​​​​​​​Glimpse into life of martyr Zilan

Zainab Kanaji (Zilan) set through her commando operation the standards of life, turned into an approach and became a new beginning for the movement of freedom and Kurdistan. 27 years ago, Martyr Zilan established a new beginning in the history of Kurdistan, she avenged the thousands of women who threw themselves from the rocks, and the thousands of children who were kidnapped and placed in orphanages. Martyr Zilan burned the enemy with her fire like a volcano, and turned into a name for eternity.

Zilan was born in 1972 in the village of Mali in Malatya. She belongs to the Mamurki clan, which defended its Kurdish identity against assimilation policies.

She studied Health Department in high school and then graduated from the Department of Psychological Counseling, University of Malta. During her undergraduate studies, she worked as a technologist in hospital of Malatya. In the 1990s, the freedom movement gradually spread throughout Kurdistan, and Martyr Zilan became a sympathizer in high school.

  In 1994, she worked in Adana for about a year. She married a friend of hers at the same university, but she could not fit in with the imposed social norms, and did not make them an obstacle to her struggle. She joined the ranks of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in the Dersim region in 1995, and took the Kurdish name "Zilan", which means rebirth.

'I love life and people so much'

"When I joined the ranks of the army, I got to know all aspects of my personality better, and developed a lot. I can say that I became stronger in many things such as firmness, determination, morale and transparency," with these words describing the martyr Zilan, the impact of joining the PKK on her.

"My ambition in life is very big. I want to have a meaningful and effective life. I want to do this operation, because I love life and people so much. I want to be a symbol of Kurdish women." With these sentences that Zilan wrote in her letter that she left behind, the martyr Zilan puts her mark on history and carries out a commando operation during a ceremony for Turkish soldiers on 30 June 1996 in the center of the city of Dersim. The Turkish media concealed the death toll and admitted that 8 soldiers were killed, but more than 50 Turkish officers and soldiers were killed in that operation.

The co-chair of the People's Assembly in Jazer, Muhammad Tonj, who was a symbol of the Autonomous Administration's resistance, was a witness to this operation, and was martyred in February 2016. He became head of the Military Unit Division in the summer of 1996, and wrote in his memoirs to Commander Abdullah Ocalan that the operation carried out by the martyr Zilan took place before his eyes, adding: "She acted professionally, which surprised everyone. The guards could not stop her, the cameras were filming her." She looked like she was going to a wedding. After I saw her sneakers and the wires, I thought they were microphone wires and it was part of the government parade. We were a squad of 9, so she didn't pay attention and like an eagle she walked through the crowd of officers and soldiers.

After it entered among the soldiers, the square turned into a doomsday of noise and corpses, and because the explosion was among the soldiers, it did not affect our group much. But 22 soldiers of our battalion died. Dozens of people were injured, including myself. However, like all the operations taking place in Kurdistan today, the state admitted the killing of only 8 soldiers out of 22...".

The location of the operation is the legacy of the women resistance fighters in Dersim

After that day, nothing was the same. This type of operation was the first not only for the Kurdistan Freedom Movement, but also for the history of Turkey. The Turkish state was shocked and frightened by this operation. The place where the honorable operation was carried out will leave its mark on history and the future. Dersim has been a constant target of the authorities, but they came riding and came back disappointed. The last time Dersim was an arena of resistance in 1938, it was the home of women like Zarifa and Bessi, and the women of a people who did not surrender.

The timing of the operation was a response to the plot against leader Ocalan

The other side of Operation Martyr Zilan was the response to the assassination attempt on leader Abdullah Ocalan. It was a critical year for the freedom movement and the future of the Kurdish people.

 The international forces, in the person of leader Abdullah Ocalan, launched a comprehensive conspiracy plan against the Kurdistan Freedom Movement. The assassination team of the Turkish state for a long time prepared a bomb attack on the leader Abdullah Ocalan in, and on June 6 they attacked and blew up a car containing a ton of C4 explosives near the central party school. No one was injured in this attack, but one of the objectives of the conspiracy was to eliminate the Guerrilla fighters in southern Kurdistan, where the liquidationist tendency that tried to tamper with the lifestyle and way of war of the PKK developed.

 Martyr Zilan saw all these dangers and turned her body into a shield in the face of these attacks.

Commander Abdullah Ocalan said about the timing of Operation Martyr Zilan: "Despite the failure of the assassination attempt on June 6, Zilan saw the danger of that attack well and carried out a commando operation on June 30 in Dersim. When a tactical siege was imposed internally and liquidation was imposed externally, Operation Zilan turned 1996 into a year in which the way was opened for tactics and the path to victory was clearly illuminated.

Martyr Zilan's message to the people

To this day, the Turkish state's efforts continue to renew the conspiracy and attacks against the leader Abdullah Ocalan, the Kurdish people, and the freedom movement. The silence of consciences regarding these policies reminds us of the appeal made by the martyr Zilan to the peoples of the world: "If you do not want to commit this crime against humanity, support the people of Kurdistan, provide them with assistance, clean your minds and your hearts that were destroyed by imperialism."

a.k

ANHA