Communist Party of Turkey (TKP) Izmir Provincial Organization has released a statement on the fires in Izmir that burned hundreds of acres of forests around the city.
Stating that the inability of controlling the fire is a result of privatizing fire fighting in the country. The full statement is as follows:
Our city has been on fire for more than two days. Hundreds of hectares turned to ashes, hundreds of animals lost their lives, lungs of a whole city were damaged.
There are doubts about the causes of the fire. The doubts are the results of the facts that the fires started at multiple locations at the same time, the burning areas have gold mines, and there are wind energy and housing projects in these areas. As the darkness gets uncovered, we will see the truth.
In this era when the fire extinguishing techniques from the ground and from the air are advanced, the responsibility of the fires that had not been extinguished, for whatever reason, for days is the ruling government.
By the AKP government, the resources of the society were made available to the capitalists for years and the society was made vulnerable to such disasters. As in the case of previous fire incidents, even extinguishing activities have become subjects of leases, tenders, and rent-seeking.
After almost every fire, intentional or unintentional, the burned areas have been opened to the capital. In this picture, capitalists have always been profitable from fires.
In the fire that lasted for days in Izmir, all these traces are present.
In particular, planes for fire fighting were used insufficiently. "Firefighting by air", which is considered one of the most effective methods in such fires, has never been used.
At this point, the AKP government and the greed of the capitalists are primarily responsible for this painful picture.
The mentality that gives all state resources to the needs of capital should be eliminated from our country.
All government and municipal bodies should ensure that these areas will not be opened to construction and other projects. An urgent program for the reforestation of these areas should be developed. The mountains of İzmir should be renewed with its various trees and flowers; natural life should be reestablished.
Communist Party of Turkey will be the follower of this ecocide and it will fulfill its responsibility to regain the forests.
TKP Izmir Provincial Organization
