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Turkey: Young Kurdish Women Find Peace as
Guerrillas
19.3.2007
By Mohammed A. Salih
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March 19, 2007
QANDIL MOUNTAINS (Iraqi
Kurdistan-Iran-Turkey), March 19, -- Saria, 20, is a
bright and lovely young lady, and she has found
peace in her life as a guerrilla.
In this mountain range spanning Iraq, Iran and
Turkey, she has found protection too, "from the
oppression of a male society."
Saria, whose name means a female horse-rider, joined
the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) when she was 14.
She has in these years been engaged in several
battles with Iranian and Turkish troops.
Kurds are scattered across northern Iraq, Iran and
Turkey. They have been a minority everywhere, and
struggled to search for rights. Only in Iraq have
they found Kurdistan, an autonomous region for
themselves since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
The PKK, declared a terrorist organisation by the
United States and the European Union, has been
engaged in a long guerrilla war to secure rights for
Kurds, particularly in Turkey.
They have based themselves in the Qandil mountains.
A visit to one of their camps showed that the Kurd
fighters are not what one might have expected them
to be.
In the fragile tranquility of these mountains, young
boys and girls sit and chat and share their "life
activities on an equal basis." They say they feel
free. |
PKK Kurdish women fighters took up arms for a
Kurdish homeland in the country's mainly Kurdish
southeast of Turkey |
Saria does not miss the comforts that city life can
offer. "In our society women are suppressed...what
is very important for a woman is to be the owner
of herself and her personality...our party provides
this atmosphere for us," Saria told IPS.
She comes from a poor area of the Kurdish-dominated
southeast Turkey. Oppression of Kurds led her and
many like her to take up arms.
"When there is all this cultural and economic
pressure on you, and you cannot even freely speak
your language, then it is better not to live," says
Saria, who looks tougher than most girls her age.
An old Kurdish saying goes, "Mountains are the
Kurds' best friends." For PKK fighters it is still
true.
The PKK has bases right across these mountains that
stretch from Iraq's border with Turkey in the north
to the Iraq-Iran borders in the east.
The PKK launched an armed struggle in 1982 in Turkey
to set up an independent Kurdish state. But it has
now cut its political rhetoric, and demands only a
democratic Turkish republic with cultural and
minority rights for Kurds.
Many Kurds, particularly the intelligentsia, have
seen this as a climbdown.
Despite the wide perception of the PKK as a
terrorist organisation, its recruits are not just
Kurds. Its revolutionary leftist ideology has
attracted scores of non-Kurds, including Turks,
Arabs, Persians and also a few Europeans.
All recruits go through a three to five month course
of ideological and military training to ready them
for guerrilla warfare.
"This is a freedom and humanitarian movement in
which everyone can find his freedom regardless of
race or religion," says Yaser, a 30-year-old Kurd
who joined the PKK 15 years ago. He says he is not
there to fight "because we like war and bloodshed,
but this is a situation imposed on us."
Across the Middle East, Iraq has the highest rate of
women representation in parliament and local
councils, at places up to 25 percent. But in PKK it
goes higher.
"Men and women are equal in PKK," says PKK spokesman
Heval Asad. Eighty percent of the party's leadership
council is selected equally from both men and women,
so women will always constitute at least 40 percent
of the PKK leaders.
The remaining 20 percent are elected through vote,
and women also make up a considerable percentage
through such election.
Guerrillas in Qandil do not marry. They say that as
long as they are fighting in the mountains the time
is not ripe for marriage. They believe marriage and
raising children are practical obstacles on their
way to "continuing the revolution."
"However, here we don't think in terms of brothers
and sisters. We think of each other as friends with
different personalities," says Asad.
The harsh mountainous conditions and the occasional
fighting have not killed the guerrillas' desire to
look good. Many of the young women put on
make-up and varnish their nails. The young men have
their hair neatly cut and their faces well shaven.
But they know they have a fight on their hands.
"What's important for us is to die if necessary for
the cause we believe in," says Saria.
Saria wants to become a journalist "once Kurdistan
is free and the revolution succeeds," she says. "But
as long as the revolution goes on we continue
fighting."
IPS
** The use of the term "Kurdistan" is vigorously
rejected due to its alleged political implications
by the Republic of Turkey, which does not recognize
the existence of a "Turkish Kurdistan" Southeast
Turkey.
Others estimate as many as 40 million Kurds live in
Big Kurdistan (Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Iran, Armenia),
which covers an area as big as France, about half of
all Kurds which estimate to 20 million live in
Turkey.
Turkey is home to some 20 million ethnic Kurds, some
of whom openly sympathise with the Kurdish PKK for a
Kurdish homeland in the country's mainly Kurdish
southeast of Turkey
The Kurdish flag flown officially in Iraqi Kurdistan but
unofficially flown by Kurds in Armenia. The flag is
banned in Iran, Syria, and Turkey where flying it is
a criminal offence"
Southeastern Turkey:
North Kurdistan (
Kurdistan-Turkey) wikipedia
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