Osman Ocalan's Statement About the Arrest
In the name of Central Committee of Kurdistan Workers Part and Commanders
of People Liberation Army of Kurdistan (by Osman Ocalan)
This is our call to our people in The North Kurdistan, East
Kurdistan, South Kurdistan and (mini) South Kurdistan, to our people
in the metropolis and abroad, to all democratic forces and human
right organizations:
The October 9th international conspiracy aimed at our leadership has
reached a new dimension with the hijacking of our leader to Turkey.
First and foremost, the actions taken against our leadership are the
prime examples of international piracy; they are flagrant violation
of international law and basic humanitarian rules. The behavior of
countries that champion "human rights" visa vis the Turkish attacks
on our leadership is disgraceful.
Our peoples desire to express their longing for peace and freedom has
been blocked. Our leadership came to Europe to pursue peace. As the
leader of people threatened by genocide, people who have sacrificed
everything for an honorable and just existence, he extended the hand
of peace and asked that this hand be shaken. However, those who talk
of human rights and democracy have adamantly refused the hand of
peace, they have instead engaged in acts of piracy that violate all
norms of international law and humanity in the pursuit of our
leadership. Clearly, this conspiracy is directed at our people. This
is a conspiracy by imperialist forces sworn to deny our people the
right to live in freedom and peace they so deserve. The western
powers have demonstrated unequivocally that their petty interests
supersede the rights of people to live in peace and freedom. They
want us to submit to Turkish genocide machine, like the lambs in
slaughterhouse. The attacks on our leadership is a significant
element of genocide directed towards our people. Obviously our people
should react to this genocide. Freedom can be attained only through
struggle against the imperialist interests. Let it be clear: The
imperialists and the reactionary forces around the world has
sacrificed our peoples quest for peace and freedom to their dirty
interests. They desecrated all human values (for the sake of
Turkey).
What will be the response of our people? Without a doubt, the wishes
of imperialists and the reactionaries will not be realized. Kurdish
people, both inside the country and abroad, will intensify their
struggle for freedom as directed by our leadership. The hopes of
imperialists and reactionaries will be dashed. As for any people,
freedom is our birthright. Freedom from genocide is our natural
right. No one can take away this rights from us. No economic or
politic interest can justify infringement on our right to freedom and
peace. The imperialists are asking us to consent to genocide. What a
folly! The Kurds live for freedom, for honor and dignity. Let no
less be expected! Our people shall continue their struggle for
freedom under the leadership of Chairman APO. The life shall become
unbearable for the Turkish state. Our party, army and liberation
front will accomplish these objectives in the name of our people. We
will extract a heavy price from Turkish State for the act of piracy
against our leadership. Every Kurd, in particular, those living in
the country and the metropolis should take whatever action they deem
appropriate on this basis. They should employ all the means available
to them. We will not bow to enemy, we will only fight it.
The Kurds living abroad should not put themselves on fire, they
should put the enemy on fire. They should avoid the armed violence,
but use every legitimate avenue to defend their national rights and
the leadership. Let no one interfere with this struggle.
The US is extremely hostile to our people. We have refrained from any
hostile act against the United States. The more we refrained from
hostile acts against this country, the more intense American
hostility towards our people has became. The American authorities
has shamelessly justified the act of piracy by Turkey. All this in
pursuit of its dirty interests. The Zionist State of Israel, ever
concerned about its dirty interests, has joined Turkey in deny our
people their legitimate aspirations. Israel armed Turkish army and
cooperated with Turkey in all international matters. We wish not make
enemies with Israeli people. However, the harder we tried not to
make enemies with Israeli people, the more Israel served Turkey, a
criminal enterprise, in oppressing our people. In addition, Germany,
Italy, Russia and In particular Greece have taken part in the
conspiracy against our people. The Greek foreign minister, Mr.
Pangolos, has gone so far as to insult our people. Neither Greek
government, nor its representatives have any right to insult our
people; they may only apologies to our people for their misdeeds. The
threat (by Greek government) to hand over the Kurds in Greece to
Turkey just illustrates how bizarre this regime has become. Greeks
are honorable, trustworthy people; they appreciate friendship. They
will not be tools to misguided policies of Greek government. We call
on Greek people, Greek patriots and democratic forces in Greece to
stand tall against the present government's dark intentions.
Furthermore, we call on all forces taking part or providing support
for crimes against Kurdish nation to desist from this behavior. You
have over the centuries supported suppression of Kurds by the
Ottomans and later Turkey. Enough is enough. Take your hands off our
people. Do not force us to use our right to self defense!
We call on forces of democracy and peace and defenders of human
rights to stop their silent approval of slaughter of our people are
facing. We further call on them to stand against abduction of our
leadership by Turkey, a state best known for torture and murder. It
is basic requirement of being a human that you should raise your
voice against Turkish piracy. Be reminded that humanity is not about
material interest!
Only a neutral, international tribunal may try our leadership.
Turkish state has no right to judge our people or our leadership. The
only one to account for its actions is Turkey. Turkish State has
murdered hundreds of thousands of Kurds, expelled millions from their
lands and forced them into poverty. It is the Turkish state that
must account for its crimes. Neither our leadership, nor members of
our party and army, not even a single Kurd is accountable to Turkish
state. We insist that Turkey is account to our people for its crimes.
Our party is in unison with all its members and our army is in unison
with all its fighters. We are ready, able and willing to apply
directives our leadership fully. We will extract a heavy price from
Turkish state for the conspiracy it has engaged in against our
leadership. Let no representative of Turkish state have peace at
home. We call on our people in metropolis to act on this basis. We
call on our people to keep in mind that the only honorable life style
available to us, the Kurds is to fight for freedom.
The party central committee and army command ask that you be prepared
to act on this basis. Your actions should be intensified and
sustained. We reiterate that our leadership can not be asked to
account, only the barbaric Turkish state, the murderers state, may
account for its crimes. We will intensify and expand our war efforts,
taking all necessary actions against the Turkish state. The best way
to defend our leadership is to intensify our struggle, our war on
this basis.
Once again we call on our people in Europe to refrain from armed
violence, but use all legitimate tools available them to advance
Kurdish national rights. We reiterate that our party, army and
people will run to victory on chairman APO's road.
(Comite du Kurdistan)
----
KDP Press Release
Arrest Of Abdulla Ocalan By Turkey
Iraqi Kurdistan Feb. 18, 1999
The Politburo of the KDP is following, with great concern the
developing events connected to the arrest of Abdulla Ocalan and its
international and regional consequences.
It is not our wish to see any Kurd face such a fate. We hope that
this development will help to put an end to the violence and blood
shed and to bring about a peaceful and political settlement for the
Kurdish issue. We also hope for a fare and just trial.
This episode re emphasises the point that a political and democratic
solution for the Kurdish issue is the only way to establish
stability in the Middle East region and bring about prosperity and
peaceful coexistence for its nations.
KDP Politburo Spokesman
----
Protest catapult Kurds out of obscurity
February 18, 1999
By Ian Black
The Guardian
LONDON -- Kurds climbing on roofs, taking hostages, tussling with
police and occupying embassies across Europe on Tuesday threw an
unusually bright spotlight on this nation without a state.
Turkish attempts to track down Abdullah Ocalan, the fugitive
secretary-general of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, have
generated much heat - about terrorism, double standards, national
liberation and international law. There will be more as Ocalan tries
to use the dock of an Ankara military court as a platform to speak
out for his people.
Not since the mass flight of Iraqi Kurds from a vengeful Saddam
Hussein in the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War in 1991 has so much
attention been paid to a people who, in their famously self-pitying
but accurate phrase, have "no friends but the mountains."
Kurds are used to anonymity. Their numbers (between 20 million and 25
million) disputed, they have found it hard to impress their identity
on a world in which they are split by geography among five countries
and politically and economically marginalized within them.
But it is hard to imagine, with awareness of their unfulfilled
statehood heightened amid affirmations of the rights of minorities,
that the Kurds will sink again into the romantic, baggy-trousered
obscurity they once enjoyed.
Kurds are not an "imagined community," although their sense of
identity, unlike that, say, of the rebellious Albanian Kosovars, is
not based on unity of language or religion. The southern and northern
Kurdish dialects, Sorani and Kurmanji, are not mutually
understandable, although there are several million speakers of more
distantly related dialects, closer to Farsi, the language of Iran.
Most Kurds are Sunni Muslims, but many Turkish Kurds belong to the
heterodox Alevi sect.
Not surprisingly, this scattered people of warriors, nomads and small
farmers has never enjoyed national independence.
The concept was unthinkable in the Ottoman empire, where most lived
in "mountainous irrelevancy" from the 16th to the early 20th century.
The Kurds' best chance for freedom came in 1918, when President
Woodrow Wilson's support for self-determination redrew the map of the
post-Hapsburg and post-Ottoman world. But the British, French and
Turks, who all had their own ideas, defeated that proposal.
Tribal, regional and sectarian differences ensured that the Kurds,
known for their "irrepressible tendency for feuding," remained weak
and divided. British-ruled Iraq in the early 1920s provided the
Kurds' first guarantees of partial cultural freedom, a tradition
continued by the Arab nationalist and Baathist regimes that followed
the overthrow of the monarchy in 1958.
In Turkey, it was a different story from the start. Mustafa Kemal
Ataturk, father of the modern state, swept aside the Allied demands
for freedom of language and culture that had been written into the
Treaty of Lausanne. Then, as later, Turkey's political and strategic
importance (for containing the Soviet Union) overrode other
considerations.
In the chaotic interlude between the end of World War II and the
onset of the Cold War, Iranian Kurds set up the short-lived, Soviet-
backed Mahabad republic, only to see it quickly crushed by the
central government in Tehran. Afterward, under shah and ayatollah
alike, Iran effectively suppressed all Kurdish political aspirations.
Fragmented and weak, Kurds have been vulnerable to manipulation by
outside powers with far wider agendas in the 20th century.
But it is inside Turkey that the Kurdish struggle has been most
complex and costly, giving Ocalan his notoriety and reinforcing
hatreds and suspicions that have been exported to Germany and the
heart of Europe.
Turkey is enormously sensitive to these issues, accusing its critics
of being soft on terrorism. The PKK has routinely killed innocent
Kurds, especially alleged collaborators, as well as Turks. But for
their part, the Turks have largely ignored or underplayed well-
founded evidence of routine torture and other human rights abuses.
The country's military and security apparatus has succeeded,
crucially, in keeping violence out of the cities and convincing the
rest of the world that what happens in Diyarbakir, a mostly Kurdish
city, does not affect the stability of the state itself.
Turkey was winning its military war against the PKK before Ocalan was
captured, and his failure to find long-term refuge in Europe
testified eloquently to international wariness about harboring such a
hot potato.
But although Ocalan's capture could be a fatal blow to the PKK, it by
no means ends Turkey's Kurdish problem. The nation now may try to
isolate the PKK from moderate Kurds, although recent harassment of
members of the autonomist - and legal - Hadep party does not augur
well.
Turkey's success in getting its man may paradoxically now make it
easier for critics to drive home their concerns - the same ones that
lay behind the European Union's refusal to consider Turkey's
application for membership.
Kurds have lowered their expectations. Few, if any, now expect ever
to have their own 200,000 contiguous square miles of independent,
sovereign Kurdistan.
Ocalan used to mock the Iraqi Kurdish leaders, Mustafa Barzani and
Jalal Talabani, for their readiness to discuss autonomy with Saddam,
even meeting with the notorious "Chemical" Ali Hassan al-Majid, who
gassed the Kurds at Halabja in 1988.
But Ocalan himself moved away from his original vision of a Kurdish
state several years ago, settling instead for self-rule or cultural
rights for a national minority - far more relevant to the 3 million
Kurds living in Istanbul than a dream of a kingdom that regional and
international powers will never accept.
In that sense, little has changed this century. As a Manchester
Guardian editorial put it in 1925, just after the suppression of a
big Kurdish revolt: "The rising has been put down but its
consequences are still alive. Undisciplined tribesmen were not to be
expected to offer any serious resistance to a big-scale campaign. But
they remain in defeat Turkish citizens, and therefore, a Turkish
minority problem."
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