DEVRIMCI HALK KURTULUS CEPHESI

Date: November 8, 2001 | Statement: 221

THE FREE PRISONERS RESPONDED TO THE ARMUTLU MASSACRE BY CARRYING OUT SACRIFICE ACTIONS

Our bodies are burning
From one end to the other, Turkey is lit up by our bodies. Our burning bodies are the price we have paid for justice and freedom. The bodies of our burning comrades are torches in our hands in the struggle for revolution and socialism, in the fight for our rights and freedoms. We will march along a road lit up by these torches. We will win while marching along this road. This road is the road of victory

They were revolutionaries. Because they were revolutionaries they were taken prisoner, because they were revolutionaries they were imprisoned in the cells of tyranny. They were revolutionaries. That meant that tyranny against the people was also tyranny against them. They became revolutionaries because they refused to be silent about that. They became revolutionaries to change the tyrannical system. As such, they counted the bombs thrown at Armutlu as bombs thrown at themselves. Our comrades in Tekirdag E Type prison Nail Cavus and Kemal Ayhan and our comrade in Kandira F Type Prison Eyup Samur, as well as our comrade in Sincan F Type Prison Muharrem Cetinkaya replied to the Armutlu massacre by carrying out sacrifice actions in their cells. Our comrades Nail Cavus and Eyup Samur were martyred on November 7.
Those who do not stop carrying out massacres, those who make us pay these heavy prices will not escape paying an even more severe price. Nail Cavus and Eyup Samur bring the number of martyrs of the resistance to 79. The health situation of Haydar Bozkurt, who carried out a sacrifice action in Armutlu, remains critical. Dozens of revolutionary captives in the prisons have exceeded 200 days on the Death Fast and are approaching death step by step. The murderer responsible for every resister who has fallen in the Death Fast or sacrifice actions is the oligarchy. Resisters in Armutlu had stated that if an attack took place aimed at taking away their right to resist, they would set themselves on fire. The prisoners in the F Types stated that they would not stand idly by in the event of such an attack. Those who carried out such attacks are responsible for the deaths in Armutlu and in the cells. Those who hope to defeat and make a people surrender capable of such resolution and self-sacrifice are ignorant of the lessons of history!

Essentially there is no difference between the sacrifice actions carried out by our fighter Gultekin Koc in Sisli Security Department, the free prisoner Ibrahim Erler who carried out a sacrifice action in his prison cell, our comrade Ugur Bulbul who carried out a sacrifice action aimed at the Rapid Reaction Police in Taksim, and that carried out by Nail Cavus.

With the spirit of sacrifice, all Front supporters are fighting for the independence of our land and to ensure that our people will be free and not suffer from hunger. Both inside and outside prison, those who resist and who go out onto the city squares are defending those who cannot go out, and the most concrete, urgent, living demands of the oppressed who live in the midst of hunger. The resisters, to put an end to hunger and oppression, torture and oppression, are saying no to the IMF and to war. It is not necessary to be a revolutionary to defend these demands in Turkey. As the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Front, laying claim to our resolve and to the historic truth, we declare once again that, unless the problems of hunger of Turkey’s people are solved, unless a halt is made to the transformation of nearly all Turkey into a torture chamber and slaughterhouse, our resistance and war will go on. Our Sacrificial Fighters Who Were Martyred

NAIL CAVUS

To lie down to die for our people, for our homeland is a sacred duty. Our comrade joined the struggle at the age of 16, working in various areas, seeing the torturers and experiencing prison. Consciously, with his will, he showed a clear preference for his place in this fight. For the cause of independence, democracy and socialism in achieving the aims of our struggle, may I sacrifice my life for our people and homeland. He was born in January 1964 in Belentarla village, Zara town, Sivas province. He was of Kurdish nationality, Zaza and Alevi. In the autumn of 1971 his family moved to Haskoy in Istanbul. He both studied and worked. From his surroundings and conditions of life, he was sympathetic to the revolutionaries. In Haskoy high school, while in the middle grade, he was able to develop closer relations with the organisation. But the September 12 junta prevented these relations from developing. In this period, tens of millions of our people were affected by oppression. His older brother was imprisoned for revolutionary activity, and his paternal uncle and sister’s husband were tried for membership in the DISK trade union confederation. And in the same years, his sister-in-law was killed in Izmir. But September 12 hardened revolutionary resolve and increased anger against fascism. In 1983 he started at Marmara University higher school of journalism and publishing. He was one of those who took on leadership of organising youth and the struggle at a time when the effects of junta terror and depoliticisation were widespread among the young. He was one of the founders of the BYYO students’ association, and was one of its leaders. In the same years he formed relations with the revolutionary movement. In 1987, after graduating, he started work at the magazine Yeni Cozum (New Solution). Then he started to experience detention and imprisonment on a frequent basis. On May 1, 1989, in May 1990 while working at the magazine Mucadele (Struggle) and in October 1991 while working at the Sivas office of Mucadele, he was detained and spent several months in prison. He was held in the Eskisehir isolation prison and resisted the cells for the first time. In March 1992, he was on duty in Antep, Adana and Osmaniye. Henceforth he was involved in the illegal aspects of the struggle. Working in this field he was promoted to Political Responsible Official for the Mediterranean region. In 1993 he was taken prisoner. After staying for a time in Adana Kurkculer and Malatya E Type prisons, he was shipped to Canakkale Prison in 1995. Then the cells came on the agenda. He volunteered for the Death Fast. He was one of our comrades who resisted the December 19 massacre. He was thrown into Tekirdag F Type prison and new resistance and a new war continued. He persisted in wearing the red headband. He joined the Fourth Death Fast team. When he heard of the Armutlu massacre, he set fire to himself as a reply to tyranny.

On July 31, 2000, he had said in a letter: The MGK (National Security Council) has put the prisons on its agenda 31 times. This is what is written. But even if they put it on the agenda 500 times it would be seen that we revolutionary captives can’t be defeated. Our bodies will light up Turkey, our country, and put pressure on them. For this, we have to pay a price. I volunteer to pay it. Setting himself on fire in his cell, after 16 years of struggle, he made himself into a torch in the hands of our comrades. We will carry this torch in our hands to victory.

EYUP SAMUR

I swear… I will never turn back from this road we set out on for revolution. He was one of the poverty-stricken youth of Gazi. He became one of the eyes of the shanty-town. He joined the Gazi uprising at the age of 17. Our comrade Eyup was born in Istanbul on November 13, 1978. His family were from Kizilcakoy, near Zile in Tokat province. he started working after a short time at school. He worked in an electrical shop, a clothing factory and then in a shoemaker’s shop. He was sympathetic to the Front. He joined it in 1996. He was a young, bold and cheerful comrade. He carried out various responsible duties in Gazi. He was detained several times. Each arrest tempered him a little more, like steel. After each arrest he told our movement he wanted to be a guerrilla. His heart longed for the mountains. He worked in our militia organisations. He was on the commmittees against fascist terror. He sent our Front some writing as a memorial, and it is enough to quote the following: I did not expect our comrades Sadik and Selcuk to be martyred attacking the US consulate. I knew comrade Sadik Mamati. It is not possible to express the anger I felt towards the enemy. Without waiting I opened a Front banner that the Party had placed in the house I was in, and I took an oath. I would take revenge for you, and in an honourable fashion become a martyr of the Party-Front, and would never turn back from the road we set out on until victory was achieved. For him, the front was a movement whose politics of fighting and making others fight, work methods, way of life and culture, history and martyrs, connection to the people, confidence and values, made it worth dying for. After being taken prisoner he carried out various duties in Armutlu. In November 1999 he was imprisoned. He was in Umraniye when the F Types came on the agenda. He had never been a guerrilla, but bow he turned his own body into a weapon. Eyup was one of our comrades who volunteered for the Death Fast. He achieved this wish as part of the Fourth Death Fast Team after being thrown into Kandira F Type. On May 11, 2001, he started the Death Fast. While amid hunger, day by day he approached nearer to death or victory, and also volunteered for sacrifice actions. It was very hard for him to remain silent towards the massacre in Armutlu, which happened street by street, house by house. In the sixth month of hunger, he carried out a sacrifice action to protest against the Armutlu massacre. For the poor of Gazi, of Armutlu, for the oppressed and those resisting, he set himself on fire. When on fire, he left behind these LAST WORDS to his comrades and people: We will live on in the belief in revolution and socialism. In dying, we will give our lives for revolution and socialism. We are not dying. I will continue to burn as a torch of revolution in the hands of our comrades and all Front supporters. Everybody knows this resistance will never be defeated. We will win by giving our lives and dying for our people and our freedoms. I love all our martyrs, all our comrades, our leader and Party very much. We will meet again in the sunlight. Farewell.

OUR WORD TO OUR COMRADES GIVING THEIR LIVES FOR REVOLUTION AND SOCIALISM: WE WILL KEEP YOU ALIVE IN THE STRUGGLE FOR REVOLUTION AND SOCIALISM!

OUR WORD: WE WILL NOT FORGET, WE WILL NOT LET OTHERS FORGET!

REVOLUTIONARY PEOPLE’S LIBERATION FRONT

2001.11.08