Mahir Çayan

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Mahir Çayan (born August 14, 1945 in Samsun , † March 30, 1972 in Kızıldere in Tokat Province ) was a Turkish revolutionary and co-founder of the Turkish People's Liberation Party Front (THKP-C).

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Mahir Çayan was born in Samsun and attended middle school and high school in Istanbul . He first studied law and a year later political science at the University of Istanbul. Çayan initially joined the Labor Party of Turkey (TİP) and later the Dev-Genç . Together with Hüseyin Cevahir and others, Mahir Çayan founded the Turkish People's Liberation Party Front (THKP-C) in 1971. He participated in two bank robberies. During the preparations for the Ziraat Bankası attack in February 1971, they robbed the vehicle that the 23-year-old chauffeur Mesut Erdinç was driving so that it could be used as an escape vehicle. They kidnapped and handcuffed him and put a gag in his mouth. So they left him in the shelter. They forgot him and Erdinç suffocated. One month later, in February 1971, Çayan took part in the attack by the Türk Ticaret Bankası in Erenköy.

Çayan also participated in the kidnappings of Mete Has and later of Talip Aksoy, who were released for a ransom, and murdered the hostage Ephraim Elrom with three shots in the head. Elrom, the statement said, played an important role in organizing the Zionist movement in Turkey and was Consul General of Zionist Israel, the hand of American imperialism. When Elrom, who, under his original name Hofstaedter, had been involved in the Eichmann investigation under his original name, was taken hostage, Çayan and comrades demanded that all political prisoners be released within three days. In June of the same year Çayan und Hüseyin Cevahir were found. They holed up and took 14-year-old Sibel E. hostage. After 51 hours, the police stormed the apartment. Cevahir died and Çayan was wounded and later tried. The prosecutor called for the death penalty. At the end of November, he and Ulaş Bardakçı , Cihan Alptekin, Ziya Yılmaz and Ömer Ayna were able to flee through a 15 m long and self-dug tunnel.

meaning

Although the organization practically ceased to exist with the death of Mahir Çayan, the THKP-C and the ideas of Mahir Çayan can be used as the starting point for a whole range of organizations such as the Revolutionary Way or Revolutionary Left and today the People’s Revolutionary Liberation Party Front and the Marxist- Leninist Armed Propaganda Unit (THKP-C / MLSPB) are seen.

Çayan's ideology

The main theses of Mahir Çayan's social analysis are

  • Turkey is a semi-colonial country. The capitalism that rules there is dependent and robbed of its own dynamics. A democratic revolution, as the Workers' Party of Turkey (TIP) has always called for, takes a back seat.
  • Turkey is therefore in a permanent economic and social crisis. Long-term stability cannot be achieved.
  • The armed struggle under the leadership and leadership of a proletarian party is intended to shake the artificially maintained balance between state and imperialism and thus bring about the emergence of a "revolutionary situation".

death

On March 26, 1972, Mahir Çayan and nine others ( THKO and Dev-Genç activists and civilians from Fatsa) kidnapped two British and one Canadian technicians from a radar station in Ünye on the Black Sea . In doing so they intended to free Deniz Gezmiş , Hüseyin İnan and Yusuf Aslan , who had been sentenced to death as leaders of the THKO. Four days later, on March 30, 1972, Çayan and his friends were arrested by a special unit from the Office for Special Warfare (often associated with the deep state in Turkey) at the General Staff in the village of Kızıldere (now Ataköy) in the province of Tokat and killed except for Ertuğrul Kürkçü . In particular, through his refusal to surrender, Mahir Çayan achieved cult status among his followers and is still venerated as a martyr today.

Armed actions

  • February 12, 1971, involved in a bank robbery in Ankara
  • March 15, 1971, involved in a bank robbery in Istanbul
  • April 4, 1971, kidnapping of entrepreneurs Mete Has and Talip Aksoy
  • May 17, 1971, kidnapping and murder of the Israeli Consul General in Istanbul, Ephraim Elrom
  • June 1, 1971, during an exchange of fire with the police, Mahir Çayan was injured and caught, but was later able to escape from the Istanbul military prison
  • March 26, 1972, kidnapping of three British technicians from the military base in Ünye
  • March 30, 1972, death in an exchange of fire with a special unit of the Turkish army

Fonts

  • Aren - Boran Oportünizminin Niteliği (The Characteristic of Aren's Opportunism)
  • Revizyonizmin Keskin Kokusu-I (The Pungent Stench of Revisionism - I)
  • Revizyonizmin Keskin Kokusu-II (The Pungent Stench of Revisionism - II)
  • Sağ Sapma, Devrimci Pratik ve Teori (Right Deviation, Revolutionary Practice and Theory)
  • Yeni Oportünizmin Niteliği Üzerine (On the Characteristics of the New Opportunism)
  • ASD'ye Açık Mektup (Open letter to the magazine Aydınlık Sosyalist Dergi)
  • Yayın Politikamız (Our Publication Policy)
  • Devrimde Sınıfların Mevzilenmesi (The Classification of the Revolution)
  • Kesintisiz Devrim I (The Uninterrupted Revolution I)
  • Kesintisiz Devrim II-III (The Uninterrupted Revolution II-III)

literature

  • Lothar A. Heinrich: The Kurdish national movement in Turkey . German Orient Institute Hamburg 1989

Web links

References

  1. ↑ Salom newspaper, December 30, 2015
  2. ↑ Günaydın daily newspaper from December 1, 1971
  3. ↑ cf. Part 3 in The Turkish Left and Its Perspectives
  4. ^ Lothar A. Heinrich: The Kurdish national movement in Turkey . German Orient Institute Hamburg 1989, p. 16.
  5. ↑ A detailed description can be found on the website of the Solidarity with the 68ers Association
personal data
SURNAME Çayan, Mahir
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Turkish revolutionary and co-founder of the Turkish People's Liberation Party Front (THKP-C)
DATE OF BIRTH August 14, 1945
PLACE OF BIRTH Samsun
DATE OF DEATH March 30, 1972
Place of death Kızıldere Village in Tokat Province