Volume 41, Number 12 · June 23, 1994
The Hidden War in Turkey
By Jeri Laber
Grim and disturbing events are taking place in Turkey, where a large-scale, and under-reported, war is being fought against the Kurdish rebels in the southeastern part of the country. Turkey is in a deep financial crisis, and there are persistent rumors of a military coup. Tourist sites have been bombed by Kurdish guerrillas, and hundreds of prominent Kurds have been assassinated in the past year by unidentified assailants. The war also helps to explain why, in the local elections on March 27, for the first time since Kemal Ataturk established a secular Turkish republic in 1923, an Islamic fundamentalist party succeeded in electing mayors of Ankara, Istanbul, and some twenty other cities. Turkish society has been deeply divided by the war and by the extreme measures the government has been taking against opposition groups, including the arrest of Kurdish members of parliament shortly before the March elections.
Feature, 4570 words
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