Headed by Chief of General Staff General Kenan Evren, the post Sharpeville like massacre of peaceful demonstrators in Turkey after the 12 September, 1980 Turkish coup typified Turkey's response protests against the coup in1960 and the 1971Coup by Memorandum. Often proxy wars between the United States and the Soviet Union, the right-wing/left-wing armed conflicts of the 1970's had been allowed by the Turkish military to strategically create tension. The abrupt halt of violence lent support for the final coup in which 50 people were executed, 500,000 were arrested, and hundreds died in prison.
For the next three years the Turkish Armed Forces ruled the country through the National Security Council before democracy was restored for Turks only. It was never afforded the Kurdish people of Turkey. Consequently the Turkish regime banned the nascent PKK movement from the start and detained Ocalan's followers for several decades.
Emerging from hiding, he went underground in Lebanon and Syria and, at the request of so called European friends, led a trip to Europe to campaign against the establishment of the Turkish racist republic, demanding the convening of a national convention of the genuine representatives of all the people of Kurdistan to decide on its future. When the proposal was suppressed by substantial opposition intelligence services, the movement abandoned its strict adherence to non-violence. Leading a multi-racial underground organization to reinforce mass mobilization with sabotage and other intelligence actions, Ocalan became a target. Advocating policies intended to avoid loss of human life, the PKK proclaimed its members preferred to achieve liberation without bloodshed and civil clashes. It called for a change in the government and its policies in the best interests of all the people, including Kurds, Turks and others.
The racist regime, for its part, relied on more violence. Embarking on an enormous expansion of its military forces and arms and the militarization of the entire Turkish community to resist the "winds of change', it enacted a series of laws for preventive detention and restriction, laying down death sentences for political offences.
A leader of the movement for freedom since the early eighties, he was founder and secretary of the PKK Labor League, President of the Kurdistan Workers' Party and a Volunteer-in-Chief of the Campaign of Defiance of Unjust Laws, one of the great resistance movements of recent times. But a show trial for treason, and his subsequent solitary confinement and harassment have progressively blocked avenues for peaceful resistance.
International media agencies were the first to report that the intelligence services of Israel, the US and the EU helped Turkey to kidnap him in Nairobi, Kenya on February 15, 1999 and deport him to Turkey (4). The incarceration of the acknowledged leader of most Kurdish political parties and civil organizations in Turkey, Iran, Syria, Iraq, and preferred leader worldwide of many Kurds still symbolizes the plight of all leaders and political prisoners awaiting release in Turkey, before a climate conducive to negotiation can be built.
At the time of his kidnapping Ocalan was being tried in absentia on various charges. A Turkish security court set 31 May as his trial date. Imprisoned on the island of Imrali, south of Istanbul, he faced the death penalty if convicted on charges of treason and separatism (5). On June 29, 1999 he was sentenced to death by a three-member panel of judges on charges of treason.
Thousands of Kurds demonstrated in European capitals in protest at Turkey's death sentence on the guerrilla leader, and the European Union warned that his execution would gravely set back Ankara's ambition to join the EU. The protests, staged from Moscow to London, were largely peaceful (6). Kurdish guerrilla organizations and political activists threatened to step up their fourteen year insurgency, declaring that greater violence was now inevitable, while the PKK accused Turkey of wasting an opportunity for peace and dialogue.
In his final statement just before sentence was pronounced, Ocalan again appealed for the chance to work for peace between his organization and the Turkish government. "I do not accept the treason charges,' he said. "I am trying to correct historical mistakes.' (7) He hated the practice of race, color, language and religious discrimination and his hatred was sustained by the fact that the overwhelming majority of humankind agree it is abhorrent. He had no doubts posterity would proclaim his innocence, and that the criminals who should have been brought to court were the members of the Turkish nationalist government who pursued destructive policies.
In January, 2000 the sentence was suspended for a two year European Court Review. When the appeal was heard 15,000 Kurds, countered by 4,000 Turks, demonstrated outside the court. Alleging Ocalan's abduction contravened the European Convention of Human Rights, his lawyer, Sydney Kentridge also told the court on Ocalan's behalf that, "The sole question posed today is whether there is a place for the death penalty in a civilized and democratic Europe.' The question raised the already complex issue of Turkey's bid for the economic advantages of membership in the EU, even as it violated many of its human rights conventions.
The sentence was commuted when Turkey abolished the death penalty in August, 2002 and Ocalan was sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment, held in an individual cell in a high security prison and allowed to exercise in a neighboring yard one hour per day. World opinion was somewhat relieved when Ocalan and his colleagues were spared the death penalty. But the campaign for their release, and the liberation of numerous others detained or sentenced for their opposition to unjust practices by Turkish Governments, had to continue. Indeed, scores of campaigns within the campaign were needed, as repression increased.
The death penalty has since been fully abolished by a package of constitutional and legislative amendments, which replace the penalty for terrorist crimes with life imprisonment. The death sentences of 180 people convicted on charges of being members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party and Hezbollah terrorist organizations imposed by the Diyarbakir State Security Courts (DGMs) were commuted to life imprisonment on November 23, 2002. Turkish Constitutional amendments of May 7, 2004 removed all reference to the death penalty from the Constitution. In addition, legislative amendments of July 21, 2004 abolished the death penalty in all circumstances.
The United Nations and the international community have condemned race, color, language and religious and repression, and should demand the release of Ocalan and all other political prisoners. They must endorse Ocalan's declaration. By not heeding his demands and continuing its repression, the Turkish regime has compounded its crimes, contravening at least in Section Eight: Offences against Dignity -- Insult ARTICLE 125- (1) of its own penal code thousands of times (8).
The World Campaign will continue affirming of the truth of Ocalan's claims, encouraging more people to stand with him in the cause he represents. Under the practice of the Turkish regime persons sentenced to life imprisonment are released after about fourteen years. Ocalan is therefore entitled to release on humanitarian grounds, but he and his colleagues have been given no remission or parole.
However, the Kurdish people's protection from the Turkish government's racist crimes has been prioritized over Ocalan's bid for mercy from its intransigent leaders. The struggle against it must be upheld as fully legitimate, while Ocalan's release to lead his people in ridding the country of racist tyranny and building a democratic state is also imperative for peace in Kurdistan and the Middle East as a whole.
Beginning of the Campaign
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