MP Baş and Patika Collective Visit Ida Mountains: We are a Part of the Struggle

* Photograph: bianet

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Labor Party of Turkey (TİP) Chair and Aydın MP Erkan Baş, Patika Ecology Collective and Peoples' Democratic Congress (HDK) assembly members have paid a visit to the Mount Ida on the 18th day of "Water and Conscience Watch" against the destruction of nature due to the ongoing mining activities of Canada-based Alamos Gold company in the region.

Speaking to bianet about his visit, Baş has said the following:

'We can only win by uniting'

"Our primary aim is, of course, to solidarize with the friends protesting here and to support a rightful resistance that has been continuing for a really long time and whose voice has now reached everywhere.

"As we have come here, we will also visit the mining site and will share what we see there with the public.

"The resistance here has to become the resistance of not only Ida Mountains and Çanakkale, but also the resistance of all peoples of Turkey.

"We want to see our primary duty as such: Only when the rightful resistance here is united with other struggles for environmental rights all around Turkey will it be possible to win."

Patika Collective: We know that life will win

Didem Deniz Erbak from the Patika Collective has also said, "We, as the Patika Ecology Collective, have come here today to express solidarity with the Ida Mountains resistance" and added, "The destructions caused by capitalism in the Anatolian geography have not started today, this geography has been struggling against these destructions for years."

"And we are also a part of this struggle. We find this struggle important. We find being together here today important and we know that life will win in Ida Mountains", Erbak has indicated further.

'Struggle with all democracy forces'

Before starting to walk towards the mining site, HDK Assembly member Bülent Uyguner has said, "All this order of exploitation and plunder is a result of capitalism's practices in our country" and added, "As part of this wild capitalism, all underground and overland resources of Turkey have been made available to foreign companies especially during the rule of Justice and Development Party (AKP) and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP)."

"In that sense, the entire treasury of labor and ecology possessed by Turkey has been blown away", Uyguner has indicated further and added:

"We have not kept silent in the face of such incidents since Gezi and we will struggle with all democracy and nature forces against the destruction here as well as the ones against Munzur and in Hasankeyf.

"We will raise the struggle all together by uniting and being together and we will be the winner of this struggle."

After making these remarks, MP Baş and Patika team have started walking to examine the mining site. (PT/SD)