MLKP International Bulletin No. 190
Existing translations
In This Issue:
- Statement of our Kurdistan Organization for Comrade Irfan Gerçek
- MLKP Central Committee’s appeal to the forces of the TKP / ML
- The Anger of Mothers will Strangle the Murderers!
- Stepping in the 25th year of Struggle;
- "For the Victory of the Revolution, Long Live Our Party MLKP!"
Dersim Is Honor, It Can Not Be Captured
Irfan Gerçek Is Illuminating Our Way!
We came to know that Munzur of the Rojava, Baran of the Dersim mountains, our comrade Irfan Gerçek fell martyr due to the bombardments of the jets and helicopters belonging to the colonialist fascist Turkish army. Local sources informed that on August 28, the area between the Venk bridge and Fırtına Veli fountain located in the Munzur Valley was bombed by the warplanes and the cobra-type helicopters of the Turkish army and among from our guerrilla unit in the area, our comrade Irfan Gerçek, with his party name Baran Dersim, fell martyr. A detailed statement regarding the battle and the situation in the area will be announced later.
A revolutionary Life
Comrade Irfan Gerçek has lived a revolutionary life; he grew up in a revolutionary family, joined the struggle for honor and freedom at his young age, has worked with a great loyalty and determination in many fields ranging from democratic actions to the militia activities, from prisons to the guerrilla mountains. Passing his 20 years out of his 33 years of life as an organized and a party member, he has followed the traces of the communist revolutionaries that grew him up, such as the comrade Irfan Çelik from whom he took his name. In a family atmosphere with a revolutionary mother, father, uncles and aunts, he came to the fore with his independent identity and will, and became one of the youngest cadres of our party with his critical mind and willpower of action.
Our comrade Irfan, who has shined with his laborer and joyful character in every field he has been, related himself with the Communist Youth Organization (KGÖ) at his 14, played vanguard roles in all kinds of youth actions, carried out mass organization and militia activities in the laborer quarter where he lived as well as in the other parts of Istanbul, and thereafter, he was captivated in prison. He passed his prison years by educating himself ideologically and politically, as well as being in the forefront of the prison resistances. As he became free from prison, he passed to the political military front which he was ardently willing to join. After getting education in the Hüseyin Demircioğlu Academy based in the Medya Defense Zones, he stayed for a while in Rojava with the name Munzur Onur, fought against the ISIS gangs. Finally, he headed towards back to the free mountains, to Dersim which has always been his biggest aspiration.
Carrying out his duty as a fighter and commander of the MLKP/FESK Rural Guerrilla Units for 2 years in Dersim, our comrade Irfan raised the flag of our party and our martyrs higher against the unequal and massacrist war of the colonialist Turkish bourgeois army and brought honor to all of us.
Dersim is Honor
The fascist Turkish army is carrying out a bloody and unequal dirty war in the lands of Dersim which is full of the footsteps of immortal martyrs in every inch of its soil. By using the most intensified and cruel military tech, it tries to get a favourable result in the fight against the guerrillas, who cannot be defeated in a one-on-one combat; however it fails to succeed. Despite all martyrdoms, the guerrilla keeps on hitting the colonialist state in Dersim, keeps on rising the honor and hope. The bloody fascist dictatorship reveals its desperateness by burning our mountains and forests. It has been burning and destroying these “souled lands”, as the martyr Atakan Mahir calls. Those murderers like the Interior Minister of Turkey, Süleyman Soylu, the most disgusting representative of the inglorious lineage, may not be aware of it, but anyhow we say it: no military technique that is capable to defeat the souls of the immortal martyrs like Seyid Rıza, Elişêr, Besê, Cafer Cangöz, Baran Dersim, Irfan Tezer, Alişer Deniz, is invented yet! Even though they continue to burn down and carry out massacres, new Irfans giving the fight of hope and honor will be re-sprouted from those ashes, just like the phoenix Simurg. No one would doubt about this fact!
His path is our path!
Representing the joyful and hopeful revolutionariness with his own being, our comrade Irfan Gerçek armed up and fought in Dersim as he desired; he showed the way and brought honor for those who followed him. He created strong comradeship relations with his brothers and sisters in arms whit whom he fought side by side. He raised the flag of the United Revolution and became one of the vanguards of the willpower that accords with the slogan of the Peoples’ United Revolutionary Movement (HBDH), “Fascism will be defeated, resisting peoples will win!”
On behalf of our comrade Irfan, we commemorate all martyrs of Dersim with respect and loyalty. We condole with the dear family Gerçek together with all their acquaintances and give promise to maintain a war that is worthy of them. We bid farewell our comrade Irfan with his beloved songs, clenched fists and promises for bringing to book. We call our peoples, particularly the people of Dersim, to claim the martyrs of Dersim and to challenge the fear atmosphere that the colonialist fascist state tries to create. Martyrs shall be our guiding light in this honorable stance!
Irfan Gerçek is immortal!
Şehidên Dersîmê Bê Mirinin!
Fascism will be defeated,
resisting peoples will win!
MLKP / Kurdistan
The registry information of our martyr:
Name and Surname: Irfan Gerçek
Party name: Baran Dersim/Munzur Onur
Mother’s name: Fintoz
Father’s name: İbrahim
Place of birth: Dersim
Date of Birth: August 13, 1985
Date of Martyrdom: August 28, 2018 / Dersim
Appeal to the forces of the TKP / ML in front of the working class, women,
young people and our labouring peoples!
As we know, discussions about disagreements and practical attitudes within the TKP/ML ended with the announcement of a split. From the beginning, our party tried to prevent this split, which she was convinced could be avoided. Our party’s thoughts on this subject were conveyed through meetings to our revolutionary comrades, who opposed each other in two parts. It was suggested to the confronting parties to organize a collective solution platform, which would correspond to the right of the TKP / ML, in order not to let this state turn into a split, whereby it should be announced in advance that the will resulting from the platform would be accepted. Unfortunately, these efforts have not stopped the will to split.
Both sides who wanted the division and who insistently argued that it was unavoidable did not show the necessary common sense to lead possible problems after the split. They did not seek a way of understanding. They did not seek the possibilities of a collective solution platform involving the revolutionary parties and groups they deemed appropriate, or other options.
With the unacceptable attitude of turning to fascist states’ means of "solutions" today, making declarations that expose the forces and opportunities to risk, they have come to a point of applying methods that the fascist regime can use as an opportunity, which can create new problems. By holding back the discussion, whose share has been as high as it has been, we have reached a stage in which the sides of this current as a whole have struck in a very dangerous direction. Leaning on the legitimacy of revolutionary comradeliness, we address all sides that have chosen the separation of the TKP / ML:
1) In response to these activities, we invite them to put an end to the attitudes, whose ideological and organizational account will be very grave, and apply for a revolutionary justice - revolutionary legality platform made up of revolutionary parties and groups, that they consider appropriate,
2) to refrain immediately from addressing "solution"means of the fascist state,
3) make no statements that endanger forces and opportunities and deepen problems,
4) to impose a ban on gossip and propaganda, which decipher the cadres and revolutionary opportunities of the TKP / ML, endanger their organizational security and disseminate secrets for which people have accepted death, and to chase away those from their ranks who do not stick to it.
5) Our further thoughts, criticisms, and suggestions will continue to be given to both parts which bear the same name and symbol, taking into account the right of revolutionary secrecy and revolutionary comradeliness.
No to "Solution" Methods that Ignore Ideological Values!
Long live the revolution!
July 30, 2018
MLKP Central Committee
The Anger of Mothers will Strangle the Murderers!
Apart from conducting a systematic repression over the oppressed classes, peoples and identities in order to maintain the non-legitimate power of their own class, the bourgeois states hold the physical liquidation of those who threatens their tyranny order as an existential cause for themselves. For this sake, the bourgeois order does not restrain from mobilizing their both official and non-official forces against the leading ranks of the oppressed classes; isolate them in prisons, impose an exile through various ways of oppression or annihilate them by murders. Within this context, the enforced disappearances stands as one of the most cruel state policy through which fascism becomes nakedly concertized.
On August 25, the fascist dictatorship of Erdoğan brutally attacked the 700th vigil of the “Saturday Mothers”, who have been gathering in İstanbul / Galatasaray Square for 23 years, sitting in silence with holding pictures of their relatives that went missing in police detention. Hundreds of people have been subjected to the police violence with water cannons, tear gas and plastic bullets, and 47 of them were detained including the families of the missing such as 82 year old mother Emine Ocak. On the following days, the Interior Minister, Süleyman Soylu, defended the police violence by swearing at the mothers and announced that the state will not allow the Saturday vigils anymore. Now, the fascist state takes the Galatasaray Square under a siege every Saturday, whereas the Saturday Mothers keep on gathering and escalating their true voice in front of the police barricades. The share of Turkey and North Kurdistan in this universal humanity crime of enforced disappearances has an exceptional place mostly with its period of the 90’s. As the fight and resistance were growing in the 90's, specifically with the massive uprisings of Kurdish people in Northern Kurdistan under the leadership of the Kurdish Liberation Movement, but also with the revolutionary awakening in the west part of Turkey that was manifesting itself through workers' resistances and uprisings in the laborer quarters of the big cities, the fascist Turkish state was responding this “revolutionary situation” by conducting the most horrible methods of its dirty war; burning Kurdish villages, continuous detains, rape, torture, direct murders as well as the enforced disappearances. It was the period where many revolutionaries, Kurds and Alevi people were 'disappearing' after being abducted by the state forces; leaving their relatives with an unclear hope for the rest of their whole life.
The struggle of the Saturday mothers started in that dark period of the 90's, after Hasan Ocak, who was one of the founder cadres of MLKP, abducted by the police on the 21st of March, 1995, mostly because of his leading role in the Gazi uprising emerged after the counter-guerrilla's attack to Alevi people's place in Istanbul / Gazi quarter. The police denied his detention whereas Hasan Ocak's family and comrades immediately mobilized for creating a public attention with their campaign “You Took Him Alive, We Want Him Alive”, in order to prevent him to be murdered. After various forms of actions including occupying the party buildings of the government, hunger strikes, rallies and press conferences in the squares, TV buildings, universities, work places etc.., Hasan Ocak's body was found in the cemetery of the nameless. It came out that he was murdered under torture.
As the state was caught on the very act, the struggle evolved to an extended stage with the Saturday sit-ins, asking for the names of the responsibles of this human crime. Every Saturday, the Galatasaray square became the voice of various cases of disappearances. Along with the weekly vigils, Hasan Ocak's comrades set on to extent the struggle. First they organized a “Convention of Mothers” in Istanbul that gathered many mothers of the forcibly disappeared people together. Then the process gained a universal extent by 1st International Conference against Enforced Disappearances that was held in Istanbul between 17-19 May, 1996. There, the conference announced the foundation of the International Committee Against Disappearances (ICAD) which became a platform that has allowed the struggle against disappearances in Turkey and Kurdistan to meet with others from all around the world, such as Colombia, Sri Lanka, Argentina, Philipines..
The 'silent' scream of the Saturday Mothers, which was revealing an essential crime of fascism, has been tried to be cut many times so far. Beginning from 170th vigil, the police started to attack the weekly sit-ins. The police violence took for 7 months against the relatives of the forcibly disappeared people together with the human rights defenders; they got threatened, beaten, detained, tortured, arrested.. On the 13th of May, 1999, the Saturday Mothers announced that they gave a break to the weekly vigils but the actions and rallies during the “International Week of Struggle Against Disappearances” continued. After a 10 year break, the Saturday vigils re-started on the 31st of January, 2009, and by now it has reached to the 702. week, continue to ask for the account of the state crimes on behalf of the enforced disappearances.
Today, those who want to oppress the true voice of the Saturday Mothers once again, are the same ones who undertake this dark heritage of 90's. By owing its non-legitimate power to the fascist oppression, the dictatorship of Erdoğan conducts a much more extended liquidation policy over the Kurds, Alevis and the revolutionary ranks of the society. This is the reason why any voice of justice becomes an existential threat for his tyranny order, just as how the justice call of Saturday Mothers does. With their 23 year old determination and will which continues today against the police barricades, the struggle of Saturday Mothers stands as a basis trench for the oppressed peoples to defeat the fascist dictatorship of Erdoğan in his total war against the truth itself. That is: “The Anger of Mothers will Strangle the Murderers!”
Stepping in the 25th year of Struggle; "For the Victory of the Revolution, Long Live Our Party MLKP!"
The 24th anniversary of the Unity Revolution of our party MLKP, which announced its foundation on September 10, 1994, was celebrated in different parts of Turkey, Kurdistan and Europe.
The celebration held in MLKP’s Şehid Serkan Battalion hosted hundreds of people from different parts of the canton Cizire including revolutionary parties and forces such as YPG, YPJ, DKP / BÖG, DKP Union, MKP, TKP / ML-TIKKO, TKEP / L and MLSPB as well as various civil institutions of the Rojava revolution such as SYPG, Martyrs Institution, Syriac Assembly, Human Rights Institution.
In the name of MLKP Rojava, Baran Serhad held a speech, which was simultaneously translated from Kurdish into Arabic:
“We congratulate all oppressed peoples, the workers and peasants, freedom seeking women, revolutionary youth, friends and families of the martyrs, fighters of revolution and all comrades for MLKP’s 25th year of fight. This party, which we celebrate in its 25th year, is the work of the martyrs. Before all, we commemorate all our immortal martyrs with respect and loyalty. These heroic martyrs themselves are the foundation of our party. Serkan Tosun, Suphi Nejat Ağırnaslı, Sibel Bulut, Oğuz Saruhan, Emre Aslan, İvana Hoffmann, Coşkun İnce, Sinan Sağır, Halil Aksakal, İsmet Şahin, Sevda Çağdaş, Ayşe Deniz Karacagil, Ruhat Aşkara, Sedat Akyüz, Erdal Demirhan, Yeliz Erbay, Şirin Öter, Veli Görgün, Ümit Yetik, Hüseyin Akçiçek, Irfan Gerçek and 33 Suruç Martyrs… All these martyrs were immortalized within this period of revolution, fighting in Rojava and other fields. We owe our existence to them and we will win by following their path. This is our word of honor. Once more we say it from our hearts: The martyrs of revolution are immortal! (…) We must recognize the enemies of the revolution well and take a clear attitude towards them. All imperialist and colonialist states are the enemies of oppressed humanity. What is essential for them is nothing other than their interests. They do not care peoples’ life, nor their rights. And they all want to re-divide the Middle East. Russia, America, Germany, France, Britain ... All these states are imperialists, the enemies of the revolutions and the oppressed peoples. We recognize their true face from Northern Kurdistan, from their support to the fascist Tayyip Erdoğan, from Iraq, Vietnam and from their attitudes towards the revolutionaries. We all know their true face through the isolation and captivity of the leader of Kurdish people, Abdullah Öcalan. And we all believe that, our revolution is also aware of this reality and acts according to this. It musn’t be forgotten that the future of the revolution depends on the organization of the people and on the socialization of the revolution. It is essential to organize this. This revolution is also a revolution of women. Therefore, the participation of women is important and vital. This fact has to be well understood and for this, the doors of the houses have to be open for the revolution. The revolution has to enter inside the houses. If we success this as a reality, then no power would defeat us. This is one of the most important development for the revolution and its condition is the change. In its 25th year, “change” is the call of MLKP to the oppressed peoples, and men in particular. We call them to grow and develop the revolution’s culture and ideology in their lives. We need to embrace and progress the spirit and the manner of the revolution. Our oppressed peoples should participate more in the ranks of revolution and get organized in its institutions. This is the path which will protect us and carry to victory. (...) Rojava revolution broke the plans of the colonialists and imperialists and grew the hope of peoples. Against all kinds of tyranny and oppression of the reactionary states and their patriarchal policies, this revolution paved the way for an libertarian and egalitarian life. On the very first days of the revolution, MLKP clearly stated that “this is our revolution” and immediately got into action according to this view. Because it was the right attitude for those who define themselves as revolutionary or communists. As a communist party, MLKP always tried to act in accordance with its role and mission with a modest amount of forces but with strong participation and determination. It has placed itself in both the military and political fields of the revolution. (…) MLKP is also a party of Kurdistan. It is organizing clandestinely in Northern Kurdistan against fascism and the dictatorship. It carries on its revolutionary works in the cities and mountains of Kurdistan. As MLKP, we defend the unity of the four parts of Kurdistan and support the proposal for the National Democratic Congress to gather for this sake. We call KDP (Kurdistan Democratic Party) and Mesud Barzani to give up their wrong attempts to prevent this National Democratic Congress and remind them that if they do not give up, then they will be condemned by history and the patriotic Kurdish people. Here we once again say it with all our heart and soul: “Long live Free Kurdistan!”(...)
MLKP defends the idea of “regional revolutions” and considers structures such as federations and confederations as one of the paths for the solution. However, we know that the emancipation of the oppressed peoples resides in socialism! MLKP is struggling and fighting for this sake. With the internationalist spirit all over the world, MLKP is growing its struggle in different countries for communism. It defends the idea that classes and borders must be destroyed all over the world. It says that existing borders are not ours but belong to the colonialists and fascists, so, we have to fight in order to abolish these borders. MLKP opposes fascism and colonialism breaking the oppressed peoples apart through regard to their religion and nation; it counts all these discriminations as hostility. Against this dirty policies of them, MLKP uprises the flag of internationalism. (…) MLKP’s 24 years passed with struggle and resistance. We have no doubt that the 25th year will continue like this. We have important tasks and works ahead of us. We believe that, no matter what happens, MLKP will keep on walking on the path of our immortal martyrs and uprise their weapons and flags. For this sake, just as our immortal martyrs, we will fight until the last bullet of our weapons, the last beat of our heart. We will grow the fires of revolution in every field. We will succeed together! This is our word of honor. Once more we promise that we will fight to make all these come true!”
Document Actions
