Christian Science Monitor, MA
Jan 24 2007

Turkish city grapples with violent record

The teen who killed a Turkish-Armenian journalist came from a small
village that has been front and center in several recent nationalist
incidents.

By Yigal Schleifer | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

TRABZON, TURKEY – This small city on the Black Sea coast is getting
used to being in the headlines – for all the wrong reasons. Over the
past two years, Trabzon – best known for its successful professional
soccer team, nicknamed the Black Sea Storm – has been front and
center in a series of events that have shocked Turkey.

Last week, a local teenager confessed to firing the gun that killed
Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, whose murder has had
repercussions well beyond Turkey’s borders.

Almost a year ago, a 16-year-old shot and killed an Italian priest
who was working in a Trabzon church. In May 2005, four students
passing out pamphlets about prison conditions were almost killed by
an angry mob of 2,000 who thought they were Kurdish activists.

With the murder of Mr. Dink – whose funeral procession in Istanbul
Tuesday was joined by tens of thousands – Turks inside and outside
Trabzon are now trying to figure out if something has gone dreadfully
wrong in the city.

"For the past 20 years, the politicians have been pumping nationalism
and chauvinism into Trabzon," says Gultekin Yucesan, head of the
local branch of the Human Rights Association, a Turkish watchdog
group.

"I wasn’t surprised to find out he was from Trabzon," he says about
Ogun Samast, the 17-year-old accused of Dink’s murder. "There are
hundreds of other kids like Ogun Samast in Trabzon right now."

Long known as a bastion of nationalism, Trabzon has seen hard times
in recent decades. Once an important commercial port, it is today
more known for the sex trade that brings women from the former Soviet
Union into Turkey. Unemployment in the city is high, while the
countryside around Trabzon, long dependent on hazelnut crops, has
seen its market go from boom to bust.

Black Sea folk have a reputation in Turkey for a culture of violence
(Trabzon has one of the highest gun ownership rates in the country).
Locals say that influence, mixed with the lack of economic
opportunity, creates a worrying situation.

"It’s like a highly explosive material. If it’s not handled properly,
it will explode," says Omer Faruk Altuntas, a lawyer who is the head
of the Trabzon branch of the leftist Freedom and Solidarity Party
(ODP).

"A very ugly atmosphere is growing," he says, speaking in his
book-lined office.

Umut Ozkirimli, a political scientist at Istanbul’s Bilgi University
who studies nationalist attitudes, says Trabzon is a hotbed, but not
an exception.

"Nationalism and bigotry are not unique to Trabzon," he says. "It’s a
microcosm, an extreme example of something that exists in other
places."

According to published reports, Mr. Samast told the police: "I feel
no remorse. [Dink] said Turkish blood was dirty blood."

An unemployed high school dropout, Samast was reportedly part of
group of youths that fell under the sway of a local extreme
nationalist who spent 10 months in jail for the 2004 bombing of a
Trabzon McDonald’s in 2004, becoming something of a notorious local
hero.

The Pelitli area of Trabzon, where the accused murderer grew up, is
built on a steep hill overlooking the Black Sea and the airport
runway. It is made up of rows of afet evleri – "natural disaster
homes" – squat buildings built two decades ago after massive floods
and mudslides displaced villagers.

Residents says there is not much to do except play soccer and go to
one of the two Internet cafes (one has now closed after police
confiscated all its computers as part of its investigation).

"This is like a small village in Trabzon. There are not many options
here, people don’t have jobs," says Talat Alamder, a young unemployed
man standing outside a convenience store.

"Maybe if the young people have a good income, they wouldn’t think
about doing such things," he says, referring to Dink’s murder.

The district’s mayor, Omer Kayikci, says his office is struggling to
keep up with Pelitli’s needs. While the town’s official population is
10,000, the real number is closer 30,000, he says.

"What we are given for one person, we must spend on three," adds Mr.
Kayikci, who has suddenly found tiny Pelitli under the media
spotlight. Satellite television trucks were parked in front of his
office for several days.

"People migrate into this area every day. We have big
responsibilities and we are trying our best to help people, but we
don’t have enough," he says.

Squeezed between the slate-colored waters of the Black Sea and the
pitched foothills of the Kackar mountain range, Trabzon can have an
almost suffocating quality. During the winter, the air in the city is
thick with the acrid soot of cheap Russian coal that many people
burn.

Salih Camoglu, a businessman who publishes two local daily
newspapers, says the city, like other places in Turkey, has not been
unaffected by the rapid changes brought about by the country’s
European Union membership drive and by events in Iraq.

"Nowadays, what’s going on in the region is like an earthquake," he
says. "This can damage places all around it."

Discussing Dink’s murder, human rights activist Yucesan says recent
events have him worried that Trabzon is heading in a dangerous
direction.

"I’m from here, and we locals have brave hearts, but even I am
sometimes scared," he says.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress