From: Zeynep Tufekcioglu <zeynept-AT-turk.net>
Subject: Re: Turkish and Kurdish and Arabic martyrs
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 07:20:19 +0300


Btw, one of the persons to die was of Arabic origin. Turkey is an etnic mix,
a fact the racist bourgeoisie denies. Even capitalists of Kurdish origin say
stuff like "I'm a Kurd, but first I'm a Turk" at best. The ethnic mix of the
hunger-strikers once again shows who the "separatists" are, communists and
the PKK are often accused of trying to divide the country. Left to our own,
I guess we'd even unite with more peoples. The police have killed a young
anarchist in Greece, comrades from Greece inform us. I always felt that this
region is united very deeply, from the bottom.

>1) A civil war is not a revolution, though it may be an expression of a
>revolutionary situation. The situation in Turkey today is clearly
>pre-revolutionary.

Depending on how you define it, I'd agree. A political / economic crises has
been getting worse for the last two years at least.

>2) The Kurdish national liberation struggle is in fact a civil war. It is
>not merely on the agenda, it's happening now, and has been happening for
>years. The contradictions and tensions caused by this have accumulated to
>such a degree that they are making the situation in the Turkish state
>increasingly unmanageable.

Exactly. It is an undeclared civil war. Annually 7 billion US Dollars are
spent on this "dirty war", and that is just the documented part. Turkey has
the largest army in Nato after US. About a million men under arms, I
believe. If it weren't for the Kurdish resistance, Turkey would have been
moving into other countries (possibly Northern Iraq) as it had quite a few
sub-imperialist aspirations. The internal situation prevents this.

>3) You're avoiding the issue of winning public support from people who
>aren't committed revolutionaries. Obviously revolutionaries build the
>party. At present this involves a lot of misplaced effort given the
>inadequacy of the parties involved. Equally obviously they fight to
>influence people outside the party, some of them, workers or not, pretty
>alien to party priniciples.  Getting people to listen is important. The
>hunger-strikers are doing this. Both Zeynep and Jon F have given good
>arguments here. Zeynep pointed out that a hidden death in jail is less use
>than a death fighting for the cause in this way. Jon described very
>graphically how a simple question on this issue destroyed a whole meeting's
>build-up of credibility for a bourgeois liberal on the Irish question.

The political prisoners are fighting with the only means possible. The news
of the hunger-strike was heavily twisted and censored, until the first
death. Most people have only learned that a hunger-strike was *really* going
on last week.

>4) The point about winning 'ordinary' prisoners is useful, and needs more
>discussion.

They separate leftist political prisoners, and 'ordinary' prisoners exactly
for that reason. In fact, the crux of the fight, the tomb prison of
Eskisehir, is designed only for the leftist political prisoners. Political
prisoners have always had a strong influence on 'ordinary' inmates, when
allowed to mix and see. So, they don't even put them in the same prison.
Nowhere in the demands does it say that they only want these for political
prisoners.

Anyway, most of the prison population is composed of only leftists.

Some numbers:
Number of people in prison for the Anti-Terrorism Law: 8,652.
Number that have been actually convicted: 2,852.

(The rest have no conviction. They may wait for up to 5-6 years, for their
joke trial to end).

Of the arrested (as oppossed convicted) 4909:
Leftist : 4878
Rightist:   31

Of the convicted 2852:
Leftist : 2714
Rightist:  138

Number in the Eskisehir tomb (the rest are resisting transfer there, and
asking their comrades to be transferred back)
Leftist: 102 (all leftist)
There are no rightists in Bayrampasa, Umraniye, Ankara, Merkez Kapali, Buca
an Ayd=FDn (where most of the struggle is concentrated).

I don't know the prison population for "ordinary" prisoners, but I remember
it to be one/eighth of the political prisoner population. All sentences
besides those for anti-terrorism are reduced greatly anyway. Even among
those very few rich people ever serve, as you may imagine. In Turkey,
prisons *are* us.

We've learned that they are taking the detainees of the last days events
directly to anti-terrorism and JITEM (legally a part of the gendarme, known
to be the arm of the paramilitary illegal counter-insurgency organisation of
the state). That spells indiscriminate torture.

The minister of "Justice" now says that the prisoners are just a bunch of
terrorists, and if they want to die, let them. It seems that yesterday, the
government proposed, "stop the resistance and we'll talk". Where have we
heard this before?

If, as it seems to be headed, the number of deaths gets very large - this
country will not rest easy. For months now, the state is meeting every
resistance with more repression. This strategy may work at times at
intimidating the whole population, then again it has strong backfire
potention. If we had caved in completely, it would work. They'd have their
free field for the approaching balance-of-payments crises. So, the results
of this hunger-strike will have rather long-term consequences. Events like
this alter the social consciousness and memory to a great degree.

It is still to early in the morning for me to learn what happenned last
night. I will try to post these before I leave.

Zeynep

----------------------------------------------------------------------
THE FASCIST TURKISH STATE CAN'T CONQUER DIGNITY!

Hunger strikes of hundreds of political prisoners in Turkey continues - day
67. Aygun Ugur, 25, fell on day 63; Altan Kerimgiller, 26, on day 65; and
Ilginc Ozkeskin, 35, on day 66. The prisoners are fighting for the right to
preserve their political beliefs and be treated with the dignity due to a
human being.

Protest! Get the word out!

(Relevant faxes in Turkey)
Prime Ministry          : +90 312 417 04 76
Ministry of "Justice"   : +90 312 425 34 55

VICTORY TO THE DREAM AND THE FIGHT FOR A BETTER WORLD!
----------------------------------------------------------------------



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