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ANKARA: A beginner's guide to Ergenekon, trial of the century

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  • ANKARA: A beginner's guide to Ergenekon, trial of the century

    Today's Zaman, Turkey
    Jan 4 2009


    A beginner's guide to Ergenekon, trial of the century


    Following Turkish politics can be confusing, especially in current
    times when the country is witnessing what analysts term the `trial of
    the century,' involving alleged members of a group that, as briefly
    described by newspapers, is suspected of a number of crimes that
    appear to have been committed for the ultimate political purpose of
    bending the country toward a certain political agenda.

    For the uninitiated, the details of the case, frequent and often
    confusing references to past events that go back as far as 30 years
    ago.

    The relationships between and identities of the suspects and, perhaps
    most significantly, the meaning most segments seem to attach to the
    trial might be confounding. This article is intended as a guide to
    cover the basics about the gang known as Ergenekon and attempts to
    introduce concepts that might help the reader understand the structure
    of Ergenekon.

    The Ergenekon investigation, in which 86 suspects are currently being
    accused of various crimes, began in July 2007 with a raid into a
    shanty house in Ä°stanbul that police discovered was being used
    as an arms depot. The ensuing investigation revealed a bundle of
    unholy relationships between very different individuals, various
    groups with a wide range of and even opposing political ideologies,
    associations, foundations and past incidents -- such as unresolved
    assassinations, suspicious bombings or dubious public protests --
    which seemed to have been organized by an all-knowing center to
    manipulate public opinion. The incidents include a surprising number
    of murders, assassinations and bombings earlier attributed to
    left-wing groups, to Islamists or to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers'
    Party (PKK).

    The basics of deep state structures

    But to understand how and why these people came together and for what
    reason, we need to look at the foundations of the Ergenekon structure,
    which is thought to be part of a phenomenon known in Turkey as `a
    state within the state,' `the deep state,' or the `counter guerilla.'
    Although even the most authoritative researchers cannot agree on a
    single description for this phenomenon, today we have compelling
    reasons to believe that the fundaments of this structure were built in
    the `70s.

    Assassinations of union leaders, journalists and even a prime
    minister, and most notably the brutal killings of seven students who
    were members of the Turkey Workers' Party (TÄ°P) in Ankara's
    Bahçelievler district -- all murders that occurred before the
    1980 coup d'etat in Turkey -- were committed by leaders of extreme
    nationalist grey wolf groups associated with the Nationalist Movement
    Party (MHP). When officials admitted openly that some of these people
    had served in Turkey's National Intelligence Organization (MÄ°T)
    and some MHP members complained that there were too many MÄ°T
    agents inside their party, the question arose as to whether the state
    was feeding terrorism using nationalist youth leaders. Some
    nationalist youth members who have organized assassinations or
    provocative attacks for the MÄ°T would, over the years, openly
    confess their relationship with various state agencies, including the
    army. One such example is Kemal DemiraÄ?i, a nationalist who
    attempted to shoot President Turgut Ã-zal. Later, he announced that
    he and his friends had been trained by some retired generals in the
    '70s.

    Similarity to Operation Gladio

    Was there any government involvement in the 1999 Russian apartment
    block bombings, which were blamed on Chechen terrorists? Were the
    Sept. 11 terrorist attacks actually an inside job? We do not know. But
    in both cases, proponents of theories about government involvement in
    the attacks have had some solid proof. Imagine the chaos, confusion
    and anger that would occur if government involvement in either of the
    two cases were officially confirmed. This is what happened in August
    1990, when Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti confirmed that a
    secret army called Gladio (the Italian word for double-edged sword)
    had existed in Italy throughout the Cold War period. He also said that
    similar paramilitary organizations were set up with the support of the
    CIA against communism during the Cold War era in various European
    countries. Gladio in Italy, where communism was strongest, spread
    quickly to other countries. As explained by Daniele Ganser, a Swiss
    historian and researcher at the University of Basel's history
    department and author of the book `NATO's Secret Armies' on the
    history of Gladio in Europe, the operations were so secretive that
    most people, including prime ministers, had no idea these networks
    existed.

    But what happened to Gladio in Europe? Once they were over the initial
    shock, European countries started investigations and dealt with these
    one by one. In Ganser's words from an earlier interview with Today's
    Zaman: `Well, at first, people were shocked to hear that secret armies
    had existed in their countries. Here in Switzerland, one
    parliamentarian said he had lost eight kilograms during the
    investigation because he was so shocked. He never thought it was
    possible that a secret army could have existed in Switzerland. In
    Germany people were shocked, too, to hear that former Nazis were
    active in these networks, that the CIA trained Nazis was unbelievable
    for them. So in the beginning it was a shock. But then, when the
    secret armies were closed down -- if indeed that was the case -- then
    people were relieved.'

    Many analysts today believe such networks in Turkey could be remnants
    of the Turkish leg of the actual Gladio of the Cold War era. Whatever
    the theory, Turkey has yet to clean up its own Gladio.

    Exposure of the deep state

    Former Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit was the first politician to
    learn of the existence of this secret formation. In 1977, he said in a
    speech that `an organization inside the state, but outside the state's
    control' had carried out the incidents of May 1, 1977, when unknown
    perpetrators opened fire from a hotel on a crowd gathered in Taksim
    Square for May Day celebrations, killing 36. Ecevit narrowly escaped
    an assassination attempt 20 days after his statement. Later, the
    US-made gun used in the assassination attempt proved to be property of
    the Ä°zmir Police Department and the failed assassin a police
    officer, but the incident was quickly covered up.

    Soon after, there was a coup d'état. Many years passed. In
    1996, a car accident occurred. A truck ran into a Mercedes near the
    small town of Susurluk. A police chief, a convicted fugitive who was
    an ultranationalist and a deputy were in the Mercedes. The
    ultranationalist fugitive, who died in the accident, was the man
    driving the car when nationalist youths killed seven students who were
    members of TİP in Bahçelievler 18 years earlier. This
    was the closest Turkey came to uncovering the powerful connections of
    the deep state, but that chance was lost.

    Nine years later, a bombing of a bookshop owned by a Kurdish
    nationalist in the southeastern town of Å?emdinli, during which
    two members of the Turkish security forces were caught red-handed,
    gave Turkey another opportunity to shed light on at least some of the
    elements of the complex deep state network. However, the prosecutor on
    the case was disbarred by the Supreme Board of Prosecutors and Judges
    (HSYK) after indicting the land forces commander of the time as being
    the founder of a gang that was responsible for the Å?emdinli
    bookstore bombing. The three main suspects -- two non-commissioned
    officers and a PKK informant -- were given nearly 40 years each by a
    civil court at the end of a lengthy trial process that lasted close to
    two years. However, in May of last year the Supreme Court of Appeals
    declared the case a mistrial and ordered the suspects be retried by a
    military court.

    Ergenekon: crimes and members

    This is why the trial of Ergenekon is seen as a historic opportunity
    for Turkey to confront the deep state for the first time. The
    suspects, 45 of whom are currently under arrest, are now standing
    trial.

    Among the 86 suspects are several retired generals, including one who
    headed an ultra-Kemalist organization that organized massive
    anti-government rallies in 2007; other retired army officers; a number
    of mafia bosses who were also ultranationalist youth leaders in the
    '70s and '80s; an ultranationalist lawyer who filed charges of
    `insulting Turkishness' against various intellectuals -- including
    writer Orhan Pamuk -- over statements that fell outside the state
    line; journalists; drug lords; the spokesperson of a dubious
    organization called the Turkish Orthodox Patriarchate, academics,
    including the former rector of the Ä°stanbul University; a
    forensic council expert and others. A number of people currently
    jailed on charges of Ergenekon membership were also detained or called
    to testify in the Susurluk investigation of 1996.

    The indictment made public in July accuses the Ergenekon network of
    being behind a series of major political assassinations over the past
    two decades. The victims include a secularist journalist, UÄ?ur
    Mumcu, long believed to have been assassinated by Islamic extremists
    in 1993; the head of a business conglomerate, Ã-zdemir
    Sabancı, who was shot dead by militants of the extreme-left
    Revolutionary People's Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C) in his
    high-security office in 1996; secularist academic Necip
    HablemitoÄ?lu, who was also believed to have been killed by
    Islamic extremists, in 2002; and a 2006 attack on the Council of State
    that left a senior judge dead. Alparslan Arslan, found guilty of the
    Council of State killing, said he attacked the court in protest of an
    anti-headscarf ruling it had made. But the indictment contains
    evidence that he was connected with Ergenekon and that his family
    received large sums of money from unidentified sources after the
    shooting.

    The indictment also says Veli Küçük, believed to
    be one of the leading members of the network, had threatened Hrant
    Dink, a Turkish-Armenian journalist slain by a teenager in 2007,
    before his murder -- a sign that Ergenekon could be behind that murder
    as well. Küçük was also detained, but later
    released in the Susurluk affair of 1996.

    Suspects began appearing in court as of Oct. 20, facing accusations
    that include `membership in an armed terrorist group,' `attempting to
    destroy the government,' `inciting people to rebel against the
    Republic of Turkey' and other similar crimes.

    More questions on Ergenekon

    Is Ergenekon being administered from a single center? Or are we faced
    with renegade groups that have links with other terrorist
    organizations, such as the PKK, whose links with the MÄ°T have
    also been exposed? Are its members all ultranationalists who think
    they are doing the best for the country? Or are there those who are in
    it for the money, illegal business privileges, the prestige or the
    sheer thrill of it all? Do the militants in other armed groups in
    Turkey realize that all their actions might have been ordered by their
    leaders only to serve the purposes of Ergenekon and not their cause?
    Some of these questions have certain answers, while others are not yet
    known by anyone. The secrecy, the vastness of the organization, its
    long life, its successful penetration of every level of the state and
    every segment of society make for a highly tangled bundle, which may
    take years to extricate.

    Some believe that the Ergenekon trial is only a shake-up of the
    greater organization to get rid of its elements that have been exposed
    or compromised. The prosecutors, they claim, are actually working for
    that cause. Given the history of Gladio and the deep state in Turkey,
    this theory is a possibility, although, one might optimistically add,
    an unlikely one. An overwhelming majority of writers, journalists,
    researchers and politicians believe that the trial is not another long
    con on the part of deep state masterminds, and that this is Turkey's
    chance to really confront its own Gladio.

    04 January 2009, Sunday
    E. BARIÅ? ALTINTAÅ? Ä°STANBUL

    http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?lo ad=detay&link=163143&bolum=101

    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
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