İngiltere'de yayımlanan haftalık Economist dergisinin son sayısında Hakkari'de kaleme alınan bir yazıya yer verildi...

"Kürtler kötü durumda" başlıkla yazıda, Türkiye'de siyasetçilerin Güneydoğu Anadolu'da yaşam koşullarının iyileştirilmesi yönünde verdikleri birçok sözü yerine getirmedikleri savunuluyor.

Yazıda Hakkari'nin, hem Türkiye'nin büyük çoğunlukla Kürtlerin yaşadığı güneydoğusundaki en fakir yer olduğu, hem de Kuzey Irak'ta PKK'ya karşı girişilen operasyonların başlatıldığı merkez olduğu iddia ediliyor.

Economist, Türkiye Başbakanı Recep Tayyip Erdoğan'ın iktidara gelmeden önce seçim kampanyası kapsamında geldiği Hakkari'de, değişim vadeden siyasetçilere katıldığını hatırlatmış.

Dergiye konuşan Hakkari Belediye Başkanı Metin Tekçe ise "Hiçbir şey değişmedi" demiş.

Economist; Hakkari'de toplanmayan çöp yığınlarının havada uçuştuğunu, evlerin sadece beşte birinde içme suyu olduğunu, 1990'lı yıllarda köylerinden atılmaları sonrası Hakkari'ye giden on binlerce kişinin kent altyapısını çökme noktasına getirdiğini belirtiyor.

Derginin yazıda hatırlattığı bir diğer olay da Recep Tayyip Erdoğan'ın 14 ay önce Şemdinli'de bir kitapçının bombalanması sonrası Hakkari'de yeni vaatlerde bulunması, "bombalama olayının aydınlatılması için ne gerekiyorsa yapılacağını" söylemesi.

Tüm bu gelişmeler sonrası dergiye konuşan bir avukatsa "Kürt sorununun çözümü yolunda en büyük şans kaçırıldı" ifadesini kullanmış.

Economist'teki yazıysa Türkiye'ye bir uyarıyla noktalanmış:

"Bu arada Türkiye'deki baskı ortamı giderek artan sayıda Kürdü; iş, özgürlük-hatta en kötüsü PKK'ya katılma amacıyla- Kuzey Irak'a gitmeye itiyor. Sayın Erdoğan'ın Hakkari için verdiği sözleri yerine getirmemeyi sürdürmesi halinde, çok daha fazla Kürt onları izlemeye hazır."

Haberin İngilizce tam metni

Turkey's poorest corner

The plight of the Kurds
Jan 25th 2007 | HAKKARI
From The Economist print edition

Too many promises have been broken by the politicians

ON AN icy road snaking through the mountains that separate Turkey from Iran and Iraq, a military convoy rumbles along. Ragged children stand barefoot in the snow, waving at the conscripts as they peer through misted windows. They are headed towards Hakkari, the poorest corner of Turkey's predominantly Kurdish south-east and a launching pad for military operations against separatist PKK rebels in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq. Decades of neglect and brutal repression have made the province synonymous with all that ails Turkey's 14m Kurds.

Four years ago, when he chose Hakkari to launch the election campaign that swept his AK party to power, Turkey's mildly-Islamist prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, joined a train of politicians pledging change for Hakkari.

“Not a thing has changed,” however, according to Metin Tekce, the youthful mayor of the province's eponymous capital. Jobless youths fill coffee-houses. The stench of uncollected rubbish wafts through the air. Barely a fifth of homes have running water. Tens of thousands of refugees, expelled from surrounding villages by the security forces at the peak of the PKK insurgency in the 1990s, are surviving thanks to Hakkari's deeply rooted tribal culture—but their presence is straining the town's flimsy infrastructure to the point of collapse.


Mr Tekce says he might have had a shot at fixing things. But the mayor's debt-laden budget is eaten up by his bloated workforce and his time is spent running from one court hearing to the other. Mr Tekce has been slapped with at least 20 cases since being elected in 2004 on the ticket of Turkey's largest pro-Kurdish party, the DTP. Charges against him range from “membership of a terrorist organization” for saying “the PKK are not terrorists”, to violating constitutional laws decreeing that “everyone who lives in Turkey is a Turk.” Mr Tekce said he was a Kurd.

Fourteen months ago, Mr Erdogan returned to Hakkari with fresh promises. It was after the bombing of a bookshop frequented by pro-PKK activists in the township of Semdinli. Two intelligence officers and a PKK informant who planted the bomb were caught as they fled the scene. Speaking in Semdinli, Mr Erdogan vowed to get to the bottom of the affair “no matter how high the trail leads.”

Emboldened by such words, in his indictment of the Semdinli bombers the chief prosecutor of nearby Van also implicated Turkey's hawkish chief of general staff, Yasar Buyukanit, who had called one of the bombers “a fine chap”. An unscheduled “working visit” to the prime minister from the general prompted Mr Erdogan to back down; the prosecutor was sacked and the bookshop owner jailed. “The biggest chance to solve the Kurdish problem was squandered,” says one prominent human-rights lawyer.

Adnan Demirkan, a local AK party official, disagrees. The government is expanding roads and has built 700 units of low-income housing. It has also launched a scheme throughout the south-east which gives poor families 30 lira ($21) a month for each child to help with their education. The money is deposited in the mother's account to ensure it is properly spent.

In the nearby town of Yuksekova, Necip Capraz, who runs an online news service that broke the Semdinli scandal, has a different worry. He detects a link between the steady stream of anonymous threats that he has been receiving and the deteriorating relationship between Turkey and the EU. “The EU talks were our only shield,” Mr Capraz commented.

Meanwhile, the climate of repression is pushing a growing number of Kurds to cross into northern Iraq in search of jobs and freedom—or, worse still, to join the PKK. Should Mr Erdogan keep breaking his promises for Hakkari, many more are poised to follow.