Negotiating smuggling: tribes, debt, and the informal economy in Turkish Kurdistan

ABSTRACT

This article draws from ethnographic and oral history research to explore the intersection of cigarette smuggling and tribal relationships in Cizre, a Kurdish city located near Turkey's border with Syria and Iraq. Cigarette smuggling serves as a primary source of income for the city’s tribal communities, operating beyond the state's oversight and outside the ‘secure’ networks of the regulated market. This informal economy necessitates active collaboration amongst participants to effectively avoid state surveillance, and establish partnerships and substitute networks for coordinating the transfer of cigarettes, as well as for securing credit – all rooted in their tribal affiliations. I suggest that due to its significant reliance on tribal networks, the cigarette smuggling industry has allowed the Kurdish tribes to preserve their influence within an urban setting, even after their detachment from their pastoral economy and fragmentation as a result of enforced migration. I argue that the prominent role played by tribes in orchestrating the cigarette smuggling economy is indicative of the redistributive function that these institutions have increasingly assumed for their constituents.

KEYWORDS:

• Cigarette smuggling
• borders
• colonialism
• displacement
• counterinsurgency

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 They smuggle contraband and less frequently counterfeit or fake brand cigarettes. Contraband cigarettes are made by legitimate manufacturers following corporate and government regulations but are smuggled and sold without paying the necessary taxes. Counterfeit cigarettes are often made with poor-quality and unregulated ingredients by illegitimate manufacturers, are designed to look like popular brands such as Camel, Winston, and Marlboro.

2 For an ethnographic analysis of seasonal farm work among displaced Kurdish communities see: Duruiz 2019. Dispossession, Racialization and Rural Kurdish Migrant Labor in Turkey. Unpublished dissertation. Columbia University.

3 I should note that the kaçak cigarette economy also holds direct political implications within Turkish public discourse. Social media discussions often imply that purchasing these cigarettes may inadvertently aid in funding the PKK, a contribution frequently referred to as a "tax" to the organization. The widespread belief is that the PKK maintains control over the Turkey-Iraq border, operates informal customs checkpoints, and profits from the illicit cigarette trade.

4 My analysis draws from both this recent scholarship on African tribes and classic ethnographies of Kurdistan (Yalçın-Hackmann 1991; Van Bruinessen 1992). Even though these earlier works do not directly explore the effects of colonialism, they nonetheless provide crucial insights into how Kurdish tribes have transformed in connection with both the Turkish state and the Kurdish political movement.

5 This decolonization program was initially enacted in Rojava, located in northern Syria, in 2012. In the midst of the power vacuum created by the Syrian war, the Kurdish movement capitalized on the opportunity to establish self-governance in the region. In Turkey, however, Kurdish autonomy emerged out of peace negotiations between the Turkish government and representatives of the Kurdish political movement, initiated in 2013. During these covert negotiations, the Turkish government reportedly agreed to grant autonomy to Kurdistan, but failed to implement any legal measures to fulfill this promise (Hakyemez 2017). Despite this lack of legal advancement, the peace process temporarily reduced the prominence of the Turkish military presence in the region. The juxtaposition of the government's unwillingness to legally recognize Kurdish autonomy and the lessening of the colonial military presence spurred the Kurdish movement to pursue de facto self-governance in Kurdistan. However, between 2015 and 2016, the Turkish military initiated a counterinsurgency operation against Cizre and several other Kurdish cities in an attempt to suppress this burgeoning self-rule. This operation led to the destruction of these cities and the death of hundreds of young Kurds, some of whom were my interlocutors.

6 In her seminal work "Tribe and Kinship Among the Kurds," Lale Yalçın-Heckmann explores the intricate relationship between Kurdish tribes and the state in the aftermath of the 1980 military coup in Turkey. She recounts an intriguing event from 1982 wherein Turkish gendarmerie officers, armed with a detailed list of tribal villagers known to possess illegal firearms, paid a visit to a Kurdish village in the Hakkari region near the Iranian border. The officers demanded the tribal villagers surrender their weapons, which left them feeling disempowered and humiliated. Yalçın-Heckmann interprets this incident as evidence of the waning power of Kurdish tribes under the auspices of the Turkish state. Interestingly, when Yalçın-Heckmann returned to the village a few years later, she observed an unexpected turnaround. These tribes had not only been rearmed by the same military that had previously disarmed them, but they were also rewarded for their cooperation. These tribes had been incorporated into the village guard system, actively engaging in combat operations against the PKK (Yalçın-Hackmann 1991, 33–36).

7 The term bajari is employed to distinguish the native Kurdish community from the migrant çiyayi and koçer populations.

8 Literally meaning "those who face death" in Kurdish, the term "peshmerga" refers to the Kurdish military forces of the autonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq.

9 These smugglers can also benefit from a degree of immunity in conflicts with members of other clans or other communities, as police intervention is often minimal. I once witnessed a heated confrontation between two clans involving the use of firearms, yet the police chose not to intervene. They arrived only after the incident had concluded, gathering spent bullet casings before departing. An individual involved in the confrontation informed me that the police did not press any charges.