Turkey: PKK leader talks tough in the face of Turkish military action

Nicholas Birch 7/12/07

Close your eyes and it is almost possible to take Cemil Bayik for a political analyst with liberal leanings

With elections due on July 22, Turkey is faced with a choice between democracy and authoritarianism, he says. "This debate about secularism and the Kurds is political maneuvering, just a means for the powers that be to hold onto their influence."

Bayik isn't a columnist or an academic. Operating out of a base among the high mountains along Iraq's border with Iran, he's one of the two most powerful figures in the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, whose 25-year war against the Turkish state has cost nearly 40,000 lives

So far this year, 67 Turkish soldiers have died fighting the PKK. The level of violence is such that, at one point, it appeared as though it might even prevent the upcoming elections on July 22 from taking place. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Talk of delays has now subsided. Nevertheless, during this campaign, candidates seem more apt to discuss their stance on terrorism than they are to talk about economic issues or European Union integration. With 140,000 soldiers massed on the Iraqi border since late April, rumors are rife in Ankara that the government might give the military approval to launch a cross-border operation designed to neutralize the PKK's operational capabilities. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]

Asked whether he finds such a prospect disconcerting, Bayik insists it is not. The PKK declared a ceasefire in November 2006, he says, and his fighters are only using their "right of self-defense."

It's a strange way to characterize the current conflict in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast. Half the soldiers killed this year were victims of Iraqi insurgent-style roadside bombs. On June 4, seven more soldiers died when two PKK members infiltrated a military base in a baker's delivery truck and lobbed grenades

But the strangest thing about the presence of an estimated 2,000 PKK militants in Turkey is that they are not even fighting for an independent Kurdish state anymore. Since 1995, they've been fighting for expanded civil rights.

That's still some way off in southeastern Turkey, admittedly. This April, a court ruled that four policemen who shot a 12-year old boy nine times in the back at close range had acted in self-defense and acquitted them. In May, a mayor and his assistants in a majority Kurdish city were sacked for offering multi-lingual municipal services

But the situation now nevertheless marks a significant improvement over past conditions. Before 1991, speaking Kurdish in public was a criminal offense that could result in a jail term. Now, says Orhan Miroglu, a senior member of a pro-Kurdish party, many Turks see as a front for the PKK, "nobody questions our right to have political representation."

Bayik also acknowledges that there have been improvements. But he then claims that Turkey's military and civilian leaders don't to take the PKK's ceasefires seriously, and that Ankara is not genuinely committed to the implementation of democratization measures undertaken in connection with the country's EU-membership drive.

"We're not fighting because we are in love with war, we're fighting because we have been given no alternative," Bayik maintained. "It's the [Turkish] army that feeds on war, because it knows that if the Kurdish problem is purified of violence, it will lose its privileged economic and political position."

Sedat Laciner, the director of the Ankara-based International Strategic Research Organization and author of a book on the PKK, asserts that pretty much the same thing could be said about the PKK. "This is an organization that grew out of a military coup, and nothing would make it happier than another one," he says. "The more Kurds are given rights, the more the PKK will lose ground."

Ankara-based terrorism expert Nihat Ali Ozcan, meanwhile, thinks the group is particularly nervous about losing its grasp now, with elections approaching and Turkey's Kurdish vote split between nationalists and a religious-minded government that has been gaining ground in the southeast. Since 1995, when it realized it couldn't defeat the Turkish army head on, the PKK has seen the use of force as a political tactic, Ozcan said. "This time, its aim is to strengthen ties with its civilian backers."

But there's another, much more pragmatic way in which the PKK benefits from conflict: fighting is good for discipline. "When you're fighting, all you think about is survival," says Zuhal Serhat, who joined the PKK in 1995, aged 15, partly out of patriotism, partly to escape the hard life Kurdish village women lead. "It was when we stopped that we started asking questions."

She is referring to the five-year ceasefire that followed the capture of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan in 1999. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. His imprisonment split the organization, with 1,500 fighters leaving between 2004 and 2005, according to Iraqi Kurdish intelligence sources. Many went freely. Serhat fled by night through Saddam-era minefields and was led to safety by local shepherds

With the Turkish army barely 100 kilometers away, security in the PKK's mountain base is tighter than in the past. Visitors used to be able to walk in. Now bags and clothes are checked closely. Despite everything, though, the mood appears relaxed. Outwardly, PKK leaders profess not to be concerned about a Turkish army attack. "A Turkish invasion of Iraq would lead to the division of Turkey," Bayik argued.

Editor's Note: Nicolas Birch specializes in Turkey, Iran and the Middle East.

Posted July 12, 2007 © Eurasianet