A June 10 meeting attended by members of the progressive Turkish community in Sydney, the Democratic Socialist Party and Resistance heard EFKAN BOLAC from the People's Justice Bureau of Turkey discuss the issues of Kurdish and Turkish political prisoners in Turkey and the state of left politics in Turkey. Following is an abridged version of Efkan's talk.
As an internationalist, I am very happy to be here with comrades and friends. There is a need for international solidarity with the struggle in Turkey. The main aim is the struggle for independence from imperialism, particularly US imperialism.
Western imperialism has used Turkey as the battering ram in the Middle East, used the Turkish state and army against the Kurdish minority and neighbouring states. This came to its most barbaric level when the Turkish generals let the US military use Turkish bases for launching attacks against the Iraqi people in the Gulf War.
Since 1991 every incursion of imperialism into our country and the support given by the Turkish state has only increased the anger of the masses. The tradition rebelling against all forms of oppression continues.
Ours is not a national struggle so much as a class struggle. And while our struggle is within our national borders, ultimately it is an international struggle.
The National Security Council is the controlling body of the military, and really of Turkey, despite the existence of a parliament. They take their experiences from the regimes in Latin America. A particularly vicious example of this is the funding and training of death squads, particularly in the south-east of Turkey, by the CIA.
Since the military coup of 1980, more than 15,000 people have been killed or disappeared in Turkey. Hundreds of thousands have been tortured and wrongfully imprisoned. This has been happening with increasing frequency — every year over 2000 people are killed or disappeared.
In the south-east there is a virtual civil war against the Kurds. Paramilitary forces behave as if they are above the law — village burnings, mass killings to oppress Kurdish national aspirations. Military officials are even offered rewards for every head of Kurdish guerillas.
The state uses a paid informant system in the villages, using the most backward elements to inform on the Kurdish guerillas, particularly the PKK (Kurdish Workers Party). The hired guns in the south-east are even at times the representatives in the Turkish parliament for their area.
These mercenaries are getting out of control, as Turkey is now the main road for the drug trade in Europe. Some 70% of Europe's drug trade comes through Turkey. There have been allegations in the European parliament from Germany and Holland that the Turkish state is protecting the drug trade.
There was an outrage recently when a captured Kurdish guerilla was tied to the back of a German tank and dragged until dead. When Germany found out, [Chancellor Helmut] Kohl cancelled some military sales to Turkey. Even the US government has refused to supply three aircraft carriers because of the human rights situation. Turkey has been condemned twice in the European Union over human rights abuses.
There is little freedom of the press in Turkey. Currently there are 100 journalists in prison for writing about the civil war and the political situation.
In prison are left-wing activists, politicians, journalists. Political prisoners are separated from families, each other and their organisations. Since 1980 there has been a struggle by prisoners against repression and extrajudicial killings in the prisons; hundreds have been killed, or have killed themselves or starved themselves to death in protest.
Now 14- and 15-year-old youths are being thrown into the struggle. Since the introduction of the National Security Courts in 1996, the majority of cases have been prisoners under 18 years of age.
The activism of the youth is most encouraging. There is a renewed spirit of opposition. We discuss many inspirational examples from the recent past. For example, one of the aims of the revolutionary left in Turkey is to make an even bigger Vietnam. And in the spirit of international solidarity, we want to be like Che Guevara.