On March 20, in Ordu Province’s Unye district, near Yesilkent, a gendarmerie special team was involved in a clash with one of guerrilla units connected to the Black Sea Area Command of DHKC(Revolutionary People’s Liberation Front), and three of our guerrillas were martyred. Three of our vanguard in the People’s Liberation War in the mountains, Gokce Sahin, Sengul Gulsoy and Turan Sahin, gave their lives with honour, courage and pride in the mountains under the banner of independence, democracy and socialism. In every facet of this country, a war front exists.
Gokce SAHIN: Commander of the unit. He joined the Black Sea Unit in July 1998. He was born in Ankara on December 23, 1976. In 1994 he joined the Dev-Genc (Revolutionary Youth) organisation while studying in the chemical engineering department in Hacettepe University. He took on various responsibilities in the struggle and organising youth. He was expelled from university for taking his place in the academic-democratic struggle. In 1995 he was imprisoned. The day he was put in prison the Buca massacre took place. When he was released he resumed his duties. The oligarchy’s repression, violence and his ties to the system on some days stoked up his anger but on other days created hesitation. When it was necessary to go to a different sphere of work, there was on the one hand his family, on the other: there was the struggle, his comrades, the Free Prisoners and the martyrs. And he hesitated.
Either revolution or the system would win. Later on he evaluated this moment of hesitation: I knew the state of human beings who are abandoned. I had seen how disgusting it is in the hole made by the system No, I said, to myself. Definitely I want to be able to look Birtan, Berdan, Sinan and Niyazi in the face I will not abandon this struggle until I have overcome all my weaknesses. I also hate the Gokce who shows closeness to the system. He overcame his hesitation. He took the gun as a People’s Liberation Fighter without hesitation. The system sometimes practises tyranny and sometimes revolutionaries act against themselves, sometimes through family ties or through their own feelings. Those who don’t let the system defeat them are revolutionary fighters and like Gokce they wave the flag of revolution in the fight.
Sengul GULSOY: Joined a guerrilla unit in 1998. She was born on October 10, 1979 in the village of Imranli Baslica (Arikan) in Sivas Province. Gulsoy was a member of an impoverished and landless Kurdish family. They moved to Istanbul in 1987. Sengul was only able to attend primary school. In Istanbul she worked in a number of sweatshops making clothing. In these places, whoever sought their rights or encouraged their colleagues to join a trade union was dismissed. She became acquainted with revolutionaries. In 1995 she joined the Front’s cortege on May Day and supported the Front from that time on. She joined in every kind of action in support of rights and freedom on Istanbul’s Anatolian side, from protests over Susurluk to actions in support of the Death Fast. She was detained several times. She was less than 18 the first time she was detained. But this did not matter to the torturers; they used every type of torture method, from hanging her by the arms to using electricity. But she resisted, became more conscious and was tempered like steel. She took on responsibility for organising in her locality. But for th e sake of a free homeland, she wanted to be a fighter: I want to be a fighter in the city like Sibel, I want to be like Ali Riza Kurt and resist like Sabahat and people like her, she said. I am dying for the movement, she said modestly. Because I do not want my people to be oppressed I want equality and a free country. I want the guilty to be punished. Only the DHKP-C can do this and for this reason it is a movement worth dying for. If I die with this purpose in mind, I will not look back in regret, the fight will go on, weapon in hand, until our power is established; these were some of the things she said in her report.
She was a village girl whose confidence and belief will not be in vain, she was a resister in the shantytowns and a heroine of the mountains.
Turan SAHIN: A People’s Liberation Fighter since October 1997. He was born in the Tokat Province town of Almus on October 10, 1980.
He came from an Ethnic Turkish and Alevi family. Reality for him from a young age was poverty and repression on a daily basis. He knew the guerrillas and loved revolution. After his application to join the guerrillas was not accepted, his family sent him to Istanbul. He worked as a labourer for four years in Istanbul. He saw and experienced everything in Istanbul but his desire to be a guerrilla only increased, because he became more conscious and witnessed exploitation, tyranny and poverty as being exactly the same, whether in the big cities or the smallest villages. Moreover, inequality was more pronounced and obvious. In Istanbul he formed links with the revolutionary movement. In the meantime his body and mind developed and he educated himself. His reason for being a revolutionary and a guerrilla became very developed: this is what he wrote to the Front: We have been exploited for years, there is repression in the villages, people gather food from rubbish dumps, and to find a solution to all that it is necessary to wage a struggle He joined the guerrillas in October 1997. On March 20, 2002 he became immortal as a People’s Liberation Fighter, upholding the duties of revolutionism and patriotism for his people and homeland.
