BERJÎN KARA

Makhmour- On February 15, 1999, Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan was handed over to the Turkish state by an international conspiracy. Following his arrest, Kurdish people took to the streets in four parts of Kurdistan and all over the world to protest the conspiracy. The people of the Makhmour Martyr Rustem Cudi Camp (Makhmour Refugee Camp) also took to the streets and protested the conspiracy. NuJinha spoke to women living in the camp.

 ‘The Kurdish people got to know themselves thanks to leader Apo’

The Kurdish people got to know themselves thanks to leader Apo, said Öznur Kaya, one of the women living in the camp. “The Kurdish people were not recognized before the movement started by leader Apo (Abdullah Öcalan); they did not know themselves. After the Kurdish freedom movement started, they awakened from sleep. They began to demand their rights and struggle for their culture, language and identity.”

‘Our leader is our red line’

Speaking about what happened in the camp following the conspiracy, she said, “The enemy planned a conspiracy because it knew that the Kurdish people and women had been already awakened. When the people of the camp did not receive any news from the leader, they flocked to the headquarters of the United Nations in the camp. The director of the UN was here and people took the director, put him in a vehicle and gathered around the vehicle. All the people in the camp said, ‘We will stay here and we will not release your director until we get information about our leader.’ Then, we held many protests in the camp. Not only the people of the camp but also people all around the world held protests. Our leader is our red line.”

Call on the Kurdish people

Our leader predicted everything in 2000-2001, she said, “In 2014, everything predicted by our leader came true and we experienced it. Many world leaders killed thousands of people for their own interests, but our leader sacrificed everything for the Kurds. I call on all Kurds to unite around leader Apo and ensure his physical freedom.”

‘We will sacrifice everything for our leader’

The Turkish state and other countries are afraid of the ideology of our leader, Öznur Kaya emphasized. “For this reason, an isolation has been imposed on him for 25 years. This isolation is actually imposed on all Kurds. We will sacrifice everything for our leader. The Imrali prison has become a space of resistance. We will unite around our leader and ensure his physical freedom.”

 ‘We awakened thanks to leader Apo’

Asya Biliğî, another woman living in the camp, started her speech by talking about the love of children in the camp for Abdullah Öcalan. “The children of the camp love the leader very much. Whenever we talk about the movement, they say, ‘Make local clothes for us, paint our foreheads with green, yellow and red (Colors of the Kurdish flag), and then we will shout his name’. We must unite against the enemy. We must all join hands and show that we exist. We will defeat the enemy by struggling more.”