By Anthony O. Miller
Cyprus’s Kurdish community yesterday massed outside the French Embassy in Nicosia in a protest – which nearly ended in a self-immolation – against France’s attempt to link Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan with an alleged extortion scheme.
French Attorney-general François Ricard on Monday visited Ocalan, who is under house arrest in Italy, seeking information about “persons wanted by the French police,” according to Nucan Derya, the Cyprus representative of the Liberation Front of Kurdistan (ERNK).
The two fugitives sought by French police allegedly were ordered by Ocalan to extort money for the rebel PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) from Kurds living in France.
Derya said Ocalan neither knew the pair nor ordered them to commit extortion.
The “two people being looked for by France, who are accused of taking money from people by force, are somebody not related to the Kurdish cause,” Derya said, adding: Ocalan “stated he has no contact with these persons, he doesn’t know them.”
“People came from all over Cyprus, about 150 – most of the Kurdish people living in Cyprus,” to present a petition to French officials, accusing Turkey of exploiting its ties with France against the Kurdish cause, Derya said.
The petition also declared Ricard’s charges inimical to Ocalan’s attempt “to simplify the national attention at the moment” on opening a dialogue with Turkey towards a political end to the Turkish-PKK fighting, she added.
During the demonstration, a Kurdish man identified as Ebu Emad, about 40, threatened to douse himself with petrol and set himself afire to dramatise his frustration at the Kurdish struggle for a homeland, Derya said.
“He had written his letter to us. He had taken petrol and was planning to pour it on himself in front of the French Embassy,” Derya told the Cyprus Mail yesterday.
“We took the petrol from the car (he was sitting in) and talked to him very strongly. He was trembling, saying: ‘It is the final point. I cannot stand the situation’ – the negative attitude toward his people in the struggle,” Derya said.
“His son was a (PKK) martyr. His daughter is now in the mountains fighting the Turks. He is from South Kurdistan, the Syrian part,” Derya said. “He tried to burn himself. It’s the only way for a person who has no other thing to do.”
“He said he would try to do it another time. I think we managed to convince him to stop it. We had orders from Ocalan not to allow persons to burn themselves like this, very strict orders from Ocalan,” she said.
Derya said, “Of course we would approve an international trial” of Ocalan, “if it were a just trial… unbiased… independent. Why not? Everybody would see the reality. We are innocent. We want only our freedom, our basic rights,” she said.
The notion of such a trial, “is not approved by Turkey,” she said, adding: “Turkey should be on trial.”
Ankara is furious at Italy for refusing to extradite Ocalan to Turkey for trial as a terrorist for his leadership of the 15-year fight for a Kurdish homeland.
Ocalan has been living in Italy, under house arrest, since he was arrested at Rome’s international airport on November 12 after disembarking from a flight from Moscow.
