To begin with, it should be noted that saying the PKK has been performing terrorist attacks as a subcontractor mission, does not mean denying neither the Kurdish problem nor the extensive authority of the PKK. Secondly, the fact that the organization (the PKK) can perform its operations whenever and wherever it desires cannot be explained merely with the social base of this organization.
Considering the stories of negligence and even those of cooperation revealed gradually by more events, it is obviously realized that the organization (the PKK) has not been successful in its mission only with its potentials and abilities. In almost all minefield explosions and terrorist activities from Daglica to Aktutun and from Resadiye to Iskenderun and Semdinli, the blessings of an invisible hand appear as “the secret of success” in the startling activities of the organization.
This statement, in other words pointing this invisible hand, does not necessitate ignoring the indisputable effect of the PKK on the Kurdish policy at the moment. Indeed, it affects the issue from all aspects; yet the problem is needed to be distinguished at a level.
Ongoing armed conflict has been raising the effect of the PKK on the people day by day. As the heartily utterances of “dead PKK members” after each operation as if they were statistical numbers are accepted as a national heroic story in their region and as the number of these stories increases, Kurdish-nationalist feelings are nourished. Regardless of how compassionately the administration approaches them and how well the initiative policy is carried out, even the people perceive these policies from the view point of their children who witness these conflicts. Therefore, as long as the conflicts continue, the administration has no chance to gain the Kurdish people’s support. Since every conflict always keeps the wounds open and damages any initiative policy as if it were a seed spread unto a poor land.
In this respect, “the secret hand” coming to the PKK’s assistance for each of the attacks takes its position in continuing the conflicts, in the KCK operations which were against the positive atmosphere provided by the initiative, in handcuffing the arrested ones in those operations, and lastly in arresting the ones who surrendered after having entered through Habur Gate upon the promise of the government and additionally this hand provides the psychological atmosphere for the people to prove that the PKK is right in its fight.
No one should reduce all problems to the Kurdish problem. This statement of course does not come to the meaning of underestimating the Kurdish problem; yet there is not an exact parallel between the existence of the Kurdish problem and the increasing activities of the PKK lately. On the contrary, a “secret hand”, which insistently tries to bring the PKK and terror to the agenda, catches the attention as a “secret of success”.
We should understand that the PKK is constantly watched over by the same secret hand by that hand’s using an existing problem very well and by its deepening that problem in order to support the PKK more if necessary.
When Öcalan, who had been in Syria until 1998, was sent after an ultimatum, people did not think about why this ultimatum had not been given before. However, until that time the close relations between Öcalan and the arrested members of today’s Ergenekon Case have not been adequately explained yet. Everyone saw the photos of the ones, who were the organizers of a fascist nationalism, with Öcalan in Bekaa; but the ones making a reference to this relation are suppressed as if they were conspirators. The latest terror attacks that help neither the Kurdish people nor the people in the region merely make a contribution to Ergenekon organization in the current conjuncture. Why is not this fact realized?
The rising number of the terror attacks should not be displayed as a sign of the PKK’s increasing power and authority. That secret hand should be cut and thus it will not be between the PKK-Kurdish problem and the solution.
The question of how an organization (the PKK), which was formed as if a small state, can be managed through a chain of command with the meetings with a few lawyers in a prison, is an easy but extremely illustrative question. What kind of a duty was given to Öcalan, who said “I am at your service and ready to serve the Turkish government” when he was caught? After that moment did Öcalan change his mind or was the role, which he is playing now, a part of that duty? What is the relation between the hand, which gives assistance to the PKK’s every activity by logistics, intelligence, and sometimes by virtual contribution, and the hand, which assigns that duty? Is not it worth asking and listening the answer?
(Published on Yeni Safak [newspaper] on June 26, 2010)