Saying 'Yes' to colonial mining

AK Party Ordu Deputy İbrahim Ufuk Kaynak has said, "Saying 'No' to mining is to enslave Turkey"... 

Mr. Kaynak is a member of the "TBMM Agricultural Frost Incident Research Commission." If the AKP continues to govern the country like this, he may soon become a member of the "TBMM Agricultural Destruction Incident Research Commission"... 

Mr. Kaynak, who has conducted studies on global exploitation, colonization, and conflicts between civilizations, continues by saying that our daily lives depend on mines and that if we cannot produce minerals, we will buy them from abroad... He claims our streams are already dirty anyway, and that this has nothing to do with mining... He says he cannot even approach the streams where he drank water in his childhood... 

What striking observations, aren't they... These are being said by a deputy of a party that has been governing this country for 25 years... 

A deputy, whom the nation sent to the TBMM with their votes to find solutions to their problems, is complaining... He is essentially saying we are doomed either way... 

AKP Ordu Deputy Mustafa Hamarat, who went to the Perşembe Plateau during the holiday, also made statements... Pointing out that the region has been declared a natural protected area, Mustafa Hamarat said, "This place cannot be touched." He then added: "Whoever harms this place will find us against them..." 

What beautiful statements, aren't they... 

Mining is, by its nature, an industry that causes great damage to the ecological system...                   

However, colonial mining is something entirely different... In this country, until the AKP came to power, mining was carried out within a framework of a series of permits, under the close supervision of state institutions. Moreover, the entity doing the mining was largely the state itself. As you know very well, according to our Constitution, mines are the property of the entire nation. They cannot be transferred to any individual or group...

Today, reactions are rising from every corner of the country without exception, saying, "No to mining... Do not touch my air, my water, my soil..." Before the AKP, the struggle of the villagers regarding the Bergama Gold Mine was in people's minds... It was the first serious environmental protection movement in our country... The villagers wanted to protect their land, their vineyards and gardens, and their living spaces... The villagers were labeled as "agents," and that mine was opened with lies of "we will be this rich, we will be that rich"... 

Today, there are 23 cyanide gold mines... Who got rich? 

Except for a handful of collaborators, the state of the nation is obvious... We are one of the most indebted countries in the world... Millions are struggling to survive on the minimum wage... Unemployment is at its peak! The cost of living is at its peak! The greatest hope of the youth is to be able to flee abroad! 

A week ago, I was in Uşak for a panel and book signing event. There are similar concerns, similar struggles, and similar cries there too... The majority of the audience at the panel, organized by the Murat Mountain Must Not Perish Platform with the great efforts of Ms. Funda Özakçura and Prof. Dr. Barış Metin, were villagers and their headmen. Almost all of them explained how their villages were put up for tender, their water was taken from them, and their lands were destroyed under the guise of mining... They are looking for a way out... They are asking for help... 

You all know the struggle that has been taking place in Milas-İkizköy for two years before the eyes of the public... The struggle led by headman Nejla Işık and her daughter Esra Işık to protect the olive groves of the İkizköy residents is clear... The struggle of the Gökçeyazı villagers for Türkmendağı... The people of Doğankent who rebelled against the poisoning of their streams by the mine owned by AKP Deputy Cantürk Alagöz in Giresun... Lapseki, İliç, Eşme, Gümüşhacıköy... The list goes on and on... 

All of these people, every single one of them, are fighting against the destruction of their villages and the fragmentation of their forests, mountains, pastures, and plateaus. 

What people are saying "no" to is the destruction of their living spaces... 

The state institutions governed by the government you are a part of are conducting mining tenders today as if they were holding a national lottery draw... We are governed by a mindset that sees every corner of this country, every village, every mountain as a mining site. This is not an exaggeration, this is not a distortion, this is not a lie... This is a fact. 

Look at the tenders held! Under the name of a mining tender, someone is given the title deed of a region under the guise of a "license." You may not be aware, but an area of 10-20 thousand decares, which includes villages, fields, and gardens, where people and thousands of living creatures in the ecosystem reside, is being handed over to someone. That person or company has the authority to come and dig up wherever they want by saying, "I will drill here," and then the right to say, "I found this, I found that, now clear this place out." 

So what will happen afterwards? 

First, they will cut down the forests, then they will pile up the agricultural soil—our source of life, the most valuable thing in the world—to the side like trash, then they will use tens of thousands of tons of dynamite to shatter the region into pieces, and after grinding it into dust in stone mills, they will spray the world's most dangerous chemicals onto it... 

This is what they do... And this is what they will do... Then, without shame, they tell this nation the lie that "we will restore it to its former state and leave"... But people are now aware of what they are facing. That is why they are opposing it... 

In the past, those who governed this country were deceived, misled... They even admitted this at the highest level, saying, "We betrayed Istanbul... FETÖ deceived us... PKK deceived us... Assad deceived us"... Look, this time we are again facing a very serious system of deception. Someone has shown you the way by saying, "You have valuable minerals, extract them, sell them, get rich." They have shown these paths in Africa, South America, and the Far East for two hundred years. They pitted countries against each other and started civil wars. During this process, they plundered their underground and surface riches. They darkened people's lives. They are telling you the same fairy tales. They have only one goal: to strike and run with their local collaborators. Just like the Canada-US company SSR Mining did in Erzincan İliç. They struck and ran. On February 13, 2024, they caused the biggest mining disaster in the history of the world and Turkey; they took the lives of 9 of our workers, filled their coffers, and ran. While running, they sold a destroyed and dangerous mine to Cengiz Holding for 1.5 billion dollars. 

Turkey is not Australia, Russia, Canada, or the USA... So I am addressing those who say, "The same mining is done there too." You cannot compare Turkey to continental states. They may have had geographical vastness that they could sacrifice in the past or today. But you cannot do the mining you do in Australia or China in Turkey, within such high population density, right next to villages and cities. If you do, you will be left hungry and thirsty. If you do, you will not find a piece of land to step on. If you do, disasters will not leave you alone. Especially in a period where the global climate disaster is being experienced and in the Black Sea where rainfall is so intense, if you insist on this colonial mining, you will cause mass deaths and mass migrations. 

Mr. İbrahim Ufuk Kaynak, yes, unfortunately, our streams and rivers are being poisoned from Edirne to Kars. Our rivers and streams are treated like sewage. In civilized countries, stream and river banks, which are the most important living spaces of cities, are treated like garbage dumps here. It is like this in Thrace, it is like this in the Aegean, it is like this in the Black Sea, it is like this in the Mediterranean... Mr. Kaynak, you have been governing this country for 25 years. Is this your solution? It was already dirty, let's poison it completely now, and let's even make it stop flowing so that we won't even be able to talk about a dirty stream. Is this your solution... The Gerede is pitch black, the Ergene is pitch black, the Banaz Creek is pitch black... Poison is flowing... What is your solution, Mr. Kaynak... 

Mr. Kaynak, Ordu, the Black Sea, and Turkey are right in the middle of the global exploitation and colonization system today. I do not want to be presumptuous about a subject that is your area of expertise, but some people are marketing the erasure of their own villages from the map to buy neighborhoods in London to us as "mining." 

Mr. Hamarat, it is good that you also went to the Perşembe Plateau and made such speeches. Thank you for expressing the truths, even if late. However, those who wanted to come there and engage in wild mining, colonial mining, unfortunately, did not find you 'against them,' but the brave people of that region. Thanks to the people of Ordu who fought, not thanks to you, the cyanide gold mining works that would destroy the Perşembe Plateau have been stopped 'for now.' The struggle is not over. What you do and say from now on will reveal your sincerity. 

Final word: Saying "no" to colonial mining, to looting and plunder mining, does not enslave Turkey, but saying "yes" definitely does...  

Respectfully...