MILITARY SILENT ON WEAPONS TO BE USED TO ACTIVATE CAGE PLAN
Today’s Zaman
Nov 23 2009
Turkey
A list of weapons that were going to be used to carry out a devious
plan by some members of the Naval Forces Command to intimidate
the country’s non-Muslim population by assassinating some of their
prominent figures has been made public, but the General Staff has
been silent on the origin of the weapons.
The plan was exposed during a police raid on the office of
retired Maj. Levent BektaÅ~_ as part of a probe launched after the
discovery of a large arms cache in Ä°stanbul’s Poyrazköy district
in April. Called the "Cage Operation Action Plan," the desired result
of the intimidation of Turkey’s non-Muslims and the assassination of
prominent non-Muslim figures was that an increase in internal and
external pressure on the Justice and Development Party (AK Party)
would ensue, leading to diminishing public support for the party
The Cage plan document also includes a list of weapons to be used in
the plan. This list has shown once again the scale of the threat which
Turkey is confronted with. Since the investigation into Ergenekon —
a clandestine gang charged with plotting to overthrow the government
— began in 2007, a large amount of weapons and munitions have been
uncovered, either hidden underground or even in the sea, and at
times abandoned on road sides. The secret caches found included a
wide range of weapons and munitions from anti-tank weapons, assault
rifles and hand grenades to flame throwers and explosives. The Turkish
Mechanical and Chemical Industry Corporation (MKE) confirmed that
these weapons belonged to the military. However, the military has
been silent on the weapons listed in the Cage Plan. Umit KardaÅ~_,
a retired military judge, told Today’s Zaman: "The General Staff is
not making any statements on this. It is too risky for them to deny
that the arms belong to them. Earlier, such a statement from Chief of
Gen. Staff Gen. Ä°lker BaÅ~_bug was negated by a MKE report, which
said the weapons found in Ä°stanbul’s Poyrazköy district had been
manufactured by the military. The investigation should be carried out
by civilian prosecutors. First, civilian prosecutors should investigate
to whom these weapons really belong and then the military judiciary
can investigate later. Since these weapons were going to be used
"to create chaos," this falls into the scope of the civilian judiciary.
The Cage Plan is horrendous. It is a very serious allegation that they
planned to use these weapons to create fertile grounds for a coup
d’état. The military doesn’t really need arms to stage a coup. The
military is already equipped with arms. However, gangs were to be
used to prepare the atmosphere for a coup. The weapons on the Cage
plan list are enough for that."
When will the admiral show?
Meanwhile, observers of the Ergenekon case have been stating that
they expect former Senior Naval Forces Adm. Feyyaz Ogutcu, whose
name appears in Operation Cage documents as "the president," to be
summoned by the prosecution soon. Ogutcu was forced to retire at this
August’s Supreme Military Council (YAÅ~^) meeting, reportedly due to
his suspected ties to Ergenekon.
Ogutcu was thought to be the most likely candidate to become the
new naval forces commander. Observers believe the reason behind
his retirement was his links to Ergenekon. According to a National
Intelligence Organization (MÄ°T) document, Ogutcu was one of the
founders of the Karargah houses, which the Ergenekon investigation
has revealed were meeting spots for generals plotting a coup d’état
in addition to housing hit men and serving as a storage place for
munitions.
Ogutcu was implicated in the placement of blocks of TNT and other
explosives at the bottom of a submarine exhibited at the Rahmi M. Koc
Museum. The TNT and other explosives were found by police in July
after a document was discovered on a computer owned by a suspect
previously detained as part of the Ergenekon probe. The explosives
were to be detonated while a group of students visited the museum.
Weapons and chaos Small weapons can achieve much, as Turkey’s past
experience has shown.
Ergenekon suspect Alparslan Arslan, who killed a judge on May 17,
2006 — an attack attributed to religious fundamentalism until
investigators revealed its links to Ergenekon — used a Glock handgun.
The attack, which created widespread public outrage and fear, is now
treated as one of the biggest actions of Ergenekon by the prosecutors.
Retired military judge KardaÅ~_ notes that this is but one argument
to refute the pro-Ergenekon circles’ argument that "the amount of
weaponry they had is not enough for a coup d’état." The weapons and
ammunition listed in the Cage plan, in a list compiled by Naval Maj.
Eren Gunay, include five Glock handguns that could be used in creating
the chaotic environment.
In earlier excavations carried out in August, two light anti-tank
weapons (LAW) were found in Ankara’s GölbaÅ~_ı district. The
investigators have established that these weapons were going to be
used by the group to assassinate Armenian community leader Minas
Durmaz Guler and Armenian Patriarch Mesrob Mutafyan as well as Alevi
leaders Ali Balkız and Kazım Genc.
Meanwhile, some past incidents indicate that the Cage Plan has already
been put into action. The police have found threatening letters
sent to Armenian leaders on a CD ROM found in Ret. Maj. BektaÅ~_’s
home. Such letters are included in the Cage Plan’s initial stages.
The long list of weapons the Cage Plan planned to use include LAW
weapons, various explosives, two tons of ammonium nitrate, five Glock
handguns, four Uzi guns, four long-range assault rifles, two Accuracy
12.7 sniper rifles and 50 regular guns. The prosecutors are now trying
to locate those weapons that are on the Cage Plan list but have not
been so far found in the investigation.
Caches found earlier in the investigation
Various supplies of munitions have been found hidden in shanty
houses or buried underground since the start of the investigation
into Ergenekon, which apparently have been taken out of the arms
depots of the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK).
The Ergenekon investigation itself started in June 2007 with the
discovery of weapons belonging to the military in a shanty house in
Ä°stanbul’s Umraniye district. Since the start of the investigation,
hand grenades, explosives, LAWs, rocket launchers, Kalashnikov rifles,
assault rifles, thousands of bullets and various other munitions have
been discovered in secret depots or buried underground in various
cities including EskiÅ~_ehir, Ankara and Sapanca.
Most of these weapons were manufactured by the MKE and NATO, neither
of which supplies any institution in the country other than the
military. None of the suspects arrested in relation to the discoveries
have admitted any connections to the weaponry found.
One of the largest caches discovered was in April in Ä°stanbul during
excavations to uncover more ammunitions and weapons as part of the
Ergenekon investigation in Ä°stanbul’s Poyrazköy district.
LAWs, hand grenades, explosives and rocket launchers were unearthed
during April’s excavations on land owned by the Ä°stek Foundation,
which was set up by a fugitive suspect in the Ergenekon investigation,
former Ä°stanbul Mayor Bedrettin Dalan, the chairman of the foundation.
Three military officers currently on active duty were arrested as part
of the probe. Those detained included Maj. BektaÅ~_, Lt. Col. Ercan
Kirectepe and Maj. Emre Onat, all members of the Turkish Naval Forces.
In the excavations in Poyrazköy, 10 LAWs, 20 percussion bombs,
three other bombs, 250 grams of C4 explosive, 19 emergency flares,
10 hand grenades, 800 G3 bullets and a large number of bullets for
revolvers were found. The discovery came after the unearthing of
similar underground weapons sites earlier in January.
The police, as part of the January investigation, carried out a series
of excavations at a number of sites around the capital in a search
of weapons linked to Ergenekon. An arms cache was unearthed in the
Zir Valley in Ankara’s Sincan district, which was found based on a
map discovered in the house of Lt. Col. Mustafa Dönmez. Thirty hand
grenades, nine smoke bombs and more than 800 bullets for G3 assault
rifles were found there. Around the same time, two hand grenades were
found buried in a park in an industrial zone. Nearly 200 bullets were
discovered also in Ankara in early January, in a vacant lot across
from a housing complex in the Oran neighborhood, formerly reserved
for members of Parliament and their families.