A KURD TOO FAR
Italy, by refusing to extradite a Kurdish terrorist to Turkey, has
THE LIBERAL elite says that General Augusto Pinochet is evil. But the same People take a quite different position on Abdullah Ocalan, the Kurd who is the °lost wanted man in Turkey. Ocalan's arrival in Rome earlier this month to claim Political asylum has brought Turkey to the brink of breaking off diplomatic relations With its Nato ally, Italy. The left-wing establishment, who invited him, is to blame for the crisis.
'Uncle', as his followers call him, is an old-fashioned red-rinse communist and, like 'Uncle Joe' Stalin, one of his mentors (to whom he bears a striking resemblance), Abdullah Ocalan is a very nasty piece of Work. He is wanted by the Turkish authori- ties for mass murder, extortion and inter- national drug-running. He is also wanted °Y the police in Germany, where there are 0,000 Kurdish Turks and two million 4 irks, for murder, extortion and terrorist _acts committed on German soil against turkish-owned businesses and against deserters from the Marxist revolutionary °rganisation the PICK, of which he is lead- The PICK is banned in Germany and 'tame, though it has not gone away. Inter- Have you got any pea green paint?' pol has issued a warrant for his arrest.
Yet on 4 November 50 Italian MPs and senators of various shades of red sent Uncle a letter inviting him to come to Italy and seek political asylum. One week later, he touched down at Rome's Fiumicino air- port. The Italian politicians said they want- ed to use his presence among other things to hold an international conference on the labyrinthine issue of Kurdistan, with the idea of redrawing the map. As one Italian commentator wrote of their plan, 'It sim- ply makes one laugh (or better, cry).'
Ocalan, who is 49, is without doubt a big-time criminal. In 1978, he founded the PKK, one of a dozen Kurdish separatist movements in Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria. In 1984, he launched the PICK's terrorist war for independence in eastern Turkey. Since then, his followers have killed 30,000 people, according to the Turkish govern- ment. Amnesty International says that last year Ocalan ordered 'more than 40 arbi- trary and deliberate murders'. He is accused of 47 murders in the city of Smyr- na alone. He has fallen out with many Kurds and is also at war with one of the other big Kurdish separatist organisations, the non-communist PDIC, as well as with Turkey.
The PKK has financed its war against Turkey by extortion and the sale of heroin, say the Turks, and according to British security service sources it is responsible for 40 per cent of the heroin sold in the Euro- pean Union. In 1980, Ocalan left Turkey for Syria, from where, just across the bor- der, he directed his war until this Septem- ber. His power over the PICK is absolute. His followers, like the followers of all dicta- tors, think he is God. They fear and wor- ship him, and, like Libya's Gaddafi, he surrounds himself with armed women. Finally, in September, when Turkey threat- ened it with war, Syria expelled him. He went first to Russia, but Russia expelled him. And so he came to Italy.
Ocalan has been well-briefed in Italian law by his Italian friends, who represent a good cross-section of the reconstructed and deconstructed communists who now run Italy. Last Friday, as expected, Italy's high- est court, the Corte di Cassazione, rejected Turkey's application for his extradition. The court had no choice. Under Italian law no one can be extradited to a country which has the death penalty, such as Turkey or, for that matter, the United States.
This is precisely why Ocalan came to Italy. To stoke things up, 30,000 highly organised Kurds descended on Rome, mainly from Germany (there are only 2,000 or so Kurds legally resident in Italy), to pitch camp and demonstrate on his behalf. One or two set fire to themselves on purpose — a measure of their blind devotion to Uncle. Ocalan is now inside both the Eternal City and the European Union.
The Italian government, headed by the post-communist Prime Minister Massimo D'Alema, must also share the blame for this shambles. Italy's secret services are said to have warned him that Ocalan was on his way, but he and his government did nothing to stop him from coming. D'Alema has said that Ocalan has promised him that he has now renounced violence. Hearing this, the Turks throw up their hands in disbelief.
Turkey now threatens to break off diplo- matic relations with Italy, which as well as being its Nato ally is one of its most impor- tant trading partners. Relations between the two countries are very bad and getting worse daily. So angry are the Turks with Italy that they are burning Armani ties, Pirelli tyres and Fiat cars in the streets of Turkish cities and boycotting anything Ital- ian. The Turkish government has cancelled all defence contracts with Italy and has started to jam Italian television transmis- sions. The Turks are even refusing to eat pizza or listen to Pavarotti.
The threat of serious trouble at last Wednesday's Champions' League game in Istanbul between Turin's Juventus and Istanbul's Galatasaray forced UEFA to postpone the game for a week. As for Italy, it is likely to become the venue for terrorism by Turkish extremists as a result of the presence of Ocalan.
Many Italians pray that Germany — which does not have the death penalty and wants Ocalan for a string of offences — will apply for his extradition. This is unlikely. His presence would further inflame the tension between Turks and Kurdish Turks there. Italy can still expel him as an undesirable alien, but to where? There are few places that would have him.
I too have been on the receiving end of the PICK. Some years ago I wrote an arti- cle in the Sunday Telegraph about PICK violence, extortion and drug-dealing on the streets of north London. Two hundred Kurdish Turks descended on the newspa- per's Canary Wharf offices, chanting and waving placards. Luckily, the Sunday Tele- graph's offices are a long way up the tower.
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