Dear Friends,

If you live in America or know of someone who does, please consider contacting your representative to sign the letter below. If you have trouble reaching your representative, let us know, we can help. We recommend you make an appointment with your representative or his/her assistant. Take a copy of the letter with you and urge him/her to sign the letter. When they do, call to notify us. Since this effort has just begun, you might also want to check with us from time to time to see if your representative has joined the effort.

Without American support, Turkey, we believe, would ask for forgiveness from the Kurds. Through this appeal, we are asking America to urge its ally Turkey show magnanimity towards Mr. Ocalan.

As always, we thank you for your interest in the Kurds.

AKIN

May 19, 1999

Help Head Off a Crisis in Turkey

A Fair Trial for Kurdish Leader Abdullah Ocalan And A Peaceful Settlement of the Turkish-Kurdish Conflict

Dear Colleague:

An ongoing war between the Turkish armed forces and the Kurdish rebels has left thousands dead, millions uprooted and a nomadic way of life known to Kurds for millennia disrupted, causing untold misery and the polarization of the Kurdish and Turkish communities more than ever before. The results of last month s elections point clearly to the alienation of these two communities. It looks like the trial of Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan, slated to begin later this month, may serve as a catalyst to unleash a regional crisis throughout the Middle East.

In an effort to show our support for the cause of peace and reconciliation between these two only recently estranged peoples, and to head off a major crisis in the region, we ask you to sign the attached letter to President Clinton urging his intervention on this important matter. Please contact Richard Patrick at Rep. Filner s office at 225-8045 or Ted Loud at Rep. Pallone s office at 225-4671 to add your name to this effort.

Sincerely,

Bob Filner, M.C.

(signed)

Frank Pallone, JR., M.C.

(signed)

Dear Mr. President:

As the bloodiest century in human history draws to a close, the United States stands as the world s best hope for a more peaceful and secure future. The suffering of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo has moved the United States and our NATO allies to take military action, while American diplomacy continues to facilitate negotiations in regional conflicts from Northern Ireland to the Middle East.

In Turkey, the Kurdish people continue to suffer atrocities at the hands of Turkish troops. Their land has become the setting for war, despite the repeated cease-fires and calls for negotiations by the Kurdish rebels. The efforts by the Kurdish people to assert their basic rights and promote their culture are met by the harshest repression, with the Kkurdish language banned in Turkey and Kurdish activists imprisoned or murdered by the Turkish security forces. Turkish Kurdistan, once home to 18 million livestock, can now only feed 4 million. Over 3, 000 villages have been destroyed. More than 3 million Kurds are refugees.

We have taken a stand against Slobodan Milosevic s policy of persecution against the Kosovar Albanians. We are shocked as Albanian refugees are stripped of all documentation of their identities. Our policy is based on the concern that a failure to act now could unleash a wider regional conflict. In Turkey, a policy of persecution every bit as egregious has continued for years, largely ignored by the outside world. Turkey officially refuses to even acknowledge the Kurds existence as a unique people. Left unaddressed, the Turkish campaign against the Kurds has the potential to escalate into a regional crisis that would directly affect U.S. interests.

The case of the Kurdish leader, Abdullah Ocalan, forces us to confront this issue. In Turkish custody since February 15, 1999, Mr. Ocalan has been the sole inmate of Imrali island prison. Denied proper access to this lawyers, there are indications that he is suffering from a psychological breakdown. Wesley Gryk, an American lawyer with Amnesty International in Ankara has reported the beatings of Mr. Ocalan s lawyers by the Turkish police. Charged with treason, he is slated to appear before a military court on May 31, 1999. The debate in the Turkish press is not about whether he will get a fair trial, but rather when

he will be executed.

Mr. President, we respectfully insist that this trial can no longer be treated as a purely internal matter for Turkey. The humiliation of a show trial, closed to international observers, and the subsequent execution of Mr. Ocalan would likely unleash a wider conflict with serious implications for Turkish and regional stability.

We urge you, Mr. President, to use the considerable American influence with Turkey to convince that country s leaders to show magnanimity towards Mr. Ocalan, and to open his trial to international observers. Further, we respectfully urge your Administration to seize on the current situation as an opportunity to begin the process of peacefully resolving the Turkish-Kurdish conflict. The United States has been a beacon of hope to the Kurds of Iraq. We believe the Kurds of Turkey also have the right to live free of persecution, and that America can play a leading role in helping to resolve this tragic conflict.

Sincerely,

The American Kurdish Information Network (AKIN)

2623 Connecticut Avenue NW # 1

Washington, DC 20008-1522

Tel: 202.483.6444

Fax: 202.483.6476

Web-site: www.kurdistan.org

E-mail: akin@kurdish.org

AKIN provides a public service to foster Kurdish-American understanding and friendship