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MORE ON COUPS CHRISTIAN MURDERS
MARKAR ESAYAN
Today's Zaman
July 27 2012
Turkey
In my previous articles, I have discussed the murders of Christians in
Turkey in 2006 and 2007, drawing attention to the ongoing trial into
the slaughter of Christians at the Zirve publishing house in Malatya.
One particularly reason I have done this because that this case has
more substantiated content and is progressing more soundly than the
cases of the murder of Hrant Dink and priest Andrea Santoro. Indeed,
a supplementary indictment has been submitted to the court that
describes important findings by the prosecutors.
As is known, the Ä°stanbul 14th High Criminal Court acquitted
all defendants in the Dink murder case who had faced charges of
being members of a criminal organization in its January 17, 2012. A
supplementary indictment of 19 defendants, prepared and submitted to
the Malatya Specially Authorized 3rd High Criminal Court by Malatya
Specially Authorized Public Prosecutor Ä°smail Aksoy, in which is
discussed the "abetting" and "organized" structure of the case,
also reveals important links to the criminal organization behind the
murders of Dink and Santoro. According to the supplementary indictment,
the organization behind these murders is the same network behind the
murders at Malatya's Zirve publishing house.
This indictment has been accepted by Malatya Specially Authorized 3rd
High Criminal Court. Now, the main case file of the Zirve trial may
be merged with the main case file of the Kafes (Cage) action plan
because the same criminal organization that was behind the murders
of Dink and Santoro were responsible for the plan as well.
As I reiterated in my previous article, these murders are not
independent of the coup processes that emerged in Turkey after Nov. 3,
2002, when the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) came to power.
Actually, when the Welfare Party (RP) won a remarkable success in
the 1994 local elections, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the current prime
minister, was elected mayor of Ä°stanbul, a city seen as symbol of
modernity, generating great rage among neo-nationalist Kemalists. A
coalition was quickly created to lay the groundwork for a coup. This
process accelerated when the RP came to power by establishing a
coalition with the True Path Party (DYP). At that time, an overwhelming
majority of media outlets, business groups, trade unions, professional
organizations and universities worked greedily and voluntarily under
the coordination of pro-coup military officers in order to convince
the general public and the world outside Turkey that overthrowing the
government would be a legitimate act. In reality, there was neither
a risk of Shariah law nor secularism at hand.
However, they created this perception of Turkey in order to give the
impression that the country was suffering from such problems. The
efforts by media outlets were sufficient to accomplish this. Certain
disgraceful acts by fake Sufi masters were exaggerated and pumped
into the collective subconscious of the general public by specially
selected TV anchormen who employed effects used in horror films.
Staging a postmodern coup
Indeed, this scenario really worked and the military staged through
the National Security Council (MGK) on Feb. 28, 1997, what later would
come to be known as a postmodern coup. In June of this same year,
Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan resigned under mounting pressure.
Here, I should note that then-President Suleyman Demirel -- who had
been victimized by the coups of 1970 and 1980 -- made specific efforts
to ensure the military would successfully overthrow the government. He
was the maestro of the coup. The postmodern coup of Feb. 28 marks
the darkest era in the history of Turkish democracy in terms of the
actions of civilians.
Now, the Feb. 28 coup of is being investigated as well. Once-powerful
generals, including Cevik Bir in particular, are now in jail. This
is something that could not have been imagined 10 or even five years
ago in Turkey.
It was not acceptable for the coup perpetrators that the AK Party,
having sprung from the RP, came to power on Nov. 3, 2002. However,
the perpetrators were not as strong as they had been at the time of
the postmodern coup of Feb. 28 and could not exert unrelenting control
over the media as they had done in the past. The world was changing
quickly and the monopoly on information was being quickly disrupted;
they had to find a way that would be more effective. Moreover, the AK
Party movement had gone through a process of serious self-critiquing
during the Feb. 28 coup. It had abandoned Erbakan's state-oriented,
self-isolating, anti-Western, archaic attitudes that played into the
hands of the coup perpetrators. Instead, worked at an unprecedented
scale to further the country's bid to become a member of the European
Union and improved ties with the US and the rest of the world. True,
they were still religious, but they wouldn't bark at the moon, and
they would focus on universal values that would facilitate improved
ties with other religions, cultures and nations.
Numerous coup plots were uncovered between 2003 and 2004. The military
was unable to stage these coups because the outside world would see
no justifiable reason for the overthrow of the government. Moreover,
the police intelligence unit, established by the late President Turgut
Ozal as an alternative to the National Intelligence Organization (MÄ°T)
and the military intelligence unit, closely monitored the activities
of coup perpetrators and, as we later learned, the government sent
warnings to junta generals. Additionally, the chief of General Staff
of the time, Gen. Hilmi Ozkök, was setting up roadblocks before
subversive generals.
In my opinion, being unable to stage a traditional or postmodern
coup, the junta decided, at that time, to push the country towards
instability, forcing the government to go away of its own volition. To
this end, they needed violent acts that would bring doubt and horror
to the general public. They had to undermine the legitimacy the AK
Party had earned from the EU and the US, and the government had to
be put behind the eight ball at home and abroad.
They devised two extremely symbolic acts that would create the
impression that the AK Party and its voter base had a secret agenda
to turn the country into another Iran: the assassination of secular
and Christian figures.
Indeed, a person named Alparslan Arslan raided the Council of State,
one of the symbols of the secular establishment, with the advertised
intention of protesting the headscarf ban. A high judge -- Mustafa
Bilgili -- died in the attack. However, it raised many questions. It
was said that the security cameras had not been functioning during
the attack, but it was later found out that they had indeed been
functional but their hard disks had been manipulated. The security
company that operated those cameras was affiliated with Turkey's
biggest military economic enterprise. Now, an investigation was
underway. The trial stemming from the Council of State attack was
merged with the case against Ergenekon, a clandestine organization
nested within the state attempting to overthrow or manipulate the
democratically elected government.
Priest Santoro was killed in 2006 in Trabzon and my friend,
Turkish-Armenian journalist Dink, was killed in January 2007. The
massacre at the Zirve publishing house came in April 2007. The message
behind these assassinations was that there was a dubious religious
party in office and that radical Islamists, secretly sponsored by
this party, were killing secular people and Christians. Turkey,
a modern secular Muslim country and favorite of the West, might at
any moment turn into Iran!
Returning to the supplementary indictment in the Zirve massacre trial,
the indictment claims that the murders were "committed with the
intention of laying the blame on the AK Party and the Gulen movement."
In other words, through evidence, secret witnesses and confessions,
the prosecutor has reached the same conclusion we sensed when the
murders were committed.
The 761-page supplementary indictment prepared by Malatya Specially
Authorized Public Prosecutor Ä°smail Aksoy lists as defendants
retired Gen. Ahmet HurÅ~_it Tolon, former Malatya Gendarmerie Regiment
commander Col. Mehmet Ulger and Maj. Haydar YeÅ~_il as well as a number
lower-ranking military officers, soldiers and civilians who worked as
secret agents for an organization called the National Strategies and
Operations Department of Turkey (TUSHAD), an undercover military unit.
The indictment accuses Tolon, Ulger and YeÅ~_il of such acts as leading
a terrorist organization, attempting to overthrow the government of
the Turkish Republic or to prevent it from performing its duties,
inciting premeditated murder, inciting the deprivation of freedom and
forging official documents. The prosecutor is seeking two consecutive
life sentences in solitary confinement for each with no possibility
of parole.
As its most important point, the indictment states: "Given the fact
that Ahmet HurÅ~_it Tolon, a defendant in the Ergenekon trial, was in
Malatya before and on the day the murders were committed, and [given]
that the report by the State Audit Institution [DDK] on the murder of
Hrant Dink and testimony by witness codenamed Adıyaman portend links
among the murders of priest Santoro, Hrant Dink and the missionaries
at the Zirve publishing house, the connection between these murders
and the Ergenekon terrorist organization and this organization's
planned acts have been made clear."
This shocking development has not been covered sufficiently by the
media. However, the three symbolic trials are of crucial importance
in deciphering the deep state, known as Ergenekon, founded by the
Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) back in the 1910s.
MARKAR ESAYAN
Today's Zaman
July 27 2012
Turkey
In my previous articles, I have discussed the murders of Christians in
Turkey in 2006 and 2007, drawing attention to the ongoing trial into
the slaughter of Christians at the Zirve publishing house in Malatya.
One particularly reason I have done this because that this case has
more substantiated content and is progressing more soundly than the
cases of the murder of Hrant Dink and priest Andrea Santoro. Indeed,
a supplementary indictment has been submitted to the court that
describes important findings by the prosecutors.
As is known, the Ä°stanbul 14th High Criminal Court acquitted
all defendants in the Dink murder case who had faced charges of
being members of a criminal organization in its January 17, 2012. A
supplementary indictment of 19 defendants, prepared and submitted to
the Malatya Specially Authorized 3rd High Criminal Court by Malatya
Specially Authorized Public Prosecutor Ä°smail Aksoy, in which is
discussed the "abetting" and "organized" structure of the case,
also reveals important links to the criminal organization behind the
murders of Dink and Santoro. According to the supplementary indictment,
the organization behind these murders is the same network behind the
murders at Malatya's Zirve publishing house.
This indictment has been accepted by Malatya Specially Authorized 3rd
High Criminal Court. Now, the main case file of the Zirve trial may
be merged with the main case file of the Kafes (Cage) action plan
because the same criminal organization that was behind the murders
of Dink and Santoro were responsible for the plan as well.
As I reiterated in my previous article, these murders are not
independent of the coup processes that emerged in Turkey after Nov. 3,
2002, when the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) came to power.
Actually, when the Welfare Party (RP) won a remarkable success in
the 1994 local elections, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the current prime
minister, was elected mayor of Ä°stanbul, a city seen as symbol of
modernity, generating great rage among neo-nationalist Kemalists. A
coalition was quickly created to lay the groundwork for a coup. This
process accelerated when the RP came to power by establishing a
coalition with the True Path Party (DYP). At that time, an overwhelming
majority of media outlets, business groups, trade unions, professional
organizations and universities worked greedily and voluntarily under
the coordination of pro-coup military officers in order to convince
the general public and the world outside Turkey that overthrowing the
government would be a legitimate act. In reality, there was neither
a risk of Shariah law nor secularism at hand.
However, they created this perception of Turkey in order to give the
impression that the country was suffering from such problems. The
efforts by media outlets were sufficient to accomplish this. Certain
disgraceful acts by fake Sufi masters were exaggerated and pumped
into the collective subconscious of the general public by specially
selected TV anchormen who employed effects used in horror films.
Staging a postmodern coup
Indeed, this scenario really worked and the military staged through
the National Security Council (MGK) on Feb. 28, 1997, what later would
come to be known as a postmodern coup. In June of this same year,
Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan resigned under mounting pressure.
Here, I should note that then-President Suleyman Demirel -- who had
been victimized by the coups of 1970 and 1980 -- made specific efforts
to ensure the military would successfully overthrow the government. He
was the maestro of the coup. The postmodern coup of Feb. 28 marks
the darkest era in the history of Turkish democracy in terms of the
actions of civilians.
Now, the Feb. 28 coup of is being investigated as well. Once-powerful
generals, including Cevik Bir in particular, are now in jail. This
is something that could not have been imagined 10 or even five years
ago in Turkey.
It was not acceptable for the coup perpetrators that the AK Party,
having sprung from the RP, came to power on Nov. 3, 2002. However,
the perpetrators were not as strong as they had been at the time of
the postmodern coup of Feb. 28 and could not exert unrelenting control
over the media as they had done in the past. The world was changing
quickly and the monopoly on information was being quickly disrupted;
they had to find a way that would be more effective. Moreover, the AK
Party movement had gone through a process of serious self-critiquing
during the Feb. 28 coup. It had abandoned Erbakan's state-oriented,
self-isolating, anti-Western, archaic attitudes that played into the
hands of the coup perpetrators. Instead, worked at an unprecedented
scale to further the country's bid to become a member of the European
Union and improved ties with the US and the rest of the world. True,
they were still religious, but they wouldn't bark at the moon, and
they would focus on universal values that would facilitate improved
ties with other religions, cultures and nations.
Numerous coup plots were uncovered between 2003 and 2004. The military
was unable to stage these coups because the outside world would see
no justifiable reason for the overthrow of the government. Moreover,
the police intelligence unit, established by the late President Turgut
Ozal as an alternative to the National Intelligence Organization (MÄ°T)
and the military intelligence unit, closely monitored the activities
of coup perpetrators and, as we later learned, the government sent
warnings to junta generals. Additionally, the chief of General Staff
of the time, Gen. Hilmi Ozkök, was setting up roadblocks before
subversive generals.
In my opinion, being unable to stage a traditional or postmodern
coup, the junta decided, at that time, to push the country towards
instability, forcing the government to go away of its own volition. To
this end, they needed violent acts that would bring doubt and horror
to the general public. They had to undermine the legitimacy the AK
Party had earned from the EU and the US, and the government had to
be put behind the eight ball at home and abroad.
They devised two extremely symbolic acts that would create the
impression that the AK Party and its voter base had a secret agenda
to turn the country into another Iran: the assassination of secular
and Christian figures.
Indeed, a person named Alparslan Arslan raided the Council of State,
one of the symbols of the secular establishment, with the advertised
intention of protesting the headscarf ban. A high judge -- Mustafa
Bilgili -- died in the attack. However, it raised many questions. It
was said that the security cameras had not been functioning during
the attack, but it was later found out that they had indeed been
functional but their hard disks had been manipulated. The security
company that operated those cameras was affiliated with Turkey's
biggest military economic enterprise. Now, an investigation was
underway. The trial stemming from the Council of State attack was
merged with the case against Ergenekon, a clandestine organization
nested within the state attempting to overthrow or manipulate the
democratically elected government.
Priest Santoro was killed in 2006 in Trabzon and my friend,
Turkish-Armenian journalist Dink, was killed in January 2007. The
massacre at the Zirve publishing house came in April 2007. The message
behind these assassinations was that there was a dubious religious
party in office and that radical Islamists, secretly sponsored by
this party, were killing secular people and Christians. Turkey,
a modern secular Muslim country and favorite of the West, might at
any moment turn into Iran!
Returning to the supplementary indictment in the Zirve massacre trial,
the indictment claims that the murders were "committed with the
intention of laying the blame on the AK Party and the Gulen movement."
In other words, through evidence, secret witnesses and confessions,
the prosecutor has reached the same conclusion we sensed when the
murders were committed.
The 761-page supplementary indictment prepared by Malatya Specially
Authorized Public Prosecutor Ä°smail Aksoy lists as defendants
retired Gen. Ahmet HurÅ~_it Tolon, former Malatya Gendarmerie Regiment
commander Col. Mehmet Ulger and Maj. Haydar YeÅ~_il as well as a number
lower-ranking military officers, soldiers and civilians who worked as
secret agents for an organization called the National Strategies and
Operations Department of Turkey (TUSHAD), an undercover military unit.
The indictment accuses Tolon, Ulger and YeÅ~_il of such acts as leading
a terrorist organization, attempting to overthrow the government of
the Turkish Republic or to prevent it from performing its duties,
inciting premeditated murder, inciting the deprivation of freedom and
forging official documents. The prosecutor is seeking two consecutive
life sentences in solitary confinement for each with no possibility
of parole.
As its most important point, the indictment states: "Given the fact
that Ahmet HurÅ~_it Tolon, a defendant in the Ergenekon trial, was in
Malatya before and on the day the murders were committed, and [given]
that the report by the State Audit Institution [DDK] on the murder of
Hrant Dink and testimony by witness codenamed Adıyaman portend links
among the murders of priest Santoro, Hrant Dink and the missionaries
at the Zirve publishing house, the connection between these murders
and the Ergenekon terrorist organization and this organization's
planned acts have been made clear."
This shocking development has not been covered sufficiently by the
media. However, the three symbolic trials are of crucial importance
in deciphering the deep state, known as Ergenekon, founded by the
Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) back in the 1910s.