What do female members of the PKK say?

The main reason for our concentration on this change of language and behavior on the subject of women on the part of the PKK is to expose the organization’s hypocrisy. The PKK has adopted this talk and these policies regarding women simply because that is the easiest way of meeting its needs for militants and looking good in the eyes of the West. Yet the words of women inside the organization in fact reveal the very opposite of this.

Necati Alkan has interviewed a large number of female PKK members and has produced an important collection of these. Some of these read as follows:
The female PKK member code-named Zelal says:

I criticized Öcalan for his attitudes and policies. I criticized the organization’s internal democracy and people’s backwardness... They put me in jail for two months. When I came out, Öcalan accused me of speaking against him, in the presence of 500 people in a training area and said ‘One has no right to say anything against a deity. If you speak against a deity, you will be struck down.’ In other words, he ascribed divine status to himself. I wanted to leave the organization, but they threatened me with death. I had never been so terrified in my life.

The woman code-named Bese, who was active in the PKK during this time of transition, says:

When I joined the PKK I was up in the mountains. I had a gun, so I thought I was free. But as time passed, I realized this was not freedom. Because I had no identity of my own. I could not freely express my ideas or criticisms. When I wanted to leave the organization, I was not able to do so. (2008) 
The woman code-named Leyla says:

Very little was done in the name of women’s freedom within the PKK apart from symbolic and very superficial things. And what was done in fact damaged women’s freedom a bit more. Because it was Öcalan, a man, who developed an ideology on behalf of women, organized them and took and implemented all decisions. I was personally free before joining the PKK. But in the PKK I had and could have no opinions regarding today or tomorrow.” (2009)

Necati Alkan said the following in his book on the basis of his observations and interviews:

Women given various tasks and roles by the PKK after the 1990s became the main force keeping the organization on its feet. All the women interviewed stated that if that force were to quit the organization, “its organizational structure would collapse”. Ronahi’s words stating that, “were there no women you could not keep the men in the organization”, Beritan’s statement saying that “the men stay up in the mountains for the women”, Revşen’s opinion stating that “if women left the organization nobody would stay up in the mountains” and Pelin’s words saying that, “If the women left, the men would not stay up in the mountains for a second” are all significant in that context.

Necati Alkan, PKK'da Semboller, Aktörler ve Kadınlar (Symbols, actors and women in the PKK), 2012, Karakutu Yayınları, p. 104

Ibid., p. 256

Ibid., p. 256

Ibid., p. 258

A poster intended to serve communist propaganda about “freeing women from servitude”. The PKK makes propaganda about freeing women from servitude. Yet communism is a system of ideas that regards women as a worthless common chattel and that despises them as part of its ideology. It is therefore impossible for the communist system to elevate women.

Alkan’s analyses suggest that women, regarded by the PKK as “slaves to be freed” in the early years, began being regarded as “comrades” in the 1990s when they started taking part in armed attacks and as “goddesses” after 1996, when they started taking part in suicide attacks. It appears that, despite all the talk in their praise, in practice, women in the organization were despised by the men, not regarded as equals and not valued. Many women concerned by the difference between the organization’s words and actions and who saw the discrepancy between its promises and deeds, sought to leave the organization during this period. Some fled, but others were caught trying to escape and declared to be traitors and punished.

This statement by Neval, who spent many years in the PKK, is particularly significant:

All measures in the name of women’s freedom inside the PKK were introduced as the most basic dynamic of the PKK system. One of the main elements of the system that Öcalan wished to create was female activity. Note that throughout the history of the party, and particularly after 1990, Öcalan based his system and identity on the power of women to a significant extent. While putting women in the balance, he actually benefitted from that more than women did.  (…) Thousands of Kurdish women who took to the mountains and suffered numerous hardships in the name of the revolution and freedom, for their country’s sake, were organized for the interests of Öcalan’s system but in the name of “liberty”.

Ibid., p. 91

People speak of Öcalan being on the side of women. I would like to clarify that: Apart from a few gestures required as the prestige of being the Leader, it is not possible to speak of Öcalan generally favoring women. But there is an even worse and unjust system concealed behind this. What Öcalan actually established was an elite female group that could act as his mouthpiece and reinforce his own control through women.

Ibid., pp. 100-101

The punishment and execution of women engaging in criticism inside the organization, or wishing to leave it, is a fact that summarizes the reality of women in the PKK. The most important example of this was the execution, at Öcalan’s command, of the female militant code-named Semir who sent her criticisms of internal organization within the party to Öcalan himself. According to Necati Alkan, through the execution of Semir, Öcalan neutralized the first direct revolt against his authority and issued a challenge to future potential opposition movements in the person of Semir. Semir was not the only example. Saime Aşkın, who supported Semir during the dispute, was also killed. This policy is still in force today, and those who criticize Öcalan’s practices are identified as those who carry the "personality of Semir” and are subjected to similar punishments and executions. The reality of the terrible executions within the PKK will be described in detail in due course.

It is of course no surprise that, despite all the deceptive talk about women, female members of the PKK have realized that they were in fact “only there to be used”. Women have always been regarded as valueless entities in communist systems. Moreover, there is no question of any value being attached to women in the communal system believed to have existed once, but which in reality never did. Under the desired communal system, women are regard as communal property, in the same way as all goods and objects, food and children. Since communist ideology is an unpopular one, particularly in the present day, they do not openly talk about communal use of women. However, this is the inevitable consequence of the elimination of the institution of the family, and this is the actual objective. A concept of society in which neither marriage nor the family have any meaning inevitably implies the common use of women, children and material properties. In a society in which everything is regarded as property to be enjoyed communally, women will obviously have no unique “value”.

Ibid., p. 103