DEVRIMCI HALK KURTULUS CEPHESI
Date: November 1, 2000 Statement: 128
One of our sympathisers in First of May District, Sukru Saritas, has been murdered.
THE MHP MURDERERS WILL PAY A PRICE!
The fascists are continuing to commit murder. For years the name of the MHP (Nationalist Movement Party) has been associated with murders and provocations. On October 29, in Umraniye/Istanbul’s First of May District, a sympathiser of ours, a 15-year-old named Sukru Saritas, was shot dead by MHP fascists.
Whenever the authorities wish a massacre of the opposition or a murder, the slaughter of revolutionaries or the people, that is where you will find the MHP. When there are murders in the mountains, in the cities by the police or the torturers of the special teams – the MHP will be involved. At Susurluk, in the “1,000 operations”, the MHP was present. The MHP is present wherever there is hostility to the people and collaboration with imperialism. The murder of Sukru shows that the MHP has never given up its murderous mission as an enemy of the people and is ready at any moment to actively resume this mission.
Our people in the gecekondus (slum areas of cities, established without official permission and inhabited mainly by poor people, including many refugees from the war in Kurdistan) know the MHP well. With our blood, with our lives, we founded our gecekondus. In Gazi, Armutlu, Nurtepe, Okmeydani, First of May District.(Note: many gecekondus were established with the help of revolutionary groups like Devrimci Sol, and the DHKP-C and some other revolutionary organisations continue to receive support from many people in such places. As its name suggests, the First of May District is an area where the left is strong.) The MHP fascists, together with the police and the mafia, opposed our every act of resistance. They raked our coffee shops with gunfire and bombarded our houses. Because of this our people know the murderous face of the MHP well and the MHP fascists cannot easily move about in such areas, nor will they be able to. We will resist again, we will give more martyrs but the fascists will gain no foothold in our districts. In this regard the people of First of May District have also known the fascists very well ever since the district was founded. From here, our Sukrus make their protests, from here anger directed against the fascists makes itself felt.
Sukru Saritas is one of our Children of Resistance. At 15, our Sukru was a “child”. But his heart was great. His heart was full of anger at the fascists. He was like all gecekondu children who resisted and grew up in the shadow of police terror.
While a child he was detained and became acquainted with the torturers. Because of this he knew resistance and the struggle. Sukru was a sympathiser of the Front (DHKC). Like Erkan Dilsiz, Sibel Yalcin and Cem Guler, he learned to be one of our young fighters in the struggle. Behind the Gazi barricades (March 1995) and in the May Day corteges, one of the children was Sukru.
Our children desire freedom just as much as the Palestinians who are the same age as they are. The MHP fascists are the enemies of the people and servants of imperialism just like the Israeli soldiers are. You who are organising campaigns with the slogan “Don’t let children die!”, why don’t you support the people’s anger at those who killed Sukru? You who say, “In Palestine they are using children as a shield,” and are trying to prove yourselves to imperialism, where are you when MHP fascists kill our children in the middle of Istanbul?
You will continue to see supporters of the Front, whether they are aged 15 or 70. We say to those who say at every opportunity “We have finished them off, we have destroyed them,” that we will always be present in the stones which are thrown by our children who have grown up so quickly. We will always be present in the hatred felt by our 70-year-old mothers and fathers, because we are the people.
Be like Sukru. We call on all our children, all our youth, to take Sukru as an example. Show the anger he showed against fascism, be daring and courageous as he was.
We call on all those who are weary and daunted, look at Sukru and pull yourselves together. When our 15-year-old children are killed by fascist bullets, do not remain inactive. The fascists will not be able to force their way into our gecekondus, we will demand a reckoning for Sukru!
We give our word to the people of the First of May District and all labouring people that the bloody-handed fascist killers will not gain a foothold in our gecekondus. Our justice will call those who killed Sukru to account, and they will not save themselves from being the targets of our anger. The stones in the hands of Sukru will be our bullets demanding a reckoning from the murderers.
SUKRU SARITAS IS IMMORTAL!
