Issue: 08
Date: March 3, 2003

The agreements are being continued
COLLABORATION IS STILL IN FORCE!
We must keep protesting!

The HÖC warns: We must not become complacent!
We can’t let ourselves be fooled by the democracy game!

The agreement hammered out by the AKP (Justice and Development Party) government so tens of thousands of US troops could enter our country was rejected by parliament. But collaboration with America is continuing.
Our land is under occupation.
The truth, not changed whether such an agreement is accepted or rejected, is as follows:
Their aircraft, soldiers, missiles, warplanes and warships are already present in our country.
On the very same day the agreement was rejected, Iraq was bombed by aircraft which flew from Incirlik (a large US and British base in southern Turkey).
If the annihilatory attack aimed at Iraq starts in the near future, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis will be killed by bombs from aircraft flying from this and numerous other American bases.
Collaboration is continuing.
Let’s not fool ourselves.
Nobody should let euphoria over the agreement being rejected blind them to the facts. Our struggle must go on. Our voice must not fall silent:
* The bases must be closed down!
* American soldiers must be removed from our country!
* Military forces must be withdrawn from northern Iraq!
* All treaties with the USA must be annulled!
Our resistance should be continued, using these demands.

COLLABORATION IS GOING ON EVERYWHERE; DEPENDENCY IS DEEPLY IMPLANTED!
There is no end to the authorisations; new agreements will be produced. And even if not, they will continue to serve the USA, supporting the attack on Iraq under other guises. In any case, that is already made clear in the statements both the AKP government and the USA have issued, undeterred by recent events.
The collaboration between the governments of Turkey and the USA goes further than such agreements.
Economically, politically, militarily and culturally, all areas are under American occupation.
The oligarchy which runs Turkey cannot do anything without the agreement of imperialism. Turkey is a base for imperialism in any case, without new treaties or parliamentary resolutions being needed.
Without doubt the rejection of the agreement by parliament is a positive step. Besides numerous internal contradictions, a major part was played by the increasingly common slogan “Down With American Imperialism“, with people shouting it at demonstrations in recent months at the price of being detained and imprisoned for doing so.
The rejection of the agreement is the people’s achievement; but nothing has been finished because collaboration is still going on. So resistance to American imperialism and the collaborationist government remains necessary.

IT IS THE PEOPLE WHO ARE STRONG, NOT IMPERIALISM AND ITS COLLABORATORS!
Turkey has been made thoroughly dependent on imperialism. That is a fact.
This dependence is essentially the dependence of the ruling class.
Even if there are American bases in every nook and cranny of our country and the imperialist monopolies are able to plunge Turkey’s economy into crisis whenever they wish, it is not American imperialism and its collaborators who are strong. It is the people who are strong.
The peoples of the world, and our people, have seen the true character of American imperialism and its collaborators; but that insight is not enough to achieve victory.
American aggression continues; America has given up neither its world empire nor its designs in the Middle East. The peoples must continue to resist, struggle at the highest level and create stronger forms of organisation which will lead the people to victory.
Let us struggle. We should organise ourselves in the struggle. We should strengthen the struggle through our organisation. We must not delay in carrying out resistance actions in many different forms and organising ourselves.
LET US HEED THE CRY OF A HUNDRED THOUSAND PEOPLE IN KIZILAY (*) AND SPREAD IT THROUGHOUT TURKEY! LET ALL 70 MILLION OF US STAND UP!


To put an end to collaboration,
to close down the bases
and drive the US soldiers from our country,
we should spread actions by tens of thousands of people to all of our cities.
To our people;
Let us organise the resistance to America and pro-American collaborators everywhere, uniting all layers of the people, young, old, women, men, Kurds, Turks, Arabs, Georgians, Laz, Cherkess, Bosnians, Alevis and Sunnis.

* Protest actions should be carried out everywhere! Let us strengthen the resistance of the people to America and its collaborators, with demonstrations, meetings, posters, signs, leaflets, using our creativity in whatever form of protest occurs to us!
*Workers, employees, officials: use the strength we have as a result of being producers and providing services! Imagine, lights are being switched off all over Turkey. Imagine traffic inside and between cities and province in the whole of Turkey being brought to a standstill. We can do that. On what day would the trade unions, chambers and cooperatives be ready to do it?
* School pupils, teachers: let us boycott the schools! All school pupils, including primary school pupils, teachers and teaching bodies, should boycott the schools and take part in the people’s resistance in their own spheres.
* Small businessmen and women, let us close our shops! Let us show by closing our shutters that the small businesses of Turkey are not for sale for US dollar bills. Our shutters and shop windows should be covered in slogans which reflect our anger and our protest against America and its collaborators.
* Peasants, let us show that the fruitful soil of Anatolia, defended with blood, is not for sale to America! With protests in the village squares, blockading main roads with tractors, the attitude and strength of Anatolian peasants in relation to American imperialism should be shown.
* Everywhere we see Americans, we should tell them, “Get out of my country“! Don’t engage in any commerce with the Americans! Our people, and indeed everyone who encounters Americans in one form or another, should directly express their protest against these murderers. Anyone who rents hotels, guesthouses, property, depots and cars to Americans and engages in any form of commerce with them is supporting American aggression and massacres. We should not have any ties with Americans.
* We should have no mercy on those who collaborate with America! We should not let the members of parliament and ministers in the government, the US collaborators, enter our village squares, city neighbourhoods and coffeehouses. We shouldn’t take part in their rallies, or if we do, use them to demand a reckoning.
* We should turn the actions whereby people turn their lights off every evening into protest actions. (Note: this is a widespread form of protest in Turkey, opposing war on Iraq.) The lights turned off and on should be accompanied by the expression of our anger in the squares of our neighbourhoods.

WHILE WE TRY TO PREVENT THE MASSACRE OUTSIDE OUR COUNTRY, WE SHOULD NOT IGNORE THE MASSACRE GOING ON IN OUR OWN LAND!
Those who collaborate with America in massacring people abroad are also continue to slaughter in their own country, using isolation and torture. On February 27, a further prisoner, Orhan Ogur, died in the cells of Tekirdag F-Type Prison as a result of the tyranny of isolation. (Note: the F-Type prisons were adopted by Turkey’s government with the encouragement of the USA and Europe. They are designed to isolate and punish political prisoners in Turkey, of whom there are thousands. Over 100 prisoners and their supporters have died opposing the F-Type prisons.)
Let us oppose isolation in the F-Type prisons.
They set up the F-Types in order to practise their collaborationism more conveniently and unscrupulously. Because of the clear connection between them, opposing the F-Type prisons also means opposing American imperialism and collaborationist policies.

THIS GOVERNMENT CANNOT GUIDE US!
AMERICA CANNOT USE OUR COUNTRY AS A HEADQUARTERS FOR MASSACRES!
The situation in which the collaborationist AKP government has found itself is again the result of collaboration.
It has become quite clear in the meantime that the AKP government does not represent the people. The only thing it can do is resign. There is nothing else a government can do when it is so clearly operating policies that are opposed to the will of the people.
Nobody can make this people into supporters of America by whipping up chauvinism in the interests of American monopolies, hiding them behind the cover of „the national interest“. It should really give pause for thought when in various countries there are protests against Turkey and the Turkish flag is set on fire, just like the protests against America and Israel. (Note: Kurds in northern Iraq in particular have been burning Turkish flags as a protest against likely incursions by the Turkish armed forces.) It is dependency on America that has created such images. As a result of this dependency, the AKP government has made Turkey into the fourth accomplice of the massacring alliance consisting of the USA, Britain and Israel.
As has been shown, the AKP does not represent the will of our people. But instead of drawing conclusions from it, on the very day of the parliamentary vote, servitude to the USA as well as an economic package bringing poverty and unemployment were announced – it was just as though they wanted to take revenge on the people.
The real head of the AKP government, Tayyip Erdogan, insulted our people shamelessly: “Those who say ’No to war’ will forget their words tomorrow when they receive no pay and go hungry.“ Those who want to „train“ our people with „hunger“, those who want to use „hunger“ to get our people to acquiesce in pro-Americanism, do not have the slightest connection to religion and beliefs.
Let us show that his words are not correct and that nobody will sell their country and their honour for a few pennies.
Neither their threats nor their loudly touted „economic packages“ can save them. And America can’t save them any more.
They cannot achieve anything with their service as America’s little helpers, their massacres in the F-Types, deaths, oppression and price rises.

INDEPENDENCE AND DEMOCRACY WILL COME FROM THE RESISTANCE MOVEMENT WE CREATE
We are the stronger ones. It is the people who have strength. Again they are opposing the will of the people with price rises and repression. What else can they do!
Let us stand up, take a step and have the courage to prevent this country from becoming an American farm and to free ourselves finally from the pro-American governments who act behind our backs and condemn us to hunger and indignity;
Only a resisting and organised people can free itself from America and its collaborators.
Let us struggle, organise and win.

Haklar ve Özgürlükler Cephesi
(Front for Rights and Freedoms)

(*) Kizilay is the part of Ankara where a large anti-war demonstration was held on the day of the parliamentary vote.