For some, he is the banner of the Kurds' struggle for independence. For others, he is a dangerous criminal and terrorist. Who is this Abdullah Ocalan? The biography of the Kurdish political and military figure will be considered by us in this article. Let's say right away: this personality is ambiguous. Ocalan is an honorary citizen of Naples, Palermo and other European cities. Many prominent European figures are turning to the Turkish government with a request to release the political prisoner. Last year, the Socialist Party of Ukraine awarded Abdullah Ocalan with the Peace and Democracy medal. However, this political leader of Kurdistan has been sentenced to life imprisonment since 1999 and is currently serving his sentence on the island of Imrali, which is located in the Sea of Marmara. How and why Abdullah Ocalan was convicted - read below.
Youth, education, early political activity
The hero of our article was born on April 4, 1949in a simple peasant family. His small homeland is the Turkish village of Omerli, in the province of Sanliurfa, inhabited by Kurds. As a child, he showed a great inclination for the sciences, he studied well at school. His parents sent him to study at the Faculty of Political Science at the University of Ankara. There he gnawed at the granite of science from 1971 to 1974. As a student, Abdullah Ocalan was imbued with leftist, socialist ideas. And only a little later these views received a national-patriotic coloring. Ocalan deliberately dropped out of university. In 1974, he organized a group of young people around him, which four years later took shape in a political force called the PKK. Its goal was to create an independent nation-state. Recall that the Kurds live not only in the south-east of Turkey, but also in the west of Iran, northern Iraq and Syria. This nation does not yet have its own statehood.
Military leader
Shortly before the military coup in Turkey (1980), Ocalan went into exile in Syria. There he organized partisan detachments, which since 1984 began real military operations against the Turkish army. The slogan of this armed struggle was the independence of Kurdistan. Turkey has long pursued a policy of assimilation of national minorities. And Abdullah Ocalan raised the banner of struggle against the genocide of the Kurds as a people. The party he headed aimed at the federalization of Turkey and the creation of autonomy. Ocalan denied that he was engaged in separatist work aimed at dismembering the country. The consignmentalso had a social program. Previously, the PKK stood on Marxist positions. Öcalan later revised his views on communist ideas. He is convinced that social justice cannot be achieved using totalitarian methods. In fact, the PKK is close in its views to the centre-left, social democratic parties.
Refugee
Since all the fighting took place in Turkey, the Syrian government allowed Ocalan to live on its territory. For more than eighteen years, from 1980 to 1998, the political leader and military figure lived in Damascus. However, the government of Hafez al-Assad eventually caved in under pressure from Ankara. The Syrian President asked Abdullah Ocalan to leave the country. Abdullah Ocalan came to Russia. In this regard, on November 4, 1998, the State Duma of the Russian Federation by a majority vote decided to turn to President Boris Yeltsin and ask him to grant political refugee status to the leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party. However, this request remained unanswered. Öcalan moved to Italy and asked for asylum there. But, faced with European bureaucracy, he moved to Greece and from there to Kenya.
Kidnapping
Abdullah Ocalan thought to wait in this African country for the decision of his case on granting political asylum in Italy, which was moving very slowly. As a result, the refusal of the migration authorities was challenged by the lawyer of the Kurdish leader in court. But the Turkish intelligence services acted faster thanEuropean bureaucracy. When the Civil Court of the City of Rome granted refugee status on October 4, 1999, Abdullah Ocalan was already captured in Nairobi and awaiting sentencing in prison. Turkish secret services organized the kidnapping of the leader of the Kurds with the help of Israelis. They captured Öcalan on 15 February 1999. Even at the stage of pre-trial proceedings, he was kept in the most impregnable prison in Turkey on the island of Imrali, fearing his release by supporters. The trial began on May 31 of the same year. Abdullah Ocalan was sentenced to death, but under pressure from the world community, it was replaced with life imprisonment.
Political leader of our time
But even behind bars, Öcalan has not lost his charisma and influence. All over the world, progressively minded public advocated a fair trial of the leader of the Turkish Kurds. But the process was more like a farce. The accused was not even allowed to communicate with his lawyers. But times are changing, and the new government, although it did not review Ocalan's case, did a lot to mitigate the conditions of his detention. So, in 2009, five more members of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party) were transferred to the island. Thus, the national leader is no longer in solitary confinement. The new challenges of our time forced Turkish President Erdogan to enter into a dialogue with Ocalan. Since 2013, negotiations have been underway on a peaceful settlement of the conflict between the government of the country and the Kurdish guerrillas. A common enemy, ISIS, has forced hardened enemies to leave their feuds.
Works
Abdullah Ocalan is the author of many sociological works and books on the subject of Kurdish statehood. Among his well-known works are books on colonialism, imperialism, socialism and the problems of revolution. They are still being reissued. One of the most popular is still the work “Personality in Kurdistan. Peculiarities of political life and revolutionary struggle.”
