Black propaganda at home, black propaganda in the world

Abdülhamit Bilici

If four news stories smearing the Gülen Movement had not appeared one after another in three major Russian newspapers in a week, you would be reading my analysis concerning the developments in Syria, which was the most recent country to be affected by a wave of uprisings that swept through the Middle East.

But it is much more vital to draw attention to a disgraceful operation involving psychological warfare conducted in the Russian media against Turkey. Indeed, what is currently being done in Moscow is yet another concrete case of what has long been the case in Washington, Paris, Brussels and other capitals.

One of the news stories accusing the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and the Gülen Movement of being a threat and claiming that Turkey is shifting toward Shariah rule appeared in the Nezavisimaya Gazeta. The story lauded Necmettin Erbakan while writing off the AK Party as a “US collaborator” and argued that the reason why some journalists were recently arrested is that they opposed the government and US policies in the region and authored articles about the Ergenekon trial.

It said: “Although Turkey is known as a secular country, it is rapidly heading toward radical religious fundamentalism. It is not recommended that you openly state this. This is confirmed by the fate of the arrested journalists.” So, who voices this opinion which has been conveyed to the Russian public by a major paper? His name is Mehmet Perinçek, the son of Doğu Perinçek, the leader of ultranationalist socialist Workers’ Party (İP) and a defendant in the Ergenekon trial. However, he is introduced to readers as “a political expert and a scholar at the Institute of Atatürk’s Legacy.” Furthermore, the author of the article is Aleksandr Melnikov, a close friend of Mehmet Perinçek, who studied in Moscow.

A similar news story appeared in the Moskovskiy Komsomolets. What does this story, headlined with “12 members of the radical Nurcu organization arrested,” say? Even though the headline gives us the impression of a new development, Turkish journalists in Moscow told me that this is at least a one month-old development. All of the mystery surrounding whether or not this organization exists, and, if it does exist, just who it represents and what it has to do with Turkish schools aside, the news piece continues, after a compilation of unrelated matters such as Hizb ut-Tahrir and suicide attacks in Chechnya are touched upon, to strangely discuss “Turkish schools, which give lessons on the divine duty of Turkishness, the chosen status of Islam and its special role.”

Just as I wonder where this news came from, the source of the news piece becomes unveiled in all his glory: Professor Semih Koray, one of the leaders of Turkey’s İP, Perinçek’s party. This is the same Koray who claimed absurdly that the terrorists who attacked the Twin Towers, those in Chechnya and China’s Xinjiang region were trained in camps in Turkey. Mr. Koray is now claiming that the Turkish schools were working in line with the Great Middle East Project and under the command of Super NATO and that their aim is to weaken the countries they work in. In another news story that appeared in Izvestia, authored by Victor Bulavin, terms such as “Turkish schools,” “Turanism,” “the CIA” and “Nurcus” are mixed together to make the gigantic disclosure that the network of Turkish high schools in Russia and Central Asia is functioning as a cover for the US clandestine service. It claimed that 130 CIA officers are being employed by the “Nurcus” in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan in their high schools: “These people may appear as teachers, but they are working for the US clandestine service. It is suspicious that they all work as teachers of English at these schools but are US citizens and have diplomatic passports.” Just as we were about to say “What great insidiousness,” we were faced with retired intelligence officer Nuri Gündeş, who was presented as having “worked at the National Intelligence Organization [MİT] for 20 years and acted as a consultant for the Turkish government regarding matters of intelligence.” The only source for the article was the so-called book of Nuri Gündeş, “İhtilallerin ve Anarşinin Yakın Tanığı” (The Close Witness of Revolutions and Anarchy), whose unbelievable introduction was written by doyen/journalist Can Dündar and was put together through a cut and paste job over the Internet.

There is not adequate room for the details; however, intelligence officer Gündeş’s only proof for the Turkish schools-CIA connection -- which gets Milliyet and Dündar excited -- is the confession of a school administrator who worked in Uzbekistan and spoke in a meeting regarding schools abroad at the Ministry of Education of his CIA connection and that this was featured in a book published by the state.

But this book has surfaced. The scope of the words Gündeş distorted and Dündar became an instrument for was this: “The US granted diplomatic status to its 70 teachers whom it brought in under its bridge of freedom program. Similarly, if our state, our embassy, helps us with regard to diplomatic status, we believe the esteem of Turkish teachers will increase further.” For those interested, they can take a look at the Zaman daily dated Dec. 22, 2010.

But who’s searching for the truth, anyway? Neither Gündeş nor Dündar has apologized to the nation for this great slander. Even WikiLeaks’ unveiling of US intelligence reports opposing the Gülen Movement was insufficient to stop this campaign. And now this nonsense is being served to the Russian press as though it were sound allegations. The operation does not end here, either. All these news items were headlined in Perinçek’s Aydınlık newspaper on Thursday with “Russian Fethullah followers arrested for spying.” And next to it was Mr. Koray’s column, which was the source of this news, analyzing Russian media’s big revelations.

I think there isn’t much of a need to say anything more. But it may be useful to recall the following piece of strategy suggested to Ergenekon-oriented media in the “Ulusal Medya 2010” (National Media 2010) document found during the Odatv (another ultranationalist socialist news website) investigation: “The national media should be completely mobilized against the AKP and the [Gülen] movement; all elements of propaganda and black propaganda must be used effectively.”

Published on Today's Zaman, 10 April 2011, Sunday

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