By Harun Yahya
Various notions are frequently raised in regard to the period known as the Solution Process. A general amnesty for Abdullah Ocalan and the members of the PKK in prison is one of those notions.
The fact that less people are being martyred compared to before during this process is indeed a positive development. However, the PKK has revealed at every opportunity that it has not renounced violence and terror. Yet even if the PKK does totally renounce terror and genuinely abandon armed struggle, pardoning Öcalan, who ordered acts of terror and shed the blood of 40,000 people, and pardoning people who committed crimes and shed the blood of our troops and police officers would still be out of the question.
Pardoning Terrorists Would Offend the Honor of the Nation and the State
The PKK is a Marxist-Leninist, Stalinist terror organization whose main aim is the establishment of an independent communist Kurdistan. Like all communist terror organizations, it expects to achieve this aim through violence and terror. Everything it described as an ‘acquisition’ to date, it has achieved through force of arms. The leaders of the organization and its extensions explicitly say as much. Constantly threatening the Republic of Turkey with ‘war’ in every incident that breaks out and using the language of violence the PKK regarded the peace process as an opportunity to take control of the region. It has continued to resort to arms to try and convince the people of the Southeast region that it is ‘the only power in that region’ and to oppress them through mafia-like methods. Kidnapping public officers and workers, burning construction sites, blocking roads, sentencing and punishing people at so-called ‘courts’ and extortion have virtually become their routine.
The terror organization showed the world that it has not severed its links to violence during the uprising of 6-8 October initiated nationwide on the pretext of Kobane. These protests, in which young people were brutally tortured and some 50 citizens lost their lives, are proof that an amnesty for the PKK leadership and membership should never be considered.
What makes the state strong and reliable is its ability to ensure the safety of its citizens. Citizens must be sure that that state will ensure their security and will protect them in the most just manner if they are subjected to injustice or violence. Giving the due legal response to the members of an organization that threatens citizens, extorts money, attacks their children or hangs people from power lines satisfies people’s desire for justice. If people suspected of such crimes are not arrested and put on trial and, moreover, if people who have previously committed such acts of terror are released, the trust of its citizens in the state would be shaken.
Our troops and police have willingly sacrificed their lives to preserve the territorial integrity and security of the country for the last 30 years. Our martyrs are the pride and honor of their families and our country. The capture and sentencing of the leader of the terror organization and its members has been a relief for the families of the martyrs and the country as a whole. Telling these families, who tend the graves of our martyrs every day, and the nation as a whole, that “We have forgiven those who martyred your children” would be a violation of ethics and good conscience.
What person of good conscience could look at the mothers of the martyrs in the face and say, “These killers are now free to walk the streets and even to engage in politics”? If these people are included in the administration of this country on the grounds that “it is better for them to be making politics on flat ground rather than up in the mountains,” who will tell the nation that these killers’ salaries are to be paid from taxes taken from the mothers and fathers of the martyrs? What reason or logic could possibly justify the idea of these people, who shoot our troops and police in the streets, whose profession is assassination, sitting in tea gardens and in cafeterias side by side with our own youth? Above all else, how will those who are considering to forgive these killers – despite of the martyrs’ families and the nation as a whole – account for this state of affairs, which would effectively mean legitimizing murder, in the presence of God?
Therefore, forgiving terrorists can never be a point of discussion. Those who forgive people who have killed 40,000 people will be complicit in each one of those murders. Anyone who is considering such a plan must think very carefully of all the details and must never sign up to such a plan that would offend the honor of the nation and the state.
A General Amnesty Would Disrupt the Social Order
An overview of the past ‘general amnesties’ shows that they have always had a damaging effect on the fabric and security of society. An amnesty sends the message that people with criminal tendencies will not receive the due punishment for the offenses they have committed and will thus regain their freedom in a short time. Under these circumstances, the deterrence on which sentencing is based will be impaired, and the fabric of society is compromised as a result.
A brief recollection of what happened in the wake of what is known as the ‘Rahşan Amesty’ will make this fact better understood. Following the amnesty issued at the behest of Rahşan Ecevit on the pretext that the prisons were full, the prison population, with the capacity of 70,000, fell to 40,000. When the amnesty was first issued it was suggested that it would not include certain crimes. Soon after Law No. 4616 on Conditional Release was approved by the Parliament, the scope of the law has expanded through applications to the Constitutional Court. When probation and reduced sentences were included, a total of 44,000 benefitted from the amnesty.
Within three years, however, the number of prisoners rose by 20,000 to 64,000. A massive rise in crimes such as snatch and run, theft, fraud, and even rape and murder, was observed during that time. Moreover, in many cases, the severity of the crimes went up. For example, the people who raped and killed the teacher Serpil Yeşilyurt and her mother were released under the Rahşan amnesty. Within a few years one of those people had killed again and, even worse, chopped the body of his victims into pieces and stored them in a freezer.
A General Amnesty Is Part of a Plan to ‘Legalize’ the PKK
The propaganda in the Western press following the occupation of Kobane by ISIL led many people to see and grasp one important truth: the PKK is an organization protected by Western deep states for a specific purpose. Even though Turkey admitted almost the entire civilian population of Kobane (some 200,000 people), sent ambulances to pick up wounded members of the PYD and bring them to Turkey for treatment and continually provided them with medical and food aid , much of the Western press still condemned Turkey, while the PKK, a communist terror organization, was literally praised to the skies. The fact that the PKK, depicted as a supposed folk hero and freedom fighter received material aid from dozens of countries but was still routed by ISIL came as a severe embarrassment to those circles.
These circles’ support for the PKK was not for the prosperity and future of the Kurds and not out of genuine fondness for the PKK. The relationship is entirely one of self-interest. The secret forces in the West regard the PKK as a useful organization for implementing their 100-year-old plan and want to use it as a kind of hired assassin. Efforts to depict the PKK as friendly is part of the plan of getting the PKK to engage in ‘politics on flat land, rather than up in the mountains’ that is being suggested for years. According to this plan, autonomy will first be established in the Southeast of Turkey, then Öcalan will be put under house arrest, then he will be pardoned and placed at the head of that autonomous administration: Next will come the establishment of an independent Kurdistan which also include Syria and Iraq. This communist state of Kurdistan will be equipped with heavy weaponry by the world’s arms giants and will be used to annihilate the Muslims of the region. This bloody plan, one that will turn the Middle East into a bloody battleground for many years, would spell disaster for the people of the region. In order to avoid being one of those who prepared the groundwork for such a historic tragedy, it is essential that no such step as a ‘general amnesty’ ever be taken.
In the same way that the idea of pardoning those who cost the lives of thousands by attacking the Twin Towers is never brought up, or that there can be no question of those responsible for the terror attacks on the London Underground being allowed to mingle with ordinary people and engage in politics, neither must anyone propose a pardon for Ocalan and members of the PKK in Turkey.
Turkey is a great and powerful state. It is totally impossible for us to accept the so-called legalization of the PKK and a ‘general amnesty’ which will be the first step toward breaking the country up, may God forbid. Ours is an honorable nation and state and will never accept such a disgraceful development.