Terrorist Organization Profile:
DHKP/C
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| Mothertongue Name: |
Devrimci Halk Kurtulus Partisi/Cephesi |
| Aliases: |
Dev Sol (Karatas Faction), Devrimci Sol (Karatas Faction), Revolutionary Left, Revolutionary People's Liberation Party/Front, RPLP/F |
| Bases of Operation: |
Turkey |
| Date Formed: |
April 1994 |
| Strength: |
Less than 1,000 members |
| Classifications: |
Leftist |
| Financial Sources: |
While the group's activities are focused in Turkey, their funding comes from Western Europe, where much of the leadership is currently located. The group reportedly finances most of its operations through armed robberies and extortion |
| Founding Philosophy: |
The DHKP/C (Revolutionary People's Liberation Party/Front) is a Marxist, anti-Western splinter group of the Turkish terrorist group Devrimci Sol (Dev Sol). Dev Sol originated as a splinter group of Devrimci Yol (Dev Yol) which was itself a splinter group of the Turkish People's Liberation Party-Front (THKP/C). The THKP/C was an offshoot of the broader Revolutionary Youth movement (Dev Genc) within Turkey.
In the early 1990s, infighting within Dev Sol resulted in the emergence of two factions. Dursun Karatas, who founded Dev Sol by combining splintered factions of Turkish radical leftist groups in 1978, changed the group's name to DHKP/C in 1994. Bedri Yagan, also a founding member of Dev Sol, broke from the Karatas faction and created a new faction, THKP/C (not to be confused with the original THKP/C). Confusingly, the Yagan faction of DHKP/C is still often referred to as Dev Sol.
DHKP/C's ideology is similar to that of other radical Turkish leftists. The group believes that the Turkish government is a fascist regime, controlled by the domineering, imperialist forces of the West, especially the United States and NATO. The group seeks to destroy these Western influences through violence and Marxist revolution. In its early years, when it was still known as Dev Sol, the group focused largely on political assassinations. A crackdown by Turkish authorities in the early 1980s forced the group to restrict its activities, though in the late 1980s Dev Sol was able to increase its attacks against Turkish military targets.
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| Current Goals: |
Despite internal troubles, the DHKP/C has managed to retain the ideology and goals of the original Dev Sol movement. The group has continued to conduct violent attacks against Turkish government targets as well as against Western interests in Turkey. The group has also sought to bring attention to its imprisoned members by staging hunger protests. More recently, the group has been intensely outspoken against US military operations in Afghanistan and in Iraq. DHKP/C believes that these operations are proof of the imperialist intentions of the United States. |
