(Killed smugglers in a trailer)
News agencies announced that 35
young Kurdish people were killed by Turkish War Plane’s via bombs yesterday[1].
Most of agencies stressed that they killed on suspicion of arms smugglers for
Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) a Kurdish rebellion organization against the
Republic of Turkey.
But a few hours later after the
raid, everyone agree with the killed youngs are not members of PKK but only cigarette
smugglers[2].
Hüseyin Çelik, Vice President of governing “Justice and Development Party” (AKP)
said “if it turns out to have been a mistake, a blunder, rest assured that this
will not be covered up”[3]
Pro-Kurdish “Peace and Democracy
Party” (BDP) was outraged and angry because of massacre. Selahattin Demirtaş,
deputy chairman of the BDP, referred PM Erdoğans own Word about Assad regime
before “an administration that murders its own people has no legitimacy”.
Demirtaş announced that a three day mourning because of the massacre of young
smugglers and added “the day is not for sit at homes. Everyone should hit the
squares to damn massacre.”
Smuggling in a historical perspective
Before the answer of the question
“why” did smugglers killed, i want to explain smuggling in Turkey easily. Because
some officials and commentators said “there was a mistake at aircraft attack but
please don’t forget that smuggling is illegal and every state want to get under
control borders.”
This argument used to substantiation
the massacre with PKK. They said “smuggling is under the control of PKK and we
must cut this border trade to decrease financial resources of PKK. Ofcourse PKK
receive a share from border trade from Iraq sometimes. But the matter is not
about PKK but about a historical process.
Before the making of the
nation-state in Turkey there were no any “smuggling” because Syria and Iraq
were part of the Ottoman Empire. But after the Worl War I and Turkish
Independence War, new borders with Syria and Iraq established.
Capitalist states use tarrifs to
protect homeland from the foreign commodities. Before the anything else, every bourgeoisie
class fight for “market” for commodities. Process of accumulation of capital
need to destroy old regime’s institutions but this is not sine qua non. For Turkey, capitalists agree with old regime in East
and South-East of Turkey. Modern Turkey made deals with some feudal Kurdish
chieftains and save the feudal structure.
For most of Kurds, livestock and
border trade was the only means of life. When new capitalist regime started to
create its own border institutions, these border trade become “smuggling”
shortly. You should watch two film especially to understand smuggling and
border trade between Iran, Iraq and Turkey: A Time for Drunken Horses and Blackboards.
But smugglers are not Kurds only.
Most of the border Gates of Turkey using for smuggling and most of officials
connive it. Kilis is the “renowned” smuggler province of South Turkey. You can
buy every smuggled commodities from Kilis.
İstanbul also a great market for
smuggled commodities too. "You can
buy anything — nukes, drugs, arms, scientists, viruses," said Mustafa
Kibaroglu, an assistant professor of nuclear engineering at Bilkent University
in Ankara, Turkey. "Anything goes."[4]
We now that Turkey is the
crossroad of human smuggling to Europe. And nearly one month ago we learned
that Republic of Turkey helped Libyan islamists arms smuggling to fight against
Assad from Hatay, an important border from Turkey to Syria.[5]
It’s enough to Show how smuggling
survive in Turkey. There is no crime for smugglers I think. Regime works with
smuggling because capitalism is a kind of smuggling.
Government’s Kurdish initiative and bombs
AKP Government was launched “Kurdish
initiative” in 2009 and Minister of İnterior Beşir Atalay talked with some
journalists to take their opinions about “initiative”.[6]
But suppressions to Kurdish
politicians accompanied with the “initiative” process. Nearly 7000(seven
thousand) of Kurdish people have been arrested in KCK Case. Most of them are
members of pro-Kurdish "Freedom and Democracy Party (BDP)". Some of
them are academical persons of some universities.[7]
Deputy Prime Minister Bülent
Arınç in Parliament on Dec. 21, where he said, “We will recognize all rights of
the Kurds,” as well as a statement by the other deputy prime minister, Beşir
Atalay, on Dec. 25 in Kırıkkale in which he said, “We have been working on a
democratization package,” have raised expectations for another package. Noting
that they have been considering an amendment that would stress that non-violent
expression of thought would not be considered a crime or offense, Atalay
avoided giving any details on the initiative that also includes changes to the
anti-terrorism bill and criminal code.[8]
For my opinion, “Kurdish
initiative” and “smugglers massacre” are the other sides of the coin. Ruling
class of Turkey need to solve Kurdish issue without any “organised political society”.
They try to use religion to supress Kurds.
Deputy Prime Minister Bekir
Bozdağ said the government plans to recruit 1,000 new imams on the request of
the Religious Affairs Directorate to meet demand in Turkey's Southeast, where
there is a shortage of imams, according to a report published by the Hürriyet
daily on Monday. Despite the fact that mele do not have a university education
in theology, Bozdağ said he appreciates their knowledge of Islam.[9]
“Second” Republic of Turkey is a
kind of dictatorship of bourgeoisie. There could be nothing for freedom form
any kind of reactionist. Unfortunately, Kurdish initiative is a kind of
supression and could not give anything except arrests and bombs.
(Mothers of death smugglers from funeral)
