DTP-BAITING, TRANSFORMATION, AND PJAK

"We don't just fight for ourselves."
~ Cemil Bayık.

Oh! Now I get it! The Deep State planted a minibus-bomb in Ankara in order to bait the DTP parliamentarians. It makes perfect sense since they never wanted any smart, identity-aware, politically-savvy Kurds in the grand, old TBMM.

There's a bit of stinging criticism coming from a Kurd in New Zealand. Listen to this:

It is almost impossible to change any element in the Kurdish political culture and makeup without altering many others. The crisis is similar to several countries where institutions, especially federal governing structures tend to be mechanistic, inflexible, disjointed, and corrupt. And corruption does not allow innocent voices from being heard.

Positive ideas addressing the crisis of Kurdish institutions in term of an impending sociopolitical paradigm to a fresh framework may sound an earthquake to our leaders. What the Kurds really need is to wake-up to the many faces of the crisis, which the state is experiencing including institutional arrogance, greed, nepotism, and abuse of power. Taking action to solve the institutional crisis would be reassuring and even educational for them.

It is time the political system in Kurdistan is transformed and not reformed as the Kurdish people are in urgent need of something better and not something more. In other words, the healthier route is to transform leadership as a process of continuous change and growth. However, the majority leaders have arrangements with international companies to receive bribes for protecting their interests in the region. In such a scenario, they are unlikely to espouse positive changes necessary for the good of the country and its people.

[ . . . ]

The leaders of Kurdistan blame the people for their country's woes much in line with the argument of St. Thomas who once said that, those attacked for some fault deserve the attack. The question is what really have the Kurdish people done to deserve being attacked and robbed of their wealth? In addition, are they prepared to take responsibility for their country's future?

Read the rest.

The mullahtocracy's guru, Amir Taheri, has a recent piece in which he mentions PJAK:

The group most active in the recent fighting is a new outfit named Kurdistan Free Life Party, better known under its Kurdish acronym of PJAK. Judging by its literature, PJAK is an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) a guerrilla movement of Turkish Kurds that has been fighting for a Kurdish state in eastern Anatolia since the 1970s.

First of all, PKK has been fighting since 1984, not the 1970s. Secondly, PJAK is not just an "offshoot," but is a part of KCK, which is an umbrella organization containing PKK. If Amir Taheri had ever read "the literature," or had ever done a little research on something as mundane as, say, Google or Yahoo, the facts might be as plain to him as the nose on his face. PJAK is PKK's sister organization, based on PKK's model and, therefore, having both a political wing and an armed wing. PJAK is technically the political wing and, under it, is HRK, the armed wing. PJAK gets its support from PKK.

Ironically, Tehran has given the PKK shelter and support against Turkey for years, as a means of bleeding Nato's lone regional member. Some analysts claim that Ankara may have decided to repay Tehran in its own currency by creating PJAK. Others, however, regard PJAK as an effort by PKK to expand its constituency beyond the Kurdish minority in Turkey.

If "[s]ome analysts claim that Ankara may have decided to repay Tehran in its own currency by creating PJAK," then the only thing it proves that some analysts don't have a clue. It's pretty clueless to state, too, that PKK is trying to "expand its constituency beyond the Kurdish minority in Turkey," when PKK has always had a constituency beyond Turkey . . . Well beyond Turkey. PKK is the biggest transnational Kurdish organization, even attracting members from non-Kurdish populations. PKK never had to create a thorn for the mullah's side in order to "expand its constituency."

What is certain, however, is that most of PJAK's leaders are not Iranian Kurds. Some of the party's key figures are Turkish Kurds who have lived in exile in Germany for at least a quarter of a century. The fact that PJAK has been operating in areas in Iran that are close to PKK strongholds in Turkey and Iraq is another indication that the two parties may well be one with two names.

No, what is certain is that "Turkish" Kurds (i.e. "bad" Kurds), whether they've spent any time in Europe or not, have always been the backbone of the PKK. They've spent the time fighting in the field. They have most of the experience. So if you have a new organization, like PJAK, which also has an armed wing, like PJAK's HRK, you will need commanders with battlefield experience. Coming from PKK, those commanders will most likely be "Turkish" Kurds. Like Cemil Bayık, for example, a founding member of PKK.

None of this is secret so why is Taheri writing as if PJAK were some mysterious organization, possibly from Mars?

Did I mention that PJAK and PKK are members of the same organization, KCK? So they are not "one with two names." But who knows? Maybe all of KCK is from Mars.

As always in the Islamic Republic, however, Tehran's claims of a US-hatched plot to incite the Kurds against the mullahs should be taken with a pinch of salt.

Definitely correct. Kurds don't need the US to incite their hatred against the brutal Teheran regime. Just as Kurds hated the brutal Teheran regime under America's shah, so too they hate it under the mullahs. By the way, Teheran imposed a state of emergency in Iranian-occupied Kurdistan long before PKK ever launched its first attacks against the Ankara regime.

I don't know . . . Amir Taheri should probably stick with what he knows--mullahs--and leave the fighters of the Kurdish freedom movement alone.