DEVRİMCİ HALK KURTULUŞ CEPHESİ
April 1, 2004 | Statement: 327
The Death Fast resistance fighter Umit Gunger has fallen in the prison cells of fascism, setting himself on fire as a protest against its isolation tyranny.
Neither the attacks of imperialism, nor the oppression by the hypocritically Islamist AKP can make us surrender.
At a point when the AKP government was in an election fever, another revolutionary has died in its oppressive prison cells for the sake of INDEPENDENCE, DEMOCRACY and SOCIALISM.
They sit in their cabinet seats labouring to maintain their system of oppression and collaboration with America. While we resist so that our country can achieve independence, so that repression and oppression may cease and the people are no longer condemned to exploitation and poverty. And we continue on our way with the slogan, “Let death come when he will.”
The resistance fighter Umit Gunger of the 9th Death Fast (Zehra Kulaksiz) Team was one of the dignified people going down this path. He set himself on fire at 1 pm on March 29 in the “prisoners’ ward” of Tekirdag State Hospital.
To break the resistance which he expressed while hungry and wreathed in flames, he was removed to Bayrampasa State Hospital in Istanbul. But our comrade was resolute. He was a supporter of the Party-Front, aware that this road leads over bloody and fiery obstacles. Even with his burning body, he continued the uprising.
At 9:30 pm on March 31, our comrade became one of the heroic martyrs of the Great Resistance (the Death Fast which started in 2000) and he is the 110th martyr who became a barricade against oppression.
Umit Gunger reflects the ideological strength of the Party-Front The fire lit by Muharrem Karademir and Gunay Ogrener continues burning in the cells. Our flames which stretch from Kandira to Usak and from Usak to Tekirdag, yet again show both foe and friend the resolve of our resistance; You cannot break this resistance! You have no choice but to lift isolation and end oppression!
Our comrade Umit Gunger is the answer to the question why the oligarchy and imperialism can’t defeat us.
he had become weak in the resistance and had given up. But after a short time he re-entered the ranks of the resistance (December 14, 2003). For he belonged to the PARTY-FRONT. Umit Gunger is an example of the personality created for the Party-Front. Party-Front supporters may fall down but in any case they can rise up again and renew the struggle with greater energy than before.
At such moments the difference between the personality of revolutionaries and the personality of those fashioned by the system is revealed more clearly.
On the one hand there are people like Umit, who are thoroughly self-sacrificial and do not hesitate to go into the fire for the sake of their people and their ideas; on the other hand there are the personalities shaped by the system, which are degenerate, egotistical and selfish.
The highest guarantee of our invincibility is our cadres, who are stamped by our ideology and full of dignity, honour and love for their land and people.
For a long time now, NATO, the death-dealing organisation of the imperialist monopolies, has been receiving an answer from the Party-Front to its attempts at compulsion when it says, “Either give up your beliefs or die.” Most recently Muharrem, Gunay and Umit have confirmed what our answer is, confronting oppression with their burning bodies.
Our ideology is the future of our land and people. To turn away from our own beliefs would mean accepting the exploitation and oppression of our people and looking on passively while the imperialist monopolies plunder our country. We will neither accept this nor behave like passive bystanders.
Our 34-year history has shown that we will not turn aside from our revolutionary path.
We are among those who do not go back on their word, do not bow before oppression and do not give in. No policy, no attack by imperialism and the oligarchy can divert us from our path towards independence, democracy and socialism.
The only way to live a dignified life is to resist.
Umit Gunger knew this way and showed it to everyone.
The oligarchy is not just trying to coerce the prisoners in the cells but uses this policy in every area of life: either you abandon your beliefs and obey me, or you resist. But those who give up their beliefs and turn to the strange theories of imperialism do not live in reality.
In our resistance we confront death and choose life.
We become fire in order to ensure a dignified life for our people.
Our flames cause the oppressors to feel fear. The oligarchy knows well that with every fire that arises from our bodies, a piece of the corrupt, parasitical system also burns. It knows that all our heroic martyrs who defeat oppression and all the fighters who have shed their blood in Anatolia bring forth new fighters. So they even want to remove our remains, although history has shown on dozens of occasions that new life will flourish even from our ashes.
The real terrorists are those who attack us with demagogy about being “terrorists” as a way of extending political, military and economic support to imperialism. It is the government of this country which collaborates with the USA and Israel, taking part in the massacre of innocent peoples and shedding the blood of the peoples in the interests of the imperialist monopolies. Those who attack us are the collaborators of the biggest terrorists in the world, America and Israel.
Umit Gunger: “Our movement is a family in which all beauties, virtues, values, traditions and heroism are found together…”
Our comrade Umit Gunger was born the son of a Turkish Sunni family on July 13, 1972 in Savsat, Artvin Province (in north-eastern Turkey). He went to primary school in his village, in Zonguldak/Devrek he attended middle school, and he went to high school as a boarder at Kabatas High School for Boys. In 1989 he started studying to be a physics teacher at the Ataturk Teaching Faculty of Marmara University. He came in contact with our movement and in 1990 he got to know members of DEV-GENC (Revolutionary Youth). Kazim Gulbag who is also a martyr in the Great Resistance played a part in acquainting him with our movement – in a foreign country, Kazim would also set himself on fire. Umit explained why he joined DEV-GENC despite the wide choice of other political groups that he had encountered:
“In the university there was DEV-GENC, which worked in a serious manner, showed self-sacrifice and sincerity and was accommodating. I considered it the most sincere with regard to the struggle. So I also became a member of DEV-GENC“.
DEV-GENC is the dignity of this country. It stands for the resistance and the struggle against imperialism and fascist and has deep roots among the people.
In his activity in the democratic struggle of youth, he was imprisoned for a short time at the end of 1990.
After his release he went to DEV-GENC again. In July 1991 he began to work in the illegal sphere. After he was active in various units of DEV-GENC, he became a fighter in the militia of DEV-GENC in April 1992 and then joined the Armed Revolutionary Units (SDB). Now he could put into practice the people’s longing for justice. On April 23 he was detained and imprisoned, after his comrades fell on April 1 in Kiziltoprak. Under torture he showed resistance worthy of the revolutionary movement and defeated the torturers, maintaining his dignity. While in prison, too, he took on various reponsibilities and always looked death in the face for the Party and the revolution.
As he said in the curriculum vitae he gave our movement, for him the Party symbolised „the only hope of our people, the only force which could bring about revolution in Anatolia“. Our comrade, who thought his life aimless and empty before he encountered our movement, said:
“I came to know what life meant in the ranks of our movement. The most beautiful years of my life are those in which I got to know the movement and took part in the struggle. Our movement is a family in which all beauties, virtues, values, traditions and heroism are found together. I am proud to be a fighter in this family. “
Our comrade, who was always in the ranks of the resistance, was already a fighter in the 1996 Death Fast, as part of the First Team, while he was in Umraniye Prison. On November 30, 2003 he again began the test of hunger, joining the 9th Death Fast Team, frustrating the enemy’s hopes for an end to the Great Resistance and announcing once more that this resistance can never be broken.
He became immortal on March 31, showing that it is not a matter of “falling down” but of getting up again.
Everyone should ponder this:
Is there a weapon, a force that can defeat our hopes? Can the oligarchy and its AKP government, which rule out no methods of repression, remove our hopes?
