The Kurdish Worker’s Party, known as the PKK, has been around for a few decades and has caused thousands of deaths. They are an officially recognized terrorist group. This paper will examine the history and the future of the PKK and consider possibly solutions to its eradication. The aim of this paper is to review policy recommendations presented.
Introduction
Terrorism is not specifically defined across the globe, but its main feature is that it is done to broadcast a political message to a targeted group. The Kurdish Workers’ Party, or Kurds, is a Marxist-Leninist terrorist organization made up of Turkish Kurds. They inhabit southern Turkey, northern Iraq, northern Iran, Syria, and Armenia. There are about 30 million Kurds living in the world, half of them in Turkey making up 20% of their national population. It was founded on November 27, 1978 to fight for an autonomous state, Kurdistan. It operates in Turkey and Europe, targeting Europeans, Turks, rival Kurds, and Turkish government supporters. The PKK was imagined as the ‘‘vanguard of the global socialist movement’’ in which the revolution’s central power would be a ‘‘worker–peasant alliance.’’ They rebuked ‘‘the repressive exploitation of the Kurds’’ and called for a ‘‘democratic and united Kurdistan” (Phillips, 2008).
Although in 1920, the Treaty of Sevres created an independent Kurdistan, it was never created. Operations of the PKK began in 1978 with the goal to start a guerilla war. The PKK was not strong enough by themselves to wage a guerilla war without support, and its political orientation prevented them from allying with other Kurdish groups. In 1980, they moved into Lebanon to try and increase their organization. They trained alongside some of the most successful terrorists in the world. In 1982, the Kurds allied with Syrians after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and began receiving weapons and money.
In 1984, the formerly weak group began their first attacks using guerrilla warfare with the first attack on August 15, 1984, and within a few years, the PKK had murdered more than ten thousand people, focusing mainly on civilians. Turkey responded by operating security forces heavily and isolating them from their support bases and attacking PKK groups. In 1990, the PKK changed tactics from attacking civilians to security forces and economic targets as a result of the Kurds condemning violence on civilians.
The PKK uses various methods and strategies in the recruitment, including driving young individuals to crime that leads to conviction, kidnapping, forcing, intimidating, deceiving, using structures related to the organization within the recruitment process, the influence of organizational media, prison activities, and activities in Europe. Children are kidnapped by the PKK, the average age of which someone joins is 15-21. One out of every four members is female, a result of good recruiting. 92% of members are unmarried and 72% of members only received a primary school education or lower. 78% of members were unemployed at the time of membership, 71% of members’ families were also unemployed. Members typically have a low number of siblings and only 13% of members have a family member in the organization.
Literature review
As with cultural differences that exist in various cities within a country, so do differences within a terrorist organization, the PKK being included. Beren in 2012 found that “armed attacks and bombings against the security forces are carried out in some cities, explosive materials used in these attacks are smuggled into the country through other cities.” Beren also found that in certain cities, merely lawful activities such as press declarations and marches are conducted.
Strategies
Since 1990, the PKK has utilized the language of nationalism. Since 1995, it has used religion. They chose terrorism rather than a propaganda war. In 1995, the PKK’s leader, Abdullah Ocalan asked the United States to intervene and support the creation of their own state, which was rejected. Also in 1995, the PKK began appealing to Muslim Kurds to expand their base. The shift to religious terrorism rejuvenated the PKK. They gained support thorough the Kurd community as well as throughout the Middle East. In 1999, Ocalan was captured and told the group to exit Northern Iraq and to become inactive (Beren, 2012). The group then pledged for peace. The group continued to operate military organizations under different names. As a result of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center and the invasion of Iraq, the PKK acknowledged an authority gap that was present there and began using Iraq as a training center and resumed bombings and armed terrorist attacks (Beren, 2012). In 2003, the United States began cracking down on the PKK in northern Iraq. The PKK works with other international terrorist groups and some revolutionary groups in Turkey. The PKK has evolved their name numerous times over the years to try and re-establish themselves. They were the Kurdistan Labour Party in 1978, Freedom and Democracy Congress of Kurdistan in April 2002, the Kurdistan People's Congress in November 2003, the Democratic Confederation of Kurdistan in March 2005, and the Peoples’ Confederation of Kurdistan as of May 2007.
The PKK has changed its tactics over the years, they used ‘intensive terror’ between 1984 and 1989, an ‘attempt to proceed to the guerrilla stage’ was between 1989 and 1995, ‘Intensive terror’ was used again, encompassing large cities between 1995 and 1999 and ‘terror, passive disobedience and politization’ was between 1999 and 2005. Intensive terror was used “to construct the Kurdish identity by gaining ground upon Turkish nationalism” (Beren, 2012). This failed to draw the attention of the Kurdish people.
During the use of intensive terror, the PKK failed to receive the required support from the Kurds for the acts it intended to recognize in the cities in the West, and the intelligence of the police as well as the associated actions prevented the majority of the intended operations of the organization in the area (Beren, 2012).
In 2010 in Turkey, the PKK conducted a variety of attacks: 39 percent were actions of direct violence, 12 percent of them were collective activities and providing members to the organization unlawfully, and 41 percent were lawful acts such as publicity of the terrorist organization (Beren, 2012).
Recruitment
Reasons for joining the PKK include family issues, the kinship effect, friendship factor, ongoing trial/fugitive status, ethnic nationalism, unemployment and economic problems, desire for revenge, pretension and attention seeking, and escape from personal problems. Family issues (like forced marriage and the desire to be rebellious) is the highest ranking influence factor to join. Friendship fosters joining as well; members followed their close friends to foster the relationships. To avoid legal troubles, membership is seen as an alternative. “Ethnic nationalism has almost become the language of resistance to many forms of life problems, or individuals’ response to the negative conditions surrounding them” (Ozeren, Sever, Yilmaz, & Sozer, 2014). Joining the organization can be viewed as a way out of economic issues. Revenge for wrongdoings against someone’s friends and family was also an explanation for joining. Individuals lacking attention and appreciation would be candidates for the PKK, they think they will obtain that in the group. People escaping personal problems like family illnesses and money find escape in the terrorist organization.
Conflictions
Beren called the PKK “the organization of contradictions” (2012) because of their conflicting messages. They were upset about the absence of state investments, but would bomb civil servants in order to stop the investments; they conducted heinous murders but wanted human rights (Beren, 2012).
Funding
The PKK is funded by a revolutionary tax from Kurdish businessmen in Turkey who had to either pay or possibly be killed. Cultural centers such as the Kurdish Employers Association, the Kurdish Islamic Movement, and the Kurdish Red Crescent have donated money. Drugs, weapons smuggling, human trafficking, and extortion are also sources of revenues. In 1998, the PKK was providing Britain with 40% of heroin sold in Europe and at its height, their annual income was $500 million. The PKK manages financial pursuits in European countries through the Coordination of the European Kurdish Democratic Society and organizes pilgrimage and umrah organizations to give financial backing for the terrorist organization through the Kurdistan Islamic Society (Beren, 2012).
Recognition as a Terrorist Organization
The United States only recognized the PKK as a foreign terrorist organization in 2001, followed by the European Union in 2002. This delay may explain why the PKK has been able to be so prolonged in their efforts. In 2007, Turkey’s democratization had increased that the PKK was forced to reorganize again in order to survive. The PKK was acting with both political and violent strategy. Turkey and Iraq formed a Counterterrorism Agreement in 2007 that created a legal base for collaborating on its finance and intelligence efforts but Iraq doesn’t allow Turkey to cross borders to fight the PKK. In the 80s, Turkey attempted a strong approach to the PKK by enacting martial law in some areas and declaring a state of emergency. Over the years it did the opposite by fostering unemployment and poor towns, a magnet for PKK operations. Beginning in 2012, the Turkish government has been attempting to reconcile with the PKK. It is still ongoing. Turkey estimates they have spent $200 billion on the fight against PKK.
Policy Recommendations
Currently the PKK does not have a clear command or control structure, but they are still executing attacks and killing people. The PKK announced a ceasefire with Turkey in October 2015, but the country refused. Since July of 2015, about 2,000 people have been killed as a result of the group.
There are a few strategies that can be put in place to combat the PKK. The international community can target its financing and propaganda infrastructure, the European Counterterrorism Group could take the lead in investigating illicit revenues that fund them the UN Counterterrorism Committee could request that the EU and member states that tolerate PKK front organizations document their efforts aimed at cutting off funding, and the licenses for European-based PKK media outlets that incite hatred or endorse violence should be revoked.
Fighting terrorism requires different strategies and tactics for different areas. Beren (2012) found that the most significant detail is to develop and objectify a roadmap for the antiterrorism policy appropriate for the local characteristics and variances that is a procedure explicit for each city. They also advise that “issues of strategy and discourse including cultural, political and social components” (Beren, 2012) need to be considered for antiterrorism measures just as fighting terrorism. Beren also advised that using problem-oriented policing is the strategy to use and routines need to be identified, events need to be correctly analyzed, and intervening before the attacks take place is crucial (2012).
A simple aspect of fighting terrorism that needs to be done in order to efficiently combat it is to define it. By the world sharing a common definition for terrorism, it can be learned what needs to be done in order to create the correct strategies against it. By not having a shared definition, one country may not deem an action to be terroristic in nature that another does. “Success in antiterrorism strategies can be gained only by means of the proper analysis of terrorist organizations and terrorist actions” (Beren, 2012). Knowing the enemy is knowing how to bring them down. Working together as a united front globally will help solve the crisis that continues to grow.