A Modern History of the Kurds

David McDowall

Ottomans

[T]he battle of Chaldiran effectively established a strategic point of balance between Ottoman Anatolia and Safavid Azarbaijan, and this in the longer term created the conditions for Kurdistan to enjoy a period of relative stability. Although both Ottoman and Safavid sought, and sometimes successfully, to shift the boundary in their respective favour, the border reverted to the approximate line ..

These events had a vital impact on Kurdistan, which now became the border march between the two empires. Each empire had to weigh up how far it could extend its control into the border marches, while Kurdish chiefs had the unenviable task of choosing which empire it was wisest to recognize, balancing a desire for maximal freedom from government interference against the local benefit of formal state endorsement of their authority.

Following his initial conquest of Kurdistan, the majority of chiefs recognized Shah Ismail, but probably with as little enthusiasm ... Chaldiran apart, there were a number of reasons why many Kurdish chiefs renounced Safavid suzerainty ... For the ruling Kurdish families there was a more practical consideration: Shah Ismail's intention was to govern through Turkoman or Persian administrators those areas of Kurdistan under his control, whereas the Ottomans relied on local chiefs [pg 26-27] ..

[Selim] also faced two interconnected problems with regard to the newly acquired border marches: there was a danger of Safavid subversion or invasion, and the application of direct administration and taxation in the region would be extremely difficult and probably counterproductive. As a result, Sultan Salim opted for pragmatism rather than the brutal ruthlessness for which he was better known. He did so on the advice of a Kurd, Idris Bitlisi, a man of considerable political judgement. ... Bitlisi persuaded Sultan Salim to give him a free hand to win over the Kurdish princes and chiefs. Equipped with blank fermans, or decrees, Bitlisi reinstated rulers dismissed by Shah Ismail, and confirmed certain chiefs in semi- or virtual independence in return for their acknowledgement of nominal Ottoman suzerainty. ...

The relationship between Istanbul and its Kurdish satraps was far from perfect. Because the system of semi-independent principalities lasted well into the nineteenth century, it is tempting to consider it a successful political arrangement. In practice neither side was satisfied. Both Istanbul and individual chiefs pushed for greater control whenever they thought they had the power to achieve it. In that sense the arrangements achieved by Bitlisi were understood to be a pragmatic recognition of the balance of forces at that time, a balance in which the chiefs benefited from official recognition [pg 30].

By the end of the eighteenth century the Ottomans faced a severe crisis, that of a highly centralized empire that had lost control of its hinterland. The arrangements reached between tribe and state following Chaldiran had long since lost their value for Istanbul and finally foundered in the first half of the nineteenth century. As described in the preceding chapter, efforts to curtail the power of the amirs and chiefs of Kurdistan had been made intermittently by both state and regional authorities during the preceding three centuries. There had been phases of imperial progress, but the Kurds had usually managed to claw back their independence for a variety of reasons. By the end of the eighteenth century it was easy for the amirs and tribal chiefs to believe they had no need for an external sponsor. Their destruction during the next half century was a powerful reminder that leadership could not easily be maintained if the role of intermediary between state and subordinate tribal groupings ceased [pg 38]. ...

The suppression of the old amirates and other semi-independent satraps of Kurdistan led to less law and order in the countryside, not more. This may seem surprising, since if the Porte had the military power to suppress the amirs and chiefs it presumably could also suppress anyone else. However, while the Kurdish paramounts indubitably were responsible for major upheavals, conflicts and bloodshed in the region, they were also part of the regional balance of forces.

While eager to aggrandize themselves, they were also vital mediators between the tribes and tribal sections within their territory, and between these and the outside world. Without them, unrestrained inter-tribal conflicts arose all over Kurdistan, with both political and economic consequences.

While the Ottoman authorities were able to govern towns and their immediate environs, they were unable to exert control further afield except by reprisal. Such expeditions were an insufficient response to the challenge now posed. The absence of adequate restraint led to repeated fights between one tribe and another, to increased banditry and to a serious decline in the economic condition of the country [pg 49] ...

Hamidiya

In 1891 Sultan Abd al Hamid authorized the establishment of an irregular mounted force in eastern Anatolia, designating it after himself, the Hamidiya Cavalry. The intention was to imitate the Russian Cossack regiments which had been used so effectively as scouts and skirmishers in the Caucasus.

Given the social context of the region, the Hamidiya was raised from selected Sunni Kurdish tribes, preferably of proven loyalty, to form mounted regiments of approximately 600 men. In many cases these regiments were drawn solely from one tribe, and its commanding officer was the tribal chief. In cases where tribes were too small, each might provide a squadron for a composite regiment.

There were enormous advantages for both a chief invited to levy a regiment, and for his recruits. Chiefs and their officers were to be sent to a special military school in Istanbul. They were outfitted in dashing Cossack-styled uniforms to lend weight to their new status. Hamidiya tribes were exempted from one of the most unpopular measures of Ottoman centralization, the liability for conscription which was being introduced into the region for the very first time. Hamidiya chiefs were invited to send their sons to one of the tribal schools established in both Istanbul and Kurdistan, in order to absorb them into the Ottoman establishment. ...

The ostensible purpose of the Hamidiya Cavalry was to provide a bulwark against the Russian threat. It was important to stiffen the resolve of Kurds as part of the empire, especially as some tribes inside Ottoman territory had been willing to support czar versus sultan in previous wars. Besides, an increasing number of tribes had fallen inside Russia's orbit in the Caucasus. The formal deployment of the Hamidiya regiments was primarily along an axis from Erzerum to Van [pg 59]. ...

It was not long before the creation of the Hamidiya led to trouble. For one thing, squabbles and fights broke out between various chiefs for senior rank within one tribe, and for another, local commanders did not differentiate between enemies of their tribe qua tribe, and enemies of the Hamidiya Cavalry. Scores soon started to be settled between Hamidiya tribes, armed by the state, and local adversaries. The powerful Sunni Jibran tribe, which had fielded four Hamidiya regiments, soon started attacking the Alevi Khurmaks, confiscating their lands. As reviled Alevis, or Qizilbash, it was not surprising that the state authorities did nothing to obtain redress for them or for other Alevi tribes suffering similarly. But even Sunni tribes not similarly favoured with Hamidiya status were liable to land theft by force of arms.

When the government could not afford to pay Hamidiya officers, it offered them tax-collecting rights on local Armenian villages, causing further hardship for the latter. In several cases a Kurdish chief was not only commander of a Hamidiya regiment but also the local civil authority. .. [T]hose who sought recourse to government still found that the civil administration had no power to restrain the Hamidiya, who were answerable solely to the "[chief] of the Fourth Army in Erzerum. The "[chief]" Zakki Pasha, who happened to be the sultan's brother-in-law, was subject not to the wali but direct to Istanbul. He was clearly using the Hamidiya as the instrument of a policy that had little in common with the brief of the civil administration of the region. The civil administration had nothing but contempt for the Hamidiya...

The lawless activities of the Hamidiya set an example which non-Hamidiya tribal Kurds were soon to imitate. In fact there were any number of young swells anxious to look the part. Local blacksmiths did a roaring trade with such dandies, forging Hamidiya badges for wear with lambskin busbies. As with the Hamidiya, the civil authorities found themselves powerless to curb them ...

Although most affrays initially were inter-tribal ones, it was the client peasantry, Muslim and Christian, which suffered most. Soon it became clear both that the Armenians were the primary targets, and that the Hamidiya was egged on or even deliberately directed by the Ottoman military authorities [pg 60].

The growth of the Armenian problem has already been discussed. By the early 1890S it had deteriorated considerably. Largely because after their experiences in the 1877-78 war some Armenians had finally begun to react to the provocations, depredations and persecution suffered at the hands of the Ottoman authorities, the Kurdish tribes and the Muslim citizens of mixed towns and cities. In 1882 'Protectors of the Fatherland', almost certainly a revolutionary group, was uncovered in Erzerum. .. In summer 1894 an affray between Armenian villagers and the local qaim-maqam concerning tax arrears gave the pretext for wholesale massacre in which local Hamidiya tribesmen played a prominent part. Over 1,000 villagers probably perished. By spring 1895 the representatives of Britain, France and Russia wanted reforms for the Armenian provinces: an amnesty for Armenian prisoners; 'approved' governors; reparations for victims of the outrages at Sasun and elsewhere; Kurdish nomadic movements to be allowed only under surveillance and for them generally to be encouraged to settle; and the Hamidiya to be disarmed. Abd al Hamid agreed to these demands but deliberately neglected to implement them. Continued level of insecurity had reduced agriculture to famine levels by 1897-98 ...

By 1897 even the urban Turkish population had begun to protest about the intolerably disruptive effect of the Hamidiya Kurds.

It was .. as much out of weakness as deliberate policy that Hamid allowed the Hamidiya to inflict such suffering on the Armenians. By 1895 neither the average Hamidiya tribesman nor Turkish soldier made any distinction between Armenian peasants and revolutionaries. The tanzimat had risked alienating the tribes already, better now to allow them free rein. So Abd al Hamid swallowed the European reforms thrust upon him in Istanbul but made sure, by putting the Hamidiya under Zakki Pasha rather than the civil authorities, that they could never be properly implemented. Law and order took second place to loyalty on this vulnerable border.

Nevertheless, the Hamidiya Cavalry was clearly a failure. On the whole, there was little sign of integration into a wider Ottoman context. On the contrary, through the licence allowed to the Hamidiya regiments, tribalism enjoyed a strong resurgence. ...

After the overthrow of Abd al Hamid's regime by the Committee of Union and Progress in 1908, a theme discussed more fully in the next chapter, the Hamidiya regiments were renamed as 'Tribal Regiments' (ashirat alqylan) but remained essentially the same. The triumph of the Young Turks, the threat which they posed to supporters of the ancien regime, and their reversion to authoritarian and explicitly Turkish rule after a brief spate of liberalism led to disorder [pg 61-63].

The Evren Coup

The military coup of 1980 had already brought a more stringent regime to Kurdistan. The army's [prime experience and justification].. apart from Korea (1950-52), Cyprus (1974) and its role within NATO.. over half a century had been in holding the Kurds down. It was natural therefore for the army to focus on Kurdistan but by its methods it helped fulfil its own worst fears.

First, it tried to stifle Kurdish culture. In October 1983 it introduced Law 2932 prohibiting the use of Kurdish. Already the term 'Kurdish' was such a bogey that the law found a form of words to make its prohibition explicit without mentioning the offending word. Such a prohibition primarily affected the literate and activist classes. But the administration went further to remind the illiterates too that alI trace of Kurdish identity was to be banned...

In 1987 a governor-general was appointed over the eight Kurdish provinces in which a state of emergency was declared. His powers were extensive, including the evacuation of villages and pasturage where this was deemed necessary. He was expected to bring much needed co-ordination to the various bodies fighting the guerrillas, the police, gendarmerie, army and village guards, and the separate intelligence networks each operated.

State oppression was most overwhelming and pervasive in the field of physical abuse and torture. Only pro-government villages were inexperienced in the rou- tine of security sweeps in which hundreds were arbitrarily arrested and beaten to confess to assisting the PKK. Doubtless many had, either by conviction or intimidation, assisted the PKK with food, shelter or merely by looking the other way as they passed through. But the manner in which the security forces sought evidence from those it detained was calculated to be the most potent nutrient to the PKK's own recruitment activities.

Few escaped the trauma or frequency of security operations. In some cases 'capture and kill' orders were issued. In the words of one asylum seeker, 'The children became so fearful that whenever a policeman came to the house they would immediately put their hands on their heads as a gesture of surrender.' Those detained were kept in inhumane conditions and frequently received [torture]..'! In Diyarbakir prison 32 were officially acknowledged to have died in custody between 1981 and 1984. Unofficial sources estimated twice this number..