Declaration of the People’s Front-Turkey on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the massacre in prisons – 19-22 December 2000

THE DECEMBER 19-22, MASSACRE CONTINUES WITH THE FASCIST POWER OF THE AKP!

OUR EPIC OF DECEMBER 19-22, CONTINUES WITH OUR RESISTANCE FOR JUSTICE!

WE NEUTRALIZED THE ATTACK OF IMPERIALISM AIMING OUR DESTRUCTION!

WE WILL ORGANIZE, WE WILL SEEK AN ACCOUNT FROM THE ENEMY, AND WE WILL BUILD AN INDEPENDENT AND DEMOCRATIC TURKEY TOGETHER WITH OUR PEOPLE!

On December 19, 2000, on the orders of imperialism, the executioners of the fascist government, attacking 20 prisons, carried out the largest prison massacre in the history of Turkey. In their inability to break them, they called for “surrender!” to the revolutionaries behind the four walls of the prisons. Because even though their bodies were in captivity, the ideas of the revolutionaries were not defeated. The resistance of the revolutionary political prisoners spread beyond the walls and wire nets, and spread throughout the country, and became a source of hope for the people.

Although physically cut off from the people, the revolutionary political prisoners continued to give hope to the masses and to be their leaders. Therefore, hope had to be destroyed, the people had to be immersed in the swamp of hopelessness. Political prisoners had to be separated from each other and locked up one by one in cells, their organizational structures had to be destroyed. The goal was to put political prisoners in “F” type isolation prisons, to be turned into “individuals” and to be made to give up their ideas. In a country where the revolutionaries were not organized, the people would not be organized, and thus they would not be able to fight for their rights.

Fascism rules through demagoguery, lies, and massacres. First, they carried out the massacre. It was the largest military operation since the intervention in Northern Cyprus in 1974. The operation in Cyprus was an overseas intervention against another country. And the operation of December 19, was carried out against the revolutionaries imprisoned, by the state itself. Thousands of grenades full of gases that read ” do not use indoor” were thrown inside prison wards. While Israel used these gases against the Palestinian people, the fascist government in Turkey threw them at political prisoners. To this day, it is not known with what chemical weapons the 6 female revolutionaries, political prisoners in the Bayrampaşa prison in Istanbul, were burned alive and turned into coals. In 20 prisons, 28 political prisoners were killed. Dozens of other severely wounded political prisoners were taken to the isolation cells of F-type prisons, and the torture continued there. But the fascist government called this operation “Return to Life.”

This attack was historic in its scale. The response of the revolutionaries from the Party-Front was also historic, and it was called: Death Fast. The decision to carry out the massacre was made at the headquarters of the institutions of imperialism. Turkey’s then prime minister, Bulent Ecevit, told the media: “Until we solve the prison problem, we cannot implement IMF policies.”

But the accounts of imperialism were crooked because he had not taken into account one very important thing: We are the man and woman of the Party-Front, our roots are in Kızıldere[1]. We know how to be reborn from the ashes, and to return with even greater victories when everyone says the end has come. We know that the only way we can reach victory is resistance. The science of Marxism-Leninism taught us this. Throughout our history, we have not deviated a millimeter from Marxism-Leninism.

For this reason, we proudly stand on our feet, just like the age-old plane trees. The existence of this reality, which imperialism had not included in its accounts at the time, was personally acknowledged by the United States years later. Of our Great Death Fast resistance, against the attack with isolation prisons, that we have created at the cost of the martyrdom of 122 heroes, the United States said with great surprise, “They resisted for 7 years, how can there be resistance for 7 years?” world wars lasted 4-5 years, but we resisted for 7 years.

“If the strongest weapon of tyranny is death, then victory is the right of the one who succeeds in defeating the death.”

Through our Death Fast resistance, we took away from fascism its most powerful weapon – the death.

While everyone was silent, while even the forces we called “friends” censored the news of the martyrdom of our fighters, we resisted and won for 7 years.

20 years have passed since the massacre on December 19. 122 heroes martyred for 7 years, and then concerts were held in stadiums and squares, on a scale that no organization or country in the world had ever seen before … Dozens of fights ended with victory … The June People’s Uprising[2]… 3 Million people demanding an account from the oligarchy, at the funeral of the child of hope – Berkin Elvan[3]… The resisters from Yuksel Boulevard[4,] who dare to resist against the state of emergency of the AKP … And the Death Fast resistance of 2020[5]… All this is proof that the dreams of imperialism for the destruction of the Front have collapsed.

We said that even if the birds forgot to fly, even if the fish forgot to swim, we would not forget our fallen heroes, and we did not forget them. Guided by this consciousness, Helin, Ibrahim, Mustafa, and Ebru took the flag. They are the children of 122 heroes. They are proof of the immortality of the 122 martyrs, of the invincibility of the people.

We are the hope of the peoples of the world. Before the empire of blood and fear of imperialism, we are the flower of resistance blooming all over the earth.

Each resistance shows the way for new examples of resistance, but the more important thing is to light the torch of resistance where no one resists. In every period of human history, children of the people, have appeared who have lit this torch.

We will not give up, we will continue to be the leaders of this struggle, to open the way when it is blocked, and to pay the highest price for it. Our martyrs, from December 19 – 22, fell into the ground like seeds of resistance. The seeds of resistance were sown in the four corners of Anatolia…

THE MARTYRS OF DECEMBER 19th ARE IMMORTAL!

LONG LIVE OUR RESISTANCE OF DECEMBER 19th!

WE HAVE SOUGHT, AND WE WILL CONTINUE TO SEEK AN ACCOUNT FOR THE DECEMBER 19th MASSACRE!!

THE HEROES DO NOT DIE, THE PEOPLE WILL NOT BE DEFEATED!

PEOPLE’S FRONT-TURKEY

DECEMBER 2020


Source: https://www.halkinsesitv.pw/2020/12/halk-cephesi-19-22-aralk-katliam-akp.html


Footnotes:

1- This refers to the village of Kızıldere, Tokat province, northern Turkey, wherein 1972, in a battle with army units of the fascist oligarchy, the Marxist-Leninist revolutionary leader Mahir Çayan and nine of his comrades were killed. Since then, the name of the village has become a byword for all the epic examples of resistance created by the revolutionaries in Turkey.

2-This refers to the protests against the AKP’s government, which began in Gezi Park in Istanbul and spread throughout Turkey. According to official information from the Turkish Interior Ministry, a total of 3,500,000 people took part in the protests, but the real number is much higher.

3- On June 16, 2013, Berkin Elvan, a 14-year-old boy living in Istanbul’s poor Okmeydanı district, was shot in the head with a tear gas capsule fired by riot police. After 269 days in a coma, during which Berkin celebrated his 15th birthday, on March 11 he died in a hospital in Istanbul. Berkin has become a symbol of the thirst for justice of the peoples of Turkey after 3 million people attended the young man’s funeral, making it the largest demonstration in Turkish history.

4- This refers to the group of civil servants dismissed under the decree-laws that the fascist oligarchy in Turkey began to issue during the state of emergency declared in the country after the attempted military coup of July 15, 2016. The first protest action on Yuksel Boulevard in Ankara took place on November 9, 2016, initiated by university lecturer Nuriye Gulmen. The protest on Yuksel Boulevard continues to this day, for 4 years, or in other words for more than 1500 days, thus becoming the longest street protest in the history of Turkey.

5- Referring to a series of indefinite hunger strikes and Death Fasts, launched in May 2019, by members of the communist music Grup Yorum, which continued with the hunger strikes of political prisoner Mustafa Koçak, lawyers from the People’s Law Bureau, and political prisoners Didem Akman, and Özgür Karakaya. Among the demands of the hunger strikes were the lifting of bans on Yorum’s concerts, a fair trial, the repeal of laws encouraging the people to become police informants, and the improvement of prison conditions in Turkey. The hunger strikes met with widespread support, both from representatives of the leftist movement in the country and from almost all opposition groups in the society. As a result of Death Fasts, tortures and forced medical interventions and attempts to carry them out, 4 revolutionaries martyred: Helin Bölek on April 3, 2020, Mustafa Koçak on April 23, İbrahim Gökçek on May 7, and Ebru Timtik on August 27.

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