Our Freedom Movement will issue a declaration next week in order to respond to the policies of the AKP government and its attitudes as shown by the package declared. But as far as the package is concerned, we have issued this statement to show our attitude towards it.
Once again the AKP government has shown that it has not understood the Kurdish question and has not adopted a serious approach towards resolving the question. The package shows that the AKP, instead of settlement, has chosen a policy of non-settlement. It is quite well understood it does not think of anything other than buying time and wining another election. Approaching Turkey’s most fundamental question on the basis of elections plans and trying to satisfy the society by some crumbs shows that this government does not possess the necessary mentality and capacity to settle the question. As a matter of fact, it is unrealistic to anticipate the solution of democratization issues from a package which itself has not been prepared through democratic methods. Those who are not democrats cannot take steps towards democratization.
By this attitude the AKP government has shown that it has not taken seriously the will, self-sacrifice and attempts the Kurdish People’s Leader and the Kurdish Freedom Movement have shown in order to solve the question. At a time when the Kurdish People’s Leader is taking important steps in order to settle the question and lead Turkey to a lasting peace, the AKP government is victimizing those steps for election plans and years-long diversionary policies. Everybody should know the fact that the steps taken by Kurdish People’s Leader and the Kurdish Freedom Movement were not aiming at giving another diversionary opportunity and ensuring another election victory for the AKP government. It is quite clear that the AKP government has not handled the steps taken by Kurdish People’s Leader and the Kurdish Freedom Movement as measures to settle the Kurdish question and ensure lasting peace. AKP is trying to use the non-conflict situation and the present settlement background to buy time and strengthen its position with the aim of exploiting the Kurdish People’s Leader as a tool and eradicating the Kurdish Freedom Movement. This approach, on its own, means that it is sabotaging the process initiated by Kurdish People’s Leader. At the present stage, the AKP has taken the process to a halt, and is continuing its insistence on diversionary and arbitrary policies.
The Kurdish question is the result of the denial of the national entity and identity of the Kurds and rejecting its political will. The solution to the question can only be brought about when the Kurds are recognized as a national community, their political will is being addressed and they are acknowledged the right of self-rule. Any approach and policy which does not recognize the Kurds as a community, rejects their communal rights and does not address their political will cannot solve the Kurdish question.
There can be no settlement to the question if those creating the question claim “I will give you this, or will not give you this”. The AKP government cannot determine the extent of the rights of the Kurds. These can only be decided through discussions and negotiations among the institutions and Leaders representing the Kurds’ will. Steps to ensure settlement can be taken this way. Any approach other than this is the same as the continuation of mind-set leading to the Kurdish question; that is, continuing the political hegemony over the Kurds and insistence on subjecting them to cultural genocide policies. The matters included in the package are a sign of the fact that political hegemony and cultural genocide will continue.
As a result of the negotiations starting last year, the Kurdish People’s Leader aimed at settling the Kurdish question on the basis of a democratic mind-set and democratic politics. The AKP government has neither taken steps to ensure the backgrounds for democratic politics nor has implemented the ways and methods of democratic politics to settle the question. It has insisted on the ways and methods of those who possess hegemonic mind-sets, dictators and arbitrary rulers. The Turkish Prime Minister is setting policies for Turkey’s most basic problems only by conferring them with 5-10 persons around him. That does not have any difference with years-long shadow government approaches. As a matter of fact, AKP is now working with the shadow government it has built. The party organization and the parliament are only a cover for those policies.
The AKP is regarding democratic mentality and democratic politics as threats which can bring an end to its hegemonic mind-set and establishment. That is why it is evading taking steps which can ensure the application of democratic politics and the solution of the problems through democratic ways and methods. Negotiating the problems with the interlocutors related to those problems is a necessity of democratic politics. While impositions and arbitrary approaches are a sign of authoritarian mind-set, negotiation is a necessity of democratic mentality and democratic politics. Negotiation and reconciliation are the basic tenets of democracies. How can democracy and democratic politics work if there is no reference to negotiation and reconciliation in settling Turkey’s most basic question?
A packaged which has not been democratically negotiated is far from including steps which can bring about democratization. Actually, it is not possible. By adopting this approach the AKP is putting into practice the rhetoric of anti-democratic circles which claim: “ let’s not address anybody, let us do everything on our own”. Addressing the Kurds means accepting them as a community. And this leads to change in mentality and the implementation of the right approaches and methods on the basis of democratic politics. This is exactly what the AKP government ignores and evades implementing it.
By declaring the package, AKP has put an end to those practices and rules which had already lost their legitimacies values in the public opinion, especially among the Kurds. It has tried to delude the public opinion by claiming that they will take some steps, in an attempt to continue and devise a cover for the political colonialism and cultural genocide. Undoubtedly, they were forced to resort to these measures because of the effects of the struggle of the Kurdish Freedom Movement and other democratic circles. Resorting to those measures are not a sign of settlement; quite the contrary, they were put on the agenda only to free the AKP from of those hunchbacks with no legitimacy in the society and continue the non-settlement policies, that is, political hegemony and cultural genocide under new circumstances.
The approach to free themselves of those rules and practices that not serving their political colonialism and cultural genocide, is an approach against the spirit of the process the Kurdish People’s Leader initiated to reach a basic and lasting peace. Instead of adopting approaches and attitudes according to the necessities of the peace process and taking practical steps, insisting on their own ways and taking nonfunctional steps, while ignoring the Kurd’s political will as interlocutors, will result in ending the process and is a sign of an irresponsible approach towards the peoples of Turkey.
Giving promises regarding the Alevi’s rights in the package at the first stages of preparing the package and then desisting from including those promises, in contemplation of the reactions and objections it will draw, is a sign of the trivial and cursory approaches of the AKP government.
The Kurds and Peoples of Turkey gave their support to the new process initiated by Kurdish People’s Leader because they wanted a settlement to the Kurdish question. They don’t want the AKP to misuse their support of the process in order to buy more time to win the elections and adopt diversionary approaches. Therefore the Kurdish People and democratic force should hold AKP accountable for the its diversionary and time-buying thus anti-settlement approaches, as they enhance their struggle for democratization and the settlement of the Kurdish question.
THE CO-PRESIDENCY OF KCK EXECUTIVE COUNCIL
1 October 2013
Contact: [email protected]
