Having lost the majority vote in the recent elections and forced out of the government, the ex-ruling party AKP (Justice and Development Party –JDP) and the President is starting a civil war in Turkey.

To stay in power, the outgoing JDP made the Kurds who represent around 20% of the entire population the target. By attacking the Kurds, the JDP is hoping to ignite Turkish nationalism. When the racist, nationalism rises to a needed level, the Kurdish electoral party HDP will be declared to be behind the so-called “Kurdish terrorism.” If this plan works the HDP, which received 13% of votes in the recent elections, will be shut down, opening way for the JDP to grab its votes in the coming early elections.

Being a devout fan of the US, president Erdogan for a long time has been pushing for a regime change that would bring a presidency system that mimics the US. However, there is a strong opposition against changing the Turkish system to a US type, or Erdogan’s new presidency system, which is even less democratic than the current system in Turkey.

Losing the elections sent a strong message to the ruling party JDP that their dreams of a regime change was slipping way.

To stay in power, JDP’s plan kicked into high gear. The immediate step after losing the government was to start the civil war with military assaults against the Kurdish population. First, the Turkish government unilaterally ended a cease fire that had been forged by great compromises from the Kurds. In the chaos of the war environment Erdogan unilaterally and personally dropped the surprise bomb of a regime change. Erdogan neither has any authority nor can declare any “regime change.”

President Erdogan, a JDP member until forced to resign from his party when he became the president, in panic and illegally, announced that, “Whether you like it or not, the system of ruling is now changed.”

Apart from legally not even having the right to “change the regime” with an arbitrary personal choice, he forgot to tell this personal decision to the congress, the law makers, the constitutional court, or other official institutions. Erdogan has always felt that his word was above any law.

Following this illegal declaration and a blatant breach of democratic rule by the Turkish president and faced with the bloody attacks from the Turkish military, the police, the “special forces” and the Turkish intelligence agency MIT, some mayors to protect the Kurdish population in their provinces declared self-rule as a defensive action. The mayors of these cities had no other choice to defend their population against heavy military assaults, murder, torture, arbitrary arrests, police raids and the jihadists working closely with the Turkish state but to declare self-rule.

Turkish state is behind the rising jihadist terrorists in Iraq, Syria as well as within Turkey. Turkish state, hand in hand with Israel and Saudi Arabia help and support the jihadist terrorists against the Kurds and the Syrian government. In the 1990’s to crush the Kurdish population of Turkey, the Turkish state founded the illegal jihadist Sunni Kurdish organization called Hezbullah, not to be confused with the Shiite Hezbullah in Lebanon or other parts of the Middle East, to fight against the popular Kurdish forces. Hezbullah was a murderous, jihadist, illegal Kurdish formation representing the large landowners, rich collaborating Kurds and the ruling elite of the Turkish state and fighting alongside the Turkish state forces against those Kurds who wanted equality, democracy, and human rights. Many Kurds disappeared or were murdered in the hands of the Turkish government forces or after being kidnapped by the home grown Hezbullah.

The recent Kurdish mayors’ declaration of self-rule comes at the heel of the Turkish president declaring illegally that he had changed the regime. Together with this personal “regime change” declaration came the bloody attacks against the Kurds and the Kurdish towns, which some interpret as a revenge for the Kurdish fighters pushing back the ISIS forces in Syria. It is easy to see the balance of forces change when the Kurds fight back the ISIS forces. While Turkey has launched only 3 assaults against the ISIS forces, while saying they joined forces “against ISIS” with the US, currently more than 300 attacks have been waged against the Kurds as the daily Ozgur Gundem reported. There are reports that the Turkish air force bombed abandoned buildings from ISIS, giving the appearance of fighting with ISIS while Turkey’s attacks against the Kurds has killing more than 800 Kurdish citizens according to Turkish government reports. On the other hand, having the most radical, most progressive and most idealistic force in the region, the Kurdish liberation guerilla force PKK and its side organizations have shown a real resistance against the ISIS jihadists. Many towns and cities captured by the jihadist ISIS have been re-captured by the Kurdish forces in Iraq and Syria. PKK has the largest women guerilla force in the world. Woman fighters struggle for human rights, equality and freedoms alongside their male counterparts. Turkey hoped to end the Kurdish movement after the US and CIA tracked down its leader Apo, Abdullah Ocalan, and served him to the Turkish government on a silver platter after CIA captured him. US and Turkey have a very close relationship of cooperation, economic and trade agreements as well as arms and security agreements. Entire Turkish army is dependent on US arms and support. Turkey has one of the largest NATO participation in the world. However, contrary to what the racist Turks believed would happen, after the capture and solitary confinement of their leader on an isolated island in Turkey, the Kurdish movement grew to an unprecedented popularity among the Kurds.

Recently Turkey is doing the dirty work the US wants done in the region: While in reality supporting the ISIS as a force for regime change in Syria, to put out a show, a pretense of fighting it. US was instrumental, as reports indicate, to transfer the arms captured from the Libyan army after the murder of colonel Ghaddafi to Turkey where they were transported to Syria to be handed over to the ISIS terrorists. Kurds stood in the way during these operations. While the media showed pretense Turkish attacks against ISIS, Kurds were the only force who put up a real resistance to the jihadist expansion in the region. Men and women Kurdish fighters proved to be the only force that could stop and push back the jihadists in Northern Syria. For this reason Turkey decided to punish the Kurds for their stance against the jihadist terrorist ISIS.

Following the illegal declaration of the of president Erdogan that, “whether you like it or not, the regime has actually changed,” several mayors in provinces with Kurdish populations under the attack of the Turkish army, the police and the “special forces” were forced to declare the self-rule to defend their populations from such attacks. Military is said to be starting many forest fires that mysteriously coincided with the Turkish military assaults. Using all US supplied arms, helicopters and jet fighters; the Turkish government is bombing mountains, fields, villages and towns in Eastern Turkey. Electricity is cut in many towns, while the military surrounds and shells the towns. Cell phone connection is spotty at best to prevent people from reporting the massacre of the Kurds.

After unilaterally negating the previous cease fire between the Kurds and the Turkish state, the government’s attacks escalated. To “eliminate the Kurdish guerillas” Turkish army is setting the forests on fire, learned from the US strategy in Vietnam war called the “scorched earth.” With these forest fires Turkey is hoping to burn anybody in or around the mountains and forests since the jets and helicopters bomb at the same time to prevent anybody escaping.

These assaults resulted in some mayors and co-mayors to declare the self-rule to protect their cities, towns, villages and neighborhoods. Heavy Turkish artillery is pounding villages but wounded cannot be taken to the nearby hospitals because the military has also taken over the hospitals and forced the staff to some unknown location, presumably to take care of the wounded military personnel and to prevent any medical help to Kurds wounded by the government.

Facing the defensive self-rules by the mayors, the government is cracking down on these elected Kurdish officials. All those who have declared a democratic self-rule have been arrested and sent to jail while murderer jihadists who bombed and murdered 32 socialist youth bringing toys to a Kurdish town destroyed by ISIL and Turkish forces are roaming free, arm in arm with the Turkish military, police, “special forces” and the intelligence agency, the MIT.

Sendika.Org News (Mehmet Bayram)