Plot Targeting Turkey's Armenian,Greek and Jewish Communities
Ja...@webtv.net
Mitsos**
Ja...@webtv.net
http://europenews.dk/en/node/28575
Jay-K
Mitsos**
I then rather post the article too because on the website it might be
for a year or two but on google groups it will be for the next 20 years:
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ISTANBUL � CD indicates naval officers planned violence against
non-Muslim communities. Chilling allegations emerged last month of a
detailed plot by Turkish naval officers to perpetrate threats and
violence against the nation�s non-Muslims in an effort to implicate and
unseat Turkey�s pro-Islamic government.
Evidence put forth for the plot appeared on an encrypted compact disc
discovered last April but was only recently deciphered; the daily Taraf
newspaper first leaked details of the CD�s contents on Nov. 19.
Entitled the "Operation Cage Action Plan,� the plot outlines a plethora
of planned threat campaigns, bomb attacks, kidnappings and
assassinations targeting the nation�s tiny religious minority
communities � an apparent effort by military brass to discredit the
ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). The scheme ultimately called
for bombings of homes and buildings owned by non-Muslims, setting fire
to homes, vehicles and businesses of Christian and Jewish citizens, and
murdering prominent leaders among the religious minorities.
Dated March 2009, the CD containing details of the plot was discovered
in a raid on the office of a retired major implicated in a large illegal
cache of military arms uncovered near Istanbul last April. Once
deciphered, it revealed the full names of 41 naval officials assigned to
carry out a four-phase campaign exploiting the vulnerability of Turkey�s
non-Muslim religious minorities, who constitute less than 1 percent of
the population.
A map that Taraf published on its front page � headlined "The Targeted
Missionaries� � was based on the controversial CD documents. Color-coded
to show all the Turkish provinces where non-Muslims lived or had
meetings for worship, the map showed only 13 of Turkey�s 81 provinces
had no known non-Muslim residents or religious meetings.
The plan identified 939 non-Muslim representatives in Turkey as possible
targets.
"If even half of what is written in Taraf is accurate, everybody with a
conscience in this country has to go mad,� Eyup Can wrote in his
Hurriyet column two days after the news broke.
The day after the first Taraf report, the headquarters of the Turkish
General Staff filed a criminal complaint against the daily with the
Justice Ministry, declaring its coverage a "clear violation� of the laws
protecting ongoing prosecution investigations from public release.
Although the prime minister�s office the next day confirmed that the
newly revealed "Cage� plot was indeed under official investigation,
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan criticized Taraf�s public disclosure
of the plan as "interfering� and "damaging� to the judicial process and
important sectors of the government.
But when the judiciary began interrogating a number of the named naval
suspects and sent some of them to jail, most Turkish media � which had
downplayed the claims � began to accept the plot�s possible authenticity.
To date, at least 11 of the naval officials identified in the Cage
documents are under arrest, accused of membership in an illegal
organization. They include a retired major, a lieutenant colonel, three
lieutenant commanders, two colonels and three first sergeants.
The latest plot allegations are linked to criminal investigations
launched in June 2007 into Ergenekon, an alleged "deep state� conspiracy
by a group of military officials, state security personnel, lawyers and
journalists now behind bars on charges of planning a coup against the
elected AKP government.
Christian Murders Termed �Operations�
The plot document began with specific mention of the three most recent
deadly attacks perpetrated against Christians in Turkey, cryptically
labeling them "operations.�
Initial Turkish public opinion had blamed Islamist groups for the savage
murders of Italian Catholic priest Andrea Santoro (February 2006),
Turkish Armenian Agos newspaper editor Hrant Dink (January 2007) and two
Turkish Christians and a German Christian in Malatya (April 2007). But
authors of the Cage plan complained that AKP�s "intensive propaganda�
after these incidents had instead fingered the Ergenekon cabal as the
perpetrators.
"The Cage plan demanded that these �operations� be conducted in a more
systematic and planned manner,� attorney Orhan Kemal Cengiz wrote in
Today�s Zaman on Nov. 27. "They want to re-market the �black propaganda�
that Muslims kill Christians,� concluded Cengiz, a joint-plaintiff
lawyer in the Malatya murder trial and legal adviser to Turkey�s
Association of Protestant Churches.
In the first phase of the Cage plot, officers were ordered to compile
information identifying the non-Muslim communities� leaders, schools,
associations, cemeteries, places of worship and media outlets, including
all subscribers to the Armenian Agos weekly. With this data, the second
stage called for creating an atmosphere of fear by openly targeting
these religious minorities, using intimidating letters and telephone
calls, warnings posted on websites linked to the government and graffiti
in neighborhoods where non-Muslims lived.
To channel public opinion, the third phase centered on priming TV and
print media to criticize and debate the AKP government�s handling of
security for religious minorities, to raise the specter of the party
ultimately replacing Turkey�s secular laws and institutions with Islamic
provisions.
The final phase called for planting bombs and suspicious packages near
homes and buildings owned by non-Muslims, desecrating their cemeteries,
setting fire to homes, vehicles and businesses of Christian and Jewish
citizens, and even kidnapping and assassinating prominent leaders among
the religious minorities.
Lawyer Fethiye Cetin, representing the Dink family in the Agos editor�s
murder trial, admitted she was having difficulty even accepting the
details of the Cage plot.
"I am engulfed in horror,� Cetin told Bianet, the online Independent
Communications Network. "Some forces of this country sit down and make a
plan to identify their fellow citizens, of their own country, as
enemies! They will kill Armenians and non-Muslims in the psychological
war they are conducting against the ones identified as their enemies.�
No Surprise to Christians
"We were not very shocked,� Protestant Pastor Ihsan Ozbek of the
Kurtulus Churches in Ankara admitted to Taraf the day after the news broke.
After the Malatya murders, he stated, Christians had no official means
to investigate their suspicions about the instigators, "and we could not
be very brave . . . Once again the evidence is being seen, that it is
the juntas who are against democracy who [have been] behind the
propaganda in the past 10 years against Christianity and missionary
activity.�
Patriarch Bartholomew of the Greek Orthodox Church also openly addressed
the Cage plot, referring to recent incidents of intimidation against
Christian and Jewish citizens in Istanbul�s Kurtulus and Adalar
districts, as well as a previous raid conducted against the alumni of a
Greek high school.
"At the time, we thought that they were just trying to scare us,� he
told Today�s Zaman. Several of the jailed Ergenekon suspects now on
trial were closely involved for years in protesting and slandering the
Istanbul Patriarchate, considered the heart of Eastern Orthodoxy�s 300
million adherents. As ultranationalists, they claimed the Orthodox
wanted to set up a Vatican-style entity within Turkey.
Last summer 90 graves were desecrated in the Greek Orthodox community�s
Balikli cemetery in the Zeytinburnu district of Istanbul. The city�s 65
non-Muslim cemeteries are not guarded by the municipality, with their
maintenance and protection left to Greek, Armenian and Jewish minorities.
As details continued to emerge and national debates raged for more than
a week over the Cage plan in the Turkish media, calls came from a broad
spectrum of society to merge the files of the ongoing Dink and Malatya
murder trials with the Ergenekon file. The Turkish General Staff has
consistently labeled much of the media coverage of the Ergenekon
investigations as part of smear campaign against the fiercely secular
military, which until the past two years enjoyed virtual impunity from
civilian court investigations.
According to Ria Oomen-Ruijten, the European Parliament�s rapporteur on
Turkey, the long-entrenched role of the military in the Turkish
government is an "obstacle� for further democratization and integration
into the EU. (...)
Ja...@webtv.net
Jay-K