Coincidental timing, resonances

When I received your September issue just one week after the terrorist attacks, I was taken aback: I thought the cover photo was a shot of an Afghan rebel. The accompanying article [“Tough Truths, Tough Places”] was excellent.

Had Kevin McKiernan created his documentary during the 1980s, it could conceivably have focused on the Afghans instead of the Kurds. In fact, you could replace the story of the Kurds with the stories of any number of ethnic minorities around the world.

Though I in no way condone the horrors of September 11, I believe our foreign policy is at least partly responsible. As McKiernan so clearly states, “If you’re going to have a principled foreign policy, then you have to be against human-rights violations even if it hurts your policy.” How many times have we looked the other way while others’ most basic rights were violated?

The article also makes an important point about the quality of news programming. The first days after the September attacks, I felt as though I was watching real news. The anchors were shaken but honest and straightforward. Soon, however, it was back to news as entertainment.

McKiernan is right. International news is no longer worth more than the briefest mention on all the major newscasts. Their focus is on the lurid, the tawdry, and the banal. What happened to substance? We’re overdue for a sea change, which I believe is coming.

Shelby Clark, MPTW’93
Sandy Lake, Pennsylvania


The PKK in Turkey

I was shocked and outraged to see a picture of an armed terrorist on the cover of the September issue. This is very unfortunate in the wake of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C. The article “Tough Truths, Tough Places” tells a one-sided story of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party), which is an illegal Marxist terrorist organization.
In a 1999 report, the U.S. State Department identified the PKK as one of the twenty-eight main terrorist organizations in the world, just like Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda. The PKK’s terrorist activities have resulted, to date, in the deaths of thousands of people, including women, the elderly, children, and in many instances even infants.

Among other activities, the PKK has attacked entire villages in southeast Anatolia. It has launched attacks on Turkey’s official missions abroad as well as the offices of semi-official institutions. It engages in organized crimes, such as drug trafficking and arms smuggling, extortion, human smuggling, and money laundering in an attempt to recruit militants and obtain financial resources.

Within the ranks of the PKK, terror takes place against informants and repentant militants, too. Over the years, PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan has ordered the killing of numerous defectors and potential rivals.

In Turkey, it should be noted, some people of Kurdish descent have taken office in top government positions during the past two decades, including Turgut Ozal and Hikmet Cetin.

And before the Gulf war, when Saddam Hussein was attacking Iraqi Kurds, Turkey opened its southeastern border and provided shelter and food in camps for Kurdish refugees for over a year. In fact, a Kurdish faction in Iraq is cooperating with Turkey to fight the PKK terrorists.

Nurcan Bac
Snell Engineering Center

Bac is an associate professor in the chemical engineering department.


Too polarized

I feel compelled to comment on “Tough Truths, Tough Places,” as it brings an oversimplified explanation of recent history and unfairly polarizes issues in the wrong direction.

Tragically, this is a notorious point in time to point out the terrorism in the PKK’s past actions. I find it very difficult to believe that such claims as “Kurds in Turkey were not allowed to speak their language, run their own schools or media, sing traditional songs, wear Kurdish clothes, or give their children Kurdish names” warrant waging a war. Just as the killings that occurred on September 11 are not justifiable by any standard, goal, principle, and measure.

It can be argued that suppression of the ethnic identity of Kurds in Turkey has been a problem. However, the legitimate means to discuss such social injustices should be the use of national and international courts and the media, not bloodshed. The acts of the PKK go well beyond acts to draw international attention to social injustice.

Turkey is an important country to the West. It has been put on a path to westernization by its founding leader, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. It will need more time to find a solution that works in the areas of human rights and distribution of social-economic wealth. There are great efforts under way to reach these goals.

Sinan Müftü
Snell Engineering Center

Müftü is an associate professor in the mechanical, industrial, and manufacturing engineering department.


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