NOTES
[1]
Baba Ishaq is a preacher from the Yasawi denomination of Islam, who was among the leaders of the Babai Uprising in 1239, the greatest uprising in the history of the Seljuq Sultanate of Rûm. He leaded the Turcoman nomads who were under the oppression of the Seljuq Sultanate. He defended equality among people, faith in God without the strict rules of religion, a social system based on common property, which were already in accordance with the communal life of the Turcoman nomads of that period. The uprising extended in many cities and the army of the Sultanate suffered important defeats, but also with the help of mercenaries, the Sultanate suppressed the uprising. Baba Ishaq was hanged in 1240.
[2]
Alevis are a religious and cultural community in Turkey and Northern Kurdistan, being the second largest one and numbering in the millions. It is a denomination of Islam, though still carrying the influences of the pre-Islamic values and traditions of the people of Anatolia. It has many differences with Sunni denomination which is the dominant religious denomination. The Alevi denomination has a humanist character, as the Alevis have never had the political power of the states established in Anatolia, while Sunnis were always on power. Being oppressed for hundreds of years, the Alevi people are very open for revolutionary propaganda. The bourgeois state has always tried to create a reactionary conflict among the Alevis and Sunnis whenever there is a revolutionary increase among the people. It has also tried to win the support of the Alevis in the internal conflicts of the bourgeoisie.
[3]
Sheikh Bedrettin was a theologian who led the greatest uprising of the oppressed against the Ottoman Empire in 1416. He defended a democratic government where the main principle would be "Share all you have apart from the lips of your beloved one". He organised the oppressed Turkish, Greek and Jewish poor people who suffered from high taxes and other oppressive measures of the Empire. The uprising lasted for a long time and the armies of the Sheikh were defeated. The leaders of the uprising were crucified while the Sheikh was hanged in 1420. The Turkish revolutionary poet Nazim Hikmet has written a long epic poem on his struggle.
[4]
Dadaloglu is a nomad Turcoman popular poet-singer who has joined the uprisings of the 18th-19th century against the policy of forced settlement of the Ottoman Empire.
[5]
Koroglu is a legendary character in the oral traditions of Anatolia, where he is described as a bandit and a popular poet-singer. According to the legend, he has revolted against the feudal lord of the province Bolu.
[6]
Mustafa Suphi and Ethem Nejat are the founding leaders of the TKP (Communist Party of Turkey) that was founded in 1920 in Baku, Azerbaijan. In order to join the liberation war (1920-1923) against imperialist forces that was continuing in Anatolia after the World War I, 15 communists departed from Baku for Anatolia. However, they were killed at the Black Sea by the followers of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, leader of the bourgeoisie at that period, founding leader and the first president of the Republic of Turkey. After their murder, the TKP turned into a revisionist and pro-Kemalist party.
[7]
Kocgiri Rebellion was a rebellion of Alevi Kurdish people in 1920 in Dersim province of Northern Kurdistan. Failing in winning the support of the non-Alevi Kurds, it was defeated severely.
[8]
Sheikh Said was the leader of the first Kurdish revolt after the foundation of the Republic of Turkey, beginning in November 1924 and being defeated in September 1925. Due to religious motives of the uprising, it was blamed for being a reactionary-religious uprising and not a national struggle caused of the disappointment of not having the promised autonomy. This position of the ruling classes was also defended by the revisionist TKP of that period. The Communist International wrongly informed by the TKP also adopted this thesis. The uprising was a hintpoint in the political life of Turkey, as since that time, the existence of the Kurds was totally denied, they were claimed to be Turks and the Turkish bourgeoisie started to leave its progressive character. The first special courts of Turkey were founded at that time in forms of military courts. Thousands of Kurds were killed and the leaders of the uprising, among them Sheikh Said, were hanged. Beside the Kurdish people, all the leftist forces, among them the TKP that supported the Turkish bourgeoisie's repression, were persecuted. With this uprising, the destiny of the oppressed Turkish people and labourers combined with the destiny of the Kurdish nation against the Turkish bourgeoisie and this continues to be like that.
[9]
Agri (Ararat) revolt - A Kurdish uprising that began in October 1927, when the Khoybun party declared the independent Republic of Ararat, being centred in Agri (Ararat) province and designated a village near the Mount Ararat as the capital city of Kurdistan. Khoybun was the supreme national organ with full power of the state. Contrarily to the other Kurdish uprisings that were stamped by religious figures, this uprising was led by Kurdish intellectuals and nationalist leaders and carried a clear national character. It was suppressed brutally in 1930 by the Turkish army that also had the active support of Iran and the French and British imperialists in the Middle East.
[10]
Dersim Rebellion, led by tribal leaders, occurred in 1937-1938. The Dersim province of Kurdistan maintained its autonomy during the Ottoman period and this continued after the establishment of the Republic of Turkey. The new-established Turkish state attacked on Dersim in March-November, 1937 and April-December 1938. The people of Dersim resisted the attacks, but they were defeated at the end with a bloody massacre of the state. Seyid Riza, leader of the uprising, together with many other foremost leaders, was executed by hanging.
[11]
Sansaryan Han is a building in Bahcekapi/ Istanbul famous for being the most important torture centre of a long period from the 1940s until the 1980s. The building is now used as a courthouse.
[12]
September 6-7, 1955, Istanbul Pogrom - When the provocative lie that "a bomb hit the house where Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was born" was spread, attacks were started in the evening of 6 September against the Greek minority; between 13 and 16 Greeks and at least one Armenian lost their lives; many Greeks were heavily injured; houses, work places, hotels, pharmacies, schools, factories, churches and cemeteries belonging to the Greeks were destroyed or set on fire. After this event, many Greeks left Istanbul and moved to Greece.
[13]
On June 15-16, 1970, workers went on strike at tens of factories and cut the road between Istanbul and Ankara with the demand of the cancellation of the changes in the Law of Trade Unions No.274 and the Law of Collective Bargaining, Strike and Lockout No.275 that were adopted with the purpose of liquidating the DISK (Confederation of Revolutionary Workers' Unions). The state tried to hinder the resistance of 150 thousand workers from 168 factories thorough the barricades formed by the police and soldiers. Three workers turned into martyrs at the clashes in Kadikoy district. Not being able to stop the resistance, the government announced state of emergency. As the first event where the working class that had grown during the 1960s showed itself as a political force, this general political strike and resistance achieved the cancellation of the law.
[14]
Ziverbey Kosku is a villa in Kadikoy/Istanbul, which is among the most famous torture centres of the period during and after the military coup of 1971. It was mainly the leftist intellectuals who were tortured in this place.
[15]
Mahir, Deniz and Ibo are the founding leaders of three revolutionary organisations breaking off with the revisionist and reformist traditions in the beginning of the 1970s. Deniz Gezmis led the THKO (Popular Liberation Army of Turkey), Mahir Cayan led the THKP-C (Popular Liberation Front-Party of Turkey) and Ibrahim "Ibo" Kaypakkaya led the TKP-ML (Communist Party of Turkey - Marxist Leninist). The military coup of March 12, 1971 aimed at the liquidation of these organisations. Deniz and two more leaders of the THKO were executed by hanging on May 6, 1972. Sinan Cemgil, commander, Alparslan Ozdogan and Kadir Manga, members of a guerrilla group of the THKO were killed in an armed clash with the Turkish army on May 31, 1971 at the Mount Nurhak.
Mahir and 8 militants of the THKO and THKP-C were killed in a small village called Kizildere on March 30, 1972 after kidnapping English and one Canadian radar technician from the military base of NATO to stop the execution of Deniz and his friends. On January 24, 1973, Ali Haydar Yildiz, one of the leaders of the TKP-ML was shot dead at an armed clash at the Mirik Hamlet in Dersim, after having bombed the military station and the mass housing of the military forces of the province.
Ibo was killed under torture at the prison of Diyarbakir on May 18, 1973.
[16]
Those here mentioned are some bloody massacres of the counter-guerrilla. On Mayday 1977, 500 thousand labourers who gathered at Taksim Square in Istanbul were attacked by the counter-guerrilla forces opening fire on them. 36 workers lost their lives as a result of the gunfire and stampede. In 1979, Taksim Square was banned for demonstrations of workers and labourers. This ban still continues.
Maras Massacre took place on December 19-25, 1978, after a provocational bombing act organised by civil fascists during the film show at Cicek Cinema on December 16, 1978. The Sunni people in Maras were incited and attacked the Alevi people. The crowd incited by the fascists opened fire on the Alevi people with machine guns, houses, work places, revolutionary, democratic and Alevi institutions were set on fire and destroyed, torture and rapes took place in house raids; 111 people, among them women and children, were killed; hundreds were injured; 522 houses and 289 work places were set on fire and destroyed.
During the establishment of the 1 Mayis quarter in Istanbul through land occupation by the labourers, many conflicts with the state arose and many revolutionary labourers were killed.
At Beyazit Square, Istanbul, on March 16, 1978, seven students lost their lives in a bombing and armed attack against revolutionary students when they were leaving the Beyazit Campus of Istanbul University together as a group.
On October 9, 1978 in Bahcelievler, Ankara, seven unarmed revolutionary university students, members of the Workers' Party of Turkey (TIP), were assassinated by civil fascists.
Balgat Massacre was committed on August 10, 1978 in the evening by four civil fascists from the MHP. They bombed and shot at four cafes in Balgat/Ankara, killing 5 people and wounding 11 people.
[17]
Cizre and Lice Massacres were among the bloodiest massacres of the state during the dirty war. On March 21, 1992, 94 Kurdish labourers, among them children and women, lost their lives as a result of the bullets of the state's forces that opened fire at the Newroz celebrations in Cizre and Sirnak.
Lice, a small town in the province of Diyarbakir/Kurdistan, is the place where a four-day lasting bloody attack starting from October 21, 1993 was carried out as a part of the dirty war. Nobody was allowed to enter Lice during these four days, including the press. Lice was totally destroyed by heavy weapons. More than 60 people were killed and 300 were seriously wounded.
[18]
Sivas Massacre - On July 2, 1993, during the Pir Sultan Abdal Cultural Events in Sivas organised by progressive Alevi circles, the Madimak Hotel , where many writers, artists, intellectuals and musicians who had gone to Sivas for the celebrities were staying, was attacked and set on fire by thousands of people provoked by reactionary and fascist forces. 33 people, among them intellectuals and artists, were burnt alive and lost their lives.
[19]
Bloody Sunday -The action organised by 76 youth organisations at Beyazit Square, Istanbul, on February 16, 1969 to protest the 6th Fleet of the USA in Istanbul was attacked by reactionary and fascist forces with stones, sticks and knives, two people were killed and dozens of people were injured.
[20]
Gazi Uprising - On March 12, 1995 in Gazi, a labourers' district in Istanbul, the counter-guerrilla forces committed an armed attack against a café where usually Alevi people used to go. This attack had the objective of creating a conflict between the Alevi and Sunni labourers and hindering the recent revolutionary rise at the workers' districts, but on the contrary, the labourers started a march towards the police station instead of the mosque under the leadership of revolutionary forces, mainly of the MLCP. Thus, a one-week-uprising began in Gazi, where 23 labourers would be killed by the state forces.
[21]
Mayday 1996 followed an increase in the revolutionary movement and workers' and labourers' struggles. The celebrations of Mayday in Istanbul took place at the Kadikoy Square, where tens of thousands of labourers marched under the banners of the revolutionary organisations instead of following the yellow trade-unions. The police attacked the demonstration and killed 3 revolutionary workers. This was also the start of the 2nd wave of fascist total offence.
[22]
Susurluk incident is a name given to the traffic accident that brought to open the fascist regime's dirty and dark network and organisational relations; the organic relations among Mafia-State-Politics trinity on November 3, 1996. At this accident, the car that was carrying Abdullah Catli (foremost militant of the MHP-related mafia, who was supposed to be wanted by the police) (See note 41), Huseyin Kocadag (a famous police officer), Sedat Bucak (an MP from the True Path Party for Sanliurfa province and a Kurdish landlord), and Gonca Us (Abdullah Çatli's girlfriend, a Turkish beauty queen) collided a truck. Sedat Bucak was the sole person to survive the crash.
[23]
Atabeyler gang was announced to the public after the arrest of 10 people, among them two captains and petty officers of the military forces and two police chiefs, following the police raid at a house in Eryaman/Ankara where many explosives belonging to the state were found.
Sauna is another gang based in Ankara. A retired former National Chief of the Police, officers from the Office of Special Operations and retired military persons are among the members of this gang that was liquidated through one of the state's operations of inner purge among the counter-guerrilla forces. One of its aims was announced to be preparation of the necessary conditions for a military coup.
[24]
On November 9, 2005, the counter-guerrilla organisation JITEM (Gendarmerie Intelligence Organisation) bombed a bookstore in the provincial city of Semdinli, Northern Kurdistan. One Kurdish patriot lost his life and two people were injured. Determined and bravely, the people of Semdinli caught the ones responsible from JITEM right after the event and handed the weapons, plans of attack and black lists over to its owner, the state. With the Kurdish people's common sense and determined stance, the provocation in Semdinli was busted in the hand of the murderers. Thereafter, the democratic mass movement entered into a process of intense actions in order to render Semdinli's account and to obtain the enlightening of counter-guerrilla killings.
[25]
Ergenekon is claimed to be the name of a counter-guerrilla gang consisting of several elements that were arrested within the last two years. The government presents this as if the counter-guerrilla was brought into justice. In fact, the state, which is the counter-guerrilla itself, has conducted a partial and limited operation of purge and reconstruction within the counter-guerrilla and has arrested some elements that had diverged from the actual line. The target is not the counter-guerrilla's actual body but some elements that have been exposed. Among the elements that are being processed are some retired generals, leaders of the racist IP (Workers' Party), elements from the police organisation, media and business. The relations of these elements with official institutions are totally denied.
[26]
Prison massacre of Buca was carried out on September 21, 1995 by the state against the revolutionary prisoners at Buca Prison in Izmir and 3 revolutionary prisoners from the DHKP-C (Revolutionary People's Liberation Party/Front) were killed at the massacre. On January 4, 1996, 4 revolutionary prisoners turned into martyrs at the armed operation of the state's forces at the Umraniye Prison in Istanbul. On September 24, 1996, 10 prisoners affiliated to the PKK were killed after their heads were smashed with iron sticks at Diyarbakir Prison. Revolutionary prisoners at the Ulucanlar Prison in Ankara were exposed to a bloody attack of the gendarmerie on September 26, 1999 with the claim that they had been digging a tunnel. At this massacre, which was evaluated as a rehearsal of the Massacre of December 19, 2000, 10 revolutionary prisoners from different organisations were killed.
[27]
OSS (Student Selection Exam) is a nation-wide central exam for admission in the universities. Approximately 1.6 million students matriculate this exam every year, while the universities have a yearly contingent of 200 thousand students and only 20 thousand of this number has a valid level of formation.
[28]
YOK (Higher Education Board) was founded in 1981 following the military coup on September 12, 1980 as a branch of the fascist junta in the universities. Since its foundation, it has been the force responsible for numerous privatisation plans, neo-liberal attacks and interrogations and penalties of revolutionary, democrat and Kurdish patriotic students. The main demand of the student movement in Turkey and Northern Kurdistan is the dissolution of the YOK.
[29]
OGB (Private Security Units) are security forces located at the universities. In face of the increasing struggle against the police forces' presence in the universities, the state started to use this method of employing private security forces, which closely collaborate with the police in most of the cases.
[30]
Interrogations by the discipline councils of the universities are very broadly applied in the universities in order to break the students' movement. As a result of these interrogations, hundreds of students were expulsed from the universities and thousands of them were rusticated from university from 1 week to 1 year.
[31]
Pir Sultan is a Turcoman Alevi popular poet-singer who lived in the 16th century. He expressed in his poems his rebellion against the Ottoman ruling forces. He was hung by the Ottoman governor of that region, Hizir Pasha because of his rebellious poems.
[32]
Seyit Riza (See note 10)
[33]
Newroz, March 21, which is the feast of the Middle Eastern people, became a national feast of the Kurds during the liberation struggle of the Kurdish nation. The colonial fascist dictatorship has tried to repress Newroz celebrations imposing bans, realising attacks, arrests, detentions and even massacres. Newroz has become a clash of wills between colonial fascism and the freedom fight of the Kurdish people.
[34]
Hrant Dink was an Armenian intellectual and chief editor of the newspaper Agos. He was murdered on January 19, 2007 in front of the building of the newspaper Agos in Istanbul. It was quickly denounced by the masses that the responsible for this political assassination was the counter-guerrilla state and it was brought into open that the one who had fired the gun and those who had encouraged him for this were affiliated to the fascist party BBP (Party of Great Unity) and to JITEM (Intelligence and Anti-Terror Department of the Gendarmerie). Hundreds of thousands of Armenian, Kurdish and Turkish people participated at his funeral and cried out the slogan "We are all Armenians!" against this chauvinist attack. With this murder, the demand of "clarification of the counter-guerrilla assassinations" turned into one of the principal themes of the social struggle.
[35]
Ugur Mumcu was a Turkish Kemalist intellectual, journalist and a columnist of the Kemalist newspaper Cumhuriyet. He published books on current and historical political issues. He was killed on January 24, 1993 outside his home by a bomb placed in his car. It was claimed that the assassination was carried out by Islamic forces. However, during the Ergenekon operations of 2008, it came into open that he was killed by the counter-guerrilla because of the investigation he was working on.
[36]
Musa Anter was a Kurdish writer and poet, one of the foremost Kurdish patriotic intellectuals. He was kidnapped and killed by the JITEM forces in 1992.
[37]
The central office of the newspaper Ozgur Ulke (Gundem), the main voice of the Kurdish national movement at that period, was bombed by the counter-guerrilla forces on the night of December 3, 1994. One of the journalists lost his life while 23 of them were injured. Later, the newspaper was banned by the state, but the defenders of this tradition continued the same line through different newspapers despite all kind of attacks, killings and bans.
[38]
As a city where Turkish and Kurdish, Alevi and Sunni population live together, many reactionary provocations and massacres were organised in Malatya during the 1970s, among them the Events of February 15-16 in 1975 when the reactionaries destroyed the houses and the shops belonging to the Alevis and progressive revolutionary people, killed one person and wounded many others, following the congress of the revolutionary teachers' association TOB-DER. Another example was the provocation that began on April 17, 1978 following the killing of a right-wing politician and resulted in the death of 8 people, beside the destruction of approximately 1000 buildings.
[39]
In the province of Corum, were the majority of the population is Alevi and progressive, a massacre took place, which started in May 1980 and went on until July. The massacre started taking the killing of the fascist of the MHP Gun Sazak on May 27 by revolutionaries in Ankara as pretext. 57 persons were murdered and more than 200 injured, hundreds of houses and shops belonging to Alevi and revolutionary people were burnt and destroyed.
[40]
Abdullah Catli is among the foremost gunmen of the MHP and the counter-guerrilla. He took place in the Bahcelievler Massacre (See note 16); was involved in the bombing of the newspaper editor Abdi Ipekci; conducted many underground killings in Europe against the Armenian organisation Asala; joined the dirty war operations in Kurdistan and was involved in nacro-trafficking. He is the symbol of the relation between the MHP-mafia and the state. He died in the accident in Susurluk in 1996, where the state -counter-guerrilla relations came into open. (See note 22)
[41]
M. Ali Agca is a civil fascist famous for the murder of journalist Abdi Ipekci in 1979 committed together with Abdullah Catli and for the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II.
[42]
17 fighters of the MKP (Maoist Communist Party) were killed with chemical weapons by the fascist dictatorship at Mercan Valley in Dersim on June 17, 2005, while they were on their way to the Second Congress of the MKP.
[43]
Eyup Beyaz, militant of the DHKP-C (Revolutionary People's Liberation Party/Front), was killed on July 2, 2005 when he tried to explode a bomb tied to his body at the building of the Ministry of Justice against F type prisons. The bomb was noticed by the security forces at the door of the Ministry and he failed in exploding it immediately although he tried that. He was killed after being handcuffed by the police.
[44]
On December 19, 2000, the fascist dictatorship assassinated 28 revolutionary prisoners, crippled dozens of prisoners and took them away to the F-Type prisons by an operation, which started simultaneously in 20 prisons. With its brutality and unlimited violence, the massacre had at the same time the aim to create an atmosphere of fear and helplessness in the whole society. The revolutionary prisoners responded the attack with death fast resistance. The death fast showed that also in the F-Type prisons the tradition of the resistance and unyieldingness continued. This became a great ideological achievement of the legendary death fast. In the massacre of December 19 and at the death fast following it, in total 133 revolutionary prisoners turned into martyrs.
[45]
The death fast of 1996 - After the Mayday celebrations of 1996, the state started an extensive attack on revolutionaries and opposition in general. As the first step of these attacks, isolation prisons which were already on the agenda for many years were opened and those who were arrested at Mayday celebrations were put in these prisons. Then, political prisoners from ten different revolutionary organisations started a death fast which would continue for 69 days with the demand that the isolation prisons should be closed down and the violation of the prisoners' various rights should stop. The death fasts were also supported in a massive way outside the prisons. 12 revolutionary prisoners, among them Huseyin Demircioglu, member of the CC of the MLCP, lost their lives during this death fast that concluded with the victory of the revolutionary prisoners.