A Message From The Grave – On the 10th anniversary of assassination of Kani Yilmaz

Posted on February 11, 2016 by Editorial Staff in Exclusive, Kurdistan

Patriotic Democratic Party PWD assistant coordinator Kani Yilmaz, who had been assassinated in Sulaimani city, Iraqi Kurdistan on Feb. 11, 2006. The photo is from May 2005. Photo: Ekurd.net/archive

From the friends of Kani Yilmaz

On the 10th anniversary of theassassination of Kurdish activist, Kani Yilmaz (Feb. 11, 2006)

If I could see the changes over the decade since my former comrades took my life, what would I tell you?

I would say our relations with Turkey are darkening with echoes of the worst days of the 1990s. I might think the suffering of the region’s peoples have been in vain. I would tell you a new generation of Kurdish children are growing up with the same fear and bitterness as did our generation and our grandfathers’.

I would tell my mother I am sorry I did not spend more time with her as a grown man and that she had to outlived me, her first born son.

I would tell my brothers and sisters, nephews and nieces, how sorry I am that I never got to see them again: we believed we had time.

I would tell my loved ones and my friends I am sorry I couldn’t be with them sharing the bright times and the dark.

I would ask Apo (Abdullah Ocalan) if Imrali is worse than Diyarbakir prison where hundreds of activists endured torture and death between Turkey’s military coups.

I would say to all the people I used to know, not to give up and to remain hopeful. I would say to them, “Look at our Kurdish brothers in Iraq! What they have achieved! But I would be saddened that mainly those at the top are enjoying the freedom the peshmerga fought for and that they punish their critics.

Patriotic Democratic Party leader Kani Yilmaz’ mother in front of his grave. Photo: Provided/Ekurd.net

I would ask my fellow Kurds wherever they are to “agree to disagree” and practise democracy in more than name.

I would ask the Turkish state to embrace pluralism and would kindly ask President Erdogan to dismount from his high horse.

I would try to banish ISIS from the face of the earth as the greatest abomination of the century – a curse upon the faith they seek to preach.

And then I would walk outside among the fig trees and roses in Sarchinar. I would quote Rumi and Shakespeare instead of Marx and Apo. I would sing as I was singing in my last days and I would again value life above politics.

But it is too late for me to speak afresh: this is just a whisper from the grave on the war torn border between Turkey and Syria where my ashes lie entombed.

All that remains is this memory.