The Veterans of the Death Fast in 1996 in Turkey

[ozgurluk at xs4all.nl]

Kurtulus Number 91, July 25, 1998

The Veterans of the Death Fast

The martyrs and the Veterans of the Death Fast have cleared the path
to victory for us by equipping us with our moral values. They have
transmitted to us their willpower and determination. If today they
continue to bear the consequences of bringing our struggle to power,
then we will also shoulder the energy of our Veterans of the Death
Fast. Their eyes, ears, consciousness and limbs are those of comrades.

They will die or remain alive, or they will die or survive, but
victory will be theirs. 

With these words they set out on their road. Twelve of the hundreds of
Death Fast fighters fell, and the others have remained behind. But
how? The first things that come to mind when we talk about the
consequences that come from the struggle or will flow from it in the
future, are martyrdom and captivity. But these Veterans also reflect
an important dimension of the struggle for power. Up to the present we
have been able to enumerate a very large number of people who have
been marked by the struggle at a very large number of its levels. We
have hundreds of comrades who have been wounded in actions, or by the
effects of torture, or by a bomb exploding while it was being
manufactured, or as a result of operations in the prisons carried out
by the enemy, and have come away permanently damaged. But the Death
Fast of 1996 produced Veterans marked by the struggle on a far more
massive scale. 

About two years ago, on May 20, 1996, 1,500 revolutionary prisoners in
the jails went on an unlimited hunger strike. On July 3, 1996 they
turned the action into a Death Fast under the slogan "Victory or
death". There was no other way to defeat the oligarchy and win
victory. Victory was achieved through death. 

With the participation of the second and third groups on July 16 and
23, the number of participants in the Death Fast which began with 159
persons on July 3 rose to 270. 

When the Death Fast fighters decided voluntarily to take part in the
Fast, they were clear about the consequences that might arise from
it. Fundamentally the decision they took was one of being prepared to
look death in the eye in the course of a prolonged battle of
wills. But there was also the possibility of being confronted with
different consequences of this struggle, namely suffering damage of
such a kind that no active task in the struggle can be carried out. So
12 revolutionary prisoners fell as martyrs in the Death Fast to win
victory. When victory was announced, a significant majority of Death
Fast fighters had achieved their mission and were still alive. So for
them a mighty struggle arose to return to life.  There were many Death
Fast fighters who could no longer hear or who could no longer see, who
had lost consciousness or were unable to walk.

For our Veterans of the Death Fast, the 69 days of a battle of wills
now had to continue in another dimension. But this new dimension was
not an easy one. They had prepared themselves so well for death, even
though they had won, that they were still prepared to meet death and
did not accept treatment. Some had lost consciousness, others did not
believe the words of the enemy. They wanted their own comrades to tell
them of the victory. After 12 comrades had fallen it seemed to them
that to receive treatment and return to life was like a betrayal. But
the resistance had made the enemy surrender. The willpower to defeat
death they showed in the Death Fast was now needed to overcome the
illnesses and the damage they continued to suffer from. On the other
hand they would take up their place, whether inside or outside prison,
but at any rate inside the struggle, with the motivation of having
fulfilled their tasks and mission faultlessly during a historical
epoch. 

Perhaps the tremor in their hand would prevent them from squeezing a
trigger. Perhaps their eyes could no longer see the May 1
celebrations, the banners waved by our comrades in all corners of the
land, or the resistance of our people to fascism. But they would see
with their hearts and with their consciousness.

Perhaps their ears could no longer hear the slogans that shake the
world, the marches, the defiant shouts hurled at the enemy during
clashes, or they could no longer converse with their comrades. But
they can hear everything with their hearts and their knowledge.

Perhaps their legs can no longer take them to where a barricade is
erected, or to a demonstration, onto the streets or into the
mountains. But in defiance of illnesses and injuries, with their heads
and with the belief in their hearts they can march along the road to
revolution.

Whatever may happen, they must fight through the consequences of the
69 days of struggle. 

The bodies that were prepared to receive death continue to defeat the
damage they suffered.

The General Secretary of the DHKP-C, Dursun Karatas, declared
immediately after the victory in an message to the prisoners of the
DHKP-C that the new struggle was to be conducted on the orders of the
Party and said: 

"The Party-Front acknowledges the connection to the people and Party,
the heroism and readiness for self-sacrifice of all our martyrs at the
head, and all our imprisoned comrades. (...)

We have paid a high price and caused an earthquake in the minds of
millions. On the road of our fallen comrades we will carry our banner
with the belief and trust of our fallen comrades in all corners of our
land while we bow down with respect, embrace and greet all our
comrades.

Note:
1. The injured and the comrades who need treatment will above all employ their willpower and not remain afflicted by physical frailty. They will proceed from the understanding that they will go forward to overcome their afflictions.

2. We will not shrink from any sacrifice or expense needed by our comrades in need of treatment. 

Dursun KARATAS"

"You have fought and won victory, now you must use your willpower in
the process of healing yourselves," the Party leadership said.

Some have fought against their inability to remember things. Some
would put a pencil in a place and promise to find it again two days
later. At the first attempt they did not succeed, but later they did.

Although the hand of some shook, they tried to do work
themselves. Some had to struggle to control their own limbs. For hours
they carried out walking exercises. First with the help of two
comrades, then with the help of one, and finally alone. Even if they
could not quite maintain their balance, and they had a tendency to
fall, they managed to walk. Their comrades have voluntarily put
themselves at the disposal of Veterans of the Death Fast, without
complaining. Sometimes they have had to put up with having to spend
hours feeding soup to a comrade, sometimes they have had to carry
comrades on their shoulders.

They have read to them from books, telling them about how the struggle
is progressing. 

If trembling limbs were able to take two more steps than on the
previous day, if the forgetful memory could remember something new, if
one could read 10 more pages from a book or ask more questions about
it, then nobody could spoil anyone's joy or happiness.

Like the Death Fast martyrs, the Veterans are the enthusiasm, joy and
motivation of the struggle. The values won in the Death Fast have been
carried through into the present day by them. With their love for
their comrades, their dilignece and readiness for self-sacrifice, they
have created new beauties in life.

The Veterans of the Death Fast, with their willpower and readiness to
offer themselves up and to win victory through this readiness have  -
continuing the willpower of the Party-Front - gone into this struggle
as victors. When they had overcome physical obstacles they won life
and the struggle. Even if they could not overcome their physical
damage they managed to live on.

At the same time, our Veterans of the Death Fast are those on our side
who with our fallen comrades have kept the Death Fast of 1996 in
memory and have transmitted this historic event to the future. 

Our Veterans of the Death Fast who together with the fallen comrades
have created a historic phase and at the necessary moment of the
struggle - taking the price into account - have brought their parties
and peoples nearer to victory, causing upheavals in peoples' minds
lasting to the present day.

All who saw them, whether outside or inside prison, or who heard them
and knew them was at their side and able to recognise the heroism,
readiness for self-sacrifice and refusal to turn aside from paying the
price of the "free prisoners", the Front fighters, they remember these
69 days and are shaken by them. They are the living and lively
spokesmen and spokeswomen of the Death Fast

As the Death Fast fighters they have all seen the choice of themselves
as the ones fighting in the foremost rank of the struggle as a
personal evaluation of them by their Party. With this evaluation, the
Party prepared the way for them to go into history as the heroes of
the generation. Our martyrs have reached this stage. 

Continuing the 69-day clash, the way has been opened to our sick
comrades - by giving them the title of "Veterans" - to live on as
bearers of moral values from a significant chapter in our history. The
Veterans of the Death Fast are the moral values of our Party and
struggle.

FASCISM'S POLICY OF "SILENT ANNIHILATION"

The mouthpieces of fascism, who during the Death Fast told the public
"We want to give them treatment, they are refusing it, our hospitals
are ready" stopped saying that after the Death Fast ended. The demand
for the health rights of the prisoners was one of the points accepted
at the conclusion of the Death Fast. But once more the enemy has
failed to keep promises given in front of the people.

Scarcely had the resistance ended than the attacks started while
prisoners were being brought into hospitals. Particularly in the
prisons of Anatolia, it was difficult to even get into a hospital. 

They started not letting through hospital transports bringing
necessary nutritional products. The transmitting of medicines and
special foods which the prisoners had obtained through their own
efforts was obstructed. And the prisoners who after great efforts were
transported into hospitals were chained by the feet in cold or
unventilated roooms, so-called "prison wards", because no area of the
hospital had been set aside to receive them.

Other resistance fighters, who in the first days were given hospital
treatment because of the effect the Death Fast had had, subsequently
were subjected to every kind of obstruction, and some were even left
to die. 

Besides open policies involving attacks and massacres it is also a
planned and conscious policy of fascism to murder the prisoners in
this "silent" and "slow" way. This is not the first time this has been
tried. What fascism did after the Death Fast of 1996 was like what it
had done after previous prolonged hunger strikes such as after the
Death Fast of 1984. Fascism is so far removed from humanity that it
attacked revolutionary prisoners who were at the point of death on the
60th or 70th day of the fast, so despite any promises made they did
not keep them and continued attacks. They prevented the treatment of
revolutionary prisoners and paid no heed to the lasting damage that
had been suffered. Fascism does not know how to cope with defeat. The
prisoners it could not massacre in open warfare it would like to
murder in the most despicable and slow manner.

The resistance fighter of the 1996 Death Fast, the TKP/ML (Communist
Party of Turkey/Marxist-Leninist) fighter Polat IYIT was murdered as a
result of this policy, through the denial of treatment. Many
participants in the Fast still bear the marks of it. But despite this
despicable policy the enemy could not achieve the desired results. The
free prisoners, who have displayed every kind of readiness for
self-sacrifice, have not surrendered, have died but not been defeated,
knew that this policy too would beome bankrupt.

It is an honour to be a Veteran of the Death Fast, this honour must be
protected and we must defend it

Our Veterans of the Death Fast are part of the price we had to pay in
the Death Fast. They are the living reflection of our Death Fast. And
so it is the task of all of us to defend them. 

Today our Veterans are issuing a renewed challenge to death. Without
heeding physical damage and illness, they are carrying out one act of
resistance after another. For they are defending a revolutionary will
which the enemy cannot defeat under any cirmcumstances. 

We know that this is a long and protracted struggle. The struggle is
not over as a result of defeating death once. What is decisive is
being victorious in every clash with the enemy that is conducted.

This is what is necessary for our success. For the enemy, who when
losing a clash does not give up his fight to hang onto power, draws
lessons from defeats and comes back at us with even bigger
attacks. And we must, without stopping, without growing tired, take
the struggle for power to victory with the same consciousness and
resolution that they showed. New victories and the revolution will be
achieved in this way.

VETERANS OF THE DEATH FAST

Sagmalcilar (Bayrampasa) Prison

Mehmet Yaman: At present he cannot keep his balance while walking. He
is oversensitive to loud noises. If there is a noise this causes him
problems. He has a speech impediment, he can pronounce words only with
a kind of drone. He does not have complete control over his hands and
feet.

Ali Ekber Akkaya: Besides progressive loss of consciousness, his sense
of balance in his entire body is disturbed. He cannot completely
control his hands, feet and body. He cannot walk unaided. He cannot
write. Reading tires him quickly. He can only drone his words. He has
constant headaches.

Ali Yalcin: Besides loss of consciousness and forgetfulness, he
suffers from visual diificulties and is oversensitive to loud
noises. He has trouble walking because of slight disturbances of his
sense of balance. 

Mustafa Gök: Visual problems, his eyelids flutter and he has a
disturbed sense of balance. He has trouble keeping his balance while
walking. He cannot completely control his hands and feet, they shake.

Mehmet Güvel: He has constant attacks of dizziness and his sense of
balance is disturbed. It is a strain for him to keep his balance while
walking. He suffers from memory loss. Besides these, he suffers from
salivating on a massive scale, stomach pains and general physical
weakness.  

OTHER PRISONS

Ibrahim Dogan (Bursa Special Prison): Sometimes he is plagued by loss
of consciousness, progressive loss of memory, disturbances of his
sense of balance and general tiredness.

Abdülaziz Nakci (Bartin Prison): Part of the time he suffers from
slight loss of consciousness and forgetfulness. It is difficult for
him to keep his balance while walking. He becomes tired quickly and he
is oversensitive to loud noises.

Serdar Gelir (Bartin Prison): He suffers from forgetfulness, general
physical weakness and difficulty moving about. He has constant
headaches.

Selmani Özcan (Cankiri Prison): He has disturbances of his sense of
balance, shaking hands, a speech impediment and a weak faculty of
perception.

Zeynep Güngörmez (Ankara Central Closed Prison): Some of the time she
suffers from loss of conciousness, progressive memory loss and
disturbances of her sense of balance. It is difficult for her to walk.

-- 
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