Kurdistan - The Kurdish Worker's Party (PKK)

The Parta Kakerin Kurdestan (or PKK) got going in 1978, in Siverek. They started off a Marxist-Leninist organization fighting for independence or autonomy in what they rather wistfully call "northwestern Kurdistan," for which you can read "southeastern Turkey." Their top dog, Abdullah Ocalan, used to run the show out of a comfy house in Damascus. That was, until the Turks got really quite pissed with the Syrians and threatened to unload a whole few tons of bombs on them unless they changed their tune. The Syrians denied Ocalan was in Damascus and the next thing anyone knew, "Apo," as his followers call him, had rocked up in Italy. The Italians were a bit fazed, to say the least, to have Turkey's most wanted man on their doorstep. A few weeks later Apo was on the move, and nobody knew where. Reports surfaced of him in Russia, Armenia, Greece and then, as we all know Nairobi (see above).

"Apo" used to be seen on MED-TV (until it, like him, got closed down) which served as a platform for fans to listen his reasoned calls for dialogue with the Turkish government; or, depending on his mood, long-winded rants. An old-style Marxist, he has never really managed glasnost convincingly, though he has tuned down his demands for an independent state carved out of Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria. Autonomy, he says, is the goal of the PKK. Get stuffed, says the Turkish military.

It wasn't just the PKK, but quite a lot of Kurds who got just a bit upset by Apo's enforced departure from the scene. Europe was rocked by demonstrations, with young Kurds pouring petrol over themselves, and there was a wave of panic that it might all get out of hand.

In Turkey the PKK began a series of bomb attacks in the west of the country. Turkish tourism plummeted. Department stores were firebombed, suicide bombers blew themselves up in the middle of Istanbul and everyone began to get a little bit nervous. The PKK promised to start a whole new war in west Turkey with plastic explosive on the dining-out menu for most restaurants.

In the meantime, the kids with the guns are mainly being trained in northern Iraq. The PKK has several training camps in the Qandil Mountains near the border with Iran. Most of the PKK guerrillas are recruited in southeastern Turkey, but quite a few are now being recruited in northern Iraq. Next door to Qandil there is Hajji Omran-a vast mountainous area where Iran, Iraq and Turkey meet-which also serves as a major base for the PKK. Abdullah Ocalan's little brother, Osman, tends to hang out in Qandil but also has a house in Sulymanya. More recently Osman has been hanging out in Iran. You might like to know that Osman used to spend a fair amount of time on the old sat phone to big brother. How do we know? Because Turkish intelligence operatives spend their whole time in Sulymanya, listening to big brother and little brother chatting away. How do we know that? Ah, well, that is a secret.

Since poor old "Apo" started living in the new accommodation provided so kindly by the Turkish government the PKK has established a-hold your breath now-Presidential Council. This comprises Cemil Bayik, code-named Cuma, Murat Karrayillan, code-named Cemal, Osman Ocalan, code-named Ferhat, Duran Kalakan, code-named "Abbas" and . . . that's about all I can be bothered to list for the moment.

In southeastern Turkey the military have had a fair amount of success curbing the activities of the PKK, mainly because they've burned all the villages. Over 4,000 villages have been torched by the military in the southeast. When DP had a chat to some of the PKK guys in northern Iraq they said that there is only less fighting because the soldiers no longer come up into the mountains, so they don't shoot them. They insisted, though, that their forces are still alive and well and in control of the mountainous regions in south eastern Turkey. Hmmm. DP has its doubts.

In fact, the PKK is definitely on a military back foot. At its peak, between 1991-93, PKK guerrillas controlled large sections of southeastern Turkey. There were nightly gun battles in Cizre, Silopi, Nusayabin and numerous other towns dotted round the south east. Turkish soldiers were being sent back to the west of the country in boxes at an alarming rate. In Ankara alone as many as ten coffins a day would arrive containing bodies of recruits killed by the PKK.

Nowadays the fighting is more or less concentrated deep in the mountains. The chances of the PKK swooping down from the mountains in broad daylight-as they did in 1995-and snatching a gaggle of tourists foolishly traveling through the region are remote indeed. That said, the PKK have managed to hold some of the valleys in provinces such as Tunceli, Bingol and Van, despite the best efforts of the Turkish military. In Tunceli the PKK controls Kutu Deresi (Box Valley), a deep 30-kilometer-long gorge that the Turkish military have never managed to take. As DP goes to press the PKK have announced a cease-fire and a withdrawal of their forces from Turkey in a bid to open negotiations with the Turkish government. The Turkish military didn't care and have continued operations.

It still isn't a good time to go mountain hiking in southeastern Turkey.

Kurdistan Information Center

10 Glasshouse yard

London EC1

[44] (171) 250 1315

Fax: [44] (171) 250 1317

http:// www.kurdistan.org

American Kurdish Information Network

2623 Connecticut Ave., NW

Washington. DC 20008-1522

Tel: (202) 483-6444

Fax: (202) 483-6476

E-mail: akin@kurdish.org

Web site: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~akin