Labour Party's (EMEP) report titled "2023 February Earthquakes Report: Dispossession, Capital Transfer and the Re-Plundering of Cities" was presented yesterday. The report was based on the field observations of journalists Hakkı Özdal and Bahadır Özgür in Adana, Hatay and its districts, Kahramanmaraş and its districts, Adıyaman and its districts, Gaziantep and its districts on 16-22 February 2023, and interviews with local people, volunteers, journalists, technical and administrative officials.

Speaking before the press conference, Labour Party Chair Ercüment Akdeniz said: "This report is not prepared only to make a note for today and tomorrow. This report makes important warnings about the upcoming earthquakes, especially the İstanbul earthquake. This year 1 May will be a day when the earthquake and its destructions will be held to account." After Bahadır Özgür and Hakkı Özdal's presentation, Aysel Ebru Ökten from EMEP Migration Bureau shared data on migrants in the region.

The report, which focuses on the general and specific economic-political relations and conflicts, class relations and conflicts in the devastated regions, and the results that these have already emerged and can be expected to emerge, starting from before the earthquake, consists of two parts.

"WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THE EARTHQUAKE IS AN EXPLOITATION OPERATION"

In the report prepared in detail about the earthquake, the prominent findings were as follows: "'The state' started to appear from the third or fourth day onwards, usually with law enforcement forces. From the moment the state started to appear, it started to confiscate solidarity networks and centres on behalf of AFAD (Disaster and Emergency Management Authority)", "The main reason for not being able to deliver clean water to the earthquake victims for weeks, for not being able to build temporary shelter centres, or for the lack of equipment needed for search and rescue operations starting from the very first days, "It has been observed that the tradition of 'civil society' in the earthquake region is relatively low, in some places almost non-existent, and this gap has led to the visibility of 'charity' activities undertaken by religious foundations and associations with their rich means. "

The report underlines that the disaster response plan is sloppy and says about the zoning amnesties in the region: "During AKP's 20 years in power, 9 zoning amnesties of various scopes and contents were issued. Eight of these were implemented. The last regulation that was put into practice was the zoning amnesty that was discussed and enacted in the Parliament about a month before the presidential and parliamentary elections on 24 June 2018. A total of 305,102 illegal buildings in the cities that suffered the devastating effects of the 6 February earthquakes were granted building registration certificates within the scope of the last zoning amnesty of 2018. This grave situation is valid even for public buildings."

NO JOB SECURITY, LOW WAGES IN EARTHQUAKE ZONES

The report also focuses on the labourers living in the region and states that "According to TURKSTAT data for 2021, 3 million 841 thousand people are employed in the disaster zone covering 11 provinces. While 4 out of every 10 labourers in the region were working without any social security protection and without insurance, they faced the destruction of the earthquake. In Adıyaman, Hatay and Maraş, unregistered Syrian labour is a very common phenomenon, especially at the OSB scale. Migrant workers were not only employed at lower wages, but they were also the first to be called back to work after the earthquake. Wages in all 11 provinces in the region are well below the average of Turkey and the other 70 provinces. The average daily wage for contract labourers is 378.55 TL in Turkey and 315.27 TL in the 11 provinces in the earthquake zone. Since more than half of the employment in the region is in enterprises employing less than 10 workers and it is clear that there is/will be no strategy for the return of these enterprises, it seems that this labour force will have no choice but to migrate permanently or to participate in the new proletarianisation process with a construction-OSB perspective in the region. In the provinces of the region, especially Gaziantep, Adana and Şanlıurfa, there is a capital structure that creates 'advantages' for itself by condemning the working class to harsh conditions, especially low wages, in the labour-intensive exporting sectors."

NO SEARCH AND RESCUE, CIVIL SOCIETY BLOCKED

In the report, it is stated that the earthquakes of 6 February are under the direct responsibility of the neoliberal capitalist transformation of Turkey, but the order of the last 20 years requires a special parenthesis, and the attitude of the current government is summarised with the expressions "disaster of the century" and "fateful plan" used by the President.

It was stated that the search and rescue activities regarding the first intervention of the government in the disaster areas after the earthquake were delayed or not carried out at all: "Thousands of our citizens, although they could have been rescued by intervening in time and with adequate equipment, died due to debris fires, the persistent effect of the physical conditions they were in (crushing, suffocation, etc.) and hypothermia (freezing) due to cold weather conditions." It was emphasised that the access of injured earthquake survivors to health services was hampered by the delay in the establishment of field hospitals and their inadequate coverage, and that the activities of professional and labour organisations such as the Turkish Medical Association (TTB), the Turkish Pharmacists' Association (TEB) and the Health Workers' Union (SES) in the region, like other solidarity activities, were hampered by the difficulties imposed by the state.

"The collapse of the communication infrastructure in the first 72 hours, which is vital for search and rescue operations, the complete collapse of almost 1/3 of the base stations in the region, the rupture of fibre lines, the interruptions in telephone and internet connections that continued for days have also turned into an open crime".

"PLANNING IS SLOPPY EVEN ON PAPER"

Another important point emphasised in the report was that the provinces that were planned to provide first aid in case of a possible earthquake in the Turkish Disaster Mitigation Plan (TAMP) were also from the provinces affected by the earthquake. This situation is emphasised in the report as follows: "The provinces that are supposed to provide 'support' to earthquake-stricken provinces are almost entirely provinces that experienced the same disaster. Only one support city for Adıyaman (Erzincan) and two support cities for Maraş (Mersin and Kayseri) are cities that did not directly experience destruction in the 6 February earthquakes."

Referring to the isolation of the disaster areas from the rest of the country by declaring State of Emergency (OHAL) after the earthquake, it is stated that "What happened in the region after the earthquake is a complete dispossession, wealth transfer and deepening exploitation operation". The report emphasised that the State of Emergency has given many powers to the President Erdoğan and said: "The President will be able to issue decrees with the force of law during the State of Emergency, without being bound by the restrictions in Article 91 of the Constitution (stating that fundamental rights, personal rights and political rights cannot be regulated by decrees with the force of law). This means that the President of the Republic, who is already endowed with extremely high powers, can take fundamental decisions regarding the fate of the region by issuing decrees in the earthquake zone, almost as if issuing an edict, without being subject to any restrictions."

DISPOSSESSION THROUGH OHAL

As for the Presidential Decrees issued after the State of Emergency, the report states that "The Ministry of Industry and Technology has been authorised to expropriate all immovable properties belonging to public institutions and organisations or subject to private ownership. This paves the way for the confiscation of lands, plots and fields belonging to the people in the earthquake zone in line with the interests of the industry (industrialists)." Decree No. 136 is aimed at the seizure of the lands of the people living in cities and villages, cultivated areas, agricultural lands, forests and pastures under the pretext of earthquake. The Ministry of Environment, Urbanisation and Climate Change has been given extraordinary powers in the earthquake region, almost turning it into a Ministry of State of Emergency. Earthquake-stricken citizens are left with no mechanism to learn or even ask about the fate of the state-capitalist practices regarding their last remaining properties." examples of Decree No. 126 were given.

THE STONES OF THE DISASTER WERE LAID WITH PRIVATISATION AND ANNUITY

"While the liquidation of state-owned enterprises through privatisation and the transfer of public savings to capital continued at full speed, the institutional capacity of the public sector for the provinces was simultaneously liquidated, the powers were concentrated in municipalities and special provincial administrations, and 'service to the provinces' was privatised through tenders. Institutions such as the State Hydraulic Works and the General Directorate of Highways have become almost useless except as 'tender distribution centres'. Legislative amendments that would open forests, pastures, bays, agricultural lands, etc. to development have been enacted one after another, as in the first period of the first 10 years."

"INTERESTS HAVE REPLACED PUBLIC RESPONSIBILITIES"

In the report, the relations between capital, power and the construction sector are analysed as follows: "Yunus Kaya, the contractor whose buildings collapsed the most in Gaziantep and caused the deaths of more than 300 people, is also a member of the AKP parliament and chairman of the zoning commission. Kaya is the person who has benefited the most from public tenders organised by the municipality, the Directorate of Agriculture and the Directorate of Health. He also has close relations with the city's bureaucrats and law enforcement chiefs", "Many buildings built in the district by the contractor Ahmet Tekin and his brother Veysi Tekin, who were arrested for the Tekin Apartment Building, have been destroyed or damaged. Most of them are 6-7 years old. Veysi Tekin was a member of the AKP district administration and was elected as the first-ranked İslâhiye Municipality Council member of the AKP in the 2014 local elections. He is one of the contractors who has grown the most in the region in the wind of development rent that the AKP has started with the zoning plans almost all over the country."

Pointing out that there is a structure in cities where who is a contractor, who is a politician, who is a bureaucrat, who is a governor, district governor and who is an executive of the ruling party is mixed and intertwined, it was stated that "As wealth and capital accumulation shifted to a construction-centred area, political elites and economic elites who have the authority to direct construction activities in cities have become more integrated, new rich people have emerged from politicians, and the public responsibilities of bureaucrats have been replaced by private interests."

WHAT HAPPENED IN ANTAKYA IS HIDDEN FROM THE PUBLIC

The "reconstruction" process in Antakya, where almost all of the city was destroyed and the intervention was too late, was described as "With the Presidential Decree No. 126, all powers regarding zoning in the earthquake zone were gathered under the Ministry of Environment, Urbanisation and Climate, and all legal procedures related to construction, including planning, were suspended. On 10 March, on the basis of the State of Emergency decree, a decision and list was published to seize land for temporary shelter areas in Hatay "to be paid later". The list was further expanded on 4 April, and cultivated agricultural lands were seized to build temporary shelters." It is underlined that the designation of 307 hectares of land, including the historical centre of Antakya, as a 'risk area' by the President's signature isolates the city: "Recent experiences and practices strengthen suspicions that the centre of Antakya is also seen as a 'tourism destination'. As a matter of fact, there is no official explanation as to what will be built, by whom and how. Moreover, no answer has been given as to why a certain area has been marked as a 'risk area' when nearly 70 per cent of the city has been completely destroyed." It was pointed out that in Hatay, where temporary shelter areas have still not been completed after the search and rescue operations have been completed, the government has found the solution in 'closing' Antakya, which will be rebuilt, by making legal arrangements one after another.

"THOSE WHO SURVIVED THE WAR AND STAYED IN THE RUBBLE OF THE EARTHQUAKE"

EMEP's report titled "Those who survived the war and stayed in the rubble of the earthquake", which deals with the situation of refugees during the earthquake, was also announced at the press conference. In the report, there are many observations that refugees cannot leave risky areas because they think that "we cannot get help" and that they are subjected to racist-discriminatory practices and violence. In the report, it was stated that the refugees were told to "fend for yourselves" and their requests for help were responded to by citizens, not the state. (EVRENSEL DAILY)