the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Jan 9, 2012
The following article is from Sinif Mucadelesi (Class Struggle), published by Turkish comrades. It discusses the Turkish air force’s killing of 35 Kurdish villagers on the Iraqi border on December 28th.
Using aerial surveillance provided by a U.S. produced Heron drone, Turkey carried out a lightning military attack on the Iranian border. For 45 minutes, war planes dropped powerful bombs. As a result, 35 poor Kurdish villagers died. They had crossed the border over to Iraq to smuggle in oil to earn 50 Turkish lira, or $27. Most of them were under 20, and a number of them were of school age.
Now, Turkish politicians promise to find those responsible and prosecute them. Maybe they’ll find a soldier to accuse who ordered the air attack. But the politicians are the ones responsible....
When they got photos from the Heron drone showing a group of people on the border, the decision to bomb was made in the Turkish capital, Ankara, without alerting local authorities and without checking with the local police. The local authorities are thoroughly up to date about border smuggling and were aware when it was going on.
Now they say that there couldn’t be so many border smugglers. What does that mean? Given how much unemployment and poverty have increased, village income has been reduced to nothing. The number of those willing to risk their lives for 50 lira could only increase.
Maybe if there were fewer victims, as in the past, they would have been able to stifle the affair by saying that the smugglers were only PKK terrorists. This is how they recognize the rights of the Kurds!
This affair shows how ready the political leaders are to shed blood, how much savagery they can use to defend their order. This violence used today against the Kurds, tomorrow can be turned against workers anywhere in Turkey who struggle for their demands. In the past, in Turkey, the local and national police have often been turned against the workers. That can happen again.
As workers, our interest is to see the end of these military interventions and police and state actions. The Kurdish people must have their rights. It isn’t only a question of solidarity, but of the common interest of the Kurdish people and the whole working class of Turkey.