YJA STAR

The YJA STAR is the name of the female combat units within the underground organization Workers' Party of Kurdistan . The current commander has the code name Rengin Botan.

Foundation of a women's army and motives

All units of the Kurdish People's Defense Forces (Hêzên Parastina Gel HPG), up to 2000 People's Liberation Army of Kurdistan (ARGK), are referred to as the women's army. These organizations are fighting groups of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). The current name of the women's associations is Yekîtîya Jinên Azad , abbreviated to YJA STAR, which translates as the unity of free women . STAR is a reference to the goddess Ishtar .

Women have been represented in the organization and its combat units since the PKK was founded in the 1970s. At first they took part in the men's units individually or in small groups.

chronology

A first PKK women's congress was held at the end of 1992. Among other things, the right to marry was claimed. The congress was viewed by Abdullah Öcalan as an attempt to eliminate the PKK ( tasfiyecilik ) and annulled. On March 8, 1995, the first official congress of PKK women took place in Metina. A 23-member executive was elected there. Later the women organized themselves in the TAJK Tevgera Azadiya Jinên Kurdistan (Freedom Movement of the Women of Kurdistan). The most prominent figure in the women's movement was Gülnaz Karataş , who threw herself from a rock in the fight against the KDP's Peshmerga in order to avoid being captured.

In 1993, PKK chairman Abdullah Öcalan gave orders to form a women's army. From 1995, separate units of the female guerrillas were formed, which had their own command post. The Yeketiya Azadiya Jinên Kurdistan ( YAJK - Association of Free Women of Kurdistan) was founded.

Female PKK fighters carried out a number of suicide bombings in the mid-1990s. In 1996, Güler Otaç (code name: Bermal), Zeynep Kınacı ( code name: Zilan) and Leyla Kaplan (code name: Rewşen) blew themselves up and dragged soldiers, police officers and civilians with them to their deaths.

ideology

The ideology of the YJA STAR is identical to that of the parent organization. The aim is to create a cross-state structure in accordance with the American school of thought of communalism . The PKK calls this form of organization Democratic Confederalism. YJA STAR's publications emphasize so-called women's liberation and ecological renewals. In particular, the fight against honor killings is ideologically central and serves as a basis for recruiting. The YJA has a strong personality cult around Abdullah Öcalan and pays homage to a martyr cult around the figures of identification Beritan and Zilan . The Germans Andrea Wolf and Uta Schneiderbanger are also venerated as martyrs.

See also

• Women in guerrilla movements

Testimonials

• Anja Flach: Jiyaneke din - a different life. Two years in the Kurdish women's army. Mezopotamien Verlag : Cologne 2003. ISBN 3-931885-49-6
• Anja Flach: Women in the Kurdish guerrillas: motivation, identity and gender struggle in the PKK women's army. Papyrossa Verlag : Cologne 2007. ISBN 978-3-89438-377-0

Web links

• Homepage of the Kurdish underground organization HPG: YJA Star (German), October 2, 2007

Individual evidence

1. ↑ According to the organization's homepage ( Memento of the original from October 25, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
2. ↑ Nejdet Buldan: PKK'de Kadın Olmak. Istanbul 2004, pp. 20-25
3. ↑ According to the organization's homepage ( Memento of the original from December 26, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.