Kurtulus no 87, June 27, 1998

[dhkc at xs4all.nl]

Kurtulus, no 87, June 27, 1998

We wýll overcome oppression 

Five years ago at the start of July (1993), tens, hundreds of thousands of us were on the streets. The streets and squares echoed with the sound of our anger. We were very angry because the fire lit by the oppressors in Sivas had taken 36 people from us, 
in a low and treacherous way.

Sivas was not the first time. Before the September 12 putsch, we experienced massacres such as that. Can one forget May 1, 1977, or Maras, or Corum? Or March 16, 1978, Bahcelievler or Piyangotepe? (1) Nor was Sivas the last time. 

The demonstrations on May 1, and in Gazi and Ümraniye were the target of new massacres. (2)

Fascism has attacked the people for decades with contra-guerrillas, police, the military, secret services and civil fascists. Sometimes the masses are the target of these attacks, sometimes individual revolutionaries, democrats and intellectuals. Sometime
s, like after 1991, the entire revolutionary movement is made the target of a policy of annihilation. With July 12, 1991 and April 16-17, 1992, (3) in the mountains and the cities we experienced numerous executions. Hundreds of us fell, offering valiant r
esistance. But that was not enough, for disappearances and the "murders by persons unknown" were added to this. And even that did not suffice, for prisoners were massacred in their jails in Buca (September 1995), Ümraniye (January 1996) and Diyarbakir (Se
ptember 1996). There has never been a lack of torture in this land, or the terror spread by arrests. Our women and young girls were raped. We were thrown into jails by the thousand. Our most fearless people died as martyrs in the mountains of Anatolia. Ou
r villages were bombarded, burned to the ground, destroyed. We were driven into exile. In our own homeland, we had no house or home or place to call our own. We were expelled from school, or fired from work. Or we could never go to school or find a proper
 job. We were condemned to hunger and unemployment, unable to find work to fill our bellies.

All this to uphold the system of exploitation and oppression by imperialism and a handful of collaborators like Koc, Sabanci and Eczacibasi. (4) They wanted nobody to raise their voice against exploitation and oppression, but everybody should bow down to 
it. But they could not make us surrender for all their terror, torture and massacres. Our convictions are strong, our will is firm not to bow our heads, not to surrender, but the enemy is also firm in his intentions. He does not dispense with using repres
sion and terror. While we take care of our people, seek people's justice, organise and come out against oppression, the enemy steps up his attacks. Civil fascists and armed bands surround our schools, city neighbourhoods and workplaces. Our houses, our ne
ighbourhoods are stormed, hundreds are arrested and taken to torture centres. We demand our right to organise in trade unions and the enemy attacks us. We demand work, bread and some reward for the sweat we shed from our brows, and he attacks us. We deman
d a democratic university and education for the people, and the enemy attacks us. We demand the right of national self-determination for the Kurds, and we are attacked. we make a stand against depredations, drugs and prostitution, and the enemy attacks us
. We are the people, there are millions of us, we have the right to exercise power, we say, and want to exercise our right to make decisions and express our opinions freely, and we are attacked. Our democratic institutions are stormed and ransacked. We wa
nt our rights, we want justice. The enemy attacks us. 

No, he says. You will do what I tell you. You will act according to my wishes. You will be content with what whatever Igive you. If I say "sit down", you will sit down and if Isay "stand up", you will stand up. If I say "work", you will work without grumb
ling about it. There is to be no search for rights and justice. And of course no demands for power. You will not raise your voice, but keep your heads bowed and surrender. 

So, will we bow to oppression?

Never.

Will we surrender? Never.

We have never surrendered, never bowed our heads.
They will not be able to succeed. 

To divert us from our path, to force us to surrender, they have made every kind of effort. They have used every kind of psychological warfare. They have tried to expose our leaders, our leading comrades and our movement to scorn, they attacked and slander
ed them in the lowest manner but they had no success. They have murdered, they have even been so low and timid as to desecrate corpses, but still they had no success. Every time our comrades have resisted, they have sought to break the resistance, to dest
roy it. They placed their hopes in the putsch and all attack together, but without success. They used every conceivable form of torture, but without success. 

They have filled the dungeons but they could not make the prisoners surrender. The prisons have become a nightmare for them. And now they are continuing to murder and make people disappear. We are giving martyrs. When our guerrillas fall, they write a new
 legend and inscribe a new page in our tradition of not surrendering. For years they have tried every method of silencing the newspaper Kurtulus, storming its office, causing destruction, arrests and imprisonment. Now they think they can silence the newsp
aper by threatening the owner of the printing firm. Again, they will have no success. They cannot silence the voice of the people, nor will they succeed in the future. The war goes on and we will continue to wage it. Neither today nor tomorrow will we giv
e in to oppression.We will keep on fighting until no bulwark of repression remains standing. 

We must make those who intimidate the people more afraid for their own skins

Disappearances, massacres, torture, arrests, all these are designed to cause fear among the people. To intimidate them and make the people surrender. But despite all that, the people's struggle cannot be prevented. Again the workers and the government emp
loyees are out on the streets. Every Saturday, the families and friends of the disappeared continue their action in front of the Galtatasaray High School. Young people do not let fascist attacks go unanswered. In city neighborhoods the nests of the fascis
ts are attacked, one after the other. Despite all attacks the people continue with the Gazi trial in an effort to bring the murderers to justice. They persist in travelling 1,000 kilometres to Trabzon to demand a reckoning from the murderers. That is what
 is important. The continual resistance of the people despite all these attacks shows a strong potential for revolution. And this is exactly what the enemy fears. Nobody will stop the people's march for work and bread, for rights and justice, for a better
 future, for a reckoning from the Susurluk state. 

Organising this force and increasing the fear of those who want to intimidate the people, today this is one of the most basic tasks.  The enemy must run into our organisation whenever he raises his fist against us. So we must make use of all forms of orga
nisation, from the most simple to the most complex. We must not restrict ourselves to people's councils, associations, trade unions and committees. Everything we use is a tool for making the revolution. Everything that is important is to think in a practi
cal manner, take practical steps and achieve results. 

In the struggle and in organising against fascism, the most important thing is to struggle and to organise without relying on the system or looking to receive toleration from it. 

All forms of organisation, all policies which do not pay heed to that have no serious influence, either on developing the struggle or on organising the resistance to oppression. Today our basis for putting into practice the "Committees of Defence and Stru
ggle against Fascist Terror" is greater than ever. Without making everything too complex, we must propagate an attitude which is capable of driving back fascist attacks, smashing them and giving expression to the people's reaction against them. This attit
ude must be expressed through nests of the fascists being destroyed, or through press conferences, or through demonstrations and meetings, whatever is necessary in the given situation. In other words, we must think in the most broad-minded way possible. W
e must bring the broadest possible section of the masses to confront the fascist terror. Dissipating the disquiet and worry of the masses, and making thoughts flow in the direction of trust and enthusiasm through achieving results in common action - this 
is what gets through to people. 

Our concern must be to use our strength in the best and most effective manner. If we get to know well the city neighbourhoods in which we live, the schools we attend, the workplaces where we earn a living, if we get to know the people there well, there is
 no reason why we cannot do all this. Knowing them, knowing how to set in motion the people's contradictions with the system, their pains, longings and preference for the revolution and how to direct their thoughts and feelings towards revolution. 

We must arm the people. Every one of the Front's people must be able to use a weapon, to learn to be familiar with one and teach this to others. 

We must be persistent and courageous. We must trust in our own strength. We organise and are active and the enemy attacks and tries to scatter and destroy our organisations. We re-organise and continue to be active. There are blows, there are losses. A wa
r cannot be conducted without losses. We will spread our organisation and increase the struggle with these losses. There is no other way. 

Against the attacks of the oligarchy, every struggle, every war by the people is legitimate. To spread the consciousness of this legitimacy, we must illustrate this with examples, without making it too complicated to grasp. With growing consciousness of l
egitimacy, the organising of the people and the resistance is strengthened. 

We must further an ideological and practical struggle, not just against terror and against oppression, but also against the culture of corruption. One of the most important roots of the enemy's strengh is decay and rottenness. We must combat every kind of
 dishonour, decay, prostitution and drugs, in every field.

The Party-Front has grown and become stronger up to now through giving life to the feelings and thoughts of the people in its policies and tactics. That is why the Party-Front has become the only force that can take power and achieve the revolution. We wi
ll see that this march is accelerated when we put this force into full operation.

(1) On July 2, 1993, 36 people died as a result of an arson attack on a hotel in Sivas. On May 1, 1977, police and military personnel shot at the May Day demonstration in Istanbul, and more than 30 people were killed. Maras (1978) and Corum (1979) were pl
aces where civil fascists, in cooperation with the police and military, carried out massacres against the people. On March 16, 1978, seven students were killed by the military in an attack on Beyazit University, Istanbul. In 1978 in Bahcelievler, six stud
ents who were members of TIP (Workers' or Labour Party of Turkey, a pro-Soviet and left reformist party) were murdered with particular brutality by civil fascists. In May 1979 civil fascists stormed a cafe in Ankara's Piyangotepe neighbourhood. They shot 
dead six people. 

(2) For example, on May 1, 1989 M. Akif Dalci was murdered, on May 1, 1996 three people died as a result of gunfire from contra-guerrillas, and another arrested on the same day died as a result of police torture a short time later. On March 12, 1995, civi
l fascists in a car they had stolen fired on a cafe in Istanbul's Gazi Neighbourhood. The police did nothing to bring those responsible to justice. As a result, tens of thousands came out onto the streets and police opened fire on them. In five days of re
bellion, 16 people were murdered and hundreds wounded. In January 1996, four DHKP-C political prisoners in Ümraniye prison, Istanbul were beaten to death by gendarmes who used iron bars.

(3) Operations in which the contra-guerrillas murdered Devrimci Sol cadres, some of them on the Central Committee.

(4) Families owning big business concerns in Turkey. 
                                 
                   

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