The 12th Congress of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) was held between May 5 and 7 in the Medya Defense Zones in southern Kurdistan (northern Iraq) with the participation of 232 delegates. At the congress, all delegates unanimously decided to end activities carried out under the name of the PKK.

Cemil Bayik, co-chair of the KCK (Kurdistan Communities Union) Executive Council, spoke to Stêrk TV about the need that gave rise to the Kurdistan Freedom Movement, what has changed since its inception, and why the discussions and efforts regarding the renewal of the alliance between the Kurdish and Turkish people are an enrichment not only for the country, but for the entire region and promote democratization.

We publish the first part of the in-depth interview below.

The 12th congress of the PKK, held on May 5-7, was the cause of much commotion. The PKK has left behind a history of 52 years of struggle. You have been part of the Kurdistan Freedom Movement since the very beginning. When the people’s leader Abdullah Öcalan talks about the PKK, he says, “We were patriots of a country that no one dared to mention”. You took part in both the 1st and the 12th congresses of the PKK. How did we get from then to today? How have the conditions in Kurdistan changed?

First of all, I would like to congratulate the people of Kurdistan, the people of the Middle East, humanity, and the people’s leader, Abdullah Öcalan, on the 12th Congress of the PKK. The congress was held in May, which is the Month of Martyrs to the Kurdistan Freedom Movement. Of course, the movement has given martyrs in all months of the year, but the month of May stands out. I commemorate all the martyrs of the month of May and generally, all the martyrs of the struggle for freedom and democracy by commemorating comrade Fuat [Ali Haydar Kayran] and comrade Rıza [Altun]. I pay my respect and express my gratitude to them. If the 12th Congress was held successfully, it was realized as a result of great labor, struggle, cost, and suffering. The congress was held on the basis of people’s leader Abdullah Öcalan’s great effort. Adding to this, our martyrs, our people, our international friends, and especially Sırrı Süreyya Önder also made a great effort. They paved the way for the congress to be held successfully and enabled it to take far-reaching decisions.

When the PKK was founded, the circumstances of the Kurdish people were very bad. The socialist and democratic movements in Turkey had suffered a great blow. Again, the Kurdish people, no matter how much they revolted, no matter how much they struggled, constantly had to face massacres, forced displacements, and imprisoning. Therefore, the intervention of people’s leader Abdullah Öcalan was a historic intervention. He intervened while the people were facing severe circumstances, in a difficult period when there were no prepared opportunities. If it had not been for people’s leader Abdullah Öcalan’s intervention, perhaps nothing would be left today in the name of Kurds and Kurdistan. It would have been made forgotten. This is a reality. People’s leader Abdullah Öcalan’s emergence and intervention were historically for this very reason. In other words, no one had been talking about a country like Kurdistan, and no one had been talking about a people like them anymore. With his intervention, the people’s leader, Abdullah Öcalan, brought the Kurds back to their feet. He made history and created a great resurrection. The Kurdish people, the people of the Middle East, and humanity need to be aware of this fact. People’s leader Abdullah Öcalan developed an intense struggle from the very beginning. Ideologically and philosophically, he waged a tough struggle with a small group in Ankara. This very group developed its ideological and then political dimensions. On this basis, it became a youth movement.

After this group took its first steps, held many meetings, and prepared the foundation, it developed the move towards forming a party. The establishment of the PKK has a very special place in the history of the people of Kurdistan. Because it changed a history that was facing extinction. It enabled the Kurds to write their own history. The history written until then was not for the Kurds; there were no Kurds in it; there was only the denial and annihilation of the Kurds. With the establishment of the PKK, this changed.

The Turkish state had ‘Imaginary Kurdistan is buried here’ engraved on a stone slab that it had installed on Mount Ararat.

That’s right, there were almost no Kurds or Kurdistan anymore; they had almost been annihilated. Massacres, forced displacement, assimilation… Again, the left-socialist movements in Turkey were also annihilated. In other words, all those steps towards a resurrection of this people were taken under difficult conditions, at great cost, with great pain. When this movement made its first steps, many people stood against it. They said, “This thought, this philosophy, this struggle should not enter Kurdistan; it will not bring anything to the Kurds; in fact, it will destroy the few things left that exist in the name of Kurdistan and Kurdistan”. But Abdullah Öcalan stood against all these obstacles. And as a result, the movement was able to take steps, develop, and reach today.

The struggle developed by the people’s leader, Abdullah Öcalan, was to enable the Kurds to wage a struggle for freedom and democracy. He took the free life in Kurdistan as a basis. “If there is to be a life, it will be free,” he said. The current life that existed back then brought the Kurds to death and not life. What existed could not be called living. Therefore, on behalf of Kurdistan and on behalf of the people of Kurdistan, he started a struggle to reveal what life is and what death is and made everyone understand. He showed what kind of struggle, philosophy, ideology, politics, leadership, organization, militancy, and patriotism must develop in Kurdistan so that Kurds can survive, stand up, live, and struggle for themselves. For this, Abdullah Öcalan developed a multifaceted and historic intervention. It is on this basis that Öcalan developed the PKK.

There are many oppressed peoples in the world. Oppressors have occupied countries and enforced their politics there, but they have never experienced what has been done in Kurdistan. There is a completely different situation in Kurdistan. There was total annihilation. It was not easy to revive a people in such a state, to create and develop a people who would be able to struggle for their freedom under the given circumstances. All this happened at great cost, with great pain, and with great struggles. When the 1st Congress was held, it created great excitement. It had a great impact on me, on the comrades who attended the congress, on the comrades who were parts of all the works, and on the people.

No one in the world calculated that such a movement would emerge in the name of Kurds and Kurdistan. Everyone was surprised; not only was the Turkish state shocked, but the whole world was surprised. There was great enthusiasm and morale among the people and their friends in Kurdistan. Maybe not everyone deeply understood the steps taken by Abdullah Öcalan at the 1st Congress, but even so, a struggle for freedom and democracy on behalf of Kurdistan and the people of Kurdistan had been organized and declared. This very fact created great morale and enthusiasm in everyone, which I personally experienced as well. Because until then there had been no organization, no struggle, there was nothing on behalf of Kurds and Kurdistan. For the first time, the Kurdish people gained a history, an organization, a leadership, an identity, and a struggle. Until then, no one knew what death was or what life was. No one knew how they would rise up. Everyone had accepted the fate that the occupiers had written for the Kurds. People’s leader Abdullah Öcalan reversed this. That is why that intervention was historic.

People’s leader Abdullah Öcalan started in this way and has developed a far-reaching struggle until today. The PKK is the development of revolution within revolution. People’s leader Abdullah Öcalan’s goal was a free life, a free society. He spent his whole life on this, and he achieved results. In the beginning, he created great value, a great history, and a great identity in Kurdistan; he proved to the world that Kurds live and will take their right to live like everyone else. After he brought the Kurds to their feet, people’s leader Abdullah Öcalan said, “We have succeeded in the resurrection; we need to complete this with freedom.” That is what he claimed already in 1993. He now wanted to solve the Kurdish question through political and democratic means. However, since the Turkish state’s mentality is one of denial and annihilation, it sabotaged the move that had started. It prevented that move from developing and the Kurdish question from being solved through political and democratic means. But Abdullah Öcalan insisted on this. In 1995, he developed a bigger move. In the course of the 5th Congress, he put change on the agenda in order to develop the goal of democracy and freedom and to solve the Kurdish question through political and democratic means.

It was people’s leader Abdullah Öcalan’s aim to develop a free life, and he could only develop this through women’s freedom. Therefore, he developed the theory and ideology of women’s liberation, and at the 5th Congress, he developed the corresponding organization. This was a fundamental change. Then, in 1998, he wanted to complete the moves he had started in 1993-95. He wanted to complete the fundamental change. But he was confronted with the international conspiracy. They did not allow Abdullah Öcalan to develop this move.

But again, he managed to develop an ideological revolution in Imrali under the most severe conditions, facing the greatest impossibilities. He developed a new revolution on an ideological dimension and developed fundamental changes in the movement. On this basis, he wanted to solve the Kurdish question through political and democratic means. But since the mentality of the Turkish state is denial and annihilation, they developed the policy that they called “forcing them to their knees”. They again wanted to annihilate everything in the name of Kurds and Kurdistan. Despite all this, Abdullah Öcalan continued the move he had taken and insisted on it. The Turkish state could not get results with its policy. It wanted to annihilate the movement completely, but our people, the guerrilla and the international friends of our people struggled, paid a great price, gave great martyrs, and suffered great pain, and so they did prevent the politics of genocide from succeeding; they frustrated that politics.

In addition to this, the Third World War started to unfold in the Middle East. The Turkish state realized that it would not be able to achieve results with its genocidal policy, and when it insisted on this, it saw that the problems in the country were deepening and dangers were developing for Turkey. They also realized that the war was creating fundamental changes in the Middle East, so they realized that the politics they were conducting at that time would create great dangers for the state and decided to change their politics. This is how we came to the 12th Congress of the PKK.