HUMAN RIGHTS-TURKEY: Kurds Find Temporary Refuge Among the Greeks

ATHENS, Dic 09 (IPS) - With a civil war raging in south eastern Turkey fleeing Kurdish rebels have sought refuge in neighbouring countries with Greece proving a particularly safe haven for those seeking an independent state for the Kurds.

In Athens, the Greek language 'Voice of Kurdistan' is freely sold

and the city's thousand or so Kurdish exiles regularly join local

political demonstrations or organise rallies and benefits. They

even march on the Turkish, German and North American embassies.

It is doubtful that Kani Yilmaz, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) representative for Europe would be arrested by the police in Athens -- as recently happened in supposedly tolerant London.

More importantly, for the past nine years Greece has provided the

National Liberation Front of Kurdistan (ERNK) with a platform from which to tell its side of the story.

Abbas Tash, ERNK Balkan representative in Athens, made it clear

that while they are an umbrella organisation of intellectuals,

women, students, workers, and tradesmen it is the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) that is the "leading ideological party driving the movement".

Tash described the ERNK as a broad-based political organisation,

a formative 'national assembly' which in its leader ship role is seeking to find democratic solutions to the national question.

He said that the Kurdish people are simply reacting to Turkish

colonialism which has deprived them of their rights through an

official policy of what amounts to genocide. His dark eyes burning with intensity, Tash said that the Kurds no longer believe in vague statements of amelioration by ruling pol iticians and government officials.

"We will form a national army," he stated. "We have 30- 40,000

fighters now and next year we will have 50,000. We are headed

towards the making of our own state."

Revolutionary rhetoric aside, Tash's statements reflect a sharp

escalation of the Kurdish struggle in the months since PKK Gen eral Secretary Abdullah Ocalan has seen his offers of a ceasefire go unheeded by Ankara.

A year ago, Ocalan, or 'Apu' as he is popularly known, talked of

autonomy within the Turkish republic, not full independence. This week he told the CSCE Summit in Budapest that he backs some kind of 'federal solution'.

© Inter Press Service (2014) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service