José Antonio Gutiérrez D.
State terrorism is openly practiced in Europe
The recent murder (on 9 January) in Paris of three Kurdish comrades, fighters for the liberation of their people, leaves us stunned and outraged. Sakîne Cansiz, founder member of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK — Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan); Fidan Doğan, representative in France of the National Congress of Kurdistan (KNK — Kongra Netewiya Kurdistan) and Leyla Söylemez, another Kurdish activist, all turned up shot dead dead at the Kurdistan Information Centre in Paris. These murders happened right at a time when the Turkish State is supposed to be engaging in exploratory talks about possible peace talks with the rebels of the PKK in order to end the armed conflict that has been going on in Turkey since 1984, as a result of the centuries-long exclusion and oppression that Kurds have been subjected to.
We have every reason to suspect that the culprit behind this crime is linked to the Turkish State, be it a paramilitary or a hired assassin, a member of the armed forces or the secret services, or even a rabid nationalist. But naturally, the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has already started to spread confusion, saying that these murders were probably due to infighting in the Kurdish liberation movement, between the supporters and opponents of the negotiations. As always, the State changing the victim into the victimizer.
As in Colombia, the prospect of peace negotiations goes hand in hand with the extermination of the opposition and any forces that can sustain an alternative political project. The only peace possible for them is the cemetery, surrender, demobilization — but never social transformation. This once again confirms that the terrorist State will be changed only through a profound social mobilization, through struggle, because negotiations alone will not change anything. The oligarchy does not give an inch without being pressured into it.
This crime shows the extent of the tentacles of secret services of terrorist states in Europe, to whom the European Union shows full tolerance, if it is not actually an accomplice. Where did these murderers come from? How was it that French intelligence knew nothing of what was being planned, when at least two of those killed were under close surveillance? Is it that only those who sympathize with the resistance are watched, but not those who flirt with fascism or the repressive authorities of terrorist States? Was there, then, any collaboration between these French agencies and the Turks in this heinous crime?
Kurdish organizations have already said that they were aware of the French intelligence services sharing information on Kurds in Paris with their Turkish counterparts [1]. This collusion by the European Union with repression by terrorist States is something that is not limited to the Turkish case. It is no secret that the Colombian State has operated and still operates with its intelligence apparatus by watching, spying on, following and threatening exiles and human rights defenders in Europe. Remember the files of the DAS [2], which ordered “Operation Europe”, that included infiltration into nothing less than the European Parliament? This was made clear in the DAS instructions:
“Operation Europe:
Objective: Neutralize influence in the European Legal System.
European Parliament Committee on Human Rights
UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
National Governments
Strategy: Discredit
Action: Press and reports, web pages
Legal War” [3]
Are European intelligence services so mediocre that they don’t “realize” that this was going on under their noses? Or is it rather a case that they have been complicit in this policy of terror and extermination?
Haven’t we witnessed right-wing paramilitary infiltration in Sweden, Switzerland and Spain, which was aimed at threatening, spy on and harass our comrades in exile? Haven’t we seen that Colombian embassies themselves investigate their citizens in every country, acting as intelligence headquarters, as the instruments of repression? What steps have been taken by the EU in this regard? What has the EU done to prevent acts of sabotage, espionage and so on in its territory? Sweden once expelled an attaché to the embassy, the right-wing paramilitary adviser Ernesto Yamhure... but has the EU done anything against its “friend” the Colombian State, which has orchestrated this policy on European soil, which has infiltrated and spied on EU institutions? Could it be that the warmth with which European authorities view the beloved Free Trade Agreement with Colombia, which can quench their thirst for profit, leads them to turn a blind eye to this behavior by the Colombian State?
However it is, while the EU blathers about human rights, it tolerates the actions of terrorist States on its own soil. The only thing the EU has dedicated itself to is persecuting and criminalizing those movements in Europe who are in solidarity with others resisting State terrorism in countries such as Colombia, Sri Lanka, occupied Kurdistan (Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Syria) and occupied Palestine, amongst others. The only thing that it has done is to criminalize the right to revolt against despotic regimes and murderers, a right which, let us remember, is enshrined in the preamble of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It applauds, it provides military aid to and it recognizes certain “rebels” in Syria or Libya who are armed to the teeth act by obscurantist Gulf tyrannies. But those who rebel with their own resources, with a sense of dignity and self-determination, against the tyrannies who are “friends” of the EU, they are craftily and arbitrarily included on the infamous list of terrorist organizations that the EU keeps up its sleeve.
Proof of the arbitrary nature of this list is that while France was applauding, recognizing and financing Al-Qaeda in Syria, it attacked and bombed it in Mali.
This crime was pre-announced. It would have happened sooner or later... it could have been a Tamil, a Colombian or a Palestinian, but it happened to be three Kurdish women. Internal Minister Valls’ statement that this murder was “intolerable” is pure cynicism. In fact the French government has tolerated this persecution and this harassment; it has permitted the infiltration of these reactionary elements and criminals in the pay of the Turkish State. It has collaborated with its agents. The assassinations were but the logical corollary of this repressive policy. Let this never be forgotten or overlooked.
They say that solidarity is the tenderness of the people. If that is so, the Kurds are as tender as anyone. A few months ago, female PKK prisoners sent from their prison in Diyarbakır (or Amed in Kurdish) a message of solidarity to FARC-EP prisoners in Colombia, in which they said: “Although we have never seen nor touched you, you who live on the other side of the ocean, we know and embrace your hearts, your courage, your strength and your struggle” [4]. I didn’t know them either, but I embrace their dreams, their resistance and their struggle. Bijî Kurdistan, Bimrî Koledar.
[2] Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad (Administrative Department of Security), Colombia’s security service agency until 2011, when it was replaced by the DNI (National Directorate of Intelligence).
