Thread by @RISEUP4R0JAVA

40th year: "Commander Agit lives on, the PKK continues to fight."

On August 15, 1984, the Kurdish uprising against the Turkish occupation forces began, 40 years later, a look at the context in which the Kurdish liberation struggle in Bakûr (Northern Kurdistan) emerged:

After the Second World War, the Kurdish struggle is intense and expressed in political parties in Rojhilat (Iranian Kurdistan) through the Mahabad Republic and in Bashur (Southern Kurdistan) through uprisings against the Iraqi regime.

In Bakûr, the Kurdish people are the target of fierce repression by the Turkish regime, which is trying by all means to make them disappear: Massacres, a ban on the language and all cultural events, forced resettlement.

Anti-Kurdish racism is deeply rooted in Turkish society, so much so that it is even taken up by left-wing parties in Turkey, which regard the demands of the Kurds as secondary or even illegitimate or as a cause of division.

In the 1960s, Dev Genc, a youth organization, trains many young Kurdish and Turkish revolutionaries. Among them: Deniz Gezmiş, Mahir Çayan, İbrahim Kaypakkaya. This experience will have a considerable impact on the Kurdistan liberation struggle.

These young revolutionaries will be victims of the repression that followed the 1971’s Military Coup. Mahir Cayan was killed on March 26, 1972 during the hostage taking of 3 NATO technicians. He & his comrades demanded the liberation of Deniz Gezmiş, Hüseyin İnan & Yusuf Aslan.

Deniz Gezmiş was executed on May 6, 1972. Before his hanging, he allegedly shouted “Long live the total independence of Turkey! Long live Marxism-Leninism! Long live the solidarity between the Turkish and Kurdish people! Long live the workers and peasants! Down with Imperialism!”

Ibrahim Kaypakkaya (TKP/ML) was killed on the 18th of May 1973 after 4 and a half months of torture, without revealing the internal structure of his organization.

At 23 years old, he leaves behind a strong legacy for the Kurdistan liberation struggle, but also for the world’s revolutionary movements, in particular with this text on the “National Question in Turkey”
bibliomarxiste.net/auteurs/ibrahi…

Abdullah Öcalan starts struggling during this era, and is imprisoned in 1972 after protests in solidarity with Deniz Gezmis and Mahir Cayan. After months in prison he leaves more politicized and determined than before.

He realizes that within the Turkish Left, the Kurdish question is considered secondary, but also that in other parts of Kurdistan, Kurdish bourgeois nationalism is a dead end, with the example of Barzani’s PDK in Irak.

He decides to build a political organization around these 3 ideas:

◦ Kurdistan is a colony
◦ Kurdistan needs a war of national liberation
◦ National Liberation needs to break away from the social-chauvinist left and the bourgeois nationalist Kurdish organizations

These “Kurdistan Revolutionaries” then roam around the country to meet the peasants and workers of Kurdistan. They will be called "Apocular" (partisans of Apo).

Mahsum Korkmaz (commander Agit/Egid) then joins the group which will become the PKK in 1978.

As early as 1979, he is among the many members of the organization sent to Lebanon to receive military training from the Palestinian Resistance and many other organizations that came to be trained in the PLO’s camps.

The 12th of September Coup was foreseen by the leaders of the PKK, and on that day of 1980, the Turkish armed forces, led by general Kenan Evren, take power in Turkey. One of the main objectives of the coup is to crush the Kurdish struggle.

The Constitution is suspended, Parliament dissolved, political parties and labor unions banned, and martial law is forced upon the whole country.

More than 650.000 people are arrested, thousands tortured, thousands more forcibly disappeared, journalists imprisoned and assassinated, and the press is censored.

Many death sentences are pronounced, 122 of which target PKK members.

In the prisons, activists resist heroically in the face of the worst atrocities committed by their jailer. In order to protest against these tortures, on the 21st of March 1982, Mazlum Doğan lights 3 matches to celebrate Newroz, then takes his own life in prison.

Two months later, the 18th of May 1982, day of the anniversary of the assassination of Haki Karer, four imprisoned members of the PKK, Ferhat Kurtay, Mahmut Zengin, Eşref Anyık and Necmi Öner, immolated themselves so that “the flame of resistance lives on”

In answer to this the Kurdish people rises up. Prisoners start a hunger strike to the death. That era is told in the movie “14 Tirmeh” (14th of July) available here:

In August of 1982, during its second congress, the PKK decides to launch it’s campaign of armed struggle. Mahsum Korkmaz, then a member of the PKK’s central committee, is chosen to work on the preparations for this.

Guerrillas so far solely trained in the Lebanese plains then move to Bashur (Irak) to improve their military training in a mountainous environment that is akin to that of Bakur (Northern Kurdistan).

Units then cross the border into Bakur in order to prepare the terrain, map the mountains, inquire with the local population. These inquiries reveal a demoralized Kurdish people, with no hope except for an external intervention.

15th of August 1984: the first action of the armed wing of the PKK, the HRK (Hêzên Rizgarî ya Kurdistan – Kurdistan Liberation Units) led by famous commander "Egid", Mahsum Korkmaz, takes place.

They take the cities of Eruh & Shemdinli, force the police to flee, distribute flyers & spread their message from the Mosques minaret before retreating at the end of the day. The start of the Kurdish insurgency is celebrated by Kurdish people as day of rebirth, "cejna vejînê"

These attacks were prepared with a demonstrative objective, in order to leave a strong mark, & as soon as the next day, the news spread like wildfire in Kurdistan. The Turkish state is taken by surprise & will need to reorganize its armed forces in order to fight this new threat.

The following months see multiple armed propaganda actions of that type, before the creation of the “ARGK” and a structural shift of the PKK’s armed forces in 1986.

Mahsum Korkmaz is fell martyr on the 28th of March 1986 by the Turkish armed forces in the Gabar area of Bakur. To honor the historic vanguard, the training academy “Mahsum Korkmaz” is established in Lebanon.

Still today, the Kurdish people celebrate that day of rebirth and its commander, as here during a protest. The slogan: “Komutan Agit Yaşıyor, PKK Savaşıyor” / “Commander Agit lives on, the PKK fights on.”