International Workers’ Day of May 1 was celebrated with a ceremony held in guerrilla-held Medya Defense Zones. All May martyrs were commemorated in the name of the ones who lost their lives on May 1 and the ceremony was attended by the People’s Defense Central Headquarters Commander Murat Karayılan, Central Headquarters Command members Bawer Dersim and Gülistan Gülhat, Apollo Academies Command members Pêlşîn Koçgiri and Demhat Bêdar and many guerrillas.

Speaking at the ceremony, Murat Karayılan said workers have faced grave consequences in the struggle for May 1 and stressed that the PKK’s fight today is also a fight for labor. Karayılan mentioned that the fight the Kurdish people have waged against capitalist modernity is also the resistance of all the oppressed and the exploited and said the oppressed of today can achieve a result with unity, struggle and solidarity.

Assessing the military and political situation in a meeting with guerrillas after the ceremony, People’s Defense Central Headquarters Commander Murat Karayılan stated that the self government resistances have caused a congestion and rupture in the AKP state and said, “With the guerrilla kicking off the new tactical process in the rural areas, the colonial system in Kurdistan will go into a rupture process.”

Significant points from Karayılan’s speech translated by ANF English service are as follows:

“Today is the day for unity, struggle and solidarity for the workers and the oppressed. We as the Kurdistan Freedom Guerillas celebrate May 1 for all workers, starting with Leader Apo. May 1 has always been the day when the fight for freedom, democracy, equality and socialism has risen up in the history of the fight of the workers. A great effort has been put into this end to this day, there are many martyrdoms on May 1 in the history of the workers. There have been many martyrdoms in the workers’ struggle in Turkey and Kurdistan. At the top lies the Taksim martyrs of May 1, 1977. Then there is the martyrdom of comrades Mehmet Karasungur and İbrahim Bilgin on May 2. On May 6 there is the martyrdom of Deniz Gezmiş, Yusuf Aslan and Hüseyin İnan, the leaders of Turkey’s revolution. May 18 is the day of the martyrdom of İbrahim Kaypakkaya, Haki Karer, Halil Çavgun, Müslüm Baran and Ferhat Kurtay. As a whole, the month of May is a month of martyrs, a month for the ones we bid farewell in the fight for labor. We repeat our promise to our martyrs of the revolution once more on this day. We will immortalize them and keep their memory in raising the fight for freedom, equality and democracy.

The struggle against colonialism in Kurdistan today is also a fight of world's workers against the exploitation of capitalism. The fight for democratic autonomy in Kurdistan today, in the cities and the mountains is at its core a fight for all the oppressed classes and societies. It is the fight of all workers in Turkey and Kurdistan. The Freedom Movement’s resistance against fascism and colonialism in Kurdistan is also the struggle to raise the flag of labor. The resistance mounted in Kurdistan today, on the basis of Leader Apo’s Democratic Ecological Society Based on Women’s Freedom paradigm, is the struggle of oppressed peoples and all workers. Today this struggle needs to be raised even higher, the solidarity and unity of workers needs to be strengthened. In this framework, the founding of the Peoples’ United Revolution Movement is a very important step. We salute those who took this step and increased the power or workers.

We believe that May 1, 2016 will be the day of new emergences. The tactical emergence based on raising the unity, struggle and solidarity today marks the beginning of a new era in our country.

THEIR GOAL IS TO MAKE EVERYBODY SURRENDER AND KILL THOSE WHO DON’T

The resistance waged by the Freedom Movement in Kurdistan is also a struggle for the democratisation and emancipation of Turkey. This is why the AKP targets the Kurdistan peoples and their fight for freedom so severely. They thought they could get results in Kurdistan with the same techniques used to some success in Turkey to tear down the opposition. They are aiming to target everybody, whether it’s journalists, writers, artists, intellectuals, academics, politicians, parliamentarians, and they want to make the whole of society surrender with their tactics of silencing and oppressing. Then they will be able to fully implement their fascist, monist, authoritarian system and become permanent. That is why they wanted to take the cities under their control first. They committed an unprecedented atrocity. The goal is to make everybody surrender, and end the lives of those who don’t. Erdoğan later let his mindset slip and said, “You either bow down or you lose your head.” But the peoples of Kurdistan have resisted these impositions and have reached a very important level of struggle especially in the last 9 months. The self government resistances have such a significant meaning. Because democratic autonomy is a system that is required by not only Kurdistan but Turkey as well. Democratic autonomy is a system that applauds pluralism and cohabitation in the face of the “One nation, one state, one language, one religion” discourse. It is not a dictatorship, it is a practice of democracy.

APOIST SPIRIT STRENGTHENS THE WILL IN KURDISTAN

A great resistance is being mounted in Kurdistan for 9 months. This resistance which has been led by Cizre and Sur continues in other towns today, bringing along very significant outcomes, revealing willpower, upsetting the Collapse Plan, choking the AKP's system and leaving it desperate. This process of resistance has proved that the will of our people can never be cowed into submission despite all the sieges imposed on them, all the technological means mobilized against them and destruction of their towns and cities. This is what the resistance of Sur and Cizre means; emergence of a will for justice against fascism, exploitation and atrocity; a will for humanity, freedom and democracy. The Apoist spirit of self-sacrifice strengthens this will in the streets and battle fields of Kurdistan today.

GUERRILLAS WILL DEFINITIVELY PLAY THEIR ROLE

What needs to be done now is to enhance, expand, strengthen and enrich this revealed will. The process of fighting until today was dominated by challenging winter circumstances that resulted in a lack of conditions of maneuver for the guerrilla forces. The large part of the burden was therefore laid on cities and towns. The enemy's plan was to seize the control of cities by December and then to advance upon mountains and make the guerrilla begin the 2016 spring in a whammed and weakened position. However, the resistance mounted by patriotic youths of Kurdistan has upset these plans. Now in spring, it is the turn of Kurdistan Freedom Guerrillas, for whom conditions to move easily have now begun to arise. Our people, Leader, martyrs and friends have expectations from Kurdistan Freedom Guerrillas who will indeed play their role without fail.

PEOPLE AND FRIENDS OF KURDISTAN WILL TRIUMPH

The enemy focuses very much on technique in battle and it wants to accomplish a result by means of JÖH (Special Operations Gendarmerie) and PÖH (Special Operations Police) on this basis. Yet, it is clear by now that they will not achieve it this way. This 9-month process of resistance has revealed the condition of these forces who rely on technique but not will in the battle; the contrary of what needs to be born to win a fight. Turkish state spends a lot of money on new techniques originating around the world, and gives these to JÖH and PÖH forces, telling them to 'attain a result with these'. On seeing the failure of this way, too, the state later resorts to using heavier weapons to tear down buildings, towns and cities. In this regard, the resistance waged by YPS is a rare one of its kind around the world. Tanks surround cities and bombard them non-stop. State forces are now using various weapons in addition to howitzers, mortars and artillery. They want to tear and burn everywhere down from long distance in order to be able to advance into those areas. It is clear that a force fighting this way will not be able to achieve a result. In the event that the resistance mounted until today attain a richer tactics and content, and with the guerrilla starting the new process of move in the rural, it will be quite easy to break these forces altogether.

Yet, Erdoğan keeps saying "We have defeated PKK". Well, guerrillas haven't started to fight yet. Whom did you defeat, and where? You are uttering these remarks to boost the morale of your forces suffering a collapse and to deceive the society of Turkey. You are saying these things because you also see a huge storm approaching. You are designing a ruling over the death of Turkish and Kurdish youths. It is quite apparent that you will not get away with it while you claim to have achieved a success after perpetrating state terror with the most advanced techniques against young people and students.

It is obvious that all such remarks of Erdoğan are far from real, empty and psychological war propaganda. It is also obvious that they will not obtain a result against Kurdistan Freedom Struggle through this system which they built on lies. It is the people of Kurdistan, democratic powers and their friends that will triumph."