Zilar Stêrk, member of the General Presidential Council of the KCK, about the current discussions surrounding the physical freedom of the Kurdish people's leader, Abdullah Öcalan, and the related Kurdish question. Stêrk discussed the struggle for this as well as the games that some actors are playing in an attempt to renew the international conspiracy.

There are currently many discussions about the Kurdish question, the role of Kurdish people’s leader Abdullah Ocalan and his total isolation, which has now lasted for 26 years. What can you tell us about the overall situation? How should the current conflicts be understood?

Firstly, I once again condemn and curse the international conspiracy with all my hatred and anger as it enters its 27th year. Also, I commemorate all martyrs of the revolution by commemorating the martyrs that gave their lives in the "You cannot darken our sun!" struggle, who stood in front of Rêber Apo to protect him with their bodies.

We slowly leave the month October behind us, which is a month in which many women of our women’s movement fell martyrs. I once again commemorate all of our martyrs of the month of October with respect and gratitude, by commemorating comrade Beritan (Gulnaz Karatash), the pioneer and leading cadre of our women’s army.

Today, a great and glorious historical resistance is going on in the mountains of Kurdistan. I respectfully commemorate all the comrades who martyred, especially in the areas of Zap, Metina, and Avashin. Comrade Asmin Seyit, whose martyrdom was announced recently, again comrade Agir, comrade Besta, and comrade Cemal. I bow with respect in front of their memory. I also commemorate with respect and gratitude Ape Nemir, who fought and struggled shoulder to shoulder with the revolutionaries against the gangs and mercenaries of ISIS in the Battle of Kobane and was wounded several times. I express my condolences to his family and the entire Kurdish people.

It has been 26 years since the launch of the international conspiracy, and throughout these 26 years, Rêber Apo, who was held hostage in solitary confinement in the Imrali torture center, has been in a very historic resistance. I take this opportunity to salute Rêber Apo and his resistance, his glorious resistance, and send my greetings and love.

The main purpose of this conspiracy was the physical destruction of Rêber Apo. In fact, the aim of the physical annihilation of Rêber Apo did not only start with the conspiracy of October 9. Already on May 6, 1996, a great conspiracy was staged in Damascus, again aiming at the physical destruction of Rêber Apo. Thanks to the measures taken by Rêber Apo and his foresight, that conspiracy did not come to fruition.

In the face of the international conspiracy of October 9, Rêber Apo left the Middle East and thereby prevented physical annihilation. Rêber Apo is aware of the cruciality of his existence and how it is connected to the fate of the Kurdish people. He knows that his physical destruction would pave the way for the genocide of the Kurdish people. Based on this, thinking with a very strategic mind, he left the Middle East and thus frustrated the conspiracy’s aim of physical annihilation. At that time, when Rêber Apo went to Europe, during the period he spent in Rome, our people flocked to Rome in droves. Hundreds of thousands, millions of people, met and united around Rêber Apo. People set themselves on fire out in protest. They carried out big sacrificial actions. They sent the conspiratorial forces a very clear message: “Rêber Apo is us.” The existence of Rêber Apo means Kurdish existence. The main guarantee of Kurdish existence is the existence and freedom of Rêber Apo. The conspiratorial forces could not carry out physical annihilation through this, so they planned the international conspiracy of February 15. Rêber Apo was abducted and handed over to the genocidal colonialist Turkish state.

For 26 years, Rêber Apo has been resisting under conditions of absolute isolation and isolation in the Imrali torture center in order to prevent this conspiracy from achieving its goals and objectives and to defeat it. He is putting up a historical and glorious resistance. And this resistance is not only physical resistance. Rêber Apo has realized a great mental revolution. Of course, he did not start this while being in Imrali. Already before, Rêber Apo was constantly concentrating on every ideological, paradigmatic, and organizational dimension of this. But the conditions of war outside, again, the problems and agendas that had to be dealt with for the organization, posed difficulties in front of the mental revolution Rêber Apo wanted to realize. As Rêber Apo put it, the situation on Imrali changed circumstances.

Rêber Apo has a great style of struggle. It is in fact a legendary struggle. This needs to be grasped very well. As I pointed out, this is not only physical resistance. This is an intellectual, spiritual, ideological, paradigmatic resistance. One can say that Rêber Apo has created a form of resistance that complements other forms of resistance and therefore is in fact far superior to them. With the tremendous mental revolution, the paradigmatic change and transformation that he realized in his own person, he frustrated all the calculations of the conspiracy. What did Rêber Apo do? One by one, Rêber Apo analyzed both the mentality and the calculations of the five thousand-year-old statist civilization, a statist, power-oriented, male-dominated civilization system. One by one, he unmasked them in front of all of us. He created an enormous paradigm with the prison writings he presented to the courts. The prison writings enlightened us all. They revealed perspectives and system analyses that enlighten the whole of humanity about the reality of the five thousand years of male-dominated capitalist civilization. And we all benefit from this today. In other words, civilization called its gods to account. Rêber Apo judged them, called them to account, and put forward an alternative to this system.

There are other thinkers who have tried to solve the crisis of civilization. But Rêber Apo’s way of analyzing civilization is not an approach that is limited to theoretical analysis. He looked at the issue from a more revolutionary point of view, as a revolutionary leader. Before Imrali, there was already an enormous Kurdish freedom movement that he had created and developed. There was organized public opinion. With the new paradigmatic change, this multiplied itself even more and brought about much greater developments. For example, the Rojava revolution developed. The Rojava revolution developed and took shape on the basis of Rêber Apo’s tremendous paradigm based on the pillars of democracy, ecology, and women’s freedom. What are the revolutionaries of Rojava saying today? They say that they have taken Rêber Apo’s idea and his paradigm as their guide and that they are trying to implement it as a new system of democratic and free life. We all see this in a more concrete form day by day. Therefore, it also attracts the world’s attention.

What has developed during the past twenty-six years that Rêber Apo is held captive in Imrali? The inhuman ISIS gangs were created in order to cause a great war of peoples in the Middle East. They attacked Kurds in Kobane, and before that, they attacked our Yazidi (Êzidî) people. They attacked the Yazidi people in Shengal (Sinjar). Today, our Yazidi people in Shengal are also in great resistance and are broadly organized with the aim of establishing a new system and a new life model based on Rêber Apo’s democratic, ecological, egalitarian, libertarian, and for the freedom of women’s standing ideas. For this reason, the genocidal, colonialist, and sovereign powers, particularly the Turkish state, are constantly carrying out extermination attacks and operations against our Yazidi people.

One can say that in this twenty-six-year period, the international conspiracy has actually been frustrated to some extent. But one cannot claim that complete results have been achieved or that the conspiracy was defeated. Because all the struggle we have waged over the past twenty-six years has been aimed at developing a democratic solution to the Kurdish question. It is directed towards ensuring the physical freedom of Rêber Apo. Because the solution to the Kurdish question means the physical freedom of Rêber Apo. And the freedom of Rêber Apo means the solution to the Kurdish question. Both are two fundamental aspects that are as close to each other as possible.

Our people are aware of the nature of the problem. They are aware that the Kurdish question cannot be solved without the liberation of Rêber Apo. As long as Rêber Apo is imprisoned, the conspiracy, the international conspiracy, cannot be defeated completely. That is why every anniversary of the conspiracy, our people, together with their international friends, protest; they condemn the conspiracy and put up a great resistance against it. This resistance continues on every anniversary; it continues to rise on the anniversary. All the struggle we have waged together with our people during these twenty-six years is for the defeat of the international conspiracy, which started on October 9 and completed its first stage on February 15, with the captivity of Rêber Apo. But the conspiracy itself continues.

Of course, during all this time, the conspiratorial forces have not been idle. They tried to renew the conspiracy again and again. Both Rêber Apo, the Kurds, and we, as the Kurdish freedom movement, have tried to wage a great resistance and struggle against this conspiracy. The new concepts they tried to develop were always tried to be frustrated. Today, the conspiracy continues in certain dimensions. On which pillars does it weave itself? The genocidal, colonialist, genocidal policy of the Turkish state on the Kurds is being carried out most concretely on Rêber Apo in the Imrali torture center. They do not allow a single word of Rêber Apo to come out, so that the movement and the people do not get inspired by Rêber Apo. They are trying to ensure that nothing comes out of there. They prevent even the most human rights and legal rights of Rêber Apo. It is commonly known that Rêber Apo’s freedom is now legally due. They are trying to prevent this.

For example, they are not implementing the retrial decision taken by international European courts. They are afraid of this. They do not allow the voice of Rêber Apo to be heard. They are really afraid that Rêber Apo will gradually become physically free. As the struggle of the people, the movement, the society and the international friends of the Kurdish people grows, they see and fear that as the resistance and a certain level of resistance and willpower emerges, the physical freedom of the Rêber Apo is becoming increasingly possible. For this reason, they are not allowing Rêber Apo to implement the retrial decision, and they are not allowing Rêber Apo to exercise his legal rights, even the legal rights of a normal prisoner. This is a pillar of the conspiracy.

In addition to this, there are great extermination operations on the Kurdish freedom movement, again on the Kurdish freedom guerrillas. There are great liquidation and annihilation operations and attacks. The genocide and extermination attacks carried out today in the Kurdish mountains in Zap, Metina, and Avashin are one of the most fundamental pillars of the international conspiracy. Without the freedom guerrillas without the resistance of the guerrillas in Kurdistan, can the Kurds sustain themselves? Can the Kurdish freedom struggle survive? What guarantees the existence of Kurds today is, of course, the existence of the Kurdish freedom struggle in the mountains of Kurdistan. It is the existence of freedom guerrillas. We can say that the existence of the Kurdish guerrillas, its will, and its resistance are the basic guarantee of Kurdish existence. That is why they want to destroy it. Therefore, the genocidal attacks and extermination attacks on the guerrillas continue uninterruptedly both in northern Kurdistan and in southern Kurdistan. It continues in the most inhuman way, through chemical attacks and with the use of tactical nuclear weapons. The Kurdish guerrillas continue to put up a glorious resistance under genocide and extermination attacks.

In addition to this, also in other fields, the international conspiracy’s effort to sustain itself, to make it permanent, is going on as well. The genocidal attacks developed by the enemy are not only carried out against the guerrillas in the Medya Defense Areas  or in the provinces of northern Kurdistan. The genocidal and extermination attacks are being carried out both on the leading cadres of our movement and on the people who work together with our movement around the struggle for freedom, who participate in the struggle, who support it, who are in solidarity.

Every day, the cities, villages, streets, and neighborhoods in Rojava are being bombarded under the pretext of attacking PKK cadres. It is our patriotic people that are attacked. This is also what they are doing with the continued genocidal attacks on Shengal. And at the same time, the genocidal attacks on the Makhmur refugee camp continue. These genocidal attacks take place everywhere in southern Kurdistan as well.

This needs to be seen as the continuation of the international conspiracy. The conspiracy has developed with significant protests on the occasion of the new anniversary. The time has come to not only frustrate the conspiracy but to defeat it once and for all. Twenty-six years have passed. And in these twenty-six years, it was shown that neither the Kurdish will be broken, nor the Kurdish existence could be wiped out, nor the Kurdish guerrillas could be destroyed, nor Rêber Apo could be compromised, nor the Kurdish people could be annihilated, nor the Kurdish freedom movement could be forced to kneel.

The struggle that has been waged in Kurdistan during these twenty-six years is a struggle that centers on the freedom of Rêber Apo. It needs to be understood this way. All the actions and activities that have taken place explicitly for Rêber Apo’s freedom anyway, but also all the other efforts of the Kurdish freedom struggle of the last 26 years, served the same goal: the freedom of Rêber Apo. The solution of the Kurdish question, the realization of the Kurdish freedom revolution, and the freedom of Rêber Apo are totally intertwined. They cannot be separated from each other. On various occasions, Rêber Apo saluted the actions carried out under the name of his freedom and pointed out that his freedom depends on the solution of the Kurdish question and the realization of the freedom revolution in Kurdistan.

There is a tremendous resistance that the Kurdish people have developed from the first day of the international conspiracy. At a magnificent level, people take on their responsibility towards Rêber Apo.

When the first process of the conspiracy developed, there was a tremendous struggle, there was a tremendous cohesion, a tremendous level of sacrifice emerged. And this continues today. The Kurdish people have never distanced from Rêber Apo. There was never the slightest weakening in their bond with him. We saw this most recently at the rally in Amed (tr. Diyarbakir) on October 13th. That unbreakable bond between the Kurdish people and Rêber Apo, which has existed since day one, is growing exponentially day by day. It is both widening and deepening.

During the past twenty-six years, many campaigns have been carried out. There was, for example, the “Enough is Enough!” (Edi Bese) campaign, or also the “Abdullah Ocalan is my political will” campaign. In that campaign, signatures were collected from both Kurds and their international friends, who claimed Rêber Apo as representative of their political will. Ten million signatures were collected. The international ruling powers were confronted with this.

The genocidal colonialist Turkish state was confronted with this. These campaigns, in some way, continue today. Again in 2019, there was the big hunger strike led by the hunger strikes in prisons, first and foremost by dear Leyla Guven. At that time, there was a tremendous campaign being carried out. Through that resistance, for example, a breach was opened in the absolute isolation and genocide regime in Imrali. And through that breach, talks with Rêber Apo started. There were a few meetings, but no results were obtained. It was interrupted again. It was sabotaged again. And it was the fascist AKP-MHP government, which still rules the genocidal colonialist Turkish Republic with its insincere approach, that sabotaged it. Still, to a high extent, both the Kurdish people and their international friends take on their responsibility towards Rêber Apo. If the conspiracy has not achieved its goals and objectives in these twenty-six years, this is primarily due to the spirit of resistance put forward by our patriotic people.

One pillar is the spirit of resistance shown by our people. It is the magnificent extent to which they take responsibility towards Rêber Apo. Another pillar is the resistance and struggle of the Kurdistan freedom guerrilla in the mountains of Kurdistan. And there is the, and I would say it is the most fundamental pillar, the tremendous resistance of Rêber Apo, who is in a position of absolute isolation and hostage in Imrali.