Euskal Herria Journal

Ankara, Wednesday, July 22, 1998:

"Anyone thought we would not dare to close Egin?"

Spain and Turkey have a number of things in common. They both hold a horrific human rights record. Torture, disappearance, extrajudicial killings, and imprisonment for political believes. They also oppose dialogue to solve the conflicts they have with nations within their states.

Spain and Turkey also are good partners. Spain approved arm sales to Turkey totalling 45,164 million pesetas for the year 1996-97. And there are rumors that the government of Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar is currently negotiating a sale of military equipment to Turkey for 300,000 millions.

This week Jose Maria Aznar visited Turkey to sign a "Plan of Action'' with Turkish President Suleyman Demirel to increase their countries' political, business and cultural relations.

During his stay in Ankara, Aznar urged the European Union not to regard Turkey as different from other European countries trying to join the bloc.

Turkey has often come under fire from the European Union over its human rights record, one of the main reasons for its exclusion from a list of potential new members of the bloc last December.

Turkey responded by refusing to discuss human rights and Cyprus with the European Union.

"I do not believe different conditions should be applied to Turkey as a candidate for membership," Spain's Prime Minister Aznar told a news conference after talks with Turkish Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz.

But the neo-Francoist Prime Minister is right. Why double standards? Why should the European Union act so pretentious with Turkey when it keeps silence in light of Spain's human rights record in the Basque Country. Or when it seems willing to allow someone accused of masterminding a dirty war against Basque activists lead the European Council?

Last December, less than two weeks before Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz's visit to the U.S., the Turkish government reluctantly made moves toward freeing the country's most prominent prisoner, Leyla Zana. But Zana, a member of Parliament in 1994 when she was convicted of supporting "Kurdish terrorism" and sentenced to a 15-year jail term, said she will not accept a pardon.

Zana is widely known in Europe as a symbol of Kurdish nationalists who are working for an independent state. But the Turkish government says that Zana's political party, which is now banned, is a front for "terrorist groups."

Turkey's Foreign Minister Ismail Cem last December said that critics of Turkey were using a double standard in criticizing human rights policies in his country.

"Spain just sentenced 26 politicians for their links to ETA. Does this mean that Spain will now be thrown out of the European Union?," Cem said.

Indeed one of the greatest attacks to freedom of expression is happening in Europe now. Spain has jailed the entire leadership of a Basque political party for distributing for public debate a peace proposal for a democratic solution of the conflict with Spain. It has, for the first time since the death of General Franco in 1975, banned a Basque newspaper, a radio station; jailed its entire administrative staff of a publishing company, the director and the deputy director of a newspaper. It has denied a license to the only Basque radio station in a Basque province, an action that forced the radio to close. And the government is threatening to jail the entire Basque opposition. And all this is happening in the European community!

But apart from a couple of hesitant voices, no one in the European community is standing up and demanding to know what the Spanish goverment is doing, what this attack on the press and on freedom of expression means. What will come of all this?

If anyone doubted Spain's latest actions against the Basque dissidence were not politically motivated, Aznar himself made it clear during his memorable trip to Turkey this week. When asked by journalists about the closure of Egin, he responded with a question: "Anyone thought we would not dare to close Egin?" Ankara, Wednesday, July 22, 1998.

THE BASQUE CONGRESS FOR PEACE (CPEH) is a grassroots network working to change French and Spanish policy in the Basque Country and raise public awareness in support of self-determination. We organize events, lobby governments, and supply speakers and materials. Join us.

Basque Congress for Peace, POB 20252 Dag Hammarskjold PC, New York, NY 10017, cpeh@aol.com

To help people learn about the Basque Country (Euskal Herria in Basque) and what they can do to support human rights and self-determination, the Basque Congress for Peace publishes the Euskal Herria Journal (EHJ) in the Internet.

EHJ has documented information with bibliographies, about the culture, history and politics of the Basque Country. It also has a news section updated weekly, articles, video and audio archives.

EUSKAL HERRIA JOURNAL
http://osis.ucsd.edu/~ehj (updated site)
http://www.contrast.org/mirrors/index.ehj/