International Bulletin / Issue 202 / September 202

In the night of 19 August, more than 400 HDP and BDP members were arrested in various cities of Northern Kurdistan. The following morning, it became clear why this happened: The democratically elected co-mayors of HDP in Amed, Mardin and Wan were dismissed and replaced by trustees, and the reactions against these should have been prevented by the wave of detentions.
The practice of trustees is nothing new and was first implemented on September 4, 2016 by AKP fascism against nearly a hundred municipalities, after a failed coup attempt as a result of inner state power struggles leading to the declaration of a state of emergency in 2016. As a reason for the trustees, for which there is no legal legitimacy, the Ministry of the Interior called the practice of co-mayors, which is de facto implemented as an achievement of the women‘s liberation struggle in Northern Kurdistan.
This attack by the political-Islamic fascist regime was not surprising, on the contrary, the fascist chef had already announced in the context of this year‘s municipal elections on March 31, to appoint trustees.
The elections, which led to the defeat of the AKP in the main metropolitan administrations, illustrate the regime‘s loss of power. The municipal administrations served as an important source of finance to ensure corruption and nepotism for their own power base. Innumerable evidence of manipulated payments, the purchase of luxury items and gifts, etc. are currently uncovered in the municipalities recovered from the AKP.
After the electoral defeat, also forced reelections in Istanbul could not reverse this loss.
With the municipal elections, in which HDP was elected by 63% of the electors in Amed, by 53% in Mardin and by 59% in Wan, the people had expressed their will against the trustee administrations from 2016. This expression of will was a decisive blow against colonialism, which not only shatters the right to vote with its trustees, but also denies any civil rights for the kurds. After the electoral defeat, the fascist state wanted to gain psychological superiority and take revenge on the Kurdish people, at a time when the kurdish guerrillas are carrying out more and more effective attacks on the enemy and various mass movements and struggles are emerging in Turkey.
At the same time, these attacks in Northern Kurdistan were a test for the fascist chief Erdogan, with which he wanted to measure the reactions to plan future attacks against the municipal administrations in Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir.
But his plans won‘t be realized. The reactions to the appointment of trustees followed immediately. Dozens of patriotic socialists and cadres of the Kurdish freedom movement went to the streets and shouted in front of the fascist state authorities: „We are not silent, we are not afraid, we are not obeying!".
Their avant-garde action opened the path for the growing resistance of hundreds of people and spread courage and determination among them. Mothers with white headscarves who took to the streets during the hunger strike action months ago continued their actions. In social media, the calls of the socialists spread like a wildfire:
„The people of Amed resist for their will, they will not bow their will to fascism and the palace. This fire will spread everywhere. We call upon all the democratic forces of Turkey, the Turkish people to give hands to the Kurdish people, to fight together, to raise their voice today to build our future together."
The actions against the appointed trustees, which continue every day in form of rallies and sit-ins underline the fact, that the resisting mass movement had retreated in recent years as a result of the massacring state terror, but the potential and the accumulated experience of recent years are growing more and more.
The current resistance to state violence has also become an important source of morality, with which future actions will gain strength.
We have to strengthen the „Third Front" of the working class and the oppressed against these attacks of fascism. In our revolutionary tactics for the elections, we had drawn attention to the risks of the electoral campaign. Under fascist conditions the organization of the anti-fascist popular resistance plays a crucial role, especially during the electoral period. Only if the election campaign is combined with a street resistance it is possible to defend the collective will. No false hope can be placed on bourgeois, state-supporting forces such as the CHP . They are not a force that will defeat fascism, instead CHP supports the colonial state at all times.
With our line of active defense and united anti-fascist resistance, we will advance the practically legitimate struggle by the rich application of all means and forms of struggle.