Ş. Gelhat Rûmet – Ş. Karker Kobanê – Ş. Bagok Serhed

 Date and Place of Birth: 3 August 1979 – Westminster, Massachusetts, USA

Date and Place of Martyrdom: 3 June 2015 – Qentere, Kobanê

Born in Westerminster, Massachusetts, Şehîd Gelhat first came to Rojava on 24 February 2015 to fight against Daesh. Before coming to Rojava, Heval Gelhat had worked as a production manager in his family’s manufacturing firm. After a motorcycle accident, he found a closer connection to God, which was a major motivation for him to travel to Rojava and join in the fight against ISIS, believing it to be God’s will. Şehîd Gelhat was driven in life by a strong connection to Christianity and was angered by the persecution of religious minorities in Syria by the ISIS fascists. “There’s people of all religions and no religion here. I’m a Christian myself but I’ve been with Sunni, Shia and Yazidis and everyone else, all together. Trying to provide freedom for people [so] that they can choose what they want to do. Daesh is [the] enemy of humanity. Regardless of who you are or what you believe, you should stand up for each other and for freedom.”

 “I’m here to be a part of the movement, do whatever I can to assist that. You know, with everything that’s been going on it seems like the right thing to do.”

Şehîd Gelhat

Heval Gelhat’s courageous approach soon saw him go to the frontline. Although he came to Rojava without previous military experience, Heval Gelhat soon gained a reputation as a hard-worker, competent fighter and a good shot. He soon found his way to the frontline with a Kobanê-based sniper unit, where he joined with a number of other internationals, including Şehîd Rustem Cudi from Germany. With the beginning of Operation Martyr Rûbar Qamişlo, a YPG offensive which aimed to drive ISIS from the Western areas of Cizire Canton, Heval Gelhat and his unit moved to the frontline south-east of Kobanê where they fought in the advance towards the strategic border town of Girê Spî (Arabic: Tel Abyad).

When asked what motivated him to be there he answered “The resistance and the chance to be part of something bigger than myself. In America there’s a lot of individualism, the idea that you just get as much as you can for yourself, and you don’t do anything for everyone else. This [individualism] is not an ideal of my religion or of the ideology of the people that I fight [with]… It’s time that we put ourselves aside and look at the greater good.”

Speaking about other internationalist fighters, he said “They’re another heval. We’re all the same. I’m as impressed with them as I am with everyone else that’s making an effort here. That doesn’t just include fighters. Everyone that’s contributing, from construction work, activism, everything that’s being done is just as important. Sometimes people think the gun is the only tool and its not. It takes a much larger effort. There’s something for everyone else to do.”

Şehîd Gelhat was martyred on 3 June 2015 during combat operations against Daesh in the village of Qentere, near Kobanê. Speaking at the şehîd ceremony in Kobanê, Rustem Cudi said, “Keith died like a hero. He took a Daesh bullet but before that he killed two of them. He was a really good man. I understand he’d had a hard life and been a biker but he changed and came to Kobanê to help fight for liberty. The last time I saw him, he said to me, ‘When I die, I want to die in a fight’. His dream has come true. Perhaps some Americans will question whether he died for a good thing, but I can say that he did.”

After a ceremony honouring his life and sacrifice, his body was handed over to his family a short distance away at a Turkish border gate. He was repatriated to the his home in Massachusetts, where he was laid to rest. At a memorial service, tributes were paid to Şehîd Gelhat by friends, family and dozens of supporters from the local Kurdish community. One of the Kurdish mourners said “A human has only one most valuable thing — that’s life,” he said. “He gave his life for my people and for my land of Kurdistan.”

Karker Kobanê – Rifat Horoz

Place of Birth: Sinop, Turkey

Date and Place of Martyrdom: 26 June 2015 – Kobanê

At 60 years old, Heval Karker, an ethnic Albanian, traveled to Rojava to join the YPG to defend Kobanê from the relentless conquest of Daesh.

Rifat Horoz was the grandson of a guerilla fighter active before the First World War. His grandfather came from Pristina, Kosovo, a city with a large number of ethnic Albanians, but he was exiled to Sinop, Turkey in an act of ethnic cleansing after the First World War. Heval Karker was born there and later moved to Zonguldak with his family. His father was a coal miner and trade unionist, and as such the young Rifat became familiar with strikes and rallies at an early age. After the death of his father in a mining accident, at the age of 13 he moved to Istanbul to live with his aunt. This neighbourhood was home to a lot of revolutionary activity, and Rifat soon fell in with the young revolutionaries in the area. He became involved with Rizgari movement, a Kurdish Marxist organisation in Turkey which advanced the idea that the colonized Kurdish people could only be liberated by a revolution led by the Kurdish proletariat. He marched in the ranks of the Ala Rizagri (Flag of Liberation), a small splinter group of the Rizgari party, during the bloody events of the 1977 May Day. In 1978 he was arrested as part of the Turkish state’s repression and liquidation of the Rizgari movement. Like many revolutionaries before him, Heval Rifat used his incarceration as an opportunity to build his knowledge and analysis. He later reflected, “Prison was a great academy for me.”

After his release from prison in 1991, he established a shipping company in Antep, near the Mediterranean coast. He never ceased his revolutionary activity, however. After prison he continued to have contact with Kurdish revolutionaries and had come to learn of the PKK. He would later say, “There were mechanisms such as criticism/self-criticism in other organizations, as well the Apoist’s demands, but there was a bottleneck in the analysis – the analysis was also working in Apoist movement. Humanity was at the core of this movement.” He would often be found on the streets, at the forefront of demonstrations, working together with youth activists and distributing newspapers and journals whenever he had the resources. He also frequently visited political prisoners.

On 14 September 2014, Daesh attacked Kobanê. Abdullah Öcalan put out a call for the defense of the people and Kobanê saying; “Should this massacre attempt succeed (in Kobanê), it will both bring an end to the ongoing process of resolution and lay the foundations for a new long-lasting coup.” Heval Karker quickly answered. He left his house to a family of Kurdish refugees fleeing from the war in Rojava. He immediately set out for Kobanê, but was unsuccessful in crossing the border. He stayed in the village of Misyanter, near the border, and for weeks participated in a day and night vigil to prevent ISIS fighters and supplies from crossing the border to the battle in Kobanê. Because of his admirable personality, he quickly became loved by the people and his comrades for his dedication and revolutionary spirit. Speaking to a journalist in October 2014 he said, “Everyone should come here and join the resistance in this life. I want them to be with the people of Kobanê. There is a resistance area here, there is a lot to learn here. We have a lot to learn from the Kurdish people. Citizens who have been brainwashed by the lies made by the fascist state should come and see Kurdistan for themselves if they want to know the truth.”

In Misyanter, he took on many projects, repairing damaged and delapidated buildings, and founding the Arîn Mîrkan Resistance Museum (in honour of a YPJ fighter who sacrificed herself during the battle of Mishtenur Hill in Kobanê) and the Kader Ortakaya Library (in honour of one of his border watch comrades who was martyred while trying to cross to Kobanê). Explaining the project he said “In the museum, there will be materials that will make you feel and tell you about the war and the resistance on the border line, like the gas bombs dropped on the border line. We must fulfill our responsibility towards humanity in this village just across from Kobanê. We felt the need to tell about this war, resistance, history and drama in the name of our comrades who were martyred heroically.”

 All the while he was searching for a way to cross into Kobanê. Eventually the YPG heard of his efforts in the border region and arranged for him to be brought over the border. Once crossed, he soon set about helping in the reconstruction of the city. Now he was a member of YPG and took the name Heval Karker (worker) and also took on the name of his beloved Kobanê. He decided to establish a war museum, and collected hundreds of unexploded shells, mines and grenades as well as other debris and household items in order to highlight the stories of devastation, while also making the city safer for civilians to return. He also turned exploded shell casing into colourful pots for planting flowers.

“I, at this moment, am a witness to this war. I am part of it and in it. I must be here in opposition to those forces which have organized ISIS fascism against the system that is developing here around the paradigm set forth by our leadership,” Heval Karker said while in Kobanê “[…] A revolution is taking place here. For 40 years we have shouted in the streets for a socialist revolution. Now we will build socialism here. Come and let us build socialism together. Whatever kind of socialism you may want, whatever kind of people’s revolution – come here and lets build it together.”

Şehîd Karker