Mehmet YILDIRIM (Necati)

He was born in 1964 in Oluklu village in Kagizman district of Kars city, as the child of a poor Kurdish peasant family. Because of poverty he could not continue his education after elementary school. He began to do various kinds of work to earn a living. During his life as a worker he experienced the most typical forms of exploitation and injustice. When in 1993 he got to know the revolutionaries, he very quickly assimilated revolutionary ideas. He carried out various activities in Alibeyköy/Istanbul as a Devrimci Sol sympathiser. For Mehmet, being a revolutionary was something different from his previous life. He wanted to learn all aspects of this life and be a modest soldier of the organisation. He had not come into contact with the dirt and filth of the system. It was his great passion to learn to be a revolutionary and to live that way. The diligence he had already shown in life was now put into service with the revolution. Without making a distinction between major and minor activities, he eagerly carried out all tasks. A little later he came to know imprisonment. This came at an early point for him but it was a school in which he got to know the revolution in all its aspects. He had the self- confidence to say “I can also do what others do”. He was older than many of his other comrades. But he was highly enthusiastic in seeking to learn from his younger comrades and to fight under their direction. He came late to the revolution.He wanted to make up for the years he had wasted outside the revolution. When he was freed he said, “Now I am a fighter and at the service of my Party”. He wanted to dedicate every hour of his life to the Party. For a short time he was in an urban guerrilla unit. In 1995 he was part of a rural guerrilla unit in the Black Sea region. While he was fighting there, he developed severe frostbite and had to be brought to the city to be treated for it. For him being a revolutionary and the struggle was not a short-term thing. It had to last one’s entire life. When he recovered his health, he waited for the order to be sent back to the struggle. He was sent to be deputy commander of the Aegean rural guerrilla unit. When he went into the mountains, he said, “It is our task to keep all the martyrs of the revolution alive, to take their place and to hold their banner even higher and fix it above the fortresses of the oligarchy. I will carry out this proud task to the last drop of my blood as a fighter of the Party-Front…” And he did this. Until the last drop of his blood he shouted out his support of the revolution, the legitimate struggle of the people and the Party-Front. He challenged the enemy. When he drew his last breath along with his comrade Kenan, the fire of resistance burned in the mountains of the Aegean. This fire was lit by them. We give our word that it will grow larger and never be extinguished.