Socialist Action /August 1999
Kurdish Leader to Appeal Death Sentence to European
Court
By GERRY FOLEY
Lawyers for Abdullah Ocalan, leader of the Workers Party of Kurdistan
(PKK), who was condemned to death in Turkey at the end of June, held a news
conference on July 20.
They complained that they had not yet even been given the State Security
Court's written verdict, despite the fact that it was being discussed in
the press and was the object of appeal proceedings.
After the domestic appeals court rules on the case, the lawyers will
ask for a stay of execution until the European Court of Human Rights can
study the case.
The Kurdish leader was kidnapped in Kenya by Turkish commandos, aided
by the U.S. secret services, and shipped to Turkey, after he had been denied
asylum by a series of European countries, including Russia.
The countries complicit in the gangster-like kidnapping of Ocalan and
international legal bodies with a mandate to defend international law clearly
bear a major responsibility in this case.
Ocalan has tried to use his trial to launch an appeal for a peace process
in Turkey. Ocalan's abduction, trial, and condemnation have drawn more and
more international attention on the Turkish government's repression against
the Kurdish people both within its borders and in northern Iraq.
The Italian daily ll Manifesto reported July 4 that despite huge foreign
debts, Turkey is one of the world's biggest importers of weapons, and that
most of its military budget goes for the war against the Kurdish people.
The Turkish regime has spent $86 billion since 1994 on its war against
the PKK guerrillas, approximating its total foreign debt of $92 billion.
Various European countries, as well as the United States, collect the blood
money from this war by selling military equipment to the Turkish army. Thereby
they also help to keep the Turkish economy poor and dependent.
PKK commander Duran Kalkan told the Kurdish media on July 19 that in
the Ocalan trial "it became very clear that Europe does not have a
political approach that supersedes its economic interests."
In a press conference June 30 on Ocalan's condemnation, Kani Xulam of
the American Kurdish Information Network (AKIN) flayed the hypocrisy of
the American press and government that has been exposed by the Ocalan case:
"A few days ago, the Washington Post noted that the U.S. government
was going to award $5 million to anyone who helped with the arrest of Slobodan
Milosevic for his crimes against humanity or more specifically against the
Kosovars. The Turkish criminals who have reduced the Kurdish countryside
to a wasteland and driven millions of their residents to a life of destitution,
on the other hand, are hailed as allies and the fellow liberators of Kosovars."
For further information on the campaign in defense of Ocalan, call AKIN
at (202) 483-6444, or e-mail them at akin@kurdish.org.
Socialist Action /August 1999 |