01 June / Internationale Bulletin / No. 140

Following an explosion in one of the Soma coal mines, operated by the Soma Holding as a subcontracting company, on 13 May 2014, 307 workers have lost their life according to the official figures. But in reality about 400-500 workers have lost their life.

As running for to help Soma mine workers, the progressive workers’ unions, public workers, technical and medical associations, communist, revolutionary and antifascist parties organised many protest actions.

DISK (Confederation of Revolutionary Workers’ Union), KESK (Confederation of Public Workers’ Unions), TTB (Union of Turkish Doctors) and TMMOB (Chamber of Turkish Architects and Engineers) have organised one day strike on 14-16 May, and press conferences and action of mourning on other days.

Limter-Is and Dev-Saglik-Is unions affiliated to DISK have tried to develop active strike actions.

In parallel to call by progressive unions and institutions, the Socialist Party of the Oppresed, Socialist Democracy Party, Peoples’ Democratic Party, the Peace and Democracy Party of the Kurdish movement and etc have organised many actions.

Communist and revolutionary forces have actively taken part in these actions.

The actions spread to dozens of cities such as Istanbul, Izmir, Ankara, and Amed (Kurdistan).

The miners and people in Soma have organised vigils, silent demonstrations, and protest actions against collaborator unions and the Prime Minister on his visit.

On the first day of massacre, the university students have organised protest actions in universities. They have occupied the ITU (Istanbul Technical University) Mine Faculty.

People have organised protest actions in neighbourhoods.

The Turk-Is , the biggest collaborator, tired to ignore the massacre by organising a 3 minutes of work stoppage, and therefore saw the anger of workers. The Unions’ Unity of Power, formed by the oppositional unions within the Turk-Is, such as petrol, food, cargo and leather workers, have participated in the strike actively.

In the protest actions against the massacre of mine workers in Soma, the people targeted the collaboration between AKP government and the capital. Demands against neoliberal attacks were shouted. The workers and protestors demanded the resignation of the Prime Minister and relevant ministers, trial of the bosses in subcontracting company Soma Holding and the banning of subcontracting system.

By taking part broadly within these resistances, the Kurdish national democratic movement has shown that it will mobilise wide labourer masses for the demands of workers-labourers in Turkish cities. The mothers of the young Kurdish people, who were killed following bombings by the Turkish war-planes by the orders of the Prime Minister and the Chief of Military Staff in Roboski, met with the wives and mothers of Soma miners and raised the flaf of internationalist brotherhood. 

There were also many international supports from workers around the world.

The Soma massacre once more has shown the bloody accumulation of capitalism through painful prices to the working class and labourers. It has once more reminded the workers movement about the consequences of inefficient resistances on the neoliberal deregulation. It has proved the backwardness of workers movement escalates the aggression and brutality of the capital and its most bigot government, the AKP.   

AKP has tried to prevent demonstrations to get bigger and threaten its power. Revolutionary and antifascist forces have continuously fought against police terror. Many demonstrators got injured. Some of them were in critical conditions. Our Party MLKP and some other revolutionaries attacked to the various police stations in neighbourhoods of Istanbul.

The protests against the massacre of Soma miners have became one of the important steps of struggle against the power and capital. It was also meaningful when it came on the same anniversary dates of June uprising; it has rather scared the political power.

It has played a role in warning the workers movement to wake up. The miners, who lastly went on to the street on 25^th of May, start resigning from membership of collaborator union and transfer their membership to the union affiliated with DISK.

While the struggle was continuing, the police, who used gun on the revolutionaries those who were protesting the massacre of Berkin Elvan in Istanbul-Okmeydani neighbourhood, murdered an Allewite labourer named Ugur KURT. After that they have killed Ayhan YILMAZ by shouting on the head with tear-gas capsules. Revolutionary and progressive forces, the people from Alewite belief have waged new protests against the police terror and the Prime Minister Erdogan’s speech, almost giving “order to shout” to police. More than 50 thousand people joined in the demonstrations organised by revolutionary forces and Alewite democratic movement against the hall meeting which was held during Erdogan’s visit to Germany in Cologne.