The Internationalist Friends of Andrea Wolf/Ronahî wish to salute the activists engaging in the solemn vigil to protect the graveyard and memorial site »Ronahî« in Kelehere. For actually 54 days, these hundreds of men and women stay there in the mountains of Sax/Çatak, province Wan/Van. There, they decided to act as »human shields« to secure the graves located in the PKK guerrilla martyr’s graveyard, the memorial site and documentation centre, a prayer room and a garden with its spring-water fountain alongside (see appendix). With their civil protest they tend to prevent the plotting illegal bombing and destruction of the graveyard. And more of this: Like in the Kelehere »Ronahî« graveyard and memorial site there are solemn vigils e.g. in Herekol, Lice, Bitlis and in the Cudi mountains. The activists will stay there until the war provoked by Erdoğan and his AKP government is over.
Today on October 10th 2015 we have gathered from different cities in Germany und Switzerland in a Kurdish association’s place, talking about the fascist assault on the Turkish-Kurdish unionists and HDP peace rally in Ankara, and discussing what we can do to stop the illegal bombing raids by Turkish Air Force in Kandil and against the martyr’s graveyards in Northern Kurdistan/Turkey. But above all we talk about your courage and resoluteness: The history of (wo)mankind is the history of a struggle for human rights and social justice. It is the history of the fight for a world without hunger and war, free from exploitation and oppression, free from patriarchy, racism and capitalism. It is a history about the quest for change towards a just society in global solidarity, freedom, peace and dignity. And the most valuable things we have to treasure in our common struggle are our fellow people who have been and are willing to set off on this quest: with all their experience, their courage, their mistakes as well as with their dedication. And all of it, here are the roots for our references to our friends and comrades who gave their lives fighting for a better world: Our grief and hope in commemorating and acknowledging our friends and their sacrifice – they are attending us, participating and forming an internationalist left movement.
Our comrade’s resistance is living on in our struggles. And their steps and paths are following a long and arduous road of resistance against inhumanity and war, against torture and barbarism: stepping forward from the Paris Commune, the labourers and workers opposition against the imperialist war in 1919, the partisans combatting Spanish and German fascism and, now, to the struggle of the Rojava Commune and the fight for self-government in Northern Kurdistan. Now, again, the civil »human shield activists« in Kehelere and at the other cemeteries and memorial sites are organized according to the principles of self-governance and to the idea of the Commune.
You say: »We will protect the most precious we have – regardless of what it may take. Deciding to be a human shield represents a lot. This decision is of existential weight – far reaching in a political as well as in an individual, personal way of existence«. We carry you in our hearts and minds. And in days, weeks and months to come we will do everything to spread out your message against the war provoked by the Turkish government. And we will carry on to draw political attention on the war crimes committed by Erdoğan and the AKP and to organize our international resistance against the Turkish government.
Together we will end the war! And we will liberate spaces and moments to meet again!
No justice — No peace! Long live international solidarity!
October 10th 2015