Perceptions and Interpretations of the Kurdish Movement

of thousands of Kurdish villages and millions of migrants for fifteen years”⁷³³. As maintained in the excerpt from MP Korakas below⁷³⁴:

[GR] “Thus, while they’re preparing, for these days, intervention in Kosovo against Yugoslavia, in order to protect the Albanians by provocatively strengthening the so-called Liberation Army by all means, they’re arming Turkey to the teeth in the genocide against the Kurdish people and in the oppression against the Turkish people. We should not forget [that] right now in Turkey the Turkish people themselves suffer hardships”.

Allegedly, Turkey was continuously summiting heinous crimes not only against her neighbours but also against her oppressed peoples who were long been subject to harsh and authoritarian treatment of the state apparatus.

Besides, clinching the argument of the Greek MPs Kantartzis⁷³⁸, Papariga⁷³⁹, Tsovolas⁷⁴⁰, Lotidis⁷⁴¹; the Turkish MP Aksoy declared that it was a movement with a claim on the Turkish territory, and deciphered a five-step strategy that revealed the future plans of PKK, as follows: The first was gaining power, “which meant bandits would govern at night and the state would govern in the daytime”⁷⁴². The second phase was cultural autonomy. The third was autonomy throughout their region. The fourth was federation. And the fifth was an independent state. The MPs in the Turkish parliament, therefore, agitated for respect for the country’s territorial integrity.

PKK was considered as a real threat in conducting not only violent acts but also disinformation campaigns against Turkey to inspire the European public opinion. By circulating threatening visuals and a web of false news, according to PM Yılmaz, it was aiming to display a negative image of Turkey in the world, and also to repel tourists who were planning to visit Turkey⁷⁴³.

Supposedly, in order to achieve those strategic goals, PKK was seeking to construct relevant conditions wherein its ethnic discrimination, deprivation, and exclusion theses were grounded, and as a result, the Kurdish people of the Eastern region were deprived of their democratic participation rights, and fundamental rights and freedoms.

MP Akarcalı exposed a vast network of human rights abuses of PKK. Accordingly, it had been restricting the Kurdish origin people on their political and public participations, and control their electoral rights and right to vote on their political choices. PKK was impeding them to vote only for the political parties that were based on the Kurdish nationalism⁷⁴⁴. In his words, it was ‘heartbreaking’ that lately “more than 100 Kurdish people were killed […] because of their candidacy or membership in other parties”⁷⁴⁵.

Opinions were exchanged between members while discussing what PKK really aimed at involving in such terrorist conduct. Although it had been striving for ethno-

738 Minutes of the Hellenic Parliament, (12.03.1999): 5276. [Achilleas Kantartzis, KKE, the then MP].

739 Minutes of the Hellenic Parliament, (16.02.1999): 4467. [Papariga, KKE, the then MP].

740 ibid, 4468. [Tsovolas, DIKKI, the then MP].

741 ibid, 4499. [Lotidis, PASOK, the then MP].

742 Minutes of Grand National Assembly of Turkey, (24.11.1998): 240. [Aksoy, DYP, the then MP].

743 Minutes of Grand National Assembly of Turkey, (18.11.1998): 463. [Yılmaz, ANAP, the then PM].

744 In respect of the Turkish political literature, the pro-Kurdish parties are as follows: HEP (1990-1993), ÖZEP (1992-(1990-1993), ÖZDEP (1992-(1990-1993), DEP (1993-1994), HADEP (1994-2003), DEHAP (1997-2005), DTP (2005-2009), BDP (2008-2014), HDP (2012-…).

745 Minutes of Grand National Assembly of Turkey, (18.11.1998): 472. [Akarcalı, ANAP, the then MP].

nationalistic ideals of the Kurdish people –so was declared by itself– it had at most been detrimental to Kurds. Reportedly, there was a discrepancy between PKK’s declarations and actions; in that its terrorist attacks were taking place in the southeast part of Turkey, where the majority of habitants belonged to the very Kurdish ethnie and suffered seriously from those attacks:

[TR] “Friends, the PKK movement, isn’t a Kurdish movement. Everybody has to know this.

Well, I’m saying everywhere [that] the PKK movement is a movement to destroy the Kurdish people. [I]n the future, it’ll be written by historians. What kind of a movement is this? The dead is Kurd, the [parent whose] child was deprived of school is Kurd, the [family who] was deprived of their house is Kurd, the [family whose] house was burnt is Kurd, the [one who] was deprived of his field is Kurd. What sort of PKK movement is this? Are there only Kurds on the mountain, in armed actions, today? There’re Turks, there’re Armenians, also there’re Europeans, there’re various people of the world”⁷⁴⁶.

[TR] “Besides, Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of the separatist organization, isn’t of Kurdish origin, as you all know he’s of Armenian origin. As far as we watch [him] on television, an informal, when you look at, he has the image of a man with mental retardation, scratching his belly while talking. [I]t’s not possible for such a person to be able to manage such an organization and to plan and conduct its activities without the support of someone from outside, especially at the state level –without the support of economic, logistical, educational or intelligence.

Therefore, the event isn’t a simple Apo issue; the event is external-based [that] has come up to the present day with the support of the hostile states. Kurdish, Turkish, Circassian, Tatar; Arab, Alevi, Sunni, we [all] constitute the Anatolian mosaic under the Republic of Turkey. Especially with the Kurds, we’ve been joined at the hip for two thousand years, wives are taken and given”⁷⁴⁷.

In this regard, MP Balcılar, asserting that Öcalan was an ‘Armenian’, not a Kurd, made an assumption that PKK was being exploited for the Armenian purposes. To state briefly, in Turkey, there was a general opinion that the Armenians had a strong desire to dismantle Turkey, which was an incomplete task of their ancestors –who were deported to Syria due to their armed attacks against the Ottomans with the support of Russia, as claimed by the Turks in general– or –who were exterminated in the pogrom, as claimed by the Armenians in general, and by the Armenian diaspora in particular.

In the excerpt below MP Balcılar drew attention to the external roots of PKK and its own agenda which might not comply with the Kurds’ who had expectations for and a belief in PKK.

According to the MP Gül, media campaigns had to be launched by Turkey to release the truth about PKK. There should have been a firm stance on the issue until PKK was convicted of committing terrorist activities by the international world. Supposedly, if Turkey could not have managed to draw attention of her allies, or her allies could have

746 Minutes of Grand National Assembly of Turkey, (24.11.1998): 255. [Kamer Genç, DYP, the then MP].

747 ibid, 242. [Mustafa Balcılar, ANAP, the then MP].

turned a deaf ear to the terrorist attacks in Turkey and sustained their support for PKK Turkey would have definitely reconsidered her foreign policy from scratch⁷⁴⁸.

Turkey considered as successful with her raising public awareness policy about the PKK reality, but surprisingly her neighbor –Greece– stayed aloof from the other Western states that were impressed by her campaigns and conduct of diplomacy and instead held a positive belief in PKK.

Identification of the Kurdish movement by the ruling and opposing party members of the Greek parliament remained as a complex and intricate task in that how to position it was seemingly a matter of opinion based on their respective political affiliation. For some, if the Kurds were inclined to armed conflict, they had to be excluded from the Greek support; for others, regardless of their methods chosen to win freedom, the Kurds, though with their PKK bonds, should have been supported. However, all agreed on one point: PKK was ‘a freedom struggle against human rights violations in Turkey’.

[GR] ”[T]he Greek people are with them, they’re with the struggling Kurdish people, […] the Greek people and Hellenism that are proud of their struggles for humanity, for human rights”⁷⁴⁹. [GR] “[W]e’d say that the PKK isn’t a terrorist organization, because at the time of the Greek Revolution all the fighters [such as] Kolokotronis, Rigas Feraios, Alexander Ypsilantis, Karaiskakis were terrorists. Who ignores it? Anybody? […] Third[ly], don’t the Kosovo Albanians do the same? Aren’t they terrorists?”⁷⁵⁰.

[GR] “[T]he struggles of every people for their freedom and for their rights termed as terrorism, with the means each time they choose. Or do we forget that in the past our people also took arms for freedom and national independence? Americans and the European Union characterize these peoples, these national liberating and social movements as terrorists”⁷⁵¹.

[GR] “You spoke today about terrorists. Indeed, in our vicinity and on the international scene, who are the terrorists, if not the Turks, who invaded Cyprus and invaded half of it? The Turks are always violating human rights in their own country, but also in the surrounding area, are the Kurds terrorists or the Albanians whom the Turks are now running to support?”⁷⁵².

[GR] “At this point, I also want to emphasize in the most categorical way that Greece condemns all forms of terrorism, wherever and by anyone else. Greece has suffered from terrorism. And it isn’t willing to tolerate and harbour terrorism. Therefore, the shameless accusations that Ankara has recently launched do not concern us, they don’t touch us. We’re fully committed to respecting human rights and condemning all forms of terrorism. We act in accordance with the rules valid in all European countries”⁷⁵³.

748 Minutes of Grand National Assembly of Turkey, (07.10.1998): 299. [Gül, FP, the then MP].

749 Minutes of the Hellenic Parliament, (17.02.1999): 4527. [Tsovolas, DIKKI, the then MP].

750 Minutes of the Hellenic Parliament, (12.03.1999): 5280. [Intzes, DIKKI, the then MP].

751 ibid, 5276. [Kantartzis, KKE, the then MP].

752 Minutes of the Hellenic Parliament, (05.03.1999): 5063. [Giorgos Rokkos, DIKKI, the then MP].

753 ibid: 5024–25. [Simitis, PASOK, the then PM]; On the day of Öcalan’s capture by the Turkish authorities, the then FM Pangalos was the first member of the governing party -PASOK- who used the term terrorism, though unintentionally, while describing the situation of the Greek diplomats: “Twenty-three diplomatic authorities of Greece around the world today were occupied [καταλαµβάνοµαι]. […]

At the moment, the husband and the eight-year-old son of Ambassador Angelaki are detained and prepared to spend their first night under terrible conditions of terrorism [συνθήκες τροµοκρατίας]. He is held by Ambassador Gennimatas and his wife. [And] there are five other employees.” See, Minutes of the Hellenic Parliament, (16.02.1999): 4465.

The PASOK government was criticized particularly for hastening to confirm and use identification tagged by the USA and the EU. Reportedly, it was implementing the decisions of the others without discussing or raising an objection, and the Ocalan case was an end result of the meek compliance of the PASOK politicians. As stated by the MP Polidoras the Greek government “ha[d] become more royal than the king⁷⁵⁴ in Europe”⁷⁵⁵. It was condemned for advocating the policies of the USA, NATO,⁷⁵⁶ and some other countries of the EU that “sign[ed] various treaties, which on the one hand favour[ed] all those who cause[d] massacre in the Balkans, those who favour[ed]

separatist movements in the Balkans”⁷⁵⁷ but did not accept the Kurdish struggle after so many years of suffering because of the methods they chose to claim their rights on the other. The MP Tsovolas pointed out that the first was the USA that considered Öcalan a terrorist, and was followed by Germany of the EU, and finally the Greek government had “to play the policy of a good child in the United Europe, and in order to integrate Greece into the euro zone,⁷⁵⁸ in terms of political criteria it g[ave]

everything to achieve this supremacy”⁷⁵⁹.