By Aland Mizell
13/11/2009
The Philippine army has been fighting an insurgency war for more than three decades. It has taken many lives and drained the government’s budget for progress in many areas of the southeastern region of the Philippines. The consequences of the war affect the average Muslim population pushing them to the poverty line, allowing them no proper education, providing them no jobs, and promoting no economic development. Mindanao is the second largest Island in the Philippines, and most of the Muslim population lives in the region. Muslims in Mindanao have long resisted foreigners’ influences. For years the government’s bias, reflected in past policies toward Muslims, left them with limited development. Its resettlement policies brought the Catholics from Manila to Mindanao where they faced much resentment and fueled the Muslims’ cause to be free of the Republic of the Philippines and to establish their own independent Islamic state. In 1996, insurgent groups who fought for greater autonomy for the Muslim minority, specifically the Muslim National Liberation Front (MNLF), and the Philippine government signed a peace agreement.
During this peace agreement thousands of insurgents laid down their arms, and suddenly many insurgents became unemployed. With the help of the US government, the Philippine government, looking for a long-term solution to the problem of unemployment for the former fighters, created the Arms to Farms Program. Under the program thousands of the former insurgents were provided jobs and became small farm business owners. Also, the US government helped former fighters to produce highly valued fish and taught them to market and to sell their product successfully outside of the country and the region. Basically the program helped the government to develop the right policy toward them, so that now many former fighters are taking advantage of the market, exporting their products, making a decent living, and helping their children to become good citizens. According to some sources, however, the war in the southern Philippines is helping certain sectors of society other than the intended recipients. When I talked to key Muslim leaders, they told me that the government is involved in this dirty war because it makes money out of it. This graft reminded me of the Turkish army’s dirty war in southeastern Turkey, because the unchecked military used its noble power to abuse the citizens. For a long time the Kurdish people, like Muslims in the Philippines, told inquirers that it was hard to believe that the government would do this kind of thing to its citizens, but it is sad to say, yes, we can see the corruption and abuse of power in the military. A lack of public information and education on the cause of the conflict and the complexity of the issues results in opponents dominating and shaping the debate. The Turkish government believes that it has improved its relation with its neighbors such as Syria, Iran, and Iraq; that means the Kurds will not have any other place to get support. If Turkey does not solve the Kurdish issue within the framework of democratic means, it will have implications for regional politics. This would allow some other countries to pose as advocates for the rights of the Kurdish people while continuing to befriend the Turkish government.
When we look at the Justice and Development Party’s (AK) new approach to solve the Kurdish problem, the question is no longer whether the parties can reach an agreement but how to formulate a workable and effective solution that will bring about sustainable peace and development in southeastern Turkey. Any peace agreement should provide for the integration of the Workers’ Party of Kurdistan (PKK) members into the armed forces and the national police, similar to what the Philippine government did with the MNLF insurgents. Furthermore, is the Turkish government ready to create an ‘Arms to Farm’ program like the Government of the Philippines did for the former fighters? The Turkish government should study the possibilities of such a program instead of the negotiations focusing on blaming the Democratic Society Party (DTP). It should be focused on the need to help uplift the Kurdish community by offering them compensations for the military’s past actions of burning their villages and forcing millions of Kurds to leave their homes to disperse to other places. It should offer social services, address unemployment, and take serious steps to build trust between the government and the Kurds who lived under the regime for decades. All these steps will weaken the possibility of another Kurdish extremist faction spreading its influence. Will Turkey consider issues of governance such as how to make institutional change by giving the Kurds a semi- autonomous region while making sure that the structural weakness will not lead to corruption and will not allow political abuses among the line of new leaders? Will Turkey provide an Arms to Farm option for thousands of PKK members?
Trust is always earned, never given, If Turkey seriously wants to rebuild the trust between the Turkish government and the Kurdish public, it should consider forming a Kurdish semi-autonomous region, such as the Ottoman Empire had, to empower politically the Kurdish minorities. The Kurds value recognition of their need for a distinct identity and a venue to govern themselves. The Turkish government should learn how to earn that trust. But the Kurdish community should be very cautious about unresponsive leaders, nepotism, and religious groups, especially the Gülen community, using religion as tools to accomplish its agenda. For example, in the case of the Muslim Autonomous Region in the Philippines, the Philippine government granted this autonomous region making them internally free but externally dependent on Manila. Nevertheless, the area of the ARMM region still remains the poorest province in the country .The ARMM region is supposed to be politically empowered for the Muslim minorities who value, like the Kurds, recognition of their needs for a distinct identity and a venue to govern themselves. However, a traveler to that area will find poverty, a lack of basic services, corruption, nepotism, unresponsive leadership, and illiteracy. The ARMM region did not improve the social and economic condition of their people. I hope that this kind of mistake will not be repeated in the Kurdish region. A program that foresees these damaging aspects of the plan and builds prevention into the steps will have a higher probability of success.
However, if Turkey seriously tries to improve the social and economic conditions of its Kurdish citizens, then the AK party should answer to the Kurdish community: what will happen to the 5000 burned homes, the empty villages, and the displaced people who were forced to move to other places? What happened to the Kurdish people who disappeared? What will happen to those who were involved in a dirty war against the Kurds? Will any military personnel ever go to jail for the dirty war? Or is this way that the AK party uses the Kurds to achieve their agenda? What will happen to the security and the economic development of the region? Will a new package give the right of self-governance? Will the Turkish government let the Kurds develop a judicial entity that would have the authority to structure the areas’ governing institutions, pass local laws, have control over natural resources, and establish trade and cultural relations with the neighboring countries? Will the Turkish government be willing to work with the DTP, Kurdish communities, and civil society to bring peace to southeastern Turkey? Building trust is about listening and understanding, not necessarily agreeing with the other party on everything. So, if the AK party does not want to meet with the DTP leaders, who represent the Kurdish people since the Kurds elected them, and if the AKP does not listen to the DTP, I do not know how trust can be built among the two communities. It is time for the AK party to listen, not judge, and try to understand how the Kurds feel and what they want. Peace will not be successful unless all the parties are involved, including the PKK members.
Dr. Aland Mizell is a regular KurdishMedia.com writer and is with the MCI and can be contacted at aland_mizell1@hotmail.com
