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Comrade Özgür definitely left a mark on the hearts of everyone who knew him. It left such deep traces on me that if I were to talk about one, the other would be incomplete. Now our sharings with Comrade Özgür seem intense enough to last a lifetime. I feel the pride and honor of having experienced feelings that many people cannot experience in a lifetime, in the few years I have known them.
I tried to write many times and none of them could fully express what I wanted to say.
Even though I cannot find where to start to tell him about him, even though it is very difficult for me, I want to share some of the experiences that I learned from him and from them, which left deep traces on me, knowing that I have to tell them.
Comrade Özgür was one of those comrades who made an immediate impact on the people they first met. It immediately made a strong impression on me. At that time, my brother joining the guerrilla further strengthened my desire to meet the People's Army guerrillas. And in the first group I met with, I met comrade Özgür. He welcomed me with his beautiful and sincere smile. Then Çiğdem, Yurdal, Orhan, Sefkan… We had warm and deep conversations with all of them as if we had known each other for years. I even forgot why we were meeting. So much so that my second meeting was for an assignment. I couldn't break away from my comrades. I was doing my best to fulfill whatever task they asked me to, and I was looking forward to the day when I would see them again soon.
These meetings were sometimes to bring the problems experienced by the villagers to their comrades, sometimes to bring young people who wanted to organize to meet with the guerrillas, and sometimes to convey the intelligence collected for action activities.
It was as if every meeting was like a training exercise for me. The discussions and the solution of the problems, which were full at every moment, enabled me and the newly organized comrades like me to get to know the party, the organization and the comrades better. Comrade Özgür was explaining in detail about themselves, what they were fighting for, why they needed to organize, how the contradictions experienced by the people should be resolved, and the enemy in a language we could understand. During the meetings, he was asking us questions, trying to get to know us and understand our contradictions.
Those who do not live in guerrilla areas do not know that the guerrilla lives side by side with the people and that the guerrilla is indispensable in the lives of the villagers. That's why this encounter seems like a dream to those who come from different cities and encounter the guerrilla for the first time. The guerrillas whose stories they had heard and read about in novels until that day were now standing before them alive. With this excitement, they often do not know what to talk about or say. At such moments, comrade Özgür came to the rescue. Since he quickly observed the person who came and knew what would interest him, he immediately included him in the environment, opened topics according to his interests and connected the issue to the system and the struggle in a beautiful way. People of all ages could definitely find something from themselves in him. While playing with children, taking the dough from the hands of women making bread, rolling out bread, chopping wood, etc. It was possible to see it in many ways.
The most striking thing was that he was full of life with his always smiling eyes. He talked loudly, laughed all the time, made people laugh, but no matter what he did in an environment, he would always be the center of attention. I once witnessed him meeting with young people who were stuck in the swamp of drugs, addicted to substances, and had given up hope for the future. I didn't have much hope that those people would join us. I observed comrade Özgür's approaches. I was wondering what he would say. Comrade Özgür first listened to them carefully, without missing any details. He asked questions about their lives. After the young people expressed themselves, Comrade Özgür explained very simply, in a language they could understand, how the system corrupted the young people, how they were pushed into this environment, how the fascist state turned especially towards the children of the working people, and how they were pushed away from the revolutionaries and into this swamp. I saw that the young people were listening carefully to Comrade Özgür. Comrade Özgür was telling them how to get out of this swamp. He encouraged them by giving examples of his comrades who came out and achieved this. Comrade Hakan (Ersin Erel) was the most striking example and hope for them. Those who listened to Comrade Özgür would think that he lived in those environments. How well did he know the terms he used, the places he visited... Even this made young people believe in his sincerity. In the next meetings, he said that we should not stop talking about the comrades who became immortal for the people, and that everyone, more or less, could be a part of this struggle, and gave them small tasks. These tasks perhaps were not very important at that time. These were things we could do, too, but Comrade Özgür wanted them to do them. These actions would bind them to the organization and make them feel that they were a part of this struggle, and that's what happened...
Later, I observed Comrade Özgür a lot in his approach to the masses. These observations were also education for us. We were listening to him closely and trying to learn something from his way of solving problems.
One of the things that caught my attention the most in these relationships was that he did not settle for one-sided information in any case. He would listen to both men and women separately in a house and encourage the woman to participate in solving the problem. This would make him more trustworthy in the eyes of the villagers. Comrade Özgür was a comrade who devoted himself to the service of this people and managed to give up on himself in many ways. In one of our meetings, he came with a cane in his hand. I asked curiously. Wondering if something happened. He said his knee was uncomfortable. I saw that he was so swollen that I was amazed at how he could walk like that. Moreover, he came from Munzur. And it was mostly a steep terrain with rocks. He was pushing himself so hard that he was even making fun of the situation with his smiling eyes. This impressed me greatly. So, I thought to myself, the power of belief is enough to overcome all problems. My respect for him has become even stronger. Once again, I was honored to fight for the same values as him.
He was so fond of his comrades that he always said my comrades first. I saw this in all the comrades in the guerrilla. While fighting shoulder to shoulder against the enemy on the battlefield, thinking about your comrade first had a truly different meaning. I have seen and experienced this in all the comrades I know. I learned a lot from all the comrades who became immortal in the last period. Most of all, I learned not to leave the positions of immortalized comrades empty, and to hold on tighter to the hilt of the gun to complete the unfinished tasks.
I swear, comrades, that we will not leave unfinished the songs you sing on the tops of the mountains and in the secluded places of the forests. No matter how difficult and unattainable our dream seems, we will not stop fighting to achieve it.
A Comrade
