Newroz 2024 witnessed the strongest, most militant and most enthusiastic mass demonstrations in years. An enthusiasm for resurrection and resistance captured and engulfed life and spaces. The celebrations in North Kurdistan devloped into mass rallies. The collapse plan, name of the offensive by the political Islamist fascist regime, was met with a revolutionary response. Our Kurdish people gained a new capacity for revival and recovery in the light of the Newroz serhildans that counted millions.
The fighting enthusiasm of the rebel spring, which was reflected in the streets and squares of our cities on March 8, has now grown even bigger on Newroz. A new desire for struggle is arising, carrying along with it hope, for women, the oppressed and the working class. The oppressed, the laborers and the poor are heading towards a struggle that will disperse the dark clouds of liquidationism hanging over our heads. The dissatisfaction and anger accumulated in the ranks of millions of oppressed and exploited are concentrating into a desire for struggle and the search for outlets through which it can be realized. When the right means are found, struggle is bound to erupt. Here, the oppressed and exploited are rising up again against Erdoğan’s regime with their own actions. It is in the simple political message of the millions who turned Newroz festivals into huge mass demonstrations… it is in the of the Kurdish people, workers, women and young people who do not bow to the oppression of the chiefdom regime and stubbornly wave the flag of the freedom struggle in all branches of life… It is the resistance of the modern Kawa against the cruel Dehaqs (Note: reference to the myth from which Newroz originates). The fight call of our revolutionary tradition still echoes its victory today… A thousand greetings to those who turned the Newroz of 2024 into a serhildan of resistance and freedom.
Newroz 2024 witnessed the strongest, most militant and most enthusiastic mass demonstrations in years. An enthusiasm for resurrection and resistance captured and engulfed life and spaces. The celebrations in North Kurdistan devloped into mass rallies. The collapse plan, name of the offensive by the political Islamist fascist regime, was met with a revolutionary response. Our Kurdish people gained a new capacity for revival and recovery in the light of the Newroz serhildans that counted millions. When the news announced by PKK Executive Committee Chairman Murat Karayılan streamed into the rebellious Newroz spirit of millions, our Kurdish people’s enthusiasm and determination for struggle increased even more.
Newroz already demonstrated a strong will regarding local elections, showing that the developing and organized struggle of our Kurdish people will shatter the colonial regime’s trustee policy.
Local elections in North Kurdistan have always had the characteristics of a national referendum. Therefore, crushing trustee politics under the power of Newroz and imposing the will of the Kurdish people to govern themselves on the colonial fascist regime would mean a great political victory. Judging by the overall political picture and climate that will emerge after the local elections, it seems that the political Islamist fascist regime will continue to escalate the colonial war and occupation.
The fact that the Kurdish people come to power in municipalities and govern themselves as a political entity of national will means that the colonial system based on denial, destruction and assimilation is effectively rendered dysfunctional. For this reason, it is highly likely that the municipalities to be won in North Kurdistan will be usurped again by trustees. It should be expected that the AKP-MHP fascist government will follow the path of appointing trustees one by one to the municipalities won by the DEM Party. We must be prepared in every respect to protect the rightful and legitimate national democratic gains of our Kurdish people and to defend their demands. Defending the will of our people against this situation with all forms and means of struggle is justified, legitimate and a historical duty. The trustee coups must be responded to with public uprisings. Winning the municipalities, which is a clear political victory, and removing the trustees from these popular positions is the main and concrete goal of the local election battle. However, the only goal of local elections is not to remove the trustees from the public positions. Political struggle is connected to each other like the rings of a chain. All political gains and positions in the elections are meaningful and revolutionary provided that they are the cornerstones of the development of the national freedom struggle. The struggle for freedom against the colonial system cannot be viewed solely through the narrow horizon of elections. It would be a great mistake to approach the process this way.
The colonialist Turkish bourgeois state is preparing to start a new genocidal war of occupation. It is clear that this invasive war, like the others, will be carried out in form of a full–fledged attack. Turkey, which has been waiting for an opportunity in the region after Iran’s missile attacks on Hewlêr, is trying to reach an agreement with the Iraqi government on liquidating the Kurdish freedom movement. On the one hand, it imposes the water issue as a form of blackmail, on the other hand, it wants to draw the Iraqi administration into a comprehensive consensus system with profitable economic agreements and to obtain the occupation opportunities it wants in South Kurdistan. The Iraqi central government, under the control of the USA and Iran, is also cooperating with the colonialist Turkish bourgeois state for its own sovereign interests. The declaration of PKK as a terrorist organization and a foreign power in Iraq by the Iraqi central government is an indicator of this cooperation and the preparations for an occupational war.
The intensifying war talks between Ankara-Baghdad-Hewlêr herald a new war of occupation with multifaceted goals centered on the Medya Defense Areas (MSA) in South Kurdistan. The colonialist Turkish bourgeois army has completed all preparations needed to begin occupation. It is seen that the war, which is likely to start in April around the Garê and Metina areas, will be continued to scale throughout the summer months. The Turkish bourgeois army’s troop deployment and buildup continues. The first clashes between Kurdish guerrillas and the genocidal Turkish bourgeois army have already begun in Girê Amediyê.
For the new occupation war in South Kurdistan, which will be carried out alongside with the Iraqi central government and KDP, fascist dictator Erdoğan announced that they are aiming to occupy a region as far as 30-40 kilometers deep. The new military strategy seems to aim to divide the forces of the Kurdistan freedom movement and isolate them by confining them to certain regions. They want to develop a strategy such as cutting off the passages between Bakur (North Kurdistan) and Rojava (West Kurdistan) with a wall and partially cutting off the passages between Bakur and Bashûr (South Kurdistan). This occupation war aims to disintegrate and neutralize the PKK in all areas in South Kurdistan, primarily in Shengal-Maxmûr and the Medya Defense Areas. The genocidal invasion war against Rojava also remains high up on the agenda.
The war of occupation in South Kurdistan is also being waged to achieve the goals of the Turkish bourgeois state’s regional economic expansion pans. With the Iraq Development Road project, which separates Shengal and Mosul from South Kurdistan, the colonialist Turkish bourgeois state wishes to achieve two goals together. The colonialist Turkish bourgeois state, which presents the PKK’s presence in Metîna and Garê as a threat for this road project, aims to remove the Kurdish guerrilla from these two areas and push it further back. It is trying to secure the construction of the road project by removing the PKK from these two regions.
The colonialist Turkish state is making a series of capital investments in order to subject Southern Kurdistan to financial-economic colonialism and to prevent the collaborationist Kurdish capital from flourishing. The Iraq Development Road project, one that has been on the agenda since 1991, covers Iraq, Turkey and the Gulf countries. This project especially aims to ensure the transportation of goods from Gulf countries from the Al Faw port in Iraq’s Basra province to international markets via Turkey. The Iraq Development Road, planned as a 1,200–kilometer highway and railway project with an investment volume of 17 billion dollars, aims to economically exclude, surround and keep South Kurdistan self-dependent. This project is expected to be completed soon.
The denialist colonialist Turkish bourgeois state is trying to include the KDP, Iraqi army and Hashd al-Shaabi forces in the new occupation war with different functions. The collaborationist KDP’s direct involvement in the occupation war also means a new birakuji (conflict between Kurdish groups) war. The danger is great. Our entire laboring left movement must prepare and take action now to defeat the colonialist Turkish state’s plan to invade, massacre, genocide and destroy the current Kurdish national democratic gains. The Kurdish guerrilla announced that they were able to neutralize UCAVs, a war tool that the Turkish bourgeois state and army rely on. This is a technical-tactical success that will change the balance and strategic course of the war. We celebrate this success, which brings hope to the working class and all the oppressed, and salute the creative will and determination of the guerrilla. As parties that fight and resist, our situation is stronger today. The oppressed peoples must now lean on the enthusiasm and power that arose with Newroz, organize and expand the struggle against the colonial occupationist war with the hope and courage gaines over the new year.
*Editorial of the 160th issue of ATILIM newspaper, Voice of the Working Class and the Oppressed, dated March 22.