Lice...

First, its villages were burnt down for its residents' support to the resistance led by Sheikh Said. Later, Lice’s villages were burnt again in 1927. Helicopters bombarded the district center and soldiers burnt down villages again in 1993 and 1994. State forces continued to burn villages and forests in 2015 and 2016.

The Turkish state was forced to start negotiating with Kurdish People’s Leader Abdullah Öcalan in İmralı in January 2013, after the PKK’s Revolutionary People’s War in 2012. High-level state bureaucrats, HDP parliamentarians and other people went to İmralı and carried out meetings in order to resolve the problems of the ‘Peace Process’ through peaceful means.

ÖCALAN HAD WARNED

Öcalan had always emphasized: "The AKP government is not taking the steps needed for a resolution. We won’t be the ones leaving the negotiations but we have to be careful. If they do not take steps for constitutional amednments, it means that they are preparing for a very violent war. Kurds must prepare themselves for a long war based on the principle of self-defense. The hiring of village guards, the transition into a private army, and the construction of outposts and dams are important indicators of this…"

Lice was the first place to give a practical response to Öcalan’s warnings. People of Lice, who were resisting the construction of a military outpost in 2013, were shot at and Medeni Yıldırım was murdered by soldiers. People of Lice also resisted the construction of an outpost in 2014, closed the Amed-Bingöl road for more than two months, and Ramazan Baran and H. Baki Akdemir lost their lives as a result of the soldiers’ attacks.

LİCE AND THE NEW CONCEPT OF WAR

Turkish state forces targeted Lice and its surroundings during the new attacks launched by the AKP government on July 24, 2015. AKP’s spin-doctor Abdulkadir Selvi described this new concept as "preventive strike" on June 2, 2016. Accordingly, guerrilla zones would be bombarded with air strikes, and special operations forces would then inflict the "mortal blow." Lice was chosen as the first application site of the "new concept" voiced by Selvi, who dedicated his column to Lice on June 16 and explained why Lice mattered so much for the state. Accordingly, the actions across North Kurdistan and Turkey would end if the guerrillas were to receive a heavy blow in Lice because ‘Lice was the command coordination and technical logistic center.’

Upon the AKP government’s command, the army began to launch air strikes in the Lice, Hazro, Silvan, Genç, Hani, Kulp, Dicle, and Kocaköy districts of Amed on June 20. The region’s mountains were bombarded and forests were burnt down between June 20 and 23.

On June 23, Turkish media loudly announced the beginning of a "huge operation in Lice." Accordingly, special operations police and gendarme forces as well as maroon berets from Bolu, Kayseri, Isparta Elazığ, Malatya, Bingöl and Diyarbakır launched the "Joint Special Unit Operation" for the first time in Turkey’s history. 8 thousand special operations forces participated in the operation, whose goal has been announced as "to neutralize the members of the separatist terrorist organization, among whom are high-level administrators, that operate in the mountainous and forested land to the north and south of Lice district, to destroy and seize the shelters, storage areas and materials used by the members of the separatist terrorist organization in the region, to capture the identified collaborators and wanted people in the region, to end the financial resources of the separatist terrorist organization in the region..."

'BIGGEST OPERATION' RESULTED IN FIASCO

The operation which took the form of air strikes between June 20-23 and land operations of special units between June 23-July 3 resulted in complete fiasco.

Supposedly, 70 million cannabis plants were destroyed and the villagers’ vehicles were confiscated during the operation. Residents of Lice know well who plants cannabis next to which military base in Lice, and nobody believes that 70 million cannabis plants were grown in the region without the knowledge of the soldiers. The victory of the much-publicized operation said to be the most comprehensive one over the past 20 years has been drugging the masses with stories.

The Turkish state has in deed carried out its most comprehensive operation over the past 20 years. Guerrillas' potential bases were watched through drones and bombarded with warplanes. Thousands of soldiers participated in the land operation.

If this operation resulted in a fiasco, the guerrillas’ capacity must be analyzed well. Guerrillas have upset the Turkish state’s new war concept with great tactical maneuvers despite the air strikes and the difficulty of the steep terrain. All of these show us that guerrillas not only carry out a wide range of actions, but also upset the state and its technological superiority with their modern guerrilla positions and actions.