Latif Serhildan:
In a demonstration in Dublin we chanted following slogan ‘APO and Mandela are same, only difference is the name’. Who is Nelson Mandela? Nelson Mandela, born 18 July 1918, was South Africa’s eleventh president and its first democratically elected president. Before his election to the presidency, Nelson Mandela protested against apartheid by leading the African National Congress (ANC). He was jailed for 27 years on a charge of sabotage for his work with the ANC. There are so many similarities between Kurdish leader Ocalan Mandela. When Mandela was freed in South Africa and he was given Nobel Peace Prize I remember the Turks wanted to give him Ataturk peace Prize. Mandela refused to take that from the Turks he said that prize should have be given to Kurdish leader. Yet at that Turks were very angry with him I am sure they still are.
Who is Ocalan? To many it might be just another name, but it means so much to 40 million Kurds living in middle east Mr., Abdullah Ocalan is recognized by millions of Kurdish people as their rightful political representative, yet he has been imprisoned in a Turkish Jail 13 years. This isolation of the Kurdish leader is seen by Kurds as the denial of their collective rights, their voice and their existence. During these 13 years the large Kurdish Diaspora in Europe, those displaced and dispossessed by Turkey, has been on the streets, protesting the unjust and illegal treatment of their leader. Their voice has been ignored in Europe, and they have faced denial, provocation and annihilation in Turkey. Experience has shown that there can be no lasting peace without negotiation: Kurds accept that a military solution is impossible for either side. Mr. Ocalan has put forward his plan for a peaceful democratic solution to the Kurdish question.
Where Kurds lives, it is clearly retains a majority, loyal and growing power base, as the scale of the recent protests in capital city of Diyarbakir, Batman, Niseybin, Wan, Istanbul, many other Kurdish, Turkish cities, shows. Organizers of a referendum carried out in 2008 among the Diaspora and in Kurdistan say that millions of Kurds consider the jailed leader of PKK, Abdullah Ocalan, their legitimate political representative. At a time when international support for their efforts should have been growing Kurds found themselves isolated to a greater extent than before.
Like Yasar Arafat of Palestine, like East Timor’s President Jose Ramos-Horta whom was all in prison like Ocalan were later released given Nobel Peace Prize. That was the right thing to do if you want to have peace in the country you must talk to the leader of oppressed people. Turkey must do that now. Like UK did it in the case with IRA, Gerry Adams, and Martin MacGuiness are both in power in North of Ireland in power sharing with the unionists. Time has come for Turkish prime minister Erdogan to be a man and do what is right shake hands with Ocalan, not bombarding Kurdish south ( Northern Iraq).
There are still efforts from Turkey and EU member states to close Roj TV, the Kurdish satellite station which broadcasts from Denmark. How does Europe benefit from this close relationship with Turkey to the extent that it seems willing to ignore continued state terror and large-scale human rights abuses? Turkey is a market of 70 million, with important water and oil resources (both located in the Kurdish regions) and strategic geopolitical location (again Kurdistan is the bulwark and common factor along the most contentious borders: Iraq (Kurdistan), Iran and Syria), yet such economic considerations hardly balance the prospect of having a protracted and bloody war on Europe’s doorstep.
European representatives can wield considerable pressure to improve the deteriorating situation by supporting those elements within Turkey that have rejected the spent ideologies of the last century in their battle to confront the might of the military. It will take considerable bravery for many in Turkish officialdom to acknowledge the Kurdish mandate, yet without such steps Turkey cannot progress. If this means international recognition of PKK and Kurdish leader Mr. Ocalan’s role as a legitimate representative of many Kurdish people then so be it. History has shown that violence cannot achieve a political solution: the sooner negotiation starts the better for Turkey, and for Europe.