Labour backs Turkish state terror
TONY BLAIR’s government has just published the list of organisations proscribed under its new, draconian Terrorism Act.
Among the organisations which New Labour has declared it unlawful to support are the Tamil Tigers and the Kurdish Workers Party, the PKK.
In each case the "crime" of these organisations appears to be having taken up arms to resist brutal, racist oppression by the ruling regime – Sri Lanka in the case of the Tigers, and Turkey in the case of the PKK.
But Labour ministers have remained conspicuously silent on the human rights abuses and violent, terrorist action of these governments, and most recently the full-scale, bloody military attack on hunger-striking political prisoners by the Turkish government last December.
These attacks left 28 prisoners dead, and hundreds suffering burns, bullet wounds, the after-effects of tear-gas and smoke, and injuries inflicted during rape, torture and systematic beatings by troops and prison guards.
In its efforts to expose and challenge this state terror, the PKK has supported the Committee for Struggle Against Torture Through Isolation, which has been marching from Liverpool to London, meeting local trade unions and socialists, and showing a heart-rending video of the prison massacre.
It is bizarre and outrageous that the Terrorism Act now means it is the PKK that is regarded as outside the law while the Turkish government, as a cherished NATO ally, feels able to inflict the most barbaric treatment on the Kurdish people as a whole, and to slaughter those prisoners and activists who dare to resist.
The marchers are urging the British labour movement to take up their fight for justice, and declare its opposition to the Turkish massacre.
In doing so, trade unions and other organisations should also challenge the restrictions imposed by the Terrorism Act, which by gagging protestors can only strengthen the hand of those who use state violence to oppress them.