Printer-friendly Version

Elements of PJAK, a group with close ties to the Turkish Kurdish PKK, are seen outside one of their base camps. Photo/by David Enders

In fact, it was some measure of the growing support for the widespread Kurdish radicalization that had developed that military claimed it was acting to foil a Kurdish uprising. It was in this political hothouse atmosphere that, Abdullah Ocalan (Apo) and several other Kurdish students began to develop a separate, distinct 'political-ideological' organization. On one day in 1974 in the Ankara, a number of militant Kurdish nationalists met and drew up rudimentary plans for the formation of a distinct Kurdish leftist organization, which would have no ties with Turkish leftist groups, all of which ignored the Kurds' specific needs (McDowall, 1996: 418-19). Ocalan reportedly asserted at this meeting that conditions existed for the establishment of a 'Kurdish National Liberation Movement'. Ocalan elected the leader of this group in the process of formation, which became the initial stage of the PKK. The initial phase of the group was an 'ideological group', between years 1973 and 1977. During this four-year period, the initial ideological formation evolved into a political party - the Prtiya Karkeren Kurdistan (PKK - Kurdistan Workers' Party), which was officially formed on 27 November 1878, in the village of Fis, near Lice, in Diyarbakir (It referred to as 'Amed' by Kurdish nationalists) province (PKK, 1991: 4-13). By all accounts, the PKK's founders were all from humble origins. There were no intellectuals in the early (pre-PKK) organization. The intellectuals were attracted only gradually form the cities of east and southeastern Anatolia.

The 1980 military coup brought with it a period of severe repression and martial law throughout the country. The vast majority of insurgent groups were broken between 1980 and 1983, their members either killed, arrested, or forced out of the country. Ocalan and his PKK leadership, along with some other subversive groups, had sensed the coming 1980 coup and fled country shortly before military takeover. But while the leaders of many Marxist urban groups eventually found in Europe or the Soviet Union, the PKK and a handful of other groups continued preparation for their insurgencies from neighbouring Syria and Lebanon (Imset, 1992:31). Indeed, Syria was happy to provide the insurgents with refuge and allow them to organize on its territory and in Lebanon, hoping to cultivate a political lever in its dealing with turkey. By 1983, the PKK also moved into Iraqi and Iranian territory, having reached an agreement of cooperation with Masoud Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party in northern Iraq (Imset, 1992:31-33).

In 1984 the PKK began guerrilla attacks on Turkish security forces, government personnel and facilities, and Kurdish feudal elites that supported Ankara. Although initially the group was largely ignored by Ankara, which viewed them as little more than a handful of rural bandits, the attacks grew progressively more daring and sensational. In 1984-1985, the government 's response to mounting PKK actively was hampered by dispute amongst the political and economic elite in Ankara (Imset, 1992: 38-39). By the late 1980s the PKK had gained the full attention of the Kemalist regime in Ankara and the population of all Turkey. Because Ocalan's militants were waging a classic guerrilla war campaign, the state's security forces had difficulty identifying militants and protecting all their isolated outposts, police stations and village officials. Counter-insurgency actions affected many innocent civilians, which may have sent the PKK several new recruits for every militant that was killed or captured. Support for the Kurdistan Workers' Party snowballed, and by the late 1980s and early 1990s the PKK had acquired the characteristics of a mass uprising. Moreover, Syria continued to provide sanctuary and training facilities for the group, as well as some intelligence support (Imset, 1992:41).

. The test of real events has demonstrated that - whatever one thinks about it - the PKK gained significant support among Turkish Kurds. An uprising in the Turkish section of Kurdistan that began in mid-March 1990, illustrated the degree to which the Kurdish national movement in Turkey had developed spontaneous militant forms 'from below' by this time. The uprising began on 12 March 1990, following a battle between PKK fighters and Turkish troops in Mardin province (Voice of Kurdistan, 1990:19) just prior to Newroz, the Kurdish New Year. For Kurdish nationalists, Newroz has long been the most important annual national celebration, as well as of the new year. The coincidence of these events was apparently the last straw for many Kurds in southeast Anatolia, sparking a regional uprising. The PKK was the only nationalist organization in a position to benefit from these events. Coincidentally, the chaos along the Turkey-Iraq border at the end of the 1990-1991 Gulf War allowed the PKK to establish bases inside Iraqi Kurdistan than ever before, and benefit from a fortuitous enhancement of its weaponry. This enabled it greatly to enhance its military operations inside Turkish Kurdistan, which made it appear as the only Kurdish nationalist organization in Turkey with a real chance of success. This, in turn, attracted more support for the PKK than ever before (Levitt, 1991: 24).

The Turkish state is frequently accused of human rights violations. The PKK is routinely accused of political murder and wanton terrorism. Whatever the precise facts about these allegations, it is clear that Ankara has not been solely pursuing a policy of naked aggression against Kurdish nationalists in Turkey - and that, until the capture of its leader in early 1999, the PKK had increasingly given consideration to peaceful, purely political tactics. During 1991, Turkey's then president, Turgut Ozal, began to make overtures to the Kurdish minority, announcing the legalization of spoken Kurdish, and offering an amnesty to all Turkish Kurdish guerrillas - including Abdulla Ocalan. The Kurdish nationalists generally reacted to Ozal's proposals with scepticism, pointing out, for instance, that the new cultural laws still did not permit the printing or circulating of Kurdish printed materials. Armed clashes between the forces of Ankara and the PKK respectively continued in the wake of Ozal's reforms and proposals. If any hope still existed for Ozal's initiatives, it certainly perished with him, when he died suddenly on 19 April 1993. The Turkish political leaders who followed in the wake of Ozal's death, lacked either Ozal's independence, influence, imagination or willingness to pursue anything but the military solution to the PKK insurgency (McDowall, 1996:440-441). On the other hand, there were signs that something that should always have been apparent to the PKK - that it could not hope to win a guerrilla war against the vastly larger and more sophisticated Turkish military - began to dawn on it at about this time.

By 1995, Ankara's military efforts appeared to have achieved some degree of success, however. Turkish troops and special contra-guerrilla forces in the southeast had also gained in experience and effectiveness by 1995. After that year, the PKK no longer enjoyed nightly control of such large areas of the southeast and was forced to fall back on smaller hit-and-run guerrilla raids reminiscent of its early days in the 1980s (Gunter, 1997:84). Perhaps the biggest setback for the PKK occurred in February 1999, however, when Turkish agents captured Ocalan in Kenya. In the fall of 1998, Turkey had massed troops on the Syrian borders and threatened war with Syria if Damascus insisted on continuing to allow Ocalan to reside there. The Syrians eventually blinked and expelled Ocalan, who then went on an odyssey across many nations in search of a new refuge, until he was eventually captured in Africa. Although sentenced to death after a trial in turkey, the Turkish authorities have so far refrained from carrying out Ocalan's sentence. Mainly, they are wary of international pressure regarding human rights, as well as the elevation of yet another Kurdish martyr.

After wandering round Europe for four months, Abdulla Ocalan (APO) was finally handed over to the Turks in Kenya on 15 February 1999 and transferred to Turkey's Imrali jail. It was in this Island-prison, generally reserved for people sentenced to death, that former Prime Minister Adnan Menderes and two of his ministers were executed in 1960. And it was here that the head of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PPK), engaged in armed struggle against the Turks since 1984, sentenced to death. The Kurds felt scorned and humiliation and kept complaining "the Kurds have no friends". For most of them, the PKK leader had been the victim not just of a veritable manhunt, but also Turkish/American "plot" to which the Greeks and Kenyan governments had been party as well. That was the reason for their anger and the wave of violent demonstrations against these countries' embassies and consulates in Europe, the Middle East and the Caucasus. As a precaution, the Turkish government arrested nearly 2,000 Kurds and Turkish human rights activists in the space of a week, and denied access to Kurdistan to the international media. Europe that has welcomed its fair share of corrupt and violent dictators to its shores closed its doors to Ocalan under pressure from the United States and also for fear of Turkish economic reprisals, especially over arms sales. Kenya, on the verge of bankruptcy and under pressure from Washington (which had accused it of laxness after the bloody August 1998 attack on the US embassy in Nairobi), could not but agree to carry out its assigned role.

The "Kurdish Reality"

It is also important to examine the "Kurdish reality" in the post-Cold war era. With the demise of Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the major powers seem to have no choice but to accept the "Kurdish reality" in the Middle East. In the 1980s, it was generally believed that Soviet Union continued support of the Kurdish separatist movement in Turkey, either directly or through the Syrians, Moscow's main client in the Middle East in the 1980s. On the other hand, the CIA report in the early 1980s concluded: "while the Soviets have aided the Kurds occasionally in the past, there is no evidence that they are doing so now. Indeed, Moscow has done its best to stay aloof of the present round of Kurdish unrest. Despite claims in the Turkish media, Moscow has been careful to distance itself from the Kurdish separatism" (Gunter, 1990:112). This CIA assessment seems to contain strong evidence that Soviet Union was probably not the major key factor behind the Kurdish guerrilla warfare in Turkey when some argued they were. The Collapse of Soviet Union in 1991 and continuation of the Kurdish uprising in Turkey until today, indicate that this conclusion would seem all the more likely to be valid at the present time.

This paper also sees that it is crucial to explain that upon reading of many different sources, it becomes clearly apparent that the Turkish government has no desire to find a peaceful and democratic solution to the Kurdish question in Turkey at the present moment. This paper also aims to find an answer to this important question in its final copy: why the Turkish state has been continued to deny the existence of a Kurdish minority, while a peaceful solution of the Kurdish question in Turkey would improve its image abroad and would for example, improve prospects for Turkish final integration into the European Union as a full member. Turkey cannot join to the EU, as a full member, without a proper restructuring of its constitution (ex. abolition of death penalty) and judicial system and a complete change of attitude in regards to the rights of Kurdish population. The EU has openly opposed the execution of Abdullah Ocalan (the PKK leader). Thus, the much needed political and economic reforms should be carried out in Kurdish areas which devastated by seventeen years war and more than seven decades repression. The percentage of Kurdish population in Turkey is higher than the percentage of other minorities in each of the European countries, but Kurds have no recognized status or rights in Turkey. The Scots, for example, with less than half of the population of Kurds in Turkey, have their MEPs who are present in EU parliament and are present in EU decision-making process. Now (since 1999) Turkey has been considered as an EU candidate, and the European Union should pressure Turkey for an immediate recognition of Kurdish national rights. If EU grants full membership to Turkey and does not involve Kurds in the process, it would only import the war of Kurdish national struggle into the EU territory.

At this point the Turkish government must to complete all legislation deficiencies by the end of 2003 in order to hit the target of December 2004 when the EU leaders will decide whether to open membership negotiations with Turkey. Much to Ankara's chagrin, the European Union has argued that Turkey has not yet caught up with EU democracy norms (Nouredddine, 2003: 6-7). It seems that the Turkish state is under massive pressure to adapt a wide range of EU oriented reforms which aimed mainly at expending human rights. Among other changes, the proposals would enable private radio and television channels to broadcast in Kurdish, abolish several restrictions on freedom of expression and bring the legal definition of terrorism in line with UN standards. Indeed, Turkey's path toward democracy has been marred mainly because of widespread human rights violations during the country's struggle against a separatist Kurdish uprising in the southeast, which Ankara dubs a terrorist movement. Fighting in the region has significantly abated since 1999 when the PKK said they were laying down their arms for a peaceful resolution to the Kurdish question. Last year, Ankara passed a series of groundbreaking reforms, among them the abolition of the death penalty and legalization of private Kurdish-language courses and Kurdish- language broadcasts on state-run television and radio (EU Business, 2003:2-3). However, changes have been slow to be implemented and several restrictions on freedom of thought and expression remain in the statute books. They new devepments of the region following the fall of Sadam Hussein's regime in Iraq and emergence of the Kurdish federal state has diverted Ankara 's attention from its EU membership bid and slow down legislation work aimed at embracing the Union's democracy standards. Predominantly Muslim Turkey is the only country among the 13 EU membership candidates is yet to open accession talks with Union.

Beside the crucial role of the European Union, the United Nations also can play a major role for finding a political solution of the Kurdish question in Turkey. The Kurdish question is one of the most vexing issues facing the United Nations today. The United Nations played a major role in the elimination of colonialism in the post war period by taking the side of the colonies against the major European powers such as Great Britain, France, Belgium, Holland, Portugal and Spain. However, because of the break-up of Kurdistan, the Kurdish issue has never been on the agenda of the United Nations, nor of the League of Nations that preceded it. The various governments responsible for Kurdistan's division have resolutely blocked the issue from being discussed. The relations whom developed between Iraq and the USSR in the 1960s had no effect on the state of affairs in Southern Kurdistan. In fact, the tyranny, massacre, genocide, and exile carried out by the Baath regime under Sadam Hossien increased from year to year, with the Kurds unable to make their voice heard beyond the wall of steel raised around them.

In February 1963, a coup by the Bathists in Iraq overthrew the regime of Abdulkarim Kasim. Following the coup, there was repression of the leaders and members of the Iraqi Communist Party, as were Kurds. Thousands of communists were tortured and executed. Only those able to make their way to Kurdistan were able to escape with their lives. At this time the USSR brought the Kurdish issues to the United Nations to threaten the interests of Iraq. In fact, it was not the Soviet Union whom brought up the subject directly; it was Mongolia at the request of the Soviet Union. In the late 1963, another coup in Iraq ousted the Baathists from Power. Gradually the new government began to establish better relations with the communists and the Soviet Union. The latter then withdrew their proposals from the United Nations and the issue closed (Besikici, 1991: 41-42). It seems that international order was not in favourite of Kurdish nation during all this period of Cold War. The fact that the United Nations passed resolutions against practices in South Africa but turns a deaf ear to the racist practices to which Kurds are subjected should tell us something. In South Africa public services were separated according to race, and black communities received of very low standard. In Turkey, on the other hand, Kurds are only able to benefit from public services when they deny their national identities. The denial of one's identity, and the forced deportation of the identity of an oppressor nation, is a much harsher from of racism.

The fact that without a state, Kurds have no way of making their voice heard, no one stand up for them. When ten of thousands of Kurds were forced to leave Iraqi Kurdistan and seek refuge in Turkey after they were attacked with chemical weapons in March 1988, the United Nations decided to send a delegation of experts into the region to examine their case. When Iraq refused to permit them entrance to the country, the delegation requested permission to examine the refuges that had entered Turkey. Once again the permission was denied. Nevertheless, this the same Turkish government was very insist on a United Nations team of experts going to Bulgaria less than a year later to examine that Turks in that country were being inoculated with unknown vaccines (Besikci, 1991: 43). In both cases the Turkish government made use of its privileges as an independent state. This is another reason for the United Nations to take an interest in the international colonial system applied in Kurdistan.

Turkish authorities and the media were most insistent on the need for Turks coming from Bulgaria to be given the best possible treatment; otherwise Bulgaria would make anti-Turkish propaganda. Why was it then, that the same authorities had no such apprehensions when it came to the mistreatment of Kurdish refugees from the Iraqi Kurdistan? Obviously because they knew no other government was going to criticize them regardless of what they did. Should Turkey not be made to consider the possibility that they could be criticized by institutions such as the United Nations for their repeated bad treatment of the Kurds? Today, Turkish state continues its racist and colonialist policies against the Kurds in a most conscious and resolute fashion. Shouldn't this be a matter of interest to the United Nations?

This study also sees that important to examine the role of Turkish mentality (the country's media, political and cultural elites) since the abduction of the PKK leader by the Turkish security forces in 1999. The majority of Turkish public opinion along with the country's political and cultural elite believe the PKK, having lost its military teeth and with its leader imprisoned, is trying to achieve through politics what it failed to achieve in 15 years of violence. This much is obvious. The only differences are that during the years of armed struggle, the PKK called for creation of an independent Kurdish state. Now, though, Ocalan is calling for a democratic Turkish republic in which Turks and Kurds live equally side-by-side. The republic Ocalan has in mind would away with Kurdish urges for secession and/or independence (Noureddine, 2003: 2-3). Thanks to 80 years of Kemalist policies that denied the every existence of a Kurdish minority in turkey, as well as to constant Kurdish rebellions against Ankara, as well as to constant Kurdish rebellions against Ankara, an entrenched state of hatred and mistrust now exists between the two communities that cannot be easily eradicated. Nevertheless, a confidence-building process has begun in earnest, albeit under the pressure of EU conditions.