Abdullah "Apo" Öcalan (born April 4, 1948) is a Kurdish leader, who in 1978 founded the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).[1] The PKK is listed as a terrorist organization by a number of states and organizations, and has been leading an armed campaign inside Turkey since 1984, with the intent of creating an independent Kurdish state. Öcalan has been imprisoned by the Turkish state since 1999 on İmralı Island in the Turkish Sea of Marmara.
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Abdullah Öcalan was born in Ömerli,[2] a village in Halfeti, Şanlıurfa Province, in the Eastern part of Turkey. [3]
After graduating from a vocational high school in Ankara (Turkish: Ankara Tapu-Kadastro Meslek Lisesi), Öcalan entered the Diyarbakir Title Deeds Office. In an unusual turn of events, he was relocated one month later to Bakırköy, Istanbul. Later, he entered Istanbul Law Faculty but transferred after the first year to Ankara University to study political science.[4] His return to Ankara (normally impossible given his condition[notes 1]) was facilitated by the state in order to divide a militant group, Dev-Genç. President Süleyman Demirel later regretted this decision, since the PKK was to become a much greater threat to the state than Dev-Genç.[5]
By 1973, Öcalan had organized APOCU's, a Maoist group that sought a socialist revolution in Turkey.[citation needed] In 1978, in the midst of the right- and left-wing conflicts which culminated in the 1980 Turkish coup d'état, Abdullah Öcalan founded the PKK, and launched a war against Turkey in order to set up an independent Kurdish state.[2][6]
Journalists Uğur Mumcu and Avni Özgürel allege that Öcalan and his first wife Kesire (not of Kurdish descent), whom he married on 24 May 1978, are members of the National Intelligence Organization (MİT).[7] Kesire's father, Ali Yıldırım, was allegedly a MİT member, too. Öcalan's pilot, Necati Kaya, was also a member of the MİT.[8]
Abdullah Öcalan has an elder brother, Osman, who was a PKK leader until defecting with several others to establish the Patriotic and Democratic Party of Kurdistan.[9]
Öcalan is linked to Kurdish recognition of the Armenian genocide.[10]
In 1984 the PKK initiated a campaign of armed conflict comprising attacks against government forces[11][12][13][14] in Turkey in order to create an independent Kurdish state.
PKK soon acquired a reputation as an effective force for Kurdish rights, and also for social justice within the Kurdish communities[citation needed]. Its violent methods have caused United States, European Union, NATO, Syria, Australia, Turkey, and some others to include the PKK on their lists of terrorist organizations.[15][16][17]
Contradicting his pre-capture policy of the use of power, Öcalan has, since his arrest in 1999, campaigned for a peaceful solution to the Kurdish conflict inside the borders of Turkey.[18][19][20][21][22] Öcalan called for the foundation of a "Truth and Justice Commission" by Kurdish institutions in order to investigate "war crimes" committed by PKK and Turkish security forces and a parallel structure began functioning in May 2006.[23] In March 2005, Abdullah Öcalan released the Declaration of Democratic Confederalism in Kurdistan[24] in which he asks for a border free confederation between the Kurdish regions of Turkey (called "Northwest Kurdistan" by Kurdish nationalists[25]), Syria ("Small part of South Kurdistan"), Iraq ("South Kurdistan"), and Iran ("East Kurdistan"). In this zone, three bodies of law would be implemented: EU law, Turkish/Syrian/Iraqi/Iranian law and Kurdish law. This perspective was included in PKK programme following the "Refoundation Congress" in April 2005.[26]
Since his incarceration he has significantly changed his ideology, reading Western social theorists like Murray Bookchin, Immanuel Wallerstein, Fernand Braudel,[27] fashioned his ideal society as "Democratic Confederalism" and refers to Friedrich Nietzsche as "a prophet".[28] He also wrote books[29] and articles[30] on the history of pre-capitalist Mesopotamia and Abrahamic religions.
Öcalan had his lawyer, Ibrahim Bilmez,[31] release a statement 28 September 2006, calling on the PKK to declare a ceasefire and seek peace with Turkey. Öcalan's statement said, "The PKK should not use weapons unless it is attacked with the aim of annihilation," and that it is "very important to build a democratic union between Turks and Kurds. With this process, the way to democratic dialogue will be also opened".[32]
Until 1998 Öcalan was based in Syria. As the situation deteriorated in Turkey, the Turkish government openly threatened Syria over its support for the PKK. As a result of this, the Syrian government forced Öcalan to leave the country, but did not turn him over to the Turkish authorities.
Öcalan went to Russia first and from there moved to various countries, including Italy and Greece. In 1998 the Turkish government requested the extradition of Öcalan from Italy. He was at that time defended by the high-profile German attorney, Britta Böhler, who argued that he fought a legitimate struggle against the oppression of ethnic Kurds. He was captured in Kenya on February 15, 1999, while being transferred from the Greek embassy to Nairobi international airport, in an operation by the Millî İstihbarat Teşkilâtı with debatable help of CIA.[34] The Greek consul who harbored him, George Costoulas, said that his life was in danger after the operation.[35]
Speaking to Can Dündar on NTV Turkey, Deputy Undersecretary of the Turkish National Intelligence Agency, Cevat Öneş, said that Öcalan impeded American aspirations of establishing a separate Kurdish state so he was handed to the Turkish authorities, who then flew him back to Turkey for trial.[36] His capture led thousands of protesting Kurds to seize Greek embassies around the world.[37][38] During the flight from Kenya to Turkey, a video recorded by Millî İstihbarat Teşkilâtı officers. Ocalan stated that his mother is Turkish origin also and he is ready to serve government in any way.[39]
After his capture Öcalan was held under solitary confinement as the only prisoner on the İmralı Island in the Turkish Sea of Marmara. Despite the fact that the other prisoners formerly at İmralı were transferred to other prisons, there were still over 1,000 Turkish military personnel stationed there guarding him. He was sentenced to death, but this sentence was commuted to life-long aggravated imprisonment when the death penalty was abolished in Turkey in August 2002.[40] No one has been executed in Turkey since 1984.[41] The Kurdish Human Rights Project (KHRP) may have aided this case's decision.[42]
In November 2009 the Turkish authorities announced that he would be moving to a new prison on the island and that they were ending his solitary confinement by transferring several other PKK prisoners to İmralı, and that Öcalan would be able to see them for ten hours a week. They began building the new prison after the Council of Europe's Committee for the Prevention of Torture visited the island and objected to the conditions in which he was being held. [43] [44]
In 2005, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Turkey had violated articles 3, 5 and 6 of the European Convention of Human Rights by granting Öcalan no effective remedy to appeal his arrest and sentencing him to death without a fair trial.[45]
In April 2009, the lawyer for Nelson Mandela visited Turkey and spoke publicly of Nelson Mandela's support for the Kurdish people's Freedom Struggle. Essa Moosa, visiting Turkey on official business, denounced the criminalisation of the Kurdish Freedom Struggle and compared Abdullah Ocalan to Nelson Mandela. Expressing Nelson Mandela's support for the Kurdish Freedom Struggle he said,"Both Mandela and Öcalan have struggled for their people!" He added that they had been arrested in similar circumstances and held on island prisons and noted that the Kurdish leader was even more isolated than Nelson Mandela had been. [46]
In 2007, lawyers acting for Öcalan, claimed to have produced results from laboratory tests on his hair which appeared to show high levels of toxic metals. The Turkish government has sent a medical team to the imprisoned Kurdish separatist leader amid these claims and the tests found no indication of toxins or abnormalities.[47][48] However, according to CPIT, some elements of toxins have been found but they have been attributed to the climate conditions of the Imrali Island which Ocalan is captivated. A ministry statement suggested the lawyers were trying to revive international interest in their client after the Council of Europe ruled the previous month that the rebel leader was not entitled to a retrial.[49] At 6. March 2008 the Committee for the Prevention of Torture declared that they didn't find any proof for an intoxication of Abdullah Öcalan.[50]
In 2008, prosecutors investigating on the nationalist Ergenekon network, accused of terrorism and of conspiracy to destabilize the nation, were interested in Öcalan's contacts while in prison. Öcalan himself asked to be heard as a witness in this case.[51] A retired intelligence officer, Bülent Orakoğlu, went so far as to accuse him of membership in the network.[52]
In December 2008, Öcalan sued Greece for 20,100 Euros in compensation for their negligence is his getting captured; his indictment specifically stated that Athens had assured him of protection. The Greek government previously rejected Turkey's criticism on support of Öcalan. Turkey also blamed Greece for supporting PKK insurgents. Greece claimed that it acted humanely and denies it has helped the rebels. Greece later granted asylum to two of Öcalan's aides.[53]
Abdullah Ocalan is the author of more than 40 books, four of which were written in prison. Many of the notes taken from his weekly meetings with his lawyers have been edited and published, notably:
Abdullah "Apo" Öcalan (born 1949-04-04) is the founding leader of the Kurdish militant group Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK),which is organisation fighting for a socialist Independent Kurdistan and the rights of the Kurdish People. It is based on a guerilla system.
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