20 December 2009 /International Bureau / Statement No: 48

In the capital Ankara, the TEKEL workers are resisting for days in the name of the working class and the objective class interest against the collaborating capital and the government. The striking force of the capital; the police, stroke with truncheons the workers with class hate, beat the workers´ families until their fainted and attacked the students, who blocked the traffic in support of the workers. The tobacco workers are continuing to resist caring nothing for the gas, bombs, tanks, pressurized water and shields of the police and the cold of the depth of winter but shouting the slogan "There is no fear but resistance". Women and man are carrying out a determinant and militant struggle for their rights saying "Resistance is the only way to win".
Social protests against the police attacks and support for the workers´ resistance by the society are growing.
Since December 15, 2009 12,000 TEKEL workers from approximately 40 companies from different provinces of the country are gathering in Ankara also overcoming the collaborating trade-unionist leadership of Turk-Is . They started a resistance against the government on a de facto and legitimate line. The workers´ councils and resistance committees are leading the process of taking decisions and action, the resistance is growing after every police attack and every detention. Thousands of resisting and struggling TEKEL workers are the today's´ honour of the working class of Turkey and Northern Kurdistan. The class struggle based on the contradiction of labour and capital is materialized today in their class identity and belonging; their class attitude and resistance. On one hand the collaborating capital, the bourgeois state, the bourgeois media and government, on the other hand the working class, the labouring employees, mass organisations, the youth and all the oppressed. But in between, as always, the exploitative attacks and false tears of the regime parties and the bourgeois media...
The resistance of the TEKEL workers is the brotherhood and unity, the united struggle of the workers of all nations and religious beliefs.
Under the conditions of the wave of racist lynching mobs poisoned and filled up with the poison of chauvinism and created by that against the Kurdish people, it is of a historical, class and political importance that the railway, fire brigade and TEKEL workers are struggling in the same row for their class interests without saying Kurd, Turk, Arab, Circassian or Laz, that they shout the same slogans and raise their demands for work, freedom and brotherhood.
Under the conditions of the war of negation and annihilation waged against the Kurdish people, the sections of the working class are not put into action according to their own class interests but dragged by the wave of chauvinism. This time, in a time also of social questioning, confrontation and asking for accounts and when it was not bearable anymore, the workers raised their voices and organised actions. This resistance breakthrough is at the same time the outbreak of the accumulated but until now blocked rage and protest of the masses against the unemployment and poverty having been socialized in the economic crisis.
In the resistance of the TEKEL workers, the women workers were fighting in the first rows. The wives and families of the workers took part in the resistance with a lot of determination and militancy.
Another source of power and motivation for the struggle of the TEKEL workers was the deepness of their own history; the tradition and experience of resistance the tobacco workers created in different periods.
The resistance of the TEKEL workers organised the forces and actions of solidarity and support being around it. The revolutionary and progressive forces, DISK , KESK , mass organisations, organisations and platforms of the studying youth, women etc entered into a permanently growing process of activities.
The resistance of the TEKEL workers played the role of a signal flare concerning the consequences in the economic and social area of the economic crisis. The slogan "Worker, employee, hand in hand towards the general strike" is showing the way the workers and labourers will take in near future.
Let us support the struggle of the TEKEL workers, let us raise the brotherhood of the workers against the capitalist attacks. Let us raise this resistance, which became an example for all the world proletariat everywhere.
Our party MLCP calls upon the vanguards of the proletariat of all countries to support this resistance raising solidarity in the squares and factories.

Long live the unity and struggle of the workers!
Long live proletarian internationalism!