France, Turkey and PKK: Democracies vs. Terrorism

Maxime Gauin, JTW

France was for years one of the less cooperative countries in the fight against the terrorist group called “Kurdistan’s Worker Party” (PKK), like Germany and unlike UK or Sweden. The PKK benefited from both the romantic image of “freedom fighters” (despite the numerous slaughters of unarmed civilians) and the distorted, one-sided, image of Turkey as a cruelly repressive State. It was not until 1993 that the PKK was really banned in France, and despite this interdiction, the cooperation was more than limited during rest of the 1990s.

But this time is over. Especially since 2006-2007, several investigations launched in the Paris tribunal led to the arrest of dozens of PKK’s members. Eleven were sentenced in 2009 for arsons which fortunately neither killed nor wounded anybody, conspiracy and fundraising for terrorist activities. During the trial, the prosecutor said “The PKK is indeed a terrorist organization” and “the perpetrators knew perfectly that they acted in conformity with the goals of the PKK”. The tribunal pronounced sentences longer than those asked by the prosecutor; for instance, 5 years in jail and (after the future release) a definitive deportation from French soil. It was apparently for the first time that PKK’s members were sentenced in France for terrorist activities; the precedent sentences were pronounced for ordinary criminal acts.

Several reasons can explain this change. Since the end of the 1990s, the Turkish governments have improved the situation of the human rights and of the economic development in eastern Anatolia, in the context of Turkish candidacy for European Union; and the voice of Turkey became gradually more laud. Since 2001, the international cooperation against terrorism has improved for obvious reasons. In 2005, Thierry Fragnoli was named investigative magistrate in the counter-terrorist section of the Paris tribunal, and he took in charge following the files of the PKK and of the DHKP-C. A strongly independent and careful magistrate, Mr. Fragnoli is less than impressed by the common prejudices on Turkey and PKK. In 2006-2007, the PKK attributed the great mistake to the attack organized against peaceful merchants of Turkish origin, in France and other countries. It became much harder to present the PKK as “freedom fighters against the oppressive Turkish State”. Kurdish merchants blackmailed and racketed by the PKK have eventually the courage to file complaints since 2007, in Marseille, Nice and other cities. Eventually, in 2008, the US and Iraqi governments accepted to reinforce seriously the coordinated fight against the PKK. The French government followed.

In the last few years, Thierry Fragnoli and the policemen of the Sous-direction antierroriste de la police nationale (SDAT, sub-directorate of counter-terrorism of national police) acquired a deep knowledge of the PKK networks in France and Western Europe. Since January 2010, about seventy persons have been arrested for participation to PKK activities, including eighteen since January 2011. Several dozens of them are now in preventive jail. Especially the networks of fundraising and the training camps are targeted by racket. Taking profit of the French experience in counter-terrorist cooperation (especially since the Franco-Spanish agreement of 1984 against ETA), the investigators act in collaboration with the services of other countries, especially Italy. In February 2010, eleven people were arrested in Marseille, Grenoble and Montpellier; and at the same time seventy others (including seven French citizens) were arrested by the Italian police in Pisa.

The decline of political sympathy for the PKK in France is rather obvious. The comments of “La Provence” (Marseille), hardly a pro-Turkish newspaper, are now relatively objective about the PKK. On June 4 of this year, five other people were arrested in Arnouville and Évry (Parisian suburb), including the suspected treasurer of the PKK in Western Europe (indicted since 2007 and already arrested sometime in 2008 for non-respect of the judicial control) and two other “important leaders of the PKK” according to the ministry of Internal Affairs. The arrests were motivated by a complaint about racket. PKK sympathizers attacked the police; the intervention of an anti-riot was needed to disperse them. Several people were wounded, cars were damaged and dustbins burned. The spokesman of the ministry of Internal Affairs explained that the incidents happened because some people wanted to prevent the arrests in some way.

But only the declining French Communist Party (PCF) and the even more declining Coordination Council of France’s Armenian Associations (CCAF) wrote a communiqué supporting the arrested persons(people). The CCAF’s text was written by his national co-chairman Jean-Marc “Ara” Toranian, who was a spokesman of ASALA from 1976 to 1983. By that time, Mr. Toranian had expressed a great sympathy for the PKK. He did not change. French democracy did.

Monday, 6 June 2011

Maxime Gauin (JTW)

via France, Turkey and PKK: Democracies vs. Terrorism, 6 June 2011 Monday 19:35.