SHADOWS AND DOUBTS SURROUND ANKARA’S SUICIDE BOMBING
by Mavi Zambak
Asia News, Italy
May 24 2007
Accusations against the PKK followed a little too quickly and the
terrorist vehemently group denies involvement. The attack comes after
a spate of violence which seems bent on derailing the reform process
which the country is struggling to implement.
Ankara (AsiaNews) – Gunes Akkus, a twenty eight year old from Sivas,
with a criminal record for involvement in clashes with police in
Istanbul dating to May 1996. A militant member of the illegal Turkish
communist revolutionary party (TIKB). His family believed him resident
in Holland these last nine years since his relapse from prison. This
is the suicide bomber who blew himself up on Tuesday evening in the
grand bazaar in the commercial heart of Ankara’s historic centre.
A short distance away from this five story building the defence
industries annual International Expo is underway. On the very evening
of the explosion, numerous top ranking foreign military officials
were to have taken part in an inaugurating cocktail party.
A violent explosion, shattered windows, six dead and hundreds injured,
followed by the immediate intervention of the Chief of Staff Yasar
Buyukanit who, with one glance at the devastation announces that
it was a professional job, provoked by a sophisticated devise with
high explosive potential. A few hours later the bomb squad announce
the discovery of traces of A-4 plastic explosive, commonly used by
PKK terrorists, giving rise to the first instances of suspicion that
the Kurdish Workers Party were also behind this latest violence. The
terrorist separatists headed by Ocalan – currently held in prison on
an island in the Marmara sea – has killed over 30 thousand people in
their campaign of violence which reaches back to 1984.
Yesterday, however, this party vehemently denied all involvement
in the suicide attack which targeted ordinary citizens: a young man
who was at the bazaar to buy his weeding suit, a nineteen year old
who was taking a last wander around the centre before leaving for
military service, a shop assistant who supported her family on her
wage, the owner of a watch shop…..
"We have no involvement in the Ankara attack", stated the separatist
group in a declaration published by the Firat ("Eufrate") news agency.
Is there reason to doubt this?
Thus the question pends regarding the identity of the true authors of
this vicious and cruel attack, which could have been truly ferocious
had the target been, as many believe, the International Weapons Fair
and had Gunes detonated his devise before he panicked at the sight
off a policeman coming towards him.
Who provided the explosive, what motivated this young man to such an
act, remains a mystery. What is certain is that the Kurds remain as
always the scapegoat. And today the daily Gunes published right across
its front page the title: "PKK, this is what you are" describing the
daily existence of the explosions’ victims.
While unfortunately in this country violent methods are becoming more
commonly used by all groups: the secular groups, the Islamic groups,
the PKK, the "grey wolves" and the "Hezbollah". A worrying symptom:
despite efforts towards concrete democratic reform, violent methods
have not stopped, the even seem to have taken on new forms to target
and indeed impede this very process of reform (bombs against Istanbul’s
synagogue in 2003, the murder of Christians, murder in court, murder
of journalists and threats to free thinkers).
In Turkey a social transformation is underway to modify the traditional
relationships between army, state and society. The institutional
authority is in crises and there are sectors of society which are
really losing there status and fear losing their power in a more
competitive, emancipated, freer society, thus these sectors of society
are trying to legitimatize there resistance to change by condemning
the loss of the secular states and by grabbing on to conservative
and authoritarian positions.
In recent weeks we have witnessed the military’s threats to intervene
in the face of Turkey’s political crises. Already in the past the
ranger of communism was used to legitimize armed intervention in
Turkish society, there has long been opposition to the Kurdish
separatist threat, despite the fact that the Kurds have repeatedly
sought a platform for dialogue towards a peaceful solution to the
complex "question".
The question as to who the next victims would be has long abounded:
and now we have the bitter answer, the nation’s secular sphere,
the ordinary and defenceless.
An unsettling interrogative is now being raised: if as reported by
Sabah newspaper, that threats of violence against tourist resorts,
shopping centres and buses first reached the ears of authorities
over two and a half months ago; if it is true that over the last two
months police have sequestered over 200 kilogram’s of explosives in
a series of raids on PKK; seeing that the bazaar is at such a close
proximity to the international armaments fair, thus a risk area, why
then was this attack not foreseen by security forces, as was the case
in Adana were they claim to have stopped a 31 year old women carrying
11 kilos of explosives in her bag?
All attention is now focused on the Kurdish separatists, but is
it not perhaps more opportune to turn our thoughts to the State
within the State? That labyrinth of connections between the security
establishment, nationalists and the world of organized crime dedicated
to destabilizing the nation in order to divide the government,
military and people and thus smash the delicate equilibrium brought
about under great strain by the process for democratic reform, with
terrorist violence which can reach a foreign Catholic priest or the
historic bastion of kemalist secularism, the daily "Cumhurriyet"
(Repubblic) with equal ease; which can kill a high court judge for
having confirmed a ban on the veil, explode a bomb among Kurdish
pacifists or in the beating heart of the capital, or kill an Armenian
journalist or protestant missionary. It is not by chance that these
are events which raise tension levels and insinuate doubts regarding
the governments ability to maintain the secular nature of the state,
which seem to once again legitimize the (re) militarization of Turkish
politics, in order to guarantee public security, without any attempts
to try other more democratic avenues or broader horizons.