Page 100 - America's Failure to Perceive the PKK

Furthermore, although the organization is fiercely opposed to the
state system and is organized around the aim of destroying the state,
it has changed its language and suddenly began speaking of the Turkish
Republic as a guarantor of its own existence. This is in fact the best-
known of all the communist tactics. In order to eliminate the institu-
tion of state, they have put the plan of firstly being under the guar-
antee of a strong state, into practice. Autonomy, as the first stage of

the end goal, of course requires the presence of the Turkish Republic
as a guarantor. In that way it imagines that the Turkish state will serve
as the main source that will provide money, arms and infrastructure
for them. It plans to establish an army, with money from the Turkish
state, which it can subsequently employ against it. The PKK and its sup-
porters are for that reason constantly speaking of the importance of the
existence of the state. The true purpose, however, is once it has grown

stronger and become a proper state to destroy all the countries around
it, including the Turkish Republic, and to continue in that way until it
achieves its ultimate aim of establishing a global communist state. All
this talk is therefore nothing more than a tactic.

Other tactics employed by the PKK after its adoption of an impe-
rialist mask involves the use of women, the family and religion. Let us
now look at these tactics under separate headings:

1. Women under a mask of imperialism

Until the 1990's, during the time the PKK openly carried out its
Marxist- Leninist ideology, it regarded the family, religion, tribes and
women as factors deleterious to its ideology. In the view of the orga-
nization, religion and the family, which it regards as the primary insti-
tutions of colonialism, had to be eradicated. That is why families, reli-
gious officials and tribes became an important area of struggle for the
organization. Large numbers of religious officials were killed, and war

98 America's Failure to Perceive the PKK