KCK Executive Council co-chair Besê Hozat said in an interview with Medya Haber: "If we are going to talk about the disaster of the century, the disaster of the century is the AKP-MHP fascist government." 

Hozat said:  "Turkey and Kurdistan are an earthquake zone. This is a known fact. But until now, there have been no appropriate architectural measures. Precautions have not been taken accordingly. Now, a huge earthquake took place there, a great disaster happened. The fascist government also talks about this and calls it the biggest disaster of the century. The press affiliated with the ruling circles also covers this topic very intensely and refers to it as the disaster of the century as well. So is this earthquake really the disaster of the century, or is it the mentality and the government? This is a very serious matter of debate. It is clear that the AKP-MHP regime is the disaster of the century. Earthquakes are natural disasters. In many parts of the world, earthquakes far stronger than this one regularly occur. The example of Japan has been discussed a lot recently. Japan experiences earthquakes with a magnitude of over 9, but there are no serious losses of life there. The buildings in Japan are higher than the buildings in Turkey, but they do not suffer any damage. This is the case in many parts of the world. So why is there so much destruction in Turkey? Hundreds of thousands of people have lost their lives. Millions of people have suffered great pain and have been traumatized for years and decades. This has happened because of the fascist government in Turkey, which is the real cause of the disaster. The greatest disaster of the century is the fascist AKP-MHP government."

Hozat continued: "Erdoğan says, ´this is destiny, we need to understand this as fate´. He really takes people for fools, for a herd. But this period is over now. He has done this a lot until now and has achieved a certain level of results. He made a certain section of people believe in the perceptions created by him. Those who didn’t believe in it, he gathered them around himself with the help of nationalism, religion and racism and aligned the opposition with the slogan of ´homeland, nation, Sakarya´. But now this period is over. The fascist dictator Erdoğan can no longer deceive society by calling the recent developments destiny. The opposite is the case: Now the people and society will determine Erdoğan’s destiny.

There are reports that Erdogan has collected more than 100 billion [dollars] since 1999. Some say 48 billion, others 83 billion. But most likely the amount of money collected exceeds 100 billion. Where did this money go? Let’s leave the earthquake tax aside for a moment. Every day a lot of taxes are being collected from the people, billions [of dollars] are being collected. These taxes are collected to serve the people. Everywhere in the world, states collect taxes for this purpose. This money is supposed to be returned to the people in the form of services. So where do these taxes go? Besides the earthquake tax, where do these taxes go? These taxes are spent on the genocidal war against the Kurds. They went to the war of sociocide in Turkey. The money goes to the war of genocide against nature and is turned into profit. It goes to the AKP’s and Erdoğan’s trolls. It goes to Erdoğan’s Sadat [private military company in Turkey] and to his Islamist proxy-forces. For 11 years, an army of tens of thousands of Islamist proxy fighters has been established. The Turkish state, this fascist government, provides all the training and equipment, logistics, ammunition, maintenance, livelihood and shelter to these gangs. Where does this money come from? From the taxes paid by the people. The genocidal war against the Kurds is being waged with the taxes of the people. Every day tons of bombs rain down on the mountains of Kurdistan. The price of each bomb was hundreds of thousands of dollars, as they themselves admitted. Since the recent earthquake, thousands of bombs have continued to be dropped non-stop. All the taxes are spent on this, they go to profit-seekers, to their own lackeys and supporters. An elite has formed around the palace, a bourgeoisie has formed and this bourgeoisie is getting richer every day based on the people’s taxes. They each have billions of dollars in different banks around the world."

Hozat added: "What is happening now in Turkey and Kurdistan is definitely a sociocide. Whole cities have disappeared. Hatay, Adıyaman, Antep, Malatya, Maraş and Iskenderun, their districts and villages have been wiped off the map. In other words, a whole region has been completely destroyed. The governor of Şırnak said recently that the number of lost lives was 5 times higher than the official numbers. At that time, they had already announced 40 thousand deaths. Multiply this by 5 and you can see that he was talking about 200 thousand deaths. But there are also more than 200 thousand people missing. People are still under the rubble. A societicide has been perpetrated. People have been left to die everywhere. We have always said that this state is a genocidal state, that this is a genocidal government. This is obvious because this state has been pursuing such a policy against the Kurds for 100 years. It has also been carrying out an all-out genocidal attack on the Kurds for the last 7 years. Now it has inflicted the same kind of genocide on the society of Turkey and Kurdistan in the 15 to 17 days after the earthquake – in front of the eyes of the world. This will have very heavy consequences. There is a measure they call the construction amnesty. This amnesty means opening the geography of Turkey and Kurdistan to plunder, extortion and theft. It means providing a legitimate ground for opportunists and thieves.

The area where this earthquake took place is a geography historically inhabited by Kurds and Arab Alevis. They [AKP-MHP government] will implement a very serious migration policy in this territory after the earthquake. We know that they have already started to implement it. They will want to bring the genocide plan to a conclusion here by gradually changing the demography in this area. This is one of the first areas where the Eastern Reform Plan [Şark Islahat Planı] was implemented. The Maraş Massacre [in December 1978] was also carried out on this basis. The main aim of the Maraş Massacre was to completely uproot the Kurdish Alevis from west of the Euphrates river. The aim was to kill those who lived there and to force the remaining people to migrate. It was to completely de-Kurdify and de-Alevize this geography. It was to purge all Kurdish Alevis from this area. The same policy has also been pursued against Arab Alevis over the years. Now this is being carried out in a very intense way. With this earthquake, they will put this policy into practice even more seriously. There are already signs of this. People are being displaced and forced to migrate. Especially to the towns and villages where a lot of Alevis live, no aid went to those villages and towns where both Kurdish Alevis and Arab Alevis live. The people there were completely left to die. The approach was that those who died would die and those who were left would be forced to migrate anyway. Now a serious policy is being implemented in this regard. This is a 100-year old policy of the state. The AKP-MHP government wants to bring this to a conclusion. It wants to use the earthquake for this. This is very clear. But our people are aware of this."

Hozat continued: "We have been waging a great struggle against this genocide policy for decades. There is a serious awareness among our people with regards to this issue. They should never fall for these policies. Our people should not leave their places and land. They may experience difficulties and pain. But they should never leave their land. In the areas they might migrate to, they will face pain ten times greater than this. They will face great hardships and lose their honor, all their values, memory and their history there. Migration will lead to such severe consequences. Therefore, our people must endure the current hardships and suffering and not allow to be separated from their geography, even just for a period of time. Our people in the country and abroad need to provide very serious support to our people, develop serious projects and rebuild all the affected areas in the spring. The Kurdish and Alevi villages and towns there can easily be rebuilt. One or two-storey buildings can be built very easily in the spring. So far, with the support of our people, there has been serious help both from inside and outside the country. If this solidarity and support continues, we can really rebuild our villages. We can rebuild our towns and we can rebuild them very solidly. With solidarity, a common spirit and financial support, we can turn these places into living spaces again. The fascist, genocidal and colonialist state and the government pursue a plan to completely de-Kurdify and de-Alevize these areas. This is a genocide plan and it must never be allowed to happen. Displacement constitutes genocide. In order to defeat this plan, the people should not leave their land. They should also not sell their land and places to the state. They must not fall for such games and traps. This is very important right now. Because the people are very desperate. They are in great distress and pain. Based on this desperation, a lot of games, traps and plans are being made by the genocidal forces. Everyone should be very sensitive about this. People should not sell their land, place and homeland and should stay in their places. We must rebuild these places and re-establish our lives in our lands. This is important. This is how the genocide plan will be defeated. This is also a struggle, this is also resistance.

A really strong social solidarity has emerged. Both from other cities, villages and towns of North Kurdistan and from South Kurdistan. The KDP and the Turkish state tried to prevent the help of our people from South Kurdistan, but they showed a very serious example of solidarity. Even though Rojava and the people of North and East Syria were themselves affected by the earthquake, they showed serious solidarity and support for North Kurdistan and the earthquake zones in Turkey. A significant number of our people from this earthquake zone have been living in Europe for years. A very serious example of solidarity has emerged there as well. There was a very strong solidarity from our international friends as well. In Turkey, the HDP, HDK, DTK, DBP, other non-governmental organizations, cemevis [Alevi places of worship] and the Democratic Islamic Movement have shown very strong support. Many lives were saved with their help. People were pulled out from under the rubble. Those who came out from under the rubble found a tent, food and water. This is a great example of solidarity. A great national consciousness, national spirit and national solidarity have emerged among the Kurds both at the international and national level. The same is true for the women’s movement. Both the Women’s Movement in Turkey and the Kurdistan Women’s Freedom Movement have mobilized all their resources. They have shown a very strong example of solidarity. In all cities, all women worked hard, and all non-governmental organizations as well. Organized, oppositional, democratic political structures worked hard. All these structures organized themselves very quickly. And they intervened very quickly. Thus, they have really shown a great example of solidarity."

Hozat added: "In this sense, it has really been our people, the civil institutions and the democratically organized structures that intervened in the earthquake zones. There was no such intervention by the state. On the contrary, the state obstructed the solidarity of the people and the civil society organizations. The intervention of this fascist government, this fascist state, was mainly directed against the structures that were in solidarity with society. Due to this solidarity, some of the wounds of society have been healed and society has been able to remain on its feet. It is important to continue like that. This must be transformed into a form of permanent organization. This earthquake has revealed how important self-organization is, how great a need for self-administration is, how necessary all this is. In a way, this earthquake has also led to the collapse of the fascist nation-state system. It has shown how unnecessary these centralized fascist nation-state systems are, how anti-social they are, how anti-human, anti-society they are. It has revealed how vital self-administration, democratic autonomous structures, democratic confederal systems and self-organization are. In this sense, this has also been a test of Leader Apo’s democratic nation, democratic autonomous system and democratic confederal system. The social solidarity has revealed how much these projects resonate with society in Turkey and how strong the grounds for this are. And it has also revealed that Turkey will no longer be the old Turkey. In other words, Turkey cannot be governed by such a rigid, centralist, fascist nation state system and administration. The construction of a democratic republic based on self-administration can sustain Turkey and keep it alive. This is also true for the whole world. This is a global trend. In Turkey, this reality imposes itself as a sine qua non. It is necessary to organize the people on this basis."