Leaving the PKK: Toward a process-oriented model of disengagement

Such an analysis has three advantages:

1) It uses primary data and an inductive process to arrive at a model for disengaging from political violence that can be used for understanding disengagement from other underground groups. It thus complements the previous research done on these processes based on other individual cases. ²

Former Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan militants

Socio-demographic characteristics of these former militants

Among those who left the PKK, our study showed an over-representation of those from the Alevi community (two-thirds ⁷ ). Four were part of the first cohort to join the party, that is, those who joined before the 1990s, in our case, between 1986 and 1989. The others joined the organization as part of the second wave of new members, who enrolled in great numbers in the 1990s. In our study, they joined between 1990 and 1993. On average, they were part of the guerrilla forces for 15 years. None of the fighters we interviewed who joined the party as part of the third cohort had gone through a disengagement process. Perhaps this is because the meso-social factors that pushed some people out of the party became less of an issue in the 2000s, when the third wave of new members joined the PKK.

In terms of socio-demographics, most of this group came from patriotic families (Guibet Lafaye and Tugrul, 2021) or had left-leaning political sensibilities (Turkish Left, Socialists, DDKD), which was less true of the rest of the respondents. Another difference was that while half the group of interest attended university, this was not true of the group as a whole. On average, they joined the PKK at twenty-one, something that was similar across all respondents.

Militants from the first generation who later left the PKK cited diverse reasons for initially joining, from ideology (B) to state pressure (A), or even a “nationalist feeling” (C). Those from the second cohort, however, had the same motivations as those who joined the PKK in droves in the 1990s. Faced with massacres, state repression, and the deaths of loved ones, they felt pushed into the conflict. Some of the women of this generation also said that joining the guerrilla forces was a way for them to escape the traditional life of a Kurdish woman. Overall, the group of interest did not show any trajectories that set them apart from other militants from the first two generations described in previous works (Dorronsorro and Grojean, 2009; Guibet Lafaye and Tugrul, 2022; Guibet Lafaye, 2022a).

The conditions of disengagement: Diachronicity, turning points, and windows of opportunity

When trying to interpret the disengagement process, we must look not so much for specific causes, rather we should see it as a cumulative process. This means that some prior choices limit a person’s subsequent choices, and our goal is to highlight the processes and mechanisms whose actions (both in time and in space) produce observable effects (Bennani-Chraïbi and Fillieule, 2012). When we set aside mono-causal thinking, ⁸ we are better able to see all of the other factors that influence individual trajectories at our three levels of observation (micro-meso, micro-macro, and meso-macro). Studying individual life trajectories is a useful approach because it gives us access to diachronic mechanisms, rather than synchronic ones, allowing us to account for changing contexts, organizational transformations, and personal life events. Based on the biographical accounts that we collected, we will demonstrate the usefulness of an analytical model of disengagement that combines an attention to diachronicity, the identification of micro-level turning points, and of meso-level windows of opportunity. Such a model has greater heuristic value than any single-dimension approach, since there is no single motive that can adequately explain the variations in circumstances, contexts, and the attitudes of individuals toward their disengagement and the processes that led them there, or the meso-social contexts and effects of external and internal pressures on the movement and on individuals (Bosi and Della Porta 2012, 380–381). It aims to produce “a precise, abstract, and action-based explanation which shows how the occurrence of a triggering event regularly generates the type of outcome to be explained” (Hedström and Swedberg, 1998: 6).

The model that we propose accounts for one of the fundamental limitations of underground organizations: you cannot just leave them as you would a labor union. While the study of various such organizations in Western Europe and the Middle East has allowed us to refute the idea that people can only leave “feet first” (i.e., once dead), the fact remains that the secrecy surrounding these groups prevents people from joining and leaving as freely as they would other legal social movements. This structural limitation makes disengagement a process that must occur over a long timeframe. The time it takes may also be influenced by subjective reasons, such as changing ideals, which can lead an individual to a biographical crossroads. When individuals recount this transitional phase retrospectively, there is often an initial scene that they remember as the starting point that led them into doubt and confronted them with contradictions that could only prove irreconcilable in the months and years to come.

Of course, any retrospective account will suffer from interpretive biases. Semi-structured interviews also encounter the problem of biographical illusion, since the individual is retracing their life history in a linear fashion after the fact (Bourdieu, 1986: 69). They tend to produce narratives of a life “organized as a history, [which] unfolds according to a chronological order which is also a logical order, with a beginning, an origin (both in the sense of a starting point, and of a principle, a raison d’être, a primal force), and a termination, which is also a goal” (Bourdieu 2017). Thus, when our respondents recounted their personal experience, they transformed episodes from their life into a narrative, assigned meaning to what had happened to them, justified and argued in an attempt to convince, and sometimes insisted either on the weight of their oppression or on the threats they were facing. ⁹ In the PKK, the events that led to these “archetypal scenes” involved either comrades—who had been abandoned on the battlefield, or who were suddenly determined to kill someone they were ready to die for only minutes earlier—or the individual themselves, especially during trials.

The long timeframe of disengagement

From the moment when an individual first feels doubts arise, which may be as soon as they are fully immersed in the organization, ¹⁰ to the moment it becomes possible for them to leave, the time may vary, sometimes taking years (see Erreur: source de la référence non trouvée). A began to doubt his place within the PKK in the late 1990s but didn’t leave until 2004. C was first faced with difficult questions in 1996, but he also only left in 2004. ¹¹ Dr. Suli ¹² was the only person who began questioning in 1999 and who, after Öcalan’s arrest and the declaration that a democratic solution would be sought out, immediately committed to disengaging in 2000. These decisions take time because it takes years to consider the contradictions that arise from your own commitments and to accept that your concerns will not be resolved. This may be for structural reasons—like a change in ideology or because some party members aren’t interested in addressing or willing to address certain issues (see B, G, footnote 17)—or for personal reasons, such as feeling torn between loyalty to your comrades and the feeling of no longer being yourself, or deciding to remain part of a collective, even though it conflicts with your own values and political stance. G’s story is a classic example:

I went to Syria as well, but there wasn’t much of a PKK. You don’t find an organizational structure based on strong interpersonal relationships or on good ideas that feel like they reflect your own revolutionary spirit. For this reason, sometimes you feel a bit mixed (ambivalent). Still, mixed feelings alone aren’t enough to decide that you will leave the organization. It’s the same for a lot of others as well. Because it’s not just the idealized reality of the PKK, you also are drawn into staying by other emotional factors. I mean, those are you comrades dying at your side, you owe them your loyalty. So, you create a dynamic within yourself thanks to them, your martyred comrades. You decide you will always choose the resistance, at any price, dividing the world into two choices: betrayal, or the resistance. That means it becomes the most basic reason why you’re there, and you stay for that reason. For example, when times got tough, I thought about killing myself. In other words, I contemplated suicide, but the thought of leaving the PKK never crossed my mind. I always said, “No matter who leaves the PKK, I never will!” My thinking was: “I’ve made my decision, I’m in. So many people have died at my side, I've made so many sacrifices for this fight, by staying in this fight. . .” The PKK actually has a very decentralized structure, you have something special with the people you’re in with, you feel unity with them. Those are the basic motivations that make up your identity and you wind up feeling like you won’t know who you are anymore if you leave them behind. As a result, leaving is never even on your list of options. ¹³

Turning points and disengagement

G’s account shows us that this maturation process can take time and that there are certain events that act as turning points, similar to those that can lead to joining up in the first place. These events may be related to ideology, especially when they resonate with the same reasons that an individual joined an organization (See B in Guibet Lafaye, 2022b). This was clear in the interview with A:

The breaking point for me was when they gave up on the idea of a free and democratic Kurdistan. That was it. [...] I made it very clear in my report to the PKK Council: I did not support the idea of a Democratic Republic of Turkey and for that reason, I could no longer accept the PKK’s ideology.

While they usually occur at the meso-social level, these events can also take place at the micro level, with a direct impact on individual experiences. G, for example, was accused of betraying the organization and was found guilty by several internal tribunals for having spoken out against certain practices within the party. The legitimacy, fairness, and accessibility of internal party tribunals were cited as lacking on several occasions. ¹⁴ G had to submit to the group’s violence within such a disciplinary framework. His process of disengagement began as a result of the “disciplinary systems” that the party put in place (Grojean, 2013: 68). Interestingly, the respondents mentioned relatively few macro events that contributed to their decision to leave. The trajectories followed by those who disengaged make it clear that “repressive policies do not necessarily, in themselves, facilitate an emergence from violence” (Bosi, 2012: 183). In this instance, increased repression of the Kurdish movement led to massive and collective engagement with the party (Dorronsorro and Grojean, 2009; Guibet Lafaye and Tugrul, 2021).

Such reconstructed contexts allow us to “understand how and with what reasoning individuals ‘get by’ when rewards run out. There may be pushback, people may step back from their roles, or there may be attempts to transform the role or even defections. At this point, an individual’s dependence on their role (Hechter, 1987; Taylor, 1988) and the existence of lateral possibilities, largely determined by factors in other spheres of their life, become a web of limitations, which may lead to defection. The socializing force of the role the person is leaving, as well as the way they leave it, are the most important determining factors in shaping their trajectory once they have completed their disengagement” (Fillieule, 2012: 47). In the case of underground organizations, these “lateral possibilities” are extremely limited, and reintegration into civilian life is fraught with difficulties (Guibet Lafaye, 2022b). In this regard, the interviews we conducted reflected situations similar to those that have been analyzed in other contexts (Debos, 2008; Duclos, 2010; Montaz and Diallo, 2021). This explains why the most effective catalyst in the disengagement process is when a new window of opportunity opens, making it possible for individuals to take the last step: actually leaving the group.

Disengagement made easier by windows of opportunity

In short, “individual disengagement from terrorism may be [. . .] the result of an individual or a collective process (or some combination of both)” (Horgan, 2008). On several occasions, the biographical accounts we collected mentioned the influence of collective departures on individuals’ decision to disengage (See G, I, D), with a similar influence coming from key moments in the party’s history. Both would seem to open a window of opportunity for disengagement. Collective movements to leave a group make it easier for individuals to make that decision, especially since leaving with a group is also a good way to prevent reprisals. For many years, anyone who considered leaving the PKK ran the risk of reprisal. In fact, defectors ran the risk of being killed by the party for leaving (A, C ¹⁵ ), although the same was true of anyone who spoke out too loudly against the party’s internal practices and ideological stances (B). Collective departures therefore become windows of opportunity for individuals to successfully leave an underground group. Such windows of opportunity make it possible to leave the guerrilla forces without losing face and with a reduced risk of being labeled a traitor.

The history of the PKK has created several such windows. One of the first came with the party congress that followed Öcalan’s arrest. The 7th PKK party congress that was held between January 2 and 23 January 2000 resolved to abandon armed conflict in favor of a “democratic political fight”. D seized the moment, as did many others, to leave the party. He was part of a wave of thirty comrades who disengaged. In 2004, another window of opportunity opened that allowed many others to leave the party (C, A, B, G, H). These departures came after an internal conflict between 2003 and 2004 between a “reformist” wing of the party and a “conservative” wing, led by Cemîl Bayik, Duran Kalkan, and Murat Karayilan, which wanted to maintain the PKK as a “professional framework” (Karayılan, 2014). Some structuring event is therefore needed, that will facilitate or impede collective departures by opening a window of opportunity, often unexpectedly. This creates departure “cohorts” just as there are “cohorts” of those who join underground organizations.

Biographical accounts allow us to grasp the exact role played by these opportunities, the importance of which has already been highlighted in the literature on the history of the PKK (Cigerli and Le Saout, 2005; Akkaya and Jongerden, 2011; Grojean, 2013). These opportunities do not cause departures, but rather they are moments when departures become easier, so individuals seize them when they appear. Öcalan’s arrest and the paradigm shift of 1999 thus created a window of opportunity for those who were no longer satisfied with their experience within the PKK to leave. I, for example, was already aware of various contradictions within the party by that time, ¹⁶ so she took this event as an opportunity to leave. She was tired of the life of a combatant, so she joined a wave of disengagement to get out of the group.

Importance of meso and micro factors in disengagement

In the early 2000s, the party’s structure and hierarchy were unclear, with Öcalan remaining leader, although he was in prison. ¹⁷ This made leaving the party easier by reducing the severity of any possible punishments. There was another wave of departures facilitated by demilitarization between 2002 and 2004 and by other internal schisms, despite the fact that those who left, the so-called traitors, ran the risk of execution by the party. G’s story makes it clear that the various phases of disengagement line up with certain key events in the party’s history. He first mentions the micro-sociological impact of this meso-level change on himself and on his trajectory:

For example, after 2002, I stopped carrying weapons. I stopped because weapons and previous (military) actions had been condemned by the PKK leaders. [. . .] I felt, for example, that I had lost my connection with weapons in 2002. After that, the desire for demilitarization and other feelings that I was already having, as well as the fact that you cannot live the way you want to live, all pushed me to get involved in a rapid demilitarization effort. There were lots of people living in the mountains, or trying to live there, in very difficult circumstances. [. . .] Demilitarization was difficult for us, because we were cut off [we had lost our connections with society].

The impacts on the individual go beyond the psychological. The demilitarization process pushed him and others to take an active role in defining the guerrilla forces’ strategic position with regard to armed violence:

We were involved in the process of giving up political violence. The year 2002 was an important year for the idea that “this organization can’t go on like this. Mistakes have been made. ¹⁸ The question is how can we correct them?”, and for discussions around this idea. First, a kind of factionalism sprung up, which later turned into a complete break with the party. I'm talking about 2004, when the biggest splits occurred within the PKK.

The procedural and sequential model of disengagement that combines a long time, turning points, and, in this case, meso-level windows of opportunity, can also be seen in I’s account of staying in the guerrilla forces for 17 years:

At first, we joined up to fight for an independent Kurdistan, but later, the PKK adopted the position that it was in favor of a Democratic Republic of Turkey and began singing the praises of Atatürkism [Kemalism]. Later, there was an even more radical change, with a call to lay down our weapons in exchange for an amnesty. All of these things were glaring contradictions in my mind, but I was able to live with them until 2010. In 2010, our actions were criticized by the PKK and by Apo [A. Öcalan], and that was the moment I personally decided to leave the organization. What I mean is, I realized that I no longer had any reason to stay, so I decided to leave. That was in 2009 and I was able to actually leave in 2010.

Throughout the 2000s, the party’s strategy to prevent departures depended less on physical reprisals, up to and including death, than on organizational efforts to “reorient” members, opening up “lateral possibilities,” alternatives to life as a guerrilla fighter: when A indicated that he wanted to leave the PKK, to quit the HPG, ¹⁹ the party tried to make him part of the popular movement, that is, involve him in legal activism. These “possibilities” then act as a final catalyst, as an immediately available opportunity for completing a long process of distancing oneself from an underground organization. Outside such meso-sociological structural factors, many respondents spoke of the importance of meso- and micro-level “lateral possibilities” in their process of disengagement. On the micro level, this may mean receiving enough emotional support to transition out of an underground organization and into civilian life, which depends on an individual’s social network (See F).

Micro-sociological analyses of emergence from violence processes thus reveal the central role of meso- and micro-level factors, which are more important than the macro-social stratum. It therefore seems that in such instances, repressive policies “are only put into place when the socio-political climate is right” (Bosi, 2012: 183). This seems to have been the case after Öcalan’s arrest in 1999. His arrest led less to a repression of combatants than it did to a repression that compromised the structure of the organization, with its strategic aims and leadership being called into question (Akkaya and Jongerden, 2011, 2012). Departures from the guerrilla forces are therefore the product of a conjunction of influences at the macro, meso, and micro levels.