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Mhitsos**5252 · Guest

Turkey: Arms and Human Rights

Key Points

* Turkey has long topped the list of U.S. arms importers and
recipients of U.S. military aid.
* U.S. arms transfers support the Turkish army to the detriment of
Turkey’s fledgling democracy.
* Turkey has launched a major military modernization project and
will be seeking even greater quantities of U.S. arms.

Considered a strategic NATO ally, Turkey has benefited from a U.S.
policy that is long on military assistance and short on constructive
criticism. Washington values close ties with Turkey both as a secular
state with a predominately Muslim population and as a buffer between
Europe and the Middle East and Caucasus regions. Once valued as a
deterrent to the Soviet threat, Turkey is now considered a key ally in
stopping terrorism, drug trafficking, and Islamic fundamentalism from
seeping across the Bosporus Straits. Turkey also offers opportunities as
an emerging market and a potential site for the Caspian Sea oil
pipeline. Finally, Turkey won U.S. favor by supporting the Gulf War,
participating in Bosnian peacekeeping, and providing a base for U.S.
fighter planes monitoring the "no-fly-zone" in northern Iraq.

The 1980 Defense and Economic Cooperation Agreement reaffirmed the tight
relationship between the U.S. and Turkey, which had been threatened
after Turkey’s 1974 invasion of Cyprus and the subsequent U.S. arms
embargo. This accord allowed U.S. military bases on Turkish soil in
exchange for help modernizing Turkey’s military, opening the door to a
flood of U.S. arms transfers. Since 1980 the U.S. has shipped $9 billion
worth of arms to Turkey and provided $6.5 billion in grant and loan
military aid to purchase U.S. equipment. By fiscal year 1999, Congress
phased out this type of military aid to both Greece and Turkey out of a
recognition that these relatively well-off states could finance their
own arms purchases. Before FY 1999, Turkey had been the third largest
recipient of U.S. military aid.

The U.S. government believes large quantities of arms sales buy
political influence in addition to providing economic benefits. In
reality, Washington has held little sway over Ankara’s behavior in such
key foreign policy areas as promoting human rights and democracy,
preserving regional stability, keeping Turkey tied to Western Europe,
and promoting economic growth. Additionally, Turkey has only reluctantly
accepted the embargo against Iraq and is pursuing a natural gas pipeline
deal with Iran in defiance of the U.S. embargo.

U.S. arms sales actually undermine many U.S. foreign policy goals by
providing physical and political support to the Turkish military at the
expense of democratically elected leaders and civil society. The Turkish
military’s 15-year war against the rebel Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)
in southeast Turkey has involved severe violations of international
human rights and humanitarian law, including indiscriminate and
disproportionate use of force. The war has served as an excuse to
repress political leaders, journalists, and human rights activists
seeking greater rights for Kurds and a peaceful end to the war.
Additionally, in the name of protecting a strictly secular society, the
Turkish military uses its inordinate power to suppress religious
expression and mild political Islamic activism.

U.S. arms sales and continued conflict in Turkey also damage Turkey’s
economy and prospects for economic cooperation with the West. The 1998
CIA Factbook states that Turkey spends about $7 billion a year on the
war with the PKK, which contributed to a 99% inflation rate for 1998 and
a national debt equal to half the government’s revenue. War-related
political and financial instability has discouraged foreign investment.
A U.S.-backed plan would route a Caspian Sea oil pipeline through
territory where the PKK operates, leaving it susceptible to rebel
attacks. An end to the war and improvements in human rights are also
necessary preconditions for Turkey’s entry into the European Union (EU),
which the U.S. believes would draw Turkey closer to the West. Turkey’s
ceaseless provocation of Greece, again using U.S. arms, is another
barrier to EU entry.

The Turkish military is planning a massive modernization project, with
over $30 billion budgeted over the next eight years. The first major
acquisition will be 145 attack helicopters worth $3.5 billion, to be
coproduced with the Turkish company TAI. As helicopters have figured
prominently in the destruction of civilian targets, U.S. human rights
and arms control groups protested vehemently when Boeing and Bell
Textron requested marketing licenses for this sale. In response, the
State Department approved marketing licenses, but stated that if a U.S.
helicopter were selected, it would not issue an export license unless
Turkey made significant progress on human rights and allowed the U.S. to
monitor use of the equipment in Turkey. The specific criteria laid out
included: decriminalization of free speech; release of journalists and
parliamentarians; steps to end torture and police impunity; reopening of
NGOs closed by authorities; democratization and the expansion of
political participation; lifting of the state of emergency in southeast
Turkey; and the resettlement of internally displaced persons (estimated
at 500,000 to 2.5 million people).

Prime Minister Yilmaz pledged to make these improvements in a December
1997 meeting with President Clinton. While Turkey has yet to choose
among five finalists (including the two U.S. competitors), it also
remains far from meeting the agreed-upon conditions and has in fact
regressed in key areas.
Problems with Current U.S. Policy
Key Problems

* Turkey does not meet basic U.S. criteria for arms exports, nor
those outlined by the State Department specifically for the attack
helicopter sale.
* Turkish forces have used U.S. arms to commit human rights abuses,
and the U.S. government does not have the ability to prevent future arms
exports from being used in this manner.
* Stability—both within Turkey and in the region—is undermined by
high levels of U.S. arms exports.

The December 1997 State Department agreement to link an export license
to human rights improvements would signal—if implemented—respect for
international human rights law. It would also bring U.S. policy in line
with Section 502B of the Foreign Assistance Act, which states that
weapons may not be provided to any country "the government of which
engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally
recognized human rights." The State Department’s annual human rights
reports have

documented Turkey’s flagrant human rights abuses year after year in a
pattern that is clearly gross and consistent. Arms exports to Turkey
also contravene President Clinton’s Presidential Decision Directive
(PDD) 34, issued in February 1995, which directs the State Department to
factor into arms export decisions the impact of an export on regional
stability and on human rights and democracy in the recipient state.

Turkey has also regressed or made little progress on the human rights
criteria the State Department laid out for the attack helicopter sale.
The cultural and linguistic rights of Kurds are still repressed, and the
"state of emergency" continues in six of the nine southeast provinces.
Torture continues with impunity, and Turkey has one of the world’s
highest numbers of imprisoned journalists.

As the 1998 State Department Human Rights report for Turkey states:
"Despite Prime Minister Yilmaz’s stated commitment that human rights
would be his government’s highest priority in 1998, serious human rights
abuses continued….Extrajudicial killings,

including deaths in detention from the excessive use of force, ‘mystery
killings,’ and disappearances continued. Torture remained widespread….
Security forces continued to use arbitrary arrest and detention.
Prolonged pretrial detention and lengthy trials continued to be problems."

According to an April 1999 Human Rights Watch report, journalists risk
fines, imprisonment, bans, or violent attacks if they write about such
subjects as "the role of Islam in politics and society, Turkey’s ethnic
Kurdish Minority, the conflict in southeastern Turkey, or the proper
role of the military in government and society." At present, many
journalists, prominent human rights leaders, and Kurdish and Islamic
political leaders—including members of parliament—are in prison for
violating ambiguous laws against inciting "racial" or "religious hatred"
or for issuing "separatist" propaganda. The arrest of PKK leader
Abdullah Ocalan provided an excuse to once again lash out against those
calling for a peaceful end to the war.

Intimidation tactics marred the April 1999 national and local elections,
leaving interim Prime Minister Ecevit’s nationalist Democratic Left
Party (DSP) with the most seats in parliament. The only remaining legal
Kurdish party, the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HADEP), faced an imminent
ban, and thousands of HADEP members—including its leader and several
electoral candidates—were detained prior to the elections. Members of
the Islamic Virtue party were also harassed and jailed. Turkey’s chief
prosecutor is now seeking to close the Virtue party after a newly
elected female Virtue parliamentarian insisted on wearing a head scarf
inside parliament chambers.

U.S. weapons transfers not only provide tacit support for these
repressive policies, but have also been used directly by military and
police forces to commit human rights abuses, as documented by both Human
Rights Watch and the U.S. State Department. In a campaign to root out
local Kurdish support for the PKK, U.S.-supplied attack helicopters,
jets, tanks, and armored personnel carriers have been used to destroy
over 3,000 Kurdish villages. U.S.-origin small arms have been used in
the extrajudicial killing of suspected PKK soldiers or sympathizers, and
American-made utility helicopters have been used to transport soldiers
on these missions. After the Ocalan arrest, the Turkish military
heightened its attacks on the PKK, both in Turkey and across the border
into northern Iraq. Turkey’s renewed faith in the ability to win the war
probably encourages the military to continue using indiscriminate and
disproportionate force, though Turkish authorities have prevented U.S.
officials and international human rights groups from monitoring their
activities in the region.

The war with the PKK also carries repercussions for stability in the
region and within Turkey, both of which adversely affect U.S. security
interests. The CIA’s 1997 "State Failure Task Force" report identified
Turkey as a nation in danger of collapse. The military’s heavy-handed,
destabilizing role in domestic politics can only be justified as long as
the war continues. The conflict has also created entrenched governmental
corruption, touching all central political actors in Ankara.

By flooding the Aegean region with high-tech arms, the U.S. has also
fueled an arms race between Turkey and Greece and exacerbated their
fractious relationship. Time and time again, Turkey has provoked Greece
by flying over its airspace and entering its territorial

waters, and it has flown F-16s over southern Cyprus in violation of its
licensing agreement with the U.S. government. Turkey has often
threatened force against Greece and Cyprus, most recently in response
both to Greece’s role in harboring PKK leader Ocalan and to the Greek
Cypriot government’s planned purchase of Russian S-300 air-defense
missiles. The U.S. has often had to intervene to prevent open conflict
between the two NATO allies, whose tense relationship threatens to
further undermine regional stability.
Toward a New Foreign Policy
Key Recommendations

* Congress should pass an Arms Transfers Code of Conduct to create
clear and consistent guidelines about which states may import U.S. arms.
* The State Department should honor its December 1997 agreement and
refuse to approve the sale of attack helicopters until Turkey’s human
rights situation has significantly improved.
* The Clinton administration should encourage democratization and
the guarantee of human rights in Turkey rather than relying on arms
sales to try to buy political influence.

Vague U.S. law gives the Clinton administration a great deal of
discretion over arms export approvals. When a sale to a close ally like
Turkey is at stake, the immediate financial and political gratification
of an arms sale is almost always favored over the longer-term benefits
of restraint. For this reason, U.S. arms export law should be amended to
include more precise eligibility criteria. Legislation introduced in the
past three Congresses—the Arms Transfers Code of Conduct—would prevent
arms sales to states that are undemocratic, abuse their citizens’ human
rights, are engaged in acts of armed aggression, or do not fully
participate in the UN Register of Conventional Weapons, unless the
President issues a national security waiver. Unlike present law, these
disqualifying categories are fully defined so that decisions can be made
according to clear, consistent criteria.

If a code of conduct were in place, Turkey would not qualify for arms
sales until it ended the war with the PKK, guaranteed the rights of all
Turkish citizens, and ended its aggressive posturing toward Greece.
Although the Clinton administration would probably take advantage of the
code’s national security waiver, the process of denying eligibility and
then justifying the sale on national security grounds would add a degree
of scrutiny that might cause both the buyer and the seller to reconsider.

In the meantime, the U.S. State Department should honor its pledge to
withhold an export license for attack helicopters until Turkey takes
serious steps to meet agreed-upon human rights conditions. In a March
1999 meeting between nongovernmental groups and Assistant Secretaries of
State Grossman and Koh, the U.S. officials appeared optimistic that
significant improvements could be achieved before Turkey makes its arms
purchasing decision, expected in the next six to eight months. Yet the
strong showing for both the nationalist DSP and the extreme-right
National Action Party (MHP) in recent elections does not bode well for a
positive policy shift in the near future.

The U.S. State Department must not accept promises in exchange for real
change; past pledges to reform human rights laws and practices have not
translated into actual reforms. Moreover, until the Turkish government
rescinds the state of emergency in the Southeast and allows U.S.
government officials access to the region, Washington will be unable
either to verify official claims of improvements or to ensure that
future arms shipments are not used in human rights abuses. Rather than
trusting the Turkish government to use U.S. arms appropriately, America
should refrain from selling arms until independent verification is possible.

The attack helicopter sale provides a good test case for the new U.S.
policy with its due emphasis on human rights, but it should not be a
unique occurrence. By adopting a consistent set of firm criteria, such
as the Arms Transfers Code of Conduct, the U.S. government would affirm
that short-term goals—in this case logistical support for U.S. policy
toward Iraq—do not outweigh longer-term goals, such as a democratic and
stable Turkey. U.S. interests in the Aegean region go far beyond
containing Saddam Hussein, and a free-flowing arms sales policy
undercuts other strategic, political, and economic objectives.

Moreover, the U.S. policy of maintaining a no-fly-zone in northern Iraq
is absurdly illogical. U.S. jets based at Incirlik, Turkey, patrol Iraqi
airspace—and have recently bombed air-defense systems—in order to
protect the Kurdish population from military attacks. Yet in regular
sorties north of the Iraqi border, Turkey simultaneously uses
U.S.-exported jets and attack helicopters—and U.S.-supplied
intelligence—to target the same Kurdish population in Turkey.

Washington must issue a strong statement of concern over human rights
and democratic practices and back it with an arms embargo—as several
European states have done—for Turkey to take U.S. concerns seriously.
State Department officials assert that they use bilateral discussions to
push for democratic and human rights reforms. Given the dismal failure
of these efforts, either arms sales have not provided the U.S. with
enough influence, or U.S. officials have not cared to exercise their
supposed clout to defend these foreign policy goals. Withholding arms to
Turkey can help achieve such goals by denying the physical and political
support the Turkish military needs to continue its civil conflict with
the PKK, its stranglehold on Turkish politics, and its maintenance of a
political system based on exclusion and repression.
http://www.fpif.org/briefs/vol4/v4n16turk.html

Panta Rhei · Guest

Mhitsos**5252 writes:

Mhitsos, please keep posting your info about Blahblah's ongoing cancels.

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