Bloody maneuver set for the Turkish state
The other day Chief of General Staff Gen. Hulusi Akar said, “Our heroic comrades in arms are exerting care and sensitivity not to harm civilian targets and citizens.”
At a first glance, it looks like an ordinary statement but behind these words are the marks of a big game. A strategic chess, maybe; the bloody maneuver that Kandil (the mountain of Kurdistan Workers’ Party bases) is trying to push the state into.
Let me explain… The venue was the southeastern province Diyarbakır’s Cizre district. It was the Sur neighborhood. Now it is Silvan.
Clashes continue day and night. Ditches are dug. When heavy machinery come to fill the ditches, rockets are launched at them. There are curfews. There are armed clashes from midnight until the morning. And there are martyrs… The deaths of the sons of this land, the news that burns our souls…
The newscast goes, “Clashes that started at midnight are ongoing…” Apparently, Kandil has one aim only. It is to create the perception that it is “engaged in a war there.”
As a matter of fact, there is no war going on. This is absolutely terror.
How do they do this? They have quietly planted various weapons inside cities and towns, and they marry these arms with young people they have selected beforehand.
First, the horrifying pressure of terror starts in homes. Then it spreads to neighborhoods. They are trying to spread it from towns to cities. However, they can never find the support they want.
The reason is that people too are fed up with this 30-year circle of fire. In the last elections, they preferred to go to the ballots instead of digging ditches. This is what Kandil fears the most.
Their biggest concern is that people will embrace the belief that issues can be solved through democratic demands. Then weapons will end, then democracy will win and Kandil will remain as the geographic name of a rugged mountain.
Is this place Syria?
Fresh news coming from that region demonstrates the efforts to trap the state in this bloody maneuver. In certain districts, by digging ditches, there is the intention to engage the interior of houses, households, into armed clashes.
What they wish is that just as in Syria, just as in Saddam’s Iraq and in Libya, to generate the image of a country killing its own people; that neighborhoods are bombed and photographs of dead children are given to foreign agencies.
But this place is not Syria; obviously, maximum care is exerted. The military and the police do not fall into this trap.
They do not respond with heavy machinery and bombs. This also is a victory. It is an invisible victory. Kandil’s maneuver fails to make Turkey look like a country warring on its own people using disproportionate power.
I wish all the patience to security forces over there who have risked their lives to dismantle this subtle trap.
Now, the words of the Chief of General Staff about “Our heroic comrades in arms exerting care and sensitivity not to harm civilian targets and citizens” become clearer.
Why?
Because Kandil wants the military to harm people; this is why they fire from inside houses. They want soldiers to attack houses with heavy machinery so that women and children die.
It is not easy to fight terror in urban areas without falling into this trap. It requires patience. It requires care. This is the reason lives are lost. This is why that trap is avoided; so that the honor of the state and democracy is saved.
The perfect response here will again come from the people. Those people will go to the ballots just as they did on June 7. No matter who they vote for, they will be saying “no” to terror and “yes” to democracy.
