Nasrullah Kuran, who, despite spending much of his life in captivity, has not renounced Apoism, nor the socialist personality and struggle forged by Abdullah Öcalan.
The first part of this interview with ANF can be read here.
What happened during this period, and what did you experience personally?
The military coup of 12 September 1980 marked a sharp break, as those years filled with excitement gave way to repression and fear, to a climate of intimidation and flight. Many forms of repression have become part of daily life. Detentions, reports of torture, and arrests turned into an unchanging reality. The practices of torture and what was carried out in Diyarbakir Prison (Amed Prison) did not merely spread by word of mouth; they created an atmosphere of fear. I began the second year of middle school under these conditions.
Nearly all of our teachers were replaced, and beatings became a routine method of education. Forcing us to memorize all ten verses of the national anthem, making students stand on desks and perform prayers, and similar practices imposed rote learning under the shadow of fear, but did not lead to lasting understanding. On the contrary, they fostered a sense of alienation from school. For this reason, school was never part of any future I imagined for myself. What drew me to school and made it bearable was the presence of my friends. I went to school to be together with them.
When the 15th of August 1984 Atılım took place, I was a high school student. As the ferment in my memory pushed me toward such searches, a limited number of friends with whom there was no trust issue would gather in homes; we spoke about the struggle and shared whatever socialist classics we could find. From the mid-1980s onward, it can be said that each of the leftist movements had its own publications. Journals such as Toplumsal Kurtuluş by Yalçın Küçük, Yeni Demokrasi, Demokratik Çözüm, Demokrat Arkadaş, Medya Güneşi, Deng, and our own publication, Halk Gerçeği, were being published. We followed these as best we could and tried to educate ourselves.
Our search to establish an organic link with the Freedom Movement did not yield results under the conditions of Ceylanpınar at the time. This situation continued until we moved to Iskenderun for economic reasons. In mid-1990, while I was in Iskenderun, a friend told me that martyr Bişar Akbaş had been released from prison and wanted to meet. I made up an excuse for my family and returned to Ceylanpınar within two days. Earlier, we had been in contact with martyr Ismail Gül, through whom I had obtained and read a brochure on the history of Kurdistan and The Path of the Kurdistan Revolution. Teacher Bişar had learned of our searches through him and had therefore called for us. For me, it was an unforgettable encounter and reunion. We worked together for a short time. As a result of early exposure and subsequent operations, both comrades were martyred in clashes in the village of Aşağıtaşdere in Ceylanpınar. I was able to leave for the Çukurova region, but I had been left without organizational ties.
I joined the struggle together with my sister and comrade Leyla
Within a month and a half, this time establishing contact through a different channel, I joined the guerrilla ranks in July 1990 together with my sister and comrade Leyla (Zekiye). Leyla was 17 years old at the time. She had a natural sensitivity both toward my readings and toward the political process unfolding around us, and this created a relationship of solidarity between us. I shared my decision to join the guerrillas only with her. When she insisted on joining as well, I tried for a long time to persuade her otherwise. In the end, however, she convinced me, and we joined together.
We met several times during our practice in Botan and Southern Kurdistan (Başur), creating precious memories. In the spring of 1991, due to the intense influx of forces and preparations for a possible attack by the Turkish state, she crossed into the Çukurca region together with a significant portion of the forces, while I remained within the field deployment. In essence, I was part of the group that was to move to the Leadership’s area; however, our departure was postponed when news arrived that the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) had closed the transit route and that Abdullah Öcalan had been detained in Syria. My assignment was later temporarily shifted to the Southeastern Anatolia Project region (GAP).
A year later, due to emerging needs, I moved to the Hatay, Çukurova, and Mediterranean line and carried out activities there for a full year. On 2 March 1992, Leyla, together with Zinnet Karaaslan and another comrade whose name I cannot recall at present, was surrounded in a house in the city center of Van (Wan) and reached martyrdom by detonating the explosives on their bodies. I, in turn, was captured by the enemy in the city center of Antalya on 14 April of the same year. Following trials held at the Izmir and Malatya State Security Courts (DGM), I was sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment. Thus began my period of captivity, which as of today has reached 33 years and nine months.
I was held successively in the Buca and Malatya detention centers, as well as in the Bartın, Bursa, Kandıra F-type, Nazilli E-type, and Imralı F-type prisons. On the night of 25 December 2015, I was taken from Imralı Prison together with my comrade Çetin Arkaş as part of what the Turkish state apparatus carried out as a conspiracy, and in the early hours of 26 December we were transferred to Marmara Closed Prison (formerly known as Silivri No. 9). Since the day we were subjected to a specially prepared “welcoming ceremony,” I have been held here.
A reunion postponed in 1991 finally took place in 2015
Realizing the meeting that had been postponed in 1991 under the conditions of Imralı on 17 March 2015 constituted one of the most important moments and turning points of my personal history. In some of the prisons where I had previously been held, I had access to Öcalan’s analyses in both written and video form. The period assessments conducted in the Leadership’s area reached us within two months at the latest. Because collective education was carried out on the basis of these analyses, a significant familiarity with Öcalan and his approach had developed. Yet the nine months and fifteen days of this meeting further sharpened my existing feelings and thoughts regarding the reality of Öcalan.
We have already addressed this process in detail in our twelve-part interview book titled Looking from Imralı: Peace in Search of Its Addressee, War in Search of Its Commander, so I will not repeat it here. However, it is necessary to recount the way we were exiled to Silivri following the end of what was called the “solution process,” as current developments recall similar methods of special warfare and conspiracy.
Having recognized that the “solution process” launched in 2014 was set to evolve into a different kind of war from the stage it had reached, Abdullah Öcalan warned us in an assessment made a few days before our exile that a harsh war concept was at the door, that this could be reflected in the conditions in Imralı, and that we therefore needed to be prepared. In fact, the “poisoning allegation” voiced over the past two months, the canteen restrictions imposed by the administration, and the unsigned threat letters carrying the message “either you resolve it or you die” had already signaled the early signs of special warfare. Even so, we had not seriously factored in the possibility of exile, considering Imralı to be the final stop for us. We understood that this was not the case on the night of 25 December.
We were exiled through torture
After dinner was served, I was sitting and eating my meal when I noticed that the inspection hatch used for surveillance was opened and closed twice at intervals of four to five minutes. After I finished eating, I first heard the door of Çetin’s cell being opened, and then the door of the room I was in was opened. The person we knew as the deputy director said that, on the instructions of the Ministry of Justice, a transfer order had been issued for both of us to another prison, that we had to gather our belongings immediately, and that we would be sent within a few minutes. After a brief discussion, when we realized that the decision would not be changed, we asked whether we would be allowed to meet with Abdullah Öcalan before leaving.
When our comrade M. Sait Yıldırım had been transferred due to a heart condition, he had met with Öcalan and later returned to bid us farewell. When the official replied, “There will be no problem with that; we will arrange your meeting,” we said, “Then let us meet with Öcalan first, and afterward we will come back to say farewell to our comrades and take the limited belongings you mentioned.” They had clearly anticipated that we would make this request and arrived prepared.
As we walked toward the area where we usually held collective conversations, with the director in front, my comrade Çetin behind him, and me following, the number of accompanying personnel was three or four. When we entered the room, we saw that their number had increased and that, as the director sat down, he opened the door that was located behind Öcalan. Until that moment, we did not know where that door led. When Çetin stepped to the other side, I heard his voice rise; at the same time, I took a step forward. The scene was as follows: the room where we held our conversations was filled with an unprecedented number of prison guards, and the section we stepped into was where the X-ray device was located, that is, the prison entrance. In short, we had reached the point where words no longer had meaning.
The officers waiting for us first handcuffed both of us behind our backs and then took us separately to a coast guard boat. We were seated in separate sections and then transferred, again in separate compartments, to a prison transport vehicle waiting in Mudanya, which brought us to Silivri. We later learned that the Silivri prison administration had summoned a special intervention team from their homes in the middle of the night. It was this team that received us. We were subjected to intimidation, threats, strip searches, and other forms of violence. Given the manner in which we had been brought, however, we were already expecting such treatment. For that reason, I cannot say we were surprised.
The column written by Ahmet Takan in Yeniçağ on 25 January 2015 sheds light on how the developments aimed at derailing the process were prepared. From the government’s decade-long approach of “war against Kurds at home, war with Kurds abroad” to the present, is it possible to speak of a fundamentally different mindset? Abdullah Öcalan, with the “Call for Peace and a Democratic Society,” opened the path toward a strategic orientation that updates history. If implemented in practice, this would make a democratic renaissance inevitable not only in Kurdistan and Turkey, but across the Middle East. Yet unfortunately, the approaches of the other side fall short even of tactical positioning.
When examined closely, it becomes clear that, as a requirement of a multi-layered strategy, different roles are assumed through words and actions; in a very literal sense, they move as if reflecting the film, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. As you know, there is a profound difference between power and shadow of power. With the former, much can be changed; with the latter, only shadow plays can be performed. It is well known that shadow plays cannot lend strength to the dimension of time, and that they ultimately consume their own practitioners through the loss of both time and energy.
The Unionists, with their exaggerated approaches, were unable to escape being instruments on the ground first of German, then of British political strategy. The transition from the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic is a residue of this reality. One can only hope that a new déjà vu will not be experienced or summoned.
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