Recently home to an extensive crisis of internal displacement, the towns of southeastern Turkey are full of Kurdish families stuck in limbo. With the uncertainty of war at their doorstep, people are poised for another blow, writes Nyier Abdou in Diyarbakir The local bus is dropping off school children at the former refugee camp known as "500 Evler", named after the number of houses constructed here by the European Union in 1995. Boys tumble over one another as they hit the pavement, school bags slipping to their wrists, hair askew, wrestling and bumping their way down the road. Their shouts are muffled by the quiet that pervades the town. Populated by internally displaced villagers, 500 Evler lies in a valley some 10 kilometres outside the regional centre city of Diyarbakir. It only takes 20 minutes to reach here from the heart of the city, but the modern shopping malls and low income high rises on the outside of town quickly give way to a sparse road and dry lands, where the snow- capped Karacadag mountains lying in the distance stand watch. There are no fast food restaurants or busy rows of electronic shops and clothing stores here; just the isolation of house after house pressed within the walls of the complex. It's mid-afternoon and the sunlight bouncing off the whitewashed walls of the camp is shockingly bright. The weather is unusually fine, but only a handful of people can be seen walking purposefully by. Inside open swung gates are glimpses of daily life -- colourful washing hung out to dry, a child's bike leaning against the entrance -- but a sensation of impermanence pervades the town. The sound of the tyres on the gravel seems grotesquely loud, though few even give our taxi a second glance. In the tea-houses tucked behind the corner shops, though, the life of this Kurdish enclave pulses. Hunched over tables of shesh-besh, chess and cards, residents are whiling away the hours as best they can -- in the company of others. Sunlight slants across trays of teacups perched on tiny tables at men's knees and a well-fed wood-burning heater keeps the room comfortably warm. The murmurs and clinking of glasses die down when I walk in, the sounds of dice clicking against the table suddenly audible. It's not the dramatic pause that could easily be imagined though. These days, journalists virtually outnumber locals in the towns of Cizre and Silopi, near the Iraqi border, and Diyarbakir has become a hub for journalists covering the war. But with tensions high in Turkey's Kurdish heartland, people are wary and guarded, uncertain of what it might mean to speak with someone unknown. But curiosity and people's natural warmth win out, and it is not long before slowly, chairs are pulled up and conversation begins to flow. Ali, my translator, is a lucky man, but only when it counts. When there's money on the table, it doesn't matter what game it is, he'll walk away with something. Today is not for gambling though, and a friendly game of cards pulls more people around us. My camera and notepad are placed discreetly out of view, but everyone knows why we are here. Even so, we talk of other things -- ordinary things -- and play cards. I sip on some orange tea -- a drink that tastes, and may actually be, hot orange Tang. It's extremely sweet, but from the look Ali gives me, I can tell that I will not only drink it, I will ask for more. Hours pass before even my newspaper name is mentioned. By now, a small crowd is building, and as the time approaches when we will inevitably start to talk about un-ordinary things, a current of restlessness courses through the room and patrons on the other side of the café dart disapproving glances our way. It's no surprise, and Ali counters palpable reluctance with a winning argument. "We are Kurds," he says. "If we don't tell people our story, tell people our troubles, how will anything change? How will anyone know?" In towns like these, people will go hungry before they give up their satellite dish -- the only chance to watch Kurdish television, broadcast from Brussels. But it's not the news from Baghdad that people call for when the owner flips the television on. "CNBC" I hear one man say. Inexplicably, stock prices roll across the screen. Still, it's not hard to get people talking about the war. It'll be long, they say, and it won't be the war that the US was planning on. Day by day, it will get worse, and US troops will get stung on the ground, because Iraqis, it must be said, "are very good fighters". "Unfortunately, this will hurt the Kurds," says Fazli, an older man with a long dark face and crinkly eyes that radiate calm. "War has always hurt the Kurds." With the Turkish military itching to deploy more troops to northern Iraq, Kurds on the Turkish side of the border -- many whose relatives live just on the other side -- are certain that a military incursion, whether unilateral or US- backed, will only spell trouble for both sides of the border. "The government is scared, they think there will be independence for Iraqi Kurdistan, and that they will want to take land from Turkey," says Ahmet, tall and well-built. But no one is this region is talking about independence -- that taboo word that fuels paranoia in policy circles in Ankara. From the markets of Diyarbakir to the border towns, however, people speak only of equality, of human rights, of preserving Kurdish culture. Sitting on his chair, his forearms pressed against his knees, a young man with an angular face speaks up, his unease needing no translation. He says that we should not be talking about these things, that it is not done. The crowd, now grown to half the café, rustles and a confused mutter reigns, some dismissing the youth, others looking nervous, others talking amongst themselves. Ali cuts in, again arguing that a journalist's job is to tell a story, and that theirs is a story that needs to be told. But here, far from the slick shops and high rises of Ankara, the trendy bars and restaurants of Istanbul, anything is possible. A foreigner could be anyone, from a spy to a PKK sympathiser, and there is no way to tell until the article that I may or may not write -- and that they will never see -- is in print. Uncertainty hangs over us again, but it passes quickly. People are warming to the topic, clearly enjoying the chance to sound off on issues that are always close at hand, but usually held at bay -- not so much because it is dangerous, but because the unavoidable realisation of people's impotence in the matter brings only frustration and despair. Troubles in southern Turkey and northern Iraq are inextricably tied in the Turkish consciousness to the reign of terror wrought by the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and its jailed leader, Abdullah �calan, regarded among most Kurds as the besieged champion of Kurdish rights. Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) leader Massoud Barzani and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) founder Jalal Talabani -- once bitter enemies, but now expected to play high-profile roles in setting up a post-war Iraq -- are no heroes here, where they are seen as simply part of the problem. Between the two, however, Barzani is the lesser of two evils. Among the countless conspiracy theories that cling to the fractured Iraqi opposition is the suspicion that Talabani has an understanding with the Turkish government. "If Talabani didn't have dealings with the Turkish government, there's no way the Turkish army could be so successful in finding guerrilla camps, or finding people they want to arrest," argues Nedim, a man with a thick moustache and a strong voice. The US fares little better among people in these parts, where anti-American sentiment runs strong and the memory of the 1988 massacre in the town of Halabje, when the Kurdish population was eliminated by a chemical attack and the US failed to respond, remains fresh in people's memories. Few are confident that the US will bring better days for Kurds anywhere. "I don't think the Americans will do anything useful for the Kurds," argues Fazli. "This is just a game for this war, because the Americans want the Kurds to fight in northern Iraq." He adds, "the US just wants to appear close to the Kurds, but when they are no longer useful, they will be forgotten again." Again the conversation returns to an independent Kurdistan -- something few people think could ever happen. "The Turkish government would never allow it to happen," says Salih, a thin man with a thoughtful expression seated on the fringes of the crowd. "And the US government does not want to deal with the problems of a Kurdish state. The US has its own aims." Many insist that the US is determined to divide and conquer in Iraq, separating the population by ethnicity. "After this, the Americans will seek total control in Iraq, and the benefits will be huge," Salih said. While many people have sympathy towards the quest for independence once pursued by �calan's PKK, it is rare to find someone in this region for whom an independent state is the end goal. Many feel that Turkey's drive to join the European Union could ultimately improve their situation, and that in the long run, it will be better to be a citizen of an EU country than a resident of what would inevitably be a disputed state. "We just want to have the human rights all Turks have," says Sadik, a small man with a furrowed brow and a hard look on his face. "In western Turkey, people don't live like they do here. They have job opportunities, they have healthcare; they have ways to make a living. That's all we want -- to work, to have business. But that's not what the Turks want." Waving his hand around the room, he added, "the people sitting here now, none of us have healthcare. None of us can go to the hospital and get treatment because none of us can afford it." The issue of independence is an argument that turns on itself. If the US backed an independent Kurdistan in northern Iraq, and there was the promise of total freedom for Kurds, then the prospect is appealing. But Turkey and other neighbouring countries, like Syria and Iran, are loathe to allow such a thing to happen, and so it is more realistic to seek a better life in the country in which you live. And yet, when life does not improve, pragmatism gives way to idealism, and even radicalism. There is a story told of a man who is arrested, although he has done nothing wrong. He's hauled into court, and put before the judge. The judge is reading his sentence, but the man keeps looking around him, behind him, under the table. The judge demands to know what he is looking for. "I'm looking for freedom, for justice," he says. "But I can't find it." "That's what the Kurds are looking for," says Mahsun, a heavy-set man with a round, gentle face. "Kurds will always be looking for freedom." The southeast of Turkey is a discordant clash of cultures, with tensions between the local Kurdish population and the government emanating from a prolonged battle over the expression of Kurdish culture and the legacy of two decades of civil strife. Military law reigned in the southeast of Turkey and the repercussions on the local Kurdish population were extensive, with limited freedoms fanning anger and support for the PKK and many local towns paying the price of standoffs between the military and rebel fighters. The residents of 500 Evler are all people who paid this price. In the early 1990s, thousands of villages in the region were destroyed, creating a massive crisis of internally displaced persons -- a problem that was compounded by the refugee crisis that followed the 1991 Gulf War. The burning of these villages is a sore point of contention for the Turkish government, with the local population maintaining that they were wiped out in retaliation for perceived support of the PKK and the Turkish military insisting that they were obliterated by the PKK. Burned shells of once vibrant villages dot the countryside, but few have returned to their homes -- some say because they were required to sign a declaration that their homes were destroyed by the PKK. In 1992, when numerous villages were destroyed around Diyarbakir, villagers moved to the city, swelling the population. Unemployment soared and the city centre was dangerously overcrowded. "It was a hard time for us," says Ugur, an older man with a thin frame and straight back. "The government tried to find a solution for the overpopulation. The military burned our villages, and then they asked the EU for help. They told them the PKK destroyed them, and that people were homeless, so the EU gave them money to build these houses." To knowingly create a housing crisis is a stunningly flawed policy, but villagers here insist that this was the case. "The government said we were harbouring the PKK," explains Recep, a man surprisingly unaffected by the blast of heat steaming off the newly fed heater he was seated beside. "But the PKK fighters came to our towns and they demanded help. Maybe if we didn't help them, they would burn the village first. We were stuck in the middle." Recep points to a picture on the wall of the café -- a sweeping view of rolling green hills and a rustic village. "That was my village, Ulucak," he says. A few young men leap from their chairs and take down the picture, its colours faded by sunlight, and hand it to me. "In 1990, it was a beautiful town," he says. "Now there is nothing, no trees -- nothing. We filed a case in the European human rights court, but still, there's no solution." For the residents of 500 Evler, rural life was a better one, and the basics of life were taken from the land. While the need for housing was critical, the movement of a predominantly agrarian society to a complex of houses just outside the city addressed only part of the problem. "In the village, the only things we needed to buy were things like sugar and detergent. Most things were free -- water, wood. We had animals and land, so we could farm vegetables and make a living," says Murat, a man with sleepy eyes who was fingering the metal case for his rolling tobacco. "Now we even have to buy wood, and we can't afford it." Most of the men here work in construction, taking on seasonal work during the summer. Some go to Diyarbakir, but others travel to western Turkey and spend the summer there looking for work. In the winter, there is no work. "You should know that there are already many unemployed in Diyarbakir," notes Veysi, a young man with a stern mouth and a full moustache. "Yesterday, I saw a programme on TV. They said that the monthly salary for four people here is 400 million Turkish Lira [$235]. But how can we make any money at all if there's no work? Before they destroyed our villages, our lives were so much better. Life here is like a camp." The mood among residents here is less fatalistic than one might expect. Resigned to migrant work and a deep mistrust of the government, no one here is talking of revolution, just equality. But hope in EU membership is waning as people increasingly view their problems as the purview of no one but themselves. Few can find reason to believe that the situation for Kurds in southeastern Turkey will improve, and even fewer feel that Europe is watching. "There are rules in the EU about human rights," says Sükrü, a straight speaking young man standing behind Fazli, his arms folded across his chest. "But we don't see the benefits of those rules. Nobody is talking about a separate state. All we are talking about is human rights -- being able to live like Kurds. They are trying to erase our culture." The secular principles of modern Turkey were set in stone by the country's founding father, Kamal Ataturk, who sought to forge a Turkish identity that transcended religion and ethnicity. But in this swathe of Kurdish territory, Ataturk's dream of the Turkish übermensch took an ugly turn. Local Kurds proud of their cultural heritage find few ways to express it. Kurdish village names have long since been changed to Turkish ones -- Recep's village, Ulucak, was once called Hasadere -- and it is illegal to speak Kurdish in any official building. No Kurdish is taught in schools and Kurdish television and print media is effectively forbidden by strict regulation and careful surveillance. Thousands of Kurdish poems and songs are banned as inciting anti- government sentiment and no Kurdish political party has ever been able to stay functional for more than a few years before being shut down by the government. Many young Kurds cannot even speak the language, despite growing up with parents who barely speak Turkish. Still, Kurdish newspapers can be found here on newsstands next to large Turkish dailies like Sabah and Milliyet. "Can anyone say there are no Kurds in the world?" asks Sükrü. While even here talk of an independent Kurdistan can be dismissed as an imperfect dream, few are willing to denounce the PKK -- and even fewer are willing to place the blame for their predicament on the group's once violent war against the government. Mehmet, small and wiry, was eager to know what people thought of the PKK abroad. "People say that the PKK are terrorists, but we don't think so," he said. "The Turkish government was trying to make us into Turks. But we are Kurds. They wanted us to forget our culture, our language, everything that belongs to the Kurds. We cannot speak our language or listen to our music. If people don't have their freedom, then of course they will fight for it." "Naturally, we don't call this 'terrorism'," he added. "We call them freedom fighters. A terrorist is someone who wants to fight for nothing, someone who wants to fight when there is no reason except to hurt other people. But the PKK are fighting for something we should have -- freedom, human rights." "Every country has a way of defining 'terrorism'," says Fazli, his voice low and smooth. "Is Bin Laden a terrorist? He is calling on Muslims to come together and fight against the US. That doesn't mean he's a terrorist. There's no true meaning of 'terrorism'. For America terrorists are people who are trying to defend Islam. Because Bin Laden is trying to rally people behind the Islamic cause, America calls him a terrorist. That's just America's problem. Bin Laden doesn't kill for his own benefit, like America is doing." Distrust of the US overrides all other issues among most Kurds in this region, and the unlikely result of this is that anti-war sentiment runs so strong that it spills over into the default position of being pro-Saddam. People brand both US President George W Bush and the Iraqi leader as two sides of the same coin, but there is a latent sense of rooting for the underdog in the Iraqi conflict. "We hate Saddam because of Halabje. He killed 5,000 Kurds. We know that he is terrible and we can all say that we hate him," says Ahmet. "But we also know that when [Halabje] happened, there was something that the US wanted -- oil. Because of oil, the US let it happen." If the US cared about human rights, he added, it would have done something, or spoken out against the massacre. But Washington looked the other way -- something that cannot be forgotten in these parts. Taking the argument further, Ahmet pointed to the conflict in the occupied territories. "If the US cares about human rights, why hasn't it done anything about what is happening in Palestine? Is it because there isn't enough oil there?" While there is no love lost between the Kurds and Saddam, there is scant hope that the toppling of the Iraqi regime will find after-effects in southeastern Turkey. Since few believe that the Bush administration would back independence for northern Iraq, the war in Iraq is seen merely as a war for profit. Despite all the suffering Kurds have seen under the regime of Saddam Hussein, everyone I asked said that they would rather see Saddam succeed in resisting an American occupation than see the US control Iraq. It's a stunning example of how profound the fury over US hegemony actually is in parts of the world where US policy treads lightly, or sometimes not at all. "Bush is killing people, killing Arabs, and he says that he wants to free the Iraqi people," says Mahsun. "Then the US says it is trying to do something to help the Kurds. But if this is how Bush will help the Kurds, we don't want his help. Nobody fights for somebody. The concept of justice is lost."
