GREECE AND THE PKK TERRORISM -10-
Erenkoy
(11 December 1998)
"Britain Manipulates Kurdish Insurgency Against Turkey, Plays the Öcalan Card"
Joseph Brewda
Beginning on November 13, the government of British Prime Minister Tony Blair,
with the support of elements in the Italian and German governments, took
dramatic action to protect the London-headquartered Kurdish Workers Party
(PKK), which has been waging a terrorist insurgency in Turkey since 1984.
(...)
But the issue here is not Turkey's efforts to contain Kurdish insurgency, which
have been woefully ineffective, but rather, continuing British and French
efforts to use PKK and Kurdish insurgency to attempt to bust up Turkey and
Iraq, and foment wars throughout the Middle East along the lines of British
intelligence official Bernard Lewis's notorious "Arc of Crisis" plan. As a
consequence of such imperialist games the impoverished Kurdish have been the
first to suffer.
The PKK's terrorist profile
Turkey's demand for Öcalan's extradition from Italy would have been viewed as
routine-if terrorist groups such as the PKK were not the playthings of
governments and diplomacy. Since 1984 the PKK's terrorist insurgency in
south-eastern Turkey has killed 30,000 people, mostly Kurds. Among its victims
have been rival Kurdish leaders, school teachers, and civil servants charged
with being "supporters of the state."
Öcalan formed the group in 1974 as an offshoot of the Marxist-Leninist
Federation of Revolutionary Youth, which espouses violent revolution in the
Turkish countryside to "liberate Kurdistan." Reflecting its dedication to
senseless violence, the PKK was a founding member of the London-based
Revolutionary Communist Party's Revolutionary Youth Movement. Other founding
members include Shining Path of Peru, which has killed more than 25,000 people
since the early 1970s and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Belam of Sri Lanka,
which has killed 130.000 people since 1973.
As a result of the PKK's wanton carnage, even the New York-based Human Rights
Watch, which has openly supported the PKK and other terrorist groups throughout
the world under the cover of alleged human rights concerns, has been forced to
admit that the PKK has been responsible for at least 768 executions during
1992-1995.
Moreover, western Europe itself has been a major victim of the PKK. According
to offical reports by the US State Department and by several European police
agencies, the PKK finances itself through the narcotics trade, and could be
responsible for shipping as much as half of the heroin consumed in western
Europe. PKK gangs, meanwhile, prey on the large ethnic Kurdish Turkish emigrant
population in Germany in particular, targetting them for extortion in the form
of "revolutionary taxation". At the same time, the PKK has formed
"revolutionary alliances" with some of the remains of western European
terrorist sects, such as Germany's AIZ the "Anti Imperialist Cells," which it
has trained in guerrilla tactics in Lebanon.
British guidance
As the diplomatic crisis deepened, Italian Foreign Minister Lamberto Dini and
German Foreign Minister Joshka Fischer announced that the two states were
working on a new "European initiative" to solve the "Kurdish problem." Dini has
previously called for revising Turkey's borders and creating a Kurdish state,
while Fischer's Green Party has pushed Kurdish and other terrorist insurgencies
for years.
But just who was behind this initiative became clear on November 26, when
Britain's Lord Rea arrived in Italy to offer his good services in "mediating"
the European-Turkish crisis that Britain itself has created. Lord Rea told the
Italian press that he was acting on behalf of British Foreign Secretary Robin
Cook.
He also told them that Öcalan was not a terrorist but "the leader of a popular
movement."
Danielle Mitterrand, the widow of the late French President and the PKK's main
advocate in Europe, has also become involved. On Oct. 12, even before Öcalan
fled Damascus, Mitterrand addressed a pro-PKK gathering in Lauvan, Belgium,
saying that the "time and conditions" for creating a "Kurdish state" were at
hand. (...)
This is not the first time that the British oligarchy, the British Foreign
Office, and their lackeys have supported the creation of a Kurdish state. In
February 1998, during the middle of earlier British and Israeli efforts to
sucker Clinton into bombing Iraq, Cook told the London Daily Telegraph that
Britain would "frankly welcome" the "break-up of Iraq" leading to the creation
of a Kurdish state . In the ensuing uproar in Turkey, Deputy Prime Minister
BŸlent Ecevit charged that "Britain has been the leading country causing chaos
in the Middle East since World War I."
Also at that time, Britain's Lord Avebury, the PKK's main strategist, held
hearings in the House of Lords at which Deputy Speaker Baroness Caroline Cox
and former Foreign Secretary Lord David Owen called for carving a "Kurdish
protectorate" out of Iraq and Turkey.
This is an old story. Britain and France first promoted Kurdish separatism back
in the 1890s, as part of their efforts to use ethnic and religious movements to
break up the Ottoman Turkish empire. Since World War I, Britain and France have
run Kurdish separatism, and related movements, as part of their efforts to
break up modern Turkey, as well as Iran and Iraq.
Reflecting this century-long imperialist policy, Britain has made London the
PKK's international political and propaganda headquarters, despite Turkish
protests. It has also allowed the PKK to establish its own satellite television
station there, MED-TV through which …calan has regularly boamed marching orders
to PKK cadre back in Turkey.
How it was set up
As the smoke cleared around the circumstances of Öcalan's arrest, details
emerged indicating that it had been stage-managed by the Italian Refounded
Communist Party (RCP) and its behind-the-scenes patrons, apparently without the
knowledge of the Italian Prime Minister, in an effort to get Öcalan asylum. The
main operative in this caper, Ramon Mantovani, the professional radical who
directs the party's foreign policy within the Italian Parliament has worked
closely with Kurdish and other terrorist sects since the 1960's.
According to a Sept. 17 broadcast of the PKK station MED-TV, Mantovani arrived
in Damascus in September to set up the precondition for the operation. His
purpose, the PKK reports, was to "develop strategic cooperation" between the
Italian RCP and PKK, leading to the creation of a new "revolutionary Socialist
International" dedicated to "fighting the globalization of capitalism." …calan
agreed with Mantovani's proposal, and suggested that "Rome could be designated
as the capital of the new international."
Following the terrorist gathering, Mantovani and 14 other Italian parliamentary
deputies sponsored a meeting of the PKK's Kurdish Parliament-in-Exile in the
chambers of the Italian Senate on September 29, despite the harsh protests of
Turkey and the United States.
The two groups remained in contact after Öcalan was forced to free Damascus for
Moscow. And on November 11, Mantovani flew to Moscow to arrange for Öcalan to
travel to Italy in order to get asylum. "We were just helping the Kurds find a
way to start peace talks," Mantovani told Associated Press of November 25. "Our
action will force Italy and Europe to finally -and I hope definitively- face
the Kurdish issue."
This is not the first time that British Lords, Madame Mitterrand and the RCP
have learned up to support terrorist insurgencies. In 1997, for example,
Maniovani organized a RCP delegation to Chiapas, Mexico, where his party boss,
Fausto Bertinotti, met "Subcommander Marcos ", the Mitterrand-patronised leader
of the narco-terrorist Zapatista Insurgency. Also that year, Mitterrand and
Lord Rae called on the (narco-controlled) Colombian government of President
Samper Pizano, to stand up to the military, and stop the military's "genocidal"
war against the narco-terrorist Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces, the FARC.
New York Times
Italy Locked In Stalemate With Turks
(13 December 1998)
-Stephen Kinzer
On a June evening five years ago, a squad of Kurdish rebels arrived at a
village in southeastern Turkey and marched to the home of a young man who had
just decided to quit the rebel movement.
(...)
The defector was not at home when his erstwhile comrades arrived, so intstead
they killed his mother and five brothers and sisters, ages 4 to 13. Later the
New York-based group Human Rights Watch asserted that this action and dozens
like it "were not committed by rogue units or commanders, but were PKK official
policy." (...)
US State Department Deputy Spokesman
Mr. Foley's Press Conference
(14 December 1998)
Question:.............. to Italy ........... he (Thomas Foglietta-US Ambassador
to Rome) gave the interview, to an Italian newspaper. And he said that the US
government (is) planning to prepare an international conference on the Kurdish
issue. Do you have this kind of conference ......... to prepare this kind of
conference? If so, are you planning to invite the PKK on this conference?
Mr. Foley: Well, with all due respect, the ambassador made no such
announcement.
(...)
The idea of such a conference is not an American idea; it's not something that
we have endorsed.(...)
The United States, would not like to see anything, including the idea of an
international conference, deflecting attention from the need to bring Öcalan to
justice. That's our yardstick.
US State Department Spokesman
Mr. James Rubin's Press Conference
(16 December 1998)
Question: "Today Italy released the terrorist Öcalan because Germany withdrew
the extraditon request. Do you have any reaction on this subject?
Mr. Rubin: We are disturbed by the news that the Germans withdrew their
international warrant for Öcalan's arrest, if it is true. The United States
believes that Öcalan should be brought to justice for the terrorist crimes of
which he is accused, in a manner consistent with international standards. If he
is allowed to go free without facing charges, it would be a blow to the
international fight against terrorism.
US Action On The 25 Recommendations
From The Paris Terrorism Ministerial
Deterrence, Prosecution, and Punishment of Terrorists.
Act against terrorist front organizations.
Action taken: The Secretary of State designated 30 groups as Foreign Terrorist
Organizations on October 8, 1997 under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death
Penalty Act of 1996 (PKK is included). Under this law, US persons are
prohibited from providing material support or resources to such organizations,
their assets in US financial institutions are blocked, and their
representatives and members are excludable from the US. In addition, by
Presidential Executive order, the US prohibits transfers of funds from American
sources to designated Middle Eastern terrorist organizations and persons, even
if such organizations or their affiliates also conduct charitable activities.
International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombing (agreed 12/97
-- expands the legal framework for international cooperation in the
investigation, prosecution, and extradition of persons who engage in terrorist
bombings):
--- creates a regime of universal jurisdiction over the unlawful and
intentional use of explosives and other leathal devices in, into, or against
various defined public places with intent to kill or cause serious bodily
injury, or with intent to casue extensive destruction of the public place;
-- like earlier conventions on protected persons and hostage taking, requires
parties to criminalize, under their domestic laws, certain types of ciriminal
offenses, and also requires parties to extradite or submit for prosecution of
persons accused of committing or aiding in the commission of such offenses.
G-7 Declaration On Terrorism
Released at the G-7 Economic Summit In Lyon, France
(June 27 1996)
......................... Terrorism is a major challenge to all our societies
and states today. We reaffirm our absolute condemnation of terrorism in all its
forms and manifestations, regardless of its perpetrators or motives. Terrorism
is a heinous crime and there must be no excuse or exception in bringing its
perpetrators to justice.
We proclaim our common resolution to unite our efforts and our determination to
fight terrorism by all legal means. In keeping with the guidelines for action
adopted by the Eight in Ottawa, we strongly urge all states to deny all support
to terrorists. We rededicate ourselves and invite others to associate with our
efforts in order to thwart the activities of terrorists and their supporters,
including fund-raising, the planning of terrorist acts, procurement of weapons,
calling for violence, and incitements to commit terrorist acts.
We consider the fight against terrorism to be our absolute priority, ant
reiterate the necessity for all states to adhere to the relevant international
conventions.
Meeting Of The North Atlantic Council At Defence Ministers Session Held In
Brussels On
17th December, 1998
Final Communiqué:
We recall the importance which our Governments attach to the arrangements in
the Alliance for consultation on threats of a wider nature, including those
linked to illegal arms trade and acts of terrorism, which affect Alliance
security interests. Terrorism constitutes a serious threat to peace, security
and stability which can threaten the territorial integrity of States. We
therefore reiterate our condemnation of terrorism. We reaffirm the
determination of Governments to combat terrorism in all its forms, in
accordance with our international commitments and national legislation. Close
international cooperation is an essential means of preventing and suppressing
this scourge.
Background Brief
Combating International Terrorism
British Foreign & Commonwedth Office
(London, Nowember 1998)
"Each (terrorist atrocity) is a reminder that terrorism is a uniqely barbaric
and cowardly crime. Each one is a reminder that terrorists are no respecters of
borders. Each one is a reminder that terrorism should have no hiding place, no
opportunity to raise funds, no let-up in our determination to bring its
perpetrators to justice."
British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, in address to UN General Assembly,
(21 September 1998)
Work within the G8
(...)
The Ottawa meeting of G8 Home Affairs Ministers, in December 1995, drew up an
action plan, based on recommendations from the G8 group of experts on
terrorism, on further measures to prevent and investigate terrorist activity.
These included:
- promoting extradition and mutual
legal assistance
(...)
In May 1998, G8 Foreign Ministers meeting in Birmingham reaffirmed their
determination to combat terrorism in all its forms, to oppose any concession to
terrorist demands and to promote co-ordinated international action against this
evil. They identified four priority areas for further action:
- preventing terrorists from fund-raising in G8 States
- no concessions to terrorits
(...)
The European Union
(...)
In 1996, Britain successfully sponsored an Extradition Convention, to prevent
ciriminals from escaping extradition for a terrorist offence on the grounds
that it was politically motivated. A British initiative also saw the
establishment and production of a directory of specialist skills developed by
Member States' counter-terrorism services and agencies.
A British perspective
Britain has long accepted refugees claiming asylum from political and other
forms of persecution, and will maintain that proud tradition. But, as the
United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) Resolution 51/210 on Measures to
Eliminate International Terrorism, of 17 december 1996, confirms those who
abuse the hospitality of the host country by involvement in terrorism lose the
right to be treated as refugees.
(...)
Mr.No
(...)
British guidance
B lent Ecevit charged that "Britain has been the leading country causing chaos