Tenth anniversary of the deaths of 301 miners in the Soma disaster

Today marks the 10th anniversary of the Soma massacre, the worst mining disaster in Turkey’s history. On May 13, 2014, 301 miners died in a fire caused by a methane gas explosion in a coal mine in Soma, Manisa, Turkey.

Over the last decade, the ruling elite’s disregard for workers’ safety in the interests of capitalist profit, not to mention necessary labor protection measures, has worsened in Turkey and around the world.

This catastrophe could have been prevented. As the World Socialist Web Site explained, the Soma disaster was “not an inexplicable ‘accident,’ but the inevitable result of privatization, government neglect, and the capitalist profit system that every year destroys the lives and limbs of millions of industrial workers throughout the world.” World sacrifices.” year.”

As the cost of coal mining has fallen from $140 to $23.80 per ton over the decade since the mine was privatized, Soma Kumur has refused to purchase standard safety equipment to monitor methane gas levels. This equipment would have prevented the explosion.

Only with the complicity of the trade union apparatus and the government of then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan did the Soma mine easily pass sloppy safety inspections despite a series of accidents.

At the end of 2013, miners protested across the board against dangerous working conditions in the country. Nevertheless, just twenty days before the disaster, the Turkish parliament had rejected a proposal to investigate the mine’s safety.

After the disaster, statements from authorities at the highest levels made it clear that those responsible would not be punished and that workers would face further industrial accidents – in reality, workplace murders.

Amid the mass protests that erupted across the country, Erdoğan, as he did after every major workplace murder, stuck to the discourse of “fate,” saying, according to Soma, “These are normal things.” There is an event in the literature that is referred to as an industrial accident becomes. It’s the nature of this business. “Never have an accident” doesn’t exist.”

Show trials

The workers’ families and lawyers have been fighting for justice for years. At the end of the trial, those responsible remained unpunished or received symbolic punishments. The trial of 51 people, five of whom were arrested, ended in July 2018. 37 people were acquitted, while 14 defendants were convicted of “negligent homicide and bodily harm.”