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November
21, 2001
The Honorable
George W. Bush
President
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20500
Re: Turkey's
misleading Members of Congress; Turkey's ethnic cleansing, crimes against
humanity and genocide against its 20 percent Kurdish minority; and Turkey's
"international terrorism" against Cyprus.
Dear Mr.
President:
On November
9, 2001, 36 Representatives sent to you a letter (copy enclosed) regarding
Turkey that contained false and misleading statements given to those
Representatives by Turkey's military and political officials and Turkey's
U.S. foreign agents, three former congressmen who receive $1.8 million
a year. The letter closed with a request for economic aid to Turkey.
The
letter erroneously states:
"Turkey's
critically important geographical location and her unconditional readiness
to assume geostrategic responsibilities on behalf of the United States
and the North Atlantic Alliance have made Turkey an indispensable
ally throughout the Cold War, the Persian Gulf War, and the volatile
years since then."
Comment:
False.
This statement is highly inaccurate. The facts are otherwise, which
Turkey's military and political leaders go to great lengths to cover-up.
The facts are that during the Cold War, Turkey actively aided the
Soviet military. As long ago as 1974, strategic analyst Edward
Luttwak wrote:
"No
longer presenting a direct threat to the integrity of Turkish national
territory, and no longer demanding formal revision of the Straits
navigation regime, the Soviet Union has nevertheless successfully
exercised armed suasion over Turkey, even while maintaining a fairly
benevolent stance, which includes significant aid flows. Faced with
a sharp relative increase in Russian strategic and naval power,
and eager to normalize relations with their formidable neighbor,
the Turks have chosen to conciliate the Russians, and have been
able to do so at little or no direct cost to themselves. It is only
in respect to strategic transit that Turkey is of primary importance
to the Soviet Union, and this is the area where the concessions
have been made. Examples of such deflection, where the Russians
are conciliated at the expense of western rather than specifically
Turkish interests, include the overland traffic agreement (unimpeded
Russian transit to Iraq and Syria by road), the generous Turkish
interpretation of the Montreux Convention, which regulates ship
movements in the Straits, and above all, the overflight permissions
accorded to Russian civilian and military aircraft across Turkish
air space. The alliance relationship in NATO and with the United
States no doubt retains a measure of validity in Turkish eyes, but
it is apparent that its supportive effect is not enough to counteract
Russian suasion, especially since the coercion is latent and packaged
in a benevolent, diplomatic stance." (E. Luttwak, The Political
Uses of Sea Power 60-61, 1974)
The following
are several factual examples of Turkey's disloyalty to the U.S. and
unreliability as an ally:
(1)
During the 1973 Mid-East War, predating the Turkish invasion of Cyprus
by one year, Turkey refused the United States military overflight
rights to resupply Israel and granted the USSR overland military convoy
rights to resupply Syria and Iraq, and military overflight permission
to resupply Egypt. See E. Luttwak, The Politics of Sea Power,
60-61, (1974). A member of the Turkish Foreign Policy Institute in
Ankara wrote:
"During
the Arab-Israeli War of 1973, Moscow's overflights of Turkish airspace
were tolerated. On the other hand, during the same Middle East conflict,
Turkey refused to allow the United States refueling and reconnaissance
facilities during the American airlift to Israel." Karaosmanoglu,
"Turkey's Security and the Middle East," 52 Foreign
Affairs, 157, 163 (Fall 1983).
(2)
In the 1977-1978 conflict in Ethiopia, Turkey granted the Soviets
military overflight rights to supply the pro-Soviet Ethiopian communists
under Col. Mengistu, who eventually prevailed. C. Meyer, Facing
Reality -- From World Federalism to the CIA, 276-80 (1980).
(3)
Over NATO objections, Turkey allowed three Soviet aircraft carriers,
the Kiev on July 18, 1976, the Minsk on February 25, 1979, and the
Novorosiisk on May 16, 1976, passage rights through the Bosphorus
and Dardanelles Straits into the Mediterranean in violation of the
Montreaux Convention of 1936. See generally Washington Post,
July 19, 1976, at A26, col. 1; New York Times, February 26,
1979, at A13, col. 1. The Soviet ships posed a formidable threat to
the United States Sixth Fleet.
(4)
In 1979 Turkey refused to allow the United States to send 69 marines
and six helicopters to American military facilities at Incirlik in
Turkey for possible use in evacuating Americans from Iran. New
York Times, February 13, 1979, at A8, col. 3.
(5)
Again, in 1979 Turkey refused the United States request to allow U-2
intelligence flights (for Salt II verification) over Turkish airspace
"unless Moscow agreed." New York Times, May 15, 1979,
at A1, col. 3. This position was voiced over a period of months by
Turkish officials, the opposition party and the military Chief of
Staff, Gen. Kenan Evren.
(6)
In May 1989, Turkey rejected an American request to inspect an advanced
MIG-29 Soviet fighter plane, flown by a Soviet defector to Turkey.
New York Times, May 28, 1989, at A12, col. 1.
(7)
The Turkish government refused repeated American requests for the
installation of antennas in Turkey concerning 11 transmitters whose
broadcasts would have been directed primarily to the Soviet Union
and its Eastern European satellites. The initiative by the United
States Department of State sought to improve reception of programs
broadcast by Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty and the Voice of America.
(8)
Turkey further damaged NATO by vetoing NATO's effort to put military
bases on various Greek islands for defensive purposes against the
Soviet navy.
(9)
During the Persian Gulf War, Turkey sat on the sidelines throughout
Desert Shield, refusing to send any forces to the U.S.-led Coalition,
refusing to authorize a second land front from Turkey (see Washington
Post, January 16, 1991, at A6, col.5), and refusing to allow the
use of the NATO air base at Incirlik, Turkey. Throughout Desert Shield
there was large-scale, openly organized smuggling along the Turkey-Iraq
border. (See Wall Street Journal, October 30, 1990, at 1, col.
1; Turkish newspapers Sabah, September 3, 1990, and Cumhuriyet,
September 22, 1990, and the weekly magazine Yuzil, September
9, 1990.) That smuggling, including smuggling of oil from Iraq, has
been going on ever since Desert Storm.
Desert
Storm began on January 16, 1991. It was not until over 48 hours after
the air war had begun on January 16, 1991, and only after the Iraqi
air force and air defenses had been neutralized and the U.S. had achieved
air superiority, that Turkey allowed a limited number of sorties out
of the Incirlik NATO air base. Only one out of twenty coalition sorties
originated in Turkey, and these were clearly unnecessary. The Turkish
military and Turkish public opinion opposed the use of Incirlik NATO
air base.
Turkey's
unreliability as an ally, as evidenced by the above examples, should
come as no surprise to those familiar with Turkey's history in the twentieth
century. Turkey fought against the Allies in World War I. In World War
II Turkey violated a treaty with France and Britain to enter the war
on the side of the Allies. Instead, Turkey declared neutrality and openly
aided Hitler by supplying Nazi Germany with vital chromium ore and as
a transit country for other war materiel which prolonged World War II
by seven months. See Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich (1970).
The
letter also erroneously states:
"From
1984 to 1999, Turkey bore the brunt of a vicious terrorist campaign
in which over 30,000 Turkish citizens were killed and thousands more
injured."
Comment:
False.
The facts are otherwise. It is the Turkish military and its full-scale
military operations since 1984 with more than 250,000 troops used
in a "war of terror" against its 20 percent Kurdish minority
utilizing U.S. and German supplied arms that killed 35,000 innocent
Kurds, destroyed more than 2,500 Kurdish villages and created 3 million
Kurdish refugees. These are undeniable facts, yet the Turkish military
and political leaders have deliberately misled Members of Congress
by asserting that the PKK (Kurdish rebel organization) did it. It
is a lie of Orwellian proportions.
In an
exceptional article in Foreign Affairs (November/December 2000)
entitled "Turkey's Dream of Democracy," Eric Rouleau, former
Ambassador of France to Turkey, details Turkey's crimes against its
Kurdish minority. Ambassador Rouleau writes the following:
“Over
the years, individuals who advocate conciliation, including parliamentarians
of Kurdish origin, have been imprisoned by the hundreds. Parties formed
by moderate Kurds have been outlawed one after another. Torture has
become widespread, and disappearances and assassinations of lawyers,
journalists, politicians, and business executives suspected of sympathizing
with the rebels have multiplied. According to the Turkish Ministry
of Justice, in addition to the 35,000 people killed in military campaigns,
17,500 were assassinated between 1984, when the conflict began, and
1998. An additional 1,000 people were reportedly assassinated in the
first nine months of 1999. According to the Turkish press, the authors
of these crimes, none of whom have been arrested, belong to groups
of mercenaries working either directly or indirectly for the security
agencies” (pp. 111-112).
In other
words, the Turkish government is putting the blame on the Kurds for
these 35,000 deaths, when in reality the orders originated from nowhere
else but the Turkish military-controlled government itself. The killings
have been under the direct orders of the Turkish military.
Ambassador
Rouleau's article should be required reading for anyone dealing with
Turkey.
The letter
also requests the United States to give economic aid to Turkey "either
through debt forgiveness, trade concessions, multilateral aid, or any
other such means."
Comment:
Economic
aid to Turkey from the American taxpayer is not warranted, particularly
at this time of U.S. economic slowdown. The Administration has turned
down Turkey's request for $5 billion Foreign Military Sales (FMS)
debt forgiveness and should continue to do so. The Congress halted
grant military aid to Turkey several years ago. Congress should not
allow this back-door attempt to give grant military aid to Turkey.
No
benefits should be extended to Turkey at the expense of U.S. values
and foreign policy objectives. The U.S. must not relinquish long-held
positions on human rights based on strong moral roots for the sake
of short-term cooperation. This is doubly so since Turkey is not a
front-line country, is far from Afghanistan (over a thousand miles
away) and, as events have demonstrated, of little value to U.S. and
British military actions there.
The Turkish
military owns vast private sector businesses and has tens of billions
of dollars in reserves, which should be used to pay the U.S. the $5
billion in military sales debt and for use in Turkey's current financial
crisis. Did the Turkish military inform Members of Congress of these
facts?
It is
important to remember Turkey’s long record of failed economic bailouts,
and that debt forgiveness in and of itself does not lead to full democracy
and protection of human rights under the law.
The IMF
has bailed Turkey out of 17 financial crises over the past decades,
yet these rescue efforts have not stabilized the Turkish economy because
of the failure to identify and address the key factor in Turkey's financial
crises: the Turkish military. The Turkish military controls foreign
and domestic policy under the Turkish constitution. Its political control
is augmented and supported by (1) its ownership of substantial financial
assets, and (2) its control of its own budget -- amounting to one-third
of state revenues. Several key policy analysts have indicated the same
in recent statements:
- In
a perceptive article in the January 2001 issue of "Defense &
Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy," editor Gregory R. Copley cites
the Turkish General Staff as the main obstacle to governmental reforms
needed for accession to the EU and states that "it is time for
Washington to support the real advocates of change in Turkey."
(p.9)
- Mr.
Brett D. Schaefer, fellow at the Heritage Foundation, states in a
February 28, 2001 article on the Turkish economic crisis that: "The
Administration must not…perpetuate the Clinton Administration's
disastrous policy of insuring developing countries and international
investors against their own imprudent actions."
- In
his article in Foreign Affairs former Ambassador Rouleau details
the Turkish military's vast economic holdings.
Shoring
up the Turkish economy without reforming the military's hold on the
modern Turkish state is self-defeating and only ensures that American
interests will not be served. The IMF, U.S. and other outside assistance
to Turkey must be conditioned upon meaningful economic and political
reforms. Such reforms, not additional "free handouts," are
needed in Turkey if she is to play an effective role in facilitating
U.S. interests in the region -- short term and long term.
The recent
reform package passed by the Turkish parliament does not go far enough
to correct Turkey’s abhorrent human rights record. According to
a comprehensive report titled Turkey: Human Rights and the European
Union Accession Partnership issued on September 6, 2000, Human Rights
Watch states: "Turkey's history of gross and widespread human rights
violations has been thoroughly documented by non-governmental organizations,
including Human Rights Watch, and by international governmental organizations
including the United Nations (UN) and the Council of Europe."
Furthermore,
the U.S. State Department's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices
for 2000 devotes 52 pages to Turkey's human rights abuses. According
to the report, "Torture, beatings, and other abuses by security
forces remained widespread…. Female detainees often face sexual
humiliation and, less frequently, more severe forms of sexual torture.
After being forced to strip in front of male security officers, female
detainees often are touched, insulted, and threatened with rape"
(Section 1c.) Regardless of the myriad protests voiced by these organizations,
Turkey's violations continue today.
A recent
public opinion poll in Turkey illustrates how closely public support
and sentiment for the U.S.'s anti-terrorist efforts is contingent on
additional economic aid to Turkey. According to the striking results
of this poll, "88 percent of Turks are against the country's involvement
in any anti-terrorist military venture -- but 86 percent approve 'if
Turkey is given funds for its economy'" (Washington Times;
October 5, 2001; p. A15).
Official
corruption in Turkey is endemic, including the smuggling of oil from
Iraq with substantial revenue for military commanders, and complicity
in drug trafficking.
Turkey's
"international terrorism" against Cyprus
Mr. President,
it is also important to bring to your attention the violations of law
and human rights perpetrated by Turkey against Cyprus, which the Representatives'
letter conveniently omits to mention.
For 27
years, Turkey has violated the will of the U.S., the UN and the EU by
refusing to end its illegal occupation of 37.3 percent of Cyprus. On
the contrary, Turkey has reinforced its military presence in Cyprus
and has sent over 80,000 illegal Turkish colonists to settle in the
occupied areas of Cyprus, in violation of the Geneva Convention of 1949.
Turkey’s occupation costs the Turkish government an estimated $1
billion dollars annually. We can no longer encourage this situation
by acting as both a political and economic crutch to Turkey when her
alternative is to undertake more exacting and meaningful governmental
reform.
Turkey’s
involvement in Cyprus has violated every sense of the rule of law. Turkey’s
illegal invasion of Cyprus on July 20, 1974, with the illegal use of
American supplied arms, in which it seized about four percent of Cyprus’
territory, and its renewed aggression on August 14-16, 1974, in which
it occupied an additional 33 percent of Cyprus, violated U.S. laws,
the UN Charter, and the NATO Treaty. It should be noted that the renewed
aggression on August 14-16, 1974 occurred after the legitimate government
of Cyprus had been restored on July 23, 1974. Turkey's actions are war
crimes.
Prior
to the horrific acts of September 11, aggression by nation states had
been the main form of international terrorism -- Iraq's aggression against
Kuwait, Turkey's aggression against Cyprus in 1974, and in World War
II, Nazi Germany's aggression against several countries and Japan against
China and the U.S. in which innocent civilians were killed and brutalized.
Turkey's aggression against Cyprus in 1974 with the illegal use of
U.S. arms including airplanes, bombs and tanks was international terrorism.
Turkish pilots flying American planes dropped American made bombs including
napalm bombs which terrorized and killed innocent Greek Cypriot civilians
in Nicosia, Kyrenia and elsewhere. There is no legal distinction
between Iraq's aggression against Kuwait and Turkey's aggression against
Cyprus.
The regional
European Convention For The Protection Of Human Rights And Fundamental
Freedoms (European Convention on Human Rights) is, by the terms of its
preamble, an extension of the United Nations Universal Declaration of
Human Rights of 1948. The government of Cyprus filed three applications
to the European Commission on Human Rights. The Commission issued its
report on the charges made in the first two applications on July 10,
1976. In it, the Commission found Turkey guilty of violating the following
articles of the European Convention on Human Rights:
(1)
Article 2 -- by the killing of innocent civilians committed on a substantial
scale;
(2) Article 3 -- by the rape of women of all ages from 12 to 71;
(3) Article 3 -- by inhuman treatment of prisoners and persons detained;
(4) Article 5 -- by deprivation of liberty with regard to detainees
and missing persons -- a continuing violation;
(5) Article 8 -- by displacement of persons creating more than 170,000
Greek Cypriot refugees, and by refusing to allow the refugees to return
to their homes -- a continuing violation;
(6) Article 1 of the First Protocol to the Convention -- by deprivation
of possessions, looting and robbery on an extensive scale.
On January
23, 1977, the London Sunday Times published excerpts of the report
and stated: "It amounts to a massive indictment of the Ankara
government for the murder, rape and looting by its army in Cyprus during
and after the Turkish invasion of summer 1974."
In addition,
on May 10, 2001, the European Court of Human Rights found Turkey guilty
of 14 violations under the European Convention of Human Rights stemming
from Turkey’s invasion of Cyprus in 1974.
Enclosed
are copies of our letters of March 12, 2001 and May 9, 2001 to you on
Turkey's financial crisis which includes a copy of Ambassador Rouleau's
exceptional article in Foreign Affairs. I have also included
a copy of testimony submitted on June 29, 2001 by the American Hellenic
Institute to the House International Relations Subcommittee on Europe.
These
documents further delineate the pitfalls behind additional economic
support without preconditions for meaningful economic and political
reforms in Turkey, including the disgorging of the tens of billions
of dollars in the military reserve fund, and the need for a just settlement
of the Cyprus problem in accordance with UN resolutions.
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMRespectfully,
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMEugene
T. Rossides
Enclosures
March
12, 2001 AHI letter to President Bush with "Turkey's Dream of Democracy,"
by Eric Rouleau (Foreign Affairs, November/December 2000)
May 9, 2001 AHI letter to President Bush.
AHI June 29, 2001 testimony
November 9, 2001 letter to President Bush from 36 Representatives
cc: Vice
President Richard Cheney
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell
Secretary of Treasury Paul O'Neill
Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld
National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice
36 congressional signatories to November 9, 2001 letter
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