For some time now, adherents of the PKK in Switzerland have once again stepped up their attacks on Kurdish patriots, particularly members of KOMKAR and adherents and sympathizers of our party.

A month ago a group of eight to ten PKK adherents attacked a pub in Zürich and injured a guest who was a member of KOMKAR.

A few days later, two KOMKAR members who were trying to discuss this incident with the regional representatives of the PKK were attacked by an even larger group of PKK members. The assailants met with unexpectedly strong resistance as Kurds from the neighborhood, especially Kurdish shopkeepers and their relatives, intervened. The PKK had subjected them to extortion through threats and violence, and the shopkeepers had had enough. The attackers were badly beaten up and eventually fled.

They tried the same tactic once again at the Newroz celebration in Lausanne, attempting to sabotage the meeting and prevent Kurdish patriots from attending. But this try too was unsuccessful; the celebration was held on 21 April with a large number of participants and a spirited atmosphere.

In spite of all these events we have behaved responsibly and not issued any public statements about these incidents, in the belief that they would create a bad image of the Kurds.

But the PKK’s aggressive attitude has continued. Cafer Kücükyildiz, a KOMKAR member on the planning committee of the 1 May celebration, was attacked and wounded in front of a regional radio station at the end of April. Just before the attack he had granted the radio station an interview about active and passive voting rights for foreign residents of Switzerland. But this was still not all: on 1 May a larger group of PKK members used clubs and weapons to attack and injure three KOMKAR members, one of them again being Mr. Kücükyildiz.

All of this shows that PKK members are carrying out their attacks systematically, even though at the moment it is only in Switzerland. Nor do they intend to stop there. As in the past, their aim is to force Kurds who have different opinions and take a different political line than theirs to surrender, to force Kurds through violence and repression to rally around the PKK, and to continue the PKK’s traditional methods of extortion.

For this reason, it has become necessary to issue a statement about these incidents, warn the PKK leaders, and draw public attention to them.

These actions are provocative; moreover, the Turkish regime might have had a hand in them, as has been the case in many past clashes. Such incidents in foreign countries have done great harm to the Kurdish movement in the past and have led to the PKK being banned in many countries. But it looks as though the PKK has not learned any lessons from this. Only recently it was banned in England on account of similar kinds of behavior. If this trend continues, the same fate awaits the PKK and its auxiliary organizations in other countries as well.

But it is even more remarkable that the PKK is carrying out such actions during a phase when it has allegedly given up its struggle against the Turkish regime in the name of peace and democracy, retracted all of its demands, and submitted ideologically and politically to the regime. The PKK is not prepared to extend the peace it demands from the Turkish regime to its fellow Kurds. It is not granting the democracy it demands from the colonialist regime to the Kurds in its mutual relations with them. This attitude proves that the PKK’s demands for peace and democracy can not be taken seriously.

The fact is that with this mode of operation the PKK has not attained anything in the past and will not attain anything in the present either. The PKK has not been able to obstruct our work with such attacks in the past, and it can not do so now. The gentlemen of the PKK ought to have grasped by now that we refuse to be intimidated by threats and underhanded attacks.

We hereby warn the gentlemen of the PKK once again to end their oppression and violence against other organizations and patriots who have opinions different from their own, and to give up their method of extorting protection money from people in the manner of the Mafia.

Above all, we want to point out that it harms the Kurdish cause immeasurably when the PKK stages such medieval scenes of primitive and brutal violence in the manner of Taliban, implicating other Kurdish organizations and intellectuals, in the midst of a civilized country like Switzerland. The PKK leaders and their loyal followers must give up this mean behavior.

Dear sirs, what more do you actually want from the Kurdish people, now that you have thrown in your lot with the ruling regime, approved of the unified Turkish state and the ideology of Kemalism, retreated from all the major demands of the Kurds, and even called the Kurdish revolts of the past "reactionary", using the regime’s own terminology.

Once again, we call on patriotic and democratic groups to take a clear and effective stand against this primitive behavior and aggression, which serve nobody but the violent Turkish regime.

2 May 2001