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  • Why The Deep State Targets Christians

    WHY THE DEEP STATE TARGETS CHRISTIANS
    By Orhan Kemal Cengiz

    Zaman
    23 May 2009, Saturday

    Some central suspects in the Ergenekon trial were also implicated in
    the Malatya massacre and the murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist
    Hrant Dink on Jan. 19, 2008.

    Father Andrea Santoro, a Catholic priest, was killed in Trabzon
    in 2006. No one realized then that this was the beginning of a
    pattern. The militant nationalist who killed Santoro was just 17
    years old. The Santoro case was completed with lightning speed.

    The youngster was sentenced, but nothing was revealed. Then, in 2007,
    Hrant Dink, a Turkish-Armenian and a liberal journalist, was shot
    dead in front his newspaper, Agos, by another militant nationalist,
    who was again a 17-year-old boy from Trabzon. Three months after Dink's
    murder, three missionaries were brutally killed in Malatya. After the
    Malatya massacre there were many other attacks and murder attempts
    targeting Christians once again. A Catholic priest was stabbed in the
    stomach during a service at a Catholic church in Ä°zmir. In Samsun,
    Diyarbakır and Antalya, other murder attempts were prevented by
    successful operations by the police.

    In all these "successful" or attempted attacks, the perpetrators
    had traits in common. They were all very young, mostly under 18 and
    no older than 19. They all were ultranationalists with very obvious
    ties to well-known ultranationalist groups. Some good questions to
    ask would be: Are all these murders and attacks connected? Were these
    youngsters directed from one single center? And, most importantly, were
    these murders somehow linked to the illegal apparatus within the state?

    The Ergenekon connection

    As a lawyer closely watching the Hrant Dink and Malatya massacre cases
    (and being directly involved in the latter), I can say that all signs
    point to the Ergenekon gang. Some central suspects in the Ergenekon
    trial were also indicated in Malatya massacre and Dink cases. Some
    suspects had either direct or indirect contacts with Gen. Veli Kucuk,
    the retired gendarmerie commander whose name was always involved in
    extrajudicial killings (also known as "unsolved murders") carried out
    against Kurdish activists in southeastern Turkey. In both cases other
    gendarmerie officers were summoned as either suspects or as witnesses.

    But if these two incidents, the murder and the massacre, were planned
    and orchestrated by the Ergenekon gang, what could the purpose or
    motivation behind them be? Without having an insight into the mental
    framework of Ergenekon, we can not possibly answer this question.

    Ergenekon and past atrocities

    Today we have such strong propaganda against the Ergenekon case
    (in order to whitewash its suspects) that it is almost impossible
    not to lose the sense of direction. The case is presented as if it
    were just a fabrication by the government in order20to silence its
    political opponents. This is absolutely not the case.

    I cannot go into all details about the Ergenekon case here, so I will
    just focus on its connection to the attacks against Christians in
    Turkey. Even if we just focus on this topic, we can see the "depth"
    of the organization.

    There are many documents in the Ergenekon file produced by the members
    of this organization. One of these documents defines the "Special
    Forces" (Ozel Kuvvetler) as "the eye of Ergenekon." The Special Forces,
    a military unit, is the successor of the Special Warfare Center
    (Ozel Harp Dairesi -- OHD), another unit in the Turkish military.

    According to a retired commander of the OHD, Sabri YirmibeÅ~_oglu,
    the pogroms against Ä°stanbul's non-Muslims on Sept. 5-6, 1955 "were
    the fantastic work of the Special Warfare Center."

    Ergenekon and anti-Christian activities

    This "fantastic" tradition continues under Ergenekon. Let us start
    with one of the organization's meeting places: the "Turkish Orthodox
    Patriarchate" (TOP). TOP was established in the early '20s with the
    financial support of Turkish state to fight against the Greek Orthodox
    Church. It is a church with no congregation. Since its inception TOP's
    only work was to fight against Christians in Turkey. Recently though,
    the main focus of TOP has been to fight against missionary activity. =0
    D Sevgi Erenol, who is the spokesperson of TOP and who is in prison
    now in connection with the Ergenekon case, regularly gave briefings
    to top officials about the "missionary threat" in Turkey.

    Kemal Kerincsiz, an ultranationalist lawyer who was suing liberal
    intellectuals for "insulting Turkishness" and who provoked public
    opinion against Hrant Dink, has also brought cases against missionaries
    before the domestic courts. Ergun Poyraz, who is apparently responsible
    for Ergenekon's propaganda war and who wrote many books about Prime
    Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul, accusing
    them having non-Muslim roots, has also published a hate-mongering
    book titled "Six Months Amongst Missionaries." This latter book became
    the bible of the war against Protestants in Turkey. We now know from
    the Ergenekon file that Mr. Poyraz was actively using the archives
    of the gendarmerie.

    The Ankara Chamber of Commerce (ATO) also used to publish regular
    paranoid reports about missionary activities. These "reports" were
    taken very seriously by the National Security Council (MGK), which
    is dominated by generals, and those reports led the MGK to declare
    that missionary activities were a real threat to national security
    in Turkey. Sinan Aygun, the chairman of the ATO since 1998, is now
    one of the suspects in the Ergenekon case.

    Ergenekon's mindset

    Ergenekon has a long his tory in Turkey, and it is not possible to
    go into all of it in one article.

    However, if you want to understand what Ergenekon is and what kind of
    mentality it has, just look at the Committee of Union and Progress
    (Ä°TC), which was responsible for the massacres of Armenians while
    the Ottoman Empire was falling apart. Ergenekon has exactly the same
    mindset; it is the last inheritor of the Ä°TC in Turkey. Since Turkey
    has never faced its dark past, it has never dissolved these shadowy
    structures within the state. It therefore was no coincidence that when
    NATO sponsored "shadow armies" (widely known as Operation Gladio),
    they developed very strong and deep roots in Turkey. The country is
    simply fertile ground for these kinds of illegal structures. In fact
    Turkey has never attempted to dissolve them. It is the only NATO
    member country that has not exposed and dissolved this organization.

    When it comes to the question of what the purpose of all these
    attacks and propaganda against Christians is, my conclusion would be
    as follows: Like its predecessor the Ä°TC, Ergenekon also wants to
    "purify" Anatolia.

    With all these murders they were trying to send the message to
    the members of Christian communities in Turkey that they are not
    welcome in this country. On the other hand Ergenekon wants to
    give the impression to Turkey and the outside world that as soon
    as an Islamic-oriented government came to power, massacres against
    Christians started. Finally, with these and remaining unsuccessful
    murder attempts, they aim at creating obstacles to Turkey's EU path.

    Why were they specifically trying to create paranoia about missionary
    activity? I think this was aimed at making conservative Muslims more
    nationalist. They portray missionaries as the agents of "imperialism,"
    which seeks to divide Turkey. In this context, Protestants were
    used as a kind of scapegoat to provoke Muslims. The main purpose of
    Ergenekon, after all, is to create an obsessively nationalist country
    cut off from the rest of the world, and especially Europe. Turkey's
    democratic system and the rights of its non-Muslim minorities will
    be only secured if this fascist gang, and its mentality, fails.
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