The Art and Culture Committee of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) commemorated the victims of the massacre of Sivas and said: The colonial fascist Turkish state cruelly murdered 33 people, among them artists and intellectuals, in the Madımak Hotel in Sivas on July 2, 1993. We condemn those who committed this cruel massacre and commemorate the murdered people with respect. We promise to let their longing for freedom live on in our struggles.
We know this murderous mentality well. The bearers of this fundamentalist, sectarian and racist mindset have never shied away from eliminating artists, intellectuals, representatives of the enlightenment by massacres at every available opportunity.
The PKK Committee recalled the murders by the Turkish state and the Ottoman Empire of progressive personalities from Sheikh Bedreddin, Pir Sultan Abdal and Apê Musa to the guerrilla commanders and PKK representatives Kasim Engin and Helmet (Diyar Xerib), and continued: Massacres have been repeatedly committed against egalitarian and communal movements and their intellectuals and artists, they have always been oppressed because they did not bow to the Sultanate. But this enlightened, revolutionary-democratic line will never be eliminated.”
The PKK Committee sees in the current attacks of the AKP/MHP regime a line of continuity with the annihilation policy of the past. The murderous actions against Kurds are directed against any democratic opposition, it said and continued: The vileness goes so far that they do not even shy away from attacking cemeteries. The regime is thus showing that it has distanced itself from any morals, religion or culture. We will continue our revolutionary struggle until this aggressive, fascist mentality is defeated.”
The PKK Committee statement stressed that: “We will never give in to the genocidal attacks. With our cultural and artistic struggle, we will be the voice of the society and will keep the victims of Sivas massacre alive in our memory until victory is achieved. The reactionary, genocidal and murderous Sultanate will be torn down, the diverse and colourful social forces will triumph.[1]