At 50, Ocalan (pronounced OH-jah-lahn) is an over-the-hill Marxist guerrilla with a nasty reputation. For more than 14 years, his fighters launched vicious attacks against government forces in southeastern Turkey, where about 12 million Kurds live without full political or cultural rights, denied even the use of their own language in schools or broadcasting. But Ocalan’s guerrillas also killed fellow Kurds who refused to cooperate with them. The uprising drew an equally savage response from the Turks, and so far, the two sides have murdered more than 30,000 people. Even before Ocalan’s capture, his Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) was losing the war. After the arrest, Turkish television showed him, dazed and distraught, telling his captors of his ““love’’ for Turkey. ““My mother is a Turk,’’ he said. ““Let there be no torture or anything.''
But such is the power of Ocalan’s name, and of Kurdish grievances, that his arrest led to chaos. The riots spread to Kurdish neighborhoods on the outskirts of Istanbul. The PKK accused Israel and the United States of helping Turkey seize Ocalan. In Berlin, three Kurds were killed as they stormed into Israel’s consulate, drawing gunfire from Israeli guards. Israel quickly denied that it had helped Turkey, perhaps its closest friend in the Islamic world.
American denials seemed more porous. ““No U.S. personnel participated in the apprehension, turnover or transport of Ocalan to Turkey,’’ said a White House spokesman. But all signs were that U.S. intelligence tracked Ocalan as he crisscrossed Europe and Africa. American officials helped persuade several countries to deny him sanctuary, sources said. All the while, Ocalan was chattering carelessly on his mobile phone. U.S. intelligence picked up the mobile-phone calls, but CIA officials insisted there was no eavesdropping on the Greek government. During most of his 14-year war against Turkey, Ocalan was an exile in Syria. But last October, he was forced to leave after Turkey threatened the Syrians with war if they didn’t expel him. He bounced around to Russia, Italy and back to Russia, and then, in late January, supporters slipped him illegally into Greece. When the government caught on, it frantically tried to get rid of Ocalan, finally stashing him at the residence of its ambassador in Kenya. Last week the Greeks persuaded him to leave the embassy and drive to the Nairobi airport, ostensibly for a flight to sanctuary in Europe. But at the airport, someone–apparently the Kenyan police–handed him over to the Maroon Berets, a team of Turkish commandos.
The Kurds are often described as the world’s largest national group without a country of its own. They are a non-Arab, mostly Islamic people who speak a language related to Persian. There are more than 20 million of them in the landlocked mountains that sprawl across Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Iran and Armenia–all countries adamantly opposed to an independent Kurdistan. The Kurds were offered the possibility of an independent state after World War I, when a treaty carved up what remained of the Ottoman Empire. But the Turks scuttled the plan and eventually absorbed most of the Kurds within the borders of modern-day Turkey.
The Kurds are tough people with a habit of fighting each other, which has made them useful tools for foreign powers. In 1974 and again in 1991, the United States inspired Iraqi Kurds to rebel against Baghdad, and both times, Washington eventually abandoned them. Now U.S. warplanes, operating from Turkey, police a no-fly zone over Kurdish areas in northern Iraq. The 4 million Iraqi Kurds are being encouraged to help overthrow Saddam Hussein. But Washington opposes independence for any of the Kurds, fearing regional instability, and it has formally listed the PKK as a terrorist organization.
After flying to Turkey on an unmarked private jet, Ocalan was locked up on the prison island of Imrali, south of Istanbul. His treason trial, which could lead to the death penalty, might begin as early as next month. Savoring its triumph, the Turkish government sent several thousand troops into northern Iraq, pursuing a group of rebel Kurds thought to include Ocalan’s potential successor, his brother, Osman.
Last November, during a stop-off in Italy, Abdullah Ocalan told Kendal Nezan, who heads the moderate Kurdish Institute of Paris, that he wanted to negotiate with the Turks. ““But he said, “I have to tell my people they didn’t fight for nothing’,’’ Nezan recalls. Ocalan wanted a guarantee of Kurdish cultural rights, an amnesty for his fighters and permission to organize nonsecessionist Kurdish political parties. Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit has offered the PKK an amnesty, but it hasn’t been backed up by the necessary legislation. Now that Ocalan faces trial, the chance for a compromise may have been lost. ““The Turks never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity,’’ says a well-regarded Western expert on the country. Ocalan’s fighters may also harden their stance. Brother Osman is inclined ““to export the war to the rest of Turkey–Istanbul, Izmir–and toward Europe,’’ says Nezan. If that happens, Americans could become targets for another terrorist group with a grievance against Washington.
PEOPLE WITHOUT A NATION More than 20 million Kurds live throughout Europe and the Middle East, the vast majority of them in Turkey.
Kurd populations TURKEY 12,000,000 IRAQ 4,000,000 IRAN 4,000,000 SYRIA 1,000,000 GERMANY 500,000 RUSSIA 300,000 ARMENIA 100,000 SOURCE: BBC NEWS
