The trial of Ocalan

...The EU must deal with Turkey seriously, which means pointing out the specific changes that need to be made and giving it a deadline...

...Was this a calculated challenge to official statements that there could be no policy reforms while Turkey faced a problem of terrorism...

...ALIZA MARCUS is a freelance journalist based in Israel...

...The task is made easier by the prison's military guards, who allow Ocalan to pass messages via his lawyers...

...It is often said that Turkey does not respond well to pressure...

...EVERTHELESS, there have been changes over the years in Turkey's treatment of the Kurds, about twelve to fifteen milFon of the country's sixty-five million people...

...Even the sentence you got was short for all the blood you spilled...

...This, combined with the capture of Ocalan, may convince Turkey's military and political leaders it is time for change...

...The hopeful comments and analyses made in the early days of Ocalan's capture have given way to resignation on the part of those seeking reform...

...Most Kurds admit that they have a lot more room to maneuver than they had twenty years ago, when moderate Kurdish politician Serafettin Elci was jailed for announcing in Parliament, "I am a Kurd and there are Kurds in Turkey" But expressions of Kurdish identity are still severely limited by laws that ban criticizing the military, "inciting hatred," and spreading "separatist propaganda"—laws that can be used against people who write about Kurdish history, criticize Turkey's human rights record, or use the word "Kurdistan" in a poem...

...Sheik Said agreed...

...The pro-Kurdish HADEP party is always in danger of being shut down by the court, but it successfully fielded candidates for mayoralties in the southeast in the April general elections...

...The judge sneered...

...The next move is up to Turkey, but will it take advantage of this opening...

...But a few days before the trial started, Okcuoglu withdrew from the case...

...Kurdish-language novels and Kurdish music cassettes are freely available...

...But neither does it make changes in the absence of pressure...

...They had no arguments with what he said...

...The government is a coalition between Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit's nationalist Democratic Left Party (DSP) and the ultranationalist Nationalist Action Party (MHP...

...Kurds waited for him to continue, but he said nothing else...

...Turned down everywhere, he took refuge in the Greek Embassy in Kenya...

...I understand your pain...

...Turkey desperately wants EU membership...

...When asked whether the government was unjust to the Kurds, he was hard-pressed to come up with anything stronger than limitations on the use of the Kurdish language...

...THE TRUTH is that Kurds are weary of the war...

...One reason the PKK has been able to establish its dominance among Kurds—and it is the dominant Kurdish organization in Turkey—is the lack of alternatives: with democratic routes for dissent closed down by the state, taking up arms sometimes seems the only way to fight...

...Kurdish leader Sheik Said was captured within two months and tried for treason...

...Even Kurdish critics of Ocalanpeople opposed to violence or to his dictatorial leadership—thought Turkey would try to discredit the Kurdish cause by staging a humiliating trial of the man who had dedicated his life for the fight for Kurdish independence...

...And thus ended the first Kurdish uprising...

...Did someone whisper something hopeful into Ocalan's ear...

...This does not bode well for reforms that would give Kurds the right to study Kurdish in school or use it in television broadcasts...

...A few years after Sheik Said was hanged, another rebellion broke out, and then another and another...

...The EU has another chance at its Helsinki meeting in December...

...Some of them would drape themselves in a Turkish flag before standing up and screaming...

...Some columnists called for Turkey to ease restrictions on Kurdish identity, arguing this would finish off the PKK for good...

...With the PKK leader in prison and the group in disarray, it seems a perfect time for Turkey to seize the initiative and prove itself a country of all its citizens...

...It just cannot put the two words together and admit there is something called a Kurdish problem...

...When Turkish commandos tracked him down and brought him back to Turkey, Kurds demonstrated angrily all over the world...

...Many liberals believe this was when Turkey further slowed its already slow move toward democracy...

...Thousands of villages in the southeast lie abandoned, many forcibly emptied by Turkish soldiers trying to deny the PKK food, shelter, and new recruits...

...Sheik Said was hanged on June 29, 1925...

...Some people hope the European Union (EU) can push Ankara to democratize...

...Turkish interrogators likely promised Ocalan that a soft courtroom defense would not just keep him from the gallows, but would ease the way for Ankara to extend some rights to the Kurds...

...No matter what happens to the rebel leader, the Kurdish problem will remain as long as Ankara denies Kurds their identity and practices a selective democracy...

...She won the National Press Club's Freedom of the Press Award for her reporting from Turkey...

...Like those countries, Turkey needs a timetable and a list of changes it must make to be accepted...

...In the 1960s, though, Kurdish intellectuals regrouped, and in the 1970s Ocalan founded the PKK...

...A compilation of interviews with soldiers who fought against the PKK was banned and the writer, Nadire Mater, faces up to six years in jail if charged with and convicted of insulting the military...

...The first person to sign up as Ocalan's lawyer was Ahmet Zeki Okcuoglu, a well-known Kurdish critic of Ocalan and his methods...

...A few dozen relatives were brought in every day to observe the trial and, when they felt like it, shout abuse at the defendent...

...Many Kurds—mainly Ocalan's longtime critics—believe Ocalan wanted to save DISSENT / Fall 1999 27 his own life and thought he could do so by saying that the PKK's battle should have ended years ago and that he is ready to serve the democratic Turkish republic...

...One day the defense team did not even bother to show up...

...By the 1940s Turkey had sent enough Kurds into internal exile that quiet DISSENT /Fall 1999 29 reigned in the southeast...

...30 DISSENT / Fall 1999...

...Rather, they quoted him to prove the main point of the judgment: that there is not a Kurdish problem in Turkey, just a problem of terrorism...

...The fifty-oneyearold guerrilla chief was kicked out of Syria last year and spent about five months desperately seeking asylum in Europe...

...MANY KURDS in Turkey were stunned by Ocalan's statements...

...Before the trial, a judge came to the prison and suggested a deal...

...The rebel leader's pronouncements so far have pleased Turkey...

...In fact, during the nine-day trial held in June on the island prison in the Sea of Marmara, he rarely mentioned what led Kurds to support the PKK...

...The judges were clearly impressed with Ocalan's speech...

...Didn't we have an agreement...

...Ocalan called a unilateral cease-fire after the trial and promised that the rebels would withdraw from Turkish territory...

...He begs for his life," screamed Turkish newspapers, which had dubbed him "babykiller...

...It's not that Turkey does not admit there are Kurds—or that it has a problem...

...And the situation is getting worse...

...I am sorry," said Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan, after a woman blamed him for the death of her soldier husband...

...After all, Turkey has a history of dealing with Kurdish rebellions...

...It does not need vague demands that it respect human rights—certainly not from Germany, which was so afraid of the PKK that it revoked its international warrant for Ocalan's arrest rather than have to deal with him, nor from Athens, whose diplomats harbored Ocalan in Kenya...

...The court, as expected, sentenced him to death...

...But if the rebel leader believed Turkey, then he is more naïve than one would expect...

...Although it is hardly ready—its economy is too weak, its democracy too flawed—not all East European candidates are ready either...

...Some twenty thousand rebels have died, along with five thousand Turkish soldiers and five thousand civilians...

...Some Turkish and Kurdish analysts were hopeful that Ankara would make changes after Ocalan was captured...

...Every so often he reminded the court that Kurds did have grievances, but he did not articulate them...

...Take the first major uprising, which broke out in 1925, three years after the republic was founded...

...But Turkish officials were worried that a fiery speech in court might encourage other Kurds to revolt...

...But Ankara has so far failed to translate the capture of Ocalan into anything more than a slap to the face of Kurds...

...Ocalan, who is responsible for leading the biggest Kurdish rebellion in Turkey's history, did not bother to add that Kurdish families are also grieving...

...Brother Osman Ocalan, a high-ranking PKK member, later announced an end to the armed struggle, saying the rebels would turn to the political arena...

...Most Kurds would like nothing better than a deal with Ankara that would recognize minority rights—such as Kurdish-language education and broadcasting and recognition of their unique cultural heritage—along with democratization that would benefit all of Turkey's citizens...

...It may not matter...

...Turkey was offended by the EU's decision two years ago not to even list Turkey as a candidate for membership, at the same time that East European states were given a timetable for membership...

...That night, as Sheik Said was taken to be hanged, he saw the judge who had persuaded him to alter his testimony...

...He spoke of how Kurds and Turks fought together for Turkey's independence, he commended Turkey's democracy, he accused the Kurds of being feudal and backward...

...But Ocalan does not want to be bypassed...

...Ankara does not need to negotiate with Ocalan or the PKK...

...he asked...

...From his prison cell he is trying to maintain control over the PKK...

...This would solve their problems, and along the way the PKK would probably wither into irrelevance...

...In a desperate attempt to save his own life, the man whose fifteen-year battle is credited with raising Kurdish consciousness in Turkey and abroad, gave up the fight...

...Nor does this government appear inclined to stop torture by police, change laws that limit freedom of expression, or investigate the mysterious killings of Kurdish and Turkish activists...

...This was left for the families of the "martyrs," Turkish soldiers killed fighting rebels from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK...

...He had expected the rebel chief to make a political defense, stating the Kurds' demands and drawing attention to the problems they have faced in Turkey...

...The planned amnesty for Kurdish rebels could not even make it through Parliament because of MHP opposition...

...Seventyfour years later to the day, Ocalan was sentenced to death...

...His lawyers said little—their request to call witnesses was denied by the judges...

...The prosecuting attorneys rarely asked questions of the defendant...

...He would get the death penalty, but on appeal the sentence would be commuted to life imprisonment...

...It is all Kurds who will be judged, so I believe I have no choice but to defend him," Okcuoglu told me after Ocalan was brought to Turkey...

...Kurdish journalists have been killed, politicians imprisoned, intellectuals driven into exile...

...In their verdict—guilty of treason, sentenced to hang—they often quoted from Ocalan's defense statement...

...Oral Calislar, a journalist, was sentenced to thirteen months imprisonment for publishing an interview with Ocalan...

...When he learned that Ocalan was going to do little more than apologize, he resigned...

...After all, Turkish officials have long claimed they could not address Kurdish demands for cultural and linguistic rights while battling Kurdish rebels...

...If Sheik Said would tell the court he was fighting for a return to an Islamic state, his life would be spared...

...But it is still unclear what spurred the weakened but by no means beaten guerrilla force to give up the fight...

...Then it announced there would be no appeal and the sentence would be carried out immediately...

...Akin Birdal, the head of the independent Human Rights Association, was jailed for four months because of a speech in which he called for a peaceful solution to the war...

...It needs to respect human rights, get the military out of politics, and allow the Kurds the freedom to be Kurds...

...Turkey would be wise to keep in mind brother Osman's addenda: PKK rebels will fight if attacked, and, if Turkey does not offer a real political solution, another rebellion is certain to break out...

...By way of example, the following has happened since Ocalan was captured: a pro28 DISSENT / Fall 1999 Kurdish party founded by Elci, who is an outspoken critic of the PKK, was shut down by the court for "separatism" (the party's platform called for Kurdish minority rights...