Designated Terrorists: The Kurdistan Workers' Party and its Struggle to (Re)Gain Political Legitimacy

Abstract

The European Union designation of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) as an international terrorist organization has led to a profound distrust of the EU on the part of the PKK. This has resulted in a perception that the Kurdish organization has turned against the EU and withdrawn its support for Turkey's accession. The PKK activities and viewpoints as presented and discussed in this article, however, indicate that this is not the case. Politically squeezed at home and sidelined abroad, it is argued, the PKK is, in fact, primarily concerned to (re)gain recognition as a representative of Turkey's Kurds (upon which it is making its support for Turkey's accession conditional).

Notes

¹ Legal methods: e.g. the reorganization of the army for counter-insurgency; illegal methods: e.g. extrajudicial killings, the evacuation and destruction of around 3000 villages and hamlets (see Jongerden, 2007).

² E.g. ‘[I]t is an open secret that the party [DTP] is somehow related to the PKK’ (Posch, 2007: 39, emphasis added).

³ In May 2004, the ban was revised to ‘Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), (a.k.a. KADEK; a.k.a. KONGRA-GEL)' (EC, 2004), in recognition of the internal restructuring of the party (see Akkaya and Jongerden, 2010). For ease of reference, this paper will only use the name ‘PKK’, which should be understood as standing for KADEK and sister organizations as appropriate.

⁴ From a speech given at the conference ‘Terrorism lists, executive powers and human rights’ at the Université Libre de Bruxelles.

⁵ The European Commission staff report notes that the amendments have provided for children aged 15–18 to be tried as adults on charges of ‘belonging to a terrorist organization’, resulted in the ‘suspension of several periodicals’ and been used to ‘punish non-violent opinions’, causing hundreds of politicians and the members of two trade unions to be arrested, with one politician sentenced to 18 months in prison for his speeches (EC, 2009: 21, 25, 30).

⁶ The demonization of terrorism and the glorification of freedom fighting both, of course, ignore the (extra)ordinary costs of human suffering that activists and their families pay, extending to that of their lives; equally, however, the suffering of non-activist Kurds is ‘claimed’ by the PKK, even though those people themselves may be ambivalent about or even resent the PKK. These points are made just to give a sense some of the issues involved in the PKK sense of suffering – many more could be listed (and for both sides, of course).

⁷ From a speech given at the 5th EUTCC International conference on Turkey, EU and the Kurds, in the European Parliament, Brussels.

⁸ From a speech given at the conference on the EU-Turkey accession process, held by the Kurdish Institute of Brussels at the House of Parliamentarians, Brussels, 2 October 2008.

⁹ From an intervention from the floor during the conference on the EU–Turkey accession process (ibid.).

¹⁰ During the 2009 local elections the DTP almost doubled its number of municipality mayors, and attained the highest local assembly winning margins in the country.

¹¹ From a speech given at the conference on the EU–Turkey accession process, held by the Kurdish Institute of Brussels at the House of Parliamentarians, Brussels, 2 October 2008.

¹² It was through Öçalan, declared Ahmet Türk (ex-DTP leader), that DTP MPs reversed their decision to resign their seats (reported at http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/gundem/13242730.asp).

¹³ Available at http://www.freedom-for-ocalan.com/english/aktuell/campaign/konkurd-form.pdf