JITEM Cases Merged

From Today's Zaman:

The Diyarbakır 6th High Criminal Court ruled yesterday to combine two cases, one known as the “JİTEM case,” which has 11 defendants, and another case involving five defendants including Mahmut Yıldırım, better known to the public by the codename “Yeşil,” and Abdülkadir Aygan, a former member of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) who later became an informant for the Turkish government. Previously, the Diyarbakır 3rd High Criminal Court had ruled that it lacked jurisdiction over the JİTEM case, which involved several murders, bombings and acts of sabotage in the eastern provinces of Diyarbakır, Mardin, Batman and Şırnak.

For background on JITEM, see Jan. 29 post. See also Yigal Schleifer's reporting on JITEM from last August.

The "Bloodless Civil War"

PHOTO by Andres Gonzalez / The Wall Street Journal

From the Wall Street Journal's Marc Champion:

A bloodless civil war is splitting this pivotal Muslim nation on Europe's fringe, pitting the old secular establishment against the country's Islamic-leaning government and its supporters.

For mesmerized viewers, that showdown was crystallized earlier this year as TV channels played over and over a leaked video clip of one prosecutor arresting another one.

"We will take you with us," said a special terrorism prosecutor, lounging in an armchair across from his target.

"You can't do this, buddies. You don't know what you are doing," replied an astonished Ilhan Cihaner, one of Turkey's previously untouchable chief prosecutors.

Their clash in a remote outpost in eastern Turkey quickly spiraled upward into a battle between the country's top judges and political leaders over the right to define Turkey's future, a battle now coming to a head.

Turkey's parliament is voting on a slate of constitutional amendments drafted by the ruling party after Turkey's powerful judiciary took away the powers of the man who had arrested Mr. Cihaner.

Some of the amendments would rein in the judiciary, a bastion of opposition to the governing party, the moderately Islamic AKP.

To foes of the amendments, they are an AKP power grab. To supporters, they are an overdue fix to a constitution that was written after a military coup and long used by the judiciary and other entrenched powers to override the democratic process.

Alongside this fight is one in the courtrooms, where members of the longstanding power structure await trial for an array of alleged crimes aimed at destabilizing the government.

. . . .

Since its re-election with a big majority in 2007, the government has mounted an attack on the deep state. It is seeking to prosecute some 200 deep-state figures on charges that in some cases include murders and bombings, allegedly used to destabilize the government and falsely attributed to others. The name for this broad alleged deep-state conspiracy is "Ergenekon."

Mr. Cihaner, the arrrested prosecutor, is accused of being part of it.

Mr. Cihaner arrived in the eastern city of Erzincan in August 2007 with his wife, Muhteber, who wears her hair in dyed-blond ringlets. Most women wear headscarves in the remote city of 70,000, ringed by snow-capped mountains, and the head-to-toe chador is a common sight on the street.

The prosecutor, now 42 years old, hardly seems to fit the profile of a deep-state plotter. He had tackled rogue members of the deep state himself, in a 1999 investigation of military police, whom he suspected of summarily executing people during a brutal war with Kurdish separatists. Mr. Cihaner dug up bodies and matched weapons used in murders, according to a book about the intelligence wing of the military police and a 14-page letter Mr. Cihaner hand-wrote from jail in response to questions from The Wall Street Journal.

No one before him had even documented the existence of the secretive intelligence wing of the military police. His prosecutorial effort was lionized by liberals at the time. Higher-ups blocked it.

In Erzincan, Mr. Cihaner chose a different target. He began investigating unapproved schools teaching the Quran.

Turkey's secular laws say religion may be taught only in government-approved schools, and only to children over 12. Though unsanctioned religious education is widespread and rarely prosecuted, Mr. Cihaner says he saw it as his duty to prosecute the practice, because according to him and his lawyer, a conservative sect called the Ismailaga was sending children as young as 3 ½ to "madrassa-like" schools.

On Feb. 17, plainclothes police searched Mr. Cihaner's office and home. He was charged with planning to stash weapons in the homes of religious conservatives, with fabricating evidence, and with threatening witnesses. There followed Mr. Sanal's interrogation of his fellow prosecutor, a 6 1/2-hour grilling in which the two traded tightly mirrored accusations.

"Have you ever considered this was a plot that could trigger conflict between [security] institutions?" asked Mr. Sanal, according to a transcript seen by The Wall Street Journal.

"I ask the same question of you," said Mr. Cihaner. "The police, the Jandarmerie and even the [National Intelligence Agency] are fighting each other."

Whether Mr. Cihaner was just an assiduous prosecutor, as he says, or was gunning for the government and its Islamist supporters, prosecutors may face challenges in proving he was a member of terrorist organization. For instance, the core charge against him is that he planned to plant weapons on the religious orders, yet he had spent months arguing the groups were peaceful.

Mr. Cihaner stands accused of being part of the alleged broad plot by members of the deep state to hold onto power, even though several of his alleged co-conspirators are men he targeted in his 1999 probe of summary executions. That, Mr. Cihaner said in his letter from jail, is "insanity."

Hours after his arrest, Turkey's Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors, part of the secular establishment, struck back, stripping away the powers of the terrorist prosecutor who arrested Mr. Cihaner, Mr. Sanal, saying he exceeded his authority.

And then the government struck back at the Supreme Board's move: It produced a package of constitutional amendments, the core of them aimed at the entrenched judges.

For background, including my analysis from earlier this year, click here.

Crisis Coming . . . Here?

Gen. Ibrahim Fırtına, Gen. Ergin Saygun, Navy Cmdr. Özden Örnek, Gen. Çetin Doğan and Lt. Gen. Ayhan Taş
PHOTOS from Hurriyet Daily News

Two days off from blogging, and . . .

After an unprecedented meeting of the Turkish Armed Forces on Tuesday, all eyes are turned on the state of civil-military relations after the most recent Ergenekon developments. The Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) released a statement, characterizing the detentions as a "serious situation." Over 40 people were detained on Monday in the most wide-reaching Ergenekon sweep yet, and at least seven have been formally charged in connection to "Operation Sledgehammer," revealed by Taraf last month. According to Hurriyet, "Ergenekon prosecutors have now detained all top commanders from 2003 and 2004 except Hilmi Özkök, the former chief of General Staff" (for an accounting of Monday's detentions, click here.)

President Gul is said to be organizing a meeting between Prime Minister Erdogan, recently returned from Spain, and Chief of General Staff Ilker Basbug. Erdogan has refrained from personally criticizing the unauthorized TSK meeting, but deputy Salih Kapusuz remarked, “Everything that happens and is said today will be brought onto the country’s agenda in the future, too." There are rumors that all top commanders could resign, though as Mehmet Ali Birand concludes, what that means is unclear.

Meanwhile, though Supreme Court of Appeals Chief Prosecutor Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya has dismissed stories that there is a closure case pending against the AKP, a closure case could well be in the making and would only further de-stabilize the situation. Coming on the heels of last week's judicial showdown, Turkey's political situation is, indisputably, remarkably tense. In Spain, Prime Minister Erdogan promised to submit constitutional amendments pertaining to judicial reform to referendum if a compromise with the CHP and MHP cannot be reached. Meanwhile, opposition parties have called for early elections, claiming such a move will help relieve tensions.


UPDATE I (2/25) -- Following a meeting this morning between President Gul, Prime Minister Erdogan, and Chief of Staff Ilker Basbug, the three leaders declared that recent tensions would be solved within the constitutional order of things. At the moment, that order still allows closure of the AKP should a case be filed, or any other number of scenarios.

Also, the Christian Science Monitor's Scott Peterson takes a look at the recent arrests and Tuesday's meeting, providing a good summary of the context in which all of this is happening.

UPDATE II (2/25) -- Two recent columns from two very different opinion leaders warrant a reading in that both agree that what is essentially happening is a power between two elites -- one old, established, and orthodox; the other, newly risen, eager to challenge the powers that be, and equally rigid. Mehmet Ali Birand writes that "a great mutual psychological war is being fought," drawing on Babug's earlier statement that forces opposed to the military are waging psychological war against it (Taraf, for instance).

Fellow Hurriyet Daily News columnist Mustafa Akyol writes about "polyarchy," which Akyol describes as a "system with more than one power center, and even a crude system of "checks and balances." Not to be confused with Robert Dahl's conception of democracy, this "polyarchy" is far from democratic -- a power struggle between elites with its own set of rules and logic that the public can only speculate on. Akyol's analysis does not go this far, but he does give the example of the "ascending role of the police in relation to the military." While writing that AKP is "nepotistic," "prone to authoritarianism and intolerance," and that "a Turkey totally dominated by the AKP would really not be fun - nor free and democratic," he endorses the new system over the old, declaring that "an ongoing struggle between opposing powers, is better than the previous one, which was a dominance of a single power." Akyol does not give much of a warrant for this, but its honesty is certainly striking.

UPDATE III (2/25) -- The AKP is sending two of its deputies to the parliament's disciplinary board following statements both made implying the Ergenekon case and recent arrests were about afflicting revenge. The referrals are presumably an attempt by the AKP to preempt the statements being used in the potential closure case. Should the disciplinary board expel the two deputies from parliament, the AKP would lose two MPs at a time when it is considering the risky move of bringing constitutional amendments to referendum.

UPDATE IV (2/26) -- Late on Thursday, three of those detained earlier this week were released, including top geneals Ibrahim Firtina and Ozden Ornek, former commanders of the Air Force and Navy respectively, and Ergin Saygun, former commander of the First Army. The releases were made based on their low flight risk, though prosecutors said the investigation will continue, keeping open the possibility of future arrest. Today 11 more were formally arrested and remanded into custody, including two active duty admirals and former General Cetin Dogan, who has made frequent appearances on Turkish televisionin recent weeks de-bunking the Ergenekon investigation. General Engin Alan, former head of the Specaial Forces, also appeared before the court. Meanwhile, in another sweep, 18 mostly active-duty juniors officers were detained. The total number of officers formally arrested and jailed this week was 31 out of a total of 67 detained.

Gareth Jenkins discusses the politicization of the Ergenekon investigation in a piece up on BBC Turkish (in Turkish). For Jenkins' take on the investigation, see "Between Fact and Fantasy: Turkey’s Ergenekon Investigation" (published last fall).

UPDATE V (3/1) -- Two more officers were formally charged on Sunday. From Reuters:

The state-run news agency Anatolian said Colonel Huseyin Ozcoban, commander of the paramilitary gendarmerie force in the city of Konya, and Lieutenant Colonel Yusuf Kelleli were charged late on Sunday in an Istanbul court.

A Crisis Coming: The Making of Political Theatre

Erzincan Prosecutor Ilhan Cihaner / PHOTO from Radikal

The showdown in the judiciary following the detention of one prosecutor by another prosecutor has now sparked heated accusations and dramatic claims of political meddling and illegal intervention -- the stuff from which Turkish political crises are made. Turkish judicial institutions have long been criticized as politicized, susceptible to being used as supposedly legal means to the political ends of the players and motivations that constitute the country's political theater. The last major political crisis here ended in a very narrow decision by the Constitutional Court not to close the ruling political party, which portrays itself, and to large extent is, opposed to the traditional, "secularist" elite.

Though the reality is more complicated, or at least more multi-faceted (with more players), the religiously conservative AKP/"secularist" elite face-off fits the judicial sparring that resulted in the closure case of 2008, and might well result in another. The 2008 political drama ended in a denoument disappointing to Turks who want to see political institutions reformed so that future crises may be diverted. After having survived the Constitutional Court decision, the AKP did little to change the rules regarding the closure of political parties, shelved plans for a new constitution, and attempted to make new friends by adopting a nationalist tone that turned off reformers, as well as those who have long been marginalized by Turkish state policies. I asked at the conclusion of the closure case if salvation could bring redemption (see Aug. 1, 2008 post), and the verdict is still out. No doubt dealt a difficult hand after the closure case and having just saved its head from the Court's guillotine, the AKP's inaction might be understandable, its attempts to make new friends -- if thats what the increased nationalism was about -- excused. Plus, the opposition CHP had vowed to oppose even the slightest constitutional change at the same time the Constitutional Court gave itself unprecedented authority to exert judicial review over constitutional amendments -- according to Ergun Ozbudun, "[t]he translation of the court's decision is that a new constitution could only be the product of interruptions such as coups d'etat or civil wars and that is against all logic." However, understood/excused or not, the dragging of feet might well result in a gnashing of teeth should the AKP find themselves subject to another closure case.

Having still few friends at high levels in the judiciary, and perhaps more enemies as a result of the Ergenekon investigation (the questionable handling of which has done little to win over many reformers or friends in Europe), it seems Turkish political observers need to start gearing up for another drama.

A Briefing of Events Since Wednesday

Following the detention of Erzincan prosecutor Ilhan Cihaner and the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK) decision to strip the powers of the four prosecutors investigating him, as well as file criminal charges against all four and another, previous revelations of another case underway to close the AKP on the grounds that the party has unduly influenced the judiciary came to the forefront. The judicary, like the military, has long been the domain of the secular elite, and fears have risen that the AKP is gaining influence in the body now that the party has been in power for nearly eight years. According to Radikal, a statement issued by the Supreme Court of Appeals (Court of Cassation) announces "that an investigation has been launched to see if the government has influenced the judiciary in connection to the Erzincan-Erzurum miff and to investigate claims that prosecutors were specially prepared for the entry of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, members at the Habur border gate" (for more on the latter, see Dec. 20 post). Supreme Court of Appeals Chief Prosecutor Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya, who brought the first closure case against the AKP, is rumored to have a new case in the works. Additionally, Radikal quoted an anonymous source inside the AKP on the following points:

- “If this is the case, no one can expect us to surrender to the Constitutional Court’s guillotine, so to speak. We go to people and explain the situation. We seek our rights in the people’s court. In case of a possible closure case, we’ll go to elections immediately.

- “It is accurate that our Prime Minister has already announced that there wouldn’t be an early election in 2010, but the latest developments make the situation different because a possible closure decision allows us to more or less guess who could be banned [from politics]. We cannot accept this.

- “Besides, we’ve seen previously: The Feb. 28 process helped us, we came to power in 2002. The Apr. 27 military e-memorandum and the Constitutional Courts 367-quorum blows also helped us increase our votes. People do not say anything about these plots but upon having the power they use it to their best. A possible case against the AKP would not divide up the party, as some expect, but reinforce us, to the contrary.

While the HSYK and judges from the Council of State and Court of Cassation are decrying denunciations of their decision by Justice Minister Sadullah Ergin and Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc, Ergin and Arinc, for their parts, are declaring the HSYK to have "revealed their true colors," citing the need for judicial reform and an end to judicial/military tutelage. The CHP, as is to be expected, is backing the judiciary, accusing AKP "cronies" in the judiciary as acting like "hitmen."

Hurriyet revelead more details about Cihaner on Thursday, pointing to past cases he brought against individuals linked to groups the state is now claiming to be involved in the broader Ergenekon network. The article also reiterates slams exchanged between the government and the judiciary.

Today's Zaman columnist Yavuz Baydar gives the background of relations between the two prosecutors at the heart of the imbroglio, repeating suspicions expressed that Cihaner might have been working with the military to coverup Ergenekon-related activity by passing blame onto the Islamic brotherhood Cihaner was investigating (for more on these accusations, see Gen. Saldiray Berk's case, who faces becoming the first uniformed general to testify in the Ergenekon investigation).

Fellow Today's Zaman columnist Nicole Pope writes that "[w]ith this latest escalation, it has become painfully obvious that no common language or common vision for Turkey’s future remains, if it ever existed." Pope reflects on the institutional flaws at play, decreeing Turkey's voters to be the ulimate referees of the struggle for power while pointing to opportunities the AKP missed to push for institutional reform in the past. Pope also observes the removal of prosecutors in Erzincan to not be without precedent: in 2007, a prosecutor investigating the Semdinli bombing, thought to the work of military-linked agitators now attributed by some to also be part of the Ergenekon group, was stripped of his power after exploring possible connections between two gendarmerie officers and a PKK-informant to officials higher-up.For a decent summary of the entire affair as it stands now, see Thomas Siebert's reporting in The National.

Waiting for Crisis

The institutional weaknesses of the HSYK manifested themselves last summer in a dispute centered on appointment of prosecutors and the Ergenekon investigation. While judicial handling of the Ergenekon investigation has come under fire for being slipshod and driven by politics (for example, see Gareth Jenkins), the HSYK's threats presaged the confrontation now occurring.

Now that the AKP is facing a looming closure threat, time will tell just how it will approach the constitutional reform package it is preparing and just how opposition parties will respond. It is likely that the crisis will only heighten the degree of hostility between the parties, but perhaps it might also embolden the AKP to aggressively pursue the broad-based reforms the party has long promised, including its judicial reform strategy (approved in August), which the EU welcomed in its 2009 Progress Report. The EU, and more importantly, Turkish citizens, have long complained about Turkish political institutions only feeding the constant infighting and political theatre to which Turks have long been subject. Former EU Enlargment Commissioner Olli Rehn has before emphasized the need to "break the cycle" wrought by weak institutions and embroiled politicians. Because politicians do not focus on reform, too often they find themselves constantly repeating play acts remarkably similar to one another, making for rather bad dinner theater. Perhaps the time has come to close the curtains.


UPDATE I (2/21) -- Today's Zaman's Ayse Karabat paints a broad picture of judicial culture, giving some insight into just what "the supremacy of the judiciary" means to some Turks. From her column:

I have heard several times that when candidates are chosen to be future judges, they are told they should keep their distance from ordinary people. They are asked not go to places everybody goes -- they should not carry shopping bags, and they should not bargain when they buy apples. Of course, not only are they learning some manners, they are taught that they are the defenders of the republic, especially secularism.

I really wonder who suggested translating the “rule of law” or “la primauté du droit” into Turkish as the “supremacy of the judiciary” because it turned into a most misused term.

The supremacy of the judiciary in this country is considered and implemented in a way that does not really mean the independence of the judiciary but perceives the judiciary as “above” everything in a hegemonic way. This understanding includes the dominant behavior of judges -- that of pretending they are the inhabitants of Mount Olympus.

Such a great power, such an understanding, which perceives itself to be above everything, when combined with the task of being the guardians of the republic at the expense of democracy naturally brings corruption. Such corruption may not necessarily be financial but can be spiritual. The corruption can be so great as to make the judges forget that their every action should be based on the rule of law and democracy.

UPDATE II (2/24) -- Istanbul Chief Prosecutor Aykut Cengiz Engin has announced that he is in receipt Cihaner's file, which he received from Sanal, who is now removed from the case. It is not clear what prosecutor will be assigned to the case.

UPDATE III (3/2) -- Engin has sent Cihaner's file back to Erzurum on the grounds that it does not fall within the Istanbul Chief Prosecutor's jurisdiction. Engin is charged with overseeing the Ergenekon investigation. An indictment against Cihaner has been secured.

Making Sense of Sledgehammer

Chief of General Staff Ilker Basbug / PHOTO from AFP

On Wednesday, yet another alleged coup plot was revealed by Taraf, this one centering on alleged plans by some military officers to create a level of chaos in Turkey conducive to a military coup. Code-named "Operation Sledgehammer" (Balyoz, in Turkish), the 2003 plan centers on creating a level of national chaos conducive to facilitating a military takeover. From Hürriyet:

. . . measures included bombing two major mosques in Istanbul, an assault on a military museum by people disguised as fundamentalists and the raising of tension with Greece through the usual dogfights between the fighter planes of the two countries over the Aegean Sea. The allegations even include shooting down a Turkish plane and blaming it on Greece.

Newspapers and talk shows on TV gave almost blanket coverage to the Sledgehammer affair, with the reporting and views generally split along the familiar lines of the pro-government media and mainstream media. The former saw the latest revelations as proof of a nefarious military while mainstream news outlets focused on the General Staff’s explanation that the reports were constructed entirely on "scenario exercises." Many also questioned the timing of the revelations, which coincided with a Constitutional Court ruling on civil vs. military judicial jurisdiction.

Taraf wrote that they have over 5,000 pages of printed documents, CDs and voice recordings as proof. They delivered copies of the mentioned documents to the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office after a criminal complaint was filed on the allegations by a group of intellectuals from the platform of “70 million steps against a coup,” a coalition of various political parties and nongovernmental organizations. Taraf yesterday made a call to the General Staff, which said records of such “scenarios” are destroyed after four years, and told the General Staff the paper can send the documents to them also if requested.

The Hürriyet story goes on to explain the Turkish press' reaction to the story, including its polarization as evinced by the differences between newspapers' editorial lines. Indeed, it seems everyone either believes in the coup story or thinks it total hogwash. Joost Lagendijk takes a different position, writing in a Hürriyet op/ed that what matters is not so much whether the story is true or not, but that the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) did not carry it out. Assuming the story is true, Lagendijk points out the fact it went nowhere points to "a split in the TSK between, on the one hand, generals who still believe it is their task to kick out democratically elected politicians when they feel they have to do so and, on the other hand, generals who think those days are over." Lagendijk proceeds by asking,

If that is true, why do the anti-coup officers not speak out clearly in public against their plotting colleagues? Because they don’t want to harm the public perception of the military? I am convinced that, by not doing so, they harm that same image much, much more.
Peer group exposure should be one part of the new, post Sledgehammer scenario for a democratic Turkey.

While the Turkish media and politicians obsess about the validity of Sledgehammer, the real pressure should be on the military to stop playing defensive and move forward. By doing so, they have the opportunity to eschew the chaotic, often lunatic discourse, and actually move Turkey in the right direction.

Lagendijk, making another critical point in his second recommendation, suggests

a government initiative for a total overhaul of the present, totally outdated National Security Strategy, which still focuses on internal threats such as Islamic fundamentalism and Kurdish separatism. The time has come for elected politicians, after having seriously considered the advice from the military, to spell out what according to them are the real dangers facing Turkey now and in the foreseeable future. That would include (possible) external threats such as al-Qaeda or a nuclear armed Iran, which should be dealt with by a modern, professional military.

If only these were the things Turkey was talking about. Sadly, they are not -- and, yes, for that, it seems the military plays a role by at least enabling the controversy over Sledgehammer to continue. If I am wrong, and the TSK is indeed still controlled by dark, sinister forces secretly plotting to blowup airliners, then Turkey is in seriously dire circumstances.

Sledgehammer comes on the heals of other alleged coup plots to be made public since the now defunct newspaper Nokta revealed Golden Maiden (Sarıkız, in Turkish) in 2007. In March 2009, the second indictment of the Ergenekon investigation revealed the details of three more coup plans in addition to the first (Moonlight, Ayışığı in Turkish; Sea Sparkle, Yakamoz in Turkish; and Glove, in Turkish Eldiven). In June 2009, Taraf reported on a plan to weaken Islamic reactionaries, allegedly drafted by Colonol Dursun Cicek in the Army's psychological warfare unit. The alleged plan targeted the AKP and the Gulen movement. This past November, Taraf reported on the Cage Operation Plan (Kafes, in Turkish), which the Naval Forces command allegedly designed to wreak havoc by targeting non-Muslim minorities.

For more on the Ergenekon investigation, which continues unabated, see this timeline from Liam Hardy at American Anatolian Viewpoint. For a critical, yet quite comprehesive view, see Gareth Jenkins' July 2009 report, "Between Fact and Fantasy: Turkey's Ergenekon Investigation."


UPDATE I (1/25) -- The TSK's Chief of General Staff Gen. Ilker Basbug lambasted the accusations waved at it by Taraf, saying patience of the Armed Forces was limited. See also Today's Zaman's interview with Taraf's deputy editor-in-chief Yasemin Congar, in which she dismisses the military's claim that Sledgehammer was but a scenario taken out of context by Taraf.

UPDATE II (2/2) -- 27 of the 36 journalists laid out to be arrested in Balykoz have filed a criminal complaint.

Three Years After

A crowd of around 3,000 people gathered on Tuesday to commemorate the third anniversary of the murder of Hrant Dink, the prominent Turkish Armenian journalist who was slain outside his home by an ultranationalist youth in cooperation with a larger group of ultranationalists speculated to have links to local and national security forces. The Dink murder is speculated to have ties to deep state elements currently being investigated as part of the rather unwieldly and broadly encompassing Ergenekon investigaton. Dink's assassination and the possibility of a wide-reaching coverup have become a rallying cry for progressive reformers. At the end of the commemoration, demonstrators replaced a Sisli street sign reading reading "Ergenekon" with another, re-naming the street for Hrant Dink

The photo posted here is of Dink's assasin, Ogun Samast, and the officers who arrested him. This photo and similar video footage, along with withheld and disappeared evidence and documents like this one proving that security forces iknew about the assassination plot before it took place, have all given reason to think that Dink's assassination involved a large number of people, some perhaps deep within the state structure. The Dink murder trial is still underway, hampered by a variety of difficulties, including the harassment of Dink's family, supporters, and attorneys. Last July, the Prime Ministry Inspection Board released its report of an investigation into security forces' potential neglect/involvement in the Dink assassination. Though critics claimed the Ministry watered it down, the report does indicate that security officials had reason to think the assassination was impending. Much has been made of whether evidence was properly shared with police in Istanbul, and whether officials of the Istanbul Intelligence Unit were also involved.

20 suspects in addition to Samast are also on trial, but in different courts, including eight gendarmerie officers on trial in Trabzon for negligence. Dink's supporters want the trials merged and a comprehensive investigation into all possible elements involved in the murder, arguing that their own future security is also at stake as long as responsible parties enjoy impunity for their crimes. In July, a court in Istanbul ruled against a petition that an investigation be opened into the role of Istanbul Police Chief Celalettin Cerrah and seven other officers, one of many examples cited of officials' refusal to conduct a proper investigation. Friends of Hrant, an organization of Dink's supporters, this week issued a statement reiterating its demands. Lawyers have applied again to the European Court of Human Rights on the grounds that Dink's right to life was violated by the state's failure to protect him, as well as other rights that have been violated in the course of the investigation and trials.

For more on Dink's murder and its aftermath, see this excellent 2009 documentary, "For Hrant, For Justice," by Umit Kivanc. (Thanks to Jenny White and Bulent, who posts on this blog as well.)


UPDATE I (1/27) -- In a speech commemorating Hrant Dink, Canadian journalist and human rights activist Naomi Klein used the podium to argue the government of Turkey gives Israel a public relations weapon when it violates the rights of Kurds and Armenians while at the same time criticizing Israel. A strong critic of Israel, Klein lauded Prime Minister Erdogan's denunciations of Israeli war crimes, but noted what she considers the hypocrisy of the Turkish government's position. Hürriyet ran a piece covering the speech, though I doubt it got more attention outside of the English-language press.

UPDATE II (2/8) -- The investigation launched by the Interior Ministry at the behest of the Prime Ministry Inspection Board has cleared 19 police officers working in the National Police department's intelligence unit and the Trabzon local police. The Prime Ministry Inspection Board prompted the investigation at the petition of Dink's wife.

DTP Calls for Investigation of JİTEM

Şırnak deputy Sevahir Bayındır is one of several DTP politicians to call for an investigation into JİTEM, a clandestine military intelligence unit alleged to have organized mass atrocities against Kurdish civilians.

The recent arrest of Ret. Brig. Gen. Levent Ersöz, who had escaped to Russia last July, has brought the operations of a clandestine military intelligence unit, long known as JİTEM, to the forefront of public attention. Ersöz is thought to have worked directly underneath Ret. Maj. Gen. Veli Küçük, and to have been the leader of the illegal and long-rumored JİTEM. JİTEM is responsible for mass atrocities committed against Kurds since the 1990s, including the forced disappearances of HADEP politicians Ebubekir Deniz and Serdar Danış in Silopi in 2001. Under Ersöz was Ret. Col. Abdülkerim Kırca, who recently committed suicide when former JİTEM subordinate Abdülkadir Aygan, who is exiled in Sweden, recounted his participation in the stealth organization to Taraf.

Until recently, Turkey had long been remiss to investigate crimes committed by JİTEM thugs and assassins, many of whom seemed to have worked as civil servants in the Gendarmerie. Turkey's failure to open an investigation into the disappearence of Deniz and Danış resulted in a finding against it by the European Court of Human Rights and an order to pay damages to the men's families. As a function of the Ergenekon investigation, which has now led to an investigation into a whole assortment of alleged deep-state activities, including JİTEM, it is possible than an investigation might just now be opened.

To mark the disappearances, thousands of Kurdish protestors in Silopi, a district town of the southeastern province of Şırnak, took to the streets to demand a thorough investigation. DTP district chair Halil İrmez and MP Hasip Kaplan requested searches be made of the state-owned wells of the Turkish Pipeline Corporation (BOTAŞ), a request which DTP MPs have taken to the Justice Ministry. There is suspicion that JİTEM buried the bodies of Deniz and Danış -- alongside other victims -- in BOTAŞ' acid wells. Earlier Ergenekon informant Tuncay Güney alleged this was a common method of summary execution used by JİTEM in the 1990s. According to TDZ, "Late in December, the Silopi Prosecutor’s Office authorized investigators to locate and open local oil wells. BOTAŞ’s management announced that it would provide any assistance necessary in opening up the wells. However, BOTAŞ has only a few oil wells in Silopi; most of the wells in the region belong to the Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO), and these wells must also be examined." In response to the DTP MPs, Justice Minister Mehmet Ali Şahin has expressed willingness to uncover the wells if more evidence comes to light.

The EDM's Emrullah Uslu elucidates the nexus between Ergenekon and the state/deep state's activities in the southeast:

. . . [T]he debate over Ergenekon has finally turned to the state’s policies toward the Kurds in the 1990s. Abdulkadir Aygan, a former member of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and later a member of the clandestine gendarmerie intelligence unit known as JİTEM, confessed to the media that when retired Colonel Abdulkerim Kirca was the head of JITEM in Diyarbakir, the unit conducted dozens of executions (Star, January 19). Since then, Aygan has been living in Stockholm for fear of his life. The following day, Kirca committed suicide (Star, January 20). Chief of General Staff General Ilker Basbug, armed forces commanders, and a large number of military officers attended Kirca’s funeral in what was apparently a show of solidarity by the military for its members (Hurriyet, January 21). The Turkish Armed Forces issued a statement saying, “the media with its untrue stories judges people and drives them to tragedies. The authorities should act to stop this irresponsible media coverage” (www.tsk.mil.tr. January 21).

As was to be expected, the media continued giving attention to Aygan’s confession. Aygan claimed that JITEM had executed between 600 and 700 Kurds in the 1990s and that “JİTEM operations always ended in death.…those who were reported to JİTEM as having any relationship with the PKK were executed” (Taraf, January 27).

. . . .

With the possibility of establishing a relationship between Ergenekon and some of the unsolved murders and PKK operations in the Kurdish region, the Ergenekon prosecutors asked the court in Diyarbakir to send the files of the JITEM trial in which 11 accused JITEM members have been tried in the last 10 years without producing a conviction (Referans, January 28).

Moreover, the Ergenekon prosecutors have asked the court to send the files on Brigadier General Bahtiyar Aydin who was mysteriously assassinated in town of Lice in Diyarbakir Province in 1993 and the files of colonel Ridban Ozden, whose murder in Mardin Province in 1995 was blamed on the PKK, a theory that is rejected by many including Ozden’s wife (Sabah, January 28).

It still remains to be seen how Ergenekon prosecutors will connect the murders in the Kurdish region in the 1990s with the arrested Ergenekon suspects and the buried ammunition found after the last two waves of Ergenekon arrests in January.

The 10-year JİTEM trial of 11 suspects will be combined with the Ergenekon case. The case regards offenses committed in 1989.

Earlier this week, TDZ profiled Aygan, tracing his life from early involvement with the PKK through his career in JİTEM. In Sweden, Aygan enjoys political asylum.

DTP MPs calls are part of a larger effort within DTP premised on the hope that by taking advantage of the current opportunities for sunshine offered by the Ergenekon investigation, Turkey might actally succeed in routing out those in the state who perpetrated human rights violations, and who continue to take advantage of opportunities to cause ethnic strife within Turkey. For more on Ergenekon and Kurdish politics, see Aug. 12 post.

Last Thursday marked the eleventh wave of arrests in the Ergenekon investigation. Though not as dramatic as the tenth wave, more than 30 people were arrested, including Türk Metal Union leader Mustafa Özbek.

UPDATE 2/2 -- Bianet has published Taraf reporter Neşe Düzel's interview with Aygan from his home in Sweden. The interview ran in Taraf on Jan. 27.

Encümen-i Daniş & More Speculation About Feb. 28

The Ergenekon invetigation has raised a flurry of questions about political events in Turkey's not-so-recent past, including hints and allegations of just exactly what happened in the country's "postmodern coup" of Feb. 28, 1997. The coup toppled the Islamist Refah Party, which was closed shortly after by a decision of the Constitutional Court. Refah is the more conservative antecedent of AKP, and among the many recriminations that have circled around Ergenekon are charges that the deep state group colluded with elements in the Turkish Armed Forces. From TDZ:

An organization calling itself Encümen-i Daniş (Consultation Council) sent a letter to former President Süleyman Demirel in 1994 with a list of recommendations on a number of issues in an attempt to influence decision-makers in the country ahead of the Feb. 28, 1997, post-modern coup, the Bugün daily reported yesterday.

Considered to be a “think tank” that included some of the most powerful figures in the country, who came together behind closed doors to talk about Turkey’s problems, Encümen-i Daniş sent a letter to Demirel and then-Prime Minister Tansu Çiller in 1994 in an attempt direct political decisions in the country. Paragraphs from the letter were quoted verbatim a few years later -- this time in a grim resolution issued by the National Security Council (MGK) in 1997 that led to the collapse of an elected coalition government.

Encümen-i Daniş is, according to some, a clandestine committee that also has links to the Ergenekon gang and to the Western Working Group (BÇG). BÇG was another clandestine group formed within the army during the Feb. 28 coup that blacklisted various politicians, intellectuals, soldiers and bureaucrats as “dangerous personalities” who were threatening the regime.

Included in the six-article recommendation letter sent to Demirel and Çiller are calls for the strict implementation of the Law on Political Parties; tough controls on Quran courses; and the reclassification of imam-hatip schools -- high schools that offer religious education -- as vocational schools so that students would have a lesser chance of being admitted to university.

For full article, click here.

"We Are All Hrant Dink"

Today marks the two-year anniversary of journalist Hrant Dink's death. Nationalist thugs shot down Dink outside his house, and after their arrest, appeared in posed photographs with smiling police. Police and security forces were involved in Dink's death, but so far only two gendarmerie officers have been put on trial. Charges widened this past December when the Trabzon Chief Prosecutor's Office launched a preliminary investigation into Ali Öz, former Trabzon Gendarme Regiment Commander. Speculation exists that the Ergenekon gang executed the assassination, though details -- as with other charges against the group -- are murky, and obscured by politics.

In Hürriyet, Dink's lawyer, Fethiye Çetin, recounts Dink's fear a few days before his death. Bianet offers a summary of trial proceedings thus far. Memorial demonstrations will occur throughout Turkey.

Worth re-posting on this occasion are Ece Temelkuran's reflections on Dink's death, excerpted from a column she wrote in the Guardian last January.

Recently, a couple of high school students sliced their fingers and made themselves bleed on purpose. They used their blood to paint a Turkish flag. It wasn't a small one, either. They framed the picture and sent it to the chief of military. He cried when he received the "bloody mail"; and reporters were there to witness and report about the sacred flag.

The story of the bleeding didn't end there, though. A few days ago, a conservative and nationalist newspaper (Tercüman) decided to print the picture of the flag drawn with children's blood. And so the blood multiplied as the circulation of the newspaper increased.

If this doesn't seem strange at first, a bit of perspective soon allows you to see the apocalyptic scenery here, which resembles Bosch's paintings of hell. And you realise that the apocalypse started when our friend the Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was shot. He was shot a year ago this week, and a Hollywood-like series of events ensued. People who were touched by the horrible incident were on streets, thousands of them shouting the slogan: "We are all Armenian, We are all Hrant Dink." The slogan touched the weakest link in Turkish nationalism and a counter-slogan by the established writers and prominent opinion leaders was brought to the public stage: "We are all Turks!"

The fever of McCarthyism, as we all know, is the most contagious fever of all and the Turkish public was contaminated overwhelmingly. Soon after this, and just before the elections, the protest demonstrations against the ruling party AKP's Islamisation policies - called "mild Islam" - were combined with this nationalist uprising under the name of "flag meetings". All of a sudden, things got out of control and the streets were full of young rednecks calling to account anyone who didn't hang flags from their balconies. One night Istanbul's Kurdish districts almost reached boiling point, as young men gathered in front of buildings and shouted for Kurdish people to come out. While the media didn't do anything to praise these scenes, it still - with the exception of a few columnists who dared to speak of their concern about the nationalist atmosphere - approved the driving force behind them. Things got so serious that I remember how one night, during a political meeting of intellectuals in Istanbul, we talked about establishing an emergency network so that if something should happen to one of us the others would find out about it.

After a little while we understood what this contrived crisis was about. The army, together with AKP, decided to carry out a big campaign against PKK. The war began. The news bulletins immediately took on the appearance of Fox TV during the Iraq invasion. "We" was the subject, "cleaning" was the verb and the targeted object was always "them", as if Kurds don't live in Turkey. As if the militants of PKK who are bombed don't have relatives in the Kurdish part of Turkey. But who would dare to ask such questions when the streets were strewn with flags and the nationalist gangs were made out to be the "legitimate" ones?

The war - or, as they call it, the "operation" - is still going on: a hygenic war where you see only the rifles, bombs and thermal camera footage broadcast on the TV news, accompanied by a primitive militaristic commentary. Not forgetting, of course, the footage of martyrs' coffins with sad music playing in the background, as if this whole thing is not happening to us but is part of some Middle Eastern version of Saving Private Ryan. But the film that began with the shooting of Hrant and the nationalist uprising that followed brought us to where we are now. Schoolchildren, probably with their parents' and teachers' consent, send their blood to the chief of the army in a glittering frame.

This is the apocalypse of Turkey. The apocalypse in which most of us cannot dare to say that blood only stains a flag.

And if the Turkish flag needed to be a deeper shade of red, Hrant's blood was more than enough. My dear friend was writing his last article 52 weeks ago, saying that his heart was a "timid pigeon" waiting for bad things to happen. Now, after his death, we have all stepped into an era where I can say: "They shoot the pigeons, don't they."

Ergenekon Heightens Divisions in Turkish Society

In a press conference yesterday, Gen. Metin Gürak accused prosecutors of violating the constitutionally enshrined principle of the presumption of innocence. Gürak's comments are a reflection of heightened criticism of the Ergenekon investigation emanating from the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) following this latest tenth wave of arrests (see a summary from Bianet, Jan. 12). This most recent criticism comes in response to accusations made by police informer Tuncay Güney on television yesterday against Ret. Gen. İsmail Hakkı Karadayı. President Gül warned that putting pressure on the judiciary while the Ergenekon investigation is underway will undermine the investigation and further polarize Turkish politics. However, it is clear that the judiciary, the military, politicians, and the Turkish press are already very polarized, creating tremendous doubt as to whether objectivity -- by the judiciary, or any other sector of Turkish society -- is in fact possible.

Recent analysis by Lale Sarııbrahımoğlu considers divisions within the TSK as to the proper position the TSK should take in regard to the Ergenekon investigation, cleavages between Asianists and Europhiles, pro and anti-coup forces. Sarııbrahımoğlu assesses the TSK's reluctance to denounce Ergenekon and some recent infighting as a possible function of NATO involvement in TSK affairs. The TSK is far from a monolithic entity, and throughout recent years, chiefs of staff have taken different positions toward international affairs and intervention in domestic politics.

See also Emrullah Uslu's analysis of different actors in the Turkish judiciary. The Ankara and Istanbul Bar Associations, as well as the Judges and Prosecutors Union and some sitting judges have expressed criticism of the investigation, while others have refrained from comment. These divisions manifest themselves on the Supreme Court of Appeals. The arrest of the Court's former prosecutor, Sabih Kanadoglu, has increased tensions in the judiciary.

Adding to the drama of the last wave of arrests is the apprehension of Ret. Brig. Gen. Levent Ersöz, who just narrowly escaped to Russia last July before police could apprehend him. Ersöz is thought to have worked directly underneath Ret. Maj. Gen. Veli Küçük, and to have been the leader of the clandestine (and illegal) JITEM gendarmerie intelligence unit. Ersöz and JITEM are likely responsible for mass atrocities committed against Kurds, including the forced disappearances of HADEP politicians Ebubekir Deniz and Serdar Danış in 2001, Turkey's failure to open an investigation into which resulted in an ECHR ruling against it and an order that €170,000 be paid in damages.

In other news, more weapons caches were also discovered near Ankara and İstanbul.

More Ergenekon Arrests

Detentions of 10 military officers in conjunction with the Ergenekon investigation resulted in Gen. İlker Başbuğ, Chief of Turkey's General Staff, calling a meeting Wednesday that included the heads of each branch of Turkey's armed services. After the meeting, Başbuğ met with Prime Minister Erdoğan. The officers were arrested with 20 other individuals amidst doubt that the investigation into "deep state" forces -- long hidden away from public scrutiny -- would go much further. From Emrullah Uslu at EDM:

It appears that the TSK was expecting the operation. The Ankara Central Command reportedly told the security units of the military compounds where active and retired generals live not to allow police and prosecutors to enter the compounds, even with a search warrant, without the command's permission (Taraf, January 9).

As usual, the Ergenekon investigation has once again divided Turkish intellectuals into two camps. On the one hand, Kemalists and neo-nationalist intellectuals argue that it is politically motivated. They maintain that it is no coincidence that the government opposition is the target of the investigation. Some of the pro-Ergenekon intellectuals went so far as to call the arrests of such well-known people “state terror” (Hurriyet, January 8). Chairman of the Republican Peoples’ Party (CHP) Deniz Baykal harshly criticized the investigation, claiming that it was an attempt to change the Turkish state regime. Baykal even saw parallels to the developments during the preparatory stages of the Islamic Revolution in Iran (Aksam, January 8).

On the other hand, some intellectuals say that the Ergenekon investigation is a well-organized investigation and a golden opportunity to punish those who plot against the civilian government (Sabah, Yeni Safak, January 9).

The police reportedly have video tapes of meetings where military plots against the AKP government were discussed (Taraf, December 19). Although these reports need confirmation; it is no secret that Tuncer Kilinc was the first person to advocate that Turkey leave the U.S. and EU camp and form a new pact with Russia and Iran (see EDM, December 2). The Ergenekon network believes that a military coup is the only way to control the government (Sabah January 9).

The recent arrests took place at a time when people had started asking whether the prosecutors could really go any deeper. The recent wave of arrests has shown just how serious the prosecutors are about investigating the Ergenekon network. The wave of arrests has triggered deep concern within the TSK leadership. After the long meeting with other commanders, it appears that Basbug wants to intervene in the due process of the Ergenekon investigation and trial. It will not be the first time that he has actively taken the side of Ergenekon suspects. The day of his appointment as Chief of the General Staff he sent a general to visit retired Generals Hursit Tolon and Sener Eruygur at the prison where they were being held awaiting trial.

The investigation known into Ergenekon is impenetrable for even the most expert in Turkish politics, and media coverage and information released by the government and police is heavily influenced by partisan politics. Both the New York Times and the Financial Times ran brief stories on the recent arrests. For a feel as to just how entangled the politics of Ergenekon are in terms of the government's relationship with the military, read this analysis by Bill Clark, a professor at King's College. The controversies surrounding Dağlica and Aktütün are both documented in this blog, as is the evolving relationship between AKP and the General Staff since the closure case.

Also, perhaps useful, though of course not free from bias, is a recent account by TDZ documenting the investigation from its beginnings last January.



UPDATE 1/10 -- A weapons cache was found in the home of İbrahim Şahin, a former head of the National Police Department’s Special Operations Unit and one of the total of 36 arrested on Wednesday. From TDZ:

The operation started when Şahin, whose phone conversations had been tapped by police for at least two months, recently gave the order to finalize plans to assassinate Armenian community members in the city of Sivas. Twelve others were detained in Sivas during Wednesday’s operation. Police also found evidence that the group was plotting to kill prominent figures including Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Former Chief of General Staff Yaşar Büyükanıt, Police Department Intelligence Unit Chief Ramazan Akyürek, journalist Fehmi Koru, author Orhan Pamuk and some politicians, including members of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP).

The fields brought to mind a large number of depots of NATO arms found buried during an investigation launched by Italian prosecutor Felice Casson, who discovered the existence of Operation Gladio, a NATO stay-behind paramilitary force left over from the Cold War. In a panel discussion he participated in in İstanbul last April, Casson said these weapons were found buried in cemeteries, under churches and even in caves. Ergenekon is also thought to be a remnant from the original Turkish Gladio, which was founded against a possible Soviet invasion during the Cold War, but later turned into an organization trying to cut off Turkey's ties with the West. The retired generals arrested in the Ergenekon investigation seem to have an anti-European Union and anti-NATO stance favoring a closer relationship between Turkey and Russia and Eurasian nations.

The article further speculates that the uncovered cache might be linked to violence in the Gölbaşı district of Ankara following the infamous Susurluk incident, the most significant happening since the 1980 coup to raise serious question about the existence of Turkey's deep state.

Also, see Gareth Jenkins' quote in the Guardian yesterday:

Gareth Jenkins, an Istanbul-based expert on Turkish security affairs, said: "The army will have issued a stern warning to the government to back off and that this has to be the last of such arrests. Most of those arrested on Wednesday were not involved in the Ergenekon plot.

"It was just a political move, and has destroyed any hope that the probe will find the real culprits. The question is what happens next. What we are going to see is a power struggle between two fundamentally undemocratic forces using their influence in the judicial system."

Talking State Security After Ergenekon

From TDZ:

The current undersecretary, Emre Taner, is famed for his efforts to "get his house in order" and reform the organization.

A former senior Turkish intelligence official has warned against weaknesses in Turkey’s intelligence-gathering mechanisms, suggesting that an intelligence coordination unit should be established under the Prime Ministry.

“There has been a lack of will for ensuring coordinated intelligence gathering in Turkey. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan should address this problem. Due to the absence of coordination, Turkish institutions in charge of gathering intelligence are jealous of each other. Thus, they refrain from sharing information that they have been gathering among themselves,” said Ertuğrul Güven, former deputy undersecretary of Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MİT), in an interview with Sunday’s Zaman.

Güven’s remarks come at a time when the MİT has been linked to an alleged member of the Ergenekon terror organization. Eighty-six defendants are facing trial for suspected membership in Ergenekon, a criminal network that is believed to have been plotting to overthrow the government.

Tuncay Güney, who currently resides in Canada as a rabbi, was captured by police in Turkey in 2001 on suspicions of gang membership. What he told the police at that time has helped prosecutors expose the activities of Ergenekon.

According to an MİT document published by the Sabah daily last month, Güney purposefully infiltrated Ergenekon and JİTEM, an illegal intelligence unit in the gendarmerie, to gather information for the intelligence organization.

In a press release, the MİT confirmed the authenticity of the document, but denied that Güney, a former journalist whose name has featured prominently in the Ergenekon trial, was an agent employed by the organization.

“As far as I can remember, Güney was not an MİT agent,” Güven said.

The MİT counterterrorism unit, together with the problems it had created, was taken out of the MİT organizational chart in 1997, the same press release explained. Mehmet Eymür, a former MİT official who was implicated in a number of intelligence scandals, was the head of this unit.

However, Güven declined to speak about the details of the Güney incident or Eymür.

. . . .

Güven has also warned against assigning nationwide intelligence gathering duties to the police under a plan to create a new counterterrorism unit under the Interior Ministry.

"Internal security issues cannot directly be affiliated to the Security General Directorate, otherwise there will be problems. For example, there is an organization in Germany to protect the constitution. This is directly affiliated with an undersecretary at the German Interior Ministry. Similarly, the German police are also affiliated with this undersecretary. The security directorate can have its internal intelligence gathering mechanism, but cannot have nationwide intelligence-gathering duties. There needs to be a mechanism of control over the intelligence-gathering organizations," Güven said.

For full article, click here.

ISS Note Raises Questions About Öcalan, Peace with KRG

From TDZ:

The chief operative of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), Murat Karayılan, has met at least twice with officials from Turkey's National Intelligence Organization (MİT), and Iraqi Kurdish leaders are convinced that the terrorist group's leader, Abdullah Öcalan, is being controlled by Turkey.

These are some of the assessments offered by a European Union think tank specializing in security issues, the EU Institute for Security Studies (ISS). In an "institute note," prepared after a visit to northern Iraq in July, the ISS also said that the Iraqi Kurdish administration, which runs northern Iraq, has its own problems with the PKK, despite a widespread Turkish conviction that it tolerates and supports the terrorist group, which launches attacks on Turkey from its bases in northern Iraq. The report comes before a key meeting between Turkey's special envoy for Iraq, Murat Özçelik, and Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani in October.

The study also noted antipathy towards the Democratic Society Party (DTP), the main pro-Kurdish party in Turkey, which has recently had problems with the government. "It was interesting to see how much antipathy there was towards the DTP, which is widely regarded as being under the control of the PKK," said the note. "In the end, some argue, if Turkey acted more benignly and tried to follow a more reasonable policy, the DTP would be integrated into the country's political landscape, just like the ultranationalist Nationalist Movement Party [MHP] on the political right," it added.

. . . .

Kurdish officials meeting with the ISS delegation have stressed five "salient" points regarding their relationship with Turkey and the PKK, the ISS note said and listed them as follows:

“There can be no military solution to the problem but only a negotiated one; the PKK made a fundamental break with its ideology when it abandoned its commitment to separatism; the organization wants peace now in principle and is ready to hand in its arms; in order to achieve this, Turkey must agree to grant a real government amnesty, not a semi-amnesty as is currently the case and to recognition of the Kurdish identity and culture in the country; if, on the other hand, the PKK rejects a genuine offer, it would lose credibility with the Kurdish population and the [northern Iraqi] Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).”

The Kurdish administration has problems with the PKK because it needs to maintain good relations with neighboring Turkey to achieve development in northern Iraq. “The PKK is therefore an irritant which in the KRG’s view only worsens what are already complicated relations,” said the ISS experts. On the other hand, there are others who say the Kurds cannot afford to fight the PKK or that they should not have any responsibility in the shedding of Kurdish blood, as this would ultimately result in widespread protests.

Iraqi Kurds are calling for a peaceful solution and condemn Turkey’s military operations against the PKK in their territory. Convinced that the military option is not a solution, some even doubt that the PKK is really a Kurdish nationalist force at all. The ISS cited comments by Masrur Barzani, son of Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani, who is also the Kurdish intelligence chief. Accordingly, Barzani said the fact that Öcalan is in a prison on İmralı Island near İstanbul led to changes in his statements and made “him sound like a propagandist for Kemalists,” referring to the state establishment of Turkey. Turkey does not want to use its influence over him to improve the situation because “Turkey, or at least the military, has no interest in changing the situation.”

For full article, click here. For my most recent analysis of the PKK, click here. Also, interesting to look at are the historical relations between the Turkish "deep state" and the PKK, as well as the internal Kurdish politics at play in relation to the Ergenekon investigation. Revelations that the Turkish state is in control of Öcalan and/or is conducting secret negotiations with the PKK are nothing new in what is hardly a transparent relationship between Turkey and the PKK.

Ergenekon Defense Testimonies Commence

From TDZ:

Suspects in the trial against Ergenekon, a criminal network accused of plotting to overthrow the government, started giving defense testimonies in the 12th hearing of the trial, which began Oct. 3. The massive indictment against the suspects was read aloud first because of demands from some of the suspects' lawyers.

The first defendant, out of 86 in total, to testify was Oktay Yıldırım, a retired noncommissioned army officer with alleged links to hand grenades discovered inside a house used as an arms depot in İstanbul's Ümraniye district in summer 2007. The discovery set off the Ergenekon investigation.
According to the indictment, one hand grenade had the same serial number as those used in an attack at a café. Yıldırım is allegedly implicated in supplying these hand grenades.

. . . .

The İstanbul 13th High Criminal Court is hearing the case in a makeshift courtroom inside Silivri Prison near İstanbul. Among the 86 suspects are retired Gen. Veli Küçük; lawyer Kemal Kerinçsiz, who is known for filing lawsuits against intellectuals over writings that question or criticize the state line on issues such as Armenian allegations of genocide; and retired Capt. Muzaffer Tekin. Forty-six of the suspects are in custody, and the rest have been released pending the outcome of the trial.

Meanwhile, the panel of judges issued warrants for those suspects who are not in custody and who did not attend yesterday's hearing without citing an excuse.

For full article, click here. For an analysis of the case's importance, click here.

Hints and Allegations

I was having tea with a Turkish friend the other day and we were talking about how difficult it is to follow Ergenekon. My question was how any Turk could stand all the confusion: new charges emerging everyday; links of this retired general to that particular action; sometimes links that do not make complete sense, but that surely hint to some deeper, lingering conspiracy; the weight of all the charges and innuendo, true or false, bearing down on the public mind and seemingly begging to be sorted out. My friend answered that for most people, there is little cause for concern. Ergenekon is simply business as usual, but the proverbial Pandora's box of state and government secrets has simply been left open a few more minutes more than usual this time around. The result is not necessarily more transparency, though, but a greater range of accusations. As Andrew Finkel discusses in his column in Today's Zaman, many of these hints and allegations are nothing new. From Finkel:

The milk in my coffee curdled, a pen leaked in my shirt and the tap in the bathroom is dripping again. Call me paranoid, but I am sure the plot hatched deep within the recesses of the Turkish state to make my life miserable has moved into a higher gear.

Or could there be some other explanation? Goodness knows, we should take seriously the trial of those accused of conspiracy to use violence to undermine legitimate authority and frustrate the popular will. On the other hand, let us try to get the hysteria into perspective. Those defendants in what has become popularly known as the Ergenekon affair are accused of some pretty terrible things. On the other hand it is an absurdity to think that they are responsible for every unhappy swerve in Turkey's post-war history.

Many of the things now being attributed to Ergenekon are not shadowy events that are suddenly emerging into the light, but things everyone knew about at the time. It was with amazement that I read that the Feb. 28 pincer movement to unseat the government in 1997 was the work of men in green-tinted sunglasses maneuvering behind the scenes. I seem to recall that senior generals held a public press conference in a well-coordinated exercise in breaking up the governing coalition. The newspapers that supported those efforts are now excused of having had a venal motive -- swapping their support in exchange for bank licenses and privatization tenders that by the 2001 financial crisis cost the country dearly. Duh! Did anyone ever think otherwise? Newspapers were bartering support for pecuniary gain before 1997 and are doing it today. Is Ergenekon behind the decision by two state banks to finance the purchase of Sabah newspaper, or is it just business as usual?

It's not Ergenekon that causes people to keep their mouths shut. There is a culture of complicity in which citizens turn a blind eye to others' wrongdoing because they hope to get away with their own petty crimes. A mountain of regulations exists to protect the environment and natural and historical values, but a bird's eye view of any Turkish city suggests those rules are there to line the pockets of those charged with enforcing them. The great example was in the 1994 local election when current Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was running for mayor of İstanbul. Newspapers paraded the shock-horror story that he had built two houses without planning permission. According to most psephologists, this almost certainly increased his vote. When Ahmet Isvan was elected İstanbul mayor in 1973 and was photographed with a sledgehammer destroying a mafia-built casino near Taksim Square, over half the city whose own homes were built without proper procedures took fright. He was not re-nominated as the Republican People's Party (CHP) candidate in 1977.

This notion of complicity explains why even after the great warning bell in the 1994 economic crisis, Turkey was so reluctant to reform. People had become much too skilled at making the old engine work. The fact that governments were issuing bank licenses to people you wouldn't trust to walk your dog didn't stop ordinary people from investing at the very highest rate of interest under a blanket government guarantee on deposits. Were they hired by Ergenekon to pave the way for instability? We all know how the system eventually collapsed morally, economically and at the expense of an entire generation of politicians. After the earthquake in 1999, even buildings themselves fell to the ground. Was it Ergenekon shaking the foundations?

Of course there are many unsolved political crimes in Turkey that in the interest of justice need to be explained. Was Hrant Dink, the Turkish-Armenian editor, gunned down by a bunch of ultranationalist hooligans acting alone, or were they manipulated by a paramilitary clique that staged the incident to derail Turkey's ride to Europe. Did security officials fail to protect Hrant because they were obeying a secret set of instructions, or were they listening to the teachings of nationalist textbooks and the headlines of a chauvinistic press -- and just couldn't be bothered.

So yes, the Ergenekon conspiracy is broad and far-reaching. And the terrible thing is that the whole nation is in on it.

In fact, many of the stories being run in Zaman's own newspapers claim to reveal new narratives to past events by interweaving Ergenekon as some sort of secret agent heretofore unknown. The fact is that many of the claims now being brought to the forefront are not new at all, but simply label past events under the Ergenekon umbrella without really explaining just what Ergenekon is or how it works. In this way, my friend told me that Ergenekon seems to become a sort of "boogie man," a larger-than-life figure on which to pin all the country's wrongs. As Finkel explains, the answer--or rather, answers--are far sophisticated than many in the media or the government would like the public to believe. The greater public, for its part, simply sits idly by and watches from the sidelines as the powers that be sort out the details. However, as my friend frustratingly explained, such citizen spectatorship is precisely why all the old charges seem new, and why blaming it all on Ergenekon--despite all the confusion--provides some level of psychological comfort. Ergenekon is becoming the scapegoat, a demon-like figure by which to atone for a guilt that is in reality looms much larger and is much more difficult to explain. Exorcism will be no easy task.

For more on Ergenekon and the accusations of papers like Zaman, see July 7 post.

The Kurds and Ergenekon

Recently re-elected DTP leader Ahmet Türk has attracted attention recently for his great hope that the Ergenekon investigation will make the Turkish state more amenable to Kurdish politics and the kind of political freedom enjoyed by minority politics in other states. His faith in the investigation, which is largely being led by police and security officials close to AKP, has cut the DTP in two. The DTP's other leader, Emine Ayna, has been much more reluctant to endorse the investigation and has expressed skepticism in that the intention of the investigation is anything other than securing political benefits for AKP. From Today's Zaman:

Successfully concluding the investigation into Ergenekon, a shady network that stands accused of trying to overthrow the government, will ensure social peace in Turkey, said head of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) Ahmet Türk said on Saturday.

He argued that that the Ergenekon case -- in which the Ergenekon crime gang, the members of which include political party leaders, retired army officials, businessmen and intellectuals, is being tried on charges of carrying out tens of murders and assassinations with the ultimate aim of overthrowing the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and previous governments -- will not produce a reliable outcome if murders committed by unknown assailants in Turkey’s eastern and southeastern regions are not exposed. “This is considerably important in revealing the mentality that is attempting to create a feud between the Turkish and Kurdish peoples,” he said. Türk went on to claim that “about 170 executives of the [DTP] party were killed” and indicated that they would try to ensure that the victimized families appear as co-plaintiffs in the Ergenekon case.

Difficult to follow, the investigation into Ergenekon is almost as interesting in terms of the reactions it provokes than it is in terms of what is actually being revealed--especially as the latter is characterized by highly-unreliable media reports generated by leaks motivated by political games. What makes the reactions of Türk and Ayna more than simply interesting, but important, is that they reveal just how divided Kurdish political elites are in their approach to AKP and reaching consensus with the Turkish state. As political analysis of a developing understanding between AKP and the military gains currency among observers, as well as a particular validity following the Constitutional Court's narrow decision to save the party from closure and the TSK's decision not to purge itself of allegedly Islamist officers (Aug. 5 post), the "Kurdish question" is coming to be asked in a new context.

The Kurdish question is particularly significant in that the issue of PKK violence and the prospect of a renewed war in the southeast--and this time, with perhaps greater implications to be felt outside the region--has united pro-AKP forces with the ruling old guard. Following the Dağlica ambush last year and the anti-Kurdish sentiments that culminated across Turkey as the state moved to flex its muscle, AKP leaders were presented a test: Was the government capable of dealing toughly with the PKK and meeting the hawkish demands for retaliation that the Turkish public required? Gül's procurement of assistance from Washington and tough talk resolutions promising intervention in northern Iraq won the party credibility with much of the Turkish public, but it also dealt a great deal of cognitive dissonance in the minds of many Kurds with whom AKP had made inroads.

Although those in the DTP or who are supportive of its alternative politics are most definitely not in this grouping, AKP's hawkish positioning strengthened the hands of hawks within DTP. Party members like Ayna instantly decried how correct DTP was to doubt the sincerity of AKP's politics in the region and how little the party understood the Kurdish situation. While AKP had attempted to win votes in the southeast by promises of economic development and playing on the politics of Turgut Özal, who supported Kurdish cultural rights and is popular in the region, its bow to the establishment and the familiar demands of the Turkish public for revenge in the short-term rather than a long-term solution to the conflict empowered the hawks within DTP at the same time it dwindled the power of doves like Türk as the power of doves like Türk dwindled.

The question of an incipient AKP-military détente in a time of renewed PKK violence and increased calls to deal hardly with the organization again raises an important question for DTP politics. Türk, who has made efforts to separate te DTP from PKK violence and tried to move the party closer to a genuine renunciation of PKK terror, will face a more difficult time in so doing if tensions continue to increase and support for the PKK in the southeast increases. If the Turkish state renews strong-arm tactics and does not take a hard-line against the kinds of discrimination and targeting of Kurds throughout the country, as happened last fall when numerous Kurds were beaten and targeted in mob violence, those who are willing to work for compromise and the consensus requisite to initiate a dialogue that might one day bring about a solution to the Kurdish question will be marginalized.

How does Türk's endorsement of the Ergenekon investigation stand out in all of this? For Türk, denouncing Ergenekon is a gesture made toward AKP as the ruling party of the day. In expressing faith that the investigation might route out those in the Turkish state who perpetrated human rights violations against the Kurds in the war of the 1990s and who have continued to take advantage of opportunities to cause ethnic strife within Turkey, Türk is practicing a politics of conciliation. When Tansu Çiller basically authorized armed thugs within the country's deep state to do the dirty work to be carried out in often violent extremes against Turkey's Kurds, she reversed the emerging conciliatory policies of Özal and instead raised tensions between Kurds and Turks to a boiling point. Türk's statements are helpful in that they offer a means by which the state might atone for past wrongs and suggest that the demons that got in the way of a successful peace in the past might be exorcised as a result of the Ergenekon investigation.

By applauding the AKP-led investigation and expressing hopes that it might result in ridding the state of those who desire to foment ethnic tension, Türk's statements contrast with Ayna. Ayna and the hawks in DTP have grown increasingly embittered as AKP struggled to save itself from closure over the coming months, but made little effort to do the same for DTP. For Ayna, Ergenekon, like the politics of the closure case, are about little more than achieving the self-interested aims of AKP. While Türk is opening a door for conciliation, Ayna is skeptical, embittered, and reluctant to work with a party whose politics do increasingly seem to resemble that of the "Islamist banana politics" described by Ece Temelkuran (March 13 post).

For more on Kurdish politics, see July 22 and June 14 posts.

Ergenekon: Making Sense of the Soup

The Ergenekon indictment released yesterday included charges made against 86 people who have been detained in the past months. İstanbul Chief Prosecutor Aykut Cengiz Engin filed the 2,455-page indictment, which did indeed include a near 60-pages of evidence linking Alparslan Arslan to the 2006 shootings at the Council of State. Those charged do not include retired General Şener Eruygur, former Commander of the Gendarmerie, and retired General Hurşit Tolan, former Commander of the First Army Force (İlk Ordu), nor any of the other other suspects detained on July 1. Most significant to the indictment was the absence of what have come to be known as the "coup diaries," alleged to have belonged to former Navy Commander Adm. Özden Örnek and first published in Nokta in March 2007. Over the past weeks, many newspapers have hinted—and sometimes directly alleged—that Ergenekon had close ties with the military and has been working over the past years to overthrow the AKP government. Engin instead issued a sharp condemnation of the media's reportage of the investigation:

“Since this investigation started many documents, some of them secret, and much information have appeared in the media; many reports and interpretations have been published. It is media’s duty to inform the public. However, major part of these publications was not true. They have caused great deal of misinformation; the public have been misinformed. Misinterpretations based on these publications lead to wrong expectations, violate the private lives and fundamental rights of the suspects and cause severe and unfair criticism regarding the justice system.”

Engin asked the public to continue to wait patiently until lead investigating prosecutor Zekeriya Öz has time to finish his investigation.

In the meantime, the General Staff Military Prosecutor has called on lead prosecutor Zekeriya Öz to turn over all information pertaining to Eruygur and Tolon as part of a separate investigation being launched by the General Staff about the coup diaries. Announced on the private television state NTV, this separate military investigation is a new and interesting development that adds another dimension to the investigation of just what exactly occurred within the TSK's top brass and if there was/is indeed any link between some in the Turkish General Staff and the so-called 'deep state,' as represented by Ergenekon and/or other shadowy underground network.

From Mehmet Ali Birand in today's Turkish Daily News:

At first, I was quizzical about the Ergenekon investigation. The information that was made available at the beginning led me to view this investigation as nothing but a ‘black hole.’ We were face to face with a soup-like situation. Weird and ambiguous allegations flew about and the detainees seemed to have nothing in common with each other.

I repeat that those were nothing other than impressions gathered from press leaks, political analyses, pro/anti-AKP media broadcasts and TV panel discussions.


A genuine soup:

Former soldiers, who had been too arrogant to let themselves to be questioned about the Susurluk Affair, and who had formed associations with sworn in members; retired commanders who, to my mind, could not have achieved anything beyond forming dissident organisations; businessmen; journalists, whose activities had always left me in doubt; scientists; and to top it all, ‘mafia’ leaders and murderers...

As I said, a genuine soup. Ambiguous press leaks poured into the cauldron to ignite a mad witch-hunt or to set off a scalp-hunting expedition...such were the growing and spreading impressions.

The situation was not easy to take in by sectors that refused to take sides in the Ergenekon Affair. They did not know what to make of it.

Another product of this bedlam was the public belief that the AKP government had launched the Ergenekon investigation in order to retaliate for the closure case.

If the allegations have any truth in them, then the coordinators of the investigation and the press leaks have made a serious mistake by discrediting this indictment in this way. They have failed miserably in communications. Let’s not forget that someone leaked this news. The media did not make it all up.

Many people believe that in response to the closure case and the chief public prosecutor’s indictment that lacked concrete evidence, a pro-AKP prosecutor came up with an indictment just as flimsy “to retaliate for the other indictment also based on statements and press articles.” Some retired soldiers, businessmen, NGO chairmen and journalists had initiated a civilian dissident movement in the name of democracy, and this prosecutor had mistakenly perceived this initiative as a ‘takeover conspiracy.’

That’s the general impression formed by a certain sector...No amount of objection will change this view of the Ergenekon Affair held by many people.

However, some people are gradually beginning to review and reassess this impression, except for those who are dead set against Erdoğan and the AKP and want them to be removed from politics and/or from the government all costs.

We are now about to begin the process of putting on trial those that attempted or conspired to effect a military coup.


The Özkök factor:

This investigation took on a different direction especially after the latest statement made by former Chief of Staff Özkök. He appears to be saying –without actually indicating- to the prosecutors, “Be more diligent in your investigations. Things have happened that resemble closely the events described in these diaries. I will also attest to them if necessary.” He does not actually say all this, but that is the impression he gives.

Özkök is preparing to appear before us as the key name and as the most important witness. His statements almost place him in a position to validate this investigation.

Two journalists have been the key instruments in bringing the investigation to this point- Fikret Bila, through his interviews of some commanders, and Murat Yetkin through his very important article that appeared in Radikal last Sunday, have revealed a different aspect of this affair.

It looks as if the Ergenekon case is going to be transformed in some ways into a score settling among retired commanders.

This conflict is thought to be have originated from the 2002 handover of the positions of chief of staff and commanders of various forces and from the events that followed this interchange.

It looks as if this settling of old scores will take place between Özkök and Kıvrıkoğlu, the chief of staff of that time, who openly said that he did not want Özkök to replace him, and who, when he failed to prevent his promotion, had Aytaç Yalman appointed as commander of land forces instead of Edip Başer and Şener Eruygur as the commander of gendarmerie, in order to fill the general staff with the ‘tough’ generals.

This has never happened before. Until now, what happened in the past used to be covered up and pushed into oblivion as part of the fight for democracy.

This will be a FIRST. If Özkök shares with the public the information that he is unable to reveal at the moment, the Ergenekon Affair will be transformed into the first putsch investigation in the near history of Turkey. It will be the first time that the judiciary investigates the allegation of the attempt of a takeover.


This case will affect the country’s future:

If managed well, the Ergenekon case can make important contributions to the near future of this country. This case may cause Turkey to leave behind all fears of gangs and military takeovers. If it is mismanaged, however, it would deepen the existing wounds and open such new ones that we would not be able to get back on our feet for a long time. That is why I wish to elaborate on a few points:

1) The rough interrogation methods have to be abandoned and more importance must be given to communicating with the public. This case is too important and sensitive to be disparaged by rough methods. If the public gets the impression that injustice is being done, the public conscience will reject any result that may follow.

2) This case must not take years. It must not drag on as it happened in the cases against the Peace Society, DISK or the MHP. Justice that arrives too late is of no use to anybody.

3) Judges and the prosecutors must never forget that they are involved in a case of great public interest and one that could shape Turkey’s future. Their decisions must not be based on ideologies or obsessions, but on the principle of a secular-democratic Turkey.

For coverage from the Turkish Daily News, click here.