Party of Labour
September 12, 2001
21 years ago today, the imperialist forces of Turkey – with the help of their external ‘masters’ – actualized the coup d’etat of 12 September. It was one of the bloodiest attacks of the sovereign forces. The dreadful consequences of the 12 September coup continues till today, with its Constitution, its punishments and worse yet, its mentality. Today, the sovereign forces are still collecting the ‘fruits’ of 12 September. And it is a well acknowledged fact that today the conditions in the country are more backward and the conditions more reactionary than 21 years ago. Please find the statement made by the Vice President of our Party in relation to the 21st ‘anniversary’ of the coup, comparing the situation today with that of 21 years ago:
Unemployment and poverty have brought the millions to the hunger limit. Bankruptcies are following one another. Peasants, who aren't able to redeem the cost of their products, save their money and surrounded by the quota barriers are faced with the legal impositions of the debt collectors. Hence they are forced to sell whatever remains in their hands; be it their few animals or the last acres of land they have. Collective bargaining contracts are being declared null, now they have their eyes on the seniority compensations. Liberation is being searched for in the internal and external debts which have taken away a great part of the national income, in the inflow of foreign capital that has led the economy to ruin via speculations, in selling all the wealth resources of the country to foreigners and in the colonization of the country!
Those raising their voices and demanding their rights against the imperialist IMF and WB policies being imposed are subjected to truncheons, gas bombs, police custodies and arrests. Workers wanting to become unionized find police forces attacking them, militant trade unionists taking their place next to the workers and striving to share their experiences are being treated as gangsters! Those wanting peace are beaten by police. Deaths in the F Type prisons are being regularized. Unemployment leading to hunger and poverty are the direct results of the crisis. Such destructive consequences of the crisis are closely connected to the country being subjected to unprecedented imperialist plunder through IMF policies.
Those responsible for Turkey becoming an arena where imperialists run wild is obvious: The collaborator sovereigns. 12 September, on the other hand, is of designating relevance as a date on which collaborator sovereigns have taken a giant step. Starting point of the neo-liberal policies implemented as a result of the 24 January Decisions was 12 September. Collaboration with the imperialists and national slavery elevated with 12 September. When children of America ("our boys") attacked the workers, labourers and their rights and opened the country to imperialist plunder; they attacked the forces opposing the regime to begin with. Hundreds and thousands of people were crammed into prisons, an approximate of 1000 people were condemned to death, 50 people were hanged. Almost everybody was subjected to torture and the country was transformed into a police state. The 1982 Constitution was approved as an historical document of the monopolist sovereigns' plunder and complete denial of law.
In brief; the country was entirely pushed into the mangle of imperialist collaboration, raid and darkness of the non-recognition of rights with 12 September.
Now, those supposedly opening the "national security syndrome" to discussion are playing a comedy just as much as those bringing the issue of changes in the Constitution to the agenda. The Constitution reformism of those mediating in the fortification of imperialist plunder and those who are pro-America and pro-Europe is nothing but a farce. They have previously modified the Constitution for international arbitration and for privatizations. Genuinely populist democratic improvements are first of all related to taking a distinct attitude against 12 September and to expressing a clear-cut definite "Stop" to policies and implementations of the imperialists and their collaborators. Neither can a "nationality" discussion be carried out nor a constitution and country be democratized by being in complicity with the rentier, usurpers of all the labourers' rights, IMF, WB and the imperialist bosses.
The way for an independent and democratic Turkey passes through waging a war against 12 September with all its structures, implementations and consequences. No progress is possible without settling the accounts with 12 September.
International Relations Bureau
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