RIGHTS-TURKEY: Military Implicated In Attack On Rights Activist

[ozgurluk at xs4all.nl]

Title: RIGHTS-TURKEY: Military Implicated In Attack On Rights Activist

By Nadire Mater

ISTANBUL, May 26 (IPS) - The would-be assassins who gunned down
Turkey's top human rights activist got their training, in secret, from
a non-commissioned officer with neo-fascist sympathies serving with a
top anti-terrorist intelligence unit.

Six men were arrested at the weekend in connection with a near- fatal
gun attack on Akin Birdal, chairman of the country's Human Rights
Association. Shot seven times, Birdal was badly wounded but survived.

Two of the arrested group, Kerem Deretarla and Bahri Eken, have
reportedly confessed all to investigators and will plead guilty to
charges of attempted murder.

In a remarkable confrontation, they were both brought before Birdal's
hospital bed so he could confirm them as the men who gunned him down
in his office on May 12.

''I looked into their very eyes,'' Birdal told IPS by phone Monday,
''but they could not do the same to me. They were the killers. But
they are only tools, mere children. The real agents are behind them.''

Deretarla, just 17 years old, has told police that he was trained for
the attack in a secret woodland camp north of Istanbul. His trainer
was one Cengiz Ersever, a non-commissioned officer serving with the
country's paramilitary gendarmes.

Ersever was promptly arrested and is expected to plead guilty to the
charges.

Speaking to IPS from his bed in Ankara's private Sevgi Hospital,
Birdal recalled the moment when the would-be killers struck.  ''I
knew,'' he said, speaking faintly and with difficulty. ''I was
expecting that they would make an attempt on my life.

''They had come as visitors. But I suspected them, so I was alert and
stood up as they were leaving the room, so I could move and defend
myself.'' Birdal must undergo more surgery in the days to come. His
left foot and right arm are still paralysed.

According to the gunmen's own testimony, as widely reported here, he
was targeted after the media printed the leaked testimony of former
Kurdish guerrilla commander Semdin Sakik, who was snatched by a
Turkish special forces unit earlier this year.

In a wide ranging series of allegations attributed to Sakik -- som eof
which he has since denied -- a long list of critics of the government
and military were 'named' as 'Kurdish agents' and supporters of the
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) guerrilla forc e.

According to the alleged testimony of Sakik, PKK leader Abdullah
Ocalan was supposed to have said that while Birdal ''is not affiliated
to the PKK, he is more PKK than anybody else in the organisation''.
Without Birdal, Ocalan allegedly said, the PKK ''w ould not be able to
establish the present influence we have in Europe''.

The unsubstantiated claims, quickly denied by Birdal, gave a green
light to Ersever, Deretarla and Eken, who had formed a covert death
squad specifically to target such 'enemies of the state'.

''We decided to kill Akin Birdal when we read Sakik's testimonies in
the dailies,'' the gunmen are said to have told the police.

According to evidence presented to the courts here, Ersever signed the
two up alongside 15 others to form a death squad code- named the
Turkish Revenge Brigade. All were members of the neo-fascist
Nationalist Action Party (MHP) whose youth wing, the Gray Wolves, have
been implicated in the murders of thousands of dissidents over the
last three decades.

''I have scores of others in my list. Those who are the enemies of the
Turkish military and the police are also my enemies,'' Ersever
reportedly told police interrogators. The original Turkish Revenge
Brigades killed dozens of left-wingers during the civ il strife of the
late 1970s. One brigade member, Mehmet Ali Agca, later tried to kill
the Pope.

Remarkably, Ersever's name has come up before in similar contexts.  He
was recently named by witnesses testifying at a parliamentary
commission investigating the so-called Susurluk Affair.

This followed a now notorious car crash on the Susurluk Highway that
revealed top level links between the neo-fascists, the police and MPs
from former prime minister Tansu Ciller's True Path (DYP) party.

The parliamentary investigation, helped by testimonies from top
officials such as Security Intelligence chief Hanefi Avci, exposed a
vast network of covert death squads. These sqauds, in the course of
the 15 year war between the army and the PKK, have be en linked with
the deaths of some 2,500 dissidents.

Ersever, formerly with the Gendarme's Intelligence and Counter
Terrorism (JITEM) squad, was named by several witnesses and linked to
another former PKK cadre turned informer, Mahmut Yildirim, codenamed
'Yesil' ('Green'). Yildirim in turn has been linked with a number of
extra-judicial killings.

Ironically Hanefi Avci was himself in court Monday, charged with
'revealing state secrets'. There he took the opportunity to tell the
judge that though Ersever's links with Yildirim was known by the
authorities, he was not prosecuted.

''Turkish Security, the Turkish Intelligence Organisation (MIT) and
the Gendarme, all knew this person 'Yesil' well; followed him; filed
their information about him, but did not move a finger to shackle
him,'' noted Kutlu Savas, who led the investigation into the Susurluk
Affair for prime minister Mesut Yilmaz.

''Why?'' he asked, ''The only logical answer to this question is that
Yesil's operations and activities do not run contrary to the general
priorities and preferences of the administration.''

A string of top officials implicated in the running of death squads,
including former interior minister Mehmet Agar, Gendarme General Veli
Kocok and others, so far have escaped prosecution.

''Since the state has declined to prosecute the key figures in the
Susurluk Affair, the gang has come to believe in their own legitimacy
and impunity,'' says journalist Oral Calislar of the Istanbul's daily
Cumhuriyet. ''The mafiosi behind this gang have been convinced that
they are free to pursue their activities.''

Calislar has also received death treats and currently lives and works
under police guard.

''The attack triggered a revolt among public opinion,'' Birdal told
IPS Monday. ''They had to investigate the attack and arrest the gunmen
in the face of such a massive reaction.''

Thousands of protestors took to the streets in protest at Bridal's
shooting and a string of high profile visitors to his bedside included
British foreign secretary Robin Cook, in his capacity as holder of the
European Union's presidency.

''Turkey is governed by a totalitarian system that does not recognise
the rights of the opposition,'' Birdal said. ''I have been targeted
for I have been expressing the common belief of so many millions, that
basic human rights can only be implemented he re when peace reigns in
Turkey.'' (END/IPS/NM/RJ/98)

-- 
Press Agency Ozgurluk
For justice, democracy and human rights in Turkey and Kurdistan!
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