Trial of Ocalan: A Vision

By Margo Schulter

23 June 1999

As the trial of President Abdullah Ocalan of the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK), known to many as "Apo," resumes on the Turkish prison island of Imrali, dark visions of judicial murder and renewed cycles of violence are difficult to avoid. As long as Apo stands in danger of the gallows, by its very nature an instrument of state-sponsored terrorism, the Kurdish and Turkish people must confront the threat of more senseless hatred and killing, more tragically lost opportunities for peace.

Yet the wisdom of a century almost ended, a wisdom emerging from other scenes of unspeakable genocide and oppression, offers a different kind of vision.

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What if the trial of Apo became a Truth Commission seeking not vengeance but justice, not punishment but reconciliation based on knowledge of a history which must never be repeated?

What if the mothers of Kurdistan and Turkey indeed joined hands in sisterly love and condolence, seeking not revenge but only an accounting of the truth from all sides of the 15-year war and 79-year Turkish military occupation of Northwest Kurdistan?

Standing in the dock would be, of course, Apo and the PKK -- along with such Turkish officials as Bulent Ecevit and Tansu ,Ciller, and the leaders of the MHP (Nationalist Action Party or "Gray Wolves") and MIT (Turkish military intelligence). Surrounded by the circles of Kurdish and Turkish mothers, and the eyes of the world, these defendants would face no threat of judicial or extra judicial killing, no torture or violence, only the awesome tribunal of conscience and history.

A Kurdish mother from the Amed (Diyarbekir) district opens the proceedings: "One of the reasons that the dirty war of 1984-1999 was so dirty is that it was so secret. Let us expose these horrors to the cleansing light."

Suddenly the courtroom is filled with scenes of Newroz 1992: the people of Cizre and ,Sirnak are celebrating the Kurdish New Year, like the Jewish Chanukah a festival of resistance and liberation. Then Turkish "security forces" appear on the scene, and slaughter the people in broad daylight. There are echoes of British forces gunning down peaceful demonstrators for Indian Independence (swaraj): Amritsar in 1919, Peshawar in 1930. Then come scenes of Sharpeville, South Africa in 1960, and other massacres of peaceful demonstrators by governments which feared not so much violence as resistance in any form. Nelson Mandela, an honored guest at the trial, reminds everyone that even after such horrors, reconciliation is possible.

Then a Turkish human rights activist from Ankara freed after five years in prison speaks: "It is not enough to consider what happened during the dirty war itself. We must expose its roots."

Now the defendants, mothers, and guests are transported to scenes of 12 September 1980: the fascist military coup in Turkey. There are arrests, disappearances, secret death squads and torture chambers. History again resonates with echoes of a brutal century: Indonesia in 1965, Chile in 1973, Argentina in 1977, El Salvador in 1932 or 1982, and other tragedies for democracy and humanity touching many continents. There is much marveling at how quick "democratic" and "humane" governments are to recognize such regimes, and indeed to help arm them in their homicidal campaigns against "subversion" and "terrorism."

A grandmother from Erzurum in Northwest Kurdistan introduces the next exhibit: "Let us see how really well-organized terrorists operate."

Now the rapt audience witnesses the bombing, burning, and bulldozing of 3400 Kurdish villages and more by the Turkish military. Peaceful champions of Kurdish identity are assassinated or "disappeared." Once more, there are echoes, this time of the Nazi 3nacht und nebel2 ("night and fog") disappearances, and of Steve Biko's murder while a prisoner of apartheid South Africa. Superimposed on landscapes of razed Kurdish villages are scenes of Lidice, Czecho-Slovakia in 1943.

After some moments of silence, human rights advocate Akin Berdal addresses the court. Recognized as a Prisoner of Conscience by Amnesty International, this newly released activist has survived the wounds of an assassination attempt followed by prison for his peaceful opinions.

"Now that we have seen the face of state-sponsored terrorism, let us see what kind of 'Kurdish terrorist' is likely to be imprisoned when such a regime is in power."

This time there are no scenes from Kurdish or world history, only a single live witness who takes the podium: Leyla Zana, Member of the Turkish Parliament from the Democracy Party (DEP), and winner while in prison of the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize.

As she tells her story of being tried for "terrorism" because she dared to speak out for peace and democracy in Kurdish, and to wear her Kurdish national colors of red, green, and yellow, Kurdish and Turkish mothers embrace while waving both national flags.

Then her husband Mehdi Zana, former Mayor of Amed (Diyarbekir), takes the podium and describes his experience of prolonged torture and terror after the coup of 12 September 1980.

This concludes the first stage of the trial: the trial of the Turkish Government itself. Now it is time for Apo and the PKK to face the judgment of the world.

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Since almost everyone agrees that a terrorist organization such as the Turkish Government is morally incompetent to prosecute the human rights violations of the PKK, representatives of Amnesty International and other NGO's [nongovernmental organizations] step forward to conduct this part of the trial.

As the mothers listen with immediate understanding and compassion, a young Turkish woman now at University tells of how her brother was killed in a PKK bombing aimed at a group of people in military uniform -- military students, as it turned out.

Hatip Dicle of Amed, a Member of the Turkish Parliament from DEP and newly released prisoner of conscience, speaks gently in Apo's defense: "This is the terrible logic of war, and here we can finally all see the real human price in the cold light of day. It is the logic of war that each side tries to hit the 'targets' of the other, and any soldier on the other side is such a 'target' -- or any civilian unfortunate enough to be in the general area." Then he approaches the young woman and holds out his arms: they embrace.

Apo, himself very visibly moved, observes a minute of silence along wit everyone else in the courtroom. Then, he speaks with a sadness and witty irony borne of much struggle and suffering:

"Among the diplomatic circles of nations, I believe that the usual punishment for such 'accidents of war' is a statement of regret, followed by more bombing. Yet our PKK has a reputation for not always following diplomatic niceties, and I will not follow them now. What we did in targeting public places where we knew civilians would be at risk was a crime. I say this so that all Kurdistan may hear and learn."

Apo asks the young woman's forgiveness and begins to approach her, but she gestures him away. Her pain is too great, the time for forgiving has not yet come.

As an aside, a former General from the USA comes forward. After showing film clips of the American bombing of Vietnam, the Israeli bombing of West Beirut, and the Soviet bombing of Afghanistan, he remarks, "During the 1980's, it was our official doctrine at the Pentagon to aim our nuclear missiles only at 'military targets.' Unfortunately, there were over 30 'military targets' within the city of Moscow alone."

The focus now shifts from bombings to the killings of hundreds of prisoners and suspected collaborators. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch present the evidence, with families of the victims expressing their pain.

Surprisingly, one of the witnesses is herself a member of the PKK who was only a teenager when she took part in a raid where two Turkish teachers in the Amed district were shot down in cold blood. She still admires Apo, still feels pride in the PKK, but tells of the nightmares she still experiences after having participated in such an atrocity. Soldiers of the Turkish military who took part in similar acts during the dirty war -- some of these soldiers themselves from Kurdish families -- comfort her and tell their own stories.

A Turkish grandmother addresses Apo: "Over these last 20 years, you have been very busy: first organizing a political movement, then fighting a war, then trying to conduct diplomacy, and then, in prison, standing in danger of a death sentence. Now that the war is over and your life is no longer in danger, you finally have time to face what it means to kill people in cold blood -- even people who have been oppressors or collaborators."

Again, there is a long silence, a time for mourning all the victims of the long war. Then Apo speaks from the dock:

"During this century, we have been living mostly in the poor stage of revolution, when we still regard people supporting the structures of oppression as 'the enemy.' In the rich stage of revolution, we will treat them as in some ways the most pitiful victims of oppression, a kind of medical problem to be treated with full humanity. We may need to subdue these victims, even quarantine them, but we should never kill them. Kurdistan will lead the way."

A veteran of the ARGK (Kurdistan People's Liberation Army, the military wing of the PKK) testifies: "I ask you not to excuse, not even to forgive, but to understand the madness in which we were engulfed. We were wrong to kill any prisoners, but the temptations were exceptional. In Sulaimaniya and elsewhere in Kurdistan within Iraq's borders after the raperin (uprising) of March 1991, we saw the results of letting spies and jash (collaborators) remain at large when Saddam might return and use them again as instruments of his vengeance. Our Turkish oppressors, as you have seen, have not necessarily been more polite. We should have devised some way to neutralize these village guards and collaborators without killing them, but we were starving in the mountains ourselves, and some of us became desperate. Maybe our desperation grew from our abandonment by the world."

An Amnesty International advocate replies with some sternness: "The Geneva Convention, which the PKK has signed, is meant to ensure that there are no exceptions, especially when killing civilians or prisoners might be most tempting."

Nelson Mandela addresses Apo: "In my own South Africa, Africans placed automobile tires around the necks of other Africans and set them on fire in the name of liberation; that is the madness bred by apartheid. You may recall that our Bishop Desmond Tutu condemned the 'necklacings' but understood the desperation behind them. As far as I know, Kurdish people have immolated only themselves as a final plea for the world to hear their voice."

An elderly Italian representative from the European parliament approaches the dock: "Lest anyone think that these maladies of revolution happen only in Africa or Asia Minor, I remind you of the events in France and Italy in 1945."

The courtroom fills with scenes of judicial and more summary executions in town and village squares after the Liberation from fascism.

"As you know, Italy abolished the death penalty in 1948, a step away from fascism which a certain two members of NATO have yet to take. Yet I say that if 1945 had been a complete rizgari (liberation) of the spirit, we would have abolished it then and there, and dealt with our fascists in some other way. We hope that both Kurdistan and Turkey will learn from our lesson."

Apo addresses the court in mitigation, knowing that his words cannot undo homicidal acts: "In the Europe of 1945, the firing squads continued their killing after the war had been won. In Northwest Kurdistan, we committed our wrongs in the midst of a dirty war against all odds. I lament the killing of teachers -- even the ones who were Turkish agents and informers. But you must understand that the very schools were places of oppression and terror."

Now the room is enveloped in scenes of classrooms in Turkish Kurdistan, where Kurdish and Armenian children are punished for saying that they are Kurds or Armenians rather than the one permitted answer, "Turks." Sometimes their parents and families become targets of surveillance or even terror.

Standing in the dock as far as possible from Apo, a Turkish official from the Education ministry rises to object: "In our schools we teach perfect equality for all citizens of Turkey, and are concerned only that our students may have full opportunities in Turkish society. Languages other than Turkish are a barrier to full opportunity, and our school system helps students who come from homes speaking incomprehensible dialects to overcome this disadvantage."

A companion adds: "Kurdish isn't a real language, only a jumble of dialects which not even the so-called Kurds can understand. They can't even agree on how to spell 'Kurmanji'."

>From the audience, Leyla Zana replies: "I would ask native speakers of English here -- do you spell 'color' with or without a 'u'? Do you call a large vehicle that runs on petrol a 'lorry' or a 'truck'? Yet is not English a language, a language all the more rich for its many dialects, even if some of us would say that no other language can match the sheer poetry of Kurdish?"

Members of the Kurdish Parliament in Exile -- many returning home at last -- applaud with special relish. One of them proudly notes that Members may take the oath in any of three dialects of Kurdish (Dimili, Sorani, or Kurmanji), Assyrian, or Turkish.

Guests from Belgium and Switzerland explain how people speaking different languages can live together in peace, while emphasizing that Kurdistan and its neighbors must work out their own arrangements based on Kurdish self-determination.

A Turkish journalist and former prisoner -- these occupations being often synonymous, it is quipped -- remarks: "The problem is that often we speak neither in Turkish nor Kurdish, but in George Orwell's Newspeak. There are no Kurds, only 'Turks called Kurds by the separatists.' There are no destroyed villages in Kurdistan, not even evacuated villages, only 'abandoned villages.' I suppose that the Armenians had a similar mysterious urge to 'abandon' their villages in 1915, or the Jews of Europe in 1939-1945."

The part of the trial directed to Apo and the PKK seems almost over, but not yet. A Kurdish mother speaks:

"I am from a village which finally decided to cooperate with the Village Guards. We were starving, we were terrified of the Turkish Army, and we no longer felt the strength to resist. PKK guerrillas came to our village and killed women and children in cold blood. You may say that a willing jash or spy is at least a criminal who should be locked up, but a child?"

Earlier scenes of such atrocities committed by Turkish soldiers -- and sometimes then attributed to the PKK -- do not make this moment any less horrible. Nor can it be overshadowed by the terror bombings of Dresden, Tokyo, and Hiroshima in 1945 which killed children far more efficiently than any guerrilla army could manage. Everyone must face the hard truth that Kurdish soldiers of a Kurdish liberation movement deliberately killed Kurdish children.

A great-grandmother who survived Auschwitz turns to Apo and his followers in the PKK: "Beware lest you become like your enemy! That is the lesson for this century."

After a long pause, a PKK member speaks: "We must realize that the disease is not Turkey, not the Turkish people, not even the Turkish fascists. They are the patients; the disease is fascism itself. Until we learn this, or the moment we forget it, we are in danger of killing our own children."

A theologian from Central America adds: "Even when faced with genocide, in the new century a resistance movement must attain a yet higher level of heroism by defeating the aggressor using nonviolent and nonlethal means."

Apo agrees, but adds with wry humor: "I also hope that in the new century, the world will never let conditions in any country reach a point where such an experiment would be necessary."

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These words move the trial into its third phase, the focus moving beyond the Turkish government and Apo to something at first less defined.

The room is filled with visions of Kurdistan: the beginnings of agriculture 12000 years ago, migrations and silk roads, a branching tree of Kurdish communities and dialects. There are also countless military invasions and incursions, tyrannies and uprisings. Around the same time that Newton is explaining the motion of the planets, Ehmed1e Xani is capturing the motions of the human spirit in Mem ^u Zin_.

Finally events reach the 20th century, the Treaty of Sevres in 1920 which promises Kurdistan an opportunity for self-determination. In 1923, however, the Treaty of Lausanne conveniently ignores the Kurds altogether, and 75 years of Turkish tyranny begin. Martial law is established, and the inevitable Kurdish uprisings follow -- brutally crushed, the very language outlawed. Portions of Kurdistan within the borders of Iraq, Persia (Iran), Syria, and the Soviet Union face their own foreign masters. Some old-line Communists attending the trial are pleased to note that the Kurds enjoy more autonomy in the Soviet Union than elsewhere, although nowhere do they enjoy true self-determination.

The scene shifts to the portion of Kurdistan within the borders of Persia (Iran), where in 1946 liberation seems at hand with the founding of the Mahabad Republic. Then, in 1947, the government of Iran crushes the Republic and hangs its leaders, as the Soviet Union withholds its expected support. Apo drily remarks: "You see why we Kurds find it hard to trust our supposed allies, 'socialist' or otherwise."

After a brief recap of the Turkish coup of 1980 and the beginning of PKK's armed resistance on 15 August 1984, the scene moves to Southern Kurdistan in 1987, the portion within Iraqi borders. Saddam Hussein and his government launch the _Anfal_, the genocide of the Kurds by close to 100 chemical bombings, conventional bombs, and slaughter at close range in villages, torture chambers, and death camps. Again, the world watches with detachment, or ignores the drama entirely, some "democracies" continuing to assist Saddam as the holocaust proceeds.

Then comes the raperin of March 1991, the uprising of the Kurds against Saddam's tyranny. Having allegedly just fought a war for "democracy" in the region, the USA and its "coalition" affably permit Saddam's forces to crush the Kurdish people. The "free world" stands by as Iraqi troops recapture oil-rich Kirkuk and unleash a new reign of terror while depriving Kurdistan of a vital economic center for self-sufficiency. When a "safe haven" is finally established, the Turkish military is free to bomb it with impunity, adding its part to the destruction of the _Anfal_.

The action moves to Northwest Kurdistan in 1993, when the PKK declares a unilateral ceasefire and there is some hope for a political opening in Turkey. Uncounted lives, families, homes, and villages might have been saved by prompt negotiations and a shift from the military to the political arena; but the "democracies" were content to let the Turkish regime's intransigence and repression continue.

As the story concludes with Apo's wanderings through Europe in search of asylum and a peace process, his abduction and confinement in isolation on Imrali, while the Turkish leaders of the dirty war circulate freely in respectable diplomatic circles, the new defendant emerges.

It is the community of nations itself, and even the citizens of these nations, who have permitted the Kurdish people to struggle alone.

With this insight, the cleansing process of the trial comes to a natural conclusion, at least for the moment. Kurds, Turks, and people at large have emerged with various degrees of innocence and guilt in the struggle for a free Kurdistan. Never again should any people or nation be put to such a genocidal test.

Some PKK and Turkish soldiers, some Turkish officials and their very recently released prisoners, are already shaking hands and avidly comparing their experiences of the struggle as they walk out of the courtroom. For others, such healing may take many years.

Yet everyone recognizes, however grudgingly, that the time for peace has come. Now the specifics of Kurdish self-determination must take shape, a topic of animated and sometimes heated discussions among the Kurdish parliamentarians themselves as they stroll into the sunlight.

Among them is Leyla Zana, walking hand in hand with her husband, her hair in red, green, and yellow ribbons waving freely in the wind.