Ocalan wants PKK to convene peace congress  250 million dollar budget in Swiss banks

GOKHAN KAZBEK 

Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) terrorist leader Abdullah Ocalan, left without a defense team for the day, called on his terrorist organization to convene a "peace congress" but added that "the Turkish state should reciprocate by calling for peace." 

Defense lawyers and members of the Ocalan family did not attend Thursday's hearing, charging that they were harassed on the way to and from the island of Imrali and wanted proper protection and a place to stay in Gemlik. It is from this town that the defense team and family members of the PKK chief board a ferry that transports them to the prison-island of Imrali, where the Ocalan case is being heard. 

On Wednesday the hotel hosting the lawyers and the members of the Ocalan family asked them to cease stating that the management was under pressure from hostile people in the region who objected to the presence of Ocalan's family members and defense team in Gemlik. 

On Thursday the State Security Court (DGM) chief justice received a telegram from the defense lawyers explaining that they could not attend the case because they had no lodgings and were being intimidated. 

Judge Turgut Okyay acted promptly and found accommodations for the defense team and the Ocalan family at state textile giant Sumerbank's guest house in Gemlik. The authorities also put two minibuses at the disposal of the group in order to carry them to and from the port where they depart for Imrali. 

Meanwhile, at the trial itself, Ocalan repeated his earlier claim that he could convince the militants holed up in the mountains to lay down their arms but stressed that the Turkish state should issue a call for peace. "If this is done the PKK will reciprocate the call for peace." 

Ocalan stated that after 20 years, the PKK leadership had reached the conclusion that no solution to the problem could result from terrorism. "Now I would like to call on the PKK to convene a peace congress. We already reached a decision to make peace. All we want is a positive reply. Our state [the Turkish Republic] should make a call for peace," the PKK leader stated. 

Ocalan again accused Greece of deserting him. "Greece had a negative attitude toward us because we called for a cease-fire with Turkey and it did not like that," he claimed. "Greece had a political motive when it helped us. It really did not want to aid us, but rather to use us for political purposes." 

Asked where the PKK obtained the deadly mines that killed so many people in Turkey, Ocalan disclosed, "We could obtain all kinds of arms through the Iraqi market." 

When questioned whether the PKK provided money to foreign journalists and European parliamentarians, Ocalan responded that he did not know. 

He stated that a significant portion of the PKK funds, which total roughly $250 million, are in European banks, adding that very little of it is kept in Syria. 

Asked by the judge where the PKK archives are located, Ocalan replied that they are scattered in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Europe, and that they are controlled by local officials of the organization. 

At one point in his testimony Ocalan said the so-called Kurdish parliament-in-exile should not be antagonistic toward Turkey. "They should have a friendly approach to the Turks. The future of the Kurds are with Turkey. My mother is a Turk. She speaks Turkish." 

Ocalan said he was not treated "like a human being" in Italy and in Moscow, but noted that he was shown respect in Turkey. "That is why if I live or die, I would like to stay in Turkey. They [the Turks] have not mistreated me or my lawyers." 

At one point in the question-and-answer session with the plaintiff lawyers, Ocalan said he feels Germany had different views about him and the PKK. "The Germans seem to disregard me," he said. 

He also stated that Brigitte Bohler, who claims to be a lawyer of the PKK in Europe, is not his lawyer or his representative. 

In response to another question, he said the banned pro-Islamic Welfare Party (RP) did not request the support of the PKK in the 1995 elections. "As a matter of fact, a Welfare candidate followed an anti-PKK campaign." 

He also denied the PKK had collaborated with the Armenians. He stated that the Armenians had produced a map of Armenian which included southeastern Turkey, "but we rejected it and our contacts were terminated." 

He said he did not have any direct contacts with the late President Turgut Ozal and that he did not have a phone conversation with him. He said he was contacting Ozal through Jalal Talabani and stressed that journalist Cengiz Candar did not bring him any message. 

Asked if he has any money he said, "No, none. I don't need money. If I did I would obtain some from of our own units." 

Asked what he understands from the concept of a democratic solution to the Kurdish problem, he said: "This is a vital issue. The Kurdish people face serious problems because of landlords, sheiks and tribal leaders. If we eliminate this, the people will be free, and Kurds and Turks will merge. The Turkish Republic will be strengthened." 

Emotions ran high at the trial on Wednesday, with the widow of a slain soldier describing how she watched her husband being led away from a rebel roadblock and shot. 

Spectators and lawyers were moved to tears when a sobbing Yildiz Namdar shouted, "You apologize, but will you bring my husband back?" 

"I share your grief," replied Ocalan. 

A verdict in the trial could come as early as June 11, said Cengiz Erkoyuncu, a lawyer representing the families of fallen Turkish soldiers. 

Trials in Turkish courts usually take months or years because sessions are often held only once every month or two. But there is strong pressure in Turkey to quickly conclude the Ocalan trial, and sessions have been held daily thus far. 

The trial is also moving swiftly because Ocalan has already accepted responsibility for many of the PKK's actions, which are considered treasonous under Turkish law and are punishable by death. 

But any death sentence handed down must be approved by Parliament before it can be carried out. Although several dozen Turks have been sentenced to death, Turkey has not actually executed anyone since 1984. 

Ocalan builds his defense on 'peace by democratic settlement' 

Ocalan, in his 81-page typed defense, obtained by the Turkish Daily News, stressing that following calls made by the late former President Turgut Ozal he had first told a press conference on March 15, 1993 that he wanted a peaceful resolution to the problem.  Ocalan said he had made it clear at the press conference that the PKK was not aiming towards secession but a rearrangement of relations between the "Turkish and Kurdish peoples" of the country. He stated that "the two peoples" have become one "like flesh and nail" and could not be separated from one another. 
 

He said in preparing his defense he neither acted according to a Kurdish nationalist approach nor its leftist interpretation, adding that he believed the time for such approaches was over. He stated that in writing his defense he did not find it appropriate to concentrate on historical, societal or identity issues, since those subjects should be handled by scientists. 

Ocalan said his defense was totally an offer for a democratic settlement of the problem, adding that in writing it, Leslie Lipson's "Democratic Civilization," obtained by him by chance, had contributed significantly. 

Ocalan wrote that he understood that the fashionable "self-determination" slogan of the 1970s would result only in the establishment of two states and that with that understanding lay a dead-end road. "In Kurdistan reality, this understanding was mostly rendering things more difficult," he stated. Ocalan said he wanted to leave that understanding behind and replace it with the notion of a settlement within democracy, particularly after seeing that compared to the separate state, federation, autonomy and similar approaches "that were often outdated and further consolidated insolubility," a democratic settlement provided far richer opportunities for a resolution. "In reaching this conclusion, the gradual deadlock in achieving a settlement through armed struggle played a great role as well, he wrote, admitting that the PKK gang had suffered serious loses because of the operations of the Turkish security forces. 

"Besides," Ocalan wrote, "in a practice in which uprisings and the putting down of uprisings have always been the case, it was a high priority to find a peaceful methodology that would discard the use of force and violence," thus demonstrating that his calls for peace and an end to the PKK violence was nothing but a political maneuver for his trapped gang. 

Underlining that the Turkish Republic had been established by the Turks and Kurds together on the basis of Misak-i Milli (national borders), Ocalan said he believed a democratic settlement on the same basis was the only way out. 

He said the "nucleus approach" of the state also appeared to be supportive of a democratic settlement of the problem but added, "I unfortunately cannot say that the sides are heading towards a settlement." He said such a statement would be "over-optimism" that could pose serious dangers. "But I believe, sooner or later, a democratic settlement will be reached. That's what I believe and what I hope," he concluded. 

Stressing that he believed time had come for a peaceful settlement, Ocalan told the court that he believed he ought to live and contribute to its establishment.