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Title: The PKK Author: Paul White Date: 2015 Language: en Topics: PKK, turkey, kurdistan, democratic confederalism, history Source: Retrieved on 28th July 2021 from https://es1lib.org/book/2725875/a73646
I offer the Turkish society a simple solution. We demand a democratic
nation. We are not opposed to the unitary state and republic. We accept
the republic, its unitary structure and laicism [secularism]. However,
we believe that it must be redefined as a democratic state respecting
peoples, cultures and rights. On this basis, the Kurds must be free to
organize in a way that they can live their culture and language and can
develop economically and ecologically. (
: 38â9)
Negotiation and struggle are both important processes in determining the
future of peoplesâ movements. It is not those who are feared but rather
those who have the confidence of their people that can lead those
processes. (
)
âI, myself, am declaring in the witnessing of millions of people that a
new era is beginning, arms are silencing, politics are gaining momentumâ
(
). With these simple words from his prison cell on 21 March 2013, the
Kurdish nationalist guerrilla leader Abdullah Ăcalan put an end to armed
hostilities between his PKK guerrillas and the Turkish army, which have
taken in excess of 45,000 lives (overwhelmingly PKK militants) since
1984 (
).
Turkey captured the PKK leader in February 1999. It is now well known
that Abdullah Ăcalan was apprehended as a result of cooperation between
Greece and the CIA. A leading officer in Greeceâs Intelligence Service
(the EYP), Colonel Savvas Kalenterides, admits that Athens collaborated
with the CIA to deliver the Kurdish leader to Turkey (
). Abdullah Ăcalan himself alleges: âI was handed to Turkey at the end
of a plot carried out by an international forceâ (
). He has labelled his abduction an international conspiracy backed by
an alliance of secret services, comprising a âcomplex mix of betrayal,
violence and deceptionâ (
;
: 27â8). Since then, much has changed â and much has remained very much
the same.
The present book is in many ways a sequel to and an updating of
Primitive Rebels or Revolutionary Modernizers? (Zed Books, 2000), a
Turkish-language edition of which appeared recently in Turkey entitled
Ä°lkel Ä°syancılar Mı, Devrimci ModernleĆtirmeciler Mi? (2012, Vate
Publishing House, Istanbul, 2012).
The earlier book examines the transformation of peasants from âsocial
rebelsâ into modern Kurdish nationalists, and the changing nature of
political leadership in Kurdish society in what may be described as the
âmodernâ period. It shows that the Kurdish national movement emerged in
the late nineteenth century as a product of traditional Kurdish society.
Affected by Ottoman and Kemalist economic and political changes, the
movement evolved towards a less parochial, âpurerâ nationalism, led
centrally by urban Kurds formed in the Turkish left. It also
demonstrates that ethnic differentiation was a central cause of the
failure of several armed uprisings in the name of Kurdish nationalism.
This differentiation is a problem that Kurdish nationalists in Turkey
are still coming to terms with.
That book goes on to argue that, in many significant respects, the
present-day Kurdish national movement, in Turkey the Partiya KarkerĂȘn
Kurdistan (PKK â Kurdistan Workersâ Party), represents a qualitatively
different sort of leadership from that of its historical predecessors.
Initially a group of âprimitive rebelsâ, with both millenarian
tendencies and some âmodernâ political features, the PKK eventually
emerged as a modern revolutionary nationalist organization, with a
burgeoning diplomatic presence, which contemplated bringing a complete
end to its armed activities before this political evolution was
curtailed by its founderâs capture. Ăcalanâs apprehension in February
1999 raised the distinct possibility of a political âde-evolutionâ on
the part of the PKK, back towards practices of social banditry. In other
words, were Turkeyâs Kurdish nationalist leaders âprimitive rebelsâ or
revolutionary modernizers?
This new book reveals the PKKâs initially contradictory evolution since
1999, its apparently enthusiastic return to a non-violent, democratic
road, and the even more astounding evolution of the Turkish state from
denouncing Ăcalan as a mass murderer to dealing with him on the PKKâs
proposed âdemocratic confederalismâ, which the PKK maintains will
eventually develop into full-blown self-managed autonomy.
Given that the PKK previously advocated nothing less than full
independence for a united Greater Kurdish state, engaging in bloody
feuds with Kurdish nationalist groups favouring a perspective of mere
autonomy, this alone is a remarkable change for the PKK. The fact that
this new outlook represents a decisive step away from MarxismâLeninism
in the vague direction of semi-anarchist ideas is arguably even more
astounding.
The first two chapters of the book set the scene, laying out the origins
and aims of the PKK â its foundation, organization and membership and
the role of ideology in the organization. The notorious
âunder-underdevelopmentâ of Turkeyâs Kurdish region is discussed, and
its violent consequences explained.
Chapters 3 and 4 discuss key events of the modern Kurdish national
movement in Turkey, showing the impact of the ideologies developed by
Abdullah Ăcalan and propagated by the PKK. The ideas and perspectives of
Ăcalan (known affectionately as âApoâ by his followers) have impacted
deeply on political life throughout Turkey as a whole. Indeed, Apoâs
ideology (Apoizm) has changed Kurds and Turks in Turkey forever. The
influence of the Kurdish Apocular diaspora is also elaborated in these
chapters.
Chapter 5 examines the peace process between Ankara and the PKK that
began in late 2012. An analysis of Turkish responses to the process â by
the AKP government, the far right, the military and the conservative
GĂŒlen sect â and the reality or otherwise of the process is offered. The
contradictory, perilous, nature of this process is shown.
Chapter 6 considers the PKKâs ideological evolution from
MarxistâLeninist guerrilla status to âdemocratic confederalismâ, via the
radical municipalism of Murray Bookchin. It is shown that this enabled
it to exchange its traditional stance of struggling for nothing less
than a united independent Kurdistan to a new perspective of âdemocratic
confederationâ, leading to self-managed Kurdish autonomy within the
borders of the Turkish state. An investigation of the PKKâs fascinating
feminist transformation rounds off this chapterâs examination of the
PKKâs ideological evolution.
The final chapter, âComing Down from the Mountainsâ, sums up the PKKâs
transition from âterroristsâ to legitimate (or almost legitimate)
rebels. It explores future directions for Turkeyâs Kurds and Turks. The
future of the PKK in a democratic Turkey is critically examined and
final conclusions drawn on PKK ideology and organization.
âEvents, however great or suddenâ, as John William Draper once
reflected, âare consequences of preparations long ago madeâ (
, vol. 2: 152). The emergence and evolution of the Partiya KarkerĂȘn
Kurdistan provides sound verification of this astute observation. It was
the product of nationalist and protonationalist uprisings and events
hundreds of years earlier, which had divided Kurdistan into enclaves
subservient to domination by a number of foreign states, as
illustrates.
The Kurdish and Turkish left in Turkey almost universally regard Turkish
Kurdistan as feudal. PKK Serok (Leader) Abdullah Ăcalan is no exception,
still maintaining:
the Kurds have not only struggled against repression by the dominant
powers and for the recognition of their existence but also for the
liberation of their society from the grip of feudalism. (
: 19)
As several scholars have observed, the actual picture in Turkish
Kurdistan is more complex. In fact, all ancient Anatolian society
stagnated under a dominant âAsiaticâ mode of production. Interaction
with Europe increasingly evoked feudal forms there from the seventeenth
century onwards. But Mustafa Kemalâs Turkish nationalist takeover in
1923 ushered in an openly modernizing regime â albeit Turkey remained a
weak, underdeveloped economy, subordinate to the economies of those
great powers that had successfully industrialized centuries earlier.
Nevertheless, Turkey was integrated into the world economy during the
1920s and experienced real growth, including industrialization from the
1950s onwards.
Yet Turkish Kurdistan stumbled backwards in comparison, relatively
speaking. Peasants have remained mostly landless. Kurdish economic
development problems were not resolved by the economic modernization of
the 1980s onwards, and political âdemocratizationâ was not achieved for
the Kurds. The Kurds were effectively excluded from citizenship.
As Majeed R. Jafar (
) masterfully explains, the Kurdish region in modern Turkey is not
merely underdeveloped, like Turkey as a whole, but is an exceptionally
underdeveloped sector within the latter â or, as he puts it, Turkish
Kurdistan suffers from âunder-underdevelopmentâ. ZĂŒlkĂŒf Aydin (
) shows that the regionâs peasants remained mostly landless
sharecroppers. He verifies the general verdict of severe economic
underdevelopment for the region. Aydin, along with Ronnie Margulies,
Ergin YıldızoÄlu (
) and Kemal H. Karpat (
), explain how the mechanization of agriculture, beginning in the 1950s,
forced vast numbers to migrate either to western Turkey or even abroad.
The landless rural Kurds who remained were caught in a horrendous
poverty trap, as not even a modest degree of stunted industrial
development in Turkish Kurdistan soaked up the jobless and
underemployed.
The continuing war in Turkish Kurdistan has massively impacted upon all
who live there. Kurdish sociologists estimate that about 3,500 Kurdish
villages have been destroyed, rendering some 4 million people homeless.
Severe unemployment prevails even in Amed (Diyarbakır), the largest
city. In Turkey as a whole the mean annual income is US$7,000, whereas
in the four poorest neighbourhoods in Amed it is a mere US$500 (
: 70;
: 10).
Ä°smail BeĆikçiâs DoÄu Anadoluânun DĂŒzeni: Sosyo-ekonomik ve Etnik
Temeller (
) documents the serious effects of agricultural mechanization on the
Kurdish regionâs economy. Seyfi Cengizâs work (
; n.d.) establishes that, despite grave economic underdevelopment in the
region, a Kurdish working class not only exists but periodically
organizes strikes and other forms of economic and political struggle,
both inside and outside the trade unions. Basing himself on Turkish
government statistics, Cengiz proves his case, showing that industrial
activity by Kurdish workers in the region is intimately connected to
similar action by workers throughout the Turkish state. This is
potentially significant for understanding the objective factors
impelling Kurds into political action, for Kurdish industry and economy
today are linked with Turkish industry and economy, not that of
Kurdistan as a whole. Cengizâs research thus reveals potential
counter-pressures to Kurdish nationalism in Turkey.
Taking its prehistory into account, a schematic chronological typology
of the Kurdish national movement in Turkey from its earliest murmurings
up to the present day would be as follows:
rebellion.
nationalist) Young Turk rebellion.
rebellion.
(Tunceli).
modern national movement.
All of these risings unquestionably took place on the historic territory
of Kurdistan, although â as discussed in the present writerâs earlier
book on the Kurds (
) â the KızılbaáčŁ and Zaza peoples also claim most of them. Naturally,
modern Kurdish nationalists reject these claims, also asserting that the
KızılbaáčŁ and Zaza are Kurds. It is quite clear that the modern Kurdish
national movement considers this asserted rebellious patrimony essential
for its legitimacy.
These rebellions were all evoked by a heady mix of territorial
particularism (the desire to rule their own lands themselves) and
economic motives. Sheikh Saidâs 1925 rebellion was also animated by
Islamic concerns. The modern Kurdish national movement is the product of
the interaction of territorial particularist and economic motives, with
leftist political radicalization, in the wake of Turkish political
development and the explosion of radicalism in Western countries during
the 1960s. It is Kurdish leftist political radicalization, especially,
which differentiates the modern Kurdish national movement from its
historical antecedents.
In May 1960, Turkeyâs armed forces â which since the establishment of
the Turkish Republic in 1923 have considered themselves the Republicâs
guardian â staged a military coup. The military hierarchy asserted that
the military has both the right and the responsibility to intervene in
affairs of state when absolutely necessary in order to guarantee the
systemâs continuance. It was not a left-wing coup, but the military
brought in a new, and surprisingly democratic, constitution. The prime
minister and two of his ministers were executed and hundreds of
right-wingers were imprisoned in 1961. The result of all these events
was an unprecedented leftist resurgence.
From 1968, a rising tide of strikes began, supplemented by leftâright
political violence, culminating in a series of political murders in
early 1970. Hundreds of thousands of workers and students repeatedly
clashed with police on the streets. On 12 March 1971 another military
coup took place.
For a brief moment during this period, the need of the 1960 junta to
repress the right allowed the left a breathing space. A staggering range
of leftist publications emerged â from radical populist and social
democratic in inclination, such as Yön, Ant and TĂŒrk Solu, through to
ostensible Marxist, âMarxistâLeninistâ and Maoist. All of these groups
looked towards a leftist reworking of the tradition of military
intervention in national politics. In this scheme, the elite,
technocrats (including, in some versions, the students) and officers
would lead Turkey âindependentlyâ on behalf of the workers and rural
poor â âfor the people, despite the peopleâ. âStudents would agitate,
officers would strike, and a national junta would take powerâ (
: 65â72).
This strategy soon proved to be a failure. The radicalism sweeping
across Western countries in the 1960s then swept over Turkey as well â
despite the reality that in this country right-wing radicalism had a
much stronger popular base than in Europe at the time. Left-wing
radicalism in Turkey now took the shape of a different leftist approach,
the urban guerrilla strategy of Che Guevara (
: 31).
Turkish Kurdistan was not immune to these developments. Indeed, many
Kurdish intellectuals were deeply affected by the political cauldron of
1960sâ Turkish politics. Confused political and organizational links
soon developed between the movements in Turkey proper and these
intellectuals (
: 97â8). Crucially, this confused intellectual leftist renaissance
occurred at a time when Turkeyâs
Kurdish population ⊠was both more mobile and more susceptible to
influence from regions to the West. Migratory movements, which were
intensified by industrialization, ultra-rapid means of communication and
the massive presence of Kurdish students in major Turkish towns,
together with a more heterogeneous political environment were crucial in
transforming EastâWest relations in Turkey. (
: 98)
A number of bilingual (Turkish/Kurdish) nationalist journals emerged,
only to be swiftly suspended (
: 4â5). Then in 1965 the Democratic Party of Turkish Kurdistan (PDKT in
Turkish) was formed (
: 64). The new party name referred to the Iraqi Kurdish Democratic Party
of Iraq (KDP), founded and led by the famous Barzani clan, although in
the beginning it was controlled by Ibrahim Ahmad, who had nothing to do
with the Barzanis. At the time, the KDP was waging a highly successful
guerrilla war against the Baâathist authorities in Baghdad (
: 98â9;
;
: 68, 70, 193â4;
: 7â8;
: 91â2).
The PDKT was never an effective organized force. Nevertheless the social
and political issues that ripped it apart in the late 1960s were
significant for the emergence of a fully modern national movement of the
Kurds. At their core, these disputes involved the role of both
traditional leaders and intellectuals in the Kurdish national movement
and the relationship of the national movement itself towards the
international working-class movement (
: 98â9). The PDKT was clearly unable to adapt to the rapid
radicalization occurring among Kurdish workers and intellectuals during
the late 1960s. The organization was soon branded âbourgeois
nationalistâ by most of the radicalized Kurdish organizations that
subsequently emerged.
Kurdish resentment was growing, spurred on not just by centuries of
perceived ill treatment, but also now by immediate outrages. In April
1967, a provocative article appeared in the extreme right-wing Turkish
magazine ĂtĂŒken, journal of the far-right Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi
(MHP â Nationalist Action Party). The article stated that the Kurds were
a backward people, devoid of history and culture, who wanted to cut
Turkey into pieces. The author suggested that the Kurds get out of
Turkey, since Turkey was only for the Turks, adding that Kurds âdo not
have the faces of human beingsâ (cited in
: 41â3).
Demanding that Ankara punish the author and ban the magazine (Section 12
of the Turkish Constitution proclaimed the equality of all citizens), a
furious Kurdish protest movement erupted. The government did nothing,
even when a follow-up article appeared in the June issue of ĂtĂŒken,
entitled âThe Howlings of the Red Kurdsâ, which declared:
the Kurds may represent a majority as high as 100 per cent of the
population of the eastern provinces; yet their dreams to establish a
Kurdish state on the soil of Turkey will always remain a dream
comparable to that of the Armenians in a Greater ArmeniaâŠ
But the day when you will rise up to cut Turkey into pieces, you will
see to what a hell we shall send you⊠(cited in
: 42)
The Kurds were well aware that the Armenians were massacred by the
Ottoman Turks (with assistance from some Kurds). Now a Turkish writer
was implying that the same thing might happen to the Kurds.
These articles provoked a swift and widespread response by Kurds. A
public statement signed by nineteen student committees was sent to the
president and the prime minister (
: 42). Protest demonstrations organized by Kurdish students on 3 August
1967 attracted 10,000 people in Silvan and over 25,000 in Amed. Large
demonstrations were also held in most of the other towns of Turkish
Kurdistan (
: 8;
;
: 42). The demonstrations protested not only against the articles and
the governmentâs inaction in the face of them, but also against Ankaraâs
âpolicy of national oppression and of planned underdevelopmentâ of
Turkish Kurdistan. This was the first time in the three decades since
the disaster at DĂȘrsim that the Kurds had vented their anger politically
and publicly (
;
: 42).
Retribution from the Kurdsâ Turkish adversaries was swift. Shortly after
the demonstrations, unknown assailants â suspected by some to have been
Turkish secret police â killed PDKT founder Faik Buçak. The other
leaders of the PDKT were briefly arrested in early 1969 (
: 340). Specially trained commandos were despatched to the Kurdish
region. According to some accounts, these âclearing operationsâ were
carried out with great force and to the accompaniment of frequent racial
insults hurled at ordinary Kurds (
, 5;
: 341â2). Chris Kutschera (
: 342) relates an incident that occurred on 8 April 1970, involving
2,000 commandos and military police and six helicopters, against the
town of Silvan. All the men of the town, âexactly 3,144â, were made to
line up. They were beaten, while being addressed thus: âDogs of Kurds!
Spies of Barzani! Tell us where you have hidden your arms!â
Matters were now well past the point where simple intimidation could
prevent the open manifestation of Kurdish disaffection. Over the next
two years mass nationalist demonstrations were repeatedly held
throughout Turkish Kurdistan (
: 131â2). Frustrated by the failure of the previous âleft Kemalistâ
strategy of the Turkish left â especially with the orientation to the
âpatrioticâ section of the army â many young Kurdish radicals looked for
a new organized alternative. The result was the foundation in 1969 of
the Devrimci DoÄu KĂŒltĂŒr Ocakları (DDKO â the Eastern Revolutionary
Cultural Centres) (
: 13â14). The DDKOs were the first legal Kurdish organization in Turkey.
Despite their diplomatic substitution of the term âEastâ for the name of
their motherland Kurdistan, the DDKOs were symbols of radicalism.
Propagandizing against cultural oppression and economic backwardness,
the DDKOâs monthly bulletins pointed to American imperialism as the
central cause and accused local large landholders and capitalists of
facilitating this exploitation through their collaboration with the
United States (
).
DDKO militants were Kurdish students of varying ideologies, who broke
free of the political control of the TĂŒrk Ä°áčŁĂ§i Partisi (TÄ°P), the main
communist party at the time in Turkey (
: 69). Strongly supporting the preservation of Kurdish culture and
language, the DDKO built a network of support in Kurdish towns and major
Turkish towns. The DDKO represented a radical break for the Kurdish
national movement. Convinced that attempts to conciliate Kemalist
nationalism must be abandoned, DDKO members looked at events in Vietnam
and elsewhere in the developing world, and foresaw that Turkey also
faced major upheavals. They viewed the Kurdish problem as centrally a
colonial problem, in which, as Hamit Bozarslan explains, in their view
âa âpoliceman of global imperialismâ dominated an oppressed nation with
the aid of local collaboratorsâ. This was simultaneously both a âclassâ
and a ânationalâ problem. Only âprogressive forcesâ could resolve the
situation âby liberating Kurdistan â not necessarily as an independent
state â from this double yokeâ (
: 100â101).
The DDKOs were destroyed when all their leaders were arrested in October
1970 (
: 69;
: 101;
: 409). It was some measure of the growing support for the widespread
Kurdish radicalization which had developed that the military claimed it
was acting to foil a Kurdish uprising (
: 343;
: 9;
: 65). Specifically, it was alleged that the DDKO aimed at the partial
or complete removal of constitutional public rights on grounds of race
and to conduct propaganda to destroy national feeling. This charge was
based on a rather contentious theory of racism â so-called âminority
racismâ (
: 310â11). This occurred
when those who are numerically a minority constantly demand that they
belong to a different race other than the majority race people and give
weight to their racial particularities and by changing their race ask
for special demands other than the general rights provided for members
of the nation, although in the main laws there is no differentiation or
no laws which create difference. (cited in
: 311)
DDKO leaders such as Musa Anter, Tarik Ziya Ekinci, Sait Elci, Necmettin
BĂŒyĂŒkkaya and the young scholar Ä°smail BeĆikçi faced the courts in
Istanbul and Amed. BeĆikçi produced a 150-page legal vindication,
defending the Kurdsâ existence, history and unique identity. The DDKO
leaders received jail sentences of up to ten years. Some of these â
notably Musa Anter, Sait Elci and Ä°smail BeĆikçi â went on to play
active roles in the Kurdish national movement following their eventual
release from prison (
: 409â10;
). Musa Anter was assassinated by an undercover Turkish security agency
(JÄ°TEM) in September 1992 (
: 135).
It was in this political hothouse that, by 1974, Abdullah Ăcalan was to
be found working in the Ankara Higher Education Union (AYĂD â Ankara
YĂŒksek ĂÄrenim DerneÄi). AYĂD based itself, at least partially, on the
tradition of an earlier organization, the Guevarist TĂŒrkiye Halk
KurtuluáčŁ PartisiâCephe (THKPâC, or Popular Liberation PartyâFront of
Turkey). AYĂD provided Ăcalan with the foundations of an ideological,
political and strategic outlook. Ăcalan and several other Kurds in AYĂD
were not satisfied, however, and they began to develop a separate,
distinct âpolitical-ideologicalâ grouping (
Institut de Criminologie, 1995
;
: 10â11;
. See also
: 188;
: 42â3;
: 9;
: 418â19;
: 25).
One day in 1974 in the Ankara suburb of Tuzlucayir, between seven and
eleven of these 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 had ignored the Kurdsâ specific needs. Ăcalan reportedly
asserted at this meeting that the conditions existed for the
establishment of a âKurdish national liberation movementâ. Ăcalan was
elected the leader of this group in the process of formation, which
became known simply as the Apocular, or âfollowers of Apoâ, until the
provisional name of Ulusal KurtuluĆ Ordusu (UKO, National Liberation
Army) was adopted by the group, indicating its intention to eventually
undertake âarmed struggleâ (
: 43; Ersever, n.d.;
: 10â12).
The PKK later described its initial development as a series of stages (
: 4â13). The initial stage, between 1973 and 1977, was as an
âideological groupâ. During this period, says the PKK today, a
ârevolutionary youth groupâ was established, which was involved mostly
in theoretical work â ideological struggle and propaganda. By 1974 this
group was already distributing leaflets, in an attempt to draw Kurdish
youth and intellectuals towards it. The core, founding members, of the
tiny Apocular propaganda group abandoned any studies or full-time work
they were involved in, to become full-time âprofessional
revolutionariesâ (
;
: 99; Ersever, n.d.). As the grouping grew, it maintained its initial
struggle â discrediting political rivals (both Turkish and Kurdish
leftists), which the group dismissed as ârevisionist and reformistâ.
These included several Kurdish groups â including TĂŒrkiye Kurdistan
Demokratik Parti, KĂŒrdistan Ulusal KurtuluĆcuları, KĂŒrdistan Ä°Ćçi
Partisi, Devrimci Halkın BirliÄi and Halkın KurtuluĆu. The PKK stands
accused of physically attacking members of these organizations. On the
Turkish left the PKK clashed with the TĂŒrkiye Ä°Ćçi Partisi and the
TKPâML/TÄ°KKO, among others. In November 1978 the organizationâs first
congress agreed upon a âself-criticismâ of the previous policy of armed
confrontation with rival groups, saying that these had been a mistake.
Nevertheless occasional armed confrontations continued to occur between
the PKK and other organizations for some years, before ceasing
altogether.
The movementâs next phase was between 1978 and 1980. This stage saw the
party organized and its politics refined, to allow the organization to
become a political force. The groupâs ideology and programme were taken
to villages as well as to workers. During this three-year period, the
initial ideological formation evolved into a political party, the
Partiya KarkerĂȘn Kurdistan, which was officially launched on 27 November
1978 in the village of Fis, near Lice, in Diyarbakır province (
: 42;
: 12â20;
: 5). The party issued a founding declaration, asserting that âThe time
of revolution has startedâŠâ It added:
For some centuries, the people of Kurdistan have directed a war of
liberation against foreign domination and its local collaborators. In
order to raise the struggle to the level of a war of national liberation
for which the situation is mature, and so as to combine the fight with
the class struggle, the Kurdistan Workersâ Party has been founded. It is
the new organization of the proletariat of Kurdistan. (
: 187â8)
By all accounts, the PKKâs founders were all from humble origins. There
were no intellectuals in the very early (pre-PKK) organization, except
perhaps Haki Karer, who died early on. The intellectuals were only
attracted gradually from the cities of eastern and south-eastern
Anatolia.
The story of the PKKâs engagement in political and military struggle up
until the present day is told in later chapters. The remainder of the
present chapter outlines the PKKâs organizational evolution, dealing
with the partyâs reformation in the early 2000s, as well as considering
the role played by Apocular ideology.
The initial period after Abdullah Ăcalanâs capture was one of great
disorientation for the PKK. An estimated total of 1,500 militants left
the party between 2003 and 2005. Yet, as Casier and Jongerden aptly
point out, it would be foolhardy to gauge the PKKâs strength âin terms
of the number of its armed membersâ (
: 10 n1). They add that the PKK is primarily a political organization,
noting Hamit Bozarslanâs assessment that PKK violence âwas
rational/instrumental, in the sense that it sought to change the
political and juridical status [of the Kurds]â (
: 23, cited in
).
Stuck in his prison cell, Abdullah Ăcalan nevertheless managed to hold
the situation together, calling for a âPreparatory Rebuilding Committeeâ
to oversee the PKKâs refounding in 2004. The PKK Ninth Party Congress
from 28 March to 4 April 2005 âmarks the PKKâs rebirthâ (
: 10 n1).
The PKKâs Seventh Extraordinary Party Congress in January 2000 had
already officially adopted the policy of striving for a democratic
republic. Stressing that the party now sought to move from armed
struggle to âdemocratic transformationâ, the same Congress also resolved
to replace the ArtĂȘĆa Rizgariya GelĂȘ Kurdistan (ARGK â Peopleâs
Liberation Army of Kurdistan) and its political front the ERNK (Eniya
Rizgariya Netewa Kurdistan â National Liberation Front of Kurdistan)
with the HĂȘzĂȘn Parastina Gel (HPG â Peopleâs Defence Forces) and the
YekĂźtiya DemokratĂźk a GelĂȘ Kurd (YDK â Peopleâs Democratic Union)
respectively. The YDK worked within the European Kurdish diaspora, until
it was superseded by the KordĂźnasyona Civata DemokratĂźk a Kurdistan (KCD
â Coordination of Democratic Communities in Kurdistan). Then, in April
2002, attempting to build credibility for its peaceful orientation, the
PKK briefly changed its name to the Kongreya AzadĂź Ă» Demokrasiya
KurdistanĂȘ (KADEK â Kurdistan Freedom and Democracy Congress). In late
2003, KADEK renamed itself again, now becoming Kongra-Gel (KGK â
Kurdistan Peopleâs Congress). Each name change represented a further
attempt to change its image and broaden its appeal, as if to say that
the ânewâ organization was qualitatively different from the original
PKK. In 2005 the KGK returned to the original name: Partiya KarkerĂȘn
Kurdistan (
), apparently deciding that historical continuity with its heritage was
most important.
The partyâs initial guerrilla force, formed in 1984, was the HĂȘzĂȘn
Rizgariye Kurdistan (HRK â Kurdistan Liberation Force). The PKKâs âarmed
struggleâ began officially on 15 August 1984, with attacks by HRK
guerrillas in the Eruh and ĆemzĂźnan (Ćemdinli) regions. Announcing its
existence, the HRK declared on 15 August 1984:
Patriotic People of Kurdistan! It is time to raise the struggle against
colonialism, which aimed to destroy our nation for hundreds of years, it
is time to ask for the oppression, torture and cruelty, and the blood we
have shed for hundreds of years and have become barbaric more than ever
in the last four years. This is the duty of all members of Kurdistan who
want an honourable life. (
: 861)
In an effort to remind the world that the PKK per se was merely a
political party with a separate armed wing, the partyâs Third Congress
on 25â30 October 1986 changed the name of its fighting force from the
HRK to the ARGK. In 2000 the Seventh Extraordinary Congress of the PKK
again rebadged the force: the ARGK became the HĂȘzĂȘn Parastina Gel (HPG â
Peopleâs Defence Forces). The name change was intended to indicate the
new, purely defensive, nature of this armed wing, in line with the PKKâs
declared aim of seeking a peaceful settlement to the conflict.
The PKK has a fundamentally political front, the ERNK, formed in March
1985 (
: 43â4). As well as being the leading element in a broader political
front, the ERNK until recently had its own reserve guerrilla militia in
Turkish Kurdistan, which could be mobilized when necessary (
: 130â33).
The first guerrilla training camp was established in 1982 in Lebanonâs
Bekaâa Valley â which was at the time under Syrian control. In achieving
this, the PKK was assisted by the Popular Democratic Front for the
Liberation of Palestine (PDFLP), a radical armed faction of the PLO,
which had its own camp on a plateau adjacent to the PKKâs camp (White,
personal observation, Bekaâa, July 1992). In late 1994 and 1995 the
ARGKâs strength was variously estimated at between 10,000 and 30,000
active guerrilla fighters (
, 34;
;
: 14;
;
Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, 1996
), supported by a part-time (ERNK) militia of 75,000. The organization
then operated out of Syria, Iran and Iraq (
;
Middle East Times , 25 Juneâ1 July 1995
;
;
). PKK âstaging areasâ in Turkeyâs Munzur, Gabar, Tendurek, Cudi, AÄri
and DĂȘrsim (Tunceli) regions were also reported by some sources (
;
Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, November 1996âApril 1998
).
Following massive pressure from Turkey, Syria largely ejected the PKK in
the early 1990s, compelling it to recentre its operations in Iraqi
Kurdistan, where the organization established a number of small camps
along the border with Turkey, including in Sinaht, Haftanin, Kanimasi
and Zap. A few camps equipped with field hospitals, electricity
generators and arsenals were also established in Iraqi Kurdistan (
). The headquarters of the PKK is still to be found in the Qandil
Mountains, around 100 kilometres from the Turkish border.
ARGK/HPG fighters were uniformed and organized in units, platoons and
regiments. The units were further subdivided into Military Units, Local
Units and Peopleâs Defence Units. Formally under the authority of the
Serok and the PKK Central Committee, a Military Council directly
supervised them, via a network of subordinate bodies:
Field Commands, Provincial Military Councils, Regional Command Offices
and Local Stations. These military forces operate out of three forms of
bases, which are identified as (1) Supportive base (2) Main Base and (3)
Operations Base. (
)
The PKK of today is a far cry from the founding band of ragged
guerrillas. What can perhaps best now be termed âthe PKK movementâ (PKK
founder Kemal Pir, cited by
) consists of a network of organizations across putative Greater
Kurdistan. Apart from the PKK itself, there are also affiliated parties
in Iraqi, Iranian and Syrian Kurdistan. The PKKâs affiliate in Iran is
the Partiya Jiyana Azad a KurdistanĂȘ (PJAK â Kurdistan Free Life Party),
in Iraqi Kurdistan the Partiya Ăareseriya Demokratik a KurdistanĂȘ (PCDK
â Kurdistan Democratic Solution Party), and in Syria the PartĂźya YekĂźtĂź
a Demokratik (PYD â Democratic Union Party).
The Koma CiwakĂȘn KĂŒrdistan (KCK â Kurdistan Communities Union) is the
sovereign authority body of the PKK movement, overseeing the movementâs
activities in all parts of Kurdistan. The KCK is an umbrella or
executive organization for the entire PKK movement, consisting of the
pro-PKK parties and other organizational units throughout putative
Kurdistan, including the PYD, the PJAK and the PCDK, as well as the HPG.
Several civil society organizations are also KCK members. Abdullah
Ăcalan is the honourable president of the KCK (
: 82).
According to Ăcalan, the PKK has âa very natural structure; it hasnât
got many formalitiesâ (interview by
: 212). It is also true, of course, that the PKK has an impressive
transnational organizational configuration, at the peak of which is the
Serok, or Leader. Initially the party had the structure of a typical
Communist Party: a leader, supported by a Central Committee, and a party
Congress that was the organizationâs highest formal authority. As we
shall see below, the party has evolved considerably since 1978.
Abdullah Ăcalan remains accepted by the organization as its leader,
despite his life sentence (
;
: 189â90). In some ways, this is purely symbolic, since subordinate
leaders run the day-to-day operations of the PKK. And yet that was
always the case, prior to Ăcalanâs capture â hence the lack of
âformalitiesâ. As a âcharismaticâ leader, Ăcalanâs role is to âinspireâ
the organization and to provide its strategic direction â while
intervening, as necessary, in prosaic organizational matters (
: 210). Ăcalan was also confirmed as president by the PKK Sixth Party
Congress, in March 1999. Certainly, the Serokâs successful declaration
that the PKK ceasefire that began on 1 September 1998 was to resume,
along with the current peace process, speaks volumes for the continuing
effectiveness of his leadership from prison. His ability to lead under
such difficult circumstances has not gone without challenge within the
organization, however.
After Ăcalanâs capture, the Turkish press speculated about a âleadership
struggleâ it claimed was being waged among Cemil Bayık, Osman Ăcalan and
Mustafa Karasu (
). Meanwhile the Turkish daily Milliyet reported that Cemil Bayık had
been appointed the PKKâs âhigh authorityâ, while Abdullah Ăcalan
remained the organizationâs formal leader (
).
The PKK Central Committee swiftly appointed a new Ruling Council,
consisting notably of Cemil Bayık (the most senior military wing
commander), Osman Ăcalan (Abdullah Ăcalanâs brother and a senior
military wing commander) and Murat Karayılan (another senior military
wing commander) (
).
Interestingly, the first issue of the PKKâs publication SerxwebĂ»n after
Ăcalanâs capture confirmed the new leadership structure. In addition to
the usual pictures of Abdullah Ăcalan on the front page, this issue also
carried photos of the next six most senior leaders: Cemil Bayık, Osman
Ăcalan, Nizamettin TaĆ, Murat Karayılan, Sakine Cansız and Mustafa
Karasu. All were small and of uniform size, but that of Bayık was
prominent. Most of those pictured on the front page had articles in the
issueâ again, Bayıkâs was prominent (
: 1, 8, 9, 10, 11, 24).
As the PKKâs new âhigh authorityâ, Cemil Bayık was subject only to
Abdullah Ăcalanâs veto (
). Bayık has served in the PKK leadership as a military commander, a
Central Committee member and on the Presidential Council. His personal
history gives every indication that he is a thoughtful man, capable of
independent thinking and with a demonstrated ability to strive for his
own perspectives within the organization, when circumstances permit
this. Successful in his studies, he secured a state scholarship to the
Malatya Teacher Training College, after which he pursued university
study in Ankara.
Bayık successfully asserted his own authority in Abdullah Ăcalanâs
absence, initially reversing the PKKâs drive towards peace with Ankara,
and putting it once again on a war footing. Given that his authority in
the organization derives substantially from his historical closeness to
Ăcalan, however, Bayık can only lead by continually deferring to him.
Shortly after his arrest, Ăcalan (through his lawyers) relayed
successive letters over some weeks directing the organization to adhere
to the âceasefire announced on September 1, 1998â. These communications
were initially successfully ignored by Bayık (Reuters, Istanbul, 28
March 1999), who apparently argued that Ăcalanâs declarations were the
product of torture (
PKK Central Committee, 15 March 1999
). Yet, merely by continuing to issue statements via his lawyers, Ăcalan
was very soon able to rein in Bayık and return the PKK to his
perspective (
: 191).
Ăcalan is well aware of the dangers that Bayık potentially poses.
Perhaps significantly, he used his courtroom testimony during his trial
to criticize Bayık, alleging that he prefers to stay behind the front
lines, and reportedly accusing him of killing seventeen wounded PKK
fighters in 1992, to avoid his own capture (
). Hidir Sarikaya, a former PKK member, further alleged in 2007 that
Bayık had executed around 300 PKK members for âdisloyaltyâ since the
1980s (
), although there exists no independent proof. There have been no
allegations that he has executed PKK members in recent years.
Cemil Bayik in some ways represents the âoldâ PKK â especially his
ignoring of the ceasefire after Abdullah Ăcalan was captured.
Ironically, it is Bayıkâs legacy as a PKK âhawkâ that makes him valuable
in Ăcalanâs strategy. With Ăcalan in prison, the Serok cannot warn
Turkey too strongly of the consequences were it to walk away from the
peace process. Ăcalan seems genuinely to want a lasting peace, but he
also perceives the need to keep pressuring Ankara to keep its word This
is where Bayık comes in handy.
Bayıkâs interaction with reporters on October 2013 â when he warned of
the danger of civil war (
) â illustrates this. Claiming that Turkey is supporting armed gangs in
Syrian Kurdistan (West Kurdistan), Bayık warned:
If the Turkish government continues with its war against the people of
west Kurdistan by arming bandit groups, then the Kurdish people have the
right to carry their war to Turkey. (
)
Furthermore, Bayık remains a PKK leader with an alternative perspective,
should the current peace process definitively fail. He takes the lead in
the organizationâs relations with Iran (
, cited in
). Nevertheless, he was supplanted by Murat Karayılan as acting leader
between 1999 and 2013 (
;
;
;
). Since mid-2013, however, Cemil Bayık and BesĂȘ Hozat have been the
first joint acting leaders, supplanting Karayılan. The four most senior
leaders of the PKK are: Cemil Bayık, BesĂȘ Hozat, followed by Murat
Karayılan and the current military commander, Dr Fehman Huseyin (
Kurdpress News Agency, 2013; Shekhani, 2013
;
;
).
BesĂȘ Hozat, for her part, strongly advocates the PKKâs feminist
positions, as may be expected. A co-founder of the PKK, she is
serious-minded and an eloquent speaker. Given that she is an Alevi from
DĂȘrsim, Hozatâs appointment will please âAlevi Kurdsâ close to the
Turkish opposition party the CHP (
;
). Alevi PKK members are known to have had reservations about the peace
process, which requires them to make up with Ankara â which supports
Sunni opposition forces in Syria against that countryâs Alawite regime.
Alevism is distinct from Alawism, but the two religions are distantly
related. Alevi PKK members have been unhappy about making peace with
Ankara while Turkey is opposing Assad (
) and arming Syrian opposition fighters.
Fehman Huseyin (âDoctor Bahozâ â a Syrian-born Kurd from Western
Kurdistan) is in charge of training guerrilla fighters. Accustomed to
the exigencies of guerrilla warfare, where commanders must of necessity
make independent decisions if they are to survive, Huseyin is also known
to act on his own initiative and has broad appeal among Syrian Kurds (
). His inclusion in the central leadership team, as a capable military
leader, is also a warning to Turkey to be wary of abandoning the peace
process.
In contrast to Cemil Bayik and Doctor Bahoz, Murat Karayılan possesses a
personality similar to that of Abdullah Ăcalan. When interviewed by the
author in mid-1992, Ăcalan communicated a very quiet, withdrawn
personality â an embodiment of the PKK/Ăcalan ideal of the âKurdish
personalityâ (
: 137â9). Like the Serok, Karayılan weighs his words very carefully,
pausing when necessary, and closing his eyes as he searches for the
right words. He projects a conciliatory outlook, stressing the desire
for non-violence and peaceful resolution. This reflects Ăcalanâs current
preferred perspective of seeking democratic reform. Karayılan has been
appointed leader of the PKKâs HPG guerrilla force. This positions him as
a potential counterweight to the âhawkâ Cemil Bayık, should the need
arise.
The new party leadership was reportedly required by Abdullah Ăcalan in a
letter to the PKK leadership (
). Turkish journalist Emrullah Uslu suggests that Karayılan secured his
post as HPG leader âfor the sake of the peace processâ (
). Uslu reports that an Iranian general had approached the previous PKK
leadership group, urging it not to enter into a new ceasefire with
Ankara. The general presumably offered some inducements to the PKK.
However, Karayılan rebuffed him. Uslu speculates that by removing
Karayılan and appointing the âpro-Iranianâ Bayık as leader, âthe PKK has
demonstrated a desire to work with Iranâ (
). This is certainly plausible, as it fits the PKK leaderâs perceived
desire to strengthen his hand against Ankara, to compel it to honour its
commitment to the peace process.
Founded by a grouping of Kurds who had been active in the Turkish left,
the Apocular advanced from being a tiny propaganda group in 1974 to a
fledgling political party, the PKK, in late 1978. The party met
formidable obstacles â not only when it took up armed struggle in 1984
after a protracted period of preparation, but also internally, with an
estimated 1,500 militants leaving between 2003 and 2005, due to serious
disorientation following their leaderâs arrest. The Serok nevertheless
contained the problem by summoning a âPreparatory Rebuilding Committeeâ
to oversee the PKKâs refounding in 2004. The PKK Ninth Party Congress
the following year resolved to move from armed struggle to âdemocratic
transformationâ. The contemporary âPKK movementâ now comprises a complex
of organizations. In mid-2013 Cemil Bayık and BesĂȘ Hozat became the
PKKâs first joint acting leaders upon Abdullah Ăcalanâs request.
The PKKâs initial name of Ulusal KurtuluĆ Ordusu (UKO â National
Liberation Army) declared its perspective of armed struggle. The
organizationâs founding ideology was a mix of Kurdish nationalism and
radical MarxismâLeninism, leading it to designate Turkish Kurdistan as
an âinternal colonyâ. Just as the countries of Asia and Africa were once
characterized by MarxistâLeninists of all stripes as being subjected to
âimperialist dominationâ, the Apocular asserted that the Turkish state â
while itself being subjected by the West â had acted in a similar manner
towards Turkeyâs Kurdistan, with a fascistic feudal class exploiting it
(
).
These ideas emerged and gradually gained support between 1973 and 1977.
During this period, Apocular cadres took the ideas to Kurdish
intellectuals, workers and villagers â to any Kurds who would give them
a hearing. The outcome of this patient process was the formation of the
PKK in 1978.
This emerging new movement faced an ideological climate in which the
state and Turkish nationalists denied the very existence of the Kurdish
people generally â and readily resorted to violence in an effort to
stifle the movement. PKK co-founder Sakine Cansız argues that this
âdenialismâ (of the Kurdish reality) was a very tangible obstacle,
preventing the Apocular from âexpressing and representingâ their ideas.
The killing of group member Aydın GĂŒl in 1977 â widely believed to have
been done by the Halkın KurtuluĆu leftists (
: 79), although this cannot be proved â was a seminal event for the new
movement, reports Cansız, who states that it was through GĂŒlâs murder
that
the use of violence was brought to the agenda. Resorting to violence was
as a matter of fact a necessity against this obstacle, and we grounded
our movement on ideological and political struggle and revolutionary
violence. Necessary defense was actually a way of struggle that our
movement [was] based on since the very beginning. (
)
The Apocular advocated the destruction of all such âcolonialismâ, by
violently ejecting the various state forces âoccupyingâ the different
sectors of Kurdistan as a whole. In Turkish Kurdistan this led to armed
confrontation with the Turkish state, beginning in 1984. The PKK was not
the only Kurdish radical organization with such an analysis at the time.
But it became the âthe most radical, most strictly organized and most
violentâ of these dozen or so Kurdish parties (
: 2â3;
: 123â5). This makes it imperative to outline the nature of the PKKâs
early physical struggles.
The 18 May 1977 killing of a PKK cadre, Haki Karer, in a Antep coffee
shop convinced the Apocular that they needed to move towards the
establishment of a party. Cansız reports: âThis incident brought along
the need to give a more serious fight. With the determinant [sic]
approach of the leader, an organization was brought into existence in
Kurdistanâ (
).
Organized training of a guerrilla force began early the following year
in Lebanonâs Bekaâa Valley. The 1980 military coup disrupted the PKKâs
operations in Turkey, but by 1982 a force of 300 fighters had been
established, based in Southern Kurdistan (Kurdish Iraq), from where they
crossed into Turkish Kurdistan, beginning in 1984. The partyâs Second
Congress, held 20â25 August 1982, set the PKKâs military strategy,
comprising three phases: defence, balance and offence. Reminiscent of
Maoâs strategy of protracted war, this envisaged an armed struggle
proceeding in stages from asymmetrical guerrilla attacks up to
conventional war, aiming to eject Turkey from Turkish Kurdistan (
: 420;
: 130, 136, 139 n6).
The initial targets for these guerrillas were widely disliked repressive
landlords and tribal chiefs (
: 110â11), whom the PKK accused of collaboration with Turkish
colonialism. The first such target, in 1979, was Mehmet Celal Buçak, a
big landlord who owned over twenty villages and was a prominent member
of the Justice Party. This attempted assassination failed. However, a
number of subsequent efforts, against similar targets, were successful (
: 139 n6).
In 1984 PKK armed units began reconnaissance operations in Turkish
Kurdistan. On 15 August 1984 simultaneous armed raids by PKK forces were
staged on Jandarma police stations in the Eruh and Ćemdinli (ĆemzĂźnan)
regions of ColemĂȘrg (HakkĂąri) (
: 128). Several soldiers were killed or wounded in this twin operation.
Guerrillas distributed propaganda and hung banners on coffee houses.
These were the first direct attacks on state representatives. The
guerrilla war had now been officially launched (Jongerden and
: 131).
In a harsh move to stem the rising tide of attacks, the Turkish state
deforested swathes of Turkish Kurdistan and destroyed over 3,000 Kurdish
villages, creating an estimated 2 million Kurdish refugees â many
thousands of whom fled to Iraqi Kurdistan (
: 11). From 1985 the state also employed âvillage guardsâ (korucular,
rangers) â pro-government militias armed by the government to fight the
PKK in certain Kurdish villages (
: 104;
: 11). These included notorious criminal bands, such as that of Tahir
Adıyaman. Some big landowners (aÄhalar) pocketed their menâs korucu
wages, enriching themselves in the process. David McDowall reports:
Those tribes refusing a government invitation to join the village guards
risked retribution. Some were expelled from their villages, which were
then razed. In the case of one chief, the security forces persuaded him
to reconsider his position by executing his brother in front of his
villagers. (
: 423)
The PKK killed many korucular, in some cases attacking their families as
well (
: 423â4;
: 4).
Many guerrillas were killed and thousands imprisoned and brutalized.
Martial law had been in place across Turkey until 1983. This was made
permanent in ten Kurdish provinces with the 1987 declaration of the
OlaÄanĂŒstĂŒ Hal Bölge ValiliÄi (OHAL â Governorship of the Region under
Emergency Rule). Entire communities were exiled (
;
: 104).
In the face of the stateâs response, the PKK now turned to strengthening
its military capabilities, resolving at its Third Congress in October
1986 to transform the HRK into the ARGK guerrilla army (
: 104). Significantly, especially when compared to the PKKâs later
development, the Congress decided that military development was the
central objective of the movement in that period, with even
âideological-politicalâ, cultural and âexternal relationsâ being
subordinated to it. The Congress envisaged that these other aspects
would âemerge from the peopleâs warâ. As if to underline the dominance
of the Kalashnikov and the RPG over other forms of struggle in that
period, the Congress also resolved to introduce a PKK âcompulsory
conscription lawâ (
: 104â5), according to which each Kurdish family was expected by the PKK
to provide one guerrilla fighter.
By the end of the 1980s the ARGK guerrilla forces not only increased
appreciably numerically but also succeeded in building connections to
local populations (
: 24). Local PKK militias (milis) were established and ARGK attacks on
military targets intensified, especially during 1987, when multiple
deaths of military personnel in single operations occurred (
: 105â6). ARGK units in the mid-to late 1980s managed to remain in
villages â and from 1987 in some towns â for several hours, while making
continuous propaganda (
;
: 106).
Clashes between the ARGK and Turkish security forces only intensified in
the 1990s. Battles now lasted for days on end and the area of PKK
activities widened. Cross-border attacks by Turkish forces into PKK
bases in Iraqi Kurdistan began in late 1991, but were unable to stem the
tide of ARGK attacks and the PKKâs growing popularity (
: 106â7). âThe people of Kurdistan ⊠is now presented for the first time
with the opportunity to assume powerâ declared the PKK (
: 1). Convinced of this possibility, Cemil Bayık stated in late 1998:
âPresident Apo has explained on various occasions that it is quite
possible that the Kurds will be able to claim a peace for themselves by
the year 2000, and we are convinced that this can be achievedâ (
). In reality the situation was, militarily speaking, approaching
stalemate (Silverman, 2013). Neither side could destroy the other.
Turkish security forces possessed overwhelming military force, but could
not bring this to bear effectively in the harsh mountainous terrain and
given the PKKâs growing popular support among Kurds (
: 24;
: 107). The PKK in this period imagined that it could secure victory by
military means, but this was merely a fantasy.
The period in Turkish Kurdistan surveyed in this chapter so far, from
1973 to 2004, witnessed the unfolding of a guerrilla struggle. Beginning
with tiny forces, the movement that became the PKK managed eventually to
attract mass support, in both the villages and the towns of Turkish
Kurdistan (
: 24).
As the guerrilla war expanded and deepened across Turkey, the state
responded with devastating force. One consequence of this was a massive
new Kurdish migration westwards, to the cities of western Turkey. But
PKK operations spread to these as well, increasing the stateâs pressure
on the Kurds, pushing growing numbers out of Turkey altogether. Some, as
we have seen, fled to Iraqi Kurdistan. A larger number uprooted their
families and sought refuge in Western Europe â especially in Germany.
This provided the PKK with the opportunity to spread its increasingly
formidable supportersâ network (
: 358).
The PKK has never been content to limit its activities to the four
corners of Kurdistan. It has long been committed to organizing support
for its goals among Kurds globally. Alynna J. Lyon and Emek M. Uçarer
observed in 1998 that âcurrent technological innovations provide a
conduit for diffusion of contentious politics from state to stateâ (
). They pointed out further that âthe rapid growth of communications and
transportation provides the mechanism in which Kurdish dissension is
sent.â They note that these technological tools are effortlessly
relocated from one country to another.
This explains how the PKK has also established itself firmly in the
Kurdish diaspora. Hamit Bozarslan (
: 358) estimates that the PKK has a âmassive presenceâ in all sectors of
the Kurdish diaspora, but particularly in Germany â the West European
country with the most Turkish Kurds (Reuters, Ankara, 25 November 1998).
The PKK reportedly divided Germany into eight âregionsâ, around thirty
âsub-regionsâ and numerous âlodgesâ or boroughs, all under the umbrella
of YEK-KOM, the Federation of Kurdish Associations in Germany (
).
The PKK continues to accumulate prodigious amounts of money from Kurds
in Europe. It also maintains full-colour printing presses that produce
large quantities of political and cultural books, magazines, newspapers,
pamphlets and posters in various languages, which â together with
cassettes and DVDs â are distributed as far afield as Australia.
Sophisticated PKK websites are based in Europe. The PKK also maintains
facilities in Europe for the ideological and cultural training of
Kurdish youth.
It is estimated that in excess of 1,300,000 Kurds live in Western Europe
(
Todayâs Zaman , 9 August 2012
;
;
;
Wereldjournalisten.nl , 23 May 2007
;
Institut Kurde de Paris, 2015;
Northern Ireland Neighbourhood Information Service, 2011
; Scotland Census, 2013;
;
;
Christian Science Monitor , 12 January 1998
;
;
;
;
;
Dublin People , 11 February 2013
;
;
;
Times of Malta , 25 October 2014
). Diaspora Kurds live principally in Germany (800,000 Kurds;
Todayâs Zaman , 9 August 2012
) and France (150,000 Kurds;
). Pro-PKK Kurds in Germany and France especially have long ago
âsuccessfully organized themselves along political lines in Europeâ (
: 91, 92).
The PKKâs ability to mobilize large numbers of its supporters in Germany
has a solid history. In April 1990, the PKK organized 10,000 Kurds to
demonstrate in Cologne against Turkeyâs military attacks on Kurds. Some
8,000 gathered on 9 December 1991 in Bremen to celebrate the PKKâs
thirteenth birthday. A 120-person hunger strike was begun simultaneously
in Hamburg and Kiel, also in the early 1990s, at the same time as a
700-person hunger strike in Brussels (
).
On 25 August 1992, protesting the then recent killings by the Turkish
army in the south-west of Turkey, 2,000 demonstrated in front of the
Turkish consulate in Hamburg (
). In the same period, the PKK organized human blockades of German
highways as a form of protest, including on the Franco-German border. In
one such protest, pro-PKK demonstrators crossed the border on foot
without valid visas. The border guards were forced to permit the massive
crowd to cross and proceed to their cultural festival in Frankfurt â
which was attended by 45,000 Kurds.
On 24 June 1993, pro-PKK Kurds (some of whom were heavily armed) stormed
the Turkish consulates in Munich, Marseille and Bern, taking embassy
personnel hostage. More or less simultaneously, many Turkish banks and
travel agencies were attacked in major German cities, causing heavy
damage. Perhaps realizing that it had gone too far, the PKKâs front
organization in Europe claimed that these actions had all occurred
âspontaneouslyâ. Nevertheless, strong suspicions arose that these
actions had been orchestrated by the PKK from outside Germany (
).
The French and German governments banned the PKK and its front
organizations after these incidents, in November 1993. In retaliation,
supporters and members of the banned organization staged new
demonstrations, including the occupation of a pro-PKK cultural centre
that had been closed under the ban. Protesters threatened to immolate
themselves if they were forcibly removed (
).
The US Department of State (
) reports that the PKK clashed âfrequentlyâ with police in some Western
European countries during 1994, in a strategic targeting of âWestern
interests in Europeâ. On 22 March 1994 the PKK blocked highways in
Germany between Karlsruhe and Stuttgart (
). It organized demonstrations in several German cities, some of which
ended in violent conflicts with the police (
). When German police killed a Kurdish youth in Hanover, the PKK
organized sit-ins at the German embassy in Athens. It did the same at
Denmarkâs German consulate, in October 1994, when British immigration
authorities detained Kani Yılmaz, the senior PKK leader in Europe. At
this time the PKK also opened offices of the ERNK in Italy and Greece (
).
Despite the ban on the PKK, the party laid on busloads of Kurds to show
that nothing would prevent them from organizing in Germany. Some 200,000
PKK supporters rallied in Bonn on 17 June 1995, brandishing ERNK flags
and Ăcalan posters and chanting BijĂź PKK! (Long live the PKK!).
Throughout the mid-1990s pro-PKK demonstrators frequently grappled with
police in Germany as they attempted to disperse these illegal
assemblies. On 16 March 1996, some 2,000 PKK members and sympathizers
gathered in Dortmund when their demonstration permit was refused, and
attacked the police. These PKK mobilizations were frequently
multi-country affairs. For instance, busloads of PKK supporters from
Belgium attempting to link up with the Dortmund protesters on 16 March
1996 were stopped at the German border. So some 1,500 of them crossed
the border on foot (
: 45â6).
In an interview with Med TV on 24 March 1996, Ăcalan warned Europe â
especially Germany â of serious disturbances if Turkeyâs government did
not respond positively to the PKK ceasefire in Turkey. Ăcalan threatened
to make an assault on Turkish holiday resorts, which are very much
favoured by German tourists. Claiming that âGermany has launched a war
against the PKKâ, he added ominously: âShould Germany decide to stick to
this policy, we can return the damage. Each and every Kurd can become a
suicide bomberâ (
).
Vera Eccarius-Kelly notes that the PKKâs demands â Kurdish-language
education, independently managed Kurdish radio and television stations,
and the legalization of Kurdish political parties â all parallel
requirements for Turkeyâs membership of the European Union. She submits
that this provides PKK leaders with potential leverage in future
negotiations by Turkey over accession and encourages Kurdish leaders to
reach out to Kurds pursuing university degrees in Western Europe (
: 114). Despite granting in principle permission for Kurdish-language
teaching, Turkeyâs Higher Education Council permitted only two
universities (in MĂȘrdĂźnĂȘ and Amed) to create Kurdish Language and
Literature departments â with only postgraduate students granted access.
A third universityâs application was rejected by authorities as an
attempt to âsupport terrorismâ. Students at all other levels (including
school) were denied admittance to Kurdish-language programmes across
Turkey. Generally speaking, âThe use of the Kurdish language is still
seen as a sign of support for âseparatist activitiesââ (
: 168).
Young educated Kurds from as far afield as Australia have long been
invited to Europe by pro-PKK organizations to participate in its key
European undertakings â especially its media projects. Med TV, a
PKK-dominated television station (
: 33) based in London and Brussels, formerly broadcast eighteen hours
daily. The broadcaster began transmission in 1995; within six months it
was apparently attracting an audience of 50 million, in thirty-four
countries â including Turkey â according to one usually conservative
source (
: 54). Apart from cultural programmes in Kurdish languages, the station
also showed ARGK guerrillas in the field, sometimes even engaged in
battle. On 22 March 1999 Britainâs Independent Television Commission
closed the station (Med TV press releases, 1 April and 23 April 1999).
Med TV was succeeded by Medya TV, which began transmitting from Belgium
via a satellite uplink from France, until its licence was in turn
revoked by French authorities on 13 February 2004. A few weeks later Roj
TV began transmission from Denmark. The PKK was once again showing it
could not be silenced.
From time to time there have even been PKK guerrilla training camps in
European countries. Reported camps have been dismantled (
;
) at Liempde and near Eindhoven in the Netherlands and in Belgium (
: 276â7).
The PKK has a sophisticated leadership structure in some European
countries (
: 97). The formidable power of the PKKâs political and communications
network was dramatically verified by its campaign for the liberty and
physical safety of Abdullah Ăcalan, in late 1998 and early 1999. Ordered
to leave Syria by President al-Assad, the PKK leader was variously
reported to be in Russia, Lebanon, North Korea, Greece and Kenya. When
he was arrested in Rome on 13 November 1998, the PKKâs illegal networks
in Germany staged demonstrations attracting over 2,000 Kurds in several
German towns (
).
Meanwhile, the PKK Central Committee beseeched Kurdish âpatriotic
peopleâ:
Our nationâs every true eye, ear and heart must be upon Rome and by the
side of our national leadership. All who have the means to do so must
make their way to Rome, and stand up for our leadership. For every
honourable Kurd there is but one task, at home and abroad, in the
situation in which we find ourselves: That is to march, to demonstrate,
to join on hungerstrike [sic] and to undertake whatsoever democratic
action may be necessary to stand up for our leadership. No acts other
than those of a democratic nature must be resorted to. (PKK Central
Committee, 1998)
The Kurds indeed stood up for their leader. When Ăcalan formally
requested political asylum in Italy on 15 November, a couple of thousand
Kurds had already congregated outside the military hospital near Rome
where Ăcalan was being held. Demonstrators arrived from Germany,
Romania, Denmark, Russia, Armenia, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland,
Australia, North America, Syria, Lebanon, Switzerland, France, Austria
and other lands (Reuters, Rome, 15 November 1998; Reuters, Beirut, 16
November 1998).
âAn eye for an eye! A tooth for a tooth! We are with you until death,
Ăcalanâ, chanted the Kurdish demonstrators in Rome (Reuters, 17 November
1998). An estimated 10,000 marched through the city demanding asylum for
Ăcalan on 18 November (
). On the Voice of America Amberin Zaman reported that Ăcalan was being
lionized in the Italian media as a âfreedom fighterâ (
Zaman, Voice of America , 16 November 1998
).
Demonstrations and hunger strikes took place in many other countries, as
well as in Amed and Istanbul. Pro-PKK websites provided contact points
in Rome for Kurds arriving there. The appeals of the PKK Central
Committee to the Kurdish diaspora were carried around the globe via the
Internet. The diasporaâs strong response proved the tremendous
mobilizing power of the PKKâs political and communications network. From
an initial fighting force of a hundred guerrilla fighters, the PKK had
transformed itself into a movement with mass appeal to Kurds in both
Turkey and the Kurdish global diaspora.
From its original ideological melange of Kurdish nationalism and radical
MarxismâLeninism, the Apocular slowly became more sophisticated in its
guiding ideas and organizational structure. The PKK soon became the most
radical, the most violent and the best organized of all Kurdish parties
in the Turkish state. Turkish repression convinced it to deepen its
military preparations. A guerrilla training camp was established in
Lebanon in 1978. Guerrilla attacks began in 1984, meeting fierce
opposition from Turkeyâs army. Nevertheless the PKK Third Party Congress
in 1986 resolved that military development remained the partyâs central
objective. This approach brought the PKK a great deal of support in the
villages and towns of Turkish Kurdistan, especially from the 1990s
onwards. However, the cost to the Kurdish population was so heavy that
many fled to Western Europe. Yet this provided the PKK with the
opportunity to construct a formidable supportersâ network across the
continent.
Peace continued to elude the KurdishâTurkish conflict. In fact, for a
long time the conflict grew visibly bloodier with the passage of time.
The 1980s and 1990s were the peak of the PKKâs armed struggle against
the Turkish state. Numerous authors, and of course the Turkish state
itself, have consistently alleged that the PKK during those two decades
was guilty of perpetrating widespread atrocities against civilians,
including liquidating entire villages (
: 227). As the present author has shown, several of these acts were
actually perpetrated by Turkish Special Forces (
: 249 n5). One well-known case is that of the massacre of 12 July 1993,
in which at least twenty-six villagers (including fourteen children)
were murdered at GiyadĂźn (Diyadin) village in Van province. Both the
pro-PKK newspaper ĂzgĂŒr GĂŒndem and the local PKK commander denied the
organzationâs involvement, blaming the massacre on the crack Turkish
army Ăzel Timler (Special Teams) (
). Witnesses confirmed to the Turkish Daily News that the Turkish state,
in the form of Ăzel Timler, was behind both this massacre and an earlier
one, which had also been attributed to the PKK. Independent
investigators, including Deniz Baykal, leader of the Kemalist Cumhuriyet
Halk Partisi, also confirmed that state forces were responsible for the
killings (
;
: 14). The Turkish stateâs portrayal of the PKK as wantonly violent
terrorists was facilitated by the rigid censorship of events in
Kurdistan and the obliging attitude of most of the Turkish press.
Nevertheless, Abdullah Ăcalan conceded in 1989 that civilians â
including women and children â had been killed by the PKK (
: 23;
: 114). Those classified as civilians by the Serok did not include the
Korucular employed by the Turkish state as a bulwark against the PKK, on
the grounds that the Korucular were no longer civilians but a traitorous
portion of the security forces.
A deadly pattern has marked the KurdishâTurkish conflict in Turkey:
wholesale bloodletting is followed by fruitless attempts at peacemaking
â which are followed by even worse bloodletting. The PKKâs unilateral
ceasefire declaration on 1 September 1998 did not result in a viable
peace process and violent attacks continued from both sides. Ankara
excused itself with the traditional mantra that it was only âfighting
terroristsâ. The PKK retorted that the state was uninterested in peace
and that the guerrillas needed to defend themselves against the security
forces. Ăcalanâs capture unleashed a particularly ferocious disruption
of the proclaimed ceasefire, when PKK forces wreaked furious havoc on
the state. The Serok managed to restore the ceasefire on the PKK side,
but still no viable peace process emerged. Ankara did introduce some
very timid reforms in this period, to appease its Kurdish population.
Most notably, in 2003 limited use of the Kurdish language was permitted
in state television broadcasts. This was not designed as a government
confidence-building measure to prepare the way for a lasting peace
process, however. The prime function of such limited reforms at that
time was to attempt to wean Kurds off supporting the PKK.
Speaking subsequently of the period from late 2004 to May 2011, Abdullah
Ăcalan stated that the Turkish stateâs illegal paramilitary organization
Jandarma Ä°stihbarat ve Terörle MĂŒcadele (JÄ°TEM â Intelligence and Fight
against Terrorism Gendarmerie) âattempted two or three coupsâ against
the Turkish government. A meeting between George W. Bush and Recep
Tayyip ErdoÄan on 5 November 2007 saw the United States openly switch
its support from the army and begin âto support the AKPâ, according to
Ăcalan. The Serok concurred with the verdict (Uslu, 8 September 2008) of
the former JÄ°TEM founder, retired Brigader General Veli KĂŒĂ§ĂŒk, that the
generals were âsold outâ at the BushâErdoÄan summit (
).
On 1 June 2004 the PKK/Kongra-Gel finally formally ended the ceasefire
that had been in existence since August 1999. The Kurdish party claimed
that the state was continuing to attack it. Armed clashes between
Kongra-Gel and Turkish security forces recommenced in late 2004,
proceeding on an escalating scale into 2005. Already in May 2004 the PKK
had warned that its unilateral ceasefire would end soon, due to what it
alleged were âannihilation operationsâ against its forces (
). On 2 July 2005, six people were killed and fifteen injured by a bomb
planted by âKurdish guerrillasâ, on a train travelling between ElĂązıÄ
and Tatvan in Bingöl province. Attacks attributed to Kurdish
nationalists multiplied throughout July (
).
The full truth regarding these incidents may never be known.
Nevertheless, evidence suggests that Kongra-Gel might not have been
responsible for those attacks that it did not claim. At least some of
the incidents were the work of the shadowy TeyrĂȘbazĂȘn Azadiya Kurdistan
(TAK â Kurdistan Freedom Falcons). First appearing in 2004, the TAK
maintained a website (
) between 2 April 2006 and 6 February 2012. The TAK is alleged to be
either (i) a splinter group of former PKK/Kongra-Gel members disgruntled
with the organizationâs perspective of seeking a peaceful settlement, or
(ii) a front for the PKK/Kongra-Gel. PKK leaders deny there is any
connection with their group (
National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism, 2013
). Lending some credibility to the first assessment, one analysis claims
that TAK sought to attract recruits who believed that the PKK/Kongra-Gel
was âtoo softâ (
Bekdil/Jamestown Foundation, 2008
). Academic Francesco F. Milan (2012) describes TAK as a âhard-line
offshootâ of the PKK/Kongra-Gel.
A press release dated 5 August 2006 published on TAKâs website stated
that the group was dissatisfied with the struggle of Kongra-Gel and its
armed wing, the HĂȘzĂȘn Parastina Gel, for âtaking political balances into
consideration⊠We are calling on the HPG to become more active in their
struggle.â The same statement noted that TAK militants had for a period
fought within the ranks of the PKK, but they had concluded that the
latterâs approach of trying to seek peace with the state caused the PKK
to become weak. Therefore, the statement continued, the TAK âseparated
from the organization and established the TAKâ. Nevertheless, in
justifying its attacks, the TAK repeatedly referred to âChairman APO our
historical leaderâ, concluding: YaĆasın BaĆkan APO! (Long Live President
APO!) (TAK website, 5 August 2006).
It is impossible to state with certainty what the real nature of TAK is,
due to the extremely shadowy nature of the group. However, in the past
Kontrgerilla have been deployed by illegal Turkish armed units, to
perpetrate atrocities that are falsely attributed to the PKK, in order
to both discredit the organization and prevent a peace settlement
between the PKK and Ankara. In other words, it is quite feasible that
TAK comprises (at least in part) former PKK fighters, yet acts solely
under the direction of Turkeyâs âdeep stateâ. It is known that sections
of the Turkish state have no wish to see a peace settlement successfully
concluded.
TAK has perpetrated a series of bombings: a supermarket; a tourist
resort near Antalya (
); the coastal resort town of ĂeĆme; a bus station in Istanbul; a
district office of the Justice and Development Party in Istanbul; and in
Kızılay (
;
National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism, 2013
).
The TAK website contained details of numerous TAK operations, including
the burning of Turkish forests in no fewer than fifteen regions. These
acts were said to be revenge for âfascist Turkeyâsâ depredations against
the Kurdish population in DĂȘrsim, Bingöl, Ćirnex, ColemĂȘrg, Amed and
ElazıÄ. Two attacks were claimed in Istanbulâs Sultanahmet district, as
were many other acts of sabotage in the city (TAK website, 2 April 2006
to 6 February 2012).
TAK vowed that its âattacks would continue and become more violentâ,
targeting the âmilitary bureaucracy, economy and tourismâ as its âtop
priority targets, while the state of terror does not stopâ. TAK also
promised to attack the âtraitors and compradors ⊠military officers,
civil bureaucrats, fascists, traitorsâ who make Kurdish peopleâs lives
âa living hellâ. The website contained detailed illustrated technical
guides for the preparation of radio-controlled time bombs (TAK website,
2 April 2006 to 6 February 2012).
TAKâs terrorism heightened anti-PKK feelings among ordinary Turks â and
ultra-nationalist Turkish forces sought to capitalize on this. For
example, a bombing in Amed on 12 September 2006 killed ten civilians.
The TĂŒrk Ä°ntikam Tugayı (TÄ°T â Turkish Revenge Brigade), a violent
Turkish ultra-nationalist organization with strong military connections
(
), claimed responsibility for the attack, threatening to kill ten Kurds
for every Turk killed in the conflict (
). A TAK bombing in Mersin on 30 August 2006 was condemned by the PKK.
The latter declared yet another ceasefire on 1 October 2006.
Nevertheless minor clashes continued in the south-east as Turkish
security forces continued operations (
).
On 22 May 2007 the Turkish capital Ankara was the target of a suicide
bombing, which killed eight and wounded over a hundred. The Turkish
authorities attributed the attack to the PKK. However, the organization
hotly denied this (
;
Peopleâs Daily Online , 23 May 2007
). Whoever was responsible, the incident was a perfect opportunity for
the Turkish military to announce an imminent attack upon PKK strongholds
in Kurdish northern Iraq. On 2 June the United States withdrew all its
troops from Iraqi Kurdistan. An estimated 100,000 Turkish troops were
mobilized on the border between Turkey and Iraq.
On 5 June 2007 shelling and air strikes by the Turkish army were
reported, targeting PKK bases in Iraqi Kurdistan (
;
). Two days later, several thousand Turkish troops apparently crossed
into Iraq in a âhot pursuitâ raid against the PKK there. Turkeyâs
foreign minister denied that his troops had entered Iraq. Nevertheless
two senior Turkish security officials admitted that the armed incursion
had indeed taken place, acknowledging that the troops ventured almost 2
miles inside Iraq. This attack marked a decisive ratcheting up of the
AKP governmentâs conflict with the Kurdish nationalists, given that the
last major Turkish incursion into northern Iraq had been as far back as
1997, when almost 50,000 troops were sent to the region (
;
). The new incursion was preceded by the declaration of a three-month
period of martial law in Kurdish areas near the Iraq border and a ban on
civilian flights to the area (
).
The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), an Iraqi Kurdish party, reported
that Turkish artillery shells hit the Sidikan area in Irbil province
during this operation, affecting nine villages. It also confirmed that
the Iranian military shelled the adjacent area in Iranian Kurdistan at
about the same time. âHuge damage was inflicted on the areaâ, the PUK
stated, adding that residents had âleft their houses, fearing for their
livesâ. Lt Ahmed Karim of the Iraqi border guards force told the
Associated Press that seven Turkish shells landed on a forest near Sakta
village in the Batous area (
). The justification for this sortie was a PKK grenade attack that
killed seven soldiers and wounded six at an army base in DĂȘrsim on 4
June 2007 (BBC News, 4 June 2007).
In late September and early October 2007, similar attacks upon the
Turkish military paved the way for severe measures against the Apocular
by the Turkish state. On 27 September, two Turkish Jandarma policemen
were killed in Bitlis province by a bomb allegedly planted by âKurdish
separatistsâ (
). Then on 7 October a force of forty to fifty PKK fighters ambushed an
eighteen-man Turkish commando unit in the Gabar mountains, killing
fifteen and injuring three, making it the deadliest PKK attack since the
1990s (
).
The Turkish parliament passed a law sanctioning renewed Turkish military
action inside Iraqi territory. On 21 October some 150 to 200 PKK
fighters attacked an outpost in YĂŒksekova, manned by a fifty-strong
infantry battalion. The outpost was overrun. Twelve were killed and
seventeen wounded; in addition eight Turkish soldiers were captured. The
Kurdish fighters then withdrew into Iraqi Kurdistan, taking the eight
captive soldiers with them; though they later released them unharmed (
). The PKK force was heavily armed â including with a Russian-made Doçka
heavy anti-aircraft machine gun (
), as well as RPG-7 rocket launchers and C-4 explosives (
). The stage was now set for the bloodiest fighting in years between
Turks and Kurds, as the Turkish military responded by bombing PKK bases
on 24 October.
In late October 2007 Turkeyâs air force again bombed PKK targets inside
Iraqi Kurdistan and 300 Turkish troops âadvanced about six milesâ,
killing thirty-four PKK fighters (
). This offensive was supplemented on 28 October by a major operation in
Tunceli province involving 8,000 Turkish troops with air support (
). From 16 December an aerial offensive unfolded against PKK camps in
Iraqi Kurdistan (
). Operation Sun, a major Turkish cross-border offensive, started on 21
February 2008. Up to 10,000 Turkish forces took part in this offensive,
supported by âair assetsâ (
;
). This was a major offensive designed to remove the PKK threat in Iraqi
Kurdistan. A reported total of twenty-seven Turkish soldiers and 724 PKK
militants were killed (
;
). Operation Sun was a total failure, serving only to politically
reinforce ErdoÄan and weaken the army. Smaller-scale Turkish operations
against PKK bases in Iraqi Kurdistan continued (
).
PKK attacks continued throughout 2008, with casualties on both sides.
During the course of the conflict between 1984 and September 2008, the
Turkish military had succeeded in exacting a heavy toll from the PKK â
reportedly killing 32,000 PKK militants and capturing 14,000 (
). One-sided âceasefiresâ had come and gone, but the only result had
been a steady increase in bloodshed.
Such inter-ethnic bloodshed hardly augured well for the prospect of
peace breaking out any time soon. Yet the year 2009 opened with the
Turkish government permitting Turkeyâs first ever Kurdish-language
television channel, TRT 6, to launch. In addition the state announced
plans to rename Kurdish villages that had Turkish names, expand freedom
of expression, restore Turkish citizenship to Kurdish refugees and
decree a âpartial amnestyâ for PKK fighters. Then the pro-Kurdish
Demokratik Toplum Partisi (DTP â Democratic Society Party) secured an
impressive increase in its vote in local elections held in the Kurdish
south-east on 29 March 2009: it polled almost 50 per cent of total votes
in the ten provinces where it was successful, winning ninety-nine
municipalities (
: 16;
Casier, Jongerden and Walker, 2011
: 108, 109). Encouraged by these developments, the PKK chose this
conjuncture to announce its sixth unilateral ceasefire, after the Serok
commanded them on 13 April 2009 to âend military operations and prepare
for peaceâ (
). The Turkish stateâs initial response was not positive, as April 2009
also saw a wave of repression directed at the DTP. In the wake of the
partyâs electoral triumph, three DTP vice presidents and around fifty
other party activists and supporters were interned in the Kurdish
south-east, as well as in Ankara and Istanbul (
Casier, Jongerden and Walker, 2011
: 106).
Mid-2009 saw the unveiling of the AKPâs so-called âKurdish Openingâ,
later rebadged the âDemocratic Openingâ to appease Turkish nationalists,
and subsequently renamed the ânational unity projectâ (
: 13). This was the first time since Turgut Ăzalâs hesitant overtures to
the Kurds in 1991 that any Turkish government had attempted
reconciliation, consultation and negotiation with the Kurds, in a
declared effort to wind down the PKK insurgency. President Abdullah GĂŒl
declared: âThe biggest problem of Turkey is the Kurdish problem⊠It has
to be solvedâ, adding that the country had a âhistoric possibility to
solve it through discussionsâ. The PKKâs acting leader at the time,
Murat Karayılan, told reporters that the guerrillas were ready to lay
down their arms and that, if necessary, the Kurdish nationalist
parliamentary Demokratik Toplum Partisi could negotiate in its place (
Christie-Miller, 4 August 2010
).
Abdullah Ăcalan remarked that the PKKâs âceasefire has started a new
eraâ, adding âWhat is asked of us is to deepen this processâ (
: 16). He continued:
We never just took up arms for the sake of it. All we did was to open a
road for our nation to freely develop. But we had no other means of
struggle to adopt: that is why we had to take up arms and have brought
the struggle to this stage. The Kurdish situation is, at heart, a
TurkishâKurdish situation. Our struggle has come to the point of the
Turkish public accepting the Kurdish identity; it has seen it necessary
to recognise Kurdish existence and solve the problem. (
: 16)
Unfortunately the process was âpoorly prepared and hastily implementedâ
on both sides (
). The state even failed to produce a legal framework for any PKK
fighters laying down their arms. The PKK, for its part, acted with a
degree of immaturity, parading a delegation of PKK fighters and their
families who had legally entered Turkey:
A total of 34 persons, of which eight were PKK guerrillas from the
Qandil mountains and 26 from the Mahmur refugee camp in Northern Iraq,
entered Turkey as a âpeace groupâ at the border town of Silopi. The
group members were welcomed by several ⊠thousand enthusiastic Kurds
making victory signs in a welcoming ceremony organized by the Kurdish
legal party DTP. Mayors and parliamentarians from [the] DTP attended the
ceremony. (
Casier, Jongerden and Walker, 2011
: 106 n6)
Everywhere the guerrillas went, they were greeted by mass demonstrations
of enthusiastic Kurds â probably encouraged by the PKK, although in
truth the demonstrations were spontaneous outbursts on the part of the
Kurdish population. Both the state and the PKK were already aware of the
latterâs high levels of continuing popular support, so the
demonstrations were gratuitous. By encouraging (and in some cases
organizing) them, the PKK unwittingly gave hard-core Kemalists a stick
to break the AKPâs resolve, as an ultra-nationalist Turkish mobilization
against the incipient peace process gathered force. Broadcast throughout
Turkey, the âwelcome homeâ demonstrations were perceived as PKK victory
parades (
). Protests against a perceived sell-out to Kurdish nationalists
occurred in several Turkish cities. âTerrorists have become heroesâ,
complained Deniz Baykal, then leader of the opposition CHP. The head of
the Turkish General Staff, General Ä°lker BaĆbuÄ, added that âno one can
accept what happenedâ (
;
).
Ankara had ambitiously hoped that the returning guerrillas would be the
start of a flood of PKK militants coming back to Turkey and that this
process would culminate in âthe PKK dissolving itselfâ. But, in the end,
the process fizzled out as suddenly as it had begun. The delegation of
eight PKK fighters had been promised immunity from prosecution, but this
was reversed, and the guerrillas were all arrested under anti-terrorism
laws. A second detachment of PKK returnees (from Europe) did not
materialize, as Turkey declined them travel documents (
; Seibert, 2009).
Secret negotiations between the Turkish state and the PKK continued
behind the scenes after the demise of the âKurdish Openingâ. These
eventually lead to talks in Norway (the âOslo Processâ), with the state
apparently scaling down its offensive operations (
) and the PKK continuing to observe the âunilateral ceasefireâ it had
announced in April 2009 (
;
). The Turkish general election of 12 June 2011 meant that the process
officially went into limbo (
), although the PKK announced the extension of its ceasefire until 15
July, following a request from Abdullah Ăcalan (
;
;
). The PKK added that the ceasefire might be extended further, until 1
September, dependent upon developments. Unimpressed, General Ä°lker
BaĆbuÄ responded that the PKK had only two options: âlaying down its
arms or we will take them from their handsâ (BĂŒgĂŒn, 2009;
).
It did not take much for the promise of peace to be dashed. On 11
December 2009 the Constitutional Court of Turkey (Anayasa Mahkemesi)
banned the DTP â some of whose leaders had been interned since April â
setting the scene for the partyâs leaders to be tried later for
terrorism. Some 1,400 DTP members were arrested, 900 of whom were held
in custody. Then, in late December the Amed Chief Prosecutorâs Office
issued warrants for the arrest of eighty officials and representatives
of the newly formed BDP, a formally legal replacement party for the now
illegal DTP. Those arrested included several current or recent Kurdish
party mayors â including âthe mayors of Batman, Siirt, Cizre,
Amed-Kayapınar, Amed-SĂ»r, Ăınar, WeranĆar (ViranĆehir), and Kızıltepe,
and the former mayor of Dicleâ (
Casier, Jongerden and Walker, 2011
: 107 and n8). In mid-February 2010 a further wave of repression saw the
detention of dozens of BDP executive members. All of the DTP/BDP
arrestees were charged with membership of the Turkey Council of the Koma
CiwakĂȘn KĂŒrdistan, and for ârunning municipalities under the direction
of the PKKâ. A total of 151 Kurdish politicians and activists were
eventually charged with âaiding the PKKâ (
Casier, Jongerden and Walker, 2011
: 107 and nn8, 9;
).
In response Kurds demonstrated throughout Turkey, resulting in several
deaths after the mobilizations were attacked by security forces (
). The PKK certainly participated actively in these actions. Despite the
supposed continuing ceasefire, on 7 December the PKK raised the
temperature by ambushing Turkish soldiers in ReĆadiye, in Central
Anatolia, killing seven and wounding three. Taking responsibility for
this incident on 10 December 2009, the PKK explained that the attack was
perpetrated by a unit acting on its own volition. Contradictorily,
however, the PKK statement added that the PKK command centre does not
issue orders to assault, and that military units have the right to take
the initiative (
HĂŒrriyet Daily News , 10 December 2009
;
).
Following a brief period of calm, one Turkish soldier was killed and two
others injured during a clash with the PKK in HakkĂąri province on 14
March 2010 (
Reuters AlertNet , 14 March 2010
). Another Turkish soldier was killed and a further two wounded on the
same day during clashes in Batman province (
). Two PKK militants were killed and three soldiers wounded in Siirt
province on the same day (
). Then, only three days later, on 19 April, two Turkish police officers
were killed when suspected PKK fighters opened fire on their police
patrol car with automatic weapons in the northern Turkish province of
Samsun (Press TV, 19 April 2010).
On 1 May 2010 the PKK attacked a patrol of Turkish soldiers in DĂȘrsim.
It then conceded that the ceasefire had totally abandoned. Abdullah
Ăcalan added a dramatic flourish to this announcement from his prison
cell, declaring that he was formally abandoning all attempts at
rapprochement with the Turkish authorities, and handing that task to his
military commanders (
). In a context in which only the Serokâs repeated intervention was
shown to be effective in preventing the PKK from returning to an ongoing
war strategy, this was a calculated move against his Turkish jailers,
designed to shake them with the spectre of a return to total war on both
sides. The immediate consequence, however, was a further intensification
of armed conflict on both sides.
The PKK attacked a naval base in Ä°skenderun on 31 May with âmissilesâ
(Todayâs Zaman, 1 June 2010). This was followed by clashes on 18 and 19
June (
), and then three further clashes in HakkĂąri and ElĂązÄ±Ä provinces. An
additional attack in ColemĂȘrg took place on 20 July. All of these
confrontations claimed the lives of both PKK fighters and Turkish
troops. On 21 July PKK acting leader Murat Karayılan told the BBC that
the guerrillas would disarm in return for greater political and cultural
rights for Turkeyâs Kurds through dialogue. âIf the Turkish state does
not accept this solutionâ, Karayılan warned, âthen we will declare
democratic confederalism independentlyâ (
).
The Turkish state was now in no mood for dialogue, however. Casualties
on both sides had once again been mounting shockingly. The Turkish
military announced it had killed a total of forty-six PKK militants
during operations over the previous month in the Kurdish south-east (
). Around 100 military personnel had already been killed by this point
in 2010 â more than the previous yearâs total death toll (
).
Then, on 12 August 2010, the PKK seized upon the imminent holy Muslim
month of Ramadan to declare a new ceasefire (
). This was extended in November up to the Turkish general election of
12 June 2011, even though the PKK later stated that over eighty military
operations had been waged against it by the Turkish state during this
period.
A PKK raid on a hydroelectric power plant in the Dinar Deresi region of
Amed resulted in the deaths of one Turkish soldier and nine PKK fighters
on 7 September (
), while a Turkish soldier was killed when an alleged PKK landmine
exploded in the Eruh district of Siirt province on 12 September (
HĂŒrriyet Daily News , 12 September 2010
). Then at least nine Kurdish civilians were killed and three others
reportedly injured on 16 September, when a roadside bomb exploded under
their minibus in ColemĂȘrg (
;
). The PKK was blamed for the bombings (BBC News, 16 September 2010).
However, the PKK denied responsibility for a suicide bomb attack that
left thirty-two people injured in Istanbul on 31 October (BBC News, 1
November 2010).
Kurdish unrest continued into the New Year. Dozens of young Kurdish
protesters, their faces concealed by scarves, throwing Molotov cocktails
and stones were dispersed by police using tear gas and water cannon in
Istanbul on 16 January 2011. The violence began after a 2,000-strong
rally organized to protest against the trial of the 150 Kurdish
activists, including many elected officials, accused of links to the PKK
(AFP, 16 January 2011).
ErdoÄan adopted a very hard-line stance on the Kurdish issue in the
months that followed, refusing any concessions to PKK demands and
stepping up military operations in the Kurdish south-east. In response
the PKK once more ramped up its attacks, while denouncing Prime Minister
ErdoÄan for alleged âinsincerityâ (
). Peace now looked further away than ever. Hostilities once again
escalated on both sides.
Led by their Kurdish deputies and mayors, some 3,000 Kurds filled the
streets of Amed on 24 March 2011, demanding their rights and calling for
an end to the conflict with the PKK. The authorities banned the
demonstration, deploying armoured vehicles to block the protesters.
Protesters blocked traffic in protest, chanting âKurdistan will be the
tomb of fascismâ and other PKK slogans. A small group threw firecrackers
at police, who unleashed tear gas and arrested five people. Addressing
demonstrators, BDP chairman Selahattin DemirtaĆ demanded the right to
education in Kurdish, the release of imprisoned activists, the end of
operations against the PKK, and the removal of the electoral threshold
of 10 per cent of votes required to enter parliament. âWe shall stay on
the streets until the government takes concrete steps for these four
applicationsâ, vowed DemirtaĆ (AFP, 24 March 2011) âThis decision is âŠ
fascist. We cannot take part in an unfair, undemocratic, electionâ, he
declared (ANF News, 19 April 2011).
The BDP leader threatened to boycott the legislative elections set for
June 2011, after the YĂŒksek Seçim Kurulu (YSK â High Election Board)
banned twelve BDP candidates, including Leyla Zana (AFP, 19 April 2011).
The authoritiesâ ban on the candidates sparked angry protests by
thousands of Kurdish demonstrators in Amed, who pelted riot police with
stones, while chanting BijĂź Serok Apo! (Long Live Leader Apo!). Police
responded with tear gas, water cannon and batons. At least five
protesters were arrested. Several Kurds were injured in a similar
demonstration in Van. Istanbulâs Taksim Meydanı (Taksim Square) saw a
sit-in by 3,000 pro-Kurdish protestors. Groups of youths attacked subway
stations, school buildings and a post office with stones and Molotov
cocktails, after police forcibly dispersed protesters. Demonstrators
also targeted buses, cars, fire trucks and journalists. The security
forces responded with tear gas (AFP, 19 April 2011).
New disturbances occurred the following day in Amed, as young protesters
battled security forces, while chanting pro-PKK slogans. Several
protesters were killed and a number injured. Sixteen demonstrators were
arrested. Apparently alarmed by this escalation of events, President
Abdullah GĂŒl met on the same day with Selahattin DemirtaĆ and
Parliamentary Speaker Mehmet Ali Ćahin (AFP, 20 April 2011).
A Kurdish protester was killed and several others injured on 20 April by
police gunfire in the small town of Bismil, near Amed, at a rally to
protest the invalidation of Kurdish candidates for the June general
election. BDP leader DemirtaĆ accused police of opening fire on
demonstrators, killing one and wounding at least four. Agence France
Press (AFP, 16 May 2011) later confirmed this accusation.
Armed incidents once again gradually escalated. Thus, on 1 April, seven
suspected PKK guerrillas were killed by a police Jandarma unit near the
town of Hassa in Osmaniye province, while trying to enter Turkey from
Syria. The Kurdish fighters reportedly fired on the soldiers, who had
ordered them to surrender. Six Turkish soldiers were wounded in the
clash, one of whom later died (AFP, 1 April 2011; 2 April 2011).
A Kurdish protester died when police retaliated after facing an âintense
barrageâ of molotov cocktails, stones and fireworks from some 800
protesters in Bismil. The angry demonstration followed the
disqualification of several prominent Kurds from running in coming
parliamentary elections. A statement from local government officials did
not specify the cause of the protesterâs death. Police made a forceful
intervention against demonstrators with tear gas, plastic bullets and
water cannon. Protestors shouted KĂźn giráčin! KĂźn giráčin! (Revenge!
Revenge!) and other pro-PKK slogans. Sixteen demonstrators were
arrested. A few hours after the incident, youths set fire to the offices
of the ruling AKP (AFP, 20 April 2011; 16 May 2011).
Before this deadly incident, DemirtaĆ was scheduled to have that very
same evening a meeting with President GĂŒl in Ankara, to find a solution
to the issue of invalidation by the electoral authorities of seven
nominees on an independent party list. DemirtaĆ apparently cancelled
this meeting following the protestorâs death. Once again, a violent
incident had undermined a move towards peace. However, Kirdar Ăzsoylu,
vice president of the High Election Board behind the controversial
decision, ostensibly taken on account of the criminal records of the
would-be candidates, nevertheless tried to calm spirits after the
incident: âI hope that our board will decide in favor of human rights
and democratic rightsâ, adding that the YSK would begin reviewing the
nominations the next day (AFP, 20 April 2011).
At a campaign rally at Bayburt in north-east Turkey on 20 April, Prime
Minister ErdoÄan denounced what he termed âvandalismâ in the south-east,
accusing the BDP of encouraging young Kurds to protest violently and
throw molotov cocktails. In Istanbul, BDP supporters had tried earlier
that day to close the two bridges crossing the Bosporus to traffic, but
police dispersed the group. A roadside bomb exploded on Istanbulâs
outskirts, slightly injuring two people. Istanbulâs governor blamed the
PKK for this attack, which may well have been the case, as the
organization undoubtedly now wielded tremendous influence among Kurds in
the city. The Apocular had clearly concluded from the rebuffs to the
PKKâs ceasefires that only violent struggle would open up the road to
resolution of the Kurdish issue. Earlier, Kurdish protesters had stormed
the local headquarters of the ruling Justice and Development Party in
Bismil, setting it on fire, causing extensive damage but no casualties
(AFP, 20 April 2011).
On 22 April, the YSK agreed to authorize the applications of six of the
seven Kurdish nominees it had initially excluded from the ballot.
Several small groups met that evening in Amed, the main city in the
south-east, to celebrate peacefully the YSKâs decision (AFP, 20 April
2011).
Then some thirty-five people, including local leaders of the BDP, were
arrested by police early on 25 April in ColemĂȘrg, accused of belonging
to the so-called âurban networkâ of the PKK, the KCK (AFP, 25 April
2011; 4 May 2011). Armed clashes continued to exact a growing death
toll, as a peace settlement eluded the two sides (AFP, 28 April 2011).
In a spectacular attack on the same day near Kastamonu in northern
Turkey, guerrillas using machine guns and grenades ambushed the police
escort of Prime Minister ErdoÄan, killing one policeman and wounding
another. The prime minister was not in the convoy at the time (AFP, 5
May 2011). Turkish security sources attributed the assault to the PKK,
but the organization did not initially claim the attack. Finally, on 6
May, the PKK claimed the attack, announcing in a statement that the
assault âwas made by our members in retaliation for the terror exercised
by the police on the Kurdish peopleâ, adding that the attack âtargeted
police ⊠not civilians or the Prime Ministerâ (AFP, 6 May 2011).
On 5 May the BDP again threatened a boycott of the parliamentary
elections set for 12 June, if Turkish authorities kept arresting Kurdish
activists and continued military operations against the PKK. The BDP
announced its âdetermination to continue to build a democratic and
autonomous Kurdistan and organize legitimate resistance to attacksâ.
ErdoÄan rejoined: âThe BDP seeks to achieve its objectives with the
support of terroristsâ (AFP, 5 May 2011).
The BDP is the latest in a series of five pro-Kurdish parties, beginning
with the Halkın Emek Partisi (HEP â Peoples Labour Party), which was
founded in July 1990. The mere fact that these parties have been
established on a non-Turkish basis â on the foundation of Kurdishness â
profoundly insults the official Kemalist basis of Turkish society. Each
of the predecessor parties was closed down by the Turkish state, accused
by Ankara of being tools of the PKK. Members of these parties have been
raided by police, pilloried in the media as âterroristsâ â even though
the parties have never advocated violence or outright separatism â and
imprisoned. It is true that all of the parties have consistently
advocated dialogue between Ankara and the PKK. For Turkish
ultra-nationalists, that alone is tantamount to acceptance of âKurdish
separatismâ. And the partiesâ leaders have not endeared themselves to
the Turkish public by being photographed with PKK guerrillas and
declaring that Abdullah Ăcalan is a leader of the Kurdish people (
HĂŒrriyet Daily News , 22 May 2012
).
Yet the fact remains that these pro-Kurdish parties have all secured
substantial electoral support in Kurdish regions. In the June 2011
election the BDP increased its number of representatives in the Turkish
Assembly by more than one-third, to become the fourth largest party in
the parliament. Forbidden by the state from openly supporting the PKK,
ordinary Kurds nevertheless flocked to support the BDP, as they did its
predecessors.
Arguably, the BDP (like its predecessors) has always been Ankaraâs best
hope as an intermediary with the PKK insurgents. PKK leaders have
repeatedly stated that they are willing to accept the BDP playing this
role, and the party enjoys a high degree of credibility among ordinary
Kurds. Indeed, no other grouping in Turkey â with the exception of the
PKK itself â has as much credibility with ordinary Kurds. Hence, despite
the AKPâs Turkish nationalist base, the government party has no option
but to interact meaningfully with the BDP if it wishes to secure a
viable, lasting, peace.
ErdoÄanâs reiterated charge that the BDP are âterroristsâ and his
governmentâs excalating attacks on the party bode ill for the chance of
a successful, peaceful settlement between Ankara and the PKK. Speaking
on the television station Kanal D, veteran journalist Mehmet Ali Birand
â who in 1992 published a collection of interviews with Abdullah Ăcalan
â claimed: âErdoÄan wants to take the [ultranationalist far right] MHPâs
votes, so he led with nationalist politics and attacked the Kurdsâ,
accusing them of threatening national unity (
). The PKK, meanwhile, âshows its muscles and demonstrates that it
defends its communityâ, he added (AFP, 6 May 2011). Meanwhile, Kurdish
nationalist icon Leyla Zana declared that, throughout her years of
imprisonment by the Turkish state, âI never stopped believing in the
democratic fight. My morale is high. Iâm hopeful, and that is my only
capitalâ (AFP, 15 May 2011; see also
).
Ankaraâs condemnation of both the PKK and its legal interlocutor the BDP
left no option for either of these parties but to resist the government
as best it could. And so armed clashes and killings continued â on 7 May
2011 in NisĂȘbĂźn (Nusaybin) district (AFP, 7 May 2011); on 13 and 14 May
in Uludere in Ćırnak province and in HakkĂąri province (AFP, 14 May
2011). Thousands of Kurds â including BDP members â clashed with police
in mid-May, in Amed, Siirt and Batman. In Amed protesters threw molotov
cocktails at the police. Clashes also took place in Istanbul (AFP, 16
May 2011). The PKK was accused of planting bombs in Nusaybin and Cizre
in Ćirnex the day before a visit by ErdoÄan on 23 May and near a police
academy in a prosperous Istanbul residential area on 26 May (AFP, 26 May
2011).
In a bold step, on 1 June 2011 ErdoÄan called for a resolution of the
Kurdish conflict at an election rally in Amed, the unofficial âcapitalâ
of Turkish Kurdistan. The prime minster promised the benefit of
investment in Kurdish-population regions but made no commitment to the
political reforms demanded by Kurdish nationalists. âWe have prepared
the ground for a resolution processâ, ErdoÄan told a rally held under
the protection of 5,000 police officers. He promised to launch major
infrastructure projects for the region, to lift it out of its economic
backwardness, including the renovation of the historic centre of Amed;
the construction of a new airport; a dam; new hospitals and highways; as
well as leisure facilities on the banks of the Tigris, on the city
outskirts. The prime ministerâs speech was punctuated with references to
Turksâ and Kurdsâ common Islamic values. He also attacked his partyâs
main competitor in the region, the BDP. âTaking strength from the PKK,
the BDP wants to divide usâ (AFP, 1 June 2011).
Opportunities for a peaceful settlement had continually arisen during
the 1980s and 1990s. The PKKâs repeated unilateral ceasefires had met no
constructive response from Ankara, which for a long time remained
focused on a solely military solution. In this period the military
remained dominant in Turkish politics. Even President Ăzalâs hesitant
âKurdish Openingâ could not bear fruit, due to its lack of a legal
framework for PKK fighters to lay down their arms and to the PKKâs
immature response to the initiative.
The BDP made impressive advances during the 2011 Turkish general
election of 12 June 2011, winning a record thirty-six seats in the
Kurdish south-east. This was even more than the ruling AKP won within
the region. Six of the elected BDP deputies were in prison at the time
of their election, but the Turkish authorities did not release any of
them immediately. It was not until January 2014 that five of the
deputies were released, leaving Hatip Dicle still behind bars. Matters
worsened when the constitutional court subsequently stripped Dicle of
his elected office. Initially released from prison due to his election
to parliament in the constituency of Diyarbakır (East), Dicle was
subsequently returned to jail by the High Council of Elections. The High
Election Board upheld this decision on 21 June 2011 (AFP, 22 June 2011;
Kurdpress News Agency, 8 January 2014
).
Ahmet TĂŒrk, president of the Kurdish umbrella organization the
Demokratık Toplum Kongresi (DTK â Democratic Society Congress),
immediately warned that the decision to strip Hatip Dicle of his office
was âa decision to take Turkey into chaos ⊠to push our people to an
environment of conflictâ, adding accusingly: âThe state government and
judiciary try to block our efforts to create a democratic political
baseâ for a solution to the Kurdish conflict. He called upon the other
newly elected Kurdish MPs, supported by the BDP, to again consider
boycotting parliament (AFP, 22 June 2011).
MP Sefarettin Elçi, a spokesperson for the now thirty-five elected
Kurdish MPs (since Hatip Dicle had been stripped of his elected office),
denounced the decision to invalidate Dicleâs election as a measure of
âmanoeuvre and obstructionâ that would only prevent a peaceful
resolution of the Kurdish conflict. âWe will not go to Parliament as the
government and the Parliament have not taken concrete steps to remedy
this injustice and provide opportunities for a resolution paving the way
for democratic politicsâ, Elçi declared (AFP, 23 June 2011).
Six elected Kurdish MPs remained languishing in jail. The Turkish
authorities directly responsible for this were clearly obstructing the
peace process â but ErdoÄan, mindful of not upsetting his own Turkish
nationalist electoral base, was in no mood to challenge them at the
time. The thirty MPs outside prison now declared a boycott of the
Turkish parliament (AFP, 13 June 2011; MAR Project, 2011). Meanwhile
clashes between security forces and the PKK further intensified in the
wake of Turkeyâs general election. On the day following Dicleâs
electoral exclusion, a mine exploded beneath a police vehicle in eastern
Amed, killing two officers. Turkish authorities were swift to blame the
PKK (AFP, 22 June 2011). The attack duly raised the hackles of
nationalist Turks. Yet more violence was to follow as a peaceful
settlement continued to elude the PKK and the Turkish state. On 27 June
PKK fighters attacked a military vehicle in Van province (AFP, 27 June
2011). The following day three PKK guerrillas were killed in fighting
with security forces near the village of Burnak in the DĂȘrsim region
(AFP, 28 June 2011). Twenty Turkish soldiers were killed by the PKK in a
two-week period in July 2011, as the PKK again intensified its campaign.
An estimated ten PKK fighters were also killed during this period (
; AFP, 15 July 2011).
The old deadly pattern of ceasefire followed by a renewal of
hostilities, followed by an ever increasing spiral of violence, was
reasserting itself in Turkeyâs south-east â leading both sides ever
further from a peaceful settlement. An armed clash on 15 July in Amed,
in which thirteen soldiers were killed and seven wounded in a PKK
ambush, especially aroused the ire of Turkish media and politicians.
Prime Minister ErdoÄan declared that the Turkish army would make the PKK
pay âa high priceâ for this attack. These losses were the heaviest the
army had suffered since October 2008. âI say openly to the terrorist
organization and its extensions they should not expect any good will on
our part to actions as maliciousâ, stated ErdoÄan (AFP, 15 July 2011).
He added:
If they want peace, there is one thing to do: the terrorist organization
must lay down their arms. If they refuse to lay down arms, military
operations will not cease and the process (reconciliation) will not
move. (AFP, 15 July 2011)
Turkish soldiers and PKK guerrillas clashed on 22 and 24 July in the
ColĂȘmerg and MĂȘrdĂźnĂȘ regions, resulting in four dead soldiers (AFP, 22
July 2011; 24 July 2011). It looked as though the situation was running
headlong towards a level of conflict not seen since the 1990s. But then
it became apparent that attempts at launching a viable peace process had
begun behind the scenes. On 20 June 2011 the PKK had set two principal
conditions for the renewal of its unilateral truce. These were that
Ankara cease all military operations and recognize Abdullah Ăcalan as a
leading interlocutor in talks to settle the Kurdish question (AFP, 20
June 2011). The PKK proposals also included regional autonomy for
south-eastern Anatolia, education in Kurdish, and an amnesty for PKK
fighters (AFP, 2 July 2011; 3 July 2011). Some of the proposals were not
new and had already received broad support in repeated pro-PKK
demonstrations in Turkeyâs Kurdish region, such as those demanding the
release of Kurdish MPs.
On 27 June 2011 the Turkish daily newspaper Milliyet had revealed the
existence of three âprotocolsâ that Abdullah Ăcalan had conveyed to the
Turkish government. According to Murat Karayılan (also cited in the
Milliyet report), the proposals included constitutional reforms to grant
regional autonomy and education in Kurdish and âconditions for a
complete exclusion of violence and disarmament on the basis of mutual
forgivenessâ. Karayılan added: âThe official delegation which met Ăcalan
last month did not reject these protocols. They said they would send
them to the state and Government⊠We expect an answerâ (AFP, 27 June
2011).
A week and a half earlier, the Serok is reported to have said that a
ârevolutionary peopleâs struggleâ was superfluous, since he was on the
verge of concluding an agreement with the Turkish state to form a âpeace
councilâ (AFP, 18 June 2011;
). The Serok was apparently aware that an important new Kurdish
initiative was at hand (
).
On 14 July 2011 the Demokratık Toplum Kongresi declared support for
âdemocratic autonomyâ at an âExtraordinary Congressâ of 850 delegates
(many of whom were BDP deputies or mayors) in Amed. This was the new
development for peace that Ăcalan had been referring to. Parliamentary
deputy and DTK chairwoman Aysel TuÄluk conveyed a conference declaration
to the media afterwards, stating that the Kurdish people had declared
democratic autonomy yet remained loyal to Turkish national unity and
respected the countryâs territorial integrity (
Karaveli, 2011; HĂŒrriyet Daily News , 15 July 2011; Todayâs Zaman , 14 July 2011
). One news report added that the Diyarbakır Prosecutorâs Office â
immediately suspicious â responded to the DTK initiative by launching an
investigation into the conferenceâs final declaration (Todayâs Zaman, 14
July 2011).
The DTK had earlier, in December 2010, at a conference in Amed,
presented a draft outline of its âDemocratic Autonomous Kurdistan
Modelâ. Nevertheless, advocacy of democratic autonomy was very different
to the PKKâs own founding objective of a pan-Kurdish state animated by
MarxistâLeninist dogmas. Yet, as this book has shown, the PKK
(especially its Serok) has a vast capacity for adaptability, and has
been moving towards its current position since the 1990s. And the legal
Kurdish parties inspired by the PKK â such as HEP, HADEP, the Demokratik
Toplum Partisi and the present-day BDP â have all demonstrated a similar
capacity, evolving their programmes as the PKK moderates its own line,
just as they organize militant street demonstrations at precisely the
same times that the PKK returned to intensified military struggle at
various junctures. These parties are organizationally independent of the
PKK, yet manage to mirror its moods and policy changes.
One of the BDPâs political predecessors, the Demokratik Toplum Partisi
(DTP â Democratic Society Party) went to great lengths to prove that it
supported the principle of a unified Turkey. The DTPâs Aysel TuÄluk has
referred in an article to a Misak-ı Milli (National Pact) between Turks
and Kurds in Turkey, affirming that Turks and Kurds are each otherâs
best ally. The article evokes the unity of Turks and Kurds against
âimperialismâ (
). In the present period, the Demokratık Toplum Kongresi (DTK) is a
legal platform for Kurdish NGOs and political organizations in Turkey.
Interestingly, Aysel TuÄluk is a leading member of the DTK. In this
capacity he told a Turkish daily newspaper in mid-2011 that his party
remained loyal to the national unity of Turkey, respected the countryâs
territorial integrity and based its advocacy of âdemocratic autonomyâ on
âdemocratic national principlesâ (Todayâs Zaman, 20 July 2011).
The Brookings Institutionâs Ămer TaĆpınar conceded at this time that
âKurdish nationalism, as a political forceâ, was âalive and well across
Turkeyâ. TaĆpınar, a Kemalist intellectual, counsels Turkish
nationalists to realize that for âmillions of Turkish Kurdsâ the PKK and
Ăcalan are âheroic symbols of rejection of decades of forced
assimilation under the Kemalist republicâ. He adds that âTurkeyâs
Kurdish minority has now much higher aspirations than 15 years agoâ, as
evidenced by âdemands for decentralization and federalism bordering on
autonomyâ (
).
By the end of July 2011, however, Ăcalan was once again despairing of
the peace initiative succeeding, declaring that his dialogue with the
Turkish government was âfinishedâ. Interestingly, the Serok this time
blamed intransigence on both sides in the conflict (the government and
the PKK) for this failure, declaring: âBoth parties use me for their own
interests. I am ending this intermediary role⊠There can be no peace
talks under the current conditionsâ (AFP, 29 July 2011).
Six Turkish soldiers were killed and three others injured in clashes
with the PKK in late July and early August 2011 (AFP, 30 July 2011; 1
August 2011). Two policemen died from a mine explosion (AFP, 7 August
2011) and another was shot dead by an âunidentified masked assailantâ
(AFP, 8 August 2011). On 9 August yet another police officer was killed
and another injured in a shoot-out between the guerrillas and the
Turkish military, which also saw the death of a PKK fighter (AFP, 9
August 2011). Then, on 17 August 2011, eight Turkish soldiers and a
village guard were killed and eleven soldiers wounded in a PKK ambush in
ĂelĂȘ (AFP, 17 August 2011).
The rising casualty toll among security force personnel and policemen
infuriated Turkish nationalists, and the AKP government felt compelled
to resort to sterner measures. On 17 August Turkish warplanes hit sixty
PKK positions in the Iraqi mountains (AFP, 18 August 2011). This was the
first time in over a year that the Turkish military had struck alleged
PKK bases in northern Iraq by air (
).
Politicians and the Turkish military had already announced plans to
consider a complete reorganization of the military and police effort
against the PKK, to be discussed at a forthcoming meeting of the Milli
GĂŒvenlik Kurulu (MGK â National Security Council) on 17 August 2011.
Proposed measures included the deployment in combat zones of special
police units and fully professional military troops (AFP, 18 August
2011). After meeting for almost five hours on 18 August 2011, the MGK
drew up a ânew strategyâ for dealing with the PKK. ErdoÄan in fact
endorsed even tougher measures than those foreshadowed by the military,
citing especially the bloody 17 August PKK ambush as his justification.
Over forty policemen and soldiers had recently been killed by the PKK
(AFP, 18 August 2011). The prime minister declared âa new eraâ in
Turkeyâs military confrontation with the PKK, warning that âthose who do
not deviate from terrorism will pay the priceâ â which was understood to
be addressed to Kurdish politicians close to the PKK (AFP, 18 August
2011).
That evening, Turkish F-16 fighter planes commenced six consecutive days
of bombarding PKK targets in Iraqi Kurdistan. A statement by the Turkish
army on 29 August claimed that these raids had resulted in the intense
bombardment of thirty-eight targets, with between 145 and 160 guerrillas
killed and over 100 injured, while insisting that due care had been
taken to avoid civilian casualties (AFP, 29 August 2011). A Human Rights
Watch statement issued a few days later, however, claimed that many of
the areas attacked in the Turkish raids âwere not used by armed groups,
but were inhabited by civiliansâ (AFP, 2 September 2011).
Peace now looked less likely than ever. âWe are entering an era where
the language of war and violence will prevailâ, wrote popular columnist
Soli Ăzel in the daily Haber TĂŒrk. Ăzel warned of the consequences of
such an upsurge in violence: âThe most dangerous thing is to leave in
despair Turks, Kurds, the majority of people who live in this country,
even at every opportunity they show with their votes they cannot achieve
anything else but terror and warâ (
).
PKK spokesperson Ahmed Denis threatened a âwarâ if the raids continued
(AFP, 22 August 2011). The PKK did not wait long to respond, launching
deadly new attacks on security forces (AFP, 28 August 2011). On 27
August thousands of Kurds from six provinces initiated a protest march
to the TurkishâIraqi border in opposition to the Turkish militaryâs
ongoing campaign in Iraqi Kurdistan. Yıldırım Ayhan, a BDP deputy to the
Van assembly, was killed when police dispersed the protest in the town
of ĂelĂȘ, after a tear-gas canister penetrated his chest (AFP, 28 August
2011).
On 29 August the PKK announced a three-day truce to honour the three
days of âEid al-Fitr following the end of the Islamic holy month of
Ramadan. PKK spokesperson Dozdar Hammo warned that PKK fighters âwould
defend themselves against any Turkish attackâ (AFP, 29 August 2011).
However, violence continued in Turkish Kurdistan, as two soldiers, two
policemen and two militiamen were killed in three clashes with the PKK
in Amed and ColemĂȘrg on 2 and 3 September (AFP, 4 September 2011).
The conflict continued to expand, as new fronts were added. Thus,
concurrent with the Turkish military campaign against the PKK, in the
same region Iranâs Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution
(SepÄh-e PÄsdÄrÄn-e EnqelÄb-e EslÄmi â Revolutionary Guards for short)
were at this time pursuing an offensive against the Iranian Partiya
Jiyana Azad a KurdistanĂȘ (PJAK â Kurdistan Free Life Party), which is
the main armed Iranian Kurdish nationalist movement and a PKK affiliate.
The Kurdish people, it will be recalled, straddle the borders of Iran,
Iraq, Syria and Turkey â countries that have long been regional rivals.
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Northern Iraq comprises
political elements (organized in the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan) that are no strangers to betrayal. Each
has clashed militarily with other Kurdish nationalist groups (including
each other) and could do so again. They permit both the PKK and the PJAK
to maintain military bases inside KRG territory for diverse reasons â
including the difficulty of ejecting these groups in military terms and
the potentially unbearable scandal within their own constituencies were
they to eject fellow Kurdish nationalists.
Since 2006 the PJAK has waged sporadic guerrilla war against Tehran. Its
struggle has figured in relations between Iraq and Turkey, both of which
have their own concerns about the PJAKâs armed operations in the light
of their own perceived interests. The Kurdish authorities in the KRG in
Northern Iraq would like to be independent of Iraq, if they could manage
it, but to achieve this they need US support. This backing is
potentially endangered by the PJAKâs operations on the IranâIraq border.
Having active in the region an armed group that it considers to be a PKK
proxy does not amuse the US. Turkey concurs, not wanting to have solved
its own Kurdish problem only to face a group with an identical ideology
in the same neighbourhood that shares, as it currently does, PKK
munitions in the Qandil mountains (
;
;
: 420â21).
On 3 September 2011 the PKK announced that it had decided to lend strong
support to the PJAK against the Iranian offensive in Iraqi Kurdistan.
âWe will now fight alongside the PJAK fighters against the attacks of
Iranians trying to enter Iraqi Kurdistan, particularly in the region of
Qandilâ, PKK spokesperson Dozdar Hammou told AFP. Iranâs Revolutionary
Guards confirmed in a statement that it had been waging operations
against the PJAK on the border with Iraqi Kurdistan (
; AFP, 3 September 2011).
On 5 September the PJAK announced a ceasefire, to enable it to redeploy
its forces from Iran to join the PKKâs conflict with Turkey (
). Eight simultaneous PKK attacks on military outposts and police
stations near ĂelĂȘ (Ăukurca) and Gewer on 19 October killed twenty-six
Turkish soldiers, injuring twenty-two others. Around 100 âKurdish
rebelsâ allegedly participated in the attacks, according to Turkeyâs
state-run TRT television (AFP, 5 September 2011;
;
).
On 7 September PKK fighters kidnapped two village guards and two
civilians near BeytĂŒssebap in Ćirnak province (AFP, 8 September 2011).
Less than a week later, on 12 September, five people were killed and ten
soldiers and policemen injured when the PKK reportedly attacked a police
station and barracks in ĆemzĂźnan, a town of HakkĂąri province. The PKK is
said to have launched four simultaneous attacks in the ĆemzĂźnan area
(AFP, 12 September 2011).
As the PKK had predicted in late August (AFP, 22 August 2011), Turkey
now announced it was considering a further ground incursion against its
forces in Northern Iraq. The PKK attacks in ĆemzĂźnan had enraged Turkish
nationalist opinion and were duly cited by the government as its
justification for this action. Prime Minister ErdoÄan convened an
emergency meeting with his ministers of the interior and defence and the
army to discuss options. The Turkish armyâs forces had already
concentrated on the border with Iraq during recent weeks (AFP, 13
September 2011).
As this threat was being discussed in the Turkish media, the Turkish
government admitted on 15 September 2011 that it had engaged in secret
direct negotiations with the PKK. The announcement was the cause of much
consternation among sections of the Turkish media, and extreme Turkish
nationalists in the state seized the opportunity to accuse the head of
intelligence, Hakan Fidan, of treason. Officials from the Milli
Ä°stihbarat TeĆkilatı (MÄ°T â National Intelligence Organization),
together with Mr Fidan (acting as ErdoÄanâs emissary), had met several
times with PKK leaders in Oslo.
Claiming that some 120 people had been killed in clashes and attacks by
the PKK since mid-June, ErdoÄan blamed the breakdown of negotiations on
the alleged upsurge in PKK attacks (AFP, 3 October 2011), with Ankara
once again threatening a ground attack on PKK bases in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Turkish warplanes had already conducted a total of fifty-eight attacks
on PKK targets there during August and September (
; AFP, 15 September 2011;
). The PKK, predictably, blamed the government for the talksâ collapse,
accusing it of delaying tactics at the negotiations and then forsaking
the few promises it made once it secured the June 2011 elections with 50
per cent of the votes (
). Another opportunity for peace had been lost.
More violence was the inevitable consequence of this breakdown. A
Turkish soldier was killed and two others were injured in clashes with
Kurdish rebels on 17 September in a rural area of Bingöl province.
Police arrested 122 people in the Istanbul city centre the following
day, for attempting to participate in a demonstration opposing military
operations against the PKK. Protesters also objected to Abdullah Ăcalan
being unable to meet his lawyers for almost two months. Police prevented
protesters from gathering, while police helicopters flew overhead,
monitoring the situation (AFP, 18 September 2011). Denied any means to
redress their grievances by the Turkish state, Kurkish nationalists grew
steadily more frustrated, with âarmed struggleâ â however fruitless it
had proven to be â seeming to many the only option available.
Armed clashes between the security forces and the PKK now occurred on an
almost daily basis. On 20 September a bomb explosion in Kızılay, in
downtown Ankara, killed three people and injured fifteen others, two of
whom later died in hospital. This attack was eventually claimed by the
TeyrĂȘbazĂȘn Azadiya Kurdistan, however, and denounced by the PKK, which
described it as âreprehensibleâ, adding that it âundermined the
legitimate demands of the Kurdish peopleâ. Turkish authorities once
again alleged that TAK was a PKK affiliate (AFP, 24 September 2011; AFP,
14 October 2011).
Later the same day, an assault on a police academy in Siirt killed four
civilians and one of the attackers (AFP, 20 September 2011). Following
this operation, on 24 September the PKK leadership ordered âall
guerrilla units to be more careful in their preparationsâ to avoid
civilian deaths. Two Turkish soldiers were killed and three others were
wounded in fighting late on 22 September in Ăatak, in Van province. A
policeman injured on 22 September in another attack, in Amed, died a few
days later. All attacks were attributed to the PKK by the authorities (
;
).
On 21 September the Turkish military said it had hit 152 PKK targets in
Iraq by air in almost sixty sorties since 17 August. âAll targets were
shelled with acuity and were destroyedâ said an online statement, adding
that rebel movements would be âclosely monitoredâ and that air strikes
would continue âif necessaryâ (AFP, 21 September 2011).
The atmosphere became immensely more deadly on 21 September, when
ErdoÄan revealed that he had asked the United States to locate US
Predator drones to strike PKK positions in Iraqi Kurdistan. The prime
minister had met briefly with the US president. President Obama âtold me
that the United States is prepared to give us any support in the fight
against terrorismâ, reported ErdoÄan. He added that the United States
would continue to provide Ankara with âreal-time informationâ on PKK
activities in northern Iraq (AFP, 21 September 2011;
). In late October 2011 the Pentagon announced â subject to
congressional approval â the sale of three AH-1 Super Cobra attack
helicopters to Turkey for $111 million. On 14 November a Pentagon
spokesman announced that the US military had relocated four unarmed
Predator drones, formerly based in Iraq, to the US/NATO Air Base in
Ä°ncirlik in Turkey, to support Ankara against the PKK (
: 22). US material support for the Turkish military was nothing new, of
course, given that Turkey hosts a web of US military bases on its soil
and is a member of NATO. Nor was there anything novel in strong
political support for Ankara against the PKK. Washingtonâs decision to
provide powerful direct military assistance to the Turkish military
against the PKK reflected the formerâs rising concern with the PKKâs
entrenchment in Iraqi Kurdistan, which the Americans considered ran
contrary to their own interests in the same region â especially in the
light of their military drawdown from Iraq (
: 22).
Prime Minister ErdoÄan disclosed on 23 September that cooperation with
Iran was being considered against the PKK in Northern Iraq. He added
that Turkey was âalready engaged in sharing informationâ on the PKK with
Iran. The prime minister called on the PKK to relinquish its weapons if
it wanted to avoid a new ground offensive against its bases in Northern
Iraq (AFP, 23 September 2011). However, six Turkish soldiers were killed
and eleven others wounded the following day in an attack on a small
barracks in the village of Belenoluk, near Pervari, in Siirt province,
also attributed by authorities to the PKK. Three PKK fighters were also
reportedly killed in the clashes (AFP, 24 September 2011; AFP, 25
September 2011).
On 28 September the thirty-five BDP MPs of the Turkish parliament
re-elected at the June 2011 elections suddenly announced their decision
to end their boycott of that institution. As shown earlier, this
decision came at precisely the time when the government and media alike
were attributing an upsurge in government/PKK violence to Kurdish
rebels. Plans for a military operation against PKK bases in Northern
Iraq were being openly threatened. BDP co-chairman Selahattin DemirtaĆ
told a press conference: âWe felt the need to make a change in attitude
and to defend peace against war ⊠we decided to participate in the
parliament.â He accused the AKP government of wanting to thwart efforts
for a resolution of the Kurdish conflict by ordering mass arrests of
Kurdish activists across the country in recent months. ErdoÄan responded
on the day of the Kurdish MPsâ initiative by accusing the BDP of
collusion with the PKK and of âprofiting fromâ the atmosphere of
violence. The prime minister called on Kurds to âresistâ the PKK (AFP,
28 September 2011). BDP deputies duly returned to the assembly in early
October, where they were sworn-in (AFP, 1 October 2011).
The violent atmosphere continued to build relentlessly. On 29 September
PKK spokesperson Ahmed Denis claimed that Turkish warplanes carried out
new raids that day against PKK bases in Iraqi Kurdistan. Denis also
stated that a number of individuals had been âarrestedâ by the PKK in
Turkey, including military officials, a mayor and twelve teachers. The
PKK accused them of alleged âcrimesâ against the Kurds. Asked about the
laws that could be applied against them, Denis replied: âWe have our own
laws⊠We respect rights and our laws do not provide for the death
penalty.â The PKK spokesperson gave no further details of the âarrestedâ
individuals. He added that Turkish warplanes had bombed the areas of
Khuwa Kork Khnera and Zap (northwest of Erbil and north-east of Dohuk)
for two hours (AFP, 29 September 2011). Two soldiers fighting the PKK
were killed on the same day in BeytĂŒssebap in Ćirnak province, bordering
Iraq, where a group of PKK fighters attacked a security forces unit,
injuring three soldiers (AFP, 30 September 2011).
The focus moved to the Turkish parliament on 1 October, when President
Abdullah GĂŒl declared that one of its âmain tasksâ was to draft a new
constitution â to be ultimately approved by a referendum (AFP, 1 October
2011). This potentially momentous step heralded the possible dawn of a
new chance for Turkish/Kurdish peace, since Kurdish rights were high on
the agenda for consideration of the new draft constitution (AFP, 1
October 2011). Stressing that the current constitution âdoes not meet
the aspirations of the Turkish peopleâ, GĂŒl argued for a more liberal
text based on Western standards of democracy, without sacrificing the
existing textâs republicanism, especially its secularism. Despite its
supposed âIslamistâ roots, the AKP has always committed itself to
secularism and republicanism. GĂŒlâs emphasis on the non-negotiable
nature of these aspects was intended to mollify extreme Turkish
nationalists, who might suspect an Islamist conspiracy behind the
proposed constitutional reform process.
The AKP government announced the goal of a new constitution by mid-2012,
with the perspective of achieving this through political consensus. The
government did not possess the necessary two-thirds majority for
constitutional reform, although much agreement existed in the parliament
on the need to change a constitution inherited from a military coup in
1980. So the AKP sought agreement with opposition parties. A
Constitutional Reconciliation Commission (CRC), comprising members from
each parliamentary party, was established in September 2011. However,
the process effectively collapsed in November 2012, when the four
parties presented rival reform proposals.
At first glance, it appeared that the Turkish state did not regard the
PKK as a potential interlocutor in this discussion, since AFP revealed
that the ErdoÄan government was still preparing to launch a ground
operation in Iraqi Kurdistan â with the PKK claiming that new air raids
on its bases in Northern Iraq had already begun (AFP, 30 September 2011;
AFP, 1 October 2011). On 3 October the prospect of peace was briefly
revitalized, however, when Prime Minister ErdoÄan declared that a
revival of talks with the Kurdish rebels was not excluded, adding that
dialogue with the PKK might possibly resume (AFP, 3 October 2011).
Meanwhile, operations against the PKK by the Turkish state continued at
all levels. On 4 October police across Turkey arrested almost 150 people
suspected of links to the KCK and the PKK. The arrestees joined the over
2,500 Kurds already imprisoned, accused of âlinks with rebelsâ (AFP, 4
October 2011). Moving the focus of its renewed offensive to Iraq, on 5
October the Turkish parliament approved the one-year renewal of the
authorization to carry out raids against PKK bases in Iraqi Kurdistan
(AFP, 5 October 2011). The PKK responded harshly to Turkeyâs military
response in the wake of these clashes. Spokesperson Ahmed Denis said on
19 October that Turkey was liable to be hit âharderâ if it conducted
military operations outside its borders. He promised: âWe will not allow
them to lead a military incursion into Iraqi Kurdistan. If they conduct
this raid, they will be unable to get out.â As it turned out, however,
Turkey was soon to succeed in achieving precisely that.
The PKK also responded within Turkish Kurdistan, and armed operations by
both sides occurred in HakkĂąri, Siirt, Adana and Bitlis provinces (AFP,
9, 13, 14 October 2011;
). On 16 October a bomb exploded at Ćeyhan in Adana province, as police
attempted to disperse âa banned demonstrationâ of PKK supporters; it
injured four policemen and two civilians (AFP, 16 October 2011). More
significantly, twenty-four Turkish soldiers were killed and several more
wounded in PKK attacks carried out simultaneously later the same day
against police Jandarma posts in eight localities in ĂelĂȘ and Gewer. The
Turkish army launched ground and air operations in the night in
retaliation. Observers claimed that these fatalities represented the
second highest army death to date (AFP, 19 October 2011).
According to Ahmed Denis, fighting between the two sides began when
Turkish soldiers tried to cross the Iraqi border hunting for PKK
guerrillas. âWhat happened was not planned by the PKKâ, he added. Denis
continued: âThe Turkish air force bombed several areas of Northern Iraq
heavily and later staged land operations.â According to him, the PKK
killed 100 Turkish soldiers as well as injuring many others, and seized
large quantities of ammunition. He added: âThe battle continues in some
areas and there is bombing by fighter jets and helicopters.â Another PKK
spokesperson, Dozdar Hammo, claimed that five PKK fighters were killed
on 18 October.
On the day following the simultaneous PKK attacks of 18 October 2011 in
south-eastern Turkey, President Abdullah GĂŒl echoed the words of his
prime minister in July (AFP, 15 July 2011), promising âvery greatâ
revenge on the PKK. The remarks came after Turkish security forces said
they had killed fifteen âKurdish militantsâ, in the wake of the alleged
PKK attacks. Turkish security forces now launched their long-threatened
incursion inside Iraq, involving âmultiple attacks along the borderâ (
). Sounding very much like a 1980sâ Kemalist leader, the president
addressed reporters:
No one should forget this: those that inflict this pain on us will
endure far greater pain; those that think they will weaken our state
with these attacks or think they will bring our state into line, they
will see that the revenge for these attacks will be very great and they
will endure it many times over. (
;
).
Prime Minister ErdoÄan reported that Turkish elite troops had entered
Iraqi territory to hunt down Kurdish assailants, âas permitted by
international lawâ. Hundreds of Turkish commandos penetrated 4
kilometres into Iraq to prevent the rebels retreating to their bases in
the mountains. Turkish military operations by combined ground and air
forces continued until 27 October (AFP, 19 October 2011; AFP, 27 October
2011). On 31 October BDP deputy chairperson Meral DanÄ±Ć BeĆtaĆ accused
the Turkish army of using chemical weapons during this operation (Press
TV, 29 December 2011). Curiously, this accusation was not denied by the
Turkish military until 8 December, some five weeks later (AFP, 8
December 2011), with perhaps even the Turkish general staff being wary
regarding what some of its units might have done. German chemical
weapons experts later confirmed that the Turkish army had almost
certainly used chemical weapons (
: 15).
Turkish military operations against PKK fighters in the HakkĂąri region
as well as in Iraqi Kurdistan continued on 21 October. Turkish fighter
planes and helicopters engaged the PKK during the night on both sides of
the border, involving some 10,000 troops in the whole operation (AFP, 21
October 2011). The Turkish army continued its offensive on 22 October
for the third consecutive day, causing forty-eight deaths in PKK ranks
in the space of two days, (AFP, 22 October 2011). Operations continued
on 23 October. Then on 24 October twenty tanks and thirty military
trucks reportedly entered Iraq from the village of Siyahkaya in Silopi
province, before heading towards PKK bases located in the Haftanın
valley (AFP, 24 October 2011).
The PKK responded forcefully, as best it could. Police in Amed deployed
water cannons to scatter stone-throwing protesters, as the bodies of
twenty-four PKK fighters killed in a military operation arrived at a
mortuary in Malatya (Reuters, 29 October 2011). An unnamed security
source told AFP that a female PKK suicide bomber attacked the provincial
headquarters of the ruling AKP on the same day in Bingöl, killing two
persons, including herself, and injuring ten others (Reuters, 29 October
2011; AFP, 29 October 2011).
On 12 November Turkish transport minister Binali Yıldırım accused the
PKK of hijacking a small Turkish ferry in the Sea of Marmara for over
twelve hours. He said that four or five members of the PKKâs military
wing the HPG took possession of the ferry Kartepe with eighteen
passengers on board, including five women, four crew members and two
trainees. âThere are no demandsâ, claimed the minister. One hijacker
claimed to be in possession of a bomb and told the ferry captain that he
wanted this to be reported by the media, according to the mayor of
Ä°zmit, KaraosmanoÄlu Ä°smail. Later, however, this hijacker was found to
have only a mock bomb after security forces who stormed the vessel at
dawn on 12 November killed him. It was also discovered that he was the
sole hijacker. All the hostages were unharmed, according to the Istanbul
governor HĂŒseyin Avni Mutlu (AFP, 12 November 2011). The PKK has not
claimed responsibility for this stunt. If it were responsible, it would
indicate the PKKâs increasing desperation to reach international opinion
with its message.
Iranâs Ministry of Foreign Affairs had already condemned on 20 October
what it termed the âterroristâ activities of the PKK. Tehran pledged to
âwork with the Turkish Government on security issues to prevent such
actions from occurringâ (AFP, 21 October 2011). On the following day,
Turkeyâs foreign minister Ahmet DavutoÄlu revealed that Iran had agreed
to fight together with Turkey against both the PKK and Iranâs PJAK, in a
âcommon action plan until this terrorist threat is eliminatedâ. Turkey
thus brought to fruition the cooperation with Iran envisaged by ErdoÄan
the previous month (AFP, 21 October 2011). Iranâs foreign minister Ali
Akbar Salehi, and Massoud Barzani, president of the autonomous region of
Iraqi Kurdistan, claimed on 29 October that the âPJAK issueâ had been
settled by Tehran, following the conclusion of an operation beginning in
July (AFP, 29 October 2011).
In a massive operation across the country on 22 November, Turkish police
arrested more than seventy people accused of KCK membership. Abdullah
Ăcalanâs lawyers, as well as BDP members, were among those arrested
(AFP, 22 November 2011).
The government, however, was determined to combine repression of Kurdish
politicians considered close to the PKK with gestures towards the Kurds
more generally. On 23 November Prime Minister ErdoÄan addressed one of
the primary sources of Kurdish animosity towards Turks, when he
presented a historic apology to members of his ruling AKP on behalf of
the Turkish state for the murderous repression of the 1937â38 rebellion
in DĂȘrsim, which many had attributed to the Kurds, due to the PKKâs
denial of the separate ethnic identity of the Zaza people (
: 49).
The Zaza-speaking Alevi tribes of DĂȘrsim rebelled against Ankara from
March to November 1937 and from April to December 1938, led by the Alevi
cleric Sayyid Riza [Seyt Rıza]. These rebellions triggered a process of
repression that forced the exodus of tens of thousands of DĂȘrsimli
Alevis. âDĂȘrsim is one of the most tragic and painful events of our
recent historyâ, observed ErdoÄan. âI apologize and I apologizeâ.
Referring to an official document of the time, the prime minister cited
a total of 13,806 killed by air and ground bombardment, followed by
abuses and summary executions in the province of DĂȘrsim (AFP, 23
November 2011). Unfortunately, a member of the prime ministerâs party
had proposed renaming Sabiha Gökçen International Airport after Mustafa
Kemal AtatĂŒrkâs adopted daughter, who had actively participated as a
pilot, bombing DĂȘrsim (AFP, 23 November 2011).
The armed clashes between the army and the PKK and its suspected
supporters continued unabated. On 15 December Turkish soldiers stormed a
house in Ăay, in Bingöl province, killing eight alleged PKK fighters
(AFP, 15 December 2011). Then twenty-one PKK fighters were killed in six
days of fighting with the Turkish armed forces, beginning on 15
December, in Görese in Diyarbakır province. Turkish ground troops,
supplemented by helicopter gunships, were responsible for killing
between fifty and seventy guerrillas, according to estimates (AFP, 21
December 2011).
On 30 December the PKK called the Kurdish population of Turkey to an
âuprisingâ, following the apparently accidental death of thirty-five
Kurdish smugglers in an air raid by Turkish F-16s at the Iraqi border on
28 December. Erdal Bahoz, an HPG cadre, announced: âWe urge the people
of Kurdistan, especially in HakkĂąri [ColemĂȘrg] and Ćirnak [Ćirnex], to
show their reaction against this massacre and to hold accountable the
perpetrators.â Thousands of angry Kurds ensured that the funerals of the
dead villagers were a demonstration against the Ankara government. A
long convoy of cars honking their horns denounced Prime Minister
ErdoÄan, calling him a âmurdererâ. Many of the Kurds were convinced that
the accidental killings were deliberate. âIt is impossible that were
killed by mistake. Soldiers were 150 metres away and within sightâ,
stated a local named Mehmet from Robozik (Ortasu) village, from which
most of the victims originated (AFP, 29 December 2011). ErdoÄan
expressed regret at the âunfortunate and distressingâ air raid killings
of civilians, conveying his condolences to relatives of the victims. On
2 January 2012 the deputy prime minister, BĂŒlent Arınç, promised that
the government would pay reparations to the families of the slain Kurds
(
).
Tension continued to build on the day following the funerals, when two
PKK fighters were killed on 31 December in Amed when they threw grenades
at police who had ordered them to surrender after attacking their
position (AFP, 31 December 2011a). Already enraged by the deaths of the
thirty-five Kurdish civilians, hundreds of Kurds took to the streets of
Amed. Some protesters threw stones at police, who responded with water
cannon and tear gas. Ten protesters were arrested (AFP, 31 December
2011).
The year 2011 thus ended as it had begun â with bloody violence on both
sides. As the year drew to a close, it seemed that nothing could prevent
Turkish Kurdistan descending into a deepening bloody cycle of violence.
Armed hostilities continued into 2012, although initially at a lower
rate than in the recent past. No major incidents are recorded for
January 2012. The Turkish military clashed with the PKK on 9 February,
killing thirteen alleged PKK fighters, while two other guerrillas were
wounded and one Turkish soldier was killed. Turkish warplanes hit back
on 11â12 February with overnight strikes on suspected PKK targets in the
Zab and Hakurk areas of Iraqi Kurdistan (
).
PKK fighters killed policemen on 25 May and 12 June in Kayseri and
Istanbul respectively (
Todayâs Zaman , 29 June 2012
). The violence was now obviously becoming increasingly senseless.
Casualties continued to pile up on both sides, but neither a military
solution nor a viable peace process appeared to be any closer.
This reality called out for bold steps to resolve the stalemate.
Throughout June and August 2012 heavy clashes erupted in HakkĂąri
province, when the PKK military leadership ordered a temporary
abandonment of standard guerrilla war tactics, by waging a âfrontal
battleâ with the Turkish army for the Kurdish town of ĆemzĂźnan. Roads
leading to the town from Iran and Iraq were blockaded by the PKK. PKK
rocket launchers and Russian-made DShK heavy machine guns were
positioned on high ground in preparation for an assault on Turkish
motorized units that the PKK anticipated would be sent to secure
ĆemzĂźnan. Refusing to take the bait, the Turkish military reportedly
destroyed the guerrillas in air attacks, supplemented by long-range
artillery salvos. On 11 August the military declared victory, claiming
to have killed 115 PKK fighters at the cost of six soldiers and two
village guards (
).
The decision by PKK military leaders to eschew standard âhit and runâ
guerrilla war tactics in this instance is incomprehensible logically, as
they could not seriously have believed that they had the capacity to
keep possession of ĆemzĂźnan. The only explanation seems to be that the
decision-makers simply did not know what to do next: ceasefire after
ceasefire had failed, and a return to all-out war was only leading to
greatly increasing PKK casualties. Their acquiring of some heavy weapons
(quite possibly from Iran) also probably played a part. Given the number
of PKK fighters and heavy munitions involved, it is unlikely that one or
two local commanders alone made this decision. It must have been made
rather by the central military leaders, in consultation with the PKK
political leadership. As such it must be seen as indicative of their
high degree of disorientation at this point.
The bloodshed continued after this carnage. Some fifteen suspected PKK
guerrillas were killed in HakkĂąri province and two soldiers died in a
mine explosion on 19 August alone (Ćahin, 2012;
). Then, on 19â20 August, a car full of explosives exploded close to a
police station in Gaziantep province, killing nine civilians (four of
whom were children) and wounding fifty-six (
;
). With this attack the number of civilian casualties since 2007 reached
sixty-five, including twenty-three children (
). The carnage was far from over, however.
Turkey responded to these attacks with six days of intense bombing of
PKK bases in the Qandil Mountains. On 23 August Turkish authorities
claimed to have killed as many as a hundred PKK fighters in these air
raids. Professor Gokhan Bacık of Zirve University commented that the
bombing might have been assisted by US intelligence. Despite reports of
civilian casualties and condemnation from the president of autonomous
Iraqi Kurdistan, Prime Minister ErdoÄan declared that his government had
ârun out of patienceâ, and vowed to continue the attacks on the PKK
(Christie-Miller, 2012). The Turkish stateâs bombing campaign thus
appeared to indicate a decisive move back to military methods for
dealing with the PKK.
The year 2012 was shaping up to be the most deadly in the conflict
between the PKK and Ankara since 1999. Nearly 800 people died in the
conflict between June 2011 and 2 September, including some 500 PKK
fighters, more than 200 security personnel and 85 civilians, according
to estimates by the think-tank International Crisis Group (
;
: 69). Clashes and deaths continued unabated throughout September (
;
;
).
The Koma CiwakĂȘn Kurdistan reported no fewer than 400 incidents of
shelling, air bombardment and armed clashes during August 2012. ErdoÄan
claimed in mid-September that, âWithin the last month, in the operations
executed throughout the region, about 500 terrorists were eliminatedâ (
;
; BBC News, 17 September 2012). Veteran observer Hugh Pope told CNN:
Weâre seeing the longest pitched battles between the army and the PKK.
[W]eâre seeing a wide-spread campaign of kidnapping, suicide bombings
and terrorist attacks by the PKK. Theyâre very much on the offensive and
unfortunately this is matched by much harder line rhetoric on both
sides. (
)
A letter from Aysel TuÄluk, the BDP MP for Van, was published in the
daily Taraf on 20 September, making concrete suggestions for stopping
the fighting and advancing in the direction of peace. She suggested that
the Turkish state end Ăcalanâs solitary confinement, release â8,000 KCK
friendsâ and accept the status of autonomous administration for Turkish
Kurdistan. She recommended that, in return, the PKK declare a ceasefire
and become partners with Turkey, âworking together toward the democratic
and free future of the regionâ (
). HĂŒrriyet Daily News responded positively, noting that the BDP MP was
merely advising Turks how to avoid worsening TurkishâKurdish relations
in Turkey. âIn short, she was sending the message: âYou are forcing us;
you are pushing us to partition. We are separatingââ (HĂŒrriyet Daily
News, 19 September 2012).
However, in mid-September 2012 forty-four Kurdish journalists appeared
in court in Istanbul to face terrorism charges. Many of them had been
remanded in prison since their arrest the previous December (
). In October 2012 several hundred Kurdish political prisoners went on
hunger strike demanding better conditions for Abdullah Ăcalan and the
right to use the Kurdish language in the education and justice systems.
The hunger strike only ended after the Serok ordered his fighters to
stop after sixty-eight days (BBC News, 21 March 2013).
On 4 December 2012 Prime Minister ErdoÄan indicated that he might be
prepared to repeat the methods of his predecessors in the early 1990s in
dealing with the challenges presented by legal Kurdish parliamentary
parties, by putting them on trial on terror-related charges, accusing
the BDP as a whole of being the political wing and the tool of the PKK.
To do so, he would have to cancel pro-Kurdish lawmakersâ parliamentary
immunities. Interestingly, President Abdullah GĂŒl stated his disapproval
of this suggestion, and was joined in this by over thirty other AKP
colleagues. GĂŒl â whose popularity continued to grow, even as ErdoÄanâs
declined â perceived that the prime minister was going too far and
wished to insulate himself from popular distaste at this move. ErdoÄan
responded fiercely, openly threatening the dissidents with expulsion
from the party. The HĂŒrriyet Daily News commented that the lack of
political channels to help solve the Kurdish question, were the BDP to
be made illegal, would make a peace settlement with the PKK very
difficult â âif, of course, the government still has such a willâ
(HĂŒrriyet Daily News, 5 December 2012). As the year progressed, peace
seemed an increasingly less likely prospect.
As has been seen, the deadly pattern that has long plagued the
KurdishâTurkish conflict in Turkey â wholesale bloodletting followed by
fruitless peacemaking, which produces even worse bloodletting â
continued to reassert itself throughout the period examined in this
chapter. To fully understand events in the period described above, it is
necessary to examine the role of the Kurdish diaspora in the conflict.
Many of the Kurds from Turkey living in Europe have lived there for
several decades, arriving in waves in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s in
response to tumult and oppression in their homeland (
: 157). Living in the diaspora, they encountered their fellow Kurds from
other parts of putative Kurdistan, especially Iraq â evoking an
increasingly âpan-Kurdishâ identity, which allowed them to see
themselves simultaneously as Kurds from a particular sector of Kurdistan
and as part of the larger entity of Greater Kurdistan. Observing this,
Martin van Bruinessen refers to the ââdeterritorializationâ of the
Kurdish questionâ, due to the combined effects of mass migration and
globalization (
: 12).
Naturally, Kurdish immigrants from Turkey did not land in Europe bereft
of identity. Feelings of cultural, economic and political subordination
in their homeland had already come together within many of them as a
Kurdish identity politics that constantly seeks a coherent Kurdish
national identity. Kurdish nationalism seemed âto offer a framework to
construct a narrative of a unique Kurdish identity that needs to be
restored by âgoing backâ to oneâs history and originâ (
: 84).
These feelings never departed the hearts of the older generations in the
earlier waves of Kurdish mass migration from Turkey. Aware that they
were now living in a quite different environment, however, they
generally limited themselves to cultural Kurdish activities. Any Kurdish
organization that was established in this earlier period was tiny (
: 159). Not wanting to cause trouble for themselves in their new lands â
which they feared would have lasting consequences for their children â
they were content at first to allow themselves to be described as
âTurkishâ. Their children, in the meantime, were already becoming
culturally integrated into the countries of migration.
Events in Turkey changed all that. The 1971 and 1980 coups dâĂ©tat in
Turkey ejected many leftist activists and intellectuals from Turkey,
several of whom were Kurds. Landing in the diaspora, they formed
political groups and community organizations. Different perspectives
initially competed, as Turkish leftists also called the Kurds to their
fold, evincing support for Kurdish rights. Some of the same Kurdish
political groups that competed for Kurdsâ support in Turkey also
emerged. But the emergence and growth of the PKK in Turkish Kurdistan
soon convinced the majority of Kurds to support the organization. The
PKK sent as many as 7,500 organizers to facilitate this politicization
process (
: 163;
: 8 n12). It was the politicization of Kurdish migration by the PKK that
ensured that diaspora Kurds in Europe and elsewhere ceased regarding
themselves in any sense as âTurksâ (
;
: 160, 162). As Zeynep N. Kaya explains, âActivities of the PKK among
the diaspora offered a sense of identity, meaning and confidence to the
second generation of guest workers, especially in Germanyâ (
: 163).
The diaspora Kurds were providing vital support for the PKK. Observing
that the PKK was successfully raising large sums of money and mobilizing
Kurds for protests across Western Europe, Turkey was quick to explain
that the PKK was forcing Kurds to support the organization with
extortion, threats and acts of violence (
Ministry of Foreign Affairs Turkey, 2014
;
Australian National Security, 2014
). However, most contributions were in fact voluntary. Furthermore, the
large numbers of youth recruited as guerrillas, technical and other
skilled specialists, as well as organizers and diplomats, demonstrated
the level of support of these diaspora Kurds for the PKK.
It is due to the high level of Turkish Kurdish diaspora support for the
PKK that the latter was able to produce prodigious publications in
several languages, open television stations and mobilize around 50,000
Kurds for important demonstrations (
: 8â9; 2000: 19). The PKKâs hard work in the diaspora provided âa sense
of identity, meaning and confidence to the second generation of guest
workers, especially in Germanyâ (
: 163). PKK diaspora militantsâ widespread use of the Internet and other
modern communication methods transformed them into âlong-distance
Kurdish nationalistsâ, carrying out their activities in a âtransnational
realmâ (
: 160). The Kurdish question continued to be âdeterritorializedâ. The
diaspora activists had been inspired by the rise of the PKKâs militancy
in Turkish Kurdistan. The diaspora militantsâ activities, in turn,
reverberated in the hearts of their compatriots back home, reassuring
them that they were not isolated, and that support was building for
their cause in Europe.
Europeâs Turkish Kurdish diaspora watched the steady ratcheting up of
Turkish state violence against Turkeyâs Kurds with growing
consternation. No longer isolated from their homeland by virtue of being
in Europe, diaspora Kurds followed political developments in Turkey
closely, especially those concerning the countryâs Kurds. The PKKâs
successful insertion into the Kurdish diaspora gave it an increasingly
formidable supportersâ network throughout Western Europe. Importantly,
the failure of the PKKâs efforts towards a peaceful settlement
infuriated the diaspora, which was now strongly influenced by the
organization.
Indeed, Turkeyâs preference in the 1980s and 1990s for ruthless military
force to solve its Kurdish problem had the opposite effect to that which
Ankara intended, as the Kurds forced from Turkish Kurdistan into the
diaspora were compelled by circumstances to overcome their differences,
as a consequence of which many were integrated âinto more inclusive,
non-territorial Kurdish networksâ (
: 21). However, this development also facilitated the
deterritorialization of Ankaraâs war on Kurdish nationalism.
The PKK leadership evolved a network for leading the deterritorialized
Kurds, linking the diaspora to the PKK via the Confederation of Kurdish
Associations in Europe (KON-KURD), which is based in Brussels. Pro-PKK
Kurdish associations in Australia, the United States and Canada are also
connected to KON-KURD (
: 167). However, a pan-Kurdistan body, the Kongra Netewiya Kurdistan
(KNK â National Congress of Kurdistan) now acts as an umbrella
organization for the PKK diaspora as a whole, comprising representatives
in Europe, the Middle East, North America, Australia and Asia, together
with representatives of political, religious and cultural institutions,
intellectuals and non-Kurdish ethnic groups from all over Kurdistan (
: 159 n13).
Ankara was not complacent in the face of these developments and showed
itself increasingly capable of working directly with Germany and France
regarding these groups, especially against PKK supporters. Nevertheless,
building on its successful multistate mobilizations to âsave Ăcalanâ
when the Kurdish leader briefly sojourned in Europe, by 2010 the PKK had
attained a sophisticated organizational and propaganda apparatus in
Europe. The Turkish state countered this by providing evidence to
European states claiming that the diaspora organizations included
terrorists. Turkey signed a broad agreement against terrorism with
France in 2011. The PKK had already been classified as a terrorist
organisation by the European Union in May 2002.
Until 2012 European PKK supporters did indeed include a number of
organization members, who at that point acted as though they were still
in Turkey. In other words, when devising their political strategies and
seeking to lead the diaspora, they paid little attention to the very
different, liberal-democratic states in which they now lived. Their only
concern was that the PKK and its perspectives were under attack in
Turkey. Like the PKK in this period, on occasion they resisted these
attacks using violent means. In this struggle, the diaspora leaders
believed that such violence was justified. The Turkish state seized on
this approach and used it to secure joint action by European governments
against the PKKâs members and supporters in the diaspora.
Exactly as in Turkey, each attack by either side (the pro-PKK diaspora
or one of the European states) produced retaliation. Thus, six alleged
PKK members were indicted in Paris in December 2010 by the
anti-terrorist judge Thierry Fragnoli for conspiracy in connection with
and financing of a terrorist organization (AFP, 5 June 2011). This set
the tone for mobilizations by PKK supporters and members in Europe
during the period of the PKKâs violent upsurge of 2011 to 2012 in
Turkey. Particularly notable events of that period included disturbances
in two parts of France, following the arrest of two men accused of being
PKK leading cadres âwithout reasonâ on 4 June 2011 in Evry, in the
southern suburbs of Paris. In a remarkable (but hardly unprecedented)
display of its ability to instantly mobilize supporters, some fifty PKK
supporters soon assembled on the street and directed projectiles at
police, who called for reinforcements. As Kurdish protestorsâ numbers
doubled, they continued to hurl projectiles at police, who retaliated
with rubber bullets and tear gas (AFP, 4 June 2011).
Behind this incident was a crackdown by French authorities on the PKKâs
organizing in France. Pressured constantly by Ankara to act against the
PKKâs deterritorialized militants on its own soil, the French state
(along with other European states with large Kurdish populations) was
now concerned that the deterritorialized war between Turks and Kurds was
both harming its own relations with Turkey (an important strategic
partner) and damaging its security. Part of this concern flowed from the
emergence and growing electoral successes of far-right political
parties, which, capitalizing on economic instability, were prospering by
targeting the influx of immigrants (including the highly visible Turkish
Kurds). European Union states now determined to snuff out the burgeoning
transnational war on their soil.
Pro-PKK Kurds continued to clash with police in France. Searching for
PKK cadres at a Kurdish Cultural House, police in northern France
clashed with PKK supporters on 4 June 2011, leading to arrests (
; AFP, 4 June 2011). But that was not the end: just as in Turkish
Kurdistan itself, one incident led to another. Hundreds of local Kurds
mobilized to battle police, with order not being restored until four
hours after the initial arrests (
; AFP, 4 June 2011). Thousands of Kurds protested the following day in
Evry and in Arnouville, where some demonstrators brandished flags
bearing the image of Abdullah Ăcalan (
; AFP, 5 June 2011). At a follow-up demonstration in Paris up to 3,000
protesting Kurds likewise waved Kurdish flags and portraits of Ăcalan
(AFP, 11 June 2011).
The arrests in both Val-dâOise and Evry had followed âan investigation
conducted for several months by the anti-terrorist sub-directorate
(SDAT) on the instructions of the anti-terrorist prosecutor of Parisâ,
Interior Ministry spokesperson Pierre-Henry Brandet later claimed (
). Seven Kurds were subsequently indicted for supposed âconspiracy in
relation to a terrorist enterpriseâ and for allegedly financing
terrorism. One of the arrested Kurds was also charged with attempted
extortion and wilful violence. Five of these Kurds were subsequently
imprisoned (AFP, 9 June 2011).
Then, perhaps not coincidentally, on 20 June 2011 the trial opened in
Paris of eighteen Kurds who had been arrested in France in February
2007. All stood accused of acts of terrorism and of financing the PKKâs
activities. They were also charged with being active members of the PKK;
the French state claiming that they had financed guerrilla attacks in
Turkey and laundered money obtained from drug trafficking. The
defendants included Ali Rıza Altun, Nedim Seven and Atilla Balıkçı,
accused of being respectively the representative of the PKK in Europe,
the organizationâs âsecretaryâ and its âtreasurerâ (AFP, 20 June 2011).
A further four Kurds were subsequently arrested for PKK membership in
Marseille and Paris following police raids and accused of financing
terrorism and conspiracy in relation to a terrorist enterprise (AFP, 20
September 2011).
French interior minister Claude Gueant signed a broad agreement on
terrorism in Ankara on 7 October 2011, aimed mainly at the PKK. He
stated that in 2010 and 2011 respectively, thirty-eight and thirty-two
PKK members had been arrested on French soil. The signing took place
only three weeks before the French court was due to reach verdicts in
the trial of eighteen Kurds of Turkish nationality, referred to above
(AFP, 28 September 2011; AFP, 7 October 2011). More Kurds were arrested
in the following weeks, after Franceâs Central Directorate of Internal
Intelligence (DCRI) raided several premises in Bordeaux (AFP, 15 October
2011).
Sentences were finally handed down in Paris on 2 November 2011 for the
eighteen Kurds arrested in 2007. Seventeen of the defendants received
prison sentences ranging from one to five years (two of which were
suspended), for alleged acts of terrorism and for financing the PKK. One
sentence was accompanied by a ban from French territory for ten years.
Presented as active members, if not leaders, of the PKK, they were found
to have participated in the financing of attacks in Turkey. The court
was unable to prove charges of money laundering from drug trafficking.
One defendant was acquitted (AFP, 2 November 2011). The court also
ordered the closing down of the Ahmet Kaya Kurdish Cultural Centre.
Protests by pro-PKK Kurds continued to flare up in France (AFP, 30
December 2011; Hurriyet Daily News, 6 October 2012). In Germany,
meanwhile, security authorities arrested two suspected PKK recruiters on
18 July (AFP, 19 July 2011). The PKK also remained active elsewhere in
Europe, conducting protests notably in Vienna on 17 October (AFP, 17
October 2011) in Amsterdam (AFP, 30 October 2011) and in Strasbourg
(AFP, 23 November 2011).
The PKKâs successful establishment in the Kurdish diaspora gave it an
increasingly formidable supportersâ network throughout Western Europe.
These diaspora Kurds provided vital support for the PKK, raising large
sums of money and mobilizing Kurds for protests across Western Europe.
Initially evoked by the rise of the PKKâs militancy in Turkish
Kurdistan, these deterritorialized militantsâ activism reassured their
compatriots back home that they were not isolated, and that support was
building for their cause in Europe. The pro-PKK diasporaâs proudest
period was its successful organization of multistate mobilizations to
âsave Ăcalanâ when the Kurdish leader briefly sojourned in Europe.
Building on this, by 2010 the PKK attained a sophisticated
organizational and propaganda apparatus in Europe. These Kurdish
activists are well informed and follow political developments in Turkey
closely, especially those concerning Turkeyâs Kurds. The failure of the
PKKâs past efforts for a peaceful settlement infuriated the diaspora,
and it has protested in large numbers on the streets of Western Europe.
The same diaspora will not remain passive in the face of provocations
from Turkish nationalist extremists aimed at derailing the new peace
process.
This chapter has demonstrated the utterly contradictory nature of the
PKK/Ankara peace process. After peaking in the 1980s and 1990s, the
PKKâs armed struggle against the Turkish state went into abeyance for a
period, before again growing visibly bloodier. The reasons for this
deadly pattern are no mystery. Both Turkish governments and the PKK (and
its wider movement) have exhibited the capacity to think outside of
their respective boxes. The AKP, for instance, has grasped the necessity
to speak directly to Turkeyâs Kurds; yet, partly due to its being
blinded by short-term electoral concerns, it has been unable to accept
for many years that this necessitated interacting meaningfully with the
BDP. While talking of peace, the AKP persecuted the BDP.
A viable peace settlement requires the building of trust on both sides.
The precondition for this is the abandonment by protagonists of ways of
thinking and acting that, by their very nature, make the agreements that
must be reached by all concerned practically impossible. This has proved
very difficult, on both sides, for many years. The PKK has offered
Ankara several unilateral ceasefires, but all have been ignored, as the
deadly pattern continued to reassert itself. (The 2009 âKurdish Openingâ
is a partial exception to this trend, since the ErdoÄan government did
seek a peace settlement of sorts with the PKK. However, as shown
earlier, the latter behaved immaturely at the time, demonstrating it was
not yet capable of securing a lasting peace, while the government of the
day, for its part, was unable to break the grip of the Turkish military
on affairs of state.)
In the face of repeated failure to resolve the conflict, events have
tended to quickly spiral out of control. Kurds protesting on the streets
have met fierce repression, and so their demonstrations turned into
increasingly violent confrontations with the authorities. Concluding
that only violence could resolve the Kurdish issue the PKK has spoken
darkly of âpolitical genocide against the Kurdish peopleâ. The
unilateral ceasefire called on 13 August 2010 was formally abandoned on
28 February 2011 by the PKK, which recommenced attacking Turkish
military targets. Abdullah Ăcalan formally ended all peacemaking moves
with the Turkish State in mid-2010, stating that this was now the job of
his military commanders. Although this was an attempt to alarm the
authorities with the menace of total war, Ăcalanâs initiative simply
intensified the violence on both sides.
Ăcalan did not abandon the possibility of a peace process, however. In
mid-2011 both he and the DTK announced support for Kurdish âdemocratic
autonomyâ, within the boundaries of the Turkish state. Convinced that
this proposal had been ignored, Ăcalan declared at the end of July that
this dialogue was âfinishedâ. Unfortunately, he was correct, as attacks
on the PKK in Turkish and Iraqi Kurdistan became even more intensive.
Then, though, even as a new Turkish offensive was waged against PKK
bases in Iraqi Kurdistan, the Turkish government admitted in September
2011 that it had been engaging in secret direct negotiations with the
PKK. Yet this initiative looked like failing altogether after just a few
short weeks, and clashes reached very high levels of intensity.
Growing increasingly anxious as all its efforts brought it no closer to
a viable peace settlement, the PKK became more and more desperate during
2011 and 2012, when the armed conflict returned to levels approaching
that of the 1980s and 1990s conflict. Ankara exacerbated the problem by
resorting to solely military methods and seeking assistance from the
United States in pursuing this approach.
Nevertheless, surprising new developments were to emerge at the end of
2012, following behind-the-scenes activity, raising hopes for the
possibility of a viable peace process succeeding.
A viable peace process was the very last thing that most people were
expecting as the year 2012 ended. The terrible bloodshed of the
preceding twelve months especially had sickened a great number of Turks
and Kurds alike in Turkey, and most saw no reason why this would be
likely to decrease in scale in the near future. In reality, events
behind the scenes were about to create a stunning opportunity for peace,
as the PKK prepared to announce its complete abandonment of guerrilla
activity.
In the midst of the heightened state of bloodletting, on 31 December
2012, Prime Minister ErdoÄan stunned Turkey by admitting that secret
peace negotiations had been taking place with Ăcalan in Imralı prison.
Of course, the very fact that these negotiations had been happening for
some time proves that the incipient peace process had been proceeding at
the very same time as the conflict between Ankara and the PKK had
reached a new level of bloodshed. The explanation for this apparent
paradox is ErdoÄanâs realization that he needed to achieve the
resolution of a number of threatening historical issues â any one of
which could explode and jeopardize both the peace process and his own
government.
Nevertheless, broad public support for the peace process was apparent as
soon as ErdoÄan revealed that the intelligence organization MÄ°T had been
conducting discussions with Abdullah Ăcalan. The International Crisis
Group commented: âThe talks, which enjoy wide political support, may
offer a genuine opportunity to end Turkeyâs long-standing Kurdish
conflict.â Peace and Democracy Party representatives were permitted to
visit the PKK leader for the first time, further lifting Kurdish
expectations in the emerging peace process. Ăcalan told his visitors
that the period of armed struggle was now ended (
International Crisis Group, 2013
).
This opportunity had been a long time coming. The ceasefire that the PKK
had launched on 1 September 1998 led directly to a decrease in violence
between the PKK and Turkish security forces. This enabled the Turkish
state to end Emergency Rule in the provinces of ColemĂȘrg and DĂȘrsim on
30 July 2002. This was extended in 30 November 2002 to Diyarbakır and
Èırnak â the last two remaining provinces under Emergency Rule (
: 465). However, Ankara still failed to respond positively to the
PKK/Kongra-Gel offer of a lasting peace settlement. On 1 June 2004
Kongra-Gel therefore formally ended the ceasefire. All previous
PKK/Kongra-Gel unilateral ceasefires had met the same sorry end, for the
reasons explored in the previous chapter â the failure of protagonists
to abandon ways of thinking and acting that made a viable peace
agreement practically impossible.
A total of 32,000 PKK militants were killed and 14,000 captured between
1984 and 2008. Some 5,560 civilians died and 6,482 Turkish soldiers were
killed during the same phase (
). The war has cost Ankara over $300 billion. Hundreds of thousands of
Kurds have been displaced (
;
). In the eighteen months following the collapse of the 2009â11 âKurdish
Openingâ alone, almost 900 people had been killed and 8,000 Kurdish
political prisoners taken into detention. To an increasing number of
people involved on both sides of this conflict, the sheer senseless
horror of the loss of human life was now becoming apparent. The scale of
the human carnage began to gradually educe qualitative changes in
thinking. The bloody military and political stalemate now convinced
âsenior figures on both sidesâ to accept the impossibility of securing a
thoroughgoing military or political victory (
;
;
). At the same time, a year without elections gave ErdoÄan the political
space he needed in order to obtain a peace settlement, before his
predicted run for Turkeyâs presidency in mid-2014 (
).
The prime ministerâs adviser on Kurdish affairs stated on 4 January 2013
that the governmentâs goal was a âfinal settlementâ with the Kurds. The
fact that the same spokesperson added exactly one week later that
military operations against the PKK would continue until it disarmed (
International Crisis Group, 2013
) does not contradict anything that has been said about the current
peace process â which is, in any case, highly contradictory. The AKP
government must at all times maintain a difficult and often convoluted
posture in the peace process â continuing to pose as the implacable,
active opponent of âPKK terrorismâ and upholder of the values of the
âTurkish nationâ, while also promoting a peaceful but genuine compromise
with the Kurds of Turkey.
As may be expected from such a complex agenda, the peace process did not
advance without difficulties, but in fits and starts, with setbacks and
roadblocks. As long as Ankara made positive gestures towards the Kurds,
however, the peace process went forward. Such gestures include the
government passing a law on 25 January allowing defendants to speak
Kurdish in court at will, and a Diyarbakır court on 31 January
acquitting ninety-eight Kurdish mayors of terrorism-related charges.
Kurds warmly appreciated this. Over a million Kurds who gathered to
listen to the Serokâs peace message in Amed in both Kurdish and Turkish
on 21 March 2013 were permitted by security forces to sing, dance and
wave pro-PKK banners with images of Ăcalan (
;
). Other goodwill gestures included the governmentâs decision in early
January 2013 to allow Ăcalan to watch television and to permit Kurdish
movement leaders to visit him in prison (
).
An opinion piece by Ä°hsan DaÄı in Todayâs Zaman talked up the prospects
for lasting peace, noting that both Abdullah Ăcalan and the BDP were
assets in implementing a future peace deal. The op-ed piece added:
âĂcalan is an aging man and in an era of post-Ăcalan Kurdish politics it
will be impossible to find or create a leader like him to make peace
withâ (
). This opinion certainly has much merit. The PKK leader has
relentlessly pushed both his own party and the AKP government towards
the most hopeful peace initiative of the entire conflict in Turkey.
Abdullah Ăcalan admits that his party has committed terroristic deeds at
times in the past, but now does not condone these. It is he, more than
any other individual in the PKK, who has been responsible for persisting
with unilateral ceasefires, even though these have usually been
fruitless. On the other hand, his party also contains leaders and cadres
who have demonstrated the opposite dynamic â reneging on ceasefires and
returning to the path of all-out war. It is a measure of Ăcalanâs
leadership abilities that he has been able to reverse such dynamics,
despite being confined to a prison cell.
Furthermore, relations between Iraqi Kurdistan and Ankara have improved
appreciably, allowing Turkey to emerge âas the only regional ally and
balancer vis-Ă -vis Baghdadâ. This cordial relation is likely to continue
and prosper, given that Iraqi Kurdistan is a prized market for Turkey
and a probable energy provider. It is a strategic partner because of the
Iraqi Kurdsâ deteriorating relationship with both Baghdad and Syriaâs
al-Assad regime. Mutual âstrategic and economic interestsâ make it
increasingly probable that the KRG would help facilitate the PKK/Ankara
peace process (
).
By February 2013 Ăcalan had called for prisoners to be released by both
sides. In response the PKK freed eight Turkish soldiers and officials it
had held captive in Iraqi Kurdistan (BBC News, 21 March 2013). Peace was
clearly back on the agenda.
Milliyet columnist Kadri GĂŒrsel cites three forces that have opposed the
AKP government since 2002: âthe prime minister, the prisoner and the
preacherâ (cited in
). This observation also neatly captures the powers that must be secured
for the peace process to succeed. The evolving stances of âthe prisonerâ
(i.e. Abdullah Ăcalan) have been discussed in earlier chapters. The
responses to the peace process of the prime minister and his chief
opponents both within and outside the state are considered in the
present chapter. The power politics reviewed here, it will be shown,
relates directly to an attempt to return Turkey to its previous status
as a praetorian state under direct military tutelage. The factors
driving this conspiracy derive in large part from fears of rapprochement
between Ankara and the PKK.
As a party of so-called âmoderate political Islamâ the AKP is an unusual
â but not unprecedented â government in modern Turkey. The Republic of
Turkey was founded on 29 October 1923, with Mustafa Kemal AtatĂŒrk as its
first president. AtatĂŒrk comprehensively dismantled the Ottoman Islamic
Caliphate, outlawing religion in all spheres of public life, with
secularism and virulent Turkish nationalism becoming the new stateâs
first principles. It took over four and a half decades for political
parties inspired by Islamic values to reappear in Turkish public life.
Despite this success, these parties have all been stalked perpetually by
the threat of judicial abolition â if not removal by the Kemalist
military apparatus. These parties have also often been important players
in the politics of Turkeyâs Kurdish region and therefore factors in the
PKK/Ankara peace process. Indeed, the Kurdish issue has been a constant
factor prompting powerful opposition by sections of the Turkish state.
The Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi led by Prime Minister ErdoÄan derives
from deeply conservative Islamic organizations â some of which were
closed by the Kemalists for supposedly planning to establish an âIslamic
stateâ. One of these predecessor parties, the Refah Partisi (RP â
Welfare Party), led by Necmettin Erbakan, became the junior partner in a
coalition on 28 June 1996 with the arch-secularist DoÄru Yol Partisi
(DYP â True Path Party) (YeĆilada, 1999: 123â4). The Genelkurmay
(military general staff) of the TĂŒrk Silahlı Kuvvetleri (TSK â Turkish
Armed Forces) exerted mounting pressure on the coalition. In the face of
this, perhaps, Erbakan sought to broaden his base in Turkeyâs Kurdish
region. The Erbakanists â in all their various incarnations âstruck a
real chord in Turkish Kurdistan, consistently polling âwell above the
national averageâ in that region during the 1970s and 1980s (
: 22).
Kurdish nationalist votes had in fact become crucial to Erbakanâs
political project, as legal Kurdish parties were outlawed or heavily
repressed, and electoral support for them was transferred to the RP (
: 101â7; see also
: 85, 87). However, the Kurdish question was also the RPâs undoing. In
late July 1996 the RP attempted to explore seriously the possibility of
a peaceful settlement in the war between the Turkish military and the
PKK. Taking advantage of the PKKâs unilateral ceasefire since
mid-December 1995, Erbakan held secret meetings with the Islamist writer
Ä°smail Nacar, who had been chosen as an intermediary by the pro-Kurdish
Peoples Democratic Party (HADEP) (
; AFP,4 August 1996). HADEP was the predecessor of the present-day Peace
and Democracy Party. Erbakan met directly with HADEP leaders (Reuters, 5
August 1996) and, the daily Sabah claimed, was also in contact with PKK
leader Abdullah Ăcalan (
).
Less than forty-eight hours after receiving a friendly visit from two
senior military officials, Erbakan was repeating the mantra of the
Kemalists: âWe will not sit down at the table with terrorists. We will
not give one inch in our struggle with terrorism. We will not surrender
our insistence on a united stateâ (
Wall Street Journal , European edition, 9 August 1996
). Within days of this statement, Erbakan was talking about fighting the
PKK militarily again (Reuters, 7 August 1996).
Meanwhile, the military-dominated Milli GĂŒvenlik Kurulu continued to
warn Erbakan to diverge from what the generals believed were challenges
to the generalsâ Kemalist agenda, but Erbakan refused to change course.
The military soon moved painfully close to direct physical confrontation
with the RP. Faced with a full-blooded military coup, the Erbakan/Ăiller
coalition resigned in June 1997. Abdullah GĂŒl, RPâs deputy chairman (and
later president of Turkey under the AKP government) endorsed the
interpretation of these events as a âpost-modern coup dâĂ©tatâ (
).
As the RP faced imminent proscription by the Supreme Court, the Fazilet
Partisi (FP â the Virtue Party) succeeded the RP in late 1998 (YeĆilada,
1999: 124). The issues causing concern to the generals were many, but a
key worry of the ultra-Kemalists was that the FP might also attempt to
deal with the PKK, after its chairman, Recai Kutan, spoke of recognizing
âsome of the rights of Turkeyâs Kurdish identityâ (
Turkish Daily News , 13 August 1998
). Some of the partyâs leaders formed a new party, the Adalet ve
Kalkınma Partisi (AKP â Justice and Development Party), in August 2001 (
).
The AKP received 34.17 per cent of votes in the 3 November 2002 Turkish
general elections, winning 66 per cent of the parliamentary seats, due
to the electoral threshold that disregards parties polling less than 10
per cent of the vote (
). The first AKP government was formed in November. Unusually for an
Islamic-tainted ruling party, the AKP remained in power following the
2007 and 2011 general elections and even achieved overall domination of
the municipalities in the 2004 and 2009 local elections (
). In the March 2014 municipal elections the AKP polled a six-point
increase over its 2009 results.
The AKPâs consecutive electoral successes enabled it to introduce
measures that greatly facilitated its peace process with the PKK, by
removing obstacles that had stymied its predecessor parties â despite
the tremendous concern that this generated within the Kemalist military
and judicial establishment. In contrast to its timid predecessor
parties, the AKP responded to predictable pressures from the Kemalist
judicial establishment and military brass, by making concerted efforts
to neuter these institutions (
). The Genelkurmay now lacked the ability to veto government policies
and was now unable to impose policies that identified groups (such as
the Kurds or their political representations) as âinternal enemiesâ (
).
The abolition of the generalsâ judicial immunity exposed them to
prosecution. Beginning in 2007, the AKP instituted a string of criminal
investigations that identified highly placed officers in what became
known as the so-called Ergenekon conspiracy (discussed below) against
the AKP government. By September 2011 over 15 per cent of all generals
were in prison (
).
In the face of â and in response to â a web of interlocking conspiracies
centred in the Turkish military to allegedly overthrow bloodily the
elected AKP government, Turkey voted positively in a constitutional
referendum on 12 September 2010. The constitutional amendments placed
new limitations on the authority of the military and its personnel,
including: introducing civilian trials of members of the army who are
accused of violating the constitutional order; subjecting decisions of
the high military council to judicial review; and lifting the judicial
immunity granted to the leaders of the 1980 coup. The amendments gave
Turkeyâs legislature and government enhanced power in judicial
appointments, thus ending the protection of the senior judiciary, and
thereby hampering the generalsâ ability to sway judicial decisions. The
reform also weakened the traditional partnership between the CHP, the
military and the senior judiciary.
After the endorsement of the 2011 general election â and with its
constitutional reforms already in hand â the AKP imposed restrictions
that precluded the promotion of generals hostile to the government.
Summing up, one can agree with Tezcurâs assessment that the AKP
succeeded in consolidating its authority over the presidency, the high
judiciary and the armed forces (
). However, a series of financial âscandalsâ in late 2013 undermined
these achievements significantly. These are examined below. To make
sense of the events, however, it is first necessary to grasp the reality
of Turkeyâs deep state, which originated in the Cold War, and which has
impacted heavily on Turkeyâs Kurds.
Numerous sources attest to the existence of secret armies in many
Western European countries from the onset of the Cold War (
: 69;
). In 1974 the then Turkish prime minister, BĂŒlent Ecevit, exposed a
so-called kontrgerilla (counter-guerrilla) force operating independently
of the military command. In 2005 former President SĂŒleyman Demirel
confirmed that the âdeep state exists, and it is the militaryâ, adding
that the deep state could take over the state as a whole in times of
crisis (
). Discussing Demirelâs admission, Merve Kavakci suggests that the deep
state has infiltrated vast sectors of the state (
). Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄan agrees, affirming that the deep
state âdoes existâ (ErdoÄan, on Kanal 7 television, 26 January 2007).
Maureen Freely asserts that the deep state is âTurkish shorthand for a
faceless clique inside the Turkish stateâ. She adds that, while Turkeyâs
deep state may be based in the army, it is also connected closely with
the Milli Ä°stihbarat TeĆkilatı, the judiciary and the mafia (
: 20; see also
).
Debate on the extent of Turkeyâs deep state (derin devlet) continues to
rage in Turkey. Some blame the deep state for the military coups of 1971
and 1980, while some also allege that the derin devlet has been
mobilized against the PKK (
;
). Abdullah Ăcalan alleges that a deep-state unit attempted to take over
the PKK (
). Interestingly, many now assert that some alleged PKK armed attacks
were actually perpetrated by deep-state forces (see
: 34). In one notorious incident on 24 May 1993, for instance,
thirty-three unarmed soldiers were allegedly executed by the PKK in
Bingöl. PKK advocate Adem Uzun casts suspicion on claims that the PKK
was responsible for killing these soldiers, and Abdullah Ăcalan has
requested an independent inquiry into the incident (
: n3 & 17).
Three members of the Turkish armed forces were subsequently scapegoated
in connection with this incident for alleged negligence of duty. A
series of appeals by the soldiers failed to resolve their case, although
the file in the case mysteriously went missing. Ćemdin Sakık, a former
PKK commander â known also as âParmaksız Zekiâ â alleges that the
military formed a group called the DoÄu ĂalıĆma Grubu (DĂG â East
Working Group) in eastern Turkey back in the 1990s, which he charges
with numerous illegal activities, including the killing of the
thirty-three soldiers in Bingöl. Perhaps not coincidentally, the attack
occurred at a time when the then-president, Turgut Ăzal, was working for
a peace settlement with the PKK, which had declared a ceasefire. The
attack ended the ceasefire (
).
Discussing the âclandestine operations of the Turkish deep stateâ Serdar
Kaya cites the activities of the Jandarma Ä°stihbarat ve Terörle MĂŒcadele
(JÄ°TEM â Gendarmarie Intelligence and Counter-terror Unit), which he
names as âallegedly responsible for thousands of extrajudicial
executions and assassinations of PKK sympathizers and supportersâ (
: 103;
: v).
Ä°smet Berkan claims that in late 1992 a section of Turkeyâs military
formed an ultra-right-wing group involving mafia boss Abdullah Catlı and
senior police officers, aspiring to physically liquidate the Kurdish
problem permanently (
). Thousands of Kurds died in extrajudicial killings and some 3,500
Kurdish villages were burned to the ground (McKiernan, 1999; Cengiz,
2011). Numerous independent reporters assert that the nucleus of this
secretive armed force was the ultra-rightist Nationalist Action Party (
: 111â12;
;
: 5;
: 276;
; 8;
: 170ff.). In the 1960s Alparslan TĂŒrkeĆ established the KomĂŒnizm Ä°le
MĂŒcadele Dernekleri (KÄ°M â Association for Struggling with Communism),
and a crypto-fascist political front the Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi (MHP
â Nationalist Action Party), both of which have worked closely with the
derin devlet. An investigation by Ankaraâs deputy state attorney into
possible connections between KÄ°M, MHP and the deep state found that all
were complicit in massacres and assassinations during the 1970s. The
deputy state attorney, DoÄan Ăz, was himself assassinated on 24 March
1978 (
;
: 237).
Turkeyâs deep state has always been rigidly Kemalist. By definition,
therefore, it is deeply secularist, anti-communist and anti-Kurdish
nationalist. But that has not prevented it utilizing both leftist and
(after 1980) many Islamic forces to achieve its aims. Ahmet Ćık writes
that the derin devlet appoints people to interact with the leaders of
groups it wishes to make use of. âBe respectful of AtatĂŒrk and weâll
help youâ these Muslims were told. Both sides have âmutual interestsâ,
despite some of their final goals diverging (
, 2013: 4). This is because all of the groups â the leftists as well as
the Islamic forces â are nationalists. The most significant Islamic
grouping working with the deep state has been the organization of
Muhammed Fethullah GĂŒlen. Osman Nuri GĂŒndeĆ asserts that during the
1980s GĂŒlen worked with the ultra-right anti-communist groups in Turkey
supported by both the CIA and the Turkish deep state (
). GĂŒlen is a notable nationalist who was politicized and trained in the
Cold War fight against communism. The GĂŒlenists are known to have
infiltrated Turkeyâs Ministry of the Interior, its police force and its
Ministry of Justice (
: 4).
The contemporary intervention of Turkeyâs derin devlet against the PKK
became apparent in Paris in early 2013, in a provocation apparently
aimed at derailing the PKK/Ankara peace process. On 10 January three
prominent PKK members â Sakine Cansız, Fidan DoÄan and Leyla Söylemez â
were shot dead in a northern district of the French capital. French
police immediately began investigating a connection with Turkeyâs
National Intelligence Organization (Milli Ä°stihbarat TeĆkilatı, or MÄ°T).
The provocation provoked a mass resurgence of PKK supporters onto the
streets of Western Europe.
The killings had every mark of a meticulously planned intelligence
operation. Tenants in nearby offices heard no shots; a silencer was used
to muffle the sound (
). But which intelligence service orchestrated the assassinations?
Spiegel Online voices âsuspicionsâ that âthere may be Turkish
intelligence links to the slayingsâ. It adds that Germanyâs domestic
intelligence agency, the Bundesamt fĂŒr Verfassungsschutz (BfV)
âcurtailed its cooperationâ with Turkeyâs intelligence organizations,
due to these suspicions (
).
Yet this scenario raises an even bigger issue: why would the Turkish
state assassinate the PKKâs Sakine Cansız and her comrades in the middle
of peace negotiations? Does this indicate that Ankaraâs declared
commitment to the peace process is a sham? The likely answer to this
question is that the government remains committed to the process, but
that other sectors of the state â Turkeyâs notorious derin devlet â have
never accepted it. President Abdullah GĂŒl urged calm, saying that time
was needed to reveal the truth concerning the murders. Prime Minister
ErdoÄan suggested that the attack could be a provocation from forces who
do not want a peace solution to the Kurdish/Turkish conflict. He added,
however, that the killings âcould be an internal feudâ (
HĂŒrriyet Daily News , 11 January 2013
).
Tantalizing revelations emerging after the assassinations in Paris name
Ămer GĂŒney, a Turkish citizen, as the primary suspect in the murders of
the three PKK militants. A video has emerged of GĂŒney at the crime
scene, watching French police investigate the killings (
). On 13 January 2014 a close associate of GĂŒney released an audio
recording, allegedly made covertly by GĂŒney but only to be released in
the event of misadventure on his part. The recording is apparently of
GĂŒney planning with MÄ°T the murders of Cansız and her comrades. French
police arrested GĂŒney on 17 January 2013 (
).
In addition to this, a secret document dated 18 November 2011,
supposedly signed by a high official of MÄ°T, UÄur Kaan Ayık, and
countersigned by other high MÄ°T officials, O. YĂŒret, S. Asal and H.
Ăzcan, has come to light. Entitled âRef: Sakine Cansız, Codenamed Saraâ,
the document purports to report information from an agent â code-named
âLegionnaireâ â on Sakine Cansız, a PKK founding member. The document
claims that âLegionnaireâ met with MÄ°T in Turkey in order to plan
Cansızâs assassination. The document states that âŹ6,000 was paid to
âLegionnaireâ for the assassinationâs preparation. GĂŒney apparently made
several trips to Turkey in 2012 (
).
Franceâs interior minister Manuel Valls declared that the killings were
âwithout doubt an executionâ (
;
). A statement by the Koma CiwakĂȘn KĂŒrdistan responded to the
assassinations: âAs a matter of fact, these murders couldnât have taken
place without the support of intelligence servicesâ (
Kurdistan Democratic Communitiesâ Union, 2013
).
Hundreds of Kurds quickly gathered outside the Kurdish centre where the
three militants were killed. On 15 January Pro-PKK activists carried
coffins representing the three dead Kurdish women through the streets of
the Paris suburb of Villiers-le-Bel. An estimated 10,000 members of
Franceâs Kurdish community attended the ceremony. Waving Kurdish flags,
the demonstrators chanted âWe are the PKKâ (
). Some 700 Kurds also demonstrated on the streets of Berlin, carrying
posters of the three dead women. One group carried a sign reading:
âWomen are murdered, Europe is silentâ. Some 200 people stood in
sub-zero temperatures outside Stockholmâs French embassy, chanting âLong
Live the PKKâ and âTurkey, Terroristsâ (
). On 17 January thousands of Kurds gathered in Amed for the funeral of
the three PKK members (
). In an impressive display of organization, demonstrators in Turkey and
in France carried the same full-colour portraits of the slain activists.
The PKK and its supporters across Turkey and Western Europe had
reasserted their strength in the face of a perceived provocation,
without letting themselves be drawn back into a shooting war. The
provocation had failed.
Turkeyâs derin devlet has a proven track record of staging anti-Kurdish
provocations at critical political junctures. Whether it was centrally
involved in the assassinations of the three PKK militants in Paris will
only be definitively proven over time. In the meantime, further
provocations from Turkish forces opposed to the PKKâAnkara peace process
could occur, before peace is achieved. Sinan Ulgen, a former Turkish
diplomat, observes: âUnfortunately, we are bound to see acts designed to
derail this process and I think this [the slayings of Cansız, DoÄan and
Ćaylemez] is act oneâ (
).
By any account, Fethullah GĂŒlen has immense political influence in
Turkey (
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
). Several police commissioners and security personnel take orders from
him (
, cited in
). His organization, Hizmet, has 600 schools and an estimated 6 million
adherents globally (
), making it the largest Islamic organization in the world. GĂŒlenâs
former right-hand man Nurettin Veren admits that GĂŒlenist âgraduatesâ
include governors, judges, military officers and government ministers.
Veren adds: âThey consult GĂŒlen before doing anythingâ (
, cited by
).
GĂŒlen has many devotees in the AKP and is assisted by his movementâs
massive holdings in the media, financial institutions, banks and
business organizations. When entering the state bureaucracy, GĂŒlenists
are required by Hizmet to sign a letter of allegiance to Fethullah
GĂŒlen. These state officials, including provincial governors, make
startling statements of allegiance to GĂŒlen. One governor, for instance,
vows âduty of all kindsâ to GĂŒlen. A high-ranking official in the
Istanbul University Faculty of Law promises âa lifetime of obedienceâ.
Another bureaucrat addresses GĂŒlen reverently: âI kiss your footâ and
undertakes to perform any requested services for GĂŒlen âwhere you want,
the way you wantâŠâ The letter-writers frequently express the desire for
âmartyrdomâ in GĂŒlenâs service (
).
GĂŒlen has lived in the United States since 1997. Interestingly, former
CIA officers were among the conspicuous references in Gulenâs green card
application (
). He has always openly exhibited the greatest hostility to the PKK.
Yet, according to Hizmet supporter Ä°hsan Yılmaz, âFethullah GĂŒlen very
clearly announced that he supports the peace processâ (
). Nevertheless, in a speech on 24 October 2011 entitled âTerör ve
Izdırapâ (Terror and Agony), GĂŒlen rhetorically âsupplicatesâ God:
O God, unify us (Allahim birligimizi sagla), and as for those among us
who deserve nothing but punishment (o hakki kötektir bunlar), knock
their homes upside down (Allahim onlarin altlarini ĂŒstlerine getir),
destroy their unity (birliklerini boz), burn their houses to ash
(evlerine ateĆ sal) may their homes be filled with weeping and
supplications (feryad ve figan sal), burn and cut off their roots
(köklerini kurut, köklerini kes) and bring their affairs to an end
(iĆlerini bitir). (
;
)
âGĂŒlen calls here for the killing of 50,000 peopleâ, observes journalist
Ăiler Fırtına chillingly (
).
The GĂŒlenists deny this account now â although it is interesting that
there is now no archival copy of GĂŒlenâs 2011 original speech on their
own websites. Yet even the GĂŒlenists admit that in the speech GĂŒlen
âsuggested that there should be military operations targeting PKK
membersâ (
Todayâs Zaman , 31 August 2012
). And GĂŒlen sympathizer Max Farrar concedes regarding GĂŒlenâs stance
that âHe does, however, say that those Kurds who use military methods in
support for their claim for independence should be met with an
overwhelming military response by the Turkish stateâ (
).
A pro-PKK source asserts that GĂŒlen contends:
let us say there are 15,000 or 50,000 of them. So [addressing the
Turkish state], you have around ⊠a million intelligence personnel. I
donât want to mention them all by name but you have several intelligence
organizations; you are member of NATO; you are involved in cooperative
projects with a number of international intelligence organizations⊠So,
use these projects and programs and localize, identify and triangulate
every single of them and then kill them all one by one⊠(
)
GĂŒlenâs tirade caused quite a stir in Turkish Kurdistan. He appeared to
realize that he might have gone too far. A further article on his
official website stressed that GĂŒlen had not cursed all the Kurds, only
the PKK. Yet even this version â the video of which features very
obvious cuts at all the crucial points â contains a toned-down segment
of a passage from the original speech in which GĂŒlen calls for the
destruction of the PKK by the Turkish military. Thus, GĂŒlen asks God:
birliklerini boz, evlerine ateĆ sal, feryad u figan sal, köklerini kes,
kurut ve iĆlerini bitir (destroy their unity, burn their houses to ash,
dry their roots and bring their affairs to an end). GĂŒlenâs audience can
be clearly heard on the recording vocally approving his rhetorical
supplications to God (
, 2012;
).
In February 2012 the Istanbul prosecutor attempted to question MÄ°T boss
Hakan Fidan â an âErdoÄan confidanteâ â about alleged âlinksâ to the
PKK. The pro-GĂŒlen media supported the prosecutorâs fanciful initiative.
ErdoÄan viewed the move as a direct political attack on him. Around the
same time he apparently began demoting suspected GĂŒlenist police chiefs.
The special-authority courts, supposedly controlled by GĂŒlenist judges
and prosecutors, were eliminated (
: 2â3;
). Over the following twelve months the deepening conflict between the
GĂŒlenists and the AKP government evolved into an open war, with GĂŒlen
himself apparently comparing the government to a dictatorial âPharaohâ (
).
GĂŒlenâs Hikmet movement is yet to show its real power in Turkey, for the
simple reason that he has never mobilized all his supporters in an
all-out push for power. He is an extremely cautious player â but one who
has never lost sight of his goal of a Turkey reorganized along lines
dictated by him. His most significant power plays are only now being
uncovered. They include alleged complicity in a military coup plot â
âErgenekonâ â to overthrow the AKP government.
The Ergenekon conspiracy highlights those state institutions â primarily
the high judiciary and the military hierarchy â that must remain
neutralized if peace between Kurds and Turks is to prosper in Turkey (
). This intrigue also demonstrates how Turkeyâs deep state, the
GĂŒlenists and the generals have colluded to derail the PKK/Ankara peace
process.
Since the establishment of the Turkish Republic in 1923, Turkeyâs
Kemalist armed forces have considered themselves its guardian.
âKemalismâ â the praetorian political doctrine that began with Kemal
AtatĂŒrk himself â asserts that the military has both the right and the
responsibility to intervene in affairs of state at critical junctures,
in order to guarantee the systemâs continuance (
: 130). The Ergenekon coup plottersâ principal planning document
explicitly evokes the armed forcesâ responsibility to protect Turkeyâs
secular Kemalist nature (
). The AKPâs accession to power in 2002 allegedly provoked senior
military officers to draw up an elaborate scenario in 2003 â entitled
Balyoz (Sledgehammer) â involving the creation of a strategy of tension.
Balyoz aimed to create widespread fear, to manipulate public opinion
into supporting a military coup (
). It has to be remembered that Turkey is no stranger to such plots.
Turkish kontrgerilla used the same approach to justify the 1980 military
coup, racking up public hysteria about âseparatist terrorismâ (
). According to the extensive documentation seized by Turkeyâs
Counterterrorism Department, Balyoz explicitly states that its model is
a strategy to generate tension leading up to a coup (
Young Civilians and Human Rights Agenda Association, 2010
: 34;
).
Combatting so-called Kurdish âseparatismâ was never the only objective
of the Ergenekon conspirators, who were at least equally concerned about
the rise of Islamic religiosity in Turkey (
;
: 231â51;
) and the potential ramifications this might have for the demise of
their beloved secular state â but the Kurdish question remains a central
concern, nevertheless. For this reason, key conspirators have included
senior figures in key paramilitary bodies tasked with liquidating the
PKK â the Jandarma Ä°stihbarat ve Terörle MĂŒcadele and the Ăzel Harp
Dairesi (ĂHD â Special Warfare Department) (
; HĂŒrriyet Daily News, 15 January 2009).
Even before taking power, ErdoÄan was well aware of the fate of previous
so-called âIslamistâ governments in Turkey at the hands of the Kemalist
military establishment and appears to have been determined not to share
his predecessorsâ fate. Accordingly, soon after the first AKP government
assumed office on 14 March 2003, it began undermining the militaryâs
autonomy and political power, using the cover of reforms demanded by the
European Union as part of Turkeyâs accession to EU membership.
The government established oversight and control of military
extra-budgetary spending and removed military representatives from the
Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTUÌK) and the Council of Higher
Education (YĂK), where they supposedly protected Turkey from âIslamismâ
and âKurdish separatismâ. More significantly, the number of military
officers on the National Security Council (MGK) was drastically cut from
five to one and a civilian secretary-general imposed on it. In addition,
the MGK lost its executive authority and was ordered to submit its
annual budget to the prime minister. The military was outraged, but was
nevertheless compelled to comply, due to the enormous public support â
up to 77 per cent â for the EU reforms (
). The AKP government later abolished the heinously unjust state
security courts that had been used by its predecessors to persecute
Kurds on the pretext of âfighting terrorismâ, and drew up a draft
constitution that would subject the military to civilian control.
In April 2007 the military tested its declining strength, threatening to
intervene should AKP co-founder Abdullah GĂŒl become president. Prime
Minister ErdoÄan responded with a snap general election, winning 47 per
cent of the votes â a landslide win in Turkish terms. GĂŒl became
president in August 2007, with the military powerless to prevent it. His
enemies within the state responded in March 2008, when the public
prosecutor charged the AKP with being âa centre of anti-secular
activityâ. The party was found guilty, but the Constitutional Court
decided not to ban the party or its leading members from politics (
). But everything changed when a chest of twenty-seven grenades was
discovered in an apartment in UÌmraniye, prompting intense police and
judicial activity. A web of conspiracy was found, beginning with retired
junior officer Oktay Yıldırım, who had originally placed the grenades in
the apartment, but leading to the top of the Genelkurmay (
: 30).
The Turkish military establishment now endured serious sustained
attacks. Police soon uncovered a document entitled Ergenekon-Lobi
(Ergenekon Lobby), which laid out the first âdetailed accountsâ of a
terrorist network. The document was discovered on alleged conspiratorsâ
personal computers â including that of a retired member of Turkeyâs Ăzel
Harp Dairesi, Muzaffer Tekin. Tekin confessed to complicity and in turn
implicated Fikret Emek, also a retired ĂHD member. Police raided Emekâs
residence and found long-range weapons, hand grenades, explosives and
bomb-making equipment. Police then discovered three further arsenals
across Turkey (
: 30â31).
Hundreds of suspects were detained by the Counterterrorism Department of
the Turkish National Police. Some forty-nine generals, admirals and
former Turkish navy and air force commanders were charged with plotting
a coup against the government (
). In early 2012 the retired former leader of the MGK, General Ä°lker
BaĆbuÄ, was arrested for his alleged role in Ergenekon. BaĆbuÄ was
specifically charged with âgang leadershipâ and seeking to remove the
government by force (
). Several four-star generals (including Ćener Eruygur, HurĆit Tolon and
Ăzden Ărnek) were then arrested for co-leading the conspiracy â marking
the first occasion that coup plotters have faced judicial sanction in
the history of the Turkish Republic (
: 39, 40). Those accused of plotting to overthrow the government and of
membership of a terrorist organization also included the former chief of
military staff, retired general Ä°lker BaĆbuÄ (
: 29).
The biggest consequence of all these events is that the military has
lost its aura of untouchability, to the extent that the AKP government
was able to cancel the longstanding Protocol on Cooperation for Security
and Public Order (EMASYA) in 2010, under which the military assume
control of law and order in the event of a governmental breakdown â
giving it the legal framework for military intervention (
;
).
A new protocol became law in mid-2013, allowing governors to call for
military units in the event of social incidents in a province. This
supposed âcivilianâ version of the EMASYA protocol permits military
units to intervene in a social incident if demanded by a governor (
). Other regulations and bylaws can still be deployed by the Turkish
military if it wishes to intervene directly in politics â such as
Article 35 of the armyâs internal service regulations, which allows it
to âprotectâ the state from Islamic âfundamentalismâ and Kurdish
âseparatismâ (
). Nevertheless, the abolition of EMASYA has enormous symbolic value,
displaying publicly the decline of the militaryâs once unassailable
position of power and respect.
The chief prosecutor of Erzincan, Ä°lhan Cihaner, was arrested on 17
February 2010 for allegedly being an player in the Ergenekon plot. In
retaliation, the chief prosecutor of Erzurum who had ordered Cihanerâs
arrest â was then dismissed by the ultra-Kemalist HĂąkimler ve Savcılar
YĂŒksek Kurulu (HSYK â Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors). Accusing
the HSYK of undermining the Ergenekon prosecutors, the AKP swiftly
restructured the HSYK, rationalizing this as a requirement if Turkey
were to satisfy the process of accession to the European Union (
).
The military fought back against the arrests of alleged military coup
plotters, apparently attempting to influence legal proceedings, alleging
a conspiracy against the military. This followed an appellate courtâs
decision to uphold 237 convictions, with prison sentences of up to
twenty years for complicity in the âSledgehammerâ plot, in October 2013.
The court also released a number of the jailed defendants (
;
). A handful of the generals caught up in the Ergenkon trials appealed
to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). The ECtHR ruled that the
Ergenekon network was âa criminal organization working to overthrow the
governmentâ â the identical verdict reached by Istanbulâs 13^(th) High
Criminal Court (
: 37). Markar Esayan concludes that the Ergenekon network was clearly
âno ordinary criminal organization but a concise strategy that the
countryâs old elite class formulated to cling onto powerâ (
: 35â6).
On 17 December 2013 a massive corruption scandal broke, which many see
as retaliation against the AKP for its nobbling of the military
establishment. Pre-dawn raids targeted eighty-nine people, some of whom
are ErdoÄanâs closest associates. The sons of the interior minister and
the economy minister were formally charged with bribery and corruption,
as were prominent businessmen and a banker (
).
Gareth Jenkens suspects that GĂŒlen supporters are behind the corruption
investigations: âThe movement wants to intimidate ErdoÄanâ (
). Referring to these allegations, ErdoÄan declared in early 2014 that
members of the judiciary were âseeking to smear innocent peopleâ. âThey
call it a big corruption operationâ, he added, asserting that
âunfortunately, thereâs a gang that is establishing itself inside the
stateâ (
). He also described it as âa dirty plot against the national willâ (
), nothing less than a âjudicial coupâ (
). âThis conspiracy eclipses all other coup attempts in Turkey. It is a
virus bent on taking powerâ ErdoÄan told AKP MPs in mid-January 2014 (
;
). ErdoÄan alleges that GĂŒlenists in the police and judiciary were
plotting to force him from office, by creating a âparallel stateâ within
the bureaucracy (
). Abdullah Ăcalan saw the United Statesâ hand in the rise and fall of
the Ergenekon conspiracy, commenting:
Those who were detained in the Ergenekon case are professional soldiers
who had been trained by the US since the 1960s as intelligence and
counter-guerilla officers. The US told them, âYou screwed up!â and later
threw them out with the garbage. (Ăcalan, cited in
)
Several observers believe that a power struggle between ErdoÄan and
Fethullah GĂŒlen is behind the corruption charges (
;
: 2â3). Dani Rodrik â generally a fierce opponent of ErdoÄan â concedes
that âthe GĂŒlenistsâ campaign is evidently guided by ulterior political
motives and that ErdoÄan rightly questioned the prosecutorsâ
motivationsâ (
). If the GĂŒlenists are behind the corruption allegations, the AKP faces
a truly formidable opponent. As stated earlier, GĂŒlenâs organization
wields influence in the judiciary and police. This was almost certainly
ErdoÄanâs justification for his sackings and transfers within the police
force and the judiciary.
Turkeyâs AKP national government had already profoundly antagonized the
military establishment and fascist elements organized in Turkeyâs âdeep
stateâ, when ErdoÄan irretrievably infuriated these formidable foes by
negotiating with Abdullah Ăcalan. The prime minister, his party and his
government now faced the combined wrath of leading forces in the
military, the deep state, fascist organizations and Fethullah GĂŒlenâs
Hizmet network â with its millions of adherents within Turkey, including
an additional two million sympathizers strategically placed in the
police force and the Ministry of Justice. For its part, Turkeyâs deep
state was only acting consistently, of course, given that it has
sabotaged every attempt by the PKK and (less frequently) Ankara for a
peace settlement.
The secret peace negotiations that came to light in December 2012 are
the best hope yet of an end to the conflict between Ankara and the Kurds
in Turkey. Abdullah Ăcalan announced a new ceasefire and broad public
support for the peace process was apparent. Of course, all previous PKK
ceasefires have ended in failure, but both sides now seem to accept that
one or the other achieving military or political victory cannot resolve
the conflict.
The current peace process is due, above all, to the PKK leader
ceaselessly pushing both the PKK and the AKP towards settlement. It is
Abdullah Ăcalan who has been responsible for persisting with unilateral,
usually fruitless, ceasefires. But his party also contains leaders who
have shown a capacity to return to all-out war, and the ascendancy of
these men remains a possibility if the peace process seriously falters.
The AKP government prefers peace through a genuine compromise with
Turkeyâs Kurds, but must at all times maintain a difficult and often
convoluted posture in the peace process â representing itself as the
implacable, active, opponent of âPKK terrorismâ and upholder of the
âTurkish nationâ, while also promoting reforms to keep the peace process
alive.
Real hope exists for lasting peace, but the current process remains
highly contradictory. Turkeyâs responses to the Turkish/Kurdish peace
process have especially been mixed. The AKP government remains haunted
by the fate of its predecessor âIslamistâ parties, at the hands of the
Kemalist military establishment and its fascistic âdeep stateâ â which
has sabotaged every previous attempt at a peace settlement. But the
government has worked hard to neuter both the military establishment and
the strongly Kemalist high judiciary. Ankara has also taken on the derin
devlet directly, ending the generalsâ judicial immunity and jailing
senior military figures implicated in the planning for the bloody
Ergenekon coup.
The Kemalist military retaliated against Ankaraâs curbs, with crucial
assistance from Fethullah GĂŒlenâs shadowy Hizmet â apparently
unsuccessfully. Even an attempt to provoke the PKK and its supporters
across Turkey and Western Europe into a return to lethal violence
failed, due to the PKKâs strong leadership of Turkeyâs Kurds. Indeed,
the provocation allowed the PKK to reassert its strength with dignity.
Further provocations from Turkish forces opposed to the PKK/Ankara peace
process could occur, nevertheless â especially due to machinations by
GĂŒlenâs Hizmet, which ErdoÄanâs government has also taken specific steps
to curb. It is still unclear whether the measures taken are sufficient
to permit the establishment of peace. Nevertheless, it seems that Prime
Minister ErdoÄan has managed to overcome daunting foes, in the military,
the deep state, fascist organizations and the Hizmet networkâs
operatives in the police force and the Ministry of Justice, and managed
to subdue them.
The PKKâs ability to transform itself from a classical guerrilla
organization inspired by MarxismâLeninism to one seeking a peaceful
resolution of Turkeyâs Kurdish problem rests directly upon the
organizationâs capacity to undertake radical ideological innovation. The
present chapter reviews the PKKâs ideological journey from striving for
an independent MarxistâLeninist Kurdistan to the current position of
advocating âdemocratic confederalismâ by peaceful means. The PKKâs
equally astonishing feminist transformation is also examined.
Shortly before his capture, the PKK leader successfully focused global
attention on Turkeyâs Kurds â a people of whom the world was largely
unaware until then. Turkish government attempts to portray Abdullah
Ăcalan as a monster were partially undermined by his remarkable
transformation of the Partiya KarkerĂȘn Kurdistan from a nationalist
movement of âprimitive rebelsâ (with a MarxistâLeninist heritage of
sorts), pursuing ânational liberationâ via âarmed struggleâ, to a
thoroughly âmodernâ movement pursuing âpeaceâ and even âdemocratic
confederalismâ.
Since Ăcalanâs capture it has become commonplace to read that he turned
from violence only under pressure from his Turkish captors. That is not
true; the move away from âarmed struggleâ began earlier, with the first
PKK unilateral ceasefire in March 1993. Indeed, the PKK contemplated
bringing an end to its armed activities before Ăcalanâs capture
curtailed this political evolution.
A PKK unilateral ceasefire began on 1 September 1999 on Ăcalanâs orders
from his prison cell.
Confined in his island prison, the Kurdish leader struggled to end the
conflict through his leadership. But Ăcalan was by now determined not to
repeat the mistakes of the past, and looked for new solutions. In 2005,
faced by the reality that over two decades of bloody struggle had seen
the political awakening of the Kurds but had not yielded an independent
Kurdish state, Ăcalan wrestled with the conundrum of the way forward for
his movement and his people.
Encountering in prison the writings of the theorist of radical
municipalism Murray Bookchin, Ăcalan became enthused with the latterâs
notion of âdemocratic confederalismâ (
Ideas and Action , 2 March 2011
). Ăcalan believes that democratic confederalism offers a way to
establish Kurdish national rights, while sidestepping the elusive,
bloodstained goal of Kurdish statehood. âWhereas Marx accepted the
nation-state, I do notâ, he indicated in 2010. The Serok continued: âThe
reason for the crisis in Europe is the nation-state structure and its
mentalityâ (
). Consequently Abdullah Ăcalan initiated debates on democratic
confederalism among Kurds. As Joost Jongerden notes, this represented a
real âparadigm shift in [Kurdish] politicsâ (
: 4).
Democratic confederalism maps out a system of popularly elected
administrative councils, allowing local communities to exercise
autonomous control over their assets, while linking to other communities
via a network of confederal councils (
: 3;
;
).
Bookchinâs contribution to this system of community organization is to
highlight its societal aspect. In its most developed form, confederalism
becomes full-blown âautonomyâ, which places âlocal farms, factories, and
other enterprises in local municipal handsâ, and in which âa community âŠ
begins to manage its own economic resources in an interlinked way with
other communitiesâ. Control of the economy is not in the hands of the
state, but under the custody of âconfederal councilsâ, and thus,
âneither collectivized nor privatized, it is commonâ (
, cited in
: 3â4). Bookchin, who says he realized long ago that the proletariat is
not going to take power anywhere (
), has in practice transposed the notion of rule by a network of
workersâ councils (soviets) to the âpost-proletarian-centredâ context,
by replacing workers with ordinary people.
Ăcalan may have discovered this system in the writings of Murray
Bookchin, but his advocacy of âdemocratic confederalismâ is not as novel
as might first appear. The concept is arguably the practical working out
of a much older concept that arose first in the international Marxist
movement in the late nineteenth century under the rubric of
âcultural-national autonomyâ or ânational cultural autonomyâ (NCA). It
is not clear whether either the PKK leader or Murray Bookchin were aware
of this controversy among Marxist scholars, but it nevertheless provides
a compelling theoretical framework for understanding Ăcalanâs advocacy
of democratic confederalism.
The debate on NCA within the international workersâ movement began in
the Austrian Social Democratic Party and was led by that partyâs leading
intellectuals (the so-called âAustro-Marxistsâ), most prominent of whom
were Otto Bauer and Karl Renner. The Russian Bolsheviks polemicized
fiercely against them (
: 87â8;
: 503â7,
: 34;
). Other leading Austro-Marxists included Max Adler, Karl Renner and
Rodolf Hilferding. Their prescriptions regarding what we know today as
NCA were intended to resolve the complex problems of minorities in the
Austro-Hungarian Empire (see
: 1â44), but they resonate eerily with the contemporary Kurdish problem
as well.
Renner (
) urged the adoption of overlapping jurisdictions as a means of solving
the problems of minorities. He did not accept that ânationsâ and
âstatesâ should necessarily be identical, considering that this set up
two competing and mutually deleterious dynamics. For, when a majority
culture establishes a nation-state, minority cultures are in practice
compelled to live in it as if they were members of the majority culture.
Inevitably, this produces a separatist territorial dynamic, as
minorities seek their own âself-determinationâ. Crucially, Renner
separated territorial jurisdiction from cultural affiliation, thus
allowing space for self-government and collective responsibility in
certain spheres. This approach also simultaneously defused national
struggle, by sidestepping the territorial imperative for national
groups. More recently, theorists of NCA in academia have focused
discussion on the option of ânon-territorial cultural autonomyâ as an
alternative to the old ânational cultural autonomyâ.
confederalism
Ăcalan had already concluded that âreal socialismâ (Stalinism) and
national liberation movements had failed due to their congenital
statism. He now told the movement he headed to restructure itself on the
basis of the principles of autonomy and democratic confederalism.
Between 2005 and 2007 the PKK created the Koma KomalĂȘn Kurdistan (KKK â
Council of Associations of Kurdistan), later renamed the Koma CiwakĂȘn
KĂŒrdistan (KCK â Kurdistan Communities Union), as the umbrella
organization of all bodies affiliated to the PKK in Kurdish communities
in Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria and the diaspora.
Following a lead from Turkish authorities, the Turkish media immediately
labelled the KKK/KCK âthe urban extension of the PKKâ (
). Todayâs Zaman journalist Aziz Ä°stegĂŒn disagreed, pointing out that
the PKK was actually âjust a piece of the overarching KCK, a fragment of
the wholeâ. By forming an alternative to the official organs of justice,
management and politics in Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq, the KCK
âprovides a roof under which its supporters can gatherâ. The KCK has
reportedly âspread out to cities, towns, neighborhoods, streets, village
organizations, communes and homesâ (
; see also
: 159 n12).
With the aim of organizing itself from the bottom up in the form of
assemblies, the Koma CiwakĂȘn KĂŒrdistan advocates radical democracy,
presenting this as an alternative to the nation-state. This is
âself-determination in a new form, namely, based on the capacities and
capabilities of people themselvesâ (
: 4). KCK is thus âa movement which struggles to establish its own
democracy, neither grounded on the existing nation-states nor seeing
them as the obstacleâ (
, cited in
: 4).
The practical organizational framework of the KCK is set out as an
agreement between its participants, sözleĆme, also known as âthe
Constitution of Kurdistanâ. This envisages the KCK as a âdemocratic,
social and confederal systemâ with members and its own judiciary, which
âtries to gain influence on central and local administrationâ. The KCK
is seen as an umbrella organization for the Kurds in all parts of
putative Kurdistan (
).
The Istanbul Special Authority Public Prosecutorâs Office has produced a
number of charts that purport to show the KCKâs democratic confederalist
structure. Given that the PKKâs sworn enemies produced these, they
cannot be considered completely trustworthy, but they are interesting
nevertheless. The charts claim that, in addition to its central and
provincial leaderships, the KCK also has a âjustice commissionâ, a
âsocial areaâ, a âpolitical areaâ, an âideological areaâ, a womenâs
movement and a âfinancial areaâ. There are assemblies for each region,
as well a âdemocratic town assemblyâ. Five councils exist to represent
the Kurds living in Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Syria and in countries other
than these. In addition to the PKK, included are its affiliated
political parties in other parts of Kurdistan and its armed wing the
HPG, as well as civil society organizations. All the councils mentioned
previously are represented in a 300-member KCK parliament, called
Kongra-Gel (the name was briefly used for the PKK, but it now describes
a much more significant entity) (
;
Haber TĂŒrk , 2011; Prohayat , 2014; T.C. Ä°stanbul Cumhuriyet BaĆsavcılıÄı, 2011
â12).
Kurdish engineer Ercan Ayboga suggests that âthere are [democratic
confederal] assemblies almost everywhereâ in Turkish Kurdistan. He
claimed that some assemblies even exist in Istanbul. Assemblies are at a
number of levels. Ayboga describes the structure at the most basic
grassroots levels, in which the neighbourhood assemblies in each local
community choose the delegates that constitute the city assembly â which
is the next level. For âdecisions on a bigger scaleâ, he continues,
âcity and village assemblies of a province come togetherâ. The
Demokratık Toplum Kongresi (DTK â Democratic Society Congress) is the
next level up (
). The DTK brings together all Kurds within Turkey: âIt consists of more
than five hundred civil society organizations, labor unions, and
political parties â they make up 40 percent of its members; 60 percent
of its members are delegates from village assembliesâ (
).
This bottom-up model can be represented as follows:
Ayboga claims that in HakkĂąri and Ćırnak provinces â where âthe people
donât accept the state authoritiesâ â âtwo parallel authoritiesâ exist,
with the democratic confederal structure being more powerful in practice
(
). However, repression of the KCK has taken a heavy toll, and Ayboga
admits that âthe assembly model has not yet been developed broadlyâ. He
gives reasons for this: âin some places the Kurdish freedom movement is
not so strong. Almost half of the population in Turkeyâs Kurdish areas
still do not actively support it. In those places there are few or no
assembliesâ (
).
An investigation by a group of German leftists who visited Turkeyâs
Kurdish areas and interviewed many Kurds attempting to put democratic
confederalism into practice reveals that KCK/PKK supporters attempting
to build the new autonomist structures inside the shell of the old
society are expending an enormous amount of energy. The authors admit
that the Kurds have not yet managed to build stand-alone structures that
are completely independent of the Turkish nation-state, although the
existing democratic confederal structures do demonstrate a potential
counter-power to that state (
).
Beginning on 14 April 2009 (
) the Turkish state arrested thousands of those centrally involved in
the KCK experiment, due simply to the fact that its inspiration was the
PKK (
). The KCK detainees included around 190 elected mayors and municipal
councillors (
). It is noteworthy, however, that of the almost 8,000 people imprisoned
on charges of being KCK members, 5,000 were workers and activists of the
legal Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) (
). The arrestees were charged with âmembership of PKK front
organizationsâ (
).
Trials of the accused began in 2010, resulting in a handful of detainees
being released. Courts resolved fairly quickly that the KCK was to be
regarded legally as the political branch of the PKK (
Todayâs Zaman , 28 February 2012
). Both Turkish and international human rights organizations heavily
criticized the trials (
İnsan Hakları Ortak Platformu, 2011
).
The PKKâs attitude to its women militants has always differentiated it
from other Kurdish parties. Yet the theoretical stance and practice of
the Apocular on this question have continued to undergo the most radical
evolution.
When it began life as an orthodox MarxistâLeninist party, the PKK
initially adopted the thesis of Marxâs closest collaborator Friedrich
Engels, which located the emergence of social classes in society in the
appearance of private property, following the breakup of the initial
âprimitive communistâ human communities (
). According to Engelsâs book The Origin of the Family, Private Property
and the State, the essential precondition for this social inequity was
the âworld historical defeat of the female sexâ. He continued:
The man took command in the home also; the woman was degraded and
reduced to servitude, she became the slave of his lust and a mere
instrument for the production of children. (
)
Women now occupied a âdegraded positionâ and Engels denied emphatically
that this position was changing with time. This subjugation could only
be overcome with the disappearance of society based on social classes.
Basing himself heavily on Lewis Henry Morganâs Ancient Society (
), Engels accepted the latterâs assessment that âthe exclusive supremacy
of the man shows its effects first in the patriarchal familyâ (
: 474, cited in
). He argued that women under capitalism remained oppressed in their
relations to men, since marriage is a form of exclusive private
property, declaring: âWithin the family he is the bourgeois and the wife
represents the proletariatâ (
).
In Engelsâs analysis, economic deprivation created by capitalist
industrialization forced women into capitalist production as workers. As
economically exploited wage slaves (proletarians), just like their
husbands â although they were paid for their labour as little as half
what their spouses earned â women were condemned to depend on their
husbands. Unequal at work and unequal at home, women under capitalism
were thus doubly oppressed.
The PKK adapted this analysis at its foundation, recognizing that
Kurdish women were oppressed, first, as Kurds by colonialism, and then
also as women (
: 117;
). In the PKKâs understanding, Turkish colonialism connives with Kurdish
feudalism to keep women ignorant and tied to the home (
). Abdullah Ăcalan himself compared womenâs oppression in Kurdish
society to Kurdistanâs national oppression, calling for a âdouble
liberationâ (
: 148).
According to the PKKâs 1995 programme, women in Kurdish society are
acknowledged as being âexcluded from social life, often do not attend
schoolâ and are âkept away from political lifeâ. Internalizing their
subordinate role as colonized subjects, they find their slavery
ânormalâ. â[B]ought and sold like a commodityâ, they are âexchanged for
money and viewed as propertyâ (
). The PKK repudiated âthe slave-like suppression of womenâ, declaring
that a ânational, independent, democratic society, ruled by the people,
must be establishedâ (
), in which
All forms of oppression against women will be stopped, and the equal
status of women and men in the society will be realized in all areas of
social and political life. Women, who possess an enormous social
revolutionary dynamic, will be mobilized towards this aim. (
)
A congress of PKK women had been held in late 1992. One controversial
decision made at this meeting was to seek to change the internal PKK
regulation prohibiting fighters from being married. Denouncing this as
âliquidationismâ, Abdullah Ăcalan ruled that the congressâs decisions
were null and void (
Zagros Newroz Aryan Kurdistan , 2012
;
). There was a further International Kurdish Womenâs Conference on
International Womenâs Day, 8 March 1994 (
: 117).
On International Womenâs Day 1995 in Metina on the TurkishâIraqi border,
the first official Congress of PKK Women was held. The Congress elected
a 23-member executive, which subsequently founded the Tevgera Jinen
Azadiya Kurdistan (TJAK â Kurdistan Womenâs Freedom Movement). The TJAK
later changed its name to the YekĂźtiya Jinen Azadiya Kurdistan (YJAK â
Association of Free Women of Kurdistan). The current name of the PKK
womenâs association and army is YekĂźtiya Jinen Azad (YJA STAR â the Free
Women Units). âSTARâ is a melding of the name of the pagan goddess
Ishtar and the Kurdish word sterk, meaning star. Ăcalan explains: âFor
me, Ishtar is Star. In fact, star in Kurdish is sterk. Star means star
in the European languages.â The origins of the word are Kurdish, from
Mesopotamia, according to Ăcalan, who tells women to become goddesses,
promising âthat new (and respected) [desexualized] boundaries of female
identity are closely associated with the refusal of any other love than
that of the homelandâ (
: 34â5). He emphasizes that womenâs respectable participation in the
liberation movement is wholly dependent upon women developing an ardent
love for their homeland, and fighting for it (
: 17, 19). Rapperin Afrin, a commander of the YJA STAR womenâs army,
explains that the YekĂźtiya Jinen Azad acts independently within the PKK,
adding: âThe womenâs movement is the most dynamic part of the PKK. We
are aware that without the liberation of women a liberated society
cannot be developedâ (
).
By 2008 independent reports emerged citing a total figure of 10,000 PKK
fighters â of whom between one-third and one-half half were women (
: 173;
;
). The growth in female recruitment surged following the Serokâs
decision to speak out boldly in support of womenâs rights (
: 173).
From the early 1990s Ăcalan began averring that the Kurdish movementâs
âbasic responsibilityâ is to âliberate womenâ. He criticised the PKK for
its failures towards women, continually complaining â to cite Aliza
Marcusâs account â that Kurdish women âwere treated like slaves, their
lives governed and restricted by their fathers, brothers, and other male
relativesâ (
: 173). Ăcalan insisted that the PKKâs revolutionary fight would be
impossible without the presence of Kurdish women âwho had broken with
the prejudices of traditional lifeâ, becoming imbued with an immediate
sense of their own worth (
: 173).
As increasing numbers of women joined the PKK and its military wing, PKK
ideologues, and even some of the partyâs supporters, claimed that women
in the organization confronted opposition from men wanting to maintain
their positions of power in the party. Such men, it was asserted, did
not accept women as commanders, hindering the development of independent
women (
).
The PKK 1995 programme explains that, in order to break down gender
roles solidified by centuries, women âhad to be on their ownâ, so they
could believe in themselves and develop strength and willpower. The
independent womenâs army thus ârepresents the strength and power of
women; they are here to learn self-confidence to take responsibility and
powerâ (
Kurdeng, 1995; Arbeiterpartei Kurdistans, 1995
, cited in
). Even before then, in 1993, Abdullah Ăcalan had declared the objective
of forming a PKK womenâs army. The PKKâs Fifth Conference resolved:
Eventually, an independent Womenâs Army of women fighting in the ARGK
will be created, and womenâs units and command structures will be
developed to the point where they can operate independently. (
)
From 1995 separate units of female guerrillas were formed, which had
their own headquarters. The YekĂźtiya JinĂȘn Azadiya Kurdistan was founded
at this time. From late 1992 the PKK was reportedly organizing suicide
operations, principally conducted by its women fighters, in Tunceli,
Adana and Sivas (
). One of the most famous of this series of suicide bombings was the
operation on 30 June 1996 in which Zeynep Kınacı (Zilan) blew herself up
in a DĂȘrsim military parade of Turkish soldiers who were singing the
Turkish national anthem. Zilanâs attack reportedly killed ten Turkish
soldiers and seriously wounded a further forty-four (
;
Zagros Newroz Aryan Kurdistan , 2012
).
The Turkish state contemptuously dismissed Zilan and her comrades as
mere âwomen terroristsâ (
). Suicide operations are by definition brutal for all involved. The PKK
explains this event:
After Turkish Military Intelligence attempted an assassination of
Kurdish leader Abdullah Ăcalan in Syria, Zeynep Kınacı (Zilan), took the
decision to avenge this attempt and to also protest against the Turkish
regimeâs savage and âdirty warâ against the Kurdish people in Turkey
that was being hidden from the outside world. (
)
The PKK justified such operations with the same logic that informed its
engagement in political violence, such as guerrilla attacks upon
military targets: the Kurds of Turkey faced genocide and the humiliating
denial of their identity by the Kemalist state apparatus. Some analysts
believe that emotional states such as humiliation can indeed explain the
recourse to suicide terrorism (
: 24). Of course, suicide bombings often target civilians, an act more
difficult for organizations to justify. However, as Jonathan Fine
explains, the PKKâs suicide attacks targeted government and military
installations, instead of populated areas. He adds: âSuicide bombing was
never a major component of its terrorist operations; it launched only
fifteen suicide attacks between 1995 and 1999, some of which were
particularly deadlyâ (
).
The first PKK suicide attack in the mid-1990s took place in the midst of
considerable state brutality against Kurdish victims, not only in terms
of lives lost but also the complete destruction of countless Kurdish
villages, resulting in some 4 million people becoming homeless. Paul
Gill observes that in 1995 the Turkish army claimed it had killed more
than 1,100 PKK guerrilla fighters in Iraqi Kurdistan alone. He notes
that âSome analysts posit that the first suicide bombing by the PKK,
occurring in early 1996, was a response to thisâ (
: 86).
Of the fifteen PKK suicide bombings that took place between 30 June 1995
and 5 July 1999, fourteen of the suicide bombers were women, none of
whom was older than 27 (
: 82â3;
;
: 2). Leyla Kaplan was the youngest of the bombers, being only 17 years
of age, in June 1996. The first female PKK suicide bomber was apparently
pregnant (
: 2). Clara Beyler argues that womenâs entry into combat operations and
suicide attacks meant that they âwould not be defined as a manâs
subordinate anymoreâ. In contrast to the very limited domestic role that
traditional Kurdish society offered them, the PKK provided them with a
âproductiveâ role for the first time (
;
: 105â14, 118â28). Thus, Dogu Ergil argues, âyoung Kurdish women began
to look to the PKK not only for ethnic liberation, but for their own
emancipation as well.â Furthermore, as women they were less suspicious
to security forces, making them attractive to the PKK for these
operations (
: 83â4). The PKK carried out suicide operations from the mid-to late
1990s. The bombings peaked with the brief violent wave of PKK attacks
following Abdullah Ăcalanâs capture in February 1999, before stopping
with the reimposition of the ceasefire.
Rengin, who commands a female battalion, joined the PKK at the age of
14. She says she enlisted to fight for both Kurdish and womenâs rights:
âWe want a natural life, a society that revolves around women â one
where women and men are equal, a society without pressure, without
inequality, where all differences between people are eliminatedâ (
). The fighter continued:
Women grow up enslaved by society. The minute you are born as a girl,
society inhibits you. Weâve gone to war with that. If I am a woman, I
need to be known by the strength of my womanhood, to get respect. Those
are my rights. And it was hard for the men to accept this. (
)
Expounding the Serokâs concept, the PKK publication SerxwebĂ»n avers that
in present-day Kurdish society a womanâs relationship with a man results
in her brain and heart being âlocked in a dungeonâ, inducing in her a
âslave personalityâ, instead of allowing her to develop freely. The
article notes Ăcalanâs call for men with all forms of âslave
personalitiesâ to resolve their contradictions with the female identity,
relating to women based on freedom and equality. Truth and beauty are
thus revealed principles for men. SerxwebĂ»n concludes that âevery man
and womanâ should be responsible for the fight against womenâs slavery
in âall areas of societyâ, in order to successfully organize the
democratic Kurdish nationâs âmentality and institutionsâ (
).
By 1997 there were reportedly some 5,000 women in the womenâs army,
while 11,000 women continued to fight in mixed units. By this time the
womenâs army had its own commanderin-chief, as well as its own plans and
actions. A decision of the PKK National Womenâs Congress in March 1995
agreed that PKK women should create their own infrastructure (education,
health care, military structure, and so forth) (
).
The Fifth Congress of the PKK (8â27 January 1995) encompassed a
substantial elaboration of the partyâs position on the âwomenâs issueâ.
Conference delegates included an unprecedented 63 women out of a total
of 317 present. The conference discussion stressed the role of womenâs
participation in the revolution, reaching detailed decisions (
APS/Central Committee of the Kurdistan Workersâ Party, 1995
).
If Kurdish women can be released from their oppression as women, argues
the PKKâs 1995 analysis, âthis will ensure the development of social
equality and freedom in the true senseâ (
). Nevertheless, unlike most of the parties that had been dominated by
pro-Kremlin MarxismâLeninism, the PKK did not assume âthat the
revolution will automatically be accompanied by the liberation of
womenâ. The PKK considered that in order for that to happen women needed
to have their own independent basis in autonomous institutions, and
fostered the creation of these organizations. The womenâs associations
associated with the PKK are now coordinated by one overseeing body, the
Koma JinĂȘn Bilind (KJB â High Womenâs Council). There also exist an
affiliated womenâs party, the PartĂźya AzadĂźya Jin a Kurdistan (PAJK â
Party of Free Women in Kurdistan), grassroots mass organizations, the
YekitiyĂȘn JinĂȘn Azad (YJA â Unions of Free Women) as well as YJA STAR,
the womenâs guerrilla army, discussed above (
;
: 165 n7).
As already noted, in 1995 the PKK declared that the function of the PKK
womenâs army was to facilitate women becoming confident in their own
strengths and in their ability âto take responsibility and powerâ,
despite centuries of patriarchal oppression (
Kurdeng, 1995; Arbeiterpartei Kurdistans, 1995
, cited in
). In a book edited by Nesrin Esen, Ăcalan argues that the existence of
all-male armies is indicative of womenâs oppression and the reality that
Kurdistan must overcome this inequality if it is to be free (
). The Serok argues that the way to begin this was the creation of the
PKKâs womenâs army.
Handan ĂaÄlayanâs (
: 8) Western feminist analysis implies that Ăcalanâs advocacy of womenâs
liberation was from the start targeted at winning the freedom of Kurdish
women from the constraints of the traditional Kurdish family, in order
to secure their active participation in the Kurdish national movement.
Nevertheless, ĂaÄlayan also concedes that Ăcalan fundamentally subverted
traditional Kurdish notions of womenâs role and place in society (
: 8â10). Ăcalan redefined Kurdish (and Middle Eastern) conceptions of
âhonourâ (signified by the Arabic term namus), which requires a woman to
be obedient, faithful and modest. As Dilek CindoÄlu (
) argues, womenâs virginity in the region is far from being the
relatively minor, purely personal question it has become in the West,
being a virtual social phenomenon there. Ăcalan radically switched the
focus of namus from concern for the protection of womenâs bodies to
concern for the defence of the Kurdish homeland. The Serokâs
redefinition of namus was successful â being accepted by ordinary Kurds
â enabling women to freely leave home and to actively participate in
demonstrations (including violent clashes with security forces) and join
the PKK (
: 8â11).
The party resolved to actively recruit women to its ranks, so that by
the end of the 1990s some 30 per cent of members were women. In the
partyâs guerrilla camps, these women âworked, trained, and fought on
equal terms with the Kurdish men, sometimes becoming camp commandersâ.
Moreover, equal participation by women in the partyâs rank and file
apparently challenged âthe male dominated power structures so present in
the rest of Kurdish societyâ (
: 148).
Surbuz, a young PKK guerrilla when she joined the PKK in 1993, told a
British journalist in 2007:
There is a lot of pressure in Middle Eastern society, in Kurdistan
especially, on women from the father, the mother and the brothersâŠ
Mothers and sisters, they are made to live in the manâs house. I do not
want to be like that. (
)
Many young women decided to join the PKK in order both to break out of
patriarchal oppression and to escape the violence of Turkish soldiers (
). Rote Zora, a leftist/feminist German terror cell that carried out
several bombings of its own between 1977 and 1995 in West Germany, cites
a young female PKK guerrilla from the mid-1990s: âAt home, my father
gave the orders, and when he wasnât there, my brother did. In the
guerrilla, I can decide things for myself, perhaps even become a
commander!â (
). Certainly, some observers suggest that many Kurdish women see the
party as the mainspring for both national and womenâs liberation (
;
: 148;
: 83).
Women have been a part of the PKKâs fighting force since the insurgency
began in 1984. At first the Turkish army did not take the women fighters
seriously, claims Surbuz (
). However, she observes,
Then they realised that the women are as tough if not tougher than the
men⊠After this the soldiers stopped distinguishing between the male and
the female fighters. I think they are now more afraid of the women
because the women are more disciplined and they will never surrender⊠We
will either kill or be killed⊠For me it is freedom, success or death.
It is simple. (
)
ĂaÄlayan (
: 23) emphasizes the PKKâs feminist reorientation and its determined
efforts to recruit women fighters and promote the importance of gender
equality within the Kurdish movement â including at the organizational
level. Writing from a PKK base in Iraqi Kurdistan, journalist Deborah
Haynes reports that women âplay a crucial role in the PKKâ, adding:
The best women fighters are also able to climb up the ranks to positions
of command, with the âself-defenceâ armed wing of the PKK operating an
obligatory 40 per cent female quota. (
)
She observes:
Treated as equals by their male counterparts on the battlefield as well
as in the political arena, women fighters are trained to use
Kalashnikovs, grenades and other weapons before being dispatched in
mixed and single-sex units. (
)
Deniz Gökalp (
) notes that PKK women possess agency in the organization, based on
their political consciousness and aptitude for striving for national,
social and gender justice. Early in the twenty-first century, however,
women remained âlargely absent in the upper echelons of party powerâ (
: 148). However, this began to very quickly change, and Kurdish women
are now âprominent in the PKKâs leadership councilâ (
). The PKK elected two new joint leaders at a conference held between 30
June and 5 July 2013: in place of Murat Karayılan, the conference
selected Cemil Bayık and a woman, BesĂȘ Hozat. The conference â convened
to consider the PKKâs political and organizational structures â also
agreed to increase the proportion of female party members to 40 per cent
(
Kurdpress New Agency, 2013; Shekhani, 2013
).
The PKKâs radical reorientation on the âwoman questionâ involved
fundamental rethinking within the organization. This extended to a
complete remaking of the PKKâs Median national myth. Identification with
the ancient Medes as the mythical ethnic predecessors of the modern
Kurds (
: 2â3;
: 438â86;
: 14) is utilized by almost all Kurdish political parties. Yet the PKK
alone has been successful in exercising this discourse. The Apocular not
only linked the Kurds to the Medes, but extended the story to the
âpatrioticâ resistance of the Median/Kurdish blacksmith Kawa and thence
to the PKKâs contemporary struggle (
: 96â8). The Kawa parable was thus established as a central PKK
foundational myth.
By the late 1990s, however, the PKK began replacing the Kawa parable
with another ancient myth â that of Ishtar the goddess. Both stories
stress the modern Kurdsâ unbroken connection with ancient Mesopotamia,
thereby rationalizing an unbroken historical national myth of Kurdish
identity. The Ishtar myth adds a new dimension, however: a âhistorical
period and structure in which women were activeâ (
: 2).
The patriarchal domination of men over women was denounced. Women were
urged to be independent: âDo whatever you need to do for
self-determination as a sexâ (
: 120, cited in
: 13). Meanwhile men were ordered to cease their patriachal domination.
Ăcalan advocates (ethically) âkilling the manâ, which he asserts is âthe
fundamental principle of socialismâ. This means that one strives âto
kill power, to kill one-sided dominationâ (cited in
: 61, and
: 17). The Serok told men that they were âthe main problemâ â they
exercise dominance over women to prove their manhood â and that âThis is
a dominion of crude power; I found it foul and I shattered itâ (
: 30, cited in
: 13). ĂaÄlayan (
: 12) argues that Zilanâs âsuicide protestâ in 1996 was the crucial
catalyst that transformed the PKKâs âconstitutive mythâ from the
symbolism inherent in the nationalist self-sacrificial liberation
parable of the male Kurdish âKawa the blacksmithâ to a legend now based
wholly within Kurdish womanhood; in the new myth, the âliberatorsâ
missionâ is assigned to women. Zilan was thus elevated not only to the
pantheon of martyrdom, but also to the status of goddess (
: 16) by Ăcalan, who declared: âWhen Zilanâs identity was revealed, old
manhood was entirely deadâ (
: 108).
As goddesses, the Serok implies, women fighters in the movement are both
superior to men and the bedrock of the movement. Ăcalan elaborates that
the YekĂźtiya Jinen Azadiya Kurdistan stands for âthe attainment of the
highest possible sentiments for oneâs country. This means that even if
everyone gives up on their country, YJAK continues the struggleâ (
). This stands in stark contrast to the conception of national
liberation advocates, of which Franz Fanon (
) is the paradigm. Fanon famously asserts that colonialism renders
colonized men impotent. In a manner radically at odds with that of the
PKK leader, he thus conceptualizes the anti-colonial struggle as âmen
reclaiming their manhoodâ (
: 6).
PKK deputy commander Mustafa Karasu summed up in mid-2000 the PKKâs
evolving understanding of womenâs role in the Kurdish revolution. Basing
himself on Abdullah Ăcalanâs recent teachings, Karasu wrote in the party
organ Serxwebûn that women in the Soviet Union had achieved significant
gains in economic, political and social life â in fact, âthe most
advanced bourgeois-democratic rightsâ. Due to a certain ânarrow
approachâ, however, there was a âlack of freedom and democracy in the
Soviet Unionâ, he insisted. Therefore, he argued, a ânew approachâ to
the âwomenâs questionâ was formulated by the PKK and Chairman Apo (
).
This comprehensive approach involves women and men striving together for
the national democratic revolution, Karasu and Ăcalan assert, since the
feminist approach of women fighting by themselves is inadequate for the
achievement of such a revolution. Nevertheless women must be in the
front line of the ânational democratic revolutionâ, to solve the
considerable theoretical problems (
). (Interestingly, Karasu here still uses the obsolete terminology of
ânational democratic revolutionâ that Stalin misappropriated from Marx,
although he appears to have otherwise absorbed his leaderâs evolved
teaching on the role of women in the Kurdish national movement.) âThe
leadership given to the liberation of women by the PKK and Chairman Apo
is very important and goes beyond the contributions developed by the
womenâs liberation movementâ, states Karasu. He asserts that the PKKâs
approach overcomes the shortcomings of the former Soviet paradigm,
adding that his partyâs approach is relevant for women globally (
).
Karasu insists that âthe most basic measureâ of the Kurdish revolutionâs
achievements is the transformation in Kurdish women: âWomen of the PKKâs
movement see themselves as a force for the liberation of not only women
but of all of humanityâ (
). He concludes:
The PKK martyr Zilan (Zeynep Kınacı) was a model who undermined male
domination. The actions of women comrades, the real owners of the
struggle for freedom and revolution, add to the spirit of the PKK,
deepening the understanding of revolutionary freedom. Womenâs issues not
only concern woman but men also. (
)
Of course, the new womenâs movement that has emerged over the past dozen
or so years throughout Turkish Kurdistan is not just based in the PKKâs
own organizations â although the PKK apparently does have significant
influence over the movement. The Demokratik ĂzgĂŒr Kadın Hareketi (DĂKH â
Free Democratic Womenâs Movement), for instance, was founded in 2003. It
organized the â1^(st) Middle East Womenâs Conferenceâ jointly with the
Demokratık Toplum Kongresi (DTK â Democratic Society Congress) between
31 May and 2 June 2013 in Amed. The DTK is a legal platform for Kurdish
NGOs and political organizations in Turkey (
: 127;
Association for Womenâs Rights in Development, 2013
). The Conference, organized around the slogan âWoman, Life, Freedomâ
(Jin, Jiyan, Azadi), managed to arrive at common standpoints on âracist
nation-state structures, the hegemonic capitalist system, and
problematic approaches to women by religions and political Islam which
are instrumentalized by tyrannical powersâ (
Association for Womenâs Rights in Development, 2013
).
The principal force in the DĂKH appears to be the BDP, and both the DĂKH
and the BDP are heavily influenced by Abdullah Ăcalanâs politics of
feminized democratic autonomy. When a small group of German radical
leftists journeyed to Turkish Kurdistan in 2011 they spoke with elected
members of the municipal government in one region. One city councillor
told the German collective: âDemocratic Confederalism [autonomy] means
that the society is organized by women, that the societyâs mentality is
changed, and that taboos are brokenâ (
: 127). GĂŒlbahar Ărnek, the mayor of the SĂ»r municipal council, told the
Tatort collective that projects organized with the municipalityâs
assistance teach women âwhat Democratic Autonomy isâ (
: 131).
The PKK began its political and ideological existence as a classical
guerrilla organization whose ideological axis was a variant of
MarxismâLeninism, with the perspective of an independent Kurdistan
carved out of the Turkish state by âpeopleâs warâ. By 1993 it was
showing signs of change, when it quietly dropped the demand for an
independent Kurdish state and began speaking about Kurdish autonomy â
without fixing the form that this would take. As we have seen, Abdullah
Ăcalan later theorized this as âdemocratic confederalismâ, leading to
self-managed Kurdish autonomy within the borders of the Turkish state,
after encountering the radical municipalism of Murray Bookchin.
The year 1993 also saw the beginning of a leap in female recruitment,
following the Serokâs decision to speak out boldly in support of womenâs
rights and his declaration regarding formation of a PKK womenâs army.
The PKKâs intriguing feminist transformation since then is no less
astounding than its evolution towards the perspective of democratic
confederalism. The rapid theoretical and practical feminist
transformation of the PKK testifies to its deep commitment to this new
world-view. But it does not necessarily follow that traditional Kurdish
society will accept this âwomenâs revolutionâ for itself, simply because
it agrees with the PKK about Kurdish nationhood.
In the name of repudiating âthe slave-like suppression of womenâ, the
PKK has transformed itself into a feminist movement. This has been done
by encouraging women to believe in their own strength and abilities,
through forming their own autonomous organizations at every level of the
PKK movement. So far, this feminist project has been highly successful
within the PKK itself, but there is no indication that it has affected
traditional societal values â especially in the rural areas that
comprise most of Kurdistan, which largely continue to be bound by
customary Islamic standards regarding the value of family life and
womenâs role within this. The PKK could well face resistance to its
modernist notions of womenâs emancipation in the future from traditional
Sunni Kurdish Muslims. The very secular PKK might not be aware of it,
but most women in conservative Kurdish society value their traditional
role. To them it seems very strange when the PKK tells them that their
values are âbackwardâ or âcolonialistâ.
The PKK emerged from racist provocation, Kurdish economic
under-underdevelopment, as well as from Turkish leftism and Kurdish
âprimitive nationalismâ. A more or less orthodox âguerrilla Marxistâ
organization emerged, founded on orthodox Marxismâ Leninism. At first
quite small and unsophisticated, it has blossomed over time to become a
pan-Kurdish political formation, with affiliated organizations in
Europe, North America and Australia, capable of mobilizing many
thousands onto the streets of Turkish Kurdistan, and in some of Turkeyâs
cities, as well as in Europe. In Turkish Kurdistan it has eclipsed all
its rivals and gained mass support.
The PKKâs charismatic leader Abdullah Ăcalan has evolved the partyâs
ideology, so that Marxism is now largely sidelined in the organization,
which now mobilizes its affiliates and supporters to struggle peacefully
for âdemocratic confederalismâ. Perhaps most surprisingly of all, the
PKK has been guided by its imprisoned Serok to become a feminist party,
in which women and womenâs self-organization and leadership are prized
above all.
It has been shown that a leader of an âinspirationalâ type (such as
Ăcalan) generally symbolizes his national groupâs conviction that it is
a âgreatâ people. He must regularly demonstrate his ability for this
greatness to be realized, by finding new ways forward, thus continuing
to inspire followers. So far, against tremendous odds, Ăcalan has
achieved this. Even after he was captured by his enemies, Ăcalan
continued to personally symbolize the aspirations of his supporters,
while still seeking ways to energize and motivate them, in a very
flexible manner. Through their warm personal relationship with their
Serok, his members and supporters have come to believe that they were
already, in a sense, âliberatedâ, or at least âexperiencingâ Kurdistan.
Though serving life imprisonment, Abdullah Ăcalan is still considered to
be the organizationâs leader. The present author has suggested (
: 213â16) that his physical absence, together with his crucial failure
to designate a successor, created the possibility of serious internal
disputation inside the PKK in the future. That is indeed what has
occurred.
A leadership council, initially comprising Osman Ăcalan (the Serokâs
brother), Cemil Bayık, Nizamettin TaĆ, Murat Karayılan, Duran Kalkan and
Mustafa Karasu, took over the running of the movement, but soon âsplit
into hardliner and reformist campsâ, as the party initially spun
downwards in a spiral of crisis (
; see also
: 55). After the Serokâs capture, it transpired, PKK âmilitants were
physiologically and psychologically defeated, and the organization came
to the point of dissolutionâ (
: 4).
In 2004 Nizamettin TaĆ, Shahnaz Altun and Osman Ăcalan split from the
PKK, establishing a new political organization, the Partiya Welatparezen
Demokraten Kurdistan (PWDK â Patriotic and Democratic Party of
Kurdistan), together with fourteen other cadres, including another
leader, Kani Yılmaz, and some thirty fighters. The trio accused Abdullah
Ăcalan of being a âdespot comparable to Stalin or Hitlerâ, claiming that
he ordered the murder of a number of dissidents. They also condemned him
for giving up the historical goal of his party â the independence of
Kurdistan â following his capture. Osman Ăcalan further denounced the
PKK as a terrorist organization (
: 4;
; Turkish Daily News, 17 September 2004).
Abdullah Ăcalan responded to the split by urging Osman Ăcalan and his
group to return to the Kongra-Gel, assuring them of protection. At the
same time, he heavily criticized Cemil Bayık, Rıza Altun, Duran Kalkan
and others (
). In the event, the PWDK venture was unsuccessful, and Osman Ăcalan
duly reconciled with the PKK (
). However, he split from the organization again, and henceforth
remained politically inactive. Cemil Bayıkâs continuing authority rests
very much upon his ability to successfully embody the Serokâs charisma.
It was clear at the time of Ăcalanâs capture that the violent conflict
between Ankara and PKK militants would become immeasurably worse in the
immediate future. Indeed, there are still observers who insist that
âWeapons in the hands of militant cadres and mountain cadresâ (DaÄ
kadrolarının elindeki silahların ve bu militan kadroların) will
determine the fate of all the PKKâs projects (
). The soundness of this position remains to be seen. But what is clear
is that Ăcalanâs ability to lead his movement and his people to a
peaceful resolution of the Kurdish conflict in Turkey rests upon a
number of factors. The first of these has already been dealt with:
Ăcalanâs continued ability to function as the Serok. Three other factors
could prove crucial: (i) the continuing impoverishment of Kurdish
eastern and south-eastern Turkey; (ii) the effects of the Arab Spring on
the Kurdish national movement in Turkey; and (iii) the PKKâs ability to
maintain its new path of avoiding bloodshed and revenge.
Kurdish nationalist activity is the practical manifestation of a whole
complex of contradictions, including certain types of religious feeling,
inter-or intra-tribal tensions, inter-ethnic pressures, and economic
issues arising from modernization. Of these, economic pressures seem to
be particularly important, in turning âonâ or âoffâ other factors.
Over the past thirteen years, Turkeyâs central authorities have
continued to allow the countryâs Kurdish region to remain
âunder-underdevelopedâ while effectively excluding the Kurds themselves
from citizenship. Yet the contemporary Kurdish national movement arose
among Turkeyâs Kurds due to worsening impoverishment following Turkeyâs
economic âmodernizationâ. Turkey continues to struggle with the process
of economic development. The economic crisis of 2008â09 was the
countryâs fifth in thirty years (
: 1). The economy recorded the sharpest quarterly GDP decline of the
last three decades, at â14.3 per cent. The unemployment rate averaged
10.7 per cent between 2005 and 2014, reaching an all-time high of 16.1
per cent in February of 2009, according to the Turkish Statistical
Institute. The number of unemployed persons totalled 2.8 million in
February 2014. The non-agricultural unemployment rate was 12.1 per cent,
and the youth unemployment rate hit 17 per cent (
).
It is extremely difficult for countries running a large external deficit
to avoid subsequent stresses (
). Turkeyâs external debt reached 43 per cent of GDP in 2010, falling
slightly to 40 per cent in 2011. Between 1989 and 2013, Turkeyâs
external debt averaged US$1.54 billion, reaching an all-time high of
US$3.73 billion in September of 2013 (
Trading Economics, 13 February 2014b
). Inflation remains high â at 7.75 per cent in January 2014 (
Trading Economics , 13 February 2014a
) â making it difficult for the government to repay debts, especially if
interest rates need to be raised, which is likely, and could precipitate
a serious economic crisis, with worrying implications for internal
stability (
: 3). A large current-account deficit makes Turkey vulnerable to a shift
in global market sentiment (
).
Veteran observers are only too aware that these pressures are being felt
most keenly in the Kurdish region. Nurcan Baysal argues that âarmed
conflict and forced migrationâ have combined to cause people of the
region to be âutterly pessimisticâ about their future (
). Baysal adds: âDuring the AKP Government, the situation in eastern and
south-eastern Anatolia has worsened in terms of the rates of poverty,
unemployment and education-trainingâ (
). A small number of Turkeyâs industrialists and merchants (including a
number of wealthy AKP supporters) have earned huge incomes from massive
industrialization and growth in trade. Meanwhile the Kurdish east and
south-east remain under-underdeveloped and Kurds there have been
steadily impoverished due to inflation. In such circumstances, social
unrest was inevitable (
: 3â4).
On 16 April 2010 brick workers in eleven factories in Amed staged a
wildcat strike over their low wages. The strike spread spontaneously and
lasted for six days, until the workers succeeded in securing a 28 per
cent pay increase (
). The following year, workers in Amed defied a heavy police presence
(including an overhead helicopter) to march on International Workersâ
Day (May Day) on 1 May 2011. The march was convened in Amed by the
trade-union confederations KESK, DÄ°SK, TMMOB, TĂŒrk-Ä°Ć and TTB (
: 182). In Wan, 460 municipal workers staged five one-day strikes in
2013, seeking the right to belong to their trade union. On 7 July the
city council agreed that nine workers who were sacked after ten days
would return to work and that the workersâ trade-union rights would be
upheld (
Uluslararası Ä°Ćçi DayanıĆması DerneÄi, 2013
). It seems certain that further workersâ strikes will occur in this
region, due to its deepening economic distress.
On the other hand, there is some hope for economic justice. The peace
process has already resulted in some positive economic benefits for the
Kurds. Thus, in 2012 alone,
over 500 new investment applications were made in eastern Turkey. As
violence has stopped, more corporations and entities are becoming
interested in investing in the region. According to the Minister of
Economy, from June 2012 to June 2013 5,126 domestic Investment Incentive
Certificates worth TL68.5 billion were issued. This created employment
opportunities for 187,478 people. (
)
Unfortunately, most Kurds in south-eastern Anatolia are yet to
experience the benefits of such investment. The Five Year Development
Plan for the period 2007â13 âassigns no priority to the region in terms
of development and indicates no specific effort to eliminate regional
development disparitiesâ (
). Since 1985 several economic packages for the region have been
launched, but most investment goes to the GĂŒneydoÄu Anadolu Projesi
(GAP, or Southern Anatolia Project). GAP will supposedly create up to
3.8 million new jobs in the region and increase local agricultural
yields (
). Yet GAP will not be the economic and political salvation that Ankara
continues to promote it as. GAP consists of several massive projects
centring on energy production, which involves the irrigation of 17,000
square kilometres of Kurdish land, affecting Adıyaman, Gaziantep, Urfa,
Merdin, Amed and Siirt.
Some local Kurds will undoubtedly benefit from the project â but not
those in the direst need. Flooding is displacing entire villages. And,
while compensation is paid to the owners of flooded land, this ignores
the sharecroppers who cultivate the land, who receive only small sums
for their houses. This has provoked new migration to the western part of
Turkey. Irrigation from the project has therefore tended to have only
negative social and economic effects on inhabitants of rural Turkish
Kurdistan. Already suffering chronically stunted development long before
GAP was even envisaged, the region has been unable to capitalize upon it
economically or in terms of industrial development. Energy produced
through GAP will therefore tend to flow to the west of Turkey, not to
Turkish Kurdistan (
: 187â98). And right from the start, workers employed on the project
have come from outside the Kurdish region (
: 44â5). Representing not so much a modernization of Turkish Kurdistan
as a further modernization of the west of Turkey, GAP is of little
direct economic benefit to the inhabitants of Turkish Kurdistan.
A so-called âTurkish Springâ erupted in May 2013 in Istanbulâs Taksim
Gezi Park, and quickly spread through the country. However, this
movement â although potentially significantârepresents a very
heterogeneous attempt to extend democracy. In reality it is no Turkish
Spring, for the very obvious reason that it is not an uprising aiming at
the revolutionary overthrow of a dictator. It is a potentially
significant moment but it represents at most an attempt to reconstruct
citizenship and unleash democratic identities (
). Having experienced this brief moment of rebellion against perceived
autocracy, it is not impossible that this diverse movement might
resurrect itself against any future anti-democratic putsches â including
ones that seek to destroy the possibility of peace between Turks and
Kurds.
It might also be argued that the eventual collapse of Syriaâs al-Assad
regime âcould possibly turn the âArab Springâ into a âKurdish Springâ in
Turkey with the help of the PKKâ, using a newly liberated Syrian Kurdish
autonomous region as the springboard (
: 23). Ăcalan might not support such a development, but the experience
of the 1990 serĂźhildan in Turkish Kurdistan has shown that Turkeyâs
Kurds are now quite capable of acting autonomously in emergent
circumstances, when the Serok is unable to provide leadership. In such
circumstances, the PKKâs HĂȘzĂȘn Parastina Gel fighters would inevitably
be drawn into the conflict. Then, just as in 1990, the PKK would declare
that it had initiated the uprising, in order to assume its leadership.
This assertion would contain a grain of truth: without the PKKâs almost
three decades of political, cultural and military struggle, Turkish
Kurds would not have developed consciousness of their Kurdish identity.
On 8 February 2014 Abdullah Ăcalan emphasized to visiting BDP MPs three
immediate objectives for the faltering peace process: the implementation
of a legal framework for the negotiations, the formation of third-party
oversight bodies, and a permanent commission to oversee the negotiations
under eight general headings. âIf the AKP does not take a step now the
political cost will be very heavy from their perspective. In the past
those who did not solve the Kurdish problem disappearedâ, Ăcalan is
reported to have said (
). The Turkish government, for its part, continues to declare its
support for the peace process. On the other hand, it failed to punish
members of the military who shot and killed unarmed civilians in Yakacık
in Amedâs Lice district on 29 June 2013 and in Gewer on 6 December 2013
(
;
HĂŒrriyet Daily News , 7 December 2013
). The state claims that the Yakacık victims were hit by ricochets from
warning shots, after protestors rather than the soldiers opened fire (
;
). In Gewer, Kurds who rushed to the local hospital where the shooting
victims were being treated were alarmed when special operations teams
surrounded the building with armoured vehicles. Police teams also threw
tear-gas canisters into the hospital, having broken the windows and
doors with their guns. The governor of HakkĂąri later released a
statement claiming that two men were accused of attacking police at the
demonstration with heavy weapons and explosives, forcing the police to
respond (
).
For the moment, Ăcalanâs extraordinary âdemocratic confederalismâ
project has captivated his supporters and the movementâs membership. If
the peace process does not result in any tangible progress towards this
goal, his reputation could be seriously weakened and the PKK could once
again resort to its Kalashnikovs, RPGs and M16s. History shows that this
is a possibility. The outbreak of the spontaneous 1990 serĂźhildan in
Turkish Kurdistan was arguably a warning sign that the Kurdish
population was dissatisfied with the efforts of Ăcalan and the PKK. It
is likely that the PKK (or at least its HĂȘzĂȘn Parastina Gel fighters)
would consider that there was no other option â if it wishes to retain
popular Kurdish support â but to resume âarmed struggleâ, should the
Serokâs âdemocratic confederalismâ project be perceived to be failing.
Despite numerous unsuccessful ceasefires, and an estimated 45,000
deaths, the PKK abandoned armed struggle on 31 December 2012, in the
sincere hope of securing a lasting peace. Turkish responses to the
TurkishâKurdish peace process in the past were â with some notable,
partial, exceptions â negative, due to the crushing weight of the
stateâs Kemalist praetorian ideology. Atrocity has been heaped upon
bloody atrocity by the Turkish military in Turkish Kurdistan. Abdullah
Ăcalan admits that the PKK has also been guilty of atrocities against
innocent people, but such instances are few compared to the Kemalist
militaryâs deeds.
It is obvious that the current peace process is highly contradictory.
Overwhelming Kurdish support for the process was apparent when Ăcalanâs
peace message in Amed was read out to over a million of his supporters
on 21 March 2013 (
). Yunus Akbaba, an analyst with Turkeyâs SETA Foundation, argues that
the peace process continues not only due to support from political
actors such as the AKP, the PKK and the BDP, but also because of âthe
push of public willâ. Political analysts have also drawn attention to
strong public support for the process. Opinion polls indicate that
Turkey-wide support for the peace process stands at 70 per cent (
).
Nevertheless, in order to succeed the Serokâs bold scheme requires
Turkey to accept an ongoing ceasefire â something it has never done in
the past. The PKKâs democratic confederalism project provides the
possibility of finally achieving a successful peace settlement.
Following its launch, the PKK declared new unilateral ceasefires between
October 2006 and October 2011. However in February 2011 the PKK moved to
a stance of âactive defenceâ, in which its fighters defended themselves
if threatened, ending a six-month ceasefire (
).
The PKK asserts that it halted its withdrawal from Turkish Kurdistan in
September 2013 due to frustration with the governmentâs pace in
introducing democratic reforms meant to address Kurdish grievances. The
PKK accuses Ankara of not abiding by the terms of the peace deal agreed
between the two sides. A KCK statement added that the suspension of the
withdrawal was âaimed at pushing the government to take the project
seriously and to do what is neededâ. The PKK demands amendments to the
penal code and electoral laws, as well as the right to education in the
Kurdish language and a form of regional autonomy. Prime Minister ErdoÄan
has already stated that a general amnesty for PKK guerrillas (including
for Ăcalan) and the right to education in Kurdish were not on the table.
No deadline had been set for the withdrawal, but a ceasefire agreement
reached in March 2013 said that the peace process could not proceed
further until it is completed. The PKK nevertheless promised to respect
the ceasefire with Turkish forces (
Ekurd Daily , 25 September 2013
;
HĂŒrriyet Daily News , 9 September 2013
).
In mid-October 2013 Turkeyâs Ministry of Justice prevented BDP
co-chairman Selahattin DemirtaĆ from visiting Abdullah Ăcalan in prison.
This was significant, as BDP leaders have acted as mediators in the
peace process between the PKK and Ankara. DemirtaĆ was only temporarily
barred, after making critical remarks about the AKP governmentâs
democratization package. The PKK deputy commander Mustafa Karasu
responded angrily on 18 October 2013, stating that Turkey had âliterally
stopped the peace processâ. âWe did what we had to doâ, Karasu stated.
âBut now we have stopped withdrawing our guerrillas. We will not give up
our struggle on mere words from Turkey.â In August 2013 he had warned:
âIf Turkey rejects peace and desires war, then the PKK has the right to
defend itself. We are ready for everythingâ (Rudaw, 2013). In late
October 2013, reaffirming his determination to bring the peace process
to a successful conclusion, ErdoÄan declared that whoever ends the peace
process will âpay the price for its actionsâ (
).
In January 2014, however, four Kurdish elected BDP MPs and a pro-Kurdish
independent were released from prison and permitted to take their places
in the parliament, breathing renewed hope into the precarious peace
process. The MPs were among thousands of Kurdish politicians and
activists detained in 2009 and 2010 for alleged ties to the PKK. One of
the released MPs, the BDPâs Selma Irmak, told reporters: âitâs really
just a first step.â âThere are dozens of mayors and other elected
officials still in jail, so for real progress the anti-terror law must
changeâ, she added (
).
As stated earlier, Cemil Bayık has criticized the focus on withdrawal of
PKK forces as the solution to the conflict, highlighting that a
ceasefire and the withdrawal of guerrilla forces were components in a
democratic political solution to the Kurdish question, which would only
have meaning if they were the foundation of an emerging âdemocratization
in Turkey and the Middle Eastâ (
).
The ruling AKP continues to give out ambiguous signals regarding its
commitment to the peace process. Thus, on 6 November 2011 ErdoÄan
declared that âthere is no question of giving up armsâ against the PKK.
He threatened the press with prosecution if it continued to denounce the
successive raids on pro-Kurdish media. âWhether in the media or
elsewhere, it should pay attention to what is said about the KCK because
it amounts to support of terrorismâ, he warned (AFP, 8 November 2011).
The following day ErdoÄan claimed that the continuing crackdown on the
KCK had led to the imprisonment of a number of its activists, and
commented that the PKK wanted to replace the state apparatus in Turkey,
telling reporters that âno one should expect it to endâ. The Turkish
prime minister continued: âThere is only one state in Turkey, the
Turkish State; there may not be a second.â By this stage around 700
alleged KCK members had already been arrested by the Turkish state,
according to government figures â and some 3,000 to 3,500 Kurdish
activists (AFP, 7 November 2011; 8 November 2011; 26 November 2011).
Then, in January 2013, ErdoÄan replaced the controversial minister of
the interior Ä°dris Naim Ćahin with a moderate from Turkeyâs Kurdish
region. Ćahin had adopted a ruthless posture against perceived PKK
sympathizers following the 12 June 2011 elections, which the AKP won
with 50 per cent of the vote. It was he who instigated the arrests of
alleged KCK members (
Gursel/Al-Monitor Turkey Pulse , 27 January 2013
), notoriously prodding police to respond brutally against opposition
demonstrations. As one journalist commented: âPolice brutality against
demonstrators, primarily their use of pepper gas, had never been so
widespreadâ (
).
Following his appointment as Ćahinâs replacement, Minister Muammer GĂŒler
told the press: âWe will fly peace doves in the south-east. We will
continue to work for happiness, security and welfare of everyoneâ (
).
Speaking to Nuçe TV on 2 April 2013, Cemil Bayık, a leading member of
both the PKK and the KCK, emphasized that ceasefire and withdrawal of
guerrilla forces were both part of a democratic political solution to
the Kurdish question. He criticized focusing on the withdrawal of PKK
forces. Bayık insisted that the PKKâs ceasefire and withdrawal would
only be worthwhile if they facilitated the flowering of democratization
in Turkey and the region (
).
In a small but nevertheless symbolic gesture, Turkish security
authorities permitted 20,000 of Abdullah Ăcalanâs supporters to gather
in the PKK leaderâs village of Amara (Ămerli), to celebrate his
sixty-fourth birthday on 4 April 2013, following his appeal for a
ceasefire. Similar gatherings had been roughly dispersed by the
authorities in previous years. PKK supporters sang and danced until late
into the night and called for âfreedom for Ăcalanâ (
; AFP, 4 April 2013).
In a message sent from prison and read before the crowd, Ăcalan claimed
that the possibility of an honourable peace was more real than ever and
referred to the ârebirthâ of the Kurdish community in Turkey. âLet not a
drop of blood be shed during the settlement processâ, he added (Todayâs
Zaman, 4 April 2013).
Prime Minister ErdoÄan, for his part, in April 2013 criticized Turkeyâs
parliamentary opposition parties who opposed the peace process, claiming
that his Justice and Development Party (AKP) had âalways been alone on
the pathâ. He also conceded that abuses against Kurds in Amed prison
after the 1980 coup created conditions in which the PKK was able to
thrive, saying that those responsible for such abuse were âas guilty as
those who adopted terrorismâ (
HĂŒrriyet Daily News , 4 April 2013
).
In what he believes is a practical way to strive for his new
perspective, Ăcalan advocates a âThree-Phases Road Mapâ to resolve
Turkeyâs Kurdish problem. The first phase of this envisages the PKK
initiating âa permanent ceasefireâ, to be complemented by a âTruth and
Reconciliation Commissionâ established by the Turkish government and
parliament, together with an amnesty and the release of âpolitical
prisonersâ. Finally, the KCK would be legalized, making the PKK obsolete
(
). Ăcalanâs book Prison Writings III: The Road Map to Negotiations (
) sets out his plan for peace in Turkey in more detail. The best hope
for this bold plan succeeding is the wide support for KurdishâTurkish
peace that exists in Turkey, after decades of bloodshed on both sides.
It could succeed, although the obstacles confronting it are daunting, as
we have seen.
Abdullah Ăcalan took the bold step of declaring a new PKK unilateral
ceasefire on 21 March 2013. In a statement issued at the annual Newroz
celebration, Ăcalan affirmed that it was now not time âfor opposition,
conflict or contempt towards each other, it is time for cooperation,
unity, embracing and mutual blessingâ (
). Most importantly, he also announced:
I, myself, am declaring in the witnessing of millions of people that a
new era is beginning, arms are silencing, politics are gaining momentum.
It is time for our [PKK] armed entities to withdraw from the [Turkish]
border. (
)
The PKKâs HĂȘzĂȘn Parastina Gel guerrillas began withdrawing from Turkey
in early May 2013. An estimated 2,000 PKK fighters withdrew in stages
over several months. The first fighters arrived in Northern Iraqâs
Qandil Mountains. Turkish security forces manned checkpoints along the
mountainous border with Iraq, but did not intervene. Prime Minister
ErdoÄan publicly undertook to ensure that they would not be targeted
during the pull-out (
;
). By early June 2013 Atilla Yesilada reported that the PKK had âlargely
quit the country, but stands ready to pounce back, if the demands of the
Kurdish minority are not metâ (
).
PKK-initiated ceasefires have come and gone. As indicated above, some
have lasted for years, but none has ever succeeded in convincing
Turkeyâs military also to cease its hostilities. Failure could well be
the outcome of this new initiative. On this occasion, though, there is
some possibility of success. For the first time the Turkish government
is openly engaging in peace negotiations with the PKK leader, and the
âmoderate Islamistâ Recep Tayyip ErdoÄan, now the countryâs president,
has staked his political future on this peace gambit.
ErdoÄan is known to be a very ambitious man, who does not take risks
lightly â his secular Turkish opponents call him âthe new sultanâ. He
apparently hopes that peace with the PKK will not only stop the
destructive war in Turkeyâs south-east, but also bring great strategic
and economic benefits to Turkey, in the context of the civil wars in
neighbouring Iraqi and Syrian Kurdistan. It remains to be seen, of
course, whether ErdoÄanâs ambitions will serve the cause of
KurdishâTurkish peace and justice for the Kurds.
President ErdoÄan appears to sincerely desire peace, even though he is
capable of deviating from his course at times, on account of electoral
and other concerns. In what was hopefully a positive sign, ErdoÄanâs
2014 New Year Message emphasized the peace process with the PKK. He
declared that ânew hope, new excitement, new expectationsâ lay before
all Turkish citizens, as they entered the New Year âwith fresh hopeâ for
an end to war (
).
The Serok has also stated that his fundamental understanding of the
resolution of the Kurdish/Turkish conundrum ârests on a free and equal
rearrangementâ of relations between the two peoples (
). Such ethnic and political rethinking will require the building of
trust between Turks and Kurds in Turkey â and beyond. In 1980 the then
security chief of Diyarbakır Prison, Captain Esat Oktay Yıdıran,
observed that the PKK had âthree legsâ: the mountains, the prisons and
the pro-PKK groups in Europe. Abdullah Ăcalan stated on 23 February 2013
that âthe Kurdish problemâ had two parts: one in Iraqâs Qandil Mountains
and the other in Europe. He even addressed a letter to the Kurdish
diaspora in Europe (
). Journalist Ihsan Kurt points out that Europeâs 1.5-million-strong
Kurdish diaspora is now âthe most radical, out-of-reach actor on the
sceneâ. Diasporas, it has been said, are either wreckers or promoters of
peace processes (
: 27; Yossi Shain, cited in
). Today many in the Kurdish diaspora remain deeply suspicious of
Ankara, believing that previous opportunities to end the conflict have
always been sabotaged by powerful forces within the Turkish state.
Nevertheless, despite their concerns, most remain cautiously optimistic
about the process. Given that the diaspora accounts for millions of
Kurds and has powerful propaganda tools at its disposal, it can just as
easily encourage as spoil the peace effort (
).
The Kurdish issue will remain of major importance for the Turkish state
if it remains committed to accession to the European Union. At the EUâs
request, Turkey has enacted a number of democratization reforms (albeit
sometimes hesitantly and incompletely) that benefit the Kurds. Turkey
would prefer to be a part of the EU, but the overly long road to
accession has seriously dampened its enthusiasm. In the final analysis,
Ankara will agree to full democratization primarily for local reasons,
not to please the EU bureaucrats. Thus the EUâs pressure regarding
Kurdish rights and in support of the peace process will be factors
influencing Kurdish/Turkish peace, but not decisive.
However, the recent rise of the Islamic State (IS) group (formerly known
as ISIS) to control over one-third of Syria and a very large swathe of
Iraq adds further complications to the peace process. In Iraq the IS is
based in Mosul, which is part of historic Kurdistan, although outside
the Kurdistan Regional Government area. As the IS has pushed northwards
into the Kurdish region proper, it has clashed with both the Kurdistan
Regional Governmentâs Peshmerga army and the fighters of the PKKâs
affiliate in Iraqi Kurdistan, the PCDK. In Syrian Kurdistan the local
PKK affiliate the PYD has also engaged the IS fighters. Freed from the
battlefront in Turkish Kurdistan, the PKK has diverted large numbers of
its HĂȘzĂȘn Parastina Gel fighters to support both the PCDK and the PYD
against the IS.
Accusations that the Islamic State is entering Syria via Turkey have the
potential to adversely affect the Kurdish peace process (
). Kurdish politician Ahmet Turk, current leader of the Demokratık
Toplum Kongresi â a legal Kurdish party inspired by the PKK â has
accused Ankara: âIS has easy access over the border and the state is
looking the other way. This makes the Kurds question the sincerity of
the peace processâ (
).
For its part, the PKK on 5 August 2014 urged all Kurds to take up the
fight against Islamic State: âAll Kurds in the north, east, south and
west must rise up against the attack on Kurds in Sinjar [in northern
Iraq]â (
).
The belief â widespread among Turkeyâs Kurds â that Turkey is
âtoleratingâ IS fighters clearly endangers the peace process in Turkey
as IS attacks both Syrian and Iraqi Kurds.
Should the current peace process be successful, it is probable that this
will enable the PKK to complete its long transition from terrorists to
legitimate rebels. As Evren Balta Paker observes, however, autonomy as a
solution âin countries where regional inequalities are deepâ requires âa
deep sense of social justiceâ (
: 5). This will arise in Turkey only when the ethnic majority not only
facilitates the demise of Kurdish under-underdevelopment, but also
allows the Kurds to live as full human beings with their own identity
intact, free from persecution for merely asserting their Kurdishness. If
this can be achieved, then the deadly, bloody pattern of
bloodletting/fruitless peacemaking/even worse bloodletting that has
haunted the Kurdish/Turkish conflict in Turkey may be banished forever.
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