The Kosovo Liberation Army and the Kurdish
Workers Party:
A Comparison
Chris Bailey-Woon
Introduction
The
current international system has seen an increasing trend of non-state actors
changing the balance of power around the globe.
These groups are defined more along ethnic and religious lines than by
the nationalistic sentiments that proved powerful throughout the 20th
century. While many of these groups claim
the desire for national sovereignty, their sense of nationhood is based on these
ethnic or religious identities. It is
impossible for these groups to conduct conventional warfare against their
adversaries, and so they have taken up guerrilla and insurgent tactics to wage
battle. The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA)
and the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) are two insurgent movements that waged both
an insurgent and propaganda war against governments that they viewed as
tyrannical.
A precise study of these two organizations shows numerous
similarities in tactics, ideology, and social composition within their
societies. Further, both the Turkish and
Serb governments conducted violent and aggressive counterinsurgency campaigns
to stop both organizations. Despite the
similarities, the outcomes for the two organizations were drastically
different. While the KLA ultimately achieved
its goal of a separate and unified Kosovo, the PKK was virtually destroyed in
2000 without being able to create an independent Kurdish homeland in Turkey. The chief reason for the different outcomes
was the different perceptions by international communities, particularly the United States, of
the insurgent movements and the regimes they were battling. To understand the contrasting outcomes
properly, an in depth analysis of the two situations is necessary. The first section identifies the ideology of
both organizations, and how it centered on the notion of liberation to
galvanize support from the general population.
The second section discusses how the policy of de-escalation utilized by
Turkey and ignored by Serbia, was key
to marginalizing the effectiveness of the PKK while allowing the KLA to
flourish. And the third section addresses how the United States’ role helped
determine what outside aid and support could be counted on by the PKK and
KLA.
Ideology
of Liberation
To
understand any revolutionary movement fully, one must evaluate the ideology and
principles that shaped the revolutionaries’ struggle. As Bruce Hoffman explains, ideology is the
driving force behind the success or failure of an insurgency. It is at the ideological level that the PKK
and KLA are most comparable. Both
organizations shaped the image of their struggle in terms of nationalist goals
impeded by what each perceived as an illegitimate government. While both the PKK and KLA’s ideologies were
inspired by Marxism and Leninism, both movements quickly shed the strict and
rigid Marxist label to create a new and unique ideology. This ideology was not based on religious or
economic categories, as were revolutionary movements of the past, but instead,
the PKK and KLA embraced ethnic liberation as the definitive goal.
Marxist-Leninist ideology was attractive to insurgent groups
that found themselves under oppressive and violent dictatorships in the 1960’s,
70’s and 80’s. The ideology spread among
insurgency movements worldwide during that period. The Marxist ideology’s popularity was based
largely on the notion that the only way to gain true independence from an
oppressive state was to initiate a radical movement, starting in the general
population, working outside the law against those maintaining the status quo,
“Beginning with small, spontaneous strikes, boycotts, demonstrations, and
riots, the revolutionary movement quickly coalesces into a more militant,
organized and unified force for the overthrow of the ruling class.” The Marxist ideology allowed those in poverty
to break from the social norms that bound them, calling for each individual to
show their discontent through action, even violent action if necessary. This philosophy of armed conflict against
oppressive regimes was attractive to any group that lacked the financial or military
capability to launch successful armed conflict against the government. A Marxist movement could move across a population,
recruiting and molding the struggle, all while being nearly invisible to the
oppressive regime. Marxist movements
attained this invisibility through working at the grassroots level, guerilla
fighters blended in with their respective populations, not being detected by
government forces easily. The success of
Marxist ideology would prove short-lived, however, as the international scene
divided itself into two polar ideologies, Liberalism and Communism. Due to the
power struggle between these two ideologies, represented in the Cold War
between the United States
and the Soviet Union, any group that took on
the Marxist identity automatically became a threat to the West and its
interests. The PKK and KLA understood that
expressly adopting Marxist ideology would automatically alienate their causes from
potentially sympathetic Western powers, and so they created their own ideology
distinct from strict Liberalism or Marxism.
The single unifying theme that could connect both the
Kurdish and Albanian struggles to the outside world was liberation. Liberation ideologies avoided growing disillusionment
with Marxism. “These new ideologies seek liberation from forms of oppression
and domination that earlier ideologies have, in the liberationists’ view,
wrongly neglected or overlooked.” Ball and Dagger outline five elements that
define a liberation ideology; (1) each addresses a particular audience; (2)
adherents of the ideology have been mistreated or oppressed by a dominant
group; (3) the goal is to liberate the oppressed group from both “external” and
“internal” restraints; (4) they attempt to “raise the consciousness” of the
oppressed population to change their outlooks that have contributed to their own
oppression and victimization; and (5) they attempt to liberate the oppressors
from their own illusion of their superiority and recognize the oppressed as
equal. The first two elements,
identification of a particular audience and the need for oppression by a
dominant group, are discussed first, as they are relatively straight forward
for both the PKK and the KLA. It is the
last three elements that are more complex, because they deal much more directly
with the precise ideology that any liberation movement attempts to instill in
both those it is trying to liberate, and those that are impeding that liberation.
Creating
an Identity: the Oppressed and the Oppressor
Defining
the oppressed and the oppressor in a society focuses on common identities in
the relevant society. As Ball and Dagger
point out, “the members of each of these audiences are not people who chose to
be in that audience…instead, liberation ideologies address themselves to groups
of people who share certain characteristics, such as race or sex or sexual
orientation, by the accident of birth.” In both the PKK and KLA, each group argued
that it was the key representative of its ethnic class. The PKK’s first goal after its creation in
1978 was to be the sole spokesperson of the Kurdish social and political
identity in Turkey. The PKK achieved this goal through targeted
attacks on competing Kurdish and leftist separatist groups, the creation of a
significant grassroots propaganda machine that filtered into the majority of
Kurdish areas, and the promotion of a Kurdish identity.
This move allowed the PKK to consolidate
its power base within the Kurdish population and allowed it to develop into the
only pathway for Kurdish independence.
The PKK achieved the second element by focusing on the distinction
between being a Kurd and not being a Turk.
It was not difficult, at the time, for the PKK to popularize the
oppression of Kurds because of several Turkish policies including; the
“Turkification” of city and family names, strict rules against using the native
Kurdish language, and the suppression of Kurdish cultural activities. The PKK was effectively able to strengthen
the Kurdish identity and to emphasize the oppressive nature of the Turkish
government.
The KLA
also relied on a clear ethnic identity as the ideology that would become the
basis of its armed struggle. The social
and political atmosphere of Eastern Europe drastically changed with the breakup
of the Soviet Union, which spawned a multitude of competing interests that all
laid claim to be the new face of the region.
The KLA tapped into a pan-Albanian cultural identity as the basis for
its struggle. According to Perritt’s
book Kosovo Liberation Army, “The emphasis on Albanian ethnicity,
culture, and nationalist aspirations undercut competing impulses favoring
assimilation into the emerging Yugoslav identity.” Much like the PKK in Turkey, the KLA
had to redefine itself to escape the Marxist foundation and to create a new
face for Albanian nationalism. As for
the second element, the Milosevic regime easily filled the oppressor role by
exalting Serb identity over Albanian identity. The KLA portrayed Serbia as a foreign oppressor, and the
chief obstacle to Albanian’s gaining national autonomy. Negative sentiments about the Serbian
government went back decades, and the KLA could easily mold and shape these
perceptions to build support in the modern context.
Reeducating
the Oppressed and the Oppressor
One of the most difficult challenges for any revolutionary
ideology is to ensure that each actor recognizes and internalizes its
ideology. When they do so, they fundamentally
change the way they view themselves and those around them. This principle serves as the basis for Ball
and Dagger’s remaining elements of liberation ideology: the liberation of the
oppressed from external and internal restraints, and the reeducation of the oppressed
and oppressor within their shared setting. Ball and Dagger label as “external”
restraints are the highly visible restraints of the oppressor, such as
restrictions on religious, ethnic, or other social freedoms. These restraints, however, only skim the
surface of the real conflict for Ball and Dagger; for a liberation ideology to
be effective, it must also correct the internal
restraints of the community. Internal
restraints are those that the oppressed force upon themselves, which allow them
to be continually oppressed. “Internal
restraints are those beliefs and attitudes that oppressed people have come to
accept as true, and which serve to inhibit their quest for freedom or
liberation.” Typically it is much simpler for an
insurgency to highlight the tyrannical actions of their oppressor; the actions
are visible and tangible, and can be easily identified by those being
oppressed. Internal restraints, however,
are more elusive because people rationalize explanations for their current
state. It is at this level that revolution
is most difficult to foster. The
movement must convince individuals that their current social state under the
dominance of the oppressors is not justified, acceptable, or unavoidable.
The PKK was initially unsuccessful in reeducating its
target population. While the PKK itself did
not have significant internal restraints to overcome, it needed to demonstrate
to the larger Kurdish population that the struggle for autonomy and a separate
Kurdish state was a worthwhile and achievable goal. Decades before the PKK was ever created,
Kurdish nationalism was fully developed. “The attempts to erase Kurdish identity were
futile. Kurds, as well as other groups
who resisted the authoritarian policies…, continued to challenge the state and
the Kemalist [Turkish nationalist] ideology.” Though the Turkish government attempted
sweeping reforms to modernize and create a unified Turkish state, it was never
able to extinguish the Kurdish identity completely. Although the spirit of resistance was strong
in the Kurdish community, the Kurds lacked a clear and unified direction to
channel their frustration against the Turkish government. This lack of unity and guidance made the PKK as
the catalyst for insurgency. The PKK,
however, was never able to solidify an aspiration for a separate Kurdish state.
“Only a minority of the Kurds see the
PKK as their main representative organ, and the majority do not desire a
separate Kurdish state. A significant
number of Kurdish people have integrated into Turkish society.” The PKK played on the desires for religious
and cultural freedom already present, yet was unable to foster a greater desire
for a separate Kurdish state. The
relative popularity of the PKK did not translate into support for a separate
state and so its ideology failed to motivate the greater Kurdish population to undertake
a united armed struggle.
The PKK
also failed to transform the mindset of the Turkish government, the oppressor,
to redefine the Kurds as a distinct group that warranted autonomy. The core ideal of the Turkish nationalist
movement was a secular and modern state free from the divisiveness of religion,
race, and ethnicity. This policy meant that
anything expressly Kurdish, language, religious practices, cultural traditions,
was expressly prohibited. “In order to
enforce the principle of secularism, religious traditions and institutions were
abolished and banned and since Kurdish nationalism and the religion of Islam
were closely intertwined, the exclusion of Islam resulted in an exclusion of national
identity.” The PKK and other militant Kurds were driven
to rebellion due to the hostility of the Turkish nationalist movement. “Kurdish and Turkish nationalism developed
along parallel lines and were shaped by each other and in the same political
context.” The two movements were inherently
antagonistic to one another because the Turkish goal of “one state, one nation,
and one language” flew in the face of Kurdish identity. The PKK was unable to achieve significant military
success against the Turkish government which limited its popularity or
successful propaganda within mainstream Turkish society. The Turkish population wholeheartedly
accepted the notion that the Turkish government represented unity and nationalism
while the PKK represented murderous terrorists.
Thus, despite twenty years of fierce combat, the PKK was never able to
transform the unified Turkish mentality.
For the 1970s and 1980s, the Turks were successful in largely ignoring
the Kurdish plight. Despite significant
success by the PKK in the 1990s with the recognition of the Kurdish conflict, Turkey was able
to maintain the posture that the PKK was a terrorist problem only, and not a
broad-based fight for Kurdish liberation.
As is discussed below, the Turkish government’s main concessions to the
Kurds came because of relations with the European Union, not in response to any
great victory by the PKK. Thus the Turks
were quite effective at maintaining their notion of secularism while
marginalizing the PKK’s liberation ideology.
Much
like the PKK in the Kurdish population, the KLA had to demonstrate that it was
the voice of Albanian resistance in Kosovo first. After the end of the Cold War, former Soviet
states competed for what form and shape the region would take. Regional actors, including Milosevic at times,
pushed the idea of a common multiethnic Yugoslav identity to compete against
the KLA’s Albanian identity. The KLA had to specifically demonstrate to
the Albanian population that the Milosevic regime did not view the Albanians as
equals or partners, and their inclusion into Serbia inhibited their pursuit of
an ethnic distinctiveness. By promoting
Albanian culture and ethnicity, the KLA was able to effectively steer the
Albanian population away from the idea of a multiethnic Yugoslav identity,
while developing the value of resistance against the regime that was hindering
their realization of a unified Kosovo.
The next significant hurdle for the KLA was convincing the Albanian population
that unarmed struggle was ineffective, and that the KLA could actually achieve
military success against the Serbs, “The KLA had to persuade the population
that armed revolt would not simply be crushed.” Even if a population is supportive of a resistance,
the necessary step of galvanizing support into an armed struggle is difficult
if the population view that it is impossible to win. As Perritt points out, the greatest gift to
the KLA in this regards was the 1997 collapse of the Albanian government, “The
1997 collapse of the Albanian government…helped energize the Kosovar
Albanians. They thought, ‘If they can do
it, so can we.’” With the collapse of the neighboring Albanian
government, the population of Kosovo saw the real possibility of a successful armed
struggle, even against a militarily superior enemy. Satisfying Ball and Dagger’s fourth element,
the Albanian population’s consciousness was changed to an understanding that an
armed resistance was possible, necessary, and most importantly, the KLA was the
catalyst for the liberation of Kosovo.
While
the KLA’s ideology was effective at rallying the Albanian population in Kosovo,
they did not take significant steps to reeducate the oppressor, the final
element of Ball and Dagger’s liberation ideology. In the cases of both the KLA and PKK, the
oppressors had a well organized propaganda machine that advanced their own
ideology against the resistance movements.
Because of this, the KLA did not have to take significant steps to
reorient the Serbs or the Milosevic regime.
Instead, as discussed below, the KLA focused their reeducation on other
countries and regimes, compelling other nations to recognize the Kosovar
Albanians right to Kosovo and to align themselves against the Milosevic
regime. The Milosevic regime, unlike the
Turkish government, never saw the inclusion of their significant minority as
the best solution to the conflict.
Instead, the goal of the Milosevic regime was for the expulsion of all
ethnic Albanians, creating a Serb majority in Kosovo. “[Milosevic’s strategy was] to reverse changes
in the ethnic composition that had caused the Albanian population of the
province to grow substantially, in relation to the Serb population.” Due to the regime’s strong ethnic rhetoric,
the KLA did not take significant steps to sway the general Serb population to
recognizing the Albanian national movement, but did use targeted attacks
against Serb police and military offices to show their resistance to the
regime.
Government
Reaction: Turkish and Serb Response
The
success or failure of an insurgency group is largely dictated by the
effectiveness of the counterinsurgent measures taken by the government that is
being attacked. The Turkish government’s
response to the PKK was similar to Serbia’s response to the KLA
initially. The Turkish government,
however, transformed its response to the PKK by implementing a policy of
de-escalation, limiting the effectiveness and popularity of the PKK message,
while Serbia
openly confronted the KLA on the KLA’s terms and eventually escalated the
conflict further by inflicting severe policies of ethnic cleansing on the
entire Albanian population. An in-depth
assessment of Turkey’s and Serbia’s
responses to insurgent activity demonstrates the importance of restraint and
reform in counterinsurgency.
Since
the creation of the modern Turkish state in the 1920’s, the nation has tried to
maintain a unified and homogenous culture within its borders. In the 1970’s, the PKK was created, calling
for the creation of a separate Kurdish state.
The nation’s goals of unity left the government in Ankara with no choice but to respond with
significant military action against the PKK.
Turkey’s
strength had been built on the notion of a unified and powerful Turkish
identity, and the Kurdish movement was just one of several separatist movements
that threatened the integrity of the Turkish identity. This retaliation against the PKK began with
the military coup in September of 1980.
The military launched significant attacks on Kurdish areas where suspected
members or sympathizers of the PKK and other Kurdish separatist groups were
arrested, imprisoned, and tortured. The Turkish government’s strongest steps
towards marginalizing the Kurdish movement did not come from arrests or
military action however, but through legislation passed to stop any Kurdish
collective identity from forming,
“In Turkey’s
reestablished democracy, Kurdish activists saw no reason to believe there was
room for them to operate. There also was
no reason to think that even their basic, ethnic identity would be
recognized. The new constitution the
military rulers prepared stated that every citizen of Turkey was a
Turk, another named the state language as Turkish, and another said that this
article could never be changed.”
The Turkish government’s
central goal was to dismantle the PKK by refusing to give credibility to the
ethnic definitions that the PKK used to express their struggle against Turkey. This policy of conscious denial was quite
successful until the 1991 Gulf War when the world witnessed the atrocities
being committed against the Kurdish minority in Iraq. It was at this point that the KLA became the
most emboldened and the Turkish government most brutal by evacuating and
burning nearly 3,000 villages that harbored or aided the PKK. Thousands of Kurdish villagers were forced
out of homes and farms, giving new life and support for the PKK. With the increased military action by both
sides, especially by Turkey,
international pressure forced Turkey
to recognize the PKK as more than mere terrorists. At this point there was no denying the
Kurdish minority within Turkish borders, and Turkey was faced with how to best
handle this new Kurdish reality.
Turkey
now faced a burgeoning and increasingly radicalized PKK that had the support of
the Kurdish population of Turkey. The Turkish government was fortunate to
quickly learn that violent ethnic cleansing like their forced evacuations and
destruction of villages, only empowered and strengthened the PKK. Despite the PKK’s dominant position, the
Turkish government was able to forestall certain disaster and actually defeat
the PKK by deescalating the conflict.
Asa Lundgren outlines three key factors that allowed Turkey to defeat the PKK: 1) the arrest of Abdullah Ocalan, 2) Turkey’s being given candidate
status at the Helsinki European Council, and 3) the Islamic Justice and
Development Party’s (AKP) victory in the 2002 elections. The PKK’s first sign of defeat was the arrest
of their leader Abdullah Ocalan. Ocalan
had served as the leader of the PKK since its creation in the 1970s and his
capture was a grave blow to the rest of the PKK leadership and to the morale of
the Turkish Kurds in general. The
biggest blow to the PKK, however, came from Ocalan himself. At his trial, Ocalan immediately called for a
halt to all military action by the PKK, announced a call for peace, and for the
PKK to withdraw from Turkey
and give up their armed struggle against the state. Ocalan continued by not only stating that the
PKK had gone too far in the struggle for Kurdish recognition, but he also gave
a public apology to the Turkish soldiers killed by the PKK without even a
mention of the of Kurdish civilians and PKK members that had been killed by the
Turkish military. This complete turnaround shocked the PKK as
well as the rest of the Turkish Kurds.
Ocalan’s critics labeled the move as nothing more than Ocalan trying to
save himself while his supporters claimed he was simply attempting to find a peaceful
end to the conflict. As a result of
Ocalan’s consolidation of power in the 1980’s, there was no effective
leadership apparatus to replace Ocalan or represent a shift from his new
pro-Turkey stance. Although the majority
of Kurds disagreed with Ocalan’s actions, he continued to serve as the voice of
the Kurdish population because there was not a viable leader to replace him,
and he still held too much clout within the PKK.
Turkey’s
naming as a candidate for EU membership, Lundgren’s second factor for the
failure of the PKK, could not have come at a better time for Turkey in the
fall of 1999. Turkey
had captured and tried Ocalan only months before the Helsinki meeting and had given Ocalan the
death penalty for treason against the state.
At the Helsinki meeting, the EU announced
that Turkey was a candidate
country for the European Union but on the condition that Turkey take
steps to correct its human rights record, especially in regard to the
Kurds. In response to its potential
membership status, Turkey
began making significant concessions to the Kurds. Though many of these concessions were in name
only and would never provide for substantial Kurdish autonomy, the move gave
the Turkish government the legitimacy needed for the international community to
continue to ignore the plight of the Turkish Kurds. The Turkish government did however pass
legislation allowing Kurdish language classes, radio, television broadcasts,
and cultural festivals. These
concessions, though not done for the benefit of the Kurds or in direct response
to the PKK, changed the social and political landscape of Turkey to the
point where the PKK lost its basis for armed struggle against the Turkish
government.
The third factor, the AK party’s overwhelming victory in
2002, is likely the most important factor, in light of its role in opening up
the Turkish political arena to the Kurds and other minority groups. The AK party’s core constituency is based in
the religious conservative segments of Turkish society. The AK party won the 2002 election on the
platform that they would ease the strict rules on secularism and allow for
increased religious and ethnic freedoms for the population. This platform, though not directly in support
of the Kurds, paved the way for the significant legislation that passed to
appease members of the European Union, by demonstrating that Turkey was
dedicated to curing their human rights violations. Thus, the AK party became the central means
for the recognition of the Kurds as a distinct people within the nation of Turkey. It was these three factors that allowed the
Turkish government to marginalize the PKK while subconsciously fulfilling many
of the aspirations that led to the PKK’s creation.
Unlike
the Turkish ideology that accepted the Kurds as Turks in ethnicity and
nationality, Serbia
viewed the ethnic Albanians of Kosovo as a distinct group that if could not be
controlled, should be removed. In
contrast to the Turkish response to the PKK, Slobodan Milosevic’s retaliation
against the KLA became radical in the ethnic cleansing of the entire Albanian
population, having the effect of consolidating both domestic and international
support for the KLA. There are two
central reasons why the Milosevic regime was ultimately unsuccessful against
the KLA: 1) Milosevic’s failure to sign the Rambouillet agreement, and 2)
Milosevic’s policy of ethnic cleansing against the Kosovo Albanians. Milosevic made a serious miscalculation by
not signing the Rambouillet agreement.
The Rambouillet conference was a possible peace conference orchestrated
by United States Secretary of State Madeline Albright. As the agreement stood, Milosevic would have
to accept a separate Kosovo, the inclusion of NATO forces, and a redeveloped
KLA. The agreement was unacceptable to Milosevic,
and it was the image of Milosevic denying the opportunity for peace that was
the catalyst for KLA support both domestically and internationally. If he had signed the agreement, the general
Albanian population would have been in much the same situation that the Kurds
were in Turkey
after the AK party passed reform legislation; they would have had many of their
initial concerns and issues with the government addressed in a public forum. “Agreement by Milosevic at Rambouillet would
have facilitated the conclusion by the critical mass of public opinion in
Kosovo that the Rugova approach was the right one…they [general public of
Kosovo] would have seen no need to reject Rugova and to place fundamental reliance
in the KLA.” Milosevic had rightly kept the majority of
his attacks against the KLA and its clear supporters, and so the public had not
yet been completely swayed by the KLA’s use of violence. By not signing the
Rambouillet agreement, however, Milosevic created the image that his real
conflict was not with the KLA, but with all of Kosovo.
Milosevic’s second mistake, a policy of ethnic cleansing,
sealed his fate both in the domestic and international arena. Milosevic began his policy of ethnic
cleansing in 1998 and throughout the following months was able to drive many
Albanians out of Kosovo through forced displacement, executions, and detention. The Milosevic regime was unable to isolate or
disrupt the KLA leadership, and unlike the PKK, the KLA had a number of
seasoned leaders all ready to fill in any gaps that the Serb intelligence
created. Thus, Milosevic turned to
ethnic cleansing in hopes of stamping out the KLA. While Milosevic may have achieved his short
term goals of expelling the KLA, this policy proved the best tool for the KLA’s
recruitment of new members, “Each act of repression potentially converted
another member of the Kosovar Albanian population into a resister motivated by
a defiant impulse.” Milosevic alienated the population to the
point where the only outcome possible was violence, and so the population turned
towards the insurgency both for protection and for retaliation against
Milosevic’s brutality.
There are two key differences between the Turkish and
Serb reaction to the insurgency threat.
The first is the underlying ideology that defined the boundaries and
measures taken by the Turkish and Serb governments. The second significant difference is the regimes
uses of popular support and popular opinion in framing the conflict. The first significant difference between the two
regimes is apparent through their original goals. Turkey saw the Kurdish population
as a part of the Turkish identity, and thus any form of complete ethnic
cleansing was out of the question. In
contrast, Milosevic’s regime was not interested in incorporating the Albanians
but saw the complete movement of the Albanian population out of Kosovo as a
success for the regime. It was the
difference in ideology that led to the second difference between the two
regimes. While Turkey committed some of the same actions of
ethnic cleansing as Milosevic, especially the use of detention and village
clearing, Turkey
was sure to never frame the conflict in ethnic terms to the media. They always maintained that the PKK was
nothing more than a terrorist organization that was trying to splinter the
social fabric of the Turkish nation.
Milosevic was not so clever, and instead framed the conflict exactly how
the KLA wanted, in ethnic terms that alienated the general Albanian population
away from Serbia
and into supporting the KLA. It was this
ethnic image that led to Milosevic not being able to sign the Rambouillet
agreement. The AK party in Turkey did not
fall victim to the same rigidity that Milosevic fell into, but was flexible
enough to adopt reform policies that in title solved many of the Kurdish
questions, without having to give any significant practical concessions to the
Kurds. This allowed Turkey to
maintain their credibility in the international arena and further isolated the
PKK.
United States Pressure
In both Turkey
and Kosovo, the United
States response to the domestic conflicts
was essential to the success of the KLA and the failure of the PKK. An important factor in the United States
response is whether a group is labeled a terrorist organization. Being defined as a terrorist organization can
have devastating effects on funding, recruitment, and overall support from the
international community. In Bruce
Hoffman’s Inside Terrorism, he points out that defining who is a
“terrorist” is incredibly difficult and typically subject to the political
atmosphere at the time. Bruce Hoffman however does provide
characteristics that can separate terrorists from other non-state actors,
namely guerilla or insurgency groups.
Guerrillas and insurgents typically consist of large numbers of armed
combatants who operate as cohesive military units who attack enemy military
forces, attempt to seize areas of land, and are “involved in informational and
psychological warfare efforts to mobilize popular support in a struggle against
an established national government.” Although these characteristics are typically
not found in terrorist organizations, Hoffman points out that some terrorist
groups like Hezbollah, FARC, and the Tamil Tigers are factions with the attributes
of a guerrilla unit but are normally considered terrorist organizations. The one unifying theme across all movements
that use violence to further their cause is that none view themselves as
terrorists. “The terrorist, by contrast,
will never acknowledge that he is a terrorist and moreover will go to great
lengths to evade and obscure any such reference or connection.” As Bruce Hoffman points out, and both the KLA
and PKK exemplified, any group that uses violence to further its political or
social aims does not consider themselves a terrorist and fights adamantly to
not be labeled as such by the international community. The KLA and PKK sought to avoid the label of
terrorist, but it was the international community that ultimately decided.
Since the PKK’s creation in the mid 1970s, they have been
plagued with underfunding and lack of substantial strategic support from
foreign aid. This lack of support is
largely a cause of the regional political atmosphere rather than any clear
denunciation of the PKK. Ethnic Kurds
make up a significant minority in Turkey,
Iran, Iraq, and Syria, and the success of Kurdish
nationalism in any one country is viewed as a threat by all others. It is this principle that has guided both the
regional powers and the United
States to constantly attempt to maintain the
status quo in regards to relations with the Kurds. This status quo, however, was shattered by
the U.S. led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Dr. Ersin Kalaycioglu of Sabanci University points out that the creation of Iraqi
Kurdistan after the 1991 Gulf War was the initial schism between Turkey and the U.S.,
but it was the invasion of Iraq
in 2003 that cemented strife between the two nations. By creating a defacto Kurdistan on Turkey’s southern border, the U.S. created a
safe zone where the PKK could benefit from on sympathetic Iraqi Kurdish support,
yet the PKK has not translated the Iraqi Kurdish safe zone into any meaningful
military success. Though Turkey
has largely marginalized the PKK since the capture of Ocalan in 1999, this
breathing space in northern Iraq
has meant the survival of the PKK.
Though much of the international communities, including the government
of Iraqi Kurdistan, label the PKK as a terrorist organization, the Turks have
not received help in combating the organization. “The Iraqi Kurds refuse to get involved; the United States has so far demurred support… and
[the U.S.]
has said it is fighting a global war on terror, yet it refuses to fight the PKK.” The United
States has taken the clear stance against the goals of Turkey largely due to the fact that the only
secure and blossoming area of Iraq
is in the Kurdistan region. Any provocative actions in the area threaten
both the stability and support of the Iraqi Kurds that are viewed as the U.S.’s closest
ally in the country. This has created
breathing space for the PKK; however, it has not translated into any
substantial victories for their cause.
The U.S. and the rest
of the international community continue to label the PKK as a terrorist
organization, and even the Iraqi Kurds have made concessions to Turkey for small military incursions into Kurdistan to route and attack PKK bases. The future of the PKK is now invariably tied
to the success or failure of Iraq,
because the increased sovereignty of Iraqi Kurdistan will only increase the
PKK’s abilities to launch attacks within Turkey, but will also weaken
stability in region.
Though the United States
has been largely mute in support or condemnation of the PKK, the U.S. took a
clear stance in support of the KLA in its battles against the Serb regime. This success was due in part to the KLA’s
core goal of eliciting international support, but the key catalyst was the United States
condemnation of Milosevic’s ethnic cleansing tactics. “Forceful U.S. leadership and popular
political hostility to Milosevic’s occupation, rather than international law or
multilateral diplomatic structures alone, brought about intervention and eventual
KLA success.” The international community, namely the U.S., witnessed the brutal human rights atrocities
in Bosnia and Croatia and was
bent on preventing the same from occurring in Kosovo. The reality on the ground in Kosovo differed
greatly from that in Turkey
with the PKK. Where the PKK had to deal
with the regional antagonism towards a united Kurdish front, the KLA and the
Kosovo Albanians were careful to frame their agenda in strictly nationalist
terms, steering clear from any pan-Albanian identity. It was the human rights sentiment in the West
coupled with the KLA’s media program that solidified support against the
Milosevic regime. Unlike the PKK, the
KLA invested significant time and resources into establishing a strong media
message that was propelled by the international media depicting the events on
the ground in Kosovo. The KLA focused
their media agenda on showing the brutality of the Milosevic regime, the
resolve of the KLA as an organization, and how the KLA represented the best
possibility for the security and freedom of the Albanian population in
Kosovo.
Conclusion
Despite the PKK and
KLA’s strong similarity in liberation ideology and doctrine, only the KLA was
able to prove effective at achieving their goal of national sovereignty. This disparity is largely owed to the
effectiveness of the Turkish government’s de-escalation policy and concessions
coupled with the United
States’ stance on the effect a sovereign
Kurdish state would have on the greater region.
In contrast, the Milosevic regime’s ultimate downfall was its own
decision to ethnically cleanse the Albanian population which galvanized United States
support for the KLA and its goal of a unified Kosovo. The effectiveness of an
insurgency movement is rooted in both their ability to relate and empower the
population it claims to represent, as well as connect and relate to the greater
international community. Through an
effective liberation ideology and an international mindset, an insurgency
movement has the ability to redefine their world based on their terms.