Kurdistan Workers' Party

The Kurdistan Workers Party (Kurdish: Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan or PKK), is an armed anti-goverment organisation claiming to defend the rights of the Kurdish people in Turkey. Its main objective is the creation of an independent Kurdish state in Kurdistan, a territory that is currently southeastern Turkey, northeastern Iraq, northeastern Syria and northwestern Iran. It arose from a radical youth movement in Turkey and was founded in 1973 by Abdullah Öcalan. It operated informally until 1978 when it proclaimed itself a revolutionary communist movement following a Marxist-Leninist doctrine, though since then it has abandoned much of its leftist doctrine. In 2002, the party renamed itself to KADEK, and then in 2004 to Kongra-Gel (Kurdistan People's Congress). In 2005 the party reverted back to its original name, PKK.

The PKK is a controversial group with supporters and opponents around the world. In its campaign for Kurdish independence, the organisation has been accused of atrocities against both Turkish and Kurdish civilians. The party is characterised as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the European Union, the United States, Iran and several other countries, and its actions are sometimes criticised by human rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. The same organisations and governments criticise the Turkish government in its campaign to suppress the organisation, alleging serious atrocities.

Resource gathering

The organisation's budget has been estimated at $86 million USD.^[1] It is thought to have raised funds by:

• Parties and concerts organized by branch groups in Europe
• Donations from individuals and organizations throughout Europe and around the world.
• Sales of publications.
• Aid from governments such as Syria, Iran, and the former government of Iraq.
• Extortion of money from local business owners and individuals, including an alleged tax on rich Kurdish businessmen around the world.
• Revenues from legitimate businesses owned by the organisation.
• Alleged people and drug smuggling.

Activities

Actions that the PKK has been accused of include:

• Bombing (suicide and otherwise) of local government and police installations, and tourist sites.
• Raiding villages and small towns.
• Kidnapping Western tourists, primarily in Istanbul and at Turkish seaside resorts.
• Conducting attacks on Turkish diplomatic and commercial facilities across Western Europe
• Attacking Kurdish civilians who would not cooperate with the group or were alleged of collaborating with the Turkish military.
• Raiding villages and small towns.
• Riots, protests, and demonstrations.
• Attacking Turkish military and police forces, local Village guards and civilians (non-Kurdish, Kurdish alike).

Tactics

The areas in which the group operates are generally mountainous rural areas and dense urban areas. The mountainous terrain offers an advantage to members of the PKK by allowing them to hide in a network of caves and making military air operations, especially helicopter use, hazardous for the Turkish government. While in urban areas, PKK members are often able to blend in with the local population.

The group has been accused of planting mines (Russian-made anti-vehicle mines and Russian- and Italian-made anti-personnel mines. Use of these mines has led to civilian deaths, in part due to triggering by trucks and buses rather than the intended military armoured vehicles.

History

PKK's life extends more than three decades. Unlike many other organizations from 1970's PKK's ability to evolve and adapt is the reason for its survival. To understand PKK, one has to understand its development stages and its relation to regional politics.

Context

• Develop Terrorism in Turkey: The freedom movement that had began in the last quarter of 1960's and its evolution to organizations that chooses terrorism as a social change.
• Develop economy of the region: T.C. inability to move the "land reform" to the region. Inability to industrialize the region.
• Develop repeating history: Social and economic problems that happened during the Ottoman area repeat itself in that region.
• Develop the effect of regional powers: Cold War politics of Russian and Syrian secret services. Dissemination of revolutionary ideology through these services by education, training and management of the organizations in the region that seeking solutions for their problems.
• Develop Öcalan's history: How his Political vision developed. Activities that he was involved in making a name among the communist organizations.

Apocular (1974-1978)

• Core organization was formed with 16 members in Ankara. Today only Öcalan is alive. Some of the core members were killed in conflicts within the organization.
• "APOCUS" Ankara Democratic Patriotic Association of Higher Education.
• Öcalan decides that there is a better base among the Kurds in the south east to accept the ideas of communist ideology. He works in the region to build structure of the organization during tha last two years of this period. During this time he and his friends were called as "APOcular".
• In 10/27/1978 the Kurdistan Workers Party, PKK, was established by Abdullah Öcalan. The primary objective in the doctrine document was to foster a communist revolution in Turkey.

Urban War (1978-1980)

• Between 1978-1979 PKK attacked on groups that PKK perceived as "fascist", and Turkey found itself between right- and left-wing armed conflicts.
• First activity was a violent campaign against perceived state collaborators, and Kurdish tribes that had historically coexisted peacefully with the government. In 1979 Mehmet Celal Bucak was condemned for "exploiting the peasants," and "collaborating". PKK attempted to assassinate him, but failed.
• From 1978 to 1982, the Turkish National Security Council recorded approximately 43,000 incidents of what it describes as terrorism.
• By the early 1980s, the group had murdered about 240 people.
• Most of the PKK's members were captured and put into military trials that lasted three years.
• The captured members build the initial prison resistance organisation. This organisation had become famous for the hunger strikes.. They had guns, telephones and training camps in the cells.
• Öcalan leaves the country before the coup.

Syria (1980-1984)

• In early 1980s consolidated resources and power base.
• PKK fled Turkey and established training camps in the Bekaa valley, part of ex-Syrian-controlled Lebanon.
• In 1982, the PKK's second congress of August 20-25 was held in Lebanon's Ayn alHulwah region. This is the begining of the second stage of activities to establish control of the heavily Kurdish-populated region in southeastern Turkey.

Paramilitary I (1984-1993)

• In 1984 the organisation started its Paramilitary activities directed towards the Turkish military and Governmental institutes as well as civilian targets throughout Turkey
• From 1986 to 1987, Turkish Air Force raided PKK camps in northern Iraq in with the approval of the then Iraqi government under president Saddam Hussein.
• Kurdish National Liberation Front (ERNK) was found in 1985. From that group the Kurdistan Popular Liberation Army (ARGK) was formed. ARGK was militarily more effective than ERNK and ARGK came to function as military operations and ERNK became the organisation's front bureau.
• The organisation's all-time high of activity was during the Gulf War when Turkey opened its Iraqi border allowing Kurdish and Iraqi refugees, including PKK members to flee from the Saddam regime.
• Two major operations were launched one at the end of 1992 and other in March 1995, were launched against the PKK, Some 1,912 PKK members died and 132 were captured alive during the ground actions of Operation Steel which was carried out by the Turkish Army in northern Iraq in May 1997. Some 965 PKK members were killed during the air raids. A total of 113 Turkish officers and soldiers were killed and 325 injured during this operation.
• Early 1990s president Hafez Assad of Syria was to cooperate on the management of water flow from the Southeastern Anatolia Project. During this period the PKK started attacking the infrastructure and personnel of the Southeastern Anatolia Project.

Paramilitary II (1993-1995)

• Beginning in 1993, PKK members launched attacks from Iranian soil.
• Later in 1993, the PKK launched coordinated attacks involving firebombs and vandalism on Turkish diplomatic and commercial offices in six West European countries.
• In 1994, the political party associated with the PKK, Democracy Party, was banned from operating as a political institution. Some members, most prominently Leyla Zana, were arrested and charged with treason and membership in the PKK but were released 10 years later in 2004.
• The organisation amended/abandoned its communist secular ideology to better accommodate and accept Islamic beliefs and also abandoned its previous strategy of attacking Kurdish civilians, focusing instead on governmental and tourist targets.
• International Politics began to discuss about a new state on North Iraq (Iraq Federation).
• Iraq-Turkey border was cleaned from population (3000 residential units forceably evacuated). Thermal cameras were located on the border.
• One year the military spent $8,000,000,000 on its activities.

Paramilitary III (1996-1999)

• At the end of 1996, in PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan signed a protocol of cooperation with the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C).
• Over the year 1997, the Turkish Army put out of action 3,302 PKK operatives, among which 484 were captured, 415 surrendered, and 303 arrested, in various operations including those in northern Iraq. During the same period, security forces lost 192 soldiers and 95 others were wounded; in addition, 49 village guards were killed and 14 wounded.
• March 1997 North Iraq military activity costs $300 million

Trial (1999)

File:Ocalan right after capture.jpg

Abdullah Öcalan right after capture.

File:Frankfurd PKK protests after the capture of PKK leader.jpg

PKK supporters demonstrating after the capture of Abdullah Öcalan in Frankfurt, Germany (16 February 1999)

• On November 14, 1999, Abdullah Öcalan arrived in Rome, Italy accompanied by Ramon Mantovani, a member of the Communist Refoundation Party, from Moscow. Its arrival was a suprise to the Italian government, which had not been notified, and an international crisis began, especially with Turkey. After many rallies in Rome by Kurds, and a wave of sympathy for a people that many did not know of, the government of Massimo D'Alema was not yet able to take a clear stance on Öcalan's status as a refugee or as an international terrorist. Finally, Öcalan was allowed to leave the country, without revealing his destination, thereby releasing the Italian government from an embarassing situation.
• In 1999 Turkish authorities captured PKK leader while being transferred by the Greek Embassy in Kenya to the local airport, in a joint operation between the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Turkish National Intelligence Agency (MIT), and Israeli Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks agency (Mossad). Abdullah Öcalan in Kenya in early 1999.

• Öcalan is in prision for his criminal actiities. In 2002 the Turkish government ammended certain laws to be more compatible with the European legal system. Most notably abolition of the death penalty, although was not practiced since 1984, spared the life of Abdullah Öcalan.

Termination (1999-2002)

• In August 1999, after his capture Öcalan announced his second peace initiative, ordering members to refrain from violence and requesting dialogue with the government of Turkey on all issues. However, before the ink on his court case dried, multiple riots broke out throughout the world near Turkish diplomatic facilities (UK Riot police at London demo and Kurdish protests turn deadly).

Most of the countries that PKK was operating began to put PKK in their black list.. In 2002 PKK terminates itself. The same organisational group forms a new party with the name of Kürdistan Demokratik ve Özgürlük Kongresi KADEK. Turkey claims that this organsation is the same as PKK and should be treated as such.

The PKK now (2002-)

PKK supporters demonstrating in London (April 2003)

• From 11 November, 2003 to 4 April, 2005 the organisation changed name and operated under the banner of KGK (KONGRA-GEL). In 2004 the armed wing of PKK, HPG (People's Forces of Defence) announced that they ended the unilateral truce they had sustained since the time of Öcalan's capture.
• On 2 April, 2004 The Council of the European Union (the 15 EU governments) decided to update the European Union list of terrorist organisations to include Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) (aka. KADEK). Later ammended to include KDK (KONGRA-GEL). This also applies to all and any members joining the EU.
• On 2 April, 2002 to 11 November 2003, same day as the European Union list of terrorist update, the organisation changed name and operated under the banner of KADEK (Kurdistan Freedom and Democracy Congress)
• Later in 2004 US Treasury has amended its regulations to include all the aliases and off-shoots of PKK in its sanctions list maintained by OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control). The list aims at blocking terrorist property. The organisations currently listed under the PKK aliases item include KADEK (Congress for Freedom and Democracy in Kurdistan), KONGRA-GEL, HSK, KHK and PKK. The organisation also is on the U.S. State Department list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.
• On 4 April, 2005: Organisation changed name and still operating under the banner of PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party)

Since the declaration of cease-fire on August 2004, aside from a few isolated incidents armed conflict came to a complete halt. Recently however there is an inclrease on PKK activity. There is an increase in PKK attacks on Turkish military, police, and governmental targets near the Iraqi border in the last weeks. While PKK claims it is only acting in self-defense, Ankara is increasing her pressure to the US for a millitary strike to the PKK in northern Iraq.

With the end of its unilateral cease-fire in August 2004 (the cease-fire had lasted for five years), on the claims that Ankara's reforms are "cosmetic", PKK leaders seem to favour a return to armed guerilla warfare. A great increase in PKK attacks on Turkish military, police and governmental targets seem to further prove this fact. The PKK claims it is only acting in self-defense and for the protection for the Kurds. Meanwhile, the leader of the PKK, Abdullah Öcalan, has recently released the Declaration of Democratic Confederalism in Kurdistan [2].

Since his arrest in 1999, Öcalan had been campaigning for a peaceful solution to the Kurdish conflict inside the borders of Turkey, and in this document he asks for a border free confederation between the Kurdish pieces of Turkey (called North Kurdistan by Kurdish nationalists), Syria (West Kurdistan), Iraq (South Kurdistan) and Iran (East Kurdistan). In this zone, three bodies of law would be implemented: EU law, Turkish/Syrian/Iraqi/Iranian law and Kurdish law

Effects of PKK

The means to political aims of PKK is totally at odds with the concept of civilization. PKK’s acts and methods utilize to coerce others from a free choice and full participation in the political process. It undermined the government in the country; it influenced ideological and political factors in order to impose its own model. It changed the life in Turkey so drastically that its implications will be here to come in the coming years. The effects of the means will be summurized under these headings.

Economy

According to the Turkish Government, from 1984 through November 1997, 26,532 PKK members, 5,185 security force members, and 5,209 civilians lost their lives in the fighting. The damage to infrastructure and the money spent to end the conflict is claimed by the Turkish government to stand at 200 billion ($200,000,000,000) US dollars. Another study which was performed through analysis of news articles on national newspapers between 19.07.1987 - 31.05.2001 shows the data tabulated here:

Human	Dead	Wounded		Monetary	Fully	Partially
Junior Officer	420	1027		Public Machinary/Transportation	262	238
Soldier	3024	6999		Outpost Buildings	9	80
Officer	220	527		Bridges	5	21
Village Guard	1177	1823		School Buildings	114	127
Police	199	661		Private Machinary/Transportation	278	346
Guardian	1	2		Sağlık Ocağı	6	8
Medical Doctor	2	4		Tren Vagonu	45	40
Nurse	12	32		Post Office/Power Station/Mosque	112	193
Prosecutor	0	2
Judge	1	0
governer	119	90
Teacher	45	96
İmam	0	2
Müftü	0	1
Mayor	9	2
Civial Servant	11	70
Engineer	0	4
Child	508	660
Male	3439	4011
Female	519	803
Total	9706	16816

Reginal Economy(Feudal System)

• Industrialization was seen as a way to move from land based economy in the region. Infrastructure in the region was targeted by the PKK, without the infrastructure (power lines, transportation, communication, etc) development stops.
• Fights along the tribal lines increased the dependency of the people to the landlords.

Southeastern Anatolia Project

The Southeastern Anatolia Project, seen by some as harmful to Kurds and their villages, has been a target for sabotage by the PKK, including abductions of engineers.

• Turkey stop the funding of the project during 1993 as the numbers on protecting the investments was more than transfers to the projects.
• With the 21th century goverment subsidy is replaced with international projects. This is the sign that project is effectively terminated by PKK

Work Force

• PKK's policy of public uprising had changed the priorities of the people in the region. Instead of seeking higher levels of self achievements, they were concentared on the security issues.
• With the disruptions of continuity of the economy, people had to find other means of earning their life. Small scale business can not inefficiency. This brought the migration from the region.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

• It is estimated by an veterans organisation that during the conflict Turkish Military used two million soldiers for the operations against the PKK. This number does not specify the active engagement and it is only rough estimate that also includes the logistic and other functions.
• There is no specific number for the clinically diagnosed and treated patients, both from the Turkish Military and the PKK and Kurdish civilians.

Administrative/Political/Justice

Village guards (1985)

First: 26/3/1985 Renewed: 7/2/1990

• This policy supports the (financially and ammunition) villages to have their own security personal as Turkey was unable to protect the residential areas in the region. The law is established such a way that these guards were selected through the village elders and they are responsible to goverment in their action.

Olağanüstü Hal (1987)

Coordination of the activities, ability to move information between the organizations and rapid action were the main targets of this organization. The government instead of coordinating the activities in the region from the center, decided to leave some of its powers to a regional governing system. This was the begining of the OHAL.

Energy

• PKK was used as a bargaining chip for the pipelines
• (01.10.1993) Mobil stops the search activities in the region, citing the security.

EU

• PKK was used by EU as a reason for rejection of Turkey's bid (1990). There is a unsubstantiated belief among Turks that EU will use PKK to reject the membership during the .
• During the capture of Ocalan, Turkish system (all the branches) decided to perform every activity even if means end of Turkey's EU bid. There was a report about discussions in the security council for an operation in Italy.

Cyprus

• Cyprus Turks were used as an example to Kurds in Turkey.

Immigration

PKK developed a mechanism to help their members to gain political asylum.

Abdullah Öcalan

Main article: Abdullah Öcalan

Abdullah Öcalan (b. 1948) is the leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party and was captured in Kenya in early 1999 in a joint operation between the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Turkish National Intelligence Agency (MIT), and Israeli Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks agency (Mossad).

File:Abdullah öcalan.jpg

Abdullah Öcalan

Flags

After the name changes.

File:KRD PKK.png Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) Flag File:Kadek flag.jpg Congress for Freedom and Democracy in Kurdistan (KADEK) Flag File:Kongra-gel flag.jpg Kongra-gel Flag

Sub organization flags

File:Ernk.jpg Kurdistan National Liberation Front (ERNK) Flag (Political wing of PKK) File:PJAK-AL.jpg Free Life Party of Kurdistan Flag (PJAK - Partiya Jiyana Azad a Kurdistanê) File:PJA.jpg Freedom Party of Kurdistan's Women (PAJK - Partiya Azadiya Jin a Kurdistan) File:Krd^ark2.gif People's Defence Forces (HPG - Heza Parastina Gel)

See also

• Kurdistan
• Peshmerga

Sources

• ^ Section based on the article by Nur Bilge Criss, 'The Nature of PKK Terrorism in Turkey', Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 8 (1995) pp. 17-37
• ^ Section based on material published by the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs unless specified otherwise.
• Paul J White (2000), Primitive Rebels or Revolutionary Modernizers? The Kurdish Nationalist Movement in Turkey, Zed Books

External links

Websites supporting the PKK

• Freedom for Abdullah Öcalan - Peace in Kurdistan (www.freedom-for-ocalan.com)
• PKK - Kurdistan Worker's Party (Official PKK site) (www.pkk.org)
• Kurdistan People's Congress (www.kongra-gel.com)
• American Kurdish Information Network (AKIN) (www.kurdistan.org) - The PKK: Freedom Fighters or Terrorists?
• DozaMe.org - A news provider that covers the struggle of the KONGRA-GEL (English)

Kurdish issue in Turkey

• Amnesty International - facts
• Turkish Web journal - facts
• German Newspaper - facts
• Kurdish Media - opinion and facts
• Cemil Bayik interview from 1996 - opinion

PKK - Kurdish issue links

• Hezen Parastina Gel - The People's Defence Force
• Abdullah Öcalan's Declaration of Democratic Confederalism
• PKK goes back to old name

Websites with criticism of the PKK

governmental:

• US Department of State (www.state.gov) - General Info
• United States Department of the Tresury (www.treas.gov) - Office of Foreign Assets Control
• Foreign & Commonwealth Office Home (www.fco.gov.uk) - Kurdistan Workers' Party (Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan) (PKK)
• www.teror.gen.tr - KADEK/PKK profile, structure, and relations

Non-governmental:

• ICT - Terrorism & Counter-Terrorism (www.ict.org.il) - List of abduction of foreigners by the PKK
• ICT - Terrorism & Counter-Terrorism (www.ict.org.il) - Attack Histogram, from Apr 1, 1988 to Jul 24, 1999
• Terrorism: Questions & Answers (cfrterrorism.org) - Kurdistan Workers’ Party: Turkey, separatists
• Assembly of Turkish American Associations (www.ataa.org) - A Case Study of the PKK in Turkey, by Foundation for Middle East and Balkan Studies
• Assembly of Turkish American Associations (www.ataa.org) - Kurds, by Goltz - Politics and Comment - Los Angeles Times February 28, 1999
• Terrorism101.org: Learn About Terrorism (www.terrorism101.org) - Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)
• MIPT Terrorism knowledge base (www.tkb.org) - Kurdistan Workers' Party
• Global Security (www.globalsecurity.org) - Kongra-Gel/Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)
• No security without human rights - Amnesty International (www.amnesty.org)

Other websites that cover the Turkey/PKK conflict

• Federation of American Scientists (www.fas.org) - Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)
• Turkey: "Still Critical": Summary - Human Rights Watch (www.hrw.org)
• Avoiding Past Patterns of Violation - Human Rights Watch (www.hrw.org)
• Univ. of Utah, Econ Archive (archives.econ.utah.edu) - In Kurdish Turkey, a New Enemy, by Karl Vick of the Washington Post Foreign Service