PARIS, June 29 (AFP)
European governments urged Turkey Tuesday not to execute Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan and suggested that enforcing the death penalty would put Ankara at odds with the European Union.
Almost immediately after the sentence was handed down by the Turkish State Security Court, Kurds launched demonstrations in several European capitals, heeding a call by the leadership of Ocalan�s Kurdistan Workers� Partyfor �democratic and political� protests.
The protests should serve to �warn the world about the dangerous decision, which could set fire not only to Turkey and Kurdistan but to the whole region�, a PKK statement released in Istanbul said.
Britain, France and Germany said they hoped Ankara would not carry out the death sentence against Ocalan, who was convicted on charges of treason, separatism and murder committed during the PKK�s 15-year uprising for an independant Kurdistan.
The PKK leader, long considered Ankara�s public enemy number one, was captured by a Turkish commando while in hiding in Nairobi on February 15 and put on trial on the Turkish prison island of Imrali.
�We and the European Union will continue to urge that all death sentences, including those passed in this instance, are commuted to life imprisonment,� said a spokesman for British Prime Minister Tony Blair in London.
France noted that the sentence was not definite as an appeals court and the Turkish parliament must also have their say in the case.
�Death sentences have not been carried out in Turkey since 1984. We would like that situation to continue,� said French foreign ministry spokeswoman Anne Gazeau-Secret.
Turkish minister of State Mehmet Kececiler said Monday in Ouagadougou he felt �solidarity� from the Organisation of the Islamic Conference members meeting there, who �did not disapprove the death sentence.�
Russia asked Turkey to spare Ocalan�s life, with foreign ministry spokesman Vladimir Rakhmanin saying that Ankara should stick to the �noble principles of humanity� that have prevented Turkey from carrying out executions for the past 15 years.
While the death penalty remains on the books, the Turkish parliament has refrained from ratifying the sentences over the past 15 years, imposing a de facto moratorium on capital punishment.
German Interior Minister Otto Schily appealed for calm following the sentence and expressed hope that the ruling will be reviewed by an appeals court and the European court of human rights.
Speaking in Berlin, Schily said the large Kurdish minority in Germany and Kurds worldwide should refrain from violence and �have confidence in an appeal or a hearing before the European court of human rights.�
The European court of human rights could overturn the decision and bring much pressure to bear on Ankara, which is a member of the Council of Europe, to follow suit.
Turkey failed last year in its bid to be named as a candidate for EU membership over concerns for human rights in the country among other issues.
EU commissioner Hans van den Broek, who is responsible for EU enlargement, asked Turkish authorities to �take into account EU opposition to capital punishment� in a statement released in Brussels.
Greece also called on Turkey to �prove that it can respect the values of the European Union� by shunning the death penalty, government spokesman Yannis Nicolaou said in Athens, where some 500 people protested the sentence.
In a statement released in Bern, the Swiss government warned of �a new spiral of violence in Turkey and in Europe� if the death sentence is carried out.
Belgium, Sweden and Norway also expressed hope that Ocalan will not be hanged, while Portugal asked Ankara to exercise its �good sense.�
In Bucharest, the nationalist Romania Mare party slammed the sentence as �unimaginably barbaric� and called Ocalan �a hero for millions of Kurds who have a right to their own country.�
The biggest protest against the sentence was in Greece, where 500 people protested in the centre of Athens.
Hundreds of Kurds also demonstrated in London, Moscow, The Hague, Strasbourg, Helsinki, Nicosia, Vienna, Milan, and Rome, but the protests were yet to reach the size of those staged after Ocalan�s arrest.
SHKODER, Albania
June 30 (AFP)
A bloody mediaeval code of honour known as kanun is virtually the only law in northern Albania, where the state and its police are powerless to stop a rising tide of violence and crime.
On Monday afternoon a dozen men armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles burst into the Sahati bar in the centre of the northwestern town of Shkoder.
They had come to collect the �gjoba�, the protection money claimed by the local mafia.
But bar owner Ibrahim Isufi was waiting for them. In the ensuing shootout five of the gang were killed and three of Isufi�s relatives wounded.
�Isufu�s family knows it will not escape kanun, which requires bloodshed to be avenged by bloodshed,� said Zija Hoxha, a local villager.
�The males, even the youngest, will be cowering in their homes, hoping to escape the vendetta that will be mounted by the relatives of the five dead.�
According to non-governmental groups, the men of some 25,000 families in northern Albania live thus, never going out of the house for fear of being victims of similar feuding.
The women, who are unaffected by the kanun, are left alone to provide for the family�s needs.
�For an Albanian it is never too late to save one�s honour,� commented a newspaper seller at Shkoder.
�In 1948, a policeman shot dead a villager caught stealing fruit,� he recalled. �Forty-six years later the policeman�s son was killed by the theif�s nephew.�
The feuds were suppressed under the regime of the late communist dictator Enver Hoxha, but not the memories. �They resumed in 1991 with the introduction of democracy,� said Bahri Babaj from the village of Mjeda.
�In eight years hundreds of vendettas have taken place in this region,� said Babaj, who blamed democracy for all of Albania�s current ills from crime to unemployment.
�Even drivers responsible for road accidents have been killed by their victims� families.�
A former storeman considered by fellow-villagers to be one of the best educated among them, Babaj decided in 1992 to set up an �association for fraternisation and reconciliation�, which now has 400 members.
�Our aim is to settle disputes between families through dialogue�, he said. �Since 1992, dozens of sworn enemies have shaken hands and their families have returned to living in harmony, thanks to the mediation of our association.�
One of Babaj�s friends, Gezim Gjinaj, said that people took the law into their own hands because the justice system was corrupt and the police incapable.
Children learn to use a firearm as soon as they can hold it, and each household has at least one of the many Kalashnikovs stolen from military depots during the 1997 uprising against the government.
The opposition newspaper Albania devoted its front page to the problem Tuesday, saying that in the two years from June 1997 at total of 1,800 people had been killed and 3,500 wounded in the settling of scores.
�The people of Shkoder are terrorised and the police have virtually no control over the town,� it charged.
Ironically, as the bullets ripped through the Sahati bar on Monday, local dignitaries were holding a meeting a few hundred metres (yards) away to congratulate themselves on a drop in the town�s crime rate.
All Over the Globe is published by IPA House.
© 1998 IPA House. All Rights Reserved.