File spoon-archives/marxism.archive/marxism_1996/96-07-marxism/96-07-26.045, message 90


Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1996 05:21:53 +0200
From: DHKC Informationbureau Amsterdam <ozgurluk-AT-xs4all.nl>
Subject: Free prisoners on hungerstrike (Turkey)


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DAILY EVENTS HUNGERSTRIKE

FREE PRISONERS

Despite the pressure and the massacres , the resistance of the DHKP-C prisoners continues. They are challenging fascism with an universal characteristic which determines the nature of a political prisoner.
The resistance varies and it sometimes goes as far as death, as was shown recently in Buca and Umraniye. Nowadays, the resistance spreads to all prisons all over the country. This kind of resistance is seen by the people as resistance of the =93Free Prisoners=94.
The heroes of resistance in Buca answered their commanders of the DHKP-C, after they had to sacrifice three people in their resistance: =93Our resistance in Buca was not a spontaneous reaction, not a momentary solution. This honourable tradition stems from a well-founded artery; changing the dungeons of the enemy into a school of the revolution behind the walls with our way of life, our politics and the line of the Party-Front is a expression of this nature=94.
The fighters on the barricades in the Umraniye-prison lost three comrades as well. These, and other events in other prison institutions, are the facts of life for the prisoners from the Revolutionary Front.
They are all =93Free Prisoners=94 with their lives, their ideas and their resistance.
Our country made a step in the direction of freedom with the resistance and the struggle of the revolutionary prisoners.
To understand the strive for independence, one has to know about the way of life of the revolutionary prisoners, their way of thinking, their psyche and their politics. This is also necessary to understand the truth in our country and the reality of the war. There is a process of separation and new formation inside the prisons. However, this is not a separation between the legal and illegal struggle, independent from the division within the workers in the unions and the civil workers. And this is not a separation which is independent from the division with in the youth, the division inside Gazi, and the divisions in the armed struggle and fight. The war of fronts inside the prisons shows the division from the reformists in all aspects of life, and it accelerates this process at the same time.
The prisoners have shown and proven the real mission of the =93Free Prisoners=94 to the revolutionaries in other fields and to the people with their resistance.
Our revolutionary people=92s liberation fighters have shown clearly to the friends and the enemies that, no matter what the conditions are, they will not allow themselves or the people to be surrendered to the enemy. They will give their lives, if necessary, but they will never capitulate.
The practice of the Free Prisoners inside the prisons is on open and clear call to the people and the revolutionaries. With their conviction and determination, shown by putting their own lives at stake, they give confidence to the people for the coming revolution.
=93Free Prisoners=94, that=92s the name of the front-line war inside the prisons. It originates from the past and constitutes a new form of detention. Of course, this has not been easy. The =93Free Prisoners=94 have not won this mission without problems. This form of detention developed from a process of numerous ordeals, different forms of struggles with the enemy, against capitulation, and a ideological struggle evolved.

THE FREE PRISONERS HAVE CATEGORICALLY SEPARATED THEMSELVES FROM THE SYSTEM

Every organisation has had a prison policy of its own. The prisoners, albeit positively or negatively influenced by each other, showed different characteristics in this separated policy. Decisive in this policy was the question whether or not to separate from the system in ideology, policy and tactics. The prisoners from the DHKP-C represent the view of separating from the system in this matter.
A DHKP-prisoner has always been, and is today, separated from the system and he carries this kind of detention to all the others.

Those who could not separate from the system, unified from one day to the other with the system outside, and they carried their tactics openly to the prisons in many different names and sorts. Without any perspective and no claim to power, they do not see themselves as representatives of the struggle and the people. Although they do not preach capitulation, there is nothing else left for them.

For us, the prisons just constitute a different field of struggle, the prisoners who are faithful to the system exaggerate the special meaning of the prisons and they separate themselves from the fight outside the prisons. To limit the resistance inside the prisons to better conditions of life inside and following an according prison policy results in separation. Large parts of the Left have been advocates of such a policy inside the prisons. For the DHKP-C prisoners the main aim during the years of the junta was to eliminate the conditions inside the prisons which had been forced by the oligarchy and had been accepted by the other leftists. From this elimination, a revolutionary kind of prisoner evolved and parallel to the developing war, the =93Free Prisoners=94 of the DHKP-C, as a continuation of Devrimci Sol, became fact.

THE BASIC FOUNDATION FOR THE FREE PRISONERS WAS LAID ALREADY DURING THE YEARS OF THE JUNTA

The Free Prisoners originate from the =9170, the years of the THKP-C and the THKO. They brought down a tradition of 50 years of revisionism, outside in =93freedom=94, as well as inside the dungeons. The walls of =93passive detention=94, advocated by the TKP, were brought down and there is a continuos line to the present day revolutionary prisoners.
In 1921 the TKP were faced with 51 arrests and they have had people inside the prisons during all periods. But the TKP has never had a revolutionary prison policy. In that time there was a lot of talk about the history of revolution in a lot of countries in the world and the TKP wasn=92t inspired, in no way, by the resistance inside the prisons in those days. They demanded legality from the state and by a good behaviour of the prisoners inside, the TKP tried to guarantee security from this front. The TKP-kind of detention which resulted from this is only concerned with getting the sentence behind, and self-preservation. And they didn=92t even succeed in doing this. They didn=92t succeed in preventing the formation of an intellectual elite, they didn=92t succeed in sharing the bread as in a community life. They prefer this kind of being a convict. But this will fail, just like the revisionist and reformist tradition. They will get to know the present =93resistance=94 in the prisons. They will get to know the collectives. The revolutionaries will get conscious that prisons are places of organisation and activities as well. The biggest blow until now was delivered to them by Mohair and his friend when they escaped from Maltepe-prison. Even though it was just the first step, it has been decisive for the revolutionary prisoners.
Especially in the =9180s and the beginning of the period of the junta, this notion developed. In this phase, the Free Prisoners evolved through experience and learning, lessons from the hard struggle and sacrifices. While outside the prisons nobody dared to act against the junta, the resistance of the prisoners grew, based on their conviction, strength and trust. The prisoners even fought against the massacres in Palestine and against the murder of miners in Zonguldak, because they saw this is their duty, even though the attacks and the violence against them heightened. This also shows the sensibility of the prisoners. Their bodies may be incarcerated between four walls, but the oligarchy does not succeed in jailing their brains and courage=2E The prisoners use every piece of paper to educate and learn, to change the prisons into revolutionary schools, despite the measures which are taken against them. =93Do not accept prisons inside the prisons=94. Thus they stood up against liberalism, lack of discipline, bohemian behaviour, distraction, lack of plans. The Free Prisoners want to develop and broaden the organisation inside the prisons, to create discipline, productivity, collectivity, and a vivid organisation, based on a revolutionary understanding.
When they tried to organise a 2-day hungerstrike, the Free Prisoners met resistance by the other prisoners who even advocated the acceptance of the prison uniforms in a 20-30 paged document and thus neglected the real duties of a prisoner. In these conditions, the Free Prisoners were confronted with the pressure and the exploits of the junta on the one hand, and the struggle against opportunism on the other.
Some opportunist elements were on the side of resistance as well, but they withdrew. Their tried to keep their losses low and do as least as possible. They didn=92t look at the attacks from the perspective of a revolutionary politician, nor from the viewpoint of the junta, they looked at it from the view of being responsible for themselves, a view which was short-sighted. =93We can not do anything=94 against the situation and the coercion inside the prisons, because this will back-fire against the revolution, we are needed outside; this was the often repeated slogan of opportunism. Their view was determined by a narrow horizon, the mistrust at defeats and personal wishes, and they constantly failed at the politics of the oligarchy. This resulted in their own dissolvement or the breakdown of revolutionary resistance.
The unsteady opportunists hoped for more democracy with the elections, but their expectations were not met. When the ANAP formed the government, the practice of the junta was continued with attacks against the prisoners. At this point, the hungerstrike till death was taken on the agenda.

In the attacks against the prisoners, concerning the prison uniforms, the opportunists advocated the acceptance of these uniforms with all their skills.
They argued their behaviour with theses which clearly contained a decrease in judicial claims and which were provocative. The oligarchy used the prison uniforms as a pretext and did not keep it judicial promises. Our opportunists wanted to take away their pretexts and they accepted the uniforms. But their theory of pretexts was wrong, and secondly the prison uniforms were taken as an item in the political warfare. When this demand was met, the claims for the other rights would have been taken care of, politically speaking. The uniforms were accepted, but the other rights were not granted. And so the theory of pretexts failed, because the state formulated new demands. Now the prisoners were required to button up their uniforms and wear their identity cards on their collars. And the opportunists gave in to their wishes, again to take away their pretexts. But the end was not in sight. And there wouldn=92t be one. Now, there had to be an end to the oligarchy=92s policy, they had to be answered by resistance. Claiming that the prisoners were alienated, the opportunists explained the hungerstrike till death in a wrong way, declaring that it was a suicidal action, not approved by the organisations. They also said that the prisons were not a place for struggle.
The Devrimci Sol and TIKB prisoners did what was necessary. If necessary, they would die and show they would never surrender and that they would break the enemy=92s strength. And it proved to be necessary, and they died. Their bodies were subjected to the pressure of the enemy, but their ideas were free, they could develop freely and live up to their responsibility toward the people, the revolution and their comrades. To be under pressure is something else as letting this pressure influence the mind. When the enemy=92s terror is transformed to fear and scepticism in the victim, then one can no longer speak about freedom and revolutionary prisoners. The hungerstrike till death was a call to freedom.

THE TRUTH ABOUT THE WAR AND THE PRISONS

The dungeons are theatres of war. The class struggle appeared on all levels inside the country. The policy of the oligarchy against the people will extend to an area where it will have to deal with the most courageous and diligent warriors. As an example of the people, a revolutionary prisoner has to continue his war inside the prison. A people=92s movement which gives in, can never progress, will not grow, and will never win. When blows and temporary defeats lead to capitulation and surrender, a new uprising will be virtually impossible.
Prison is not a dug-out on a football field. Only because a revolutionary has become a prisoner, this is not to say he is separated from the people and the war. Essentially this can only be a physical separation. While the prisoner wages a economical, democratic struggle in his area, he looks for, and finds, ways to participate in the people=92s war. This can be an escape >from prison, the transformation of prison into a school, protests or forms of holding people accountable. The true line of a revolutionary prisoner consists of still participating in the war, to live, think, and shape his policy and activities accordingly.
And it is a framework like this which is chosen by the Free Prisoner for his struggle. Fascism lost against the persistence of revolutionary resistance, it had to withdrew, and it had to grant new rights inside the prisons. But fascism also attacked whenever there was an opportunity and it tried to take away the granted rights from the prisoners. This was the natural cause of the war on the prison front. And this was the picture of the prisons for a long time. That it doesn=92t become a never-ending circle for the revolutionary prisoners, is guaranteed by the struggle for more rights. This struggle is not a temporary self-defence, it is a continuous demand for new rights.

One should not view the prisoners=92 struggle, their tasks, their successes and failures during actions, as individual standards. There will also be phases in the struggle where the quest for rights will not be possible. As stated before, the war inside the prisons is politically motivated. In this, the Free Prisoners show the collapse of the will-power of the oligarchy and the ultimate victory of the revolutionaries. The strength of the enemy will be forced to retreat because of the numerous acts of resistance, and the superiority and invincibility of revolutionary will-power will be shown by the hungerstrikes till death and jail-breaks. This will-power was also shown in the maximum security blocks despite the intense acts of terror and prohibitions. A prisoner who participated in the resistance in Buca explains about the event: =93... The prisoners were so exhausted, they couldn=92t stand on their feet anymore. But their will was still standing up. The invincibility of revolutionary dignity, the inviolable revolutionary personality, and the reddening of the prison corridors with the blood of the prisoners have entered history.=94

TO SHED THE LIGHT FROM THE DUNGEONS TO THE OUTSIDE

The reaction in the other prisons to the massacre in Umraniye are a lesson for the people outside. With their limited possibilities of action the prisoners pose questions to the outside and they make propositions. A comparison between the answer of the prisoners to the attacks with that from those on the outside, who pose as an organisation, is significant.
In the years of the junta, the opportunist criticised the line of Devrimci Sol, they were said to see the prisons as their headquarters. They defended their dismissal of the propositions with this theory. This pretext contains paradoxical and right-tendency motives.
To put it bluntly: Devrimci Sol did not take this criticism seriously. Whether the prisons are command posts are not, this is of no important role. The prisons are fronts of the war as well, and the revolutionaries have to fulfil their duties there as well. As on all fronts, there are phases of progress and phases of retreat inside the prisons as well. Decisive is not to accept the strength of the enemy. As on all fronts in the war, the duties in this field will be different, according to the demands every phase poses.
In the time of the junta, the prisons stepped forwards inevitably. This was clear to the junta as well. Their call to surrender was not only directed to the prisoners, it was directed to the people as well. That=92s why the call to resist should come from the prisons. The Devrimci Sol prisoners understood this duty and they fulfilled their duties, sacrificing martyrs.
And it is obvious that the prisons were a motor of Devrimci Sol=92s development. There is no doubt about that. Devrimci Sol accepted the heritage of the Free Prisoners and the resistance. Others, not the owners of such a heritage, tried to take part in it in a war of survival.
The prisoners from the PKK joined the ranks of the opportunists. Now they also advocated another kind of prisonership. The true prison policy with the best tactics on a sound basis is conducted by the DHKP-C.
The revolutionary in prison will take the warriors as example and will continue their war inside the prison and speak to the people from this front. There can be nothing wrong about that. This is necessary. To accept the opposite view, that this should be the task of those on the outside, would be nothing else as following the aim of the oligarchy, and this would mean that the mind is imprisoned as well.
Let=92s look at the events of the last 3-4 days. Didn=92t the prisoners in Umraniye and the other prisons play an avant-garde role for the opposition in society with their resistance against the oligarchy? The one who resists, who fights, who extends the struggle on whatever level, he fulfils his duty as an example. A prisoner can not evade this task. Others will fulfil their tasks in other areas. If the revolutionaries are examples to the people, they will follow this mission outside and inside the prisons.
Especially in the time of the junta, when the prisons were filled with the leaders, the important cadres, and the fighters of many political movements, it was nonsensical to talk about the question whether the prisons were the command posts of the organisations or not. The cadres and fighters inside the prisons should have followed a beneficial line, considering their historical responsibility. The essential problem in this case was obvious.
But the left were fighting amongst each other, because they forgot their responsibility and the aim of fulfilling an exemplary function and they only thought about being released soon to piece their organisation together on the outside. Of course, they didn=92t admit this; instead they put there conduct in a theoretical framework. The Free Prisoners have made their opinion clear to prisoners who thought like that, they have made this known to other prisoners and all kind of political movements.
The Free Prisoners do not see a difference between the form of struggle, the way of the revolution, and revolutionary life in- and outside of prison. =93We are imprisoned, we must be freed from this duty, we=92re in prison, the decisions, the demands and policy do not apply to us=94: such an opinion does not exist for the Free Prisoners.
The prisoners are concerned with exactly the opposite. They are looking for a way how they can bring the Party-Front=92s policy into the prisons, looking for ways to contribute to the expansion of the war.

Of course, the Free Prisoner wants better prison conditions as well, but only because it will be easier then to transform the prisons into schools of the revolution. He looks for better prison conditions from his place in the struggle. For this, he designates his life. The prisoners from Devrimci Sol and the DHKP-C have already in the days of the junta after 1980 build a barricade against the oligarchy with their disciplined work of education, more disciplined as it was outside the prisons, and with their organised life=2E They had to be more disciplined as on the outside, because there was a direct and continuous confrontation with the enemy, and the struggle against him was heavier. To decrease the struggle, statements like =93something like that is impossible=94, adopt bourgeois hopes: this doesn=92t exist for the Free Prisoners. Even though the revolutionaries are prisoners as well, they still are at war. The prisoners of Devrimci Sol and the DHKP-C have tried for the last 15 years to free themselves with this opinion and these aims. The enemy has tried to prevent this, that bourgeois erected sudden obstacles, was inspired by the opportunists, but the Free Prisoners never gave their aims. The Free Prisoners developed out of this resolute and stubborn prison policy.
The Free Prisoners defend their conduct, and they keep their word. The attack in Buca was directed against the personalities of the Free Prisoners, the Free Prisoners themselves; the aim was to restrain the quest for freedom. But the prisoners from the Party-Front and their friends publicly stated they would confront the oligarchy with further Buca=92s. Buca was not an isolated case in this sense. The reactions after Buca were not simply emotions=2E The events proved this. The Free Prisoners don=92t perceive the resistance in the prisons just as a case of demanding improved conditions and self-defence against the attacks. Besides defending themselves, these prisoners want to inflict damage to the enemy, they want to break the oligarchy, start counter-attacks, and they want to be avant-gardists, politically and military.
The events make this clear. The growing resistance of the Free Prisoners against the attacks by the oligarchy have shown our people the revolutionary tenacity, the strength and spirit and it caused a widened the opposition among the progressive and democratically minded. This exemplary resistance clarified, inside as well as outside, the difference between the revolutionaries and the reformists. The growing resistance will increasingly render the oligarchic policy useless.
Those who do not join the ranks of the Free Prisoners will separate themselves and they will become mere spectators of the attacks, perceived by them as provocations which they do not want to let themselves get involved in. They send a message of willingness to compromise to the oligarchy, nothing more. The symptoms of this attitude are showing, and the will show even more clearly.

We can summarise the problem like this: Either we fight always and everywhere for the revolution, inside the unions, together with the civil workers, with the people in the slum areas, on the barricades in Gazi and in the prisons, separated from the system, or we act in a way which is between reformism and revolution, however, this would mean surrender to reformism. Those who can not separate from the system, will sooner or later withdraw themselves in a system-integrated struggle and merely function as a opposition for the oligarchy. The Free Prisoners, and the conception based on it, has an important influence to the outside. The Free Prisoners constitute a breakdown of prison policy, and even more: the Free Prisoners provide security to the people and based on this security, freedom will express itself and the revolution will get more popular. The Free Prisoners will increase this trust and confidence.

THE PRISONS AND THE PROVOCATION THEORY

The provocation theory is not unknown to the revolutionaries and the people in the country. Reformism and opportunism have always been the advocates of this theory. This theory evolved when people withdrew from the struggle. These theories serve the escape for sacrifices. Therefore this theory was brought into the prisons.
The larger the revolutionary struggle grows and involves the people in the revolutionary war, the more the counter-revolution will increase its attacks in all areas of life; this is known and the fighters have to keep that in mind in the progressing war against the oligarchy. Yet, there is no class struggle in the world which counters this rule. While the counter-revolution increases its attacks, it first assaults the imprisoned hostages.
The provocation theory was recently expressed by the PKK-prisoners. After the loss of three martyrs during the resistance in Buca, the PKK evaluated these events like this: =93They let themselves be provocated=94 and thus showed their version of =93doing time=94.
The pseudo-left called it =93a lack of solutions=94 and interpreted Buca like this: =93In fact the left reacted to the dead-end of the government with a dead-end solution of themselves. By letting themselves be provocated, they provided the enemy with what they wanted.=94 What they really want to say remains an enigma, and whether they understand it themselves is doubtful.
But the evaluations of the opportunists were answered by the oligarchy. The PKK-prisoners didn=92t fall for the talented provocation, they remained in their cells in Umraniye, Bayrampasa, Bartin, Ankara and in the other prisons, they did not participate in the barricade struggle. But they weren=92t spared in the attacks, as was shown in Umraniye.
The logic of this provocation theory is in fact obvious: do not fight, accept the coercion, and nothing will happen to you. But this will not stop the attacks by the fascists, and they will never be satisfied, they will always come with new demands, they will demand confessions, treason, spying on other prisoners. The prisons in Diyarbakir and Erzurum are examples for this=2E
The correctness of calling the attacks by the oligarchy a provocation is quite minimal. Because the oligarchy will always be able to find a pretext for their attacks, such as prison uniforms, the haircut, searching the cells or other reasons of this kind.
Maybe the attacks in the prisons are not directed centrally, and maybe they are sometimes initiated by the prison directors themselves. But the facts inside the prisons are different. The attacks and the policy inside the prisons are controlled directly by the oligarchy and the contra-guerrilla. This is not the right place, nor the right time to argue about provocations.
If this is aimed at forcing political capitulation, be it a provocative attack, directed centrally or locally; the answer can only be one: resist and stand up resolute against the attacks. If this is a provocation, the resoluteness is the antidote. The Free Prisoners provide the answer, because the Free Prisoners will not compromise in a confrontation, they will not be tempted. The oligarchy will have to keep that in mind. Those who try to block the war inside the prisons, who insist on their provocation theories and withdraw from the front, either do not know the enemy or, if they know the enemy, they pursue their policy without separating from the bourgeois system. Buca and Umraniye were the tests of this policy.

=93The resistance in Buca is not a spontaneous event. The resistance in Buca is the result of the idea of the Free Prisoners, their personality and their form of struggle. Everywhere, in the cities, the mountains, inside the prisons: not surrendering for the enemy, resisting. That=92s stems from the tradition of the Party-Front. Our war has kept this tradition and has developed it further. Tomorrow there may be even more Buca=92s, but our tradition of the Free Prisoners and the spirit of resistance of the Party-Front will never be destroyed and with the acceptance by the people, the struggle will develop.=94

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