Ocalan Trial Charges of Foreign Aid to Rebellious Turkish Kurds Strengthens Rising Nationalist Tide

By Jon P. Gorvett

With gunboats patrolling the sparkling blue waters of the Marmara Sea, helicopters clattering overhead and several thousand gendarmes, police and soldiers on duty, May 31 saw the start of “Operation Tranquillity” around the seaside town of Mudanya, some 50 miles south of Istanbul.

A special Turkish Crisis Management Team had been set up to coordinate the operation, with the area placed under an emergency rule executed by General Hursit Tolon, commander of the Turkish 15th Army Corps. By the end of the first week alone, it had cost some $1.5 million and was set to continue for as long as it would take the State Security Court offshore on the prison island of Imrali to find Kurdish separatist guerrilla leader Abdullah Ocalan guilty of treason—and then condemn him to death.

Yet despite the drama of the occasion, billed in the Turkish media as “the trial of the century.” for many outside observers there was an almost palpable sense of disappointment over the event, and even bewilderment.

“It was really very, very surprising,” said one diplomat who had watched the proceedings. “When you have the leader of a guerrilla group which has been fighting a state for years and when he is captured and facing the death penalty, you at least expect that he will take this historic opportunity to defend his case to the very end.”

Yet, as first the carefully controlled state TV and wire service reports and then the less controlled media bulletins began to come over, it seemed as if Ocalan had quite simply failed to live up to expectations. From the very first, he was stating his willingness to cooperate, naming names of people whom he claimed had aided him and his movement, and praising the Turkish state for its handling of the issue.

The list of those implicated also began to resemble a kind of register of historic enemies of the Turkish and even Ottoman states. Greece, Greek Cyprus, Iraq, Iran, Armenia, Syria, the Greek Orthodox Church, Serbia and Britain were all named by Ocalan as having had some connection to his Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), though in terms that were often highly vague and even contradictory.

It was also noted that one particular country seemed to have remained entirely absent from the list: the U.S.

“I find it remarkable,” said one U.S. diplomat, “since we’ve so often been accused of being completely bound up in Ocalan’s capture.”

Two issues from this seemed to emerge. The first concerning the trial itself and Ocalan’s statements, the second concerning the readiness of public opinion makers and politicians in Turkey to seize on such claims and use them.

It seemed as if Ocalan quite simply failed to live up to expectations.

Regarding the first, speculation has ranged from claims by some disgruntled PKK militants that their leader had been brainwashed, to ideas that he had been so isolated in the three months of his imprisonment since being whisked from the Greek Embassy in Kenya by Turkish commandos in February that he had no idea how much hostility there was out there toward him. It was virtually impossible to find any Turk who did not want to see Ocalan hang, yet maybe Ocalan himself still thought there was room for a deal if he simply said whatever his captors might want to hear.

During his imprisonment Ocalan had also only met with defense lawyers in the presence of security officials. His conversations with them had been taped, and there had been little opportunity for defense and accused to formulate any kind of joint strategy. Quite possibly, what Ocalan said surprised his lawyers as much as everyone else.

Regarding the second issue, the foreign conspiracy, this seemed to confirm long-standing Turkish suspicions.

“The Ocalan trial is a source of pride for Turkey,” said Prime Minister Bulevent Ecevit after the first revelations had emerged. “It is also a source of embarrassment for some countries which are trying to teach us lessons regarding human rights, democracy and becoming civilized,” he added.

The implication of Greece came at an interesting moment, too, as it coincided with a growing row in the Aegean between Athens and Ankara over the island of Agathonisi (Esek in Turkish). Although inhabited by 200 Greeks, Turkey disputes that it is part of Greece as it was not specifically named in the 1923 Lausanne Treaty, which gave the vast majority of Aegean islands, formerly Ottoman territory, to Athens. Turkey argues that because Agathonisi was not mentioned, it did not change status, and therefore is now Turkish.

A War of Words

A Greek association’s decision to fly a huge Greek flag from the summit of the island triggered a war of words, catapulting this sleepy Aegean backwater into a regional hot spot.

This re-emergence of Aegean disputes also did not bode well for the expected new Cyprus initiative, given a more tangible aspect by G-8 statements that it would begin talks on this subject in mid-June.

Judging the reality of Ocalan’s claims, and of what the Turkish media claimed that he had claimed, is difficult, to say the least. Whatever their accuracy, however, the readiness of so many Turks to believe Ocalan’s charges despite the absence of much corroborating evidence indicates the degree to which the country has shifted toward a more assertive nationalism in recent months.

In this, ironically, Ocalan has played a major role. Since he was forced out of Syria by Turkish pressure last October, Ocalan’s plight has boosted national pride. To many Turks, the failure of European powers to extradite Ocalan to Turkey when he appeared in their countries seeking asylum also demonstrated the accuracy of nationalist claims of a foreign conspiracy against them.

The further irony, though, is that this nationalist surge is also likely to prolong the struggle Ocalan’s guerrillas began in the mountains of southeastern Turkey 15 years ago. Despite Ocalan’s willingness to act as a peacemaker, and the PKK’s official support of its leader’s offer to bring the guerrillas down from the mountains, in the atmosphere of nationalist rhetoric there is little if any room for any public initiative for reconciliation, let alone negotiation.

The formation of a new government in late May between Ecevit’s Democratic Left Party (DSP), Devlet Bahceli’s hard-right Nationalist Action Party (MHP) and Mesut Yilmaz’ conservative Motherland Party (ANAP) also highlighted the “Ocalan effect” on Turkish politics. The administration is the most nationalist in years, with a clear line of no compromise on the Kurdish, Cyprus and European Union issues.

Ecevit had earlier talked of economic aid packages to rebuild the southeast and a repentance law to encourage PKK militants to surrender. Yet there is no room for any political solution involving the guerrillas. There, the fight looks likely to go on, as it did during the trial itself, with shootings and bombings throughout the southeast.

“This is an historic crossroads,” wrote newspaper columnist Hasan Cemal in Milliyet on June 1. “We must move to make multi-faceted plans for the future to eliminate the medium which bred terrorists and to build a lasting peace.”

Deciding which way to turn at that crossroads is something that Turkey needs now more than ever to get right.

Jon P. Gorvett is a free-lance journalist based in Istanbul.