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WHY THE DEEP STATE TARGETS CHRISTIANS?
By Aris Babikian
AZG Armenian Daily
30/05/2009
International; Turkey
Dear Friends,
I would like to bring to your attention the below article from TODAY'S
ZAMAN (May 23, 2009), one of the biggest-circulation Turkish dailies.
It is a quite disturbing and eye-opening expose of the Turkish
Government's Big Lie about its so-called policies of minority
tolerance. The article makes it clear that as far as the tolerance of
minorities is concerned nothing has changed in Turkey since 1915. The
same racist and xenophobic policies persist today under different
names and forms.
Regardless of how much money the Turkish Government spends on
international public relation firms, funds 'academic' chairs in North
American universities, and hires pseudojournalists and academics to
spread Turkish propaganda, the truth will out: the Turkish Government
can't hide its real intent of creating an ethnically homogenous
Turkish state where there's no room for citizens of non-Turkish origin.
This continuum of racism, massacre, genocide and deportation highlights
the existence of a long-term scheme implemented by successive Turkish
regimes from the 1890's to recent times in order to solve the Armenian
Question and purify Turkey.
Glossary (The Committee of Union and Progress-ÐTC) was the party
in power at the time of the Armenian Genocide in 1915 and was the
architect of the genocide. Many of its leaders later became leading
politicians in the new Republic of Turkey.
(Deep State) is the collective name given to some members of the
Turkish army, intelligence services, nationalist journalists and
academics. Deep State is a clandestine and ultra-nationalist group.
(Ergenekon) is a shadowy paramilitary and nationalist organization
and, according to reliable sources, the power behind the 'throne'
in Turkey. Its leaders are current and former high-ranking Turkish
army officers, in addition to the intelligence services, nationalist
journalists, academics, politicians, jurists, and business people. The
Grey Wolves terrorist organization is closely associated with
Ergonokon. The latter has assassinated liberal-minded journalists,
human rights activists and intellectuals. It has also orchestrated
several military coups, incited hatred towards minorities, and
introduced the notorious article 301 of the Turkish penal code, which
allows the prosecution of any one who dares to challenge the Turkish
government narratives on many taboos including the Armenian Genocide.
Why the deep state targets Christians By ORHAN KEMAL CENGÐZ 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 Ðzmir. In Samsun, Diyarbakýr 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
order to 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 Yirmibesoglu, the pogroms against Ðstanbul'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. 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 w!
ho 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 history 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 (ÐTC), 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 ÐTC 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 ÐTC, 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.
By Aris Babikian
AZG Armenian Daily
30/05/2009
International; Turkey
Dear Friends,
I would like to bring to your attention the below article from TODAY'S
ZAMAN (May 23, 2009), one of the biggest-circulation Turkish dailies.
It is a quite disturbing and eye-opening expose of the Turkish
Government's Big Lie about its so-called policies of minority
tolerance. The article makes it clear that as far as the tolerance of
minorities is concerned nothing has changed in Turkey since 1915. The
same racist and xenophobic policies persist today under different
names and forms.
Regardless of how much money the Turkish Government spends on
international public relation firms, funds 'academic' chairs in North
American universities, and hires pseudojournalists and academics to
spread Turkish propaganda, the truth will out: the Turkish Government
can't hide its real intent of creating an ethnically homogenous
Turkish state where there's no room for citizens of non-Turkish origin.
This continuum of racism, massacre, genocide and deportation highlights
the existence of a long-term scheme implemented by successive Turkish
regimes from the 1890's to recent times in order to solve the Armenian
Question and purify Turkey.
Glossary (The Committee of Union and Progress-ÐTC) was the party
in power at the time of the Armenian Genocide in 1915 and was the
architect of the genocide. Many of its leaders later became leading
politicians in the new Republic of Turkey.
(Deep State) is the collective name given to some members of the
Turkish army, intelligence services, nationalist journalists and
academics. Deep State is a clandestine and ultra-nationalist group.
(Ergenekon) is a shadowy paramilitary and nationalist organization
and, according to reliable sources, the power behind the 'throne'
in Turkey. Its leaders are current and former high-ranking Turkish
army officers, in addition to the intelligence services, nationalist
journalists, academics, politicians, jurists, and business people. The
Grey Wolves terrorist organization is closely associated with
Ergonokon. The latter has assassinated liberal-minded journalists,
human rights activists and intellectuals. It has also orchestrated
several military coups, incited hatred towards minorities, and
introduced the notorious article 301 of the Turkish penal code, which
allows the prosecution of any one who dares to challenge the Turkish
government narratives on many taboos including the Armenian Genocide.
Why the deep state targets Christians By ORHAN KEMAL CENGÐZ 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 Ðzmir. In Samsun, Diyarbakýr 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
order to 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 Yirmibesoglu, the pogroms against Ðstanbul'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. 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 w!
ho 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 history 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 (ÐTC), 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 ÐTC 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 ÐTC, 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.