IMRALI IS NOT THAT FAR – (VIDEO)

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Imrali is not that far. And lots of people share Abdullah Ocalan’s fate. It has never been that evident as in the latest weeks.
Shut up in a prison-island, Ocalan’s isolation is of his own, of the only man, detained for 11 years, until a few months ago. But it also drammatically belongs to million Kurds living in Turkey. Surrounded by a bubble wall hard to penetrate. Isolation is also the condition the Kurds experience in Europe. Hundreds of thousands of people, neighbours. Alone. Invisible. It is almost embarrassing. Because we immediately feel our bad conscience pushing from inside, from the pit of the stomach.
In these days, this isolation has materialized. It is tangible. Dozens of young people, activists, legal organizations leaders, have been arrested in Italy, France, Belgium. The latest has been the operation run by three hundred agents of the Belgian antiterrorism against the Kurd satellite TV, RojTv, which is regularly licensed in Denmark. The allege is tortuous, the Pkk is mentioned, the Kurd workers’ party Europe carefully included in the terroristic organizations list (Usa and Turkey order). The police raided RojTv studios at 5 am (video can be watched here). They frisked and arrested several people, some of them journalists, then released. Every day RojTv (Med TV at first, then Medya TV: it changed its name not out of vice, but because it was persecuted and outlawed as the Kurd political parties in Turkey) broadcasts programmes of all kinds: from news to investigations, from talk shows to children TV programmes. Everything is transparent: you just have to switch it on and watch. The people who speak on RojTv candidly say what they think. They denounce the Kurdistan situation (in its four parts: Iran, Irak, Syria and Turkey). They inform, discuss, debate. Openly. And above all, they propose.
Before the Belgian operation, there was the Italy- France joined operation. Dismantled an “ideological training” camp in Tuscany, the agencies report, prompted by the police headquarters. In short, according to the allege (270 bis the article at issue), the Pkk recruited young men to fight in Kurdistan. In Italy, the Kurd party took care of ideological indoctrination only. No weapons have been found. There is no trace of any military training, the Public Prosecution’s office of Venice states precisely. “Ideology” alone was taught in the alleged youth camp.
Who knows why Frattocchie, the PCI (Communist Party of Italy) school, always crosses everyone’s mind. But the parishes as well… “Ideological indoctrination” is the post-9/11 definition which labels political meetings, that could be compared with the school staff or the catechism. Someone will object that no guerrilla videos were showed. At home, all comrades jealously conserved “Guerrilla Warfare” by Che Guevara and similaria…
Dozens of arrests, hundreds of thousands of kurds. Alone. Every year, on March 21st,  they demonstrate at Newroz, the Kurd New Year’s day, in lots of European cities and nobody sees them. 40 thousand people in Germany, 20 thousand in London, 5 thousand in Paris. But nobody sees them. The Kurds are invisible when they take to the streets. Europe is a party to this isolation. Turkey is too important as a business partner (at the end Ankara will turn its back on EU, chosing the Middle East). But the left is a party, too. Italy? After Ocalan’s event, it could not hope to make up ground again. Even if Rifondazione Comunista (which somehow convinced Ocalan the “Bel Paese” was a political friend) ruled the Country and it could at least say and do something. And the rest of Europe? It has chosen not to see many of its citizens. But the worst thing is that it has chosen not to see the Kurds, even when they offer a negotiated solution of the conflict that has been carried out in Turkey since 1984. Because today the Pkk is promoting solution ideas. Incidentally, the Pkk has been in a unilateral cease-fire state since march 2009. Turkey has been, but the Turkish army has not.

VIDEO


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Torna sulle prime pagine dei giornali il conflitto kurdo-turco. I 26 (o 24 a seconda delle fonti) militari turchi morti in una serie di attacchi simultanei sferrati dai guerriglieri del PKK contro diversi obiettivi delle forze di sicurezza nella zona di Hakkari hanno fatto gridare a una nuova recrudescenza del conflitto. In realtà la guerra non è mai cessata, le operazioni dell’esercito turco non sono mai diminuite. Anzi, da agosto si susseguono bombardamenti in tutta la zona al confine con Iraq e Iran e spesso e volentieri gli F-16 turchi sono entrati nel Kurdistan iracheno colpendo non tanto o non solo le basi del PKK (il Partito dei Lavoratori del Kurdistan) ma soprattutto villaggi facendo molte vittime civili di cui nessuno parla.

Gli attacchi di ieri hanno suscitato reazioni molto forti, comprensibilmente. A parte il presidente della repubblica, l’islamico Abdullah Gul, che ha promesso “vendetta” e altro sangue, è stato il BDP (Partito della Pace e Democrazia), cioè il partito dei kurdi a fare la prima dichiarazione. “Basta – si legge nel comunicato – con la guerra. E’ tempo che le armi tacciano e si realizzino le condizioni per favorire la pace”. Parole che il BDP va ripetendo da anni ormai. In questo sostenuto dal PKK che (è bene ricordarlo) ha osservato un cessate il fuoco unilaterale fino al 15 giugno di quest’anno. Cioè fino a dopo le elezioni politiche che hanno visto kurdi e sinistra turca eleggere ben 36 deputati al parlamento turco. Quello che è successo dopo questo risultato serve a contestualizzare anche l’attacco di ieri, al quale i turchi hanno risposto con una nuova offensiva aerea in nord Iraq.

Uno dei 36 deputati, Hatip Dicle (in carcere), è stato privato del suo mandato per un ‘reato’ (lui che era già stato deputato con Leyla Zana e aveva già fatto 10 anni di carcere) di natura ‘terroristica’. Cinque deputati sono attualmente in carcere. Al giuramento, dopo un boicottaggio durato tre mesi e mezzo, si sono presentati in 30. Da marzo a oggi sono finiti in carcere qualcosa come ottomila tra amministratori locali kurdi, attivisti per i diritti umani, militanti del BDP con l’accusa di essere in qualche modo legati al PKK. Dal 2009 (anno della vittoria dei kurdi alle amministrative) sono sotto processo oltre quattromila politici kurdi. Dal 27 luglio il presidente del PKK Abdullah Ocalan (in carcere dal 1999 sull’isola di Imrali) non può vedere i suoi avvocati. Un divieto imposto dopo che per mesi uomini del premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan hanno incontrato il leader kurdo per concordare “protocolli di pace” poi gettati nel cassetto.

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