EKS on the latest operation

The "Operation"

The Turkish army launched an operation to eradicate the PKK, or in other words launched the war again. We see that this bloody cycle is being repeated once again since Turkey went into Iraq for the first time in 1983.

Whose War is This?

The tale that the war is being waged to stop "terror" is nothing but a lie. Had it been true, this could have been done by the "operations" launched since 1983. Also, the Turkish state has acted as if this matter had not existed in the last years when the PKK(1) was weak, and Tayyip Erdogan(2) had said that terror was about to be finished himself on television. What is more, Talabani and Barzani, who have been declared enemies now, have cooperated with and been an ally of Turkey militarily for a long time. Turkey has been running military operations with those forces for a long time and still continues to do so regardless. The real reason of this war is nothing but the establishment of the new control trying to be created in the Middle East accordingly to the new alliance formed by Turkish imperialism and the United States. What the alliance which was conducted through MHP(3) between the "secular" high ranking bureaucracy and the "democratic" AKP(4) expresses under "veil" is that a side had been been chosen in the imperialist arena. The side chosen is that of USA in putting United States' undisciplined allies in line and trying to maintain the control of oil against rival imperialist states China, Russia and Iran. AKP which has been faltering for a long time finally declared this was the side it took by pushing the authorization for war through parliament. Thus, this war is simply the first step of Turkish imperialism's preparations for the next war and polarization.

Because this war is a result of the cycle of wars capitalism is in. The capitalist state has created this war not out of its own choice but because of the the desperate dead-end it has entered. Since World War I capitalism has done nothing but create wars in the entire world. All "national liberation wars", every war between countries that happen for this or that reason are conducted to destroy the accumulated capital and of course the worker population of the enemy country.

The So-Called Supporters of "Peace"

The hypocritical calls for peace made by the DTP(5) and the left liberals from their comfortable chairs doesn't in any way serve the war being ended. Because the war is not caused by the lack of the application of a "democratic solution" or the bad intentions of the bureaucracy but the desperation of capitalism. What is worse is that the calls for democracy by those circles will only serve to weaken a possible working class opposition to the war, pulling workers who oppose the war to fight for the imperialist states that are represented as the more "democratic", "kind hearted" and "peaceful" side against the "evil", "bureaucratic" and "aggressive" side. All these "democratic" capitalist dreams won't serve ending the war but pulling the workers to the side of the "righter" side.

Class War is the Only solution

This war is not the war of people who try to survive by working. This war is not the war of those whose living standards have been dropping with economical crises, those who have been rotting with unemployment, those who are worked to death in shipyards and under ladders, those who wait for retirement between 9 o'clock to 6 o'clock or those desperately struggling to live in the dumpsters of cities where they have been dragged to go from their villages. This war is neither the war of workers, unemployed, housewives and students who are either future workers or future unemployed, nor is the war of the soldiers who are dying in the battlefront. Quite the contrary, wars increase problems like misery, unemployment, poverty and social decomposition created by the crises of capitalism. The effect of this "operation" will be beyond the villages being bombed, the soldiers who are dying in the battlefront or further explosions in the big cities, and will show itself in the deepening misery under the name of nationalism and in the deepening social decomposition.

What will stop this war is non other than the solidarity of Turkish and Kurdish workers who have been deceived for the interests of the bosses and capital for the last 25 years. What ended World War I was the world revolutionary wave, the soldiers in the battlefronts and the workers behind the fronts standing against their own rulers instead of their class brother and sisters from other countries. What prevented a possible third world war in 1960s was, similarly, the determination and spirit of struggle of the working class in the entire world. Today too, the working class, no matter how defensive it is right now, can't remain silent on the capitalist barbarism developing against it!

AGAINST ALL EXPLOITERS WHO SUPPORT "PEACE" OR WAR,

LONG LIVE CLASS SOLIDARITY!

LONG LIVE WORKERS INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY!

(1) PKK - Kurdistan ‘Workers' Party, the main Kurdish nationalist armed group operating in Turkey.

(2) Current Prime Minister and leader of AKP

(3) MHP - Nationalist Movement Party, a fascist party which got 14% in the last elections, also known as the Gray Wolves

(4) AKP - Justice and Development Party, the ruling center-right party in Turkey which has roots in a marginalized parliamentary Islamist party.

(5) DTP - Democratic Society Party, the Kurdish nationalist party with 20 MPs in the Turkish parliament.

Forum: 

Thanks Devrim.

I'll translate the leaflet into Italian, for discussing it with other comrades.

I read some short notes about demonstrations against war operations and strong reaction of government and police. Do you have any more direct information?

There was some street fighting in Diyarbakir, the biggest city in the Kurdish area of Turkey. It is almost certainly orchestrated by the PKK, who have called for 'resistance' in Turkey.

Devrim

Hi devrim, I translated also this article into [[/italiano/forum/2008/03/09/eks-sull-ultima-operazione-militare-turca | Italian]].

It's very important for us to hear an internationalist voice from Turkey. Comrades in the Italian forum (and sometimes also comrades we discuss with in the streets) appreciate your positions and your courage!

I think this particular article - which also has a clear class position! - can be the starting point to develop some discussions.

For example, probably you already know we disagree with ICC's theory of working class stopping a world war in 1960s. I'm searching for available documents in English on this point.

Also, it's not very clear (to me) what your analysis of the imperialist scenario in the Middle East is. In one of the other articles, you seem to suggest USA backing Kurdish movements. From available reports and analysis, it seems USA also supports guerrilla groups like PKK (see [[/english/revolutionary-perspectives/2007/11/20/turkey-pakistan-and-iran-squaring-the-circle-of-us-imperialism | Turkey, Pakistan and Iran: Squaring the Circle of US Imperialism]]). Certainly, international relations are always full of contradictions... but American leaders made all sort of pressures on Turkey to keep the operation short and limited. It would be interesting for me to know your point of view better. You see events more directly, for sure. Then, what do you think about financialization, the role of dollar in the international markets, and in the last wars?

Finally, there's the question of party. I haven't seen an article of EKS on this question. Is it discussed among you? I guess it is... In my little experience, often it's one of the main disputed questions :-)

Internationalist greetings! Mic

There is a longer article (I think three pages) on the situation in the Middle east in this month's Gece Notları. We can post it here when it is translated.

I think that the US is supporting the Kurds in Iraq in the interests of stability, and the Kurds is Iran in order to destabilise the regime. I don't think that they want to support the Kurds in Turkey as such. However, it just so happens that the Kurds that they are arming in Iran, are part of the PKK, and of course it is more than slightly annoying the Turkish Generals to see PKK men being captured in Turkey with US weapons. Add this to the feeling of the majority of the Turkish political class about a Kurdish state being set up in Iraq, and you can see the reasons for increased tensions between Turkey, and the US.

I don't really understand the economics, but I can ask someone else to reply.

We are for the party.

Devrim

That's quite close to my understanding of facts, Devrim.

When your longer article is translated, you can publish it here. No problem. Or, if it's really too long to be discussed on a forum, you can publish some extracts and a link to the full article. Up to you.

About economics, the core of the issue is drafted here (but more detailed analysis can be found in other documents, as well):

> The US absolutely wants to defend the primacy of the dollar on the oil market, because this is a source of a perfectly parasitic rent for the US, which is estimated at around 500 billion of dollars annually. This financial rent in its turn is the material condition for the survival of the American economy which is seriously suffering on the global markets. In the mean time the other imperialistic (great or small) powers are getting impatient with these conditions where they have to pay dollars for oil and thus pay a rent to the US, and they are agitating in both Iraq and Iran, which are both ghettoized by the embargos imposed by the US. That is the real reason tens of thousands of human beings are probably about to be slaughtered. Let us not forget that capitalism was born “sweating blood from all its pores” (Marx).

> -- [[ibrp.org | Iraq Oil, Blood and Class]]