Quote Originally Posted by Jedburgh
Mehmedin Kitabi: Güneydoğu'da Savaşmış Askerler Anlatıyor. Unfortunately, I'm not aware of an English edition.
Hey, it is available in translation: Voices from the Front: Turkish Soldiers on the War with the Kurdish Guerrillas

Now I have to pick it up and read it so I can compare it with the original Turkish.
Quote Originally Posted by orko_8
The literature has a lot of articles, books and other materiel directly and indirectly financed and/or suppported by PKK and its extensions. The book "Mehmedin Kitabi" is one of them: having an incredible number of inconsistencies and mistakes about military service and the situation in the SE region of Turkey.
There is certainly a certain chunk of material written on the conflict that is linked to (or supportive of) the PKK. But having worked extensively with the Turkish military since the mid-80's, I will state unequivocally that this statement is very wrong about Nadire Mater's book. The strength of Mater's work is in the spectrum of sources she interviewed: the vast majority were ethnic Turks of different backgrounds and educational levels, but she also interviewed Armenian, Greek, Kurdish (Shafii and Alevi), Laz, Greek, and Roma conscripts who served in the SE. Despite the much tighter censorship of the time, the first printing was permitted without any substantial interference. However, the rapid selling-out of that first printing, and immediate start on second and third printings, prodded the Turkish authorities to ban the book and to charge the author under Article 159 of the penal code (insulting and belittling the military).

The PKK engaged in very brutal actions, killing schoolteachers and many other civilian representatives of the Turkish state in the SE in the style of Maoist "armed propaganda", with the '90s seeing those actions implemented across a broad swathe of the region. This has been extensively documented, and there is little need to demonize the organization as they have been condemned by their own actions.

But some of the attempted revisionism that attempts to tone down what was the heavy-handed response of the Turkish military of that time period really does the Turkish military and the Turkish state no real service, and only serves to obstruct or contaminate potentially substantive lessons learned. ("Revisionism" now - at the height of the campaign there was extensive censorship as well as large numbers of journalists imprisoned while attempting to report on events) Not to mention that it makes the revisionists look foolish, as those actions were also extensively documented, and thus refusing to admit them only results in failing to learn their lessons.

This failure to learn by the Turkish state and military is currently reflected in the re-emergence of the PKK as a violent actor over the past few years, bringing armed conflict up to a simmer in the SE (along with a few scattered bombings in cities in the western part of the country).