"ECONOMIC MIGRANTS?" - THE CAUSES OF THE KURDISH EXODUS
In its efforts to stem the influx of Kurdish refugees, the EU is seeking cooperation with the Turkish government, one of the main oppressors of the Kurdish people. This article deals with the human rights situation in Northern Iraq and Turkey, Turkey's particular responsibility for the Kurdish exodus and Turkish authorities' involvement in Mafia activities including the trafficking in migrants.
Economic migrants?
In trying to tackle the recent arrivals of boat people, Western European governments are suddenly suggesting that a large majority of the Kurdish refugees are actually "economic migrants", who are not in need of protection. This strongly contrasts with the EU-countries' own prevailing asylum practice, at least with regard to Iraqi Kurds. According to Judith Kumin from the statistical unit of the UNHCR in Geneva, the total number of Iraqi asylum applications made in the EU (leaving aside Denmark and France, where no figures are available yet) was 33,910 in 1997. The same year, 23,900 Iraqi nationals were granted protection (refugee status under the 1951 Geneva Convention: 11,810, residence permit on humanitarian grounds: 4,340), against 7,750 rejections. This amounts to an unusually high recognition rate of 67 per cent in the EU.
These figures leave no doubt that even according to the EU's notoriously restrictive refugee policy, the prevailing assessment among the authorities of the Member States is that the large majority of Iraqi Kurds cannot be regarded as "bogus refugees" but are in genuine need of protection.
Corresponding figures regarding Kurds from Turkey are not available, but the average recognition rate is likely to be considerably lower, not because of a better human rights situation in Turkey, but due to the close political and economic relations between the EU and Ankara.
Northern Iraq: Turkish air force bombardments and fighting among Kurdish clans affects civilians
A brief look at the situation of the Kurdish people both in Iraq and Turkey suffices to understand the reasons for the ongoing Kurdish exodus.
After the 1991 Gulf War, a UN "security zone" for the Kurds in Northern Iraq was established. But the "safe haven" was soon plagued by constant fighting between the main Kurdish parties, the Barzani clan's KDP, and the PUK, led by Jalal Talabani. More recently, repeated intrusions into Iraq by the Turkish army, including heavy bombardments by the Turkish air force have affected civilians, with thousands fleeing their homes in search of safety. The ships Ararat and Cometa arrived in Italy shortly after the Turkish army's most recent operations in the Northern Iraqi "security zone", in late December. According to the Swiss newspaper, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, a similar Turkish operation including heavy bombardments in October resulted in some 10,000 displaced persons. According to the UN, no less than a third of the entire Kurdish population in Northern Iraq has been driven away during the last 5 years, as a result of fighting between rivalling Kurdish clans and incursions of the Turkish army. The incursions amount to a blatant violation of the UN resolution establishing a security zone and of international law, but have not drawn any significant EU action against Turkey.
The situation in Turkey
The situation of the Kurdish population is no better in Turkey. The destruction by Turkish security forces of 3,500 Kurdish villages during 1994 and 1995 led to the displacement of an estimated 2 million people. Most of them now live in shanty towns surrounding all the larger cities in western Turkey. In the course of a few years, Istanbul has become the world's largest Kurdish city.
A January 1998 news release of Amnesty International (AI) notes that Turkish security forces are responsible for thousands of political killings over the past few years. The outlawed Kurdish Workers Party, PKK, too is in addition blamed for the killings of hundreds of civilians, particularly in the early 1990s. Gross human rights violations by Turkish security forces against Kurds, mainly in southeastern Turkey, continue unabated. The AI press release mentions the case of the Kurdish village of Cinaronu, in Mardin province: "Around 500 soldiers surrounded the village and around 30 villagers were rounded up and held in unacknowledged detention for ten days; some who were later released alleged that those detained were tortured. The village was cordoned off by the security forces, and a number of houses, as well as motor and agricultural vehicles were set on fire. A few days later the village was largely evacuated by the security forces." The incident took place in mid-November 1997.
AI also reports continuing "disappearances" and extra-judicial executions in southeastern Turkey. The most recent case reported by AI is that of Mehmet Özdemir, a father of seven, who had been detained on several previous occasions over the past six years, and who was arrested in a coffee house in Diyarbakir and dragged away by four plain clothes police officers on 26 December 1997. Despite inquiries by his family he has not been seen since and the authorities now deny that he is being held. His family fears for his life.
AI notes a "persistent pattern of human rights violations" in southeastern Turkey, but says it has become difficult to obtain accurate information, since the Turkish authorities closed the branches of the Turkish Human Rights Association in Diyarbakir, Mardin and Urfa during 1997.
Turkey no "safe country" for refugees
AI stresses that Turkey is not a "safe third country" either and expresses concern about EU-governments considering negotiating readmission agreements with Turkey. Indeed, Iraqi and other refugees cannot expect effective protection in Turkey, since Ankara applies the 1951 Refugee Convention with a geographical restriction excluding refugees from non-European countries. Accordingly, numerous non-European refugees - some of them recognised by UNHCR - have been forcibly returned to their countries of origin.
At the same time, a blending of political factors, the lacking of economic means and of modern instruments of policing, as well as wide-spread corruption have, so far, prevented Turkey from effectively removing unwanted aliens from its territory. According to Turkish authorities, more than 18,000 persons were arrested during the first 9 months of 1997 for entering or leaving Turkey illegally. However, in practice, undocumented "illegal" aliens are mostly released shortly after their arrest. As a consequence, Turkey has become a major de facto country of asylum.
Forced migrants Turkey's new trump card in bargaining with the EU
In an attempt to demonstrate their willingness to cooperate with Western European countries in combatting "illegal" migration, Turkish authorities recently ordered a series of spectacular police raids, resulting in the arrest of hundreds of suspected illegal migrants. Around 300 persons were arrested in one operation in Istanbul's port zone in early January. One man died when he jumped from the third floor of a building in an escape attempt. In a similar raid in Edirne, at the Turkish-Greek border, 57 persons were arrested. Usually, the Turkish police avoid publicity. But this time, Turkish TV teams were invited to film the operations and pictures of the raids were widely distributed throughout Europe.
Turkey has expressed irritation over Italy's declared intention to offer political asylum to Turkish Kurds. A spokesman of the Turkish Foreign Ministry stressed that "if European countries grant asylum to those emigrating for economic reasons, they will encourage others to follow the same route". Ankara also regrets "the tolerance of certain EU- countries vis-à-vis PKK terrorists".
Obviously, the Turkish government is now using increased European concern about Kurdish migration as a trump card in seeking more understanding from the EU.
Evidence of involvement of Turkish authorities in trafficking
Recent Turkish action against illegal aliens should, however, be considered in the light of evidence suggesting involvement of Turkish government in what is now labelled "trafficking in forced migrants".
It is well known, that Iraqi Kurds often travel with Turkish passports, bought at a price of about US$200. Ömer Erzeren, the Turkey correspondent of the Swiss weekly, WochenZeitung, reports that during the last two years around 50,000 Iraqi Kurds are believed to have been granted Turkish visas at a price of US$600 each. In many cases, the money went directly to the KDP. Observers agree that nobody in Northern Iraq can obtain a Turkish visa without the approval of the two forces in control of the region - the Turkish army and Mahmoud Barzani's KDP, Turkey's main ally in its fight against the Turkish-Kurdish PKK guerilla.
Corruption is notorious among the Turkish police. As late as December, no lesser a person than the Deputy Chief of the Istanbul police resigned, following accusations that he had set free 20 arrested migrants from northern Iraq after they paid him a US$1,600 bribe each.
The role of the "Turkish Mafia"
Turkish authorities routinely blame the PKK for dealing with trafficking in drugs and migrants, but have hitherto failed to provide any evidence of this. On the other hand, it is widely agreed outside Turkey that the "Turkish Mafia" is strongly involved in the business of migrant trafficking in migrants business. It is, however, less well known that this Turkish Mafia is actually a "State Mafia", comprising in its ranks members of the fascist "Grey Wolves", leading right-wing politicians, and senior police and army officers. According to the Deputy Head of the Anti-Mafia Committee of the Italian parliament, the Turkish government cooperates with the Mafia and shields its drug trafficking activities. There is indeed evidence of such involvement:
XXad In September 1997, the Turkish police acting at the request of the Italian authorities, prevented a ship packed with boat-people from leaving the port of Istanbul. The owner of the ship is said to be Abdurrahmen Durmus, a retired Major of the Turkish army and member of the fascist MHP party. Durmus allegedly also owns the ship Asiye Asa that brought 250 Kurdish refugees to Italy in October 1997.
XXad On 4 November, just two days after the stranding of the Hüseyin Beirut, with 769 boat-people off the Italian coast, police in Calabria arrested four Turks and one Pakistani, suspected of involvement in the trafficking operation. The Turks all showed to be members of the Turkish Mafia.
XXad Commenting on the drowning of 289 boat-people on 25 November 1996, the Italian public prosecutor in charge of the investigation said: "They were literally dumped into the sea by the Turkish Mafia".
XXad Italian police claim that most of the 300 migrants traffickers in their register reside in Turkey.
Official report reveals cooperation between MIT and Mafia
The above should be considered in the context of recent revelations in Turkey, hinting at deep involvement of Turkish government officials in Mafia activities. The revelations were made in an official report, ordered by Turkey's acting Prime Minister Yilmaz. The report is based on an investigation, led by a special public prosecutor, Kutlu Savas. For the first time, the report explicitly addresses the links between extreme-right parties and organisations, senior Turkish government and army officials, the Turkish secret service, MIT, and the Mafia. The report claims Mafia members who were officially being searched for serious crimes, both by Turkish police and Interpol, were actually recruited by the police and the MIT for "special tasks", and protected from prosecution in turn. Among other things, the MIT dispatched at least 15 members of extreme-right Mafia gangs to foreign countries with the task of carrying out "dirty jobs" for the government. Thus, according to the report, notorious Mafia members participated in MIT-sponsored death squads, murdering Kurdish businessmen and other suspected supporters of Kurdish autonomy at home and abroad. Others were instrumental in organising a failed coup attempt against President Alijew of Azerbaijan.
The report notes that the Mafia gangs in question pursued their regular criminal activities after fulfilling their "special tasks" and wonders where the US$45 million, missing from a secret fund of the Prime Minister's Office, may have gone...
The report claims many of the Mafia gangs formed after 1993, during the government of Ms Tansu Ciller, and were often made up of police and gendarmerie officers, "PKK-defectors" (i.e. persons detained by the Turkish authorities on suspicion of PKK membership and set free in return for their "cooperation"), and members of Kurdish clans, loyal to the government. Many of the latter are also part of the government-sponsored "village-protectors", a militia force armed and well payed by the government, to fight against the PKK guerilla.
The report says even special units of the Gendarmerie were fighting for their share in the lucrative heroin business.
Following the publication of the report on 14 January, Prime Minister Yilmaz announced a number of measures officially intended at fighting against Mafia crime. They include a "massive reduction" of the "village-protectors" forces, special courts for trials of known gang leaders, and a new body for the coordination of the country's various civil and military intelligence services, whose rivalry is notorious. However, Prime Minister Yilmaz appears to be keen to put all the blame on Ms Ciller and her party, while at the same time protecting parties participating in his government and the army. Thus, commenting on the report, Mr Yilmaz stressed that "the army has nothing to do with the problem", although the activities addressed in the report are concentrated in southeastern Turkey, a region entirely controlled by the army.
Considering the situation described above, the new efforts made by EU Justice and Home Affairs Ministers to fight against trafficking in migrants and other forms of organised crime by seeking closer police cooperation with Turkey are even more remarkable.
Sources: 'Boat-People aus Kurdistan', publ. by the Office of Ulla Jelpke MP PDS group, German Bundestag, January 1998; Amnesty International, International Secretariat, news release 17.01.98; Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 15.1.98, 24/25.1.98; Der Standard, 8.1.98; WochenZeitung, No.3, 15.1.98; Migration News Sheet, No. 178/98-01; statistical figures provided by Judith Kumin, UNHCR - Statistical Unit, Geneva; our sources.