ISTANBUL - "If we can create a strong opposition movement, we will ensure that peace evolves into the right track," says SYKP Co-chair Feray Mertoğlu.
While discussions on a democratic solution to the Kurdish issue have been initiated following the talks with PKK Leader Abdullah Öcalan, the Peoples' Democratic Congress (HDK) has launched a "1 million signatures for peace" campaign to socialise the demand for peace. Feray Mertoğlu, Co-chair of the Socialist Refoundation Party (SYKP), one of the executives of the campaign supported by many civil society organizations representing different segments of society and one of the components of the HDK, emphasised that the campaign is important for the socialisation of the demand for peace.
Feray Mertoğlu said, "This campaign is a step to find out what everyone wants peace to be achieved and to produce policies accordingly. In this context, our campaign continues and we are starting to get results. As HDK, we organised a two-day conference in which everyone took part with excitement."
Feray Mertoğlu underlined that the conflict process affects everyone and therefore everyone needs peace and said: "Society has been militarised for security reasons and the environment of violence has increased. Therefore, all segments of society need peace. All state apparatuses are in the hands of the government and the government instrumentalises them as it wishes and uses them as an apparatus of force. The judiciary, the media, all bureaucratic institutions are used as pressure. Peace is needed to dissipate this oppression."
Feray Mertoğlu added, "Our people, municipal council members and deputy mayors, who were elected with the votes of the people and who submitted their own documents to the election board and were accepted, were arrested. The government wants to intimidate and destroy all opposition in order to maintain its own survival. But if peace is established, everyone in the country will benefit from it."
Feray Mertoğlu stated that Abdullah Öcalan's messages "are important for peace and democratisation". She underlined that the message is a call to the government for democratisation. Stressing to the difference in attitude between the AKP and the MHP, Feray Mertoğlu said, "But today, the government is in favour of one of its partner (Devlet Bahçeli) saying, 'Let Öcalan come and speak in the Parliament. Tuskish-Kurdish brotherhood should be registered', while the other partner Tayyip Erdoğan says, 'We will en this terrorism'. Then, if the Kurds respond to this move by calling for an honourable peace, the government has to answer what the steps will be. Therefore, if this peace has become possible, without leaving it at the mercy of the government and the sovereigns, if we put forward a struggle today for the socialisation of this peace, if we can bring it together with social dynamics and create a strong opposition movement, we will ensure that peace evolves in the right direction. Carrying out these activities today is to be instrumental for the free days that will come in the future."
Feray Mertoğlu stated that Abdullah Öcalan is an interlocutor for peace and that he should work under free conditions and said, "The state must prepare an environment where he will be both safe and comfortable, an environment where he will be free and more active. This cannot be done without meeting and consulting with anyoune while in isolation. At the same time, the isolation continues, there are detentions, there are trustees. Everyone needs to think about how to build peace. Everyone needs to face their past and themselves. There can be an environment where people can talk without antagonising each other and struggle for the possibility of another world together. That is why everyone should do what they can for peace."
Feray Mertoğlu asked everyone in the country to support the demand for peace and added, "I ask everyone who has suffered rights violations in the country to support the demands of the Kurds, I ask everyone to do something for peace, to contribute to peace. First of all, everyone should sign a petition for peace. Today, regardless of ethnicity, the usurpation of the rights of Kurds and the trustee system must pe opposed. Everyone needs to sign a petition for peace by combining their own demands with the demands of the Kurds."
MA / Ömer İbrahimoğlu