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The Continuing Kurdish Problem in Turkey After Ocalan's Capture

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The Continuing Kurdish Problem in Turkey After Ocalan's Capture Third WorldQuarterly, Vol21, No 5, pp 8 49 – 869, 2000 Thecontinuing Kurdish problem in Turkeya fter O ¨ calan’s capture MICHAELM GUNTER ABSTRACT Turkey’s suddenand dramatic capture of Abdullah(Apo) O ¨ calan in Nairobi,Kenya on 16 February 1999, far from endingthe odyssey of the longtimeleader of the KurdistanWorkers Party ( PKK),has led to aprocess of continuingimplicit bargainingbetween the Turkish governmentand the PKK that holdsout the hopeof awin – win result for all the parties involved.Turkey’ s EU candidacy,future democratisationand economic success haveall become involvedwith the stay of O ¨ calan’s executionand the continuingKurdish problem. Far fromending the odysseyof the longtime leader ofthe KurdistanWorkers Party (PKK),Turkey’ s suddenand dramatic captureof Abdullah (Apo) O ¨ calan in Nairobi,Kenya on 16 February 1999 signalled awholenew beginning in the attempt to solve Turkey’s continuingKurdish problem. The purpose of this article is to analyse this evolvingsituation. 1 Despite his earlier reputationas aStalin-like, murderousterrorist, O ¨ calan, in retrospect, haddone more to re-establish asense ofKurdish sel f-esteem and nationalism in Turkey(and possibly elsewhere) thanany other Kurdish leader in recent years.This was aptly illustrated bythe dismay most Kurdsand their supportersthroughout the worldshowed upon hearing that hehad been appre- hendedby the Turkishauthorities. Inthe process O ¨ calan onceagain illustrated the oldadage that oneperson’ s freedom ghteris another’s terrorist, becauseto most Turks O¨ calan seemed benton destroying Turkey’ s territorial integrity throughterrorist methods. TheTurkish authorities arguethat their citizens ofKurdish ethnic heritage (whoprobably number as muchas 20%ofthe total populationin Turkey)enjoy full rights as Turkishcitizens andthat, therefore,there is noKurdishproblem in Turkey,only a terrorism problem.Since the mid-1970s, however,an increas- inglysigni cant proportionof Turkey’ s Kurdshas actively demandedcultural, linguistic, andpolitical rights qua Kurds.The government has ruthlessly sup- pressed these demandsfor fear theywould lead to the break-upof the state itself. This ofcial refusal to brookany moderate Kurdish opposition helped encourage extremism and,in August198 4,O ¨ calan launchedan insurgency that bythe end of1999 had resulted in morethan 3 1000deaths, as manyas 3000villages destroyed,and some 3000000 people internally displaced. MichaelM Gunteris attheDepartment of Political Science, Tennessee TechnologicalUniversity, Collegeof Arts andSciences, Box5175, Cookeville, TN 38505-0001,USA. E-mail: [email protected]. ISSN0143-6597 print; 1360-2241 online/ 00/050849-21 Ó 2000 ThirdWorld Quarterly 849 MICHAEL MGUNTER Domestically, the Kurdishproblem impedes the implementation ofdemocratic andhuman rights reforms,while harmingthe economythrough the expensesit involves.The Kurdish problem also limits Turkishforeign policy by giving foreignstates apowerfulopening with whichto pressure the country,while alienating the democratic West andEuropean Union (EU) Turkey has long aspired to join.Arguably, the Kurdishproblem has becomethe main sourceof political instability in Turkeyand the biggest challengeto its veryf uture. Fora short periodin the early 1990sO ¨ calan actually seemed close to achievinga certain degreeof military success. Inthe end,however, the over-extendedhimself, while the Turkishmilitary sparedno excesses in contain- inghim. Slowly but steadily, the Turksmarginalised the PKK’smilitary threat. O¨ calan’s ill-advised decision in August1995 to also attack MassoudBarzani’ s IraquiKurdistan Democratic Party in northernIraq, because of its supportfor Turkey,further sapped his strength.The nal blowcame whenTurkey threat- enedto goto waragainst Syria in October1998 unless Damascus expelled O¨ calan fromhis long-time sanctuaryin that country. After ashort surreptitious stay in Russia, Ocalanlanded in Italy on1 2 November1998, where for a brief periodit lookedlike hemight beable to turn his military defeat into apolitical victoryby havingthe EuropeanUnion try him andthus also try Turkey.But in the endUS pressure onbehalf of its NATO ally pressuredItaly andothers to reject O ¨ calan as aterrorist undeservingof political asylum ornegotiation. Indeed for years the USAhad given Turkey intelligence training andweapons to battle against whatit saw as the ‘bad’Kurds of Turkey, while ironically supportingthe ‘good’Kurds of Iraq against SaddamHussein. Forcedout of Italy on16 January 1999, O ¨ calan becamenot only a man withouta country,but one lacking even a place to land.During his nal hours offreedom, Russia, the Netherlandsand Switzerland all rejected him.Rather pathetically, O ¨ calan hadbecome like the ‘FlyingDutchman’ of legend, whose ship was condemnedto sail the seas until JudgmentDay. Desperate, O ¨ calan nally allowedthe Greeksto take him to their embassy in Nairobi,Kenya, where USintelligence agents had oodedinto the countryfollowing the USembassy bombingthere the previoussummer. The USA then provided Turkey with the technical intelligence to pinpointhis whereaboutsand capture him. 2 Duringthese nal hoursthe USAironically stoodby Turkey in part because the USAneeded Turkey as arunwayfor US planes to bombIraq in supportof the Iraqi Kurds.The USA had to giveits Turkishally somethingtangible like O¨ calan becauseat that verymoment Iraq’ s deputyprime minister, TariqAziz, was in Turkeyin afutile attempt to endTurkey’ s supportfor the USA.Given O¨ calan’s fate, the Iraqi Kurdsmust nowwonder how much longer the USAwill continueto supportthem onceSaddam Hussein is eliminated. O ¨ calan’s nal hoursof freedom illustrate againthe oldKurdish maxim: ‘the Kurdshave no friends’. Initial violence Against abackdropof Turkish national pride,O ¨ calan’s captureinitially led to a widespasm ofKurdish violence in Turkeyand Europe. Osman O ¨ calan, O¨ calan’s 850 THE CONTINUING KURDISH PROBLEM INTURKEY youngerbrother and a senior PKK commanderin his ownright, called upon Kurdsthroughout the worldto ‘extract aheavyprice from[the] Turkishstate for the conspiracyit has engagedin against ourleadership. Let norepresentative of [the] Turkishstate havepeace at home.’3 The PKK’ssixth congressauthorised its military arm,the Peoples LiberationArmy of Kurdistan ( ARGK)‘to wagea ght against this plot in the true spirit ofan Apo f edayee… byattacking all kinds ofenemy elements …to wagea warthat will makethe enemytremble …[and] to proceedincessantly with the serhildan [Kurdish intifadah]…bymerging it with the guerrillas.’4 InBerlin, Germany,Israeli guardskilled three Kurdsand wounded another 16 whenthey tried to storm the Israeli consulate.A groupcalling itself the ‘RevengeHawks of Apo’ killed 13people when it set re to acrowded departmentstore in Istanbul.Further protests occurredin London,Paris, Mar- seilles, Brussels, Copenhagen,The Hague, Strasbourg, Stockholm, Cologne, Bonn,Hamburg, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Hanover,Dusseldorf, Bern, Geneva, Mi- lan,Vienna, Leipzig, Moscow and Yerevan, among other locations. Despite variousreports ofa powerstruggle between‘ the PKK’s mountain [Middle East] cadres andits Europeanwing’ , 5 ora‘leadership struggle …being wagedamong [longtime numbertwo] Cemil Bayik,Osman O ¨ calan,and Mustafa Karasu’,6 the PKK quicklyrecon rmed Abdullah O ¨ calan as its president or generalsecretary andnamed a temporary10-member presidential councilto act forhim: Cemil Bayik,Osman O ¨ calan,Halil Atac,Mustafa Karasu,Riza Altun, DuranKalkan, Nizamettin Tas,Ali HaydarKaytan, Murat Karayilanand Nizamettin Ucan. 7 Althoughall 10appeared to bemilitants basedin the Middle East, howlong such a relatively large groupcould hold together remained unclear.Also uncertainwas the allegiance of PKK members in Europeto a leadership groupbased solely in the Middle East. Indeed,further initial reports suggested(erroneously it turnedout) that suchhigh-ranking European leaders as KaniYilmaz might evenhave been executed by the organisationfor having failed to nda sanctuaryfor Abdullah O ¨ calan while hewas in Europe. 8 These problemsand Abdullah O ¨ calan’s subsequentcalls to abandonthe armedstruggle andseek ademocratic republicnotwithstanding, the PKK continuedto maintain its unity. Turkish nationalelections Apparentlybene ting fromthe nationalist prideO ¨ calan’s capturehad elicited amongmany Turks, ultra-nationalist parties madea strongshowing in Turkey’s national parliamentary elections heldon 18 April 1999.Ecevit’ s nationalist but leftist Democratic LeftParty ( DSP)ran rst with some 22.6%of the vote,but the real surprise was the showingmade by the Devlet Bahceli’s extreme right National ActionParty ( MHP),which garnered 18.6% and came in second.In the previouselections the MHP hadnot even won enough votes to enter parliament. Now—in acoalition with Ecevit’s party—the MHP formedthe coreof the new government.On the otherhand, the Islamist Virtue Party andthe twomore moderateparties ofthe right—Mesut Yilmaz’s MotherlandParty ( ANAP) and TansuCiller’ s TruePath Party ( DYP)—all saw signicant declines in their vote 851 MICHAEL MGUNTER totals frombefore. The result was anultra-nationalist governmentwith a seeming mandateto try O ¨ calan quickly,execute him andthus successfully end the PKK’sstruggle.Instead, a completely different scenario was alreadyin progress. Initial violence ends Whenhe was rst captured,O ¨ calan,amazingly and not without some conster- nationamong his ownf ollowers,declared: ‘Ireally loveTurkey and the Turkish people.My motherwas Turkish.Sincerely, I will doall Icanto
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