Staying afloat

Kurdish Life, Wntr, 2002

Less than a week later, in a February 12th report captioned "Belgian senator: PKK has asked for a federal state," Turkish Daily News Brussels correspondent Selcuk Gultasi wrote the last thing Ankara wanted to read. He disclosed that a group of Belgian senators traveled to Iraqi Kurdistan where they met with Osman Ocalan, the brother of the PKK leader. Their spokesman gave this account of the meeting: "Belgian Senator Vincent Van Quickenborne told the Turkish Daily News that Osman Ocalan had indicated that they had changed their strategy and were now seeking a federal state for Turkey ... It now asks for a change in the structure of the Turkish state: to make it a federal state but not a confederal one." (2.12.02) Moreover, the senator said that "the PKK has abandoned its Marxist ideology and now dub themselves social democrats."

One day later, it was clear that this metamorphosis was not fortuitous. Star columnist Murat Celik reported that after meetings with supporters

in France and the Netherlands. PKK representative Riza Altun came away with these demands--on which further "sympathy" is contingent: "1. Any name change for the party should not be controversial; 2. PKK armed forces should be renamed "National Defense forces;" 3. There should be no backtracking on Kurdish demands for education in Kurdish or the inclusion of 'Kurd' on identity cards; 4. The use of the word 'Kurdistan' is to be avoided--for now. 5. The party should demand a general amnesty from Turkey, with the exception of that for Abdullah Ocalan." From these conditions Celik drew this conclusion: "The message of the PKK European representative is clear: Europe is dictating to the PKK what it is going to do; and if its conditions are not met, it will not support the organization as before. Europe is looking for a PKK without Ocalan." (Kurdistan Observer 2.13.02)

Necrotic on the battlefield, nonetheless PKK affiliates in Europe are alive and striving to bring themselves into mainstream Turkish politics and to bring EU pressure on Turkey to reform. Ocalan is another matter. His self-serving defense during his trial both denied and denigrated Kurdish aspirations. He was a hero, and deservedly so, for well nigh a decade, leading a fight against all odds and certainly against an insurmountable coalition that included not only Turkey, but the U.S., Europe, Israel, and Iraqi Kurds. Languishing since 1999 in prison on the island of Imrali, sadly he is a remnant of the man he once was. His devotees have clung to him like a child to a dead mother, more for what he represented in the past than what he became following his capture. To desert him was to somehow admit defeat. They didn't count on any of this. Nor could they know that U.S. policies in the wake of September 11th would attempt to tighten the noose around their necks. Yet irony of ironies, at the outset it was only the PKK that told the truth buried in every Kurdish heart, no matter where they live. The Kurdish people want an independent Kurdistan. They have every right to demand it. And they won't stop trying, no matter what their leaders say and do.