The flight of Kurdish refugees to Greece adds to a cycle of violence and vengeance

By MASSIMO CALABRESI

t's not every day one sees recruits inducted into a terrorist organization. But at the Kurdish Cultural Center in downtown Athens it happens three or four times a month. About that often, a self-described "political branch" of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (P.K.K.) sets up a few dozen plastic chairs in a room on the center's dingy first floor, hangs the red and yellow P.K.K. flag on the wall and carts in a Yamaha electric organ to pound out Ey Ragip, a P.K.K. anthem. Grizzled P.K.K. loyalists watch as recruits proclaim their allegiance to the armed movement that has earned a place on the U.S. State Department's list of terrorist organizations. "Five to 10 Kurds leave here every week to return [to Kurdistan] and fight," says Rozerin Laser, Bal-kans general director of the National Liberation Front of Kurdistan (E.R.N.K.), the P.K.K. political group that seeks a Kurdish homeland in parts of Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq.

The P.K.K. recruitment of Kurds in Greece is an overlooked link in the vicious cycle of refugees and revolution across Europe's southeastern frontier. In January, an influx of thousands of Kurds into Italy and Greece reminded the rest of the E.U. how permeable its borders really are. But not all Kurdish asylum seekers end up in Western Europe. Some join the P.K.K. and return to would-be Kurdistan to fight, fueling more Turkish repression and a new flood of refugees and potential P.K.K. recruits. With the Greek government turning a blind eye, P.K.K. representatives claim the recruiters are free to start the process over again. The latest refugee crisis, says one senior Western diplomat in Athens who specializes in terrorist issues, "unveiled Turkey's appalling human rights record and revealed the porous frontiers of Greece and Italy." But, he says, "It also took the wrappings off Greece's tolerance of rebel Kurds."

The E.R.N.K.'s induction ceremonies are just the tail end of the process for turning refugees into revolutionaries. The real indoctrination and recruitment goes on at places like Lavrion, 45 km southeast of Athens, one of about five main refugee camps for the 100 or so Kurdish asylum seekers arriving each month. Although hardly lavish, the camp boasts an 18-inch color TV with a satellite dish to receive daily broadcasts from MED TV, the Kurdish news station. Kurdish camp leaders use cell phones for calls to their "brothers in battle," as they describe their cohorts on the outside. The crumbling walls are hung with pictures of P.K.K. strongman Abdullah Ocalan and martyrs to the Kurdish cause.

"This is the greatest help that Greece is providing us," says Ferzeyn Iskender, a self-proclaimed P.K.K. loyalist at Lavrion. "It is here away from their homeland that the Kurds nurture their ethnic identity, learn who they are, what they stand for, how they've been abused by the Turkish authorities." He points to a group of children playing in the compound's concrete courtyard. "Listen," he says. "They're singing Ey Ragip." P.K.K. tutors arrive twice a week, according to camp leaders, to teach the history of Kurdistan, its language, customs and traditions, subjects that would be illegal in Turkey. But P.K.K. activists at the camp quickly turn such topics into propaganda. The E.R.N.K.'s Laser admits that her success in recruitment "is the result of a process of ideological training."

Turkey says Greece is aiding and abetting the P.K.K., citing the confessions of P.K.K. members as proof. "We are just stating what P.K.K. terrorists captured in Turkey are saying," says Sermet Atacanli, a spokesman for Turkey's Foreign Ministry. "They have been trained in Greece, both ideologically and militarily." "Lies, lies, lies!" responds Greece's fiery Foreign Minister, Theodore Pangalos, to accusations of Greek involvement. Western diplomats monitoring the P.K.K. say there's no hard evidence substantiating such accusations, but that "there is a gray area in the field of financial support."

Much sympathy and support comes from the Greek population itself, which sees parallels between the Kurdish nationalist movement and their own 1830 liberation from the Ottoman Empire. "The same thing is happening now with the Kurds," says English teacher Kaiti Piperopoulou as she delivers school supplies to Lavrion. "We must help them." The P.K.K. builds on that backing, circulating fundraising leaflets festooned with symbols of Greek, Kurdish and Greek Cypriot unity and bearing slogans like, "The solution to the disputes in the Aegean and Cyprus goes through Kurdistan." The leaflets always include the bank account numbers for the E.R.N.K. "We are not hiding what we are doing," says Lavrion's Iskender.

In the U.S., such open P.K.K. activities would be a breach of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1996 and would bring prison sentences of up to 10 years for those perpetrating them. But in Greece, the P.K.K.'s terrorist fire spreads virtually unchecked. Across the border, Turkey fans the flames with its draconian treatment of the Kurdish minority, and year by year more Kurds are drawn into the conflagration.

--Reported by Anthee Carassava/Athens

--Reported by Anthee Carassava /Athens