formed a political party. Their simple selfless goal was to obtain the God given
right of self-determination for the worthy Kurdish nation, which included out-
right independence from the Turkish mainstream government. The main leader for
this independence movement was a young political science student from the
Kurdish city of Urfa, named Abdullah Ocalan or Apo (Kurdish for Uncle). This
group of organizers were Marxist-Lenninst in ideology and adamantly stated that
the Kurds and Turks were separate people and hence forth, the Turkish military
force present in Kurdistan was a belligerent action of occupation of Kurdistan.
The P.K.K (Party Kereykarey Kurdistan or Kurdistan Workers Party) also called
for the abolishment of tribalism, feudalism, and the “slave-like dependence of
women.” A great amount of the P.K.K military force were female. The P.K.K also
believed the only way to attain freedom and independence were through violence,
much like the American and French revolution of mid 1700s.
To conceive the P.K.K as completely leftist is untrue, they have adapted the
Communist theme of ideology to counter-weight the Turkish entity as a NATO state,
so it is safe to assume that the P.K.K has chosen the Marxist path by default.
Similar to the American fore-fathers choosing a republic form of government to
resist the British form of government, and France choosing a parliamentary form
of government to overshadow the history of monarchical reign of France. This
might seem to be absurd, but not when you see a “democratic” Turkey that
espouses a contradictory nationalism and places signs everywhere in Kurdistan
that says, ” Proud is He who calls oneself a TURK” or ” A TURK is worth the
whole universe(Kendal).” So accordingly, underneath all the ideology and
propaganda of the Cold War, what you essentially have is two combating
nationalisms.
The 1980 coup mentioned earlier pretty much halted all of P.K.K’s political
activities and other similar left-wing organizations. But the P.K.K’s political
politburo immediately regrouped in Syria and Lebanon. With help from some
neighboring countries, the P.K.K was able to launch small raids into Turkey in
1984. After the attacks grew in strength and number, the Turkish government
became seriously alarmed. The P.K.K was as violent as it advertised, many times
killing Kurds collaborating with the Turkish government. This didn’t raise their
popularity with the local populous. But, one thing they did accomplish was that
no other party or group in Turkey ever did, was the recognition of a Kurdish
problem in Turkey and a recognition of a Kurdish people in Turkey (Gunter). Thus,
the Kurdish situation was brought out to the international arena for the whole
world to witness the ever dynamic predicament in Northern Kurdistan. The Kurds
went from “Mountain Turks” to a “Kurdish reality in Turkey.” The Turkish army
then extended martial law to thirteen provinces in Eastern Turkey. The Turkish
army chief of staff admitted that “condition of war…exists in southeast
Turkey(Smyth).”
The P.K.K then began to adopt a less hostile attitude towards the civilian
population, realizing they can not operate without the help of the people. While
the P.K.K ceased to attack civilians, the Turkish army’s attitude towards
Kurdish civilians took an even harsher tone. What happened in the days of
Attaturk, were being implemented once again. It was like the situation was
dorment for forty-five years, and once again it came back to live. Amnesty
intentional reported the wholesale arrest and torture of Kurds in all parts of
Turkey. The entire village of Sirnak, population 25,000, was demolished and it’s
inhabitants forced to flee(Pilger). In all the Turkish army has destroyed an
estimated 1,700 Kurdish villages and towns(Montalbano). The P.K.K has
successfully begun to infiltrate larger cities and organizing merchant strikes
and mass protest against the Turkish government. The Turkish army and secret
police reacted by covert assassinations and “death squads” that killed anyone
that was even remotely linked to the P.K.K. These death squads have even killed
journalists who have reported the Turkish atrocities in Northern Kurdistan.
Turkey has the highest death rate for journalists in the world, even exceeding
Bosnia and Tadjikistan. Many pro-Kurdish politicians and human rights activists
have been killed, causing mass protest from the Kurdish population, even the
protest control police open fire on unarmed civilian protesters, killing
hundreds of men, women, seniors, and children indiscrimenantly(Kendal). The
state sanctioned DEP (People’s Democratic Party), a legal political entity was
forcibly closed down after their top political representatives were mysteriously
assassinated, their newspaper affiliates (Ozgur Daily) bombed, and it’s
parliamentarians arrested. All of these went against the established Turkish
constitutional laws. The lifting of Parliamentary immunity is a direct violation,
but when it comes to using illegal laws against Kurdish civilians there are no
limits.
Needless to say, the brutal and genocidal acts of the Turkish government have
only fanned the flare of the Kurdish drive for independence. In some parts of
Turkey, over ninety percent of the people support the P.K.K(Marks). When the
people see the government burning their houses, farms, and family members how
can one really support the establishment? How can the people believe the
government when they have publicly broken parliamentary laws by arresting
Kurdish parliamentary members for speaking Kurdish? The people has two choices,
the foreign occupiers or their sons, brothers, daughters, sisters, or fathers.
In response to the “ethnic cleansing” and martial law, the Turkish government
has also stationed over 450,000 troops in the area, backed by US made modern
tanks, Apache helicopters, Super Cobra helicopters, F-16 fighter jets, and
50,000 elite contra-rebels in the Kurdish region. Many generals in the armed
forces have openly talked about using chemical weapons on the Kurds (Turkey used
chemical weapons on the Kurds in the 1930s, British used it in the 1920s, and
Saddam Hussien used it in 1988)(Kendal).
Turkey has went as far as raiding Iraqi Kurdistan with the air planes given to
them by the US. As recently as March 20, 1995, Turkey invaded Iraqi Kurdistan.
They said the invation was to search for and destroy the P.K.K, but in actuality
the army couldn’t fight the P.K.K. The 35,000 invading force did little more
then destroying civilian villages, killing civilian Kurds, and ruining farm
crops. UNHCR (United Nations Higher Commission for Refugees) reported that
10,000 Turkish Kurds, who escaped Turkey’s systematic burning and destroying
Kurdish villages were forcibly detained and forced to return to Turkey. The
whereabouts of the refugees are unknown; knowning the Turkish track record,
their hopes are dismal.
Abdullah Ocalan
It now appears that the P.K.K has ascertained itself as the voice of the Kurdish
people, after seventy years of unrelenting oppression. The P.K.K’s unequivical
insistence of independence is rebuffed by Ankara, who state that everyone in
Turkey is equal and there are no room for minorities in Turkey. The army, an
organization who operates independently from the political wing of Turkey, will
not even placate a hint of even a form of diminutive local autonomy for the
Kurdish people. The P.K.K is exhibiting, and for their part proving to the
Kurdish masses that their violent way is the only avenue for any form of Kurdish
independence. Since the creation of the irredentent Turkish state the Kurds have
not received anything more then a tombstone with a forced Turkish surname. The
P.K.K has given 15,000 martyrs in the span of eleven years (Marcus), the army
has massacred more then 1,500,000 in the span of sixty years , more the 1,500
villages destroyed, every form of Kurdish identity denied, and their politicians
and journalists killed by secret police. After all it is the US constitution
that has written:
” When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to
dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to
assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which
the laws of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of
mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the
separation…..whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these
ends, it is the right of the people to alter it, or to abolish it, and to
institute a new government..”
It is the very example the United States has set, that the Kurdish people
wants to declare their independence. For, the only thing different between the
Kurdish revolution and the U.S one, is only two hundred and nine years. All
oppressions are bad, all occupations are wrong, every nation has the right to
decide their own fate.