MARXIST LENINIST COMMUNIST PARTY TURKEY/NORTHERN KURDISTAN
INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN March 2006 / No: 43

What Have The Palestinian People Chosen?


The elections in Palestine have brought out results that could affect the balance
of power in the Middle East. The loosing of strength by the El-Fattah was known,
but it was never predicted that the result would have been so dramatic. In any
case, the elections in Palestine have caused the opening of a new page in the
Middle East, at least in connection with Palestine. The elections have given an end
to the domination of El-Fattah. According to the PFLP (Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine) the election results show “the choosing of resistance by the
Palestinian people in the face of Israeli occupation”.
The reasons of Hamas success in the elections can be summed up in few
points:
1- The anger of the Palestinian people against the El-Fattah was huge. The
Palestinian people have rightly considered El-Fattah as responsible for the
entrance of Palestine question into dead-end, compromising with American imperialism
and Zionism, and the process which started from Oslo and caused the
appearance of current situation.
2- El-Fattah is considered as responsible of corruption, bribes, and “pocket-filling”
that are dominant within the Autonomous Palestine Authority.
3- The fragmented and weak situation of revolutionary and communist forces in
Palestine have pushed the people of Palestine, who are ready to fight but experiencing
difficulties in determining their direction, to the side of Hamas that took attitude
for an independent Palestinian state, do not recognise Israel as a State and
conducts armed struggle.
4- Especially because of the financial help received from Iran, Hamas has come
to the fore in solving many problems of the Palestinian people and gained sympathy
and created an organisation -that cannot be belittled- from the base by using
those financial help. Hamas has collected the harvests of these activities and
opportunities.
What will happen hereafter?
In the region under the administration of the Palestine Authority, Hamas could
aim to establish a regime similar to the one in Iran. However, such a step may
cause the full isolation of Hamas and its overthrow from the power through the use
of force by the alliance of imperialism and Zionism.
Hamas did not make such a step yet, but because it is aware of the consideration
of the world public opinion towards itself, it started to give messages around
and take under control its attitudes and statements that it has been using until now.
Hamas, at first, wants to fight to stay on the power. Therefore it does not want to
establish government alone and announces that it is in favour of a “national”
government, a government that could be formed together with all forces, including
El-Fattah. Thus it wants to lead all Palestinian forces in direction of its own point of
views on the subject of interfering with the Palestine question. And is this being
named as the national reconciliation.
Moreover, Hamas started to soften its known radical attitude against the
American imperialism, Israel and its understanding of struggle in general just after
the election. It is a necessary point not to forget that the political Islam, so Hamas
could collaborate with imperialism when coming to power.
Hamas choose to visit Turkey at first, but not Russia and Egypt in order to give
a message that it will not put obstacles before the imperialism’s, American imperialism’s
Middle East policy, and that it is necessary for them to be recognised and
not to be considered as terrorists. The reason of this was to give the message that
it can also pass through a process such as AKP (Justice and Development Party)
did in Turkey. The other one is the relations between the USA and Turkey. The
statements of Ross Wilson, the USA ambassador in Ankara, show that the USA
was informed before hand about the talks between Turkey and Hamas, and USA
did know of the situation. The message given through Turkey to Hamas also shows
that this is the situation. What is being wanted is rather clear: “Be cleaver, sometimes
you can talk to the sky concerning the internal politics. But you must show
that you have changed. Give up those verbal of yours. Both the PLO (Palestine
Liberation Organisation), El-Fattah and at last Arafat were considered as terrorists
once upon a time. But later they became a partner which we negotiated with. You
must be the same”!
The people of Palestine have given a chance to Hamas to become government.
The period of El-Fattah has been closed and Hamas period started. Palestinian
people are the only force that would push Hamas to act in accordance with its
promises. In the near future, Palestinian people are going to see who they elected,
what would they came face to face with in the new period, what would change and
not changed by comparing the new with the old period.
The independence of Palestine is going to be realised by the struggle of the
Palestinian people. And this is going to be a direct result of only the Palestinian
people’s struggle against the imperialism, its local collaborators and Zionism.
MLCP is on the side of the Palestinian people’s fight for independence and it will
continue to consider their struggle as its own struggle.

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What is wanted from Iran?

There is no progress in the continuing nuclear negotiations among Iran
and the imperialist countries. The meetings made in Moscow at the end of
February did not give any results either. Now the process of UN Security
Council is being started. Iran has already taken to the UN Security Council
once before for having secret nuclear activities.
The problem is not only about Iran. What is being wanted from any country
of the region is also wanted from Iran. For the imperialist countries, the
Middle East is a region which has to be taken definitely under control
because of its mineral resources (oil and natural gas) and strategic importance
for the domination of Central Asia in terms of rivalry. So, what is being
demanded from Turkey, Iraq and other countries is also wanted from Iran.
Rather than the producing of nuclear weapons by Iran, the oil and
natural gas of the Middle East and Iran is the problem of the imperialist
countries.
The American imperialism, which competes more mercilessly for the
world domination after the disintegration of the revisionist bloc and is on the
top of its nearest rivals, has at first occupied Iraq in order to fully control the
Middle East -the region which contains an important part of the world oil
and natural gas reserves-, to get along with its rivalry, to keep distant its
rivals from the region and to keep them under pressure also by controlling
the transportation of oil and natural gas into the world markets. Although it
has not come out of the quagmire (it seems that it is not going to be able to
come out, as the Iraqi resistance shows), it started to take under pressure
and threaten other countries such as North Korea, Syria, Iran as it has
described them as the “axes of evil”.
By turning from taking aside with Iran, not surrenders despite of all
pressures, the other imperialist countries, at first Germany, France, Russia
and China, which until now took aside with Iran because of their interests
and tried to show the American imperialism that it can be face to face with
a relation different than the relation of forces during its attack to Iraq, started
to act in accordance with the demands of the American imperialism.
They are the five permanent members who took Iran to the UN Security
Council. That is the USA, Russia, China, France and Great Britain. This
means that the American imperialism, together with Great Britain –which
US keeps always as a substitute force-, is in a common position to draw
same policy regarding the Iran issue with its foremost rivals, Russia, China,
France and non-permanent member Germany.
It is not know what sort of result would come out from the UN. But, in any
case, Iran will be penalised or warned with economic embargo and etc.
This would mean that they have pressed the last button for Iran.
Imperialism will present alternatives to Iran on the subject of its penalties.
But, on the subject of what sort of Iran shall it be, it is presenting only one
alternative: Surrendering.
The imperialist countries did not show so much reaction when Pakistan
and India have produced nuclear weapons. They also did not show any
reaction upon Brazil which now days is taking steps on the nuclear issue.
But, because of the mentioned characteristics of the Middle East, at first,
they attacked Iraq under the pretext of “weapons of mass destruction”. And
now they are using the nuclear weapon as a pretext to attack Iran. All imperialist
forces are afraid of Iran becoming a regional power with nuclear
weapons. A regional power with nuclear weapons would resist more
strongly to imperialism to protect its position; it would not present the
region’s and its strategic position and underground resources without negotiations
to the imperialism or would try to exclude them from these opportunities.
The imperialist countries think in common that Iran will act in this
manner. This is the reason that communalises their attitudes against Iran.
Until now, Iran has successfully used the contradictions among the
American imperialism and other imperialist countries. After these powers
reached a position to act in common, it started new searches in order to
come together with other forces. Iran’s relations with Venezuela and Cuba
must be considered in this framework. We should not be surprised when
we come across with Ahmedinejad making calls in common with Chavez
and Castro in the future.
We are struggling to expel imperialism from our region and we are
against the American imperialism’s -or as an imperialist bloc- attack on
Iran. But this does not mean that we are supporting the religious repressive
regime ruling in Iran.

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Cartoon Crisis

Following the publication of Muhammad cartoons in Denmark and Norway,
the “clash of civilisations” scenario which was developed in 1990s’ by Samuel
Huntington, one of the main ideologists of the US imperialism, has gained a
new dimension by explosion of Muslim peoples’ anger.
According to the US-made theory of “clash of civilisations”, there were, on
one side, the superior values of advanced, democratic and developed Western
civilisation and, on the other side, the primitive, undeveloped, backward
Eastern societies. The West, therefore, had the right to apply all kinds of
“civilised” instruments in order to protect its superior civilisation and, moreover,
to take its civilisation, democracy and freedom to the backward civilisations,
that is to colonise and plunder them. After the September 11, the US has started to use more and
more depleted uranium, cluster bombs, media wars, rape and torture. While September 11 represented a turning point for US to implement its imperialist strategies, it also resulted in rising of racist theses on the basis of the “clash of civilisations” that drew the ideological reasons of these strategies.
Then the bombing of Afghanistan was followed by the occupation of Iraq under
the pretext of bringing “democracy and freedom” to the backward societies. By
the Iraqi people’s resistance against the imperialist occupation, it has been
exposed that the superior values of the superior Western civilisations means
the colonial, plunderer capitalist system that is built upon barbarity seen in
Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib. Through the incitement of Sunni-Shiite conflict in
Iraq, the “backward civilisations” are being tried to confront with each other.
This racist theory of Huntington fans racism and fascism by covering up the
labour-capital contradiction in parallel to the neoliberal attacks in the Western
imperialist cities and nationalism and fundamentalism in the Arab and Muslim
countries. In any case, this theory tries to cover up the class contradictions.
The cartoon crisis has become the last up-to-date version of the “clash of
civilisations” scenario. As well as considering the cartoon crisis as a result of
cartoons jauntily drawn by a few racists, the consideration of the reaction
shown afterwards by Muslims as a religious-reactionary reaction will take us
to incorrect end in reading today’s tabloid.
The oppressed and exploited are not sitting back when their honours are
being humiliated with rapes and tortures in Iraq. In their consciousness and
feelings, they are accumulating so much of anger against the imperialist
aggression. In the ghettos of Europe, the migrant labourers had already
accumulated anger on discriminating attitudes they suffer from. There also
developed a rebellion against the Zionist occupation in Palestine that carried
out by the support of US, the giant technological war-machinery and the most
“civilised” state on earth. The Muslim people had accumulated anger against
humiliation of their system of belief and symbols under the pretext of development
and civilisation.
The actions developed on the cartoons are not momentary but have got
some roots in the past. They are the accumulated anger of Muslim peoples
exploded in the form of blind-violence against the imperialist occupation, colonialism,
policies of social destruction and the pictures of torture and rape
spilled over from Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib to the streets of Iraq. From Asia
to Africa, Middle East to the centres of imperialist cities, the symbols of imperialism,
consulate buildings of capitalist centres which considered as the
“Western civilisations” and have no other meaning than plunder and exploitation
for the Muslim and oppressed peoples, have become the target of this
anger.
However, the anger which came to the open by numerous forms, including
the violence of the oppressed, and mainly targets the imperialist centres and
symbols, -but sometimes make contributions to the racist and imperialist
scenario of the “clash of civilisations” through blind reactions- points out burningly
the need for an intervention by communists.
It is the intervention of the revolutionary and communist forces that can
reverse this scenario and lead the working classes’ and oppressed peoples’
anger against the imperialist exploitation and colonialism in order to destroy
the imperialist system with the objective of socialism.
ESP (Socialist Platform of the Oppressed): It is not a clash of civilisations
but racist imperialist aggression
As a reply to the need mentioned above, the progressive, revolutionary,
socialist forces are continuing to point out to the third alternative within the
tabloid of confrontations. While ESP made a press statement regarding the
issue on February 8, 2006, the No to Occupation in Iraq Coordination, of which
ESP is one of the components, said “Imperialists must apologise from the
peoples” in its press conference. By expressing that the killing of a priest in the
city of Trabzon shows that the conflicts are wanted to be spread also in Turkey,
ESP said: “All these incidents show that the imperialist centres would not hesitate
in any manipulation and aggression in order to secure their profits. And
the role downs to the people of our region and the world is to put in frustration
all these attacks through peoples’ brotherhood and united struggle.”

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The Draft of General Health Insurance:
“Live, if you have got money”!


In the intention letter given by AKP (Justice and Development Party)
government to the IMF in July 2004, it was emphasized that they will make
reforms on the spheres of pensions and health insurance, and the liabilities
of the State will be reduced to the level of 1% of the Gross National Product
until the year of 2007. The AKP government, which brought on to the agenda
the General Health Insurance (GSS) draft law that was prepared by the
“support” of the World Bank in September 2005, attacks to the workers’
and labourers’ “right of healthy living”.
What Brings the Draft Law?
The draft, which considers people as the customers but not as patients, is forcing
an unhealthy life to the people who have got no money. It brings the condition
of payment of 12.5% bonus from the wages in order to benefit from the health
services and, because the amount of the bonus is being calculated according to
the minimum wages, the poor peoples’ right of health is putted into bin. If
you are not paying the bonus then you cannot benefit from the system. But
if you have chronic illness or illness with expensive treatment then you cannot
benefit form the system either. By the draft, the working conditions of
the health personnel are also changing. While subcontractor firms are
being allowed to enter into the health sector, the conditions of work with
agreements are creating an insecure job upon the personnel. The health
workers are forced to make choice between ethics and profit. In connection
with the IMF demands, the State is leaving the peoples health to the ambition
of the employers for profit and the mercy of capital. But the workers
and labourers will not accept this “draft of unhealthy living”.
General Strike against the GSS
The draft is replied by the protests of the workers and labourers almost
everyday since it has come on to the agenda. On 18-19 February, the
Labour Platform organised actions and demos in many cities against the

GSS which is being protested in neighbourhoods, factories, hospitals, bus stops, central
areas by distributing leaflets, petitions, surveys, press conferences, demos, rallies, CD
shows, putting up banners and etc.
The increase of class solidarity by participation of the workers from the resisting Rozi
Paper Factory, World Leather, Cevahir Leather Factories and Serna Seral Textile Factories
into the fight against GSS, and the action organised by the Textile-Union and Workers
League, which opened a banner writing “No to privatization in Health and Tekel”, on 5
February in front of the AKP building in Istanbul-Bahcelievler have represented the
good examples of class solidarity. Together with trade unions and bars, the ESP, Workers’
League and the Textile-Union also take part actively in the struggle against the GSS.
While the AKP government has announced that it will bring the draft to the parliament in
the beginning of March, the workers and labourers have said that they will continue to
struggle until the draft is withdrawn.


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Ongoing Resistance in Tekel!
Many Tekel workers in Turkey and Northern Kurdistan, at first, the workers in
the factory affected, are resisting against the government’s decision to close down the
Tekel factories in Adana and Malatya. The resistance, which is continuing with many
actions, occupation of factories and press conferences, has made the government to
take a step backward. The Tekel workers were the winner of the first round.
Following the Tekel resistance that lasted 44 days, Tayyip Erdogan, Prime Minister,
announced they will not close down the Tekel factories in Adana and Malatya. But
this is a tactic implemented frequently in recent period by the government, first they
withdraw the draft, but when the struggle gets eased, they again bring it to the agenda.
Now they are playing the game in Tekel.
Erdogan, who made a step backward due to the insistent struggle of the Tekel workers
and other class brothers/sisters of theirs, later said “we are going to release ourselves
from these enterprises by giving them to the private sector”. Although the Tekel workers
have frustrated the closing down threat for now, they must continue with their struggle
against privatisation without any negligence.