The Turkish election will take place November 3. Experts say the vote will be close and the composition of the new government could become the subject of intense negotiations.
Turkey's new government will face a wide array of challenges, including maintaining the country's economic recovery, tension between secular and religious domestic political forces and the prospect of a US attack against neighboring Iraq.
A Human Rights Watch (HRW) report, published October 30 to coincide with the election campaign, attempts to stir public debate on one issue that has received scant attention in Turkey: the return of hundreds of thousands of Kurds who were forced to flee their homes in the southeast part of the country during the 15-year insurgency conducted by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The PKK declared a unilateral end to its guerrilla campaign in 1999.
The 78-page report titled "Displaced and Disregarded" says that as many as 1.5 million Kurds fled their homes during the course of the guerrilla struggle. Many the of the internally displaced persons (IDPs) now live in often overcrowded and difficult circumstances in big cities in western Turkey, or in towns in southeastern Turkey. Most IDPs, the report says, want to return to their original places of residence.
Since 1999, Turkish officials have not formulated a substantive program to foster IDP return. "This human rights problem directly affects more people in Turkey than any other single human rights issue," said Jonathan Sugden, HRW's Turkey specialist.
Sugden said international agencies with both funding and experience in resettling IDPs, including the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), could help Turkey address the problem. "But the international community is unlikely to lend resources and expertise to the effort until the government produces a transparent plan that effectively protects and meets the needs of the displaced," Sugden said.
An EU summit planned for December 12 in Copenhagen may consider setting a date for the start of accession negotiations with Turkey. The prospect of EU membership has already spurred Ankara to approve rights-related reforms needed to bring Turkish practices into line with Western European standards, including a measure to legalize the use of Kurdish in broadcasting and schools.
But the HRW report suggests that Ankara may enhance its case for EU membership if it starts encouraging IDP return. The government, according to the rights group, has never acknowledged the rights violations inflicted by government or government-backed security forces on hundreds of thousands of citizens who were forced from their homes.
HRW estimates that no more than 10 percent of IDPs have returned home. Many villagers told HRW that the authorities would give them permission to return only if they signed statements absolving the government of all criminal and civil responsibility for their original displacement. At the same time, permission was rarely given in writing, creating a permanent state of insecurity for those who decided to return.
Local officials in some cases have forbidden the return of the displaced on the grounds that their villages remain within restricted military zones. In other cases, some Kurds who have returned to determine whether it was safe found that local security officials had taken over their lands, and sometimes their houses, too. In still other cases, local security forces or the army threatened returnees.
"If the villagers go back now, what is the guarantee that they won't get turned out again in a year's time and perhaps with violence?" one of the interviewees told HRW. "More than help in returning or permission to return, our villagers are looking for guarantees of safety."
Jim Lobe is a freelance reporter specializing in financial affairs. He is based in Washington.
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