BERGAMA VILLAGERS NEED YOUR SUPPORT
Emet Degirmenci
17 April 2002
The situation in Turkey is really critical at the moment. We need
your URGENT international support for Bergama Villagers.
Unfortunately, Turkish Government violated the
recent court rule by giving permanent license to Normandy Mining in
Bergama, Turkey.
The reason is that Turkish Government insists on giving mining licenses
to other companies across Turkey to pay the foreign
debts to IMF & World Bank. Multinational gold mining companies have
been given
about 700 gold mine licenses across Turkey. Local people, their
lawyers and many civil rights organizations in Turkey are outraged
again.
As you know Bergama Community won a court case against Normandy to stop
their trial operation at Bergama. The mining operation stopped for only two days. The Council of Ministers gave a permission for Normandy to go
ahead again. Bergama community appealed the case to the Turkish High Court and the Bar of Izmir sued the Turkish Government since they
violated the constitution not complying with the court rule.
On 12 April, 2002 the leader of Bergama Villagers, Oktay Konyar was
ARRESTED in this critical situation.
The following passages from article by Aydin Engin -on CUMHURIYET, Daily
Turkish newspaper on 15/04/2002- makes our mind more clear:
"A decision made by Council of Ministers is called decree. In
Turkey, a government decree needs to be approved by he Head of State and published
on the The Official Gazette (a government journal that publishes various actions taken by the state) to become effective. Otherwise it cannot be
valid."
"In this critical situation, do you think one important scenario has
been made up by the authorities to eliminate Mr Konyar who was very creative and successful to bring the issue for public awareness all the
time. He organized many direct actions but never did any violence. I wonder whether a secret written governmental decree has been made to
arrest him anywhere for any reason and keep him in jail to neutralize."
Every single pieces of solidarity is important now. Please send
e-mail/fax to the following adresses behalf of your organization/your name. Could you please make Cc to [email protected]?
For further info: [email protected]