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NO ANSWERS TO TRABZON RIDDLE ON EVE OF ELECTIONS
Jasper Mortimer Trabzon
Today's Zaman, Turkey
July 20 2007
Trabzon is a port city built at the foot of high mountains, covered
in dark green forests and hazelnut plantations, whose natural beauty
and historical sites draw about 1 million tourists a year.
But Trabzonites are tired of journalists coming to their town and
delving into the murders of Father Andrea Santoro and journalist
Hrant Dink, events that now mark the city like two indelible ink
stains on a carpet. They want visitors to appreciate the carpet as a
whole. It is the murders that continue to attract outside attention,
and Trabzonites have a problem in that they cannot find a link between
their city's culture and the killings.
Motorists driving into Trabzon from the south know which city they have
reached when they pass two factories on either side of the road, both
painted in the light blue and rusty red of the local football team.
A little further, they see a fiberglass statue of a Trabzonspor
player poised on one leg as he prepares to kick the ball across the
road. Once inside the city, the motorists may find themselves driving
down Trabzonspor Boulevard, whose curbstones are that same light blue
and rusty red.
This trumpeting of the team may seem silly to visitors, but
Trabzonites are justifiably proud of producing the only soccer club
outside Ýstanbul that has won the national championship. Turkey
has at least 10 Anatolian cities bigger and richer than Trabzon,
but it is only Trabzonspor that has beaten Ýstanbul's Galatasaray,
Fenerbahce and Beþiktaþ.
Such is the passion for football in this northeastern city on the
Black Sea coast that the Justice and Development Party (AK Party)
is expected to lose a few votes on Sunday. This is because residents
have not forgotten the pro-Fenerbahce comments Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdoðan made two years ago after a controversial match between
his favorite team and Trabzonspor. But some people in Trabzon have
darker passions. The city produced two of the three sectarian murders
that have brought international opprobrium on Turkey in the past 18
months. While civic leaders were quick to condemn the killings of an
Italian Catholic priest and a prominent Turkish-Armenian journalist,
ugly statements on YouTube and other Web sites revealed a hard core
of approval.
Political pundits predict the most right-wing of Turkey's mainstream
parties, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), will poll second
behind the AK Party in Trabzon on Sunday with 15 to 20 percent of the
vote. In 2002 the MHP polled fourth with 8 percent. While liberals
in Ýstanbul and Ankara may have hoped that after two murders that
shamed the nation Trabzon would turn its back on the MHP, people in
the city feel no such obligation.
"There is no connection at all between the political parties and
these killings," said Ali Ozturk, the editor of the city's newspaper
Gunebakýþ. He knows that because he lives in a nationalistic district,
and "the party nationalists and the extremists don't get along."
Trabzonites are tired of journalists coming to their town and delving
into the murders of Father Andrea Santoro and journalist Hrant Dink,
events that now mark the city like two indelible ink stains on a
carpet. They want visitors to appreciate the carpet as a whole: A
port city built at the foot of high mountains, covered in dark green
forests and hazelnut plantations, whose natural beauty and historical
sites draw about 1 million tourists a year.
But it is the murders that continue to attract outside attention,
and Trabzonites have a problem in that they cannot find a link between
their city's culture and the killings.
"Why did both killers come from Trabzon? That is the question," said
Aydýn Erkaya as he sat shirtless in shorts and sandals outside the
Faroz coffee shop on the coastal road. "We don't know the answer."
At the city hall, Mayor Volkan Canalioðlu said when he heard that the
second murder originated in Trabzon, "I was very surprised and upset.
I didn't expect it." As to a reason, "We don't have an explanation,"
he shrugged.
Trabzonites were shocked by the youth of the killers. It was a
16-year-old boy who walked into Trabzon's only church, the Roman
Catholic Santa Maria, in February 2006 and shot dead Father Santoro
as he knelt in prayer at a pew.
It was a 17-year-old high-school dropout, O.S. (who cannot be named
as he is underage and currently on trial), who apparently took a bus
from Trabzon to Ýstanbul in January and shot dead Turkish-Armenian
editor and journalist Dink outside his newspaper office. Dink died
lying face down in his blood on the pavement. Four months later Turkey
suffered the third sectarian murder when militants killed two Turks
and a German in a Christian publishing house in Malatya. Unlike the
Trabzon killers, these assailants were adults who attacked in a group.
Trabzon tourism director Mehmet Oncel Koc knew Santoro well. "How
could a Trabzon child kill a priest?" he said to Today's Zaman. "I
believe there is something strange behind it."
The men playing cards and drinking tea in the Faroz coffee shop have
lots of theories as to who was behind it: the Trabzon mafia or maybe
"derin devlet" -- the "deep state," as the invisible hand of Turkey's
establishment is known.
And the city's editors have their theories. Gunebakýþ editor Ozturk
said an "unseen power" had selected killers from Trabzon with the
aim of tarnishing the city's image, because "Trabzon is an important
place."
The managing editor of the local Mavi TV station, Ulaþ Ozdemir, said
that as happened in Malatya before the 1980 coup, "some unknown forces
are trying to turn Trabzon into a center for initiating turmoil ... a
breeding ground of hit men."
Ozdemir said Trabzon's character had been changed by a large influx of
people from other areas. Many natives of Trabzon have left the city,
taking their culture with them. While nationalism has always been
strong in Trabzon, in the past it was not the kind that believed in
attacking one's opponents. It has now been replaced by a "mindless,
aggressive nationalism that uses force, humiliates and excludes
people".
He blamed this on poor education, high unemployment and a mixture of
backgrounds that leaves young people searching for something.
"In Trabzon there are 13,000 to 14,000 unemployed people. If you look
at what was said about Dink on YouTube after his killing, you can see
that there are people who think it was good that Dink was killed and
they regard O.S. as a hero, like the policemen who had their photos
taken with [the teenager] after they caught him," he said, referring
to the pictures of the police officers who posed with O.S. in front
of a Turkish flag after arresting him on a Trabzon-bound bus in Samsun.
The variety of theories shows how confused the city is, and how
important it is for the authorities to get to the bottom of the
murders.
In the Dink case, O.S. and 17 other alleged adult accomplices are
currently standing trial. The boy who killed Santoro has been sentenced
to nearly 19 years' imprisonment, but nobody else has been charged
for the crime.
"The boy could not have acted alone," said Mustafa Erguney, a lawyer
in Trabzon. "He did not have enough reason to do it."
Today's Zaman asked Public Works Minister Faruk Nafiz Ozak if he was
satisfied by the Santoro investigation. The minister, an AK Party
legislator for Trabzon, said he had spoken to the then Interior
Minister Abdulkadir Aksu, who had sent a team of investigators to
Trabzon to pursue the case.
"The interior minister said the boy was a clever, introverted child.
They couldn't find anything," Ozak said. "Let me add this. I was young
when [President John F.] Kennedy was killed. We still don't know
who killed him." Ozak was similarly at a loss to explain Trabzon's
connection to two sectarian murders. "There is no explanation for
it. It is a sociological event," he said.
For some Trabzonites, such answers are not good enough.
Restaurant owner Selahattin Ahiskali pointed out that the alleged
mastermind of Dink's killing had earlier been involved in the bombing
of a McDonald's fast-food restaurant. "If the police had investigated
that well enough, then Santoro would not have been killed. If Santoro's
killing had been pursued well enough, then Dink would not have been
killed," said Ahýskali, a supporter of the Republican People's Party
(CHP).
At Santa Maria church, a priest's assistant who was not authorized
to speak to the press would not be drawn on what the church thought
of the Santoro investigation, saying only that the church was leaving
it entirely to the Turkish authorities.
The church has no plaque commemorating Santoro, who had earned respect
in his three years in Trabzon, but visitors can light a candle,
kneel and say a prayer before a photograph of the gray-haired priest,
wearing a white robe with a purple sash. The picture stands at the
foot of a statue of the Virgin Mary in a niche. The Virgin holds the
infant Jesus, who looks at a worshipper with open arms and a friendly
smile, welcoming him.
--Boundary_(ID_XoFjz7/l/MDGj+yisAcxRw)--
Jasper Mortimer Trabzon
Today's Zaman, Turkey
July 20 2007
Trabzon is a port city built at the foot of high mountains, covered
in dark green forests and hazelnut plantations, whose natural beauty
and historical sites draw about 1 million tourists a year.
But Trabzonites are tired of journalists coming to their town and
delving into the murders of Father Andrea Santoro and journalist
Hrant Dink, events that now mark the city like two indelible ink
stains on a carpet. They want visitors to appreciate the carpet as a
whole. It is the murders that continue to attract outside attention,
and Trabzonites have a problem in that they cannot find a link between
their city's culture and the killings.
Motorists driving into Trabzon from the south know which city they have
reached when they pass two factories on either side of the road, both
painted in the light blue and rusty red of the local football team.
A little further, they see a fiberglass statue of a Trabzonspor
player poised on one leg as he prepares to kick the ball across the
road. Once inside the city, the motorists may find themselves driving
down Trabzonspor Boulevard, whose curbstones are that same light blue
and rusty red.
This trumpeting of the team may seem silly to visitors, but
Trabzonites are justifiably proud of producing the only soccer club
outside Ýstanbul that has won the national championship. Turkey
has at least 10 Anatolian cities bigger and richer than Trabzon,
but it is only Trabzonspor that has beaten Ýstanbul's Galatasaray,
Fenerbahce and Beþiktaþ.
Such is the passion for football in this northeastern city on the
Black Sea coast that the Justice and Development Party (AK Party)
is expected to lose a few votes on Sunday. This is because residents
have not forgotten the pro-Fenerbahce comments Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdoðan made two years ago after a controversial match between
his favorite team and Trabzonspor. But some people in Trabzon have
darker passions. The city produced two of the three sectarian murders
that have brought international opprobrium on Turkey in the past 18
months. While civic leaders were quick to condemn the killings of an
Italian Catholic priest and a prominent Turkish-Armenian journalist,
ugly statements on YouTube and other Web sites revealed a hard core
of approval.
Political pundits predict the most right-wing of Turkey's mainstream
parties, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), will poll second
behind the AK Party in Trabzon on Sunday with 15 to 20 percent of the
vote. In 2002 the MHP polled fourth with 8 percent. While liberals
in Ýstanbul and Ankara may have hoped that after two murders that
shamed the nation Trabzon would turn its back on the MHP, people in
the city feel no such obligation.
"There is no connection at all between the political parties and
these killings," said Ali Ozturk, the editor of the city's newspaper
Gunebakýþ. He knows that because he lives in a nationalistic district,
and "the party nationalists and the extremists don't get along."
Trabzonites are tired of journalists coming to their town and delving
into the murders of Father Andrea Santoro and journalist Hrant Dink,
events that now mark the city like two indelible ink stains on a
carpet. They want visitors to appreciate the carpet as a whole: A
port city built at the foot of high mountains, covered in dark green
forests and hazelnut plantations, whose natural beauty and historical
sites draw about 1 million tourists a year.
But it is the murders that continue to attract outside attention,
and Trabzonites have a problem in that they cannot find a link between
their city's culture and the killings.
"Why did both killers come from Trabzon? That is the question," said
Aydýn Erkaya as he sat shirtless in shorts and sandals outside the
Faroz coffee shop on the coastal road. "We don't know the answer."
At the city hall, Mayor Volkan Canalioðlu said when he heard that the
second murder originated in Trabzon, "I was very surprised and upset.
I didn't expect it." As to a reason, "We don't have an explanation,"
he shrugged.
Trabzonites were shocked by the youth of the killers. It was a
16-year-old boy who walked into Trabzon's only church, the Roman
Catholic Santa Maria, in February 2006 and shot dead Father Santoro
as he knelt in prayer at a pew.
It was a 17-year-old high-school dropout, O.S. (who cannot be named
as he is underage and currently on trial), who apparently took a bus
from Trabzon to Ýstanbul in January and shot dead Turkish-Armenian
editor and journalist Dink outside his newspaper office. Dink died
lying face down in his blood on the pavement. Four months later Turkey
suffered the third sectarian murder when militants killed two Turks
and a German in a Christian publishing house in Malatya. Unlike the
Trabzon killers, these assailants were adults who attacked in a group.
Trabzon tourism director Mehmet Oncel Koc knew Santoro well. "How
could a Trabzon child kill a priest?" he said to Today's Zaman. "I
believe there is something strange behind it."
The men playing cards and drinking tea in the Faroz coffee shop have
lots of theories as to who was behind it: the Trabzon mafia or maybe
"derin devlet" -- the "deep state," as the invisible hand of Turkey's
establishment is known.
And the city's editors have their theories. Gunebakýþ editor Ozturk
said an "unseen power" had selected killers from Trabzon with the
aim of tarnishing the city's image, because "Trabzon is an important
place."
The managing editor of the local Mavi TV station, Ulaþ Ozdemir, said
that as happened in Malatya before the 1980 coup, "some unknown forces
are trying to turn Trabzon into a center for initiating turmoil ... a
breeding ground of hit men."
Ozdemir said Trabzon's character had been changed by a large influx of
people from other areas. Many natives of Trabzon have left the city,
taking their culture with them. While nationalism has always been
strong in Trabzon, in the past it was not the kind that believed in
attacking one's opponents. It has now been replaced by a "mindless,
aggressive nationalism that uses force, humiliates and excludes
people".
He blamed this on poor education, high unemployment and a mixture of
backgrounds that leaves young people searching for something.
"In Trabzon there are 13,000 to 14,000 unemployed people. If you look
at what was said about Dink on YouTube after his killing, you can see
that there are people who think it was good that Dink was killed and
they regard O.S. as a hero, like the policemen who had their photos
taken with [the teenager] after they caught him," he said, referring
to the pictures of the police officers who posed with O.S. in front
of a Turkish flag after arresting him on a Trabzon-bound bus in Samsun.
The variety of theories shows how confused the city is, and how
important it is for the authorities to get to the bottom of the
murders.
In the Dink case, O.S. and 17 other alleged adult accomplices are
currently standing trial. The boy who killed Santoro has been sentenced
to nearly 19 years' imprisonment, but nobody else has been charged
for the crime.
"The boy could not have acted alone," said Mustafa Erguney, a lawyer
in Trabzon. "He did not have enough reason to do it."
Today's Zaman asked Public Works Minister Faruk Nafiz Ozak if he was
satisfied by the Santoro investigation. The minister, an AK Party
legislator for Trabzon, said he had spoken to the then Interior
Minister Abdulkadir Aksu, who had sent a team of investigators to
Trabzon to pursue the case.
"The interior minister said the boy was a clever, introverted child.
They couldn't find anything," Ozak said. "Let me add this. I was young
when [President John F.] Kennedy was killed. We still don't know
who killed him." Ozak was similarly at a loss to explain Trabzon's
connection to two sectarian murders. "There is no explanation for
it. It is a sociological event," he said.
For some Trabzonites, such answers are not good enough.
Restaurant owner Selahattin Ahiskali pointed out that the alleged
mastermind of Dink's killing had earlier been involved in the bombing
of a McDonald's fast-food restaurant. "If the police had investigated
that well enough, then Santoro would not have been killed. If Santoro's
killing had been pursued well enough, then Dink would not have been
killed," said Ahýskali, a supporter of the Republican People's Party
(CHP).
At Santa Maria church, a priest's assistant who was not authorized
to speak to the press would not be drawn on what the church thought
of the Santoro investigation, saying only that the church was leaving
it entirely to the Turkish authorities.
The church has no plaque commemorating Santoro, who had earned respect
in his three years in Trabzon, but visitors can light a candle,
kneel and say a prayer before a photograph of the gray-haired priest,
wearing a white robe with a purple sash. The picture stands at the
foot of a statue of the Virgin Mary in a niche. The Virgin holds the
infant Jesus, who looks at a worshipper with open arms and a friendly
smile, welcoming him.
--Boundary_(ID_XoFjz7/l/MDGj+yisAcxRw)--