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PKK Kidnapping Points to Competition Over Tunceli |
17 August 2012The kidnapping of CHP deputy Huseyin Aygun is part of the PKK's strategy to gain greater influence over Tunceli, analysts say.
By Alakbar Raufoglu for SES Türkiye -- 16/08/12
The dramatic kidnapping and subsequent release of parliamentarian Huseyin Aygun this week is only one of 142 PKK kidnappings this year, as the terrorist organisation tries to show its strength and ability to undermine the authority of the state.
Aygun, a Republican People's Party (CHP) deputy from Tunceli, was abducted late Sunday night (August 12th) after militants stopped his car on a highway in Tunceli. The 42-year-old Kurdish-Alevi lawmaker, who is also a member of the Parliament’s Human Rights Commission, was released unharmed near Ovacik in the Tunceli Province on Tuesday.
The kidnapping follows nearly a month of intensified clashes between the PKK and Turkish troops in the southeast. In the PKK's statement regarding Aygun, the group called on the government to "stop increased military operations immediately."
After being released, Aygun told reporters that he carries the "peace messages" of the group members, as his capture "was a way of spreading the PKK’s political propaganda."
"They said they chose this path to give a message of peace and truth," Aygun said. "Our party is about to release its Kurdish initiative. We want to see the solution of this problem so that our citizens, no matter if they’re Kurd, Turk or others, are able to live in a peace," he stated.
All political parties condemned Aygun’s abduction and demanded his release.
Speaking to SES Türkiye, Sirri Sakik, a deputy from the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), mentioned that even though the Kurdish problem is "worsening day by day" because of the government's policies, the abduction of an elected member of parliament was "unacceptable."
While Aygun was a pro-Kurdish politician who denounced the Turkish state's policy towards the Kurds, he also publicly condemned the PKK for using violence to derail the political process.
In the 1990s, the group kidnapped civilians and soldiers alike, using the kidnapping as "proof" of its control over a particular territory and to challenge the Turkish military's control.
Hamid Akin Unver, a lecturer at Princeton University in the US, told SES Türkiye the PKK is now reverting back to its strategy of "revolutionary operations" it carried at the height of the conflict in the 1990s.
"Aygun's capture is therefore one of these highly publicised revolutionary operations and marks a new `high' as to how far the PKK is willing to go to manipulate the political agenda," he said.
As to why the group chose Aygun and Tunceli, Unver said the main determinant has been the election of CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who is from Tunceli. Since Kilicdaroglu's election as chairman, Tunceli's electorate turned in favour of the CHP, withdrawing support from the pro-Kurdish BDP who failed to win a seat from the largely Alevi, Zaza speaking Kurdish population in the June 2011 national elections.
In 2010, the PKK called for a boycott of the constitutional amendment referendum, but the electorate in Tunceli went to the polls in large numbers.
"The PKK long wanted to punish Tunceli for its electoral choice," Unver said. "By this kidnapping, the PKK punished both Tunceli voters and their elected deputy's discourse on the PKK."
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17 August 2012
SES TURKIYE
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