Statement: 345
Date: December 19, 2004
On 19th-22nd December we were massacred for the sake of achieving dominance of Europe’s market. On 19th-22nd December 2000, a massacre was carried out in 20 prisons of Turkey simultaneously. The prisons were levelled to the ground, burned and demolished.
During this operation, cynically called “return to life” by Turkey’s ruling oligarchy, 28 revolutionary prisoners, unarmed except for their beliefs, were shot to death or asphyxiated by gas.
Their greatest crime was to demand an independent, democratic and socialist Turkey.
They still shouted their demands for a “genuinely independent Turkey” even as they were on fire and coming under a hail of bullets from their murderers.
The massacre is not limited to the 19th-22nd December, but continued in the torture cells of the F-Type isolation prisons.
In the fight against the isolation cells of fascism and imperialism, so far 117 people have fallen.
Everything carried out from that 19th December up to 17th December this year, marked by the EU summit conference, was done for the sake of the European imperialists’ limitless thirst for exploitation.
The negotiation date for Turkey to enter the European Union has made December 17, 2004 a turning point for our country’s history.
However, contrary to what the ruling class would wish, the 17th December will not be remembered as a day when prosperity and democracy came to our country. On the contrary, it will remain as the day remembered for the capitulation that was signed.
The 17th December, celebrated by the AKP [Turkey’s “moderate Islamist” ruling party in parliament] with a fireworks display, is not a holiday of our nation but a triumph of the European monopolies. In return for the victory of the European monopolies, the dependence of our country increased even further and the road to unlimited exploitation was smoothed. Exploitation and repression always go hand in hand. Without suppressing the nations and smashing their organisations, the profits of the monopolies are at risk. The Ecevit government and the Erdogan government which followed it and continues its massacres enjoy the confidence of imperialism. It proved how merciless the machinery of repression can be. The massacre on 19th–22nd December 2000 was the highlight.
In the history of Turkey one thing has been experienced again and again. When a political or economic attack by the imperialists is on the agenda, it is accompanied by massacres and major acts of repression. The way to 17th December was smoothed with the corpses of this country’s revolutionaries.
For the sake of dominating the market and unlimited exploitation by the European monopolies, we were shot to death and burned alive. December 17 must be considered from this viewpoint. A reality nobody talks of anymore is that European imperialism and the oligarchy planned the December 19-22 massacre together. Economic reasons made it impossible for the oligarchy in Turkey to do it without the permission of European imperialism. This permission was given. The EU, which has a “democratic mask” and continuously talks of human rights, knows perfectly well from official reports by observers that we were shot to death and burned alive behind prison walls. On December 19 it became clear to all that the EU does not have to anything to do with human rights as well as rights and freedoms.
Europe, that intervenes when it is a matter of the rights of cats, dogs and even beetles, was totally silent about the December 19-22 massacre and 117 human deaths. It went even further and supported it. The oligarchy that plans admission to the EU and implemented massacres in its own country was commended for the “great” steps it had taken towards democracy. They continuously talk about freedom of thought, however, they use the tyranny of isolation imprisonment in an attempt to change the beliefs of the people. And Europe which permitted the massacre back then still permits it now. With this permission, 117 people were massacred and the massacre goes on. The murderers are not afraid to boast that they are acting in harmony with the EU. The EU’s signature is at the bottom of the massacre documents. We are confronted by US and EU imperialism, the oligarchy and all the international monopolies.
We are resisting all of them. We were murdered for the sake of EU enlargement and the great
Middle Eastern project of the USA. We were massacred for the stable implementation of IMF policies. For that,
the 19th–22nd December is an anti-imperialist resistance.
The biggest supporter of the European imperialist union is reformism, a current whose theories about the EU lead it to oppose resistance. The European imperialists would like to integrate Turkey into their market. There is only one force opposing it: in general, the revolutionaries and in particular, ourselves. The fight which has gone on over decades against exploitation and oppression had to be annihilated. The revolutionaries had to be annihilated, as did the struggle for independence from imperialism, the fight for democracy against fascism and the fight for socialism as opposed to capitalism. And exactly at this point when European imperialism attempted to annihilate revolutionaries who would not deviate from the path of gaining power and achieving an independent, democratic Turkey, we confronted reformism and the pro-EU left. They were against the resistance on various grounds but mostly these were based on the European Union. It is very clear that these theories were in fact based on animosity towards organising and a renunciation of the aim of taking power at national level.
The European imperialists are the father of these theories. They agreed ideologically. Their common aim was the goal of smashing a radical, revolutionary left and creating a pro-system left that does not aim to achieve power. These politics were part of the EU era. And for the same reason today they keep their distance from the resistance. They still hope that the December 19 massacre destroyed us.
The 19th-22nd December is a turning point for the left in Turkey. The
revolutionary and reformist, conciliatory left separated clearly from each other.
It is not an accident that those who are against the resistance are big defenders of the EU.
The massacre goes on, whether it is Ecevit or Tayyip Erdogan who is in power. The government changed. The despots in Turkey as well as the EU they depend on talk constantly about “democracy and human rights“. But the massacre politics of 19th December continue as before. The Ecevit government which said that implementation of
IMF programmes was impossible “without a solution in the prisons” and boasted of working in parliament day and night to bring about the harmonisation laws wanted by the imperialist monopolies has been thrown onto the rubbish heap of history. The current Erdogan government which asked Europe how else it could be of service, continues the massacre in the F-Type prisons.
Both governments combine collaboration and the aiming to enter the EU. They lean on Europe and the USA and
massacre the patriotic revolutionaries of this country [Turkey]. They continue the massacre, because
there is still not the environment in Turkey that European monopolies require.
A Turkey in which hunger, poverty and oppression
goes on is still a country where imperialists, fear revolution. The
Erdogan government continues the massacre politics which aim to stabilise the monopolies. The massacre of
the 19th-22nd December is a milestone in the massacre history of the oligarchy. As in all massacres by the
oligarchy, it was made clear once again on 19th-22nd December that there is no justice and
Law in this country and massacres are state policy.
The responsible political parties and those who murdered 28 people in those days, even based on official findings, must be condemned and punished. In four years of demonstrations and rallies,
the end of prison isolation has been demanded. And no one should believe that all this has been forgotten. Up to now, no crime against the nation or the revolutionaries has been forgotten or forgiven.
And once more we address the promise made to our heroically martyred comrades, that the murderers can not escape from justice. We won´t tolerate any weeping mothers and angry comrades.
We remained upright against the massacre and annihilation politics and continued resistance. We had two
possibilities. Either we would be transformed into a left the system would accept and accept policies aimed at destroying the revolution, or we would resist and accept the sacrifices. We resisted and remained steadfast. We proved once more that one cannot stop our march towards power.
Everyone became a witness of the resistance, beliefs, stability, will and boundless willingness for sacrifice of
the Party-Front’s prisoners. The attack started on December 19-22, 2000 and stepped up in the F-Type prisons, is no longer a fight for survival by the revolutionaries. We proved we can continue to resist. That is the fight for the
independence, democracy and socialism of Turkey. Our resistance is to those who stand for dependence and want to make us submit. We achieve resistance to fascism which represses the nation, ans we stand for founding a true democracy.
We achieve resistance to capitalism which brings nothing to our nations but exploitation, poverty and misery which we aim to annihilate and construct socialism, in which equality and justice rules. This resistance developed in spite of everything imperialism and the oligarchy of Turkey could attempt.
In spite of the F-Type prisons and the real existence of isolation imprisonment, the revolutionaries gained an
ideological and political victory.
Neither the massacre of the 19th-22nd December nor the F-Type prisons achieved their aims. One of the
aims of the massacre from 19th-22nd December was the intimidation of the population. Everyone
should know what “happens” to those if they pronounce themselves against the monopolies, exploitation and
collaboration. Everyone was to learn what the price of revolutionary activities is: a
brutal massacre and being burned alive. This threat could be warded off only with great and heroic deeds. The fallen comrades achieved a heroic feat seldom encountered. The bill of the oligarchy did not add up, the nation could not be intimidated to the degree desired. If the massacre of the 19th-22nd December had not been met with great heroism, no epic of the oppressed would have been fashioned and there would have been even greater brutality used. In fact, we created a barricade with our bodies.
So the F-Types didn´t achieve the desired effect on the opposition.
If we hadn’t offered resistance to isolation cells and politics in the F-Types for five years,
revolutionaries, democrats and anyone who fights for their rights would have felt immense intimidation and fear.
These politics, that reached a climax on 19th-22nd December, were smashed through our Great Resistance to the F-Type prisons.
We greet our heroic martyrs who created the Great Resistance.
The 19th-22nd December was a declaration that in Turkey revolutionaries cannot be annihilated.
And we remind you once more of our heroes, who gave us this strength and we bow
to their memory with devotion.
They showed that in this country one can continue to resist.
They demonstrated a willingness to make sacrifices on a scale that has rarely been seen and they united in the fight of the peoples of this earth against imperialism and the oligarchies.
The culture of sacrifice has become traditionalised.
They go down in the most honorable part of the history of revolution in Turkey.
They are our spokespersons for the fight for independence and against imperialism.
They are the heroes of this land in opposition to fascism and the democracy game that the EU supports.
They are a blow to the oppression capitalism practises, with its deadbeat and egoistic culture.
They represent the hope of socialism.
We will never forget them and never let them be forgotten!
