30.03.1995

Kurdish liberation needs class struggle

Over 5, 000 Kurdish and Turkish workers marched in Hackney, London the day after the attack on Alevis in Turkey

TURKISH armed forces have occupied a large belt along the border with Iraqi Kurdistan in a massive operation. The total force mobilised in south-eastern Turkey is about 200,000 and those units moved into Iraqi territory number around 35,000. While international attention was focused on the invasion inside Iraq, the internal operation has already killed more ‘insurgents’ than the whole operation in Iraq.

Almost one third of the Turkish army is on a war footing. The mobilised troops are the best trained and most well equipped units selected from every corps, division and brigade based all around Turkey. This is the cream of the Turkish army.

As a result the governor of Istanbul complained there were inadequate numbers of gendarmerie troops with counter-insurgency training during the recent Alevi demonstrations.

The transporting of the troops started last November, which indicates that this is no ‘hot pursuit’ of armed bands. The planning without doubt had an American input, since the US flights in the UN-declared ‘safe zone’ north of the 36th parallel stopped simultaneously with the Turkish bombing raids.

Low-key criticism and tacit support was adopted by the British government. Despite more critical posturing, the Germans, along with the rest of the European Union, expressed a similar attitude. While this was going on, Turkey’s membership of the Customs Union was rushed through, giving Turkey a clear message: go ahead with your plans in the south-east; your western borders will be secured.

The vacuum created in Northern Iraq in the aftermath of the Gulf War was never properly filled. The coalition’s half-baked plans could not be implemented. Imperialism dared not make changes to Middle East boundaries. They could not be contemplated while the consequences of the Soviet collapse remain unclear and while there are very serious problems in the Balkans and the Caucasus.

An attempt was made to create a quasi-Kurdish state by forcing the two main tribal guerrillas of Talabani and Barzani into a government. Soon the Kurdish groups were fighting among themselves over who was to control the main market towns and consequently the trade fostered by the US and UN ‘aid’ carried into the region by Turkish companies.

This produced a very beneficial situation for the PKK guerrillas in maintaining their ability to infiltrate the Turkish zone at will. When neither Barzani nor Talabani proved willing or able to hold back the PKK, Ankara began to turn the screw.

Turkey began to choke the aid convoys. It initiated a dialogue with Baghdad and resuscitated the old 1970s proposal for Kurdish autonomy. This seemingly no-hope idea was a step towards a new concept: maintaining an internationally acceptable regime in Iraqi Kurdistan with a Turkish army presence.

Imperialism is looking to ‘solve’ the Kurdish national question in the secession of Iraqi Kurds into a federal structure within Turkey. This would of course require a major change in the balance of forces in the region, including control of the Kirkuk oil fields, but cannot be dismissed out of hand.

Several Turkish incursions into the region over the last decade and very good cooperation with some of the local militia forces have already prepared the ground for this, and the present operation is a further step in that direction. While all this applies new pressure to Iraq, it also affects Syria and Iran - still near the top of the US agenda.

Within Turkey the working class and forces of democracy are losing ground. The military’s prestige has been raised, while the civilian government is in crisis. The remnants of the so-called Social Democratic Party has been forced into a shotgun marriage government coalition.

Turkey’s disorganised left is on its knees in face of the onslaught of Turkish nationalism, and many organisations, apart from organising a one-off anti-war protest, act as if nothing has happened. Some organisations have gone so far as to drop their support for Kurdish self-determination in favour of centralised, larger states.

However, the crisis-ridden economy and disunited bourgeoisie will not allow retreat from class struggle. Whatever the expansionist aims of the Turkish bourgeoisie, the working class is faced with the basic issue of the Kurdish question. That can only be settled under full democracy and with the fully expressed free will of the Kurdish people. Such a democracy can only come to Turkey via a revolution led by the working class.

Aziz Demir