Yesterday and today, December 19 , 2000 is the history of a brutal massacre on the one hand, but as well the history of a resistance that became a myth on the other hand. 

01 January 2010 /International Bulletin /Issue 89 

The "Operation to Return to Life" carried out on December 19, 2000 is the biggest massacre that was realised in the prisons in the near past. Shortly before the massacre, the fascist Turkish state had already rehearsed with the massacres in Ulucanlar and Burdur Prisons; and on December 19, 2000 operations were started on twenty prisons at the same time. Any form of force was used brutally at these massacres. 28 revolutionaries were murdered; hundreds of them wounded and became disabled. The fascist dictatorship aimed at breaking the will of the prisoners that were doing a death fast or hunger strike by burning them alive and torturing them. It aimed at imprisoning the beliefs of the revolutionaries whose bodies it already had imprisoned.
The aim of the massacre called "Return to Life" was very clear. Starting from the prisons which became a myth of the resistance of the Turkish and Kurdish revolutionaries, the aim was to liquidate the revolutionary movement, to isolate the revolutionary movement from the masses, to marginalise and to break its will. The fascist regime was experiencing a deep and comprehensive economic and political crisis. It wanted to weaken the forces that could create a revolutionary mass movement. In order to rescue itself from the crisis and to ensure the stability of the system again; IMF, the USA and the EU had the route map in their hands how the collaborating Turkish ruling classes could be liberated. It was necessary to liquidate the leading political forces in order to solve the political crisis of the country. During the period that started with the dissolution of the DYP -RP coalition government through the NSC on February 28, 1997 and that is memorised as the coup of February 28; the fascist regime had planned to liquidate the Political Islam, the Kurdish movement and revolutionary forces one after another. With the coup on February 28, it managed to make the Political Islam defer to the system. After that it detained Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the Kurdish national movement, with the conspiracy of February 15, 1999 and by that, it wanted to break the will of the national movement. The massacre in the prisons on December 19 called "Operation to Return to Life" was the main stoke of the liquidating attack on the revolutionary movement that is the 3rd biggest political force. The prisons had always been a centre of enlightenment in the history of the revolutionary movement of Turkey and Northern Kurdistan; many revolutionary cadres were trained in the prisons, and the fascist regime's operations carried out uninterruptedly made the prisons become a base of revolutionary education as experienced revolutionary cadres could meet with young revolutionaries. The attacks on the working class and labourers were realised on the same time when the prisons were attacked and oppression happened, too, and such kind of laws were introduced. Besides this fact and because of the reason that that the majority of the revolutionary movement's organised forces was imprisoned at that time following the period of February 28; the fascist Turkish state preferred wilfully and in a planned way to realise a massacre in the prisons. With the attacks, it aimed to liquidate the revolutionary movement and at the same time to transfer the political prisoners to the isolation cells called f-type. Following these attacks which had been prepared by the fascist regime for 2 years, 28 revolutionaries were killed by shooting, punching and burning alive watched by the public and media of the whole world. This operations started in 20 prisons at the same time was answered by the revolutionaries with a resistance like a myth. Even if the fascist Turkish state put the prisoners into isolation cells, even if their bodies are imprisoned, it failed to take their belief.
The intensity of violence used at the massacre, the use of heavy machine guns and chemical bombs undoubtedly had the aim not only to oppress the prisoners' resistance and take them to the f-type isolation cells, but at the same time to intimidate the social struggles as well as workers and labourers through broadcasting everything life.
The prisoners resisted in all prisoners with all the opportunities they had. The resistance in the prisons could last for several days despite the state's forces armed from head to toe boring through the walls of the prisons with different tools and attacking the prisoners with chemical and gas bombs apart from shooting on them. The prisoners that were taken to the f-type prisons after the operation started a resistance with the death fast and by that showed that the revolutionary prisoners' will can't be broken in the isolation prisons and that the isolation cells couldn't stop the organised struggle in any way.
Yesterday and today, December 19, 2000 is the history of a brutal massacre on the one hand, but as well the history of a resistance that became a myth on the other hand. It is the date of those saying "we could die, but we won't give up" and of the revolutionary tradition marching towards death without hesitating and resisting. It is the date of those that didn't let their belief and will get affected in any way.
Although 9 years have passed since the massacre on December 19, serious problems and attacks in the prisons are still experienced today. The f-type isolation is followed by arbitrary penalties, torture and harassment. Today 36 journalists and thousands of political prisoners are imprisoned by the fascist Turkish regime.
Attacks on the political prisoners in the prisons of Turkey and Northern Kurdistan are the order of the day. The constraints on A. Ocalan imprisoned at Imrali as well as the arbitrary constraints and attacks on the revolutionaries in different prisons of Turkey and Northern Kurdistan will continue to make the prisons a current problem. As long as the class struggle continues, the prisons will be a post of that. The Turkish and Kurdish revolutionaries will continue to apply the tradition of resistance that they had created.

01 January 2010 /International Bulletin /Issue 89 

Militants of our party MLCP bombed the office of the civil fascist and racist BBP in Maras on December 18 and condemned the massacre of December 19, 2000.
In Istanbul, MLCP militants organised actions in different boroughs of the city. On the evening of December 20, the militants blockaded Erzincan Street in the quarter Cumhuriyet with Molotov cocktails and shouted slogans such as "Long live our resistance of December 19" and "The murderers will render account to our party".
In the quarter Gazi , Ismet Pasa Street was blockaded, too with an armed action.
MLCP women hanged up a banner read "We salute the fighting women of December 19" in the quarter Esenkent of Maltepe, Istanbul.
In addition, revolutionary and democratic organisations organised actions and activities in Istanbul, Ankara, Malatya, Eskisehir, Bolu and many other cities to protest the massacre and to commemorate the martyrs of December 19 and the death fast. Actions were also organised in Cologne, Frankfurt, Nuremberg, Hamburg and the Belgian city of Verviers.