Power Politics 101: Promoters of butcher Assad, Beware — Russia follows capitalist realpolitik

[Seeing the writing on the wall--that the days of their "ally" Assad of Syria are numbered--capitalist-imperialist power Russia (a growing imperialist contender to US' imperial hegemon) seeks to ensure and preserve a piece of post-Assad Syria for its own regional interests.  Those who have made spurious claims that the Russian/Assad-ist Syrian alliance is somehow an anti-imperialist front, will have to adjust their framework, substantially.....Meanwhile, talks between US imperialists and the "official" Syrian opposition have, simultaneously, been held.  The fragmentary and formative revolutionary people's forces have, to all indications, played no role in either set of talks with imperialists, as they have been either decimated or, driven underground or into exile, are making difficult preparations for the future. -- Frontlines ed.]

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Russia in ground-breaking talks with Syrian opposition

03 Feb 2013 – MUNICH, Germany (AFP)

[Photo:  Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov]

Ground-breaking talks between the Russian foreign minister and the Syrian opposition leader have bolstered a global push to narrow sharp differences over how to end the conflict in Syria.

Moscow said Saturday it wanted to keep in regular contact with the Syrian opposition, after its Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Syrian National Coalition leader Moaz al-Khatib met for the first time.

“I reminded Khatib that after the creation of the coalition and the appointment of their leader, we immediately demonstrated our interest in maintaining regular contact,” Russian news agencies quoted Lavrov as saying after the meeting on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.

“We will make that happen,” he added.

[Photo: A rebel fighter poses in front of a Soviet-made T55 tank abandoned by pro-Syrian regime forces in al-Yaqubia in northern Syrian, on February 2, 2013. Ground-breaking talks between the Russian foreign minister and the Syrian opposition leader have bolstered a global push to narrow sharp differences over how to end the conflict in Syria.]

Lavrov had earlier Saturday held talks with US Vice President Joe Biden and UN-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi amid strong disagreement between Moscow and Washington about ways to end the 22-month Syria conflict, which according to the United Nations has claimed upwards of 60,000 lives.

Khatib, who became the head of the coalition late last year, reiterated on the opening day of the Munich talks Friday an earlier surprise announcement that his group is ready for dialogue with the Damascus regime — subject to conditions including the release of 160,000 detainees.

Lavrov said Moscow welcomed the initiative, adding: “If we take into account the fact that the coalition was founded on a refusal to engage in a dialogue with the regime, it’s a very important step.”

Three Kurdish activists killed in Paris, France — statement of migrant workers from Turkey

We abhor the murder of the three Kurds in Paris!

ATIK | 15.01.2013 | In the evening of the 9th January 2013 was a barbaric attack on the Kurdish Information Bureau in Paris, capital of France, by people that have still not been identified. Through this cold-blooded murder, the co-founder of the PKK Sakine Cansiz, the Paris representative of the KNK Dogan Fidan and the youth activist Leyla Söylemez were executed. This attack Sakine Cansiz and Dogan Fidan were killed by head shots and Leyla Söylemez with shots to the head and abdomen.

This attack was discovered on 10 January 2013. A journalist of Kurdish newspaper Özgür Politika could not reach Dogan Fidan, so he and some other people decided to go to the Kurdish Information Office. On entering the office, they were confronted with the bodies of three Kurds. As the office is located in a busy street, this murder was unnoticed, which could be a sign that this attack was planned and carried out by professionals.

Thousands of Kurds mourned the activists killed in Paris — Funeral in Turkey, 16 January 2013

Sakineh Cansiz the women who was murdered in Paris, was born in 1957 in Dersim. In her youth, she was active in the pupils and students movement of Elazig. She is also one of the founders and a cadre of the PKK.  She was arrested during the 1980 military coup in Turkey in Amed, severely tortured and imprisoned for years in prisons in the fascist Turkish state. Since her first day of participation in the political struggle, she always led a revolutionary life and was therefore one of the first women cadres of the Kurdish national liberation struggle.

Dogan Fidan, was born in 1982 in Maras-Elbistan, emigrated in childhood with her family to Europe. Since 1999, she was active in the revolutionary struggle in Europe. Dogan had long been active as a Parisian representative in the National Congress of Kurdistan. Also murdered in the attack, Leyla Söylemez was an active member within the Kurdish youth movement.

It is well known that in the past many times such murders were carried out by the fascist Turkey. That the fascist Turkish government and its representatives, the current AKP try to portray this as an internal party dispute, is no coincidence. As long as the real perpetrators of this massacre are not found, France will have to bear the responsibility for it.

We as ATIK abhor this massacre and press the Kurdish national movement, its sympathizers and relatives of the victims of our sympathy. We call upon all democratic-minded people and our members to be on the side of the victims. The people will one day bring the murderer to justice.

Sakineh Cansiz, Dogan Fidan, and Leyla Söylemez are immortal!

ATIK-Confederation of Workers from Turkey in Europe

10th 01. 2013

Syrian people’s just rebellion needs people’s war–not FSA, Assad, or imperialism

[The conflict in Syria has been the subject of much  twisted coverage by the US and EU and its surrogates, by supporters of anti-US bourgeois nationalists, by partisans of Russian imperialism against US hegemonists, by advocates of the regional power of the Iranian Islamic Republic, and by "pragmatic opportunists" who wink at the role of Saudi Arabia/Bahrain/GCC.  Many people, outraged at the mass suffering and mass killing of Syrian people, have been justifiably confused, especially as the issues have been distorted by imperialist and reactionary medias which serve these interests.  And to confuse even more, many of the reactionary medias proclaim themselves as anti-imperialist, though careful reading reveals these to be promoting one reactionary power versus another.

We recently received the following statement and analysis of the situation in Syria from revolutionary Maoists in Brazil.  Views of revolutionary internationalists have too rarely been heard on this issue, and so we present these views as a good counterpoint to the prevailing revisionist and reactionary accounts.  We believe these comrades in Brazil have done significant groundwork toward the analysis needed. 

There are some aspects of this analysis which require more work and debate, in our view.  In particular, their argument that People's War--if defined as China's revolutionary military strategy--is universally  applicable to all countries, is a view we do not share.  Our understanding that the Maoist strategic conception of People's War, (as summarized by the phrase, "surrounding the cities from the countryside"), only applies to feudal, semi-feudal, colonial and semi-colonial societies, where repressive power in the countryside is sufficiently weak that people's revolutionary war, seizing and expanding significant liberated areas is an accurately applied historic strategem.  In other countries, where reactionary state power is effectively deployed everywhere, a long period of amassing revolutionary political forces through primarily political , not military, struggle, must precede the armed struggle for state power.  These general categories and strategies have often been taken literally, without detailed investigation and analysis, at great and disastrous cost to revolutionary forces.  The need for detailed study of concrete conditions is especially indicated by the ongoing changes in capitalist-imperialist production, distribution, and state power--and the distribution and growth of people's forces.

But some use the term People's War, not in the sense of the "countryside-overtaking-city" strategem, but synonymous with people's armed struggle for power in all variety of circumstance--as a statement of principle, in opposition to the revisionist and social-democratic notion of the "peaceful, electoral" road to power.  In this sense, People's War (where the masses take up the gun against reactionary power, and where the gun is led by revolutionary politics) is a universal revolutionary principle.  --  Frontlines ed.]

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Proletarian and oppressed peoples of the whole world, united!

Statement of the Revolutionary Front in Defence of the People’s Rights, RFDPR, Brasil, on the present situation in Syria

DOWN THE IMPERIALIST ALLOTMENT IN SYRIA!

LONG LIVE THE PEOPLE’S WAR OF THE PEOPLES IN ALL COUNTRIES!

“The combat to imperialism and reaction without the inseparable combat to opportunism is nothing but empty phraseology”.

Lenin: “Imperialism and the splitting of socialism”.

The nation of Syria has been suffering a bloody imperialist plundering war in the shape of  a civil war. Assad’s armed forces and the so-called free army of Syria are the contestants of this inter-imperialist dispute for the Syrian territory. Syria has been converted into a new treachery for the anti-imperialist world resistance and the newest enclave of the inter-imperialist struggles.

At the present conditions of this struggle development any result will not bring any advance for the Syrian people and nation; it will only deepen the imperialist dominance over the country and oppression on the people since until now an independent and organized intervention of the armed masses has lacked of a proletarian vanguard even very little constituted.

The March 2011 revolt was a spontaneous mass uprising against a fascist regime led by Bashar al Assad and it is part of an overwhelming wave of people’s rebellions that happened all over the North of Africa and Middle East. The mass rebellions awakened in those countries, despite being developed in an unconscious form and not having a proletarian leadership, have the same root: they are antifascist, anti-feudal and anti-imperialist ones.

The revolt is a just rebellion against a bureaucratic comprador regime at the service of imperialism mostly Russian that has been controlled for decades by the Assad dynasty.

The Yankee imperialism has taken advantage from the situation, as for instance in all Arabic countries rebellions, manipulating the mass struggle, deviating them from the revolutionary path, to guarantee their interests in the region. The intelligentsia services for the imperialist coalition forces have formed and armed a mercenary army self-named Syria’s Free Army –SFA, directed commanded by their agents with the aim of changing the Syrian regime. Thus the USA wants to change the Russian control over Syria, breaking with the relationship with Hezbollah, surround and isolate Iran and prepare the grounds to attack it.

All this complex plan in the Middle East and North of Africa is part of a new war of imperialist plundering and allotment against the peoples. The Yankee imperialism, still being an unique and hegemonic superpower in the world, has declared its objective to create a map of a “New Middle East”, that is, a Middle East totally controlled by the USA, without the influence and interference of other imperialist powers and mostly without the people’s armed resistance of the masses.

The Yankee imperialism, amidst a deep and protracted crises, hit by the people of the world, mostly in the main front of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and by the people’s wars in India, the Philippines, Turkey and Peru, with its hegemony questioned by the inter-imperialist struggle, is more and more at the verge of an unprecedented war.

In this context, the events in Syria are firstly and mostly part of the contradiction between oppressed peoples/countries and imperialist powers; secondly, the inter-imperialist contradiction that could convert into the principal contradiction. This one happens through the dispute for the control of colonies and semi-colonies accumulating and being able to develop into a direct confront in the form of a new world imperialist war.

The Nepalese Revolution in the Clasp of Reformism and Revisionism

[The following is a statement from the Communist Party of Turkey / Marxist Leninist on the current situation facing the international communist movement, with special attention on the effect of the Nepalese abandonment of the People's War.  It is a very timely assessment based on seriously probing issues that affect not only the Nepalese, but revolutionaries throughout the world. -- Frontlines ed.]

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Communist Party of Turkey / Marxist Leninist (TKP/ML), October 2012

Following the death of Comrade Mao Zedong, similar to the process that took place after the death of Comrade Stalin, modern revisionism seized the party and the state power, and caused serious damages to the world revolutionary front. Having suffered heavy blows in the hands of modern revisionism, the International Communist Movement (ICM), despite having benefited from a series of class war and struggle practices, including the one waged in Turkey, has not been able to stand against the ideological offensives of imperialism, which gained considerable momentum especially during the 1990s.

In the circumstances where resistance was not organized strongly enough, communist forces sustained severe injuries throughout the process. While some of them sank in their capsized ships, yet some were swept to the opposite shores. Only the few “lucky” survived, considering the survival a major success in the given circumstances. There were several exceptional development by those who came up with accurate analyses and correct policies to advance the people’s war. Even these, however, found it impossible to advance without getting caught by the storm.

The most important defeat in people’s war experiences in recent history was suffered by Gonzalo led Communist Party of Peru (CPP). Despite having shown serious advances in revolution, the CPP failed to carry its success through the final stage. Those who explain the defeat in practical and tactical matters, which led to a severe blow in the leadership, or even in political approaches, are missing the chance to see the reality. Assessments regarding the revolution and people’s war that were revealed by the leadership under the conditions of captivity point out to a drift away from the fundamental philosophical principles of MLM science.

The same situation appears to be present in the process of Nepalese revolution as well. What is even more concerning is the fact that similar dangers are reproduced in the cases of certain components of the ICM, which inevitably leads to serious negative consequences in terms of absorbing and practicing Marxist ideology. As an action guideline, the Marxist ideology must first be correctly understood as a philosophy; as a reasoning method. Based on this comprehension, it can be applied for the analysis of class struggle and transferred to political arena.

Truth must be derived from the facts but in order to achieve this one needs appropriate methods and know-hows.   The materialist character of dialectic is shaped according to the correct conception of economic, social and political laws. Marxism is not a heap of dogmas but rather a science that breaks down the codes of today’s system; it contains a set of thesis and diagnoses that are proven to be correct and valid. Thanks to its ageless essence, its power to explain the transformation, and its structure that is open to further development, its light hasn’t dimmed; its mission as a guide is still on.

10,000 More Prisoners To Join The Kurdish Hunger Strikes In Turkey

Turkish riot police fire water and tear gas as they clash with Kurdish demonstrators during a protest in support of a hunger strike movement by Kurdish prisoners, on November 4, 2012, in Istanbul (AFP Photo / Bulent Kilic)

By Kurd Net, Ekurd.net, 06 November, 2012

ANKARA— Shortly after the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) announced that thousands of more prisoners were to join a collective hunger strike, Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç made an open call to all prisoners to end the strike.

On Sunday BDP deputy Sabahat Tuncel said 10,000 more prisoners currently held in the country’s prisons for various crimes, including membership in the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and its Iranian offshoot, the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK), would join the hunger strike on Monday.

Around 700 Kurdish prisoners began the hunger strike on September 12, with a host of demands including the release of the Kurdish (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan and demanding the right to receive an education in their mother tongue, Kurdish, and the right to address courts in Kurdish.

Protest in support of Kurdish hunger strikers in Berlin. Image by Thomas Rossi Rassloff via Flickr

Tuncel said on Sunday during a press conference she called after attending an Istanbul demonstration by pro-BDP protestors in support of prisoners on hunger strike, “Ten thousand more prisoners are going to join the hunger strike on Monday [Nov. 5] without a time limit or the possibility of backpedaling [before their demands are met by the government].”

Hunger Strike: The Irish Experience

by DENIS O’HEARN

When people ask me, “what is the most important thing you learned about Bobby Sands?” I tell them one simple thing. The most important thing about Bobby Sands is not how he died on hunger strike, it is how he lived.

New York – Bıa news agency, 5 November 2012

The hunger strikes of 1980/1981, in which ten men including Bobby Sands died, are the most famous use of that political weapon. Yet hunger striking has a long history in Irish political culture. It is said that the ancient Celts practiced a form of hunger strike called Troscadh or Cealachan, where someone who had been wronged by a man of wealth fasted on his doorstep. Some historians claim that this was a death fast, which usually achieved justice because of the shame one would incur from allowing someone to die on their doorstep. Others say it was a token act that was never carried out to the death – it was simply meant to publicly shame the offender. In any case, both forms of protest have been used quite regularly as a political weapon in modern Ireland.

The history of Irish resistance to British colonialism is full of heroes who died on hunger strike. Some of the best-known include Thomas Ashe, a veteran of the 1916 “Easter Rising”, who died after he was force-fed by the British in Dublin’s Mountjoy Jail. In 1920, three men including the mayor of Cork City Terence MacSwiney died on hunger strike in England’s Brixton Prison. In October 1923 two men died when up to 8,000 IRA prisoners went on hunger strike to protest their imprisonment by the new “Irish Free State” (formed after the partition of Ireland in 1921). Three men died on hunger strike against the Irish government in the 1940s. After the IRA was reformed in the 1970s, hunger strikes became common once again. IRA man Michael Gaughan died after being force-fed in a British prison in 1974. And Frank Stagg died in a British jail after a 62-day hunger strike in 1976.

Unlike in Turkey, the Irish make no distinction between a “hunger strike” and a “death fast,” although many hunger strikes have started without the intention of anyone dying. In 1972, IRA prisoners successfully won status as political prisoners after a hunger strike in which no one died. They were then moved to Long Kesh prison camp, where they lived in dormitory-style huts and self-organized their education (including guerrilla training), work (including cooperative handicrafts production), recreation, and attempts to escape and rejoin the conflict. The prisoners used their relative freedom to raise their collective and individual consciousness about their struggle against British occupation of Ireland. They read international revolutionaries like Che Guevara and Irish socialists such as James Connolly. This was, in turn, a foundation for rebuilding the IRA on a basis that included a less hierarchical and more participative structure, with a higher emphasis on community politics as a part of armed struggle.

As the IRA rebuilt their organization in prison the British government also changed strategy. The main pillar of the new strategy was a “conveyor belt” of security operations that included widespread arrests of young Catholic males, heavy interrogation including torture, and juryless courts in which a single judge pronounced guilt often on the sole basis of verbal or written statements under interrogation.

Partizan analyzes Arab uprising and Syrian opposition, imperialism, and Turkey

[As part of our ongoing coverage of people's struggles against reactionary and oppressive regimes in the middle east, we are posting this new statement from Partizan, a revolutionary periodical from Turkey, which analyzes the current struggles in the middle east, focused on Syria, Turkey, borders, and Kurdish areas. -- Frontlines ed.]

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AGAINST IMPERIALISM, FASCISM, COMPRADOR CAPITALISM AND ALL KINDS OF REACTIONARIES

PARTIZAN

The Arab uprisings and the opposition against Assad in Syria -­- The correct position in the light of a class analysis!

In North Africa and the Middle East a period, also expressed as the “Arab spring”, arised and still continues. In many occasions we have expressed our approach about the situation in these areas and towards the people’s movement. Current Syria based agenda is advancing fast with an inclusion of and shaping in direct relation with our country.

Hence, from the ruling classe front to the front of the revolutionaries, democrats and patriots all express their views, formulations and evaluations on this issue. Also the Marxist‐-­Leninist-­‐Maoists have shared their views with the public about Syria in the context of the Assa d government, the oppositional movement and the triangle of the imperialist occupation together with its subcontractors. Nevertheless, as Maoists from our country we feel the need that we must once more state our comments on this issue in a period in which many facts become interlocked with each other.

…There cannot be any just reason for such an intervention, and reasons given from imperialism are definitely not convincing nor can they be accepted…

After expressing this aim, we can start with some general definitions on the specifics of the topic: to have a country that faces an attack from the outside and which has been designed by the imperialist states, needs without a doubt, an open and clear opposition from all revolutionaries, democrats and patriots. Besides this, there cannot be any just reasons for such a intervention, reasons given from imperialism are definitely not convincing nor can they be accepted. We would like to begin with stressing that this is unquestionable. Furthermore, in a situation of an imperialist occupation, in standing firm in concern of the characteristic of the aspiration and the struggle for independence, in a national front policy’ it becomes a fundamental task to form an alliance of anti-­‐occupation forces. The position behind this is the fundamental principal that all people and every nation have a right to determine their own future.

Together with this, the main point of the discussion of many problems we are facing is that such a situation isn’t there. We can say that the interventions of imperialism, their effort to cover the reality of what really happens, makes it complicated for us to understand the essence of what happens. “Anti-­‐imperialism” could be a strut to underestimate the revolts of the people against the tyrannical powers. Thus it is beneficial to look at the current developments in Syria from that perspective.

Confederation of Workers from Turkey in Europe (ATIK) statement against war moves by Turkey and Syria

Avrupa Türkiyeli İşçiler Konfederasyonu

      Konfederasyona Karkerên ji Tirkîye li Ewropa

Konföderation der Arbeiter aus der Türkei in Europa

Confederation of Workers from Turkey in Europe

La Confédération des Travailleurs de Turquie en Europe

Confederatie van Arbeiders uit Turkÿe in Europa

To Press and Public!

US imperialism and other imperialist forces have intensified their administrative policies on the Middle- East and the recent developments in Syria. In order for the imperialists to practice such policies they gave/give an important role to the fascist Turkish state. The Turkish state has mobilized an “opposition against the human rights violations in Syria” and PM R.T. Erdogan tries to show himself in public as an advocate of human rights. The fascist AKP government applies on every provocation in order to open a war against Syria.

The recent incident is an open example for this in the border village Akçakale five people were killed by a rocket coming from the Syria borders and now Turkey uses this to complete its war mongering policies which are designed by imperialism. There is a great possibility that this bomb was thrown by the imperialists themselves or an anti-Syria opposition in Turkey, which was nourished by the AKP government, and now the state is calling upon the UN and the NATO. It is very clear that Turkey and the imperialists try to use the incident in Akçakale to initiate an open war against Syria. We all know that a war against Syria is only going to affect the oppressed Syrian people, instead of freedom this war will bring blood and exploitation. The main purpose of the fascist Turkish state is it to march into Syria and for this it shows the Esad fascism as a excuse but we all know that Esad and Erdogan used to be close friends initiating common policies against the progressive revolutionary movements in both countries and against the Kurdish national movement.

In Solidarity with Students in Captivity, who Resist Fascism in Turkey!

17 July 2012

ATIK – YDG  | 17 – 07 – 2012 | There are currently 771 students kept in prisons because they claimed their right to equal, free, scientific education and lessons to be in their mother tongue. They faced disciplinary actions, suspensions, repression, violence and imprisonment due to their opposing stance. This, once again proves that the ruler have no forbearance to any kind of opposing and demand for rights.

Those students who fight for their rights are seen as “a head to axe before it grows”. Universities are no longer institutions of science, wisdom and intellectualism where students research, debate and develop their knowledge in social and political matters; they are instead turned into private factories with rote, competitive, non-scientific, unqualified education to create its homogenised human type. The fascist TC State continues all its attacks on those who oppose, stand against and speak up to its brutal doings. The ruling fascist mentality doubles the force of its attacks when revolutionary or Kurdish students are involved. People’s youth, particularly the Kurdish youth are targeted and arrested without any evidence. They arrest these young people for reading legal books and papers, attending press conferences, and as in the example of Cihal Kirmizigul, they get arrested for wearing a “pusi” which is a traditional middle eastern scarf which became a very trendy fashion item all around the world and was worn by all off the large party leaders in Turkey during their visits to the east.

AHM-ATİK News Center

Turkey: Turkish Arlines workers fighting strike bans and mass firings

[Turkish airline workers are fighting for basic rights, and are asking for international support and solidarity.  See the article and petition, below.  -- Frontlines ed.]

Withdraw the ban on aviation strikes!  Solidarity with the Turkish Airlines workers!

Over the last 6 weeks Turkish Airlines (THY) staff have been fighting against unjust dismissals along with the ban on the right to strike. The attacks on the workers of Turkish Airlines are continuing and becoming ever more fierce as the management rely upon government support to do as it pleases.

The sudden proposition of banning strikes

Negotiations between HAVA-IS (Civil Aviation Union- Turkey) and Turkish Airlines has broken down after several months of meetings regarding Collective Bargaining Agreements (TIS) and has come to a point where a “middleman” is needed to continue the negotiations. In a space of 1 week after the breakdown, the government, after gaining approval from President Abdullah Gul, changed the laws and forbid workers in the aviation sector from taking strike action.

In response to the ban on strikes, THY staff stood firmly side by side and took one-day strike action as a warning to the government. The management of THY however, accused the workers of “illegally taking strike action” and shortly after sent mobile text messages to 305 workers notifying them of their dismissal.

The one-day strike action taken by the workers is legitimate and within the bounds of national and international regulations.

Turkey: Court Sentences Singer to Two Years in Prison for Speech

by AHMerdan

TURKEY | 27 – 06 – 2012 | A specially authorized court in the eastern province of Malatya sentenced Kurdish-Alevi singer Ferhat Tunç to two years in prison on terrorism related charges due to his invocation of the names of deceased Turkish leftists during a speech on May 1, 2011.

The Malatya specially authorized Third Court for Serious Crimes sentenced Kurdish-Alevi singer and composer Ferhat Tunç to two years behind bars on the charge of “making propaganda for a terrorist organization” due to his invocation of the names of deceased Turkish leftists Deniz Gezmiş, Mahir Çayan and İbrahim Kaypakkaya during a speech he gave on May 1, 2011 in the eastern province of Dersim (Tunceli.)

“I greet you all in the revolutionary spirit of Deniz Gezmiş, Mahir Çayan and İbrahim Kaypakkaya,” Ferhat Tunç had said during the May 1^st celebrations in Dersim in 2011.

The decision was unexpected and politically motivated, Tunç told bianet.

Lawyer Ercan Kanar, who represents Tunç in court, also said the court had convicted his client on the claim that he was making propaganda on behalf of the Maoist Communist Party (MKP) because of his reference to İbrahim Kaypakkaya during the speech.

Arab Spring and Imperialism

[The "Arab (and North Africa) Spring" enters its second year, where in country after country the complex interplay of domestic people's movements, regional alliances, and imperialists (of both the crisis-driven old variety, and newbies making new global assertions)--are hellbent on asserting very elusive controls.  Such would-be controllers continue to be frustrated, and while this provides openings for revolutionary people to seize the time, their organizational, political, and military tools have been lacking--so far.  Time will tell how this will play out.  Deepankar Basu, writing in Sanhati, takes on the challenge of clarifying the different contradictions and forces at play. -- Frontlines ed.]

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February 20, 2012

by Deepankar Basu, Sanhati

The unprecedented wave of mass movements that started in Tunisia in December 2010 and quickly spread to Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Syria, and Yemen, with smaller scale demonstrations in Lebanon, Mauritania, and Saudi Arabia has the potential to completely change (a) the socio-economic dynamics within the Arab world, and (b) the relationship of the Arab world to imperialism. To understand the dynamics and implications of the unfolding movements, it seems useful to abstract from the details of the movements in particular countries and take a broad brush view of matters. Moreover, to construct a broad brush view it seems important to disentangle two aspects of (or basic contradictions driving) the situation, not only in Syria that is the current focus of world attention but the Arab world in general.

The first, and primary, aspect is that all these movements, often taking the form of mass uprisings, are movements for democratization of their respective societies, a movement against decades-old authoritarian and brutal regimes backed by imperialism. In most cases, over the last two decades, these regimes saw a convergence between authoritarianism and neoliberalism. One way of stating this is to say, using an old-fashioned terminology, that the primary contradiction that is driving these movements in the contradiction between authoritarian (often neoliberal) regimes and the broad masses of the people in these countries.

The second, and to my mind secondary, aspect is the reality/possibility of imperialist intervention. Using the old-fashioned terminology once again, one could say that the secondary contradiction that is maturing in these events, that is driving these movements, is the contradiction between imperialism and the broad masses of the people.

Note that both contradictions are basic, in the sense that they are both active in the current situation; the current conjuncture is shaped by an interplay between them. But between the two it is also important to distinguish the primary from the secondary. What is the rationale for characterizing the contradiction between the broad masses and authoritarianism as the primary contradiction? The rationale is the following observation: each of these movements, without any exception, started as movements for democratization and against neoliberal authoritarian regimes; each of these movements retain that thrust. Hence, it seems very likely that what is being expressed through these movements is the maturing of the contradiction of these neoliberal authoritarian regimes and the popular classes. If at any point there is direct military invasion of a country by imperialist powers with the intention of turning the country into a colony, then the second contradiction, i.e., the contradiction between imperialism and the broad masses, would become the primary contradiction.

Istanbul: Mass arrests at protest of Turkish government’s massacre in Sirnk Uludere

35 Civilians Dead – Protestors Released

32 people who were taken into custody in Istanbul because they protested the death of 35 civilians were now released. The villagers were killed in an aerial strike in south-eastern Turkey.

Riot police stand guard as Kurds protest after Turkey's air force attacked suspected Kurdish rebel targets across the border in Iraq, killing some 35 people, many of them believed to be smugglers mistaken for guerrillas, in Istanbul, Turkey, Thursday, Dec. 29. 2011. The killings spurred angry demonstrations in Istanbul and several cities in the mostly Kurdish southeast.

Kurds protest after Turkey's air force attacked suspected Kurdish rebel targets across the border in Iraq, killing a dozen people, many of them believed to be smugglers mistaken for guerrillas, in Istanbul, Turkey, Thursday, Dec. 29. 2011.

Istanbul – BİA News Center

03 January 2012, Tuesday

32 people were taken into police custody on 29 December in Istanbul because they protested the death of 35 civilians who were killed in an operation of the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) in south-eastern Turkey. All of the 32 people in custody, among them conscientious objector İnan Süver, were released on 31 December.

The TSK carried out an aerial strike in the region of Uludere in the Kurdish-majority province of Şırnak in the night of 28 December. Unmanned air vehicles and thermal cameras of the TSK had determined a group of people close to the Iraqi border. Thereupon, an aerial strike was launched in the region close to the Ortasu Village.

35 civilians from the villages of Ortasu (Roboski) and Gülyazı were reported dead after the incident. It turned out later on that these people were not members of the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) as supposed by the military but villagers aged between 12 and 37 years old who were smuggling diesel fuel.

After the funerals, relatives of the victims explained the reason why they went to get diesel fuel from Iraq: “Poverty is the reason. This is our only source to get by”.

The fascist Turkish state massacre of 40 peasants in Şırnak

With the massacre of 40 peasants in Şırnak the fascist Turkish state has added a new massacre to its list of atrocities against the Kurdish nation!

3 January 2012

ATİK | 03 – 01 – 2011 | The fascist Turkish state is continuing the massacres against the innocent Kurdish nation by means of chemical weapons. In the village of Roboski of Şırnak Uludere province 40 innocent people have been massacred in bombings by war planes. In the warmongering statement after the last MGK (National Security Council) meeting, the practical implementation of the statement “The operations will continue day and night” was that, civilian peasants have been brutally killed through air bombings. We are carefully awaiting to know what the AKP government will fabricate with regards to the massacre under their responsibility while they are claiming to be against the massacres of the Khadafi regime in Libia, the Esad regime in Syria  and also calling upon and threatening  Esad to seize the massacres.

Forty peasants from Ortasu (Roboski) in the Uludere region,  between the ages of 15 to 20 who were returning to their village from where they had been working were brutally killed by F-16 war-craft bombings. According to the statement of the wounded peasants who survived the bombings,  “When we came back the jets started bombing us. A bitter smell was in the air during the bombing. Suddenly people started to burn and were killed. 5-6 people hid between the rocks to escape the bombing. The airplanes have also bombed there. They all died there at the rocks”. As a result of the bombings large number of burned and mutilated corpses of many people were taken to the county.

The policy of destruction and denial against the Kurdish nation since the founding of the Turkish Republic State is continuing with massacres and mass arrests. Racism is being instigated in all layers of society by imposing the mentality of any Kurdish in movement is ‘guilty’. Within the last month, lawyers and journalists have been arrested, detention periods have been prolonged, their homes and offices have been raided, extrajudicial executions, mass killings have taken place. These are a continuation of the atrocities of the nineties in a different form.

Turkey: Mass arrests of journalists aimed at suppressing pro-Kurdish information and voices

Wave of Condemnation as Turkey Arrests Yet More Journalists

by Alliance for Kurdish Rights, 21 December 2001

Istanbul, Turkey- Dawn on Tuesday brought an unfortunate wake up call to many Kurds and especially to journalists as a wave of arrests across Turkey picked up 40 people, most of whom are journalists.

The arrests came under the premise of alleged links to the Union of Committees in Kurdistan (KCK). Turkish “anti-terrorism” police specifically targeted pro-Kurdish media, mainly DIHA and ETHA news agencies, the Özgür Gündem daily newspaper, the Demokratik Modernite magazine and the Gün printing press. Turkish state media alleged that the recent wave of arrests was part of a two year long investigation into the KCK and its members. In addition, French Kurdish photographer Mustafa Ozer, who works for the French news agency Agence France Presse, was detained, smiling as he was carried away by security officers.

This wave of arrests is only the latest in Turkey’s sustained assault against the KCK and all those affiliated with it. The new arrests brings the number of journalists alone in Turkish prisoners over 90, making Turkey one of the worst countries in the world for imprisoning members of the media. Along with journalists, Turkey has been undertaking a systemic campaign of arresting children, activists, academics, politicians, and arguably any other powerful voice of dissent in the country.

Although for the most part Turkey’s unjust actions against the Kurds go unnoticed, the arrest of 40 Kurds, most of whom are journalists, has received some of the criticism is deserves. Hundreds of journalists gathered in Taksim Square in Istanbul to protest the arrests and demand that freedom of the press in Turkey be preserved and protected. “The imprisonment of journalists means the usurpation of our right for information” read the statement released at the demonstration. “We are here today to defend both our colleagues and the right of information.”

In addition, the international organization Reporters Without Borders released a statement saying they were “very concerned” by the latest arrests, and called on the Turkish government and authorities to “stop trying to criminalize journalism, including politically committed journalism.”

The Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) also released a statement, calling on all those who support the right of information and freedom of the press to protest Turkey’s many human rights abuses.

The detention of 40 journalists, all seeking to reveal the same truth about the situation of Kurds in Turkey, is in fact affecting the entire profession of journalism. With 40 less people reporting on Turkey’s marginalization of the Kurdish community, Turkey is further quashing voices of dissent in the name of anti-terrorism and clearing the path for even more human rights abuses in the future.

This article first appeared on our website KurdishRights.org.