01.07.1999

Turkey’s rulers split

Ocalan death penalty

Turkey’s state security court has declared its judgement in the case of Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party), and sentenced him to death on the grounds of treason.

The treason charge is known in Turkish legal jargon as “betraying the homeland”. Leaving aside the irony of judging a Kurd, who was ‘guilty’ only of defending the concept of a homeland for the Kurds, on these grounds, the verdict was hardly unexpected. It simply rubber-stamped what the army, the state security forces and the political establishment had previously declared, and it had already been established in the mindset of society at large by the press and media frenzy.

For the state, it was a matter of saving face. For the last 15 years ministers, generals and senior special forces officers have been regularly announcing that ‘PKK terror’ would be finished off for good.

Helicopter operations following brutal aerial bombings and indiscriminate artillery barrages; depopulating villages by forced deportations into strategic hamlets, ‘defended’ by Kurds on the payroll of the state as irregular forces; cross-border incursions into northern Iraq under the guise of “hot pursuit” with the aim of establishing a de facto sovereignty over Iraqi Kurdistan; and all the well known brutal counter-insurgency tactics developed in the US under the name of ‘low intensity warfare’ went on and on with considerable losses. The Ocalan ‘success’ has given the state a sense of credibility, as if it had been the intended result of the 15-year military campaign from the beginning.

It was also a question of borrowing time. The creaking state apparatus, held together by the top echelons of the army on the basis of old-fashioned nationalistic indoctrination of the young officer corps, was coming apart at the seams under the intense pressure of Turkey’s numerous contradictions. The ruling class hopes to ride on the back of increased popular support as a result of the Ocalan trial in order to juggle with its problems.

The whole spectrum of the Turkish political establishment (to the extent it may be considered ‘established’) was hellbent on scoring political points on the basis of this trial and events leading to it. Let us not forget that even prime minister Ecevit owes his recent success at the elections, and in forming a coalition government with the infamous ‘Grey Wolves’ fascist party, to the capture of Abdullah Ocalan.

On the other hand the judgement has closed off other options that may have been available to the state to deal with the Kurds and their aspirations.

A long legal process must now be followed. A death sentence is automatically referred to the court of appeal. As the summer recess period is coming shortly, any further legal arguments in the case will not be heard before September.

If, as most observers expect, the court of appeal approves the judgement of the state security court, the case will be forwarded to parliament for approval. First it will be handled in a commission and then placed before the grand national assembly. As there are more than 500 death penalties awaiting parliamentary approval, the political establishment and the government coalition must find a way to bring forward the Ocalan case.

If parliamentary approval is obtained, then the case file will be sent to the president of the republic for final assent, before the execution of the sentence.

If the state and political establishment were to proceed at maximum speed to complete this legal cycle, it would present a bloodthirsty image on the international arena. Hardly desirable, in view of Turkey’s participation in the current beauty contest in front of the European Union and the international finance institutions such as the IMF for more credits and investment, not to mention recognition and acceptance into ‘the gentlemen’s club’. If, however, the process is delayed in an open-ended manner, or if Ecevit is seen to be backtracking in the face of international pressure, he will be viewed by wide sections of the population as refusing to implement the judgement of an ‘independent’ court and to follow the ‘due process of law’.

So the hawks are pressing hard for implementation of the death penalty. The doves, however, those who are very much aware of the long-term adverse consequences of such a prominent execution, are advising caution. They can see possible advantages opening up by keeping Abdullah Ocalan in limbo.

For the Kurdish people of Turkey the trial and judgement is yet another reminder that their homeland remains under the occupation of a client state of imperialism, that the state is determined to hold on to its prize possession - if any reminder was necessary, since hundreds of Kurdish youth are killed every year without any ceremony whatsoever by the same state’s forces.

For Turkey’s communists the Ocalan affair is a reminder that the Kurdish national question is intrinsically linked to the struggle for genuine democracy. It also serves as an important reminder for the working class and communists across the world. Whenever the vital interests of the bourgeoisie are threatened, it will discard its democratic veneer and reveal its true face - the same face you see in Turkey today.

Aziz Demir