RE: No retreat in Doha

[Sabri Oncu <soncu@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Charles wrote:

> CB: But don't we have to watch out for throwing the baby out with the bath
water, and treating
> a historic defeat as a total defeat ? The liberation movement has a
significant element of
> trial and error, learning from mistakes and sucesses.There have been many
successes in the
> socialist movement in the last 150 years, not just defeats.

I agree. I have never thought that "our" history is a history of just
defeats.

What is below is a very bad news from Turkey I just got. This news piece is
full of disinformation but at the moment I don't have anything better than
this. I strongly disagree with DHKP-C (the main party/front behind this
action) on many things, including their outright Stalinism that I cannot
accept by any means, as well as this particular hunger strike of theirs
which was doomed to fail, and even called them a few times to re-evaluate
what they were doing and stop this action, but regardless, I am not able to
find an appropriate adjective to describe this action of the Turkish State.

Now, how the hell this so-called "multitude" will stop such monstrosity
unless they organize into some institution and gain political power? What
global government is there that I can go and beg for an end to this
insanity?

Sabri
soncu@xxxxxxxxxxx

++++++++++

Monday November 5 3:54 PM ET

Turkish Police Raid Hunger Strike Homes, Four Dead
By Mustafa Ozer

ISTANBUL, Turkey (Reuters) - The bodies of four people were dragged away
Monday after Turkish police raided an Istanbul neighborhood where leftists
have been on hunger strike to protest against prison reforms.

The raid was the latest attempt by Turkey to deal with a protest that has
left more than 40 people dead of starvation, further stained the country's
human rights record and sparked a suicide bomb attack in September that
killed four people.

An official at the Turkey-based Human Rights Association (IHD) said the four
people were killed in the raids. State-run Anatolian news agency reported
the victims had set themselves on fire. Neither organization could provide
details.

A police officer at the scene told Reuters that authorities had found the
victims already dead underneath their beds after security forces entered the
homes.

Istanbul's health care administrator Osman Karaaslan was quoted by Anatolian
as saying 10 people suffered burns and carbon-monoxide poisoning after
setting themselves on fire.

Witnesses in Istanbul's Kucuk Armutlu district said police used armored
cars, tear gas and batons to enter private homes and pull out protesters.
Some of the detained were apparently weakened by months of hunger strike and
carried to hospitals in waiting ambulances.

``Police were firing their weapons at random,'' the IHD official said,
adding that at least one protester died by self-immolation and a home had
been burned to the ground.

Tear gas swirled around the low houses, mixing with fog and smoke from fires
lit by the protesters. The raids followed press reports accusing police of
having no sway in the neighborhood.

HUNGER STRIKE TOLL AT 42

The security forces would not say how many people they had detained and
Istanbul hospital officials declined to give details of casualties admitted.

Hundreds of leftist prisoners and a few dozen of their relatives have been
taking minimal nutrition since late last year in protest over new cell-based
prisons that replace large dormitory wards.

The death toll from the hunger strike has reached 42.

Protesters, joined by human rights activists and some European critics, have
said the new maximum-security jails isolate inmates, putting them at risk of
police brutality.

Allegations of torture by Turkish police are common.

A suicide bomber claimed by the Revolutionary People's Liberation
Party-Front (DHKP-C) killed himself in September along with two policemen
and an Australian tourist in an attack the militants said was in protest
over prison raids.

Last December, authorities stormed jails across the country in a bid to end
the hunger strike and force the transfer of inmates to the new high-security
jails. Two soldiers and 30 prisoners died in those raids.

The hunger strikers take sugar and some nutrients in order to prolong their
lives and their protests.

Turkish justice officials say the new jails with their smaller cells meet
European standards and are needed to break the influence of radical
political groups over crowded prison dormitories that are run beyond the
control of police.