Turkey

The ICC's section in Turkey examines the recent developments in heightening imperialist tensions in the Middle East, as Turkey takes steps to rival Israel as the region's main imperialist power.

 

On 31 May, Israeli troops raided a flotilla of ships, backed by Turkey to bring ‘humanitarian aid' to the Gaza strip. The results were extremely shocking: marines from one of the best equipped and most highly trained armies in the world killed a number of unarmed members of the flotilla, most of them Turks. The Israeli authorities, as cynical as ever, claimed that they acted in self-defence.

In the first article we published on the Tekel struggle, we gave an account of the developments until January 20th. In this article, we will continue from where we left off, and try to give an account of what went on from the erection of the Tekel workers' camp in the centre of Ankara to March 2^nd, when the workers left Ankara.  What will be told is the story of the entire working class...

The article we are publishing below was written for our press in Turkey by one of the workers involved in the Tekel strike. We will shortly be publishing more news on more recent developments in the situation in Turkey.

Militant workers from recent workers' struggles in Turkey, including National Tobacco and Alcohol Monopoly (TEKEL) workers, Istanbul Water and Sewers Department (ISKI) workers, firemen, Sinter metal workers, Esenyurt municipality workers, Marmaray building workers, dustmen, workers from the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) and workers from the ATV-Sabah News Corporation, have come together and established a workers' group called the Platform of Struggling Workers. The ICC is calling on comrades to support the workers' group through the Paypal button to the right.

In the middle of Feb 2010, ICC held a conference of its sections in Asia. The Conference was attended by delegates from the ICC's sections in the Philippines and Turkey, as well as by the sections in India. We were glad to welcome the delegate of an internationalist group in Australia and many sympathizers of our section in India. Two internationalist groups from Korea who took part in the ICC's last international congress were invited, but at the last minute were unable to come. These comrades sent solidarity and greetings to the Pan Asian Conference and also sent a brief account of the situation of the class struggle in Korea.

The recent struggles of the Tekel workers in Turkey (Turkey: Solidarity with Tekel workers' resistance against government and unions!

 

This article, from the printed edition of World Revolution, has already been published online here

We have recently, despite the cordon sanitaire imposed by the bourgeoisie and its supposed "means of information", learnt about your struggle to improve working conditions and wages, a struggle in which the crisis of capitalism can clearly be seen. Statement from Nucleo Proletario in Peru

This article is available on ICC Online

We reproduce below the account of the Tekel tobacco-workers' strike, published by the ICC's section in Turkey.

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On December 14th 2009, thousands of workers of Tekel enterprises from dozens of cities in Turkey left their homes and families in order to travel to Ankara. The workers of Tekel took this journey with the aim of struggling against the horrible conditions forced upon them by the capitalist order. This honorable struggle of the Tekel workers which has been going on for more than a month now, carried the idea of a strike in which all workers would participate. By doing so, the workers of Tekel started leading and carrying forward the working class movement in the whole country. What we will try to give the account of here is the story of what happened so far in the Tekel struggle. It should not be forgotten that what this account concerns not just the Tekel workers, but the workers of the whole world. We owe our warm thanks to the Tekel workers for making the writing of this article possible by pushing the struggles of our class forward, by their determined struggle and by explaining to us what they went through, their experiences and thoughts.

We are publishing below an article on the Kurdish situation by the ICC's section in Turkey - this article describes the manoeuvres of the governing AKP to position Turkey on the movong imperialist chessboard in the Middle East.

This article has already been published on-line here

This is an extract from our "Left Wing of the Turkish Communist Party" pamphlet. It is not available online. Copies can be purchased for £4.

Our last international congress, for the first time in a quarter century, was able to welcome the delegations of different groups that stood clearly on internationalist class position. Since then, the discussions with the comrades of EKS and Internasyonalismo led them to pose their candidature to join the ICC, given their growing agreement with our positions.

This article is a contribution to the debate within the EKS on the Telekom strike. It replies to the article, "Telekom:

When the Turkish bosses woke up on 28th of November, they realized that things weren't going as they were used to. The lines of Istanbul Stock exchange were cut off

The Real Political Issue in Turkey Today

The current strike of 26.000 telecommunication workers at Türk

We are publishing below a series of four articles translated from the Turkish by the comrades of Enternasyonalist Komünist Sol, all dealing with the recent strike at Türk Telekom. Readers will remember that we have already published an article on this subject (the second in this series), entitled "Victory at Türk Telekom" which covered the end of the 44-day strike by 26,000 workers, which ended with a 10% wage increase. We are now able to publish the complete series of the articles published on the subject by EKS: the first was written at the beginning of the strike and analysed briefly the forces in the conflict, while the second covered the end of the strike which it considered as a victory for the workers.

We are publishing here an article from the Turkish group Enternasyonalist Komünist Sol (EKS), which analyses the different imperialist interests and rivalries underlying the Turkish army's recent incursions into northern Iraq. We consider it important for several reasons: first and foremost, by offering a clear analysis on an internationalist basis, it strikes a blow against both Turkish and Kurdish nationalism, in a region where the propaganda campaigns of all the competing bourgeois factions are doing their utmost to stoke nationalist hatreds so as to use the workers and poor masses as cannon fodder in their own sordid struggles for power and influence; second, it gives a voice to the feelings of indignation and revolt among the workers in Turkey who have been conscripted into this bloody conflict, and gives the lie to the bourgeoisie's claims, in Turkey and elsewhere, about universal popular support for the war.

We have received this leaflet against the Turkish army's current "Operation" in Kurdistan, distributed in Turkey by the comrades of the EKS.

The massive strike by over 26,000 Türk Telekom workers is over. After 44 days the strikers went back to work. At 1,100,000 working days lost it makes it the biggest strike in Turkish history after the 1991 miners strike. It is time to draw up a balance sheet of the events.

On 17 October, the Turkish parliament voted overwhelmingly in favour of the right of the Turkish army to pursue Kurdish guerrillas of the PKK back to their bases in northern Iraq. Four days later, 13 Turkish soldiers were killed in a PKK ambush, fanning the flames of a war campaign that had already begun.

We are publishing below the text of a leaflet that we have just received from the comrades of the EKS in Turkey, taking position against the threat of war on the border with Iraq.

In the last five months, many troubling events occurred in Turkey. Following the assassination of Hrant Dink in January, there have been extremely brutal attacks on foreigners, there have been several massive nationalist demonstrations, there have been bombs in major cities and of course the bloody war between armed Kurdish nationalists and the Turkish army kept going on.

This leaflet has been produced by Enternasyonalist Kömunist Sol (Internationalist Communist Left) a new proletarian group in Turkey. It is being distributed in Turkey, Britain and Germany. In Britain and Germany it is being distributed by the International Communist Current, which associates itself with the internationalist views it defends.