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Sultan YILDIZ: "They will have to trample on our corpses before they can touch our resisters" She was born on February 20, 1973 in Kangal Topardic village, Sivas province (central Turkey). She went to middle school and high school in Adana (southern Turkey). There she began to take part in the struggle for rights and freedoms. While she was studying Turkish language and literature at the education faculty of Gazi University in Kirsehir, she came into contact with the TODEF student organisation. She was one of the leaders of the youth struggle in the area. In Kirsehir she wrote articles as part of the staff of the local newspaper Kizilirmak Gazetesi. In 1999 she started to work for the newspaper Kurtulus (Liberation) in Istanbul. In 2000, when the F Type prison problem burst on the agenda, she involved herself conmpletely in the struggle of the prisoners' support organisation TAYAD. As a TAYAD member, she was involved in all activities up to and including the Death Fasts, without tiring or becoming fed up. It should be remembered that even before the Death Fasts started, she marched to Ankara with other TAYAD members, was beaten with clubs by police on the way and dragged along the ground by them. TV cameras showed two young women who were lying in the middle of the motorway because they had fainted as a result of being beaten. One of them was Sultan. Sultan was one of those who organised all kinds of actions as well as the Ankara march in order to put the struggle against the F Type prisons on the world's agenda. And when she was forcibly detained at TAYAD actions, she did not let herself be browbeaten into giving up her resistance, but continued to shout slogans. When the Death Fasts continued in Armutlu which became a neighbourhood of resistance, Armutlu became her home. She ran around everywhere in Armutlu to meet the needs of the Death Fasters and the needs of the people in the neighbourhood. Armutlu was everything to her. Certainly the police saw her doing all this. This is why the head of the team of murderers, Sefik Kul, told those detaining her on one occasion that "we will kill her." On the day of the massacre, Sefik Kul's voice was also heard announcing over the radio, "That girl's leading the resistance..." It's sufficient to note that the murderers openly stated one of their main aims when they said, "We've come to kill you." But she was not afraid of death, for her mind had already overcome it. She had said at the first attack in Armutlu that "they will have to trample on our corpses before they can touch our resisters." When the murderers entered Armutlu they were confronted by people using their own bodies as barricades. The murderers came to the door of the house where the Death Fast resisters were. She said, "You can't come in." Then Sefik Kul gave the order to kill her. They killed her. Was there anyone angered by fascism? Sultan was angered by it. Was there anyone who loved their people and homeland? She spent 24 hours of the day for the sake of an independent homeland, she spent 24 hours of the day for the sake of solving the problems of the people in Armutlu. Isn't this revolutionism? It was a matter of her entire life. She would give the last drop of blood from her heart. Did she make the struggle her own? She was the very essence of pure revolutionism. Arzu GULER: "I cannot rest while people are paying a price and while human beings are hungry and impoverished." She was born on March 8, 1978 in Hozat, Tunceli province (eastern Turkey, in the middle of Kurdistan: also called Dersim). Her family moved to Mersin, and then to Istanbul. At the age of 18, she started work in a textile factory. She got to know revolutionaries when she was very young and loved them. In 1992 in Hozat she formed a bond with them. When the matter of how one became a revolutionary was raised, as she put it, "When I was a child I witnessed that it was the revolutionaries who opposed tyranny and oppression." When she was in Dersim she tried to help the revolutionaries. She did whatever was necessary to show the people the truth, whether it was selling journals at demonstrations or hanging up banners. As part of this struggle, she was detained from time to time by the police. She was detained at a picnic in 1996 which commemorated the 1984 Death Fast martyrs, and also at another in 1998, this one to commemorate the Death Fast martyrs of 1996. In her mind she had a special bond with revolutionaries in prison. While she was continuing the struggle as part of the Revolutionary People's Forces in the Bahcelievler district of Istanbul, the F Type prisons came on the agenda and she devoted a large part of her time and energy to the TAYAD struggle. In the year 2000, she was detained in August, September and December while taking part in TAYAD actions in Taksim and Kadikoy (in Istanbul). She was also detained when the police cracked down on TAYAD in Beyoglu. But she did not become discouraged or worn down. Her maternal uncle was in Sincan prison, and her aunt Eylem Yesilbas was arrested and lost her memory as a result of the forcible medical intervention she received while on the Death Fast. Arzu volunteered for the Death Fast herself and on June 4, 2001 she started the Death Fast as part of the Second TAYAD Death Fast team. "As a pupil of Sabo, Esma, Idil and Fidan... she continued the fight as an honourable woman." When the murderers put attacks on Armutlu on the agenda, she said: "We must treat Armutlu as our honour. It gives me honour to be a small link in the chain of resistance." And she was a part of the resistance. She marched along the road of hunger, proclaiming, "victory or death." But death did not come from hunger, because the murderers came. She resisted under all conditions and did not surrender. In an article she had said: "Our past is an indicator of our future. In 30 years of history, we did not give in, not even once, and not once did we hang out the flag of surrender. From all of history's towers we hung our blood-red banners..." Now she is one of those dangling the blood-red banner from history's towers. She believed in revolution. She believed in the revolutionary movement. She started to be a part of this fight when she was in Dersim. She lay down to die in Istanbul. In Bahcelievler-Soganli she told the people the truth with the journals she sold and the leaflets she handed out. She said, "When the comrades lay down to die, my aim is also to look death in the eye." As the resistance went on she progressively broke all ties with the system. She was married. Her husband preferred a life within the system. So she broke up this tie and threw it away. Along with her older sister she put on the red headband. Despite her older sister's betrayal, she continued along the path. Her road was the road of victory. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: archive@jab.org EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9WB2D Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
