THE KURDISH QUESTION

February 17, 1999
		The capture of Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan by Turkish intelligence sparked pro-Kurdish demonstrations and violence in Europe and elsewhere. Three experts discuss the controversy surrounding Ocalan's arrest with Elizabeth Farnsworth.

Feb. 16, 1999: Confrontations with Iraq continue. Jan. 15, 1998: Susan Meiselas discusses her book on Kurdish history. Sept. 24, 1996: Turkey's foreign mininster discusses the Kurdish crisis. Sept. 10, 1996: A look at the Kurds -- a people without a state. Sept. 6, 1996: Who are the Kurds? Sept. 3, 1996: Defense Secretary William Perry on Iraq's invasion of the Kurdish safe-haven. More NewsHour Europe, Middle East and United Nations coverage.     Republic of Turkey- Ministry of Foreign Affairs Human Rights Watch Turkish Embassy in Washington, DC	ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The Kurds are the largest minority in the Middle East without a country of their own. About 22 million Kurds living in an area sometimes called Kurdistan, which spreads across six countries: Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Syria, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The Kurds were left dispersed and divided after World War I, even though the treaty that carved up the Ottoman Empire called for the creation of an autonomous Kurdish state. But they have continued to press for their rights, not only in demonstrations like this one in 1996 in Turkey, which was met with fierce repression, but also with arms, as shown here in Iraq. In 1988, entire villages of Kurds were driven from their homes in Iraq when the government of Saddam Hussein used poison gas as part of a large offensive against Kurdish separatists. Thousands were killed and maimed, including children among these refugees who had fled to Turkey. (KURDISH MAN): If we go back, they kill one of us. Even the child who's aged one month, they hang him.
	No country of their own.
	ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Right after the Gulf war in 1991, Kurdish guerrillas seized several key towns in northern Iraq. Saddam Hussein's troops put down the rebellion, sending some two million more Kurds fleeing to Iran and Turkey. Thousands died of exposure in the mountains, leading to a huge multinational rescue mission, which included American troops. JAMES BAKER, Former Secretary of State: The important thing to do now is to make certain that the entire international community gets geared up in a hurry with a massive relief and humanitarian effort. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: It was then that the United States, Britain, France, and Turkey established a safe haven for the Kurds in Northern Iraq, and a no-fly zone above the 36th parallel. But Turkey has its own long-standing conflict over national identity with the Kurds, who make up 20 percent of Turkey's population of 65 million. In the past 14 years, more than 30,000 people have been killed as Turkish security forces battled the Kurdish Workers' Party, or PKK. The Turkish government considers the PKK a terrorist organization, and has tried for years to capture its leader, Abdullah Ocalan. On Monday, he was picked up by Turkish intelligence agents in Kenya, and ever since, Kurds living in Europe and Canada have protested the arrest, sometimes violently. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And we get three views now. Michael Gunter is a professor at Tennessee Technological University and author of numerous books on the Kurds. He met Abdullah Ocalan last March in Syria. Graham Fuller had a 27-year career in the State Department and CIA and is now a consultant to RAND, a research organization. He has written widely on the Kurds and Turkey. Alan Makovsky was a State Department official from 1983 to 1994, where he focused on Turkey and the Middle East. He is now a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Thank you all for being with us. Michael Gunter, you met Abdullah Ocalan, this man who has caused or at least his arrest caused these demonstrations that we saw in the news summary. Tell us about him. MICHAEL GUNTER, Tennessee Technological University: Well, he's a very engaging person, at least when I met him. He's vivacious, he likes to talk he smiles a lot, he laughs, he's a very interesting person, a personable person and somebody frankly, I enjoyed meeting and I spoke with him over a two-day period for about ten hours in total. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Tell us a little bit about his history, Mr. Gunter, just briefly.
	Who is Abdullah Ocalan?
	MICHAEL GUNTER: Well, he's of Kurdish ethnic heritage born in Turkey. He thought of himself as a Turk in his early life but later discovered his Kurdish roots and beginning in the early 1970's has campaigned for Kurdish cultural and political rights in Turkey. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And Alan Makovsky, do you have anything to add to that about him and how much support he has inside Turkey? ALAN MAKOVSKY, Washington Institute for Near East Policy: Well, I think first of all, it needs to be said that however affable he may be in person, he has been ruthless as a leader of the PKK, assassinating his rivals and committing many acts of terrorism -- Human Rights Watch, as a matter of fact, estimates over 750 extrajudicial murders by the PKK in Turkey just between the years 1992 and 1995. Within Turkey I think there is a minority, but I would say probably a significant minority of Kurds who are very sympathetic to him. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And Graham Fuller, tell us more about the PKK, the Workers' Party, which he started. What does it stand for? GRAHAM FULLER, RAND: Well, it's a Kurdish acronym for the Kurdish Workers' Party, but it had its roots, actually, in a period of very considerable anarchy in the 1970's in Turkey and came out of this very violent period to move on into a Marxist-Leninist stance on international issues. It aspired to be Pan Kurdist in its early days, in other words, uniting all Kurds and all countries together in an independent country. Since then, it's considerably toned down its rhetoric -- the radicalism of its message. It at this point claims it wants to -- its goals are limited strictly to establishing a Kurdish region within Turkey with full cultural and political rights. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And Graham Fuller, are the people that are demonstrating in Europe and elsewhere, like Australia, PKK people? GRAHAM FULLER: Probably very few of them are actual PKK members per se. But the PKK has had extraordinary success outside of the region in galvanizing the support of nearly all Kurds. They don't necessarily have to like Abdullah Ocalan or his methods or the way the PKK operates, but they see him very much as the symbol of their aspirations of at least one leader who is modern, he's not a feudal leader as so many other Kurdish leaders are in the region, and somebody who has a vision, an ideological vision, whatever, however good or ill it may be, that's proposing to do something about it. And that's why he's got a lot of support, especially in Europe.
	The arrest.
	ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Alan Makovsky, explain why there were Greek premises that were taken over, or in one case an Israeli consulate. Tell us about the arrest, just briefly, and how it explains what happened in Europe. ALAN MAKOVSKY: Well, I think that the PKK very clearly saw the Greeks as having stabbed them in the back. The Greeks have been very friendly to the PKK over the years and most recently by the Greeks' owned admission, they allowed Ocalan to make a refueling stop in Greece and then protected him in their embassy in Kenya, actually, in effect, smuggled him into Kenya. However, the PKK felt they had a deal that the Greeks would continue to protect him and for some reason, apparently because of outside pressure, the Greeks coughed Ocalan up, in effect. And that is what has sparked these demonstrations. Now, my sense is that these demonstrations in Europe must be organized by the PKK, because the fact that Kurds vented their anger on the Greeks, rather than on the Turks or on others such as the United States, who support Turkey, initially suggest that the PKK thesis, that the Greeks stabbed us in the back, got out very quickly to its supporters. And after all, the people who were involved in these actions were not thousands but hundreds or in some cases just dozens of people. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Michael Gunter, before we move on, do you have anything before we move on to add to that about the arrest and what happened in Europe as a result? MICHAEL GUNTER: Well, the exact facts are murky but, frankly, I doubt if the Greeks really coughed Ocalan up. The Greeks have a long history of feeling friendly towards the PKK and the Kurds. It appears to me that the United States provided technological support to the Turks to track Ocalan down because the Turks don't have this technology and the U.S. told the Turks where Ocalan was and the Turks had a very effective commando unit that came into Kenya and swooped Ocalan up. Now, I doubt if the Greeks really consciously coughed him up. I wonder about the Kenyans, to what extent the Kenyans had a deal with the Turks, but it remains uncertain. And I would say that the Turks had a very effective commando raid and they probably received technological support from the United States. ALAN MAKOVSKY: I think that's probably right about the United States. I think U.S. officials -- if you parse U.S. statements, I think the clear implication is that the U.S. let the Turks know where Ocalan was, but that it was the Turks who actually apprehended him.
	Assimilation of the Kurds.
	ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Graham Fuller, I want to talk about the Turks, I want to look at this for a minute from the Turkish point of view. They've always been concerned about separatism within Turkey, right? Explain that. GRAHAM FULLER: Right. When the Turkish state was founded in the early 20's there was a serious effort to try to build a new station state founded on Turkish nationalism. The unfortunate reality was that, as you've said, 20 percent of the population at that time was Kurdish but the hope was that they would become assimilated, that they would forget, in effect, that they were Kurds. Over time, as we see a rise in ethnicity globally, Kurds have also been increasingly aware of their own particular identity. The southeast area where Kurds traditionally have been -- although lots have moved out of the southeast to the big cities -- is very underdeveloped so there are economic grievances as well. Turks actually do not discriminate against Kurds per se. A Kurd in Turkey can be anything as long as he or she says, "I'm a Turk," in effect, a Turk. It's when the Kurds have insisted on their rights as Kurds and demanded recognition as Kurds, recognition of their identity and cultural rights that go with it distinct from those of Turks that the situation has gotten very rough. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And Michael Gunter, tell us about that. What happened to the Kurds when they did demand rights as Kurds -- for example, Kurdish language or Kurdish education or Kurdish TV? MICHAEL GUNTER: Well, that's the rub. The Kurds for many years were not even recognized as Kurds; they were referred to as mountain Turks who had somehow forgotten their original Turkish language and that these people, these Kurds had absolutely -- it was criminal to even speak your native language of Kurdish, and the most elementary cultural rights that we would accept in the West were denied by Turkey, and I think to Turkey's own detriment because Turkey wants to be a democracy and join the European Union and cannot unless it becomes a real democracy and until the Kurdish problem is solved, Turkey cannot be a real democracy. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And Alan Makovsky, because of the way the Turks dealt with this, that's actually been an issue between Turkey and the United States, hasn't it? ALAN MAKOVSKY: Well, I think that's right. The United States would like to see more reform, wider freedom of linguistic and cultural expression. But the United States has also been firmly in Turkey's coroner its antagonism to the PKK. The United States has denounced the PKK as a vicious terrorist organization and supported Turkey's right to go after it. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And, Mr. Makovsky, do you think this arrest makes it more or less likely that some sort of a negotiated solution could be arrived at in Turkey? ALAN MAKOVSKY: I think the issue is not so much a negotiated solution. Turkey is not going to negotiate with the PKK. The issue is: Will Turkey expand the parameters of cultural and linguistic freedom for the Kurds? And I think over time, yes, this makes it more likely. It will be a slow process but friends of US-Turkish relations certainly hope that there will be some signs that Turkey will be taking positive steps in that regard.
	Kurdish outcry.
	ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Graham Fuller, how do you see that, whether the arrest is -- could be -- could it lead to just more demonstrations, more problems, as we already saw it is in Turkey or could it lead to some kind of a solution? GRAHAM FULLER: I think there are two ways that this could go. First, if the Turks choose to, in effect, declare victory and go home, they will take advantage of this and say, "now we will move to the political arena, the terrorist threat is passed." If they decide to -- that this is really the beginning of the end of Kurdish aspirations, political aspirations and try to clamp down on that, then I think we are probably going to see a great deal more violence, potentially we could even see urban violence, which has not existed before. It could spread to anti-American or anti-Israeli feelings. It's really up to the Turks, now. But whatever, the end of the PKK, which would be perhaps very welcome, is not the end of the Kurdish problem and should not be considered as such. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Michael Gunter, do you agree with that? MICHAEL GUNTER: I would say that what is short-term Turkish success in apprehending Ocalan may in the long run, when Ocalan goes on trial, if it is a fair trial and I think it will be because the whole world will be watching, this will give Ocalan a platform to present the Kurdish cause in a way that he's never been able to present it before and may actually result in a viewing of the Kurdish cause because of this trial. So I think that we haven't heard everything yet, that it may yet redound in partial favor for the Kurdish cause, what we have seen. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: All right, well thank you all three very much.

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