Ergenekon’s mass graves, Kurdish skeletons

İhsan Yılmaz

It is not so easy to comprehend the intertwined and sophisticated socio-political phenomena in Turkey from an armchair or “pub table” by just talking to a few white Turks while enjoying a drink. In terms of their lifestyles, it is true that these white Turks are the most Westernized in Turkish society. Yet, if you scratch the surface and understand Western civilization as something that stems from the ideas of the Enlightenment, rationality, empathy, respect for human rights and multiculturalism, you are speaking to the wrong guys.

These guys are the ones who vigorously defend what happened in 1915, who tried to assimilate Kurds and “Turkify” them, who vehemently oppose Turkey’s entrance to the EU and have never questioned either the military coups or the militaristic Turkish political culture or the state’s oppression of anyone who chose to differ from the Kemalist ideology. Nevertheless, somehow, certain sections of Western societies, especially in the US, seem to side with these Kemalist nationalists and are easily convinced by their flawed arguments.

In recent weeks, more than 20 skeletons have been found in a former prison yard in Diyarbakır. This area was used by the notorious JİTEM, an armed wing of Ergenekon that secretly and illegally operated within the Turkish gendarmerie. Relatives have confirmed that some of the skeletons were their beloved ones who were arrested by the gendarmerie and later disappeared. Surprisingly, the Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) has not made any fuss over the findings and has largely been silent on the issue. It seems that Turkey’s process of democratization and its endeavors to tackle its dirty past do not please the Kurdish politicians and the BDP. Anyway, the white Turks who oppose the Ergenekon cases, claiming that it is a plot set by police who are allegedly affiliated with the Hizmet Movement, have not bothered to explain what these skeletons are.

Generally speaking, the Ergenekon indictments argue that rogue ultra-nationalist and ultra-Kemalist groups comprised of people from all walks of life illegally organized themselves within the state structures, especially the army. To protect their privileged interests they resorted to illegality, violence, assassinations, bombings, threats and so on. By using their media wings, they also character assassinated their enemies. Their enemies ranged from human rights advocates to journalists, such as Cengiz Çandar, Mehmet Ali Birand, Ahmet Altan and Hrant Dink, from ordinary civilian Kurds to rich Kurdish businessmen, such as Behçet Cantürk and Ömer Lütfü Topal, from religious people to democratically elected politicians.

It is true that Ergenekon is also an ideology and one cannot and should not prosecute everybody who espouses this ideology. However, Ergenekon is also an alive and kicking well-disciplined, hierarchical organization that also resorts to terrorism. Yet, it is much bigger, more sophisticated and complicated than a simple terrorist organization. Like an octopus, it has many tentacles in addition to wings and inter-connected separate chambers. It is like the Italian Gladio, but while the Italian Gladio was formed as an anti-Communist, pro-NATO organization, Ergenekon’s existence goes back to the later years of the Ottoman Empire. During the Cold War, it only cooperated with NATO but has always had its own separate rationale and ideology, which is to protect the Kemalist ideology, its state, its elite and their sole ownership of the state by whatever means needed.

Ergenekon perceived the Kurdish demands as a threat and from an Ergenekonian perspective, non-violent peaceful Kurdish, such as Kemal Burkay, were the most dangerous to deal with, without attracting Western criticism. Thus, Ergenekon helped the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) to emerge to monopolize and control the Kurdish dissent. The first work of the PKK was to silence the non-violent peaceful Kurds. After more than 30 years, Burkay is back in Turkey and the PKK is still threatening him. Both the PKK and Ergenekon continued to kill civilian Kurds, paving the way for the consolidation of the Kurdish problem. The PKK terror also helped the military to securitize every issue in the country and to constantly interfere with politics in the name of national security.

This recently uncovered mass grave is only one of the solid and concrete manifestations of the illegal deep state in Turkey, whatever you name it. Mistakes, inefficiencies and even alleged injustices during the judicial process do not suffice to prove Ergenekon’s non-existence and invalidate the countless pieces of concrete evidence. Criticisms directed towards the judicial process can only be taken seriously if the critics do not insult our intellect and imply that Ergenekon is a figment of the imagination created by the Hizmet Movement or the Justice and Development Party (AKP).

Published on Today's Zaman, 25 January 2012, Wednesday