Turkey's Web Of Covert Killers
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-- SPECIAL -- * -- August 07, 1997 -- * -- EDITION -- * ||
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* SPECIAL EDITION *
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TURKEY'S WEB OF COVERT KILLERS
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*
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- Summer 1997, Number 61 -
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TURKEY: TRAPPED IN A WEB OF COVERT KILLERS
_________________________________________________________________
by Ertugrul Kurkcu
ISTANBUL, TURKEY. Human rights activists and opposition
groups have argued for decades that an uninterrupted trail of
mysterious killings and extrajudicial executions leads to the
highest levels of the Turkish state. An extraordinary accident in
November 1996 provided missing links in that chain of evidence.
It also gave further proof of the continued existence of a
Turkish incarnation of Gladio -- the US-orchestrated Stay Behind
operation that placed covert groups around Europe at the end of
World War II.
The toll of death and terror from Turkey's bitter internal
strife is horrific. In the last three decades, at least 28,000
people have died. The 5,000 casualties in the 1970s served as a
major pretext for the 1980 military takeover when the Turkish
armed forces overthrew Suleyman Demirel's conservative minority
government. Since the 1984 start of the war between the Kurdish
guerrilla PKK (Partiya Karkeran Kurdistan-Kurdistan Workers
Party) and the Turkish army, the country's human losses including
those of the government security forces, Kurdish guerrillas, and
civilians have totaled around 23,000, officials say.[1]
This toll is not solely the result of combat in the
mountains and forests of southeast Turkey, where the PKK
guerrillas are fighting for greater autonomy. Many of the deaths
and much of the terror resulted from a broad covert program aimed
at assassination, forced exile, or imprisonment of Kurdish
nationalists -- "businessmen," intellectuals, journalists, local
politicians, and public opinion leaders -- who were suspected of
providing political or material support to the PKK.
A lurid glimpse of this underbelly of the Turkish state
opened suddenly on November 3, 1996, when a Mercedes-Benz
overturned in a traffic accident. The driver was Huseyin Kocadag,
former Istanbul deputy police chief who was known for his part in
organizing the first special counterinsurgency police teams in
southeast Turkey. Their goal was to bring the war to the Kurdish
guerrillas. Also killed was Gonca Us, a former beauty queen with
links to organized crime. Sedat Bucak, a pro-government Kurdish
village guard chieftain and right-wing DYP (True Path Party)
parliamentarian, was seriously injured. Bucak is reportedly in
charge of 2,000 Kurdish mercenaries, armed and paid by the
government to fight Kurdish guerrillas.
But what raised eyebrows was the seemingly incongruous
presence of another passenger -- one Abdullah Catli -- riding
with the top police and government officials. Police had
supposedly been hunting Catli, a convicted international drug
smuggler since 1978, for his part in the killing of scores of
left-wing activists. At that time, Catli had been head of the
"Gray Wolves," the youth arm of the neo-fascist MHP (National
Action Party). The presence of the bizarre group in the same car
was the most graphic evidence so far of collusion between the
security forces and semi-criminal assassins -- and of their unity
of purpose in targeting both leftists and Turkish Kurds.
Further proof of the unseemly collaboration was provided by
Interior Minister Mehmet Agar, head of the government's
120,000-person-strong police forces. In the wake of the scandal
that followed the car accident, Agar was forced to resign his
post. But in the course of his defense, he admitted that as
security chief and interior minister, he had overseen "at least
1,000 secret operations."[2]
In the face of growing public resentment, Deputy Prime
Minister Tansu Ciller had to accept Agar's resignation, but she
continued defending the "gang" -- as the entire network of
"licensed killers" is known in Turkey. Apparently referring to
Catli, Ciller declared during a meeting with her True Path Party
deputies that "those who have fired bullets as well as those who
have been shot in the name of the state are honest."[3]
TRUE `FALSE' LICENSES AND `GREEN PASSPORTS'
The crash on the northwest Susurluk highway was striking not
only for the extraordinary grouping of the victims, but also for
their baggage. The crumpled car held a large arsenal of automatic
weapons that was missing from police inventories, along with
silencers and a small amount of cocaine.
The "Susurluk affair" -- named after the accident site --
gained further import when local gendarmes discovered two
documents among Catli's belongings: a license to carry arms
signed by Ciller's security aide, Mehmet Agar, and a "Green
Passport" -- authorized only for senior public servants -- issued
by the Interior Ministry. Both were made out in the name of
Mehmet Ozbay but bore the photo of Catli, the fugitive drug
trafficker.
Although Interior Minister Agar denied that the documents
were real, gendarmes and forensic specialists confirmed that the
Green Passport was genuine, not forged, and that the related
signatures on it were authentic.[4]
The special perks and privileges given Catli, a drug dealer
and suspected killer, were not unique. Haluk Kirci, his
accomplice in a series of murders during the Gray Wolves days,
and Yasar Oz, another international drug smuggler, also carried
similar documents signed by Agar.[5]
The links between one of Turkey's most prominent security
officials and organized criminals and fascist assassins were now
incontrovertible. But the question remained: What was the common
agenda that joined them together?
One explanation is a shared ideology. Agar's fascist
sympathies are well-known. Although he is a deputy in the
parliament of Tansu Ciller's conservative True Path Party, he is
also considered an heir to the throne of Alpaslan Turkes. After
30 years of unbroken, unrivaled command of Turkey's neo-fascist
National Action Party (MHP), Turkes died in early April. The
party he led is notorious for anticommunist campaigns throughout
the 1960s and 1970s which involved physical attacks against
left-wing activists, intellectuals, and trade union leaders. Agar
was one of his key disciples.[6]
But investigative journalists, members of the parliamentary
investigation commission to the Susurluk affair, and prominent
"witnesses," found a broader explanation for the government-
extremist-criminal alliance than shared affection for fascism.
They concurred that Ciller, Agar, and other affiliates of the
"gang," even including Turkes himself, are only a few of the many
corrupt links in a long chain of "counterinsurgency strategies"
overseen by Turkey's military high command.
THE MGK VS. THE PKK
"It all started in early 1992," believes Ismet Berkan,
senior Ankara correspondent for the national daily Radikal. "That
year, the Turkish armed forces high command underwent a dramatic
shift in its counterinsurgency strategy in the combat against
[the] rebel Kurdish guerrilla PKK."[7]
In 1984, seeking self-determination for Turkey's 15 million
Kurds, the PKK launched its guerrilla war against Ankara. Since
then, the Kurdish rebels and the Turkish army have been
deadlocked in bitter war. According to semiofficial figures from
then-Interior Minister Nahit Mentese, the PKK forces grew from
200 in 1984, to 10,000 active combatants and some 50,000 militias
and 375,000 sympathizers by late 1993.[8]
According to Berkan, in 1992, faced with the guerrillas'
growing strength, the Turkish army units which had previously
pursued a reactive strategy, shifted tactics "to bring the war to
the PKK." They would not wait, they proclaimed, arms folded,
while the PKK raided gendarme posts and army garrisons. Instead,
the army would seek out and attack guerrilla strongholds in urban
areas, cut the rebels' local support in the southeast
countryside, and forcibly depopulate remote villages and hamlets
suspected of providing support to the rebels. Adopting a
euphemism the US made infamous in the counterinsurgency wars it
sponsors in Central America, then-Chief of Staff Gen. Dogan Gures
designated the overall operation "low-intensity conflict."[9]
But the PKK was not simply a rural guerrilla force that
could be easily identified and destroyed. It had considerable
support both inside the country and overseas among Kurdish
intellectuals and "businessmen" who were believed to funnel
profits from black market operations to the PKK. Faced with a
strong, well-financed foe, the military launched a two-pronged
strategy: "While the army ruthlessly fought the guerrillas in the
countryside, blows should have been inflicted on PKK's individual
financial and moral supporters," Berkan quotes his anonymous
sources.[10]
The second prong of this strategic shift -- targeting
civilian PKK support -- was introduced to the National Security
Council (MGK) in 1992. Berkan says that he had the opportunity to
study some MGK files detailing the "new counterinsurgency
concept" after they were leaked to him by an anonymous former
security official. "These documents," he said, "alongside
tactical military schemes, included a list of the prospective
members of the would-be death squads, including Abdullah Catli,
some of his notorious companions from the Gray Wolves days, and
some special police team members."[11]
For a year, the second prong was not implemented because of
strong opposition, particularly from President Turgut Ozal and
Gendarme High Commander Gen. Esref Bitlis. Then, in 1993, Ozal
and Bitlis both died under controversial circumstances: The
president succumbed to a heart attack for which he allegedly
received tardy and inadequate treatment; Bitlis was killed in a
mysterious plane crash. That same year, according to Berkan, the
National Security Council endorsed the counterinsurgency schemes.
[12]
During the three fatal years that followed, 1993-95 with
Tansu Ciller as prime minister and Suleyman Demirel as president,
Kurdish civil society was shattered. Kurdish political, cultural
and press organizations faced violent attacks. Their headquarters
were bombed, scores of local Kurdish politicians, including pro-
Kurdish DEP (Democracy Party) deputy Mehmet Sincar were killed by
mysterious assassins, other Kurdish DEP deputies were expelled
from parliament and jailed or forced into exile; and hundreds of
Kurdish activists were disappeared.
The "gang" was particularly active in eliminating scores of
Kurdish "businessmen" in an attempt to cut off the PKK's
financial base. Behcet Canturk, Savas Buldan, Yusuf Ekinci, Medet
Serhat, Haci Karay, and Omer Lutfu Topal were among those
kidnapped and later found killed.[13]
THE HIGH PRICE OF COVERT OPS
By the time Ciller left office in 1995, Kurdish nationalism
had been dealt a heavy blow by the two-pronged approach. Although
the "gang" was becoming increasingly violent, its existence and
the extent of operations remained elusive. Then in February, in
the wake of the car crash, a senior police official provided
further confirmation of Berkan's version of the collaboration
among fascist assassins, criminal gangs, and security officials
as part of MGK's new counterinsurgency strategy. Hanefi Avci,
deputy intelligence department chief of Turkish Security,
testified before an investigatory commission convened by
parliament:
Some officials believed that the Turkish security remained
incapable of eliminating the PKK supporters as long as [the
security forces] functioned within legal means. Thus, they
arrived at the conclusion that the PKK could have been
fought only through extra-legal methods.
The first organization to be set up on this guideline was
the JITEM (Gendarme Intelligence and Counter Terrorism)
which was first established in the southeast. ... JITEM was
effectively controlled by now Lt. Gen. Veli Kucuk. Alongside
JITEM, two other units were carved out of the body of the
MIT [Turkish Intelligence Organization] and Special Police
Teams and henchmen were co-opted from among former PKK
guerrillas who had turned informer.[14]
Gen. Teoman Koman, the current gendarme general commander,
officially denies the existence of such a unit within his
organization. "There exists a JITEM," Gen. Koman acknowledged,
"but not as an official intelligence organization set up by the
state. [Rather it is run] by some irresponsible elements within
the gendarme. ... I banned the usage of such a title as soon as I
recognized counter-terrorism efforts conducted under such a
name."[15]
Noncommissioned gendarme Huseyin Oguz, an active
counterinsurgency officer in the southeast, however, contradicted
Gen. Koman. In testimony before the parliamentary investigatory
commission, he asserted that JITEM has existed as an official
unit linked to the Intelligence Department of the Gendarme
General Command.[16]
According to Hanefi Avci, deputy intelligence department
chief of Turkish Security, "One gang was headed by ex-Interior
Minister Mehmet Agar and seconded by Special Police Teams boss
Ibrahim Sahin and counterinsurgency specialist former army
officer Korkut Eken, with whom Catli was directly linked; and
another [gang] was headed by Mehmet Eymur, chair of the Turkish
Intelligence Organization's (MIT) counterterrorism department."
Shortly after his resignation, Mehmet Agar testified to that same
commission. He confirmed that his "operations" were in line with
his National Security Council-endorsed schemes of"bringing the
war to the PKK."[17]
THE `GANG' PATROLS THE HEROIN HIGHWAY
As the counterinsurgency campaign escalated, greed became a
driving and ultimately divisive force. According to intelligence
official Avci, "after 1994-95 when the ruthless army crackdown on
the PKK forced the guerrillas to retreat, these [government-
linked] units degenerated into corrupt gangs which were mainly
concerned with grabbing the enormous revenues from drug
trafficking and money laundering that had previously been
controlled by organized criminals of Kurdish origin."[18]
Journalist Berkan concurred that the state-linked gangs
effectively took over the drug trafficking routes and drove out
the Kurdish "businessmen." It was not long before the massive
profits -- about $20 billion a year -- set off a bitter war
within the extra-legal units.[19]
The large arsenal of assault weapons found in the crashed
car fueled widespread speculation that when the"Susurluk" trio
died, they may have been on "duty" against a rival "gang" based
in their point of departure Kusadasi. The district is one of
Turkey's prospective casino hubs. The suspicion was further
confirmed when an Istanbul State Security Court prosecutor
indicted Sedat Bucak, the sole survivor of the Susurluk car
crash. He was charged with carrying a quantity of unauthorized
assault weapons beyond what could be justified by self-defense.
The prosecutor charged that the passengers intended to
assassinate as yet unknown targets.[20]
More light was soon shed on the role of Gray Wolf Abdullah
Catli. Mehmet Eymur, MIT's counterterrorism department chief, and
also his rival, counterinsurgency specialist Korkut Eken admitted
that Catli was not a simple"gang" henchman. Rather, he had a
long-standing official role and had been "used by the state"
during the 1970s, bitter conflict between right- and left-wing
activists.[21]
TRACING THE `GANG' TO CIA
The parliamentary investigation commission found irrefutable
links between organized criminals, fascist assassins, and senior
counterinsurgency officials. It also established the existence of
a widely organized gang within the state security structures.
Nonetheless, many critics charge that the commission did not go
far enough in digging out the roots of the problem.
"The links between the illegal right-wing organizations and
the Turkish security should be traced back to Gladio," says
opposition CHP (Republican People's Party) Deputy Fikri Saglar in
his minority report to the parliamentary commission. "Gladio" was
a network of secret security organizations set up largely by the
US in almost all European NATO-member countries after the end of
World War II.
A secret clause in the initial NATO agreement in 1949
required that before a nation could join, it must have
already established a national security authority to fight
communism through clandestine citizen cadres. This Stay
Behind clause grew out of a secret committee set up at US
insistence in the Atlantic Pact, the forerunner of NATO.[22]
Under these Stay Behind programs, anticommunist elements,
often overtly fascist, were organized, armed, and funded --
supposedly as a bulwark against Soviet aggression. Some had links
to organized crime; many were involved in terrorist incidents
aimed at undermining the left. After public exposure and the
disintegration of Washington's major Cold War rival, most
countries shelved the US-dominated counterinsurgency schemes.
Italy ("Gladio"), Belgium ("SDRA-8"), France ("Rose des Vents"),
Holland ("P:26" or "NATO Command"), Greece ("Sheepskin"),
Denmark, Luxembourg, Switzerland ("Schwert"), Norway, Austria,
Spain, Britain ("Secret British Network"), Portugal, and Germany
have all acknowledged that they participated in the covert
network. But although Gladio became public knowledge in Turkey
("Special Warfare Department") years ago and former Prime
Minister Bulent Ecevit said "patriotic volunteers" staffed a
US-funded unit that was ready to go into action in the event of a
Communist takeover, Ankara officially denies that such an
organization ever existed.[23]
Some find this denial -- coming as it does from a NATO
front-line member -- incredible and call for openness. "Unless
the operations of the Gladio, the NATO-linked international
counterinsurgency organization within the Turkish security system
is investigated," says commission member Saglar, "the real source
of the security corruption will not be effectively discovered. It
is necessary to investigate the Special Forces Command,
previously known as Special Warfare Department of the Chief of
Staff."[24]
Despite the continuing coverup, it is known that during the
1970s, the Turkish army's Special Warfare Department (Gladio)
operated the Counterguerrilla Organization. The department was
headquartered in the US Military Aid Mission building in Ankara
and received funds and training from US advisers to create the
Stay Behind squads. The Gray Wolves, headed by Catli, enjoyed
official encouragement and protection.
In the late '70s, former military prosecutor and Turkish
Military Supreme Court Justice Emin Deger documented
collaboration between the Gray Wolves and the government's
counterguerrilla forces, as well as the close ties of the
latter to the CIA. The Counterguerrilla Organization
provided weapons to terrorist groups such as the Gray
Wolves, who instigated much of the political violence that
culminated in a 1980 coup by the Turkish military that
deposed Prime Minister Suleyman Demirel. State security
forces justified the coup in the name of restoring order and
stability. Cold War realpolitik compelled the Gray Wolves
and their institutional sponsor, the ultra-right National
Action Party, to favor a discreet alliance with NATO and
U.S. intelligence. Led by Col. Alpaslan Turkes, the National
Action Party espoused a fanatical pan-Turkish ideology that
called for repatriating whole sections of the Soviet Union
under the flag of a reborn Turkish empire. The Gray Wolves
forged ties with the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations, a
CIA-backed coalition led by erstwhile fascist collaborators
from Eastern Europe. ... Colleagues of Turkes controlled a
Turkish chapter of the World Anti-Communist League, an
umbrella group that functioned as a cat's paw for US
intelligence in Latin America, Southwest Asia and other Cold
War battlegrounds.[25]
As the Susurluk affair illuminated, the clandestine dynamic
had not ended with the Cold War. Citing links dating back to the
1970s between Catli and the state security units, Saglar wrote in
his report that "the gangs that were formed in 1993 were actually
based on an already existing extra-legal mechanism which has been
publicly known as counter-guerrilla during the 1970s." Saglar
quotes government Deputy Niyazi Unsal: "The counter-guerrilla
organization has survived until this day without losing any of
its former influence. All those who testified at the
investigatory commission, says Saglar, "have introduced serious
claims regarding links between `gangs' and the security units,
that undeniably confirm moral and material support to those gangs
from among high security officials."[26]
Chief among those carrying Gladio's standard into the 1990s
are the Gray Wolves. With little subtlety, Catli's companions in
the neo-fascist Wolves proudly carried a banner in his funeral
procession inscribed: "He fought like a Sword and died like a
sword!" (Gladio means sword in Italian.)
`OUR BOYS HAVE DONE IT!'
The crash of the Mercedes has not only provided answers
about the relationship between criminal, fascist, and security
elements, but has raised new questions. Fikri Saglar, in his
minority report to the parliamentary commission, expresses
concerns that the presence of Catli, the fugitive drug dealer in
the Mercedes of a police chief 16 years after the military
takeover, might point to the fact that Catli and his kind had
played an effective role in the coup. "Catli, his family and
companions had left Turkey with false passports provided by the
security officials immediately after the coup and under apparent
protection by the state," Saglar charges, referring to Turkey's
military rulers of the 1980s.[27]
Also being questioned is the role of the US and especially
that of the CIA. Throughout the Cold War era, Turkey was the
frontline state in NATO's Southeastern flank and Washington's
major regional military ally against the former Soviet Bloc. It
was then, and continues to be, a vanguard post for US strategic
interests.
The close ties between the Turkish, US military, and
intelligence circles, along with US concerns over Turkey's
military cooperation, have been major obstacles in Turkey's path
to broader democracy. Turkey's US-backed military has viewed
movements for increased democracy with hostility and accused them
of undermining the country's stability and consequently its
military might. Turkey's pro-US conservative politicians and
military rulers have continually targeted leftist, democratic,
and labor movements that have striven for broader rights.
Alongside official pressure, the military has frequently resorted
to unofficial force to quell the massive opposition movements
that began in the second half of the 1960s. During the last four
decades, Turkey has been subjected to three military coups, all
of which have declared their obedience to NATO obligations and
all of which have been unreservedly backed and even encouraged by
Washington. Ankara continues to be the fourth largest recipient
of US aid.
Saglar charges that US interest in Turkish affairs is not
confined to official NATO relations and trade ties. He points to
the notorious message by the CIA's then-Turkey Station Chief Paul
Henze in Ankara to his colleagues in Washington the day after the
1980 coup -- "Our boys have done it!" Henze crowed.[28] Saglar
concludes that foreign intelligence organizations including the
CIA, have coopted collaborators from among the extreme-right and
exploited them for their particular interests.
Saglar's charge is lent credence by the fact that Yasar Oz -
- one of the drug traffickers carrying the Green Passports signed
by Mehmet Agar -- was arrested by the Drug Enforcement
Administration in New York and immediately released. There is
also evidence that Catli himself entered the US in 1982 in Miami
with his "false" green passport. Traveling with him was Italian
Gladio agent Stefano Delle Chiaie, who has been charged with
involvement in the blast in Italy's Bologna Train Station in the
1980s.[29]
SHIFTING THREATS
The "Susurluk affair" has capped an overwhelming body of
evidence and testimony against major military and security
officials. If Turkey were a functioning democracy, the immediate
outcome would at the very least have been a series of
prosecutions.
However, the Turkish military, which set up, conducted, and
oversaw this uninterrupted deadly counterinsurgency operation
against leftists and Kurdish nationalists throughout the last
three decades, is in an enviable position. It has emerged from an
embarrassing period during the first two months of the year when
sweeping public protest rang in the streets of Turkey. Every
night at 9 p.m., angry crowds called for "cleansing the country
from the gangs." Since February 28, the military has regained
confidence and restored its reputation as the traditional
watchdog of Turkish secularism. This recovery is largely due to
an extensive media-backed drive launched by the military high
command against the Islamist-led coalition. The army has
positioned itself as champion of the secular republic against a
fundamentalist "threat" posed by Prime Minister Necmettin
Erbakan's senior coalition Welfare Party (RP). The military high
command has called on Erbakan and his party to enforce existing
anti-fundamentalist laws and to draft new legislation for
educational reforms, including closure of the religious
seminaries which they consider the hotbed of Islamist
fundamentalism.
Overnight, the carefully designed and precisely timed
military drive has changed the public agenda from that of
"cleansing the Turkish democracy of the gangs" to "safeguarding
the secular republic against the fundamentalist threat." As a
result, a considerable section of the opposition has realigned
itself behind the military which has positioned itself as
Turkey's hope for maintaining Westernist secularism and modernist
aspirations.
These days, few of the "modernists" recall the era of
military juntas in the early 1980s when Turkey's military rulers
adopted "a green belt strategy" after the revolution in Iran and
the Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan. The idea,
promoted in some Washington circles, was to construct a bulwark
alliance of US-backed Muslim countries in order to confine Soviet
southward expansion, and to combat radical Islamist power in Iran
and elsewhere in the region.[30]
It was in accordance with this "green belt strategy," and in
the name of "secularism," that the army has seized on Erbakan's
"Islamic threat" as a major justification for increasing its
already substantial powers. To a large extent, this stance is
hypocritical. "The constitution drafted by military rulers, for
instance, deemed religious courses obligatory for all levels of
pre-university education, and set up religious seminaries which
served as seedbeds for Islamist ideology. This was much more than
any civilian government, in a political compromise with the
Islamists might have dared to try."[31]
Turkey is now trapped between the two giants -- the "gang"
and the fundamentalists -- both of which have been nurtured by
the army to serve its needs. At the same time, as Turkey's
secularist establishment seeks salvation by calling on the army
for aid for a fourth time in the last four decades, the country
seems to have lost its historical memory. Meanwhile, Turkey's key
dilemma remains: How to set up and maintain a functioning
democracy on Western standards in a majority Muslim country.
ENDNOTES
1. Nadire Mater, "Behind Casualty Figures Mothers Weep for
Sons," InterPress Service, Sept. 30, 1996.
2. Ertugrul Ozkok, "Agar Sonunda Suskunlugunu Bozdu" (Agar
Finally Speaks), Hurriyet, Nov. 15, 1996.
3. "Ciller: Devlet Icin Kursun Atan Sereflidir" (Ciller: Who
Fires Bullets for the State Is Honest), Sabah, Nov. 27,
1996.
4. See the special report by the Prime Minister's Investigation
Commission, cited in "35 Suc Duyurusu" (35 Charges),
Hurriyet, Jan. 10, 1997.
5. According to testimony by former Istanbul Security Chief
Nejdet Menzir, cited in "Agar's Agir Suclama" (Heavy Charges
Against Agar), Hurriyet, Jan. 24, 1997.
6. After the 1980 military takeover, Turkes and MHP's gunmen
were indicted by a military tribunal for the assassination
of hundreds of leftists and for scores of incidents of arson
and sabotage during the civilian strifes of the 1970s.
Turkes spent four years in prison but was released in 1984
after the High Court dropped the charges. In the 1980s, he
and his Gray Wolves espoused a relatively non-violent path
and were granted semi-official status in the war against the
PKK. According to a 1995 report by the international human
rights group, Human Rights Watch Arms Project, special
forces designed to spearhead the anti-PKK campaign
reportedly are recruited from MHP and other far-right
Turkish nationalist groups notorious for their hatred of
Kurdish nationalism. (Human Rights Watch, "Weapons Transfers
and Violations of Laws of War in Turkey," Washington, D.C.,
Nov. 1995.)
7. Ismet Berkan, "Gladio ya MGK Onayi" (The MGK Sanctions
Gladio, Radikal (Istanbul), Dec. 5, 1996.
8. Human Rights Watch Arms Project, op. cit., p. 1.
9. Mehmet Ali Kislali, Guneydogu Dusuk Yogunluklu Catisma (The
Southeast Low-Intensity Conflict, Ankara: Umit Publishers,
1996), p. 26.
10. Berkan, op. cit.
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid.
14. Testimony by Avci on Feb. 4, 1997, in Veli Ozdemir, ed. The
Susurluk Documents (Istanbul: SCALA, April 1997), pp. 11-15.
15. Sedat Ergin, "The General Speaks,: Hurriyet, March 17, 1997.
16. Testimony by Oguz on Feb. 18, 1997, in Ozdemir, op. cit., p.
169.
17. Ibid., pp. 32-33, p. 251.
18. Testimony at Investigative Commission.
19. Ismet Berkan, "Eroinler Elde Kalinca," (When Heroin was Left
Over), Radikal, Nov. 30, 1996.
20. "Muthis Iddia," Hurriyet, March 13, 1997.
21. Testimony by Eken, Dec. 27, 1996, in Ozdemir, op. cit., pp.
371-72.
22. Arthur E. Rowse, "Gladio: The Secret U.S. War to Subvert
Italian Democracy," CAQ, n. 49, Summer 1994, p. 21, citing
Jan Willems, "Gladio" (Brussels: EPO Dossier, 1991), pp.
148-52; and interview with Lord Carrington, Newsweek, April
21, 1986.
23. Charles Richards and Simon Jones, "Skeletons start emerging
from Europe's closet; Operation Gladio was set up to go
underground in the Cold War," The Independent (London), Nov.
16, 1990.
24. From Investigative Commission's Minority Report.
25. Martin A. Lee, "The cop, the gangster and the beauty queen,"
In These Times, April 28-May 11, 1997.
26. Mehmet Altan, "Susurluk'ta Bayram" (Holiday in Susurluk),
Sabah, April 22, 1997.
27. Ibid.
28. Mehmet Ali Birand, "12 Eylul Saat 04:00 (September 12:04 am)
Istanbul: Milliyet Publishers, 1985), p. 1.
29. Dogan Uluc, "Eroin Belgelendi" (Heroin Link Documented),
Hurriyet, Feb. 2, 1997. See also Rowse, op. cit.
30. Ertugrul Kurkcu, "The Crisis of The Turkish State," Middle
East Report, n. 199, v. 26, Spring 1996, p. 6.
31. Ibid.
Copyright (c) 1997 by Covert Action Publications, Inc., a
District of Columbia Nonprofit Corporation. All Rights
Reserved.
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Ertugrul Kurkcu, a political analyst, is an Istanbul-based
reporter for InterPress Service, a Third World news agency.
Kurkcu served 14 years in prison from 1972-86 for armed
resistance against the military rule of the 1970s.
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