sociodicy
of the American Prison
Brandy Baker
Him Again? Al Gore Needs to Move On
Robin Philpot
Nobody Can Call It a "Plane Crash" Now: the Report
on the Assassination of Rwandan President Habyarimana
Mokhiber / Weissman
The Meat Monopoly Takes a Rare Pounding
Dave Zirin
She Turned Her Back on the War: an Interview with Toni Smith
Daniel Wolff
The Lord's Pier
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
|
April
2, 2004
Slipping to the Right?
The
Meaning of the Elections in Turkey
By SACHA GUNEY
On the surface, last week's nationwide regional
and local elections in Turkey ended with few surprises: the ruling
Justice and Development Party (AKP) confirmed its popularity
with a convincing lion's share of the vote--almost 42%.
In fact, the AKP fulfilled many predictions,
including its own, that the people's trust in them would, not
only be confirmed, but strengthened with a vote superior to the
2002 national election results, which brought the party to power.
They posted an 8% increase.
Emboldened by this result, the government
is eager to pursue its programme of reform with European Union
candidacy in mind. So far this programme--which includes a stable
economy, a strong anti-corruption stance, a resolution to the
Cyprus problem, and democratising political and social reforms--is
popular with many Turkish voters, as the election results demonstrated.
This rosy picture is complemented by
the notion that the AKP is perhaps becoming a party with broad-based
support for its policies. As majority governments are a precious
commodity in Turkish political history, the current situation
offers an interesting if not promising outlook. However, a more
detailed look into the election results hints at challenges to
come.
Politically, the Turkish public has always
displayed a marked preference for moderate conservatism, which
bests describes the current AKP administration. The rest of
Turkey's political rightwing family is rounded off by the religious
Happiness Party (SP), which won 4%, and the far-right parties:
the National Action Party (MHP) and the True Path Party (DYP)
who won 10.5% and 10% respectively.
Taken together, the Right's performance
at the ballot is over 60%; a fact not lost on the liberal newspaper
Radikal, whose headline screamed, "Turkey Drew to the Right".
It is worth mentioning that if the MHP and DYP repeat their
performance at the national elections, the 10% threshold law
gives them access to parliament. The far-right tends to take
a tough stance on many issues key to the government's reform
policy.
But for now the more important story
is the AKP's gains at the ballot and how they were taken at the
expense of the Left, namely the national opposition the Republican
People's Party (CHP) and the leftist coalition under the Social
Democratic People's Party (SHP).
The CHP could only manage 18% of the
vote--a slight drop of about 1%. Significantly, the CHP lost
two important regions to the AKP: Gaziantep, long considered
a CHP stronghold, and Antalya, CHP leader Deniz Baykal's electoral
province. As such, these elections are considered as a defeat
for the CHP and in particular for Baykal.
Most intriguing is the gains the AKP
made on, or rather, the losses of the Social Democratic People's
Party (SHP). The SHP represented a coalition of minor leftist
parties and, significantly, the Democratic People's Party (DEHAP)
whose main support comes from Turkey's large Kurdish population.
The SHP lost 4 provinces to the AKP which
had previously been under the firm control of DEHAP's predecessor
HADEP. These include the provinces of Siirt and Van, the former
the province that sent current Prime Minister Erdogan to parliament
and the latter the hometown of the current education minister
Huseyin Celik. Strong campaigning helped win the day.
Moreover, whilst 4 out of SHP victories
were won by a convincing margin, one SHP victory and two AKP
victories in contested provinces were taken with margins of about
6%--a close race considering the general trend of landslide victories
that characterised most districts.
Additionally, Turkish media reported
violence in several southeastern provinces leaving as many as
8 dead and up to 200 injured. Mainly, the violence was the result
of confrontation between rival supporters of the AKP and SHP.
In the southeastern city of Diyabakir
(a Kurdish capital of sorts), Welsh member of the European Parliament
Eurig Wyn reported being denied entry to a polling station by
police even though he was there as part of a team sent to observe
to elections. He relayed reports of up to one hundred people
being detained and not allowed to vote.
And according to Reporters Sans Frontières,
the press freedom NGO, "activists of the pro-Kurd Democratic
People's party (DEHAP) had gathered around the Diyarbakir court
house at the close of polling at around 11pm on 28 March, accusing
the security forces of rigging the elections. Police set about
violently dispersing the demonstrators, then attacking journalists
covering the clashes." The SHP won Diyabakir province by
the way.
Despite these tensions and divisions,
it seems as if the AKP is able to gain some support among the
Kurdish population, much for the same reasons everyone else voted
for them, but also because the government seems sincere in its
promise to democratise. As part of the aforementioned drive
towards EU membership, the government is constrained to grant
more rights and freedoms to the Kurds of Turkey.
With the beginnings of significant democratising
reform for EU candidacy, the AKP is coming face-to-face with
another strongly held tenet of Turkey's state ideology, namely
that of equating Kurdish demands for more cultural rights as
tantamount to an attempt to destroy the Turkish state and nation.
Turkish nationalism and state ideology
rests on a concept of a common Turkish ethnicity (and rejection
of any other ethnic political identity) and the equating of the
territory with the state and the nation itself. In this view,
the Turkish state and nation do not simply occupy a territory,
the state and nations is the territory. Consequently,
any attempt to use a non-Turkish ethnic identity (i.e. Kurdish)
as a basis for political protest is deemed an attack on the very
integrity of the Turkish state.
This policy is behind the protracted
conflict between the state and Turkey's Kurds and in many ways
is responsible for Turkey's deplorable human rights record--that
most oft cited obstacle to EU accession.
Recognising Kurdish cultural rights and
extending economic development to them is certainly key to Turkey's
future. That the ruling party seems to be taking steps in that
direction seems a positive sign but it still is too early to
tell. There is still the gap between rhetoric and actual implementation,
which needs to be bridged. This will be the true test of government
policy.
Underlining the importance of this are
developments that are immediately unfolding in Iraq. What role
that country's Kurdish population and currently autonomous region
will play in the near future will most certainly affect Turkey,
whose Kurdish provinces run along the current border.
As the USA is planning to hand over sovereignty
back to 'free' Iraq this June, the future is far from certain.
It goes without saying that serious instability not to mention
territorial dissolution of Iraq will carry grave consequences.
Real or not, there is the fear that a Kurdish state would destabilise
Turkey vis-à-vis its own Kurdish population.
The European Union is supposed to decide
on giving Turkey a date for membership discussions at the end
of this year. Unfortunately, the things that are crucial to
Turkey's internal politics--the economy, Cyprus, and the Kurds--depend
largely on external factors beyond the full control of Ankara.
The AKP will have its hands full if it hopes to keep everything
running smoothly by the time the December meeting with the EU
comes around.
Sacha Guney
is a Canadian freelance journalist living in Ankara, Turkey.
Weekend
Edition Features for March 20 / 21, 2004
Jeffrey St. Clair
Empire of the Locusts
Gary Leupp
The Yassin Assassination: Prelude to an Attack on Syria
William A. Cook
The Yassin Assassination: a Monstrous Insanity Blessed by the
US
Faheem Hussain
Some Thoughts on Waziristan: Once and Always a Colonial Army
Elaine Cassel
Is Playing Paintball Terrorism?
Larry Birns / Jessica
Leight
Disturbing Signals: Kerry and Latin America
John Ross
Bush Tells the World: "Drop Dead"
John Eskow
A Memo to Karl Rove from the Hollywood Caucus
Alan Maass
Who Are the Real Terrorists?
Joe Bageant
Howling in the Belly of the Confederacy
Dave Zirin
Reasonable Doubt: Why Barry Bonds is Not on Steroids
Craig Waggoner
Who Would Mel's Jesus Nuke?
The Kerry Quandry
Joel Wendland
Marxists
for Kerry
Josh Frank
Scary,
Scary John Kerry
Matt Vidal
Spoilers, Electability and the Poverty of American Democracy
Poets' Basement
LaMorticella, Hamod, Guthrie, Davies and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Say a Little Prayer
Keep CounterPunch Alive:
Make
a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online!
home / subscribe
/ about us / books
/ archives / search
/ links /
|