AN ADDITION TO ‘LEGAL BACKGROUND’

TDN
Monday, August 29, 2005
Opinion by Gunduz AKTAN

Gunduz AKTAN

In my article published on Aug. 23, I sought to explain the legal
background in the struggle against Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)
terrorism. In this article I will focus on the fact that the Kurds
have already exercised their right to self-determination.

A group of people can exercise the right to self-determination only
once in history. Once this right is exercised, however, resorting to it
again and in a different manner is out of the question. The use of the
right to to self-determination generally requires the dismemberment
of countries and the emergence of new states as a result of long
and bloody wars. Exercising this right could so profoundly upset
international relations, regional peace, stability and security that
its repetition is not permissible. The only exception is persecution
bordering on genocide perpetrated on a group in a country where the
right to self-determination has been exercised.

I submit that the Kurds have exercised their right
to self-determination together with all people in Anatolia and
Thrace. There are two important documents on this issue. The first
is a declaration issued at the end of the Erzurum Congress (Aug. 7,
1919), forming the backbone of the Misak-ı Milli (National Pact).

The first article of this declaration states that “Trabzon
province, Samsun sanjak [a sub-province under Ottoman system] and
Erzurum, Sivas, Diyarbekir [the name of Diyarbakır in Ottoman times],
Elazıg, Van and Bitlis, which are known as the ‘Six Provinces,’
cannot separate from each other or secede from Ottoman territory for
any reason.” This article was aimed at preventing the creation of an
“Armenian homeland” in this region. But the document’s stipulation
that the region would not secede for any reason from the Ottoman
territory that is the Turkey of today is still valid.

Article 6 states that “We reject the concept of separating
individuals or human beings and dividing the land in regions that are
within the borders defined [by the Oct. 30, 1918 Mondros cease-fire
document], i.e., in Eastern Anatolia and at other areas inhabited by
the majority Muslim people.” Thus integrity of eastern Anatolia and
other regions was evaluated within the framework of the togetherness
of individuals or human beings rather than on the basis of the ethnic
or religious groups living in those areas.

Article 7 defines as “nationalism” the principle expressed
in Article 6, that is, not separating individuals or human beings
on the one hand and the land on the other. Therefore, what is being
defended was not a concept of nationalism based on two separate
nations but one on the basis of uniting individuals.

Article 8, after making a direct reference to the right to
self-determination, states that “our central government must
be subordinate to the national will” and that for that reason
“the national assembly must convene without delay.” Here, in its
most contemporary meaning, the right to self-determination would
be exercised through a national will that would be achieved at the
national assembly. Thus, including the Kurds, everyone who participated
in the deliberations of the assembly have become partners in the
exercise of that right.

In Article 9, while it was being said that the “Å~^arki Anadolu
Mudafaa-i Hukuk Cemiyeti” (Eastern Anatolia Association for the
Defense of Rights) is a union of people born out of the sufferings
and calamities endured by our country,” once again an emphasis on
the individual was made with the expression that “all Muslim citizens
are natural members of this community.”

Article 1 of the Misak-ı Milli (National Pact) adopted on Feb. 17,
1920 by the last Ottoman assembly in Istanbul has great importance for
our subject. Here it was pointed out that the Ottoman Muslim majority
living within the borders drawn up by the cease-fire form a unity
“religiously, racially and of origin.” Therefore, it underlined that
“All the regions [populated by these people] are an inseparable
whole that cannot be divided by force, de facto or de jure, for
whatever reason

The Turkish War of Liberation was waged and won on the basis of
these documents.

There is no reference in the two aforementioned documents that the
exercise of the right to self-determination was a bi-national one or
that it was realized by the regions and groups coming together.

There was an emphasis on the inseparability of the geography within
the borders drawn up by the cease-fire and the “individuals or
citizens” living in it, while territorial integrity is emphasized in
that context.

Nationalism was described as the inseparability of the individuals
or citizens and the integrity of the land.

The nation was made up of a Muslim majority that constitutes a
unity “religiously, racially and of origin.”

The right to self-determination was exercised through the national
will that manifested itself in the national assembly.

I don’t know whether in history there has ever been as clear a
description of nation and homeland that are still valid today and an
exercise of the right to self-determination as advanced and elaborate
as this.

–Boundary_(ID_fmklg/Bb8Tl53TG3L5HfOw)–