[misc.activism.progressive] TKP/ML on Ocalan's Trial

[english at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl]

Date: Mon, 05 Jul 1999 01:57:29 GMT

THE FASCIST TURKISH STATE CANNOT PUT THE KURDISH PEOPLE ON TRIAL THROUGH
THE TRIAL OF A. OCALAN!

As it is known, PKK and the Kurdish national struggle have for a long time
occupied a serious place on the international public's agenda. Every class
and organisation makes certain comments and statements, and demonstrates
certain positions and attitudes on this issue in accordance with their
class interests and ideological-political-organisational lines.

Our party TKP/ML's (Communist Party of Turkey/Marxist Leninist) approach
to the national question and the problem of minorities is in line with the
immortal leaders of international proletariat, Lenin and Stalin, and our
founding leader Ibrahim KAYPAKKAYA who was the first to bring about
Marxist-Leninist-Maoist analyses to such issues as the nature of the
Turkish state, Kurdish national question, Kemalism, etc. KAYPAKKAYA became
the first in our country to elucidate on the issues of nation, national
question and national oppression and, it was on these grounds that he
denounced genocide and massacres.

We have many articles and publications that treat and elaborate in detail
our party's position on the Kurdish national question in general and on
the PKK in particular, the methodology and the basis of our party's
approach to these issues and how we evaluate these phenomena. Our party
will publish the translations of some of its assessments on this question
in various languages in order to inform the international
communist-revolutionary public.

Additionally, we will, in our forthcoming articles, analyse in detail and
demonstrate with all their dimensions, including their
ideological-political-organisational origins, the OCALAN trial, OCALAN's
position in this trial and the phase that the PKK has entered with the
"Rome process". We shall limit the subject of this short article to an
account on some developments that have been experienced during PKK
chairman Abdullah OCALAN's trial. We will publish our whole position on
the trial following the end of the trial.

Since the delivery of A. Ocalan to Turkish authorities through a
conspiracy led by US imperialists, the fascist Turkish state has prepared
for "a trial" of the Kurdish nation through the trial of Ocalan's person.
Since the beginning of Ocalan's trial in Imrali, the Turkish state has
attempted to legitimise its fascist character and to put the Kurdish
nation on "trial". The Turkish ruling classes are calculating on
accomplishing many achievements through this "trial". What, then, are
these calculations and achievements? Below are some of them:

- Firstly; they attempt to present the Turkish state as "a democratic
state" to the world public by concealing its fascist, genocidal and
murderous face behind the facade of what they call a "just trial".

- Secondly and most importantly, they are calculating to seize the Kurdish
national struggle and make this their reserve force.

- Thirdly; they try hard to prove that Kurds are not subjected to
oppression, that genocide does not take place and a Kurdish problem does
not exist in the country. 

- Fourthly; they hope to prove that the Kurdish nation's national
revolutionary struggle for their national democratic rights is
"terrorism".

- Fifthly; they hope to suppress more violently the people of Turkey
including Kurds, Turks and other national minorities by projecting the
idea to the masses that "the state is strong". And that therefore, the
national and the class struggles carried out on a revolutionary basis
against the fascist Turkish state and their imperialist masters cannot
succeed. 

- Sixthly; they aim to distract the attention of the oppressed and
exploited masses away from their economic-social-political problems
through further popularising Turkish chauvinism.

- Seventhly; they hope to "prove" that the Kurdish national struggle was
not born and developed in the country, on the contrary, that there is no
Kurdish problem in the country and therefore, that this is a foreign
conspiracy, etc., etc.

OCALAN trial is a totally anti-democratic and fascist trial!

The delivery of Ocalan by US imperialists and its servants to Turkey, the
fact that he has been kept incommunicado in Imrali and also that the
fascist bourgeois media coverage has been actively biased against Ocalan
throughout the trial, are even in the bourgeois sense, in breach of the
norms of the international law. 

While the fascist criminal laws of the Turkish state ban "written or
verbal commentary on the trial before the sentencing", the most official
statements have already declared that the verdict has long been
predetermined. On the other hand, the fascist media have launched an
intensive exposure and character assassination campaign.

Another aspect of the "trial" is that it is carried out by the State
Security Courts (DGM). DGM's are in breach of international law's
requirements, principles of European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and
other legal bindings that Turkey is a signatory of and consequently
obliged to comply with. Turkish state is now trying to rapidly modify the
DGM's, thus preparing a "democratic" shake-up of these fascist courts.
Most probably the military judges will be excluded from the DGM's and in
this way these essential institutions of the fascist persecution will be
ornamented with a "democratic" and "civilian" look. 

Because if the Ocalan trial is concluded with a board of judges which
includes a military judge, this case will be denounced by the ECHR and the
EU countries will probably "react" against it in accordance with their
interests.

The presence or the absence of the military judge in the DGM's does not
change the essence of the problem at all. No matter how well they may
present the fascist judiciary as an "independent judiciary", it is a fact
that all the sentences passed on communists, revolutionaries, democrats
and Kurdish patriots are determined by the National Security Council (MGK)
and by those institutions controlled by the MGK.

The dismissal of the military judge from the DGM's would never mean that
the trial will be "democratic". As in other countries, courts in Turkey
are by no means independent but in every sense are under the control of
the dominant exploiting classes and the political forces in power.

Consequently, the verdict of Ocalan has long been reached. The court is
only performing a legal formality. The aim is to use the court for the
above mentioned "goals" of the fascist state and to turn the trial into a
"legitimisation operation" of the fascist Turkish state. 

Not the Kurdish nation but the fascist Turkish state and imperialism
should be put on trial in Imrali!

Turkish state is trying hard to turn the "Imrali court" into an arena of
the trial of the Kurdish nation. The fascist state through all the printed
and visual means of press declares that the PKK is "terrorist", PKK
chairman A. Ocalan is "the head of terrorists" and the Turkish state is a
"democratic just state", thus carrying its propaganda to the world. 

The fascist state attempts above all to terrorise the Kurdish nation's
just national democratic struggle. Because of this it tries hard to
conceal the massacres and genocide carried out against Kurdish people and
to illegitimatise the rightful and just struggle of the Kurdish nation. On
the other hand, it is the very fascist Turkish state that denies the
existence of the Kurdish nation, that robs them of all forms of national
rights, and that never flinches from committing genocide against the
Kurdish nation and other minorities. 

Ever since its formation, the fascist Turkish state has always brutally
suppressed the Kurdish national movements. In Kocgiri, in the Sheikh Sait
rebellion, and in the Dersim uprising of 1938, tens of thousands of Kurds
have been murdered, and under the banner of the "Law of Compulsory
Residence" hundreds of thousands of them were forcibly exiled from their
land. 

In the recent 15 years, over 20 thousand Kurdish patriots and
intellectuals who fought against the denial of the Kurdish nation have
been murdered and almost 5 million Kurdish people have been forced to
evacuate their home at gun point. 

In Imrali, the Turkish state seeks to hide its massacres from history. As
it had tried in the past to cover up the massacre of one and a half
million Armenians in 1915; as it had tried to cover the 1925 Kurdish
genocide and massacres with ashes by the Independence Courts; as it had
tried to cover up the massacre of over 60 thousand Kurds in 1938 Dersim
uprising, today in Imrali it is trying to bury the unprecedented massacre
and persecution of the Kurdish people that it has committed for the last
15 years.

When the history of the Kurdish nation and other national minorities in
Turkey is studied, the oppression, massacre and genocide that the Turkish
state conducted come under the light. The fascist state, despite its
efforts to misinform and deceive the masses through the bourgeois press,
cannot erase its massacres, oppression, torture, exiles, burning down
villages and ... from the pages of history and the collective memory.

The Turkish state, the most fascistic and paramilitary force of
imperialism in the region should first of all account for its denial of
the Kurdish nation! It should account for its denial of the Kurdish
nation's national democratic rights, that is, the Kurdish nation's right
to self determination! It should account for tens of thousands of Kurds
massacred in Koçgiri, in the Sheikh Sait rebellion, and in the Dersim
uprising! 

It should account for the brutal tortures that it carried out against
Kurdish patriots -- Kemal Pir, Mazlum Dogan, Haki Karer and hundreds of
Kurdish patriots -- in Diyarbakir dungeons during the 12 September fascist
military junta period! It should account for the murder of Musa Anter, M.
Sancar, V. Aydin, Metin Can and for tens of Kurdish intellectuals and
journalists that it has murdered!

And finally, it should account for thousands of Kurdish people, Kurdish
intellectuals, Kurdish workers, peasants and labourers that it murdered in
the last 15 years! It should account for the tens of thousands of Kurdish
households that have been destroyed, thousands of Kurdish villages that
have been burnt down, hundreds of thousands of Kurds that have been
tortured, Kurdish babies and pregnant women that have been murdered! The
fascist Turkish state will not escape paying this huge cost to the people!

The fascist Turkish state has no right to put the oppressed Kurdish nation
on trial. It is primarily a criminal and murderous state in the eyes of
worker-labourers and peasants of Turkish and Kurdish origin. It is a
criminal state to its smallest cells before the Kurdish nation. If there
are those who should be tried and be held responsible, they should be the
Turkish dominant classes, their fascist state and their imperialist
overlords!

The oppressive and exploitative classes cannot try the oppressed and
persecuted classes! Those who committed all forms of oppression, massacre
and genocide cannot try the victims of such oppressions, massacres and
genocides. Exploiting classes have no right to try the oppressed peoples
and nations. Human history is the witness to the fact that those who have
to be put on trial and who have to offer accounts before history and
humanity are the exploiting dominant classes. 

"Imrali trial" cannot be the place for legitimising, justifying and
finding apologies for the fascist state!

The fascist Turkish state, whatever appearance it may acquire, is fascist
in essence and is the most loyal servant of imperialism in the region; it
is the brutal enemy of all workers-labourers, poor peasants, communists,
revolutionaries, intellectuals, democrats, patriots, the Kurdish nation
and other minorities that live in Turkey. This fascist state exists to
serve the capitalist world system and its major imperialist
representatives and to oppress and persecute the working class, oppressed
peoples, Kurdish nation and minorities. 

While this fascist state constantly intensifies its exploitation,
persecution and massacre of popular masses, the Kurdish nation and other
minorities, no individual or organisation can justify fascism by masking
its real face in the name of "new process" and "revolutionism". Before the
suffering of the tens of thousands of Kurdish workers, labourers and
peasants has withered away, and while on the contrary this pain and
suffering intensifies day by day, no one has the right to present the
bloody handed fascist Turkish state as "innocent" and to acquit it!

Such an attempt will primarily be opposed by the Kurdish people who have
been for many years subjected to brutality, murder and torture of the
fascist Turkish state! Communists, revolutionaries, democrats and
anti-imperialist intellectuals of Turkish, Kurdish and other minority
origins, will oppose such an attempt! Kurdish patriots, who have risked
their lives for many years in the fight for their national democratic
rights and have paid dearly for it, who live in dignity, will oppose this!

Kurdish people who were brought up with the legends of resistance as
articulated by poet Ahmet Arif, who wrote; 

     "Strike me bastards, strike me
     I do not die easy
     I have my ashes in the oven
     and my word in my hearth", 

will not allow the staging of this scenario. Grandsons and granddaughters
of Seyit Riza, the leader of 1938 Dersim uprising, who walked with his
head up to the gallows saying; 

     "I could not cope with your deceptions 
     and lies, this has been the thing I cannot 
     come to terms with, but I did not kneel 
     down in front of you, this shall be thing 
     you cannot come to terms with", 

will never bend on their knees in front of the Turkish state; they will
never sympathise with a "consensus" which will mean surrender in disguise
of "peace"!

Bourgeois press, by blowing the horn of fascism, is trying to use the
tears of the families of fallen soldiers who by calling them "hero
mehmets", they drove to the front line in the service of the Turkish
dominant classes to suppress the Kurdish nation's just struggle for most
natural democratic rights in order to protect the plunderous-fascist
interests. 

Sons of poor labourers who had to serve the state as soldiers and are
called "mehmets" are exploited for the interests of Turkish dominant
classes who conduct this unjust and reactionary war. They die after being
driven to the front line for the interests of a handful of exploiting
rulers. As all exploiting dominant classes of the world, Turkish dominant
classes would never enter the war zone. Those who are driven to the front
line with the chants of "hero mehmets" and chauvinistic speeches on "the
land, the nation and the flag" have always been the sons of workers,
peasants and poor labourers.

The murderers of the young poor labourers, who die as soldiers in the
unjust and reactionary war carried out against the Kurdish nation, are not
the freedom fighters but the ruling classes who form the Turkish state
which use these youths for their fascist, racist, exploitative interests.
Consequently, those who have to apologise to the families of the dead
soldiers are not those who fight against oppression, genocide and
massacres but the fascist Turkish state!

It is a good thing to share the pain of people, however, if this is done
in the form of proposing surrender as "the solution" by the demagogy of a
mysterious "democratic republic" which glosses over certain features of
the fascist Turkish state and hence attempts to cover up the fact that
this fascist state is a prison for all oppressed nations and minorities,
it becomes unacceptable.

Such an approach represents, above all, not sharing the pain of people, on
the contrary, it is an attempt using the deceiving phrase of "democratic
republic" in order to justify imperialism, which is the source of all the
popular suffering, and its servant the fascist Turkish state"; moreover,
it represents an attempt to justify the surrender of oneself.

While the mothers and the families of the "martyred" soldiers, including
those officers and conscripts who died in clashes with the PKK participate
in the "Imrali court" which they call "a just court", mothers of over 20
thousand Kurdish patriots and guerrillas, who have been murdered by the
fascist Turkish state, are not allowed in the courtroom. Their tears,
hopes, pains and cries would never find any reflection in the televisions
and newspapers. 

Besides, the tears, yearnings and pains of the Kurdish families whose
loved ones have been murdered under torture, the "disappeared" in custody
and summarily executed in the middle of the streets or by the river banks
are not reflected in the press or at the trial. Because the tears of
Kurdish mothers are so full of sorrow, pain and anger that they are enough
to drown the fascist Turkish state in Imrali. 

Kurdish mothers and Kurdish people whose loved ones have been killed by
the fascist Turkish state do not expect an apology from the Turkish state.
Because, for them, every "apology" of fascism heralds larger pains,
oppressions, brutality and massacres. Kurdish people want their legitimate
rights for which they have paid dearly and have fought to death. What they
want is the lifting of all forms of oppression, torture, massacre and
brutality that the Turkish dominant classes impose over Kurdish nation.

Imrali should not be the place for calling to "peace" but the place to try
the fascist Turkish state!

Ocalan is trying to present to the people his proposals under the name of
"The Manifesto of the 21st Century" which he formulated as "a
democraticratic republic" as was developed by the "Second Rebublicanists".
This proposal which bares the claim to being Œthe most democratic peace
plan" does not scare the "Sublime Turkish State", but legitimises it! This
is nothing but the packaged "solution to the Kurdish question" proposed by
the US and Western imperialists.

The attitude of all the leading circles of the PKK, who after rapidly
forgetting all their statements of yesterday have suddenly steered the
wheel towards a "peace" based on surrender, who prepared themselves for
this process by theorising the situation and who are engaged in efforts to
justify Ocalan's position in the court, etc., demonstrates the
theorisation of the demands of the bourgeoisie of the oppressed nation for
a "reconciliation" at all costs and their efforts to spread this theory to
their base of support.

The PKK and their leading circles seem to have "forgotten" too quickly the
suppressive and oppressive policies against the Kurds conducted by the
Turkish state which have taken place since its very formation. They have
forgotten the events in Kocgiri, of Sheikh Sait Uprising, Dersim and most
recently in Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan. While Ocalan was talking about the
"democratic republic" in the court, Demirel (president of Turkey) replied
to him around the same time with the words, "One land, one flag and one
nation".

Even when taken at a very general level, Ocalan's defence is not a defence
which charges imperialism and the Turkish state, but on the contrary a
"manifesto" of how PKK should reconcile with the state at this stage, how
a transition from the national revolutionary line to a national reformist
line should be initiated and more clearly, how should the Kurdish people
give up their struggle for their most natural rights of national
democratic nature.

Unless a qualitative transformation takes place in this line, given the
level that the struggle had reached this trial will find its place in the
Kurdish history as the most negative example. While the Turkish state
attempts to charge and interrogate the Kurdish nation, the Kurdish
national struggle and their just and progressive war through the person of
Ocalan, it is not acceptable that Ocalan does not mention any of these and
he does not try to demonstrate the real face of the fascist Turkish state
and imperialism. 

This is opening the doors unilaterally to the worst "consensus" in the
name of "peace" and "reconciliation"! This is an affirmation of the
Turkish state's trial of Ocalan as an ordinary "terrorist's trial"! But in
the name of what is all this being done? In the name of a "brotherhood"
that is based on homage and surrender to the Turkish state! In the name of
a very bad "consensus" that would lead as far as to surrender and
betrayal! In the name of saving the "Sublime Turkish State" by
legitimising it! 

If there is to be peace, it has to be a dignified one. An honourable
"peace" for the Kurdish people can only be based on an unconditional
recognition of the self-determination and the national rights of the
Kurdish nation by the Turkish state. The aim of the Turkish state is to
subdue the Kurdish national struggle, lead it to betrayal and to suppress
the conditions of a renewed national resistance. 

Given the fascist character of the Turkish state a possible agreement that
does not take place before the masses or deals for a solution reached in
secret discussions behind closed doors, cannot be lasting! In the past,
such deals did not bring about freedom to the Kurdish nation but slavery
and dependency. Despite some certain differences in quantity, in case this
route is to be taken, the same outcome, that is, the chains of slavery and
dependency, should be expected!

The Turkish state, being aware of the collaborationist tendency of the
Kurdish bourgeoisie, would demand, through certain deceptions, the
disarmament of the PKK and following their farewell to the arms it would
launch heavier oppression and humiliation campaigns. There is no need to
go too far back on this subject. 

The experiences of the Sheikh Sait and Dersim uprisings are well known!
Furthermore, the deals that the Iranian and Iraqi Kurdish national
movements made with the ruling states and the oppression and massacres
against Kurdish people that followed these deals are well known!
Experience should not be ignored in the name of "reconciliation at any
costs".

The real emancipation of the Kurdish people and the national liberation of
the Kurdish nation should not be confused. The real emancipation of the
Kurdish people can only be achieved through a struggle in unity with
Turkish people and other minorities against the fascist Turkish state and
imperialism, by joining the ranks of the TKP/ML who lead the revolutionary
struggle in Turkey and Turkish Kurdistan and follows the principles of
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and upholds the perspective of a world without
classes and borders. 

This path finds its expression in People's Democratic Revolution and
Socialism under the leadership of the proletariat of Turkey, consisting of
Kurds, Turks and other national minorities. The interests of the Kurdish
people can never be sacrificed for the interests of the Kurdish
bourgeoisie!

The capitalist world system is the source of all forms of injustice,
oppression, brutality and massacres. Without burying this system and its
owners in the rubbish bin of history, it is impossible to end oppression,
massacre, genocide and exploitation that humanity suffers as a whole. It
is an honour and privilege to struggle against and resist the major
representative of this system, imperialism, and its regional servant the
Turkish state. 

The attitude that Kemal Pir, Haki Karer, Mazlum Doran and many other
heroic sons and daughters of the Kurdish nation, in the courts of the
Turkish state, before being murdered in its dungeons and torture chambers,
is very clear. They never paid homage to, surrendered to or asked for
amnesty from the state in the courts; on the contrary they brought the
Turkish state to the trial, hence raising the banner of rebellion and
resistance!

They fell martyrs in this honourable fight, they were murdered brutally by
fascism, they set themselves to fire to flare up the flames of Newroz, but
they never surrendered! They believed in revolutionary resistance and war
in order to reverse the negative aspects of the Kurdish history which is
full of betrayals! This noble national revolutionary tradition should
never be abandoned for the sake of a spoonful of soup! 

COMMUNIST PARTY OF TURKEY / MARXIST LENINIST
International Relations Bureau
June 10th 1999

-- 
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