Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Jan 4 2009

A beginner’s guide to Ergenekon, trial of the century

Following Turkish politics can be confusing, especially in current
times when the country is witnessing what analysts term the `trial of
the century,’ involving alleged members of a group that, as briefly
described by newspapers, is suspected of a number of crimes that
appear to have been committed for the ultimate political purpose of
bending the country toward a certain political agenda.

For the uninitiated, the details of the case, frequent and often
confusing references to past events that go back as far as 30 years
ago.

The relationships between and identities of the suspects and, perhaps
most significantly, the meaning most segments seem to attach to the
trial might be confounding. This article is intended as a guide to
cover the basics about the gang known as Ergenekon and attempts to
introduce concepts that might help the reader understand the structure
of Ergenekon.

The Ergenekon investigation, in which 86 suspects are currently being
accused of various crimes, began in July 2007 with a raid into a
shanty house in Ä°stanbul that police discovered was being used
as an arms depot. The ensuing investigation revealed a bundle of
unholy relationships between very different individuals, various
groups with a wide range of and even opposing political ideologies,
associations, foundations and past incidents — such as unresolved
assassinations, suspicious bombings or dubious public protests —
which seemed to have been organized by an all-knowing center to
manipulate public opinion. The incidents include a surprising number
of murders, assassinations and bombings earlier attributed to
left-wing groups, to Islamists or to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’
Party (PKK).

The basics of deep state structures

But to understand how and why these people came together and for what
reason, we need to look at the foundations of the Ergenekon structure,
which is thought to be part of a phenomenon known in Turkey as `a
state within the state,’ `the deep state,’ or the `counter guerilla.’
Although even the most authoritative researchers cannot agree on a
single description for this phenomenon, today we have compelling
reasons to believe that the fundaments of this structure were built in
the `70s.

Assassinations of union leaders, journalists and even a prime
minister, and most notably the brutal killings of seven students who
were members of the Turkey Workers’ Party (TÄ°P) in Ankara’s
Bahçelievler district — all murders that occurred before the
1980 coup d’etat in Turkey — were committed by leaders of extreme
nationalist grey wolf groups associated with the Nationalist Movement
Party (MHP). When officials admitted openly that some of these people
had served in Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MÄ°T)
and some MHP members complained that there were too many MÄ°T
agents inside their party, the question arose as to whether the state
was feeding terrorism using nationalist youth leaders. Some
nationalist youth members who have organized assassinations or
provocative attacks for the MÄ°T would, over the years, openly
confess their relationship with various state agencies, including the
army. One such example is Kemal DemiraÄ?i, a nationalist who
attempted to shoot President Turgut Ã-zal. Later, he announced that
he and his friends had been trained by some retired generals in the
’70s.

Similarity to Operation Gladio

Was there any government involvement in the 1999 Russian apartment
block bombings, which were blamed on Chechen terrorists? Were the
Sept. 11 terrorist attacks actually an inside job? We do not know. But
in both cases, proponents of theories about government involvement in
the attacks have had some solid proof. Imagine the chaos, confusion
and anger that would occur if government involvement in either of the
two cases were officially confirmed. This is what happened in August
1990, when Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti confirmed that a
secret army called Gladio (the Italian word for double-edged sword)
had existed in Italy throughout the Cold War period. He also said that
similar paramilitary organizations were set up with the support of the
CIA against communism during the Cold War era in various European
countries. Gladio in Italy, where communism was strongest, spread
quickly to other countries. As explained by Daniele Ganser, a Swiss
historian and researcher at the University of Basel’s history
department and author of the book `NATO’s Secret Armies’ on the
history of Gladio in Europe, the operations were so secretive that
most people, including prime ministers, had no idea these networks
existed.

But what happened to Gladio in Europe? Once they were over the initial
shock, European countries started investigations and dealt with these
one by one. In Ganser’s words from an earlier interview with Today’s
Zaman: `Well, at first, people were shocked to hear that secret armies
had existed in their countries. Here in Switzerland, one
parliamentarian said he had lost eight kilograms during the
investigation because he was so shocked. He never thought it was
possible that a secret army could have existed in Switzerland. In
Germany people were shocked, too, to hear that former Nazis were
active in these networks, that the CIA trained Nazis was unbelievable
for them. So in the beginning it was a shock. But then, when the
secret armies were closed down — if indeed that was the case — then
people were relieved.’

Many analysts today believe such networks in Turkey could be remnants
of the Turkish leg of the actual Gladio of the Cold War era. Whatever
the theory, Turkey has yet to clean up its own Gladio.

Exposure of the deep state

Former Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit was the first politician to
learn of the existence of this secret formation. In 1977, he said in a
speech that `an organization inside the state, but outside the state’s
control’ had carried out the incidents of May 1, 1977, when unknown
perpetrators opened fire from a hotel on a crowd gathered in Taksim
Square for May Day celebrations, killing 36. Ecevit narrowly escaped
an assassination attempt 20 days after his statement. Later, the
US-made gun used in the assassination attempt proved to be property of
the Ä°zmir Police Department and the failed assassin a police
officer, but the incident was quickly covered up.

Soon after, there was a coup d’état. Many years passed. In
1996, a car accident occurred. A truck ran into a Mercedes near the
small town of Susurluk. A police chief, a convicted fugitive who was
an ultranationalist and a deputy were in the Mercedes. The
ultranationalist fugitive, who died in the accident, was the man
driving the car when nationalist youths killed seven students who were
members of TİP in Bahçelievler 18 years earlier. This
was the closest Turkey came to uncovering the powerful connections of
the deep state, but that chance was lost.

Nine years later, a bombing of a bookshop owned by a Kurdish
nationalist in the southeastern town of Å?emdinli, during which
two members of the Turkish security forces were caught red-handed,
gave Turkey another opportunity to shed light on at least some of the
elements of the complex deep state network. However, the prosecutor on
the case was disbarred by the Supreme Board of Prosecutors and Judges
(HSYK) after indicting the land forces commander of the time as being
the founder of a gang that was responsible for the Å?emdinli
bookstore bombing. The three main suspects — two non-commissioned
officers and a PKK informant — were given nearly 40 years each by a
civil court at the end of a lengthy trial process that lasted close to
two years. However, in May of last year the Supreme Court of Appeals
declared the case a mistrial and ordered the suspects be retried by a
military court.

Ergenekon: crimes and members

This is why the trial of Ergenekon is seen as a historic opportunity
for Turkey to confront the deep state for the first time. The
suspects, 45 of whom are currently under arrest, are now standing
trial.

Among the 86 suspects are several retired generals, including one who
headed an ultra-Kemalist organization that organized massive
anti-government rallies in 2007; other retired army officers; a number
of mafia bosses who were also ultranationalist youth leaders in the
’70s and ’80s; an ultranationalist lawyer who filed charges of
`insulting Turkishness’ against various intellectuals — including
writer Orhan Pamuk — over statements that fell outside the state
line; journalists; drug lords; the spokesperson of a dubious
organization called the Turkish Orthodox Patriarchate, academics,
including the former rector of the Ä°stanbul University; a
forensic council expert and others. A number of people currently
jailed on charges of Ergenekon membership were also detained or called
to testify in the Susurluk investigation of 1996.

The indictment made public in July accuses the Ergenekon network of
being behind a series of major political assassinations over the past
two decades. The victims include a secularist journalist, UÄ?ur
Mumcu, long believed to have been assassinated by Islamic extremists
in 1993; the head of a business conglomerate, Ã-zdemir
Sabancı, who was shot dead by militants of the extreme-left
Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C) in his
high-security office in 1996; secularist academic Necip
HablemitoÄ?lu, who was also believed to have been killed by
Islamic extremists, in 2002; and a 2006 attack on the Council of State
that left a senior judge dead. Alparslan Arslan, found guilty of the
Council of State killing, said he attacked the court in protest of an
anti-headscarf ruling it had made. But the indictment contains
evidence that he was connected with Ergenekon and that his family
received large sums of money from unidentified sources after the
shooting.

The indictment also says Veli Küçük, believed to
be one of the leading members of the network, had threatened Hrant
Dink, a Turkish-Armenian journalist slain by a teenager in 2007,
before his murder — a sign that Ergenekon could be behind that murder
as well. Küçük was also detained, but later
released in the Susurluk affair of 1996.

Suspects began appearing in court as of Oct. 20, facing accusations
that include `membership in an armed terrorist group,’ `attempting to
destroy the government,’ `inciting people to rebel against the
Republic of Turkey’ and other similar crimes.

More questions on Ergenekon

Is Ergenekon being administered from a single center? Or are we faced
with renegade groups that have links with other terrorist
organizations, such as the PKK, whose links with the MÄ°T have
also been exposed? Are its members all ultranationalists who think
they are doing the best for the country? Or are there those who are in
it for the money, illegal business privileges, the prestige or the
sheer thrill of it all? Do the militants in other armed groups in
Turkey realize that all their actions might have been ordered by their
leaders only to serve the purposes of Ergenekon and not their cause?
Some of these questions have certain answers, while others are not yet
known by anyone. The secrecy, the vastness of the organization, its
long life, its successful penetration of every level of the state and
every segment of society make for a highly tangled bundle, which may
take years to extricate.

Some believe that the Ergenekon trial is only a shake-up of the
greater organization to get rid of its elements that have been exposed
or compromised. The prosecutors, they claim, are actually working for
that cause. Given the history of Gladio and the deep state in Turkey,
this theory is a possibility, although, one might optimistically add,
an unlikely one. An overwhelming majority of writers, journalists,
researchers and politicians believe that the trial is not another long
con on the part of deep state masterminds, and that this is Turkey’s
chance to really confront its own Gladio.

04 January 2009, Sunday
E. BARIÅ? ALTINTAÅ? Ä°STANBUL

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From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress