09/23/15 – Bojan Budimac – The Scott Horton Show

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Alright y'all, welcome back.
I'm Scott Horton.
Yeah, I kept going with Gareth Porter into the break there.
Couple of more points to debunk.
You'll be able to find the whole thing in the archives.
Next up is Bojan Budimac.
I'm sorry, because I'm sure I butchered that.
Long time listener and friend of the show, and email correspondent here.
And I'm sorry, I meant to ask you, Bojan, to send me links to wherever you're writing these days, but anyway, he is a Bosnian reporter living in Turkey.
I'm sorry?
It's mostly in Serbian, Bosnian language I'm writing in, so no useful links.
Well, maybe Google Translate will give it a shot.
That's bad.
Alright, so you're a Bosnian reporter living in Turkey, correct?
Yes, but originally I'm from Serbia.
I'm from Yugoslavia.
What is left of that part of Yugoslavia is now Serbia.
So it's a little bit strange that I'm writing for a Bosnian magazine, but they are buying what I'm writing.
Alright, right on.
Alright, so now listen, I got a few emails from you where I really learned a lot, and I was confessing to my audience earlier in the show that I really don't know that much about Turkey other than just what I've picked up in passing, basically, and reading about the wars over the last years.
I know a little bit about Turkey's relationship with Israel and a bit about America's relationship.
As far as the situation with the Kurds, I read some way back in the 90s, and I've talked with Phil Giraldi, who was a CIA officer who was stationed in Turkey for a while, who has talked a little bit about what you've mentioned in terms of the fight between those who believe in secularism and those who believe in democracy, because in this case it's the conservatives who have the numbers when it comes to the democracy, not the secularists, and how there's a lot of tension there.
But I really know nothing, so I really just want to give you this platform to give us, I'm hoping kind of for this first segment, a real good background of what you think we need to know about Turkey, so that then in the second segment we can talk about the war and Turkey's role in it right now.
Okay, well, the main obstacle actually for understanding Turkey is the myth built around Kemal Mustafa Ataturk.
Namely, that myth is supported by one segment of society here, from inside the country, and largely is supported from outside of the country for selfish geopolitical reasons.
So, namely, the country was based on ultra-nationalism, which is rooted in Young Turk's revolution of 1908, and basically when the liberation war ended, the republic which was founded, was founded on that nationalism by which everybody inside the border of Turkey, who is Muslim, was proclaimed Turk.
And minorities were just, still are actually, just religious minorities.
Now, Young Turks went through to the process of assimilation of other ethnicities, and Kemalism, I mean republic, continued to do that.
Now, we don't know anything about other ethnicities because their numbers were low.
So, the Kurds were the only ethnicity which had the number to resist that assimilation.
However, the problem is, it is not ethnic clash nor ethnic conflict between Turks and Kurds.
It is conflict between two very, very similar ideologies based on nationalism.
Kurdish nationalism against Turkish state nationalism.
Now, that all changed.
I mean, 90s were about that.
I mean, PKK, the Kurdish Workers Party, is, I mean, they have a veneer of Stalinism, Maoism, or whatever.
I mean, put the cover of leftist ideologies on themselves.
But, basically, they are nationalist, and they resist.
And they, at that time, had all reasons to resist the state, which tried to assimilate them not to recognize their language, not to recognize their existence.
Now, what happened in 2002 was the coming of this Justice and Development Party, AK Party, and all game changed completely.
I mean, the first, as I wrote you, the very first act that government did was to lift the emergency, state of the emergency in Southeast, which is actually Turkish Kurdistan, which gave tremendous power to the military.
Later, changes include the right to language, all the cultural rights.
Actually, now, everything what PKK was framing as their goal, except separatism, which they gave up officially in 1995, are fulfilled.
And their existence is obsolete.
However, the problem is that PKK is not just a national liberation organization, as it is very romanticized on the West, but it is also the classical terrorist corporation, which controls the ways of drugs, arms, and humans in that part of the world, which is billions of dollars revenue.
So, they are fighting for their existence because peace process, which was started in 2012 by this government, came close, came very close to some final point, where either PKK will disarm and enter the political streams, or whatever.
They decided to wage a war, actually.
I mean, as I wrote you, in Turkey, whatever is happening in last, well, good five years, can be explained as an opposition to two major changes, and that is constitutional change.
Turkey is still having constitution from 1982, which is the product of the army junta.
I mean, army junta after the last bloody coup d'etat.
That is not the last coup d'etat, but it is last bloody coup d'etat.
So, they wrote constitution, which is still valid.
I mean, it is amended a billion times, but you can't correct what is wrongly built.
I mean, this is not democratic constitution.
I'm sorry, let me stop you here, Boyan, so we can take this break.
I don't want the live audience to miss much of this, but we probably will go into the next break after this.
But anyway, hang tight, everybody.
We're talking with Boyan Budimac, a reporter in Turkey, all about the Kurds and et cetera, like that.
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All right, y'all, welcome back.
I'm Scott Horton.
It's my show, Scott Horton Show.
I'm talking with Boyan Budimac, or something pretty close to that, right?
He's a friend of the show, longtime friend of the show, a Serbian journalist writing from Turkey, and he's given us the background on the renewal of the conflict between the Turkish state and the PKK, and a lot of good background there.
So I wanted to ask at this point, what percentage of the Kurdish population of Turkey do you think, I guess, first of all, are actually members of or associated with the PKK, and what percentage support the PKK, or is it really just sort of, you know, one little movement among a massive population?
Well, it is hard to establish for real, but PKK had never brought support among Kurdish population.
There are a few reasons for that, but the main reason for that is that PKK is, in the eyes of generally conservative Kurdish population, a godless, secular, communist organization.
And as I said, the vast majority of Kurds are conservative and religious people.
So, I mean, if it would be different, probably the borders of this country would be changed a long time ago.
So it is not big support.
It is hard to speak about percentage.
Namely, now in the last general election, so-called pro-Kurdish party, that's HDP, People's Democratic Party is their name, got 13%.
That percentage is very misleading, because it is reflection of the hate for Erdogan on one side, because a lot of Turks and Salon communists voted for that party.
And on the other hand, there was unreported terror campaign before the election.
So AK Party, till this election, was the party of choice for majority of Kurds.
But now...
I'm sorry, go ahead.
No, no, no, go ahead.
Well, now that looks that it changed, but as I said, there was a pretty unreported, unreported even here in Turkey, not to speak abroad, pre-election violence by PKK, where they were threatening whole villages, if you don't vote for HDP, we will burn the village.
So that percentage, 13% for pro-Kurdish party is a little bit misleading.
That party was getting usually around 6% on national level.
Now, if Kurds are claiming that they are somewhere between 15% and 20% of the population of Turkey, now that gives you an idea about how they are supported.
So now what's caused...
Well, first of all, to go back just a minute, there's Akalan, I guess is the name of the PKK leader, and they had made a deal with him.
And as you were describing before, there had been relative peace for a long time.
And at the break, you were saying that part of what has led to the change and the renewal of violence here is the question of, you know, the future of the constitution.
Although it sounded like they'd be a lot better off under Erdogan than they were under his predecessors.
But I guess obviously there are, you know, wrinkles in that.
But then also you got to address the rise of the Islamic State and the fight between the Islamic State and al-Qaeda forces against the Kurds in Syria.
And the role of that part of the war in the renewal of the violence inside Turkey, because, of course, the Turkish government is picking sides inside Syria and has been the last four years too, right?
Well, yes, but that is also perception management.
For example, you remember that Kobani thing last autumn?
Sure.
That thing.
Well, it is not understood in the West and not reported.
I mean, who saved Kobani?
Kobani was saved by Peshmerga, the forces of Kurdish regional government, namely northern Iraq.
Namely Barzani and Erdogan made a deal to send Peshmerga to the Turkish territory to save Kobani.
That is completely underreported in the West.
And simply it was made the impression that somehow Turkey would like Kobani to fall.
No, it's not true.
I mean, first of all, they opened the border, so all 200,000 people from Kobani entered in Turkey as refugees.
I mean, 200,000.
Europe is haggling about 120,000 refugees from Syria.
Turkey opened in two days 200,000 refugees came.
And, as I said, they gave the corridor to Peshmerga for Kobani.
Interestingly enough, the whole opposition in Turkish parliament voted against it.
Even that pro-Kurdish part, which makes complete paradox of the whole situation.
When you know Turkey and when you know the domestic politics, then it is clear.
Yes, it is overflowing.
The conflict is overflowing.
Because, after all, that PYD, the party which is governing those cantons now, formed cantons on the northern of Syria.
It was formed in 2003 by PKK.
I mean, that is sister organization.
And Turkey is regarding them as terrorist as PKK.
I mean, they don't differentiate between them too much.
Understand me?
Sure, yeah, yeah.
But I guess I still don't understand, you know, well, or maybe it is just because the break-in erupted us and you never got a chance to explain about the changes to the constitution.
You are saying that that, you think, is really what has provoked the PKK back to violence?
You know what?
I'm sorry, the music is playing.
Can you do us a favor and stay one more segment here, Boyan?
Of course.
Okay, great.
No problem.
Okay, great.
We are talking with Boyan Budimac.
And he is a Serbian journalist living in and reporting out of Turkey.
And we are talking all about the PKK and the war with the IS and Erdogan's government, this, that and the other things.
So hang tight.
We will be right back, y'all.
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Okay, guys.
Welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
It's my show, The Scott Horton Show.
We're talking with Boyan Budimac, Serbian journalist reporting out of Turkey.
Long time friend of the show.
And about time I interviewed him.
Geez, I'm learning a whole lot.
I hope that you're having a good time listening, too.
So, yeah, again, where we left off, how is it that the peace fell apart and PKK went back to war against the government in Turkey?
Well, they got scared from peace.
I mean, of peace.
That is not strange because, after all, the leaders of PKK are 30-something years on the mountain.
So what they are going to do in peace?
Be retired guerrillas?
I mean, you know, and PKK is pretty much a cult organization.
Not that much as MEK, I mean, Mujahedin Al-Khalq, but close.
Not very, very far away.
I mean, I recommend the book of Alize Markus, Blood and Belief, about PKK.
It is not objective book by no means.
She loves guerrillas.
But between the lines, you can read about what that organization actually stands for and that it is a cult.
So, basically, they got afraid of peace.
And losing the power, losing the money, as I said, they are controlling that part of the world which is the smuggler route for dope, for drugs, humans and arms.
So they decided, despite the good achievement, I mean, good result of their political wing in last elections, to wage a war.
Namely, they announced a break in the ceasefire on 11th of July.
That is more than a week before that terrorist attack, which is later claimed as a cause of renewing the violence.
So, where it is going now, nobody actually knows.
Because this peace process, which started in 2012, by the autumn of 2012, it is most underreported thing about Turkey of all the times.
I was writing in 2013, I was having trouble finding any link in English language which is mentioning that peace process.
While every controversial, or not so controversial, or mistranslated statement of Tayyip Erdogan was widely reported in every western newspaper, this was complete media silence.
Hey, this is a very important point.
I mean, people take note.
This is what happens when an American allied state for 70 years now or something and our military alliance here in NATO, when they have an actual democracy kick in and the democracy elects a guy with somewhat different agenda than the United States, the Americans at any point will prefer military coup d'etat or dictatorship and have it numerous times in the past, right?
In order to replace the will of the people of Turkey, if such a thing exists.
Exactly, exactly.
And that is happening here now for 40 years.
I mean, visible, very visible since 2009.
Do you think there's a threat against Erdogan that there could be another coup now?
Well, it is constant coup.
It is constant coup, but not military.
I mean, I think that times of military tutelage is over, but the civilian coup d'etat, I mean, Gezi Park, for example, Gezi Park protests were an attempt of coup d'etat through the so-called democracy promotion organizations.
They tried to topple government.
Well, they had a big protest movement that began over a park there in Ankara, right?
That's what I'm talking about.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, that was the coup d'etat attempt, actually.
You know, I mean, nobody in Turkey will demonstrate about five trees, which are not even cut, but they are just moved from one park to another.
It was complete democracy, so-called democracy promotion organization stuff.
Yeah, color-coded revolution style, right?
Yes, exactly.
And it was very funny because people didn't understand that.
So, for example, Noam Chomsky, for whom I have great respect, sided with the biggest capitalists in this country, thinking that the movement is, I don't know, leftist, socialist, whatever.
Actually, they were just the Kemalists with iPhones, as I called them.
So it's the conservative religious versus the right-wing secular nationalists, and then the young liberals are basically the dupes in the middle.
Yes, but that conservative, one has to be very cautious with the label conservative regarding the Justice and Development Party.
Yes, they are socially conservative, economically liberal, but when it comes to changes, changes of the society, changes of the laws, they can be easily called progressive.
And the other parties which are trying to keep the status quo are actually conservative, although they are calling themselves progressive.
Understand me?
I mean, if we are going to the basic meanings of the word progressive-conservative, then in terms of reformism, and in my view very positive reforms happened here in the last 13 years.
Right, but don't confuse the Americans, because when you say economic liberalization, you mean freeing up of markets, not socializing and destroying them, which would be the American usage of the term liberalize at this point, would be the clampdown.
Well, this is, from an economical perspective, it is a very interesting mixture of the neoliberal economics, I mean free markets, and socially responsible politics.
So, with all this economic growth, there is no tendency of a bigger gap between poor and rich.
On the contrary, for example, there is no more people who are living under $1 or $2 a day.
And the percentage of those living under $3 a day is in one digit now.
Yeah, you wrote about how, in your email to me, you wrote about how, if you talk with the Kamalists about that, they'll just scream and cry.
They don't want to admit all the progress that's been made economically.
All right, well now, here, let me record you a little bit more into this break here.
I wanted to ask you one more thing here, which is, if you could explain why Erdogan is so hell-bent on killing Bashar al-Assad, and supporting, apparently, Al-Qaeda as his favorite, to replace him.
What the hell is with that?
Well, I don't think that, actually, it is a major mistake in a foreign policy, but a mistake made on the bandwagoning.
As we know, the Syrian project is NATO GCC project, and it is all about pipelines, and Pepe Escobar has it completely right.
Well, Erdogan, as being outspoken, actually rushed.
Now, he's not taking much, much Assad anymore, but two years ago, yes, it was too outspoken, and basically painted himself in the corner with that.
I think that it comes also, they had a good personal relationship in one moment of time, and he tried to influence Bashar al-Assad to changes and reforms, which are demanded by the West, and it didn't work.
Bashar actually didn't react to that.
I mean, if you remember, in 2011, Davutoglu, who is now prime minister, he was a foreign minister.
I mean, he was shuttling, in the autumn, he was shuttling Damascus, Ankara, I don't know, some 60 times he was trying to mend the things.
However, it was not meant to be mended, because it is all about strategic pipelines and geopolitics.
In other words, you're talking about, there are two proposed pipelines, one that goes from Iran into Shiite Iraq, and then into Syria, controlled by Damascus, and then the other one is from Saudi through Iraqi Sunnistan, into Syrian Sunnistan, and into Turkey, and how these two are not compatible, it's one or the other, and hundreds of thousands will die in the battle over it, apparently.
And the real war actually started when Bashar al-Assad signed the deal with Iran.
Then it started for real.
I mean, that is autumn 2011.
So, that relationship has a lot to do, as I said, with the outspoken myth of Erdogan.
I mean, he often makes himself a bad favor for that.
But I think now he redrew that rhetoric.
I mean, there is not much of such a hot rhetoric coming from here towards Syria, I mean, towards, personally, Bashar al-Assad.
Simply painted himself in the corner, following NATO GCC agenda.
All right, with that, I've got to let you go.
Thank you so much for coming on the show.
We've got to do this again.
Thank you.
All right.
Thank you.
That is Boyan Burimac, a reporter out of Turkey.
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