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Since the capture of Öcalan, the international community wishes a fair and equitable trial for the Kurdish leader, getting worried about the partiality of the Court and belatedly examining the wheels of the Turkish judicial system. But how this trial could be "legal" ? According to the Turkish Republic, Abdüllah Öcalan, because he is the leader of PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) is liable for that is indeed a Kurdo-Turkish war and so he must be condemned : He is liable for the 29.000 victims of the conflict (Kurdish for a great part, then); he is liable for the orders and the strategy of his own staff as the staff of the Turkish army; he is liable for the political failure of the succession of governemts that could not or did not want to resolve really the Kurdish problem. But considering that only Öcalan is responsible for the conflict since fifteen years, is to suppose that he has a particular charism that could explain the veneration of his supporters. We must not forget that behind "Apo", there is the PKK, a party with hundred of thousand active members and more numerous sympathizers, a party that is not only a military and political organisation, but a network of social and cultural associations. We must not forget too that behind the PKK, there are millions of Kurds, from Turkey and elsewhere, and without their adhesion the fight of the PKK can not spread and continue. Even if we do not agree with the political choices of the PKK, we have to accept that this party, the most powerful political Kurdish organisation with the greatest number of partisans is presently, as the P.L.O, the legitimate representative of the Kurds in Turkey. Considering the Kurdish problem as just a criminal phenomenon and asking to judicial power to stop it is to blind oneself, as expecting that the end of the Kurdish movements for liberation in Turkey will follow the execution of Öcalan, as denying the importance of the PKK and forty millions of Kurds for the peace in the Middle East, a peace that although seems so essential in this area for the West. Then, the conditions of the trial is less criticizable than the trial itself. How could a state judges and condemns the political representative of a nation without condemns politically the existence of this nation ? The only case that for the law makes provision for political leaders prosecuted for their acts and the acts of their land is for some war crimes and crimes against humanity. But such a proceeding should be engaged by an international institution, as the Hague's Court and not by a belligerent against an else belligerent. It is the least we can admit that the both armies are responsible for the 29.000 victims of the war and Turkey is not well known for its respect of international laws about Human Rights and protection of civilians. And in my opinion, we must judge more sternly Turkey, a legitimate and free state, with legal, police and judicial authorities for resolving its own crisis, than a secret and surrounded organisation, defending a people deprived of all their rights and whose existence had be denied during a long time. If Abdüllah Öcalan is found guilty and condemned to death, all his partisans, all his sympathizers in the world should be logically prosecuted for crime and terrorism, because the condamnation of Öcalan is the condamnation of the PKK. And if the PKK is found guilty, the claims of a people will be rejected as illegal. However, shall we resolve then the Kurdish problem ? Sandrine Alexie & Roxane - March 1999 |