In this extensive interview, Duran Kalkan, member of the KCK Executive Council, analyzes how the conspiracy of 9 October 1998 is intertwined with the Third World War. Kalkan describes the interests in the current Third World War and explains where this war will extend in the future, and what effects it will have, particularly for Kurdistan, Turkey and the Middle East.

The international conspiracy of October 9, 1998, which began with the Kurdish people’s leader, Abdullah Öcalan, being forced to leave Syria, is now reaching its 26th anniversary. What can you tell us about the conspiracy and the intentions of those who organized it?

It indeed is necessary to understand the conspiracy and the struggle against it correctly. As the freedom movement and the people, we have been waging a historic resistance against the attacks of the international conspiracy under the leadership of Rêber Apo [Abdullah Öcalan]  for 26 years. On this basis, we salute the pioneer of this heroic resistance, Rêber Apo, and the struggle of our people for freedom and democracy led by the historic Imrali resistance. At the same time, we remember with respect, love, and gratitude our heroic martyrs who stood protectively in front of Rêber Apo and gave their lives carrying the slogan “You cannot darken our sun!” in their hearts. We once again express our conviction and will to defeat the international conspiracy and the Imrali torture and isolation system that represents it and to bury it in history by struggling more accurately and decisively, following the paved way of Rêber Apo and the legacy of our martyrs.

As it is known, the international conspiracy was launched on October 9, 1998, with Rêber Apo being forced to leave Syria. What followed was the biggest pursuit in history, extending from Russia to Europe and from there to Africa – continuing for over four months. With this attack, they aimed at destroying Rêber Apo, liquidating the PKK, the vanguard of the Kurdish people’s freedom. All obstacles in front of the Kurdish genocide were wanted to be removed. It should be noted that the international conspiratorial forces have indeed acted in a very planned and organized manner. They have come up with the most suitable attack strategy for themselves and put it into practice. By carrying out the Kurdish genocide, they aimed to further divide and fragment the Middle East, to make it live under fascist dictatorships, and to poison life for all humanity.

However, thanks to the very careful and sensitive stance and struggle developed by Rêber Apo against these conspiratorial extermination attacks, and thanks to the unity of our movement and our people based on the slogan “You cannot darken our sun!” their efforts came to nothing and their attack failed. Realizing that they could not destroy Rêber Apo with these methods, the conspiratorial forces changed their approach and made a new plan and came up with the February 15, 1999 conspiracy. It should be noted that they did not give up on the goal of Kurdish genocide, the liquidation of the PKK, and the destruction of Rêber Apo; it was only when they could not destroy Rêber Apo through conspiratorial methods that they had to change their methods and find new methods of destruction.

The conspiracy emerged on October 9 as an attack of annihilation. Many forget and ignore this. The conspirators wanted to destroy and annihilate Rêber Apo on October 9th. That is a fact about which there is nothing to argue. We live in a world where the law of the jungle applies. Whoever has the power, they attack brutally without adhering to any moral or legal rules. This process started most concretely with the attack on Rêber Apo. In the early 90s, during the dissolution of real socialism, there were also attacks in those areas, but apart from that, an attack of this kind started then. These extermination attacks were thwarted through struggle. Otherwise, it is not that our opponents did not plan and implement them; they planned, tried to implement them, but they failed. The February 15th conspiracy was planned for the execution of Rêber Apo. Some of us have lost touch with reality to the extent of saying, “They took Rêber Apo to solve the Kurdish question in Imrali.” They put him there to be executed. The execution could only be prevented through struggle. For some, the effect of the conspiracy began to take effect, so they started saying things like, “Struggle does not yield results; the struggle of the peoples, women, and youth is done, but it does not yield results; they have no power; only the rulers determine the outcome.” This was obviously wrong from the beginning. However, the struggle of the peoples, the struggle of the Kurds, and the effective and sacrificial struggle of Rêber Apo have always yielded successful results. It has frustrated the plans of the enemy, defeated them, and achieved gains. The struggle prevented the extermination and prevented the execution.

The conspiratorial forces reevaluated the situation and decided to destroy Rêber Apo politically and ideologically through the policy of decay within the Imrali system. The so-called wise rulers of the Turkish Republic took the approach of ‘everyone else has used Apo; let’s use him in this way; let’s make him serve us’. They wanted to carry this out with the government headed by Ecevit, but in the end they themselves were defeated. Rêber Apo used his time in the Imrali system to deepen his thoughts and reassess the ideology of the movement. He gave self-criticism on behalf of the movement and struggle of all the oppressed and gave this struggle a new paradigm. In the solitary confinement of Imrali, he realized the greatest mental and intellectual revolution in history. He developed the new paradigm, the line of democratic civilization, which shows the path of liberation for all the oppressed, and created an appropriate system. He created the paradigm of democratic modernity. These are the greatest revolutionary developments in history. This means that one can struggle under those conditions as well; one can struggle, make progress, and achieve gains under all conditions. We saw this in the Imrali struggle. In the end, those who wanted to rot Rêber Apo in Imrali were confronted with the greatest revolutionary thought and were defeated. Then they hoped to achieve results with the lying and dishonest methods of the Tayyip Erdogan administration, the AKP. They thought that the AKP would bring the international conspiracy to a conclusion with its deceitfulness. They wanted to get results with all kinds of lies and deceit in the form of the so-called “solution process.” They wanted to succeed by misleading and deceiving the other side; they developed a thousand and one methods in this direction. Over the past twenty years, they have repeatedly created such plans. A great struggle was waged against them all. Thus, Tayyip Erdogan and the AKP’s way of managing the conspiracy was frustrated and defeated. Turkey was put as a “guardian”; in other words, Turkish politics as a system that will put the conspiracy into practice and bring it to a conclusion that will manage Imrali, has long since ended, is in crisis, and cannot get out. Together with Turkey, the conspiratorial system is in crisis and chaos; it cannot get out of it.

What results could be achieved in the 26 years of resistance and struggle against the conspiracy?

In order to take a truly patriotic position, it is first of all necessary to feel the effects of the conspiracy in all its depths. In the context of the conspiracy, various approaches emerged; there were those who assessed the situation very superficially, others who remained very narrow in their analyses, still others simply tried to continue their own way of life, while there were others who whined that they would now have to struggle with difficulties. For 26 years now, the existence of the free Kurds has constantly been under the sword of Damocles. This existence is preserved only by continuing a resistance with great consciousness and organization every day and every night. Instead of the Kurds living comfortably and freely, they live in a system of torture, isolation, and genocide – the Imrali system.

At that time, there were those who thought they could live by exploiting the gains that were achieved in Rojava and southern Kurdistan. There were those who thought they could live by exploiting the values that were created in southern Kurdistan. But they were mistaken. Talking about the gains and achievements of the Kurdish people, one must question on what basis they were created and are sustained. They are maintained and kept alive by carrying out the 24/7 resistance of existence against the torture, isolation, and genocide system of Imrali. They have not been created for individuals to exploit them. With the blood of tens of thousands of martyrs and by continuously giving martyrs day by day, these gains are kept alive, multiplied, and enlarged.

One needs to see the connection between the reality of the conspiracy and the reality of the Kurdish genocide. The Kurdish genocide attacks continue as an international conspiracy attack. For 26 years, since October 9, 1998, the free Kurdish existence has been ensured by the sacrificial resistance based on the Imrali resistance. One cannot understand Kurdish reality by looking at Hewler (Erbil). One can understand it by looking at Imrali. The real Kurdish entity, the free Kurdish entity, is there, and it is obvious what kind of annihilation attack it is under. Those who say that they want to live freely in Kurdistan must see, know, and understand how this life is created in Imrali and how it is achieved through a great 24/7 struggle.

And it should be emphasized that the struggle against the conspiracy has made significant progress throughout those 26 years. The ongoing global freedom campaign should be seen as one of its results. Not understanding the conspiracy leads to not understanding the Kurdish reality, the Kurdish genocide, the mentality and system that created this genocide, the global capitalist modernity system. Failure to understand this leads to a failure to understand the Kurdish strive for freedom and therefore to a failure to understand humanity’s gaining a free and democratic life. Not understanding the colonialist-genocidal mentality and system correctly also leads to not understanding the struggle against the conspiracy. It leads to wrong conclusions such as ‘the conspiracy cannot be fought against’ or ‘the conspiracy cannot be defeated’. This is how many liquidationist tendencies emerged among and around us. Individualism, disorganization, being according to oneself, and all the approaches that emerge by saying “my views” underlie this. In fact, we are living on the values created by the struggle against the conspiracy, but we are not aware of it. Some values have been created, and one can see that some people are asking themselves how they can use and exploit them for themselves. This is very dangerous, and we should forbid it for ourselves. Also, not understanding what values you are living on is like usurping the values that someone else has created through sweat and blood. This is no different from the theft of capitalist modernity; it is another version of it. After this 26-year struggle, we need to see what the results have been, and for this, we need to be well aware of the aims of the conspiracy.