Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)

LEADER: Abdullah Ocalan

YEAR ESTABLISHED OR BECAME ACTIVE: 1974

ESTIMATED SIZE: 4,000-5,000

USUAL AREA OF OPERATION: Turkey

OVERVIEW

The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK; its Kurdish name, Partiya Karkeran Kurdistan) is an extreme-left, nationalist/separatist group. Its goal—as part of a communist revolutionary movement—is to establish an independent Kurdish state in areas where Kurds reside, mostly in southeastern Turkey and adjoining countries of northern Iraq, western Iran, and in small parts of Armenia and Syria. (Kurds also live in Europe, mainly Germany, as exiles or migrants.) The Kurdistan Workers' Party is also identified by such aliases as Kurdistan Freedom and Democracy Congress (KADEK), Kurdistan People's Conference (KHK), and Kingra-Gel (KGK, or the Kurdistan People's Congress).

To reclaim Kurdish lands its leader, Abdullah Ocalan, used guerrilla warfare and terrorism against Turkey from 1984–1999. With PKK's defeat by the Turkish military and the February 1999 capture of Ocalan, most PKK soldiers have scattered to northern Iraq. The PKK leadership has established a political party, but Ocalan remains a Turkish prisoner.

HISTORY

Relations between Kurds and the Turkish government have been strained since the 1920 Treaty of Sevres (a result of World War I), which provided for an autonomous Kurdistan. However, Turkey forced modifications in the treaty and the plan was never implemented. Since then, the minority Kurds have not been given full rights from the Turkish government.

Kurds have many times attempted reclamation of their rights in Turkey. One such organized attempt was begun in 1973 when Abdullah Ocalan and several Turkish-Kurdish students formed the PKK to establish an independent Kurdistan. For the next five years, the PKK operated without any formal agenda. But, in 1978, Ocalan stated the PKK's heavily communist-influenced agenda and organized a revolt to free the Kurdish people.

Beginning in the early 1980s, the PKK left Turkey for Syrian-occupied Lebanon (because of a shared leftist philosophy) in order to receive professional training by Syrian terrorist groups. The group maintained Syria as its base of operations for almost two decades.

In 1984, the PKK began attacks against Turkish forces. The PKK attacked Turkish government and security facilities and personnel, along with civilians who assisted the Turkish government. Turkish experts verified PKK involvement when they linked the group with suicide bombs intended for governors and police stations. These initial attacks in the mid 1980s were reported to have killed thousands of civilians. During this time PKK membership increased drastically. The Turkish government eliminated all legal Kurdish organizations, making it popular to join the rebel PKK.

During the late 1980s and early 1990s, the PKK changed its strategy by eliminating attacks on civilians (including its own Kurdish people) in order to gain their support. It continued to attack Turkish domestic government sites, sabotage and firebomb Turkish diplomatic and commercial buildings in Europe, bomb tourist sites in Istanbul and at Turkish seaside resorts, and kidnap Western tourists in order to gain publicity. With its leftist strategy modified, the PKK attracted members and supporters of the Islamic faith.

By 1992, the PKK had grown considerably stronger. As a result, the Turkish government employed specially trained teams of soldiers specifically to fight against the rebel group. The rebellion intensified dramatically by March 1995 so that Turkish soldiers were forced to retaliate against the PKK by attacking them while in northern Iraq. The Turkish government repeated this successful tactic numerous times, often times with help from Masood Barzani's Democratic Party of Kurdistan, a rival Kurdish group.

In 1998, the PKK claimed that it possessed about 10,000 soldiers as part of its military unit, the Popular Army for the Liberation of Kurdistan. The PKK also professed a political branch based in Brussels called the National Liberation Front of Kurdistan.

Ocalan and his rebel troops were forced to leave Syria in October 1998 when the Syrian government cowered to international pressure—especially from Turkey, which threatened to attack Syria. Ocalan searched for political asylum throughout Europe and Africa.

On February 15, 1999, Ocalan was arrested in Nairobi, Kenya, by a coalition of U.S./Turkish special-forces personnel and sent back to Turkey. His arrest caused mass protests across Europe and the Middle East. The largest protest came from Berlin, Germany, where three Kurdish militants were killed and 16 others wounded when they attempted to overrun the Israeli Consulate. Ocalan was convicted on terrorism charges and sentenced to death. However, Ocalan made an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.

Without its leader, the PKK were severely weakened, so much that Ocalan agreed to stop fighting after Turkey agreed to reform its Kurdish policies. In August 1999, Ocalan declared a ceasefire and requested a peace plan. In 2000, the PKK stated that it had ended its revolution—promising it would work within Turkish law to improve the status of its Kurdish people.

In April 2002, the PKK changed its name to the Kurdistan Freedom and Democracy Congress (KADEK), supposedly to distance itself from its violent past and to promote its nonviolent future as a political party. In August 2002, Turkey abolished the death penalty and Ocalan's sentence was altered to lifelong aggravated imprisonment. Then, in 2003, the KADEK announced a three-part strategy for instituting Kurdish autonomy. However, the group continued to train its members for fighting.

Later in 2003, the KADEK announced that it was again changing its name, this time to the Kurdistan People's Conference (KHK). The Turkish government did not believe the group's violent ways had changed. Then, in November 2003, the KHK changed its name again. It now called itself Kongra-Gel (KGK, or the Kurdistan People's Congress). The group continued to publicly state its peaceful intentions while conducting further attacks. In early 2004, the ceasefire ended and violence by the group's armed section (the HPG, or People's Forces of Defense) returned to Turkey. As of April 2005, the KHK had reverted back to its original name: the Kurdistan Workers' Party.

LEADERSHIP

ABDULLAH OCALAN

Abdullah Ocalan became a student activist (with a Marxism philosophy) while a political science student at the University of Ankara, Turkey. He later became involved with the problems of his Kurdish people while in civil service at Diyarbakir, Turkey. During this time, Ocalan participated in the Kurdish rights activities of the Democratic Cultural Associations of the East. In 1973, Ocalan organized a Maoist group for socialist revolution. Five years later, in 1978, Ocalan founded the Kurdistan Workers' Party.

For the next two decades, Ocalan, under the name of Serok Apo, fought to restore Turkish rights of the Kurdish people. He was captured in Kenya on February 15, 1999, and returned to Turkey for trial. He was convicted in a Turkish court of treason and sentenced to death. Ocalan appealed the decision before the European Court of Human Rights. On May 12, 2005, the European Court agreed with his appeal, stating that his trial was unfair. Ocalan remains held under solitary confinement on Imrali Island in the Turkish Sea of Marmara.

In all, between 30,000 and 40,000 people are thought to have been killed due to PKK actions from 1984–1999. Estimates vary, depending on the source, as to the number forcibly evacuated from their homes.

PHILOSOPHY AND TACTICS

When first formed from a radical Kurd youth movement in Turkey in the 1970s, the PKK declared itself a revolutionary socialist national liberation movement that followed Marxist-Leninist doctrine. Its leader, Ocalan, was heavily influenced by Maoism, a combination of orthodox Marxism-Leninism, and Confucianism.

According to the Federation of American Scientists, in 1977, the PKK published several public reports that demanded the separation of Kurdistan from Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and Syria. Its demands were based on the Turkish abuse of Kurds and on the denial by the Turkish government of the Kurd educational and cultural heritage. Throughout the 15-year rebellion against Turkey, the PKK maintained its original objectives: to form a federation system within the Middle East in which Kurd rights would be granted and preserved and to fight for the independence of Kurdistan in response to wrongdoings by Turkish authorities against the Kurdish population.

The armed tactics primarily used by the PKK included attacks against civilian Turkish citizens (including those of Kurdish ethnicity) whenever such people did not support its cause or were cooperating with the Turkish government; attacks and kidnappings of foreign tourists (especially those with large sums of foreign monies); attacks on Turkish government officials such as military leaders, teachers, scientists, and technicians; attacks on the Turkish military; and attacks on Turkish diplomatic offices and other interests in Europe. The PKK has used suicide bombing attacks on various occasions.

PRIMARY SOURCE
Kongra-Gel (KGK) a.k.a. Kurdistan Workers' Party, PKK

DESCRIPTION

The Kongra-Gel was founded by Abdullah Ocalan in 1974 as a Marxist-Leninist separatist organization and formally named the Kurdistan Workers' Party in 1978. The group, composed primarily of Turkish Kurds, began its campaign of armed violence in 1984, which has resulted in some 30,000 casualties. The PKK's goal has been to establish an independent, democratic Kurdish state in southeast Turkey, northern Iraq, and parts of Iran and Syria. In the early 1990s, the PKK moved beyond rural-based insurgent activities to include urban terrorism. Turkish authorities captured Ocalan in Kenya in early 1999, and the Turkish State Security Court subsequently sentenced him to death. In August 1999, Ocalan announced a "peace initiative," ordering members to refrain from violence and requesting dialogue with Ankara on Kurdish issues. At a PKK Congress in January 2000, members supported Ocalan's initiative and claimed the group now would use only political means to achieve its public goal of improved rights for Kurds in Turkey. In April 2002 at its 8th Party Congress, the PKK changed its name to the Kurdistan Freedom and Democracy Congress (KADEK) and proclaimed a commitment to non-violent activities in support of Kurdish rights. In late 2003, the group sought to engineer another political face-lift, renaming itself Kongra-Gel (KGK) and promoting its "peaceful" intentions while continuing to conduct attacks in "self-defense" and to refuse disarmament. After five years, the group's hard-line militant wing, the People's Defense Force (HPG), renounced its self-imposed cease-fire on June 1, 2004. Over the course of the cease-fire, the group had divided into two factions—politically-minded reformists, and hardliners who advocated a return to violence. The hardliners took control of the group in February 2004.

ACTIVITIES

Primary targets have been Turkish Government security forces, local Turkish officials, and villagers who oppose the organization in Turkey. It conducted attacks on Turkish diplomatic and commercial facilities in dozens of West European cities in 1993 and again in spring 1995. In an attempt to damage Turkey's tourist industry, the then-PKK bombed tourist sites and hotels and kidnapped foreign tourists in the early-to-mid-1990s. While most of the group's violence in 2004 was directed toward Turkish security forces, KGK was likely responsible for an unsuccessful July car bomb attack against the governor of Van Province, although it publicly denied responsibility, and may have played a role in the August bombings of two Istanbul hotels and a gas complex in which two people died.

STRENGTH

Approximately 4,000 to 5,000, 3,000 to 3,500 of whom currently are located in northern Iraq. The group has thousands of sympathizers in Turkey and Europe. In November, Dutch police raided a suspected KGK training camp in The Netherlands, arresting roughly 30 suspected members.

LOCATION/AREA OF OPERATION

Operates primarily in Turkey, Iraq, Europe, and the Middle East.

EXTERNAL AID

Has received safe haven and modest aid from Syria, Iraq, and Iran. Syria and Iran appear to cooperate with Turkey against KGK in a limited fashion when it serves their immediate interests. KGK uses Europe for fundraising and conducting political propaganda.

Source: U.S. Department of State. Country Reports on Terrorism. Washington, D.C., 2004.

Ocalan employed guerilla tactics in his war against Turkish troops during the 1980s, primarily using hit-and-run methods to attack the enemy and then to quickly retreat into mountainous areas where they could hide. However, in the 1990s the Turkish government brought in specially trained commando units and special police forces with sophisticated equipment that removed the PKK advantages in these areas.

During its reign of violent activities, the PKK received its largest funding through drug smuggling and extortion. The U.S. Department of State's Bureau of International Narcotic Matters, according to the Federation of American Scientists, published the 1992 report "International Narcotics Control Strategy," which stated that the European drug cartel was controlled by PKK members. The amount of money generated from this illegal activity amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars. The PKK also received modest financial support from charities, commercial businesses, and the governments of Greece, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and several European countries.

OTHER PERSPECTIVES

According to CNN Interactive reporter Beat Witschi, Abdullah Ocalan is considered by the majority of Kurds to be a murderer, terrorist, and tyrant who used arson, assassination, robbery, extortion and blackmail, money laundering, and drug trafficking to promote his goals and undermine Turkish society. However, some Kurds, along with his supporters and PKK members, consider him a hero for valiantly battling the Turkish government to regain Kurdish culture, independence, and basic rights.

At the time of Ocalan's capture in 1999, many Turkish journalists interviewed him. According to the CNN article by Witschi, most of those reporters saw Ocalan as a "megalomaniac" and "sick man." In the same article, several human rights organizations had held Ocalan to be in the same class as Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet, who was condemned by the United Nations for torturing thousands of his enemies, and war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic in Bosnia-Herzegovina, who was accused of killing thousands of Bosnian Muslims and Croats. It was also reported that Ocalan destroyed other Kurdish separatist organizations and rivals when they conflicted with him.

According to the article by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) that described the Kurdistan Workers' Party, the PKK does not, as of 2004, have any operational connections to other terrorist groups. According to the same CFR article, the country of Turkey continues to consider Kurds to be second-class citizens, calling them Mountain Turks, and denies them the rights given to its other citizens. The Turkish government continues to consider the PKK a terrorist group. It also considers Kurdish separatism and nationalism as threats to its security and the safety of its citizens.

According to the CFR, the European Union added the PKK to its list of terrorist organizations in May 2002. Likewise, Iran also agreed to make the PKK a terrorist organization in March 2002. As of 2005, according to the MIPT, England, Australia, Canada, and the United States continue to consider the PKK a terrorist organization. Most European countries are more tolerant of the PKK—viewing its members as freedom fighters, rather than terrorists—because they do not want to antagonize the group after experiencing riots when Ocalan was arrested.

KEY EVENTS

1973:

Abdullah Ocalan and other Turkish/Kurdish students form the PKK.

1973–1978:

The PKK operates without structure.

1978:

Its operations and agenda are formalized by Ocalan.

1980s:

The PKK leaves Turkey for Syrian-occupied Lebanon to be trained.

1984:

The PKK begins its fight against the Turkish government.

1992:

The Turkish government establish a special unit to fight the PKK.

1993:

PKK attacks take on a new character with the firebombing and vandalizing of Turkish/European diplomatic and commercial offices, tourist sites in Turkey, and the kidnapping of Western tourists.

1998:

Ocalan and the PKK are forced to leave Syria.

1999:

Ocalan is arrested in Kenya and sent back to Turkey. Later, Ocalan is convicted and sentenced to death. He declares a ceasefire.

2002:

The PKK changes its name to the Kurdistan Freedom and Democracy Congress (KADEK).

2003:

The KADEK announces a Kurdish strategy for resolving Kurdish rights.

2003:

The KADEK announces it is changing its name to Kurdistan People's Conference (KHK).

2003:

The KHK changes its name again, to Kongra-Gel (KGK, or the Kurdistan People's Congress).

2004:

The ceasefire is ended and violence returns to Turkey.

2005:

The KHK reverts to its original name: PKK.

2005:

The European Court declares Ocalan's trial to be unfair. He remains in prison on an island near Istanbul.

SUMMARY

According to a Time article, the Kurds are the largest ethnic community in the world without its own nation. With about half of all Kurds residing in Turkey, they continue to be in conflict with the Turkish government. For several generations, the Kurds have tried to both peacefully and violently persuade Turkey to grant its people the same rights as its other citizens. The PKK—with its violent efforts to establish an independent Kurdistan incorporating territory that is part of Turkey—is an extreme element of this movement.

Since the beginning of their rebellion in the mid 1980s, the PKK is believed to have killed about 35,000 people, drawing condemnation from many nations and organizations as a terrorist group. The PKK has not achieved its goals, and has seen its leader captured and imprisoned, but it continues to stage attacks. Its efforts have drawn attention to often-troubling human rights issues that exist in Turkey. Human rights organizations continue to claim that the Turkish government has violated the basic rights of those that take even peaceful action against its policies. These Kurdish individuals—according to Amnesty International—have often been imprisoned or have disappeared.

Turkey has been an associate member of the European Union (EU) since 1963. It has been denied full membership due to what the EU considers a problematic human rights record. One of the main reasons for its continued denial as a full EU member has been Turkey's anti-Kurd policies.

SOURCES

Books

White, Paul J. Primitive Rebels or Revolutionary Modernisers?. London and New York: Zed, 2000.

Web sites

Council on Foreign Relations. "Kurdistan Workers' Party." 〈http://cfrterrorism.org/groups/kurdistan.html〉 (accessed October 20, 2005).

Ergil, Dogu. CNN/Time In-Depth Special, CNN.com, and Time.com. "The Kurdish Question after Ocalan." 〈http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/1999/ocalan/stories/kurdish.question/〉 (accessed October 20, 2005).

Intelligence Resource Program, Federation of American Scientists. "Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)." 〈http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/pkk.htm〉 (accessed October 20, 2005).

Kelly, Suzanne. Time Interactive, CNN.com. "Ocalan Trial Casts Light on Turkey's Human Rights Record." 〈http://cnn.com/SPECIALS/1999/ocalan/stories/turkey.human.rights/〉 (accessed October 20, 2005).

MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base, National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism. "Kurdistan Workers' Party." 〈http://www.tkb.org/Group.jsp?groupID=63〉 (accessed October 20, 2005).

Sanction, Thomas. Time.com. "A Terrorist's Bitter End." 〈http://www.time.com/time/daily/special/ocalan/bitterend.html〉 (accessed October 20, 2005).

Usher, Rod. Time International, Time.com. "Nationalists Without a Nation." 〈http://www.time.com/time/daily/special/ocalan/nationalists.html〉 (accessed October 20, 2005).

Witschi, Beat. CNN.com and Time.com. "Who Is Abdullah Ocalan? (Ocalan: Key Moments of His Life)." 〈http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/1999/ocalan/stories/ocalan.profile/〉 (accessed October 20, 2005).

SEE ALSO

Al-Qaeda