Eyup Beyaz: A teacher of the revolutionary struggle and a sacrificial fighter for people’s justice

Our comrade Eyup Beyaz was born in 1980 in Golbelen village of Cildir district, Ardahan Province (in the far east of Turkey). He came from an ethnic Turkish family of Sunni Muslims. After he finished primary school in his village, he graduated from a boarding school in Ardahan and in 1996 entered the teaching faculty of Karadeniz (Black Sea) Technical University.

During his time at university he took part in the revolutionary struggle. In 2001 he graduated from the teacher training faculty. But he had decided to exchange being a teacher of the people for an even greater cause. He was in the front row of the strugle, with the awareness that our liberation from exploitation and oppression and decent training for our children were only possible through revolution. He took on tasks in the youth organisation.

He was arrested for the first time on May 1, 2000 in Trabzon. He withstood the torture and kept his head held high. During a democratic action on July 30, 2000, in which the lifting of prison isolation was demanded, he was again arrested and again he resisted the torturers.

There was no room for the status quo in his conception of revolution. With his openness to learning, his self-sacrificial, modest and militant personality, he showed that he was ready for even greater tasks. He was accepted into our armed units. The oligarchy had set up special units over a long period of time and published his name and his photo in order to catch our comrade but he continued his underground activities in a cool and disciplined fashion.

For our comrade, who called himself a “private soldier of the struggle”, being organised meant “uniting his life, his thoughts and his practice with the organisation and at the necessary moment being able to behave like an organisation”.

The organisation is for all of our comrades, the name of revolution, as it was for Eyup.

This is what he said in this context:

“For me the movement is a patient teacher, it embodies an iron willpower and the creation of a new life. For me it means purity and genuineness. It means the liberation of our people and the liberation of all people on the road to this liberation. It is the effort made to liberate our sweat and toil from compulsion.

For me the movement means justice. It expresses the fear that tyrants have. It means happiness to me. I see the movement as a force whos historical mission is full of dignity. I see it as the only hope our people have for liberation. With its ideology, practice, the traditions it has created and its current struggle I see it as one of the strategic forces of world revolution.”

He lives on as a symbol of courage, self-sacrifice and justice. He was a fighter of the Front and embodied the fear the oppressors have. And he increased their fears by challenging their hundreds of gun barrels they pointed at him and by getting to one of their most heavily guarded points.

The courage and self-sacrifice of Eyup will be an example for new fighters of the Front.