ERGENEKON’S FIRST ACTION: MERSIN
Today’s Zaman
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Jan 27 2009
Turkey
It is known that the Ergenekon terror organization took a different
shape during the Feb. 28 process. The BCG, which successfully ended
the RP-DYP coalition government through a postmodern military coup, was
reconvened and reactivated after the AK Party came to power in 2002.
Records in the journals of former Naval Forces Commander Adm. Ozden
Ornek in 2004 and 2005 showed that the organization was at work
attempting to stage military coups. Despite announcements that these
journals would be included in the Ergenekon indictment, no action has
been taken so far. But the detention of the leading figures mentioned
in the journals in connection with the Ergenekon investigation may
be taken as a sign of willingness to prosecute these coup attempts.
These coups were masterfully aborted by Chief of General Staff
Gen. Hilmi Ozkök, Deputy Chief of General Staff Gen. Ä°lker BaÅ~_bug
and Gen. YaÅ~_ar Buyukanıt. It was argued that a group of commanders
including Gendarmerie Forces Commander Gen. Å~^ener Eruygur supported
the coup attempts.
The vast majority of the commanders supporting the coups retired in
2005 and 2006. The Ergenekon indictment argues that these retired
figures decided to carry on their struggle as civilians.
A Turkish flag was burned in 2005 during Nevruz activies in
Mersin. After the incident, the "Union of Patriotic Forces", a group
releated to Ergenekon, held a rally in an attempt to raise tension
between Turks and Kurds.
The flag rally held in Mersin on April 15, 2006, was the first
action of the renewed Ergenekon. A group calling itself the "Union of
Patriotic Forces" held a rally in the city in an attempt to escalate
tension between Turks and Kurds after an incident during Nevruz
activities in which a Turkish flag was burned.
Some retired generals, including Hasan Kundakcı, Suat İlhan, Kucuk,
HurÅ~_it Tolon, Korkut Eken and Yavuz Erturk, extended support to
the group, led by Taner Unal, who was previously expelled from the MHP.
Footage depicting a ceremony in which retired Col. Fikri Karadag,
chairperson of the Kuvayı Milliye Association, led an oath taking
ceremony followed the flag rally. The ceremony was unusual because
the attendees were becoming members by taking their oath on a gun. It
was interesting to note that a substantial part of the governing
bodies of these two organizations were retired military officers. The
figures leading these associations were arrested in connection with
the Ergenekon investigation; the bombs and weapons seized during the
police search in their homes seem to prove that they were planning
violent activities.
Prosecutor loses his career in Å~^emdinli
Traces of the Ergenekon organization were subsequently found in
the Å~^emdinli incidents. Buyukanıt made a statement after the
bombing of a bookstore in Å~^emdinli by two noncommissioned military
officers in which he said he knew Ali Kaya, one of the suspects,
well and testified that he was actually a good boy. Van Prosecutor
Ferhat Sarıkaya prepared an indictment in which he accused other
noncommissioned officers, including Ozcan Ä°ldeniz, Veysel AteÅ~_ and
Tansu CavuÅ~_, of involvement in the incident. The indictment was also
interesting because it made reference to Buyukanıt’s statement. The
Supreme Board of Prosecutors and Judges (HSYK) convened to discuss
the matter and disbarred Sarıkaya. The Å~^emdinli case has since
been handled by other courts with no conclusive results.
NevÅ~_ehir-Tokat-Sivas triangle surfaces in Ergenekon labyrinth
As the investigation into Ergenekon, a clandestine terrorist
organization charged with plotting to overthrow the government,
deepens, police have come to realize that a former senior police
official may have had links to shadowy incidents in a number of cities
in Central Anatolia.
Police recently discovered that Ä°brahim Å~^ahin, former deputy head of
the National Police Department’s Special Operations Unit, may have been
involved in numerous shadowy incidents in Tokat, where he was born,
NevÅ~_ehir and Sivas, where he served as a police officer. Å~^ahin
was arrested on Jan. 7 for suspected membership in the Ergenekon gang.
Å~^ahin’s name has come up in relation to dark events in NevÅ~_ehir,
where he served as the head of the police department just before and
after Turkey’s 1980 military coup. Known to have close ties to criminal
Abdullah Catlı, Å~^ahin was proved to have provided a false identity
card for Catlı and other criminals. Catlı died in an accident in
Susurluk in 1996, the first of many incidents in Turkey that confirmed
the Turkish public’s long-held suspicions of links between the state
and illegal elements. Catlı died in the same car as a police chief
and a deputy who led a southeastern Kurdish clan armed by the state
to fight against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the crash.
Catlı, the head of the Ulku Yolu Association, which played a
significant role in the process leading up to the 1980 coup, moved
the headquarters of the association to NevÅ~_ehir just before the coup.
Å~^ahin also contributed to providing a false identity card for Haluk
Kırcı, who is currently in jail on charges of having killed seven
university students in the Bahcelievler district of Ankara. Å~^ahin
also served as a police officer between 1978 and 1980 in Kırcı’s
hometown in the eastern province of Erzurum.
Mehmet Ali Agca, convicted of the assassination of Milliyet daily
Editor-in-Chief Abdi Ä°pekci in 1979, fled to NevÅ~_ehir soon after
the murder. Agca and his two friends, suspected of links with the
murder, received their passports from the NevÅ~_ehir Police Department,
where Å~^ahin was in charge.
The Ergenekon investigation has also revealed potential links with
shadowy incidents in Sivas. Å~^ahin’s nephew, Erdal Å~^ahin, was
recently detained along with 11 other suspects in a police raid on
suspicion of gathering intelligence about intellectuals who initiated a
campaign to collect signatures for a statement personally apologizing
for events that took place in 1915 that Armenians claim constituted
genocide. Police seized numerous weapons during the raid, and it was
revealed that Å~^ahin had given one of the detainees a Glock revolver.
Another mysterious incident to which Å~^ahin has links is the
suicide of retired Col. Abdulkerim Kırca, an alleged member of
JÄ°TEM, a clandestine and illegal gendarmerie intelligence unit,
the existence of which is officially denied. Kırca was found dead
in his home after a Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) informant joined
dozens of others directing accusations that summary executions were
carried out during the time Kırca served in the gendarmerie in the
predominantly Kurdish Southeast. Å~^ahin is known to have had close
links with Kırca, who was born in Sivas.
Å~^ahin was also implicated in a list of "dirty affairs" in the western
city of Ä°zmir, as revealed in one of the latest waves of Ergenekon
detentions. Å~^ahin was a close friend of Engin Erkılıncoglu and
Erbay Colakoglu, who were recently detained as part of an Ergenekon
operation. He also had close contacts with Oguz Bulut and Bekir
Celik, İzmir provincial heads of Ulku Ocakları, a far-right
youth organization. Bulut and Celik have been accused of gathering
intelligence about an Armenian jeweler and community leader with the
aim of assassinating him. In a police raid on the homes of Celik and
Bulu, police seized two hand grenades, three revolvers, five rifles
and many bullets.
A wave of detentions on Jan. 7 in the Ergenekon investigation revealed
that the group was planning to assassinate Alevi and Armenian
community leaders, the prime minister and members of the Supreme
Court of Appeals — acts that would have dragged Turkey into chaos
had they been carried out.
Ergenekon ties in Tokat
Å~^ahin was a close friend of retired Col. Mustafa Levent GöktaÅ~_,
who was detained in early January. GöktaÅ~_ was the head of an
operation launched in 1999 to capture the now-jailed leader of the PKK,
Abduallah Ocalan. Ocalan was captured in Kenya in February 1999, while
being transferred from the Greek Embassy to Nairobi’s international
airport. Led by GöktaÅ~_, a group of seven people, including three
members of the National Intelligence Organization (MÄ°T), captured
the head of the terrorist PKK and brought him to Turkey by plane.
Å~^ahin also made frequent phone calls to Lt. Col. Mustafa Dönmez,
detained in the Jan. 7 raids. Police seized a large number of bombs
and ammunition during searches made in the house of Dönmez, in the
Sapanca district of Balıkesir. A sketch found in his house also
helped police to unearth explosives and ammunition on Jan. 12 at a
site in the Sincan suburb of Ankara.
Journalists murdered in Turkey
Journalists have always been No:1 targets of assassinations. Ugur
Mumcu from the Cumhuriyet daily was one of the most well-known
in this category. The latest victim of the series was Hrant Dink,
assassinated on Jan. 19, 2007.
Assassinations sometimes accelerated the coup process, and they
were sometimes used to justify illegal actions. Intellectuals,
thinkers, academics and journalists have become the targets for
vicious sensationalism.
The recent Ergenekon investigation showed that the organization was
making plans to start a campaign of terrorism, where it would kill
journalists. The list notably included Fehmi Koru of the Yeni Å~^afak
daily. Koru is similar to Ugur Mumcu in a number of respects because
he shed light on many mysterious and unsolved events.
Thousands of people have been murdered in attacks over the years,
staged in shopping centers, schools and in the street. Journalists
have been one of the most targeted groups when military coups have
taken place. Ironically, their colleagues were often the instigators
and most vociferous proponents of the very same coups.
Some of the murdered journalists in Turkey over last 100 years:
Hasan Fehmi Bey/Serbesti (Ä°stanbul –April 6, 1909) Ahmet
Samim/Sada-yı Millet (Ä°stanbul — July 19, 1910) Zeki Bey/Å~^ehrah
(Ä°stanbul — July 10, 1911) Å~^air Huseyin Kami/Alemdar (Konya —
1912 or 1914) Silahcı Tahsin/Silah ve Bomba (Ä°stanbul – July
27, 1914) Hasan Tahsin/Hukuk-u BeÅ~_er (Ä°zmir — July 27, 1919)
Ali Kemal/Peyam-ı Sabah (Ä°zmit — 1922) Abdi Ä°pekci/Milliyet
(Ä°stanbul — Feb. 1, 1979) Ä°lhan Darendelioglu/Ortadogu (Ä°stanbul
— Nov. 19, 1979) Ä°smail Gerceksöz/Ortadogu (Ä°stanbul — April 4,
1980) Umit Kaftancıoglu/TRT (Ä°stanbul — April 11, 1980) Muzaffer
Fevzioglu/Hizmet (Trabzon — April 15, 1980) Recai Unal/Demokrat
(Ä°stanbul — July 22, 1980) Cetin Emec/Hurriyet (Ä°stanbul — March 7,
1990) Turan Dursun/Ä°kibine Dogru (Ä°stanbul — Sept. 4, 1990) Ä°zzet
Kezer/Sabah (Cizre — March 23, 1992) Bulent Ulku/Körfeze BakıÅ~_
(Bursa — April 1, 1992) Mecit Akgun/Yeni Ulke (Nusaybin — June
2, 1992) Hafız Akdemir/Ozgur Gundem (Diyarbakır — June 8, 1992)
Cetin Ababay/Ozgur Halk (Batman — July 29, 1992) Yahya Orhan/Ozgur
Gundem (Ceylanpınar –Aug. 9, 1992) Huseyin Deniz/Ozgur Gundem
(Ceylanpınar –Aug. 9, 1992) Musa Anter/Ozgur Gundem (Diyarbakır —
Sept. 20, 1992) YaÅ~_ar Aktay/Serbest (Hani — Nov. 9, 1992) Hatip
Kapcak/Serbest (Mazıdagı — Nov. 18, 1992) Namık Tarancı/Gercek
(Diyarbakır — Nov. 20, 1992) Ugur Mumcu/Cumhuriyet (Ankara —
Jan. 24, 1993) Rıza GuneÅ~_er/Halkın Gucu (July 14, 1993) Ferhat
Tepe/Ozgur Gundem (Bitlis — July 28, 1993) Nazım Babaoglu/Gundem
(March 12, 1994) Onat Kutlar/Cumhuriyet (Ä°stanbul – Feb. 11, 1995)
Metin Göktepe/Evrensel (Ä°stanbul — Jan. 8, 1996) Kutlu Adalı
/Yeni Duzen (Cyprus — July 8, 1996) Unal Mesuloglu/TRT (Manisa —
Nov. 8, 1997) A. Taner KıÅ~_lalı/Cumhuriyet (Ankara — Oct. 21,
1999) Hrant Dink/Agos (Ä°stanbul — Jan. 19, 2007)
—
Yılmaz: Governments have no intention of dealing with the deep state
The parliamentary commission for unsolved murders was set up in 1993
and did extensive research for two years. Former Republican People’s
Party (CHP) deputy from Malatya Mustafa Yılmaz, an active member of
the commission, notes that the commission’s work has been obstructed
by some circles.
Speaking to Today’s Zaman, Yılmaz said, "The prosecutor at the Ankara
State Security Court [DGM], Nusret Demiral, who asked that the DEP
[Democracy Party] deputies be removed from the parliament building,
demanded that the police department not communicate any document or
information to our commission."
Yılmaz further notes that the commission heard from some members
of the Special Warfare Unit. He recalled that those who testified
eventually admitted that the unit existed.
"I requested that the commission investigate counter-guerilla activity,
and my request was approved. The Defense Ministry said there is no such
unit. Upon this notification, we asked for assistance from Parliament
Speaker Husammetin Cindoruk. He said he called Chief of General
Staff Gen. Dogan GureÅ~_. Cindoruk told me that GureÅ~_ assured him
he would do nothing to expose his personnel. I think that none of the
governments, including the AK Party [Justice and Development Party],
has any intention of dealing with the deep state. The administrations
are not determined to resolve Gladio; they’re afraid."
Noting that members of Ergenekon’s predecessor committed murders
in the 1970s under the banner of a counter-guerilla organization,
Yılmaz said: "Ergenekon cannot be isolated from these incidents of
the 1970s. If the investigation is limited to developments in the
post-1980 era, the efforts will be inconclusive."
Recalling that existence of JİTEM has been denied for years, Yılmaz
says commission records show that a female attorney and a captain
testifying before the commission admitted to the presence of such a
unit under the auspices of the Gendarmerie General Command. Yılmaz
adds that the captain who provided this information to the commission
died in a traffic accident shortly after his testimony.
Yılmaz, noting that the commission found that JİTEM created the
Hizbullah terror organiza tion to combat the Kurdistan Workers’ Party
(PKK), says that Hizbullah built three camps in the Southeast. Yılmaz
also recalls that the Batman police chief, who provided this
information, was removed from office after he spoke to the commission.
"When SavaÅ~_ Buldan, Adnan Yıldırım and Hacı Karay were abducted
and subsequently killed, we headed to the presidential palace and asked
for help from President [Suleyman] Demirel to resolve the murders,"
Yılmaz said. "In response to our argument that these people were
killed by the state, Demirel said the state does not commit murder. I
said: ‘The state is an apparatus; of course, it does not, but when
those who represent the state do, the state is accused.’ When I made
this statement, he said, ‘This meeting is over,’ and stood up.
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