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Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) Flag

Lead by Abdullah Öcalan, Kurdistan Workers Party (Kurdish: Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan) or PKK (1978 - 2002, 2005 - present) a.k.a. KADEK (2002 - 2004) a.k.a. Kongra-Gel (2004 - 2005) is an organisation originally structured on left wing (communist-socialist) ideology. PKK is campaigning for Kurd seperationist through the usage of arms and threats against both civilian and military targets following a Marxist-Leninist doctrine innitialy although it has abandoned much of its leftist doctrine recently. Its main objective is the creation of an independent Kurdish state in Kurdistan, a territory that is currently southeastern Turkey, northeastern Iraq, northeastern Syria and northwestern Iran. PKK's tactics can be best classified as guerilla warfare.

The group is characterised as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the European Union, the United States, Iran and several other countries listed here, and its actions are sometimes criticised by human rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. The same organisations and governments criticise the Turkish government in its campaign to suppress the organisation

Resource gathering

The organisation's budget has been estimated at $86 million USD.^[1] In addition to funding from governments such as Syria, Iran, and the former government of Iraq, the PKK is thought to have raised these funds by a variety of methods, both legal and illegal. As with many political parties, the PKK recieves a portion of its funding in the form of private donations, from both individuals and organizations from around the world. Parties and concerts are organized by branch groups, particularly in Europe. Additionally, it is believed that the PKK makes money through the sale of various publications, as well as recieving revenues from legitimate businesses owned by the organisation. On the other hand, the group is involved in a range of illegal activities, varying from extortion (from locally based businesspeople and other individuals, and other wealthy Kurds around the world) to people and drug smuggling.

Activities and tactics

The PKK have participated in a variety of activities recognized as illegal; they've also borrowed some tactics used by terrorist or guerilla organizations. In addition to fomenting riots, protests, and demonstrations against the Turkish government, the PKK has also been attacking Kurdish civilians who refused to cooperate with the PKK or were suspected of collaborating with the Turkish military.

The PKK owes its continued existence to its ability to sustain itself while in hiding; they help do this by kidnapping western tourists, primarily in Istanbul but also at different resorts. They also conduct material raids on villages and small towns.

The PKK have conducted bombing attacks (including suicide bombings) on government and police installations as well as local tourist sites, and other public places. They have also attacked Turkish diplomatic and commercial facilities across Western Europe. In addition to skirmishing with Turkish forces (military, police, and the local Village guards), the PKK have also launched violent attacks on civilians (Kurds and non-Kurds alike).

The areas in which the group operates are generally mountainous rural areas and dense urban areas. The mountainous terrain offers an advantage to members of the PKK by allowing them to hide in a network of caves and making military air operations, especially helicopter use, hazardous for the Turkish government. While in urban areas, PKK members are often able to blend in with the local population.

The group plants mines (Russian-made anti-vehicle mines and Russian- and Italian-made anti-personnel mines. Use of these mines has led to civilian deaths, in part due to triggering by trucks and buses rather than the intended military armoured vehicles.

History

Main article: History of the Kurdistan Workers Party

File:Abdullah öcalan.jpg

Abdullah Öcalan, founder of the PKK

The PKK's core was originally a group called the "Ankara Democratic Patriotic Association of Higher Education" or Apocus, which was made up largely of students, lead by Abdulluh Öcalan. Although originally from Ankara, the group soon moved its focus to south-east Turkey, and its large Kurdish population, where they began organising. With the official release of the "Proclamation of Independence of PKK" on 27 October, 1978, the group became known as the Kurdistan Workers Party. With its largely communist ideology, the PKK soon found itself in conflict with right-wing entities.

In 1979 Mehmet Celal Bucak was condemned for "exploiting the peasants," and "collaborating". The PKK attempted to assassinate him, but failed. This was the first violent public action taken by the PKK, and it marked a period of intense urban warfare between radical political elements in Turkey. From 1978 to 1982, the Turkish National Security Council recorded 43,000 incidents it described as terrorism. As part of the conflict, ex-prime minister Nihat Erim was assassinated in 1980. The military coup that same year largely ended the conflict, with members of the PKK going to prison, or fleeing to Syria.

Starting in 1984, the PKK transformed itself into a paramilitary organisation (largely based in and supported by Iran,Iraq and Syria), as it launched convential attacks as well as bombings against Turkish government, military and civilian targets, many of them connected to the Southeastern Anatolia Project. The PKK also moved to a less centralized format, taking up operations in a variety of European and Middle Eastern countries.

Following the collapse of the USSR, the PKK largely abandoned its communist roots, attempting to better accommodate Islamic beliefs. In the mid 1990s, they also began to shift from conventional bombing to suicide bombing, launching fifteen such attacks between 1995 and 1999. Interestingly, the majority (11 of 15) of the suicide bombers were women.

In 1999 Turkish authorities captured PKK leader Abdulluh Ocalan while he was being transferred by the Greek Embassy in Kenya to the local airport, in a joint operation between the CIA, Turkey's MIT, and Mossad. He was tried and sentenced to life inprisonment.

Following a call by the captured Ocallan for a peaceful solution, the PKK found itself blacklisted in many countries. Consequently, the PKK went through a series of name changes and implemented a unilateral truce, which ended in 2004. On 2 April of that year, the Council of the European Union added the PKK to its list of terrorist organisations. Later in 2004, the US Treasury moved to freeze assets of branches of the PKK.

Effects of PKK

The PKK is controversial at least; at its worst it has been classified as both a terrorist and a criminal organization. However, it cannot be denied that the PKK has had a far-reaching impact, particularly in Turkey.

Economy

	Human				Monetary
	Newspapers		Government			Newspapers
	Dead	Wounded	Dead	Wounded		Fully	Partially
Junior Officer	420	1027	�		Public Machinary/Transportation	262	238
Soldier	3024	6999	�		Outpost Buildings	9	80
Officer	220	527	�		Bridges	5	21
Total	3664	8553	4027	8676	School Buildings	114	127
Village Guard	1177	1823	1265	1725	Private Machinary/Transportation	278	346
Police	199	661	254	986	Public health clinics	6	8
Guardian	1	2			Derailing (Train)	45	40
					Post Office/Power Station/Mosque	112	193
Medical Doctor	2	4
Nurse	12	32
Prosecutor		2
Judge	1
Governer	119	90
Teacher	45	96	155
Imam		2
Muftu		1
Civial Servant	11	70

Engineer		4
Mayor	9	2

Child	508	660
Male	3439	4011
Female	519	803
Total	4466	5474	4561	5860
PKK(D/W)			18958	706
Grand Total	9706	16816	29065	17953

According to the Turkish Government, from 1984 through November 1997, 26,532 PKK members, 5,185 security force members, and 5,209 civilians lost their lives in the fighting. The damage to infrastructure and the money spent to end the conflict is claimed by the Turkish government to stand at 200 billion ($200,000,000,000) US dollars. Another study which was performed through analysis of news articles on national newspapers between 19.07.1987 - 31.05.2001, this data is avalible on the table right.

Regional Economy

From regional economy perspective PKK's actions were targeted to stop the Southeastern Anatolia Project, known as G.A.P. It is important to recognize not just what has been destroyed in terms of rail roads, communication centers, etc. but also what could have been achieved if the dustruction was not happaned. There is another section Transboundry Freshwater Disbutes, that covers international dimensions of this topic.

Region's income is agriculture. In 1981 (Köy Envanter Edütleri), 8% of the families control the 50% of the land. 38% of the regions population do not own any land. 41% of the population has only 5 hectare or less land to farm. Direct farming subsidies were turning into subsidies to the landlords that control 41% of the land. Land reforms during 1930's and 1950's did not reached to this region. Turkey took another method to deal with the powerty problem. It was dubbed as "Powerty Reduction Through Water Development". Initial stages of were developed after 1960's coup. At that time, its name was Southeastern Anatolia Development Project. Goverment subsidised small scale business, such as poultry, with the economical structure of 1960s. The idea at that time was to enable other economic paths to the region. The current form of the project was developed during the 1970's Süleyman Demirel goverment which was visualized it as big scale hydro-electric and irrigation system. This way long seeked land problem can be solved by turning the land that was not fertile to system by irrigation. Plan aslo included improving the output of the land using the cheap energy coming from the dams. Turgut Ozal extended the economic and social dimensions of the project, when we came to 1980. During initial years of 1990's, project was among the 5 biggest planned projects of the world. You can read more under the G.A.P. page. An inportant note about the project is planned by the central goverment, which did not include wide range of local discussions, before 1990. During 1990ss there was a special T.V. channel assigned to the region, but most of the 1980's reaction to goverment shaped along the tribal lines was because of this misinformation.

The G.A.P had seen by PKK as harmful to Kurds and their villages. PKK percieved G.A.P as a method to eliminate its social base by increasing the income of the region. Higher income would have improved the support of impoverished people to the government. Irrigation was transforming the geography of area which these changes was obstructing PKK's free movement and destroying villages. PKK claimed that some of the dams in the system were designed to flood its path ways. Generally such development projects tend to move mountain people into planned urban areas. PKK was using this group as a camouflage. Turgut Özal's legacy of telecommunication was seen by PKK as elimination of its propaganda methods, and a way to inform military about their movements. New industries and farms would give a chance to young and bright people of the region a future besides guerilla warfare. And most importantly, Turkey was building an infrastructure which will be utilised in a capitalist system to change the social sructure. This was totally odd to PKK's communist idealogy. Goverment was trying to modernise and westernise the region. These activities were percieved as part of longstanding determination to crush all expression of Kurdish identity. The PKK had targeted GAP with sabotages and abductions of engineers, without the infrastructure (power lines, transportation, communication, irrigation channels etc) development stops.

Human Interest: Early 1990's. National headlines "Missing Factory, villagers were shocked." Villagers: Expecting to work at the factory but all the machinary dissapeared in a single night. Owener: PKK warned me, I tried to save my investment by moving to another region.

During the 1980's Turkey began to transfer massive amounts of money to G.A.P.. Dams were getting ready to function. A new road system was build to move the products. Three airports and two new universities opened in the region, though it was hard to find teachers because of security reasons. Goverment was constantly subsidising the small business, but without the skilled people and security move the products, it was impossible to develop an industry. Also, idea of educating the local people so that they could have other options was failing. As commanly stated at that time "the most fundamental ingredient of development, full local participation, was missing". Goverment recognised that "local people feel powerless as they do not want or know nothing about the oppurtunities." Reality was local people were in the middle of a guerilla war. Their imminent thought was security, not what the project was targetting. Under these conditions, Turkey stopped the funding of the project during 1993 as the numbers on protecting the investments was more than transfers to the projects. With the 21st century goverment subsidy is replaced with international projects. This is a sign that project as planned during 1960-1993 is effectively terminated by the war in the region.

Work Force

PKK's policy of public uprising had changed the priorities of the people in the region. Instead of seeking higher levels of self achievements, they were concentared on the security issues.
With the disruptions of continuity of the economy, people had to find other means of earning their life. Small scale business can not work under inefficiency. Without the constant cash flow (periods of not working) these business cease to exit. This brought the migration from the region.
Fights along the tribal lines increased the dependency of the people to the landlords.

Social & Education

Social Ethics

There are essential ingredients for a functional society. One of these is the ethics of the society. To function effectively, social ethics opens a path to relation among different segments of the society. Social ethics is a very delicate cencept, that can only be developed if the members of the society wants it. Societies fill it with other concepts, when the rules that govern the trust, communication, and future plan (social ethics) is eliminated. With the dimishing social ethics in the region, people adhares to relegious concepts.

Turkish government with the experience of the Ottoman empire has always valued to enhance the ingredients of the social ethics. The effective educational system, effective judicial system, effective financial support are the main ingredients to social ethics, as ability to communicate, ability to trust, and ability to plan for future is fabricated with these systems.

Education

By looking to the amount of teachers killed and schools destroyed PKK’s second target in the region was on the education. PKK sees it as indoctrination. Education in Turkish state schools is mandated as always being through the medium of the Turkish language.

The summary of teachers murdered with respected cities are listed. As can be seen from distribution of the activities, it is designed to keep the all educational system in the region under the feeling of threat. This way, even the students are gathered in the educational institutions, they can not be persuaded to involve with the educational activities.

Year	Total	Mardin	Batman	Erzurum	Tunceli	Diyarbakir	Bitlis	Bingol	Sanliurfa	Siirt	Mus	Van	Elaziğ	Şırnak	Ağrı	Tokat
1988	19	4	3		12
1989	4
1990	10
1991	4			2	2
1992	24
1993	51	1			12	24	5	4	2	1	1	1
1994	31	4	4	4	10	5		1					1	1	1
1995	7	2	1			2								1		1
1996	8
Total	158

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

It is estimated by an veterans organisation that during the conflict Turkish Military used two million soldiers for the operations against the PKK. This number does not specify the active engagement and it is only rough estimate that also includes the logistic and other functions.
There is no specific number for the clinically diagnosed and treated patients, both from the Turkish Military and the PKK and Kurdish civilians.

Administrative

After 1980, Turkey had to come up with different organisational structures to deal with insurgency and terrorism. Some of these are directed toward the PKK.

State of Emergency (OHAL) (1983)

Before this law, when a situation is created that local goverment did not prepared for, such as natural disasters and social unrest, Turkey was using direct military control. Under these conditions, all the decisions and actions were taken from the local goverment and local elected system and given to the highest military unit in that reagion. After 1980, it was apparent that goverment has to be prepared for the emergency conditions. With this law, Turkey shift to use a mixture of both normal and military system. It took 20 and more years to deal with emergencies without the massive organisational structure of military. The 1983 State of Emergency Law gave a structure to goverment responses and a budget to keep that readiness. This law had been used during the first three days of 1999 eartquake. However, it was apparent after the third day that military has to be involved.

OHAL was passed in 1983, did not mean the military control ended in Turkey. Most of the states have lifted their status before 1986. The rest of the states lost their military control; Bingöl, Elazığ, Tunceli, Şanlıurfa (19/03/1986) Van (19/03/1987) Diyarbakır, Mardin, Siirt (19/07/1987) with the respected dates.

Village guards (1985)

Main article: Village guards

First: 26/3/1985 Renewed: 7/2/1990

This policy supports villages both financially and with arms to have their own security personnel as the Turkish armed forces were unable to protect the residential areas in the region. The law is established such a way that these guards were selected through the village elders and they are responsible to goverment in their action. The village guard system has been frequently criticised by human rights organisations. The Turkish state has been known to blame acts by village guards on PKK insurgents.

Reginal Governer of State of Emergency (1987)

The security section of the goverment was designed as a reactive entity. Even the OHAL was designed to cope with the aftermath of an emergency. In that respect, when it comes to dealing with insurgency and terrorism, Turkey was always late and uncoordinated. The Regional Governer of State of Emergency (1987) is added to 1983 OHAL law to define another structure for the southeast region. The main targets of this organisation was to enable the coordination of the activities, ability to move information between the units and rapid action, among the OHAL states.

The government instead of coordinating the activities in the region from the capital, decided to leave some of its powers to a regional governing system.

Political/Justice

HEP/DEP/HADEP

From onset, Turkish political system believed that democracy can not survive in the face of “ethnic divisions”. The 1961 constitution marked a separation between “ethnic divisions” and “ethnicity”. It created more space to political parties showing religious and ethnic colours. Yeni Turkiye Partisi, YTP, during the 1960’s received 30% of the votes coming from the region, where the majority of them are of Kurdish origin. It was formed by local landlords from southeastern Turkey. Turkiye Isci Partisi TIP is a left wing organisation and it was interested in the newly generated section of the Kurdish society, workers. In it’s 1970 congress TIP openly talked about the southeast regional problems of workers. It was first TIP named the “Kurd problem”. As defined by TIP and recognised by the governments of 1970’s, “Kurd problem” was the problem of living standards and expression of self which was tackled with planned government activity called G.A.P.. A government document for administrators from 1972 for this region states “in the past state has been only an authority receiving goods and services in the form of taxes and soldiers but has done very little for the people in return” G.A.P. was Turkey’s response to its obligations.

The importance of HEP/DEP/HADEP can be explained with happened after 1980 coup. It was with PKK, the “Kurd problem” was defined as an ethnicity problem associated with communist separationist ideology. It brought the “ethnic division” issues. The 1982 constitution wrote specific articles to protect the state under the perceived separationist movement. These laws have been received much criticism. The Turkish security system, at that period, perceived any terminology associated with “Kurd problem” as the manifestation of separationist ideology, and rejected even using the word. When it came to 1990s, Turgut Ozal’s presidency tried to separate the ethnic separationist problem to the ethnic problem. The famous “I recognise the Kurdish Reality” was stated under these conditions. However the problem that the Turkish political establishment had in the 1990s was trying to bring Kurdish expression to the parliament without the suggestion of secession or regional autonomy. The existence of a regional political party, that is tied to a territory, embracing only part of the state, with goals of mobilising ethnic support would end up promoting the right to secede. The movement of HEP/DEP/HADEP is shaped under interaction of these issues.

Non Govermental Organisations (NGO)

Terrorism Law (1991)

The primary aim of the 1991 law was to bring coherence to a set of laws that had been used to deal with terrorism (primarily by the PKK) in the past. This set of laws was passed to define structure and organise the response of the government, in addition to specifying rules of punishment. Before this law organised crime was handled within the individual sections of the criminal law that deals with the crime itself.

The Turkish government claimed that it would not deal with terrorism through military coups anymore and accepted the idea that terrorism will be part of life in Turkey for a while. Terrorism law brought a specific set of regulations and powers to deal with terrorists and their actions. This was handled unsatisfactorily in the 1970 and 1980 military coups. Turkish parliament with the experience of the coups and their inability to combat the sources of the terrorism used measures from previous coups in its laws.

International Politics

Energy

PKK was used as a bargaining chip for the pipelines
(01.10.1993) Mobil stops the search activities in the region, citing the security.

Transboundry Freshwater Disbutes

In 1975, unilater water developments came very close to provoking warfare along the Euphrates river. Syria give safe haven to PKK to stop water development projects.

European Union

During the capture of Ocalan, Turkish system (all the branches) decided to perform every activity even if means end of Turkey's EU bid. There was a report about discussions in the security council for an operation in Italy.

Immigration

PKK developed a mechanism to help their members to gain political asylum.

Flags

See Kurdistan Workers Party/Flags

Footnotes

^ Section based on the article by Nur Bilge Criss, 'The Nature of PKK Terrorism in Turkey', Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 8 (1995) pp. 17-37
^ Section based on material published by the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs unless specified otherwise.

References

Criss, Nur Bilge. (1995) "The Nature of PKK Terrorism in Turkey" from Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 8.
White, Paul J. (2000), Primitive Rebels or Revolutionary Modernizers? The Kurdish Nationalist Movement in Turkey, Zed Books

External links

European Union's terrorist organizations list containing PKK

http://www.statewatch.org/news/2002/may/terr330034.pdf

United States' terrorist organizations list containing PKK

http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/2000/2450.htm

Websites supporting the PKK

Kurdish issue in Turkey

PKK - Kurdish issue links

Websites with criticism of the PKK

governmental:

Non-governmental:

ICT - Terrorism & Counter-Terrorism (www.ict.org.il) - List of abduction of foreigners by the PKK
ICT - Terrorism & Counter-Terrorism (www.ict.org.il) - Attack Histogram, from Apr 1, 1988 to Jul 24, 1999
Terrorism: Questions & Answers (cfrterrorism.org) - Kurdistan Workers’ Party: Turkey, separatists
Assembly of Turkish American Associations (www.ataa.org) - A Case Study of the PKK in Turkey, by Foundation for Middle East and Balkan Studies
Assembly of Turkish American Associations (www.ataa.org) - Kurds, by Goltz - Politics and Comment - Los Angeles Times February 28, 1999
Terrorism101.org: Learn About Terrorism (www.terrorism101.org) - Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)
MIPT Terrorism knowledge base (www.tkb.org) - Kurdistan Workers' Party
sehitlerolmez.com
Global Security (www.globalsecurity.org) - Kongra-Gel/Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)
No security without human rights - Amnesty International (www.amnesty.org)

Other websites that cover the Turkey/PKK conflict

Federation of American Scientists (www.fas.org) - Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)
Turkey: "Still Critical": Summary - Human Rights Watch (www.hrw.org)
Avoiding Past Patterns of Violation - Human Rights Watch (www.hrw.org)
Univ. of Utah, Econ Archive (archives.econ.utah.edu) - In Kurdish Turkey, a New Enemy, by Karl Vick of the Washington Post Foreign Service