WEEKLY SELECTION: Kurds Protest Across Europe

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

ROME, Feb 20 1999 (IPS) - Thousands of angry Kurdish demonstrators took to the streets all over Europe Tuesday to protest the capture of Kurdish guerrilla leader Abdullah Ocalan while he was in Kenya.

In The Hague, Amsterdam, Rome, Paris, Marseille, Bonn, London, Moscow, Vienna, Geneva and several German cities, sympathizers of Ocalan’s Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) occupied Greek embassies and United Nations offices and took diplomats hostage.

The Kenyan embassy in Paris also was seized by protesters, reports said.

In Denmark, a Kurdish woman set herself on fire outside the Greek embassy in Copenhagen. Police said the woman was seriously burned and in Athens, another Ocalan supporter self-immolated over Greece’s refusal to offer asylum to the rebel leader.

Ocalan was returned secretly to Ankara by Turkish agents in an operation Kurdish separatists believed involved Greek and Kenyan complicity, which was denied by both Athens and Nairobi.

Some reports said Ocalan, who had been in the Greek embassy in Nairobi, left after a promise he would be flown to another African country, and was kidnapped enroute to the airport.

A statement by the Greek government said only that “in order to help seek and find a solution to the problem of Abdullah Ocalan on a European level he was granted a place to stay in Kenya where he had travelled after his efforts to find permission to reside in various European countries.”

It said Ocalan has left “his place of residence” on Monday and that Greek authorities had “no information from Kenyan authorities as to where he is.”

Turkish prime minister Bulent Ecevit announced that he would be tried on charges of treason and murder by the country’s “independent judicial system,” crimes that the death penalty.

The action ends several months of diplomatic and political tensions, which started lasted November, when Ocalan was arrested on his arrival in Rome from Moscow, and immediately requested political asylum.

Some 10,000 kurds from all over Europe then gathered in Rome to prevent Ocalan’s extradition to Turkey as requested by Ankara. When Italy rejected the Turkish demand, an economic and diplomatic row started between the two countries.

Ocalan left Italy on January 16 under pressure from the Italian authorities, who tried and failed to establish an international court to try Ocalan who, in the meantime, renounced violence and called for a political solution for the Turkish Kurdistan.

The PKK has waged a guerrilla war for over 15 years seeking a unified Kurdistan -whose population is spread between Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria- but following Ocalan’s arrival in Italy, a party congress modified its line at a congress held last month, to seek autonomy within Turkey.

Since his departure from Italy, Ocalan has desperately looked for a safe place from where he hoped to lead a negotiation for an internationally-supervised settlement for autonomy in the Turkish Kurdistan.

Under Turkish pressure, Ocalan’s main supporter, Syria, expelled him last year, starting an international manhunt, in which the Kurdish leader became a pariah.

The Turkish intelligence operation in Kenya, however, may spark renewed violence in the Kurdish territory and attract attention the Kurds plight: Human rights violations against Kurds and political opposers stand as the main barrier for Turkey’s entry into the European Union.

There also were fears of violence in Europe, as Kurdish protesters continued their rowdy dem,onstration outside the Greek embassy in London.

“Our main concern is if Kurdish protesters are faced with violence or commit violence,” said Kerim Yildiz, director of the Kurdistan Human Rights Project, a nongovernmental organisation.

“We are also worried the violence will spread in Europe. They may not be able to control the protests. There’s a lot of emotion inolved.”

Yildiz said Ocalan “will never get a fair trial in Turkey, and this will also bring huge provocations among Kurds.”

Estella Schmid, an Austrian campaigner for Kurdish self- determination and a spokeswoman for the Kurdish Information Centre in London, also warned of further violence unless European countries signalled support to the Kurdish cause.

“If Europe isn’t careful, all hell will break loose here. People will become violent,” she said, adding: “the European community are entirely reponsible for this situation. Now, who will keep the Kurds under control?

“Compared to the genocide that is taking place in Kurdistan, Kosovo is child’s play. Yet, over the past 10 years, Europe has taken no decision on Kurdistan. We have been lobbying like hell, but the British government has not responded at all.”

Schmid said while Turkey was the “main culprit” in the kidnapping, the London centre had information that the Israeli, American and Kenyan intelligence agencies also were involved.

“The Greeks did not give him a safe situation even for a week in order to protect him. He was kidnapped when in the course of being driven to the airport…” she added.

There are said to be between 1.5 million and two million Kurds in Europe, 800,000 in Germany alone.

She said most of Europe ignored the Kurdish demand for self- determination because Turkey, as a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), “is highly significant geo- strategically in the Middle East.”

“In addition, arms dealers, through the governments of Germany, Britain and the United States, have huge interests in Turkey,” Schmid said.

“This is very serious because these weapons, including American-made helicopters, are used against the Kurdish population,” she added.