KCDK-E remembers victims of Halabja, Qamishlo, Gazi and Afrin, calling for united resistance

The month of March marks the anniversary of the massacres in Halabja, Qamishlo, Gazi and Afrin. In view of these anniversaries, March is not only a month to celebrate the resistance festival of Newroz, but also to commemorate the victims. The Kurdish Democratic Societies Congress in Europe (KCDK-E) published the following statement in this context:

“March is a month of massacres and resistance for the people of Kurdistan. Throughout history, the colonialists have tried again and again to suppress the struggle for freedom and equality in Kurdistan with a policy of massacres and genocide. But the Kurdish people have defended their struggle and values with resistance.

The dictator Saddam massacred 5,000 people in Halabja in 1988 with chemical weapons such as mustard gas. The Turkish colonial state perpetrated the Gazi massacre in Istanbul on March 12, 1995. On March 12, 2004, the Syrian regime perpetrated a massacre in Qamishlo and provoked a conflict between Kurds and Arabs. With the same mentality and massacre policy, AKP/MHP fascism’s troops invaded Afrin on March 18, 2018. However, all these massacres, invasions and occupations could not stop the Kurdish people’s struggle for freedom. Instead, the anger and determination to fight grew even more.

In the same attitude and with the same aim, the Turkish state’s attacks on Kurdistan have become even more nefarious today. The perpetrators of Halabja and Qamishlo have lost and the Turkish state is also in one of its greatest crises in the face of our people’s struggle for freedom.

History has shown once again that the struggles for democracy, freedom and equality cannot be stopped by repression and violence. No matter what weapons are used, chemical, biological or conventional, the struggle for democracy and freedom cannot be stopped by massacres and violence.

In Halabja, the struggle of our people was to be put down with chemical weapons. A similar mentality can be seen today in Afrin, Shengal, Southern Kurdistan, Maxmur and Northern Kurdistan. Whether young or old, people and their values are under attack. This is how regimes try to maintain their power.

As KCDK-E, our call is directed to the entire Kurdish people. It is our moral duty to oppose the attacks, the massacres and the genocide on the basis of national unity, to extend the resistance and to guarantee the demand of our martyrs, the freedom of our people.”