Kurdistan Workers Party

[R_P_A_S]

The Kurdistan Workers Party also known as the PKK is an armed militant group in southern Turkey. and recently I've read that Iraq is concern with them. because they are starting to move towards northern Iraq. there for the new "Iraqi government" has made some sort of alliance with the Turkish government to protect the borders and eradicate these militant group. I have a couple of questions.

How legit are the PKK? does anyone know what their agenda is? the name leads me to believe they are leftist. but is this a group that is aiming towards a workers revolution? or just to have their own Kurdish state, away from Iraq and Turkey?

If the PKK truly is a Marxist type guerrilla group are they influential enough? do they have a strong following? what better time than now to stir a revolution or some sort of fight in war torn Iraq?

[bcbm]

Stalinist guerrillas with a personality cult. Nothing to get terribly excited about.

[spartan]

I am not really sure about these PKK guys.

I mean sure i like their leftist credentials and there struggle against the racist Fascist Turkish Government but i think they often use terrorist methods which of course is a big no no.

I do support the right to a free and independent Kurdistan for the Kurds who have been fucked over by the Ottomans, British, French and now the Iranians, Iraqis, Syrians and Turks.

Perhaps these PKK guys are not the right people to lead Kurdistan to independence?

[bcbm]

Originally posted by [email protected] 16, 2007 11:57 am
Perhaps these PKK guys are not the right people to lead Kurdistan to independence?
And the other two separatist groups operating in the area are even worse.

[Guerrilla22]

The PKK is a Marxist group in that they want to establish a socialist state, however it is also a movement based on Kurdish nationalism, so the state they want to establish would be a socilist Kurdistan, not a socialist Turkey. They also are very factionalized and tend to fight each other, as well as the Peshmerga in Iraq about as much as they fight the Turks. They don't have a solid enough, cohesive base to accomplish anything, other than sproradic attacks.

[PigmerikanMao]

their ideals are kurdish nationalism and left coomunism, though i dont tend to support them because of their nationalist base.

[Devrim]

Originally posted by PigmerikanMao+October 17, 2007 01:16 am--> (PigmerikanMao @ October 17, 2007 01:16 am) their ideals are kurdish nationalism and left coomunism, though i dont tend to support them because of their nationalist base. [/b]
I certainly wouldn't describe the PKK as left communist.

From a speech given at a meeting in Europe by a member of Enternasyonalist Komünist Sol/the Internationalist Communist Left.


EKS
As an example of this we will start by looking at the Kurds in Turkey. It is very clear that Kurds in Turkey have been subjected to terrible oppression at the hands of the State. I remember talking to a comrade from Halabja in Iraq. She had been bombed with chemical weapons, seen half of her family die, been temporarily blinded, and lived in a tent in a refuge camp in Iran for two years. When I asked her why she had refused our invitation to come to Turkey, she replied that they really treat Kurds badly there. In the war, which has been raging in the South East since 1984, over 36,000 have been killed, 3,000 Kurdish villages have been destroyed, and nearly 400,000 people have been displaced. On the cultural side use of the Kurdish language was illegal and punishable by a prison sentence even in the privacy of your own home, and there are many people especially among the old who can only speak Kurdish. These sort of things lead people to take the side of the Kurdish nationalists, in Turkey represented by the PKK, the Kurdish Workers Party, nowadays known as Kongra-Gel. Despite these people having a ‘socialist ideology’, they are a actually a deeply anti-working class organisation. I think that this is best exemplified by its campaign of killing school teachers, mostly young girls from a working class, or peasant background who have been sent to the South-East to work there by the state, because they are spreading ‘Turkish culture’, i.e. teaching the Turkish language. On the other side of the boarder, the PUK shot down 17 striking workers only last July. The problem is not ‘only’ one of shooting workers though. The problem is that these groups are leading the workers into ethnic war. The Kurdish militants who are dying in the mountains are mostly poor peasants, and workers. The Turkish conscript soldiers who are dying alongside them are mostly from exactly the same background. I can remember when I was living in Istanbul in the 90’s, and my next door neighbour lost two sons in the same week, one of them fighting in the Turkish army, and one of them fighting in the PKK. The real question is what do workers have to gain from the continuation of this war.

The left communists in Turkey, and internationally are completely opposed to nationalism.

Devrim