Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1996 05:22:02 +0200
From: DHKC Informationbureau Amsterdam <ozgurluk-AT-xs4all.nl>
Subject: Free prisoners on hungerstrike (Turkey)


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                               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 “Free Prisoners”.
The heroes of resistance in Buca answered their commanders of the DHKP-C,
after they had to sacrifice three people in their resistance: “Our
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”.
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 “Free Prisoners” 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 “Free Prisoners”
to the revolutionaries in other fields and to the people with their
resistance.
Our revolutionary people’s 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.
“Free Prisoners”, that’s 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 “Free Prisoners” 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 “Free Prisoners” 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 ‘70, the years of the THKP-C and the
THKO. They brought down a tradition of 50 years of revisionism, outside in
“freedom”, as well as inside the dungeons. The walls of “passive detention”,
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’t 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’t even succeed in doing this. They
didn’t succeed in preventing the formation of an intellectual elite, they
didn’t 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 “resistance” 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 ‘80s 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. 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. “Do not accept prisons inside the
prisons”. 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’t 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.
“We can not do anything” 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’t be one. Now, there had to be an
end to the oligarchy’s 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’s 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’s
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’s 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’s 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’t 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’ 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: “... The prisoners were so exhausted, they couldn’t 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.”

             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’s 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’s
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’s look at the events of the last 3-4 days. Didn’t 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’t 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. “We
are imprisoned, we must be freed from this duty, we’re in prison, the
decisions, the demands and policy do not apply to us”: 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’s 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. 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 “something like
that is impossible”, adopt bourgeois hopes: this doesn’t 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’s. Buca was not
an isolated case in this sense. The reactions after Buca were not simply
emotions. The events proved this. The Free Prisoners don’t 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: “They let themselves be provocated” and thus showed
their version of “doing time”.
The pseudo-left called it “a lack of solutions” and interpreted Buca like
this: “In 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.” 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’t 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’t 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.
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.

“The 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’s 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’s, 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.”
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