Political Developments in Turkey: Why did Turkish War Planes Kill Kurdish Smugglers?

(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.