[L-I] DHKC response to Holberg and Jones

[dhkc]

In their postings, both A. Holberg and Owen Jones make a number of statements. Since it provides an opportunity to expound DHKP-C views, here is our response to them. Both of them deny that Turkey is fascist. There is the MHP (Nationalist Movement Party). This party is a member of the current governing coalition in Turkey. Would it help if we mentioned that the alternative name of this party is the “Grey Wolves”? The MHP seeks a Greater Turkey stretching over 1,000 miles from present-day Turkey all the way to the plains of Central Asia where “the Turkish race” began. Even before it joined the governing coalition, the ranks of police, gendarmerie, special anti-guerrilla teams, senior civil servants, army officers and so on were filled with MHP members and sympathisers, or sympathisers of other fascist groups like the BBP (Great Unity Party) or the Ulku Ocaklari (Idealist Hearths). Our comrades confront fascism in the streets, in police interrogation rooms and in the prisons (when an attack on left-wing prisoners is planned, and at present there are more than 1,000 DHKP-C prisoners in Turkey’s jails, the normal prison guards are often taken away and replaced with others who try to provoke the prisoners by giving the fascist salute). The MHP was heavily involved in the Maras massacre (December 1978) in which members of the minority Alevi branch of Islam and “godless commies” (“allahsiz goministler”) were slaughtered. Even in 1978 Turkey had the second-largest army in NATO, well-equipped with vehicles from German and US sources, but for some reason it took this large and well-equipped NATO army three days to arrive and stop the pogrom. The official death toll at Maras was 111, the real death toll was several times higher. In the 1980s, Alevis from the Maras region emigrated in large numbers to Europe, and many support the DHKP-C and have no trouble with the concept of Turkey being a fascist state. We think they know better than Holberg and Jones what fascism in Turkey is. We have a detestation of fascism in Europe, not least because its supporters often attack people from Turkey, but we were intrigued to note how much publicity was given to Haider’s accession to power in Austria as part of a coalition and how little mention there was when the MHP did the same in Turkey. Either the imperialist media did not report it because they wanted to cover it up, or they did not report it because they knew that the system was already fascist and MHP government ministers were merely the icing on the cake. Among the left from Turkey and Kurdistan, there is a close connection between militancy and calling the system fascist. The far left parties and groups all call the system fascist. The groups that do not are basically reformist. Stung by our charge of pessimism, Jones presented a long litany of his political activity and asked if we were satisfied. No, we are not. He has, in a sense, protested against the DHKP-C. But in his long list he never mentions protesting against the regime in Turkey – not even in support of Abdullah Ocalan. He calls Turkey “imperialist” but not “fascist” – a confused formulation. We maintain that the system in Turkey is fascism backed by imperialism. He asks where we get the idea from that imperialism is afraid of revolution. Well, we think deepening US involvement in Colombia is one example. Our statement on that was greeted as “spam” in some quarters, but really it was very significant. Most projections we are aware of point to a deepening gulf between rich and poor throughout the world over the next decades. Even half-serious revolutionaries ought to find plenty of material there to work with. But they have to believe in themselves and what they are doing. Even in the imperialist USA, there are currently almost two million people in prison. Not a sign of a confident society. And NATO was not only not closed down, it had its functions and scope expanded. Does that sound like our rulers are calm and self-assured? No, they are trying to prepare for future threats. The “end of history” rhetoric died away some time ago. Jones enlarges on his problems with “individual terrorism”, which he thinks we practice. In fact, one of our key slogans is “Only revolution will sweep away this filth”. What he calls “terrorism” (mouthing the rhetoric of his own ruling class) is in fact people’s justice. Here’s an example. On May Day 1989 a Devrimci Sol sympathiser in Istanbul, a teenager named M. Akif Dalci, was killed by a traffic cop named Kazim Cakmakci. Cakmakci was a fascist. He saw the May Day march and decided to shoot a “red”. He knew that no court in Turkey would hold him to account. The killing was televised, however. Devrimci Sol found out who he was and where he lived, and early in 1990 Devrimci Sol shot him dead. Naturally the police and media called it terrorism, when it was really justice in a land where there is no justice. Or a more recent example: in March 1998 four DHKP-C people in Izmir were abducted, tortured and murdered, and their bodies were made to “disappear”. In a larger sense, the system some people will not call fascist was responsible, and this is why the DHKP-C strives for its revolutionary overthrow, but it did track down one of those involved in the disappearances and he was punished with death. We will not wait for the revolution to settle scores, our sense of justice demands that those we can get our hands on now will pay the price for what they have done. Now, as to Holberg: we have already dealt with why we think Turkey is fascist. Interestingly, Holberg admits that Turkey is “crisis-ridden” after saying it is a delusion to think the left can challenge the existing order. But it is precisely because the system in Turkey is crisis-ridden that revolutionaries have a chance. In cities like Istanbul, even small left-wing protests (say, in support of the prisoners) encounter massive police repression, often just a short distance from where the tourists are sunning themselves. There has been no reduction in the scope of torture techniques in Turkey. Clearly the authorities remain afraid of something. Turkey is by far the most unstable NATO country, and if it gets into the EU it will be the most unstable EU member. When Ceausescu was killed in 1989, Turkey was indeed one of the few places in the world where pro-Ceausescu demonstrations took place. Devrimci Sol took a prominent part in these. One of our militants, Ali Riza Kurt, organised such protests among prisoners while he was in jail. In 1995 he broke out of prison, was recaptured by police and murdered. A policeman took a photo of him just before his murder. He is lying on the ground with his hands cuffed behind his back, but if you look closely at his hands you will see he is giving the revolutionary victory sign. According to Holberg, Ali Riza Kurt and people like him are “lunatics” for the line taken on Ceausescu. We realise that the imperialist media called Ceausescu a monster but then this is the same media that, for example, kept very quiet about the nature of the MHP. Under Ceausescu, Romania had followed a relatively independent policy. For example, it was the only Warsaw Pact member that did not join in the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, and there were fears at the time that this would lead to a Soviet invasion of Romania also. This was a period when the West courted Romania. For example, Ceausescu received a visit from Nixon in 1971. Later, Ceausescu resisted perestroika, and in the emerging New World Order’s eyes displaying independence is the worst crime you can commit. That is why he and his wife were killed. If the killers had nothing to hide, why did the prosecutor who subjected them to a “trial” commit suicide shortly after? We consider Ceausescu to have been a victim of an imperialist plot and we have always been one of the most anti-imperialist organisations in the world. If that means we are lunatics, then we do not wish to keep company with the sane. Finally, Holberg mentions the “liquidation of comrades from a breakaway faction”. What he is referring to is the darbeciler or “putschists”. In September 1992 they kidnapped our leader Dursun Karatas and tried to take over Devrimci Sol by means of a putsch. Dursun Karatas escaped after some weeks and exposed the putsch attempt. The darbeciler killed some of our people, either directly or by betraying them to the police in Turkey. For example, the student Ugur Yasar Kilic was abducted and tortured by darbeciler in 1993 because he supported Dursun Karatas. A few weeks later, he and another comrade were murdered by police while they were preparing banners for May Day. We also punished some of the darbeciler with death. There are still a few darbeciler left in Germany, and they are involved in the drugs business under the benevolent supervision of the German police. They do not have a different ideology from us but are mainly motivated by hatred of the DHKP-C and Dursun Karatas. They do not constitute a political faction at all. The darbeciler proved the correctness of Stalin’s statement that fortresses are best conquered from within – they did more damage than most of our other enemies. In her statement, Heikki Sipila is correct. The book “Turkey Unveiled: Ataturk and After” by Hugh and Nicole Pope, a bourgeois history of modern Turkey (published 1996) noted that in the mid-1990s, Turkey was one of the few places in the world where a significant body of the young were attracted to the Marxist-Leninist ideology. Despite intense police surveillance of schools and universities, that remains true. We are indeed one of the strongest communist groups in the world. The revolutionary left from Turkey have some of the most militant traditions of the left anywhere, we have the memory of our martyrs, and the system in Turkey is so flagrantly unjust that it almost forces decent human beings to join the revolutionary cause, despite the very real risk of imprisonment, torture or death. In the DHKC Information Bureaus, we act in support of the struggles of our comrades in prisons both of Europe and Turkey – such as our comrade Fehriye Erdal in Belgium – as well as the wider struggle. Our time for discussions with people via e-mail whom we may or may not convince is limited. If anyone is seriously interested in our work and our views, rather than simply sitting in judgement on us from afar, they are welcome to come to our Information Bureaus for discussions. Hakliyiz Kazanacagiz (We Are Right, We Will Win) Kurtulusa Kadar Savas (Fight Until Liberation) DHKC London Information Bureau