From: Press Agency Ozgurluk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 21:35:39 +0100 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: "[Ozgurluk.Org]" Turkey: IMF money, military expences and the massmurder of political prisoners. Excerpts from: FLASH BULLETIN 22. JANUARY 2001: www.freedom-for-ocalan.com 1. "New investments for defense", National Defense Minister Sabahattin Cakmakoglu said the defensive strength of the country will be enhanced by new investments of $8 billion. 2. "Keeping the Peace", Turkey's prison riots have subsided, but the underlying problems remain. 3. "National defense minister Cakmakoglu says they have come to final stage in evaluation of "attack" war helicopters, new generation tanks and AWACS planes", National Defense Minister Sabahattin Cakmakoglu said on Sunday that they have come to the final stage in evaluation of company licence in tenders of 145 tactic-attack-reconnaissance (ATTACK) helicopters, and 250 first new generation tank tenders. 1. - Aksam - "New investments for defense": National Defense Minister Sabahattin Cakmakoglu said the defensive strength of the country will be enhanced by new investments of $8 billion. The main defense projects are as follows: A - Negotiations are held with the American firm, Bell Textron, for attack helicopters totaling $4 billion. If an agreement is reached, helicopters will be made in the Turkish Aerospace Industry (TAI) construction complex. B - The first 250 of 1000 new generation tanks, totaling $1.750 billion, will be produced by joint ventures. The licensing firm will be chosen this year. C - Negotiations with the American firm, Boeing, are continuing for the contract of $1.5 billion worth AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System) aircrafts. D - The German firm, Larrsen, completed the first of six mine-sweeper ships, totaling $620 million, in Germany. The other five will be produced in Turkey and completed in 2002. 2. - Time Magazin - "Keeping the Peace": Turkey's prison riots have subsided, but the underlying problems remain ISTANBUL / by Andrew Finkel Kemal Akcayoz was once a public prosecutor and he named his eldest son in honour of the founder of the Turkish republic. His son is now dead at the age of 30 after authorities raided the prison where he was being held on remand, and Akcayoz has grown bitter demanding an explanation from the very office where he once worked. Alp Ata Akcayoz - named after Ataturk - was one of 29 inmates who died last month when troops moved to regain control over 20 prisons throughout the country in Operation Return to Life. The authorities say they had little choice but to intervene after armed left-wing militants refused to accept a deal to postpone their transfer to new high-security prisons in exchange for an end to protests and hunger strikes. In Istanbul's Umraniye Prison where Alp Ata was being held, prisoners resisted a hail of gas canisters and percussion bombs for four days. Two security officers died in the siege. The justice ministry says that many of the deaths resulted from prisoners carrying out their grim threat to set themselves alight. Kemal Akcayoz denies that his son did this. His second son Bulent questioned staff in the hospital morgue and after hearing other prisoners' accounts, the family now believes Alp Ata was shot by soldiers from above as he fled for his life down a staircase. The local prosecutor has turned down the family's request to see the official autopsy. "There is no precedent for this in any law book. I am being denied the right to know how my son died," Kemal Akcayoz wrote in his appeal to the office in Istanbul responsible for the investigation. Alp Ata was being held for trial after guns had been found in a warehouse where he had a honey business. The weapons had been placed there by distant relations without his initial knowledge, the family says. He was intending to testify at a trial later this month that he had been threatened by a revolutionary group and was trying to get them to take back their guns when he was caught in a police sting. Public opinion in Turkey is not on the Akcayoz's side. Much of the press endorses the armed intervention on December 19th to shut down the dormitory style prisons where sometimes over 20 people live, eat and sleep. The popular view is that the inmates had taken over from their jailers and that the dormitories had become a training ground for new generations of militants. Even human rights organisations sympathetic to the prisoners believe that some inmates were being forced on hunger strike against their will. The government has denied charges by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch that inmates were beaten and humiliated while some 1,000 prisoners were finally transferred to three F-type jails after the 19 December raids. These facilities are equipped with cells that hold between one and three people. The prisoners' claim, which sparked the hunger strikes, is that the F-types are designed to hold them in conditions of virtual isolation. Turkish prisoners say there is safety in numbers and that the new jails would put them at the mercy of the prison regime. The government has managed to solve some of its problems by simply opening prison gates. Deputies recently passed an amnesty under which some 20,000 of the country's 70,000 prisoners are being released. The justice ministry also drafted legislation that in time will allow independent inspection of prisons - at the moment it is only the parliament's own Human Rights Commission and the Council of Europe's Committee to Prevent Torture that have access. An estimated 300 prisoners in F-type prisons are still on hunger strike, some into their third month. They are staying alive by taking vitamins and sugared water. The government said it will no longer negotiate and that prisoners' health lies in their own hands. Last December, the State Security Court issued a warning to the press to avoid "giving comfort to terrorists" in their coverage of the hunger strikes. "The silence is frightening; public opinion is not concerned - it's as though nothing ever happened," said Yucel Sayman, the head of the Istanbul Bar Association. Criticism from abroad, too, has been muted as Western governments with troubled penal institutions of their own are reluctant to voice criticism. No one is certain what actually happened on December 19th. Until that is cleared up, informed observers believe that it will be an uphill struggle to re-establish trust between prisoners and their wardens. The justice ministry has launched an enquiry, but at the same time police have been cracking down on human rights organisations sympathetic to the hunger strikers. Some militants have taken matters into their own hands - four policemen have been killed since December 19th in a series of incidents that include the suicide bombing of an Istanbul police station. "I don't believe in violence but I now understand the despair that could drive someone to commit a desperate act," said Alp Ata's brother, Bulent. When he was born in 1973, Bulent was named after the current Prime Minister, Bulent Ecevit, the hope of the Turkish left in that year. "I'm changing [my name] to Baris," he said - a word that means "peace". 3. - Anadolu Agency - "National defense minister Cakmakoglu says they have come to final stage in evaluation of "attack" war helicopters, new generation tanks and AWACS planes": ANKARA National Defense Minister Sabahattin Cakmakoglu said on Sunday that they have come to the final stage in evaluation of company licence in tenders of 145 tactic-attack-reconnaissance (ATTACK) helicopters, and 250 first new generation tank tenders. National Defense Minister Cakmakoglu evaluated the developments in important defense industry projects which the Defense Industry Undersecretariat included in its program. Cakmakogu said, contract talks continued with the U.S. Bell Textron Company in production of ATTACK war helicopters which were planned to cost four billion U.S. dollars according to a decision which the Defense Industry Executive Committee took last year. Cakmakoglu said the production will be made in installations of the Turkish Aviation Industry (TAI). Cakmakoglu said important steps have been taken in project regarded with the joint production of the first 250 of the 1000 new generation tanks program, which was taken to the plans aiming to strengthen the Turkish Armed Forces. Cakmakoglu said efforts were underway to complete the new generation tanks program in the planned time, noting that tests are underway to try the models which four companies proposed last year. Cakmakoglu said tanks of Germany, Ukraine, French Lecrec and the U.S. Abrams were tested so far. Cakmakoglu said, an agreement was about to be signed with the related company regarding the procurement of the awacs plane, having a value of 1,5 billion U.S. dollars. He said talks were underway with the U.S. Boeing company which ranked the first, noting that talks could end in the second half of this year. -- Press Agency Ozgurluk In Support of the Revolutionary Peoples Liberation Struggle in Turkey http://www.ozgurluk.org DHKC: http://www.ozgurluk.org/dhkc _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki Phone +358-40-7177941 Fax +358-9-7591081 http://www.kominf.pp.fi General class struggle news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Geopolitical news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________________________
