Revision as of 21:58, 21 February 2005

General

The Congress for Freedom and Democracy in Kurdistan (Kadek), formerly known as the Kurdistan Workers Party (Kurdish: Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan or PKK) was one of several terrorist organisation responsible of the violence in southern Turkey, northern Iraq, Northern Syria and western Iran. It arose from a radical youth movement in Turkey during the 1970s proclaiming itself a revolutionary socialist national "liberation movement" following a Marxist-Leninist doctrine.

The Organisation

Different names of the organisation

The organisation changed names over the years however the people that make up the organisation did not change.

1. • PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) 1984 - April 2002
   • KADEK (Kurdistan Freedom and Democracy Congress) April 2002 - 11 November 2003
   • KGK (KONGRA-GEL) 11 November 2003 -

Structure of the organisation

The organisation operated as a group of cells. While each cell was organised in their operations there was little cooperation between the individual cells. This not only made the organisation more unpredictable but made it more difficult for the goverment to track them down. The operations were divided into three categories: Urban, Non-Urban, Political

Urban

Primarily, urban cells main objective was to promote the PKK "cause". Either thorugh violent protests (riots) that left a war zone behind or through terror. Terrorist attacks were mostly through bombs (either timered/remote or sucide) in public areas. They occasionaly attacked malls, hotels, bazaars etc... aside from government buildings like police stations, hospitals etc... Although this caused serious damage and killed a lot, it only forced the goverment to take more drastic and direct aproach to deal with the organisation. Secondarily, urban cells were involved in gathering resources to fund the organisation. Methods include but not limited to voluntary/involuntary(forced) mafia like donation system, drug dealings (domestic and international), illegal immigration (helping non-Turkish middle easterners "safe" passage through Turkey to Greece then to Europe and the US for a small fortune). Illegal immigration was one of the few occasions that cells cooperated with each other. They recieved a load of illegal imigrants from Non-Urban cells and passed them to the next. Illegal immigrants were mostly shiped through larger cities as much as possible as there are a lot of people to "blend in".

Non-Urban

Non-Urban cells operated in the mountanous regions of Turkey. The structure and height of this mountainious region makes it very difficult for helicopters to manover making it difficult for goverment troops to respond in a timely fashion to a "Hit". Often these cells hid themselves in hidden underground "safe-houses". Although nothing remotely close to vietnameese tunnel networks (nor vegitation cover), the mountains hid them form the civilised world adequately esspecialy during winter. The Cells operated primarily in a Hit and run basis. Just like urban cells main objective was to promote the PKK "cause". Either through winning or forcing public support. They often "infiltrated" small remote viliges, if they fail to win support people in the villige were slaughtered, either to punish the non supporters and force who is left to support the organisation (or face death) or by blaming the Turkish Military. This activity forced the goverment to evacuate some remote villiges by force as villigers did not want to leave their homes they grew up in regardless of the danger(and often organisation members hid themselves in these villiges when they are running away from goverment troops to "blend in" with the population). The evacuation have caused significant problems in the cities the evacuees resettled (mostly larger metropolitan cities). The infrastructure had more people than it can handle. Secondarily the organisation used mines. Anti-personel mines against goverment troops. These mines are of Italian and Russian origin. Aside from the mapped goverment mining as a way to stop their mobility, cells layed mines on their own around non-suppportive villiges and around military bases, on patrol routes etc... Anti-vihelce mines were layed on vihecle patrol and remote roads in hopes to blow up military vihecles. Often these mines were trigered by heavy Buses and Trucks as they are about the same weight as military vihlecles to triger the mines (more abundant too). Armored vihecles often became unusable but crew survived unless it was an unarmored "suply" truck. Tirtiarily Cells disrupted the region. They sabotaged the GAP Project project, which is a serries of Dams larger than its American counterpart, as its completeion would bring prosperity and stability to the region which means a lesser reason to revolt. They abducted Engineers working on the project. Mostly Foreign ones were not killed. They also abducted/killed Doctors, Teachers and other non-military goverment employees which progress the society as a mean to destabilise the region.

Political

This kind of cell only operated in democratic countries in European nations (including Turkey) and the US. The political cells were not exactly limited to traditional politics. They operated under various names as one political party they operate disapeared a new one was formed. In Turkey on almost any national conventions these political parties primary way of winning support was via Anti-Goverment slogans or annual burning of the Turkish flag. In the dark however these cells operate no different than regular urban-cells. In foreign countries they spicing their arguments with a "civil liberty" discussion. At a point European nations exerted significant presure to Turkey while US refrained from commenting. On the long run they were using other nations to interfere with internal issues of Turkey. This also was often as an excuse not to admit Turkey into the EU. In addition the organization has been active in western Europe against Turkish targets. Conducted attacks on Turkish diplomatic and commercial facilities in dozens of West European cities in 1993 and again in spring 1995. In an attempt to damage Turkey's tourist industry, the PKK has bombed tourist sites and hotels and kidnapped foreign tourists.

History

Since 1978 the group was led by Abdullah Öcalan with its armed activities directed towards the Turkish military and Governmental institutes as well as civilian targets throughout Turkey. Reports suggest that it has received safehaven and modest aid from Syria, Iraq, and Iran. In addition, the PKK was active in Western Europe targeting Turkish interests including diplomatic facilities, apparent with the attacks and riots in major European cities (UK Riot police at London demo and Kurdish protests turn deadly) after the capture of Öcalan at the Greek Embassy in Kenya in a joint operation between the CIA and MIT (Milli Istihbarat Teskilati).

The organisations all time high of activity was during the Gulf War when Turkey opened its Iraqi border allwing Iraqis to flee the Saddam regime. The president of the era, Turgut Özal, is heavily criticised for his desicion on this matter.

Turkish authorities captured PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan in Kenya in early 1999 and a Turkish Court subsequently sentenced him to death for treason. In August 1999, Öcalan announced his second peace initiative, ordering members to refrain from violence and requesting dialogue with the government of Turkey on all issues.

In 2002 the government of Turkey accepted certain conditions for entry into the European Union including abolition of the death penalty which will spare the life of Abdullah Öcalan, plus changes to official government policy on basic human rights, which its Kurdish population will largely benefit.

In 2004 the armed wing of PKK, HPG (People's Forces of Defence) announced that they ended the unilateral truce they had sustained since the time of Öcalan's capture.

The Council of the European Union (the 15 EU governments) decided on April 2, 2004 to update the European Union list of terrorist organisations to include Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)(a.k.a. KADEK, a.k.a. KONGRA-GEL). Also, the US Treasury has amended its regulations in 2004 to include all the aliases and off-shoots of PKK in its sanctions list maintained by OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control). The list aims at blocking terrorist property. The organisations currently listed under the PKK aliases item include KADEK (Congress for Freedom and Democracy in Kurdistan), KONGRA-GEL, HSK, KHK and PKK. The organisation also is on the U.S. State Department list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.

The Leader

See Abdulah Ocalan

The Product

(Not quite an opinion here)

• 30,000 people dead
• 200 billion USD extra debt to Turkey which could have been used to complete the GAP project several times.
• Incomplete GAP Project
• Prompted racial hostility towards Kurds
• War torn region
• Turkey still not EU member. Would benefit countries like Armania, Georgia, Iran, Iraq, Syria greatly to have a border directly opening to the EU.
• Kurds lost most of their International credibility.

External links

Official:

• Terrorist Group Profiles: Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK, KADEK) (library.nps.navy.mil)
• Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs page on Öcalan and the PKK (www.mfa.gov.tr)
• KADEK/PKK profile, structure, and relations (www.teror.gen.tr)
• Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs page on Öcalan and the PKK (www.mfa.gov.tr)

User discration advised on the following two links, links contain images that may be disturbing for some viewers:

• Leftist terrorist organizations
• Kurds