February 16, 1999. Copyright, 1999. Graphic News. All rights reserved

KURDISH PROTESTERS STORM DIPLOMATIC MISSIONS ACROSS EUROPE
By Margot Nesdale

LONDON, February 16, Graphic News: HE has been branded a Òbaby killerÓ, Òbloody-handed monsterÓ and Òthe worldÕs most unwanted, wanted manÓ.
Fugitive Kurdish guerrilla chief Abdullah Ocalan Ð who has waged a ruthless separatist campaign in Turkey for 14 years Ð is both a cult hero and a hate figure.
While Turkish authorities have been hunting the leader of the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) for two decades he remains a charismatic leader for many of his Kurdish followers.
His capture and return to Turkey today has inspired a fierce loyalty among Kurdish nationalists, who stormed Greek embassies across Europe in protest at his arrest.
In Turkey he is despised by the popular press, who have branded him a mass murderer, responsible for the deaths of almost 30,000 people.
Nicknamed ÒApoÓ, the overweight rebel with a moustache has been living in shadowy exile since 1980, building up a network of militant sympathisers around western Europe.
Born to a poor peasant family in the village of Omerli in southeastern Turkey, he forged his political ideas in the violent atmosphere of the Turkish politics of the 1970s.
Ocalan founded the PKK in 1974 as an extreme left nationalist faction that later earned a reputation for ruthlessness by killing members of rival groups, Kurdish landlords and pro-government tribesmen.
Around 5,000 people were killed in street fighting between left and right that ended when the army staged a coup in 1980.
A drop-out from Ankara UniversityÕs political science faculty, he fled the country after the coup and is believed not to have visited since.
Fourteen years ago he launched his war against the Turkish state for an independent state of Kurdistan based on Marxist-Leninism that is rooted in the Cold War era.
More than 29,000 guerrillas, civilians and soldiers have since died fighting in the countryÕs mountainous southeast and clashes have often spilled over into Kurdish-held northern Iraq.
During the height of the PKKÕs power in 1992, Ocalan told a Turkish newspaper: ÒEven if 100,000 people die this year our movement cannot be disrupted.Ó
He still believes a revolution is just around the corner.
In a televised address to a Kurdish youth rally in August he said: ÒYou must believe before everything else that the revolution must come, that there is no other choice.Ó
The Turkish cause would one day be won through tireless struggle against NATO member Turkey and its Western ÒimperialistÓ or ÒZionistÓ Israeli allies, he said.
Ocalan has been on the run since he was forced to leave Syria last October, after Turkey threatened to take military action against Damascus.
From there he fled to Moscow before appearing in Rome, triggering a row between Italy and Turkey after Italy refused to extradite him because of TurkeyÕs death penalty.
/ENDS.

Sources: Reuters, BBC, CNN