Ocalan, who is being held in an undisclosed hospital near Rome, was adding his own form of pressure. My presence here testifies to a change in the strategy of the Kurdish national movement. Angry demonstrations for and against Ocalan have spread across Europe. The other protester in Moscow and the man in Rome were hospitalized. Kurdish demonstrators in Turkey also set themselves on fire this week.
Passions also run high on the other side.
In Brussels, Turkish demonstrators set fire to two houses in a neighborhood with many Kurdish residents. Italian television Wednesday night showed Turkish demonstrators in Istanbul holding rallies, burning Kurdish flags and calling for a boycott of Italian goods, including Versace and Armani designer clothes. Any hope the Italian government harbored that Germany would take Ocalan off its hands, moreover, has dimmed. Germany, which issued a warrant for Ocalan's arrest on homicide charges in 1990, has not requested his extradition, which Italy could more easily grant because Germany has no death penalty. But Germany has a huge Turkish population and a strong Kurdish one, and is apparently reluctant to make a move that would inevitably generate fresh tensions.