Pravda, Russia
May 13 2005
Rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan says his retrial would be chance to
resolve Kurdish issue
18:12 2005-05-13
Imprisoned Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan welcomed the European
demand for his retrial, saying it will be a chance for him to demand
greater Kurdish rights and a negotiated peace with his guerrilla
movement, a pro-Kurdish newspaper said Friday.
But Ocalan’s desire to use the trial to gain acceptance for his
group, which Turkey regards as a terrorist organization, is only
likely to increase public pressure to reject the European demand and
could even lead Turks to question whether they want to be part of a
European Union that has the power to override Turkish courts.
Ocalan’s call comes as his Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, has
become increasingly fractured and marginalized. Turks fear that he
could try to use the trial to regain the momentum that his group has
lost.
Turkey rejected earlier attempts to transform the group into a
political force by refusing any dialogue with the group.
Today, the rebels are apparently fractured between groups that favor
negotiations and those who believe they should return to the
battlefield.
The PKK’s main bases are in northern Iraq, where they have some 3,500
fighters, and Turkey has been pressing the U.S. Army to take action
against the group. Another 1,500 fighters are believed to be inside
Turkey.
Reflecting the split, the rebels have recently escalated their
attacks. Three Turkish soldiers were killed Friday in an ambush in
southern Turkey, local authorities said.
Turkish intelligence reports say the rebels are trying to smuggle
plastic explosives into Turkey for attacks.
The European Court of Human Rights called for Ocalan’s retrial
Thursday, saying that the 1999 hearing that led to his conviction on
treason charges was not a fair and independent trial. Turkish
officials indicated that they would heed the call.
Ocalan, anticipating the ruling, told his lawyers Wednesday that
Turkey should see it “as a chance given to Turkey to resolve the
Kurdish question,” the Web site of the pro-Kurdish Ozgur Politika
said Friday.
He also said he would use a retrial as a platform to push for a
democratic solution to the Kurdish problem, calling it a “democratic
struggle,” instead of armed struggle, the Web site said.
He said his guerrillas could decide whether to fight or not “with
their free will,” the newspaper reported. “If they want to be heroes,
I’m not an obstacle before them.”
The EU agreed late last year to open accession talks with Turkey in
October, and ignoring a European court decision could jeopardize
Turkey’s chances for membership.
But allowing Ocalan to use the trial to promote his group would
undermine decades of Turkish policy. Some 37,000 people have died in
the Turkish southeast since Ocalan’s group took up arms in 1984, and
there are still some 75,000 Turkish soldiers and 50,000
government-paid village guards in the area.
Harsh Turkish laws that limited media freedoms were used in the past
to stifle debate on the issue of Kurdish rights, laws that were only
relaxed in the past year due to EU pressure.
Allowing the trial is likely to fray nerves in Turkey, where Ocalan
is regarded as a terrorist. Some went so far as to say Turkey should
risk giving up its EU membership dream if it meant retrying Ocalan.
“Tell the world immediately that Ocalan will not be retried, even if
it means putting the EU membership in danger,” wrote Emin Colasan, a
columnist in the Hurriyet newspaper.
“Turkey cannot digest this retrial,” Colasan said. “What is at stake
is the pride of the Turkish nation.”
Gen. Hursit Tolon, the commander of the 1st Army based in Istanbul,
said Friday that “this decision means that ‘I don’t recognize your
courts and constitution.”‘
Nationalist sentiments are already on the rise in Turkey, largely as
a reaction to EU demands that Turkey address many previously taboo
subjects, such as minority rights for Kurds and the mass killings of
Armenians during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.
Turkey regards all Muslims, including Kurds, as Turks. Prior to 1991
it was illegal to speak Kurdish.
Nationalist sentiments are likely to skyrocket if there is a retrial
that is used by Ocalan to promote his separatist group. Hundreds of
nationalists marched in Istanbul, Ankara and other cities Friday to
protest the court ruling.
“The retrial of the terrorist chief would turn Turkey upside down,”
said former Deputy Premier Devlet Bahceli, the head of the
Nationalist Movement Party.
Ocalan was captured in Kenya in 1999 and flown to Turkey, where he
was sentenced to death for treason for leading the rebel group. The
punishment was commuted to life in prison after Turkey abolished the
death penalty under EU pressure.
SELCAN HACAOGLU,