The Co-Presidency of the KCK (Kurdistan Communities Union) Executive Council released a statement marking the 44th founding anniversary of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

The KCK statement released on Saturday includes the following:

“We are approaching the 44th anniversary of our party, the PKK, whose struggle has re-established the existence of the people of Kurdistan, led to significant developments in the struggle for the liberation of humanity and created great epics of resistance. For 44 years, the people of Kurdistan and the freedom fighters have been struggling under the leadership of the PKK for existence and freedom against the genocidal colonialist order. With its emergence on the stage of history and its 44 years of uninterrupted struggle, the PKK has led to the rebirth of the people of Kurdistan and created new values for humanity. We congratulate the patriotic people of Kurdistan, especially Leader Apo [Abdullah Öcalan] and the martyrs, all comrades who are fighting against the enemy on the battle fronts, the resistance fighters in the prisons, all PKK militants and sympathizers, the oppressed peoples of the world, women, youth and all progressive, democratic and socialist humanity on the 44th anniversary of our party.

We salute with respect our Leader Apo, who has given us the consciousness of freedom and opened the path of struggle by creating the PKK, which constitutes the sum of all our achievements and values. By founding the PKK, Leader Apo has rendered the greatest service to the Kurdish people. However, Leader Apo did not only create the PKK, he has been the person who has struggled and served the Kurdistan revolution the most by leading since the very beginning. In short, Leader Apo has devoted his entire existence to the freedom of the people of Kurdistan. He has maintained this stance even in Imrali, the most severe isolation and torture system in the history of humanity, and has thus exhibited the most meaningful and great resistance in history. We, the people of Kurdistan and the Kurdish Freedom Movement, owe a great debt of gratitude to Leader Apo for these great efforts and services.

The PKK was founded as a party of martyrs. All the great values of freedom and humanity that the PKK has created are thanks to the martyrs. By stating that he founded the PKK out of loyalty to the memory of Haki Karer, Leader Apo revealed that the PKK is the result of the efforts of the martyrs and the values they created. Whatever has been created in the 44 years of struggle led by the PKK is thanks to the martyrs. Therefore, as a people and a party, we owe all our values to our martyrs. On the 44th anniversary of the PKK, we commemorate with gratitude all the martyrs of revolution and democracy, from our first martyr Haki Karer to the comrades who have been martyred recently in Zap, Avaşin, Metîna, Xakurkê and everywhere else. We bow respectfully in front of their great memories and reiterate our promise that we will adhere to their memories and carry their struggle to victory. Until today, the PKK has created great values by struggling according to the line of the martyrs. From now on, it will create even greater values by expanding the struggle along the lines of the martyrs, and will realize our people’s longing for a free life, a free country and a free Leader [Abdullah Öcalan].

At a time when the Kurdish people were isolated from all their values in the system of denial and annihilation of the genocidal colonialist forces, and their name, language and identity were banned and forgotten, bringing them to the brink of extinction, the PKK appeared on the stage of history and changed its course. With its intervention in Kurdistan, the PKK changed the course of history to the path of freedom and gave Kurdish people and society a new identity and personality. This represents a great revolution for the Kurdish people. This new personality has provided all the values and developments created under the leadership of the PKK. If the genocidal colonialist personality had not been replaced by a new personality with the consciousness and will of freedom, no development would have been possible. Because the genocidal colonialist order not only divided Kurdistan and suppressed the Kurds through massacres, but also reduced the Kurdish people to nothingness and to a level that serves the enemy. The PKK has destroyed this personality in Kurdistan, and in its place, it has ensured the resurrection of a society that has adopted freedom as a principle, and has gained the consciousness of the Democratic Nation and the values of country and patriotism. The PKK has thus destroyed the foundations of genocidal colonialism in Kurdistan.

With the emergence of the PKK, Kurdish women have experienced a very important development in the line of freedom and have reached their own identity. It can be said that the Kurdish woman has experienced the greatest development with the PKK. The Kurdish woman represents the new and free personality created by the PKK the most. Because the PKK developed and fought according to the idea of women’s autonomy. So much so that Leader Apo defined the PKK as a women’s party. By developing the PKK along the line of women’s liberation and deepening the line of free women, Leader Apo has made great contributions to the will, organization and liberation of women. In fact, by basing the new paradigm of the PKK on women’s liberation, Leader Apo has elevated women to the status of the vanguard of free life and the struggle for freedom. Therefore, women’s struggle, labor and leadership have been the main factors in the emergence of the PKK reality and the shaping of its line. The Kurdish woman, who has developed greatly in the PKK and possesses a free consciousness and will, has not only liberated herself. Thanks to the paradigm developed by Leader Apo on the basis of women’s freedom, she has reached a position that today leads the awakening and liberation of women in the Middle East and the world.

With its struggle and the developments it has created, the PKK has become an important movement not only for the people of Kurdistan but also for the peoples of the Middle East and the oppressed peoples and women of the world. By developing the theory of Democratic Civilization and Democratic Modernity, Leader Apo has given a new form and content to the struggle and quest for freedom of the peoples, women and the oppressed, and has thus opened a new horizon for humanity. With these values, the PKK has reached universality. And with its paradigm of a society based on democracy, ecology and women’s freedom, it has become the pioneer of the philosophy of liberation and the revolutionary democratic struggle of our age by developing a solution to the blockage due to capitalist modernity.

Another important development of the PKK, which has revolutionized the mentality in Kurdistan by creating the free Kurdish personality, is that it has exposed and defeated the collaborationist treasonous Kurdish line, which is part of the genocidal colonialist order. The collaborative treacherous Kurdish line, which developed on the basis of primitive nationalism, emerged as an extension of colonialism and created a politics that exploits the values of Kurdistan and sells them to the enemy. The collaborative treacherous line has been the line of the colonial personality that submits to the enemy, ceases to be itself, serves the enemy and betrays the values of the society it belongs to. Because of this character, the collaborative treacherous line has been the legitimizer of Kurdistan’s colonial status. With the emergence of the PKK, this collaborationist, treasonous Kurdish line was defeated and the line and values of freedom prevailed in Kurdistan. As the Kurdistan freedom struggle, which developed under the leadership of the PKK, gains success against the enemy and the people of Kurdistan get closer to freedom, the collaborative treacherous line gets increasingly weaker. And as it weakens, it tries to survive by taking sides with the enemy more and more and increasing its support for the Kurdish genocide. In fact, the genocidal colonialist powers are only able to continue the Kurdish genocide based on the collaborator betrayer line. If the collaborationist treacherous line had not existed historically, it would not have been possible for Kurdistan to be divided and fragmented, colonized and the Kurdish people to be removed from their essence under the genocidal colonialist attacks of the enemy. Today, the genocidal colonialist Turkish state is still trying to occupy Kurdistan based on the support of the collaborative treacherous line and to realize the Kurdish genocide by eliminating the gains of the Kurdish people that have been achieved at great cost and struggle.

The genocidal colonialist Turkish state and the fascist AKP-MHP government are attacking the four parts of Kurdistan and every place where Kurds are located in order to eliminate the developments created by the PKK and to exterminate the Kurds by realizing the Kurdish genocide. The fascist AKP-MHP government attacks Maxmur, Şengal, South Kurdistan, Rojava, East Kurdistan and the Medya Defense Zones, resorting to all kinds of inhuman methods and crimes, including chemical weapons. Wherever there is a Kurd who resists, they target and try to massacre him/her. These attacks by the fascist AKP-MHP government aim at saving the genocidal colonialist order, which is on the verge of defeat in the face of the Kurdistan freedom struggle led by the PKK. The new wave of attacks launched against Rojava and North and East Syria also serves this purpose. The genocidal colonialist Turkish state not only aims to occupy Rojava by using all kinds of attacks, but also aims to create a Rojava without Kurds by displacing the Kurdish people from there. It wants to subjugate the other peoples of North and East Syria. The genocide and ethnic cleansing that was previously carried out in Afrin is now wanted to be carried out in all of Rojava and North and East Syria. From this point of view, it is very meaningful and valuable for the peoples of North and East Syria to remain in their lands and take an attitude of resistance, being aware of this aim of the genocidal colonialist Turkish state and the fascist AKP-MHP government. The attitude of the peoples of North and East Syria, which is the greatest measure of patriotism and freedom, not to leave their land under any circumstances and to defend themselves against attacks, must be supported by everyone, especially the people of Kurdistan.

We once again celebrate the 44th anniversary of our party, the PKK, which has given a new spirit to the Kurdish people, and we salute all those who resist and live according to the PKK resistance spirit. For 44 years, our party, the PKK, has brought great values to the people of Kurdistan, the peoples of the Middle East, the oppressed peoples of the world and all humanity. And it will undoubtedly continue to create great values in its 45th year. With these feelings, the people of Kurdistan, while celebrating the 44th anniversary of the PKK with enthusiasm, must resist the genocidal attacks of the fascist AKP-MHP government with the spirit and style of the PKK and raise the struggle even higher. The people of Kurdistan, who have gained their existence and identity by resisting and struggling under the leadership of the PKK until today, will resist the genocidal colonialism to the final defeat and ensure their freedom.”