The PAJK (Kurdistan Free Women’s Party) Coordination released a statement on the occasion of the 33rd anniversary of the martyrdom of Bêrîtan Hêvî (Gülnaz Karataş), a guerrilla commander in the ranks of the ARGK (People’s Liberation Army of Kurdistan, the predecessor of the HPG), and pioneer of the Women’s Army. She threw herself into an abyss in Southern Kurdistan (Northern Iraq) on 25 October 1992 to avoid falling into the hands of the KDP Peshmerga, which collaborated with Turkey. Because of her exceptional courage and her passionate character, Beritan became a historical figure for the Kurds. Songs were written and innumerable newborns were named after her. Her life was portrayed in the movie “Beritan” by Kurdish director Halil Dağ in 2006.
The written statement released by PAJK Coordination on Friday includes the following:
“We remember our comrade Bêrîtan Hêvî, whose action Leader Apo (Abdullah Öcalan) described as ‘an act of love and honor,’ with respect, love, and gratitude on the 33rd anniversary of her martyrdom.
Comrade Bêrîtan Hêvî, who was born in Solhan, Bingöl in 1971 but originally came from Dersim, became acquainted with the PKK during her student years and joined the guerrilla movement in the spring of 1991. Although she had not yet completed her second year as a guerrilla fighter, she made her mark on history with her Apoist militant stance under extremely difficult conditions.
Thirty-three years ago, in 1992, an attack was launched against the Kurdish freedom movement PKK in South Kurdistan as a result of joint planning between the Turkish state and international hegemonic powers. The Turkish state had failed to achieve the desired outcome from the military operations it had launched since 1983, referred to as “cross-border operations.” Therefore, in the operation launched on October 4 with an expanded scope, local Peshmerga forces from the KDP and PUK were deployed to the front lines. Our Kurdistan freedom guerrillas put up resistance with great courage and sacrifice in the face of intense air and ground attacks. In some strategic areas, our women guerrilla units were the first to respond to the attacks. In Heftanin, one of the areas where intense attacks were carried out, the struggle was successfully enhanced under the leadership of comrade Azime (Mihriban Saran), one of the front commanders, while in Xakurkê, another active front, Comrade Bêrîtan (Gülnaz Karataş) responded with her insistence on fighting against collaboration and surrender, her line of resistance, and her stance.
On October 25, comrade Bêrîtan held her ground like a fortress, fighting until her last bullet. When her ammunition ran out, she broke her weapon and jumped off a cliff to avoid capture. We know this heroic tale from the accounts of the Peshmerga fighters who were on the enemy front at the time. Fighting to the last bullet with confidence that the resistance would lead to victory and not being captured alive was an Apoist guerrilla principle. As both a militant of this principle and an heir to the stance of Zarife and Besê against surrender, comrade Bêrîtan Hêvî resorted to such an action.
There is no doubt that this action was not a suicide, but an expression of the line of freedom. Comrade Bêrîtan, with her stance against primitive nationalism, collaborative submissiveness, opportunism, and reactionism, as well as her love for guerrilla warfare, her trust and belief in women’s power, and her spirit of rebellion against backward mindset, has become a beacon for us. With this awareness of life and struggle, her participation has been a decisive source of confidence and strength in our struggle for freedom and in our decision to form a women’s army. She has been both the voice and the action of the unity of fighting, liberation, beautification, and being loved. With her magnificent guerrilla struggle, her life, and her actions, she became a victorious Apoist militant in the challenging struggle for women’s liberation and self-creation. Comrade Bêrîtan should also be recognized for her deep consciousness and wise personality, her intellectual power, her determined, unwavering, and courageous militancy, her labor in life, her writing, and her poetry. The magnitude of her quest for a free life, her aspect of guerrilla life that beautifies, develops, and grows through resistance; her attractive literary writings and poems she penned in her diary are also an important legacy she left us. In our struggle for women’s freedom, Comrade Bêrîtan has been and will continue to be a guiding torch in our struggle and life, with her guerrilla struggle, her quests, her standards of love and labor, and her stance against betrayal.
With this torch that we will never let go of, we will be clear in our ideas and bold in our steps. Just as our women’s army, founded on the legacy of the martyr Beritan’s struggle, has grown, so too has our claim to be a force of self-defense for all women. With this claim, on the path of Beritan, we will expand our struggle for freedom against the culture of slavery ingrained in women’s consciousness, guided by the Jin, Jiyan, Azadî’ philosophy of Leader Apo, who presents the approach to women as the fundamental measure of being a socialist.
In this process, we will understand our leader’s manifesto, which represents the freedom perspective of the era, with the mind and heart of Martyr Bêrîtan, the pioneer for women’s freedom and communalist life, and we will put it into practice with her determination, claim, courage, faith, and confidence.
In the person of our Comrade Martyr Bêrîtan Hêvî, we once again honor all those who fought for freedom and our October martyrs, as well as the martyrs of the “You Cannot Darken Our Sun” campaign that followed the October 9 conspiracy, with respect, love, longing, and gratitude. We reiterate our pledge to carry our struggle for freedom to victory.”