Yellow boots process
Today or on March 19 a third team of representatives of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), or the “legal” political extension of the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), will travel to İmralı for a meeting with the former separatist chieftain Abdullah Öcalan, who apparently will decide singlehandedly the fate of the latest Kurdish opening of the government. Who would believe that after his 1999 capture Öcalan would be converted by the Turkish government from a “number one public enemy” figure to someone “guiding” the government and the gang, as well as the entire nation with all of its colors out of a separatist terrorist menace that he, in the first place, had created back in the early 1980s.
Öcalan is believed to have already received the response letters to the letter he sent through the previous visiting three-member BDP delegation to the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), the urban wing of the PKK, the BDP and the Europe organization of the gang. Taking suggestions in those letters, Öcalan is expected to finalize a roadmap for the process. A BDP deputy spelled it out, rather than through intermediaries the minister in charge of all such ambitious openings, Beşir Atalay, must meet with Öcalan face to face. The deputy was unaware or perhaps naïve; Turkey has not yet “advanced” enough to officially accept Öcalan as an “architect of peace.”
Still, the hectic pace of messaging of the past two weeks aims entirely at enabling Öcalan to finalize a roadmap of peace to be read on the day of Nevruz (Newroz or simply New Year’s). Already the BDP has “decided” (Can it have an opinion of its own on any issue? The BDP did not want or was not allowed by the government to become a counterpart; it managed to become only a proxy of Öcalan.) to organize a massive Nevruz celebration in Diyarbakır where the finalized roadmap of Öcalan will be read out on loudspeakers. What’s wrong with that, we no longer have proxenetas to announce imperial edicts! After Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, we have another serious case of superiority complex. The top terrorist will write the roadmap to be followed by terrorists in leaving the country, laying down arms and accommodating in civilian life!
Hold on! I am not criticizing why Öcalan was given through proxy if not directly the chance to set the pace and course of the process? On the contrary, in the absence of any other credible counterparts with whom the state would negotiate a resolution, if we developed the understanding that through force we cannot succeed, we must take the civilian road? This road will pass through many other stops difficult to swallow for the nation and at some point it will go through the thorny issue of burying the hatchets, as well as to the issue of amnesty. Otherwise the process would not succeed and even if guns would be silenced, with one scratch bloodshed will resume again. The root causes, the current problem as well as the trauma it made on society must all be addressed. Yet, premature speaking on phases of this process could only serve the purpose of killing the process. On the other hand there is absolutely the need to prepare the society for a bitter resolution.
One last point: How would “withdrawing” PKK members leave Turkey if Öcalan’s roadmap is to be implemented? Apparently Turkish security forces will be instructed not to fire on people clandestinely leaving Turkish territory if they wear yellow sports shoes.
A typical story of Mehmet Agha with yellow boots. Don’t you know the story? I will tell it one day, inşhaallah!