Turkey, Europe and the Kurds after the capture of Abdullah Öcalan

Abstract

The capture of a 'baby-killer'

Handcuffed and blindfolded, waking up from what looked like a drug-induced sleep, Abdullah Öcalan told the masked Turkish security men in the little plane that was taking him from Kenya to Turkey that he really loved the Turkish people, that he was willing to co-operate and that he could be very useful to them. The video images of this humiliating scene, hurriedly and very visibly edited so that doubts remained about the context of Öcalan's words, were shown again and again in news programs of the major television stations all over the world. The images created an upsurge of nationalistic fervour in Turkey and caused outrage among Kurds of all political affiliations, including Öcalan's fiercest opponents. These images — of which more were to follow — had the obvious intention of destroying Öcalan's charisma by showing him as a broken and weak man, ready to betray his cause. In an obvious effort to counteract any pity or sympathy that Öcalan's plight might provoke, the Turkish media invariably referred to him as 'babykiller' and 'terrorist chief' in each news item that mentioned him.