Attention avec "Nicolas"!
WolfWolf
Nicolas
> "Nicolas" n'est pas votre ami. Il fait des bêtises.
>
>
>
On voit que tu t'obstines a te rediculiser en public.
Pauvre couillon.
Nicolas
astro
He only wants to practice his french .
Anyway , his recycling of old discredited sources( by the US Government
no less)
shows he has nothing original to add.
He has a Turkish wife ( see other posts). All this is done to " please "
her .........
Nicolas
Is this ng moderated now?
Nicolas
WolfWolf
> Is this ng moderated now?
>
> Nicolas
The self-styled "moderators" agree by silent acquiescence.
WolfWolf
pansak
yOY REMIND ME OF LOUIS BUNUEL'S UN CHIEN ANDALOUS. I WANDER WHY.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA..... BRRRRRT... COUGH...
LACON
The field rep of state terrorism and great fiction writer
"WolfWolf" <10162...@compuserve.com> wrote in message news:<9qcerb$b00$1...@suaar1ab.prod.compuserve.com>...
Voyager
AGAINST INNOCENT PEOPLE.
http://www.greece.org/genocide/
http://www.greece.org/genocide/quotes/sitemap.html
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Congress/6512/Violate.htm
http://www.geocities.com/discover_turkey/Discovery.htm
http://users.westnet.gr/~cgian/cointel2.htm
http://www.amnesty.org/
http://imia.cc.duth.gr/turkey/chro.e.html
http://imia.cc.duth.gr/turkey/epil.e.html
http://www.ahmp.org/1922nyt.html
http://eleni.simplenet.com/pontus/AsiaMinor/AsiaMinor.html
Bin-Ladin went to Turkey in 1996, 1998. He did not face difficulties
According to Turkish TV private channel NTV (20.9.01, 15:00 hours) Usamah
Bin-Ladin, who is the number one suspect in the terrorist attacks launched
on the United States, went to Turkey twice during the period he was sought
by the Interpol with the red bulletin. Bin-Ladin came to Istanbul aboard his
eponymous private plane. Reportedly, he was not faced with any difficulties
on his arrival. These visits had been reported by the Washington Post, which
based its reports on CIA sources.
Usamah Bin-Ladin's plane took off from Jeddah in Saudi Arabia and arrived in
Turkey on 28 August 1996. According to official records, he stayed in Turkey
for 33 hours. He first landed at Adana Sakir Pasa Airport and then flew to
Istanbul. He left Turkey the next day for Jeddah. Besides the crew, he had
one other person with him.
Bin-Ladin's first visit to Turkey was during the Welfare Party-True Path
Party coalition government.
His second visit took place in 1998. It was about six months before the
bombing in August 1998 of the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
According to the records, once again Bin-Ladin landed at Adana first and
then in Istanbul. That was on 17 February 1998. According to the passenger
manifesto of the HAVAS company that serviced Bin-Ladin's plane, the only two
passengers were Bin-Ladin who was registered as Muhammad Usamah and another
person called Al-Savaf. This visit took place during the Motherland Party,
Democratic Left Party, and Democratic Turkey Party coalition government.
It is reported that Bin-Ladin, who is being sought by the Interpol with the
red bulletin ever since 1994, was not faced with any difficulties during
either of his visits.
It is a matter of curiosity why, in both visits, Bin-Ladin chose to land at
Adana Airport first. According to aviation experts, Bin-Ladin's private
plane had to land in Adana for refuelling.
There are interesting elements in Bin-Ladin's visits; one of them is the
State Airports Administration document, which shows that the private plane
arrived in Turkey. A copy of these documents that must be drawn up each time
a private plane lands in Turkey must be sent to the Ankara State Airports
Administration Directorate General. The document on Bin-Ladin's first visit
was not sent to Ankara but to the Secret Documents and Circulars File in
Istanbul.
Another interesting point concerns the receipt for the fee charged in return
for the ground services given to the private plane. The form's number was
left vacant. Furthermore, it was not processed through the computer but was
filled by hand. In this way, Ankara could not see it in the on-line system.
WolfWolf
news:20353d33.0110...@posting.google.com...
> HEY WOOFWOOF
> yOY REMIND ME OF LOUIS BUNUEL'S UN CHIEN ANDALOUS. I WANDER WHY.
> BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA..... BRRRRRT... COUGH...
> LACON
You must have big pain. Don't worry - time cures.
Nevzat Akdemir
Ladin had a passport from south cyprus.
Take a hike.
Voyager
WolfWolf
news:9qdeld$hp1$1...@usenet.otenet.gr...
>
> AGAINST INNOCENT PEOPLE.
Greece's Stand on National Minorities*
by Eqerem Mete**
In early 2001, the EU is expected to send a committee to discuss a
cooperation agreement with Albania. Greece's Foreign Ministry General
Secretary on a recent visit to Tirana told the Albanian Prime Minister that
"Tirana had to review its legislation on minorities if it wanted to get
closer to the European Union," whereas the Albanian prime minister expressed
his conviction that "Albania will compile and apply an advanced legislation,
one of the most progressive in Southeastern Europe.''
The EU initiative to teach the Albanian authorities how to behave themselves
towards the so-called 35 to 40 thousand-strong Greek minority, the ultimatum
of the envoy of the Greek Prime Minister and the statement of the Albanian
Prime Minister seem to imply that there are serious defects in the Albanian
legislation on national minorities. To clear up this issue, to see where
they stand and for the sake of arguments, the relevant Albanian authorities
are in duty bound to study the legislation and practice of other countries
including Greece, as well as those of other countries who pose as the most
advanced in this regard.
Are there more advanced legislation and more absurd practice in other
countries than what is observed in our country as concerns national
minorities? In stead of pupils going where the school is, in Albania [Greek]
schools follow the children of the Greek diaspora wherever they are, despite
their numbers, even though these numbers are in flagrant violation of the
law.
For their part, the Greek authorities have not deigned so far to give
official permission to open even a single elementary school for the children
of hundreds of thousands of Albanian immigrants. It never occurs to Greece
to take such an official step that would have even the remotest semblance of
recognition to the rights of a national element, who is not and does not
call itself Greek. In the Greek opinion, such a step would be a dangerous
precedent that would undermine the theories about the so-called homogeneity
of the Greek state and whet the appetite of the national minorities for
education in their own mother tongues. This step would also lead to
increased pressure at home and abroad on Greece. It would also nullify the
endeavors of the Greek authorities over many decades to assimilate the
Albanians, those who are native to the land and those who have immigrated
during the centuries to Greece. The attempts to change the nationality of
the recent Albanian immigrants through schooling in Greek and with the help
of the Greek Orthodox churches by changing their religion, and the dictate
of the Greek authorities by exploiting their presence in Greece to the
Albanian state would be ever less ineffectual.
Such a domestic policy of the Greek state has a powerful impact on its
foreign policy towards its neighbors despite its European patchwork and
ornaments. In stead of reciprocity towards Albania at least for the sake of
the position of the present-day Albanian government, Greece has increased
the intensity and range of its pressure.
Greece has not given up its territorial claims on Albania. To avoid such an
accusation and to keep up the pressure, the Greek government lets the
so-called ultra nationalistic circles raise territorial claims, whereas for
the moment in its official capacity, it covers them up with the slogan about
respect for human rights and democratic rules.
At high level official meetings between the two sides, the Greek side makes
ultimatum-like demands, which signify the imposition of a master-apprentice
relationship. At the Greek parliament debates are held on "growing Albanian
nationalism, increasing disruptive role of Albanian armed groups in Kosova,
Macedonia and southern Serbia" though the struggle of the Albanians against
aggressive Serbian nationalism has been supported by the entire democratic
world, with the exception of the Greeks. One thing is more than clear in
this context. The closer the Kosova issue edges to a settlement, the greater
their irritation and emphasis on the absurd parallel they draw to this
issue.
Greek Eurodeputies, of the New Democracy and PASSOK, demand that the
macro-financial aid to Albania be stopped and that the latter denied the
right to start negotiations on signing an association and stability
agreement with the European Union. Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou
has also mounted the stage. He has written to European Commissioner for
External Relations Chris Patten making an issue of "the lack of respect for
the rights of 'the Greek minority.'"
Though the two countries have signed a Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation,
the Law of the State of War with Albania is still in force. Greece has
abrogated such a law with Italy despite the stark truth that it was fascist
Italy and not Albania, which committed aggression against it in 1940. The
property of the Albanians in Greece have been frozen on the pretext of such
an absurd law, while as to the property of the Albanian population,
massacred and compelled at gunpoint to flee Chameria, most absurd arguments
are put forward not to return it to its legal owners.
In view of such Greek policies and activity against Albania, one might as
well say that Greece is still living in the past. To live in the present, it
should abide by the old Chinese wise saying: "To know others is knowledge,
to know yourself is enlightenment." It is precisely the latter that our
neighbors have missed.
It is against this backdrop of Greek political activity against Albania that
the present Albanian government approaches relations with its southern
neighbor in the context of "the strategic partnership between the two
parties, two governments and two countries" hoping that the road to Europe
will pass through Athens the same as in the past when the road to Moscow
passed through Belgrade.
With the exception of those who have their hands and feet bound, nobody in
their right mind can fail to see through what the Greek side is aiming at.
To return to the topic of the beginning about national minorities, I would
say that people would be really curious to learn what Greek authorities have
to say about this issue. The following material based on Greek and European
Community sources, published in an abbreviated form in the Albanian-American
newspaper Illyria (New York, the USA), can shed some light on the experience
of the Hellenic state in this direction.
x
x x
The July 23, 1999 appeal to the Speaker of the Greek Parliament and the
Party leaders on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the restoration of
democracy in Greece reminded me of a document entitled Report on the
Albanians of Greece a group of researchers of the European Community
compiled in 1987.
The appeal, signed by all three Turkish minority deputies, seven Turkish and
three Macedonian minority organizations, as well as three human rights
non-governmental organizations, including Greek Helsinki Monitor and
Minority Rights Group - Greece, emphasizes that the Republic of Greece has
an important weakness: it does not recognize the existence of national
minorities on its territory.
The undersigned call upon the Greek state to recognize the existence of
Macedonian and Turkish minorities, to ratify the Framework Convention for
the Protection of National Minorities of the Council of Europe without any
conditions for its implementation and to implement the principles of the
Convention, as well as of the related OSCE documents, so that all forms of
discrimination or persecution against members of these minorities cease and
their rights be respected.
It is true that the Greek authorities, who have always been playing the
ostrich, and the Greek public, which has been duly indoctrinated for decades
on end, refuse in no uncertain terms the existence of national minorities on
Greek territory. The principle that the Greeks have always stuck to runs as
follows: "Those who live in Greece are Greeks. All those who are not Greeks
should quit". That is the prevailing frame of mind in Greece, a member of
the United Nations, the European Union, NATO, OSCE, and other international
organizations. It does not cross their Greek mind that if the neighboring
countries had applied the same principle, there would have been no Greeks
outside the borders of the Greek state.
Let us cite in brief the responses of some Greek authorities to the appeal
according to Greek sources:
The Speaker of the Parliament, Apostolos Kaklamanis: "In Greece there is no
Turkish or Macedonian minority. There is a Muslim religious minority.
Whatever constructs, especially at this moment, serve other purposes and
will be handled in the appropriate way." The minister for the Press Dimitris
Reppas: "Unhistorical and unrealistic constructs will fall by the wayside."
The Greek foreign minister Papanadreou: "Greece, in a difficult region, is
carrying out an exemplary policy in the area of minorities." Whereas the
former Minister of Macedonia and Thrace Stelios Papathemelis declared: "I
should tell them in their language "Ai sihtir" (Screw off!). The KKE leader
added another version to the motivation of the appeal. He said: "We believe
that the issuing of such a statement is less related to the anniversary of
the restoration of democracy than with whichever dialogue is being carried
out between Greece and Turkey. it gives the United States of America the
opportunity to impose their conditions on this dialogue. The perpetrators of
this action can be found not only in Greece." While the newspaper
Eleftherotypia ran an article by Professor Nicholas Stavrou, a
Greek-American, on the US being behind the travails of the Balkans. Mr.
Stavrou writes that "Ankara and its patrons in Washington with the support
of the human rights industry in the US and its affiliates in Greece are
behind the appeal." This statement, which shifts the blame onto the United
States, bears resemblance to what the Speaker of the Greek parliament
Apostolos Kaklamanis has said about the NATO air strikes against Serbia.
"The US-led attacks revert 'Europe back to Cold War Times,' he has declared.
'We must stop being prey to a power [read USA] that does not want to see
Europe stand on its own.'"
What draws one's attention in particular is the striking similarity of the
responses of the Greek authorities and of representatives of the political
parties to the appeal and the statements contained in the Report on the
Albanians of Greece. The conclusion that can be drawn from the content of
the appeal is that the policies of the Greek authorities on the issue at
present are the same as they were in 1987, when the above-mentioned report,
a summary of which follows, was compiled.
REPORT ON THE ALBANIANS OF GREECE
by the Commission of the European Community
A group of researchers of the European Community visited Greece from the 4th
to the 10th of October 1987 to study the existence of the Albanian element
and the preservation of its ethnicity and language.
The trip was organized by the "European Bureau" to study the lesser-used
languages, observed by the Commission of the European Community.
Composition of the Group:
Antonio Belushi Italy
Ricardo Alvares Spain
E. Angel France
Kolom Anget Spain
Havier Boski Spain
Onom Falkona Holland
Volfgang Jeniges Belgium
Robert Marti France
Stefan Moal France
Kol O'Cinseala Ireland
Joseph San Sokasao Spain
Object of the trip:
Research in 300 Albanian communities in Greece.
Aim:
To help European representatives on their visit to get in touch with the
Albanian people in Greece, who are currently speaking Albanian, which is not
taught in Greek schools.
To assess the reaction of various parties and other institutions to the
issue of protection of linguistic minorities existing in Greece, which are
not recognized at present even below a minimum criterion as is the case with
the Albanians, etc.
Views of the main parties:
The "New Democracy" Party:
We talked with Michael Papakonstantinu, Efstakios Paguhos, Nikola Martis,
Joanis Vulfefis and Kaeti Papannastasion. Here are some of their answers:
"There is no problem of Albanian language in Greece. If we put linguistic
problems on the table, we would create very great problems for the Greek
state. If the Albanian language is spoken, it is spoken only in families. No
opinion can be fully expressed on this issue. There has never been room for
the Albanians in our problems. Your mission is very delicate. Do not
complicate things. Watch out! Minority issues will lead to war in Europe. We
can in no way help at these moments. Likewise, we do not want to give the
impression of Albanian presence in Greece. This problem does not exist for
us."
The "PASOK" Party:
Questions were addressed to Dr. Jorgos Sklavunas and Manolis Azimakis. Their
answers:
"We do not deem it necessary for the Albanian and other minorities to learn
their mother tongues because the language they speak is not a language.
There are no Albanian territories in Greece. There are only Greek
territories where Albanian may also be spoken. He who does not speak our
language does not belong to our race and our country."
The Ministry of Culture:
Having listened to the questions, Doc. Athina Sipirianti said:
"To solve a problem, you have always to set up a commission. We do not have
the possibility of dealing with the problem you are raising. Your experience
will be necessary for what we shall do in the future. Your visit is a great
stimulus to us."
The Pedagogical Department:
Dr. Trinnidafilotis' answer was very cold:
"There is no teaching of Albanian. What you are saying is a political rather
than a cultural problem. I have nothing else to add."
The Commission of the Independent Magazine Anti:
Answers:
"Borders between states are not fair. This interest in minorities in Greece
can hide interests of domination by other states. Linguistic minorities,
namely, the Albanian minority, have no right whatsoever. In Greece, there
are only Greeks."
The above statements and the appeal to the Speaker of the Greek Parliament
and the party leaders are clear evidence of the presence of Albanians, Turks
and Macedonian Slavs in Greece, who still speak their mother tongues.
According to research done by scholars, there are about 700 Albanian
villages in Greece, whose Albanian ethnicity the Greeks deny. It is a
well-known fact that national minority members in Greece have all been
subject to intense, organized assimilation, which the Greeks, while ignoring
their distinct ethnicity, justify by pointing to their Orthodox religion, as
though religion were the criterion to determine one's nationality. However,
there are also Greeks who contradict the absurd claims of the Greek
authorities. In a study on the subject, Professor of International Law and
current Vice-President of the European Court of Human Rights, Christos
Rozakis, acknowledges the ethnic character of minorities in Greece.
In view of Greek domestic policies on national minorities, it is regrettable
to observe that an EU member like Greece has so far failed to be a role
model for the other Balkan countries, that its example in this area adds to
the Balkans' already tarnished image as a result of Serbia's policies, that
though a NATO member, despite the government's 'efforts' to keep a so-called
balance, Greece opposed NATO's air war against Serbia under the threadbare
pretext of its religious and traditional historical ties with the Serbs and
tacitly supported Milosevic's policy of genocide and ethnic cleansing in
Kosova. In this campaign of solidarity with Milosevic when the NATO bombing
began, even Archbishop Christodoulos of Athens hastened to join Patriarch
Alexii of Moscow, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, to call for support
for Serbia.
It is also a pity that nothing has so far changed in Greece's nationalistic
and theocratic policies since the 1944-1945 period when the Greeks were the
first in southeastern Europe after World War II to perpetrate genocide. They
massacred and ethnically cleansed Albanians from Chamouria, an
Albanian-inhabited region in the northwest of today's Greek state.
It stands to reason that their religious brethren, the Serbs, would
naturally draw on the Greek experience of the ethnic cleansing of Albanians
and extensively use it against the Kosova Albanians in the year 1999.
The way the Greeks respond to the national minority issue signifies the
existence of a strong, unhealthy nationalistic trend, raised to state policy
level, which runs counter to the general tendency in the other countries of
the European Union. The official 1951 census in Greece indicated that ethnic
minorities in the country constituted 2.6 to 3.8 per cent of the total
population. Just as in the case of other non-Greeks, the number of
Albanians, too had radically been reduced in the census. According to other
sources, there were at least as many as 350,000 Albanians at that time.
Slavic speakers in Greece today number up to 300,000 though the majority of
them had to flee during and after World War and the Civil War. Facts are
stubborn. Nevertheless, these figures that have been drastically reduced,
have always been suppressed whenever they have been brought up. Worth
mentioning are also the following facts, symptomatic of Greek intolerance in
the area of national minorities: A few years ago, death threats against
Anastasia Karakasidou, a Guggenheim Fellowship scholar at Harvard
University, first came from the Greek community in the United States and
then in Greece because she had described the presence of a Slavic speaking
Macedonian community in Greece in her book "Fields of Wheat, Hills of
Shrubs." Almost at the same time, Christos Sideropulos, leader of "the Human
Rights movement in Macedonia" faced trial on charges of "spreading false
information that might cause disturbance in the international relations of
Greece." His guilt had been a statement to the effect that the ethnic
Macedonians faced curbs on their language and culture by a state, which
denies their existence.
Though there is no denying the fact that Greece is a full-fledged member of
the European Union, its behavior, past and present, which has little to do
with Western values, is helping an increasing number of people realize that
the country is a far cry from the rest of the EU members as far as
mentality, culture, as well as religious and national tolerance are
concerned. Greece is also distinct from the other EU member countries as far
as its domestic legislation is concerned. For instance, citizenship,
ethnicity and religion are deliberately confused in Greece. The Greek
Constitution outlaws proselytism. There are also provisions, especially
Article 20 of the Greek Citizenship Law in Greece, under which sanctions,
prison terms and denial of Greek citizenship are imposed on religious
minority members, accused of involvement in so-called activities against
Hellenism. Irrespective of the fact that Greece has repealed Article 19 of
the Greek Citizenship Law under international pressure, which entitled the
government to deprive those regarded as allogenes [Greece's natives of
non-Greek origin] of Greek citizenship, it has not made the Article
retroactive in order to restore citizenship to those who have unjustly lost
it.
Financial Times quotes Takis Michas, social affairs specialist at the Athens
daily Eleftherotypia, as saying: "Greece is an inward-looking society.
Orthodox values reinforce that mentality. Orthodoxy sees the West as a
threat, a place where conspiracies are hatched against it," a mind frame of
both Greeks and Serbs, which draws its source from the ancient split between
western and eastern Christendom. Whereas British historian Norman Davies
writes in his book "Europe A History": "From the time of the Crusades, the
Orthodox looked on the west as the source of subjugation worse than the
infidel." This mindset is made manifest in the United States, too. According
to recent news reports, Archbishop Spyridon, the head of the Greek Orthodox
Church in the United States, who has spent most of his life in Europe, has
been accused of trying to keep the church inaccessible to members who feel
more American than Greek. Spyridon, who is the first American-born leader of
the Greek Orthodox church in this country, says he works to protect the
church's Byzantine traditions, proving to be one of those Greeks who are
still living in the Byzantine empire. As Jeane Carthner of the newspaper
Liberacion points out: "A few years ago, the Greeks were enemies of the
Albanians, Macedonians and Bulgarians. They are constant enemies of the
Turks, while now they have become enemies of the Americans, the British, the
French, the Germans and the rest of the world." "The West is full of
enemies," the president of Greece, Costis Stephanopolous, has been quoted as
saying. Scholars consider such statements "a reminder of emotions that are
deeply felt in the eastern Balkans. The common link is the Orthodox
religious tradition. It is a tie that cements the alliance with Serbia ."
Such a mentality that has been conducive to national and religious bigotry
has prompted analysts to draw the logical conclusion that Greek presence in
the EU and NATO, etc. is an anomaly and a paradox. Greece continues to be an
awkward partner or indeed a black sheep in the European Union even today.
Time and again, it creates false problems for Europe with its whimsical
behavior towards its neighbors. This conclusion is not a thing of the past,
of the early 1990s, as another Greek, Loukas Tsoukalis, of the European
Institute of the London School of Economics, says.
Such being the case, it is wrong, at least in the foreseeable future, to
regard Greece as the bridge that will link the neighboring countries to
Europe. This EU member country, which regards every criticism of its
handling of domestic affairs, the minority and religious issues in
particular, as a West-inspired, hostile step to destabilize the country,
cannot play such a role unless it improves its image, which is still low by
European standards, and gives up sowing the seeds of religious and national
intolerance.
Far from trying to find the culprit abroad, Greece should mend its ways at
home.
-----------------
* The article was published in the Albanian newspaper "Albania" in December
2000
** The article writer was political director for the Balkans and the Middle
East in the Foreign Affairs Ministry of Albania from 1992 to 1996
WolfWolf
REAL
Turkey's Killing Machine: The Contra-Guerrilla Force
By Serdar Celik
How The Force Was Set Up
Turkey joined NATO on April 4, 1952. In the same year, the organisation known as
"Gladio", or officially as "Super NATO",
whose arm in Turkey is the contra-guerrilla force called Seferberlik Taktik
Kurulu (STK - Tactical Mobilisation Group), started
its activities in the building of the CIA organisation American Yardim Heyeti
(American Aid Delegation - JUSMATT) in the
Bahcelievler district of the Turkish capital Ankara. (*1)
During the 1960s, following on from the experience of Korea and Vietnam, the
American-dominated armies of NATO began
to set up their own special guerrilla warfare units. The 1959 military accord
between the Turkish and US governments
envisaged the use of the contra-guerrillas "also in the case of an internal
rebellion against the regime". (*2)
The STK was restructured in 1965 and was renamed Ozel Harp Dairesi (OHD -
Special Warfare Department). It comes
under the authority of the President of General Staff and is also known by other
titles such as Ozel Kuvvetler Komutanlik
(Special Forces Command) or Harekat Dairesi (Operations Department).
Although it was revealed through the "Gladio" affair in Italy in 1990 that such
secret organisations also existed in other member
states of NATO, and that they maintained close contacts with these countries'
secret services and had been involved in a series
of murders and bomb plots, the Turkish military and state authorities continued
to deny the existence of any such organisation in
Turkey.
Only after ex-CIA chief William Colby had revealed that "there is also such an
organisation in Turkey" did the Turkish
authorities withdraw their false pretentions that there was no Turkish Gladio.
On December 3, 1990, General Dogan Beyazit,
President of the Harekat Dairesi (Operation Department) of Turkey's General
Staff and General Kemal Yilmaz, commander of
the Ozel Kuvvetler (Special Forces), issued a press statement. In this statement
they revealed that the title of the special NATO
organisation in Turkey was Ozel Harp Dairesi (Special Warfare Department) and
that its task was "to organise rewsistence in
the case of a communist occupation". They further explained that this
organisation had fought in Cyprus in 1974 and against the
PKK in Kurdistan in 1980, but that its secret members, whom they called
"patriots", had "no connection with the
contra-guerrilla forces" (1). This latter claim is a blatant lie.
The bloody dictator of the September 12, 1980 coup, Kenan Evren, wrote in his
memoirs that Prime Minister Suleyman
Demiriel had in the 1970s written to him of his wish to engage the Special
Warfare Department to deal with civil unrest (2). This
was denied by Demuriel. Bulent Ecevit, another Prime Minister of the 1970s,
revealed that: "As Prime Minister I first became
aware of its existence in 1974 through requests from Semih Sancar, chief of the
General Staff, for money for secret payments
to the Special Warfare Department. I was shocked". (3)
How and why was the Special Warfare Department set up?
The founding aim of the Department is: "In the case of a communist occupation or
of a rebellion, to use guerrilla methods and all
possible underground activities to bring an end to the occupation." (4) The
special war methods which are taught supposedly
for the prevention of a communist occupation include among others
"assasinations, bombings, armed robbery, torture, attacks,
kidnap, threats, provocation, militia training, hostage- taking, arson,
sabotage, propaganda, disinformation, violence and
extortion." (5)
Textbooks by American contra-guerrilla experts were translated into Turkish, and
these special war methods were thus
introduced into Turkey. Some of the textbooks written by American experts are:
"U.S. Army FM 31/16" (contra-guerrilla
operations), "U.S. Army Special Warfare School" (contra-guerrilla tactics and
techniques), "FM 31/20" (special forces
operational techniques), "FM 31/21 Special Forces Operations" (ST urban
assignments, 31/21 guerrilla warfare and special
forces operations ), "FM 31/21 A. Special Forces Operations (U)" (special forces
secret operations). (6)
The Turkish contra-guerrilla force developed the most complex and sophisticated
methods for its war against the PKK. Since
1985 a series of new textbooks and instructions for the contra- guerrillas have
been published. Just one example is the book "Ic
Guvenlik Konsepti" (The Concept of Internal Security), which was published by
the Special Warfare Command of the General
Staff in 1985, and which is used as a textbook in the contra-guerrilla camps.
The underground elements of the Special Warfare Department - that is, the
elements which carry out actions - are called
contra- guerrillas. The Special Warfare Department can be identified with the
contra-guerrillas, since it is the latter who put the
Department's work into practise.
The Turkish contra-guerrillas have many schools in Turkey, in which they receive
their training - in Ankara, Bolu, Kayseri, Buca
near Izmir, Canakkale and since 1974 in Cyprus. "In the mountain commando school
in Bolu, green berets (Delta Forces) who
fought in Vietnam also got their training". (7)
The contra-guerrilla teams, who are implanted with a fanatical hatred of the
"peril" of "communism" and "separatism", whose
heads are full of chauvanism, are unleashed against anyone who stands in
opposition to the regime. For their goal, which they
pursue with the support of the USA, is "the establishment of a competent
military and semi-military force which will, jointly with
the security forces, maintain internal security". (9)
In their eyes not only the "communists", but each and every democratic movement
is a danger which they aim to counter using
guerrilla methods. The American military doctrine as presented in the textbooks
holds that "our security is threatened not only
by open attacks, but also by other types of threats which are even more
dangerous than open attacks but which do not look
like open attacks. These dangers consist of the attampts to bring about
transformations and changes from the inside." (10)
Selected elements of the Turkish contra-guerrillas together with the generals
were all trained in contra-guerrilla schools in the
USA. The aims of this training are defined as follows: "The goal of military aid
is to educate soldiers from underdeveloped
countries in accordance with U.S. ideology and then to install them
advantageously in the leadership of their countries". (11)
During their training in the USA the contra-guerrilla forces "are taught about
social problems in their countries, and shown films
which demonstrate the aggression and subversion of the communists. They learn
how to handle explosives under the
supervision of green berets in Matamoros near the Mexican border, and they are
taught how to kill, stab or strangle somebody
silently, etc". (12). Other places where Turkish officials are trained are the
Escuela de los Americas in Panama, which is
attached to the U.S. base Southern Comfort, the Police Academy near Washington
and the Schongau and Oberammergau
bases in Germany. (*3)
Part of the Special Warfare Department is made up of officers from official
units known as A-units or Special Operations Units.
As the war became more intense, B-units were formed within the Special Warfare
Department, made up of professional
volunteer commando forces. Both types of units employ contra-guerrilla tactics.
The forces built by the Special Warfare Department have everywhere formed
organisations in the form of cells. These elements,
known as "patriots", are placed in front-line duties by being infiltrated as
agents-provocateurs into political parties,
administrative departments and opposition groups.
The strongest pillar of the Special Warfare Department is the Secret Service. In
Turkey the Secret Service is subordinate to the
General Staff and so also to the Special Warfare Department. The civilian
government has no control whatsoever over the
Secret Service. In Turkey there are various secret services: the MIT (National
Secret Service Organisation) and the Secret
Services of the Gendarmerie, the General Staff, the Foreign Ministry, the
Director of Security (the political police) and the
Presidential Office. These secret services hold quarterly meetings under the
umbrella of the National Secret Service
Coordinating Committee.
The MIT has the greatest influence of all these organisations. This Turkish
secret service organisation was originally called
MAH and was restructured and renamed MIT in 1965. The MIT is a branch of the CIA
and collaborates with the Israeli
secret service MOSSAD, the German BND and earlier (up to 1975) with the Iranian
SAVAK. Many operations of the
Special Warfare Department are carried out in collaboration with the MIT. A
third of the MIT's functionaries are members of
the armed forces and the rest are mostly retired military personnel. It is a
legal requirement that the chief of the MIT must be a
member of the armed forces. Since the founding of the MIT, all the heads have
been generals. They are appointed by the
General Staff or by the Special Warfare Department. The 1989 budget of the MIT
amounted to 42,745 million Turkish lira.
(*4)
Another organisation coming under the Special Warfare Department is the
Psychological Warfare Department. On November
9, 1983 this department became the TIB (Ministry for Social Relations). Its
headquarters are in Ankara. Its first chief was
Dogan Beyazit, who was at the same time also head of the Special Warfare
Department. He was in charge of propaganda
operations which the CIA program divided into "white, "grey" and "black"
propaganda. Many professors were employed within
the TIB. (*5)
The TIB has brought out numerous journals and pamphlets and even comics. It
formed satellite organisations under such names
as "The Institute for Research into Turkish Culture", "Turkish World Research
Institute", etc. The main aim of the TIB since the
'80s has been to develop the psychological front in the war against the PKK.
With this aim in mind, pamphlets are printed which try to blame the PKK for
massacres committed by the contra-guerrillas.
Such pamphlets are distributed in various languages in Europe, purporting to
originate from such ficticious publishers as "the
Union of Anatolian Women". Or else bogus leaflets attacking the PKK are
distributed under the names of existing or ficticious
political organisations. Posters and leaflets are put about which are full of
ridiculous propaganda such as those claiming that the
PKK is an Armenian organisation. Or television programmes and books are produced
which slander the PKK. In the towns of
Kurdistan professors hold seminars about how "Kurds are really Turks" etc. The
most effective institution from the point of
view of the TIB - that is the Psychological Warfare Department of the Special
Warfare Department - is the press. Turkish daily
newspapers such as "Hurriyet", "Milliyet", "Tercumann", "Turkiye" and "Sabah",
which have become semi-official organs of the
state, are pressured into carrying out systematic propaganda against the PKK.
Another area where the Special Warfare Department wields its influence is of
course the political parties. All state politicians
and all bourgeois parties in Turkey are under the control of the Special Warfare
Department. Here are just two examples:
Turkish President Suleyman Demirel was the first Turk to get a scholarship from
the Eisenhower Exchange Fellowship, which is
controlled by the CIA. Later he held for many years the agency rights for the
firm of Morrison, which built the death cells in
Vietnam. (*6) When Demirel was in the USA in 1963, he was sent into the Adalet
Partisi (Justice Party). In 1965 he became
the chairman of this party and is now State President.
Turgut Ozal, who was Prime Minister from 1983 to 1990 and President from 1990
until his death in 1993, was an official of
the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Special Warfare Department And Paramilitary MHP
During the 1970s the struggle for democracy was developing in Turkey. In
Kurdistan the struggle for national liberation was
growing. With the help of the MHP (National Action Party), which was brought
onto the scene in the 70s, hundreds of
students, workers, intellectuals, trades unionists and educationalists were
murdered: the president of DISK (the Federation of
Revolutionary Trades Unions) Kemal Turkler, the journalist Abdi Ipekci,
Professor Dr Bedri Karafakiroglu, professors Umit
Doganay and Cavit Orhan Tutengil, Umit Kaftancioglu, State Counsel Dogan Oz,
security chief Cevat Yurdakul, University
Professor Orhan Yavuz, Bedrettin Comert, Server Tanilli (who survived but
remained disabled), Chair Adana Chamber of
Agricultural Engineers Akin Ozdemir and hundreds more. In 1974 in Maras they
massacred inumerable Kurdish and Alevi
people - children, women and old folk and men. This preplanned act of genocide
opened the way for the military coup of
September 12, 1980.
It is know from the experiences of various countries that the CIA works together
with the police to organize paramilitary groups
in the tactics of irregular warfare. William Colby wrote: "To prevent Turkey
from falling into the hands of the communists, the
CIA gave support to anti-communist institutions". (13) Retired general Sezsi
Orkunt, ex-chief of the General Staff said: "The
Turkish armed forces were more worried about the Left than the Right. The Right
was organised in the MHP and its leader
Turkes was helped on his way". (14) When the MHP's Ankara headquarters were
searched at the time of the 1980 coup, the
"Contra-Guerrilla Assignment 31/15 on the Model Plan for Underground Cells" was
found there. (15) The MHP had obtained
this plan from Colonel Mehmet Alanyuva of the Agents Section of the Special
Warfare Department, the MHP's militants, who
were organised in accordance with this plan, went on to perpetuate a veritable
massacre against innocent people from the
opposition.
The CIA also employed the MHP militants for terrorist plots on an international
level. For example, the murderer of the
journalist Abdi Ipekci was the same man who in 1991 carried out the
assassination attempt on Pope John Paul.
The MHP is also organised in Europe, and particularly in Germany. Until 1976 it
was organised there under the same title.
After that in Europe they took on the title Avrupa Ulkucu Dernekleri Federasyonu
(Federation of National Associations in
Europe). The MHP's organisation in Germany maintains connections with the German
Secret Service. The journalist Ugur
Mumcu, who was assassinated in 1993, wrote: "These connections were set up in
Cologne by a German named Kannabin".
(16) The MHP has another patron in Germany - Rudi Nazar. He is a CIA agent who
was for many years active in Ankara and
was later transferred to Bonn. Jurgen Roth went into this matter in detail in
his book "Criminals Incorporated" and came to the
conclusion, based on information from a president of one of the republics of the
former Soviet Union, that the MHP is also
involved in the heroin trade in Germany.
General Haydar Saltik, one of those responsible for the September 12, 1980 coup,
later left the army and became Consul in
the Turkish consulate in Berne. He renewed his contacts with the Turkish
nationalists and sent 15,000 officers and MHP
militants, who came under the Special Warfare Department and had already had a
hand in many attacks against the Armenians,
to Azerbaijan. After their training, these militants were sent to Baku. The
attacks on the Kurdish population in Antalya and
other Turkish towns during the past year were also carried out by the MIT and
the MHP. The MHP is still the paramilitary
wing of the Special Warfare Department. This time, however, it was more
effective, since the entire state with all its constituent
parts has grown into an even more racist, anti-Kurdish and paramilitary
organisation.
The Operations Of The Turkish Contra-Guerrillas
The bloody work of the Special Warfare Department is so wide- ranging that we
can not go into everything here. We will,
therefore, go straight over to Kurdistan, where the contra- guerrillas are
employed in the front line against the national liberation
struggle. First, however, we would like to recount some of the decisive points
of the decisive points of the contra- guerrillas'
activities prior to 1980:
Agents from the Special Warfare Department threw a bomb into the house in
Thessallonika in Greece which was used as the
Mustafa Kemal Museum, and blamed this act on the Greek police. Consequently, on
the 6 and 7 of September 1955, fanatical
groups fired up by the contra-guerrillas wrecked Greek homes and businesses in
Istanbul.
The most important actions of the Special Warfare Department were the three
military coups. This Department was responsible
for the coup of May 27, 1967 and above all for the last two coups of the March
12, 1971 and September 12, 1980. The then
Foreign Minister Ihsan Sabri Caglayangil, who was invited to Teheran a few days
before March 12, 1971, learned from the
Shah of Iran that there was going to be a coup in Turkey. (17) The then
commander of the Turkish airforce, Muhsin Batur,
went the the USA just before the coup of September 12, 1980. Again the then
airforce commander Tahsin Sahinkaya flew to
the USA and the coup took place two days after his return. Carter, who was at
the opera when he heard about the coup,
called Paul Henze, the CIA agent responsible for Turkey, and told him: " Your
people have just made a coup". (18)
The torture chambers which opened in 1971 gave the contra- guerrillas an
important opportunity to gain practical experience.
The contra-guerrilla generals who took people to the torture chambers in
Ziverbay in Istanbul told their victims for the first time
that they were prisoners of the contra-guerrillas. The interrogations were
carried out by contra-guerrilla specialists called EBU
(Correct Information Officers). A team of interrogation specialists called the
DAL (Deep Investigation Laboratory) was set up
by the political police in Ankara. These torture specialists murdered or caused
permanent damage to hundreds of people. Later
on, these teams were dispatched all over Turkey and especially Kurdistan. In
1971 the contra-guerrillas' torture was directed
by General Faik Turun, Turgut Sonap and Memduh Unluturk. (*7)
The invasion of Cyprus was an action of the Special Warfare Department. In 1955
the Department set up a secret organisation
called the Turk Mukavemet Hareketi (Turkish Resistance Movement). This
organisation carried out systematic provocations in
Cyprus in order to prepare the conditions for the 1974 coup. To prepare for the
occupation of Cyprus, teams directed by
Hiram Abbas and the Special Warfare Department established themselves in Beirut,
from where they could organise activities
in Cyprus. The Cyprus invasion was organised by the then chief of the Special
Warfare Department Kemal Yemek. Cyprus
was the first serious test for the Turkish contra-guerrillas. After 1980
Kurdistan took the place of Cyprus in this respect.
The State Security Courts are a product of the Special Warfare Department and
they are assigned the task of restructuring the
judicial process to fit the demands of the contra-guerrillas. In accordance with
a directive of the contra-guerrillas, the the State
Security Courts aim "not to condemn the defendants according to the punishments
set out for the political crimes, but to
administer punishments as severe as those set out for murder and other crimes
against the person". (19) The detainees were
severely tortured and then came before a contra-guerrilla court. Most of the
judges have come from the military and are
therefore tools of the Special Warfare Department.
The murders and terrorist acts committed by the MHP were actions of the Special
Warfare Department. Their purpose was to
intimidate the opposition and prepare the conditions for a coup. The Special
Warfare Department was successful in this task:
on September 12, they carried out the military coup d'etat. This coup was the
most important action of the contra-guerrillas. All
arms of the state were reorganised on paramilitary lines. The Special Warfare
Department gained control over the underworld
(the Turkish mafia), the press, commerce, the judicial system, parliament, the
universities and all other areas of society. All
administrative organs and laws were restructured along the same lines.
Sources:
1. Interview with the President of the Turkish General Staff Dogan Gures,
"Milliyet" 5/6 September 1992 2. "Hurriyet" 26
November 1992 3. "Milliyet" 28 November 1990 4. "Cumhuriyet" 17 November 1990 5.
"Directive ST 31/15 for Operations
Against Irregular Forces" 6. "The Contra-Guerrillas and the MHP" Vol 1, Aydinlik
Yayinlari, p19 and Talat Turhan "The
Contra-Guerrilla Republic", p19 7. "The Contra-Guerrillas and the MHP", p16 8. "
The American Military Doctrine, Report of
the Rockerfeller Foundation", p356 9. "The Age of Imperialism", Harry Magdorff
(translated by M. Emin Doger., "CIA,
Contra-Guerrillas and Turkey"), p104 10. ibid. p122 11. McNamara, 1967 (US State
Department of Defense) 12. Franco
Salinas, "State of Emergency", pp82-88 13. "Cumhuriyet" 21 November 1990 14.
"Hurriyet" 19 November 1990 15. "Gunes"
17 November 1990 16. Ugur Mumcu "Pope-Mafia-Agca" p143 17. Cuneyit Arcayurek
"Coups and the Secret Services"
p160 18. ibid. p190 19. "Directive ST 31/15 for Operations Against Irregular
Forces"
Notes:
*1
The "Super-NATO" organisation was set up under the control of the CIA in all the
NATO countries. The headquarters of this
organisation was in Brussels and was named the Allied Coordination Committee
(ACC). Secret meetings were held annually in
which delegates from all the member countries took part. The official purpose of
the organisation is "to organise resistance using
irregular warfare methods in case of a communist occupation". The organisation
has at its disposal special funds and weapons
depots. It is not answerable for its activities under the laws of the individual
member states. The organisation's branch in Italy
was called "Gladio", in Germany "Anti-Communist Assault Unit", in Greece " Hide
of the Red Buck", in Belgium "Glavia". The
"Super- NATO" also set up branch organisations in non-NATO countries such as
Austria and Switzerland.
*2
Referring to contra-guerrilla warfare conducted by the USA, former U.S.
Secretary of State McNamara explained that
"partisan wars call for a change in our understanding of warfare. In regions
where partisan war has broken out, what is needed
is not a great number of military units and weapons, but rather small units who
have been well trained in guerrilla and
counter-guerrilla tactics and armed with special weapons".(8) The American Delta
Forces, the British Special Air Service
(SAS), the Italian Special Forces Section and the German GSG-9 are units of this
type. The former U.S. President Johnson
declared in 1964 that 344 contra-guerrilla units had been trained by the USA in
49 countries of the world.
*3
In the 70s the following persons, among others, who still occupy important
positions today, were members of the Turkish
police and secret service: Sekru Balci, Ilgaz Aykutlu, Kenan Koc, Umit Erdal,
Hiram Abbas (who was killed in 1990 [by
militants of the armed communist organization Devrimci Sol, was in the 70s one
of the three most influential persons in the
MIT), Mehmet Aymur (Abbas' right-hand man in the MIT), Hayri Kozakcioglu (who
was trained by Scotland Yard and in
1987 made Governor with Special Powers), Unal Erkan (at that time Kozakcioglu's
successor as "Supergovernor" in
diyarbakir).
*4
Divided among the 55 million people of the Turkish and Kurdish population, this
means 949 Turkish Lira per head that every
Turk and Kurd have to pay in order to finance the "work" of spying, torture and
murder of this gang of killers.
*5
Professors Abdulhaluk Cay, Ibrahim Kafescioglu, Bahattin Ogel, Ertugrul Zekai
Okte, Aydin Yalcin, among others.
*6
"In 1967 the CIA's budget for the funding of 'useful friends and elements'
abroad was raised to 10 million U.S. dollars per year.
Most of these funds flowed through our trade unions, student unions and special
institutions into foreign institutions. The use of
our trade unions and associations as a sort of screen prevented it from becoming
known that the source of these funds was in
reality the CIA". (Fron the book "CIA, Secret Services and Democracy" by the
former CIA chief Stanfield Turner).
*7
Faik Turun became an MP for the AP (Justice Party) in 1977. Turgut Sunalp became
a minister in parliament in 1982 as a
member of the MDP (National Democratic Party). The retired Memduh Unluturk was
killed by militants of the organization
Devrimci Sol (Revolutionary Left) in 1991.
(From Kurdistan Report #17 - February/March 1994)
Adanali you support the grey wolves. You claim Kurds are "narcos" yet what about
your government MHP/Grey Wolves?
"A great loss to the political life of Turkey."
Demirel about the death of the Nazi-sympathiser and former leader of the fascist
MHP and its Grey Wolves, Turkes
Grey Wolves
Region:
Middle East
Status:
Active
Established:
1983
Leader:
Abdullah Chatli ( killed in a 1996 car accident in Turkey)
Strength:
Unknown
History/Notes:
The National Movement Party ("Milliyetci Hareket Partisi", MHP, aka Nationalist
Action Party), founded by Alparslan Turkes
in the 1960s, like all other parties, was banned after the military coup of
September 12, 1980. The National Workers Party
("Milliyetci Calisma Partisi", MCP) was founded in 1983 as a successor to the
MHP, which as of 1992 is once again known as
the MHP. The MHP supports the government's military approach to an 11-year
insurgency by the Kurdistan Workers Party
(PKK) in southeast Turkey, and it opposes any concessions to Kurdish
separatists.
The unofficial militant arm of the MHP -- known as the Grey Wolves after a
legendary she-wolf that led captive Central Asian
Turks to freedom -- has been involved in street killings and gunbattles with
leftists. Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish gunman who
shot and wounded Pope John Paul II in 1981, was a former Grey Wolf. The 1996
accidental death of the Grey Wolves'
leader, Chatli, brought to light the relations between Turkish mafia and the
government.
Stated Goal(s):
A significant pillar of the group's ideology is the creation of the Turan, the
Great Turkish Empire, including Turkish peoples in
the countries of the former Soviet Union.
Location:
Turkey
Area of Operation:
Turkey, Mediterranean area
Terrorist Acts:
July, 1996 - assassination of Kutlu Adali, a prominent Turkish Cypriot
journalist critical of the Denktash regime and, more
generally, of Turkey's policies in Cyprus.
1996 - Abdullah Chatli, the leader of the Grey Wolves, was are responsible for
arson fires in Greece's islands.
Support:
Had ties to former Government of Nicaragua and possibly Cuba.
http://webhome.idirect.com/~mullen/TG_Grey_Wolves.htm
-----------
THE "GREY WOLVES" WERE FINANCED BY HOLLAND
The Hague, 17/05/1999 (MPA)
The Dutch local administration organization was the financial backer of the
Turkish extreme right "Grey Wolves" organization
from 1990 until 1996. The revelation was made by the Dutch newspaper "Algemeen
Dagblad" in a report signed by Frank
Renout and published in the May 15 issue. Based on facts provided by a research
conducted by the Dutch committee against
fascism and racism, the municipality of Utrecht had financed a number of
organizations of the Turkish extreme right "Grey
Wolves" in the period 1990-1996.
The newspaper published city council decisions according to which, the Turkish
Cultural Center, which in reality is an
extreme-right gang having links with the extreme right party MHP as well as with
the "Grey Wolves", has received 24.000
guilders.
The news report also mentions the statements made by Turkish-born criminology
professor in the University of Utrecht Mr.
Yesilgoz, who is specialising on issues concerning the Turkish organized crime
according to which, the financing of the "Grey
Wolves" is a usual phenomenon in Holland given the fact that the Turkish right
extremists often manage to mislead the Dutch
authorities over their true intentions.
--------
On the Trail of Turkey's Terrorist Grey Wolves
By Martin A. Lee
In broad daylight on May 2, 50 armed men set upon a television station in
Istanbul with gunfire. The attackers unleashed a
fusillade of bullets and shouted slogans supporting Turkey's Deputy Prime
Minister Tansu Ciller.
The gunmen were outraged over the station's broadcast of a TV report critical of
Ciller, a close U.S. ally who had come under
criticism for stonewalling investigations into collusion between state security
forces and Turkish criminal elements.
Miraculously, no one was injured in the attack, but the headquarters of
Independent Flash TV were left pock-marked with
bullet-holes and smashed windows. The gunfire also sent an unmistakable message
to Turkish journalists and legislators: don't
challenge Ciller and other high-level Turkish officials when they cover up state
secrets.
For several months, Turkey had been awash in dramatic disclosures connecting
high Turkish officials to the right-wing Grey
Wolves, the terrorist band which has preyed on the region for years. In 1981, a
terrorist from the Grey Wolves attempted to
assassinate Pope John Paul II in Vatican City.
But at the center of the mushrooming Turkish scandal is whether Turkey, a
strategically placed NATO country, allowed mafiosi
and right-wing extremists to operate death squads and to smuggle drugs with
impunity. A Turkish parliamentary commission is
investigating these new charges.
The rupture of state secrets in Turkey also could release clues to other major
Cold War mysteries. Besides the attempted papal
assassination, the Turkish disclosures could shed light on the collapse of the
Vatican bank in 1982 and the operation of a
clandestine pipeline that pumped sophisticated military hardware into the Middle
East -- apparently from NATO stockpiles in
Europe -- in exchange for heroin sold by the Mafia in the United States.
The official Turkish inquiry was triggered by what could have been the opening
scene of a spy novel: a dramatic car crash on a
remote highway near the village of Susurluk, 100 miles southwest of Istanbul. On
Nov. 3, 1996, three people were crushed to
death when their speeding black Mercedes hit a tractor and overturned. The crash
killed Husseyin Kocadag, a top police
official who commanded Turkish counter-insurgency units.
But it was Kocadag's company that stunned the nation. The two other dead were
Abdullah Catli, a convicted fugitive who was
wanted for drug trafficking and murder, and Catli's girlfriend, Gonca Us, a
Turkish beauty queen turned mafia hit-woman. A
fourth occupant, who survived the crash, was Kurdish warlord Sedat Bucak, whose
militia had been armed and financed by the
Turkish government to fight Kurdish separatists.
At first, Turkish officials claimed that the police were transporting two
captured criminals. But evidence seized at the crash site
indicated that Abdullah Catli, the fugitive gangster, had been given special
diplomatic credentials by Turkish authorities. Catli
was carrying a government-approved weapons permit and six ID cards, each with a
different name. Catli also possessed
several handguns, silencers and a cache of narcotics, not the picture of a
subdued criminal.
When it became obvious that Catli was a police collaborator, not a captive, the
Turkish Interior Minister resigned. Several
high-ranking law enforcement officers, including Istanbul's police chief, were
suspended. But the red-hot scandal soon
threatened to jump that bureaucratic firebreak and endanger the careers of other
senior government officials.
Grey Wolves Terror
The news of Catli's secret police ties were all the more scandalous given his
well-known role as a key leader of the Grey
Wolves, a neo-fascist terrorist group that has stalked Turkey since the late
1960s. A young tough who wore black leather
pants and looked like Turkey's answer to Elvis Presley, Catli graduated from
street gang violence to become a brutal enforcer
for the Grey Wolves. He rose quickly within their ranks, emerging as
second-in-command in 1978. That year, Turkish police
linked him to the murder of seven trade-union activists and Catli went
underground.
Three years later, the Grey Wolves gained international notoriety when Mehmet
Ali Agca, one of Catli's closest collaborators,
shot and nearly killed Pope John Paul II in St. Peter's Square on May 13, 1981.
Catli was the leader of a fugitive terrorist cell
that included Agca and a handful of other Turkish neo-fascists.
Testifying in September 1985 as a witness at the trial of three Bulgarians and
four Turks charged with complicity in the papal
shooting in Rome, Catli (who was not a defendant) disclosed that he gave Agca
the pistol that wounded the pontiff. Catli had
previously helped Agca escape from a Turkish jail, where Agca was serving time
for killing a national newspaper editor. In
addition to harboring Agca, Catli supplied him with fake IDs and directed Agca's
movements in West Germany, Switzerland,
and Austria for several months prior to the papal attack.
Catli enjoyed close links to Turkish drug mafiosi, too. His Grey Wolves henchmen
worked as couriers for the Turkish mob
boss Abuzer Ugurlu. At Ugurlu's behest, Catli's thugs criss-crossed the infamous
smugglers' route passing through Bulgaria.
Those routes were the ones favored by smugglers who reportedly carried NATO
military equipment to the Middle East and
returned with loads of heroin.
Judge Carlo Palermo, an Italian magistrate based in Trento, discovered these
smuggling operations while investigating
arms-and-drug trafficking from Eastern Europe to Sicily. Palermo disclosed that
large quantities of sophisticated NATO
weaponry -- including machine guns, Leopard tanks and U.S.-built Cobra assault
helicopters -- were smuggled from Western
Europe to countries in the Middle East during the 1970s and early 1980s.
According to Palermo's investigation, the weapon delivers were often made in
exchange for consignments of heroin that filtered
back, courtesy of the Grey Wolves and other smugglers, through Bulgaria to
northern Italy. There, the drugs were received by
Mafia middlemen and transported to North America. Turkish morphine base supplied
much of the Sicilian-run "Pizza
connection," which flooded the U.S. and Europe with high-grade heroin for
several years.
[While it is still not clear how the NATO supplies entered the pipeline, other
investigations have provided some clues.
Witnesses in the October Surprise inquiry into an alleged Republican-Iranian
hostage deal in 1980 claimed that they were
allowed to select weapons from NATO stockpiles in Europe for shipment to Iran.
[Iranian arms dealer Houshang Lavi claimed that he selected spare parts for Hawk
anti-aircraft batteries from NATO bases
along the Belgian-German border. Another witness, American arms broker William
Herrmann, corroborated Lavi's account of
NATO supplies going to Iran.
[Even former NATO commander Alexander Haig confirmed that NATO supplies could
have gone to Iran in the early 1980s
while he was secretary of state. "It wouldn't be preposterous if a nation,
Germany, for example, decided to let some of their
NATO stockpiles be diverted to Iran," Haig said in an interview. For more
details, see Robert Parry's Trick or Treason. ]
A Vatican Mystery
Italian magistrates described the network they had uncovered as the "world's
biggest illegal arms trafficking organization." They
linked it to Middle Eastern drug empires and to prestigious banking circles in
Italy and Europe. At the center of this operation, it
appeared, was an obscure import-export firm in Milan called Stibam International
Transport. The head of Stibam, a Syrian
businessman named Henri Arsan, also functioned as an informant for the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration, according to
several Italian news outlets.
With satellite offices in New York, London, Zurich, and Sofia, Bulgaria, Stibam
officials recycled their profits through Banco
Ambrosiano, Italy's largest private bank which had close ties to the Vatican
until its sensational collapse in 1982. The collapse
of Banco Ambrosiano came on the heels of the still unsolved death of its furtive
president, Roberto Calvi, whose body was
found hanging underneath Blackfriar's Bridge in London in June 1982. While
running Ambrosiano, Calvi, nicknamed "God's
banker," served as advisor to the Vatican's extensive fiscal portfolio.
At the same time in the mid- and late 1970s, Calvi's bank handled most of
Stibam's foreign currency transactions and owned
the building that housed Stibam's Milanese headquarters. In effect, the Vatican
Bank -- by virtue of its interlocking relationship
with Banco Ambrosiano -- was fronting for a gigantic contraband operation that
specialized in guns and heroin.
The bristling contraband operation that traversed Bulgaria was a magnet for
secret service agents on both sides of the Cold
War divide. Crucial, in this regard, was the role of Kintex, a Sofia-based,
state-controlled import-export firm that worked in
tandem with Stibam and figured prominently in the arms trade. Kintex was riddled
with Bulgarian and Soviet spies -- a fact
which encouraged speculation that the KGB and its Bulgarian proxies were behind
the plot against the pope.
But Western intelligence also had its hooks into the Bulgarian smuggling scene,
as evidenced by the CIA's use of Kintex to
channel weapons to the Nicaraguan contras in the early 1980s.
The Reagan administration jumped on the papal assassination attempt as a
propaganda opportunity, rather than helping to
unravel the larger mystery. Although the CIA's link to the arms-for-drugs
traffic in Bulgaria was widely known in espionage
circles, hard-line U.S. and Western European officials promoted instead a bogus
conspiracy theory that blamed the papal
shooting on a communist plot.
The so-called "Bulgarian connection" became one of the more effective
disinformation schemes hatched during the Reagan era.
It reinforced the notion of the Soviet Union as an evil empire. But the apparent
hoax also diverted attention from extensive --
and potentially embarrassing -- ties between U.S. intelligence and the Turkey's
narco-trafficking ultra-right.
Fabrication of the conspiracy theory might have even involved suborning perjury.
During his September 1985 court testimony in
Rome, Catli asserted that he had been approached by the West German BND spy
organization, which allegedly promised him
a large sum of money if he implicated the Bulgarian secret service and the KGB
in the attempt on the pope's life.
Five years later, ex-CIA analyst Melvin A. Goodman disclosed that his
colleagues, under pressure from CIA higher-ups,
skewed their reports to try to lend credence to the contention that the Soviets
were involved. "The CIA had no evidence linking
the KGB to the plot," Goodman told the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Friends of the Wolves
Duane "Dewey" Clarridge, the CIA station chief in Rome at the time of the papal
shooting, had previously been posted in
Ankara. Clarridge was the CIA's man-on-the-spot in Turkey in the 1970s when
armed bands of Grey Wolves unleashed a
wave of bomb attacks and shootings that killed thousands of people, including
public officials, journalists, students, lawyers,
labor organizers, social democrats, left-wing activists and ethnic Kurds. [In
his 1997 memoirs, A Spy for All Seasons,
Clarridge makes no reference to the Turkish unrest or to the pope shooting.]
During those violent 1970s, the Grey Wolves operated with the encouragement and
protection of the Counter-Guerrilla
Organization, a section of the Turkish Army's Special Warfare Department.
Headquartered in the U.S. Military Aid Mission
building in Ankara, the Special Warfare Department received funds and training
from U.S. advisors to create "stay behind"
squads comprised of civilian irregulars. They were supposed to go underground
and engage in acts of sabotage if the Soviets
invaded.
Similar Cold War paramilitary units were established in every NATO member state,
covering all non-Communist Europe like a
spider web that would entangle Soviet invaders. But instead of preparing for
foreign enemies, U.S.-sponsored stay-behind
operatives in Turkey and several European countries used their skills to attack
domestic opponents and foment violent
disorders. Some of those attacks were intended to spark right-wing military
coups.
In the late 1970s, former military prosecutor and Turkish Supreme Court Justice
Emin Deger documented collaboration
between the Grey Wolves and the government's counter-guerrilla forces as well as
the close ties of the latter to the CIA.
Turkey's Counter-Guerrilla Organization handed out weapons to the Grey Wolves
and other right-wing terrorist groups. These
shadowy operations mainly engaged in the surveillance, persecution and torture
of Turkish leftists, according to retired army
commander Talat Turhan, the author of three books on counter-guerrilla
activities in Turkey.
But the extremists launched one wave of political violence which provoked a 1980
coup by state security forces that deposed
Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit. The Turkish security forces cited the need to
restore order which had been shattered by rightist
terrorist groups secretly sponsored by those same state security forces.
Cold War Roots
Since the earliest days of the Cold War, Turkey's strategic importance derived
from its geographic position as the West's
easternmost bulwark against Soviet communism. In an effort to weaken the Soviet
state, the CIA also used pan-Turkish
militants to incite anti-Soviet passions among Muslim Turkish minorities inside
the Soviet Union, a strategy that strengthened ties
between U.S. intelligence and Turkey's ultra-nationalists.
Though many of Turkish ultra-nationalists were anti-Western as well as
anti-Soviet, the Cold War realpolitik compelled them to
support a discrete alliance with NATO and U.S. intelligence. Among the Turkish
extremists collaborating in this anti-Soviet
strategy were the National Action Party and its paramilitary youth group, the
Grey Wolves.
Led by Colonel Alpaslan Turkes, the National Action Party espoused a fanatical
pan-Turkish ideology that called for reclaiming
large sections of the Soviet Union under the flag of a reborn Turkish empire.
Turkes and his revanchist cohorts had been
enthusiastic supporters of Hitler during World War II. "The Turkish race above
all others" was their Nazi-like credo. In a
similar vein, Grey Wolf literature warned of a vast Jewish-Masonic-Communist
conspiracy and its newspapers carried ads for
Turkish translations of Nazi texts.
The pan-Turkish dream and its anti-Soviet component also fueled ties between the
Grey Wolves and the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc
of Nations (ABN), a CIA-backed coalition led by erstwhile fascist collaborators
from East Europe. Ruzi Nazar, a leading
figure in the Munich-based ABN, had a long-standing relationship with the CIA
and the Turkish ultra-nationalists. In the 1950s
and 1960s, Nazar was employed by Radio Free Europe, a CIA-founded propaganda
effort.
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the shifting geopolitical terrain
created new opportunities -- political and financial --
for Colonel Turkes and his pan-Turkish crusaders. After serving a truncated
prison term in the 1980s for his role in
masterminding the political violence that convulsed Turkey, Turkes and several
of his pan-Turkish colleagues were permitted to
resume their political activities.
In 1992, the colonel visited his long lost Turkish brothers in newly independent
Azerbaijan and received a hero's welcome. In
Baku, Turkes endorsed the candidacy of Grey Wolf sympathizer Abulfex Elcibey,
who was subsequently elected president of
Azerbaijan and appointed a close Grey Wolf ally as his Interior Minister.
The Gang Returns
By this time, Abdullah Catli was also back in circulation after several years of
incarceration in France and Switzerland for
heroin trafficking. In 1990, he escaped from a Swiss jail cell and rejoined the
neo-fascist underground in Turkey.
Despite his documented links to the papal shooting and other terrorist attacks,
Catli was pressed into service as a death squad
organizer for the Turkish government's dirty war against the Kurds who have long
struggled for independence inside both
Turkey and Iraq. Turkish Army spokesmen acknowledged that the Counter-Guerrilla
Organization (renamed the Special
Forces Command in 1992) was involved in the escalating anti-Kurdish campaign.
Turkey got a wink and a nod from Washington as a quid pro quo for cooperating
with the United States during the Gulf War.
Turkish jets bombed Kurdish bases inside Iraqi territory. Meanwhile, on the
ground, anti-Kurdish death squads were
assassinating more than 1,000 non-combatants in southeastern Turkey. Hundreds of
other Kurds "disappeared" while in police
custody. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the European Parliament
all condemned the Turkish security forces
for these abuses.
Still, there was no hard evidence that Turkey's security forces had recruited
criminal elements as foot soldiers. That evidence
surfaced only on Nov. 3, 1996, when Catli' died in the fateful auto accident
near Susurluk. Strewn amidst the roadside
wreckage was proof of what many journalists and human rights activists had long
suspected -- that successive Turkish
governments had protected narco-traffickers, sheltered terrorists and sponsored
gangs of killers to suppress Turkish dissidents
and Kurdish rebels.
Colonel Turkes confirmed that Catli had performed clandestine duties for
Turkey's police and military. "On the basis of my
state experience, I admit that Catli has been used by the state," said Turkes.
Catli had been cooperating "in the framework of a
secret service working for the good of the state," Turkes insisted.
U.S.-backed Turkish officials, including Tansu Ciller, Prime Minister from
1993-1996, also defended Catli after the car crash.
"I don't know whether he is guilty or not," Ciller stated, "but we will always
respectfully remember those who fire bullets or
suffer wounds in the name of this country, this nation and this state."
Eighty members of the Turkish parliament have urged the federal prosecutor to
file charges of criminal misconduct against
Ciller, who currently serves as Turkey's Foreign Minister, as well as Deputy
Prime Minister. They asserted that the Susurluk
incident provided Turkey "with a historic opportunity to expose unsolved murders
and the drugs and arms smuggling that have
been going on in our country for years."
The scandal momentarily reinvigorated the Turkish press, which unearthed
revelations about criminals and police officials
involved in the heroin trade. But journalists also have been victims of death
squads in recent years. The violent attack on
Independent Flash TV was a reminder. Prosecutors have faced pressure, too, from
superiors who are not eager to delve into
state secrets. Thus far, no charges have been lodged against Ciller.
Across the Atlantic in Washington, the U.S. government has yet to acknowledge
any responsibility for the Turkish Frankenstein
that U.S. Cold War strategy helped to create. When asked about the Susurluk
affair, a State Department spokesperson said it
was "an internal Turkish matter." He declined further comment. ~
Martin A. Lee's book on neo-fascism, The Beast Reawakens, will be published by
Little, Brown in July.
(c) Copyright 1999
---------------
Al-Ahram Weekly
22 - 28 April 1999
Issue No. 426
Grey wolves rising
By Gareth Jenkins
Provisional results in Turkey's general elections suggest that the Democratic
Left Party (DLP) of incumbent Prime Minister
Bulent Ecevit will be the largest party in parliament, with 22.1 per cent of the
vote and 133 seats in the 550-seat unicameral
assembly. But, contrary to all pre-election predictions, the ultra-nationalist
National Movement Party (NMP) finished second
with 18.2 per cent (130 seats), ahead of the Islamist Virtue Party (VP) with
15.1 per cent (112 seats), the centre-right
Motherland Party (MP) with 13.4 per cent (88 seats) and the conservative True
Path Party (TPP) with 12.5 per cent (85
seats).
For the first time in its 75-year history, the social democrat Republican
People's Party (RPP) has been excluded from
parliament, winning only 8.5 per cent of the vote, well below the 10 per cent
threshold for representation in the assembly.
The victory of Ecevit's DLP had been widely expected. A crusty 74-year-old
former poet and journalist, Ecevit began his
political career as a social democrat back in the 1960s. But while he has
retained the populist economic policies of his socialist
youth, during the 1990s his domestic and foreign policies have shifted
increasingly towards the nationalist right.
Despite persistent rumours of ill health and allegations that the DLP is
effectively controlled by Ecevit's wife Rahsan, who has a
daunting reputation for purging dissenters in an environment where political
leaders and their families become suddenly and
fabulously wealthy, Ecevit has built the latter stages of his career on a
reputation for personal honesty.
His public standing received a huge boost in February 1999 when US intelligence
delivered Kurdish separatist leader Abdullah
Ocalan to Turkish agents in Kenya during Ecevit's term as caretaker prime
minister. It was enhanced further by his refusal to
make party political capital out of Ocalan's capture during the election
campaign.
Ocalan's capture had been expected to give Ecevit a slight edge over the
Islamist VP, which, in the run-up to the polls,
appeared to be the DLP's main challenger ahead of the centrist MP and TPP.
But the stunning surge in support for the NMP was totally unexpected and appears
to indicate a radical shift in the Turkish
political spectrum towards the nationalist right. Not only does the DLP have a
strong nationalist element but there is also a
strong nationalist component in the Islamism espoused by the VP.
Yet the NMP more than doubled its share of the vote from eight per cent in the
last elections in December 1995 to more than
18 per cent on 18 April. The vote won by parties of the centre-right has
collapsed from a total of 51 per cent in 1991 to 39 per
cent in 1995 and 26 per cent in 1999.
The NMP grew out of the nationalist movements of the 1960s and 1970s when
militants, calling themselves 'Grey Wolves' after
the legendary Grey Wolf which is said to have led the Turks out of Central Asia
into Anatolia, fought a dirty civil war against
Turkish leftists. During the 1990s the NMP has sought to present itself as a
mainstream political party, although it has continued
to be dogged by allegations of links to organised crime, particularly Turkey's
powerful narcotics smugglers, and death squads
used to assassinate alleged supporters of the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party
(PKK).
NMP officials admit that the war against the PKK has triggered an increase in
support for the party, which has been fuelled by
Turkey's increasing international isolation, particularly since it was rejected
by the European Union at the Luxembourg summit in
December 1997. There is also little doubt that by not being represented in the
previous parliament, the NMP has been able to
distance itself from the widespread public perception of politicians as corrupt
and self-serving. Its inclusion of Islam as a
component of Turkish national identity has helped it to attract the religious
vote and present itself as an alternative to the VP.
The NMP is also very strong among the young. Initial estimates suggest that in
the 18 April elections 60 to 70 per cent of the
4.5 million new voters supported the NMP. Yet the party's appeal seems to have
been its image rather than its policies. Its
election manifesto, which was only announced two weeks before the polls, was
primarily composed of vague rhetoric rather
than specific policy proposals.
But the NMP is likely to hold the balance of power in the new parliament. The
DLP and MP have already indicated that they
will be prepared to cooperate in a coalition government, while the VP has made
it clear that its preferred partner would by the
TPP. Each of the two blocs needs NMP support if it is to secure a majority in
parliament.
"There will be a coalition government and we believe that the NMP will form part
of that coalition," said Devlet Bahceli, the
soft-spoken 51-year-old former economics professor who has led the NMP since the
death of its founder Alparslan Turkes in
April 1997.
But Bahceli has refused to speculate on what price the NMP might ask in return
for its support. "At the moment the NMP is a
closed box," said Professor Ergun Ozbudun of Bilkent University. "We don't know
what is inside."
Bulent Ecevit has already implicitly signalled his willingness to work with the
NMP. "The age of ideological polarisation is over,"
he said.
But some in the NMP are not so sure. They note that beneath the urbane image of
the party's current leadership there are still
radical elements who have not forgotten the struggles of the 1960s and 1970s
when the NMP and the Ecevits were on different
sides. "We could probably work with Bulent Ecevit," said a high-ranking party
official. "He appears to have changed. But the
obstacle could be Rahsan. She still hasn't forgotten the bloodshed."
The rise of the NMP has triggered alarm bells in the capitals of both Turkey's
allies and its traditional foes. Russian officials
have expressed concern that the NMP has still not abandoned its old dreams of a
belt of Turkish influence stretching across
Central Asia. The party has also been consistently hostile to the Arab states,
which it accuses of betraying the Ottoman Empire
during World War I. The EU is worried that the participation of the NMP in
government may deal a fatal blow to Turkey's
already strained relations with Brussels and halt, or even reverse, the recent
tentative improvement in Turkey's human rights
record.
In the short-term, perhaps the person who should be most worried is imprisoned
PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan. The NMP has
repeatedly insisted that Ocalan should be executed. "Ocalan to the gallows" was
one of the party's most popular election
slogans.
http://www.ahram.org.eg/weekly/1999/426/re1.htm
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Grey Wolves
The National Movement Party ("Milliyetci Hareket Partisi", MHP, aka Nationalist
Action Party), founded by Alparslan Turkes
in the 1960s, like all other parties, was banned after the military coup of
September 12, 1980. The National Workers Party
("Milliyetci Calisma Partisi", MCP) was founded in 1983 as a successor to the
MHP, which as of 1992 is once again known as
the MHP. A significant pillar of the MHP's ideology is the creation of the
Turan, the Great Turkish Empire, including Turkish
peoples in the countries of the former Soviet Union. The MHP supports the
government's military approach to an 11-year
insurgency by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in southeast Turkey, and it
opposes any concessions to Kurdish
separatists.
The unofficial militant arm of the MHP -- known as the Grey Wolves after a
legendary she-wolf that led captive Central Asian
Turks to freedom -- has been involved in street killings and gunbattles with
leftists. Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish gunman who
shot and wounded Pope John Paul II in 1981, was a former Grey Wolf. The Grey
Wolves have been accused of assassinating,
on July 6, 1996, the prominent Turkish Cypriot journalist Kutlu Adali, because
of his criticism of the Denktash regime and,
more generally, of Turkey's policies in Cyprus. In 1996 a turkish deputy from
Tansu Ciller's True Path Party (DYP) revealed
that Abdullah Chatli, the leader of the Grey Wolves, was are responsible for
arson fires in Greece's islands. Catli was killed in a
1996 car accident in Turkey which brought to light the relations between Turkish
mafia and the government.
http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/grey_wolves.htm
---------
Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi
Logo
English name
Nationalist Movement Party (or: Nationalist Action Party)
Party leader
Devlet Bahçeli
Founded
In the late 60s by Alpaslan Turkes (1917-1997), a former propaganda officer of
the Turkish army convicted for "racist
activities" in 1944 and described in a Gestapo report as "the Führer of
panturkism".
This party is in fact the successor of the Republican Peasant Party. Turkes
became vice Prime Minister in the cabinet of
Suleyman Demirel 1975. In 1978, he declared in Berlin, in front of an audience
of more than 1,500 people, that all Armenians,
Kurds and Jews had to be exterminated. After the military putsh of 1980, the MHP
was outlawed and his leader thrown into
prison. It reemerged in 1987 when the ban was lifted. Since then, it has earned
considerable electoral support.
% of vote (*)
18.1
Seats in national Parliament
129 (550)
In government
1975-1980; Spring 1999-
Publication
Ortadogu
Website
www.mhp.org.tr
http://users.belgacom.net/gc192975/turkey.htm
---------
Turkish Fascists: The MHP
From Arm the Spirit. 3 January, 1995
The National Movement Party ("Milliyetci Hareket Partisi", MHP), founded by
Alparslan Turkes in the 1960s, can already
look back on an active history. This article, however, concerns itself with
contemporary information.
The MHP In The 1980s
After the military coup of September 12, 1980, the MHP, like all other parties,
was banned. Turkes, who was arrested shortly
after the putsch and put on trial, was released from prison for health reasons
in April 1985 and sentenced in 1987 to an
11-year prison term, which he did not have to serve on account of an amnesty law
which was passed.
In the meantime, the National Workers Party ("Milliyetci Calisma Partisi", MCP)
was founded in 1983 as a successor to the
MHP. Other former MHP members had already joined the ranks of other parties,
such as the Motherland Party (ANAP) of T.
Ozal. Turkes became chairman of the MCP after the ban on political activity
against certain party functionaries was lifted after a
(close) referendum on September 6, 1987. As of 1992, the party has returned to
its tradition in both words and deeds and is
once again known as the MHP.
Elections
Initially, the MCP/MHP did not have much success in elections. An election
alliance with the Islamic fundamentalist Welfare
Party (RP) of N. Erbakan (and another small party, the IDP) won close to 17% of
the vote in parliamentary elections on
October 22, 1991. But the MHP's share of these votes was probably quite small.
After the elections, the alliance fell apart,
partly since no further long-term cooperation was planned.
During regional elections in March 1994, the MHP won close to 8% of the vote
(compared to just over 4% in 1989). The
party won the most votes in the following provinces: Kastamonu, Cankiri, Yozgat,
Kirsehir, Kars, and Erzincan (in 1989:
Kirikkale, Yozgat, Erzincan, and Elazig). There were, therefore, MHP governors
in 6 of the country's 76 provinces.
Anti-Kurdish Hatred
A significant portion of the MHP's election propaganda, and most of its public
activity in general, is dedicated to spreading
anti-Kurdish hatred. At the parliamentary political level, the MHP plays an
important role in formulating nationalist state
propaganda, which has been directed against the Kurdish people more and more
since the 1980s, particulary through creating
a fiendish image of the PKK.
For example, in 1992, Turkes stated that the "separatists", in other words the
PKK, were been trained in camps located in
Greek-controlled southern Cyprus. (This connecting of "old" enemies with
contemporary themes is a favorite activity of Turkes.
He thereby draws the Greeks into the matter, too. For a while, Turkish
newspapers spread rumors that PKK members were
primarily Armenians.)
That same year, Turkes stated publically once again that the Kurds had descended
from the Turkish "race".
"Every vote for the MHP is a blow against the PKK", Turkes said, during an
election rally before the regional elections in
March 1994, as he made the Grey Wolves hand-sign with his hands. (MHP members
sometimes operate under the name
"Bozkurt", which means Grey Wolves. - trans.)
The Great Turkish Empire: Turan
Another significant pillar of the MHP's ideology is the foolish dream of
creating the Turan, the Great Turkish Empire. Thus, they
pay close attention to developments in the countries of the former Soviet Union
where so-called Turkish peoples live, namely
Azerbaidjan, Turkmenistan, Kazachstan, Uzbekistan, and Kirgistan. The "Basbug"
(a word which roughly means leader, in this
case Turkes - trans.) is not an unknown figure in those lands.
Appearances
More important than election results in the MHP's influence on state
institutions, and this influence is not insignificant. But the
MHP's election success in March 1994 has made the party more bold. According to
reports from people who recently visited
Turkey, MHP fascists are now appearing publically more than they ever have in
the past; they even put Grey Wolves symbols
on their cars. Attacks on leftists and unfavored student associations at various
universities have not only been carried out by
Islamic fundamentalists over the past few years, but also by Grey Wolves as
well.
(Source: Inisiyatif #5)
"Grey Wolves" Gather In Germany
On November 26, 1994, more than 10,000 members (organizers put the number as
high as 30,000) of the Turkish
ultra-nationalist organization MHP (National Movement Party) gathered in the
German town of Sindelfingen to hear speeches
by their leader, Alparslan Turkes. Turkish fascists from all across Germany, as
well as from Austria and The Netherlands,
attended the event. Turkish prime minister Ciller sent her greetings to the
event via telephone, thus clearly illustrasting the level
of close cooperation which exists between the Turkish government and the Turkish
far-right.
The MHP, also known by the name "Bozkurt" (Grey Wolves), stands for racist,
fascist terror. Human rights experts in Turkey
make the organization responsible for more than 4,000 murders, primarily of
Kurds, Turkish leftists, and progressive journalists
and union leaders. Its most deadly action was an attack on the May Day rally in
Istanbul in 1977 which left 35 people dead and
more than 200 wounded. Today, the Turkish army and special forces actively
recruit MHP members to fight in special
commando units in Turkey's dirty war against the Kurdish national liberation
struggle.
-----------
PULSE of TURKEY No: 104 GOVERNMENT WITH MHP – TIME TO BE TIMID
The notorious background of the MHP with their previous ganging up in the State
mechanism is one of the biggest worries and
possible weaknesses of the prospective tripartite Government under PM Bulent
Ecevit. Will there be any radical foreign policy
changes in Turkey with the MHP’s influence? Abdullah Ocalan’s trial may be the
first indicator.
-----------
Designer fascism or rebirth of the Grey Wolves?
In the Turkish parliamentary election on April 18, the openly fascist
Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) gained 18 per cent of
the vote making it a close second party in the contest. The Democratic Left
Party (DSP) of Prime Minister Ecevit won a mere
22 per cent, scraping into first place..
At the last election the MHP, also known as the Grey Wolves received 8 per cent
, and therefore did not have even one MP in
the last parliament as it did not pass the 10 per cent bar nationally.
The Grey Wolves take a very hard line on the Kurdish and Cyprus issues. They
fully support Turkey’s annexation of part of
Cyprus and deny the very existence of Kurds as a people.
It is virtually certain that the Nationalist Movement Party will be part of the
next government coalition. This surge in support for
this dangerous, far right party took place against all predictions at the
expense of other right wing contenders and the Islamist
party.
About 12 groups of people from various European countries travelled to Turkey as
independent monitors. Alain Hertzman, one
of those who went from Britain, explains.
There are two main reasons for the staggering increase in the MHP vote. One was
that voters refused to vote for the parties in
power, as they had not kept their promises to sort out the economic crisis.
The second was the effect of the "Falkland factor", in this case, the arrest of
Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the Kurdish
guerrilla struggle. Ocalan’s kidnapping by the Turkish state in breach of
international law after his trek round Europe seeking
political asylum, has strengthened Turkish nationalism. The preparations for his
show trial due to start on May 31 are whipping
up further anti-Kurdish bigotry.
The MHP’s slogan during the election campaign was "Turkey, love it or leave it".
Ecevit’s DSP ran a very nationalistic
campaign but were not able to keep pace with the Grey Wolves enough to undercut
their support.
Fazilet, the Islamic party, received 15.5 per cent, a loss of some 3 per cent
since the last election. It is quite likely that it was
due to their watering down of their previous hard-line fundamentalist line. A
good part of their vote went to the MHP.
The Istanbul stock market dropped by 6.58 points in response to the results. The
bourgeoisie is definitely worried that social
tension will increase sharply and will affect profits.
In Southeast Turkey, where the majority of the people are Kurds, the People’s
Democratic Party , HADEP received around
50 per cent of the vote. It is the only party which is supportive of the Kurds.
All the same they will not be able to sit in
parliament, as their share of the vote nationally was only 5-6 per cent.
HADEP is constantly subject to harassment – for example Veli Haydar Guleg, the
party’s candidate for mayor of Istanbul was
arrested four times in the last six months and spent two months in prison. No
charges have been brought against him. Now the
possibility of a political solution to the Kurdish question seems even more
remote than ever.
Our group travelled to the town of Batman in Eastern Turkey. This is an
industrial city, under military rule, sitting astride the only
oil reserves of Turkey. We talked to trade unionists, human rights activists,
and members of the People’s Democratic Party
(HADEP).
Members of the PETROL-IS union told us that although the union was not allowed
to declare publicly for any candidate, over
90 per cent of its members supported HADEP. Everyone we met agreed that in
Batman itself the situation was bearable, but in
the small towns and villages in the area, repression was harsh and people were
commonly threatened that if they voted for
HADEP their villages would be burned.
Of course what is bearable in Turkey would lead to outrage here. For example on
our way to Batman we were travelling on a
public bus and were stopped at 4 military checkpoints and at the third forced
off the bus and questioned. We managed to
spend around 24 hours in Batman before being forced to return to Istanbul.
Around 20 security personnel came to our hotel,
surrounded us and escorted us to the airport where they ensured we boarded the
first plane out. We only got to stay long
because we had escaped their notice earlier.
We quickly realised that Batman was an exception, as in other towns, repression
was continuous and often on a grand scale.
For example in Diyarbakir, the de facto capital of the Turkish Kurdistan, when
HADEP organised a public meeting, 40,000
came. The police attacked the meeting and arrested 4,000 people. A German
women’s group went to Diyarbakir to discuss
raising funds for a womens’ project there. They were heavily intimidated, with
security personnel sitting at the same table as
them so that no one could talk with them in any confidence. They were swiftly
forced out of the area.
Turkey has long been seen as an important ally of both Britain and the US, who
routinely ignore its human rights abuses. Again
within the war in the Balkans it is playing a key role supporting NATO’s
intervention. So it was little surprise when the well
known democrat Tony Blair, announced the day after the election, that Turkey was
now a candidate for entry into the
European Union.
http://www.labournet.org.uk/so/25turkey15.html
------------
Turkey:
Fascists and Social Democrats form new government
By Justus Leicht
3 June 1999
It took over a month, but it has now been decided: for the first time since the
1970s and the second time in the history of
modern Turkey, the fascist party—MHP (Nationalist Movement Party)—will sit in
government in this unhappy land. At the
head of the government stands Bülent Ecevit from the DLP (Democratic Left
Party), a long-serving social democrat and
confirmed Kemalist.
This development is of enormous international and historical significance. It
should serve as a warning to workers all over the
world. When the profit system is mired in a profound crisis, there are no limits
beyond which the social democrats are not
prepared to go to defend it. All of Ecevit's protestations cannot disguise the
fact that the character of the right extremist MHP,
widely known as the Grey Wolves, has not changed. The MHP itself emphasises this
fact.
The fascist party has nothing to fear from the state; quite the contrary. On May
14, Vural Savas, the leading prosecutor of the
country's constitutional court, declared there was no basis for press reports of
investigations being conducted into the MHP.
Afterwards a deputy of the MHP declared that it was a legitimate party carrying
out a legitimate struggle which continues today.
The party leader Bahceli made a similar point.
What is meant by this “legitimate struggle”? The blood of thousands of people
clings to the paws of the Grey Wolves. Over the
last 30 years they have been responsible for numerous attacks on striking
workers and protesting students, for the murder of
journalists and human rights activists, for pogroms against left-wingers and
Alevits (a religious minority) and for the brutal
massacre of Kurds.
They have close connections with the Mafia, army, police and secret services. In
the course of the 15 year-long bloody civil
war in the Kurd provinces they have dominated the “special units” of the
security forces, as well as the dreaded death squads
of the so called “counter-guerrillas”. It is not so much the MHP that has
changed, as the state itself. Its various organs can be
hardly distinguished from the fascist bands.
It is no wonder that, following parliamentary elections on April 18, it was
unclear for some time whether a coalition government
between the DLP, MHP and conservative ANAP (Motherlands Party) of Mesut Yilmaz
would really come into being. Ecevit,
along with many leading newspaper commentators, had from the very beginning
orientated towards such a coalition.
Others were worried about the bad reputation of the MHP both at home and abroad
and their unpredictability. For the past
four years the party had no representation inside parliament. Two years ago its
founder and undisputed absolute leader,
Alparslan Türkes, died. The MHP was thought to be an unknown quantity.
For a time, therefore, a coalition of the DLP and the ANAP with the other
conservative party, the TPP (The True Path Party)
of Tansu Ciller was regarded as a possibility. Both centre-right parties have
been enormously discredited because of their
notorious corruption and nepotism and were the biggest losers in the election.
In addition, a bitter rivalry exists between the
party leaders. Some newspapers have therefore demanded that the chairpersons of
both parties, particularly Ciller, step down
and open the way for a merger of the parties.
As it became clear that the TPP had been relegated to a role in opposition,
hefty internal political struggles begun. A similar
development is to be seen in the Islamic Virtue Party (FP) and the Social
Democratic-Left Kemalist CHP (Republican Peoples
Party), once the state party of the founder of modern Turkey, Kemal Atatürk, but
now a party without representation in
parliament.
Ecevit has taken considerable care to bind the MHP into the government while
“softening it up”. His requirements for a
coalition agreement were first leaked to the press. Rahsan Ecevit, the wife of
the prime minister and chairwoman of the DLP,
publicly declared her “concern” over the “past” of the MHP and her “doubts”
about whether the party had really changed.
For their part the MHP leaders melodramatically declared their allegiance to the
“legitimate struggle” of their party and vainly
demanded a public apology. The coalition of right and “left” parties appeared to
be on the brink of collapse. The press, state
president Demirel, the ANAP and a section of the employers did everything they
could to rescue the coalition—and were
successful.
The need on the part of the Turkish bourgeoisie for such a “strong” government
is easily explained. The ordinary people of
Turkey, who at present suffer under unbearable levels of unemployment and
poverty, are expected to swallow more bitter
medicine from the “poison cabinet” of the International Monetary Fund over the
next few years. In addition, employers'
federations are demanding that the Turkish economy be made “fit and streamlined”
for a broad integration into the European
economy.
With regard to the social and economic questions, there are barely any
differences between the future coalition partners.
Massive privatisation, “reform” of social insurance, the lowering of taxes for
the employers and the raising of consumer
taxes—there is general agreement on these points. Differences emerge, however,
on how these measures should be imposed
while at the same time holding society together.
In the absence of a visible socialist alternative, the social tensions have
principally expressed themselves in the form of support
for Islamist tendencies. Although the FP, the successor of the banned RP
(Welfare Party), was forced to accept electoral
defeat, it is still the third strongest force in parliament and will lead the
opposition.
Already in 1991 the MHP entered parliament as part of a joint list with the RP
and took over central Islamic demands in the
course of the election campaign. Because of this they were able to take many
votes from the FP. For their part, the TPP and
the ANAP adopted as vague a position as possible on these issues.
As Marx put it: “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a
heartless world, just as it is the spirit of an
unspiritual situation.” For many workers, poor and lower-middle-class people the
political turn to Islam has less to do with the
desire for the introduction of the Sharia (head scarf) or a religious state, as
with a vague desire for “justice” and “morality”. This
mood is aimed against the enormous destruction of living standards, which has
been carried out by Kemal Atatürk's “holy
knights” in the name of “modernisation” and “orientation to the West”, a process
bound up with huge state corruption.
The reaction of Ecevit to the appearance in parliament of FP deputy Merve
Kavakci garbed in a head scarf speaks volumes.
“This is no place to challenge the state!” he cried out excitedly.
The Islamists have made the head scarf their political symbol. Later President
Demirel made compromising comments on this
issue. The DLP is practically the only party in parliament taking as
uncompromising a line as the military on this question. One of
the DLP's main differences with the MHP is the former's support for a ban on
head scarves in schools and universities.
The Grey Wolves made the abolition of this ban one of the main planks of their
election campaign. For this reason the head of
the MHP, Bahceli, surprisingly praised the chairman of the constitutional court
and Turkey's senior judge, Ahmet Sezer, as the
latter called for more freedom of opinion and sharply criticised the existing
practice of bans and persecutions.
The position is different with regard to the Kurdish question. All of the
coalition partners agree that a “Kurdish problem” does
not exist—it is rather a problem of “terrorism”. But the problem of how to
resolve this issue is contentious.
In common with many businessmen Ecevit is fearful of a further escalation and
has therefore advocated a “Law of Repentance,”
permitting lighter sentences for self-confessed and defecting PKK cadre. The
carrying out of the probable death penalty for
PKK chief Abdullah Ocalan is also controversial. On both questions the MHP has
adopted an uncompromising position: “No
mercy for terrorists”.
The experienced old fox Ecevit is seeking to use his DLP to establish a balance
and hold in check the Islamist and fascist
tendencies represented by the MHP. The ANAP is seen as a force for arbitration.
The problem is, however, that these
tendencies arise from the bankruptcy of the Kemalist state model and the
break-up of existing society.
The growing political weight of the military and the fascists stems from the
failure of democratic mechanisms under conditions of
increasing class polarisation. This is also the reason for the hysterical forms
of Turkish chauvinism and the accompanying flexing
of muscles abroad, alongside intensive domestic repression. These policies
enflame Kurdish nationalism, which in turn feeds
Turkish nationalism even more.
It may be that the new government coalition is able to hold power for some time.
But one thing is clear, flying in the face of their
election promises, this government will bring neither prosperity, nor social
justice and democracy, nor an end to the loss of life
arising from the Kurdish conflict.
-----------
TURKEY: FOR AMERICAN REPORTER FACING JAIL, THERE'S BLAME ON ALL SIDES
by Andrew Finkel
(On June 10-after this article had been completed-Andrew Finkel was summoned by
an Instanbul Criminal Court to answer
charges that he had insulted the Turkish military -- a crime under article 159
of the Turkish penal code. The charges stem from
a story published in February 1998 in the daily Sabah, in which Finkel reported
on conditions in a garrison town in southeastern
Turkey where Kurdish rebels and Turkish security forces have been battling each
other for more than a decade. If convicted,
Finkel faces up to six years in prison. )
Although it's been a decade since I first came to Turkey as a correspondent, I
remain puzzled by this country's reluctance to
shake off its reputation as Europe's problem child.
Even as I sit down to write, I am confronted with the sentencing of Oral
Calislar, a friend and colleague, to 13 months in jail.
His offense was to publish in 1993 contrasting interviews with Abdullah Ocalan,
leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers'
Party (PKK), and Kemal Burkay, head of the non-violent Kurdistan Socialist
Party. Nor is the state's reaction to Calislar's
journalistic work an isolated event. Tucked away in today's newspapers is yet
another item, reporting that Nazmiye Yilmaz, the
news editor of Kanal 7--the television station that supports the Islamic-leaning
Virtue Party--and Behiç Kiliç, one of her
reporters, are on trial in an Istanbul criminal court for insulting the Turkish
armed forces and holding them in contempt. If
convicted, the pair face a sentence of one to six years.
Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of Turkey's record of press freedom abuses
is finding an interlocutor for one's sense of
outrage. TUSIAD, Turkey's largest business confederation, condemned the Calislar
verdict. Bulent Ecevit, the recently elected
prime minister, said it saddened him. Even the military judge on the three-man
state security court tribunal expressed a
dissenting judgment.
So why does it happen?
The headlines dominating the press this week have not been about journalists in
court, but about the attempts to nail together a
government after the April 18 election. It now looks pretty certain that
Ecevit--who has himself worked as a journalist and been
in trouble with law--will lead a coalition that includes the right-wing
Nationalist Action Party (MHP). During the 1970s, the
MHP harbored the violent "Grey Wolves," the gangs of political toughs
responsible for a large share of the violence that led to
the 1980 military coup. The MHP's current leader, Devlet Bahceli, appears
genuine in his desire to lead a party based on the
rule of law. The third partner is former Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz of the
Motherland Party, who assured a CPJ delegation
nearly two years ago shortly after he had assumed that post that the time when
Turkey imprisoned people for what they wrote
was coming to an end. Will this bunch be any better than previous governments?
Two Turkish elections ago, in January 1992, there was hope in the air that a
newly forged coalition between social democrats
and the center right would embark on a program of fuller democratization. Of
course, the year 1992 turned out to be anything
but the annus mirabilis for human rights or prisoners of conscience in Turkey.
That cause became hopelessly compromised in
the intensification of the Kurdish conflict in the southeast of the country and
the perception among politicians that desperate
times justified turning a blind eye to freedom of expression. That was the year
that Musa Anter, the Kurdish intellectual, was
killed--the ninth in a series of extra-judicial assassinations of journalists.
This was followed by the still-unsolved bombing in
December 1994 of the Istanbul offices of Ozgur Ulke, a paper sympathetic to the
PKK. The police did not get away with the
murder of the young journalist Metin Goktepe in January 1996--just a month after
another Turkish election when politicians
were trying to form yet another coalition--but most advocates of reform believe
the sentences of between six to seven and a
half years in prison for the convicted officers do not suit the crime of
clubbing someone to death. At the end of 1998, Turkey
again did its lap of dishonor for topping CPJ's tally of journalists under lock
and key.
Governments in Turkey will come and go, but the ultimate engine of reform has to
be Turkish society itself. And that change is
predicated on the acceptance of the existence of certain irreducible human
rights. Until that acceptance takes root in Turkish
society, international organizations such as CPJ must remain vigilant. In the
case of CPJ, this involves debating its Turkish
journalistic colleagues with the skill of medieval scholastics over who is a
"real" journalist in Turkey (as opposed to political
activists in journalist clothing), and therefore who has the right to be
inscribed in the ranks of journalists in jail.
Turkey is a country that is passionate about politics, and it holds reasonably
free elections. It possesses an increasingly assertive
press. Its routine violations of international norms, then, must presume the
complicity of a population that is both committed to
democratic freedoms yet accepts infringement upon those freedoms in the name of
a greater good, defense of the realm. It is
instructive to remember that Turks regard the military as the bulwark of
democracy. Since 1960, the Turkish military has
intervened openly or indirectly on four occasions to "salvage" the political
system, often with the approval of the population. So
it just won't do to blame state repression or the vigilantism of the police.
Clearly it would be a mistake to expect a government one of whose partners
believes in the near infallibility of the Turkish state
to be the one to embark on a wholesale program of reform. Both major partners
converge on their suspicion of the European
Union. In Turkish eyes, Brussels has let Greece get away with murder in helping
Abdullah Ocalan on the run. The EU has no
carrots to offer Turkey to get it to clean up its act.
Yet it is too early to be pessimistic. The MHP's hard line is not a change in
policy but merely a calcification of existing political
attitudes of other governments. There is at least no immediate reason to expect
things to get worse. Better, goes an argument
now popular in Turkey, to have the MHP inside the tent micturating out, then
outside pissing in. The MHP will have to be on its
best behavior, and like the Islamic Party before it, must face the historic
decision whether to move to the center of the political
spectrum.
To see the glass half full, Devlet Bahceli has made clear his own belief in the
rule of law; the party has called for the replacement
of the military component of the state security court with a civilian
judge--though this in itself will not make the judiciary more
liberal. The government will command nearly two-thirds of the seats in
parliament: the magic number needed to amend the
constitution. But the politicians will only act if their constituents demand it.
Is Turkey a democracy that does not want to democratize? Certainly, there are at
least three barriers to reform. The first has
been the instability of successive governments. When in trouble, politicians
tend to thump the nationalist card. And given the
history of the last few years, with a series of fragile coalitions between
unlikely partners, Turkish governments always seem to
be in trouble. Second, the government's continuing efforts to smother Kurdish
nationalist sentiment has led to armed conflict in
the southeast, poisoned the body politic, and been the excuse for repression and
reluctance to reform. Third, the polarization
over Islam has made the guardians of the ideal of secular democracy reluctant to
abandon their arsenal of repressive legislation.
To this list, however, must be added another impediment: the Turkish press
itself. In the day following Oral Calislar's conviction
I bought 10 national newspapers. It's true--three, including Calislar's own
Cumhuriyet, did mention the trial on their front page.
Sabah, one of the largest-selling papers, did not mention it at all. Hurriyet,
the other giant, mentioned the verdict in a deep inside
page.
Other papers had a paragraph here or there. Two pro-Islamic papers forgot to
mention it, despite their passionate defense of
their own liberties. A third did so in a sarcastic vein--sniping that the
rabidly secular Cumhuriyet was convicted for "Kurdish
separatism." In the following days, the news did gather some momentum as
columnists weighed in to defend a friend.
The Turkish press is perfectly capable of hammering points home. One has only to
look at the way the press savaged Merve
Kavakci, the newly elected member of parliament from the Virtue Party who
appeared for her swearing-in wearing an Islamic
headscarf. In paper after paper, she was vilified and finally--in what was a
genuine piece of investigative reporting--revealed to
be a dual Turkish-U. S. national. In such a climate it was a simple matter for
the cabinet to strip her of her nationality in record
time.
Imagine the effect of such indignation and concerted coverage being brought to
bear by the powerful proprietors and editors of
the mainstream Turkish press on the country's woeful press freedom record. Why
they haven't done so is a long story. Some
are too compromised by their financial interests or just their own vainglory.
Others don't know how to do their job.
Why indeed should the Turkish public rise to the defense of a profession that
itself often forgets how to be a champion of
justice and fairness? The simple point is that it shouldn't just be committees
that protect journalists but the press itself. By all
means, CPJ should write letters that begin "Dear Excellency." But it should also
write Turkish editors letters that begin "Pull up
your socks."
Andrew Finkel has worked in Turkey as a journalist for the last 10 years.
Currently he reports for Time magazine and the
Times of London and appears on CNN. For three years he wrote a column in the
Turkish-language daily Sabah newspaper.
http://www.cpj.org/dangerous/spring99/Finkel.html
-------------
Date: Tue, 3 Dec 96 15:25 MET
TURKISH DEPUTY REVEALS: "GREY WOLVES" ARE BEHIND ARSON FIRES IN GREECE
A Turkish deputy from Tansu Ciller's True Path Party (DYP) yesterday revealed
that Turkish paramilitary organizations are
responsible for arson fires in Greece's islands while, at the same time, an
article published in the pro-government Turkish daily
"Yeni Safak" provocatively boasted in its title: "We Burned Rhodes".
According to the DYP deputy Sedat Bucak, the perpetrator of these fires was
Abdullah Catli, the leader of the extremist group
"Grey Wolves". Catli was recently killed in a notorious car accident in Turkey
which brought to light the relations between
Turkish mafia and the government.
These revelations came to confirm reports the Greek authorities already had in
their hands, according to which, the fires that
have devastated the Greek islands every summer were an act of arson performed by
specially-trained forces of Turkish agents.
Greece's alternate Foreign Minister George Papandreou stated that the Turkish
deputy's statements are "especially worrisome
and show that various sabotage raids have been committed in our country with
Turkish instigation."
Moreover, Mr. Papandreou pointed out that these disclosures by themselves
constitute a criminal act which, in conjuction with
Ms. Ciller's statements ("it is an honor for those who shoot for Turkey"),
should trouble the international community.
Before proceeding to the necessary actions, the Greek Government awaits the
immediate probe and reaction on behalf of the
Turkish government, which, according to Mr. Papandreou, bears the essential
responsibility.
-----------
TURKISH STATE SPONSORED GREY WOLVES TRANSFER TO CYPRUS
Ankara, August 25 (M.P.A.)
Turkish daily Evrensel reads that at least 200 of the members of the Grey
Wolves, the extreme right-wing organization who
were brought to Cyrpus to stand against the manifstation of the cyrpiot
motorcyclists, had their expenses paid by the turlish
state and especially funds which were at the disposal of the vice-prime minitser
and foreign minister ms Tansu Ciller.
Two unarmed greek-cypriots were killed last week at the neutral zone in Cyrpus
where they wantd to protest against the
prohibition to visit their houses in the north of Cyprus which they suffer since
1974 when Turkey invaded and occupied the
north of the island sending them away from their houses.
Ms Ciller claims that she gave money from the fund for the promotion of Turkey
to the turkish medallits in the Atlanta
olympiade but turkish press seems to doubt the claims by the ex-premier and
president of the party of the "True Path".
In the meantime greek lawyers arrived in Cyprus to examine alongside their
cypriot colleagues the legal extensions of the events
in the neytral zone while information from Washington says that the US will
focus their attempts for a military dialogue between
the two parts in Cyprus since they estimate that a Cleridis - Denktas summit is
not likely to take place soon.
------------
Info On the MHP (Turkish Fascists)
By The DHKP-C
(The following is the text of a pamphlet, distributed during a
picket-line because of a meeting of the MHP in the Netherlands.)
What Is The MHP? Who's Interest Does It Serve?
Over the last few years the MHP has become stronger and more
organized. Also in Europe they have become more active. Their
relation with the forces in the Turkish state who have the real
power are to such an extent that we can speak of a close
cooperation. How is this possible, and what are the reasons? Why
is it important to fight this organisation in a militant manner?
We want to deal with these questions and start a discussion about
this subject.
The Fundamental Political Opinion Of The MHP-Fascists
For understanding what the MHP means, it is necessary to
look at the political ideas of the MHP.
Their ideology is called Turanism. The adherents of this
ideology see "their own people" (just like the Nazis), the
Turkish people as a superior race. "The whole world" belongs "to
them". They dream of world domination. The MHP-fascists want a
"Greater Turkey", just like the Nazis wanted a "Greater German
Empire".
Concretely this means they want to subject all people and
countries, from the Caucasus to the Balkans and from the Balkans
through to Middle Asia to their slavery and put them under
Turkish rule. Their active support and propagandistic
contributions for the fascist and racist Turkish state is best
proof of this.
Their ideology does not allow any national rights to the
Kurds, Armenians, Laz, Arabs, Syrians, etc. who live in Turkey
(speaking freely in their native tongue, learning this language
or publishing in it, etc.). The MHP does not even recognize these
peoples and threatens to "cleanse" society from non-Turkish
"elements" and it tries to put this threat into practice. A
slogan, used by the MHP, goes: "Either you become Turks and
become proud to be a Turk, or you'll have to reckon with your
extermination."
Of course there are differences between the policy of the
Nazis and the policy of the MHP. However, these differences are
marginal and arise from the differing circumstances in Germany
and Turkey. Anyway, both groups have the following similarities:
They both serve the ones in power, both serve oppression till its
most bloody form, one serves German imperialism, the other serves
Turkish fascism.
The Connection Between The MHP And The Turkish State
We will now try to show how the MHP supports the ruling
state in Turkey and what connections there are with the
present-day Turkish state.
The first important point is that we cannot approach the MHP
separated from the Turkish state. The MHP is integrated in the
present-day fascist regime and performs certain tasks for this
state. In other words, if you want to understand the terror and
the dictatorship in Turkey, you'll have to examine and understand
the MHP.
a) The education system.
The education system is completely at the service of
Turanism. From the primary school up to the universities it is
taught that Turkey is a superior nation and this is supposed to
be proven with the formation of the Osman Empire. One tries to
prove that the Osman empire has a glorious and honourable
tradition which is respected by all countries. In this way the
pupils must be made proud of the fact it is to be an Osman.
Suffice it to point anyone who believes this propaganda to the
mass murders on, e.g. the Armenians. This was a genocide which is
denied by the present-day Turkish state and the MHP as well, like
the Holocaust is denied in some fascist circles. As the Kurdish
people nowadays, the Armenians were exterminated by the Turkish
nationalist forces when they began to formulate demands
concerning equal rights and independence.
b) The slogans of the MHP are used by the government and the
Turkish state policy.
The slogan from the MHP-banner: "One Turkish world, from the
Adriatic Sea until the Chinese Wall" is also constantly used by
the government parties and other parties in conformity with the
system. Lies like "keeping together and being together", as well
as racist and chauvinist slogans like "PKK: descendants of the
Armenians" and "In the East and the West, Turkey is everywhere
and indivisible" are nowadays used daily by the Turkish state.
However, it is not confined to common slogans. The fascist
and racist projects, once demanded by the MHP, like the creation
of a "elite army" and the expulsion from, mostly Kurdish, people
from the country to round them up artificially in the cities in
order that they can be controlled more easily, are nowadays put
into practice by the Turkish state.
The state does not stop at realizing the projects which are
demanded by the MHP, she goes so far to install MHP-cadres in
positions which are very important to the state. For example, a
lot of governors in the Kurdish areas are members of the MHP.
Furthermore the MHP has a special role to play in the "elite
army".
The Special Role Of The MHP In The "Elite Army"
a) The training, building up and tasks of the "elite army".
The "elite army" is subordinated to the general staff of the
Turkish armed forces. The personnel from this "special army"
consists of experienced and especially selected personnel from
the Turkish armed forces. This "elite army" receives special
training, given by especially experienced members of the Turkish
armed forces. The training personnel is partly trained by the
German GSG-9.
The following facts are admitted by the Turkish papers
themselves who support the present-day regime: The members of
this special army are preferably choosen among members of the
murderous, fascist MHP.
The task of this "elite army" is in fact attacking the
national liberation struggle of the Kurds and other revolutionary
organisations and the execution of pogroms. In the areas,
inhabited by Kurds, the "elite-units" set fire to the villages,
oppresses the people by all conceivable means, and murder the
villagers.
This "elite army', which officially has to fight
"terrorism", was created last year. Earlier the creation of a
such-like unit was demanded for a long time by the chairman of
the MHP, A. Turkes. One can postulate that the creation of this
special army was put on the political agenda by the MHP.
Some pensioned generals report that a such-like unit existed
already for a longer time. The difference with earlier days would
be that in the present-day situation preferably MHP-members are
taken in. Thus the MHP is given the opportunity to, within legal
boundaries and led by the state, to attack the Kurdish, the
democratic and the revolutionary movements. The "work", earlier
done by the MHP with its own resources, is now done under the
protection and with support of the state and the military. Of
course, in earlier days there has been a form of division of
labour between the Turkish state and the MHP. However, this
division of labour was never admitted, or this cooperation was
concealed. Now we have to speak of a new phase concerning the
problems of the fascist Turkish state. The political crisis has
risen to a level, similar to the time prior to 1980. The
opposition inside the country is growing to enormous proportions.
Furthermore, the army is not capable of defeating the Kurdish
liberation movement militarily. The build up of the Turkish army
is not suited for guerrilla warfare and a large part of the
soldiers do not want this war - it is forced upon them. The MHP
constitutes a reservoir of Turkish nationalists, prepared to kill
and not shunning any means.
b) The past role of the MHP within the "contra-guerrilla" and the
earlier forms of cooperation with the MIT (Turkish Secret
Service).
It's not a new phenomenon that the MHP attacks and murders
revolutionaries, democrats and non-Turkish patriots. A few
examples from the past of joint actions from the MHP, MIT and the
Contra-guerrilla.
Bloody May Day, 1977 (Istanbul): 39 workers are shot by fascists
and driven over by armoured cars, more than 200 workers are
wounded.
March 10, 1978: MHP-fascists and agents from the contra-guerrilla
throw bombs at the exit of the University of Istanbul and open
fire upon the people with machineguns. 6 democrats die and 50
students are wounded.
Maras: This mass murder, jointly organised by the MHP, MIT and
the contra-guerrilla, cost the lives of almost a thousand people.
During the pogroms - which lasted for three days - women,
children and the elderly are murdered at random. Shops and houses
were set on fire.
The Daily Murders For The Protection Of The Present-Day Turkish
And The MHP's Role In This
Almost every day people get murdered in Turkey by so-called
"unknown forces". These death-squads only target individuals who
are not highly agreeable to the state. The perpetrators of these
murders are never arrested, let alone convicted. It is plausible
that these death-squads for the main part consist of members from
the MHP.
One of the most recent acts of terror where the MHP can be
suspected of having their hands in it, was the vile and cowardly
assault on a cafe in Istanbul. This resulted in a three day long
uprising from the people in the Gazi-neighbourhood against the
police and the army. The government tried to convince the
international opinion that it had been a religious conflict.
However, during the uprising Alevites and Sunnites fought side by
side against the armed forces of the state. The way this action
was executed: At first a taxi-driver is kidnapped, his throat is
cut and he is thrown in the back of his own car which is then
used in a vile attack where the murderers use machineguns against
unsuspecting citizens. The way this attack was carried out leads
to the suspicion that the MHP, led by the MIT, must have played
an important role. Gazi is a neighbourhood with a lot of people
where left has traditionally been strong.
The MHP Abroad
The "Hollanda Turk Federasyon" which organised a congress
here today, is one of the many cover-organisations of the MHP
abroad. It was founded three months ago and this foundation fits
exactly, once again, in the policy of the Turkish state. The
Turkish state has made it its goal to estrange the European
population from the Kurdish national liberation struggle and the
democratic forces of Turkey. Hundreds of thousands Turkish and
Kurdish democrats live all over Europe and they try to put in
their best for human rights, democracy, and self-determination in
their homeland. This is a thorn in the flesh of the Turkish
state. It was also recently decided that people with the Turkish
nationality who live abroad may vote for the elections in Turkey.
So the European platform has become very important to the Turkish
state. The MHP acts, more than willingly, as agent of the Turkish
state.
The last action of the MHP in Europe was organizing the big
demonstration as a protest against the founding of the Kurdish
parliament-in-exile in The Hague. Everyone could see on Dutch
television how thousands of Turkish nationalists made the sign of
the Grey Wolves. The ring-finger and the middle finger against
the thumb, and the pink and forefinger up, representing the head
of a wolf.
Conclusion
The political crisis in Turkey - the present-day regime can
only keep up by using the most gruesome means -, the importance
of the European platform for Turkish policy and the strengthening
organisation of the MHP, signify that this congress will not be
the last provocation of Turkish fascism. Alas, it is to be
expected that the anti-fascist, the democratic and the solidarity
movement will be confronted more often with meetings like this in
the future, with demonstrations like the one in the days of the
founding of the Kurdish parliament, and even with manifestations
of violence from the side of the MHP.
Therefore, and for the fight for human rights, democracy and
self-determination in Turkey, it is necessary to watch the MHP
very carefully, to investigate her cover-organisations, and to
make sure a movement arises which can effectively fight her.
My lies?
Your obvious inability to answer te questions have exposed the wolf in sheeps
clothing.
You are calling lies that the MHP/Grey Wolves are in a coallition government,
that Turkey destroyed 3000-4000 villages, that
the Turkish regime supported Hizbollah.
All this support of terrorists! despite all the substantiation!
Thanks for showing yourself.
Ask the UN about PKK in Greece.
Athens dismisses Turkish military chief's claims over 'camp'
Athens, 03/10/2001 (ANA)
Athens sharply condemned the latest statements by the Turkish military
chief this week over alleged training camps in Greece for Kurdish
separatists, with a government spokesman saying on Tuesday that Ankara
is simply trying to take advantage of the current international
crisis.
"It's simply a repeat of the stereotypical charges leveled by Turkey
against Greece," government spokesman Dimitris Reppas said during a
regular press briefing in the Greek capital.
The spokesman also called on the Turkish military chief, Gen. Hussein
Kivrikoglu, to take the matter up with the United Nations' High
Commission for Refugees, the organization that operates the so-called
"training camp" near the port town of Lavrio - only a few kilometers
from the popular archaeological site of Cape Sounion, in extreme
southeast Attica prefecture.
"That's where he'll (Kivrikoglu) find the answers he is looking for,"
Reppas said.
Additionally, the spokesman said Turkey's military establishment
should also refer to the UN's decisions and resolutions pertaining to
Cyprus in regards to questions involving the island republic's
long-standing problem.
The PKK arose because of Turkeys terrorist actions.
The Kurdish tribes of Anatolia, which predate the Turkish presence in the Middle
East, sided with Ataturk against the British
and Greeks in the early 1920s, but the Turks quickly turned on their Muslim
brothers. From 1923 on, Ataturk's repression of
Kurdish nationalism and even Kurdish identity was savage and predatory. He
filled the Kurdish southeast with Turkish
administrators, gave land to Turkish war veterans, forbade the use of Kurdish
language in court, and, most important, banned
the native tongue in schools, effectively denying formal education to Kurdish
children. The measures quickly spurred a Kurdish
uprising, led by Sheik Said, which erupted throughout the southeast in 1925. It
was quashed by overwhelming Turkish force:
Ataturk, using the ragtag revolt as a pretext for assuming dictatorial powers
which he never completely relinquished, crushed
the Kurdish insurgents. Sheik Said and 660 of his compatriots were executed,
most by public hanging, and another 7,500 were
arrested. Villages were destroyed, massacres reported. The response was well in
excess of the challenge, and the army's
terrorism bred more resistance; individual towns and villages rose up through
the ensuing years. The army's reply was again
harsh: hundreds of villages were razed, thousands of Kurds killed, and perhaps
half a million were deported. The tribal
rebellions persisted through the 1930s, the bloodiest of which (in Dersim, now
Tunceli province) may have taken 40,000 lives
as a result of army reprisals. Turkish Kurdistan was placed under a nearly
permanent state of martial law and a news blackout.
The basis of the confrontation was Turkish nationalism. The Turkish state from
1923 onward simply refused to acknowledge
that Kurds even existed--they were known, until the 1990s, as "Mountain Turks."
The new mythology of Turks as founders of
the great Asian civilizations neatly folded the Kurds into that conceit.
Scholarly work on Kurdish history was outlawed. A
"Turkification" program was instituted in the southeast, raising the visibility
of Turkish culture, moving Turks into the area, and
earnestly promoting the cult of Ataturk. At the same time, the area, so long a
pastoral and agrarian economy, was steadily
impoverished by pogroms, deportations of Kurdish elites, and the disappearance
of the Christian entrepreneurial class.
Chief among the insults was the attack on language, which penetrated beyond the
formal venues of court or schoolroom. The
Ankara regime replaced Kurdish village names with Turkish equivalents, forbade
the naming of children with Kurdish names,
and outlawed the singing of Kurdish folk songs. Because only one Kurd in twenty
could speak Turkish in the first years of the
Republic, the denial of their own language was economically devastating.
In the 1960s and 1970s, as David McDowall explains in his excellent Modern
History of the Kurds, the situation became more
desperate. Unemployment among Kurds rose by 150 percent between 1967 and 1977.
By the early 1990s, less than 10
percent of adults in the Kurdish southeast had industrial jobs, and those tended
to be in low-skilled industries. On the large
landowners' estates, peasants would work eleven hours a day for $2.
Children--the fortunate survivors of a 30 percent
mortality rate--would work alongside their parents. Less than a third of the
population received any formal education and less
than one in five women attended school.
The demise of viable agrarian life and the growth of urban poor and unskilled
youth radicalized large segments of the Kurdish
people--20 percent of Turkey's population. However varied in social outlook and
separated by tribes, dialects, and rates of
assimilation, the Kurds were ripe for rebellious nationalism. Their chance came
with the creation of the PKK in 1974 on the
campus of Ankara University. The founder, Abdullah Ocalan, modeled the PKK on
other Marxist liberation movements that
employed revolutionary violence. By 1980, the PKK was poised to respond to the
pivotal event of the Turkish-Kurdish
conflict: the September 12 coup.
For the outside world, the coup was a bloodless, temporary measure, engineered
by a "reluctant" military, and essential to
eliminating terrorist threats and restoring order. To the Kurds in southeastern
Turkey, the generals' reign was a new wave of
terror and repression, rivaled only by the sanguinary pogroms of the 1930s.
While many Turkish militants of left and right were
prosecuted, vast numbers of Kurdish nationalists were targeted. The new
constitution promulgated by the junta (which remains
in force today) was designed to punish Kurdish nationalism: the mere recognition
of a distinct Kurdish identity was criminalized,
and the Kurdish language was effectively outlawed. The statements by junta
leader General Evren at the time of the coup,
which focused on keeping Turkey undivided, and the arrests and trials of so many
prominent Kurds immediately after the
military seized power, clearly exposed the junta's primary, obsessive fear of
Kurdish nationalism.
That nationalism did grow quickly in response to the dictatorship's harsh
measures. From 1984 the PKK became a force to be
reckoned with, a genuine guerrilla movement significantly supported by ordinary
Kurdish peasants. What began as a nuisance
to the Turkish state grew over the 1980s into a large-scale civil war. By 1990,
some 300,000 troops were deployed in the
southeast, and an enormous amount of the national budget (with reports ranging
from 25 to 40 percent) was going to support
police and military operations there. In 1992, the government began a policy of
forcibly evacuating villages in order to deprive
the PKK of its popular support. Some 3,000 villages have been emptied, and as
many as two million Kurds driven from their
homes into shantytowns and overcrowded apartments in Diyarbakir, Adana, Izmir,
and Istanbul--a population of "internally
displaced" second in the world only to Sudan.
At issue was not so much a separate Kurdistan (the PKK dropped this goal in
1993), but cultural rights--principally the right to
speak, publish, educate, and broadcast in Kurdish, aspirations confirmed in an
exhaustive survey of Kurdish attitudes
conducted by Ankara University Professor Dogu Ergil in 1995. President Turgut
Ozal had granted limited rights to speak
Kurdish in 1991, but other cultural freedoms--for example, broadcasting and
educating in Kurdish--were denied. Kurdish
activists were also concerned with economic development in the southeast, which
the government had long promised and never
delivered. Firmly in control of the civilian governments' policy toward the
southeast, the military would not allow broader
cultural rights or the emergence of Kurdish political parties. Turkish
nationalism, the bedrock tenet of Kemalism, could not be
modified even to accommodate harmless cultural longing.
This rigidity is especially pernicious. In an insightful essay in Nationalism
and Ethnic Conflict, MIT professor Stephen van Evera
presents ten hypotheses on war and nationalism. One focuses on the content of
nationalist ideology: "Does the ideology of the
nationalism incorporate respect for the freedom of other nationalities," he
asks, "or does it assume a right or duty to rule them?"
Those that exclude, he says, are forms of "hegemonistic, or asymmetrical,
nationalism," which "is both the rarest and the most
dangerous variety of nationalism." The hegemonistic type--of which Kemalism is
an instance--is especially dangerous both
because it cannot permit even mild deviations and because violent suppression
begets violent reaction, especially against a
minority with the muscle to fight back. The PKK, whose vague Marxism and violent
acts alienated many Kurds, remained the
only vehicle for Kurdish aspirations and the only protector against
state-sponsored cultural genocide, which was rationalized by
an inflexible, unitary, racialist ideology, and enforced with organized
violence.
The second challenge to Kemalism--a vibrant political Islam--has also appeared
often in the years of the republic. The
September 12 coup occurred just six days after Necmettin Erbakan, the leader of
an Islamic political party and the deputy
prime minister, gave a rabble-rousing speech condemning Israel. Erbakan was
arrested during the coup, and the incident
renewed the tensions between Islam and the military. Like Ataturk, the generals
of the 1970s and 1980s used Islam to their
advantage: Marxists and Kurdish leftists were countered with military support
for the so-called imam-hatip schools--religious
instruction for adolescents meant to divert them from leftist politics.
Meanwhile, in the junta and its aftermath, Turkish politics
barely tolerated the likes of Erbakan and his new party, Refah.
But with the civil war draining the treasury, boosting inflation to more than
100 percent, piling on more debt, and strangling
foreign investment, low-skilled workers and farmers--the most religious strata
in Turkish society--were the first to suffer. The
economic impacts of war and "globalization" drove increasing numbers to Refah.
Students of the imam-hatip schools were
coming of age politically. And the swarms of Kurdish refugees were given aid and
comfort by Refah and other Islamic
organizations. This combination of factors boosted Refah's fortunes in 1994
municipal elections (electing mayors in Ankara and
Istanbul) and December 1995 national elections, when the party won a slight
plurality, enabling Erbakan to form a government
six months later.
The secularist military would not tolerate Erbakan in power, however, and within
a few months was demanding that he rescind
his mild reforms, which permitted greater religious expression--allowing women
to wear head scarves in court, for example.
When he balked, the military forced a "soft coup," threatening to oust him;
finally, in June 1997, he resigned. Democratic
governance would again not stand in the way of Kemalism. The military has made
it clear that Erbakan will not be permitted to
become premier again, even if Refah is the top vote recipient in the next
election.
As Jonathan Randal deftly puts it, "Only a state as slavishly faithful to the
ossified letter of its founding dogma could have
backed itself into a corner as totally as Turkey did in this final decade of the
twentieth century." Randal makes a compelling
case: Kemalism, sclerotic and corrupt but clinging to the rigid mindset of
Turkish nationalism, could not allow the pluralism that
makes Western democracies so adaptive. The obdurate military dashed hopes for
economic growth and democracy, and
turned perhaps a third of the electorate toward traditionalist reactionaries
like Refah. Randal, whose reporting skills are
legendary (while his book is oddly gossipy and repetitive), has it exactly
right. McDowall's more measured and conventional
history also pinpoints Turkish nationalism as the core problem, whereas neither
Huntington nor Kaplan frame the issue with
quite such clarity. Huntington, to his credit, does offer a remarkable answer to
this question: What follows Kemalism, if (as
Huntington supposes) Turkey cannot totally escape its Islamic past and will
never be accepted by Christian Europe? Turkey
could, he replies "be ready to give up its frustrating and humiliating role as a
beggar pleading for membership in the West and to
resume its much more impressive and elevated historical role as the principal
Islamic interlocutor and antagonist of the West."
(Erbakan's inability to deliver such a vision is due to his personal failures as
a politician.) Huntington says Turkey could "become
a South Africa . . . changing itself from a pariah state in its civilization to
the leading state of that civilization." But the possibility
of a Turkish Mandela emerging to turn that trick--to reject "Ataturk's legacy
more thoroughly than Russia has rejected
Lenin's"--is difficult to imagine among Turkey's corrupt, obsequious, and aging
elite.
Moreover, a visionary, Islamic Turkey is everything America would abhor.
American backing of Ankara, lavish since the time
of the 1980 coup, is predicated on precisely the opposite: that Turkey will
remain not only secular and Western-oriented, but
will serve as a bulwark against Islamic and Arab militancy in the region. Until
the anti-foreign aid virus infected Capitol Hill,
Turkey was the third-largest recipient of military assistance. The dispatch of
sophisticated weaponry--F-16 fighter jets, Black
Hawk and Cobra helicopters, tanks, etc.--is justified by Turkey's "bad
neighborhood": Syria, Iraq, and especially Iran.
But the bad 'hood rationale is a canard. As Henri Barkey and his colleagues
point out in Reluctant Neighbor: Turkey's Role in
the Middle East, the relations Ankara pursues with these difficult states are
complex and not without some danger (partially
stemming from Kurdish restiveness). But they neither justify the weapons flow to
Turkey nor fulfill the US policy of "dual
containment" of Baghdad and Teheran. One could instead view Turkey as the
meddlesome neighbor: sending arms to Chechen
rebels and Azeri belligerents, occupying northern Cyprus, repeatedly bombing
Kurdish areas of northern Iraq, threatening Syria
(which harbors Ocalan), and huffing about Greece, Bosnia, Macedonia, Bulgaria,
and Russia.
In any case, the neighborhood where the Turks use the weapons conveyed from
Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Texas is its
own southeast, where jets and helicopters attack PKK camps and empty out Kurdish
villages. It is by far the most significant
use of US weapons in the world. America has supplied the muscle for Turkey's
war, and winked at the military's
actions--including its violent supression of free expression--to sustain Turkey
as a platform for the protection of US "strategic
interests" in the Persian Gulf and in the newly independent states of the former
Soviet Union, especially the flow of Caspian Sea
oil. This, in essence, is what Nixon, Kissinger, and Carter did in the Shah's
Iran in the 1970s, and, in a different way, what
Reagan and Bush did in Saddam's Iraq in the 1980s: bribe tyrants in exchange for
their fidelity to American interests. Both
ended badly, indeed disastrously for nearly everyone. Now the disaster unfolds
in Turkey: tens of thousands dead and
wounded, millions homeless.
The new attention to this debacle is welcome, but the regard of a few
intellectuals and journalists is unlikely to unlock the grip of
ideology in Turkey or overcome American inertia. Of the former, one can say that
Kemalism will ultimately lose its power; the
current crisis, which includes official corruption of the dirtiest kind,
indicates how tenuous Ataturk's legacy may be, how easily it
may disassemble with the right combination of charismatic leadership and the
internal will to change. As to the policies of
Turkey's most stalwart ally: Washington's embrace of the status quo is simply
thoughtless and reflexive. America's major news
media regard Turkey as some sort of exotic Muslim sideshow. But the show has
been running for a long time, and features a
sustained pattern of massive human rights violations, among the most egregious
in the twentieth century.
Would it be different, one wonders, if we saw Turkey as a fascist bully
engendering its own collapse? If we saw the "white
genocide" of the Kurds in a more compelling historical light, and the peril in
Turkey's re-running the "Iran precedent"? That
fascism still lives in Europe is a disturbing idea. That America is its closest
ally is an abhorrent one.
John Tirman's Spoils of War: The Human Cost of America's Arms Trade
The long-term Turkish policy on Cyprus - Partition
Turkey invaded the island of Cyprus using the short-lived coup d'etat
against President Makarios as a pretext. To explain this brutal act Turkey
offered the restoration of the constitutional structure of the Republic of
Cyprus that was damaged by the coup, and the protection of the
Turkish-Cypriot minority on the island. However, this argument contradicts
statements made by Turkish official decades before the invasion and even
after it. These statements seem to indicate that the truth behind the
invasion was simply expansionism.
Ataturk himself, who is considered by the Turks as their national hero, and
the founder of modern Turkey, regarded Cyprus as being particularly
important for Turkey. Professor Dervis Manizade in an article in the
Istanbul daily "Milliyet" (20.7.78) quoted Attaturk as saying while
addressing military commanders:
"Pay attention to Cyprus, this island is important to us."
Ali Nesim reported in "Dogus" (20.9.84):
"Ataturk, replying to a question on Cyprus after the annexation of
Alexandretta said: The turn of Cyprus has not yet come." (1939)
In 1954, nine years before intercommunal conflict broke out in 1963, the
then Foreign Minister of Turkey F. Koprufu, declared that Cyprus is an
"extension of continental Turkey", and that it should revert to Turkey "on
the basis of geographical proximity."
At the tripartite conference on Cyprus in August-September 1955, the then
Turkish Foreign Minister, Zorlu, stated:
"...The importance of Cyprus to Turkey does not arise from a single cause;
it is a necessity which emanates from the exigencies of history, geography,
economy and military strategy, from the right to existence and security,
which is the most sacred of every state, in short, from the very nature of
things."
A prophetic statement by Kemal Satir, former Vice-President of Turkey, 1964,
"Cyprus will be divide into two sections, one of which will join Turkey"
F.C. Erkin the then Foreign Minister of Turkey to an Athens newspaper in
June 1964 expanded on the above with,
"The radical solution would be to cede one part o Cyprus to Greece and the
other, closest to the Turkish Asiatic coast, to Turkey".
The Turkish journalist and historian A. Gurkan, more recently in "Kibris
Postasi" (20.12.83) put it quite succinctly when he said:
"Speaking from a purely strategic point of view we could say that for
Turkey's security, a safe Cyprus is a Cyprus which would be, in its
entirety, under Turkish control."
But what makes Turkish expansionism even more evident are the following
statements:
By Gunes (former Turkish Foreign Minister) which reads:
"Cyprus is as precious as the right arm of a country which cares for her
defence or her expansionist aims if she harbours any. If we don't keep in
mind this strategic importance of Cyprus, we cannot understand the peace
operation of 20 July or rather it is impossible to understand the whole
Cyprus crisis...
Many states, to a certain extent because it suits their interest, want to
see the Cyprus problem merely as our desire to protect the Turkish community
on the island. Whereas the actual problem is the security of 45 million
Turks in the motherland together with the Turks in the island and the
maintenance of the balance in the Middle East."
By Ozal, (...) Prime Minister of Turkey who, referring to the illegal UDI
(unilateral declaration of independence of the Turkish occupied areas) of
November 1983, said:
"Cyprus is an island which pierces the middle of Turkey like a dagger. It is
extremely vital from the viewpoint of our security. This island should not
be in enemy hands. The existence of the Turks in northern Cyprus is a
guarantee in this direction."
The Turkish Cypriot Leader Rauf Denktash himself who stated ("Milliyet"
23.7.85)
"Naturally Turkey has strategic interests in Cyprus. It is fortunate for
Turkey that the Turkish Cypriot community exists here. Even if the Turkish
Cypriot community did not exist, Turkey would not have left Cyprus to
Greece.
Mr. Koruturk told me something which is very important. The honorable
President had told me: "If Cyprus passes to Greece and is militarized, then
Turkey ceases to be a maritime nation". This is an extremely important
factor."
More recently, Professor Kuran delivering the closing speech at a symposium
organised on the general theme of "Turkey's problems" on 2nd February 1986
referred to the continuing presense of the Turkish troops on part of the
territory of the Republic of Cyprus...:
"They say that we do not covet the territories lying outside our nation's
sovereign territory. This is wrong. All the nations have their great
ideology. In that case, what is the Turkish army seeking in Cyprus? Cyprus
does not lie within the frontiers of our national territory."
The former Turkish prime Minister himself, in a number of recent statements,
left no doubt about Turkey's real aims regarding Cyprus. In an interview
with the "International Herald Tribune" (2.6.86) Mr. Ozal said:
"The island had never been Greek in its history. It belonged to the
Venetians and then was taken over by the Ottomans. Later the British came. I
believe that it was during the Ottoman period and later under the British
rule that the Greeks immigrated to the island. And I said, if you want to
the island something, it is more Turkish than Greek. It was governed for
many hundreds of years by the Ottomans."
When Turkey sent an officer of the Turkish Army, Riza Vukuskan, to Cyprus to
organize the TMT rerrorist organization, she was simply taking the first
practical step in a long standing policy aimed at the annexation of Cyprus
or at least part of it.
The handy excuse used by Turkey to further her aim of partition was the
"oppression" of the Turkish Cypriot minority by the Greek Cypriot majority.
Denktash himself, in an interview to the London "Times" (20.1.78) admits
that he had organized the TMT saying:
"I had to create the TMT with some friends in order to coordinate those
individuals who were going around doing things."
"I had set up the TMT with a few friends...Everybody thought that I was the
leader, but I was not. I was political advisor. Immediately after forming it
I handed it over... The leaders were former army officers from Turkey."
Emin Dirvana, then Turkish Ambassador to Cyprus, explains what Denktash
means, in an article in "Milliyet" (15.5.64)
"...I was informed that on the 7th of June, 1958, a bomb had been planted in
the Turkish Press Office in Nicosia by persons who, as was established
later, had nothing to do with the Greek Cypriots. The Turks of Nicosia were
then incited (...) and perpetrated acts similar to those committed on the
6th and the 7th of September, 1955 in Istanbul."
In an interview given by Denktash to the British television channel ITV for
the programme "Cyprus: Britain's Grim Legacy", he said:
"There was an explosion at the information bureau of the Turkish Consulate.
A crowd had already gathered there, a crowd of the Turkish Cypriot
community. And they almost immediately decided that Greeks had done it and
they were swearing vengeance against the Greeks and so on." "The explosion
started a night of riots in Nicosia. Turkish Cypriots burned and looted
Greek shops and homes. Soon came counter-attacks and the fighting spread
round the island. Later on, a friend of mine, whose name must still be kept
secret, was to confess to me that he had put this little bomb in their
doorway in order to create an atmosphere of tension so that people would
know that Turkish Cypriots mattered."
The climax of the "holy indignation" which Ambassador Dirvana refers to, was
the massacre of eight Greek Cypriots and the serious wounding of five, near
the village of Geunyeli on 12th June 1958, five days after the explosion.
In an interview to the "London Times" (20.1.78) Denktash said:
"It was now in the late 1950s and there was bitter intercommunal strife.
Eventually TMT became more than a military force, it became a moral force."
"...you are condemned to be crushed by a 65-million-strong Turkey."
Warning to Greek Cypriots by Turkish occupation representative Rauf Denktash
soon after delivering what he termed a "peace plan" for permanent apartheid
in Cyprus (September 9, 1998)
Turkey Censured By COE
Turkey was slated at a meeting of a Council of Europe (COE) Committee of
Ministers in Strasbourg yesterday. The ministers met to discuss the Titina
Loizidou case and Turkey's blatant non-compliance with a ruling by the
European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
In 1989 Titina Loizidou, a Greek Cypriot refugee, filed a citizens complaint
to the Strasbourg based ECHR that she was being prevented from peacefully
enjoying the use of her home in Kyrenia by Turkey, whose occupation troops
control the area. In 1996 in a landmark decision for Cyprus, the court ruled
that Turkey was responsible for depriving Loizidou of the use of her
property and later ordered that country to pay her compensation amounting to
almost £500,000. So far, Turkey has not paid a single cent and steadfastly
refuses to comply with the court's decision.
The Committee noted that Turkey, as a contracting party to the European
Convention of Human Rights and as a member of the Council of Europe, was
showing a lack of respect for these bodies and that its behaviour was
unprecedented.
Facing a deluge of lawsuits from tens of thousands of Greek Cypriot refugees
if it pays up, Turkey yesterday continued its trite argument that
responsibility lay with the Turkish Cypriot regime not itself, knowing full
well that as a non recognised state, the Denktash regime cannot be sued.
They also tried to divert the Committee's attention to the ongoing Cyprus
settlement talks, saying the whole issue would be decided there.
[14/07/00 - Newswire]
================================================
Background information:
In July 1974, Turkey using as a pretext the coup against President Makarios,
invaded the Republic of Cyprus in violation of the UN Charter and all
principles of international law.
As a result, 37% of the island was occupied - the wealthiest part,
representing 70% of the island's economic potential.
200,000 Greek Cypriots - one third of the population - were forcibly
expelled from their homes, became refugees in their own country and are
still deprived of the right to return to their homes and properties. In
addition over 1,600 Greek Cypriots went missing and what became of them is
unknown to this day. About 20,000 Greek and Maronite Cypriots remained
enclaved in the occupied area. Over the years they became victims of
Turkey's ethnic cleansing - harassed and intimidated they were forced to
leave and today only a few hundred still remain in their homes. Byzantine
churches, monuments and antiquities were destroyed or looted and many items
were smuggled abroad.
The cultural heritage of the occupied area, that reaches back to the 7th
millennium BC, forming part of the cultural heritage of mankind, continues
to this day to be systematically and deliberately plundered and destroyed.
Moreover, more than 114,000 settlers from Turkey have been imported
illegally and colonised the occupied areas with the aim of changing the
demographic structure of Cyprus. Properties usurped from the expelled Greek
Cypriots were distributed to such settlers. All this, coupled with a strong
Turkish military presence in the occupied areas (estimated at 40,000 Turkish
troops) and an attempt to change Greek place-names of villages and towns
into Turkish ones, is clear evidence that Turkey's aim is to turn the
occupied part of Cyprus into a Turkish province.
A series of UN General Assembly and Security Council Resolutions, as well as
resolutions adopted by numerous other international organisations, condemned
the Turkish invasion of Cyprus and all that followed, demanded the return of
refugees to their homes in safety and the tracing of the missing persons and
called for respect of the human rights of all Cypriots. Moreover, the
European Commission of Human Rights found the government of Turkey
responsible for gross and systematic violations of human rights in Cyprus
during and after the invasion.
GREEK AND TURKISH CYPRIOT COEXISTENCE AND TMT
"There are many examples of joint upsprings against the Sultan and the
Pashas. We shall only mention the uprising of Halil Agha in 1765, of the
Messaoria
peasants in 1804-1805 and of Giaour Imam in 1833. In these upsprings Greeks
and Turks fought jointly for better living conditions, but they were put
down through the co-operation of aghas- landlords and the higher Greek Clergy.
This brief survey of the circumstances that enabled the Ottoman Empire to impose
itself upon Cyprus accounts for the main causes that led to the cooperation
of the Greek and Turkish masses."
Ibrahim Aziz, The Historical Course of the Turkish Cypriot Community, 1981.
For hundreds of years Greek and Turkish Cypriots lived in social harmony and
economic interdependence in the villages and towns of Cyprus.
This web of interdependence was only disturbed after protracted and violent
attacks against it. Even after incidents, planned and instigated to prove
that Greek and Turkish Cypriots could not live together, ordinary people again
and again proved the opposite until they were torn apart by the Attila operation
in 1974.
The Turkish Cypriots originated as a Muslim population during the period
when Cyprus was ruled by the Ottoman Empire between the 16th and the 19th
centuries. Some are descended from the Greeks and Latins who changed their faith
to
ease the burden of oppression. Their interdependence with the rest of the
population of Cyprus is indicated by the fact that until 1974 they lived
intermingled
in towns and villages all over Cyprus. The mass of Greek and Turkish Cypriots
lived and cooperated peacefully in an atmosphere of religious and cultural
tolerance. As Cyprus moved into the twentieth century, Greek and Turkish Cypriot
workers engaged in common trade union struggles organized in the Pancyprian
Federation of Labour.
During the years of colonial rule the Greek Cypriots agitated for freedom.
The Turkish Cypriot minority was the object of continuous attempts at
manipulation aimed at converting them into an instrument of colonial policy in
countering
the anti-colonial movement of the rest of the population of the island. The
Colonial power involved Turkey in its dispute with the people of its colony:
It was easier to continue ruling the colony if the dispute was not between
the colonial masters and its subjects, but a more complicated one.
TMT was the outcome of Turkey's cooperation with the colonial power, and was
the means of frustrating the wishes of the majority of the population of
Cyprus, dividing Greek and Turkish Cypriot and beginning the long path towards
partition.
The organization was set up by Mr Rauf Denktash.
"I had set up the TMT with a few friends...Everybody thought that I was the
leader, but I was not. I was political advisor. Immediately after forming it
I handed it over... The leaders were former army officers from Turkey."
(The Times, 20.1.1978)
Dr Kuchuk takes up the story with an account of how Riza Vurushkan came to
Cyprus from Turkey to lead TMT.
"Year 1957...in order to give daily reports to Ankara...and to secure aid
from Turkey I used to go to Ankara very frequently. During one of these
visits, the late Prime Minister of Turkey, Adnan Menderes, introduced Riza
Vurushkan
to me...Later I met him at the office of a Lieutenant General and talked
with him there. During our meeting it was decided that Vurushkan should come to
Cyprus as "civilian adviser". He arrived in Cyprus under an assumed name and
settled down here."
(Halkin Sesi, 16.2.1979)
TMT incited anti-Greek riots and tried to force Turkish Cypriot workers to
establish separate trade unions.
Murder, arson and intimidation were the means that TMT used in order to
prove that Greek and Turkish Cypriots could not live together. The victims were
trade unionists, journalists and ordinary Turkish Cypriots who resisted TMT's
call.
After the signing of the Zurich and London Agreements in 1959, which led to
the independence of Cyprus, TMT continued its clandestine activities in the
cause of dividing Cyprus, and was to continue until 1984 as Mr Ozgur was to
reveal.
In October, 1959, seven months after the signing of the agreements on Cyprus
independence, the British mine-sweeper HMS Burmaston intercepted the Turkish
boat "Deniz" as it was attempting to deliver a shipment of arms to TMT in
Cyprus.
Despite TMT terrorism, the mass of Greek and Turkish Cypriots citizens
entered hopefully into the period of independence.
Some TMT attacks against Turkish Cypriots, May-July, 1958
---------------------------------------------------------
- 22.5.58: Murder attempt against Ahmet Sadi, Director of the Turkish Office
of the Pancyprian Workers Federation. In order to save his life,
Sadi left Cyprus soon after and settled in England.
- 24.5.48: Murder of Fazil Onder, Chief Editor of the weekly newspaper
"Inkilapci".
- 29.5.58: Murder of Ahmet Yahya, committee member of the progressive
Turkish Cypriot Athletic-Cultural Centre.
- 5.6.58: Murder attempt against Hasan Ali, member of a Construction Workers
Committee of the Pancyprian Labour Federation.
- 30.6.58: Murder of Ahmet Ibrahim, a barber from Limassol, because he had
friendly relations with Greek-Cypriots and expressed himself in
favour of Greek-Turkish cooperation.
- 3.7.58: Murder attempt against Arif Hulusi Barudi. He was working in a
business owned by a Greek Cypriot. Before the attempt he had
received a threatening letter demanding that he leave his job.
"The Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots alike were spread widely over the
island- not according to any fixed geographical pattern but rather as a
result of the usual factors behind the movement and settlement of people over
many
generations; for example, the search for farming land and for employment,
and other such social and economic motives... Thus out of 619 villages at the
time of the last census, 393 were wholly or predominantly Greek Cypriot, 120
were
Turkish Cypriot and 106 were classified as mixed. But the villages
themselves are not usually to be found in clusters where one community or the
other
predominates; the more general pattern in any given area is a mixture of
Greek Cypriot, Turkish Cypriot and mixed villages. The capital, Nicosia, and the
other main towns such as Famagusta, Limassol and Larnaca are also mixed in
population... There is evidence of considerable intermingling of the two
communities, more especially in employment and commerce but also to some
degree at the social level."
Gallo Plaza, United Nations Mediator,
"Report to the Secretary General", 1965.
"Going ...back... to our schooldays... I don't think that the generation of
that age, the boys of that age... had any cause for alarm for the future... were
years when people who are now in our age group knew there was British
"repression" on the island... We were just boys in the English School; Greek
and Turkish boys living probably in the same street in opposite houses,
playing together, fighting together... As a boy I remember going around with my
father to Greek monasteries all over Cyprus, to Greek houses, and being
entertained
by Greeks on an equal footing as friends, good friends. They used to come to
our house, too, and the reason, I now believe, looking back, is that we had
no political quarrel, no political bone to pick".
Rauf Denktash at a Rotary Club Luncheon 1n 1972
in R. Denktash, "The Cyprus Problem", 1974.
"In 1954 I felt great anxiety about Cyprus.
...
Harold Macmillan was urging us to stir up the Turks in order to neutralise
the Greek agitation. I wrote a minute in opposition to this tactic. I also asked
the Prime Minister's private secretary if I could see Churchill on the
subject, but he absolutely refused even to pass on the suggestion, which he
clearly
regarded as impertinence."
C.M. Woodhouse, "Something Ventured", 1982.
TMT Leaflet Circulated on 7 May 1958:
"Oh Turkish Youth!
The day is near when you will be called upon to sacrifice your life and
blood in the "PARTITION" struggle - the struggle for freedom... You are a brave
Turk. You are faithful to your country and nation and are entrusted with the
task
of demonstrating Turkish might. Be ready to break the chains of slavery with
your determination and willpower and with your love of freedom.
All Turkdom, right and justice and God are with you. PARTITION OR DEATH."
quoted in Nancy Crawshaw "The Cyprus Revolt", 1978.
"Although the nucleus of the first Turkish Cypriot political party was
organized in 1942, it was not until 1955 that the Turkish Cypriot community
became politically active. Within the next three years, a community
political structure was developed as a result not only of efforts of Turkish
Cypriot
leaders to oppose Enosis, but also of encouragement from the British and
Turkish officials who were seeking to safeguard their countries' strategic
interests."
Dr Fazil Kuchuk in interview to R.A.Patrick, Doctoral
Dissertation, London School of Economics and
Political Science, 1972.
"The early stages of the Cyprus conflict, in the mid-1950's, were mainly a
struggle between the Greek Cypriots and the British Colonial power, with the
Turks at that time hardly interested in the island. There is strong evidence
that the British Government of the day deliberately encouraged an
indifferent Turkey to take more active interest, as a useful counterweight in
the
struggle against the Greeeks. One of the most violent expressions of this
artificially contrived Turkish indignation was on the night of 6th-7th September
1955,
when a terrifying Turkish mob destroyed quantities of Greek property in
Instanbul. It should be noted that at the Yassaida trials in 1960 evidence was
given by
the defence witnesses that the Turkish Government had been put up to staging a
Cyprus demonstration by the then British Foreign Secretary Harold Macmillan,
but that the demonstration, mis-managed by Menderes, had degenerated into an
uncontrollable riot".
David Hotham, "The Turks", 1972.
"When the armed struggle started, the British had at their disposal
thousands of men and could even increase their existing numbers to put down the
EOKA
struggle. This they did not do, but they formed instead the well known
Auxiliary Corps. The ordinary Turkish Cypriots, who did not realize where the
British
were leading them (since their leadership did not warn them, rather it
encouraged
them), hastened to reinforce this Auxiliary Corps thinking only of securing
a living. Thus, the Greek Cypriots, who thought that they were waging a holy
struggle
against the British, found themselves facing the Turkish Cypriots. In this
way the British started submitting to the Turkish community their plans for
partition."
Ibrahim Aziz, "The Historical Course of the Turkish Cypriot Community",
1981
REAL
Notes:
Status:
Active
Established:
1983
Strength:
Unknown
Location:
Turkey
Terrorist Acts:
http://webhome.idirect.com/~mullen/TG_Grey_Wolves.htm
-----------
(c) Copyright 1999
---------------
http://www.ahram.org.eg/weekly/1999/426/re1.htm
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://users.belgacom.net/gc192975/turkey.htm
---------
(Source: Inisiyatif #5)
a) The education system.
The MHP Abroad
Conclusion
My lies?
Thanks for showing yourself.
Turkey Censured By COE
in 1974.
to
REAL
> Ladin had a passport from south cyprus.
> Take a hike.
This coming from a fool such as Nevzat.
One with no credibility or point other than trolling whoever he disagrees
with, using sexual innuendos and whatever else with Vasif.
So sensitive about Gurels double standards approach to Turkish education
rights vis a vis Kurdish educations rights that they resorted to sexual
innuendos to troll the thread with unsubstantiated abuse that had nothing to
do with the subject.
Their words expose who these individuals are everyday.
Nevzat Akdemir wrote:
> We don't fool around with derriers.
> We ain't no greeks, y' kno. :-)
>
Subject:Re: STATE MINISTER GUREL IN AUSTRALIA
Date:Thu, 6 Sep 2001 01:36:24 +0100
From:"vasif@fisav" <va...@fisav.swinternet.co.uk>
I'll find you somebody with a SUBSTANTIAL one to SUBSTANTIATE it up your
derriere, re REAL.
--
vasif@fisav
-----------------
Angelos Karageorgiou
>
> "Voyager" <ji...@dmail.com> wrote in message
> news:9qdeld$hp1$1...@usenet.otenet.gr...
> >
> > AGAINST INNOCENT PEOPLE.
> Greece's Stand on National Minorities*
>
> by Eqerem Mete**
>
[deleted]
I very much doubt that you have any friends in Greece, since you
are taking Turkish newspapers at face value.
This complex of superiority and neo-Ottamanism of the Tuks must
have reached you all the way in Frankfurt, but I understand
Germany is now at the hands of Turkey with 5million turks
inside it. Enjoy your bedfellows they will stab you in the back
in good time. We know we have been fighting them for 800 years.
Maybe next time you see a cypriot from the occupied territories
you would like to tell him how he should feel.
WolfWolf
news:3BCA95A7...@iqs.gr...
> WolfWolf wrote:
> >
> > "Voyager" <ji...@dmail.com> wrote in message
> > news:9qdeld$hp1$1...@usenet.otenet.gr...
> > >
> > > AGAINST INNOCENT PEOPLE.
> > Greece's Stand on National Minorities*
> >
> > by Eqerem Mete**
> >
>
> [deleted]
>
>
> I very much doubt that you have any friends in Greece, since you
> are taking Turkish newspapers at face value.
Believe it or not - I have good friends in Greece.
My posting was nothing else than to show to some arrogant, ignorant
contributors the effect of distributinig dirt in the neighbours' garden.
It is not my aim to counter-attack Neo-Pan-Hellenism with
Neo-Pan-Ottomanism, but some contributors are really thirsty for it.
WolfWolf
astro
.TROLL .TROLL
TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL
.TROLL .TROLL
TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL
.TROLL .TROLL
TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL
.TROLL .TROLL
TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL
.TROLL .TROLL
TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL
.TROLL .TROLL
TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL
.TROLL .TROLL
TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL
.TROLL .TROLL
TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL .TROLL
.TROLL .TROLL
WolfWolf
news:3BCA8BED...@SPAMTRAPPEDhotmail.com...
> Heres your own medicine grey wolf
Give evidence of my colour. It could be yellow or blue or green as well.
Then tell us about the origins and development of PKK terrorism.
Then learn about the legal structures of a democratic society.
Then (but not earlier) speak about failures and insufficiencies.
WolfWolf
WolfWolf
news:3BCAB28B...@none.co.uk...
Gastro wrote nonsense.
Do you really feel the need to show everybody your intellectual level?
WolfWolf
WolfWolf
REAL wrote nonsense. Real has REALLY no own content at all.
WolfWolf
REAL
WolfWolf wrote:
"A great loss to the political life of Turkey."
Status:
Active
Established:
1983
Strength:
Unknown
Location:
Turkey
Terrorist Acts:
http://webhome.idirect.com/~mullen/TG_Grey_Wolves.htm
-----------
(c) Copyright 1999
---------------
http://www.ahram.org.eg/weekly/1999/426/re1.htm
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/grey_wolves.htm
---------
Milliyet?i Hareket Partisi
Logo
English name
Nationalist Movement Party (or: Nationalist Action Party)
Party leader
Devlet Bah?eli
Founded
In the late 60s by Alpaslan Turkes (1917-1997), a former propaganda
officer of the Turkish army convicted for "racist
activities" in 1944 and described in a Gestapo report as "the F?hrer
http://users.belgacom.net/gc192975/turkey.htm
---------
(Source: Inisiyatif #5)
head of the government stands B?lent Ecevit from the DLP (Democratic
Alparslan T?rkes, died. The MHP was thought to be an unknown quantity.
For a time, therefore, a coalition of the DLP and the ANAP with the
other conservative party, the TPP (The True Path Party)
of Tansu Ciller was regarded as a possibility. Both centre-right
parties have been enormously discredited because of their
notorious corruption and nepotism and were the biggest losers in the
election. In addition, a bitter rivalry exists between the
party leaders. Some newspapers have therefore demanded that the
chairpersons of both parties, particularly Ciller, step down
and open the way for a merger of the parties.
As it became clear that the TPP had been relegated to a role in
opposition, hefty internal political struggles begun. A similar
development is to be seen in the Islamic Virtue Party (FP) and the
Social Democratic-Left Kemalist CHP (Republican Peoples
Party), once the state party of the founder of modern Turkey, Kemal
Atat?rk, but now a party without representation in
parliament.
which has been carried out by Kemal Atat?rk's holy
Islamic-leaning Virtue Party--and Behi? Kili?, one of her
WolfWolf
astron
TROLL
Konrad the terrorist sympathizer .
Hey polizei , here is Konrad....get him !
Voyager
Crescent & Star -Turkey Between Two Worlds
http://www.americanturkishsociety.org/pages/upcoming.html
Join veteran foreign correspondent, Stephen Kinzer, for lunch and a talk
about his new book, Crescent & Star-Turkey Between Two Worlds.
"[Kinzer's] adventures in Turkey gave him in-depth knowledge and real
appreciation for the country and its potential...He makes a powerful case
that this is a country that we must watch." Chicago Tribune
"This critical but affectionate portrait of Turkey's recent history throws
considerable light on the complex ways of this strategically important ally
of the West." The Economist
"Steven Kinzer gives an unusually candid account of the state of Tukey's
politics and the army's role...He is lyrical, even romantic, about the
potential of a forceful, creative and (mostly) free people to realize their
own implied glorious future." New York Times
For more information, please contact us or
Voyager
Turkey's Eclipse:
Earthquakes, Armenians, and the Loss of Cyprus
by Christopher Deliso
October 4, 2001
A HUNDRED YEARS LATER, THE PATIENT CHECKS IN
Almost a century ago, in the dying days of the Ottoman Empire, Turkey
was known as the "sick man of Europe." As it lay prostrate, the great powers
circled like vultures, jockeying for position besides Balkan hopefuls like
Greece and Bulgaria, intent on carving up the dead Turkish beast. Yet at the
final hour, the beast was resuscitated by the dashing Kemal Mustafa Ataturk,
a military leader who refused the orders of the last Ottoman sultan to
disband, and instead drove the foreigners out, in order to establish the
secular, modern, and outwardly strong nation that exists today.
While Turkey is not currently gripped in the mortal throes of a
wasting disease, it is in danger of being eclipsed: of being forgotten,
diminished, and generally overlooked at the very moment when its citizens
wish to claim their nation's rightful heritage. Yet here the Turks are
divided into two camps: the pro-Western elite, who see Turkey's future as an
EU member state well-integrated with Europe, and the pro-religious populace,
who detest Ataturk's secular designation, and wish for a Turkish Islamic
government - like in Iran, the Arab states, and Afghanistan. Controlling the
latter (as well as Turkey's many mostly imagined enemies) has required a
constant and costly show of force, in the form of a highly visible military
presence.
Turkey's military strength works against it on several levels.
Paradoxically, even though the army is there to protect and nurture a
pro-democratic, pro-European climate, the resulting image of Turkey as a
police state run by humorless generals has caused many Westerners to
criticize the apparent suppression of dissent and free speech. Besides the
political hindrance presented by the military, a second and more basic
factor is the inordinate expense of maintaining and outfitting such a force.
The vast majority of the Turkish budget goes to defense - thereby reducing
the funding for education and social programs that would improve the lot of
average Turks, and increase the skills and aptitude of the Turkish labor
force. Yet with perceived enemies on every border - the Russians, Iraqis,
Syrians and Greeks, not to mention the internal religious separatists and
restless Kurdish minority - it's unlikely that Turkey will change its policy
anytime soon. As we will see, the apparent strength of the Turkish
militarily actually conceals the country's fundamental weaknesses, which
continue to spread. Over the next decade, Turkey's eclipse seems almost
guaranteed.
FOR THE TURKS, TUESDAY USED TO BE THE BEST DAY OF THE WEEK
September 11th was really bad timing for Turkey, considering how it
spoiled the very day (Tuesday) on which the Byzantine capital of
Constantinople fell to the Ottoman sultan Mehmet II in 1453. Ever since,
Tuesday has meant good luck to Turks and bad luck for the Greeks. Yet the
events of the more recent "Black Tuesday" seem to have ruined this
association for Ankara. While it will undoubtedly get a reassuring pat on
the back from America for the continuing US air force presence in Incirlik,
Turkey is uneasy at the prospect of mass anti-Western protests. Should
America start bombing Islamic countries, many fear that the government might
suffer from guilt by association - and become an object of attack from
within. The prospect of Turkey's huge arsenal falling into the wrong hands,
as unlikely as it might be, is an unsettling one. More so than any other
Islamic country, a radicalized Turkey would pose an unpredictable and
immediate danger to Europe. Once again, the dependence on a strong military
can become a potential liability.
EVEN THE TURKISH CYPRIOTS ARE SHOUTING: "TURKEY, OUT!"
Most embarrassing for Turkey is the current crisis of morale in
Northern Cyprus. The minority population of the traditionally Greek island,
which the Turkish army is allegedly there to "protect," is chafing under a
demoralizing existence of repression and poverty, brought about by the
disastrous thirty-year misrule of Rauf Denktash, a bilious curmudgeon
comparable to the equally rancorous and ideologically obsolete Ian Paisley
in Northern Ireland.
Allegiance to Ankara has largely been a given for the Turkish
population of Cyprus since the invasion of 1974. Through promises of a
better life and macho displays of military might, Ankara maintained the
charade that it was really concerned about the lives of its citizens - while
really just trying to keep up a military presence on the last Greek island
left exposed. For strategic reasons, and to guarantee a diplomatic card,
Turkey pursued the military occupation of a sovereign country, and set up a
"republic" of Northern Cyprus that has gone unrecognized by every country
but Ankara. To strengthen their claims to the island, hundreds of thousands
of Anatolian Turks were forcibly relocated to Cyprus, many leaving a life of
relative prosperity for one of barren poverty, so that Ankara could play its
political games. Now the usually docile Turkish Cypriots are angry; they
gaze enviously across the barbed wire at affluent Greek Cyprus, its currency
stronger than the British pound, its culture modern, European and
forward-looking. Now, with Cyprus being sped along to EU membership by
2004 - whether or not a settlement is reached with Turkey - the Northern
Cypriots are beginning to feel betrayed and unjustly hindered by their own
leaders. A report in the Guardian of 25 September captures the mood:
"Please tell the world that the TRNC is an open prison," Ahmet Barcin,
president of the zone's secondary-school teachers' union, said. "It's one
big, militarised zone and all the gates are locked. Our only key to freedom
is a quick peace settlement [with the Greek south of the island], entry to
the EU and reintegration with the rest of the world."
DENKTASH: WILL "OUT OF TOUCH" MEAN "OUT OF OFFICE?"
Although applications for passports have almost doubled, and desperate
Turkish Cypriots have organized a diverse collection of opposition parties
into a front called "the Group of 41," their ill-tempered throwback of a
leader continually denies the existence of any problem - or even of any
unique local culture:
"Those who are against Turkey are wrong. There is no Cypriot culture,
apart from our national custom of drinking brandy. There are Turks of Cyprus
and Greeks of Cyprus, that's all," he snapped.
But last year tear gas was used in northern Nicosia to break up
supporters of the Group of 41 demonstrating under the slogan "This is our
country."
Not long after that the opposition newspaper Avrupa (Europe) was
bombed, and there was a severe crackdown on all informal contacts with Greek
Cypriots. "What's the point of such contacts?" Mr Denktash said. "I've heard
the only thing people seem to do at these meetings is have sex."
Ouch! In striking quite literally below the belt, Denktash sets
himself up for derision and betrays his failure to connect with the modern
generation of Turkish-Cypriots. The question is not whether he will be
replaced, but when. The warm Mediterranean sun, which should really be
shining down equally on Cyrprus as a whole, casts its benevolent rays solely
on the Greek section of the island. With EU accession looming, and full
integration into Europe becoming more and more likely, the Turkish Cypriots
are determined to avoid being frozen out. Unlike their compatriots on the
Anatolian mainland, the Turkish Cypriots have a chance - and damned if they'
re going to let one cranky old man stand in their way.
WHAT A FREE CYPRUS WOULD MEAN FOR ANKARA
The Cyprus stalemate is so longstanding now that any concession on the
Turkish side would inevitably be seen as a sign of weakness and failure. For
a country unified solely by the threat and the image of a strong army,
weakness and failure do not go over well. Therefore, a unified Cypriot
state, ineluctably to be dominated by its more affluent, educated and
Europeanized Greek majority, would be considered a step backwards, even from
the backwardness of life that Turkish Cypriots currently enjoy. The loss of
control of the northern section of the island would come as a tremendous
military setback and admission of weakness, one which might have
ramifications for the internal stability of the Turkish government. Indeed,
could there be any scenario more distressing to the Turks than a free and
unified Cyprus?
THINKING THE UNTHINKABLE
Yes, in fact, we can go one better, with the ultimate scenario that
would give every Turkish leader an instant stroke - that is, the thought of
Cyprus finally joining the Greek state. While this is admittedly a long shot
of an option, and one categorically excluded by the Turks, it can be argued
that a Greek-controlled Cyprus would actually be good for Ankara in several
ways.
First of all, such a capitulation on Turkey's part would of necessity
engender a similarly major concession on the part of the Greeks. In terms of
what Turkey wants, a guarantee of EU membership would be the absolute
minimum required, and they would no doubt win additionally in trade
concessions and other economic relief. The second reason why Turkey would
benefit is that, as the past decade in the Balkans has shown, being an
ethnic minority in someone else's country is much better than having an
ethnic minority within one's own country. By championing the rights of the
Turkish minority in Cyprus, Ankara would acquire greater leverage (indeed,
it gain practically a veto power on all Greek policy decisions) while at the
same time winning the affection of Turkish-Cypriots - for, with the
heavy-handed, Ankara-imposed government dismantled, and military
intervention halted, the Turkish Cypriots would have no reason to curse
their own. Yet it's unlikely we'll see a really Greek Cyprus anytime soon -
militarily speaking, Turkish testosterone shows no signs of abating.
THE OIL PIPELINE - TURKEY GETS SQUEEZED OUT
Turkey's bad economic news is also not going away. Despite all the
happy rhetoric from the Clinton administration, and all the hopeful gestures
on the part of potential investors, it seems likely that the Baku-Ceyhan oil
pipeline, a potential cash cow for Turkey, will never be built. This because
the route is more costly than similar routes through Russia and Iran, and
also because of Turkey's sinking economy. Turkey's unending economic woes
have already caused three of the major partner companies to pull out of the
deal, and with Clinton out of office, the need to bypass Russia and Iran is
moot. In fact, with the way things are going now, our new and cooperative
friend Russia might stand to gain on more than the Chechnya issue. As for
Iran, it stands to be rewarded for any help against bin Laden, and Dick
Cheney has long been (in matters of oil, at least) firmly in the Iranian
camp.
THE FALLOUT, ON TWO FRONTS
While analysts have shivered at the thought of Turkey's "wrath" at
being locked out of the pipeline, there would seem to be little to fear. At
worst, the US could lose access to its strategic bases, but Turkey is not
about to start a war with anyone, because it is economically in ruins.
Indeed, these woes are making Turkey into a very expensive mistress for the
US, which is now being asked to write off Turkey's massive military debt.
The traditionally hostile Turko-Russian relationship looks set to get
worse, and the outlines of a realpolitik cold war showdown are already
emerging in the Caucasus. In the Adjara region of southern Georgia, the
Turkish minority is clamoring for independence. A little further to the
east, Georgia's Armenians are protesting the withdrawal of Russian troops,
who they believe are essential to protect them against the Turks. Whether or
not there fears are justified nowadays, many of the Armenian Georgians are
old enough to remember when they were.
THAT DAMN ARMENIA THING JUST WON'T GO AWAY!
Modern Turkey continues to be roasted by Europe for its "human rights"
deficiencies, both old and new. In this regard, John Paul II, feeble as he
is, has still got that Catholic instinct for twisting the knife. The Pope
condemned Turkey for yeghern (Armenian for "genocide") against its Armenian
minority, a designation also made by European governments but for which
Clinton lacked the guts. It is probable however, that 1.5 million Armenians
were rounded up and killed by the Turks between 1915-1923, and any student
of Anatolian history knows that the region of "Armenia" (at various times, a
powerful medieval kingdom) was much larger than the pitifully small country
which Turkey bullies even today.
FOR EUROPE, THE CYNICAL VIEW MAY PROVE HARD TO SWALLOW
The cynical view is that since Greek dropped its objections to Turkish
EU accession in 1998, the rest of Europe has been scrambling to find a way
to keep the Turks out of Europe. For prosperous and peaceful countries like
Sweden and Ireland know well that, the second Turkey joins the EU, their
borders will be flooded by millions of poor and desperate Turks. Yet they
don't want to say it. Since European countries have always fancied
themselves as being so advanced and humanitarian, it was easy to make Turkey
all kinds of promises before - the "oh, we'd love to have you, if Greece
would just drop their objection" duplicity.
Yet the Greeks know well that if Turkey does join the EU, those
ravenous masses won't stop at Athens - no, it'll be all the way to Brussels,
Stockholm, or London, baby! And then those caring Northern Europeans will
have to put their money where their mouth is. To avoid doing this, it is
easier to just make Turkey run the gauntlet of "human rights" - a
Sisyphisean labor involving prisoners' rights, or Kurdish rights, or
recognizing the Armenian genocide, or abolishing the death penalty. And so
the Turks (the pro-Western elite, anyway) have been rushing around
frantically to do their masters' bidding.
Yet they shouldn't hold their breath. Europe has no intention of ever
letting Turkey in, for obvious economic reasons, and unstated cultural ones.
Indeed, while Berlusconi's controversial words may have been foolhardy, they
were also courageous, and they did represent the reality - that Europeans do
by and large view Islamic culture as backwards and inferior, though they are
too afraid to say so, caught as they are in the web of political correctness
that they themselves fabricated in order to ensnare others. It is just
Turkey's bad luck to have to be the scapegoat; though Europe will assuredly
always speak to it in the politest of tones, it will at the same time keep
whispering derisively behind its back. Yet you can bet if the Turks ever
make it through, and minarets start going up in Dublin, or the amplified
Arabic wailing rings out over Oslo, the whisper will become a roar, and the
"cultural war" which bin Laden is presently trying to bring about will
happen for real.
BUT ARE THEY READY FOR THE ULTIMATE APOCALYPSE?
As if all this were not enough, there is one final disaster waiting to
happen in Turkey, which would immediately plunge the country - and even the
whole region - into chaos.
Ever since the major earthquake in Izmit, in August 1999, in which
over 20,000 Turks were killed (mostly due to illegally built, poor quality
housing), seismologists have been predicting an even worse catastrophe - a
massive earthquake in Istanbul. Following the historical progression of
seismic activity during the 20th century, it is clear that the Turkish fault
line has been steadily activated in a westward direction, with periodic
quakes roughly following the contours of the Black Sea coast. Over the past
hundred years, subterranean pressure has been slowly building, so that the
final rupture, the epicenter of which is anticipated to be the Sea of
Marmara, just offshore from Istanbul, is likely to be the most devastating
of all. Simply put, a massive earthquake in Istanbul would be catastrophic -
and the Turks are completely unprepared for it.
That an earthquake here would be so destructive owes to Istanbul's
location, construction and also its historic value. Situated on a tiny
peninsula jutting into the Bosphorous, this sprawling city of 17 million is
a decrepit maze of ancient, tiny streets and ramshackle buildings, flimsy
constructions that are hardly strong enough to withstand a major quake. The
prospect of oil, gas and chemicals flooding the Sea of Marmara, and the
islands of Greece further on, is an almost unimaginable environmental
nightmare. Moreover, Istanbul's wealth of historical ruins from Byzantine
and Ottoman times make it Turkey's top tourist draw. On any given day, an
estimated 2 million tourists throng its streets and shore up the Turkish
economy. An earthquake in Istanbul, Turkey's most vibrant and important
city, would signal the death of the Turkish economy, livelihood and culture.
It would probably signal the start of mass starvation and death. If the
earthquake of 1999 is anything to go by, unscrupulous thieves would soon
start cutting body organs from the still-warm bodies of the dead, to sell on
the black market. In such a scenario the government would probably be
toppled, and anarchy would reign. Experts are not optimistic that the
inevitable can be avoided.
Whether Turkey goes out in a blaze of glory (i.e., a fiery quake), or
just sinks into a somnolent and useless old age, it seems likely that the
country will diminish in stature over the coming years. Their only hope,
really, is for some minor miracle (in terms of US-backed aid), that would
derive from the still uncertain fallout of September 11th. It is still
possible that the Turks might just somehow, despite all the indications to
the contrary, reclaim their lucky day.
Voyager
AI INDEX: EUR 44/15/98
1 April 1998
PUBLIC STATEMENT
TURKEY
Fear for prisoner safety as gendarmes brought to prison gate
The Justice Minister should ensure that gendarmes and police are not used to
quell the crisis at Buca Prison and other disturbances developing in prisons
throughout Turkey, Amnesty International said in a letter to the minister
yesterday.
In view of the many fatalities which have occurred in the past as a result
of using police and gendarmes to suppress such prison unrest, the
organization is concerned that gendarmes have been brought to quell
disturbances in Ward 7 at Buca Prison, near Izmir, and have attempted to
enter the ward.
Disturbances have also been reported at Bergama Prison, Ankara Closed Prison
and Umraniye Special Type Prison in Istanbul.
Amnesty International has written to the Turkish authorities on several past
occasions, urging that sufficient resources be allocated so that prison
services are not required to call upon Interior Ministry security forces --
police and gendarmes -- to handle such crises.
The letter drew attention to the history of ill-treatment and fatalities
which have occurred during such crises. When entering wards on previous
occasions, police and gendarmes have consistently used excessive force to
restore order, and have subsequently "punished" convicted members of illegal
armed organizations who have participated in disturbances by dealing out
severe beatings with sticks.
In September 1995 when prisoners in Ward 6 at Buca Prison refused to appear
for roll-call in protest at brutal treatment by gendarmes while being taken
to and from court, a large group of gendarmes forced entry into Ward 6.
After subduing the prisoners, the gendarmes allegedly brought them into the
courtyard one by one and beat them with chains, iron bars, sticks and
truncheons. Three prisoners, Yusuf Bag , Ugur Sariaslan and Turan Kilinc,
were beaten to death. The injuries documented in Turan Kilinc's autopsy
report suggested a ferocious attack: "general body trauma, broken skull,
subdural and subarachnoidal haemorrhage, broken ribs, laceration and
haemorrhage of the left lung."
A few months after this incident, in January 1996, Orhan Ozen, Riza Boybas
and Abdulmecit Seckin were beaten to death, and Gultekin Beyhan died later
in hospital from head injuries, after police and gendarmes entered Umraniye
Special Type Prison to subdue a prisoners' protest action.
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Voyager
Voyager
Presentation on the Greek Minority in Southern Albania to the Government of
Canada ministry of foreign affairs by the Hellenic Canadian Congress
For over three millennia the southern region of what is modern day Albania
has been inhabited by Greeks. Despite major upheavals and invasions the
Greeks of Albania have maintained their identity and culture. After 1453,
the Greek population of southern Albania had to live under severe
restrictions imposed by the Ottoman administration.
The harshness of the Turkish occupation included oppressive taxation,
including a child tax that forced parents to give up one of their children
to the Ottoman Empire, and the occasional genocide. But the Ottomans,
despite their cruelty toward the people they conquered, at least permitted
the Greek population a degree of local autonomy and religious freedom.
Remarkably the present, non-communist and democratic regime of Albania,
refuses to even allow the Greek minority the rights they had enjoyed during
the Ottoman period. These rights have been enshrined in international
conventions such as the Protocol of Corfu (18 May 1914 which established
Northern Erirus in southern Albania as an autonomous province.
In 1915 the Treaty of London (26 April) not only accepted autonomy for
Northern Epirus but also stipulated the transfer of this region to Greece.
Although this agreement was a result of war-time conditions and the intend
of the treaty was not fulfilled, it did afford recognition to the Greek
claim to Northern Epirus and at the very least international acknowledgement
of an historic Greek presence and identification with this region. After the
First World War the Council of the League of Nations and in 1945 the
Security Council of the United Nations have reiterated the guarantees
afforded to the Greek minority by the Protocol of Corfu.
The communist regime of Enver Hodjia ignored all these agreements and
conventions and proceeded to make every effort to extinguish the Greek
identity and language of the Hellenic minority. Religious freedom, customs
and tradition that had been practiced for centuries were not only prohibited
but those caught speaking Greek or even conducting a Christian funeral faced
harsh prison sentences and physical torture.
Greek Orthodox priest were either executed, imprisoned and for a lucky few
exile was the penalty for practicing their religion. Greek Orthodox churches
were destroyed or converted into secular facilities. This included churches
and monasteries that dated back to the Mediaeval period. All this was
supposed to end with the collapse of communism in Albania.
Unfortunately, the new "democratic" regime of Albania has failed to respect
the civil, human, and international rights of the Greek minority. The Greek
population is subject to political discrimination and police intimidation.
Attacks on persons and property are either tolerated or ignored by the
Albanian authorities. The Albanian Government is reluctant to permit the
admission of Greek Orthodox priests and when it does it finds a pretext in
order to expel them.
At the same time the Albanian Government refuses to recognize the property
rights of the Greek minority and offers every obstacle to hinder and delay
the construction of Churches, Greek schools, and the restoration of Greek
Orthodox cemeteries. Indeed, Albanian discrimination is not only confined to
religious, cultural, and linguist persecution but the government refuses to
allow the existence of political parties established by the Greek minority.
Presently the situation in the Balkans is at a critical stage and the
prospects for peace in the region remain doubtful. Thus far the war in the
former Yugoslavia has been confined to Bosnia and Krajina but Kosovo and the
Albania question in Serbia present potential for violence to spread in the
southern Balkans. Although the Albanian Government continues to encourage
its compatriots in Kosovo to demand autonomy and possible unification with
Albania it denies the Greek minority even the most basic rights.
We believe that it is only a matter of time before the oppression and
injustices inflicted on the Greek minority in Albania lead to violence. And
if at the same time this coincides with an outbreak of fighting in Kosovo it
is impossible to contemplate the extend of the conflict on the rest of the
Balkan peninsula.
Canada has always been at the forefront of peaceful and diplomatic solutions
to international problems. The peacekeeping record of this country has set a
model for the rest of the world and spared the lives of thousands of people.
In the case of the Greek minority in southern Albania the Canadian
Government has the opportunity to play a leading role in encouraging the
Albanian state to honor its international commitments and abide by the Human
Rights Charter of the United Nationals and the Helsinki Accords in respect
to Greek minority and all the people of Albania.
Prepared for by the Hellenic Studies Centre at Dawson College for the
Hellenic canadian Congress. The address for the Hellenic Congress of Quebec:
President, Sotiris Antypas Congres Hellenique du Quebec 5777 Wilderton
Montreal, Quebec, (514) 738-2421
http://www.greece.org/HSDC/albania.html
Voyager
Voyager
Voyager
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AI-index: EUR 44/028/1996 19/02/1996
printer friendly format
News Service 30/96
AI INDEX: EUR 44/28 /96
19 FEBRUARY 1996
TURKEY: CORRECTION TO PUBLIC MISREPRESENTATION OF AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL'S
POSITION ON LEYLA ZANA, IMPRISONED KURDISH FORMER PARLIAMENTARY DEPUTY
A misunderstanding seems to have given rise to a misrepresentation of
Amnesty International's position on the imprisonment of Leyla Zana, Kurdish
former parliamentary deputy, in an article by Ahmet Sever which appeared in
the Turkish daily Milliyet (Nationhood) on 16 February 1996.
Amnesty International has never stated that Leyla Zana "is not a prisoner of
conscience". The human rights organization has not published or otherwise
announced any such conclusion.
The article refers to replies given by Amnesty International representatives
to the British member of parliament Richard Balfe, and to the Danish
newspaper Information. In both replies it was made clear that Amnesty
International has not yet completed its investigation of the proceedings
brought against her and her fellow imprisoned deputies. ENDS\
Voyager
AI-index: EUR 44/063/2001 10/09/2001
10 September 2001
AI Index EUR 44/063/2001 - News Service Nr. 160
Turkey: Risk of reprisals against torture victims and human rights defenders
Amnesty International is urging Turkish government authorities to
immediately return all patient-related documents containing information on
torture victims, confiscated from the Diyarbakir Representation of the Human
Rights Foundation of Turkey (HRFT).
The HRFT, Turkey's most important NGO working for the treatment and
rehabilitation of torture victims, was raided by the police on 7 September
2001. All patient files, computers and the details of doctors who support
them were confiscated, in violation of long-standing medical ethics,
including patient-doctor confidentiality. The police also confiscated copies
of some journals that have been banned, although it is not illegal in Turkey
to keep a copy of such documents. One of the doctors, Emin Yuksel, was taken
to the police station for questioning.
The police, initially, did not have a search warrant but obtained one from
the Public Prosecutor's Office after objections from representatives of
Diyarbakir HRFT.
Given the past human rights record of Turkish authorities, "there is a real
risk that both the torture victims and their doctors will be exposed to
harassment, arrests and further torture," Amnesty International said.
Leading human rights defender Osman Baydemir from Diyarbakir was arrested on
9 August 2001 while he was with a delegation investigating human rights
abuses in Southeast Turkey. He was later released but 18-year-old Rasim Asan
was arrested after he testified to the delegation. He was reportedly
tortured, including by electric shock to his genitals and toes, the use of
death threats and hanging by the arms.
"Turkey is obliged to protect complainants and witnesses of torture from
ill-treatment or intimidation as a consequence of their complaints or any
evidence given," the human rights organization added.
Background
Since its creation in 1990, the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey has been
carrying out a Project for the Treatment and Rehabilitation of Torture
Survivors. The Foundation has five treatment and rehabilitation centres.
More than 1000 people applied to the centres in the year 2000.
The Diyarbakir representation was founded in 1998. It plays a crucial role
in the treatment and rehabilitation of torture victims in the southeast of
Turkey, which is mainly inhabited by Kurds and where torture and
ill-treatment is especially widespread.
In 1998 the HRFT was awarded the European Human Rights Prize of the Council
of Europe for "outstanding contribution to the protection of human rights in
Turkey" and the struggle for the abolition of torture.
\ENDS
public document
****************************************
For more information please call Amnesty International's press office in
London, UK, on +44 20 7413 5566
Amnesty International, 1 Easton St., London WC1X 0DW web :
http://www.amnesty.orghttp://web.amnesty.org/802568F7005C4453/0/204F321D1A61
7AD480256AC4005C5C18?Open&Highlight=2,TURKEY
Voyager
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PUBLIC STATEMENT
TURKEY
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Voyager
REAL
> I have Armenian friends in Boston and Chicago - not isolated in the
Armenian
> community. They do not agree with the "Armenian Genocide" campaign against
Turkey.
yeah yeah we believe you you Troll, just like your friend in Thessaloniki...
you got any Assyrian or Kurdish friends that agree with the Turkish
government?
WolfWolf wrote:
<UNSUBSTANTIATED NONSENSE, DIVERSIONS, LIES, MORE TROLLING>
Why waste your time with a TROLL?
WolfWolf claims Neom Chomsky is a "perfidious liar" because WolfWolf claims
he doesn't reveal his sources of income! not taht he can prove such an
allegation!
When WolfWolf is asked his for sources of income the troll replies with ""my
work"!!!
What an idiotic troll!
Below is the substantiatiion
WolfWolf wrote:
> "REAL" <traprea...@SPAMTRAPPEDhotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:3BC709CE...@SPAMTRAPPEDhotmail.com...
>
> > > Chomsky is a perfidious liar, hiding his real sources of income.
> > >
> > > WolfWolf
> >
> > so what are your real sources of income?
>
> My work.
>
> WolfWolf
Please don't feed the trolls!
REAL
> I have Armenian friends in Boston and Chicago - not isolated in the
Armenian
> community. They do not agree with the "Armenian Genocide" campaign
against Turkey.
yeah yeah we believe you you Troll, just like your friend in
Thessaloniki...
you got any Assyrian or Kurdish friends that agree with the Turkish
government?
WolfWolf wrote:
<UNSUBSTANTIATED NONSENSE, DIVERSIONS, LIES, MORE TROLLING>
Why waste your time with a TROLL?
WolfWolf claims Neom Chomsky is a "perfidious liar" because WolfWolf
claims
he doesn't reveal his sources of income! not taht he can prove such an
allegation!
When WolfWolf is asked his for sources of income the troll replies
with ""my
work"!!!
What an idiotic troll!
Below is the substantiatiion
WolfWolf wrote:
> "REAL" <traprea...@SPAMTRAPPEDhotmail.com> wrote in message
Nicolas
> "Angelos Karageorgiou" <ang...@iqs.gr> wrote in message
> news:3BCA95A7...@iqs.gr...
>
>>WolfWolf wrote:
>>
>>>"Voyager" <ji...@dmail.com> wrote in message
>>>news:9qdeld$hp1$1...@usenet.otenet.gr...
>>>
>>>>AGAINST INNOCENT PEOPLE.
>>>>
>>>Greece's Stand on National Minorities*
>>>
>>>by Eqerem Mete**
>>>
>>>
>>[deleted]
>>
>>
>>I very much doubt that you have any friends in Greece, since you
>>are taking Turkish newspapers at face value.
>>
>
> Believe it or not - I have good friends in Greece.
I doubt that you have any friends, period.
> My posting was nothing else than to show to some arrogant, ignorant
> contributors the effect of distributinig dirt in the neighbours' garden.
>
> It is not my aim to counter-attack Neo-Pan-Hellenism with
> Neo-Pan-Ottomanism, but some contributors are really thirsty for it.
>
> WolfWolf
>
>
>
Mental midget. The fact that some people disagree with your point of
view does not make them arrogant.
The arrogant one is you armed with nothing buth bullshit, trying to
serve it up as "proof".
Take a freaking hike already.
Nicolas
REAL
Nicolas wrote:
> WolfWolf wrote:
> >
> > Believe it or not - I have good friends in Greece.
>
> I doubt that you have any friends, period.
yeah just like his Armenian friends who *surprise suprise* don't agree in the
genocide! that is "against" Turkey.
Nevzat Akdemir
far Northwest
corner of Pakistan; a beautiful valley in the Hindukush range of Mountains.
Khowar is classified
as an Indo-European language of the Dardic Group. However, only Kalashamun is
closely
related to Khowar. It is spoken as the primary language by 250,000 people in
Chitral. There
are also pockets of speakers in Gilgit. It is clear that the current Chitralis
have lived in their
mountain home for 3,000 to 4,000 years.The people of Chitral are called Kho.
Traditionally
they are peaceful and law abiding citizens.
Khowar has 42 phonemes. Several of these are not found in any other language of
the region.
The letters /t/, /th/, /d/, /l/, /sh/, /ch/, /chh/, and /j/ all have two
different forms, one
retroflexed and the other dential-veolar non-retroflexed. Every Chitrali who
learned the
language on his mother's knee can readily distinguish these forms, whereas
others can never
learn them, regardless of how long they have lived in Chitral.
Khowar does not have a written form in common use. Before 1947, written
communications in
Chitral were in Farsi, which explains the large number of Farsi loan words.
Today, written
communications are in Urdu. Several attempts have been made to introduce a Urdu
or Roman
based writing script into Khowar, but these have never gained widespread
acceptance.
Alexander the Great encountered them when he visited the area. The proof of this
is that in
the histories of Alexander the Great it is written that he encountered strange
wooden boxes,
which his troops chopped up to be used as firewood. These "boxes" were actually
coffins for
their dead following the custom which the Kalash Kafirs of Chitral still have of
leaving their
dead outside in wooden coffins. He also described them as a light skinned race
of European
type people, which is exactly what they are. This further proves that the same
people were
there then as are there now.
The Kalash Kafir religion which is still practiced today by about 3,000 people
in Chitral has a
resemblance to the ancient Greek religion of gods and goddesses. This has led
some to
speculate that the Kalash got their religion from the invading Greeks. This is
unlikely. The
Greeks merely passed through in 327 B.C., probably within 50 miles of Chitral,
but did not
enter Chitral itself and did not stop or stay for long. What is likely is that
the Kalash religion
and the Greek religion have a common origin. Both came from some proto-Indo
European
religion which was carried along with the Indo European language when the
Chitralis first got
there some 3,000 to 4,000 years ago.
The Chitralis are still speaking today one of the oldest Indo-European languages
in a relatively
undiluted form. This is not surprising in view of the remoteness of their area.
They are so far
up in the Hindu Kush mountains that it would be almost impossible for an invader
to conquer
them. By far the lowest pass into Chitral is Lowari Top, which is over 10,000
feet high, too
high for an invading army easily to cross. The path up the Kunar river from
Jalalabad becomes
so narrow below Ashret that no invading army has ever tried it. There have been
several
attempts to invade Chitral within relatively modern historical times. One group
came across
Boroghol Pass, were defeated and went back. Another group came across Urtsun
Pass. The
British in 1895 simultaneously came across Shandur Pass and Lowari Top in a
mission to rescue
a group British hostages which had been taken. They conquered the area, which is
the reason
why Chitral is now part of Pakistan.
The world's highest polo playground is located here. It is surrounded by some of
the most
spectacular mountains in the world. The history of this annual polo tournament
at the Shandur
Top dates back to 1936 when a British Political Agent, Major Cobb organised the
first polo
tournament here. Major Cobb was fond of playing polo under full moon and he
developed a polo
ground near Shandur that was named after him and is still known as 'Major Cobb
Moony Polo
Ground'. Polo fans gather at Shandur from all over the world to participate in
the spectacular
polo events during this tournament.
REAL wrote:
> Heres your own medicine grey wolf
>
> Turkey's Killing Machine: The Contra-Guerrilla Force
> By Serdar Celik
>
> How The Force Was Set Up
>
> Turkey joined NATO on April 4, 1952. In the same year, the organisation known as
> "Gladio", or officially as "Super NATO",
> whose arm in Turkey is the contra-guerrilla force called Seferberlik Taktik
> Kurulu (STK - Tactical Mobilisation Group), started
> its activities in the building of the CIA organisation American Yardim Heyeti
> (American Aid Delegation - JUSMATT) in the
> Bahcelievler district of the Turkish capital Ankara. (*1)
>
> During the 1960s, following on from the experience of Korea and Vietnam, the
> American-dominated armies of NATO began
> to set up their own special guerrilla warfare units. The 1959 military accord
> between the Turkish and US governments
> envisaged the use of the contra-guerrillas "also in the case of an internal
> rebellion against the regime". (*2)
>
> The STK was restructured in 1965 and was renamed Ozel Harp Dairesi (OHD -
> Special Warfare Department). It comes
> under the authority of the President of General Staff and is also known by other
> titles such as Ozel Kuvvetler Komutanlik
> (Special Forces Command) or Harekat Dairesi (Operations Department).
>
> Although it was revealed through the "Gladio" affair in Italy in 1990 that such
> secret organisations also existed in other member
> states of NATO, and that they maintained close contacts with these countries'
> secret services and had been involved in a series
> of murders and bomb plots, the Turkish military and state authorities continued
> to deny the existence of any such organisation in
> Turkey.
>
> Only after ex-CIA chief William Colby had revealed that "there is also such an
> organisation in Turkey" did the Turkish
> authorities withdraw their false pretentions that there was no Turkish Gladio.
> On December 3, 1990, General Dogan Beyazit,
> President of the Harekat Dairesi (Operation Department) of Turkey's General
> Staff and General Kemal Yilmaz, commander of
> the Ozel Kuvvetler (Special Forces), issued a press statement. In this statement
> they revealed that the title of the special NATO
> organisation in Turkey was Ozel Harp Dairesi (Special Warfare Department) and
> that its task was "to organise rewsistence in
> the case of a communist occupation". They further explained that this
> organisation had fought in Cyprus in 1974 and against the
> PKK in Kurdistan in 1980, but that its secret members, whom they called
> "patriots", had "no connection with the
> contra-guerrilla forces" (1). This latter claim is a blatant lie.
>
> The bloody dictator of the September 12, 1980 coup, Kenan Evren, wrote in his
> memoirs that Prime Minister Suleyman
> Demiriel had in the 1970s written to him of his wish to engage the Special
> Warfare Department to deal with civil unrest (2). This
> was denied by Demuriel. Bulent Ecevit, another Prime Minister of the 1970s,
> revealed that: "As Prime Minister I first became
> aware of its existence in 1974 through requests from Semih Sancar, chief of the
> General Staff, for money for secret payments
> to the Special Warfare Department. I was shocked". (3)
>
> How and why was the Special Warfare Department set up?
>
> The founding aim of the Department is: "In the case of a communist occupation or
> of a rebellion, to use guerrilla methods and all
> possible underground activities to bring an end to the occupation." (4) The
> special war methods which are taught supposedly
> for the prevention of a communist occupation include among others
> "assasinations, bombings, armed robbery, torture, attacks,
> kidnap, threats, provocation, militia training, hostage- taking, arson,
> sabotage, propaganda, disinformation, violence and
> extortion." (5)
>
> Textbooks by American contra-guerrilla experts were translated into Turkish, and
> these special war methods were thus
> introduced into Turkey. Some of the textbooks written by American experts are:
> "U.S. Army FM 31/16" (contra-guerrilla
> operations), "U.S. Army Special Warfare School" (contra-guerrilla tactics and
> techniques), "FM 31/20" (special forces
> operational techniques), "FM 31/21 Special Forces Operations" (ST urban
> assignments, 31/21 guerrilla warfare and special
> forces operations ), "FM 31/21 A. Special Forces Operations (U)" (special forces
> secret operations). (6)
>
> The Turkish contra-guerrilla force developed the most complex and sophisticated
> methods for its war against the PKK. Since
> 1985 a series of new textbooks and instructions for the contra- guerrillas have
> been published. Just one example is the book "Ic
> Guvenlik Konsepti" (The Concept of Internal Security), which was published by
> the Special Warfare Command of the General
> Staff in 1985, and which is used as a textbook in the contra-guerrilla camps.
>
> The underground elements of the Special Warfare Department - that is, the
> elements which carry out actions - are called
> contra- guerrillas. The Special Warfare Department can be identified with the
> contra-guerrillas, since it is the latter who put the
> Department's work into practise.
>
> The Turkish contra-guerrillas have many schools in Turkey, in which they receive
> their training - in Ankara, Bolu, Kayseri, Buca
> near Izmir, Canakkale and since 1974 in Cyprus. "In the mountain commando school
> in Bolu, green berets (Delta Forces) who
> fought in Vietnam also got their training". (7)
>
> The contra-guerrilla teams, who are implanted with a fanatical hatred of the
> "peril" of "communism" and "separatism", whose
> heads are full of chauvanism, are unleashed against anyone who stands in
> opposition to the regime. For their goal, which they
> pursue with the support of the USA, is "the establishment of a competent
> military and semi-military force which will, jointly with
> the security forces, maintain internal security". (9)
>
> In their eyes not only the "communists", but each and every democratic movement
> is a danger which they aim to counter using
> guerrilla methods. The American military doctrine as presented in the textbooks
> holds that "our security is threatened not only
> by open attacks, but also by other types of threats which are even more
> dangerous than open attacks but which do not look
> like open attacks. These dangers consist of the attampts to bring about
> transformations and changes from the inside." (10)
>
> Selected elements of the Turkish contra-guerrillas together with the generals
> were all trained in contra-guerrilla schools in the
> USA. The aims of this training are defined as follows: "The goal of military aid
> is to educate soldiers from underdeveloped
> countries in accordance with U.S. ideology and then to install them
> advantageously in the leadership of their countries". (11)
> During their training in the USA the contra-guerrilla forces "are taught about
> social problems in their countries, and shown films
> which demonstrate the aggression and subversion of the communists. They learn
> how to handle explosives under the
> supervision of green berets in Matamoros near the Mexican border, and they are
> taught how to kill, stab or strangle somebody
> silently, etc". (12). Other places where Turkish officials are trained are the
> Escuela de los Americas in Panama, which is
> attached to the U.S. base Southern Comfort, the Police Academy near Washington
> and the Schongau and Oberammergau
> bases in Germany. (*3)
>
> Part of the Special Warfare Department is made up of officers from official
> units known as A-units or Special Operations Units.
> As the war became more intense, B-units were formed within the Special Warfare
> Department, made up of professional
> volunteer commando forces. Both types of units employ contra-guerrilla tactics.
>
> The forces built by the Special Warfare Department have everywhere formed
> organisations in the form of cells. These elements,
> known as "patriots", are placed in front-line duties by being infiltrated as
> agents-provocateurs into political parties,
> administrative departments and opposition groups.
>
> The strongest pillar of the Special Warfare Department is the Secret Service. In
> Turkey the Secret Service is subordinate to the
> General Staff and so also to the Special Warfare Department. The civilian
> government has no control whatsoever over the
> Secret Service. In Turkey there are various secret services: the MIT (National
> Secret Service Organisation) and the Secret
> Services of the Gendarmerie, the General Staff, the Foreign Ministry, the
> Director of Security (the political police) and the
> Presidential Office. These secret services hold quarterly meetings under the
> umbrella of the National Secret Service
> Coordinating Committee.
>
> The MIT has the greatest influence of all these organisations. This Turkish
> secret service organisation was originally called
> MAH and was restructured and renamed MIT in 1965. The MIT is a branch of the CIA
> and collaborates with the Israeli
> secret service MOSSAD, the German BND and earlier (up to 1975) with the Iranian
> SAVAK. Many operations of the
> Special Warfare Department are carried out in collaboration with the MIT. A
> third of the MIT's functionaries are members of
> the armed forces and the rest are mostly retired military personnel. It is a
> legal requirement that the chief of the MIT must be a
> member of the armed forces. Since the founding of the MIT, all the heads have
> been generals. They are appointed by the
> General Staff or by the Special Warfare Department. The 1989 budget of the MIT
> amounted to 42,745 million Turkish lira.
> (*4)
>
> Another organisation coming under the Special Warfare Department is the
> Psychological Warfare Department. On November
> 9, 1983 this department became the TIB (Ministry for Social Relations). Its
> headquarters are in Ankara. Its first chief was
> Dogan Beyazit, who was at the same time also head of the Special Warfare
> Department. He was in charge of propaganda
> operations which the CIA program divided into "white, "grey" and "black"
> propaganda. Many professors were employed within
> the TIB. (*5)
>
> The TIB has brought out numerous journals and pamphlets and even comics. It
> formed satellite organisations under such names
> as "The Institute for Research into Turkish Culture", "Turkish World Research
> Institute", etc. The main aim of the TIB since the
> '80s has been to develop the psychological front in the war against the PKK.
>
> With this aim in mind, pamphlets are printed which try to blame the PKK for
> massacres committed by the contra-guerrillas.
> Such pamphlets are distributed in various languages in Europe, purporting to
> originate from such ficticious publishers as "the
> Union of Anatolian Women". Or else bogus leaflets attacking the PKK are
> distributed under the names of existing or ficticious
> political organisations. Posters and leaflets are put about which are full of
> ridiculous propaganda such as those claiming that the
> PKK is an Armenian organisation. Or television programmes and books are produced
> which slander the PKK. In the towns of
> Kurdistan professors hold seminars about how "Kurds are really Turks" etc. The
> most effective institution from the point of
> view of the TIB - that is the Psychological Warfare Department of the Special
> Warfare Department - is the press. Turkish daily
> newspapers such as "Hurriyet", "Milliyet", "Tercumann", "Turkiye" and "Sabah",
> which have become semi-official organs of the
> state, are pressured into carrying out systematic propaganda against the PKK.
>
> Another area where the Special Warfare Department wields its influence is of
> course the political parties. All state politicians
> and all bourgeois parties in Turkey are under the control of the Special Warfare
> Department. Here are just two examples:
>
> Turkish President Suleyman Demirel was the first Turk to get a scholarship from
> the Eisenhower Exchange Fellowship, which is
> controlled by the CIA. Later he held for many years the agency rights for the
> firm of Morrison, which built the death cells in
> Vietnam. (*6) When Demirel was in the USA in 1963, he was sent into the Adalet
> Partisi (Justice Party). In 1965 he became
> the chairman of this party and is now State President.
>
> Turgut Ozal, who was Prime Minister from 1983 to 1990 and President from 1990
> until his death in 1993, was an official of
> the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
>
> Special Warfare Department And Paramilitary MHP
>
> During the 1970s the struggle for democracy was developing in Turkey. In
> Kurdistan the struggle for national liberation was
> growing. With the help of the MHP (National Action Party), which was brought
> onto the scene in the 70s, hundreds of
> students, workers, intellectuals, trades unionists and educationalists were
> murdered: the president of DISK (the Federation of
> Revolutionary Trades Unions) Kemal Turkler, the journalist Abdi Ipekci,
> Professor Dr Bedri Karafakiroglu, professors Umit
> Doganay and Cavit Orhan Tutengil, Umit Kaftancioglu, State Counsel Dogan Oz,
> security chief Cevat Yurdakul, University
> Professor Orhan Yavuz, Bedrettin Comert, Server Tanilli (who survived but
> remained disabled), Chair Adana Chamber of
> Agricultural Engineers Akin Ozdemir and hundreds more. In 1974 in Maras they
> massacred inumerable Kurdish and Alevi
> people - children, women and old folk and men. This preplanned act of genocide
> opened the way for the military coup of
> September 12, 1980.
>
> It is know from the experiences of various countries that the CIA works together
> with the police to organize paramilitary groups
> in the tactics of irregular warfare. William Colby wrote: "To prevent Turkey
> from falling into the hands of the communists, the
> CIA gave support to anti-communist institutions". (13) Retired general Sezsi
> Orkunt, ex-chief of the General Staff said: "The
> Turkish armed forces were more worried about the Left than the Right. The Right
> was organised in the MHP and its leader
> Turkes was helped on his way". (14) When the MHP's Ankara headquarters were
> searched at the time of the 1980 coup, the
> "Contra-Guerrilla Assignment 31/15 on the Model Plan for Underground Cells" was
> found there. (15) The MHP had obtained
> this plan from Colonel Mehmet Alanyuva of the Agents Section of the Special
> Warfare Department, the MHP's militants, who
> were organised in accordance with this plan, went on to perpetuate a veritable
> massacre against innocent people from the
> opposition.
>
> The CIA also employed the MHP militants for terrorist plots on an international
> level. For example, the murderer of the
> journalist Abdi Ipekci was the same man who in 1991 carried out the
> assassination attempt on Pope John Paul.
>
> The MHP is also organised in Europe, and particularly in Germany. Until 1976 it
> was organised there under the same title.
> After that in Europe they took on the title Avrupa Ulkucu Dernekleri Federasyonu
> (Federation of National Associations in
> Europe). The MHP's organisation in Germany maintains connections with the German
> Secret Service. The journalist Ugur
> Mumcu, who was assassinated in 1993, wrote: "These connections were set up in
> Cologne by a German named Kannabin".
> (16) The MHP has another patron in Germany - Rudi Nazar. He is a CIA agent who
> was for many years active in Ankara and
> was later transferred to Bonn. Jurgen Roth went into this matter in detail in
> his book "Criminals Incorporated" and came to the
> conclusion, based on information from a president of one of the republics of the
> former Soviet Union, that the MHP is also
> involved in the heroin trade in Germany.
>
> General Haydar Saltik, one of those responsible for the September 12, 1980 coup,
> later left the army and became Consul in
> the Turkish consulate in Berne. He renewed his contacts with the Turkish
> nationalists and sent 15,000 officers and MHP
> militants, who came under the Special Warfare Department and had already had a
> hand in many attacks against the Armenians,
> to Azerbaijan. After their training, these militants were sent to Baku. The
> attacks on the Kurdish population in Antalya and
> other Turkish towns during the past year were also carried out by the MIT and
> the MHP. The MHP is still the paramilitary
> wing of the Special Warfare Department. This time, however, it was more
> effective, since the entire state with all its constituent
> parts has grown into an even more racist, anti-Kurdish and paramilitary
> organisation.
>
> The Operations Of The Turkish Contra-Guerrillas
>
> The bloody work of the Special Warfare Department is so wide- ranging that we
> can not go into everything here. We will,
> therefore, go straight over to Kurdistan, where the contra- guerrillas are
> employed in the front line against the national liberation
> struggle. First, however, we would like to recount some of the decisive points
> of the decisive points of the contra- guerrillas'
> activities prior to 1980:
>
> Agents from the Special Warfare Department threw a bomb into the house in
> Thessallonika in Greece which was used as the
> Mustafa Kemal Museum, and blamed this act on the Greek police. Consequently, on
> the 6 and 7 of September 1955, fanatical
> groups fired up by the contra-guerrillas wrecked Greek homes and businesses in
> Istanbul.
>
> The most important actions of the Special Warfare Department were the three
> military coups. This Department was responsible
> for the coup of May 27, 1967 and above all for the last two coups of the March
> 12, 1971 and September 12, 1980. The then
> Foreign Minister Ihsan Sabri Caglayangil, who was invited to Teheran a few days
> before March 12, 1971, learned from the
> Shah of Iran that there was going to be a coup in Turkey. (17) The then
> commander of the Turkish airforce, Muhsin Batur,
> went the the USA just before the coup of September 12, 1980. Again the then
> airforce commander Tahsin Sahinkaya flew to
> the USA and the coup took place two days after his return. Carter, who was at
> the opera when he heard about the coup,
> called Paul Henze, the CIA agent responsible for Turkey, and told him: " Your
> people have just made a coup". (18)
>
> The torture chambers which opened in 1971 gave the contra- guerrillas an
> important opportunity to gain practical experience.
> The contra-guerrilla generals who took people to the torture chambers in
> Ziverbay in Istanbul told their victims for the first time
> that they were prisoners of the contra-guerrillas. The interrogations were
> carried out by contra-guerrilla specialists called EBU
> (Correct Information Officers). A team of interrogation specialists called the
> DAL (Deep Investigation Laboratory) was set up
> by the political police in Ankara. These torture specialists murdered or caused
> permanent damage to hundreds of people. Later
> on, these teams were dispatched all over Turkey and especially Kurdistan. In
> 1971 the contra-guerrillas' torture was directed
> by General Faik Turun, Turgut Sonap and Memduh Unluturk. (*7)
>
> The invasion of Cyprus was an action of the Special Warfare Department. In 1955
> the Department set up a secret organisation
> called the Turk Mukavemet Hareketi (Turkish Resistance Movement). This
> organisation carried out systematic provocations in
> Cyprus in order to prepare the conditions for the 1974 coup. To prepare for the
> occupation of Cyprus, teams directed by
> Hiram Abbas and the Special Warfare Department established themselves in Beirut,
> from where they could organise activities
> in Cyprus. The Cyprus invasion was organised by the then chief of the Special
> Warfare Department Kemal Yemek. Cyprus
> was the first serious test for the Turkish contra-guerrillas. After 1980
> Kurdistan took the place of Cyprus in this respect.
>
> The State Security Courts are a product of the Special Warfare Department and
> they are assigned the task of restructuring the
> judicial process to fit the demands of the contra-guerrillas. In accordance with
> a directive of the contra-guerrillas, the the State
> Security Courts aim "not to condemn the defendants according to the punishments
> set out for the political crimes, but to
> administer punishments as severe as those set out for murder and other crimes
> against the person". (19) The detainees were
> severely tortured and then came before a contra-guerrilla court. Most of the
> judges have come from the military and are
> therefore tools of the Special Warfare Department.
>
> The murders and terrorist acts committed by the MHP were actions of the Special
> Warfare Department. Their purpose was to
> intimidate the opposition and prepare the conditions for a coup. The Special
> Warfare Department was successful in this task:
> on September 12, they carried out the military coup d'etat. This coup was the
> most important action of the contra-guerrillas. All
> arms of the state were reorganised on paramilitary lines. The Special Warfare
> Department gained control over the underworld
> (the Turkish mafia), the press, commerce, the judicial system, parliament, the
> universities and all other areas of society. All
> administrative organs and laws were restructured along the same lines.
>
> Sources:
> 1. Interview with the President of the Turkish General Staff Dogan Gures,
> "Milliyet" 5/6 September 1992 2. "Hurriyet" 26
> November 1992 3. "Milliyet" 28 November 1990 4. "Cumhuriyet" 17 November 1990 5.
> "Directive ST 31/15 for Operations
> Against Irregular Forces" 6. "The Contra-Guerrillas and the MHP" Vol 1, Aydinlik
> Yayinlari, p19 and Talat Turhan "The
> Contra-Guerrilla Republic", p19 7. "The Contra-Guerrillas and the MHP", p16 8. "
> The American Military Doctrine, Report of
> the Rockerfeller Foundation", p356 9. "The Age of Imperialism", Harry Magdorff
> (translated by M. Emin Doger., "CIA,
> Contra-Guerrillas and Turkey"), p104 10. ibid. p122 11. McNamara, 1967 (US State
> Department of Defense) 12. Franco
> Salinas, "State of Emergency", pp82-88 13. "Cumhuriyet" 21 November 1990 14.
> "Hurriyet" 19 November 1990 15. "Gunes"
> 17 November 1990 16. Ugur Mumcu "Pope-Mafia-Agca" p143 17. Cuneyit Arcayurek
> "Coups and the Secret Services"
> p160 18. ibid. p190 19. "Directive ST 31/15 for Operations Against Irregular
> Forces"
>
> Notes:
>
> *1
> The "Super-NATO" organisation was set up under the control of the CIA in all the
> NATO countries. The headquarters of this
> organisation was in Brussels and was named the Allied Coordination Committee
> (ACC). Secret meetings were held annually in
> which delegates from all the member countries took part. The official purpose of
> the organisation is "to organise resistance using
> irregular warfare methods in case of a communist occupation". The organisation
> has at its disposal special funds and weapons
> depots. It is not answerable for its activities under the laws of the individual
> member states. The organisation's branch in Italy
> was called "Gladio", in Germany "Anti-Communist Assault Unit", in Greece " Hide
> of the Red Buck", in Belgium "Glavia". The
> "Super- NATO" also set up branch organisations in non-NATO countries such as
> Austria and Switzerland.
>
> *2
> Referring to contra-guerrilla warfare conducted by the USA, former U.S.
> Secretary of State McNamara explained that
> "partisan wars call for a change in our understanding of warfare. In regions
> where partisan war has broken out, what is needed
> is not a great number of military units and weapons, but rather small units who
> have been well trained in guerrilla and
> counter-guerrilla tactics and armed with special weapons".(8) The American Delta
> Forces, the British Special Air Service
> (SAS), the Italian Special Forces Section and the German GSG-9 are units of this
> type. The former U.S. President Johnson
> declared in 1964 that 344 contra-guerrilla units had been trained by the USA in
> 49 countries of the world.
>
> *3
> In the 70s the following persons, among others, who still occupy important
> positions today, were members of the Turkish
> police and secret service: Sekru Balci, Ilgaz Aykutlu, Kenan Koc, Umit Erdal,
> Hiram Abbas (who was killed in 1990 [by
> militants of the armed communist organization Devrimci Sol, was in the 70s one
> of the three most influential persons in the
> MIT), Mehmet Aymur (Abbas' right-hand man in the MIT), Hayri Kozakcioglu (who
> was trained by Scotland Yard and in
> 1987 made Governor with Special Powers), Unal Erkan (at that time Kozakcioglu's
> successor as "Supergovernor" in
> diyarbakir).
>
> *4
> Divided among the 55 million people of the Turkish and Kurdish population, this
> means 949 Turkish Lira per head that every
> Turk and Kurd have to pay in order to finance the "work" of spying, torture and
> murder of this gang of killers.
>
> *5
> Professors Abdulhaluk Cay, Ibrahim Kafescioglu, Bahattin Ogel, Ertugrul Zekai
> Okte, Aydin Yalcin, among others.
>
> *6
> "In 1967 the CIA's budget for the funding of 'useful friends and elements'
> abroad was raised to 10 million U.S. dollars per year.
> Most of these funds flowed through our trade unions, student unions and special
> institutions into foreign institutions. The use of
> our trade unions and associations as a sort of screen prevented it from becoming
> known that the source of these funds was in
> reality the CIA". (Fron the book "CIA, Secret Services and Democracy" by the
> former CIA chief Stanfield Turner).
>
> *7
> Faik Turun became an MP for the AP (Justice Party) in 1977. Turgut Sunalp became
> a minister in parliament in 1982 as a
> member of the MDP (National Democratic Party). The retired Memduh Unluturk was
> killed by militants of the organization
> Devrimci Sol (Revolutionary Left) in 1991.
> (From Kurdistan Report #17 - February/March 1994)
>
> Adanali you support the grey wolves. You claim Kurds are "narcos" yet what about
> your government MHP/Grey Wolves?
> businessman named Henri Arsan, also functioned as an informant for the U.S. Drug
> Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi
> Logo
>
> English name
> Nationalist Movement Party (or: Nationalist Action Party)
> Party leader
> Devlet Bahçeli
> Founded
> In the late 60s by Alpaslan Turkes (1917-1997), a former propaganda officer of
> the Turkish army convicted for "racist
> activities" in 1944 and described in a Gestapo report as "the Führer of
> head of the government stands Bülent Ecevit from the DLP (Democratic Left
> Alparslan Türkes, died. The MHP was thought to be an unknown quantity.
>
> For a time, therefore, a coalition of the DLP and the ANAP with the other
> conservative party, the TPP (The True Path Party)
> of Tansu Ciller was regarded as a possibility. Both centre-right parties have
> been enormously discredited because of their
> notorious corruption and nepotism and were the biggest losers in the election.
> In addition, a bitter rivalry exists between the
> party leaders. Some newspapers have therefore demanded that the chairpersons of
> both parties, particularly Ciller, step down
> and open the way for a merger of the parties.
>
> As it became clear that the TPP had been relegated to a role in opposition,
> hefty internal political struggles begun. A similar
> development is to be seen in the Islamic Virtue Party (FP) and the Social
> Democratic-Left Kemalist CHP (Republican Peoples
> Party), once the state party of the founder of modern Turkey, Kemal Atatürk, but
> been carried out by Kemal Atatürk's “holy
> Virtue Party--and Behiç Kiliç, one of her
> reporters, are on trial in an Istanbul criminal court for insulting the Turkish
> armed forces and holding them in contempt. If
> convicted, the pair face a sentence of one to six years.
>
> Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of Turkey's record of press freedom abuses
> is finding an interlocutor for one's sense of
> outrage. TUSIAD, Turkey's largest business confederation, condemned the Calislar
> verdict. Bulent Ecevit, the recently elected
> prime minister, said it saddened him. Even the military judge on the three-man
> state security court tribunal expressed a
> dissenting judgment.
>
> So why does it happen?
>
> The headlines dominating the press this week have not been about journalists in
> "Grey Wolves". Catli was recently killed in a notorious car accident in Turkey
> My lies?
>
> Your obvious inability to answer te questions have exposed the wolf in sheeps
> clothing.
>
> You are calling lies that the MHP/Grey Wolves are in a coallition government,
> that Turkey destroyed 3000-4000 villages, that
> the Turkish regime supported Hizbollah.
>
> All this support of terrorists! despite all the substantiation!
>
> Thanks for showing yourself.
>
> Ask the UN about PKK in Greece.
> Athens dismisses Turkish military chief's claims over 'camp'
> Athens, 03/10/2001 (ANA)
>
> Athens sharply condemned the latest statements by the Turkish military
> chief this week over alleged training camps in Greece for Kurdish
> separatists, with a government spokesman saying on Tuesday that Ankara
> is simply trying to take advantage of the current international
> crisis.
>
> "It's simply a repeat of the stereotypical charges leveled by Turkey
> against Greece," government spokesman Dimitris Reppas said during a
> regular press briefing in the Greek capital.
>
> The spokesman also called on the Turkish military chief, Gen. Hussein
> Kivrikoglu, to take the matter up with the United Nations' High
> Commission for Refugees, the organization that operates the so-called
> "training camp" near the port town of Lavrio - only a few kilometers
> from the popular archaeological site of Cape Sounion, in extreme
> southeast Attica prefecture.
>
> "That's where he'll (Kivrikoglu) find the answers he is looking for,"
> Reppas said.
>
> Additionally, the spokesman said Turkey's military establishment
> should also refer to the UN's decisions and resolutions pertaining to
> Cyprus in regards to questions involving the island republic's
> long-standing problem.
>
> The PKK arose because of Turkeys terrorist actions.
>
> The Kurdish tribes of Anatolia, which predate the Turkish presence in the Middle
> East, sided with Ataturk against the British
> and Greeks in the early 1920s, but the Turks quickly turned on their Muslim
> brothers. From 1923 on, Ataturk's repression of
> Kurdish nationalism and even Kurdish identity was savage and predatory. He
> filled the Kurdish southeast with Turkish
> administrators, gave land to Turkish war veterans, forbade the use of Kurdish
> language in court, and, most important, banned
> the native tongue in schools, effectively denying formal education to Kurdish
> children. The measures quickly spurred a Kurdish
> uprising, led by Sheik Said, which erupted throughout the southeast in 1925. It
> was quashed by overwhelming Turkish force:
> Ataturk, using the ragtag revolt as a pretext for assuming dictatorial powers
> which he never completely relinquished, crushed
> the Kurdish insurgents. Sheik Said and 660 of his compatriots were executed,
> most by public hanging, and another 7,500 were
> arrested. Villages were destroyed, massacres reported. The response was well in
> excess of the challenge, and the army's
> terrorism bred more resistance; individual towns and villages rose up through
> the ensuing years. The army's reply was again
> harsh: hundreds of villages were razed, thousands of Kurds killed, and perhaps
> half a million were deported. The tribal
> rebellions persisted through the 1930s, the bloodiest of which (in Dersim, now
> Tunceli province) may have taken 40,000 lives
> as a result of army reprisals. Turkish Kurdistan was placed under a nearly
> permanent state of martial law and a news blackout.
>
> The basis of the confrontation was Turkish nationalism. The Turkish state from
> 1923 onward simply refused to acknowledge
> that Kurds even existed--they were known, until the 1990s, as "Mountain Turks."
> The new mythology of Turks as founders of
> the great Asian civilizations neatly folded the Kurds into that conceit.
> Scholarly work on Kurdish history was outlawed. A
> "Turkification" program was instituted in the southeast, raising the visibility
> of Turkish culture, moving Turks into the area, and
> earnestly promoting the cult of Ataturk. At the same time, the area, so long a
> pastoral and agrarian economy, was steadily
> impoverished by pogroms, deportations of Kurdish elites, and the disappearance
> of the Christian entrepreneurial class.
>
> Chief among the insults was the attack on language, which penetrated beyond the
> formal venues of court or schoolroom. The
> Ankara regime replaced Kurdish village names with Turkish equivalents, forbade
> the naming of children with Kurdish names,
> and outlawed the singing of Kurdish folk songs. Because only one Kurd in twenty
> could speak Turkish in the first years of the
> Republic, the denial of their own language was economically devastating.
>
> In the 1960s and 1970s, as David McDowall explains in his excellent Modern
> History of the Kurds, the situation became more
> desperate. Unemployment among Kurds rose by 150 percent between 1967 and 1977.
> By the early 1990s, less than 10
> percent of adults in the Kurdish southeast had industrial jobs, and those tended
> to be in low-skilled industries. On the large
> landowners' estates, peasants would work eleven hours a day for $2.
> Children--the fortunate survivors of a 30 percent
> mortality rate--would work alongside their parents. Less than a third of the
> population received any formal education and less
> than one in five women attended school.
>
> The demise of viable agrarian life and the growth of urban poor and unskilled
> youth radicalized large segments of the Kurdish
> people--20 percent of Turkey's population. However varied in social outlook and
> separated by tribes, dialects, and rates of
> assimilation, the Kurds were ripe for rebellious nationalism. Their chance came
> with the creation of the PKK in 1974 on the
> campus of Ankara University. The founder, Abdullah Ocalan, modeled the PKK on
> other Marxist liberation movements that
> employed revolutionary violence. By 1980, the PKK was poised to respond to the
> pivotal event of the Turkish-Kurdish
> conflict: the September 12 coup.
>
> For the outside world, the coup was a bloodless, temporary measure, engineered
> by a "reluctant" military, and essential to
> eliminating terrorist threats and restoring order. To the Kurds in southeastern
> Turkey, the generals' reign was a new wave of
> terror and repression, rivaled only by the sanguinary pogroms of the 1930s.
> While many Turkish militants of left and right were
> prosecuted, vast numbers of Kurdish nationalists were targeted. The new
> constitution promulgated by the junta (which remains
> in force today) was designed to punish Kurdish nationalism: the mere recognition
> of a distinct Kurdish identity was criminalized,
> and the Kurdish language was effectively outlawed. The statements by junta
> leader General Evren at the time of the coup,
> which focused on keeping Turkey undivided, and the arrests and trials of so many
> prominent Kurds immediately after the
> military seized power, clearly exposed the junta's primary, obsessive fear of
> Kurdish nationalism.
>
> That nationalism did grow quickly in response to the dictatorship's harsh
> measures. From 1984 the PKK became a force to be
> reckoned with, a genuine guerrilla movement significantly supported by ordinary
> Kurdish peasants. What began as a nuisance
> to the Turkish state grew over the 1980s into a large-scale civil war. By 1990,
> some 300,000 troops were deployed in the
> southeast, and an enormous amount of the national budget (with reports ranging
> from 25 to 40 percent) was going to support
> police and military operations there. In 1992, the government began a policy of
> forcibly evacuating villages in order to deprive
> the PKK of its popular support. Some 3,000 villages have been emptied, and as
> many as two million Kurds driven from their
> homes into shantytowns and overcrowded apartments in Diyarbakir, Adana, Izmir,
> and Istanbul--a population of "internally
> displaced" second in the world only to Sudan.
>
> At issue was not so much a separate Kurdistan (the PKK dropped this goal in
> 1993), but cultural rights--principally the right to
> speak, publish, educate, and broadcast in Kurdish, aspirations confirmed in an
> exhaustive survey of Kurdish attitudes
> conducted by Ankara University Professor Dogu Ergil in 1995. President Turgut
> Ozal had granted limited rights to speak
> Kurdish in 1991, but other cultural freedoms--for example, broadcasting and
> educating in Kurdish--were denied. Kurdish
> activists were also concerned with economic development in the southeast, which
> the government had long promised and never
> delivered. Firmly in control of the civilian governments' policy toward the
> southeast, the military would not allow broader
> cultural rights or the emergence of Kurdish political parties. Turkish
> nationalism, the bedrock tenet of Kemalism, could not be
> modified even to accommodate harmless cultural longing.
>
> This rigidity is especially pernicious. In an insightful essay in Nationalism
> and Ethnic Conflict, MIT professor Stephen van Evera
> presents ten hypotheses on war and nationalism. One focuses on the content of
> nationalist ideology: "Does the ideology of the
> nationalism incorporate respect for the freedom of other nationalities," he
> asks, "or does it assume a right or duty to rule them?"
> Those that exclude, he says, are forms of "hegemonistic, or asymmetrical,
> nationalism," which "is both the rarest and the most
> dangerous variety of nationalism." The hegemonistic type--of which Kemalism is
> an instance--is especially dangerous both
> because it cannot permit even mild deviations and because violent suppression
> begets violent reaction, especially against a
> minority with the muscle to fight back. The PKK, whose vague Marxism and violent
> acts alienated many Kurds, remained the
> only vehicle for Kurdish aspirations and the only protector against
> state-sponsored cultural genocide, which was rationalized by
> an inflexible, unitary, racialist ideology, and enforced with organized
> violence.
>
> The second challenge to Kemalism--a vibrant political Islam--has also appeared
> often in the years of the republic. The
> September 12 coup occurred just six days after Necmettin Erbakan, the leader of
> an Islamic political party and the deputy
> prime minister, gave a rabble-rousing speech condemning Israel. Erbakan was
> arrested during the coup, and the incident
> renewed the tensions between Islam and the military. Like Ataturk, the generals
> of the 1970s and 1980s used Islam to their
> advantage: Marxists and Kurdish leftists were countered with military support
> for the so-called imam-hatip schools--religious
> instruction for adolescents meant to divert them from leftist politics.
> Meanwhile, in the junta and its aftermath, Turkish politics
> barely tolerated the likes of Erbakan and his new party, Refah.
>
> But with the civil war draining the treasury, boosting inflation to more than
> 100 percent, piling on more debt, and strangling
> foreign investment, low-skilled workers and farmers--the most religious strata
> in Turkish society--were the first to suffer. The
> economic impacts of war and "globalization" drove increasing numbers to Refah.
> Students of the imam-hatip schools were
> coming of age politically. And the swarms of Kurdish refugees were given aid and
> comfort by Refah and other Islamic
> organizations. This combination of factors boosted Refah's fortunes in 1994
> municipal elections (electing mayors in Ankara and
> Istanbul) and December 1995 national elections, when the party won a slight
> plurality, enabling Erbakan to form a government
> six months later.
>
> The secularist military would not tolerate Erbakan in power, however, and within
> a few months was demanding that he rescind
> his mild reforms, which permitted greater religious expression--allowing women
> to wear head scarves in court, for example.
> When he balked, the military forced a "soft coup," threatening to oust him;
> finally, in June 1997, he resigned. Democratic
> governance would again not stand in the way of Kemalism. The military has made
> it clear that Erbakan will not be permitted to
> become premier again, even if Refah is the top vote recipient in the next
> election.
>
> As Jonathan Randal deftly puts it, "Only a state as slavishly faithful to the
> ossified letter of its founding dogma could have
> backed itself into a corner as totally as Turkey did in this final decade of the
> twentieth century." Randal makes a compelling
> case: Kemalism, sclerotic and corrupt but clinging to the rigid mindset of
> Turkish nationalism, could not allow the pluralism that
> makes Western democracies so adaptive. The obdurate military dashed hopes for
> economic growth and democracy, and
> turned perhaps a third of the electorate toward traditionalist reactionaries
> like Refah. Randal, whose reporting skills are
> legendary (while his book is oddly gossipy and repetitive), has it exactly
> right. McDowall's more measured and conventional
> history also pinpoints Turkish nationalism as the core problem, whereas neither
> Huntington nor Kaplan frame the issue with
> quite such clarity. Huntington, to his credit, does offer a remarkable answer to
> this question: What follows Kemalism, if (as
> Huntington supposes) Turkey cannot totally escape its Islamic past and will
> never be accepted by Christian Europe? Turkey
> could, he replies "be ready to give up its frustrating and humiliating role as a
> beggar pleading for membership in the West and to
> resume its much more impressive and elevated historical role as the principal
> Islamic interlocutor and antagonist of the West."
> (Erbakan's inability to deliver such a vision is due to his personal failures as
> a politician.) Huntington says Turkey could "become
> a South Africa . . . changing itself from a pariah state in its civilization to
> the leading state of that civilization." But the possibility
> of a Turkish Mandela emerging to turn that trick--to reject "Ataturk's legacy
> more thoroughly than Russia has rejected
> Lenin's"--is difficult to imagine among Turkey's corrupt, obsequious, and aging
> elite.
>
> Moreover, a visionary, Islamic Turkey is everything America would abhor.
> American backing of Ankara, lavish since the time
> of the 1980 coup, is predicated on precisely the opposite: that Turkey will
> remain not only secular and Western-oriented, but
> will serve as a bulwark against Islamic and Arab militancy in the region. Until
> the anti-foreign aid virus infected Capitol Hill,
> Turkey was the third-largest recipient of military assistance. The dispatch of
> sophisticated weaponry--F-16 fighter jets, Black
> Hawk and Cobra helicopters, tanks, etc.--is justified by Turkey's "bad
> neighborhood": Syria, Iraq, and especially Iran.
>
> But the bad 'hood rationale is a canard. As Henri Barkey and his colleagues
> point out in Reluctant Neighbor: Turkey's Role in
> the Middle East, the relations Ankara pursues with these difficult states are
> complex and not without some danger (partially
> stemming from Kurdish restiveness). But they neither justify the weapons flow to
> Turkey nor fulfill the US policy of "dual
> containment" of Baghdad and Teheran. One could instead view Turkey as the
> meddlesome neighbor: sending arms to Chechen
> rebels and Azeri belligerents, occupying northern Cyprus, repeatedly bombing
> Kurdish areas of northern Iraq, threatening Syria
> (which harbors Ocalan), and huffing about Greece, Bosnia, Macedonia, Bulgaria,
> and Russia.
>
> In any case, the neighborhood where the Turks use the weapons conveyed from
> Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Texas is its
> own southeast, where jets and helicopters attack PKK camps and empty out Kurdish
> villages. It is by far the most significant
> use of US weapons in the world. America has supplied the muscle for Turkey's
> war, and winked at the military's
> actions--including its violent supression of free expression--to sustain Turkey
> as a platform for the protection of US "strategic
> interests" in the Persian Gulf and in the newly independent states of the former
> Soviet Union, especially the flow of Caspian Sea
> oil. This, in essence, is what Nixon, Kissinger, and Carter did in the Shah's
> Iran in the 1970s, and, in a different way, what
> Reagan and Bush did in Saddam's Iraq in the 1980s: bribe tyrants in exchange for
> their fidelity to American interests. Both
> ended badly, indeed disastrously for nearly everyone. Now the disaster unfolds
> in Turkey: tens of thousands dead and
> wounded, millions homeless.
>
> The new attention to this debacle is welcome, but the regard of a few
> intellectuals and journalists is unlikely to unlock the grip of
> ideology in Turkey or overcome American inertia. Of the former, one can say that
> Kemalism will ultimately lose its power; the
> current crisis, which includes official corruption of the dirtiest kind,
> indicates how tenuous Ataturk's legacy may be, how easily it
> may disassemble with the right combination of charismatic leadership and the
> internal will to change. As to the policies of
> Turkey's most stalwart ally: Washington's embrace of the status quo is simply
> thoughtless and reflexive. America's major news
> media regard Turkey as some sort of exotic Muslim sideshow. But the show has
> been running for a long time, and features a
> sustained pattern of massive human rights violations, among the most egregious
> in the twentieth century.
>
> Would it be different, one wonders, if we saw Turkey as a fascist bully
> engendering its own collapse? If we saw the "white
> genocide" of the Kurds in a more compelling historical light, and the peril in
> Turkey's re-running the "Iran precedent"? That
> fascism still lives in Europe is a disturbing idea. That America is its closest
> ally is an abhorrent one.
>
> John Tirman's Spoils of War: The Human Cost of America's Arms Trade
>
> The long-term Turkish policy on Cyprus - Partition
>
> Turkey invaded the island of Cyprus using the short-lived coup d'etat
> against President Makarios as a pretext. To explain this brutal act Turkey
> offered the restoration of the constitutional structure of the Republic of
> Cyprus that was damaged by the coup, and the protection of the
> Turkish-Cypriot minority on the island. However, this argument contradicts
> statements made by Turkish official decades before the invasion and even
> after it. These statements seem to indicate that the truth behind the
> invasion was simply expansionism.
>
> Ataturk himself, who is considered by the Turks as their national hero, and
> the founder of modern Turkey, regarded Cyprus as being particularly
> important for Turkey. Professor Dervis Manizade in an article in the
> Istanbul daily "Milliyet" (20.7.78) quoted Attaturk as saying while
> addressing military commanders:
>
> "Pay attention to Cyprus, this island is important to us."
>
> Ali Nesim reported in "Dogus" (20.9.84):
>
> "Ataturk, replying to a question on Cyprus after the annexation of
> Alexandretta said: The turn of Cyprus has not yet come." (1939)
>
> In 1954, nine years before intercommunal conflict broke out in 1963, the
> then Foreign Minister of Turkey F. Koprufu, declared that Cyprus is an
> "extension of continental Turkey", and that it should revert to Turkey "on
> the basis of geographical proximity."
>
> At the tripartite conference on Cyprus in August-September 1955, the then
> Turkish Foreign Minister, Zorlu, stated:
>
> "...The importance of Cyprus to Turkey does not arise from a single cause;
> it is a necessity which emanates from the exigencies of history, geography,
> economy and military strategy, from the right to existence and security,
> which is the most sacred of every state, in short, from the very nature of
> things."
>
> A prophetic statement by Kemal Satir, former Vice-President of Turkey, 1964,
>
> "Cyprus will be divide into two sections, one of which will join Turkey"
>
> F.C. Erkin the then Foreign Minister of Turkey to an Athens newspaper in
> June 1964 expanded on the above with,
>
> "The radical solution would be to cede one part o Cyprus to Greece and the
> other, closest to the Turkish Asiatic coast, to Turkey".
>
> The Turkish journalist and historian A. Gurkan, more recently in "Kibris
> Postasi" (20.12.83) put it quite succinctly when he said:
>
> "Speaking from a purely strategic point of view we could say that for
> Turkey's security, a safe Cyprus is a Cyprus which would be, in its
> entirety, under Turkish control."
>
> But what makes Turkish expansionism even more evident are the following
> statements:
>
> By Gunes (former Turkish Foreign Minister) which reads:
>
> "Cyprus is as precious as the right arm of a country which cares for her
> defence or her expansionist aims if she harbours any. If we don't keep in
> mind this strategic importance of Cyprus, we cannot understand the peace
> operation of 20 July or rather it is impossible to understand the whole
> Cyprus crisis...
>
> Many states, to a certain extent because it suits their interest, want to
> see the Cyprus problem merely as our desire to protect the Turkish community
> on the island. Whereas the actual problem is the security of 45 million
> Turks in the motherland together with the Turks in the island and the
> maintenance of the balance in the Middle East."
>
> By Ozal, (...) Prime Minister of Turkey who, referring to the illegal UDI
> (unilateral declaration of independence of the Turkish occupied areas) of
> November 1983, said:
>
> "Cyprus is an island which pierces the middle of Turkey like a dagger. It is
> extremely vital from the viewpoint of our security. This island should not
> be in enemy hands. The existence of the Turks in northern Cyprus is a
> guarantee in this direction."
>
> The Turkish Cypriot Leader Rauf Denktash himself who stated ("Milliyet"
> 23.7.85)
>
> "Naturally Turkey has strategic interests in Cyprus. It is fortunate for
> Turkey that the Turkish Cypriot community exists here. Even if the Turkish
> Cypriot community did not exist, Turkey would not have left Cyprus to
> Greece.
>
> Mr. Koruturk told me something which is very important. The honorable
> President had told me: "If Cyprus passes to Greece and is militarized, then
> Turkey ceases to be a maritime nation". This is an extremely important
> factor."
>
> More recently, Professor Kuran delivering the closing speech at a symposium
> organised on the general theme of "Turkey's problems" on 2nd February 1986
> referred to the continuing presense of the Turkish troops on part of the
> territory of the Republic of Cyprus...:
>
> "They say that we do not covet the territories lying outside our nation's
> sovereign territory. This is wrong. All the nations have their great
> ideology. In that case, what is the Turkish army seeking in Cyprus? Cyprus
> does not lie within the frontiers of our national territory."
>
> The former Turkish prime Minister himself, in a number of recent statements,
> left no doubt about Turkey's real aims regarding Cyprus. In an interview
> with the "International Herald Tribune" (2.6.86) Mr. Ozal said:
>
> "The island had never been Greek in its history. It belonged to the
> Venetians and then was taken over by the Ottomans. Later the British came. I
> believe that it was during the Ottoman period and later under the British
> rule that the Greeks immigrated to the island. And I said, if you want to
> the island something, it is more Turkish than Greek. It was governed for
> many hundreds of years by the Ottomans."
>
> When Turkey sent an officer of the Turkish Army, Riza Vukuskan, to Cyprus to
> organize the TMT rerrorist organization, she was simply taking the first
> practical step in a long standing policy aimed at the annexation of Cyprus
> or at least part of it.
>
> The handy excuse used by Turkey to further her aim of partition was the
> "oppression" of the Turkish Cypriot minority by the Greek Cypriot majority.
>
> Denktash himself, in an interview to the London "Times" (20.1.78) admits
> that he had organized the TMT saying:
>
> "I had to create the TMT with some friends in order to coordinate those
> individuals who were going around doing things."
>
> "I had set up the TMT with a few friends...Everybody thought that I was the
> leader, but I was not. I was political advisor. Immediately after forming it
> I handed it over... The leaders were former army officers from Turkey."
>
> Emin Dirvana, then Turkish Ambassador to Cyprus, explains what Denktash
> means, in an article in "Milliyet" (15.5.64)
>
> "...I was informed that on the 7th of June, 1958, a bomb had been planted in
> the Turkish Press Office in Nicosia by persons who, as was established
> later, had nothing to do with the Greek Cypriots. The Turks of Nicosia were
> then incited (...) and perpetrated acts similar to those committed on the
> 6th and the 7th of September, 1955 in Istanbul."
>
> In an interview given by Denktash to the British television channel ITV for
> the programme "Cyprus: Britain's Grim Legacy", he said:
>
> "There was an explosion at the information bureau of the Turkish Consulate.
> A crowd had already gathered there, a crowd of the Turkish Cypriot
> community. And they almost immediately decided that Greeks had done it and
> they were swearing vengeance against the Greeks and so on." "The explosion
> started a night of riots in Nicosia. Turkish Cypriots burned and looted
> Greek shops and homes. Soon came counter-attacks and the fighting spread
> round the island. Later on, a friend of mine, whose name must still be kept
> secret, was to confess to me that he had put this little bomb in their
> doorway in order to create an atmosphere of tension so that people would
> know that Turkish Cypriots mattered."
>
> The climax of the "holy indignation" which Ambassador Dirvana refers to, was
> the massacre of eight Greek Cypriots and the serious wounding of five, near
> the village of Geunyeli on 12th June 1958, five days after the explosion.
>
> In an interview to the "London Times" (20.1.78) Denktash said:
>
> "It was now in the late 1950s and there was bitter intercommunal strife.
> Eventually TMT became more than a military force, it became a moral force."
>
> "...you are condemned to be crushed by a 65-million-strong Turkey."
> Warning to Greek Cypriots by Turkish occupation representative Rauf Denktash
> soon after delivering what he termed a "peace plan" for permanent apartheid
> in Cyprus (September 9, 1998)
>
> Turkey Censured By COE
>
> Turkey was slated at a meeting of a Council of Europe (COE) Committee of
> Ministers in Strasbourg yesterday. The ministers met to discuss the Titina
> Loizidou case and Turkey's blatant non-compliance with a ruling by the
> European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
>
> In 1989 Titina Loizidou, a Greek Cypriot refugee, filed a citizens complaint
> to the Strasbourg based ECHR that she was being prevented from peacefully
> enjoying the use of her home in Kyrenia by Turkey, whose occupation troops
> control the area. In 1996 in a landmark decision for Cyprus, the court ruled
> that Turkey was responsible for depriving Loizidou of the use of her
> property and later ordered that country to pay her compensation amounting to
> almost £500,000. So far, Turkey has not paid a single cent and steadfastly
> refuses to comply with the court's decision.
>
> The Committee noted that Turkey, as a contracting party to the European
> Convention of Human Rights and as a member of the Council of Europe, was
> showing a lack of respect for these bodies and that its behaviour was
> unprecedented.
>
> Facing a deluge of lawsuits from tens of thousands of Greek Cypriot refugees
> if it pays up, Turkey yesterday continued its trite argument that
> responsibility lay with the Turkish Cypriot regime not itself, knowing full
> well that as a non recognised state, the Denktash regime cannot be sued.
> They also tried to divert the Committee's attention to the ongoing Cyprus
> settlement talks, saying the whole issue would be decided there.
>
> [14/07/00 - Newswire]
> ================================================
> Background information:
>
> In July 1974, Turkey using as a pretext the coup against President Makarios,
> invaded the Republic of Cyprus in violation of the UN Charter and all
> principles of international law.
>
> As a result, 37% of the island was occupied - the wealthiest part,
> representing 70% of the island's economic potential.
>
> 200,000 Greek Cypriots - one third of the population - were forcibly
> expelled from their homes, became refugees in their own country and are
> still deprived of the right to return to their homes and properties. In
> addition over 1,600 Greek Cypriots went missing and what became of them is
> unknown to this day. About 20,000 Greek and Maronite Cypriots remained
> enclaved in the occupied area. Over the years they became victims of
> Turkey's ethnic cleansing - harassed and intimidated they were forced to
> leave and today only a few hundred still remain in their homes. Byzantine
> churches, monuments and antiquities were destroyed or looted and many items
> were smuggled abroad.
>
> The cultural heritage of the occupied area, that reaches back to the 7th
> millennium BC, forming part of the cultural heritage of mankind, continues
> to this day to be systematically and deliberately plundered and destroyed.
>
> Moreover, more than 114,000 settlers from Turkey have been imported
> illegally and colonised the occupied areas with the aim of changing the
> demographic structure of Cyprus. Properties usurped from the expelled Greek
> Cypriots were distributed to such settlers. All this, coupled with a strong
> Turkish military presence in the occupied areas (estimated at 40,000 Turkish
> troops) and an attempt to change Greek place-names of villages and towns
> into Turkish ones, is clear evidence that Turkey's aim is to turn the
> occupied part of Cyprus into a Turkish province.
>
> A series of UN General Assembly and Security Council Resolutions, as well as
> resolutions adopted by numerous other international organisations, condemned
> the Turkish invasion of Cyprus and all that followed, demanded the return of
> refugees to their homes in safety and the tracing of the missing persons and
> called for respect of the human rights of all Cypriots. Moreover, the
> European Commission of Human Rights found the government of Turkey
> responsible for gross and systematic violations of human rights in Cyprus
> during and after the invasion.
>
> GREEK AND TURKISH CYPRIOT COEXISTENCE AND TMT
>
> "There are many examples of joint upsprings against the Sultan and the
> Pashas. We shall only mention the uprising of Halil Agha in 1765, of the
> Messaoria
>
> peasants in 1804-1805 and of Giaour Imam in 1833. In these upsprings Greeks
> and Turks fought jointly for better living conditions, but they were put
> down through the co-operation of aghas- landlords and the higher Greek Clergy.
> This brief survey of the circumstances that enabled the Ottoman Empire to impose
>
> itself upon Cyprus accounts for the main causes that led to the cooperation
> of the Greek and Turkish masses."
> Ibrahim Aziz, The Historical Course of the Turkish Cypriot Community, 1981.
>
> For hundreds of years Greek and Turkish Cypriots lived in social harmony and
> economic interdependence in the villages and towns of Cyprus.
>
> This web of interdependence was only disturbed after protracted and violent
> attacks against it. Even after incidents, planned and instigated to prove
> that Greek and Turkish Cypriots could not live together, ordinary people again
> and again proved the opposite until they were torn apart by the Attila operation
>
> in 1974.
>
> The Turkish Cypriots originated as a Muslim population during the period
> when Cyprus was ruled by the Ottoman Empire between the 16th and the 19th
> centuries. Some are descended from the Greeks and Latins who changed their faith
>
> to
>
> ease the burden of oppression. Their interdependence with the rest of the
> population of Cyprus is indicated by the fact that until 1974 they lived
> intermingled
> in towns and villages all over Cyprus. The mass of Greek and Turkish Cypriots
> lived and cooperated peacefully in an atmosphere of religious and cultural
> tolerance. As Cyprus moved into the twentieth century, Greek and Turkish Cypriot
>
> workers engaged in common trade union struggles organized in the Pancyprian
> Federation of Labour.
>
> During the years of colonial rule the Greek Cypriots agitated for freedom.
> The Turkish Cypriot minority was the object of continuous attempts at
> manipulation aimed at converting them into an instrument of colonial policy in
> countering
> the anti-colonial movement of the rest of the population of the island. The
> Colonial power involved Turkey in its dispute with the people of its colony:
> It was easier to continue ruling the colony if the dispute was not between
> the colonial masters and its subjects, but a more complicated one.
>
> TMT was the outcome of Turkey's cooperation with the colonial power, and was
> the means of frustrating the wishes of the majority of the population of
> Cyprus, dividing Greek and Turkish Cypriot and beginning the long path towards
> partition.
>
> The organization was set up by Mr Rauf Denktash.
> "I had set up the TMT with a few friends...Everybody thought that I was the
> leader, but I was not. I was political advisor. Immediately after forming it
> I handed it over... The leaders were former army officers from Turkey."
> (The Times, 20.1.1978)
>
> Dr Kuchuk takes up the story with an account of how Riza Vurushkan came to
> Cyprus from Turkey to lead TMT.
> "Year 1957...in order to give daily reports to Ankara...and to secure aid
> from Turkey I used to go to Ankara very frequently. During one of these
> visits, the late Prime Minister of Turkey, Adnan Menderes, introduced Riza
> Vurushkan
> to me...Later I met him at the office of a Lieutenant General and talked
> with him there. During our meeting it was decided that Vurushkan should come to
> Cyprus as "civilian adviser". He arrived in Cyprus under an assumed name and
> settled down here."
> (Halkin Sesi, 16.2.1979)
>
> TMT incited anti-Greek riots and tried to force Turkish Cypriot workers to
> establish separate trade unions.
>
> Murder, arson and intimidation were the means that TMT used in order to
> prove that Greek and Turkish Cypriots could not live together. The victims were
> trade unionists, journalists and ordinary Turkish Cypriots who resisted TMT's
> call.
>
> After the signing of the Zurich and London Agreements in 1959, which led to
> the independence of Cyprus, TMT continued its clandestine activities in the
> cause of dividing Cyprus, and was to continue until 1984 as Mr Ozgur was to
> reveal.
>
> In October, 1959, seven months after the signing of the agreements on Cyprus
> independence, the British mine-sweeper HMS Burmaston intercepted the Turkish
> boat "Deniz" as it was attempting to deliver a shipment of arms to TMT in
> Cyprus.
>
> Despite TMT terrorism, the mass of Greek and Turkish Cypriots citizens
> entered hopefully into the period of independence.
>
> Some TMT attacks against Turkish Cypriots, May-July, 1958
> ---------------------------------------------------------
>
> - 22.5.58: Murder attempt against Ahmet Sadi, Director of the Turkish Office
> of the Pancyprian Workers Federation. In order to save his life,
> Sadi left Cyprus soon after and settled in England.
>
> - 24.5.48: Murder of Fazil Onder, Chief Editor of the weekly newspaper
> "Inkilapci".
>
> - 29.5.58: Murder of Ahmet Yahya, committee member of the progressive
> Turkish Cypriot Athletic-Cultural Centre.
>
> - 5.6.58: Murder attempt against Hasan Ali, member of a Construction Workers
> Committee of the Pancyprian Labour Federation.
>
> - 30.6.58: Murder of Ahmet Ibrahim, a barber from Limassol, because he had
> friendly relations with Greek-Cypriots and expressed himself in
> favour of Greek-Turkish cooperation.
>
> - 3.7.58: Murder attempt against Arif Hulusi Barudi. He was working in a
> business owned by a Greek Cypriot. Before the attempt he had
> received a threatening letter demanding that he leave his job.
>
> "The Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots alike were spread widely over the
> island- not according to any fixed geographical pattern but rather as a
> result of the usual factors behind the movement and settlement of people over
> many
>
> generations; for example, the search for farming land and for employment,
> and other such social and economic motives... Thus out of 619 villages at the
> time of the last census, 393 were wholly or predominantly Greek Cypriot, 120
> were
> Turkish Cypriot and 106 were classified as mixed. But the villages
> themselves are not usually to be found in clusters where one community or the
> other
>
> predominates; the more general pattern in any given area is a mixture of
> Greek Cypriot, Turkish Cypriot and mixed villages. The capital, Nicosia, and the
>
> other main towns such as Famagusta, Limassol and Larnaca are also mixed in
> population... There is evidence of considerable intermingling of the two
> communities, more especially in employment and commerce but also to some
> degree at the social level."
> Gallo Plaza, United Nations Mediator,
> "Report to the Secretary General", 1965.
>
> "Going ...back... to our schooldays... I don't think that the generation of
> that age, the boys of that age... had any cause for alarm for the future... were
>
> years when people who are now in our age group knew there was British
> "repression" on the island... We were just boys in the English School; Greek
> and Turkish boys living probably in the same street in opposite houses,
> playing together, fighting together... As a boy I remember going around with my
> father to Greek monasteries all over Cyprus, to Greek houses, and being
> entertained
>
> by Greeks on an equal footing as friends, good friends. They used to come to
> our house, too, and the reason, I now believe, looking back, is that we had
> no political quarrel, no political bone to pick".
> Rauf Denktash at a Rotary Club Luncheon 1n 1972
> in R. Denktash, "The Cyprus Problem", 1974.
>
> "In 1954 I felt great anxiety about Cyprus.
> ...
> Harold Macmillan was urging us to stir up the Turks in order to neutralise
> the Greek agitation. I wrote a minute in opposition to this tactic. I also asked
>
> the Prime Minister's private secretary if I could see Churchill on the
> subject, but he absolutely refused even to pass on the suggestion, which he
> clearly
>
> regarded as impertinence."
> C.M. Woodhouse, "Something Ventured", 1982.
>
> TMT Leaflet Circulated on 7 May 1958:
> "Oh Turkish Youth!
> The day is near when you will be called upon to sacrifice your life and
> blood in the "PARTITION" struggle - the struggle for freedom... You are a brave
> Turk. You are faithful to your country and nation and are entrusted with the
> task
> of demonstrating Turkish might. Be ready to break the chains of slavery with
> your determination and willpower and with your love of freedom.
> All Turkdom, right and justice and God are with you. PARTITION OR DEATH."
> quoted in Nancy Crawshaw "The Cyprus Revolt", 1978.
>
> "Although the nucleus of the first Turkish Cypriot political party was
> organized in 1942, it was not until 1955 that the Turkish Cypriot community
> became politically active. Within the next three years, a community
> political structure was developed as a result not only of efforts of Turkish
> Cypriot
> leaders to oppose Enosis, but also of encouragement from the British and
> Turkish officials who were seeking to safeguard their countries' strategic
> interests."
> Dr Fazil Kuchuk in interview to R.A.Patrick, Doctoral
> Dissertation, London School of Economics and
> Political Science, 1972.
>
> "The early stages of the Cyprus conflict, in the mid-1950's, were mainly a
> struggle between the Greek Cypriots and the British Colonial power, with the
> Turks at that time hardly interested in the island. There is strong evidence
> that the British Government of the day deliberately encouraged an
> indifferent Turkey to take more active interest, as a useful counterweight in
> the
> struggle against the Greeeks. One of the most violent expressions of this
> artificially contrived Turkish indignation was on the night of 6th-7th September
>
> 1955,
> when a terrifying Turkish mob destroyed quantities of Greek property in
> Instanbul. It should be noted that at the Yassaida trials in 1960 evidence was
> given by
> the defence witnesses that the Turkish Government had been put up to staging a
> Cyprus demonstration by the then British Foreign Secretary Harold Macmillan,
> but that the demonstration, mis-managed by Menderes, had degenerated into an
> uncontrollable riot".
> David Hotham, "The Turks", 1972.
>
> "When the armed struggle started, the British had at their disposal
> thousands of men and could even increase their existing numbers to put down the
> EOKA
> struggle. This they did not do, but they formed instead the well known
> Auxiliary Corps. The ordinary Turkish Cypriots, who did not realize where the
> British
> were leading them (since their leadership did not warn them, rather it
> encouraged
> them), hastened to reinforce this Auxiliary Corps thinking only of securing
> a living. Thus, the Greek Cypriots, who thought that they were waging a holy
> struggle
> against the British, found themselves facing the Turkish Cypriots. In this
> way the British started submitting to the Turkish community their plans for
> partition."
> Ibrahim Aziz, "The Historical Course of the Turkish Cypriot Community",
> 1981
>
> Bin-Ladin went to Turkey in 1996, 1998. He did not face difficulties
>
> According to Turkish TV private channel NTV (20.9.01, 15:00 hours) Usamah
> Bin-Ladin, who is the number one suspect in the terrorist attacks launched
> on the United States, went to Turkey twice during the period he was sought
> by the Interpol with the red bulletin. Bin-Ladin came to Istanbul aboard his
> eponymous private plane. Reportedly, he was not faced with any difficulties
> on his arrival. These visits had been reported by the Washington Post, which
> based its reports on CIA sources.
>
> Usamah Bin-Ladin's plane took off from Jeddah in Saudi Arabia and arrived in
> Turkey on 28 August 1996. According to official records, he stayed in Turkey
> for 33 hours. He first landed at Adana Sakir Pasa Airport and then flew to
> Istanbul. He left Turkey the next day for Jeddah. Besides the crew, he had
> one other person with him.
>
> Bin-Ladin's first visit to Turkey was during the Welfare Party-True Path
> Party coalition government.
>
> His second visit took place in 1998. It was about six months before the
> bombing in August 1998 of the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
>
> According to the records, once again Bin-Ladin landed at Adana first and
> then in Istanbul. That was on 17 February 1998. According to the passenger
> manifesto of the HAVAS company that serviced Bin-Ladin's plane, the only two
> passengers were Bin-Ladin who was registered as Muhammad Usamah and another
> person called Al-Savaf. This visit took place during the Motherland Party,
> Democratic Left Party, and Democratic Turkey Party coalition government.
>
> It is reported that Bin-Ladin, who is being sought by the Interpol with the
> red bulletin ever since 1994, was not faced with any difficulties during
> either of his visits.
>
> It is a matter of curiosity why, in both visits, Bin-Ladin chose to land at
> Adana Airport first. According to aviation experts, Bin-Ladin's private
> plane had to land in Adana for refuelling.
>
> There are interesting elements in Bin-Ladin's visits; one of them is the
> State Airports Administration document, which shows that the private plane
> arrived in Turkey. A copy of these documents that must be drawn up each time
> a private plane lands in Turkey must be sent to the Ankara State Airports
> Administration Directorate General. The document on Bin-Ladin's first visit
> was not sent to Ankara but to the Secret Documents and Circulars File in
> Istanbul.
>
> Another interesting point concerns the receipt for the fee charged in return
> for the ground services given to the private plane. The form's number was
> left vacant. Furthermore, it was not processed through the computer but was
> filled by hand. In this way, Ankara could not see it in the on-line system.
Nevzat Akdemir
Nevzat Akdemir
REAL wrote:
> Nevzat Akdemir wrote:
>
> > Ladin had a passport from south cyprus.
> > Take a hike.
>
> This coming from a fool such as Nevzat.
>
> One with no credibility or point other than trolling whoever he disagrees
> with, using sexual innuendos and whatever else with Vasif.
>
> So sensitive about Gurels double standards approach to Turkish education
> rights vis a vis Kurdish educations rights that they resorted to sexual
> innuendos to troll the thread with unsubstantiated abuse that had nothing to
> do with the subject.
>
> Their words expose who these individuals are everyday.
>
> Nevzat Akdemir wrote:
>
> > We don't fool around with derriers.
> > We ain't no greeks, y' kno. :-)
> >
>
> Subject:Re: STATE MINISTER GUREL IN AUSTRALIA
> Date:Thu, 6 Sep 2001 01:36:24 +0100
> From:"vasif@fisav" <va...@fisav.swinternet.co.uk>
>
> I'll find you somebody with a SUBSTANTIAL one to SUBSTANTIATE it up your
> derriere, re REAL.
>
> --
>
> vasif@fisav
> -----------------
WolfWolf
> WolfWolf wrote:
>
> > I have Armenian friends in Boston and Chicago - not isolated in the
> Armenian
> > community. They do not agree with the "Armenian Genocide" campaign
> against Turkey.
>
> yeah yeah we believe you you
No need to believe me just because of my friends. Be objective - that's
all!!
> you got any Assyrian or Kurdish friends that agree with the Turkish
> government?
I know enough Kurdish people, and I know them good enough (even without
personal friendship) to be sure that they are not more happy or unhappy with
the Turkish government that the vast majority of other Turkish people.
This distinguishes my opinion from your hate-impregnated propagandistic
lies.
WolfWolf
WolfWolf
> yeah just like his Armenian friends who *surprise suprise* don't agree in
the
> genocide! that is "against" Turkey.
Go and tell this to your government. It doesn't speak any word about it -
nor does the European Commission, nor the European Court of Human Rights,
nor the UN.
Since GENOCIDE is a crime of compulsory prosecution, the silence of your
government and the other bodies can only mean that they are involved as
accomplices.
Hurry - before it comes come under the statute of limitation.
WolfWolf
Voyager
But i guees you can tell as what the Turks did to Armenians
Greeks and Assyrians in the first half of the last century.
Hellenic (Greek) genocide
http://www.greece.org/genocide/
US Ambassador Henry Morgenthau book.(full text)
http://raven.cc.ukans.edu/~libsite/wwi-www/morgenthau/MorgenTC.htm
US Consul in Smyrni (Ismir) George Horton book (full text)
http://www.hri.org/docs/Horton/index.html
Site map.
http://www.greece.org/genocide/quotes/sitemap.html
Armenian genocide
http://www.cilicia.com/armo10.html
http://www.umd.umich.edu/dept/armenian/facts/gen_bib.html
http://www.armenian-genocide.org/
http://theforgotten.org
http://15levels.com/24.April/
Assyrian genocide
http://www.atour.com/holocaust/
>sutten <sut...@att.net>wrote
>Armenian terrorists, who were brainwashe with such anti-Turkish hate
>propaganda, has murdered hundreds of innocent Turkish diplomats during
>the second half of the last century.
WolfWolf
> I heard that for the first time in my life.
>
Here you will get more - substantiated material of recent date, not hollow
lies like yours.
Report to the Government of Greece
on the visit to Greece
carried out by the European Committee
for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman
or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT)
and 26 October to 2 November 1999
The Government of Greece has agreed to the publication of this report and of
its responses. The Government's responses are set out in document CPT/Inf
(2001) 19.
Strasbourg, 13 September 2001
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
CONTENTS
Copy of the letter transmitting the CPT's report.. 4
I. INTRODUCTION.. 5
A. Dates of the visit and composition of the delegation. 5
B. Nature and context of the visit5
C. Establishments visited. 6
D. Consultations held by the delegation and co-operation encountered. 7
E. Immediate observation under Article 8, paragraph 5, of the
Convention. 7
II. FACTS FOUND DURING THE VISIT AND ACTION PROPOSED.. 9
A. Establishments under the authority of the Ministry of Public Order.
9
1. Preliminary remarks. 9
2. Torture and other forms of physical ill-treatment10
3. Conditions of detention. 11
a. police directorates and stations. 12
b. detention facilities specifically designed for holding illegal
aliens. 14
c. transfer centres. 18
4. Safeguards against ill-treatment19
B. Establishments under the authority of the Ministry of Justice. 22
1. Preliminary remarks. 22
2. Ill-treatment22
3. Follow-up visit to Korydallos Prison Complex. 23
4. Avlona Institution for Male Juvenile Offenders. 25
a. material conditions. 25
b. activities. 26
c. other issues related to the CPT's mandate. 27
5. Health-care issues. 28
APPENDIX I: Summary of the CPT's recommendations, comments and
requests for information 30
APPENDIX II: List of the national authorities and non-governmental and
other organisations with which the CPT's delegation held consultations. 36
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Copy of the letter transmitting the CPT's report
Strasbourg, 17 March 2000
Dear Sirs,
In pursuance of Article 10, paragraph 1, of the European
Convention for the prevention of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment
or punishment, I have the honour to enclose herewith the report to the
Government of Greece drawn up by the European Committee for the prevention
of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (CPT) after its
visit to Greece from 26 October to 2 November 1999. The report was adopted
by the CPT at its 41st meeting, held from 7 to 10 March 2000.
The various recommendations, comments and requests for
information formulated by the CPT are summarised in Appendix 1. The CPT
requests the Greek authorities:
i. to provide by 1 June 2000 a consolidated reply covering issues
concerning the Ministry of Public Order raised in the present report
(Section II A) and in the report on the 1997 periodic visit;
ii. to provide within six months a response covering issues
concerning the Ministry of Justice raised in the present report (Section II
B).
The CPT would be grateful if it were possible, in the event of
the reports forwarded being in Greek, for them to be accompanied by an
English or French translation. It would also be most helpful if the Greek
authorities could provide a copy of the reports in a computer-readable form.
I am at your entire disposal if you have any questions
concerning either the CPT's report or the future procedure.
Finally, I would be grateful if you could acknowledge receipt of
this letter.
Yours faithfully,
Trevor STEVENS
Executive Secretary of the European Committee for
the prevention of torture and inhuman
or degrading treatment or punishment
Ministry of Justice
Directorate for Drafting Legal Texts,
Specific Legal Affairs and International Relations
96, Messoghion Street
11527 ATHENS
cc. Mr Athanassios THEODORACOPOULOS, Ambassador, Permanent
Representative of Greece to the Council of Europe
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
I. INTRODUCTION
A. Dates of the visit and composition of the delegation
1. In accordance with Article 7 of the European Convention for the
prevention of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment
(hereinafter referred to as "the Convention"), a delegation of the CPT
visited Greece from 26 October to 2 November 1999. This was the fourth visit
to be carried out by the Committee to Greece, the previous visits having
taken place in 1993, 1996 and 1997.
2. The visit was carried out by the following members of the CPT:
- Adam LAPTAS, Head of delegation
- Emilia DRUMEVA
- Andres LEHTMETS
- Rudolf SCHMUCK
- Davor STRINOVIC.
They were assisted by:
- Eleonora CAMBAS interpreter)
- Myrto ROUSSOU-ATZITIRIS (interpreter)
- Alexander ZAPHIRIOU (interpreter)
and accompanied by Petya NESTOROVA of the CPT's Secretariat.
B. Nature and context of the visit
3. The 1999 visit to Greece was one which appeared to the Committee
"to be required in the circumstances" (cf. Article 7, paragraph 1, of the
Convention). The report drawn up after the CPT's 1997 visit contained
disquieting findings concerning the conditions under which foreign nationals
awaiting deportation were being held in establishments under the authority
of the Ministry of Public Order (cf. section II.A.3 of the report). In that
report, the CPT made a series of recommendations - a number of them urgent -
designed to improve the situation of such persons.
In response to the CPT's 1997 visit report, the Ministry of
Public Order submitted an interim report on 18 October 1998. However, this
report was rather succinct and did not address in detail the various
recommendations, comments and requests for information made by the CPT.
Moreover, despite two reminder letters from the President of the CPT, the
Ministry of Public Order failed to submit a follow-up report in response to
the CPT's 1997 visit report (in principle due on 9 December 1998).
Further, in the period following its 1997 visit to Greece, the CPT continued
to receive alarming reports about the conditions of detention of foreign
nationals in the country's police establishments. Concerned by these
reports, as well as by the inadequate nature of the interim report provided
by the Ministry of Public Order and the absence of a follow-up report, the
Committee decided to send a delegation to Greece in order to conduct
discussions with the authorities and assess the concrete action taken
following the CPT's 1997 report.
4. As already indicated, the CPT's delegation focused its attention
on the conditions of detention and treatment of foreign nationals awaiting
deportation. However, the 1999 visit also afforded an opportunity to review
the measures being taken by the Greek authorities to implement the
recommendations made by the CPT in respect of Korydallos Prison Complex
(previously visited by the CPT in 1993 and 1997). In addition, the
delegation visited the Institution for Male Juvenile Offenders in Avlona.
C. Establishments visited
5. The delegation visited the following places of detention:
Establishments under the authority of the Ministry of Public Order
Attica Prefecture
- Attica General Police Directorate, Athens (Alexandras Avenue)
- Drapetzona Police Station, Piraeus (Socratous Street)
- Glyfada Police Station (Dousmanis Street)
- Kolonos Police Station, Athens (Laodamantos Street)
- Omonia Police Station, Athens (Socratous Street)
- Police Station at Athens Airport (East Terminal)
- Holding areas for foreigners at Athens Airport (East Terminal)
- Piraeus Holding Centre for Aliens (Asklepiou Street)
- Athens Transfer Centre for prisoners (Kavafi Street)
- Piraeus Transfer Centre for prisoners (Notara Street)
Evros Prefecture
- Alexandroupolis Police Station and Police Directorate
- Transitional Detachment holding facility for illegal aliens,
Feres
Establishments under the authority of the Ministry of Justice
- Korydallos Prison Complex
- Institution for Male Juvenile Offenders, Avlona.
D. Consultations held by the delegation and co-operation encountered
6. The CPT's delegation received, on the whole, very good
co-operation from the Greek authorities. At the outset of the visit, it had
the opportunity to meet the Minister for Justice, Mr Evangelos GIANNOPOULOS,
the Minister for Health and Welfare, Mr Lambros PAPADIMAS, and the Minister
for Public Order, Mr Michalis CHRYSSOCHOIDIS, and to have fruitful
discussions with senior officials from these ministries.
Further, the delegation enjoyed rapid access to all the places of detention
visited and received a satisfactory reception from the management and staff
of the establishments concerned.
7. In addition to having talks with the competent national
authorities and meeting local officials at the establishments visited, the
delegation held meetings with representatives of the UNHCR and
non-governmental organisations active in areas of concern to the CPT. A list
of the national authorities and organisations consulted during the visit is
set out in Appendix II to this report.
E. Immediate observation under Article 8, paragraph 5, of the
Convention
8. On 2 November 1999, before its departure from Athens, the CPT's
delegation had a final meeting with the Greek authorities, in order to
acquaint them with the main facts found during the visit. At that meeting,
the delegation made an immediate observation, under Article 8, paragraph 5,
of the Convention, in respect of the holding of foreign nationals detained
under the Aliens' legislation in police establishments. Such persons were
being held for weeks - and on occasion for months - in overcrowded and poor
material conditions, with no access to outdoor exercise and without any
activities. The delegation requested that immediate steps be taken to:
i) cease using the holding facility for illegal aliens run by the
Transitional Detachment in Feres until it has been thoroughly cleaned and
refurbished;
ii) ensure that each person detained overnight is supplied with a
clean mattress and blankets;
iii) ensure that detainees can comply with the needs of nature when
necessary in clean and decent conditions, and are offered adequate washing
facilities and appropriate personal hygiene items;
iv) carry out regular disinfecting of detention facilities;
v) review the provision of food to detained persons, and ensure that
all of them are given food at appropriate times;
vi) ensure regular medical supervision of detention facilities used
for holding foreign nationals. In the interests of public health, these
facilities should be visited on a regular basis by a qualified nurse.
Further, in addition to the possibility of transferring detainees to
hospital for treatment, provision should be made for a doctor to attend
police establishments in case of need.
9. The above-mentioned immediate observation was subsequently
confirmed in a letter of 10 November 1999 from the President of the CPT. The
Greek authorities were requested to provide within three months a report on
the action taken to meet the requirements set out in points i) to vi) above
and, more generally, an account of their strategy for putting an end to the
holding in police stations for prolonged periods of foreign nationals
awaiting deportation.
By letter of 1 February 2000, the Greek authorities informed the
CPT of the measures taken in response to the immediate observation. These
measures will be considered in detail later in the report.
II. FACTS FOUND DURING THE VISIT AND ACTION PROPOSED
A. Establishments under the authority of the Ministry of Public Order
1. Preliminary remarks
10. As already noted, the 1999 visit focused on the conditions of
detention and treatment of foreign nationals detained in establishments
falling under the authority of the Ministry of Public Order. The delegation
visited several types of such establishments: police directorates and
stations in Athens, Glyfada, Piraeus and Alexandroupolis; specific holding
facilities for foreign nationals at Athens Airport, in Piraeus and in Feres;
and transfer centres for prisoners in Athens and Piraeus. Some of these
establishments had already received visits by the CPT in 1993 and/or 1997,
and had been the subject of recommendations in the reports drawn up after
these visits. However, as borne out by the delegation's findings made in the
course of the 1999 visit, most of the Committee's earlier recommendations
remained to be implemented.
11. Two different procedures can be applied to foreigners illegally
present in Greece who have been apprehended by the police: an administrative
and a judicial deportation procedure.
The legal provisions relating to administrative deportation are contained in
Law 1975/1991 and Joint Ministerial Decree No 4803/13/7a of 26 June 1992.
The body responsible for taking deportation decisions is the State Security
Department of the Ministry of Public Order. In the case of a foreign
national submitting a request for asylum, the deportation is suspended,
pending examination of the request by a specialised service. In other cases,
decisions are taken on the basis of reports sent by the police departments
which have detained the persons concerned. The deportation decision can be
appealed to the Ministry of Public Order within 3 days; the delegation
received conflicting information as to whether such an appeal has suspensive
effect. The CPT would like to have this issue clarified by the Greek
authorities.
The law does not fix a maximum period during which foreign nationals subject
to the administrative deportation procedure may be held by the police. The
delegation was informed that when such persons are in possession of valid
documents and tickets, the period of detention usually does not exceed a
week. However, if no such documents are available, the period of detention
may be prolonged, due to difficulties in identifying the person concerned
and/or failure of the consular authorities responsible for issuing the
required documents to co-operate in an efficient manner.
The Deputy Director of the State Security Department informed the delegation
that 19,000 deportation orders had been issued in 1999. However, the
department handling deportation orders and appeals employed only 10 staff
members. In the face of such a considerable workload, it is inevitable that
some delays may occur. In fact, the delegation met a number of foreign
nationals who, although in possession of valid passports and tickets, had
spent over a week in police custody, in conditions which could often be
qualified as inhuman and degrading. The CPT recommends that the Greek
authorities take the necessary steps to ensure that there are no undue
delays in the deportation procedure.
12. Foreign nationals who have committed crimes are subject to
judicial deportation, pursuant to Sections 74 and 99 of the Criminal Code.
They may be deported either after having served their sentences in a Greek
prison, or, if the sentence is suspended, immediately after the court
decision.
The delegation noted that once they have served their sentences, foreign
nationals subject to judicial deportation are transferred to police custody,
where they remain until their deportation. Such custody may continue for
months. The CPT considers that an earlier preparation of the deportation
procedure could and should be envisaged (by contacting the respective
consular authorities well in advance), in order to reduce the time spent in
police custody after a person has served his prison term. The Committee
would like to receive the comments of the Greek authorities on this issue.
2. Torture and other forms of physical ill-treatment
13. The delegation which carried out the 1999 visit heard some
allegations of physical ill-treatment of foreign nationals at the time of
their apprehension by police officers and/or during subsequent questioning.
Further, at Omonia Police Station in Athens, several foreign nationals
stated that they had been beaten by custodial staff; this had apparently
happened when they had repeatedly asked to be allowed to go to the toilet.
In the following cases, medical evidence consistent with allegations of
recent physical abuse was found:
- a person met by the delegation at Attica General Police
Directorate alleged that, at the time of his arrest by the police a day
earlier, he had received numerous truncheon blows to the body and head. Upon
examination by a medical member of the delegation, the person concerned
displayed: a haematoma on the right shoulder measuring 7 x 2 cm; a haematoma
on the right upper arm measuring 10 x 2 cm; an excoriation on the right
elbow measuring 2 x 1 cm; excoriations and haematomas on the right side of
the thorax, measuring 2 x 2 cm; a blue haematoma on the right lumbar region
measuring 2 x 3 cm; an oedema and excoriation measuring 2 x 3 cm on the back
of the head (oxcipitum). All the lesions were fresh, about a day old;
- another person met at Attica General Police Directorate alleged
that on the previous day, he had been hit on various parts of the body by
police officers who came to arrest him at his home. An examination by a
medical member of the delegation revealed: a brownish-red excoriation of the
nose, 1 x 1 cm, with oedema; excoriations and haematoma on the posterior
side of the thorax, 2 x 1 cm. The injuries were fresh, about a day old. The
person concerned also complained of pain in the right ribs region;
- a person interviewed by the delegation in the Police Station at
Athens Airport (East Terminal) alleged that, following his arrest at the
airport ten days previously, he had been handcuffed, and subsequently kicked
in the legs and hit with fists over the body by police officers who
questioned him. A medical examination revealed: in the left lumbar region, a
haematoma measuring 3 x 1 cm, yellowish-green in colour; horizontal
excoriations on the right leg beneath the knee, 2 cm long and brown in
colour.
14. In their letter sent in response to the immediate observation made
by the CPT's delegation at the end of the 1999 visit, the Greek authorities
informed the Committee that "in spite of the general and vague nature of the
allegations reported by the Committee [at the end of the visit], because of
the sensitivity of the Greek authorities in this regard and their firm
intention to ensure the unwavering observance of the standing provisions
concerning the protection of human dignity, an investigation of the
allegations was carried out at the Police Station of Omonia. As a result of
the investigation, the allegations have not been substantiated. It is
believed that such allegations were made by the detainees in order for their
time of detention until deportation to be shortened."
Further, in the same letter, the Ministry of Public Order requests the CPT's
delegation to provide more information concerning the allegations received
by it of physical ill-treatment of detainees, in order for it to investigate
these investigations thoroughly and inform the Committee of the results of
its investigation.
In this connection, it should be recalled that the CPT interviews in private
persons deprived of their liberty; such persons are told that the discussion
will be treated as strictly confidential by the delegation. Consequently,
the Committee is unable to disclose the names of persons making specific
allegations unless they consent to this. In the cases presently in question,
it was apparent that the persons concerned did not wish their identity to be
revealed.
15. It should also be noted that the interim report of the Greek
authorities sent in response to the CPT's 1997 visit report failed to
address the recommendations made by the Committee designed to prevent
ill-treatment, in particular those in paragraphs 16, 17, 18 and 19 of that
report[1]. The CPT calls upon the Greek authorities to implement these
recommendations.
3. Conditions of detention
16. Although not deliberate ill-treatment, the CPT feels compelled to
point out that at the police establishments visited, a large number of
foreign nationals were subjected for prolonged periods of time to a
combination of negative factors - overcrowding, appalling material
conditions and levels of hygiene, lack of outdoor exercise, absence of any
activities - which could easily be described as inhuman and degrading
treatment.
a. police directorates and stations
17. The police directorates and stations visited by the delegation
were equipped with cells, in principle designed for holding criminal
suspects and suitable for short periods of detention. However, all of them
were used to hold foreign nationals detained under the Aliens' legislation
for weeks and on occasion for months (up to 10 months in certain cases).
18. The new detention facilities at the Police Station at Athens
Airport (East Terminal) had entered into service a few days prior to the
delegation's visit, and were in general of an acceptable standard. They
comprised two basement cells (measuring some 15 m²), each equipped with
three plinths with clean mattresses and blankets. Artificial light and
ventilation were adequate; however, the cells' small windows let in only a
limited amount of natural light.
19. As regards conditions of detention in the rest of the police
stations visited, they displayed a number of serious shortcomings.
The detention facility located on the 7th floor of Attica General Police
Directorate had been the subject of several recommendations of an urgent
nature in the report on the 1997 visit. Regrettably, far from being
improved, the situation in the facility in question had in fact
deteriorated. At the time of the 1999 visit, 171 persons (97 men and 74
women) were being held in the facility, the official capacity of which was
80.[2] The delegation was told that several days earlier the overcrowding
had been even more severe: in the detainees' words, they had had "to fight
to get a mattress". Over a third of the detainees slept in the detention
area's corridors, which were so densely covered with mattresses, blankets
and bags containing personal possessions that delegation members had
problems accessing the cells. Some of the detainees were obliged to sleep in
close proximity to the sanitary facilities, which were in a poor state of
repair, with water overflowing into the corridors; further, in the women's
section, such detainees were exposed to the cold and draught coming through
a broken window in the toilets. The supply of hot water was said to be
erratic.
On the day of the visit, the detention facility for juveniles on the 3rd
floor of Attica General Police Directorate was holding 7 foreign nationals
(2 girls and 5 boys), the youngest of whom was 12 years old. As in 1997,
material conditions in the facility's three cells were of an acceptable
standard for short stays. However, one of the girls had already spent 45
days in custody, and one boy had been held there for 30 days. Throughout
this time, their only means of distraction had been occasionally watching TV
in the police officers' room.
20. No improvements were observed in the detention facilities at
Drapetzona Police Station, which had been the subject of an immediate
observation under Article 8, paragraph 5, of the Convention at the time of
the 1997 visit; if anything, the situation had got worse. On the day of the
visit, the establishment was holding 86 foreign nationals, as opposed to 31
in 1997. The establishment's official capacity had been fixed at 85 persons.
Regardless of what the official capacity may be, the establishment was
overcrowded, in particular the women's section. The cell set aside for
detainees of Albanian origin had no access to natural light, and ventilation
was poor. Further, the sanitary facilities were dirty, deprived of lighting
and in a bad state of repair. Detainees complained - and the delegation
ascertained by itself - that there was a shortage of hot water.
21. Glyfada Police Station had two cells (measuring some 7 m²), each
accommodating three foreign nationals on the day of the visit. However, the
delegation was told that in the recent past as many as nine persons had been
held in one cell. The cells were badly lit and stuffy, their walls were
covered in graffiti, and detainees were sleeping on dirty mattresses. The
adjacent toilet was in an appalling state of repair.
22. Material conditions in the detention area at Kolonos Police
Station, located in the establishment's basement, were execrable. With an
official capacity of 15, at the time of the visit the facility was holding
37 adult detainees and 5 children. One of the cells, which was larger and
had access to natural light, was used to hold the women and children. The
delegation observed that 9 women and 5 children had to share five beds, two
armchairs and a mattress placed on the floor. The overcrowding in the two
cells for men was outrageous: e.g. up to 10 detainees in a cell which
measured 11 m² and contained three plinths. The latter cells were very
poorly lit (deprived of natural light and with totally inadequate artificial
lighting), unventilated and extremely dirty. In addition, some ten detainees
were sleeping in the corridor on filthy, vermin-infested mattresses or piles
of old rugs. The facility's single toilet (used by men, women and children
alike) was totally unfit for use, and there were no washing facilities.
23. Omonia Police Station had six cells of varying size, as well as
two "temporary holding" areas. On the day of the visit, 27 persons were in
custody. Seven men were held in a cell measuring some 13 m²; three of them
slept on a plinth fixed to the wall, while the remaining four shared two
mattresses placed on the floor. The delegation was told that the facility
had been very overcrowded in the recent past, up to 15 detainees sharing a
cell of some 20 m². The cells had no access to natural light, artificial
lighting was poor and ventilation left much to be desired. The whole
facility was very dirty, infested with parasites and dilapidated. Further,
detainees complained that their requests to be allowed out of the cells in
order to go to the sanitary facilities were usually subject to long delays
(cf. also paragraph 13).
24. Material conditions in the detention area at Alexandroupolis
Police Station and Police Directorate - which was empty at the time of the
visit - were once again of a very low standard. The two cells (6 m² and 12
m²) were poorly lit, dirty and dilapidated, and the adjacent toilet facility
was filthy and in a bad state of repair.
25. In all of the above establishments, the mattresses supplied to
detainees were usually dirty and torn, there was a shortage of blankets, and
no pillows and sheets were provided. Further, there was a general lack of
soap, detergents and other basic sanitary products (e.g. toilet paper,
sanitary towels for women).
Detainees usually received two meals a day; however, the first
one was normally not served before 3 p.m. The delegation was concerned to
note that, at the time of its visit to Kolonos Police Station, the persons
held there (amongst whom there were several young children) had not received
food for the last 24 hours. The delegation heard many complaints about the
quality and quantity of the food provided. Further, some of the persons met
in police custody alleged that they had not received any food on the first
day following their apprehension.
26. As in 1997, none of the police establishments visited possessed
the necessary facilities to enable detainees to take exercise in the open
air. Further, despite the fact that foreign nationals can spend lengthy
periods of time in police custody, no provision had been made to offer them
any activities or means of distraction. This is all the more unsatisfactory
in view of the fact that there were a number of young children and juveniles
amongst the detainees seen by the delegation.
27. Finally, it should be noted that in all the police stations
visited, there was a shortage of female police staff in the areas for women.
b. detention facilities specifically designed for holding illegal
aliens
28. At the beginning of the visit, the CPT's delegation was informed
that the Hellenikon Holding Centre for Aliens at Athens Airport had been
closed down two months previously for a major refurbishment, and detainees
transferred to various police establishments in Attica. The CPT would like
to be informed of the progress made towards completing the refurbishment,
and the envisaged date of re-opening of the Centre.
29. The new Holding Centre for Aliens in Piraeus, which had been in
service for about a year, was found to be in an acceptable state of repair
and cleanliness. On the day of the visit, the establishment was operating at
its official capacity of 56 places. The majority of the foreign nationals
had spent 2 to 3 months at the Centre. There were a total of fourteen
bar-fronted cells (12 m²), each designed for 4-person occupancy. As already
described in the report on the 1997 visit - when the CPT's delegation
visited the still non-operational Centre - the cells had only limited access
to natural light (coming through a window in the corridor linking the
cells), the artificial lighting was poor and ventilation left something to
be desired. On a positive note, the sanitary facilities were of a good
standard (although the supply of hot water had apparently been a problem in
the summer).
The delegation heard a lot of complaints concerning the
provision of food, which was said to be of poor quality, cold and served
only once a day (sometimes only once every two days).
No arrangements had been made to enable detainees to take
outdoor exercise. During the day, they could stroll along the corridor
between the cells. Further, save for a small TV set located in the corridor,
there was no possibility for detainees to engage in recreational or other
activities.
30. The holding facilities at Athens Airport (East Terminal) for
foreign nationals who are not authorised to enter the country were described
in detail in the report on the 1997 visit. Despite certain deficiencies,
such as lack of natural light, the two separate areas for men and for women
were well maintained and of an adequate standard for short periods of stay.
The delegation was told that foreign nationals were in principle not held
there for more than a week. However, two of the persons present in the area
had already spent 15 to 20 days in detention. Further, although the
facilities were not overcrowded at the time of the visit (only 3 men and 2
women being present), an examination of the register revealed that in the
recent past up to 20 persons had been held in the facilities at one time.
Further, since 1997, a new holding area for persons applying for asylum had
been opened. It was partitioned into four compartments, each equipped with a
bed, locker and chair; in addition, there was small common area with a table
and a TV set.
Similar to the situation described above in respect of the Holding Centre
for Aliens in Piraeus, there were no arrangements for outdoor exercise or
activities for detainees (although a few newspapers had apparently been
distributed during the morning of the visit). As to the provision of food,
for "inadmissible" foreign nationals it remained the responsibility of the
airline company, while asylum seekers were supplied with food by the Airport
Police Department twice a day (at 4 p.m. and 10 p.m.). The delegation heard
complaints from the former category of foreign nationals to the effect they
had not received any food.
The delegation was told that a larger and better equipped holding area for
foreign nationals is envisaged at the new Athens International Airport,
scheduled to enter into service in 2000. The CPT would like to receive more
information on this issue.
31. The delegation also paid a visit to the holding facility run by
the Transitional Detachment for illegal aliens[3] in the town of Feres, near
the border with Turkey. It occupied a makeshift construction resembling a
hangar, consisting of two large rooms (some 33 m²) and one smaller room (20
m²). The squalor in these rooms beggared belief. Access to natural light was
symbolic, artificial lighting was dim, and the rooms were stuffy and damp.
The only equipment consisted of cement platforms on which torn sponge
mattresses had been laid out. Electric cables were coming out of the walls,
and the floors were covered with water overflowing from the toilets and
containing various forms of rubbish. The sanitary facilities were
practically unusable (no light, blocked toilets, broken sinks). The whole
place resembled a human dump.
At the time of the visit, 18 Iraqi nationals (including 6 young children)
were being held there. They claimed to have spent the previous four days in
the holding facility; nevertheless, this appeared to be their fourth or
fifth stay there, as they had allegedly been transferred repeatedly between
Turkey and Greece in the preceding months. However, it was impossible to
establish how long these persons had spent in custody, or indeed how many
other persons had been held at the Feres holding facility in the past and
for what periods of time, as no custody records were being kept (cf. also
paragraph 45).
On a positive note, detainees had access for several hours a day to a
relatively large yard adjoining the holding facility, where they could also
wash their clothes.
The delegation was shown several rooms located on top of the hangar which
were in the process of being fitted out as a detention facility for women
with children. The rooms were spacious, well lit and equipped with sanitary
annexes.
* * *
32. The arrangements for providing medical care to foreign nationals
detained in all the establishments visited (both police
directorates/stations and detention facilities specifically designed for
holding illegal aliens) were inadequate. There was no medical screening on
arrival, and no provision had been made for periodic visits by either a
doctor or nurse. In case of serious health problems, detainees could be
transported to an outside hospital facility. However, the delegation met a
number of detainees who required medical attention (e.g. with tooth
abscesses, hyperthyreosis, skin diseases, epilepsy) but had not had access
to a doctor/dentist.
* * *
33. The CPT appreciates the great difficulties with which the Greek
authorities have been - and remain - confronted, because of the large influx
of illegal immigrants in recent years. However, problems - especially when
they persist - should be provided with solutions. The situation prevailing
at the police establishments visited by the CPT's delegation is absolutely
untenable. Keeping any human being in the conditions described above for
prolonged periods of time can easily be considered as inhuman and degrading
treatment. This is all the more of concern to the CPT because of the large
numbers of persons concerned (at the time of the visit, there were some 550
foreign nationals detained in police establishments in Attica).
34. As already noted (cf. paragraph 8), at the end of the 1999 visit
to Greece, the CPT's delegation made an immediate observation, in pursuance
of Article 8, paragraph 5, of the Convention, in respect of the holding of
foreign nationals detained under the Aliens' legislation in police
establishments.
In their letter of 1 February 2000 in response, the Greek authorities
informed the Committee that the following six immediate measures had been
taken: 1) the holding facility for illegal aliens in Feres was closed down
for a short period of time, and thoroughly cleaned and painted before being
re-opened; 2) each person detained overnight is supplied with a clean
mattress and blankets; 3) strict orders have been issued to all staff in
holding facilities that they must ensure that detainees can comply with the
need of nature and are offered adequate washing facilities and appropriate
personal hygiene items; 4) instructions have been issued to all detention
facilities to the effect that regulations providing for the regular
disinfecting are to be strictly observed; 5) instructions have been issued
calling on detention facilities staff to ensure that all detained persons
are given food at appropriate times; 6) the medical officers of the police
are to carry out regular inspections of detention facilities used for
holding foreign nationals.
Further, it is stated in the letter that instructions had been issued for
the repair of several police holding facilities with a view to improving
conditions of detention. However, it is stressed that "a comprehensive
solution of the problem will be achieved only with the construction of
appropriate facilities in public buildings at the seat of every Police
Directorate, which will meet the necessary requirements for the secure and
safe custody of the detainees". Such a solution is said to be currently
sought in the context of a major Government project for the upgrading of the
building infrastructure of the Greek Police. In the context of this project,
plans have been made for buying a building of 9,000 m² (with a capacity of
468 persons) to be used to house the Aliens and Transfer Centre in Attica. A
project is also under way for repairing the 70-person detention facilities
at Athens Airport, and for the conversion of a building in Amygdaleza into a
detention facility with an official capacity of 100 persons. Further, the
implementation of a project for the construction of new detention cells at
Feres Police Station is said to have begun.
The CPT welcomes the positive response of the Greek authorities; it
recommends that the above-mentioned measures be implemented without further
delay.
35. In this connection, the Committee wishes to stress once again that
in those cases when it is deemed necessary to deprive of their liberty for a
prolonged period persons detained under the Aliens' legislation, they should
be accommodated in centres specifically designed for that purpose. Such
centres should be adequately furnished (for example, beds or sleeping
platforms, cupboards, tables and chairs), clean and in a good state of
repair, and should provide sufficient living space for the persons likely to
be detained. The design and layout of such premises should avoid, as far as
possible, any impression of a carceral environment.
As regards regime activities, they should include outdoor
exercise, access to a recreation room and to radio/television and
newspapers/magazines, as well as other appropriate means of recreation (e.g.
board games, table tennis). The longer the period for which persons are
detained, the more developed should be the activities which are offered to
them.
Further, such centres should have at least a medical room where
any medical examinations or nursing care can be carried out under
satisfactory material conditions and the confidentiality of medical
examinations guaranteed. It would be highly desirable to have qualified
nurses in regular attendance at such centres, who could, inter alia, manage
and distribute the medicines needed by detainees.
The CPT recommends that the Greek authorities take steps to bring conditions
of detention in all the existing detention facilities specifically designed
for holding illegal aliens into conformity with the above-mentioned
requirements. These requirements should also be fully taken into account
when setting up new detention facilities for illegal aliens.
Further, the CPT requests the Greek authorities to provide a timetable for
the implementation of the envisaged project for the upgrading,
reconstruction and acquisition of facilities for the holding of illegal
aliens. It would also like to be informed of the envisaged date of entry
into service of the new detention cells at Feres Police Station.
36. The CPT also recommends that immediate steps be taken to:
- keep the period of time spent by persons detained for
deportation in police directorates/stations to the absolute minimum.
Whenever it becomes clear that the deportation procedure in respect of a
foreign national is going to take longer than a week, the person concerned
should be transferred to a detention facility specifically designed for
holding illegal aliens;
- ensure that the official capacities of the cells in police
directorates/stations are observed, and that no detainees are obliged to
sleep in the corridors of detention facilities.
The CPT also recommends that the Greek authorities explore the
possibility of assigning female officers to police detention facilities
where women are held.
c. transfer centres
37. Piraeus Transfer Centre for prisoners was visited by the CPT in
1993 and 1997. In the reports on both of these visits, the CPT had
recommended that the facility be extensively renovated without delay and
that, if such a renovation proved to be unfeasible, the existing premises be
taken out of service and the Centre relocated elsewhere in a place offering
better conditions of detention. The delegation which carried out the 1999
visit did not observe any changes: the establishment was as dirty and
neglected as described in the previous reports. There were 11 persons
present at the time of the visit, the average stay said to be three days.
However, conditions in the Centre were unacceptable even for such short
stays.
In their letter of 1 February 2000, the Greek authorities
indicated that the Piraeus Transfer Centre is "indeed inadequate as it is
both antiquated and too small. The Ministry of Public Order considers the
building beyond repair and is therefore looking for another building. Until
a new facility is found, old blankets and mattresses, as well as the
worn-out electrical and plumbing systems have been replaced. The building
has been repainted and constant efforts are being made for the improvement
of the detention conditions. Disinfecting is also carried out on a regular
basis."
The CPT recommends that urgent action be taken to relocate
Piraeus Transfer Centre for prisoners to a place offering better conditions
of detention.
38. Athens Transfer Centre for prisoners received a CPT visit in 1993,
and was the subject of a number of recommendations in the subsequent report.
Unfortunately, hardly anything had changed in the meantime. The official
capacity remained set at 42, and the facility could clearly become very
overcrowded. The cells were extremely dirty and poorly ventilated, the walls
had not been painted for years, the toilets could not be flushed, there was
a pervasive and disagreeable smell around the establishment, and there was
no supply of hot water. In contrast to 1993, detainees were being provided
with mattresses; however, they were in an extremely poor condition. Many
detainees showed the delegation marks from parasite bites.
39. In their letter of 1 February 2000, the Greek authorities informed
the CPT that the Athens Transfer Centre for prisoners had been cleaned and
disinfected. Nevertheless, the Committee considers that more vigorous action
is required in order to bring conditions of detention at the Centre up to an
acceptable standard. The CPT therefore recommends that immediate action be
taken in order to:
- reduce the official capacity of Athens Transfer Centre for
prisoners;
- supply all detainees with clean mattresses and blankets;
- improve the ventilation and artificial lighting in the cells;
- ensure regular disinfecting and cleaning of the premises;
- repair the toilet facilities and ensure a regular supply of hot
water;
- ensure that prisoners are supplied with an appropriate range of
personal hygiene items.
Further, means should be sought to enable prisoners held at the Transfer
Centre to have outdoor exercise on a daily basis.
40. As regards food, the delegation was told that prisoners were
allocated 1,000 drachmas for every day spent in travel/transfer, with which
they could purchase food from outside. This sum of money is equivalent to a
sandwich and a soft drink, and is clearly insufficient for the adequate
feeding of adult persons. The CPT recommends that the Greek authorities take
steps to ensure that prisoners in transit are being provided with food which
is sufficient in quantity and quality.
4. Safeguards against ill-treatment
41. The CPT has already stressed in its 1997 visit report that persons
detained under the Aliens' legislation should - in the same way as other
categories of persons deprived of their liberty - be entitled, as from the
outset of their detention, to inform a person of their choice of their
situation and to have access to a lawyer and a doctor. Further, they should
be expressly informed, without delay and in a language they understand, of
all their rights and of the procedure applicable to them. In addition, such
persons should be entitled to maintain contact with the outside world during
their detention, and in particular to have access to a telephone and to
receive visits from relatives and representatives of relevant organisations.
42. The situation observed by the CPT's delegation in the course of
the 1999 visit falls considerably short of meeting the above requirements.
Numerous foreign nationals met by the delegation stated that they had
expressed a wish to contact the consulate of their country, but had not been
given its telephone number. Access to a pay-phone was not always ensured
(e.g. there were no pay-phones in Glyfada and Kolonos Police Stations).
Further, many foreign nationals interviewed by the delegation alleged that
they had not been put in a position to contact a lawyer. The minority who
did have a lawyer could not have confidential meetings with him/her, as none
of the police establishments visited possessed facilities designated for
this purpose. The inadequacy of medical care has already been commented on
above (cf. paragraph 32).
43. At Attica General Police Directorate, the delegation was shown
copies of information sheets, issued in a variety of languages, which
advised persons detained by the police of their rights (to request a full
explanation of their rights; to communicate with a lawyer; to inform their
relatives of their arrest and receive visits from them; to request a medical
examination by a doctor of their choice at their own expense). However,
these information sheets were not specifically designed for foreign
nationals detained for deportation, and contained no explanation of the
procedure applicable to them. Further, there was no trace of such or other
information sheets at any of the other police establishments visited. The
great majority of the foreign nationals met by the delegation complained
that they had been left unaware of their legal situation, and had received
no information as to when they would be deported.
44. The CPT recommends that steps be taken without delay to ensure
that persons detained under the Aliens' legislation:
- can receive visits from lawyers in conditions ensuring the
confidentiality of the discussions, and are able to meet their relatives and
contact representatives of relevant organisations;
- are put in a position to make and receive phone calls;
- are systematically provided with a document explaining the
procedure applicable to them and setting out their rights. This document
should be available in the languages most commonly spoken by those concerned
and, if necessary, recourse should be had to the services of an interpreter.
45. As already noted (cf. paragraph 31), the presence of the foreign
nationals detained at the Transitional Detachment holding facility for
illegal aliens in Feres had not been recorded at all. The delegation was
told by the police officer in charge of the Detachment that no register was
being kept because he "reported orally all information to the Police
Directorate in Alexandroupolis". Such a situation obviously lends itself to
abuse. No formal safeguard against ill-treatment is more fundamental than
the requirement that the fact of a person's detention should be properly
recorded without delay. Consequently, the CPT recommends that steps be taken
immediately to ensure that whenever a person is detained in the Transitional
Detachment holding facility for illegal aliens in Feres (or indeed any other
holding facility run by a transitional or border control detachment), for
whatever reason or length of time, the fact of his/her detention and
subsequent release or transfer is recorded without delay.
46. There are further grounds for the CPT's particular concern as
regards the situation of foreign nationals kept in the holding facility of
the Transitional Detachment for illegal aliens in Feres. Some of the persons
interviewed there by the delegation stated that after their arrival in
Greece they had tried to apply for asylum, but no police officer had been
prepared to interview them or had even taken the trouble to examine their
passports. As already noted in the preceding paragraph, there was no record
of the presence of the persons in question on Greek territory.
In fact, it transpired from the delegation's discussions with the Director
of Alexandroupolis Police Directorate and senior officials from the State
Security Department at the Ministry of Public Order that, due to the absence
of a bilateral agreement with Turkey for the readmission of third country
nationals, an "informal" deportation - based on a verbal communication
between Alexandroupolis Police and the Ministry - could be applied to
certain foreign nationals arriving through the Turkish border (in particular
those of Iraqi, Iranian and Afghani origin). In practice, this meant that
the administrative deportation procedure described in paragraph 11 above was
not followed. The CPT would like to receive the comments of the Greek
authorities on this issue.
47. The CPT also wishes to reiterate a point already made in the
report on the 1997 visit to Greece, that it would be in violation of both
national and international legal obligations for persons to be returned to a
country where there are substantial grounds for believing that they would
run a risk of being subjected to torture or inhuman or degrading treatment
or punishment. The CPT reiterates its request to receive a detailed account
of the precise practical steps taken by the Greek authorities to ensure that
such a situation does not occur.
B. Establishments under the authority of the Ministry of Justice
1. Preliminary remarks
48. The information provided by the Greek authorities at the beginning
of the visit suggests that the long-standing problem of overcrowding of
civil prison establishments has become even more acute: there were 7,720
prisoners at the time of the 1999 visit, for an official capacity of 4,700
places (compared to 5,452 prisoners for 4,332 places in 1997). It was
stressed that the failure to remedy the problem was due primarily to the
continuing increase of foreign prisoners (currently 47% of the total prison
population). To alleviate overcrowding, the Ministry of Justice has launched
a programme for the construction of nine new prisons and two rehabilitation
centres for drug-addicts, several of which are expected to enter into
service in 2000.
The CPT must re-iterate its recommendation that the Greek authorities pursue
vigorously the application of all the different measures to combat prison
overcrowding, including policies to limit or modulate the number of persons
sent to prison. In this context, the Greek authorities might find useful
guidance in the principles and measures set out in Recommendation No R (99)
22 of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, concerning prison
overcrowding and prison population inflation.
2. Ill-treatment
49. No allegations of physical ill-treatment of inmates by staff were
received at the two establishments visited, and no other evidence was found
of such treatment.
50. However, information gathered by the delegation at the Avlona
Institution for Male Juvenile Offenders suggests that inter-prisoner
violence (in particular between inmates originating from different
countries) constitutes a problem. The establishment's Director pointed out
that this was the main challenge with which he and his staff were
confronted.
Addressing the phenomenon of inter-prisoner violence requires of a prison's
staff that it be alert to signs of trouble and both resolved and properly
trained to intervene when necessary. The existence of positive relations
between staff and prisoners, based on the notions of secure custody and
care, is a decisive factor in this context; this will depend in large
measure on staff possessing appropriate interpersonal communication skills.
Further, management must be prepared to fully support staff in the exercise
of their authority. Specific security measures adapted to the particular
characteristics of the situation encountered (including effective search
procedures) may also be required. However, such measures can never be more
than an adjunct to the above-mentioned basic imperatives.
It is also obvious that an effective strategy to tackle inter-prisoner
violence should seek to ensure that prison staff are placed in a position to
exercise their authority in an appropriate manner. Consequently, the level
of staff must be sufficient to enable prison officials to closely supervise
the activities of prisoners and effectively to support each other in the
exercise of their supervisory tasks. In this connection, it should be noted
that the Avlona Institution for Male Juvenile Offenders was understaffed:
the staff complement comprised 48 custodial staff, 10 administrative
employees and 3 social workers. It is difficult to see how such a staff
complement can provide close surveillance and communication with inmates
(who numbered 279 at the time of the visit).
The CPT recommends that the Greek authorities develop and implement a
comprehensive strategy to combat inter-prisoner violence at the Avlona
Institution for Male Juvenile Offenders, in the light of the above remarks.
3. Follow-up visit to Korydallos Prison Complex
51. Korydallos Prison Complex was visited by the CPT in both 1993 and
1997, and was the subject of a number of recommendations and comments in the
subsequent visit reports (cf. CPT/Inf (94) 20, paragraphs 41 to 44 and
paragraphs 107 to 121 of the report on 1997 visit). In the course of the
1999 visit, the CPT's delegation visited certain parts of Korydallos Prison
Complex[4], in order to assess the measures taken by the Greek authorities
to implement the recommendations made by the CPT.
52. Since 1997, the official capacity of Korydallos Prison for men had
risen to 730 places, due to the conversion of the former Prison for young
male offenders into a new 250-place unit (Unit 5) for male prisoners. On the
other hand, the establishment's population had almost doubled: on the day of
the visit, the prison was holding 1,922 prisoners (two-thirds of whom were
sentenced), as compared to 1,032 at the time of the 1997 visit. Nearly 50%
of the prisoners were foreign nationals.
53. The delegation observed that certain improvements had been made
since 1997, in line with the CPT's recommendations. Part of the main
accommodation building had been repainted; the shower and laundry facilities
had been repaired; the visiting facilities had been remodelled; the prison
library had been brought back into service (albeit the collection of books
was still rather small).
However, the problem of overcrowding persisted, and many of the 9.5 m² cells
in the main accommodation building continued to hold three prisoners.
Further, the cells seen by the delegation in wings A and D had not benefited
from any refurbishment, and were in a bad state of repair and dirty.
Prisoners also reported having difficulties in maintaining hygiene, due to
the presence of vermin and a shortage of personal hygiene items.
54. Following the transfer of the Prison for young male offenders to
Avlona (cf. paragraph 58), the building previously occupied by it had been
refurbished and transformed into accommodation for male prisoners (Unit 5).
The new unit offered material conditions of a good standard. The cells and
dormitories benefited from satisfactory access to natural light, ventilation
and artificial lighting, and were adequately equipped (bunk beds with full
bedding, bedside lockers, chairs, a table, shelves, TV sets). The in-cell
toilets were appropriately partitioned, and each dormitory had a separate
sanitary annexe (11 m²). Further, public phones had been installed in the
corridors on each floor, and the indoor gym had been restored.
55. The CPT recommends that:
- further efforts be made to reduce the occupancy rates at
Korydallos Prison for men, in particular by holding no more than two
prisoners per cell in the main accommodation building;
- priority be given to the refurbishing of the cellular
accommodation in wings A and D;
- steps be taken to ensure that all prisoners have access to a
suitable range of personal hygiene items.
56. In the 1997 visit report, the CPT recommended that the Greek
authorities vigorously pursue efforts to develop the activity programmes at
Korydallos Prison for men. At the time of the 1999 visit, the number of
inmates who worked had risen to 370 (as opposed to 295 in 1997). However,
taking into account the increased number of prisoners at the establishment,
this meant that the proportion of those with work had in fact decreased. The
CPT recommends that the Greek authorities step up their efforts to provide
work and other organised activities to both remand and sentenced prisoners
at Korydallos Prison for men.
57. Despite the recommendations made by the CPT in both the 1993 and
1997 visit reports, conditions of detention in the establishment's
disciplinary/segregation unit remained unchanged. Further, as was the case
in 1997, some of the cells in that unit were being used for prisoners
segregated for their own protection (including several mentally disturbed
prisoners). Consequently, the CPT must re-iterate the recommendations made
in paragraph 178 of the 1997 visit report[5], and request the Greek
authorities to take immediate steps to implement them.
The delegation was particularly concerned by the material conditions of
detention observed in the isolation unit in wing D, used for prisoners
segregated on their own request. The nine cells in this unit were deprived
of access to natural light, stuffy, damp and in a very bad state of repair.
Prisoners slept on mattresses placed directly on the floor, and the
delegation observed that many of the mattresses were filthy and infested
with vermin. The CPT recommends that material conditions in the isolation
unit in wing D be substantially improved as a matter of priority; in
particular, prisoners should be provided with mattresses which are clean and
regularly disinfected. Further, the cells' ventilation should be verified.
4. Avlona Institution for Male Juvenile Offenders
58. The Institution for Male Juvenile Offenders in Avlona entered into
service in August 1998, following the transfer of juvenile prisoners from
Korydallos Prison and other prisons. The establishment is situated in a
rural setting some 40 km Northwest of Athens, on the site of a former
military prison. It comprises a number of buildings located within a fairly
large compound (5 acres), surrounded by a secure perimeter. With an official
capacity of 308 places, on the day of the visit the establishment was
holding 279 inmates, aged between 14 and 21 years. Nearly half of them were
foreign nationals.
It should be stated from the outset that the creation of a special facility
for juvenile offenders in Avlona represents by its very nature a change for
the better, compared with the situation witnessed by the CPT's delegation in
1997 at the Korydallos Prison Complex. However, the information gathered by
the delegation suggests that there is considerable scope for improvement, in
particular as regards activities.
a. material conditions
59. The bulk of the prisoner accommodation was provided in a
three-storey building which was capable of offering satisfactory conditions
of detention. There were some 70 cells of an identical size (some 18 m²) and
design: a living area (15 m²), furnished with two bunk beds, lockers, a
table, and a TV set provided by the establishment, and a sanitary annexe (3
m²) containing a toilet, sink and shower. The cells were holding 2 to 4
inmates each. The state of cleanliness and decoration of the cells
varied,and was clearly a function of the neatness of the cell's occupants.
However, the delegation observed that, because of problems with the
plumbing, half of the cells on the ground floor of the main accommodation
building were in a very bad state of repair and hygiene (water dripping from
the sanitary annexes' ceilings, wastewater overflowing from the sewage
pipes, ceilings covered with green algae, moist walls, broken or missing
sinks, an all-pervading smell of urine). Cells 6, 17, 19 and 20 in
particular were found to be in an appalling state.
60. At the time of the visit, 32 inmates were segregated, on account
of their disruptive behaviour, in a separate one-level building (connected
by a corridor to the main building). It comprised ten cells holding up to 4
inmates each. The cells were similar in size and design to those in the main
building. However, the state of cleanliness within the building left
something to be desired.
61. The CPT recommends that immediate steps be taken to repair the
plumbing and refurbish the ground floor cells referred to in paragraph 59,
as well as any other cells at the establishment which are in a comparable
state;
The CPT also invites the Greek authorities to improve the state of
cleanliness and hygiene at the whole establishment.
b. activities
62. A positive aspect of the regime applied to inmates at the
establishment was the generous out-of-cell time. Cells were unlocked during
most of the day (between breakfast and lunch time, and from 2.30 p.m. until
sunset), and inmates could circulate within the accommodation wings and have
access to good-sized exercise yards. However, except for a few benches, the
latter tended to be bare, and outdoor exercise was essentially limited to
strolling around the yards.
63. The delegation was informed that efforts were being made to
introduce various educational and vocational training programmes at the
institution. At the time of the visit, some 30 inmates were attending an
elementary school, another 29 were registered at outside secondary schools
(with tutors periodically attending the establishment), 15 were following a
computer training course, and 15 were being trained as car mechanics.
Further, some 100 inmates performed various tasks (cleaning, helping in the
kitchen, laundry work, etc.).
However, the establishment did not possess a library, and there were no
indoor or outdoor sports facilities.
64. Given the relatively recent transfer of the establishment to
Avlona, it is clear that time has been too short to allow the management to
implement all the steps required to create a well-functioning establishment
for juveniles. Despite the generous out-of-cell time, the majority of
prisoners still have few structured activities.
The CPT recommends that the Greek authorities make efforts to enhance the
programme of organised activities for juvenile prisoners at the Avlona
Institution for Male Juvenile Offenders. In this connection, the CPT must
stress once again that it is essential for young persons in custody to be
provided with a full programme of purposeful activities aimed at their
rehabilitation (education, vocational training courses, work, sport,
recreation, etc.).
In this connection, the CPT also recommends that:
- a library be set up at the establishment as a matter of
priority;
- the exercise yards be fitted with basket/volleyball equipment;
- efforts be made to equip an indoor gym.
c. other issues related to the CPT's mandate
65. As already noted (cf. paragraph 50), the establishment was clearly
in need of more staff, both custodial as well as other categories. In
particular, there were no psychologists, educators or vocational training
teachers employed at Avlona (although several outside teachers attended the
establishment periodically).
The CPT recommends that steps be taken to reinforce the staff at the Avlona
Institution for Male Juvenile Offenders, in particular by employing
psychologists, educators and vocational training teachers. In this
connection, the CPT wishes to stress that the staff should be carefully
chosen and, more specifically, be persons capable of guiding and motivating
young people.
66. The establishment possessed two disciplinary cells (each measuring
some 6 m²). The maximum length of the placement in these cells was 10 days
for sentenced prisoners and 5 days for those on remand. Conditions in the
cells were totally unacceptable: they were devoid of any equipment
(including no mattresses), their "windows" were small openings below the
ceiling without glass, there was no artificial lighting, the floor-level
toilets were blocked with rubbish, and the walls were smeared with
excrement. Each cell had an adjacent narrow corridor (6 m²), where inmates
could apparently take "outdoor exercise". Further, there was evidence of
gross overcrowding: an examination of the disciplinary records[6] revealed
that up to 10 inmates had on occasion been subject to disciplinary isolation
at the same time.
67. The CPT recommends that:
- immediate steps be taken to set up an appropriately equipped
disciplinary unit. In addition to beds with mattresses, the unit's cells
should be fitted with a table and chair, if necessary, fixed to the floor;
- all prisoners placed in a disciplinary cell be guaranteed at
least one hour of outdoor exercise per day, and be allowed to have access to
reading matter;
- a specific register be established for the disciplinary unit,
setting out full details of persons held in it: date and time of entering
and leaving the unit; grounds for the detention and destination on
departure; cell occupied; etc.
68. The establishment's visiting area consisted of 20 partitioned-off
places, inmates being separated from their visitors by glass and
communicating with them via a telephone. A few chairs were in view, but only
on the visitors' side. There were no facilities for open visits.
The CPT recommends that immediate steps be taken at the Avlona Institution
for Male Juvenile Offenders to provide inmates with chairs during visits.
The Committee also recommends that the Greek authorities explore the
possibility of holding visits under more open conditions; visits under
closed booth-type conditions should be the exception rather than the rule.
5. Health-care issues
69. At Korydallos Prison for men, the staffing levels of the
health-care service continued to be a serious problem. The delegation was
informed that 85% of the health-care staff posts were not filled (60% of the
nursing staff posts). The full-time medical staff comprised one general
practitioner (GP) and one psychiatrist; in addition, a number of outside
doctors held surgeries. Further, as in 1997, there was a shortage of
qualified nursing personnel: the establishment employed two qualified nurses
and seven prison officers acting as auxiliary nurses.
Health care at the Avlona Institution for Male Juvenile
Offenderswas provided by two nurses working in the mornings; further, a
prison officer acting as an auxiliary nurse was present in the afternoons.
As regards doctors, two visiting GPs attended the establishment twice a
week, and a psychiatrist and a dentist, once a week. In case of emergency,
inmates were transported to the communal health-centre in the nearby town,
and could also be transferred for treatment to Korydallos Prison Hospital.
The CPT recommends that steps be taken:
- to fill the vacant posts in the health-care service at
Korydallos Prison for men;
- to increase the GPs' and the dentist's attendance hours at the
Avlona Institution for Male Juvenile Offenders; as regards the former, their
presence should be equivalent to at least one full-time post;
- to increase the nurses' attendance hours at the Avlona
Institution for Male Juvenile Offenders, and ensure that someone qualified
to provide first aid is always present at the establishment.
70. It became obvious that there was no systematic medical screening
of inmates on admission at either Korydallos Prison for Men or the Avlona
Institution for Male Juvenile Offenders. The CPT has stressed in its
previous visit reports the importance of medical screening of new arrivals;
such screening is indispensable, in particular in the interest of preventing
the spread of transmissible diseases, suicide prevention and the timely
recording of injuries. Consequently, the CPT recommends that the Greek
authorities ensure that every newly-arrived prisoner at Korydallos Prison
for Men and the Avlona Institution for Male Juvenile Offenders is properly
interviewed and physically examined by a medical doctor as soon as possible
after his admission. Such medical screening on admission could also be
performed by a fully qualified nurse reporting to a doctor.
71. The Psychiatric Unit atKorydallos Prison Complex was holding 182
patients at the time of the visit, both drug-addicts and mentally-ill
patients. The delegation was informed that the presence of drug-addicts at
the unit was soon to be brought to an end, as two de-toxification centres
were scheduled to open in the near future (one of them was awaiting the
appointment of staff in order to start functioning). The CPT would like to r
eceive updated information on this issue.
As in 1997, the Unit was overcrowded, its official capacity being 140
places. The staffing situation was also comparable to that recorded in 1997:
one full-time psychiatrist, five visiting psychiatrists, eight nurses and
one pharmacist. This staffing level falls short of what is required for the
proper functioning of a psychiatric facility of such a capacity.
The delegation was pleased to note that the "observation" unit (which was
severely criticised in the CPT's 1993 and 1997 visit reports) had been
thoroughly refurbished, including the installation of air-conditioning.
However, there was still no specific register for recording placements in
the Unit's isolation rooms.
72. In the light of its delegation's observations, the CPT can only
reiterate the recommendations made in the 1997 visit report that:
- the Greek authorities take urgent steps to review the operation
of the Psychiatric Unit at Korydallos Prison Complex, and in particular to
recruit staff trained to provide a range of rehabilitative and therapeutic
activities to patients;
- all placements in an isolation room be recorded in a specific
register, with an indication of the time at which the measure began and
ended, the reasons for the measure and the doctor ordering it, the use of
physical restraints, periodic supervision by nursing staff, etc.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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APPENDIX I
Summary of the CPT's recommendations,
comments and requests for information
A. Establishments under the authority of the Ministry of Public Order
1. Preliminary remarks
recommendations
- the Greek authorities to take the necessary steps to ensure that
there are no undue delays in the deportation procedure (paragraph 11).
requests for information
- clarification as to whether appeals against administrative
deportation decisions have suspensive effect (paragraph 11);
- the comments of the Greek authorities on the possibility foran
earlier preparation of the judicial deportation procedure, in order to
reduce the time spent in police custody after a person has served his prison
term (paragraph 12).
2. Torture and other forms of physical ill-treatment
recommendations
- the Greek authorities to implement the recommendations made in
paragraphs 16, 17, 18 and 19 of the CPT's 1997 visit report (paragraph 15).
3. Conditions of detention
recommendations
- the measures envisaged by the Greek authorities with a view to
improving conditions of detention in police holding facilities to be
implemented without further delay (paragraph 34);
- the Greek authorities to take steps to bring conditions of
detention in all the existing detention facilities specifically designed for
holding illegal aliens into conformity with the requirements set out in
paragraph 35. Those requirements should also be fully taken into account
when setting up new detention facilities for illegal aliens (paragraph 35);
- immediate steps to be taken to:
· keep the period of time spent by persons detained for deportation
in police directorates/stations to the absolute minimum. Whenever it becomes
clear that the deportation procedure in respect of a foreign national is
going to take longer than a week, the person concerned should be transferred
to a detention facility specifically designed for holding illegal aliens;
· ensure that the official capacities of the cells in police
directorates/stations are observed, and that no detainees are obliged to
sleep in the corridors of detention facilities (paragraph 36);
- the Greek authorities to explore the possibility of assigning
female officers to police detention facilities where women are held
(paragraph 36);
- urgent action to be taken to relocate Piraeus Transfer Centre
for prisoners in a place offering better conditions of detention (paragraph
37);
- immediate action to be taken at the Athens Transfer Centre for
prisoners in order to:
· reduce the establishment's official capacity;
· supply all detainees with clean mattresses and blankets;
· improve the ventilation and artificial lighting in the cells;
· ensure regular disinfecting and cleaning of the premises;
· repair the toilet facilities and ensure a regular supply of hot
water;
· ensure that prisoners are supplied with an appropriate range of
personal hygiene items (paragraph 39);
- means to be sought to enable prisoners held at the Athens
Transfer Centre to have outdoor exercise on a daily basis (paragraph 39);
- steps to be taken to ensure that prisoners in transit are being
provided with food which is sufficient in quantity and quality (paragraph
40).
requests for information
- the progress made towards completing the refurbishment of the
Hellenikon Holding Centre for Aliens at Athens Airport, and the envisaged
date of its re-opening (paragraph 28);
- more information on the holding area for foreign nationals which
it is envisaged to set up at the new Athens International Airport (paragraph
30);
- a timetable for the implementation of the envisaged project for
the upgrading, reconstruction and acquisition of facilities for the holding
of illegal aliens (paragraph 35);
- the envisaged date of entry into service of the new detention
cells at Feres Police Station (paragraph 35).
4. Safeguards against ill-treatment
recommendations
- steps to be taken without delay to ensure that persons detained
under the Aliens' legislation:
· can receive visits from lawyers in conditions ensuring the
confidentiality of the discussions, and are able to meet their relatives and
contact representatives of relevant organisations;
· are put in a position to make and receive phone calls;
· are systematically provided with a document explaining the
procedure applicable to them and setting out their rights. This document
should be available in the languages most commonly spoken by those concerned
and, if necessary, recourse should be had to the services of an interpreter
(paragraph 44);
- steps to be taken immediately to ensure that whenever a person
is detained in the Transitional Detachment holding facility for illegal
aliens in Feres (or in any other holding facility run by a transitional or
border control detachment), for whatever reason or length of time, the fact
of his/her detention and subsequent release or transfer is recorded without
delay (paragraph 45).
requests for information
- the comments of the Greek authorities on the issue raised in
paragraph 46 (paragraph 46);
- a detailed account of the precise practical steps taken by the
Greek authorities to ensure that persons are not returned to a county where
there are substantial grounds for believing that they would run a risk of
being subjected to torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment
(paragraph 47).
B. Establishments under the authority of the Ministry of Justice
1. Preliminary remarks
recommendations
- the Greek authorities to pursue vigorously the application of
all the different measures to combat prison overcrowding, including policies
to limit or modulate the number of persons sent to prison (paragraph 48).
2. Ill-treatment
recommendations
- the Greek authorities to develop and implement a comprehensive
strategy to combat inter-prisoner violence at the Avlona Institution for
Male Juvenile Offenders, in the light of the remarks made in paragraph 50
(paragraph 50).
3. Follow-up visit to Korydallos Prison Complex
recommendations
- further efforts to be made to reduce the occupancy rates at
Korydallos Prison for men, in particular by holding no more than two
prisoners per cell in the main accommodation building (paragraph 55);
- priority to be given to the refurbishing of the cellular
accommodation in wings A and D (paragraph 55);
- steps to be taken to ensure that all prisoners have access to a
suitable range of personal hygiene items (paragraph 55);
- the Greek authorities to step up their efforts to provide work
and other organised activities to both remand and sentenced prisoners at
Korydallos Prison for men (paragraph 56);
- the Greek authorities to take immediate steps to implement the
recommendations made in paragraph 178 of the CPT's 1997 visit report,
concerning the disciplinary/segregation unit (paragraph 57);
- material conditions in the isolation unit in wing D to be
substantially improved as a matter of priority; in particular, prisoners
should be provided with mattresses which are clean and regularly
disinfected. Further, the cells' ventilation should be verified (paragraph
57).
4. Avlona Institution for Male Juvenile Offenders
recommendation
- immediate steps to be taken to repair the plumbing and refurbish
the ground floor cells referred to in paragraph 59, as well as any other
cells at the establishment which are in a comparable state (paragraph 61);
- the Greek authorities to make efforts to enhance the programme
of organised activities for juvenile prisoners at the establishment
(paragraph 64);
- a library to be set up at the establishment as a matter of
priority (paragraph 64);
- the exercise yards to be fitted with basket/volleyball equipment
(paragraph 64);
- efforts to be made to equip an indoor gym (paragraph 64);
- steps to be taken to reinforce the staff at the establishment,
in particular by employing psychologists, educators and vocational training
teachers (paragraph 65);
- immediate steps to be taken to set up an appropriately equipped
disciplinary unit. In addition to beds with mattresses, the unit's cells
should be fitted with a table and chair, if necessary, fixed to the floor
(paragraph 67);
- all prisoners placed in a disciplinary cell to be guaranteed at
least one hour of outdoor exercise per day, and to be allowed to have access
to reading matter (paragraph 67);
- a specific register to be established for the disciplinary unit,
setting out full details of persons held in it: date and time of entering
and leaving the unit; grounds for the detention and destination on
departure; cell occupied; etc. (paragraph 67);
- immediate steps to be taken to provide inmates with chairs
during visits (paragraph 68);
- the Greek authorities to explore the possibility of holding
visits under more open conditions; visits under closed booth-type conditions
should be the exception rather than the rule (paragraph 68).
comments
- the Greek authorities are invited to improve the state of
cleanliness and hygiene at the whole establishment (paragraph 61);
- the CPT must stress once again that it is essential for young
persons in custody to be provided with a full programme of purposeful
activities aimed at their rehabilitation (education, vocational training
courses, work, sport, recreation, etc.) (paragraph 64);
- the establishment's staff should be carefully chosen and, more
specifically, be persons capable of guiding and motivating young people
(paragraph 65).
5. Health-care issues
recommendations
- steps to be taken to:
· fill the vacant posts in the health-care service at Korydallos
Prison for men;
· increase the GPs' and the dentist's attendance hours at the
Avlona Institution for Male Juvenile Offenders; as regards the former, their
presence should be equivalent to at least one full-time post;
· increase the nurses' attendance hours at the Avlona Institution
for Male Juvenile Offenders, and ensure that someone qualified to provide
first aid is always present at the establishment (paragraph 69);
- the Greek authorities to ensure that every newly-arrived
prisoner at Korydallos Prison for Men and the Avlona Institution for Male
Juvenile Offenders is properly interviewed and physically examined by a
medical doctor as soon as possible after his admission. Such medical
screening on admission could also be performed by a fully qualified nurse
reporting to a doctor (paragraph 70);
- the Greek authorities to take urgent steps to review the
operation of the Psychiatric Unit at Korydallos Prison Complex, and in
particular to recruit staff trained to provide a range of rehabilitative and
therapeutic activities to patients (paragraph 72);
- all placements in an isolation room at the Psychiatric Unit at
Korydallos Prison Complex to be recorded in a specific register, with an
indication of the time at which the measure began and ended, the reasons for
the measure and the doctor ordering it, the use of physical restraints,
periodic supervision by nursing staff, etc. (paragraph 72).
requests for information
- updated information on the transfer to de-toxification centres
of drug-addicts currently held at the Psychiatric Unit at Korydallos Prison
Complex (paragraph 71).
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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APPENDIX II
List of the national authorities and non-governmental
and other organisations with which
the CPT's delegation held consultations
Ministry of Justice
Evangelos GIANNOPOULOS Minister for Justice
Christofilos KALAVRYTINOS General Director, Personnel
Management
Kyriaki BARDANI General Director,
Reformation Policy
Ioannis XENAKIS Director, External
Prison Guard Service
Sevasti PAPAMITROPOULOU Director, Adult Reformation
Ioannis STALIKAS Department Head,
Adult Reformation Treatment
Maria LAGIOU Department Head,
Juvenile Treatment
Anna ANDRIANAKI Department Head, Adults
Spyridon ATHANASOPOULOS Prison Inspector
Antonios PAPADOURAKIS Prison Health Inspector
Paraskevi TSILIMIGAKI Inspector of Prison
Social Services
Ministry of Health and Welfare
Lambros PAPADIMAS Minister for Health and
Welfare
Petros GIANOULATOS Director, Mental Health
Kaliopi MAVRATZOTOU Head, Mental Health
Department
Ministry of Public Order
Michalis CHRYSSOCHOIDIS Minister for Public Order
Panaghiotis YANOULAS Deputy Director, State
Security Department
Panaghiotis HOULIARAS Head, International
Co-operation Directorate
Evangelos LOUKOUMIS International
Co-operation Directorate
Pavlos ROUMINOS Director, Attica
General Police Directorate
Mr KALOFOLIAS Attica General Police
Directorate
The Greek Ombudsman
George KAMINIS Deputy Ombudsman,
Human Rights
Voyager
and the Mindnight Express.
Turkey's prisons has become a front line news in the
newspapers and TV channels all around the world.
Now it is the 4th day we are asking you to provide proofs
that the article you posted was from the Athens News Agency
and that Jack Sraw make the statement you claim he de.
Why you don't provide as any proofs any URL Mr. Bogus ???
WolfWolf
>
> Now it is the 4th day we are asking you to provide proofs
> that the article you posted was from the Athens News Agency
> and that Jack Sraw make the statement you claim he de.
>
> Why you don't provide as any proofs any URL Mr. Bogus ???
Voyager and REAL are close friends - so close that they contradict each
other.
On 20 October 2001, REAL quoted a message from Athen's News Agency (ANA)
dated 19/10/2001 with an interview with Gunter Verheugen, EU Enlargement
Commissioneer, about Greek-Turkish relations.
This quote was partial and was later completed with other parts of
Verheugen's statement, with positive words for Turkey, which obviously did
not fit into REAL's horizon.
The extended quote of ANA's message produced a heavy reaction by Voyager.
Voyager described this message as "black propaganda" - regardless of the
authenticity, of the source (a reputable Greek news agency) and of the
person who brought the message into discussion (his friend REAL).
During several days Voyager whined and asked for the source of the message.
At no moment he attempted to verify it by his own means - despite of having
full details - and even less to trace the thread until the initial posting
of his friend REAL.
This gives us the following conclusions:
- REAL is unable to quote statements in their full extent. He prefers
distorted views, to the detriment of veracity.
- Voyager is unable to do the most elementary research work, and unable to
conceive the authenticity of messages posted by his own friend, also to the
detriment of veracity.
- Both have an unclear position of confidence towards each other and towards
reality.
WolfWolf
WolfWolf
> You better worry about what happens in Turkey
> and the Mindnight Express.
Hohoho - "Mind Night Express" - LOL
Now I understand. This is your only diversion - your "mind night".
And from this dream, or "mind niightmare", you are taking the paint for
covering reality.
Everything that does not fit into your dream must be changed.
Continue dreaming, Mindnight Voyager ...
WolfWolf