The political responsibility for the massacre of workers and nature in the Çöpler mine in İliç lies with the political Islamist fascist regime and the AKP-MHP bloc. It is the AKP government that deliberately creates the conditions for the massacres of workers and nature. It is the AKP government and the fascist regime that offers the international mining monopolies all the precarity they want. Therefore, the fascist chief regime and its policies must be the target of the united political struggle that will include all working classes and the broadest sections of our peoples.
The capitalist order has always maintained by plundering labor and nature, and has continued its development by feeding on its destruction. In this sense, there can be no “catastrophic” event in capitalism, because capitalism itself is a disaster. Whether we look at the 500-year-long history of capitalism or the table of capitalist disasters of the last century—the plunder of labor and nature, two world wars, dozens of regional wars and imperialist occupations, countless ecological crises and destruction, hunger and food crises, etc. underlines the indisputable truth of capitalism’s character as an inherently catastrophic order.
In today’s period of imperialist globalization, capitalist disasters are devastating nature and society all over the world. The collapse that occurred in the cyanide gold production mine area in Erzincan–İliç is just one recent case. The event, which led to a massacre of nature as well as a massacre of workers, exemplifies the ‘natural capitalist production process’.
Canadian SSR Mining, an international mining monopoly, is establishing the Anagold mining company with an 80 percent capital investment share. It has acquired Çalık Holding, which is part of the AKP capital group, as a partner with 20 percent shares. With the partnership and subcontracting of the local-national collaborationist bourgeoisie, it attempts to melt the mountains of İliç with cyanide and thus expand its capital. Meanwhile, the fascist regime of capital is solving the problems of legal regulations and public reaction, standing in the way of Anagold. It is a symbiotic relationship that paves the way for capital.
The AKP government, always at the service of bosses, conducted the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) reports in İliç, as they did everywhere else. These reports serve to suppress and trivialize the struggle of ecologists. Erdogan, his son-in-law Berat, the former manager of Çalık Holding, former prime minister Binali Yıldırım and Minister of Environment and Urbanization Murat Kurum are pushing for the production of cyanide gold. By abusing state power at every stage, they clear the road for capital’s unbridled exploitation and poisoning of nature. They have so far erased 7.200.000 dollars tax debt of the Anagold company. They are always on the lookout for a way to increase production capacities. The capitalist disaster is being deliberately organized by the politicians of the autocracy.
Gold production by way of cyanide leaching is known for being an ecological disaster in itself. Everything is done on purpose. Even if the giant cyanide pools do not explode, ending in massive destruction, they do cause chronic ecological damage. Cyanide, which evaporates and mixes with groundwater, poisons all living life and pollutes nature. The production of cyanide gold in the Çöpler mine is thus a deliberate and man–made disaster on nature and laborers. The cyanide pool that collapsed is located right next to the Euphrates River, which nourishes large swathes of land in Minor Asia. Thus, the ecological destruction will not be limited to just one region, but will continue to increase in size over the years, eventually affecting the entire Middle East. Considering that the Euphrates River reaches all th way to the Persian Gulf, the catastrophic scale of ecological destruction ignited with the gold production of the Anagold company, must not be understated.
Massacres on workers, especially on miners and and ecology, taking place systematically in all production and service areas today, are direct results of a capital accumulation. This is exactly how the neoliberal regimes implemented across the world and in Turkey realizes themselves. Wild labor exploitation, reckless plunder of nature and ecological destruction are integral parts of the same capitalist process.
As the Erdogan has emphasized many times, the collaborationist Turkish bourgeoisie is adopting the Chinese model of development. Leaving aside its other aspects, this model offers international capital monopolies the cheapest labor force and permits them to loot nature. The fascist AKP–government is implementing exactly this capitalist model of growth and disaster. It is a form of neoliberal capital accumulation that is an enemy to all life. It achieves its goal of growth by killing workers and nature. Today’s capitalist wage slavery system exploits workers, pushing them to absolute limits, with many ending their lives as a consequence. These are brutal conditions of exploitation, the plunder of insecure, unorganized and cheap labor power. The social consequence is a miserable routine that is pushed out of many areas of life. The ever-growing masses affected by chronic mass unemployment are desperately lined up in the field of plunder and death of cheap labor exploitation. Mining licenses given to capital mean nothing but a death sentence to workers and nature.
All over the world, the mining of rare materials and precious minerals are becoming priority capital investment areas. Imperialist states are taking on a fierce competition in this field. Africa, China and Asia stand out as places where the production and competition of these resources are concentrated. Turkey is a country that is under attack of international capitalist greed and robbery, especially concerning gold mining. We see that the exploitation of labor and nature are intertwined. This forms a basis on which different social classes come together for the same vital cause. The struggle for labor and ecology appears as a common denominator. As a characteristic dimension of the last quarter century, it is gradually gaining more importance and developing into one effective ground of class struggle. The ecological struggle of the working class and peasant-farmers intersects on certain grounds and moments.
The spread and rise of the ecological struggle in the world points to the reality of capitalism developing on these two axes. As a result of the international capitalist division of labor, we can see the same patterns in large parts of the worls, from Brazil to India, from Turkey to China. Work murders on miners in China and Turkey bear many similarities. When Turkish and Chinese mine workers were killed by landslides in the same Zonguldak–mines, this fact was undermined even more so.
Especially the peasant resistance against gold mining in the Kaz Mountains, Gümüşhane, Dersim and Erzincan–İliç should be emphasized as very original ecological struggles. The united struggle of working class groups and ecological organizations against the ship São Paulo, which is to be transferred from Brazil to the Aliağa shipbreaking site, has broadened the political field and horizon of of laborology. The alliance of the working class movement against ecological destruction it is exposed to in the production process, and the struggle in defense of life taken up by different social groups exposed to the inequalities and injustices created by ecological destruction, point to a new niche of revolutionary potential. The Covid-19 pandemic, the February 6 earthquake and a series of ecological crises resultes in a new ecological consciousness against the reign of capitalist disasters.
In political struggle, goals must be concrete and aiming for the right target. Undoubtedly, it is the international monopoly SSR, Anagold company and its collaborator Çalık who are responsible for the massacres of workers and nature in Erzincan. In terms of political exposure, it is important to expose the plunder of and massacres on nature at hand of international monopolies and to raise awareness against them. However, a productive struggle must be based on concrete goals.
The political responsibility for the massacre of workers and nature in the Çöpler mine in İliç lies with the political Islamist fascist regime and the AKP-MHP bloc. It is the AKP government that deliberately creates the conditions for the massacres of workers and nature. It is the AKP government and the fascist regime that offers the international mining monopolies all the precarity they want. Therefore, the fascist chief regime and its policies must be the target of the united political struggle that will include all working classes and the broadest sections of our peoples. Revolutionary socialists must cease the moment to raise awareness regarding the multifaceted fascist regime and capitalist order and heighten class consciousness. Widespread acts of political reaction against the massacre of labor and nature, against fascist campaigning in the local election process, political exposure of the capitalist order and the bourgeois city, and revolutionary propaganda must be continued uninterruptedly.
*Editorial of the 155th issue of ATILIM newspaper, Voice of the Working Class and the Oppressed, dated February 16.