Article By Arnljot Ask
Before I make a concrete evaluation on the strategy and tactics of the liberation struggle conducted by the PKK, I draw some brief general lessons from similar successful struggles I know globally :
- Both anticolonial struggles for liberation and sovereignty, and peoples’ class wars to get rid of a national suppressive regime, have to make a concrete analyses on strategy and tactics for their struggle, not try to make strict copys of other movements’ struggles from other countries nor epochs, even if there are similarities. General lessons can ofcourse be to be drawn.
- A crucial issue is to secure you have a popular support for your struggle. That your struggle is not only on behalf of your organization and theoretical analyses, but represents the will of the people concerned. It is also essential that it must be the political line that shall govern the armed struggle [where it exists], not vice versa. You may need arms and a militias to defend yourself and the struggling people, but the political mobilization and bulding up of popular support is obligatory.
- In the struggle for national souvreignty, if an imperialist power is involved, it is imperative not to ally yourself with any other imperialist powers that are involved in the conflict. You must pay the highest attention to defend your own souvreignty for independent action without becoming a tail of any other reactionary force.
The formation and developement of the PKK came out of the 50 years of struggles after the foundation of the Turkish Republic in 1923, following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War. Many uprisings and struggles to obtain national, democratic and social rights for the Kurdisk people during these 50 years was harshly cruched by the nationalist turkish rulerships in that part of Kurdistan.
Through the Lausanne Treaty in 1924 the Kurds in the region were dispersed between the 4 main national states, Tukey, Iran, Iraq and Syria, with some settlements also in Armenia. You can find a brief summary of the developements in these four different parts of Kurdistan, named Bakur, Rojhalat, Bashur and Rojava, in the following centuary in the previous issue of the magazine.
Below here you can find a map of the region covering the area where Kurds have been a major minority in existings nation-states. Organizations affiliated to the policy of the PKK you can find in all the four regions of Kurdistan, allthough the main part nominally you will find in Bakur.
The history of Workers Party Kurdistan
The Founding Congress of PKK took place on Nov 27th 1978, after 4 years of party-building from 1974 onwards, in a period following several state of emergencies in Turkey after the military coup there in 1971.
Since Kurdish Left wing organizations were targeted as the main enemies of the coup regimes and the military [by the neo facist groups, like the The Grey Wolwes], growing suppression of Kurds forced Abdullah Őcalan and other leaders of PKK to leave Turkey for Syria already in 1979. Later, they also had to take refuge in the Bekaa Governorate in Eastern Lebanon, firstly staying with Palestinian friends in camps there, before establishing their own training camp from 1986 onwards, named the Mahsum Khorkmas Academia. Then Turkey and the Assad regime in Syria made an agreement to push PKK out of Syria, the Academia in 1998 was moved to the Candil mountain area in Bashur, after having trained10, 000 militants during those12 years. They were trained not only in military matters, but mainly given theoretically and cultural/ideological education.
To summarise:
- Although their first program put up a vision of a federal socialist Middle East, they sought an independant Kurdish state in Turkey after the repression following their foundation, and started an armed uprising in 1984. Internationally they wanted to keep their independence from the groupings splitted between Soviet and China, and developed a socialist model based on the history in the region of their own, but based on a revolutionary marxist plattform seeking collaboration with the revolutionary movements globally.
- They took lessons from the Palestinian popular uprisings intifada[December 1987 and ended in September 1993], starting their own serhildan militant popular uprising supporting their defensive armed struggle in Bakur. Turkey deployed several hundred thousand soldiers attacking them in Bakur. Being the second biggest army in NATO, heavily supported directly with weapons and other equipments and finance from most of the NATO states, the PKK leadership summed up they could not focus only on a mere military strategy. The Serhildan mobilization of 1990-91 was heavily attacked, killing thousands of civilans and destroying living areas in several cities/villages. In the first half of the 1990s, Turkey destroyed around 4,000 kurdish villages, killing tens of thousands civilians and chasing half a million refugees into the capital Amed (Diyarbakir) area. There are some resemblances to the situation during the Salwa Judum – Green Hunt period in Chhattisgarh in India from 2005 onwards. Also the Turkish regime used muslim fundamentalists to hunt down what they labelled as maoists. (wings of the Kurdish Hezbollah -no relations to Hizbollah in Lebanon)
- Öcalan, on behalf of the PKK leadership, announced unilateral ceasefires several times from 1993 onwards, proposing a political solution for an autonomous status for the kurdish region in Turkey. Some talks and agreements have been made during the years; however the government mainly continued their military hunting of PKK militants and leaders, till this very day.
- At the same time the PKK also started to take part in parliamentary work.Firstly, at the national level, it put up known activists in the the main Social Democratic Party (SHP) for the National elections in 1991. Seven of them formed a new party, Peoples Labour Party (HEP), after beeing expelled from the SHP because they estalished contact with a Kurdish Congress in Paris suspected to have contact with the PKK. After the General Election in October 1991, several MPs from the SHP joined the HEP gaining all together 22 MPs in the new National Assembley representing HEP. The HEP followed up the peace proposals initiated by Ӧcalan/ PKK in 1993, opening negotiations in Lebanon in April of that year. Since they expected to be banned by the Constitutional Court, [which took place in July] they started a new Party, the Democracy Party (DEP) on May 7th of that year. Since most of the leadership from the HEP-period also became leading members of the DEP, the government started a banning process of that party also. The DEP was then banned on June 16th 1994 and several in their leadership were imprisoned for many years. Since they were prepared for the banning of the DEP, they established a new legal party called the Peoples Democracy Party (HADEP) in May 1994, with new leaders elected; and that party managed to go on until 2003. But they were not allowed to take part in the General Elections of 1999, since the persecutions of Kurds was intensified after the capture of Abdullah Öcalan that year, and the HADEP was reorganised to support the policy of Őcalan on political negotiations to solve the conflict. But, due to pressure from the European Human Rights Council (EHRC) they were allowed to take part in the local Municipality Elections, and got elected 37 Mayors from the largest cities in Bakur, gaining a big majoritiy of the votes. Then HADEP was banned in 2003, so they founded the Democratic Peoples Party (DEHAP), that lingered on until it merged with Democratic Society Party (DTP) in 2005. Further on the Kurds broadend their parliamentarian platform step by step – both through developing their platform politically and ideologically, and collaboration with other Democratic and Human Rights movements. Another systematic struggle the Kurdish political movement used to face was the 10% electoral threshold. Minority Rights International, a U.K.-based non governmental organization, has stated that the 10% threshold prevents minority parties’ representation in the political arena. Their 2007 report highlights the fact that while pro-Kurdish parties have consistently acquired the highest percentage of votes in areas the Kurdish population is concentrated in, they have failed to reach the national 10% threshold.[6] Since 2015, Kurdish-interest parties, starting with the HDP, have been able to poll above the threshold in general elections by successfully courting Turkish leftists.[7] In 2022 this threshold was lowered to 7%. In particular, the Kurdish movements, in all their legal organizations has been in the fore-front for pushing the womens’ issue. This was done politically and ideologically like, for example, Ӧcalans books, like ‘Liberating Life: Women’s Revolution’, Öcalan (2013); as also organisationally through the pratice of co-leaderships in their organizations. They also very importantly advocated and practised equalness between the nationalities in societies. For example, in Rojava and the Autonomous Administrative Area in Northeast Syria (AANES), kurds, arabs, assyrians, turkomans and other nationalities are cooperating with each other on an equal basis.
- In 2010 Erdogan accepted to have talks with the PKK in Oslo, fasciliated by the Norwegian government, which had removed the Turkey, US, EU ban on the PKK. The background was to follow up on how to transfer the ordinary PKK gurrillas out of Turkey into their base in the Candil Mountaines in Iraq – and only to maintain defensive militias in the Bakur region. Also giving the legal Kurdish parties more room for their parliamentarian activities in Turkey.
- The Kurds took a major step forward in the General Election in June 2015, breaking the threshold of 10% set by the govt for recognition, and being able to obstruct Erdogans majority in the Parliament and threathening his grand plan to becoming an autocratic leader of the Turkish Republic by centralizing the Presidency and the Prime Ministry in his hands. But through an extraordinary re – election in November 2015 Erdogan regained the parliamentarian majority through his extreme right wing alliance. His revenge also was to finally cancel the peace negotiations with the PKK/Öcalan which continued from 2010 in Oslo (actually ended from his side in the spring of 2015) and intensifying the military war and harassments of Kurdish organizations in Turkey, as well as his expansionist wars against Kurds in Rojava/Syria and Northern Iraq. Erdogan since then has broadened his collaboration with the KDP/Barzani leadership in Northern Iraq to fight the PKK there. After a big step forward for the Peoples Democratic Party (HDP) in the following local elections in 2016, Erdogan also removed most of their elected Mayors and installed new municipal lederships loyal to his government. The majority of HDP mayors also were imprisoned. But after new local elections in 2019, the HDP increased their support, regaining their mayors. Most of them again were removed. Altogether 59 out of the 67 mayors elected since 2016 have been removed. This is the situation now ahead of the local elections due soon onMarch 31st 2024.
- The present situation – ahead of the local elections in Turkey May31st 2024: Even if the coming election only is local, electing Mayors, Parliaments and Councils in Municipaleties, it is very important for Erdogan to hold his positions. Especially to win back the leadership in the big cities in West Turkey, Istanbul and the capital city Ankara where his Mayors lost their positions in 2019. In 2019 the HDP supported the candidates for Mayor from the biggest opposition party, the CHP, in order to beat the candidate from Erdogan’s AK Party. Now the Peoples Equality and Democracy Party (DEM) – the 7th legal party in a row since 1991 – are running their own list of candidates in Istanbul, as well as in Ankara. Their influence is growing, while Erdogan and his allies are loosing ground. So even if DEM is not able to win the mayorships there, they can together with other parties secure that the candidates of the CHP and can beat the candidates of Erdogan. In most of the cities in Bakur the DEM most likely will be the winner. Even if the Government will dismiss many DEM mayors this time also, it will be of strategic importance to build up their mass base. This election is also important for the campaign to release Abdullah Ocalan from his 25 years of isolation on the Imrali prison island as a decisive step to start peace negotiations again, not only for peace and a political solution to the conflict in Turkey but also with implications for the wars in Rojava and Northern Iraq/Bashur.
As this is written, the threat of further invasion into these areas from Turkey is increasing.
Recent reports from ANFNews says:
The revolutionary operations of the Kurdistan Freedom Guerrilla against the occupying Turkish army continue unabated. The revolutionary operations, which intensified in November, the 45th anniversary of the founding of the PKK, and continued in Zap, Xakurkê and Metîna in December, January, February and March, shocked the AKP-MHP fascist regime, while frustrating the whims of those who gave the PKK a life expectancy. People’s Defence Central Headquarters Command (HSM) shared a development with the public on 20 March as Newroz good news, stating that: “The Kurdistan Freedom Guerrilla has had the opportunity and ability to neutralize UCAVs, with which the Turkish state and army carry out assassinations and massacres every day. Our forces shot down a total of 15 UCAVs”. Immediately after this statement, Gerîla TV broadcast images showing the moments of the downing of the UCAVs one after the other.
The images from the battlefield and the published balance sheets show that despite the support of the KDP, the invading Turkish army forces could not hold on against the guerrilla and the Kurdistan Freedom Guerrilla took the initiative in the war. In the footage from the Şehîd Doğa Viyan Revolutionary Operation carried out in Zap on 17 February, the atmosphere on the battlefield was reflected by the guerrillas’ call to the soldiers to “surrender”, calling out “Karayılan’s instruction is that you will die, soldier”, chanting “This is Zap, there is no way out of here”, “They are escaping, go after them”, and the slogans “Bijî Serok Apo”.
According to the 2023 balance sheet of the HSM Headquarters Command, the Kurdistan Freedom Guerrilla carried out 1712 actions and killed 928 invaders, including 7 high-ranking officers. The invaders attacked 2969 times, including with chemical weapons and banned bombs. 179 guerrillas were martyred. In November alone, 193 actions were carried out by the guerrillas against the Turkish army forces, and 124 invaders were killed. A large quantity of military ammunition was captured or destroyed, and 4 guerrillas were martyred in the war.
While the guerrilla forces used a wide range of war tactics such as ambush, attack, infiltration, coordinated guerrilla action, sabotage, assassination, heavy weapon action, clash-damage-intervention actions, the revolutionary operations they carried out marked the resistance. The footage of dozens of actions carried out was broadcast by Gerîla TV.
The revolutionary operations carried out by the Kurdistan Freedom Guerrilla since November 2023 are as follows:
While the 45th anniversary of the establishment of the PKK was met with effective actions in the resistance areas, the Martyr Leyla Sorxwîn Amed Revolutionary Operation was carried out in Metîna on 26 November 2023. “Our forces carried out the Martyr Leyla Sorxwîn Amed Revolutionary Operation in Metîna, punishing 18 invaders and confiscating many weapons and military equipment by personally going over 12 corpses,” the HPG said in a statement on the operation.
On 22 December 2023, news of another revolutionary operation came from Xakurkê. The related HPG statement said that 27 invaders were killed in this operation and the bodies of 17 soldiers were searched. The guerrillas also seized weapons and military equipment, much of which was destroyed. The statement also reported that 9 other Turkish soldiers were killed in another coordinated action in Metîna.
HPG Press Liaison Centre (HPG-BIM) announced that the Kurdistan Freedom Guerrillas, who inflicted a heavy blow on the invading Turkish army in Xakurkê and Metîna, killed 34 invaders in Girê Amediyê Revolutionary Operation in Zap the next day (23 December), and 3 guerrillas were martyred.
About a month before this action (on 20 November), the Kurdistan Freedom Guerrillas carried out a comprehensive revolutionary operation against the invaders in Girê Amediyê Resistance Area and hit the invading army forces in Girê Şehîd Cesur, Şehîd Cemre and Girê Şehîd Pirdoğan. The HPG statement said that the comprehensive revolutionary operation was carried out simultaneously in three different places, using different tactics with many operational arms. 49 invaders were killed and 21 tents and 12 positions were destroyed.
At 17:10 on the evening of 12 January 2024, the Kurdistan Freedom Guerrilla carried out another Revolutionary Operation named Martyr Helmet Dêrelûk against the occupying Turkish troops in the Girê Amediyê Resistance Area of the Şehîd Delîl Batı Zap region. Guerrilla forces completely cleared the occupying Turkish soldiers from their positions. The related statement by HPG-BIM said that the guerrillas infiltrated and destroyed the soldiers’ positions one by one, and 61 invaders were killed in the operation, while 20 bodies were searched. In addition, the guerrilla forces confiscated many weapons from the invaders and destroyed positions, containers, weapons and military equipment by setting them on fire.
On 17 February at 12:50, guerrillas carried out the Şehîd Doğa Viyan Revolutionary Operation against the invaders positioned in a base area in Girê Cûdî Resistance Area in the Western Zap region. In the revolutionary operation launched with an attack tactic, the enemy positions targeted from many arms were hit and captured. The professional operation force, which went on the enemy with the Apoist sacrificial spirit, quickly took the base area from the invaders, went over their bodies and confiscated their weapons.”
It was announced that a guerrilla was martyred in the revolutionary operation, in which 37 Turkish soldiers, including 1 captain, were killed.
On the eve of Newroz, news of a new revolutionary operation came out. Kurdistan Freedom Guerrilla announced that they carried out another effective operation in the Zap region on 19 March under the name of Şehîd Ciwan-Şehîd Andok Revolutionary Operation. According to the statement, 41 invading Turkish soldiers were killed and many weapons and military equipment were confiscated or destroyed.
On 19 March, HPG-BIM reported that effective guerrilla actions developed in 3 different areas (Şehîd Cemre, Şehîd Cesur and Şehîd Pirdoğan) in the morning hours and that a special tactic and technique was used in this operation.
The statement said: “The revolutionary operation started on the initiative of our forces with a special tactic and technique, and in the first stage, the invaders in Şehîd Cemre were hit. As a result of effective strikes, 2 containers, 1 tent, 1 position were destroyed, 15 invaders were killed and 9 invaders were injured.
The invaders positioned in Şehîd Cesur were targeted from 4 arms and hit effectively. A total of 24 invaders were killed and 1 other was wounded. Our professional guerrilla force, who confiscated the weapons and ammunition of the invaders, used the weapons of the invaders against them. A panzer belonging to the occupiers was hit by a B7 rocket.”
And so the struggle for Kurdistan reaches a new high.
(Arnljot Ask was in the Central leadership of Workers Communist Party Norway from 1980 until this party merged with her Electoral Alliance partner and some other groups in 2007, into the Red Party Norway. It is now an important opposition party with 8 MPs and around 200 members of municipalities and county councils. There he continued in the National Board, incharge of the International Dept. until 2015. Still he is a member of the International Dept. and also in the leadership of several solidarity organizations given priority by the Red Rarty; like, for example the Solidarity with Kurdistan Committee Norway. He has been working with the Kurdish issue since the end of the 1980s, and is still active here.
Besides working with Left wing parties in Europe, especially on party-building issues, peace- and anti-war policy, he also cooperates with parties in South Asia, like in the Philippines, Nepal and India since the late 1980s.)
(The viwes expressed here are strictly that of the author and does not reflect that of the editorial board, particularly pt 3)
Photo Courtesy: https://i0.wp.com/vikalpsangam.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/AshishK-Kurdish-women-guerilla-fighters-in-the-Kandil-Mountains-at-ANF.jpeg?resize=768%2C432&ssl=1
