The Communist Party of Turkey (TKP) issued a statement on the massacre in the Çorlu district of the city of Tekirdağ, Turkey, on July 8, as a result of the derailment of a passenger train.
Titled "A massacre, not an accident," the statement starts with wishes for a quick recovery for those injured, and with condolences to the relatives of those who lost their lives.
A total of 24 people were killed and 300 others were injured after the train came off the rails.
The TKP underlined that the real reason of the incident was privatisation and marketism that constitutes the core of the policies of the re-elect, 16-year-old AKP government, and also reminding the occupational murders and massacres that had happened in coal mines in the past in Soma and Zonguldak, it warned that such incidents will happen in the 3rd airport of İstanbul, which has been built in a risky area, or at the nuclear power plant that is being built over a fault line.
The statement said: "The only party to be held liable of this accident is the marketist ruling party who favour the profitability of the capitalists, governing the whole country as a huge company, burdening the people. The incident at hand is definitely not an unfortunate accident, but an obvious cascade of negligent practices."
The statement also reminded of the high-speed train accident in the Pamukova district of the city of Sakarya in 2004, and noted that no lessons have been taken from that disaster in the following years.
The TKP stated: "The tenders given by disregarding technical requirements overleaped the engineering problems that have solutions, road guarding has been cancelled out because of the greed that finds employment of a few people unnecessary, leaving the railway unwatched against damages has been preferred, and accidents such as this one and losses of lives have already been changed. Even if only for this reason, this accident is not by recklessness but by intention. The intention is to choose profits over human lives – this is how this social order operates."
Reminding people of the past accidents and massacres, and warning them for the ones possible to come, the TKP called out for people to take their fate in their own hands, and join the struggle against this social order that grinds people into pieces.
The train, carrying 362 passengers, came off the rails after "heavy rain and a landslide" on to the tracks, Turkish officials said. But critics say the derailment could have been prevented. Experts from a Turkish engineering union issued a statement saying a drainage system was incorrectly built.
