TURKEY’S HISTORY IS FULL OF GANGS
Sedat Bozkurt
The New Anatolian
June 5 2006
Turkey’s history can be seen as a kind of history of gangs. In the
Ottoman Empire, leaving aside the ones in major cities or within the
state, there were always gangs or individual rebellion leaders in
the mountains of Anatolia, who are, even today, still hailed as heroes.
With the republic, the identities of the gangs have changed. Because
the War of Independence was waged by an organization then called
a gang by the empire’s administrators. The gangs were sought and
sometimes found deep within the state.
One of the most important turning points in the issue of gangs was
the 1980 military coup. Before the coup, the gangs were the mafia,
and arms smuggling was one of their chief sources of income. Those
gangs had international connections and were under the control of NATO,
a product of the Cold War between the U.S. and Russia. “Deep gangs”
were giving the same gun both to the left and the right-wing, by which
they were killing each other. The aim of the right-wing and nationalist
groups was to stop the expansion of Russia. Since the gangs’ and NATO’s
goals were common, mostly the right-wing was getting this support.
Conditions matured for the carrying out the 1980 coup, and finally
a message was sent to the U.S. administration: “Our boys managed it”.
Alparslan Turkes, then the leader of the Nationalist Movement Party
(MHP), said their ideology was in power while they were in prison.
And the leaders of the coup were giving new missions to the members
they used to stop the Russian threat. Fighting terrorist group the
Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA). In return
for this, the MHP members who were being tried were acquitted.
(The nationalists who were left behind by the state became important
figures in a new business: collecting bounced checks. This was the
first step of a new type of gang in Turkey and this model survived
for long time, enjoyed the support of the state or the police)
We came across the heroes of this period in mafia, politician,
and state connections, which were revealed after the 1996 Susurluk
scandal. Murdered MIT members, casino kings and many Kurdish
businessmen… The concept of gang, mafia and deep state were changed
after the Susurluk scandal.
The collaborators of those who were involved in fishy business in the
name of state were all in illegal actions and were called gangs. And
those people, after a while, stopped working for the state and became
the real mafia. So gangs, in which there were soldiers, military
officers, high-ranking police officers and MIT administrators, emerged.
Hanefi Avci, who was then the police intelligence department acting
head and now is Edirne police chief, best described the Susurluk
connections. In his testimony at the parliamentary commission
probing the Susurluk scandal, he claimed that there was an “illegal”
organization established within the state to fight terrorism. He
also said this organization then became a gang, which was established
within the MIT, the police and Gendarmerie Intelligence (JITEM).
Mehmet Agar, Korkut Eken, Ibrahim Sahin from the police, Mehmet
Eymur, Duran Firat and Kasif Binbasi from the MIT and Lt. Col. Veli
Kucuk from JITEM were in this organization and involved in numerous
illegal actions under the leadership of Ahmet Cem Ersever, who was
later killed by Kemal Uzuner (a.k.a Cubuklu), a driver working at
JITEM, said Avci. He also said Abdullah Catli, an ultranationalist and
suspect of a political mass-killing in the late ’70s was both used by
the MIT and the police, and Alaattin Cakici, a mafi! a leader was used
by the MIT. Abdullah Catli, his partner in crime Haluk Kirci and drug
smuggler Yasar Oz might be in the civil wing of the gang and conducted
many operations in the southeast region and were active in Istanbul,
doing operations against some businessman.
In the same period some other illegal organizations that could be
related to the state were discovered: the Soylemezler Gang, Hadi
Ozcan Gang, Yuksekova Gang etc. In all of them there were soldiers,
policemen, mafia leaders and an informant who once was a member of
the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The names connecting those people
were all the same.
What those gangs have turned into was very interesting, since a new
gang supported by certain people within the state plotted a coup in a
neighboring state, and some other people within the state prevented
this plot. And in another neighboring state, some circles within
the state prevented an assassination attempt by the state on the
leader of the terrorist organization. In another case the Turkish
Revenge Brigade (TIT), alleged to have connections with the MIT and
the military, was behind the assassination attempt on Human Rights
Association head Akin Birdal.
The Eurasia Ferryboat was hijacked to attract attention to the Russian
pressure in Chechnya and later the suspects one by one escaped from
Turkish prisons. And all of them had connections to the MIT. Journalist
Abdi Ipekci’s murder, the attempts to assassinate the late pope and
former President Turgut Ozal, and the murder of businessman Ozdemir
Sabanci were all remembered for their connections to gangs, which
were this or that way supported by the state.
For this reason whenever the state connection is discovered in a fishy
business in Turkey, the Susurluk scandal comes to mind. The recent
bombing of a bookstore in Hakkari’s Semdinli in which soldiers were
actively involved was called another Susurluk case. Also the attack
on the Council of State and the subsequent discovery of the Atabeyler
gang in Ankara.
Indeed all were different gangs and the only thing they have in
common with the Susurluk scandal was that all have members from the
police and the military, which in a way connected those gangs to the
state. On the other hand the most important difference was that no
name from the MIT was involved in them.
The nationalist and the military connections in recently discovered
gangs are interesting. The way that certain information was leaked to
the press regarding the issue was an intelligence type. And also the
address that information points out. But none of them have concrete
relations with the state, as was the case with Susurluk. When we take
a look at the recent gangs, we see that they felt themselves in charge
of serving the state. And those who discovered them are feeling in
charge of distracting attention from the issue. In sum, it seems that
Turkey will be struggling with those gangs for some more time.