MESOP : ERDOGAN’S TOTAL WAR CONTRA PKK / Top gov’t officials could face court for having ignored PKK activities

October 03, 2015, Saturday/ 17:00:00/ AYDIN ALBAYRAK / ANKARA – In an apparent effort to shift the responsibility from themselves for the high death toll by recent terrorist attacks, top Turkish officials have put the blame for the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) gaining strength during the settlement process on public servants, but they may well also be called to account before court for neglect of duty.

In an address to mukhtars at the presidential palace, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, in an apparent effort to shift the responsibility away from himself, accused public officers of having failed to properly keep track of PKK activities during the process, which led to it becoming stronger. “It has come out that deficient or wrong evaluations on the part of public officers caused weakness in this matter,” he said. Mukhtars are locally elected administrators of a village or a neighborhood in towns. Then came remarks by Efkan Ala, a former interior minister, that targeted the security forces for having failed to properly fight against the PKK during the process. Ala maintained that the security forces were not instructed by governors to stop operations against the PKK during the process, which implies that it is the security forces rather than the government that are to blame for the rising death toll following the suspension of the process.

“If Ala had been informed about the situation, then the government and Erdoğan can also be held responsible,” İbrahim Kaboğlu, a professor of constitutional law at Marmara University, told Sunday’s Zaman. He added, “It is unthinkable in a country where the rule of law prevails that those at the bottom of the hierarchy be held responsible before the law, while those at the top are left out of consideration.” The settlement process, which was launched with the PKK to resolve the country’s Kurdish issue, was de facto suspended by Erdoğan in March, while the process definitively ended on July 22 when the PKK killed two police officers.

Since then, more than 140 members of the security forces have been killed by the PKK.

Many of them were killed by homemade explosives, which were possibly planted on roads when the process was ongoing. Despite Erdoğan’s accusations, the government is not known to have so far launched any administrative or legal investigation against any of the governors in the southeastern provinces where the PKK is particularly active.The term “public officers” is usually perceived in Turkish — although the term may legally cover all officials holding public posts including politicians — as referring to bureaucrats. A news report recently revealed that hundreds of demands by the Turkish military to conduct operations during the process against the PKK had been rejected by local governors.

“As far as the criminal law is concerned, governors have a responsibility to fight terrorism in line with the law,” Günal Kurşun, a professor of criminal law at Çukurova University, told Sunday’s Zaman. He added, “If it is proved that they denied permission [to security forces] to carry out operations, this is a crime.” The government has been harshly criticized by opposition parties since mid-2013 for turning a blind eye to the strengthening of the PKK in the region. It was also accused of having instructed governors not to allow security forces to carry out operations against the terrorist organization.

Erdoğan also recently admitted that it was the government that had instructed the governors to ignore the PKK’s activities for the sake of the process. During a television interview on Turkey’s state-run broadcaster TRT in mid-September, Erdoğan said, “Our governors [in southeastern provinces] did not conduct, in accordance with the instructions we had given them, serious operations against terrorist organizations during the settlement process as is the case today.” According to Kurşun, this is an important confession but would not be enough in itself for a court case to be launched against Erdoğan. “If there is an instruction from the superiors to whom the governors are subordinated that no operation should be conducted [against the PKK], then those who gave the instruction, which is itself defined as a criminal act, will also be responsible [before the law] together with governors,” he added. It turned out, after the recent collapse of the already-fragile settlement process, that the PKK had gained strength and increased its control over the country’s predominantly Kurdish Southeast during the settlement process.

Earlier last month, Erdoğan also said, after admitting that the settlement process was exploited by the PKK as a period of preparation, that it was discovered after the suspension of the process that the PKK had stashed explosives and weapons in urban areas while the process was ongoing. Erdoğan was prime minister when the process was launched at the end of 2012, and he continued to serve in this position until he was elected president in August of last year. Acting Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, who is also leader of the Justice and Development Party (AK Party), also recently admitted that the PKK gained in strength during the process.

The PKK attempted to stash a large amount of weapons in the past two years to increase its destructive attacks in Turkey, Davutoğlu said at the end of August.Ala, who served as minister of interior until March, said in remarks to the Habertürk news channel that the security forces — the Gendarmerie General Command and the police force — were free to conduct operations against the PKK during the process.

In response to a question regarding criticism that the security forces were instructed by the government not to interfere with PKK activity during the process, he said, “The Gendarmerie General Command and the police force are not required to get permission from governors to prevent a terrorist act.”A report published by the Sözcü daily at the beginning of last week is, however, in sharp contradiction with Ala’s claim.

A piece of internal correspondence of the governor of Van province demonstrates that the government had instructed the security forces in the province not to interfere in PKK activities, the report said.

According to the governor’s report published by the daily, the AK Party government ordered governors in the southeastern provinces to turn a blind eye to PKK activities during the settlement process.The daily’s report said that on May 16, 2013, the Van Provincial Gendarmerie Command sent a request to then-Van Governor Münir Karaloğlu, asking for his written permission to conduct operations against PKK terrorists.According to Kaboğlu of Marmara University, Ala’s remarks reveal at the same time his own responsibility in the failure to properly fight against the PKK.

Demanding to know if any of the commanders of the security forces in the region had carried out their duties properly, Kaboğlu said, “Why then were those governors, commanders, police chiefs not removed from duty after July 22?”

According to the law, public officers are not to enforce an instruction by a superior if the implementation of the instruction would constitute a crime. However, they can evade responsibility — although this seems to be debatable — if they have a written order from a superior for the instruction.According to Ümit Özdağ, a Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) deputy, the governors who did not give authorization to the military to conduct operations against the PKK will eventually be put on trial as they engaged in a “criminal act” by enforcing an “illegal order” by the government.In remarks last month, he said, “They [the governors] will claim in court that they were instructed to do so by the government, but this will be of no use since they do not have a written order.”According to a Hürriyet daily report on Sept. 19, governors of three southeastern provinces where the PKK is most active accepted in 2014 only eight out of around 290 requests by the military for authorization to conduct an operation against the terrorist organization.

As per the Constitution, a president cannot be called to account before the law other than on charges of treason. But the MHP last month submitted a motion for a parliamentary investigation to be launched into those responsible for the settlement process.The motion asks for an investigation of misconduct to be launched into President Erdoğan, Ahmet Davutoğlu, who has been serving as prime minister since September of last year, and Efkan Ala, as well as Bülent Arınç, Beşir Atalay, Yalçın Akdoğan, Bekir Bozdağ and Sadullah Ergin, figures who all held government posts when the process was ongoing.

Oktay Vural, the MHP’s parliamentary group deputy chairman, argued, in remarks to reporters following the submission of the motion, that Erdoğan could be considered part of the parliamentary investigation as then-prime minister regardless of his current position.

In recent remarks to Today’s Zaman, Vural said, “Those responsible for that must be called to account before the Supreme State Council.”The Constitutional Court serves as the Supreme State Council when judging high-level state officials.Ala also argued during the interview that it was only army troops, as opposed to security forces in charge of domestic security – the gendarmerie and police, which are subordinated to the Ministry of Interior — which were required to obtain permission from governors to conduct an operation.Maintaining that the Gendarmerie General Command and the police enjoyed the authority to carry out operations against the PKK, Ala added, “No legal regulation was introduced to remove this [authority]. http://www.todayszaman.com/national_top-govt-officials-could-face-court-for-having-ignored-pkk-activities_400436.html