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Al-Ahram Weekly 12 - 18 August 1999 Issue No. 442 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 12 - 18 August 1999 Issue No. 442
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Books Features Travel Living Sports Time Out Chronicles People Cartoons Letters PKK swords into plowshares
By Gareth JenkinsThe Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) appeared to be in disarray last week following the call by its imprisoned leader, Abdullah Ocalan, for the organisation to abandon its 15-year armed struggle for independence and withdraw all of its militants from Turkish territory as of 1 September 1999.
A spokesperson for the PKK's political wing, the Europe-based Kurdistan National Liberation Front (ERNK), declared that the organisation would obey Ocalan's call. But there are signs of dissent among the approximately 8,000 militants of the PKK's armed wing, the Kurdistan People's Liberation Army (ARGK), in the mountains of southeast Turkey and in camps straddling the country's borders with Syria, Iraq and Iran, with ARGK field commanders reporting that many of their militants are reluctant to lay down their weapons without concessions from the Turkish authorities.
The Turkish government remains sceptical about Ocalan's announcement. "He is just trying to save his neck," said one Turkish official. "We'll wait and see what happens but there can be no concessions and no question of negotiating with terrorists."
Ocalan issued the call via his lawyers from the island of Imrali, 100 kilometres south of Istanbul, where he has been held since his abduction from Kenya on 15 February. Although he has previously announced -- and subsequently renounced -- cease-fires, it is the first time that Ocalan has called for a complete cessation of the fighting which has claimed over 30,000 lives since 1984.
In June, a State Security Court sentenced Ocalan to hang for treason and murder. Ocalan's lawyers demanded a retrial. Last week the Turkish Court of Appeal announced that it would examine the application on 7 October. But there is little doubt that it will uphold Ocalan's conviction.
Under Turkish law any death sentence must be approved by parliament before it can be implemented. Ocalan's appeal to the PKK to stop fighting appears calculated to try to persuade parliament either to commute his sentence to life imprisonment or delay, indefinitely, voting on whether or not to send him to the gallows.
Although most PKK members still regard Ocalan as their leader, day-to-day running of the organisation since his capture in February has been handled by a 22-member Leadership Council, which is dominated by hard-line Marxists from the ARGK. There is considerable tension among both the ARGK and the ERNK and leading ARGK field commanders, particularly Cemil Bayik and Abdullah Ocalan's younger brother, Osman Ocalan, who are now vying for overall leadership of the organisation.
Last week, Osman Ocalan expressed his support for his elder brother's call for an end to the armed campaign. "It is a strategic, not a tactical move," he told the pro-PKK television channel Medya TV. "From now on we should continue the struggle by political, diplomatic and economic means," he added.
But Cemil Bayik has been more cautious, instructing his commanders to suspend their operations only temporarily and withdraw into the mountains, defend themselves when attacked and await developments.
Sources close to the PKK report that the organisation is planning to hold a conference in northern Iraq to discuss its next move. There seems little doubt that the PKK will be divided. The only question is to what extent. Many of the ARGK commanders have spent years fighting in the mountains and are reluctant to subordinate themselves to the ERNK, whose members have been living in comparative luxury in Western Europe and who failed to find a refuge for Ocalan following his expulsion from Syria in October 1998.
Privately, some Turkish analysts are prepared to admit that they are more worried about a successful transformation of the PKK into a political organisation than they are about a continuation of the armed struggle.
"If they were to stop fighting then we would come under a lot more pressure from Europe and the US to grant greater cultural and language rights, perhaps even autonomy," said one Turkish analyst. "We have been lucky so far because the ERNK leadership has been incompetent and more interested in earning money from the drugs trade and fighting amongst themselves. But if Abdullah Ocalan is replaced by someone who is sophisticated enough to be able to mobilise public opinion, then we are in real trouble."
Others claim that Turkey's neighbours will never allow the PKK to abandon the armed struggle. Turkey has long claimed that the PKK enjoys considerable support from Syria, Iran, Iraq, Greece, Armenia and even Germany. In July Ankara responded to Iranian claims that Turkish forces had launched an armed incursion into Iranian territory by alleging that Tehran was actively supporting the PKK. Last week, although both sides appeared to be softening their rhetoric, Tehran had yet to release two Turkish soldiers seized during the alleged incursion and continued to insist that Ankara had attempted to destabilise the Iranian regime by instigating last month's student riots.
"The PKK is too useful for countries like Syria and Iran," said a high-ranking military source. "We have won the war with the PKK militarily but I expect the fighting to continue at a low level for years, maybe decades, to come. Our enemies won't give up such a useful card so easily."
