Devrimci Halk Kurtulus Cephesi
Date: September 10, 2002 Statement: 273
The strongest willpower is the willpower of the revolutionaries
Enormous willpower and unshakeable resolve are what make the flags of resistance wave in the hands of those who are right. The history of our unbreakable willpower is written under isolation conditions in the F-Type prisons and in the hospitals.
Hamide Ozturk started the Death Fast on June 3, 2001 and is the 97th martyr of the resistance struggle.
She became immortal on September 10 as a monument to the invincibility of revolutionary willpower.
Hamide Ozturk belonged to the 5th Death Fast Team. When the prisoners of the Cephe * put on their red headbands on June 3, 2001, she said: “Nobody can defeat this willpower. Nobody can make it surrender. That is what our willpower is.”
This is what our comrades have shown with every day, every second, every dying body cell and with their last breath.
Nobody can break or divert this willpower.
That is the willpower of the Party-Front.
This willpower was expressed by the 75 Cephelis (supporters of the Cephe) who have fallen as martyrs in this resistance struggle.
Who can defeat this willpower? Who can defeat it with manoeuvres and dreams? Who can divert this willpower from its course?
All reckonings are doomed to failure which do not take this willpower into account!
Neither the willpower of tyranny, nor the willpower of Europe, nor the efforts of those who seek to bring our willpower to heel can divert it from its path. The revolutionary will is superior to all other forms. It is this will which has rendered ineffective the hundreds of methods used by the oligarchy and imperialism, and which is continuing to resist today.
This is the willpower of the Party-Front.
That is the willpower that has held firm in all areas of life for decades against the winds of counter-revolution, against military dictatorships, sieges, putsches and every form of betrayal. The resistance is an announcement to both our friends and our enemies that the willpower of the Party-Front cannot be defeated. All calculations that our willpower can be overcome or will collapse as of itself are in vain. Just like all such calculations of the past 32 years, these too will come to nothing.
The Justice Minister Aysel Celikel, like all the other forces of the oligarchy will have to see that they cannot break our resistance with massacres or with isolation. So long as they do not accept it they will continue to bear this burden on their shoulders, and with each and every new martyr the responsibility will be written on their charge sheets.
Left-wingers and democratic forces, stop waiting for the resistance to end of its own accord. Give up such dreams and speculation.
Revolutionary willpower has shown that such reckonings will not come to pass. All those who feel responsibility to this land and people or for democracy and independence and rights and freedoms, and who do not want the number of martyrs to rise further can only do one thing: recognise the reality of the resistance, with its willpower and its resolve. All attitudes, policies and reckonings which do not recognise this willpower are doomed to failure.
Hamide Ozturk was in the same dormitory on December 19 in which six women prisoners were burned alive. The massacre could not break her will. It only increased her anger.
On December 19 (2000) Hamide Ozturk was in the C1 dormitory in Bayrampasa in which six women were burned alive. She too could have been one of the comrades who were burnt alive.
She was not burned alive but she saw her comrades burn. She saw Gulser Tuzcu burn to death at the door.
Massacres have only strengthened our anger and our will to resist. Hamide Ozturk was one of the witnesses who told our people of the massacre:
We will cite one of these reports: these lines are the expression of the growing willpower and resolve, as well as the helplessness and the defeat of the perpetrators in the face of this willpower:
“Our resistance on December 19 in Sagmalcilar is a great deed of heroism. We had nothing in our hands to defend or protect ourselves with. We did not set up a barricade but we continued to resist under hours of bombardment… The magnificence of our resistance was great and the cruelty we experienced in our dormitories was also very great. Six of our comrades were burned alive. When the shooting was still going on I gave Gulseren my word. I embraced and kissed her and said, They can kill us all but we will not surrender. She looked at me and smiled. We smoked our last cigarette together. But I got out alive. When I was lying on the floor I thought: If only the comrades could get out of this safe and sound, I would be a martyr. But I regained consciousness and went out. It was very difficult. Finally I went up on top again. When I saw Gulseren at the door in that condition, I felt very helpless. That was a very frightening feeling. I could not do anything so I went on down. If I am still alive, it is to take revenge for our martyrs. I said I would not fall without first demanding revenge at the rate of ten for one. I also shouted that at the soldiers and enemies of the people. I said, You will pay at the rate of ten for one. My only wish is to carry out some kind of action which has news value, like turning myself into a bomb and exploding in the brain of the enemy. I am ready to be consumed, in whatever way, so long as it harms the enemy. I bow down with respect before the memory of our martyrs and send you my greetings.”
January 24, 2001, Hamide Ozturk
Read this and recognise the source of our anger. Read this, and see why the sacrifice actions were carried out.
Read this and see how the sacrificial fighters turned themselves into a bomb against tyranny.
Hamide Ozturk was a witness to torture; she was detained eleven times. She was a witness of executions, her brother was murdered.
Although our Prisoners’ Organisation announced during the selection of volunteers for the 5th Death Fast Team that no further Death Fast fighters were needed from Bakirkoy Prison, they rejected this. Their objection was persistent and the result of their resolve to volunteer. One of these volunteers was Hamide Ozturk.
She was a volunteer: she knew poverty and tyranny, she had experienced it and was a revolutionary for that very reason.
She was a volunteer: whether inside or outside prison, she fought to put an end to the tyrannical system.
She was a volunteer: She thought: “Whatever is necessary for this struggle, and if what is necessary leads us to victory through sacrifice, it will be a great honour for me to take part in an action like the Death Fast.”
Our comrade Hamide Ozturk was born in 1970 in Antakya. She was an Arab Alevi. Her mother tongue was Arabic. She graduated from her accountancy class in a vocational college in Antakya. She came into contact with revolutionaries through her brother Ahmet Ozturk. In 1990, when she was in the vocational college, she took part in the academic-democratic struggle of youth. With her very first action, the November 6 boycott (a protest against the system’s domination of schools and universities) she was detained, tortured and saw the true face of barbarism.
Later she took part in the struggle for rights and freedoms in Adana. She carried on the struggle in Ozgur-Der and in H.O.P. (Platform for Rights and Freedoms). She was chair of Ozgur-Der and spokeswoman of H.O.P. She took part in protest actions against the attacks on prisons or on various sections of the people. With time, she became more intensely involved in the struggle. She did not just participate in actions, she organised them. During this struggle she was detained 11 times. On November 26, 1994 her brother Ahmet Ozturk was murdered by the police in Erdemli, a suburb of Mersin.
That too did not intimidate her or frighten her off. Quite on the contrary, she took part in the struggle with even greater eagerness. Her revolutionary ideals and goals strengthened. Now she devoted her entire time and existence to the struggle. She took on tasks in the Mediterranean Region.
On April 11, 1996 she was detained in Istanbul. The State Security Court sentenced her to 12 and a half years’ imprisonment without any proof or evidence. Shortly before her arrest the 1996 Death Fast was being discussed. She too was one of the volunteers. In 1996 she was in the 3rd Death Fast Team. In the year 2000, she said again, as a volunteer for the Death Fast: ” In particular, the 1996 Death Fast, in which I was in the 3rd Death Fast Team and the promise I made to Berdan ** when I was at the side of his coffin, was of great significance. I said to him that now carried the flag and would never let it fall.” (August 3, 2000)
She never let the flag fall.
Our selfless, tough, diligent, modest, constantly enthusiastic comrade Hamide Ozturk, who had the greatest love and devotion to her Party, her people and her comrades, became immortal, passing on to her comrades the flag that she received from Berdan. She departed with the words: Either victory or death, and became immortal. We end our statement with an extract from her writings, in which she announced her willingness to volunteer:
“As a volunteer in the Death Fast, as a candidate for the Death Fast action it will be a great honour if the Party thinks me worthy of this task. I will be worthy of this honour, dignity and values. You many rely on it. I will meet death with a smile, without fear or a lack of resolve. My only worry is that the Party might not entrust me with this task. … I will be worthy of our martyrs who took forward and protected their values by sacrificing their lives for them. It is my duty to give victory to our peoples and the Arab people through such an honourable task. It is a great honour for me. I love my Party, our martyrs, our leader, our people and comrades very much. I am ready to die for them. I was born with the Party-Front and will fall a martyr for it.
Revolutionary greetings with enthusiasm for our struggle
EITHER VICTORY OR DEATH! LONG LIVE OUR DEATH FAST RESISTANCE!”
The willpower that she represented with her will never be broken, the flag will never fall to the ground!
Devrimci Halk Kurtulus Cephesi
(Revolutionary People’s Liberation Front)
Footnotes:
*Cephe: The Front, or DHKC
** Altan Berdan Kerimgiller: A Martyr of the 1996 Death Fast
2002.09.10
