Kurdistan Workers' Party

File:KRD PKK.png

Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) Flag

The Kurdistan Workers Party (Kurdish: Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan or PKK), is an organisation originally structured on left wing (communist-socialist) ideology under the Kurd nationality (ethnic-seperationist) using force or violence and/or threat against noncombatants/combatants for the purpose of achieving it's political goal, on a scale smaller than full-scale warfare. 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. In 1996 the journalist Franz Schurmann called the PKK "the biggest guerrilla insurgency in the world".

Resource gathering

The organisation's budget has been estimated at $86 million USD.^[1] In addition to funding from governments such as Syria, Iran, and the former government of Iraq, the PKK is thought to have raised these funds by a variety of methods, both legal and illegal. As with many political parties, the PKK recieves a portion of its funding in the form of private donations, from both individuals and organizations from around the world. Parties and concerts are organized by branch groups, particularly in Europe. Additionally, it is believed that the PKK makes money through the sale of various publications, as well as recieving revenues from legitimate businesses owned by the organisation. On the other hand, it has been alleged that the group is involved in a range of illegal activities, varying from extortion (from locally based businesspeople and other individuals, and other wealthy Kurds around the world) to people and drug smuggling.

Activities

The PKK have participated in a variety of activities recognized as illegal; they've also borrowed some tactics used by terrorist or guerilla organizations. In addition to fomenting riots, protests, and demonstrations against the Turkish government, the PKK has also been accused of attacking Kurdish civilians who refused to cooperate with the PKK or were suspected of collaborating with the Turkish military. The PKK owes its continued existence to its ability to sustain itself while in hiding; they help do this by kidnapping western tourists, primarily in Istanbul but also at different resorts. They also conduct material raids on villages and small towns. The PKK have conducted bombing attacks (including suicide bombings) on government and police installations, as well as local tourist sites. They have also attacked Turkish diplomatic and commercial facilities across Western Europe. In addition to skirmishing with Turkish military and police forces, and the local Village guards the PKK have also been accused of violent attacks on civilians (Kurds and non-Kurds 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

Main article: History of the Kurdistan Workers Party

File:Abdullah öcalan.jpg

Abdullah Öcalan, founder of the PKK

The PKK's core was originally a group called the "Ankara Democratic Patriotic Association of Higher Education" or Apocus, which was made up largely of students, lead by Abdulluh Öcalan. Although originally from Ankara, the group soon moved its focus to south-east Turkey, and its large Kurdish population, where they began organising. With the official release of the "Proclamation of Independence of PKK" on 27 October, 1978, the group became known as the Kurdistan Workers Party. With its largely communist ideology, the PKK soon found itself in conflict with right-wing entities.

In 1979 Mehmet Celal Bucak was condemned for "exploiting the peasants," and "collaborating". The PKK attempted to assassinate him, but failed. This was the first violent public action taken by the PKK, and it marked a period of intense urban warfare between radical political elements in Turkey. From 1978 to 1982, the Turkish National Security Council recorded 43,000 incidents it described as terrorism. As part of the conflict, ex-prime minister Nihat Erim was assassinated in 1980. The military coup that same year largely ended the conflict, with members of the PKK going to prison, or fleeing to Syria.

Starting in 1984, the PKK transformed itself into a paramilitary organisation (largely based in and supported by Iran,Iraq and Syria), as it launched convential attacks as well as bombings against Turkish government, military and civilian targets, many of them connected to the Southeastern Anatolia Project. The PKK also moved to a less centralized format, taking up operations in a variety of European and Middle Eastern countries.

Following the collapse of the USSR, the PKK largely abandoned its communist roots, attempting to better accomodate Islamic beliefs. In the mid 1990s, they also began to shift from conventional bombing to suicide bombing, launching fifteen such attacks between 1995 and 1999. Interestingly, the majority (11 of 15) of the suicide bombers were women.

In 1999 Turkish authorities captured PKK leader Abdulluh Ocalan while he was being transferred by the Greek Embassy in Kenya to the local airport, in a joint operation between the CIA, Turkey's MIT, and Mossad. He was tried and sentenced to life inprisonment.

PKK supporters demonstrating in London (April 2003)

Following a call by the captured Ocallan for a peaceful solution, the PKK found itself blacklisted in many countries. Consequently, the PKK went through a series of name changes and implemented a unilateral truce, which ended in 2004. On 2 April of that year, the Council of the European Union added the PKK to its list of terrorist organisations. Later in 2004, the US Treasury moved to freeze assets of branches of the PKK.

See also: The full list of signatories to the Proclamation of Independence of PKK

Effects of PKK

The PKK is controversial at least; at its worst it has been classified as both a terrorist and a criminal organization. However, it cannot be denied that the PKK has had a far-reaching impact, particularly in Turkey.

Economy

	Human				Monetary
	Newspapers		Government			Newspapers
	Dead	Wounded	Dead	Wounded		Fully	Partially
Junior Officer	420	1027	�		Public Machinary/Transportation	262	238
Soldier	3024	6999	�		Outpost Buildings	9	80
Officer	220	527	�		Bridges	5	21
Total	3664	8553	4027	8676	School Buildings	114	127
Village Guard	1177	1823	1265	1725	Private Machinary/Transportation	278	346
Police	199	661	254	986	Public health clinics	6	8
Guardian	1	2			Derailing (Train)	45	40
					Post Office/Power Station/Mosque	112	193
Medical Doctor	2	4
Nurse	12	32
Prosecutor		2
Judge	1
Governer	119	90
Teacher	45	96	155
Imam		2
Muftu		1
Civial Servant	11	70
Engineer		4
Mayor	9	2
Child	508	660
Male	3439	4011
Female	519	803
Total	4466	5474	4561	5860
PKK(D/W)			18958	706
Grand Total	9706	16816	29065	17953

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, this data is avalible on the table right.

Regional Economy

File:GAP Region.jpg

G.A.P project area.

From regional economy perspective PKK's actions were targeted to stop the Southeastern Anatolia Project, known as G.A.P. It is important to recognize not just what has been destroyed in terms of rail roads, communication centers, etc. but also what could have been achieved if the dustruction was not happaned. There is another section Transboundry Freshwater Disbutes, that covers international dimensions of this topic.

Region's income is agriculture. In 1981 (Köy Envanter Edütleri), 8% of the families control the 50% of the land. 38% of the regions population do not own any land. 41% of the population has only 5 hectare or less land to farm. Direct farming subsidies was turnning into subsidy to the landlords that controls the 41% of the land. Land reforms during 1930's and 1950's did not reached to this region. Turkey took another method to deal with the powerty problem. It was dubbed as "Powerty Reduction Through Water Development". Initial stages of were developed after 1960's coup. At that time, it's name was "Southeastern Anatolia Development Project". Goverment subsidized the small scale business, such as poultry, with the economical structure of 1960s. Idea at that time was to enable other economic paths to the region. The current form of the project was developed during the 1970's Süleyman Demirel goverment which was visualized it as big scale hydro-electric and irrigation system. This way long seeked land problem can be solved by turning the land that was not fertile to system by irrigation. Plan aslo included improving the output of the land using the cheap energy coming from the dams. Turgut Ozal extended the economic and social dimensions of the project, when we came to 1980. During initial years of 1990's, project was among the 5 biggest planned projects of the world. You can read more under the G.A.P. page. An inportant note about the project is planned by the central goverment, which did not include wide range of local discussions, before 1990. During 1990ss there was a special T.V. channel assigned to the region, but most of the 1980's reaction to goverment shaped along the tribal lines was because of this misinformation.

The G.A.P had seen by PKK as harmful to Kurds and their villages. PKK percieved G.A.P as a method to eliminate its social base by increasing the income of the region. Higher income would have improved the support of impoverished people to the government. Irrigation was transforming the geography of area which these changes was obstructing PKK's free movement. PKK claimed that some of the dams in the system were designed to flood its path ways. Generally such development projects tend to move mountain people into planned urban areas. PKK was using this group as a camouflage. Turgut Özal's legacy of telecommunication was seen by PKK as elimination of its propaganda methods, and a way to inform millitary about their movements. New industries and farms would give a chance to young and bright people of the region a future besides the gerilla warfare. And most importantly, Turkey was building an infrastructure which will be utilized in a capitalist system to change the social sructure. This was totally odd to PKK's marksist-communist idealogy. Goverment was trying to modernize and westernize the region which these activities were percieved as part of longstanding determination to crush all expression of Kurdish identity. PKK had targeted GAP with sabotages and abductions of engineers, without the infrastructure (power lines, transportation, communication, irrigation channels etc) development stops.

Human Interest: Early 1990's. National headlines "Missing Factory, villagers were shocked." Villagers: Expecting to work at the factory but all the machinary dissapeared in a single night. Owener: PKK warned me, I tried to save my investment by moving to another region.

During the 1980's Turkey began to transfer massive amounts of money to G.A.P.. Dams were getting ready to function. A new road system was build to move the products. Three airports and two new universities opened in the region, though it was hard to find teachers because of security reasons. Goverment was constantly subsidizing the small business, but without the skilled people and security move the products, it was impossible to develop an industry. Also, idea of educating the local people so that they could have other options was failing. As commanly stated at that time "the most fundamental ingredient of development, full local participation, was missing". Goverment recognized that "local people feel powerless as they do not want or know nothing about the oppurtunities." Reality was local people was practically stuck in a gerilla warfare. Their imminent thought was security, not what the project was targetting. Under these conditiond, 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 a sign that project as planned during 1960-1993 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 work under inefficiency. Without the constant cash flow (periods of not working) these business cease to exit. This brought the migration from the region.
• Fights along the tribal lines increased the dependency of the people to the landlords.

Social & Education

Social Ethics

There are essential ingredients for a functional society. One of these is the ethics of the society. To function effectively, social ethics opens a path to relation among different segments of the society. Social ethics is a very delicate cencept, that can only be developed if the members of the society wants it. Societies fill it with other concepts, when the rules that govern the trust, communication, and future plan (social ethics) is eliminated. With the dimishing social ethics in the region, people adhares to relegious concepts.

Turkish government with the Ottoman experience has always valued to enhance the ingredients of the social ethics. The effective educational system, effective judicial system, effective financial support are the main ingredients to social ethics, as ability to communicate, ability to trust, and ability to plan for future is fabricated with these systems.

PKK’s second target in the region was education. The amount of teachers killed and schools destroyed is the proof of this. National education opens a way to have a common language among the different ethnical parts, students can come and experience a peaceful and productive environment shielded from real world problems (summer programs that helps kids to move across the country), and most important education gives a hope that people can change their life. We like it or not the truth is Abdullah Öcalan, like any other person with the Turkish nationality, finished the elementary, secondary education and found a chance to become a student of a political science department.

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

After 1980, Turkey had to come up with different organizational structures to deal with terrorism. Some of these are directed to PKK.

State of Emergency (OHAL) (1983)

Before this law, when a situation is created that local goverment did not prepared for, such as natural disasters and social unrest, Turkey was using direct military control. Under these conditions, all the decisions and actions were taken from the local goverment and local elected system and given to the highest military unit in that reagion. After 1980, it was apparent that goverment has to be prepared for the emergency conditions. With this law, Turkey shift to use a mixture of both normal and military system. It took 20 and more years to deal with emergencies without the massive organizational structure of military. 1983 State of Emergency Law gave a structure to goverment responses and a budget to keep that readyness. This law had been used during the first three days of 1999 eartquake. However, it was apperant after the third day that military has to be involved.

OHAL was passed in 1983, did not mean the military control (martial law) ended in Turkey. Most of the states have lifted their status before 1986. The rest of the states lost their military control; Bingöl, Elazığ, Tunceli, Şanlıurfa (19/03/1986) Van (19/03/1987) Diyarbakır, Mardin, Siirt (19/07/1987) with the respected dates.

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.

Reginal Governer of State of Emergency (1987)

The security section of the goverment was designed as a reactive entity. Even the OHAL was designed to cope with the aftermath of an emergency. In that respect, when it comes to dealing with terorism, Turkey was always late and uncordinated. Regional Governer of State of Emergency (1987) is added to 1983 OHAL law to define another structure for the southeast region. The main targets of this organization was to enable the coordination of the activities, ability to move information between the units and rapid action, among the OHAL states.

The government instead of coordinating the activities in the region from the capital, decided to leave some of its powers to a regional governing system.

Political/Justice

Terrorism Law(1991)

Aim is to bring coherence to a set of laws that has been used to deal with the terrorism. This set of laws was passed to define structure and organize the respond of the government, besides the rules of punishment. Before this law organized crime was handled within the individual sections of the criminal law that deals with the crime itself.

Terrorism law is very important in its spirit that Turkish government claimed that it will not deal with terrorism through military coups anymore and accepted the idea that terrorism will be part of the life in Turkey for a while. Terrorism law brought a specific set of regulations and implementation powers to deal with terrorist and their actions, which was handled unsatisfactorily with 1970, 1980 military coups. Turkish parliament with the experience of the coups and their inability to exterminate the sources of the terrorism, implemented the conditions that is used in coup times to its system.

International Politics

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.

Transboundry Freshwater Disbutes

• In 1975, unilater water developments came very close to provoking warfare along the Euphrates river. Syria give safe haven to PKK to stop water development projects.

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.

Immigration

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

Cyprus

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

Flags

• See Kurdistan Workers Party/Flags

See also

• Kurdistan
• Peshmerga

Footnotes

• ^ 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.

References

• Criss, Nur Bilge. (1995) "The Nature of PKK Terrorism in Turkey" from Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 8.
• White, Paul J. (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
• sehitlerolmez.com
• 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