Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK):
Still Following the Leader

In the mountains of Iraq Sophie Shihab meets Turkish Kurds who remain faithful to their jailed founder 

Le Monde (Paris) / Guardian Weekly (UK) 20oct2005

photo: Mustafa Ozer

The little group of combatants in khaki uniforms suddenly appeared at a turn on the stony track. Night was falling fast in the mountains, so their introductions were brief. "Ibrahim. I've been here eight years." "Mehmet, 12 years in the hills." Then the women: "Esma, here since nine years," "Zeynap, 11 years." After all these years living undercover in strictly­regimented isolation their working names are often the only identity remaining to these Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) fighters.

Turkey considers the PKK a terrorist organisation, marxist and separatist to boot. Under the guidance of its "great leader", Abdullah Ocalan, the party has waged war on behalf of the Kurds for the past 15 years. Ocalan's arrest in February 1999 caused a brief lull in hostilities. But for the past six months the party has been back in the Turkish news, with regular­mention by the media in Ankara and Istanbul of "criminal­attacks by PKK terrorists".

The camp is somewhere in the far north of Iraq, near Khneira. To the east, on the other side of a 3,000m-high range, is Iran. Turkey lies to the north, over 30km of mountain­terrain. Here, in the self-governing Kurdish region, the last PKK combatants still operating in Turkey withdrew in 1999, obeying orders given by Ocalan after his capture.

A third of the combatants are thought to have left the party, demoralised by the cowardice of their leader. But, although shunned by many intellectuals, Ocalan is still worshipped by most Turkish Kurds. The party faithful, in the hills and on the PKK's many legal fronts at home and abroad, still obey the orders of their imprisoned leader.

But both the ceasefire announced in 1999 and the order to take up arms again in June last year came from Turkish jails and were probably filtered. Many suspect that Ocalan is conniving with Turkey's security forces, who need a war on terrorism to retain their influence in these days of democratic reform.

Ibrahim, Zeynap and the others seem a long way from such concerns. However, the camp accepts only "old" soldiers, whose indoctrination has been well tested. It is located beside a mountain stream and consists of dozens of huts, concealed by branches. "We know how to look after ourselves. We are mobile, experienced fighters," Zeynap invariably replies to any questions touching on their safety.

We spend the night in one of the women's huts, well away from the men. A portrait of Ocalan hangs on the wall alongside several automatic rifles. The guns are taken down at dawn when the women set off in silence for a patrol along a nearby ridge.

Later that day we meet one of the PKK's two leaders, who has arrived with an armed escort. The US state department refers to him as the Kurdish version of the Islamist terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi; some of his former comrades maintain that he is worse, "because he denies the terror he causes". But Jamal, the nom de guerre of Murat Karayilan, scoffs at such ideas. On the contrary, he assures us, he is Ocalan's "loyal lieutenant".

Jamal gives a long lecture on peace. He deplores the fact that Turkey did not respond to the one-month ceasefire announced by the PKK, "to support Turkish membership of the EU". He details the PKK's conditions for setting up a confederation in Turkey. The notion of "Kurd identity" must be added to the constitution, with the Kurdish language being taught in schools and political parties legalised. Lastly, Ocalan must be released.

"The US and Europe tell us to give him up, but it's impossible. He is in our hearts and those of millions of Kurds. It's a question of honour, and we could not follow anyone who denied him." According to Jamal, that is why the former PKK leaders who split from the party in June 2004 failed to win popular support.

He concludes his tirade with criticism of the US. "How can they grant civil rights to 3.5 million Kurds in Iraq and ignore 20 million others in Turkey? . . . If the US decides to help Turkey to attack us, it would put an end to any hope of stability in the region. We are the strongest, not only in Turkey, but also in Iraq and even Iran and Syria."

We gained first-hand experience of the presence of Iranian Kurds (5 million to 8 million people, depending on sources) and Syrian Kurds (between 1 million and 3 million) in the ranks of the PKK when we ran into an exhausted patrol, half of them Syrians, returning from "a two-month expedition into southeast Turkey". Since last summer's brutal repression in Iran 500 Kurds have joined the PKK in the hills, they told us. Their leader added: "We're not attracting anyone from Syria, though. On the contrary, we're going home."

"The PKK has always worked hand in glove with Damascus," says another dissident group, made up of Syrian Kurds. "They killed the leader of the party — the Kurdish Democratic Alliance in Syria — we set up last summer," says Salah Sufi, who belonged to the PKK for 17 years. "The PKK is no longer a party, it is just a tool in the hands of various intelligence services. The majority of the people in the hills are Syrians. Most of us have degrees. We taught them everything they know."

The in-fighting between Kurdish factions is legendary, but another splinter group from Turkey corroborates Sufi's comments. Nizamettin Tas, aka Botan, a former PKK commander, says: "The PKK should have stopped fighting in 1991." He goes on to reveal that, unbeknown to Ocalan, he met the CIA three times in 2003 to discuss disarmament, a break between the party and its leader and collaboration with the two Kurdish parties in Iraq.

The PKK seems too useful to too many. One theory claims that Turkey needs to label its Kurds terrorists to prevent the West giving them too much support. Syria and Iran adopt a similar line. Then there are the two Kurdish parties in Iraq — which once fought against the PKK in the days when it was supported by Saddam Hussein.

Such seasoned warriors would be useful if the Turkish army invaded Iraq to seize the Kirkuk oil wells. So there is little hope of an immediate solution to the Kurdish imbroglio and even less chance that the West will listen to the appeals of PKK­dissidents.