PKK'S Ocalan reveals his many benefactors

ANKARA -- Abdullah Ocalan's trial marks a rare lesson on how an international terrorist group obtains funding and support.

Ocalan, head of the Kurdish Workers Party, or PKK, has not concealed details of his supporters and the sort of aid he receives. Turkish officials said most of his testimony was well-known for years.

Turgut Okyay, chairman of the three-judge court, has conducted most of the questioning over the course of the trial. He has focused on the chain of command of the PKK and trail of cash and weapons.

Ely Karmon, a researcher at the Institute for Counterterrorism in Herzliya, Israel, says the PKK has been angered and embarrassed by Ocalan's trial. "The PKK leadership, as well as the rank-and-file is indeed torn between the fierce desire of revenge and the need to preserve the present political gains in the European arena and not to provoke the death of the imprisoned leader," he wrote in a recent study. "Therefore it uses a mixture of threats against the Turkish government and a carefully pragmatic attitude."

Ocalan's list of supporters is long -- Britain, Cyprus, Greece, Holland, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Yugoslavia. Virtually all of the countries denied the claim of the PKK leader.

Greece, Ocalan said, helped the PKK purchase heavy weapons. Yugoslavia provided training. Over the last decade, Greece provided the PKK with training as well.

"The training started to be given almost on every subject in Greece after 1990," he said. "The ones who were trained here were coming to the rural areas by airplane. The airplanes were coming via Damascus, or Lebanon, or Iran."

Iran did not provide training but allowed the PKK to operate a hospital. Iran also confiscated weapons that went through Iran for Iraq and southeastern Turkey.

Cyprus provided passports for PKK members in transit. The Greek Orthodox Church helped relay money from the Cypriots.

"The fake passport I was carrying when I was caught, was provided by our Athens representative from the Greek Cypriot side," he said.

Ocalan said the PKK bought much of its weapons in Iraq. After the 1991 Gulf war, he said, weapons were available.

Money was no problem, he said, as the organization has nearly $200 million. Immigrant smuggling was one source of revenue. Drug smuggling was another.

"Drugs is a crime against humanity, but some of our representatives might have taken money from drug traffickers under the name of donation," he said. "This situation is also the same in Europe."

The PKK also had relationships with other militant nationalist groups. These included the Armenian Asala, Turkish underground movements and the Palestine Liberation Organization. The relationship with the PLO began in the early 1980s, he said.

"They trained us at their camps," he said. "Syria did not set up official relations with us. However, she did not raise obstacles."

Ocalan was asked what Greece and Syria demanded in exchange for their help. "There is no doubt that they wanted to use the PKK within their general policy," he said. "Besides, we also benefited from this. We mutually used each other. This is a political situation."

Much of the money was transferred through Swiss banks. "Most of it is in Europe," Ocalan said. "There is not much in Syria. Friendly people give the money and they are invested in many banks. I have heard that they favor Switzerland. Also, they had an intention to set up a bank. They have been investing the money to many banks in Switzerland. The people whom I call as friends, are people who are working in Europe. Those friends may invest the money wherever they want."

Karmon says the PKK leadership without Ocalan has several options. One is to opt for a peace strategy. Another is to contract out terrorist attacks the way the Palestinian Fatah group did in the early 1970s, when it established Black September.

"The PKK will have to decide whether to opt for an all-out campaign of terror, or whether to keep the door open to the political process," he said. "The government will have to decide whether to take the risk of the extreme confrontation that will ensue if Ocalan is executed, or whether to leave the way for other options."