ANKARA, Turkey (Reuters) - Two years after Turkey's most wanted man, Kurdish
guerrilla leader Abdullah Ocalan, was captured in mysterious circumstances in Kenya,
Kurdish groups have called for mass protests to mark the anniversary.

The response will be a test of how much sway the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) still holds
after its leader, sentenced to death for treason, called a cease-fire and promised to give up
violence in favor of democratic means.

"I'm expecting demonstrations but how big I don't know," said Turkish media commentator
Mehmet Ali Birand. "It will be a sign of whether they're really seriously going to put the
pressure on the government right now."

Turkey rejects the cease-fire as a cynical ploy for Ocalan to avoid the noose and has vowed
to wipe out the PKK, whose guerrillas have largely moved to Iraq and Iran. Ocalan himself
lives in isolation on a remote prison island.

He was condemned to death in June 1999 for heading the PKK's fight for Kurdish self-rule
in which more than 30,000 people were killed. The death sentence is on hold while the
European Court of Human Rights considers Ocalan's appeal.

Birand said there were factions within the PKK who wanted to return to violence, but for
now Ocalan was keeping them in check and the cease-fire was holding. "They're becoming a
political animal. They're already becoming politically strong. That
makes Ankara very nervous but there's nothing they can do about it."

KURDISH PROBLEM REMAINS UNSOLVED

While most observers agree that Turkey has defeated the PKK militarily, the battle to win
over the people is another matter.

"The decision-makers in Turkey have not yet understood that the center of this struggle is
the people," said Nihat Ali Ozcan, director of Terrorism and Conflict Studies at the Center
for Eurasian Strategic Studies. "Accordingly they have not won the hearts and minds of the
Kurdish people."

Dogu Ergil, a liberal academic who has carried out extensive research on the Kurds, agreed.
"Turkey never solved the Kurdish problem, it just repressed and postponed it," he said,
adding that most Kurds never wanted an independent state.

"They wanted several things -- first of all to be counted, to be respected as Kurds. Now that
so many years have passed and the futility of armed struggle is proven the government has
promised a lot of things: bringing up the standard of life ... being more respectful to the
Kurds," he said.

"These were all acknowledgements of the elevation of the Kurds' status. They brought
relative satisfaction, but it has stopped there."

A key Kurdish demand, the lifting of a ban on broadcasting and education in Kurdish, has all
but dropped off the agenda after a brief flurry of debate last year notable as the first time
such a taboo subject was discussed openly.

"The government has so many problems," Birand said. "The economy is the priority now so
they don't have time to tackle the Kurdish problem."

Kurdish activist groups based in Europe have called for Feb. 15 to be marked as a "National
Unity Day." The PKK leadership council has called for demonstrations, blackouts, shop
closures, school boycotts and hunger strikes to mark the second anniversary of Ocalan's
capture by Turkish intelligence agents in Kenya where he had been hiding out in the Greek
Embassy.

The exact circumstances remain unclear but Kurds say he was abducted illegally and allege
that Israeli intelligence may have helped Turkey pull off the swoop. Ocalan's capture, and
video footage of him handcuffed and blindfolded in an aircraft flying to Turkey, sparked
violent protests by Kurds around Europe.

Public emotion, fueled by highly charged newspaper and television reports of the capture of
the "baby killer," has lessened in two years. Ocalan's mustached face is no longer so familiar,
his deeds rarely the subject of public discussion.

Violence has also fallen sharply since the 1999 cease-fire, but Ocalan's brother, Osman, a
senior PKK leader, said this month that the guerrillas were running out of patience with the
official Turkish refusal to respond to their cease-fire.

"Do not forget that our capacity to fight is high," Osman Ocalan said on the Kurdish satellite
TV channel Medya TV. "War will not be started by us, we will not be the ones to start it,
war is not our preference. I want to stress that it would be a road we were forced to take."

WILL TURKEY HANG OCALAN?

Such statements ring alarm bells in Ankara. Just last month the justice minister said Turkey
might have to review the stay of execution if Ocalan made more "provocative" statements.

Ocalan says through his lawyers that he speaks only in favor of peace. But Ankara knows
that his death sentence will be a key test for Turkey's ambitions to join the European Union,
and Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit himself opposes the death penalty.

"If you asked the majority of people in Turkey they would say yes, he should be hanged, but
the wisdom is that he should not. There's a consensus in Ankara," Birand said.

However Professor Hasan Unal of Ankara's Bilkent University said Turkey's relations with
the European Union (EU) had deteriorated sharply since it was made a candidate country at
the Helsinki conference at the end of 1999.

Relations have been soured since the EU laid out the economic and political changes it wants
to see from Turkey, including big improvements on the human rights front as well as
progress in long-running disputes such as Cyprus.

While some nationalists are among the first to warn that such demands threaten Turkey's
security and advocate a cautious approach to Europe, Unal said turning away from the EU
could have unwanted consequences since the PKK was depending on pressure from the EU
to bring about the changes it wants.

"If the Helsinki process were to come to an end officially, and in my opinion it has already
ended unofficially...the PKK might despair of their demands being realized so they might
resort to violence once again."
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The Kurdistan Observer
www.kurdistanobserver.com