Turkey: Peoples Democratic Party (HDP) condemns Suruç massacre; calls for international solidarity
By Nazmi Gur
July 20, 2015 – Peoples Democratic Party, posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal and Green Left Weekly – At least 30 people were killed and more than 100 injured on July 20, when a suicide bomber from the self-styled Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL) group attacked a cultural centre in the Kurdish town of Suruç, on the Turkish side of the border from Kobane.
The victims were members of the Federation of Socialist Youth Associations (SGDF) who were travelling to help with the reconstruction of Kobane that has been in the front line against ISIS. The following call for international solidarity was released on July 20 by Nazmi Gur, vice co-chair of the Peoples Democratic Party (HDP) in charge of foreign affairs.
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I’m writing this urgent letter to inform you regarding to the ISIL’s bombing attack that caused death of 28 young people and nearly 100 injures in Suruç in Turkey, the closest town to Kobane. All the victims were members of the Federation of Socialist Youth Associations, which known as the youth organisation of ESP (Ezilenlerin Sosyalist Partisi or Socialist Party of the Oppressed).
We as the HDP strongly condemn the massacre against the young people who were showing their internationalist solidarity for Kobane and its resisting peoples against ISIL.
ISIL’s activities in Turkey and the AKP government’s tolerance for ISIL members caused many civilian casualties in Turkey, like the Hatay/Reyhanlı attack on May 11, 2013, and the Diyarbakir attack on June 5, 2015. It is clear that Turkey and its borders have turned into a logistical base and militia crossing for ISIL for three years.
Additionally Turkish Intelligence service's (MIT) hundreds of trucks full of the arms and military equipment have been assembled by the government. Prosecutors and gendarmerie officers have been arrested due to preventing the arms transmitting operation to Syria.
Our party and the peoples of Turkey are aware that the AKP government has a big responsibility for encouraging the ISIL and the rising civil casualties in Syria, Iraq and Turkey as well. We as the People's democratic Party (HDP) call for international public opinion to react to the AKP government’s irrational approaches that are causing civilian casualties in the Middle East.
In this regard, the HDP calls on all democratic and progressive parties and NGOs to show their solidarity for the young victims in Suruç.
HDP condemns Suruç massacre
SGDF activists in Suruç momements before the blast. The three women pictured were killed in the attacked. They are sisters.
By Figen Yüksekdağ and Selahattin Demirtaş, co-chairs of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP)
July 20, 2015 – Peoples Democratic Party – We condemn the inhuman, unworthy attack that occurred in Suruç today. We wish God have mercy on all our friends who died in the attack. We extend our condolences to our people and to the relatives, and wish patience to them. We wish a speedy recovery to our wounded friends as well.
Today, we have witnessed once again what a savage and rapist army, that has lost the dignity of humanity, is able to do. For Turkey’s revolutionaries, who were on their way to act with solidarity with Kobane, to be targeted just after the anniversary of Rojava Revolution shows that this attack is an effort to break the international solidarity around Kobane. This is a message to the brave people who are clamped together with revolutionary solidarity spirit to “give up this solidarity”.
All countries and regimes that ISIL has received support from are the partners of this barbarism. Those who keep silent and even do not dare to raise their voice against ISIL; governors in Ankara who are threatening the HDP every day and caressing ISIL are the accomplices of this barbarism.
We as the HDP want all Turkey’s society to know clearly the following: We are determined to realise our principles of democracy, justice and peace. We will continue to advocate these principles under any conditions.
In order to implement these principles, it is the time to stand side by side more and be in greater solidarity against ISIL and the like mentalities. It is the solidarity of the peoples rather than slippery policies of the [Turkish] government which will stop this rapist army. We call everyone from Edirne to Hakkari to come together at the peace blog against ISIL and its derivatives, against those who advocate the mentality of ISIL and represent it in Turkey, and against those who foster ISIL either by direct support or by remaining silent.
The provisional government is obliged to fulfill any responsibility to take measures in order to protect our citizens’ security of life and property. The government, which is taking so-called security measures by stacking tens of thousands soldiers on the border against the Democratic Union Party (PYD), must give an account politically regarding those who can explode bomb in Suruç readily. The current government is responsible from all kinds of intelligence and security vulnerabilities.
However, our people, our political institutions, civil society organisations, municipalities, all social structures such as vocational organisations should develop their own security measures. At all our party buildings and collective places there should be special security measures. We must develop measures to prevent so blithely and blatantly attacks of ISIL against our people and institutions.
We want to express that we are ready to become partners with all political parties, movements and groups who want to stand together against Suruç massacre in a spirit of solidarity around peace, democracy and justice in Turkey and who want to discuss what can be done together against these kind of attacks.
Once again, we wish God have mercy on our comrades who died, and offer our condolences to their families and our peoples.
Revolutionary solidarity in the face of DAESH murders
Revolutionary solidarity in the face of DAESH murders
We condemn jihadist barbarism and the warlike policy of the AKP!
By Yeniyol
International Viewpoint
Wednesday 22 July 2015, More than thirty young revolutionaries have lost their lives as a result of a terrorist attack by the jihadist organization DAESH in the town of Suruc, on the border with Syria. We express our condolences to the families, friends and comrades of the victims.
This Monday, July 20, 2015 a group of three hundred young people were moving across the border to participate in the reconstruction of the Kurdish town of Kobane, destroyed during the heroic resistance of the local population, the PYD and the militias of the YPG-YPJ, as well as volunteer combatants from many places.
In the framework of the campaign of support organized by the Federation of Associations of Young Socialists, with packages of toys, sanitary products, pots of paint, books and films, these young people, for the most part students, hoped to contribute to the reconstruction of buildings, to building parks and nurseries for the children, to setting up a library.
It is this feeling of unshakeable internationalist solidarity with the Kurds of Kobane which was the target for DAESH, and not “Turkey”, as claimed by Prime Minister Davutoglu. The jihadist organization is trying to export its war against the PYD, against which it was losing ground in Syria, to Turkish territory with this dastardly attack, as with the explosions at the meeting in the Democratic Party of the Peoples (HDP) in Diyarbakır.
But how can we not see here the consequences of the foreign policy of the AKP, resolved to bring down the regime in Damascus at any price, by offering temporary support to various jihadist groups in order to extend its hegemony in the Middle East? Let us remember the trucks packed with weapons and missiles prepared to go to Syria under the control of intelligence services, the hospitals available to wounded DAESH militants.
Let us remember the barely concealed mirth of Erdogan when he stated that “Kobane is on the verge of falling”. Was it not Davutoglu who proclaimed, when he was still Minister of Foreign Affairs, that DAESH could be seen as a radical structure but that it was “previous discontent and indignation” which had caused this “reaction”? A month ago the press of the AKP announced on its front page, referencing military sources, that “the PYD is more dangerous than DAESH”. And finally how can we forget the photograph showing the confident smile of this terrorist jihadist during his arrest by the Turkish police?
Faced with jihadist barbarism and its collaborators, we oppose the smiles full of audacity and hope which these young revolutionaries, dead on the road to Kobane, have bequeathed us. It is in continuing their struggle that we will embody the spirit of solidarity which drove them.
For the right to self-determination of Kurdish people!
Long live internationalist solidarity!
DAESH Assassin, AKP Collaborator! [Yeniyol is the Turkish section of the Fourth International.] http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article4139