Solidarity now!
We strongly condem the European governments for their responsibility, together with the American and Israeli leaders, kidnapping and sending back of the PKK leader Abdullah Ocelan to Turkey- a country that criminalises the political struggle, practices torture and maintains the death penalty in its laws.
The European Union has closed hypocritically, its eyes before the situation of the Kurdish people, although at the same time the 'international community" pretends to protect the Kosovar people name of liberty and
The cohesion of NATO and the defense of the powerful American interests in the region have prevailed over human rights and the Geneva Convention on refugees
This cynical policy has provoked violent confrontations, including in the major cities in Europe. It has helped the Turkish regime which have repressed over the years thousands of Turkish citizen - human rights activists, trade union and political militants, members of parlement, journalists and artists-to worsen the oppression of the Kurds. We struggle in favour of • The respect of human rights (abolition of the death penalty) and the suppression of all antidemocratic laws which forbid organisation, notably the "anti-terrorist" laws. • Liberation and amnesty for all political prisoners, Turks and • The dissolution of all the 'special war units and "village militias" in the Kurdish region; the suppression of the "emergency law"; and the possibility for all those who have been chased from their villages, to return. Financial compensation for the material damages they
• The recognition of the right to selfdetermination for
Kurdish people. * This motion was recently approved by the International Executive Committee of the Fourth International situation, while those in western Europe have been reinforced by their capacity to organise massive demonstrations to protest Öcelan's arrest (before his arrest, the PKK leader had accused the Diaspora cadre of weakness).
The Kurdish national movement defines itself as "middle-eastern, Turkish and European." But it has always had difficulty operating in the complicated and pluralist milieu which surrounds it. Sometimes it has profited from the balance of forces, more often it has been the victim. All its attempts to deal directly with the Turkish state have failed. But the PKK's latest demands for "autonomy" within Turkey can be met by the regime without the need for a Kurdish interlocutor.
Öcelan's arrest and trial has reinforced the Turkish army's recent defeats of PKK units in the Kurdish area. It is still possible for the political wing of the Kurdish national movement to regain the initiative, but only if it can speak to the social as well as the national aspirations of its people. The need for unity
Despite the advances of the last 15 years, the Kurdish national movement has not accumulated enough forces and ideas to impose a democratic and political solution. Progress has been particularly slow in the western part of Turkey, where half the Kurdish population now lives.
Since PKK strategy was based on increasing the diplomatic pressure on Turkey, the movement did almost nothing to build a peace movement inside Turkey. What the Kurdish national movement did build, it tried to control completely.
The result is a string of minute groups, with no independent thought, who direct their ultra-radical propaganda towards their own supporters, and alienate most of those who could, potentially, be won over.
Meanwhile, the Turkish socialist movement is growing in strength, and recognises the Kurdish question as central for the coming years.
Many would like to see Kurdish nationalists and socialists across Turkey come together in a struggle against Islamic fundamentalism, against the threat of a military coup, and for Kurdish rights.
But this means going beyond calls for peace, non-religious republicanism and democracy. It means more than day-to-day struggles for trade union rights. And it means more than the defence of Kurdish national rights.
Kurds and Turks need a combination of democratic, social and Kurdish national struggles, in a climate of mutual respect that will allow the progressive movement to regain the initiative. * • The author is a leading member of the Turkish section of the Fourth International.
International Viewpoint #310 April 1999 5
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