Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) Executive Council Co-presidency issued a written statement on the 20th anniversary of the plot of October 9, 1998 that resulted in Kurdish People’s Leader Abdullah Öcalan leaving Syria.

KCK said they have the experience and strength to void the conspirators and added that the Turkish state’s increasing attacks are related to them “reaching the point of collapse”.

KCK also called for a “multidimensional struggle” against the isolation imposed upon Öcalan and those who support this isolation.

The KCK statement is as follows:

“We are entering the 21st year of the October 9 plot. We remember with gratitude and respect those who fell martyr resisting this plot with the slogan, ‘YOU CAN’T DARKEN OUR SUN’. We salute once more our people who embraced Leader Apo and resisted the plot everywhere. We repeat our promise that we will show our rage at the plot by developing the freedom struggle and freeing Leader Apo.

Leader Apo has been held in a solitary cell in a one-man prison for the last 20 years. He has been under a strict isolation no other political prisoner has experienced in the world. He hasn’t been allowed to meet with his lawyers since 2011. He was only allowed to meet with his brother on April 5, 2015. Recently it was announced that he won’t be allowed any meetings for the next 6 months due to a disciplinary sentence. The state has thus admitted that they have built an order of strict oppression in Imrali. This order of strict isolation and oppression that has continued for 20 years is in essence the order of oppression and tyranny imposed upon the Kurdish people. Genocidal policies against the Kurdish people have been implemented in the form of strict isolation and oppression against Leader Apo.

THE ‘YOU CAN’T DARKEN OUR SUN’ RESISTANCE

The reason such immense pressure is put on Leader Apo is the fact that they have been unable to stop the Kurdish people’s struggle for freedom despite the plot. Leader Apo’s ideological and political line and stance has allowed the Kurdish people to continue their struggle nonstop and develop. There has been a great struggle against the plot since its start. Our people embraced the Leader and launched a resistance campaign titled ‘YOU CAN’T DARKEN OUR SUN’, which posed from the beginning that the plot would be voided. The international plot hasn’t reached any of the goals it set, and the reason for that is this resistance against the plot. Leader Apo and our Freedom Movement have fought to void this plot for 20 years with this spirit of resistance and have achieved developments contrary to the aims of the plot.

PEOPLES OF THE MIDDLE EAST ENTERED A NEW ERA

Today, Leader Apo has become the leader of not just the Kurdish people but all Middle Eastern peoples for freedom and democracy. A new period of peoples’ struggle against the statist system and its latest representative capitalism has started with socialism based on democratic confederalism that is against power and the statist system. This understanding has shown the peoples of the Middle East, trapped between nationalism and sectarianism, the way to a free and democratic life through the democratic nation line. With the democratic nation understanding, the peoples of the Middle East have entered a new era.

The Kurdish Freedom Movement on Leader Apo’s path has become the hope for a free and democratic life for all peoples. Our freedom movement that developed in Leader Apo’s line and under PKK’s lead has entered a period to create larger developments. The regressive forces in the Middle East personified in the AKP-MHP fascism have attacked the forces of democracy and freedom desperately, but these attacks will be pushed back by the peoples’ will for freedom and democracy and the gates to democratization and a free life will open wide in the Middle East.

ATTACKS INCREASE BECAUSE THEY ARE AT THE POINT OF COLLAPSE

In the 20 years since the plot, the Kurdish people’s consciousness for freedom and democracy have developed further.  The Kurdish people’s struggle for freedom has become more socialized. The Kurdish people’s connection to Leader Apo and the PKK couldn’t be severed, and their will for freedom couldn’t be broken. As the Kurdish people’s awareness, will and organization for freedom developed, the colonialists increased their attacks. The reason the Turkish state has increased their attacks today is because they are once again at the point of political, financial, social, military and cultural collapse, like back in 1998. Like they came to the point of collapse after failing to achieve results using all their military might in the 1990s, today they are in the same situation.

“WE HAVE THE STRENGTH TO VOID THE PLOT”

The AKP-MHP government, like their counterparts in 1998, are leaning on foreign powers and want to garner political, military and economic support from them to get out of this situation. The ECHR ignoring the intense isolation, oppression and torture in Imrali, Germany supporting the fascist government, the US trying to prop up this government politically by supporting them in Idlib are attempts to rescue the Turkish state like back in 1998. But the strength and experience of our freedom struggle and our people’s awareness and will for freedom is enough to void these new conspiracy attacks.

A MULTIDIMENSIONAL STRUGGLE IS NEEDED

The severe isolation imposed upon Leader Apo, the intense oppression imposed upon our people, our peoples and all forces of democracy, and the attacks against our Freedom Movement are shaped into a new plot. Faced with this, our people and all forces of democracy should fight the new plot, like they showed a revolutionary democratic resistance against the plot launched on October 9, 1998. We must develop a multidimensional struggle against those who implement the strict isolation upon Leader Apo and those who support this isolation and defeat the conspiracists.

KURDISTAN WILL BE FREE

On this basis, we are calling on the youth, women and all Kurdish people to come together around Leader Apo’s stance and raise the struggle, to ensure the Kurdish people’s and Leader Apo’s freedom. We are calling on the peoples of Turkey and forces of democracy to raise the struggle against the AKP-MHP fascism with the awareness that objecting to the severe isolation imposed upon Leader Apo and the intense oppression of the Kurdish people is defending Turkey’s democratization.

With the resistance of our people and the forces of democracy, the AKP-MHP fascism and all conspiracists will be defeated. With Leader Apo’s freedom, Turkey will be democratized and Kurdistan will be free.”