Devrimci Halk Kurtuluş Cephesi

Date: October 21 | 2002 Statement: 277

The greatest resistance in the world has entered its third year 97 martyrs… hundreds of war veterans… unbreakable willpower… all previously known boundaries exceeded…

Encirclements broken through…

It is not a note in the pages of history, but an epic…

And an epic that will go down in history…

Solitary confinement will be overcome and the resistance struggle will triumph!

It was October 20, 2000 when our comrades in the prisons began to put on red headbands. Since that time, two autumns, two winters, two springs and two summers have gone by. And for 730 days, both inside and outside the prisons, we have resisted hunger, massacres, solitary confinement and the most repulsive torture methods and lies of the oppressors When the resistance struggle started, we announced that “we will live with our beliefs” and stated that through the F-Type prisons the oligarchy and imperialism were seeking to destroy socialist beliefs and the hopes of revolution. We lived with our beliefs. We are continuing to live with our beliefs. And rather than deny them we are turning our beliefs and our resistance into a banner. There has never been a resistance like it in history.

Hundreds of times we have looked death in the face for the sake of our ideas and our will, or to put it another way, for the sake of revolution and socialism, for the sake of a culture and moral values which were supposed to have died out a long time ago. This was the banner that we became. Throughout the 1990s imperialism claimed that its power was “absolute destiny”. We destroyed this propaganda.

Through our resistance the peoples of the world have seen once again that there is no force on earth that can overcome peoples that resist. Later, this will be the source of different uprisings all over the world inspired by us. From the beginning we have stressed that it is a great mistake to restrict the resistance to the F-Type prisons alone, we have stressed that the enemy is trying to turn the whole of Turkey into an F-Type prison. The circumstances and scale of the resistance struggle have given our resistance a special place in world history. Both inside and outside the prisons, the willpower and resolve was summoned up to be able to meet the demands of such a historic role. Both the front of the oppressors and the front of the oppressed have turned their gaze on our resistance.

Despite all repression, manoeuvres and expectations to the contrary, the resistance has continued and will continue.
Up to the present, there have been 97 martyrs and over 400 resistance fighters have been left handicapped. Some of the resisters died of hunger, others died in a sea of flames and yet others under a hail of bombs. But it was not just bombs that rained down on us and it was not simply hunger that we had to struggle against.

Together with the bombs, slanders and reproaches rained down on us. Along with the solitary confinement in the F-Type prisons, we were also surrounded by the supporters of Europe and America. The strength of our resistance overcame all that. There are still those who make false calculations, both among our friends and among our enemies. There are still those who think on a small scale. There are still those who view the resistance through a distorted lens and prefer to view it that way. Nobody should expect us to give up. Simply examine events over the past 730 days. Those who think that the ongoing resistance can be broken or crushed are being very light-minded. They have learned no lessons from 730 days, hundreds of events, 97 martyrs and handicapped war veterans.

Those who look are mere onlookers at our deaths! It is your own deaths! To all those who call themselves leftists, patriots,
progressives and democrats and nonetheless are mere onlookers to our resistance: it is we who are ensuring with our deaths in the resistance to fascism that our ideals and our demand for revolution will grow even stronger. But you are merely killing yourselves. By acting as mere bystanders to the resistance, you are merely gazing at your own deaths. In such a world, in such a country, those who do not resist, those who do not have the courage or the willpower to stand up for their own ideals cannot survive politically. Your corpses can live on in the current world order, but we do not call that life. We call it death. Political death! If you want to live on with your ideals, if you want your ideals and beliefs to live on, there is only one thing you can do: you must become a part of the resistance struggle, whatever form that takes.

All prisoners in Asia, America, Europe and Africa;

This is the resistance of us all. Imperialism and its henchmen have put us in “coffins” and with their policies seek to destroy our personalities and humiliate us. In the face of that we have put up the greatest resistance ever and that has created a new perspective for all prisoners. The “treatment” policy practised today in our country’s F-Type prisons is an international policy of imperialism. Imperialism has exported this policy everywhere where its power reaches. Particularly in the 1980s, after NATO adopted a resolution on “rehabilitating prisoners”, in all imperialist and neo-colonial countries great preparations were made and funds allotted and these plans were put into practice in different ways,
depending on the situation in the individual countries concerned.

From Italy to Germany, from the USA to Spain, there has been significant resistance to solitary confinement in the prisons. Nowhere has the resistance been as prolonged as ours. The great price we had to pay is now a strength of prisoners throughout the world. Let us turn the strength and the willpower of the resistance struggle
in every land and on every continent into one struggle with our strength and our willpower.

Peoples of Asia, America, Europe, Australia and Africa;

We are resisting the attempts of imperialism and its collaborationist dictatorships to turn the world into a semi-open prison for the poor! US imperialism’s plan is quite clear: no contrary beliefs to its own can be permitted to exist. Nobody is supposed to resist the hunger, misery, injustice and lack of rights that imperialism envisages for the peoples of the earth. Those who resist are targeted and destroyed!

If this policy varies in form from the Middle East to Latin America, from the Far East to the Balkans, its core remains the same in all countries and regions. The ideals, the beliefs, the values of human beings must be annihilated! And it is precisely to oppose such policies that in one part of this earth, Turkey, we have staged an outstanding resistance for over two years now. In this resistance we have shown a willpower, resolve and determination not shown by any previous resistance. Hundreds of our comrades have fallen or been left handicapped and we are still continuing. We know that our resistance is breaking through the censorship of the imperialist media and find its way to you. We know that you, above all the revolutionary and patriotic organisations, have cast an eye on us.

We know that your heart is on the side of those who are resisting in the isolation cells. We would like to see much more from you. Even more is necessary so that a victory over imperialism can be won.

We will achieve it. Everyone can be certain of that. We will win even if hundreds more must fall. We were a barrier to them. An obstacle both for US imperialism and for the government of Turkey which is a puppet of the IMF. If we were to give up our ideals and if we could be persuaded to stop struggling for independence,revolution and socialism and against imperialism and fascism, then they would have their “peace and quiet”.

That is why our resistance came under such brutal attack. They occupied so many prisons as if they were occupying a foreign country and perhaps for the first time in history they hurled thousand of grenades at us and used firearms to get us to submit. But this unprecedented brutality was countered with unprecedented selflessness. Our sacrificial fighters are a symbol that the peoples of the world cannot be made to surrender. They have taken up the flag of resistance and kept it aloft. Everyone can be certain: this flag will be waved until victory is won. Neither inside nor outside the prisons will the supporters of the Front let this flag fall. Nobody will ever see us give in to the cruelty of fascism. We will not delight the enemy and we will not sadden the peoples. We will not permit the hopes of our people and the peoples of the world for independence, revolution and socialism to be extinguished.

It is not a note in the pages of history, it is an epic. As long as the earth turns around, this resistance will be spoken about. As long as the peoples of the earth live, this will be a guide for them. So that the resistance will be crowned with success, the sacrificial fighters of the Front direct their appeal to our people and the peoples of all lands.

THE MARTYRS OF OUR GREAT RESISTANCE ARE OUR STRENGTH, OUR CLAIM AND OUR FUTURE!

THE FLAG THEY HAVE HANDED US WILL BE WAVED UNTIL VICTORY IT IS OUR SACRED TRUST

WE WILL RESIST, WE WILL WIN!

THE WHOLE WORLD, WHICH WITNESSED THESE PAST TWO YEARS, WILL ALSO WITNESS OUR VICTORY!

DEVRIMCI HALK KURTULUS CEPHESI

(REVOLUTIONARY PEOPLE’S LIBERATION FRONT)

2002.10.21