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Internationalizing the
Kurdish Question
The Trial of Abdullah Ocalan On 29 June 1999, a Turkish Court convicted and sentenced to death the President of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) Abdullah Ocalan. After 15 years of Kurdish separatism, Turkey could finally celebrate what it believes to be an end to a movement that has proven both a major threat to its internal stability and an extreme embarrassment in its relations abroad. Turkey has been plagued by report after report highlighting human rights violations by the Turkish security services; now, any analysis of the Kurdish question must be examined in the context of Kosovo - and Western policy in support of the rights of a people to self-determination. As a result, the next few months, and perhaps years, may prove to be the most significant period in the history of the Kurdish movement - and similar movements elsewhere. Rather than having defeated a separatist threat, Turkey now risks igniting a new more volatile situation, further alienating its Kurdish minority. In light of Kosovo - and Western support for the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) - there is now less ground than ever to condemn the PKK as a terrorist movement; moreover, a precedent exists by which to challenge Turkey's record on human rights in the international community. Unless significant concessions for the Kurds in Turkey are forthcoming, there may now be serious problems for the republic's immediate future that will threaten the stability of those countries on its borders and initiate a new wave of Kurdish terrorism. Turkey's "Kurdish problem" has been defined not only by the activities of the PKK but also by a Turkish policy that has resulted in hundreds of cases of "disappearances," extra-judicial killings, and the destruction of thousands of Kurdish villages in the southeast of the country. The "dirty war" for which Turkey has tried, convicted, and sentenced Ocalan has largely been one of its own making. The Turkish military has proven itself to be just as guilty - if not more so - as those Kurds who have reacted against a life of economic disadvantage and discrimination by identifying a feeling of self-worth and identity in the form of the Marxist-Leninist doctrine of the Kurdish national liberation movement. Even if a death sentence is commuted to a life sentence, Ocalan's imprisonment may simply prove to be yet another thorn in the side of a nation that has already imprisoned a more moderate Kurdish voice - Leyla Zana. On the other hand, execution will result in an unprecedented backlash that will weaken the country as never before. Opposed to such an outcome, the Council of Europe has already warned the Turkish government of the consequences that may follow if Ocalan is hanged. Indeed, many European and Turkish analysts, politicians, and organizations are warning of the potential for an escalation in PKK terrorist activity. The new leader of the PKK - Cemil Bayik -has also warned of an "unprecedented campaign of violence if Ocalan is executed." Although Ocalan may have been the central figure behind the PKK, even without his leadership the command structure of the organization remains; furthermore, faced with the reality that attempts to wage a successful guerilla war have failed, the PKK may see it more advantageous to instead embark upon a campaign of terrorism that it has so far been reluctant to follow. The main force behind that reluctance was Ocalan, and now that attempts to engage in a reasoned political dialogue have been rejected by Turkey, it will prove disastrous for Turkish state to create a martyr out of a figure that publicly declared he was willing to work for peace. Turkey should also remember that to date the PKK has not engaged in the sort of terrorist activity that afflicted it at the hands of organizations such as the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia and the Justice Commandos of the Armenian Genocide in the late seventies and early eighties. It should also remember that Kosovo is still fresh in the consciousness of the Western media. The Kurds - and the PKK - will now be looking for the same sort of concern in any Western policy regarding their situation. The scenes from Kosovo that were broadcast around the world are not too dissimilar from those that have been witnessed in the Kurdish regions of Turkey.
US policy and Kosovo After a US-driven policy in support of the Albanians in Yugoslavia - and with parallels already being drawn between Kosovo and the Kurds - the West may find itself already discredited and its integrity in doubt. As a result of Kurdish suspicions that there was an Israeli-American-Turkish axis involved in Ocalan's abduction from Kenya, the US government has already stepped up security at its representations and missions abroad. After a decade of arming Turkey in its fight against its own population, the United States must now be concerned with the risk of US military and political installations in Western Europe being targeted. Certainly, in Armenia the hostility among the hundreds of Yezidi Kurds who demonstrated outside the United States Embassy two days after the Ocalan verdict was far stronger than that exhibited outside of the United Nations offices. Largely peaceful demonstrations elsewhere in the world, however, hide a reality that as the date of any execution nears, tempers and actions may get more extreme. With little sign of any form of Kurdish reprisals so far, it may simply be that the Kurds are waiting for the process of appeal to end. Kurdish activities over the coming days and months are just as likely to affect the outcome of any appeal and the attitude of the Western media as any debate within Turkey. Politically, Turkey stands to lose more in the form of its international reputation than the Kurds, but there is also a possibility that small-scale demonstrations of power may remind Turkey and the United States that the Kurdish Question still remains unanswered, and that the implications for Turkey are great if it does not adopt a more rational policy towards a sizable minority. It may also prove to define Kurdish populations abroad as a more radical force than ever before, and in Armenia this is already proving the case.
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