Turkish Forum

Tag: DHKP/C

  • Call on Europe for sincerity in counterterrorism

    Call on Europe for sincerity in counterterrorism

    Tevfik Ziyaeddin Akbulut, the chairman of the parliamentary Commission for Interior Affairs, has warned European countries that have failed the test of sincerity with respect to counterterrorism and called on them to stop lending support to terror.

    Last week Ankara discussed secret support lent to terror by certain European countries, and Turkey is now preparing to file a complaint with the UN against the Netherlands and Belgium.

    The death of Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C) leader Dursun Karataş at a hospital in the Netherlands was the straw that broke the camel’s back for Turkey. A member of the Cabinet said the Netherlands had previously rejected Turkey’s demands to return Karataş to Turkey, claiming that he was not in the Netherlands. [HYPOCRISY IS A HOMAGE THAT VICE PAYS TO VIRTUE -H]

    Turkey discovered that Karataş had been in the Netherlands for cancer treatment for six months, during which Dutch Interpol did nothing about it. After receiving official statements explaining their inaction, Turkey will file complaints against the Netherlands and Belgium vis-à-vis their tolerance toward the DHKP/C.

    Belgium had its share in the recent crisis as it had pursed a similar policy with respect to Fehriye Erdal, a key suspect in the 1996 murder of Özdemir Sabancı. The same Cabinet member argued that no country has immunity to be tolerant toward terror and other crimes against humanity, recalling that Germany and France had in the past shown similar indifference and that they had paid a heavy price for it.

    The government official argued that the Netherlands had been caught red handed. “They did not provide the slightest piece of information about Karataş, who was being treated at a hospital in Arnhem for several months, and this is unacceptable and unjustifiable. Likewise, Belgian authorities’ attitude concerning the terrorist Erdal cannot be explained by human rights or law. How can you justify the protection afforded to terrorists who killed innocent people? These two countries are openly violating the European Convention on Extradition,” he said.

    Ankara will demand that the UN must be more sensitive about tolerance afforded to terrorists as this undermines Turkey’s counterterrorism efforts.

    Turkey will inform the UN of such cases in detail. The release of Erdal by Belgian courts was an act that undermined Turkey’s faith in Belgian justice. Belgium turned a deaf ear to Turkey’s repeated warnings and did not extradite Erdal. It also gave political asylum to Zübeyir Aydar, the top Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) figure in Europe.

    Karataş had been apprehended but released by German and French authorities. After he was caught by German police in Cologne on March 3, 1993, and later released, he was caught by the French police on Sept. 9, 1994 in France and he was released pending trial after four months.

    One leftist politician was not content with Karataş’s designation as a leftist. “Their hands are stained with blood, as they sold their ideology to terrorism. It is very disconcerting that an organization that was subcontracted by the international terrorist and fascist Ergenekon organization can still be called a leftist organization,” he said.

    The DHKP/C’s suspected assassination of Yaşar Günaydın, the public prosecutor of the İstanbul State Security Court (DGM), may be connected to the Ergenekon case, as Günaydın was investigating the failed assassination of former President Turgut Özal. Günaydın had launched an investigation into Workers’ Party (İP) leader Doğu Perinçek, who will be tried in the Ergenekon case, for concealing evidence.

    No one is innocent

    Disappointment about the country’s performance at the Olympics has given rise to several interesting assessments. A deputy from the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) voiced an interesting shortcoming on Turkey’s part. “We discuss the performance of our athletes. But the Olympics represent a big international organization. How many Turks are working for this international event?” he asked.

    The MHP deputy noted that Turkey did not have a strategy for training qualified personnel for such international organizations. “There are so many international organizations that do not employ any Turkish citizens. There are only individual cases of employment. However, even small European countries have made it an official policy to train personnel for such organizations. In our country, neither the state nor the nongovernmental organizations or universities do this. We are nonexistent in these organizations. But do we have efforts to sponsor athletes? I am unaware of any institution that sponsors athletes for international sports events. Do we provide facilities for education and training facilities for our kids who have potential for success at the Olympics?” he added.

    Left may boost Turkish sports

    Deputies from left-wing parties were not eager to make comments about the country’s performance at the Olympics.

    One journalist attributed this to leftist parties being distant to sports, which he said was a significant deficiency for them.

    A former deputy from leftist politics said such a comment was not fair and argued that only left-wing parties could boost Turkish sports. “I say this clearly: Unless leftist parties take the initiative, only coincidence will determine whether this country will have universal sportsmen or not. For success at the Olympics, you need to train your athletes starting from childhood. But you cannot give special training to children before the age of 15. This disastrous heritage of the Feb. 28 [1997 unarmed coup] process cannot be abolished by rightist parties. Only leftist parties can introduce an exemption for sports to the Compulsory Education Law,” he said. We will wait and see whether leftist parties will have the courage to propose an amendment to this law to boost Turkish sports.

    Source: Today’s Zaman, 18 August 2008

  • Gang’s links with PKK, DHKP/C, Hizbullah exposed

    Gang’s links with PKK, DHKP/C, Hizbullah exposed

    This undated photo shows İP leader Doğu Perinçek (R), a chief suspect in the Ergenekon case, shaking hands with PKK members during a visit to a PKK camp. The terrorist group's leader, Abdullah Öcalan, walks next to him.

    Prosecutors in a landmark case over the investigation into Ergenekon, a criminal network suspected of plotting a coup against the government, have uncovered striking links between the gang and some key outlawed groups behind decades of bloody and provocative acts.

    An İstanbul court on Friday agreed to hear the case over the investigation into Ergenekon, in a move that will kick off the trial process for dozens of suspected gang members, including retired army officers, academics, journalists and businessmen.

    Prosecutors in the Ergenekon investigation have demanded that retired Brig. Gen. Veli Küçük, Cumhuriyet daily columnist İlhan Selçuk, Turkish Orthodox Patriarchate press spokeswoman Sevgi Erenerol, former İstanbul University Rector Kemal Alemdaroğlu and Workers’ Party (İP) leader Doğu Perinçek — believed to be leaders of the gang — each be sentenced to two consecutive life sentences and an additional 164 years. These five suspects will face various charges, including, but not limited to, “establishing a terrorist organization,” “attempting to overthrow the government of the Republic of Turkey by force or to block it from performing its duties,” “inciting the people to rebel against the Republic of Turkey,” “openly provoking hatred and hostility,” “inciting others to stage the 2006 Council of State shooting,” “attacking the Cumhuriyet daily’s İstanbul office with a hand grenade” and other similar crimes.

    The almost 2,500-page-long Ergenekon indictment has revealed serious connections between Ergenekon and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the outlawed Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C) and the Turkish Hizbullah (no relation to Lebanon-based Hezbullah).

    The PKK, listed as a terrorist organization by a large majority of the international community, including the European Union and the United States, uses northern Iraq as a base from which to make attacks on Turkish soil. Turkey blames the PKK, which is fighting for an ethnic homeland in southeastern Turkey, for the deaths of 40,000 people over the past 25 years.

    The PKK has been behind many provocative attacks, some of which have been claimed by the organization itself, while others have been claimed by the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK), a PKK-affiliated group known largely for its terrorist attacks in big cities. A destructive explosion last year was set off by the PKK in Ankara. A powerful explosion in front of the Anafartalar shopping mall in the capital’s busy Ulus district during rush hour killed 10 and injured more than 100 on May 22, 2007.

    In October police forces averted a disaster in Ankara at the last minute after finding a van packed with explosives near a multistory parking lot. The van was loaded with hundreds of kilograms of explosives. PKK involvement in that incident had also been confirmed.

    The DHKP/C is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union and has claimed responsibility for a number of assassinations and bombings since the 1970s. The organization was originally formed in 1978 by Dursun Karataş.

    “It is being understood — from evidence in the investigation file, the interrogations and the documents that have been seized — that Küçük, one of the leaders of the Ergenekon terrorist organization, had a close relationship with the DHKP/C terrorist organization, used it in line with the goals and targets of the Ergenekon terrorist organization and kept it under control,” the indictment alleges.

    Turkish Hizbullah is a Kurdish, Sunni fundamentalist organization that arose in the late 1980s in southeastern Turkey. In the early 1990s, when the Turkish government’s conflict with the PKK was at its most fierce, Hizbullah began attacking suspected PKK sympathizers.

    “Pseudo-terrorist organizations should be established,” says a document allegedly belonging to Ergenekon and included in the indictment. The same document notes that Ergenekon doesn’t aim at destroying certain terrorist organizations, but at taking them under control and using them for its own purposes.

    The indictment includes testimonies from two confidential witnesses who had previously been in PKK camps. According to their testimonies, the coup against the elected civilian government on Sept. 12, 1980, which installed a military-civilian cabinet while proclaiming martial law, was announced beforehand to the outlawed PKK. Upon receiving this information, the PKK warned its members through brochures it published and made them flee abroad in groups while and bury its weapons beneath its shelters.

    One witness, codenamed “Deniz,” provided information about meetings between Ergenekon and intelligence officers of from other countries and explained that the now-jailed founder of the PKK, Abdullah Öcalan, left Turkey before the 1980 coup because he had been informed about it beforehand.

    Deniz said journalist Yalçın Küçük, also a suspected member of Ergenekon, went to Damascus to meet with Öcalan in 1993 and 1996. He explained that the Küçük guided Öcalan in his armed activities. Stressing that Küçük was like Öcalan’s brain, the witness said in 1996 it was Küçük who saved Öcalan from an assassination in Damascus.

    Deniz added that Hizbullah members were trained at the Gendarmerie Command. A reporter who took photographs of this training was later killed, the witness said.

    Perinçek is among the founders of the PKK

    In the indictment, it is claimed that İP leader Perinçek, who is currently under arrest, often met with Öcalan in Bekaa Valley and that he was among the founders of the PKK. The report also highlights an exchange of views between Perinçek and Öcalan’s attorneys.

    In a classified document prepared by Capt. Ceyhan Karagöz on Oct. 25, 1994, it is said that the PKK was founded on Oct. 27, 1978 in the village of Ziyaret in the eastern province of Diyarbakır by 25 people, including Öcalan and Perinçek.

    There are other documents indicating a relationship between Perinçek and the PKK. A letter addressed to Perinçek found at the house of journalist and Tuncay Güney, who now lives in Canada and works as a rabbi, a witness in the Ergenekon investigation, features a PKK seal and reads: “In our hard struggle, it is impossible to express your sacrifice and contributions in political, economic and arms-related terms with words. The Kurdish community, which has been exploited and exposed to the massacres of fascist Turkish armies, needs brave people like you who are respectful to human rights, struggle in the war for freedom and support our party without any reservations. … In the periods ahead, our party will be honored to cooperate with people like you. Revolutionary greetings.”

    The indictment also reveals that Güney said shipments of weapons to northern Iraq were also related to Perinçek.

    Zaman: Today’s Zaman, 28 July 2008