PKK/PYD unleashing a social revolution in Kurdistan

[Lux de Veritas]

PYD is Syrian Marxist party, with a militia arm by the name YPG (people protection unit). PYD is the Syrian wing of Marxist movement while PKK is the Turkish wing. Below Syrian and Iraqi Kurdistan in Yellow.

The new PKK: unleashing a social revolution in Kurdistan | ROAR Magazine


PKK founder and leader Abdullah Öcalan was arrested in Kenya by Turkish authorities and sentenced to death for treason. In the years that followed, the elderly anarchist gained an unlikely devotee in the hardened militant, whose paramilitary organization — the Kurdistan Workers’ Party — is widely listed as a terrorist organization for waging a violent war of national liberation against Turkey.

In his years in solitary confinement, running the PKK behind bars as his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, Öcalan adopted a form of libertarian socialism so obscure that few anarchists have even heard of it: Bookchin’s libertarian municipalism. Öcalan further modified, rarefied and rebranded Bookchin’s vision as “democratic confederalism,” with the consequence that the Group of Communities in Kurdistan (Koma Civakên Kurdistan or KCK), the PKK’s territorial experiment in a free and directly democratic society, has largely been kept a secret from the vast majority of anarchists, let alone the general public.

After decades of fratricidal betrayal, failed ceasefires, arbitrary arrests and renewed hostilities, on April 25 of this year the PKK announced an immediate withdrawal of its forces from Turkey and their deployment to northern Iraq, effectively ending its 30-year-old conflict with the Turkish state. The Turkish government simultaneously undertook a process of constitutional and legal reform to enshrine human and cultural rights for the Kurdish minority within its borders.

The Syrian PYD has followed Turkish Kurdistan’s lead in the revolutionary transformation of the autonomous region under its control since the outbreak of the civil war. After “waves of arrests” under Ba’athist repression, with “10,000 people [taken] into custody, among them mayors, local party leaders, deputies, cadres and activists … the Kurdish PYD forces ousted the Baath regime in northern Syria, or West Kurdistan, [and] local councils popped up everywhere.” Self-defense committees were improvised to provide “security in the wake of the collapse of the Ba’ath regime,” and “the first school teaching the Kurdish language” was established as the councils intervened in the equitable distribution of bread and gasoline.

In Turkish, Syrian and to a lesser extent Iraqi Kurdistan, women are now free to unveil and strongly encouraged to participate in social life. Old feudal ties are being broken, people are free to follow any or no religion, and ethnic and religious minorities live together peaceably. If they are able to confine the new caliphate, PYD autonomy in Syrian Kurdistan and KCK influence in Iraqi Kurdistan could ferment an even more profound explosion of revolutionary culture and values.

Defending the Kurdish Revolution from IS

Turkey, in the meantime, has threatened to invade Kurdish territories if “terrorist bases are set up in Syria,” as hundreds of KCK (including PKK) fighters from across Kurdistan cross the border to defend Rojava (the West) from the advances of the Islamic State. The PYD alleges that Turkey’s moderate Islamist government is already engaged in a proxy war against them by facilitating the travel of international jihadists across the border to fight alongside the Islamists.

 

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Analysis: Could support for the 'other' Kurds stall Islamic State?
By Cale Salih and Mutlu Civiroglu
Kurdish affairs analysts

The US and European countries have started arming and co-ordinating with the Kurds to fight the Islamic State (IS). But the Kurds are by no means a monolithic body, raising the question: are Western powers really helping the Kurds who can most effectively take on IS and rescue besieged civilians?

In short, the answer is - by and large - no. The West is officially arming only the Iraqi Kurds, even though Kurdish groups from Syria and Turkey affiliated with a US-designated terrorist group - the Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK) - are playing an equally, if not more critical, role in the fight against IS.

It is a complicated picture that involves a bewildering list of Kurdish acronyms:

• KRG: Kurdistan Regional Government - the official governing body of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region of northern Iraq

• KDP: Kurdistan Democratic Party - the dominant Iraqi Kurdish party, led by Massoud Barzani

• PKK: Kurdistan Workers' Party - Turkish Kurdish party led by Abdullah Ocalan (jailed since 1999)

• PYD: Democratic Unity Party - PKK-aligned party in Syria

• YPG: Popular Protection Units - PYD-aligned armed force in Syria

Massoud Barzani and Abdullah Ocalan, who espouse competing models of Kurdish nationalism, have been vying to emerge as the pre-eminent leader of the Kurds transnationally.

They compete in this quest using their domestic influences and proxy parties in neighbouring countries.

Ocalan's model has evidently won out over Mr Barzani's in Syria. The PYD and YPG are the dominant political and military powers in predominately Kurdish north-eastern Syria (known to Kurds as Rojava) respectively.

The YPG has been exceptionally successful in fighting IS, in many cases outperforming the Western-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA).

While IS, formerly known as Isis, has made alarming gains against FSA-aligned groups, the YPG has successfully ousted the jihadist group from Kurdish towns and cities.

But Mr Barzani in Iraqi Kurdistan has one thing that Ocalan does not: widespread international legitimacy and relatively stable relations with the West.

Perhaps that is why the KDP has expressed its unease with the increasingly prominent role of the PKK-affiliated forces in fighting IS in Iraq and rescuing thousands of Yazidi civilians trapped on Mt Sinjar.

'Will to resist'

Some KDP officials have downplayed the role of the YPG and PKK fighters in these efforts. Yet, according to the testimonies Yazidis who escaped Mt Sinjar, and numerous journalists who visited the mountain, YPG and PKK fighters have played an enormously important part in the rescue and protection efforts.

When asked by BBC's HardTalk earlier this month why Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga fighters had appeared to melt away when fighting IS in key contested towns, Masrour Barzani, the head of the KRG's National Security Council, responded: "The problem is that the Peshmerga do not have the same kinds of weapons [as IS has] to fight back."

But according to Alan Semo, the PYD's representative in the UK, weapons are not the most important thing Kurdish forces need - rather, it is the will and ability to fight.

He says the YPG, battle-hardened from its recent experiences in Syria, has the lion's share of that.

"How is it that in three years, the YPG in Rojava with only simple weapons and limited resources, managed to defeat Isis? But in 48 hours, some criminal gangs from Raqqa and Anbar with the support of Baathists took half [of Iraq], the biggest oil refinery, and the second biggest city? he asked.

"The problem is not a matter of weapons… it's about the will to resist."

Key victories

YPG spokesman Polat Can described how the YPG created a safe passage from Mt Sinjar into Syria, and transported besieged Yazidi civilians into Kurdish-controlled Syria.

In addition to facilitating the rescue of civilians trapped on Mt Sinjar, YPG and PKK fighters have secured critical victories against IS in Iraq, in particular in Makhmour.

The YPG helped re-secure the Rabia border crossing in June after the Iraqi army - and reportedly some Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga - fled their posts.

And it was the PKK that recently moved into Lalesh - the Yazidis' holiest site, tucked away in a valley near Dohuk - to ensure its protection.

Kurdish social media is circulating videos showing Iraqi Kurds expressing their gratitude to the PKK for its role in defending their cities.

Crucial partner?

For their successes in fighting IS, the US and Europe may consider the YPG and the PKK to be as deserving of international support as is the KRG.

In particular, the YPG could be a crucial partner to the West in orchestrating efforts with the YPG to rescue and protect Yazidis and other minorities at risk of religious persecution in the Sinjar region.

Unlike the PKK, the YPG is not explicitly designated as a terrorist group by the US and EU - this implies greater Western flexibility in dealing with the YPG than with the PKK.

Indeed, US officials have hinted that they are considering bolstering the Syrian Kurdish force to fight IS in Syria.

The PKK took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984, demanding greater autonomy for Turkey's Kurds. It is regarded by Turkey, the US and European Union as a terrorist organisation because of its attacks on Turkish security forces and civilians

But the PKK and Turkey are now knee-deep in a problematic but promising peace process. The Turkish government now speaks and makes deals directly with Ocalan - there may come a point where Turkey's international allies have to decide whether to do the same.