Stop Turkey’s war on the Kurds!

by New Worker correspondent

THOUSANDS of members of London’s Kurdish community gathered on Sunday 6th March outside the BBC headquarters in Portland Place for a mass march to Trafalgar Square and protest at the one-sided genocidal war now being waged by the Turkish government of Erdogan against the Kurdish people.

Turkey is a member of NATO and is an ally of the British government and David Cameron has publicly welcomed the Turkish Prime Minister to 10 Downing Street even as Kurdish civilians were being massacred in a basement in Cizre.

Britain and Turkey are working hand-in-glove – along with the United States and Saudi Arabia in doing their utmost to destabilise the elected Syrian government. Thousands of extreme Islamist terrorists from ISIS, al Nusra and other groups have been infiltrated from Turkey across the border into Syria.

Turkey has acted as a go-between to allow money, resources and weapons to flow from the western imperialists while they try to pretend they are opposed to ISIS and its barbaric tactics.

Kurds in Syria and Turkey have been fighting ISIS effectively but have to fend of attacks from the Turkish state as they do so.

In the South East of Turkey a full-scale military assault on Kurdish civilians is underway with 24-hour curfews for the last four months.

People are often shot at while carrying the white flag in search of water and food. Whole areas are turned into rubble with widespread crime against humanity being committed by the Turkish state.

The Kurdish successes against ISIS are astonishing; they are fighting mainly with Kalashnikovs and on two fronts – against ISIS and against the Turkish state.

The Kurds, led by their Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), have long campaigned for democratic autonomy within Turkey where they wish to form an egalitarian, gender equal society. But Erdogan wants to create and Islamic dictatorship throughout all Turkey.

The crowd that gathered in Portland Place last Saturday included many supporters including trade unionists, along with major anti-fascist and anti-racists organisations and London Turkish communists.

It was a colourful and exuberant crowd with many children present. But behind the smiles was the awareness that in the war zone young people not much older than these children are fighting on the front line, slowly winning the war but risking their lives to do so in the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) and the military wing of the Democratic Union Party (PYD).

Also on Sunday Turkish police in Istanbul broke up an attempt by Turkish Women to celebrate International Women’s Day, using rubber bullets to disburse the angry and defiant women.

Hundreds of women had turned out in response to an order from the governor of Istanbul, who banned the annual 8th March rally citing security concerns.

Hundreds of women filled the square in the Kadikoy district on the Asian side of Istanbul chanting slogans and carrying banners. Sporadic skirmishes between the demonstrators and plainclothes police erupted on several occasions.

Women’s rights activists criticize the Turkish government for failings on issues, such as eradicating domestic violence and gender inequality at work.