BAYIK, (CUMA) CEMIL

(1951- )

   Cemil Bayik is one of the original founders of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and presently one of some five who are still alive and free. He was born in Hazar in the Turkish province of Elazig and attended the Faculty of Language and Literature at the University of Ankara, where he met Abdullah Ocalan, the longtime leader of the PKK, in the early 1970s. Bayik was long identified as the number two man in the PKK.For many years he was also the head of the Kurdistan Peoples Liberation Army (ARGK), the professional army of the PKK. Following Oca-lan's capture in 1999, Bayik became one of some 8 to 10 members of the party's presidential council to replace Ocalan as the daily leader. During their trials, however, both Ocalan and the former PKK military commander Semdin Sakik criticized Bayik's military abilities. However, Bayik apparently is possessed with better diplomatic skills.

   Bayik continues to play a leading role in the PKK along with its current acting head Murat Karayilan. These two have been described as "traditionalists" as opposed to the "reformists" Kani Yilmaz (assassinated in 2006), Nizamettin Tas, and Osman Ocalan (Abdullah Ocalan's brother), who all left the party in 2003. However, when Fehman Huseyin became the head of the PKK's military wing in June 2004, Bayik apparently found himself suspended between Karayilan and Huseyn. Currently Bayik is one of the 12 members of the executive council of the Koma Civaken Kurdistan (KCK), or Kurdistan Democratic Confederation, a PKK umbrella organization. Following heavy Turkish bombing of the PKK's Kandil Mountains sanctuary in May 2008, Bayik was reported to have withdrawn to the Iranian side of the mountains.