The Capture of Abdullah Ocalan

Having their way with the Kurds

by Per Fagereng, Free Press Contributor

nce again, as so many times in the past, the so-called community of nations has ganged up on the Kurds. It began after World War One when the allies carved up the Ottoman empire, which had fought on the other side. The allies created a bunch of servile nation states and put two kings on their thrones. They also promised the Kurds a homeland, but broke that promise, deciding that Turkey was more important to their oil addiction. As a result, most Kurds were left within that genocidal garrison state.

Before Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan was recently captured by the Turks in Kenya, he had been turned away by Syria, Russia, Italy and the Netherlands. A United States spokesman applauded the action, and some say that U.S. and Israeli spooks helped track Ocalan in his flight.

One report says the FBI monitored Ocalan's cell phone and passed the information on. It reminds me of how the CIA helped South Africa find Nelson Mandela, who was also once labeled a terrorist.

In Kenya, Ocalan found refuge in the Greek embassy. The Greek foreign minister says he left on his own, against their advice. But a Kenyan guard says that Kenyans in government vehicles came into the embassy and grabbed Ocalan. If that's true, it would be a case of one thug government, that of Daniel Arap Moi, helping another.

Turkey claims to be a democracy, but no government will last long if the military doesn't want it. The Islamic Welfare party won an election but was pushed out of office and banned by the fanatically secular army. Now a Kurdish political party is about to be outlawed. If the Kurds cannot organize politically, what's left to do but fight?

In the past Turkey ethnically cleansed its Greek population and killed more than a million Armenians. This is the thugocracy that labels Ocalan a terrorist.

What's called terrorism is a form of warfare, often used by groups that have no air force. Once it was said that terrorists targeted innocent civilians, but that's exactly what conventional warfare does these days. And nation states hardly ever declare war any more, they just go ahead and kill and call it something else.

The capture of Ocalan could backfire. There are Kurdish exiles throughout Europe. They have nowhere to go, no homeland where they could govern themselves. They have little left but a righteous anger at the abuses heaped upon them. Any nation that helps Turkey's war on the Kurds is fair game. Italian papers have blasted the European Union for buck-passing, and a Greek paper has called Prime Minister Costas Simitis a "Turkish quisling."

Turks are now having an orgy of triumphalism, but it could well blow up in their faces. The world's eyes are on Turkey's strong-arm version of justice. Their oppression of the Kurds is costing big bucks. And it could easily get worse.

Osman Ocalan, brother of the captured leader, said, "Our people must make life an inferno for the Turkish state . . . One does not bow down to the enemy, one fights the enemy."

Per Fagereng is a writer, artist, commentator and activist. He is a senior editor of the Portland Free Press, does radio broadcasts and runs the Phantom Gallery in Portland, Oregon.

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