New Zealand forum: ‘Support Kurdish struggle!’

Militant/Baskaran Appu

AUCKLAND, New Zealand — “It is in the interests of working people around the world to support the Kurdish struggle for self-determination,” said Osborne Hart, left, Socialist Workers Party candidate for U.S. vice president, at a special Militant Labor Forum here Aug. 28. The meeting protested the assault launched by Turkish tanks and troops, U.S. warplanes and Free Syrian Army forces against Kurdish fighters in Syria.

Hart was joined on the platform by Abbas Ahmed, speaking, from the local Kurdish community, who outlined the Kurdish people’s fight for a homeland and how they had been divided among Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria. “We are the biggest nation in the world without a country,” Ahmed said.

“Turkey doesn’t want Kurds independent and strong,” he said, joining Hart in speaking out against Ankara’s military assault against Syrian Kurds gaining autonomy. “But there will be no peace in the Middle East without the Kurds.”

“I bring the solidarity of the Socialist Workers Party to the Kurdish people’s fight for a homeland,” Hart said. “We demand that Washington gets out of the Middle East, and we demand U.S., Turkish and Syrian hands off the Kurds.”

Patrick Brown, center, Communist League candidate for mayor of Auckland, chaired the meeting. He said the League extends its solidarity with the fight for the “national rights and freedom of the Kurdish people.”

— JANET ROTH