Turkey's Bloodless Coup Prelude to Mass Repression

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Tanks in Istanbul: (above) London demonstration against the coup last Sunday supported by WSL is therefore to the potentially now been detained along with For a General Strike in Turkey.

The mpossibility of a Parliamentary solution to Turkey's economic and political crisis has been brutally confirmed by last week's long expected military coup.

General Kenan Evren and the other military chiefs who comprise the National Security Council have displaced Demirel's minority right wing Justice Party government and with it the remnants of bourgeois democratic rights still intact after nearly two years of escalating martial law.

The Grand National Assembly for a whole period virtually paralysed has been closed down, and with it all unions, apart from the state-run Turk-Is federation.

The right to strike, already heavily restricted has now been completely abolished and there are moves by the junta to impose wage rises substantially below the 100% plus inflation rate.

Among the thousands arrested are MPs, trade union leaders, militants and political activists.

The junta has declared its intention to put many of them on trial and execute those already in custody who have previously had their death sentence postponed.

The generals now take on direct responsibility for the problems faced by the ruling class. Their ravaged capitalist economy, a bankrupt victim of the international crisis, has long since only been sustained by vast amounts of credit from the IMF and other imperialist money-lenders complementing the debts already owed directly to western governments.

Turkey's ability to pay back even the interest on the staggering $16 billion total borrowed is dubious. Finance Minister Turgut Ozal, kept on by the military, was turned away empty-handed by • British bankers only days before the coup. exist.

Throughout the seventies Turkey's trade deficit accelerated; the value of imports doubled and exports dropped 1971. by half.

It was the obstinacy and scale of this problem which had forced both Demirel and short-term regimes limited. Republican People's Party 'progressive' leader Ecevit before him to more and more rely on the military in the face of their own failure to 'democratically' suppress the militant struggles of the working class, youth and Kurdish people.

When earlier this year unstable governments. Demirel embarked on a savage rescue programme imposed by the IMF even Ecevit was forced to say that to enforce it would Turkey as normal. require a South American-style dictatorship.

With the native capitalist class tied hand and foot to more secure social force of imperialism and finance capital, fascism that reactionaries inside the material basis for anything and outside the country now approaching stable bourgeois look for a longer-term answer. democracy simply does not Complimenting the military, the gendarmerie and police Stark confirmation of this attacks on a growing scale over has been the previous resort to the last few years have been the military takeovers in 1960 and fascist bands of Grey Wolves, the stormtroopers of respectBut today conditions are able' General turned politician quite different, which makes Alparslam Turkes, leader of the direct comparisons with those Nationalist Action Party.

Fascist terrorist provocation Externally the present crisis has been the source of most of of imperialism, and particularly the fierce street violence which its weakened military authority has brought 5,000 killings in the within the Middle East means last two years. that NATO partner Turkey is Directed at any organisation looked to as a key ingredient or individual regarded as in any for reasserting supremacy in a way "liberal or pro-socialist, region comprised of hostile or especially union militants, it reached a new stage at the end At this moment NATO- of July with the assassination of organised manoeuvres including DISK leader Kemal Turkler. British troops are going ahead in Fascists strengthened Temporary stability of the Turkish state is not enough. It The fact that Turkes has other political leaders should fool no-one. The fascists have become bolder as state repression has . grown, and their influence in the army and police can only be strengthened by the latest developments.

Under these conditions the building of workers anti-fascist militias takes on a new urgency.

Illusions in the junta as 'neutral' are in line both with the way it has been presented in the British press as merely a 'peacekeeping' alternative to civil war, and Evren's careful populist declarations.

As well as the Presidency he has taken upon himself responsibility for fighting against anarchy, terrorism, divisiveness and Communist, fascist and fanatical religious ideologies' and pledges faith in the nationalist tradition of Attaturk.

Made Man of the Week' by the Financial Times it is nevertheless questionable whether he will last at the head of a regime which is clearly determined hold power for a long time.

Though other chiefs from the 'democratic' and 'constitutional' wing of the army such as Pinochet and Videla have presided over mass slaughter in South America, like every other section of the state and society the army is polarised, and the openly pro-fascist faction is preparing its moves.

Confrontations

The bloodless' takeover lack of mass resistance at point will not last.

Only major confrontations between the workers, unemployed and poor peasants and the ruling class and its allies can decide the issues which are at stake.

The workers ability to struggle remains intact, and the Kurdish people will continue their fight against colonialism.

The deployment of unreliable conscript soldiers, now being sent into previously 'no go left-controlled areas, contains big dangers for the bourgeoisie.

The workers organisations must join forces in a united front for the tasks ahead, on policies expressing their independent class interests which can rally the petty bourgeoisie behind them.

Sapped strength

Policies which strategically ally the working class with a 'democratic' and 'anti-imperialist' sections of the ruling class ranged behind the bourgeois RPP have already done more than enough to disarm and sap the workers' fighting capacity.

Foremost in pressing this criminal line have been the Stalinist leaders of the ComCont'd p.2, col. 6

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caught out on The regime of General Romeo Lucas Garcia in Guatemala continues to murder oppositionists at the rate of 30 each day, a toll which includes the whole trade union leadership. i However the dictatorship has suffered two heavy blows: the first of these was the successful sugar workers strike which gained 10.0% wage rises.

The confidence of workers and peasants was given a further boost last week when the government press secretary Elias Barahona called a press conference while on holiday in Panama to reveal that he was a member of the Ejercito Guerrillero de los Pobres (Guerrilla Army of the Poor) and had been infiltrating the government for four years!

Barahona's main job had been to put out propaganda claiming that the daily killings were caused by fighting between left and right wing groups.

He has now broadcast the fact that the two right wing paramilitary organisations, the Secret Anti-communist Army and the Death Squadron are under the direct command of the President, the Interior Minister and four others.

He also revealed direct links between CIA agents in Mexico and Guatemala and prominent government and court officials and confirmed reports that 2,000 ot Somoza's former National Guard have been incorporated into the army.

It seems that top Guatemalan, Honduran and El Salvadorean army officers have drawn up plans for a military offensive in El Salvador in the event of a guerrilla victory and against Nicaragua in the long term. . Carter rashly Sn JJ° The Namibian nationalist organisation SWAPO last week convened a conference in Paris to "generate a solidarity campaign" in Europe aimed at isolating South Africa's puppet administration in Namibia and at pressing for sanctions on the South African government.

700 representatives of imperialist and African governments, the UN, the World Council of Churches, and other bodies attended.

SWAPO leader Sam Nujoma attacked the obstruction of the UN plan for independence by Repression in Guatemala mílitary aid to Guatemala at the peak of his "human rights' phase: but the regime has found à willing supplier in Israel.

The Israelis provide not only the military hardware necessary to sustain a thoroughly unpopunter-insurgency" advisers, PIn(oc oligarchy but also their skills honed on Palestinian backs. Chile and Argentina also provide training in what is chillingly termed 'interrogation techniques.

Barahona also revealed that Britain has reached a shoddy imperialist deal with Guatemala on the future of Belize, ceding a third of its territory-against the wishes of the people-in return for an assurance that Britain can the South African gor inme and the secret collusion retwe the South African and Weste governments.

The conference followed in the wake of the, recent leadership shake-up in SWAPO.

SWAPO's central committee met in Angola at the end of July, weeks after the massive military attack launched by the South African regime into southern Angola, in which South African generals claimed major successes against SWAPO's guerrilla army. (See Socialist Press no. 206). have a permanent military base within its frontiers allowing Guatemala access to the Caribbean.

The fourth congress of the Latin American Anti-communist Confederation met in Buenos Aires last week to denounce the *pressures and threats of Cartercommunism against the valiant governments of Argentina, Guatemala, Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile and Bolivia.

However, revolutionaries cannot afford to dismiss these as insane ramblings while those who perpetuate them oppress the masses of Central and South America with the approval and material support of our imperialist governments.

At the central committee meeting, the leading clique around Nujoma expelled nine top SWAPO officials-including the acting vice-president Mishake Muyongo, two other central committee members and four military commanders.

the biggest ever upheaval in the SWAPO bureaucracy.

A SWAPO statement accused the nine leaders of "counterrevolutionary secessionist activities" and of accepting bribes from South African military intelligence.

Muyongo was accused of (Car o reconstitute CANU Union)-a regional organisation SWAPO demonstrators in Windhoek The Chinese bureaucracy has been caught with its trousers down in its eagerness to attack the Soviet Union.

They seized on the struggles of workers. in Poland not for their revolutionary potential but to prove that the Soviet bureaucracy is "social imperialist'.

They even printed all the 21 demands of the Gdansk workers on the front page of the Peoples However, this apparent support for strikes and condoning of free trade unions has come as a surprise to Chinese workers who have experienced exactly the same stranglehold on their organisations as workers in Poland!

Chairman Hua Guofeng was forced to deal with this subject in his two hour contribution to the National People's Congress which has just ended.

He talked of giving unions a more prominent role, of reducing bureaucracy and liberalising' the economy.

The attack on various government departments and their leaders was a recurrent theme throughout the Congress.

Hua himself even talked of a bureaucracy which "has hampered all kinds of work and aroused much popular discontent"

Warnings were given to those who wish to look after their own interests at the expense of the people as a whole.

The strength of feeling in the country on this question even forced its way into the Congress where hostility to the leadership was expressed for the first time.

Objection to government policy included calls for greater formed in 1963 to counter South African plans for setting up stooge bantustan governments in Namibia, and which merged with SWAPO in 1964.

Muyango retaliated by accusing the leadership of Ovambo tribalism and gangsterism. His credibility was dealt a heavy blow by an official South African press statement claiming that he had been in touch with a minister in the stooge Caprivi bantustan government.

The South African regime and the imperialist powers clearly played their part in fostering this latest split.

But the grounds for splits and antagonisms (often resulting in armed conflicts) within the SWAPO leadership have already been laid by the reformist politics of petty bourgeois nationalists.

The SWAPO leadership is an embattled bureaucracy, weakened by the consequences of its own reformist policies.

As Socialist Press has pointed out (SP 194) the pressure being exerted on the bureaucracy in the face of the South African imperialist drive for stable capitalist control, is bound to sharpen the internal divisions in the opportunist The massive South African attack on Angola in June-July (which has been followed by ongoing smaller raids by jet bombers and paratroopers)

clearly dealt a heavy blow to the military capacity of SWAPO.

At the same time, it increased the pressure on the SOCIALIST PRESS, Deng democracy, for restrictions on the power of the Communist Party and criticisms of the marriage law.

However, the. Democracy Wall in Peking which played an important role in past oppositions has been closed down.

When Hua talked of 'liberalisaing' the economy he didn't mean giving workers more rights but of opening up even more Chinese workers to direct exploitation by capitalism.

The present economic system, he said, consisted mainly of what was copied from the Soviet Union in the 1950s and certain practices derived from the civil war period.

It was necessary to retain a mixed economy of state-owned enterprises, collectively owned ones and individual production.

Announced at Congress were more inducements to foreign capitalists to operate in China.

A low tax rate of 15% is being offered to foreign enterprises to operate in special econpush SWAPO MPLA regime to towards further compromises with imperialism.

The SWAPO leadership succumbs to the pressures of the imperialist powers, the Kremlin bureaucracy and bourgeois nationalist governments, because it is to these forces that it looks in its ambitions to govern an independent Namibia.

Intrigues

While the workers, guerrilla fighters and poor peasants of Namibia show time and again their militant determination in the courageous struggle against colonial rule and imperialist exploitation, the SWAPO tops engage in opportunist intrigues and offer the mass struggle only the treacherous policies of popular frontism.

The solidarity campaign bureaucracy at the Paris coMPoence is no more than a desperate class collaborationist manoeuvre. Reformists and Stalinists in the labour movement of the imperialist countries will be eager to take up its toothless appeals to the ruling class.

Only the international working class, through independent class action can materially and consistently aid the struggle of the Namibian masses.

The fight to mobilise inde pendent workers action in support of the Namibian struggle is part of the fight to break the grip of the existing misleaders of the labour movement.

*No secret diplomacy. All omic zones established in Guangdong Province, south China, near Hong Kong.

No restrictions on remitting profits were mentioned.

And according to the standing committee, "assets, profits and other legitimate rights and interests" of businesses in the economic zones will be protected under Chinese law.

The Congress formally approved the resignation of Hua Guofeng from his post as Prime Minister and of Deng Xiaoping as his deputy.

Both men retain their party posts. Zhao Liyang, an experienced provincial administrator, is to take over. He has been a supporter of Deng:

Hua has been in a more and more untenable position in the face of the growing and open attacks on Mao and his policies. Six other deputies also resigned, some on grounds of age.

The occasion of the Congress was used to attack the sentences meted out during the Cultural Revolution and to announce the forthcoming show trial of the 'Gang of Four'.

But no shuffling round of the bureaucracy will solve the problems confronting the workers and peasants in China. Nor does the further expansion of capitalist exploitation.

Only the development of independent organs of struggle and the political overthrow of Mao's heirs in the Chinese Stalinist bureaucracy can open up the road to the planned expansion of China's nationalised economy under genuine workers' management.

deals and negotiations to be opened up to the workers' movement.

*No business secrets. Open the books of all firms involved in Namibia.

*For immediate blacking of all arms and related supplies to the South African government.

*Nationalise under workers' management all firms (including banks) involved in Namibia.

*For workers' control of trade.

TURKEY ... from p.l munist Party of Turkey-who even now will be looking for ways to preserve it.

Hopes in Ecevit and the RPP have helped open the door to the present reaction.

Democratic rights and their defence are inseparable from the struggle for state power and socialist revolution itself.

The building of a mass party which bases itself on the principles and programme of the Bolsheviks is continued today only by those fighting for the reconstruction of the Fourth *Down with military dictatorship in Turkey!

*For a general strike in *Release all political prisoners!

*United front of workers' organisations against fascism!

*Build workers' militias against fascist and state terror!

*Self determination for the Kurdish people!

*For a workers' and peasants' government in

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