Mr. Ocalan, leave Rojava Kurdistan alone!

Omar Sindi | Exclusive to iKurd.net

Mr. Abdullah Ocalan, the way that U.S. Senator John Kennedy told President Erdogan to “leave the Kurds alone,” you should also leave Rojava Kurdistan alone!

Rojava Kurdistan and its leadership, navigating extremely narrow geopolitical lines, is leading well without your guidance. Unfortunately, you have been in a Turkish prison for a long time.

Most likely, the directives or advice that reach you come from the Turkish state, whose president has repeatedly stated his firm position against the formation of any Kurdish state or any autonomous region on or near Turkey’s borders in Syria or Iraq.

You are supposedly involved in negotiations with President Erdogan’s government on the Bakur (Bakur) Kurdistan or Turkish Kurdistan question. That itself is a very complex issue. So far, Erdogan’s response is “Terror-Free Turkiye.” It would be best for you not to interfere in another complex issue that concerns another sovereign state, in this case, Syria.

It appears that none of your initial political aims or visions have produced positive, tangible outcomes for Bakur Kurdistan regarding Kurdish rights. It has been estimated that over 40,000 people have been killed in the conflicts, and the war has produced the destruction of over three thousand Kurdish villages and towns.

At the beginning of the conflict in the early 1980s, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) hierarchy declared the objective of creating a separate, independent Kurdish state based on Marxist-Leninist ideology. At that time, the dogmatic orthodoxy of Leninism and Marxism was on its deathbed; the Warsaw Pact states, including the Soviet Union, were barely holding on to power, politically and economically collapsing. Public confidence in the theory had eroded. People no longer believed in the unworkable paper tiger theory.

Turkey was also a NATO member, and under its North Atlantic Treaty Organization membership, there is a code called “Article 5,” which states, “an armed attack against one member is considered an attack against all.” The PKK hierarchy lacked a modern intelligentsia capable of understanding contemporary events and drawing appropriate lessons from these two critical points.

Most likely, the Turkish state, under this term of conflict, was able to convince many Western governments, including the United States, to label the PKK as a terrorist organization. Then Turkey found an excuse to justify the war and destroy countless Kurdish villages and towns, jail many people, and commit gross human rights violations, paying no political price for an unjustifiable war against Kurdish civilians in Kurdistan.

There were also bizarre announcements and geopolitical miscalculations from the PKK hierarchy. In the mid-1990s, they advised travelers visiting Turkey to apply for visas from PKK offices in European cities. On what basis would people apply? Meanwhile, the PKK held not a single square inch of land in Turkey.

Or when Ocalan sent a letter to Murray Bookchin, saying he had read his book and considered himself his student, “however, he was eager to follow up [his] thought and help bring it to further fruition in terms of their applicability to Middle Eastern societies…” Ocalan’s idol, Murray Bookchin, an eco-anarchist, worked at the General Motors machine shop in Manhattan and began organizing for the United Auto Workers and, secretly, the Socialist Workers Party. In five years, Bookchin recruited just one worker into the SWP’s inner ranks, according to Wes Enzinna.

There was no justification in the mid-1990s for the PKK to attack the Kurdistan Regional Government forces, the peshmerga. Many people died from both sides of the conflict. This region was protected by Western nation-states, including the United States, and international forces to shield Kurds from Saddam Hussein’s regime. PKK strategists mistakenly believed they could govern this region without considering the consequences or considering the pros and cons. The PKK is recognized as a terrorist organization, and the international coalition would not allow or protect PKK control in that territory.

Abdullah Ocalan and the PKK leadership have shifted ideologically many times. From Leninist-Marxist demands for a separate Kurdish state in Turkey, to a lesser demand for a Kurdish autonomous region, to democratic confederalism, then downgraded to Kurdish cultural rights, now further down to believing in Turkish democracy, these shifts are concerning, especially while there is much empirical evidence that the Turkish state is under authoritarian rule.

General Mazloum Abdi, the Kurdish people have great respect for you. This was expressed during your visit to the capital of the Kurdistan autonomous region in Erbil, Iraq, and the hardship you and the Rojava people have endured in this part of Western Kurdistan has gained great admiration internationally.

There are many social media outlets announcing that you are contemplating a visit to Imrali Island Prison to see Abdullah Ocalan. Nothing is more noble than seeking a peaceful solution to any conflict or conflicts, but in this case, the Turkish state and the occupying forces in Kurdistan are not to be trusted.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan with Devlet Bahceli — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (R) shakes hands with Devlet Bahceli, the head of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), April 29, 2024. Photo: AK Parti/X

If President Erdogan and Bahceli are sincere in negotiations, they can bring Ocalan to Erbil or another credible, reputable environment, so perhaps you and many other people can discuss matters with Ocalan.

There is a proverb that says, “A leopard changes its spots, but not its mind!” One must be vigilant, mindful of past history, the treachery of past experiences with occupying forces in Kurdistan, and the obscure, capricious motives they may have.

Historical examples illustrate this pattern of betrayal. When the Ottoman Empire was unable to defeat Yezdan Sher’s forces on the battlefield, they used duplicitous tactics via British-sponsored negotiations. In the 1855 Yezdan Sher struggle, “British emissary, Numrud Rassam, persuaded Yezdan Sher to settle the question of independence through Kurdo-Ottoman negotiations with the British as a mediator.

He, Yezdan Sher, set off with Rassam for Istanbul to begin the British-sponsored negotiations with the Porte; the moment he arrived at the Ottoman capital, he was imprisoned…” from the book People Without a Country, Gerard Chaliand.

And in the late 1960s, when the Iraqi Ba’ath government was unable to defeat General Barzani’s forces, the peshmerga, in repeated battlefield engagements, the Ba’ath government pursued negotiations with General Mustafa Barzani on Kurdish rights in Iraq. The 1970 agreement led to Kurdish autonomy in Iraq, which many experts and academics believe the Ba’ath government never intended to honor; it only sought time to strengthen its rule.

Afterward, the government apparatus sent a gift basket of poisonous oranges hoping to poison Barzani. When that skulduggery failed, they attempted to kill Barzani with an infamous suicide bombing operation.

In 1977, a Kurdish man named Ahmad Jasm, a member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party and a political prisoner in Kirkuk prison, before his execution, told his comrades, paraphrasing, that the Kurdish people are freedom-thirsty, that they drink polluted water, and that drinking polluted water, one cannot break one’s thirst.

Kurdish Youth: You have a long way to go. You have many unfinished projects, those started by Qazi Mahammad, General Mustafa Barzani, Bedirkhan Bey, Ihsan Nori Pasha, Shakh Mahmood Barzengi, and many others, before you can rest in peace.

If President Erdogan can leave Ottoman Empire ambitions behind, if the demagogue Devlet Bahceli can give up Zia Gokalp’s Turanian Dream, and if Abdullah Ocalan can stop shifting his political ideology from communism to believing in Turkish democracy, then the Syrian people—Arabs, Kurds, Alawites, and Druzes—can reconcile their differences and determine how Syria’s society can function peacefully.

Omar Sindi, a senior writer, analyst and columnist for iKurd.net, Washington, United States.

The opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of iKurd.net or its editors.