Turkey, a country that straddles southeastern Europe and southwestern Asia, has a population of 65 million people.

The BBC News reported that a large demonstration took pace in the center of the capital, Ankara, with protesters carrying banners criticizing the government and the IMF. Government employees participated in the work stoppage, even though they are banned from striking. Trains stopped operating and hospitals provided only emergency care.

The trade unions were protesting the inadequate 10 percent raise the government promised to public employees for the first half of 2001. Inflation in the country is running at about 44 percent for the year. Several days later some 265 workers at the Cayeli copper-zinc mine in the country walked off the job after contract talks collapsed.

The protest actions by workers came in the midst of a financial crisis that brought the country to the brink of economic collapse. A string of bank failures during the last two weeks of November impelled key interest rates to more than 1000 percent. The stock market lost 40 percent of its value. On the day of the nationwide strike, shares fell by 9 percent. For the year the market has lost more than 60 percent of its value. Eleven of the country's 81 banks have been placed in receivership over the past year.  
 
Capitalists drain national reserves
Capitalists from abroad with investments in the country rushed to sell their Turkish assets in a panic that started on November 17. They withdrew $6.2 billion from the country, leading to surging interest rates and a further drain on the nation's monetary reserves.

Hoping to stem the economic slide, the International Monetary Fund announced on December 6 a $10 billion financial package for Turkey. This includes a new $7.5 billion in emergency loans as well as nearly $3 billion available under previous IMF agreements, withheld by the imperialists because of Ankara's inability to fully implement the austerity measures demanded. This latest 11-month IMF package is Turkey's 17th such arrangement with the IMF

The loan is being made available on the condition that the Turkish government speed up its plans for privatizing its telephone, airline, and electrical services. According to an article in the Financial Times, Ankara must announce plans by December 15 for privatizing 33.5 percent of Türk Telekom, the telecommunications giant valued at $10 billion. It must also sell off a 51 percent stake in Turkish airlines, the national carrier worth around $1 billion. Parliament is expected to also pass a law paving the way for the privatization of the electricity sector by the end of January, 2001. If these conditions are met, IMF officials said that the first installment on this loan will be turned over to Ankara.

A December 7 Financial Times article entitled "IMF optimistic Turks have learned lesson from scale of danger," quotes a "western official," who bluntly warned, "Turkey came to the edge of a major crash. If they were to fool around with the [IMF] program again they could choke the economy."

Also commenting on the imperialist powers' concern about Turkey's economy was a December 7 Washington Post article by Molly Moore. She wrote, "Financial analysts said the IMF action was critical to preventing a collapse of Turkey's precarious economy. Analysts said a collapse would not only threaten the country's fragile coalition government but could spill over to Russia and other struggling economies at a time when international investors have become increasingly skittish toward emerging markets. Both the World Bank and IMF cite Turkey and Argentina as two of the world's most perilous developed economies."  
 
 
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