Thirty-five years ago, on 11 February 1990, Nelson Mandela was released from 27 years’ imprisonment in South Africa. This day marks both the end of an intense struggle waged during a global campaign for Mandela’s release and the beginning of a new process. On 11 February 1990, a new page in history was turned. The 27 years of darkness have lifted South Africa to make way for a huge project to rebuild a society ravaged by three centuries of colonialism and an apartheid that has created huge gaps in society. Mandela is the man who fought all his life to put an end to white domination over black people, the revolutionary who always stood for the ideal of an equal and free society.
October 9, 1963 is the day of the Rivonia Trial where Mandela’s death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. 35 years later, October 9, 1998, is also the day when the international plot against Rêber Apo (Abdullah Öcalan) began. First forced to leave Syria, Rêber Apo then traveled to many countries until obtaining from Mandela the promise of asylum in South Africa. However, this proposal never came to fruition as the forces of the international conspiracy captured Rêber Apo during a stopover in Kenya on 15 February 1999 and handed him over to the Turkish State. He is now in isolated in prison, and the imprisonment is going in the 27th year.
Mandela has always shown great support for the Kurdish people. He also refused to go to Turkey to receive the Ataturk prize, saying: “I will not go to a country where the blood of Kurds is being shed and where a policy of discrimination is being implemented against the Kurds.” In a message to the Kurdish people in 1997 Mandela also said: “We know what it means to be oppressed in one’s own country. We know the pain of a mother whose child has gone missing. We know what it means for a child not to be able to speak his mother tongue. We know what it means to have your nationality and culture insulted. This is what the Turkish government is doing to the Kurds. And that is why today, I am not your visitor, I am not your guest, I am part of the Kurdish struggle. I am one of you. We know that the European Community, and Germany in particular, is using terrorism and security as an excuse to stop the peace process. I want to tell them that Nelson Mandela was also called a terrorist, but today he is the president of South Africa. […] Their “Turkish war” is not only a war against the PKK, it is also a war against human rights in Turkey, it is also a war against workers and freedom movements, it is a war against democracy in Turkey. Terrorism is used as an excuse to deny the rights of the Kurds and other peoples of Turkey. No one can stop the Kurds’ determination to be free. Bijî Serok Apo!”
Nelson Mandela and Rêber Apo are two personalities who through their thought and militant commitment have transformed the course of history. These are two revolutionaries who, in supporting the ideals of democracy and peace, were hunted down and locked up by the international hegemonic forces. In the face of racist and fascist ideologies, they have always sought the path of democratic solutions and understanding between the peoples, notably by developing the concepts of a Democratic Nation (Rêber Apo) and a Rainbow Nation (Mandela). These are two leaders who have always considered that their freedom could only really happen when their people were also freed from oppression.
Their commonalities begin in childhood. Growing up in villages, both were also immersed in the traditional culture of their people. At the same time, by attending state schools, they learned about the oppression of their people and their culture. Rolihlahla Mandela was renamed Nelson by his teacher. Both of them then left their villages to study law, and this was also the beginning of their activism. Rêber Apo attended several Marxist movements before founding the PKK in 1978 while Mandela joined the African National Congress (ANC) in which he founded the Congress Youth Unit. Their movements both faced fierce repression by the state, they also had the vanguards of armed movements, Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the ANC, and the PKK guerrillas. They were both eventually sentenced to death commuted to life imprisonment on Imrali Island in Turkey and Robben Island in South Africa. Both of them led a relentless resistance within an inhuman prison system for 26 and 27 years.
At the same time, millions of people all over the world actively fought for their freedom. It was this global resistance that led South Africa to suffer many international sanctions including an economic blockade that greatly weakened the then white-ruled state of South Africa. On 2 February 1990, President Frederic de Klerk, in a speech to parliament, announced Mandela’s release.
This February 15, 2025 we will enter the 27th year of Rêber Apo’s imprisonment, 27 years in which he led a historic struggle that led to the re-foundation of an ecological socialism based on the freedom of women. The international campaign for the physical release of Rêber Apo, which has now entered its final phase, has also helped to spread this new paradigm on a global scale and to increase the pressure on the Turkish state. Thus, after more than three years of strict isolation, a process of dialogue with Imrali was established. Since then three visits with Rêber Apo have taken place, suggesting possibilities for resolution if the right conditions are met.
Thus new hopes were awakened. Could 2025 be the year of liberation? What we learned from the Tishreen resistance is that nothing can stop a people who want freedom. The martyrs of freedom have drawn the line, more than ever we will have to strengthen the struggle on all fronts to achieve our goals. What is also certain is that whatever the outcome of this process, it is with hope and conviction that we will continue, like Mandela and his people, our long march towards freedom.