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Kurdistan Workers Party———209

were marked by mostly sporadic, isolated violence. Turkey, an area that is predominantly Kurdish.
In the early 1990s, the Texas Knights of the White Established in 1978 by Abdullah Ocalan, the PKK
Camellia Ku Klux Klan engaged in extensive racial began its terrorism campaign focusing on Turkish
intimidation in Vidor, Texas, to prevent the desegrega- security forces and civilians in the early 1980s; this
tion of a federal housing project. Klan groups are also intensely bloody conflict would last some 15 years.
believed to be behind a rash of nationwide church PKK’s history is inextricably linked with the plight
burnings that began in January 1995. of the Kurds, the world’s most numerous stateless
At the same time, several organizations, the people. Largely Muslim, Kurds number between 15
Southern Poverty Law Center among them, worked and 20 million, have their own language and culture,
successfully against the Klan in the courts, disman- and live in an area known as Kurdistan, a mountain-
tling the United Klans of America in 1987 for the ous region that lies within portions of Turkey, Iran,
Donald lynching, and, in 1993, the Invisible Empire Iraq, Syria, and Armenia. Nearly 11 million Kurds
Knights of the Ku Klux Klan for attacking civil rights live in Turkey and represent roughly 20 percent of that
activists in Forsyth, Georgia. Arrests of Klan members country’s population; they are the highest concentra-
continued throughout the late 1990s, including an tion of Kurds anywhere.
April 1997 arrest of three Klan members for conspir- After World War I, the breakup of the Ottoman
acy to blow up a natural gas refinery in Fort Worth, Empire formed new nation-states, but no separate
Texas, and several arrests in February 1998 for plots Kurdistan. Thus, the Kurds, who were until then
to poison water supplies, rob banks, plant bombs, and nomadic, could no longer keep to their ancient migra-
commit assassinations. In July 1998, the Christian tory ways. Although the 1920 Treaty of Sevres
Knights of the Ku Klux Klan were found to have par- promised independence, the Kurds were never granted
ticipated in a conspiracy to burn a black church. nation status. In 1923, Turkey refused to honor that
Today, there are more than 100 Klan chapters and provision of the treaty; thus, the Kurds remained an
splinter groups. While some factions are openly racist ethnic group within Turkey. The Kurd revolts of the
and follow the Christian Identity movement, others 1920s and 1930s were met by the Turkish government
have tried to mainstream themselves, cloaking racism with mass executions and village burnings.
as “civil rights for whites.” More recently, the Internet The current leader of the PKK, Abdullah Ocalan,
has aided Klan recruitment efforts and membership was born in 1948 in southeastern Turkey, near the
has risen. Many Klan chapters maintain Web sites with Syrian border. While attending the university at Ankara,
explanations, propaganda, historical accounts, and he studied political science and developed, many
membership applications, as well as links to other Klan believe, what would become the thinking behind the
chapters. PKK. He dropped out of school, wrote the manifesto
“The National Road to the Kurdish Revolution,” and, in
See also SIXTEENTH STREET BAPTIST CHURCH BOMBING
1978, formed the PKK as a terrorist group to help estab-
lish a Kurdish state. Today, many of the Kurdish people
Further Reading
refer to him as “Apo,” the Kurdish word for “Uncle.”
Chambers, David M. Hooded Americanism: The History of Although Ocalan left Turkey for exile in 1980, he
the Ku Klux Klan. New York: Franklin Watts, 1981. directed the PKK from Syria and other countries, and
Dobratz, Betty A., and Stephanie L. Shanks-Meile. White orchestrated most PKK plots. The PKK held its first
Power, White Pride! The White Separatist Movement in congress in July 1981 and later established a
the United States. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Presidential Council—10 senior commanders to run
Press, 1997.
Stanton, Bill. Klanwatch: Bringing the Ku Klux Klan to the day-to-day operations. In 1984, the PKK began to
Justice. New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1991. use terror (usually serial kidnappings and bombings)
to spread its message. Some of the first targets were
police stations and other state buildings in Turkey’s
southeast provinces, but the campaign eventually
KURDISTAN WORKERS PARTY turned against civilians, most of them Kurds whom the
PKK accused of conspiring with the state.
The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) was founded to The Turkish government fought back; between
establish a Kurdish state and self-rule in southeastern 1984 and 1999 (with 1991 and 1993 seeing the peak