From ww at blythe.org Mon Feb 7 15:05:36 1994 From: ww at blythe.org (ww at blythe.org) Date: 07 Feb 1994 15:05:36 Subject: US Bombs Kurds; Can't Stop Struggle Message-ID: Subject: US Bombs Kurds; Can't Stop Struggle From: ww at blythe.org (Workers World Service) Reply-To: ww at blythe.org (Workers World Service) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit REPORT FROM ISTANBUL: U.S. bombs Kurds; can't stop struggle By Bill Doares Istanbul, Turkey On the morning of Jan. 29, the Turkish air force, using U.S.-supplied F-16 fighter bombers, dropped 132 U.S.-made bombs on the Kurdish village of Zele. The village, in northern Iraq near the Iran border, was destroyed. The number of civilian casualties is not yet known. Some of the bombs landed in Iran, killing nine peasants there. The Iranian government has protested the attack. Turkish Prime Minister Tansu Ciler claimed that Zele is a base of the Workers Party of Kurdistan (PKK). The PKK, which leads the Kurdish people's independence struggle, reports its fighters--none of whom was killed--shot down two F-16s. The attack on Zele is the latest assault in the Turkish regime's genocidal war against the Kurdish people, being waged with the full collaboration of the Pentagon. Zele is in the part of Iraq the U.S. military has declared a "no-fly" zone. U.S. planes based in Turkey patrol the area and attack Iraqi planes on sight. Turkish plans can only fly there with U.S. permission. After he met U.S. President Bill Clinton last November, Ciler announced the Pentagon would share its satellite photographs of Kurdistan with the Turkish military. PEOPLE'S STRUGGLE STRONG The Zele raid comes at a time of deep crisis in Turkey. On Jan. 27 Ciler announced a 13-percent devaluation of the Turkish lira, setting off a rapid rise in inflation. The regime is also worried about the March 17 municipal elections. The pro-Kurdish Party of Democracy is expected to make major gains in voting in the southeast region. Political observers expect the government may block that possibility by banning the party. Its predecessor, the Peoples Labor Party, was banned. Jan. 29 was the 73rd anniversary of the Turkish regime's assassination of Mustafa Subhi, the founder of the Communist Party of Turkey, and 15 of his comrades. The Party for Socialist Power (SIP) commemorated the date with a rally at the Ortakoy Cultural Center here in Istanbul. SIP is a new party founded by former members of the Party for a Socialist Turkey (STP). The STP was banned last September because it supported Kurdish self-determination. SIP President Aydemir Guler opened the Ortakoy rally by condemning the attack on Zele and declaring solidarity with the Kurdish struggle. Several hours of revolutionary songs in Turkish and Kurdish followed Guler's talk. The crowd was mostly young women and men. They waved red flags and chanted, "Long live revolution and socialism," and, "Kurdistan will be the graveyard of fascism," and, "Socialist Turkey, socialist Kurdistan." The young socialists watched a slide show on the history of the communist movement in Turkey. And they heard a message from five of their comrades currently imprisoned in the city of Izmir. Their crime was distributing a leaflet during a Jan. 13 government workers' strike. The leaflet contrasted the government's refusal to pay its workers decent wages with the cost of the war in Kurdistan. A statement of greetings from the Cuban Communist Party was met with enthusiastic chants of "socialist Cuba will live!" The next day, Jan. 30, a somber ceremony was held at the grave of Emine Erdinc. A Turkish communist, Erdinc died in January 1938 at age 22 after months of police torture, without having divulged the names of any of her comrades. Her husband Idriss Erdinc, one of Turkey's oldest living communists, gave a stirring speech at her graveside. Others, many in their teens and early 20s, then covered Erdinc's grave with red carnations and vowed to continue the struggle for socialism. [The writer delivered a solidarity message from Workers World Party at the SIP rally.] -30- (Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted if source is cited. For more information contact Workers World, 55 West 17 St., New York, NY 10011; via e-mail: ww at blythe.org.) +----------------------------------------------------------------+ + 212-675-9690 NY TRANSFER NEWS COLLECTIVE 212-675-9663 + + Since 1985: Information for the Rest of Us + + e-mail: nyt at blythe.org info: info at blythe.org +