Kurdish women killed in Paris
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- The murder of three Kurdish women political activists remains a mystery
- A spokesman for PKK and KCK told CNN the attacks were assassinations
- "Expect protests and memorial demonstrations in Europe", says Watson
- In Turkey, Kurds are the largest and oppressed ethnic minority, says Watson
Q) What are the possible consequences of the killings?
A) A spokesman for the
leadership of the PKK and its affiliate the KCK in Northern Iraq, Roj
Welat has confirmed to CNN that one of the women killed, Sakine Cansiz,
was one of the founding members of the PKK. He called the murders an
"ideological and political assassination, a terror attack against the
Kurdish people."
These murders have
clearly dropped a bombshell on the tightly-knit Kurdish community in
France and probably throughout the substantial Kurdish diaspora in
Europe. We can certainly expect protests and memorial demonstrations in
Europe. And the murders in Paris are already having ripple effects all
the way over here in Turkey, where the Kurds make up the country's
largest [and historically oppressed] ethnic minority. Kurdish leaders in
Turkey are calling for Kurds to "rise in protest wherever they are to
condemn this massacre."
A huge concern is what
impact the killings might have on a new historic round of talks between
the Turkish government and the jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, as
well as other figures in the Kurdish movement. Many Turkish commentators
fear it may derail these negotiations. Aliza Marcus, author of "Blood
and Belief: The PKK and the Kurdish fight for Independence," an
inluential book on the PKK, wrote to me in an email, saying: "One thing
is for sure, this isn't good for the rumored peace process."
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Q) Is it possible to speculate about who might have done it, and why now?
A) There is much
speculation already about who might have carried out these murders.
Kurdish groups and Turkish commentators are already interpreting this as
a politically-motivated act of violence, even though it will certainly
take some time for investigators to conclude who carried out the
shootings. There are extremists on both sides of the Turkish-Kurdish
conflict who may seek to derail the negotiation process that has been
under way for more than a month between the Turkish government and
Ocalan, as well as other figures in the Kurdish movement.
Huseyin Celik, the
spokesman for Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party, already
told journalists that "when you look at how it was carried out, it seems
like an internal settling of scores within the PKK."
Certainly, the PKK has a
history of killing dissidents within the Kurdish movement, says Hugh
Pope, senior Turkey analyst for the International Crisis Group. He told
me: "You do have to remember that the PKK has a long history of killing
its own people." Meanwhile, the Turkish state has long relied on
military force, arrests and law suits to crush the Kurdish movement
inside Turkey. The Turkish-PKK war is one of the longest-running
conflicts in the Middle East, with more than 40,000 people killed since
the 1980s. Many Kurds view the Turkish government and armed forces as
mortal enemies, while many Turks label the PKK and anyone affiliated
with the PKK as "terrorists." So certainly I can expect some Kurds will
accuse Turks of assassinating these three women, even if there is no
evidence to back up that claim.
Q) Who are the PKK and what are they fighting for?
A) The PKK, or Kurdistan
Workers Party, was founded in 1978 in Turkey as a Marxist, pan-Kurdish
nationalist movement. In 1984, it started armed combat against the
Turkish state with the goal of establishing a broader Kurdistan in the
Middle East, which would unite Kurdish minorities divided between
Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria. That goal has been largely dropped over
the last decade -- certainly since Turkish authorities arrested Ocalan
in 1999. Now the PKK appears to have much more limited goals: battling
for Kurdish "cultural freedoms" in Turkey as well as some degree of
autonomy for the Kurds, who are predominantly settled in south-eastern
Turkey.
There are PKK fighters
battling Turkish security forces in the hills of south-eastern Turkey,
as well as camps and training bases strung out along remote mountains in
northern Iraq, along the border with Turkey. The PKK enjoys substantial
support and reportedly relies on fund-raising from within the Kurdish
diaspora in Europe. Finally, given the pro-PKK demonstrations I've
covered, there is support for the PKK in Istanbul, which is not only
Turkey's most populous city, but also the largest Kurdish city in the
world. Why? Because hundreds of thousands of Kurds fled the war and
punitive Turkish military operations in south-eastern Turkey in the
1990s and were forced to resettle in western Turkish cities.
The PKK has been officially labeled a terrorist organization by Turkey, as well as the US and many european countries.
Q) How many expat Kurds live in European cities? Where are most based?
A) Europe is home to a
substantial Kurdish diaspora, with large communities in France, Britain,
Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. According to a report from the
International Crisis Group, there are 1 to 1.5 million Kurds originating
from Turkey living in Europe; the bulk of them, with an estimated
population of 800,000, are in Germany. The pro-PKK television station
Roj TV, is believed to broadcast from Europe.
Q) How do the
killings, possible consequences, and the guerrilla war that the PKK has
fought for nearly three decades against Turkey affect the rest of the
world?
A) The Turkey-PKK
conflict is one of the longest-running conflicts in the Middle East. It
is a conflict that constantly bleeds across borders, destabilizing
relations between Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria. It also ripples
throughout Europe, with the Turkish government constantly accusing
European countries of not doing enough to stop PKK fund-raising and
recruitment in European cities. At the height of the Turkish-PKK war,
PKK activists were reported to shut down highways in Germany. I
personally recall first encountering the PKK when I worked in Moscow in
1999, when the CNN bureau received a terrifying video of several PKK
supporters setting themselves on fire in Moscow to protest the arrest of
Ocalan. In recent months, the conflict has reached the deadliest levels
in at least 13 years, with hundreds of Turkish soldiers and security
forces as well as Kurdish rebel fighters killed over the last year.
Q) Haven't the talks between Turkey and the Kurds been making progress recently?
A) There is surprising
support for the talks not only from the Turkish government, but also
from opposition political parties as well as from influential voices in
the Turkish media. I get the sense that Turkish society is exhausted by
the weekly and daily deaths of conscript soldiers. Turkey will have to
make substantial, long overdue compromises if it is ever to make peace
with its Kurds, such as removing discriminatory statements in the
constitution and allowing Kurdish language education in schools. There
have been other, largely covert attempts at negotiations over the last 4
years, but they have been accompanied by a parallel increase in
violence and killing in the blood-soaked hills of south-eastern Turkey.
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