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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.politics
Date:         Wed, 11 Nov 1992 15:19:46 EST
From:         "(Thomas Varouhakis)" <varouhak@ICARUS.MONTCLAIR.EDU>
Subject:      Turkey *Human Rights* Amnesty International
Comments: To: politics@ucf1vm.cc.ucf.edu

Subject: Turkish government not keeping human rights promises, Amnesty says
Keywords: international, non-usa government, government, civil rights,
	social issues
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 92 17:08:04 PST
Location: turkey
ACategory: international
Slugword: turkey-amnesty
Priority: daily
Format: daily
ANPA: Wc: 539; Id: z4259; Sel: tuigf; Adate: 11-10-150pes
Codes: yigfdtu., yixhdxx., tncn....
Note: (editors: embargoed by source until 8:01 p.m. est)

	LONDON (UPI) -- Despite election pledges to take action against human
rights violations, Turkey's new government has failed to prevent
widespread torture and killings, often by security forces, Amnesty
International said Wednesday.
	``There has been too much talk and too little action on the part of
the Turkish authorities,'' the London-based international human rights
group said.
	``The new government made serious promises on the issue of human
rights, and in particular torture, but like previous governments, it has
done nothing to stop the practice.''
	Turkish Prime Minister Suleyman Demirel spoke out against abuses of
official power in an October 1991 election pledge, and said in his
administration ``the walls of all police stations will be made of glass.
''
	But in the nine months between the formation of the new government
and the writing of the report, there were at least eight deaths in
custody believed to have been a result of torture, Amnesty said.
	Successive governments have sought to deflect international criticism
of Turkey by speaking out against human rights abuses, but they have
done nothing to stop the abuses, the group said in a report released
Wednesday, ``Turkey: Walls of Glass.''
	``There has been no discernable decline in the stream of allegations
of torture reaching Amnesty International since the formation of the new
government,'' the group said.
	The independent Turkish Human Rights Foundation received 179 reports
of torture of men, women and children in the first six months of 1992
alone.
	Few of the victims who tried to press charges against their torturers
succeeded, as many of the torture techniques left few visible injuries,
or left injuries that disappeared during a long period of police
custody.
	Many torture victims or their relatives who attempted to take legal
action were subjected to threats from officials, the group said.
	Political killings, many involving security forces, were common.
	``In southeast Turkey there were, during the summer and autumn of
1991, more than 50 alleged extrajudicial executions,'' Amnesty said.
Many victims were singled out because they were believed to be in
contact with the opposition Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), or involved in
legal political opposition to the government.
	``In these killings, the victims, mostly villagers, were taken from
their homes, often in rural areas and shot by groups of armed men, or
possibly the same group, acting as a death squad,'' Amnesty said.
	In some cases, security forces randomly fired on residential areas as
``retaliation'' for attacks by the PKK, the group said.
	Amnesty condemned the killings and sharply criticized the Turkish
government for its apparent indifference to human rights abuses, and
called on government and opposition groups to abide by international
humanitarian standards.
	``It is time for the Turkish government to face up to its
responsibilities under international law and bring perpetrators of human
rights violations to justice,'' Amnesty said. ``Too many people have
suffered already.''
------------------------

Well, there seems to be a lot of sensistivity to the plague of the
Sarajevo people in the Yugoslavia "civil war" in the American media
lately, and it went as far as been one of the lonely foreign affairs
issues the presidential candidates scatterly reffered to in their
recent bid for the White House. A part from some effort from
McNeil/Lehrer the analysis of the situation has been shallow and
superficial: non-historical perspective to the situation whatsoever.

It seems to me that when an easily identifiable and HARMLESS to the US
"National Security" interests "enemy" (see: Serbs) can be found the
whole world focuses on. On the other hand absolutely nobody pays any
attention - not even some lip service - when allies (see Turkey)
wchich has been documented to systematically abuse and kill its own
citizens for political reasons, invades Northern Iraq for some "ETHNIC
CLEANSING" of its own, silence... nobody speaks a word! No to upset
the Turkey government when the presence of US bases on Turkey soil to
watch/provide "Safe Heavens" (!!!) (really from whom?) is under
re-consideration. Of course who cares about the Kurds and their
plague... Every artificially created village in Yugoslavia is entitled
to become a country now, but the Kurds (20 million+ - if I'm not
mistaken) to wchich the world promised a country as early as after
WWI, nothing: not to upset Iran, Iraq (who cares), TURKEY, and a very
small part of Russia.

Of course everybody now is schocked, about atrocities, that might have
been commited in Bosnia, when we all know how civilized all other wars
are (and have been), -not to mention our own streets-...

And this is just the beginning of the post Cold-War era...

What a pity.

Thomas-