Turkish Forum

Category: Balkans

  • Damir Ivankovic Sentenced to 14 Years

    Damir Ivankovic Sentenced to 14 Years


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    Damir Ivanković

    02 July 2009  

    The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina sentences Damir Ivankovic to 14 years for the murder of around 200 civilians at Koricanske stijene.

    Damir Ivankovic, a former member of the special response team of the police from Prijedor, was sentenced to 14 years in prison for participation in the murder of around 200 civilians at Koricanske stijene on August 21, 1992.

    The Court decided to release Ivankovic from custody, with a series of restrictive measures.

    “This verdict does not contribute only to establishing the truth, but also to reconciliation in the region, which the Trial Chamber believes in. Some may find this punishment mild or harsh, but the Chamber believes it is appropriate and that it will serve the purpose of punishment,” explained Presiding Judge Minka Kreho.

    On June 22, 2009, Ivankovic made a plea bargain with the Prosecution over his role in the murder of around 200 civilians at Koricanske stijene.

    The Chamber found him guilty of participating in a joint criminal venture of civilian and military authorities of Prijedor Municipality and structures of the Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, aimed at expelling the Bosniak and Croat population from the area. Ivankovic was sentenced for a crime against humanity according to individual criminal responsibility.

    While reading the verdict, Judge Kreho read the names of some of the victims murdered at Koricanske stijene, emphasising that mortal remains of only four persons have been found, along with body parts of several murdered men.

    “The Chamber decided that the Prosecution presented sufficient evidence of Ivankovic’s guilt. In the territory of Prijedor, a broad and systematic attack was carried out, and the target of the attack was the civilian population. All the persons killed at Koricanske stijene were civilians, a fact that was confirmed by many witnesses and by the defendant himself in his testimony,” said Kreho.

    In addition to Ivankovic, the same Prosecution indictment charges Zoran Babic, Gordan Djuric, Milorad Radakovic, Milorad Skrbic, Ljubisa Cetic, Dusan Jankovic and Zeljko Stojnic, former members of the Prijedor police station and special response team of the then police.

    After making a plea bargain with the Prosecution, Ivankovic testified against the rest of the defendants and spoke in great detail about the participation of the members of the response team and police station in the crime at Koricanske stijene, and his own involvement in the murders.

    After Ivankovic’s testimony, the third defendant, Djuric, also admitted his involvement in the murder of civilians at Koricanske stijene. With the plea bargain, Djuric undertook to testify on July 7 against the rest of the defendants, after which the Chamber will pass a verdict in his case.

    The Chamber assessed that the “honest admission of guilt and considerable cooperation” of Ivankovic with the Prosecution and the International Criminal Court for the Former Yugoslavia represents, among other things, extenuating circumstances for the defendant. While passing sentence, the Chamber did not find any aggravating circumstances.

    Under the Chamber’s decision, on a proposal from Ivankovic and with the Prosecution’s consent, the defendant was released, but with a series of restrictive measures and duties.

    Ivankovic is forbidden to leave his place of residence and change his address without the approval of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina. He is obliged to report every day to the police station in Prijedor, and he is banned from contacting possible accomplices and co-conspirators in the crime, as well as witnesses and victims.

    He is also forbidden from contacting anyone other than his defence attorney, or attending public and private gatherings. By the decision of the Court, Ivankovic is temporarily relieved of his passport and other documents and is forbidden from using other documents in order to cross the border.

    Ivankovic has been held in custody since January 14, 2009.

    Balkan Investigative Reporting Network 

  • Yugoslav Media War Mongers Evade Justice

    Yugoslav Media War Mongers Evade Justice

    milosevic

    24 June 2009  Court cases have confirmed the key role of the media in spreading hatred in former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, yet no journalist has been tried.

    By Nidzara Ahmetasevic

    Trials for war crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia have been ongoing before local courts and the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia, ICTY, for more than 15 years.

    But although many indictments, verdicts and expert witnesses’ statements mentioned the key role of media in the war, no journalist or editor has been indicted to date. 

    For the first time, however, an opportunity has now appeared to try journalists who served the Milosevic regime in Serbia. See: Milosevic Media Face War Crimes Spotlight

    Serbia’s war crimes prosecution recently said it intends to investigate whether grounds exist to open investigations into the role that certain media played during the war. 

    This idea has been prompted by statements of former soldiers and witnesses who appeared at trials in Belgrade for the crimes committed in Vukovar, eastern Croatia, and Zvornik, eastern Bosnia, a short time ago. Some of these volunteer soldiers said that they had decided to join up as a result of media coverage of the conflict. 

    One example of this media influence came in a piece of reportage broadcast by Serbian Radio and Television, RTS, in autumn 1991. This showed a young woman, dressed in uniform and carrying a rifle, among a party of volunteers.

    Asked what she was doing among the volunteers, she said she had decided to go to war after watching TV reports on events in Vukovar. She had left behind three children.

    Expert witnesses, who appeared at several trials conducted before the ICTY concluded that media propaganda prompted many people to fight. 

    Professor Renaud de La Brosse, from the University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne in France, in a report presented at the trial of Slobodan Milosevic, said that some politicians had “deliberately made the media change its focus from the provision of information and entertainment to purely spreading propaganda, thus serving their goals”. 

    Disinformation, not information: 

    Court files contain abundant evidence of the important role some media played during the war.  In his report of August 1992, Tadeusz Mazoviecki, the Special UN Commissioner for Human Rights, wrote that the deliberate spreading of rumours and disinformation formed a “crucial element of the current situation, greatly contributing to ethnic animosity. 

    “With a few exceptions, the national media in the countries I have visited aim towards presenting the news on the conflict and human rights violations in an upsetting manner. Consequently, the general public does not have access to reliable, objective sources of information.”

    Mazowiecki compiled a special report on the media two years later, in December 1994. In it he wrote that the information published by the media in the former Yugoslavia primarily consisted of “nationalistic discourse and omnipresent insults and offences aimed at other peoples”.

    At the request by the Hague Prosecution, during the Milosevic trial, de La Brosse delivered a report entitled “Political Propaganda and the ‘All Serbs in one Country’ Project: Consequences of Using Media as an Instrument of Ultra-nationalistic Goals”.

    Among other things, the Professor determined that “the atmosphere of distrust and animosity towards other peoples, fed by various fears and extreme nationalism for ages, gradually started manifesting itself in all republics in the former Yugoslavia from the late Eighties”.
    While De La Brosse focused on Serbia in the Milosevic era, he suggested politicians used the media in the other republics in much the same way during the war. 

    “The authorities in each republic tried to control the media on their territories; particularly the television stations,” he said. “They turned the media into the instruments of their regime propaganda, whose aim was to ‘bring over’ the general public to their political ideas and actions.”

    British author Mark Thompson drew similar conclusions in his book “Forging War: The Media in Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Hercegovina”. He later appeared as a prosecution expert witness at the trial of Momcilo Krajisnik. His report and testimonies mainly focused on the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina. 

    Thomson wrote that in early 1992 the Serbian Democratic Party, SDS, “successfully gained control over the media on its territory, using it to scare the Serbian population… telling them that they would be exterminated and persuading them that the Croats and Bosniaks had genocidal intentions. 

    Describing how the SDS gained control over the media in Bosnia, Thompson said that this was done in stages. The first consisted of a drive to ethnically divide up Radio Television of Sarajevo, as well as attacks on the daily newspaper, Oslobodjenje. Taking control of the transmitters in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which began in August 1991, was another important step. 

    Speaking of the media and its uses as a propaganda instrument in the war, Thompson said many outlets acted as official “megaphones”,. The proper role of the media is to provide space for discussion and debate and “make relevant information available to the public, enabling it to make informed decisions on issues of concern,” he said. 

    “[But they were megaphones. They were just political tools used for conveying certain messages”, Thompson said. 

    Serbian propaganda the most extreme:

     The relations between the media and politics are mentioned in several ICTY indictments. One is the indictment against Milosevic, which alleges that he “controlled, manipulated and used Serbian media… with the aim of spreading excessive and false messages on ethnic conflicts initiated by Bosnian Muslims or Croats targeting Serbs, in an attempt to create an atmosphere of fear and animosity among the Serbs who lived in Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

    “This largely contributed to the deportation of the majority of the non-Serbian population, especially Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats from their homes in parts of Bosnia”.

    De la Brosse cautioned against considering the role played by the media in Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia as equal.

    “If we compare Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian nationalistic propaganda, we can conclude that the first one exceeded the two others by its scale and content of media messages,” he said.

    The indictment against Krajisnik mentions the control of media in the section referring to a joint criminal enterprise.

    It alleged that the media “supported, instigated, enabled and participated in spreading information among Bosnian Serbs about the threat of being tyrannized by Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats, telling them that the territory on which Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats live actually belongs to Bosnian Serbs; spreading information with an aim of generating fear of, or animosity towards, Bosnian Muslims and Croats among Bosnian Serbs… and ensuring their support and participation in achieving the goals of the joint criminal enterprise”. 

    The allegation that the media were used as “megaphones”, as Thompson said, is supported by the fact that the SDS established a Committee for Mass Communications in October 1991. This information can be found in ICTY documents. This body was tasked with developing plans to establish a news agency, daily newspapers and choose journalists loyal to the SDS’s goals. 

    Dorothea Hanson, an expert who appeared at the Krajisnik trial, described how the various “crisis committees” established on Bosnian Serb territory controlled radio stations and other media outlets. 

    Use of the media for propaganda purposes was included in the indictment issued against the Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic. This alleges that he “substantively contributed to the goal of the permanent extermination of the Bosnian Muslims and Croats from the areas controlled by Serbs”, among other things, by “spreading, instigating and/or enabling propaganda distribution”. 

    The role of the media is mentioned also in the indictment issued against the Bosnian Croat Jadranko Prlic, and others. This alleges that, following the establishment of the Bosnian Croat statelet, Herceg-Bosna, in November 1991 and particularly beyond May 1992, the leadership “became involved in permanent and coordinated efforts aimed at establishing domination and ‘Croatising’ the municipalities that were allegedly parts of Herceg-Bosna,” and to that effect, “the authorities and forces of Herceg-Bosna gained control over the media, inflicting Croatian ideas and propaganda”. 

    Impacts on ordinary lives:

    Testimonies by victims who appeared at war crime trials reveal how ordinary citizens interpreted the propaganda broadcast over the media. 

    The media was frequently mentioned before the War Crimes Chamber of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina. For example, Redzep Zukic, a witness at the trial of Nikola Kovacevic, a former member of the Serbian armed forces from Sanski Most sentenced by the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina to 12 years’ imprisonment, recalled how “radio Sana broadcast offensive songs and called Muslims offensive names”. It also called on Muslims to “display white flags on their houses” in 1992, he said.

    Enes Kapetanovic, who appeared at the trial for crimes committed in Omarska detention camp, told a similar story.

    “In late April 1992, after the Serbs gained control over Prijedor, they informed us via the media every day that we had to wear white bands around our arms if we wanted to show we were loyal to the new authorities. All of us, adults and children alike, had those bands around our arms,” Kapetanovic said.
    Witnesses at the trial of Gojko Jankovic, sentenced to 34 years’ imprisonment for crimes in Foca, said the media in Montenegro also issued calls for volunteers to go to the battlefields in Bosnia during April 1992.

    The indictments against members of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, on the other hand, rarely mention the role of media.

    According to Thompson, the propaganda dictated from Sarajevo was not of the same character as that which came from Belgrade or Zagreb.

    Nevertheless, propaganda existed, considering that the then editors of public broadcast services in Sarajevo, like their colleagues in Belgrade in Zagreb, were appointed on the basis of their political affiliation and not as a result of professional standards.

    Although the role of media was often mentioned before the ICTY and is now often brought up in trials before local courts, no indictments have been filed, as has been stated. Asked why no indictments have been filed, Hague officials answer that there is not sufficient evidence on the role of media to proceed.

    Nidžara Ahmetašević is BIRN – Justice Report editor. [email protected]. Justice Report is BIRN online weekly publication.

    BIRN

  • SERBIA SEES TURKEY A KEY COUNTRY FOR PEACE AND STABILITY

    SERBIA SEES TURKEY A KEY COUNTRY FOR PEACE AND STABILITY

    ANKARA (A.A) – 20.03.2009 – The Serbian foreign minister said on Friday that his country saw Turkey a key country for peace and stability.

    Serbia’s Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic said that Serbia thought Turkey had key importance in the Balkans.

    “Despite difference of opinion about Kosovo, it is important for us to boost our bilateral relations,” Jeremic told a joint press conference with Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan.

    Jeremic is actually paying a formal visit to Turkey, and is the first Serbian foreign minister visiting Turkey.

    The Serbian minister said that his country’s policy regarding Kosovo would not change, and talks continued with the international community to find a solution acceptable by all sides.

    Jeremic said that Serbia was willing to solve the issue through peaceful and political means, and handled the issue within the scope of international law.

    The minister said that the legal process began in the International Court of Justice, and the issue would become clear after the court made a decision.

    However, there were some bilateral steps that could be taken since then, he said.

    On the same issue, Babacan said that Serbia and Turkey had different positions on Kosovo, but this should not prevent the two countries from enhancing their cooperation.

    The Serbian minister said that two countries could do more to boost their economic relations, and could simplify visa procedures in coming days.

    Jeremic said that Turkey and Serbia had similar goals about the European Union (EU), and integration to the EU was a prior issue for both countries.

    On the title deeds of the Palestinians in the Ottoman archives, Babacan said that Turkey was opening all its registers when demanded.

    Babacan also said that the court and/or any one who would examine the registers would make its/his/her own decision.

    The Turkish minister also said that Turkey’s policy was to be totally frank, and underlined importance of prevailing of justice. (BRC-CE)

    haber.turk.net

  • 2009 ANNUAL DUES, DONATIONS and Book Sales

    2009 ANNUAL DUES, DONATIONS and Book Sales

    2009 MEMBERSHIP DUES AND YOUR DONATIONS ARE NEEDED TO CONTINUE OUR POSTED PROGRAMS WITH OUT INTERUPTION

    THE FOLLOWING LINKS WILL TAKE YOU TO THE DUES AND DONATIONS PAGE

    ÜYE AİDATLARI, BAĞIŞLAR VE KİTAP SATIŞLARI

    Dear Friends,

    The Turkish Forum (TF) is the GLOBAL organization with branches and working groups COVERING 5 CONTINENTS, working with many regional Organizations in the America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and Turkey.  TF’s mission is to represent the Turkish Community in in the best way possible, to empower the people of Turkish origin and friends of Turkey to be active and assertive in the political and civic arenas, to educate the political establishments, media and the public on issues important to Turks, and cultivate the relations between the working groups located an five continents, serving the Turkish Communities needs.

    In order to achieve these goals we have performed many activities and completed many projects, THEY ARE ALL LISTED IN THE WEB PAGES OF TF, . You have been informed about these activities and projects, many of you participated voluntarily and contributed heavily and still contributing to these activates and projects. As the events happen and the major steps taken the information always reaches to you  by the TF Grassroots DAILY NEWS Distribution Service.  Needless to say, each activity and project requires a large amount of human and financial resources. TF has a  completely volunteer board, none of the board members receives any compensation or salary or even a small reimbursement. TF also has many volunteer committee members, WELL ESTABLISHED ADVISORY BOARD and project leaders. In addition to our large volunteer pool, please see them an https://www.turkishnews.com/tr/content/turkish-forum/ TF sustains Permanent Offices in New England, Germany and in Turkey and has a number of professional staff to upgrade its systems, and to solve the technical problems.  Please check our website at https://www.turkishnews.com/tr/content/turkish-forum/

    As the 2009 did begin we kindly ask you to support TF by becoming a member, if you are not already one.  You can also contribute a donation if you wish to upgrade your regular membership  to a higher level. Your financial support is critical to TF in order to pursue its mission in a professional manner. Needless to say, it is the financial support that we receive from our members and Friends of Turkey  is the backbone of our organization. As long as this support is continuous we can achieve our objectives and work for the communities across the globe.  Your contribution is tax-exempt under the full extent of the law allowed under Internal Revenue Code 501(c) (3).

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  • Ergenekon agent spent time in northern New Jersey prior to 9/11

    Ergenekon agent spent time in northern New Jersey prior to 9/11

    By Wayne Madsen
    Online Journal Contributing Writer

    Dec 10, 2008, 00:22

    (WMR) — Tuncay Guney, the Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MIT) agent who was a key player in the right-wing “Deep State” Ergenekon movement that attempted to overthrow the Turkish government, spent time in North Jersey in the months prior to the 9/11 attacks, according to a reliable source who spoke to WMR.

    Guney now claims to be a rabbi but his status as a rabbi has been rejected as a falsehood by Turkey’s Jewish community leaders. Guney is listed as a rabbi at Jacob House (“B’nai Yakov”) Jewish Community Center in Toronto but the Toronto Board of Rabbis and the Turkish Jewish Congregation have no records of a Rabbi Tuncay Guney or “Daniel Levi,” an alias used by Guney. It is believed that “Jacob House” is a front for intelligence operations and not an actual synagogue. Jacob House shares an address with the New York Institute, which also maintains an address in New Jersey.

    Guney was arrested by Istanbul’s Anti-Smuggling and Organized Crime Department on March 8, 2001, after a police search of his home turned up two guns, fake license plates, a number of Turkish identity cards, over a hundred fake diplomas, and other Ergenekon evidence. The head of the Istanbul police unit, Adil Serdar Saçan, suspected Guney was a key player in Ergenekon. However, Sacan was, himself, later arrested and charged with being a member of Ergenekon. However, WMR has learned from its Turkish sources that Sacan is honest and was set up in an attempt to tarnish his image after he discovered an Israeli connection to the powerful Ergenekon movement.

    As a member of the Turkish police JITEM unit, Guney reportedly spied, under cover as a journalist, on Iraqi Kurdish leaders Massoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani and Lebanese Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Talabani is now the President of Iraq.

    After Guney’s release on bail on March 9, 2001, Şenkal Atasagun, MIT’s undersecretary, asked the CIA to exfiltrate Guney to the United States. Guney was flown on Turkish Airlines to New York. Guney eventually ended up, according to our sources, living in North Jersey and making a living pumping gas.

    Guney lived in the “973” area code zone, an area that encompasses East Rutherford and Fairlawn, towns that were centers of activity for Israeli Mossad Urban Moving System operatives who were spotted celebrating the 9/11 attacks from at least two locations — Liberty State Park in Jersey City and an apartment complex on the Jersey Palisades above Weehawken, the headquarters of Urban Moving Systems. The FBI and CIA later identified Dominick Suter, the manager of Urban Moving Systems, as a Mossad intelligence officer. Five Urban Moving Systems employees were arrested in their van in East Rutherford during the afternoon of September 11, 2001, after they were seen traveling toward the Lincoln Tunnel to Manhattan. Their Urban Moving Systems van tested positive for the presence of explosives. Suter fled the United States and the five Israelis, some of whom were identified as Mossad in an FBI/CIA database, were released after a few months in jail after heavy pressure was applied on the U.S. government by Israel.

    Guney is also suspected of acting as an agent for Mossad, as well as the CIA. His presence in North Jersey, a “hot zone” for Israeli intelligence before and during the 9/11 attacks, points to a possible Turkish connection to the attacks.

    On August 7, 2005, WMR reported on details of the apprehension of the Israelis for their false flag actions: “Jersey City was a major base of operations for the 1993 World Trade Center attack. The Ryder van used in that attack was rented from a Jersey City rental agency . . . there was a call placed to the Jersey City Police Department that claimed ‘Palestinians’ in Arab clothes were seen celebrating the attacks. Although the Jersey City Police discovered their 911 system tapes on September 11, 2001 disappeared from their servers and achives after ISI [of Mount Laurel, NJ] took over the contract, some tapes implicating “Arabs” found their way into the hands of WNBC-TV in New York in June 2002. WNBC played transcripts of 911 calls from the Jersey City Police:

    Dispatcher: Jersey City police.
    Caller: Yes, we have a white van, 2 or 3 guys in there, they look like Palestinians and going around a building.
    Caller: There’s a minivan heading toward the Holland tunnel, I see the guy by Newark Airport mixing some junk and he has those sheikh uniform.
    Dispatcher: He has what?
    Caller: He’s dressed like an Arab.

    “It is clear that the Jersey City Police Department’s 911 call tapes were manipulated to delete any calls that might implicate the Israelis. The one call provided to WNBC was clearly an attempt at a ‘false flag” operation implicating ‘Palestinians’ wearing ‘sheik uniforms’ as the culprits in at least one of the white vans driven by Israeli ‘movers’ on the morning of September 11. After the van was traced to the Israeli moving company, the BOLO [Be On Look Out for message] went out for the arrest of the vehicle’s driver and passengers. An East Rutherford policeman directing traffic away from the closed Lincoln Tunnel on Route 3 East noticed the van was driving slowly on the service road towards the tunnel. The tag of the vehicle was only off by one letter from what was contained in the BOLO (JRJ 13Y) and the front New Jersey plate had been removed. It is very possible that to confuse the police, the Israelis were using NJ plate JRJ 13Y as the rear tag on two white vans – the one sighted in Liberty State Park and the other in Maria’s apartment building parking lot. In fact, local police reported a number of white van sightings during September 11, with a number of them phoned into the police. Maria told ABC News she phoned tag number JRJ 13Y to the Jersey City Police after seeing the Israelis driving in a white van celebrating the first plane’s impact, while Liberty State Park witnesses said the same tag number — JRJ 13Y — had been passed to the police and FBI after a white van with ‘celebrating Arabs’ had been chased from the park by the park’s chief ranger after the first plane impact.[11] It was clear that officials of New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection in Trenton, which has authority over the state’s parks, ordered Liberty State Park officials not to talk to the media about September 11 and the Israeli van.”

    The man who then New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey placed in charge of his liaison to New Jersey’s security and law enforcement agencies, Golan Cipel, later was allegedly identified by U.S. intelligence as a gay “honey trap” Mossad officer tasked with entrapping and blackmailing McGreevey. McGreevey resigned as governor after details of the homosexual affair became public.

    Ergenekon has been accused of carrying out terrorist attacks and assassinations in Turkey as “false flag” operations to discredit, undermine, and eventually overthrow Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Former FBI Turkish and Persian translator Sibel Edmonds told the Sunday Times of London earlier this year that her translations of wiretaps of Turkish, Iranian, Israeli, and American individuals pointed to Turkish training for the 9/11 hijack ring. Edmonds said that an “Al Qaeda” leader, a Syrian named Louai al-Sakka, had trained 9/11 hijackers at a military base in Turkey, under the watchful eyes of the Turkish military, which we now know was riddled with Ergenekon agents up and down the chain-of-command, four star generals to non-commissioned officers. Al-Sakka was convicted in 2007 for his role in a series of 2003 bombings in Istanbul that targeted the British Consulate, two HSBC bank branches, and two synagogues and his now serving a life prison sentence. The Turkish ring may have been involved or known about several beheadings of Western prisoners in Iraq that were blamed on “Al Qaeda.”

    Philip Giraldi, a former CIA station chief in Istanbul, wrote the following in the Dallas Morning News: “Sibel Edmonds makes a number of accusations about specific criminal behavior that appear to be extraordinary but are credible enough to warrant official investigation.”

    Coupling the Turkish official investigation of Ergenekon with Edmonds’ information, there is more than a smoking gun pointing to 9/11 as a “false flag” operation involving Turkish, Israeli, and U.S. intelligence operatives. The Saudi and Pakistani financial connection to the 9/11 hijackers and the “false flag” operation has already been well-documented.

    It is time for the incoming Obama administration to seriously consider appointing a new 9/11 commission, sans enablers and possible conspirators in the 9/11 false flag attack on the United States. Thousands of pages of documents are now available in Turkey, the United States, Britain, India, France, and other countries that will prove that 9/11 involved a network much larger than a former CIA asset hiding in an Afghan cave, Osama Bin Laden, and 19 ne’er-do-well “hijackers,” some of whom were more interested in going to strip joints and bars in the days before they decided to take express flights to “heaven” to spend eternity with Allah.

    Previously published in the Wayne Madsen Report.

    Copyright © 2008 WayneMadenReport.com

    Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and nationally-distributed columnist. He is the editor and publisher of the Wayne Madsen Report (subscription required).

    Copyright © 1998-2007 Online Journal
    Email Online Journal Editor

    Source: onlinejournal.com, Dec 10, 2008

    [2]

    Mossad implicated in a coup plot in Turkey, a NATO country; CIA fingerprints also found on attempt

    By Wayne Madsen
    Online Journal Contributing Writer

    Dec 4, 2008, 00:20

    (WMR) — Fresh from revelations, reported by WMR, that Israel’s Mossad and Chabad House-based criminal syndicates were targets in a criminal gangland retribution attack by a notorious Muslim gang in Mumbai, comes word that Mossad has, once again, been implicated in an intelligence and criminal network, this time in Turkey.

    What makes this latest example of Israel’s failure to stem the criminal activities of its intelligence service and criminal syndicates worse is that Turkey, unlike Israel, is a NATO ally of the United States and, therefore, the United States is bound by treaty to protect NATO allies from aggression by non-NATO states, including Israel.

    The Turkish and other Middle East media are reporting that the Mossad has been fingered in connection with a right-wing Turkish criminal and intelligence gang, known as Ergenekon, that stands accused of attempting to overthrow Turkey’s democratically-elected Justice and Development (AKP) Party of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul. Several Turkish papers have named a Turkish rabbi, Tuncay Guney, aka Daniel T. Guney and Daniel Levi and code-named “Ipek” or “Silk,” as having served as a double agent for the Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MIT) tasked with infiltrating the shadowy but powerful “state within a state” group Ergenekon. Guney had been arrested by Turkish authorities in 2001 for distributing fake drivers’ licenses and phony license plates for luxury cars. A document recently uncovered by the Turkish press revealed that Guney had also infiltrated a police intelligence unit (JITEM) working with Ergenekon to destabilize Turkey. Guney was exfiltrated to the United States and he now heads up the B’nai Yaakov Synagogue and Community Center in Toronto, Canada. Guney has denied that he has been an agent for Israel, Turkey or the United States but the MIT has confirmed the document identifying Guney as an agent for MIT is authentic.

    The Turkish daily Hurriyet has reported that Guney served in MIT’s Counter-terrorism Unit (CTU) and in the MIT unit that monitors Iran. Hurriyet also reported that Guney had developed a contact at the Iranian consulate in Istanbul, Muhsin Karger, the consulate’s political affairs undersecretary.

    Guney also has claimed to be a journalist and it is also alleged that he was a member of the PKK. Silvyo Ovaydo, the leader of the Turkish Jewish community, called Guney a fraudulent rabbi and said he was not even registered as a rabbi at the B’nai Yaakov synagogue in Toronto. Guney is said to have once worked for Islamist media organizations in Turkey but suddenly converted to Judaism and became an “instant rabbi” in Toronto.

    At the heart of the Ergenekon story lies Mossad and its reported attempts to turn Turkey into another Lebanon or West Bank/Gaza, a country wracked by internal strife and constant warfare that would usher into power a strong right-wing military dictatorship. In the trial of one of the accused murderers of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, the lawyer for one of the accused murderers asked another accused murderer, Erhan Tuncel, a one-time police informer like Guney, if he had an Israeli girlfriend. Tuncel refused to answer the question, citing an invasion of his privacy. However, it was clear that what the lawyer was driving at was a Mossad connection to the murder of Dink, a murder that was being pinned on Turkish anti-Armenian nationalists by the corporate and heavyily Israeli Lobby-influenced media in the West.

    When 89 suspects were named in a 2,455-page indictment by a criminal court in Istanbul last July, many retired Turkish army officers, the neocon network, especially in Washington, which is their major citadel, along with Jerusalem and London, began to throw cold water and the term “conspiracy theory” around charges in the Turkish indictment that Ergenekon played a major role in the formation of several Turkish terrorist groups to disrupt Turkish politics, including the illegal Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Turkish Hizbollah (Party of God), the Marxist-Leninist People’s Liberation Party/Front (DHKP-C), and the little-known Islamic Great East Raiders Front (IBDA-C). The neocon Jamestown Foundation in Washington called the indictment’s links between Turkish military elements and radical terrorists a “conspiracy theory.” Organizations like Jamestown have no other choice. If it were also proven, as it was in Turkey, that various terrorist groups like “Al Qaeda,” “Deccan Mujaheddin,” and others exist courtesy of the nurturing and support by American, Israeli, and other Western military-intelligence structures, groups like Jamestown would lose their reasons for existence — to make propaganda and receive funding in order to keep the terrorist bogeymen, the actual “Emmanuel Godsteins,” alive.

    Guney is reported to be the 86th suspect in the indictment of Ergenekon. Guney is believed to have revealed the initial detailed information on the existence of Ergenekon in order to avoid being charged in the case.

    The involvement of extreme right-wing Turkish military and intelligence officials and Turkish organized crime networks, with Mossad and, possibly, CIA agents acting in concert with a suspected CIA-funded Turkish Islamic charismatic madrassa and Islamic centers’ chief named Fethullah Gulen — whose activities parallel pan-Turkic/Eurasianist (re: George Soros) goals of Ergenekon — is similar to the scenario now playing out in India where a little known group called “Deccan Mujaheddin” may have been created as a ruse by Indian right-wing military and intelligence officers, allied with Mossad and CIA agents, to sow discord in India and bring about a right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party-Shiv Sena Hindu government.

    Gulen owns a number of media and business interests in Turkey and runs Islamic centers throughout central Asia and even in Russia.

    In polls, some one-third of the Turkish public believe Islamist Nurcu sect charismatic leader Grand Hodja Fethullah Gulen, who lives in Pennsylvania, is part of a movement that aims to seize control of the Turkish state and a little over a third believe that Gulen is funded by “international powers.” After he was acquitted in Turkey of attempting to overthrow the secular state with his religious organization, Gulen was first denied a Permanent Resident Card or “Green Card” to remain in the United States by the U.S. Distrrict Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania but then an appeals court granted Gulen a Green Card. In October of this year, a federal appellate court found that U.S. immigration authorities improperly rejected Gulen’s request for a Green Card. The appeals court ruled that Gulen was “an alien of extraordinary ability,” a decision that saw approval of Gulen’s residency status. Observers of the case suspect the CIA intervened with the court on Gulen’s behalf. Gulen’s support for the AKP government may be an insurance policy by the CIA to maintain a close relationship with the “Islamist tendency” AKP government in Ankara. The Bush administration, after seven years of trying to deport Gulen to Turkey, suddenly dropped its opposition to his permanent residency status.

    The public prosecutor in the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) case against Gulen’s permanent residency status argued in filed documents that Gulen’s movement was financially supported by Saudi Arabia, Iran, the Turkish government, and the “Central Intelligence Agency.” The deposition stated that some Ankara businessmen donated up to 70 percent of their income to Gulen’s movement.

    If Gulen’s operations are funded by the CIA that means the “Agency” may be linked to Ergenekon. With the U.S. having a mutual defense treaty with Turkey’s recognized government that puts the CIA potentially in violation of U.S. law. And Israel’s connections with Ergenekon means that the United States is bound by treaty to protect its ally Turkey from Israeli covert or overt aggression.

    There is an element of “McCarthyism” in the Ergenekon case. Some well-meaning officials have been subjected to being tainted by the broad brush of being associated with Ergenekon. One is Asil Serdar Sacan, the former head of the Istanbul organized crime department, who was the first to confiscate documents on Ergenekon in 2001 and broadened his investigation to include both Ergenekon and the Gulen organization. Sacan, who investigated the murder of Turkey’s “King of Casinos” Omer Lutfu Topol, successfully beat attempts to smear him, being acquitted of 36 criminal charges brought against him and being reinstated six times to his police position. Sacan is currently in jail as an Ergenekon suspect but his only “crime” appears to have exposed Guney as a possible triple agent for the MIT, Mossad, and CIA. In 2001, Guney was spirited out of Turkey thanks to an agreement between MIT’s undersecretary Senkal Atasagun and the CIA. Guney was given a 10-year U.S. visa thanks to the CIA’s intervention.

    In fact, Ergenekon and its “deep state” players in Turkey and Shiv Sena and its extremist Hindu “deep state” allies in India, backed by elements of Mossad and the CIA, appears to be a replay of the CIA’s secret “Gladio” network in Europe that placed weapons caches in the hands of fascists and neo-Nazis groups to take up arms in the event of a Soviet invasion of Western Europe.

    The use of “false flag” terrorist attacks in Western Europe by Gladio units were blamed on Communists in an effort to forestall Communist-Socialist coalition governments in Western Europe, particularly in Italy and France.

    Similarly, Ergenekon stands accused of inciting conflicts between Turks and Kurds to create anarchy in the country with the aim of having Ergenekon seizing control of the Turkish government and re-cementing close ties with the United States and Israel.

    In 2004, Ergenekon attempted three military coups against the AKP government. They were code-named Eldiven (The Glove”), Sarikiz (“The Blond Girl”), and Ayisigi (“Moonlight’).

    Ergenekon has been cagily kept off the newspaper pages and TV news screens in the United States. To investigate Ergenekon and Gulen in Turkey is to peel away at an onion that could expose some other “unpleasantness” for certain quarters.

    On January 10, 2007, WMR reported: “According to Federal law enforcement sources, two influential businessmen — Turkish Sunni Muslim Fetullahci charismatic leader Fetullah Gulen, who lives in Pennsylvania after being acquitted in Turkey in 2006 of plotting against the secular republic, and Saudi BMI Islamic investment chief investor Yasin Qadi, a major investor in Turkey who was named in October 2001 by President Bush as a Special Designated Global Terrorist — were both involved with the CIA in the late 1990s in funneling weapons and other support to the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), an Albanian terrorist group operating in the former Yugoslavia. The KLA was allied with the Clinton administration and supported by leading neocons such as Richard Perle, whose lobbying firm, International Advisers, Inc., counts Turkey as its major client. Gulen’s books have been translated into Albanian. BMI’s founder, Soliman Biheiri, also helped to start PTech, a Braintree, Massachusetts-based firm that had active software contracts with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Pentagon on 9/11. PTech’s offices were raided by federal authorities in December 2002 after it came under suspicion for terrorist financing. Qadi is suspected of using a series of northern Virginia-based businesses and charities to fund ‘Al Qaeda’ activities in Bosnia. Osama Bin Laden was granted a special passport by the Bosnian government in 1993. Qadi was reportedly a business partner of Turkish businessman Cuneyd Zapsu, an adviser to the Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Reconciliation Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi, AKP).”

    The dramatic revelations about Ergenekon coming out of Turkey also points to the reasons why the neocons in Washington were keen to stymie the work of FBI Turkish translator Sibel Edmonds and the CIA’s non-official cover agent Valerie Plame Wilson, both of whom had smuggling and other activities in Turkey high on their priority lists. On January 18, 2008, WMR reported: “WMR has learned that former CIA covert agent Valerie Plame Wilson, whose covert status was leaked by the Bush White House, and former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds, who was focused on a major covert network involving Turkish, Israeli, and key members of the Bush administration and Republican Party and weapons and drug smuggling, were essentially looking at the same network. The nexus of Turkey with both the covert CIA Brewster Jennings and Associates operations and the Turkish-Israeli network of influence active within the Defense and State Departments, is the key factor in understanding the complicated counter-espionage operation conducted by both the FBI and CIA.” It now appears that the Washington-connected criminal network being looked at by Edmonds and Plame was, in fact, closely linked to the Ergenekon network in Turkey.

    WMR’s January 18, 2008 report continued: “Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald was also, according to our sources, well aware of the massive conspiracy to cover-up the smuggling of weapons of mass destruction components from former Soviet Central Asian states, as well as Ukraine, Moldova, and Ukraine, to the international weapons bazaar. The Abdul Qadeer Khan (A Q Khan) network based in Pakistan was a major beneficiary of the weapons smuggling operation that used Turkey as a pass-through. Rather than expand his investigation, Fitzgerald demurred on looking at the activities of the American Turkish Council, Turkey’s influential lobbying group in Washington, and its parallel symbiotic organization, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Turkey and Israel are close military and intelligence partners.”

    Illinois Democratic Senator Dick Durbin has called on President-elect Barack Obama to reappoint Fitzgerald as U.S. Attorney for Northern Ilinois. If Obama does so, it means that the network being investigated by Edmonds and Plame, one that stretches to Ergenekon and the Gulen network in Turkey, has its hooks deep into the future Obama administration.

    Previously published in the Wayne Madsen Report.

    Copyright © 2008 WayneMadenReport.com

    Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and nationally-distributed columnist. He is the editor and publisher of the Wayne Madsen Report (subscription required).

    Copyright © 1998-2007 Online Journal
    Email Online Journal Editor

    Source: onlinejournal.com, Dec 4, 2008

  • Macedonia name dispute ‘holds hostage’ EU credibility

    Macedonia name dispute ‘holds hostage’ EU credibility

    ELITSA VUCHEVA 

    Today @ 08:54 CET

    EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – Macedonia is ready to start accession talks with the EU and the fact that a 17-year-old dispute with Greece over its name is hindering the process harms not just Skopje, but the EU’s credibility as well, Macedonian foreign minister Antonio Milososki has said.

    This name issue has been “misused by one EU member country,” and this fact is “to a certain extent taking hostage the credibility of the EU” when it comes to establishing and promoting objective membership criteria, Mr Milososki told EUobserver in an interview.

    Alexander of Macedon – often finds himself dragged into the name dispute (Photo: wikipedia)

    Macedonia has been an EU candidate since 2005, but has not yet opened membership negotiations with the 27-nation bloc.

    It had hoped to do so this year, but a European Commission progress report released in November did not recommend to EU member states to launch the process, citing deficiencies in a number of areas, and highlighting violent incidents that took place during this summer’s elections in Macedonia.

    Skopje believes there is another reason behind Brussels’ decision, however.

     

    “I am not convinced that’s the only reason why Macedonia was not given a chance to open accession negotiations. Maybe there is something that is beyond the reports,” Mr Milososki said, referring to the dispute with Greece over Macedonia’s name – an issue which he said is making his “small country disproportionately more famous worldwide than [its] size.”

    Greece has been refusing to recognise its neighbour’s constitutional name – Republic of Macedonia – since it declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, as a northern region in Greece is also called Macedonia and Athens fears allowing Skopje to use the name will open the way to territorial claims. It also believes the appellation is part of its own historical heritage.

    The dispute has been going on for more than 17 years. Meanwhile, the international community has been using Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) as a “provisional” term designating the country since 1993.

    Separately, Macedonia’s name has been recognised by some 120 other countries worldwide, including Russia, the US, China, Canada, Turkey, as well as a number of EU states.

    ‘It’s the name,’ says France

    Earlier this year, the deadlock over Macedonia’s name caused Greece to block a NATO invitation to Skopje, and Athens has indicated that its neighbour’s EU integration would also be slowed down as long as the issue is not solved.

    On Monday (8 December), current EU president France said that the unsolved name dispute was clearly Macedonia’s biggest problem at the moment as far as its EU accession process is concerned.

    “The problem of Macedonia, it’s the name,” French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner told journalists after a meeting with his EU counterparts in Brussels.

    “Frankly, you can ask me about visas and about progress [towards the EU], as long as the name issue is not solved, you are knocking on the wrong door. This problem must be solved,” he added.

    After all these years of UN-mediated negotiations between Greece and Macedonia, the situation seems today “very very complicated for such a simple problem,” the French minister concluded.

    For his part, Mr Milososki stressed the EU should help to tone down the issue and not to let it become a criterion for his country to join the EU.

    “We would like this issue to retain its bilateral dimension and not to be Europeanised, because it’s not a dispute with the EU, it’s a dispute with Greece,” Macedonia’s top diplomat said.

    ‘Merit-based’ approach

    Mr Milososki also stressed that despite the reforms his country still has to make in a number of areas, it is already prepared to start EU membership talks.

    “We are aware we are not perfect, but …Macedonia is not less prepared than some other countries – already negotiating or already members of the EU – to open accession negotiations,” he said.

    “[On a] merit-based approach, Macedonia should be considered as soon as possible as the next country opening accession negotiations,” the minister added.

    Skopje is also hoping to obtain visa free travel to the EU as early as next year.

    For its part, Brussels noted that Macedonia had made “good progress” on the visa arrangements and is expected to deliver its assessment on the country’s readiness for visa liberalisation in the “first quarter of 2009.”

    https://euobserver.com/eu-political/27255