The International Delegation against Isolation on Friday held a press statement on their 25-27 January visit to Diyabakır (Amed), Istanbul, and Ankara, reported Mezopotamya News Agency.
In the statement, the delegation evaluated the isolation of Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and its impact on the people living in Turkey.
Italian politician and current Secretary of the Communist Refoundation Party Maurizio Acerbo drew a parallel between Abdullah Öcalan and Nelson Mandela, President of South Africa 1994-1999.
“I remember people in Italy and Europe saying that Abdullah Öcalan is the ‘Nelson Mandela’ of the Kurdish people. The West did not end the war between NATO and the apartheid regime without Mandela, and peace and democracy have been established with the voice and authority of Nelson Mandela. So if we want peace in the Middle East, the West must support Öcalan’s struggle,” said Acerbo.
Evaluating Öcalan’s thoughts and ideas as hope for the Middle East, Acerbo said that Öcalan’s messages of democracy, peace and democratic confederalism are important not only for the Middle East, but for Europe and the whole World.
“We need to establish relations between democratic forces, women’s liberation, and peoples’ different traditions and different religions. There have been many wars in the Middle East in the last 50 years. I think Öcalan’s voice can reveal a new vision in this context,” said Acerbo, adding that Öcalan’s ideas should not be feared.
A second member of the delegation, South African lawyer Joey J. Moses, noted another similarity between the struggles of the South African people and those of the of Kurds.
“Another similarity is the fact that the leaders of the Kurdish people, like the leaders of South Africa, are still being detained and imprisoned,” Moses said.
He also added that the delegation will explain that the PKK is not actually a terrorist organisation, but that on the contrary, it is Turkey that has been applying pressure and intimidation policies to the Kurds. “The main thing”, he said, “is creating campaigns to change the perception here and argue that we are a defence organisation and not a ‘terrorist organization'”.
