Bayık: PKK is a people, not a movement, it is the soul of Kurds

KCK Executive Council Co-Chair Cemil Bayık analysed the latest situation in the Middle East and Kurdistan and said: “The PKK is not a movement, it is a people”.

Speaking on “Ülkeden Özel” program on Medya Haber TV, KCK Executive Council Co-Chair Cemil Bayık said that having failed to reach their objectives, the international conspiracy and the plot launched against the Kurdish Freedom Movement in 2003, is now trying to achieve them by carrying out a different action.

“Kurds, however - said Bayık - understood these plans very well and defend that there is no life other than free life, which is why they will never accept slavery.”

The KCK executive spoke about the PKK struggle in the past 40 years and about what the future has in store for the Kurdish Freedom Movement. He also addressed the decision by the US to put a bounty on three senior PKK figures, himself, Duran Kalkan and Murat Karayilan. 

“For the Kurdish people, - he said - there could be nothing more valuable than freedom, because Kurds have long history of slavery and faced many genocide policies. They are equipped with the spirit and consciousness of freedom. Without this spirit, they would have hardly been able to carry out such a struggle under such conditions.”

Bayık added: “The international capitalist system is a system that is based on the disintegration of the the Middle East and of the Arab and Kurdish peoples. If you want to create the unity of the Kurdish society in Kurdistan and free the Kurdish people, you need to know that there is a capitalist modernist system before you, and that its main foundations are the states in the Middle East, colonial powers, even collaborationist Kurds. It has been necessary to build organisation and struggle to resist against all these.”

In the history of Kurdistan, movements emerged but were short-lived and every time their collapse was a strike to the Kurdish community. Bayık pointed out that it was necessary to draw lessons from history to shape the Kurdish society to organise and fight.

This is what Kurdish People's Leader Abdullah Öcalan has been able to do, Bayık said and continued: “Those who said Kurds cannot stand up have seen a Kurdish society resisting for their freedom under all circumstances.

This is not a normal situation, they said, but they looked and saw that a free Kurdish society was formed against them. Kurds are fighting for their freedom under all circumstances. Leader Apo rejected the philosophy of death and developed a philosophy of life, drawing from death. From death comes life. He developed such a struggle for himself and for all oppressed peoples.”

Attacks increased, when this became clear, said Bayık. “They thought they could end it, but when they attacked, the Kurdish people responded by widening their resistance. The attacks did not give any results and the Kurdish people gained a great deal. Today Kurds are the most distinguished people in the Middle East. It has also become the great hope for those, all over the world, who want to resist and who want to fight for freedom and democracy.”

Bayık underlined that those who believed they could achieve a result through the international conspiracy were proved wrong. Öcalan, PKK and the Kurdish people reversed the conspiracy and created a great development. He continued: “The conspirators responded with a new attack. They intended to carry the conspiracy into the organization itself with the ultimate goal of seizing its control. When this failed, they tried to divide, weaken and neutralize the organization but these efforts did not yield results either.  

At this point, the Movement grew not only in Kurdistan but also in the Middle East. In the international arena, the Kurdish Movement has become a source of hope also among socialist movements, women's movements, forces demanding freedom and democracy. The Movement has given all of them morale. It is leading them to resist.”

The KCK Executive Council Co-Chair emphasized that those who try to stop the development of the Movement after the international conspiracy and 2003 plot will not succeed now either.

“But the Kurdish people are very well aware of this. They are a people in love with freedom. They no more accept slavery, only free life.”

The PKK touches the whole Kurdish society in every corner today. It has been the soul, brain and the future of the Kurdish society. That’s why people say ‘We are the PKK’. So it is impossible to eliminate the PKK, it cannot be liquidated or wiped out. The PKK is no longer a narrow Movement; it is a people.”