THE SECRET WAR IN TURKEY
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The history of the secret army in Turkey is more violent than that of any other stay-behind in Western Europe. Strongly linked to the nationalist movement of the ethnic Turks the violence has roots which go back to the beginning of the twentieth century. During the First World War the large and proud Ottoman Empire broke apart and in 1923 was replaced with the much smaller Turkish republic. Almost the entire population remained Muslim, but violent clashes erupted along the dividing lines of the ethnic groups of Turks, Kurds and Armenians. Representing 80 per cent of the population as well as the ruling elite in the new capital Ankara, the Turkish ethnic group attempted to create a homogenous state by targeting the two other ethnic groups. While the Kurdish ethnic group of some 12 million, divided by the new national borders, lived in parts of Syria, Iran and Iraq the majority dwelled in south eastern Turkey, making up almost 20 per cent of the population of the new republic. In the years following the First World War the much smaller Armenian ethnic group tragically became the target of a Turkish genocide as out of about 2 million Armenians who had lived in the Ottoman Empire only about 200,000 survived while 1,800,000 were killed. During the same period the Kurds also suffered great losses and paid a high death toll. But the Turks were unable to kill all Kurds and the violent battle between the two groups continues also in the twenty-first century. |
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The violent birth of the new Turkish state also brutally targeted the Turkish Communist Party. In 1921 the entire leadership of the newly founded Communist Party was assassinated and the party was outlawed throughout the century. Nationalist Turks continued to criticise the fact that due to the fall of the Ottoman Empire many ethnic Turks after the First World War were forced to live as 'captive Turks' outside the borders of the new Turkish state. They based their ideology on the so-called Pan Turkism movement which already in the late nineteenth century had hoped to reunite all Turk peoples in a single nation stretching from western China to parts of Spain. After the fall of the Ottoman Empire many of these 'captive Turks' lived in the new Communist Soviet Union and in Cyprus. The destruction of the Soviet Union and Communism hence became an imperative for those Turks who united in the Pan-Turkism movement |
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Soviet Union was defeated.
Although Turkey was officially neutral during the Second World War, and in
order to side with the winners only in 1945 declared war on Germany, the support for Hitler and Mussolini was strong among the nationalists of the Pan-Turkism movement. Under the influence of racial theories of the fascist movement in Germany Pan-Turkism increasingly emphasised the common racial ties of the
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Turkish people and preached a doctrine of racial superiority. The German
invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 was openly greeted with enthusiasm by the Pan-Turkism movement. And in 1942, anticipating the fall of Stalingrad, Pan-Turkism organisations concentrated troops on the Caucasian border in order
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to take advantage of the fall of the Soviet Union. The disappointment was
widespread when instead of collapsing the Soviet Union emerged as a victor from the Second World War. But when half-a-century later the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Pan-Turkism organisations saw to it that a regime supporting the idea of
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Pan-Turkism was installed in Azerbaijan on Turkey's eastern boarder.
After the end of the Second World War the main priority of the United States with regard to Turkey was to integrate the country solidly within the Western anti-Communist defence system. Due to its geographic location Turkey was a highly valuable strategic territory. Both during and after the Cold War it functioned as an important balcony for US and NATO operations in the oil countries of the Middle East and the Caucuses region, most prominently during the Second Gulf War in 1991. Furthermore the country represented the most eastern land post of NATO during the Cold War. Nobody else, not even Norway in the north, was closer to Moscow and hence Turkey was equipped with high-tech gear and used as a listening post.
As Turkey furthermore guarded a third of NATO's total borders with Warsaw Pact countries, the Turkish elite became an excellent defence contractor for the United States military industry and recipient of billions of US aid. Armed by the United States during the Cold War, Turkey set up the largest armed forces in Europe, and the second largest in NATO after the United States. In a reckless gamble the United States in 1961 stationed even nuclear missiles in Turkey tar- geting the Soviet Union. When Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev a year later cop- ied the reckless strategy and stationed nuclear missiles in Cuba targeting the United States, the Cuban Missile Crisis ensued and pushed the world to the brink of nuclear war. President Kennedy resolved the crisis peacefully by promising to
remove the Jupiter missiles from Turkey in return for Khrushchev's promise to
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remove his nuclear missiles from Cuba.
In order to integrate Turkey firmly within NATO the United States had to exploit the dominant and violent Pan-Turkism movement. In this process, which the Pan-Turkism movement in turn used to its own advantage, right-wing extremist Colonel Alparsan Turks played a central role. During the Second World War Colonel Turks had been the contact person of the German Nazis in Turkey. He first came to national prominence in 1944 when he and 30 others
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were arrested for having participated in an anti-Communist demonstration.
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Convinced of the theories of racial superiority in general and the superiority of the Turks in particular, Colonel Turks in many of his speeches during his career quoted from Hitler's book Mein Kampf. Following the war he made contacts with the CIA in 1948 and allegedly during this time on the orders of the CIA started to set up a secret anti-Communist stay-behind army in Turkey. As the collaboration with the United States intensified, charismatic leader Colonel Turks travelled extensively between his home country and the United States and established inti- mate contacts both with the Pentagon and the CIA. From 1955 to 1958 he served 5 in Washington in the Turkish military mission to NATO. |
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When Turkey joined NATO on April 4, 1952 Colonel Turks had already set up a Turkish secret army. Its headquarters was labelled Tactical Mobilisation Group (Seferberlik Taktik Kurulu, STK) and was located in the building of the CIA organisation, American Yardim Heyeti (American Aid Delegation - JUS- MATT), in the Bahcelievler district of the Turkish capital Ankara. The Tactical Mobilisation Group was restructured in 1965 and renamed Special Warfare Department (Ozel Harp Dairesi, OHD), the name under which the command centre of the Turkish secret soldiers became known during the 1990 Gladio revelations. Due to this exposure the Special Warfare Department had to change its name once again and today is called Special Forces Command (Ozel Kuvvetler 6 Komutanligi, OKK). |
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Under the headline 'The Origins of "Gladio" in Turkey' the Paris-based Intelligence Newsletter reported in 1990 that they had obtained 'one of the recently declassified original strategy documents engendering the Western European "stay-behind" or "Gladio" network: US Army General Staffs Top-Secret March 28, 1949 Overall Strategic Concepts.' In an adjoining document, JSPC 891/6, section 'Tab B', a specific reference is made to Turkey highlighting how the Pan-Turkism movement could be exploited strategically by the United States. Turkey, according to the Pentagon document, is an 'extremely favourable territory for the establishment of both guerrilla units and Secret Army Reserves. Politically the Turks are strongly nationalistic and anti-Communistic, and the presence of the Red Army in Turks will cause national feeling to run high.' Intelligence Newsletter thereafter correctly related that the Turkish secret army called Counter-Guerrilla was run by the Special Warfare Department and consisted of five branches: 'Training Group, including interrogation and psychological warfare techniques; Special Unit, specialised since 1984 in anti-Kurd operations, Special Section, special operations in Cyprus; Coordination Group, also called the Third Bureau; and 7 Administrative Section.' |
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Despite the change of names during the entire Cold War, the task and strategies of the CIA-funded Special Warfare Department remained the same and consisted in employing violent secret unorthodox warfare in a number of operations, according to the directives of its leaders. In a classic operation to create tensions, Turkish agents of the stay-behind Special Warfare Department on September 6, 1955 threw a bomb into a house in Thessalloniki in Greece that was used as the |
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Mustafa Kemal Museum and was thus highly esteemed by all Turks. The Turkish
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stay-behind agents left hardly any trace and blamed the act on the Greek police. The false-flag operation worked and the Turkish government and the press blamed the Greeks for the attack. Promptly, on September 6 and 7, 1955, Turkish fanatical groups fired up by the Counter-Guerrilla wrecked hundreds of Greek homes and business in Istanbul and Izmir, killing 16 Greeks, wounding 32 and raping 200 Greek women in the process." Officially the task of the Special Warfare Department and its Counter-Guerrilla was: 'To use guerrilla methods and all possible underground activities in the ease of a Communist occupation or of a rebellion in order to bring an end to the 9 and false-flag operations it became increasingly difficult to distinguish the Counter- Guerrillas from classical terrorists. A military accord between the CIA and the Turkish government of Adnan Menderes in 1959 stressed the domestic task of the secret army by specifying that the secret soldiers were to become operational 10 'also in the case of an internal rebellion against the regime'. |
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If indeed the secret CIA army had been designed to prevent a coup d'etat it was less than entirely successful. For on May 27, 1960 Turkey suffered from a military coup d'etat when 38 officers including CIA liaison officer Colonel Turks overthrew the government and arrested Prime Minister Adnan Menderes. Secret warfare expert Selahattin Celik later claimed that far from being a unit designed to protect the Turkish democracy, the Special Warfare Department ranged itself amongst the largest threats to the Turkish democracy as behind its secretive walls the Turkish military had repeatedly conspired against the elected government. Before being promoted to the top-secret Special Warfare Department Turkish military Generals as a rule officially 'retired' in order to serve with low 11 visibility thereafter in the secret command post. 'The most important actions of the Special Warfare Department', Celik concludes, 'were the three military 12 coups'. |
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While the exact role of the United States in the 1960 coup remains unclear the evidence available as of now suggests that the White House tolerated the coup because it had been assured beforehand that Turkey's membership in NATO was not endangered. 'Although the United States were informed about the coup d'etat and due to special bilateral agreements even would have had the legal possibilities to intervene, they did nothing', Fikret Asian and Kemal Bozay note in their analysis of the Pan-Turkism movement. 'They knew that most of the 13 putschists kept their promise and right after the coup the new ruler of Turkey, General Giirsel, emphasised publicly: 'Turkey remains faithful to its Western 14 States had been informed long before the coup was carried out. 'An officer named Samet Kuscu contacted in 1957 the US embassy in Istanbul and reported that there was going to be a coup d'etat and gave the names of the officers which 15 would make the coup.' |
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After the coup CIA contact man Colonel Turks became the right hand and
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personal secretary of General Gursel. Turks oversaw the process in which the democratic structures were destroyed. Arrested Prime Minister Adnan Menderes was killed together with four political leaders, while 449 senior politicians and magistrates were arrested and condemned to serve heavy prison sentences. Thereafter the 38 officers who had carried out the coup started to disagree on how to proceed. While Colonel Turks was eager to promote his Pan-Turkish vision and together with a dozen officers favoured an authoritarian regime, the majority of the coup officers were convinced that a new constitution had to be passed and elections had to be held to restore law and order in the country. Colonel Turks due to his radical beliefs was effectively removed from the political scene by being sent as military attache to the Turkish embassy in New Delhi in India. The remaining officers wrote a new constitution which the population accepted by vote in July 1961. |
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Unable to abandon his support for Pan-Turkism, a vision which inspired him throughout his life, Colonel Turks upon coming back from India in May 1963 together with officer T alat A ydemir once again attempted to overthrow the government. The coup failed and Aydemir was sentenced to death while Colonel 16 Turks was arrested and then released 'due to the lack of evidence'. Taking over |
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The Grey Wolves, far from being a youth organisation, were a brutal network of trained and armed men ready to use violence to further the cause of Pan-Turkism. 'The creed of the Grey Wolves' an article in Bozkurt, the official magazine of the organisation, specified the ideology and the strategy of the movement in the following way: 'Who are we? We are the members of the Grey Wolf (Bozkurtcu). What is our ideology? The Turkism of the Grey Wolf (Bozkurt). What is the creed of the Bozkurtcu? They believe, that the Turkish race and the Turkish nation are superior. What is the source of this superiority? The Turkish blood.' With roots going back to the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the division of the Turks into several countries the article stressed the Pan-Turkish struggle: 'Are the Bozkurtcu PanTurks? Yes! It is the holy aim of the Bozkurt Turks to see |
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thattheTurkishstategrowstobecomeanationof65millions. What justification
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do you have for this? The Bozkurteu have a long time ago declared their |
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principles on this issue: You do not receive right, you get it yourself.' In order to attain its aims the Grey Wolves specifically trained to use violence: 'War? Yes, war, if necessary. War is a great and holy principle of nature. We are the sons of warriors. The Bozkurtcu believe that war, militarism and heroism should receive 17 the highest possible esteem and praise.' It was this national fascist movement which the CIA exploited and supported while running its secret army in Turkey. After the discovery of NATO's secret stay-behind armies across Western Europe in 1990 it was revealed in Turkey that CIA liaison officer Turks had recruited heavily among the Grey Wolves to staff the secret stay-behind army which in Turkey operated under the name Counter- Guerrilla. Yet due to the broad public support which the Grey Wolves enjoyed, and due to their known brutality even in the 1990s few in Turkey and beyond had the courage to address the issue in frank terms. Among those who spoke out was General Talat Turhan. In 1960 Turhan together with other officers had taken part in the coup d'etat, four years later he was dismissed from the Turkish army in the rank of General. After the coup of 1971 the military tried to do away with him and the Counter-Guerrilla tortured him as he kept to be most outspoken about the darkest secrets of the Turkish security system. Already then he declared: 'This is the secret unit of the NATO countries', but within the Cold War context of the 18 1970s nobody was eager to listen. |
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Turhan survived the Counter-Guerrilla torture and dedicated his life to the research of the Counter-Guerrilla secret army and covert action in Turkey, 19 Italy had an underground organisation called Gladio, organised by NATO and controlled and financed by the CIA, which was linked to acts of terrorism within the country', Turhan recalled, 'Turkish and foreign journalists approached me and published my explanations as they knew that I have been researching the 20 succession of non-clarified assassinations in Turkey, a complete investigation and clarification of the activities of the Counter-Guerrilla and its links to the CIA, the Turkish secret service and the Defence Department was extremely urgent. Yet after three military coup d'etats it has become something of a truism to observe that the armed military and paramilitary forces and the secret service occupy an unusually powerful role in Turkish society, and hence no such investigation of the Counter-Guerrilla has ever been carried out. 'In Turkey the special forces in the style of Gladio are called Counter-Guerrilla by the public', Turhan explained and urged for an investigation by the European Union, lamenting that 'despite all my efforts and initiatives of political parties, democratic mass organisations and the 21 media the Counter-Guerrilla has still not been investigated'. |
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The presence of the Grey Wolves among the Counter-Guerrilla was discovered by Turhan first-hand in the notorious torture chambers of the Ziverbey villa in Istanbul's Erenkoy district. As of the 1950s the villa was used to 'interrogate' |
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people from the former Socialist countries, especially Yugoslavia and Bulgaria,
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and it was in this process that the anti-Communist Counter-Guerrilla received its first training in torture techniques. Also in subsequent years the dark chambers of the villa were used extensively as the Counter-Guerrillas murdered or caused permanent damage to hundreds of people. 'In the torture villa in Erenkoy in Istanbul the torture team of retired officer Eyup Ozalkus, chief of the MIT's interrogation team for the combat of Communism, blindfolded me and tied up my arms and feet', Turhan recalled. 'Then they told me that I was now "in the hands of a Counter-Guerrilla unit operating under the high command of the Army outside the constitution and the laws." They told me that they "considered me as their 22 experience was one of the main strategies for Turhan to get to terms with what he had lived through: 'In this villa I was with tied up arms and feet chained to a bed for a month and tortured in a way which a human being has difficulty to imagine', he recorded. 'It was under these circumstances that I first was made familiar with the name Counter-Guerrillas', whereupon he also learned of the direct involvement of the Grey Wolves: 'The torturers, which called themselves Counter-Guerrilla, were largely made up of men of the Turkish secret service MIT and of Grey Wolves. Although these facts have been on the agenda of the parliament they 23 have not been clarified to this day [1997].' |
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Inspired by the Pan-Turkism movement and the racial superiority of the Turks many members of the Turkish military secret service MIT (Milli Istihbaarat Teskilati - National Intelligence Organisation) served in the Counter-Guerrilla and could hardly be distinguished from their Grey Wolves colleagues. The stay-behind research in Turkey discovered that both the MIT and the Counter-Guerrilla units were institutionally united because both were commanded by the notorious and secretive CIA-sponsored Special Warfare Department in Ankara. The special warfare methods taught and commanded by the Special Warfare Department and carried out by the MIT and the Counter-Guerrilla included 'assassinations, bombings, armed robbery, torture, attacks, kidnap, threats, provocation, militia training, hostage-taking, arson, sabotage, propaganda, disinformation, violence and 24 extortion'. |
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The MIT in 1965 had replaced the MAH secret service (Milli Amele Hizmet, Organisation for national security affairs). Both were dominated by military personnel and strongly dependent on the CIA. A third of the MIT's functionaries during the Cold War were active members of the armed forces while most of the others were retired military officers. As a legal requirement the Director of MIT, appointed by the General Staff or the Special Warfare Department, had to be a member of the armed forces. Turkish civil servants during the Cold War repeatedly criticised the dominant influence of the CIA on the MIT and other Turkish secret services, as well as their notorious habit to interfere clandestinely in politics. |
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Field Manuals of the US Pentagon, including the top-secret FM 30-31, explicitly stressed that intense cooperation between the US secret service and the Turkish |
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secret service was an essential component of the American influence on the
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country.' The success of internal stabilisation operations, which are promoted in |
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personnel of the host country', the Field Manual written for US secret service |
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agents and Special Forces explained. The manual highlighted how the CIA and other US secret services can keep a low profile in the host country by letting the local secret service carry out the dirty work: 'However high the mutual understanding between US personnel and the personnel of the host country might he, the option to win over agents of the secret service of the host country for actions is a much more reliable basis for the solution of the problems of the US military secret service. The recruitment of senior members of the secret service of 25 the host country as long time agents is thus especially important.' |
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In accordance with the directives of FM 30-31 contacts between the Turkish and the American military and secret services forces were intensively cultivated and under the Military Assistance Program and the International Military Education and 26 Training Program 19,193 Turks received US training between 1950 and 1979. 'As for the recruitment of long time agents the members of the following categories deserve particular attention', FM 30-31 had explicitly stated: 'Officers, that had the opportunity to familiarise with US military training programs, espe- 27 so effective in penetrating the web of Turkish secret services that even the leading officers of the MIT admitted that they were dependent on the White House. Vice Director of MIT Sabahattin Savasman, upon having been arrested on the charge of having cooperated with the CIA, in 1977 declared that such an accusation was ridiculous and ignorant of the most basic facts of the Turkish security system. |
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'The CIA has a group of at least 20 persons which work together with the MIT and within the MIT are the highest organ', Savasman explained. 'They assure both the exchange of intelligence as well the cooperation in joint operations both within and outside Turkey.' The cooperation, as he insisted, had not begun under his term in office: 'Our secret service has been working together with the CIA ever since the 1950s... all technical equipment that we use has been made avail- able by the CIA. A large part of our personnel has been trained by the CIA abroad. The MIT headquarters was built by the CIA.' Tellingly the CIA had also provided the Turks with the torture equipment: 'The complete equipment of the interrogation chambers from the simplest to the most complex devices stems from the CIA. This I know for I directly worked with it.' The MIT was entirely dependent on the CIA, above all because the CIA paid the bill as Savasman stressed: 'The costs for operations within and outside Turkey are charged to the 28 CIA budget.' |
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Highlighting that the 'secret service has penetrated the entire fabric of the Turkish society', secret warfare expert Celik has argued that 'the net of secret services is the most influential power in Turkey... the number of persons they |
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employ was never made public in Turkey. But estimates suggest... a massive
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29 Turkish security system investigations into the operations of the CIA and MIT have remained scarce. Duane Clarridge, born in 1933 and maybe the most powerful chief of the CIA station in Istanbul during the Cold War, in his 1997 memoirs 'An Agent for All Seasons' has particularly praised MIT agent Hiram Abas for his services. According to his own testimony, Abas 'was closer to him than his own brother'. Clarridge stressed that 'Hiram was one of a kind. In his time he was the best intelligence gatherer in Turkey. All members of the foreign intelligence com- munity who knew him held this view. By the end he was assistant to the chairman of the Turkish intelligence service; he was the first civilian to hold this position.' |
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Abas had been trained in the United States in covert action operations and as an MIT agent first gained notoriety in Beirut where from 1968 to 1971 he cooperated with the Israeli secret service Mossad and carried out numerous bloody attacks on Palestinians. Sabahattin Savasman, Vice Director of MIT, on trial confirmed that Hiram Abas 'took part in joint operations with the CIA in Lebanon, winning for himself a considerable salary and financial rewards, targeting left-wing youths in the Palestinian camps and receiving bounty for the results he 30 achieved in actions'. Upon his return to Turkey Abas due to his close links with |
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In Turkey one of the secret operations in which Turkish CIA agent Abas played a leading role was the so-called Kizildere massacre of March 30, 1972. Abas carried out the operation together with MIT agent Mehmet Eymur, later promoted to direct the MIT's department for counter-espionage, who recalled the day like that: 'We arrived in Unye in the afternoon, along with Nurettin Ersin, a lieutenant-general in service with the MIT, as well as the head of the Ankara department and six or seven other people from Ankara.' The agents used torture to find out the exact location of left-wing militants. 'The MIT representative on duty at the time conducted the necessary talks and ordered the MIT members to take over questioning, and he ordered the gendarmerie, in connection with the results of the questioning, to take charge of arrests as well as the storming.' |
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Among those seized was left-winger Cayan. 'Cayan and his friends continued their songs and from time to time annoyed the soldiers', Eymiir recalled. 'They recognised us from our civilian clothing. They tried to annoy us with expressions like "Uncle Sam's men" and "Fascist MIT members". We were about 150 to 200 meters from them. We also gave them an answer. They tried to influence the soldiers with statements like that they should not obey the orders of fascist |
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generals.' In the ensuing massacre nine left-wing militants were killed.
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Convinced that violence had to be applied in order to solve some of Turkey's |
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greatest problems, MIT agent Eymur in his memoirs later proudly related how |
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good he had been at using torture during interrogations together with the Counter- |
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32 'Uncle Sam's man' Abas, whereupon former CIA chief of station Clarridge once 33 again came to Turkey in order to visit Abas' grave. were behind the creation of the Turkish Counter-Guerrilla, and sponsored both the MIT and the Special Warfare Department, it would be simplistic to assume that the White House completely controlled the secret military forces in Turkey during the Cold War. 'It is oversimplified', Celik emphasised, 'to characterise the 34 Counter-Guerrilla as being only a US product reacting purely to US orders'. Due to the very specific nature of Pan-Turkism which accounts for much of the ideology that instilled the Turkish secret soldiers, the secret NATO stay-behind cannot be readily compared with other stay-behinds in Western Europe. 'The definition of the Turkish Counter-Guerrilla is not identical to the one of other NATO countries', Celik underlined. 'It would be wrong to use the same definition, for like that it would remain far behind the actual dimensions', above all the violence of the unit as well as its institutional embedding in the state could be quickly underestimated, 'because in Turkey the Counter-Guerrilla is a mechanism 35 that has penetrated the entire state'. 36 influence and shape them.' Approaching the same issue from a different |
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Training for the Counter-Guerrilla secret army was carried out across Turkey in numerous places and also in countries abroad. Paramilitary training centres included the schools at Ankara, Bolu, Kayseri, Buca near Izmir, Canakkale and after 1974 also Cyprus. In the mountain commando school in Bolu US Special Forces including the Green Berets preparing for the war in Vietnam were trained together with the Counter-Guerrilla. Selected Counter-Guerrilla officers were instructed in the USA in the School of the Americas (SOA). The notorious training centre for Special Forces and terrorists had opened in 1946 in Panama and had moved in 1984 to the US Army Fort Benning some 85 miles southeast of Atlanta in Georgia. The school which next to stay-behind officers turned out some 60,000 Latin American soldiers gained world fame as a breeding ground for violence. US Army Major Joseph Blair who taught at the SOA for three years with some regret recalled: 'Officers were taught they can pick [people] up, throw 37 them on the back of a bus, and shoot them in the back of the head.' |
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The training for the secret soldiers from Europe at SOA included ideological indoctrination during which the stay-behind members were 'shown films which |
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demonstrate the aggression and subversion of the Communists', secret forces
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scholar Celik relates. Allegedly the SOA terror training centre in the USA was almost identical to the Al Qaida terror training centers of Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan as far as the methods taught were concerned. '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 38 Manual 30-31 together with its appendices FM 30-31A and FM 30-31B written by US terrorism experts of the Pentagon secret service DIA and translated into 39 numerous languages. On some 140 pages the manual offers in non-euphemistic |
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As maybe its most sensitive advice FM 30-31 instructs the secret soldiers to carry out acts of violence in times of peace and then blame them on the Communist enemy in order to create a situation of fear and alertness. Alternatively, the secret soldiers are instructed to infiltrate the left-wing movements and urge them to use violence: 'There may be times when Host Country Governments show passivity or indecision in the face of Communist subversion and according to the interpretation of the US secret services do not react with sufficient effectiveness', the manual describes the situation when a so-called false flag operation must be applied. 'US army intelligence must have the means of launching special operations which will convince Host Country Governments and public opinion of the reality of the insurgent danger. To reach this aim US army intelligence should seek to pene- trate the insurgency by means of agents on special assignment, with the task of forming special action groups among the most radical elements of the insur- gency.' The agents within the movement of the enemy were thereafter to escalate the violence to which in turn the regular forces and the Counter-Guerrilla were to react. 'In case it has not been possible to successfully infiltrate such agents into the leadership of the rebels it can be useful to instrumentalise extreme leftist organ- 40 isations for one's own ends in order to achieve the above described targets.' |
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FM 30-31 stressed explicitly as its main point that the involvement of the Pentagon had to remain secret under all circumstances: 'These special operations must remain strictly secret. Only those persons which are acting against the revolutionary uprising shall know of the involvement of the US Army in the internal affairs of an allied country. The fact, that the involvement of forces of the US 41 military goes deeper shall not become known under any circumstances.' In order to limit the need-to-know of FM 30-31 and its appendices copies were, as the book stresses, 'strictly limited to the persons named on the distribution list'. At best no paper trail should be left. 'Whenever possible detailed instructions on the basis of this appendix shall be handed on orally. The extremely sensitive 42 character of this affair must be stressed.' |
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Yet as secrets can never be kept forever the Turkish newspaper Baris in 1973 in the midst of a whole range of mysterious acts of violence and brutality which shocked the Turkish society announced the publication of the FM 30-31. |
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Thereafter the Baris journalist who had come into the possession of the secret
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manual disappeared and was never heard of again. Despite the apparent danger Talat Turhan two years later published a Turkish translation of the top-secret FM 30-31, whereupon publications of the US terror manual appeared also in Spain 43 researchers started to investigate the direct link between FM 30-31 and the stay- behind armies. Allan Francovich in his BBC documentary on Gladio presented a copy of FM 30-31B to senior US officials. Ray Cline, Deputy CIA Director for Intelligence in the 1960s, confirmed: 'This is an authentic document.' William Colby, CIA Director from 1973 to 1976 and closely involved with operation Gladio and the stay-behinds in numerous countries of Western Europe, in front of the camera, was reluctant to face this dark side of his country and claimed: 'I have never heard of it.' Also CIA propaganda expert Michael Ledeen shed away from the sensitive document and claimed it to be a Soviet forgery. While Licio Gelli, the Italian Freemason and leader of the anti-Communist P2 frankly 44 told Francovich: 'The CIA gave it to me.' |
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Violence erupted in Turkey on a scale unseen since the 1920s after on March 12, 1971 the Turkish military right staged its second coup since the end of the Second World War and once again took over power. The decade following the coup was marked by extremely violent conflicts in which the Counter-Guerrilla, the Grey Wolves and the MIT protected by the military and the political right fought the political left as the country sank into a situation resembling outright civil war. The overall death toll of the terror of the 1970s is estimated at 5,000 with right-wing commandos responsible for the majority of murders. A statistics for the year 1978 recorded 3,319 fascist attacks, in which 831 were killed and 45 3,121 wounded. |
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Observers noted that the most reactionary faction[!] of the Turkish military, the Air Force, had sent a representative to Washington before the 1971 coup and before the second coup nine years later. While prior to the 1971 coup Muhsin Batur, the commander of the Turkish Air Force, had visited Washington, Air Force commander Tahsin Sahinkaya also undertook the same journey in 46 1980. wields among the intelligence community. The CIA is able to pick and choose in 47 Acting Turkish Foreign Minister Ihsan Caglayangil, in office from 1965 my intelligence service without let or hindrance.' |
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Colonel Talat Turhan accused the United States for having fuelled the brutality from which Turkey suffered in the 1970s by setting up the Special Warfare Department, the Counter-Guerrilla secret army and the MIT and training them according to FM 30-31. 'The suggestions in this directive, most of which are |
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according to my opinion incompatible with the constitution and the laws, were
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implemented almost entirely after the military coups of March 12, 1971 and September 12, 1980', Turhan criticised and stressed that 'the directives contradict our constitution and prove clearly the politics of intervention of the American 48 secret service' . |
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As the Counter-Guerrilla stay-behind began to extend its operations Bulent Ecevit, who became Turkish Prime Minister in 1973, also noticed the presence of the clandestine force. According to his own testimony he was startled when in 1974 he first heard of the existence of a secret so-called Special Warfare Department. His surprise increased when the clandestine department asked him for funds which allegedly were needed for a new headquarters. When Ecevit inquired how long the secretive Special Warfare Department had existed and who had funded it the commander of the Turkish army, General Semih Sancar, informed the Prime Minister that the United States had financed the unit ever since the immediate post-war years, and advised Ecevit not to look too closely at 49 the matter for it was touching on the greatest secrets of the state. |
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Ecevit did not follow the advice of General Sancar and investigated the state budget. Yet there he found no organisation called Special Warfare Department. Upon his insistence he thereafter received a military stay-behind debriefing: 'There are a certain number of volunteer patriots whose names are kept secret and are engaged for life in this special department. They have hidden arms caches in various parts of the country.' Ecevit perceived the danger well and worried that these so-called patriots might follow a right-wing agenda and use their weapons against domestic targets. Yet as he had to acknowledge the realities of Turkey, i.e. the predominance of the military apparatus over the civilian apparatus, he grudgingly consented to the secret operation, released the funds and never 50 discussed the matter with the United States. |
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The concerns of Ecevit, however, had been well-founded. For the Counter- Guerrilla indeed engaged in domestic terrorism. A prominent massacre took place in 1977. Throughout the terror years of the 1970s the major trade unions of Turkey had organised a protest rally on Istanbul's main Taskim Square on the traditional labour day, the first of May. In 1976, in the face of the continuing and increasing domestic terror, 100,000 had taken part in a peaceful demonstration. And in 1977 at least 500,000 gathered on the square. The horror started as the sun was setting and snipers on surrounding buildings started firing at the speaker's platform. The crowd panicked. Thirty-eight were killed, hundreds were injured. The shooting had lasted for 20 minutes, yet several thousand police at the scene did not intervene. |
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Turkish CIA agent Hiram Abas, who 'was closer than his own brother' to CIA 51 chief of station Clarridge was personally present on the May Day massacre. The Hotel International, from which the shots were fired belonged to the ITT company which had already been involved in financing the coup against President Allende in Chile in 1973 and was on good terms with the CIA. Three days before May Day the hotel had been emptied of guests and no reservations |
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were accepted. On May 1 a group of fereigners entered the hotel. After the massacre
the hotel had been taken over by another company and its name was changed to
'Marmara Hotel'. During the investigation which followed crucial video and
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audio material suddenly disappeared.
When Bulent Ecevit heard of the massacre he went to President Fahri Koruturk
and told him that he thought the Counter-Guerrilla was involved in the terror.
'Koruturk relayed my fears to the then Prime Minister Suleyman Demirel' who had succeeded Ecevit in office and upon hearing the news 'reacted in a very
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agitated manner' but was unable to challenge the Special Warfare Department. Ecevit stayed alert with regard to the Counter-Guerrilla. Once, at a dinner party with a high-ranking Turkish military officer in eastern Turkey, Ecevit learned that the General had worked in the Special Warfare Department. Ecevit seized the occasion and told the General, 'I have deep suspicions about the civilian extension of that department.' The General assured him, 'The civilians work very honestly, very faithfully. There is nothing to be afraid of.' Ecevit insisted, 'Simply as a hypothesis, it's quite possible, General, that one of those lifetime patriots might at a certain later date become the party chief of the National Action Party MHP which is involved in right-wing terrorism in this very town.' 'Yes, this is the case', the General replied. Adding 'But he's a very nice
54 man.'
Encouraged by Ecevit, Ankara's Deputy State Attorney Dogan Oez followed the lead and investigated the links between Colonel Turks' right-wing party MHP, the Counter-Guerrilla, the Special Warfare Department and the terror that Turkey suffered in the 1970s. In his final report he found that 'Military and civil- ian security services are behind all this work. The Contra-Guerrilla are subordinate to the Special Warfare Department (Oezel Harp Dairesi).' Furthermore also the MIT was directly involved in the massacres while 'all these activities are
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guided by MHP members and cadres'. The Attorney had discovered the secret and
described it correctly and was thereafter killed on March 24, 1978. His assassin, Grey Wolves member Ibrahim Ciftci, confessed to the crime but mocked the judiciary by claiming that he was untouchable and indeed each time the civilian courts condemned him the highest military court overruled the sentence. The civilian courts were left to note for the record: 'The murder of the state attorney Dogan Oez is an established fact. But we cannot appeal against the decision of
56 the military court. The accused is released.'
Even more than Ciftci, Grey Wolves member Abdullah Catli ranged among the most notorious Counter-Guerrillas during the 1970s. Graduating from street gang violence Catli became a brutal enforcer for the Grey Wolves as a member of the Counter-Guerrilla operating under the direction of the Special Warfare Department. After the military coup in 1971 Catli rose quickly within their ranks, emerging second in command in 1978. It was In that year that he had to go underground because the police had linked him to the murder of seven left-wing activists. Supported by other right-wing terrorists Catli linked up with notorious Italian right-wing terrorist Stefano Delle Chiaie and together they travelled to
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Latin America and the United States.
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Closely linked to terror operations in
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Turkey and abroad Catli cultivated excellent contacts with the Turkish elite. He died near Susurluk on November 3, 1990 in a car crash together with high 58 officials of the Turkish state. |
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Another feared Grey Wolf was Haluk Kirci, nicknamed 'Idi Amin' by his colleagues after the dictator of Uganda, who in the 1970s had slaughtered thousands. Aged 20 and a student at Ankara University, Kirci was a fervent follower of Alparsan Turks' anti-Communist Pan-Turkish ideology. On October 8, 1978 he carried out the Bahcelievler massacre executing seven students of the leftist, non-militant Turkish Worker's Party (TIP). Kirici, internationally wanted for mass murder, later recalled the massacre in his memoirs: 'I went and took the two out of the car and put them face down on the floor. Then I fired three bullets each through their heads. Then we went back to that apartment. There the other five were lying without conscience on the floor... First I had tried to strangle one 59 of them with a wire, but this did not work. Then I choked him with a towel.' When Grey Wolves leader Catli died in the Susurluk accident in 1996 Kirci and a group of bodyguards were in the car behind Catli's Mercedes. Seeing Catli smashed inside the Mercedes Kirici in total panic phoned a set of numbers of leading Grey Wolves figures, asking for help and shouting 'The Chief is gravely wounded. He is dying.' In vain. Catli died and Kirici took over the leadership of 60 the Grey Wolves. |
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Next to Catli the most famous Grey Wolf and Counter-Guerrilla member was his friend Ali Agca, who became world famous when on May 13, 1981 he shot John Paul II in St Peter's Square in Rome. The Pope was gravely wounded, but survived. During his student years in the late 1970s Agca had been a well-known fascist militant, who allegedly in one of his less-violent operations had shot two students in their legs during an attack on a leftist hostel. His notoriety in terrorist circles was such that leftists tried to kill him on a number of occasions. Together with Catli, Agca participated in the killing of Turkey's most prominent newspaper editor, Abdi Ipekci on February 1, 1979. Ipekci had been deeply concerned about the domestic terror of the Turkish right and the support it enjoyed from the CIA and allegedly had urged CIA chief of station Paul Henze to stop the violence. Ipekci belonged to those Turkish journalists who risked their lives when revealing the darkest secrets of the state and the source of most of the violence. Ugur Mumcu was also among them. During his torture he was informed: 'We are the Counter-Guerrilla. Even the President of the republic cannot touch us.' Mumcu continued to expose the Counter-Guerrilla by writing in the daily Cumhuriyet, 61 whereupon he was killed by a car bomb in 1993. |
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After the assassination of editor Ipecki, Agca was arrested and he quickly confessed to the crime. Yet when he threatened in court to name 'the truly responsible parties' the signal was clear enough and the next day a group of Grey Wolves smuggled Agca through eight checkpoint out of a high security prison. After his attack on the Pope he was once again arrested. Testifying in Rome in September 1985 Catli disclosed that he had supplied Agca with fake IDs and had given him |
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the pistol that wounded the pontiff. Had the Grey Wolves been seriously investigated
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in the wake of their assassination attempt on the Pope, the Turkish stay-behind |
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Counter-Guerrilla most certainly would have been exposed. Yet this did not happen as the CIA in order to divert attention blamed the KGB to have recruited 62 the Grey Wolves for the operation. Turkish stay-behind Counter-Guerrilla, became Prime Minister in 1977 he complained towards Army Chief of Staff General Kenan Evren: 'During the Kizildere incidents the Special Warfare Department is said to have been used. I am worried about this civilian organisation. There is no means of knowing or controlling what a young recruit may get up to after twenty years in such an organisation.' To which Evren allegedly replied: 'There is nothing to worry about. We will deal with it.' Thereafter Ecevit declared publicly that 'We must all be respectful towards the Turkish Armed Forces and help them in the realisation 63 of their desire to remain out of politics.' |
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General Evren kept his promise. The military coup came on September 12, 1980 when Evren seized power while NATO's Allied Mobile Force in Turkey 64 carried out its manoeuvre Anviel Express. 65 the time of the coup had presided the Special Warfare Department and com- manded the Counter-Guerrilla secret army. As General Evren changed the battle dress for suit and tie and made himself President of Turkey all terrorist attacks 66 miraculously came to a halt all of a sudden. When he heard about it he called Paul Henze, former Chief of the CIA station in Turkey who had left Ankara shortly before the coup to become a security adviser to President Carter in Washington on the Turkey desk of the CIA. On the phone Carter told Henze what the latter already knew: 'Your people have just made 67 triumphantly declared to his CIA colleagues in Washington: 'Our boys have done 68 69 'before the September 12 movement [sic], Turkey was in a critical situation with regard to its defences. After the intervention in Afghanistan and the overthrow of the Iranian monarchy, the movement for stabilisation in Turkey came as a relief 70 to us.' A right-wing extremist on trial later |
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Carter's National Security Adviser Zbigniev Brzezinski supported the position of Henze. During a discussion in the National Security Council of the situation in Iran where in 1979 Khomeiny had seized power Brzezinski expressed his view 71 that 'for Turkey as for Brazil a military government would be the best solution'. The international press reported the day after the coup that a spokesperson of the |
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Foreign Ministry in Washington 'has confirmed that the United States had been
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informed before the coup d'etat by the military that they were going to take over power'. Turkish military officers declared that the Turkish military would not 72 intervene unless they had previous consent from Washington. |
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At the time of the military coup d'etat there were some 1,700 Grey Wolves organisations in Turkey with about 200,000 registered members and a million 73 ations in the 1970s which paved the way for the coup. Now they represented a security risk and General Evren in an attempt to consolidate his power outlawed the right-wing MHP party and arrested Colonel Turks and other members of the MHP as well as numerous Grey Wolves. In its indictment of the MHP in May 1981 the Turkish military government charged 220 members of the MHP party 74 and its affiliates with the responsibility for 694 murders. |
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Despite his arrest the popularity of Colonel Turks remained high, and when on April 4, 1997 he died from a heart failure in a Turkish hospital half a million gathered at his funeral while Grey Wolves organised flights from all over the world. Islamic Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan explained that Turks had greatly shaped the recent history of Turkey and 'that until his death he had marked the political life in Turkey greatly and with his loyal services always deserved the highest praise'. Foreign Minister Tansu Ciller added to the praise when she declared that 'Tiirks was a historical personality. He deserves a special place in our democratic history. I was always in excellent contact with him.' While former police chief Kemal Yazicioglu stressed: 'My Chief Wolf! I have 75 learned everything from you!' |
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After numerous arrests the Turkish prisons filled with Grey Wolves terrorists, whereupon agents of the MIT came to visit their former brothers in arms and made them an attractive offer: the release from prison plus assured income if they 76 accepted and started to combat the left-wing Kurdish militant movement PKK which in 1984 had taken up arms after thousands had been tortured in the previous years. As hatred and radical violence increased on both sides the conflict dragged on. Allegedly also the Turkish stay-behind Counter-Guerrilla was involved in the conflict in which 25,000 died on both sides while millions of Kurds were displaced as Ankara was supported with guns, helicopters and jet fighters from the United States. The families of the victims were not amused when US President Bill Clinton called Turkey a 'shining example to the world of the 77 virtues of cultural diversity'. |
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Until today the involvement of NATO's stay-behind in the massacres against the Kurds ranges among the greatest secrets in Turkey and in Washington. Major Cem Ersever, a former commander of Turkish paramilitary units that had operated against the PKK later quite openly described in his book how the Counter-Guerrilla and other paramilitary units employed secret warfare and terror against the PKK. Ersever also revealed how his terror units became rich by raising private taxes along the 'Heroin Highway' as the drugs coming from |
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Afghanistan on their way to the west had to pass through Turkey. Amongthe
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operations of the Counter-Guerrilla which Ersever revealed were the false flag |
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operations in which the Counter-Guerrilla, dressed up as PKK fighters, attacked villages, raped and executed people randomly. This, if the disguise was effective, weakened the support for the PKK in the area and t u r n e d the people against the |
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PKK. Ersever confirmed that many former Grey Wolves and other right-wing |
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extremists had been recruited directly from prisons into the stay-behind death squads, which also included captured PKK deserters and Islamists. Ersever had described the situation correctly and alter the publication of his book in November 1993 was executed following the classical Counter-Guerrilla method: Tortured and shot through the head Ersever's body was found with his hands bound behind 78 his back. discovery of the secret stay-behind armies of NATO across Western Europe. Like a cancer the paramilitaries had become so deeply embedded in the Turkish system that they could no longer be simply closed down. After the revelations of Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti on the secret NATO army the military government in Turkey also had to take a stand. On December 3, 1990 General Dogan Beyazit, President of the Operations Department (Harekat Dairesi) of the Turkish military, and General Kemal Yilmaz, Chief of the Turkish Special Forces (Ozel Kuvvetler), reacted to public pressure and issued a press statement. In it they admitted the existence of secret NATO troops in Turkey explaining that the secret unit was directed by the Special Warfare Department (Ozel Harp Dairesi), 79 with the task 'to organise resistance in the case of a Communist occupation'. |
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The Generals stressed that the members of the Turkish Gladio were all good 'patriots'. This officially confirmed the report of journalist Mehmet Ali Birand, who already on November 13 1990 had reported in the Turkish independent daily Milliyet, that Turkey, too, had a secret Gladio army. Birand quoted former Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit as saying that the secret unit had first been funded by the United States, and that 'patriotic volunteers were members of the group. They were trained specially to launch a counter guerrilla operation in the event that the 80 Luxemburg, had on November 13 revealed: 'The name of the secret organisation 81 confirmed: 'As Turkey is a NATO member, the existence of such an organisation 82 Communism, despite the fact that the Turkish Communist Party had been outlawed throughout the Cold War: 'In order to prevent Turkey from falling into 83 the hands of the Communists, anti-Communist organisations are being supported.' |
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In Switzerland the Neue Zurcher Zeitung headlined: 'Doubts on the credibility of the State. Unmasking of a Secret Army in Turkey', and reported that the Counter- Guerrilla had their headquarters in the building of the US military secret service 84 DIA in Turkey. The German news magazine Der Spiegel with a long report on |
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reporting that in both countries the secret stay-behind forces had heen involved in
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the military coup d'etats. The German magazine highlighted that the Special Warfare Department's Counter-Guerrilla squads had been directly involved in the 1980 military coup d'etat, similar to the Gladio network in Greece in 1967. But while the international press pondered on the question of how directly NATO and the US Pentagon had sponsored the massacres in Turkey, the ruling military in Turkey in 1990 blocked all further investigations. There was no parliamentary commission to investigate either the Counter-Guerrilla stay-behind or the Special Warfare Department. The ruling military also refused to answer questions from both parliament and Ministers and Turkish Defence Minister Giray, deposed a month before the Gladio scandal, insisted that 'Ecevit had better 85 keep his fucking mouth shut! [sic].' |
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In 1992 the commander of the Special Warfare Department, General Kemal Yilmaz assured journalists that, 'The department is still active in security operations 86 against armed members of the PKK in Turkey's south-eastern provinces.' As the Counter-Guerrilla continued its operations even the US State Department in its 1995 human rights report noticed that in Turkey 'Prominent credible human rights organisations, Kurdish leaders, and local Kurd asserted that the govern- ment acquiesces in, or even carries out, the murder of civilians.' The report of the State Department noted that 'Human rights groups reported the widespread and credible belief that a Counter-Guerrilla group associated with the security forces 87 Komisar in 1990 had tried to gain more information from the democratic institu- tions of her country: 'As for Washington's role, Pentagon would not tell me whether it was still providing funds or other aid to the Special Warfare Department; in fact, it wouldn't answer any questions about it', Komisar reported. 'I was told by officials variously that they knew nothing about it, that it happened too long ago for there to be any records available, or that what I described was a CIA operation for which they could provide no information. One Pentagon historian 88 said, "Oh, you mean the stay-behind organisation. That's classified". ' |
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If the Pentagon had hoped that the sensitive affair of the secret armies in Western Europe, in general, and in Turkey, in particular, would go away, it was mistaken. The case resurfaced in the form of an unusual accident. On November 3, 1996 a speeding black Mercedes hit a tractor and overturned on a remote highway near the Turkish village of Susurluk, some 100 miles south of Istanbul. Three of its four passengers were killed: A high-ranking police officer who commanded Turkish counter-insurgency units named Husseyin Kocadag, a convicted fugitive wanted for murder and drug trafficking who directed the Grey Wolves named Abdulla Catli, and Catli's girlfriend Gonca Us, a former Turkish beauty queen turned Mafia hit-woman. The only survivor was Sedat Bucak, a right-wing member of the Turkish parliament and warlord whose militia had been armed and financed by the Turkish government to fight the Kurds. A policeman, a parlia- mentarian, a druglord and a hit-woman were a somewhat unusual combination of passengers as the press immediately noticed and former Prime Minister Bulent |
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Ecevit rightly commented to parliament that 'The accident unveiled the dark liaisons
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89 within the state.' against the Counter-Gu e r r i l l a a n d corrupt governmental officials when every night at 9 p.m. angry crowds called for 'cleansing the country from the gangs'. For weeks on end the press and the TV channels were dominated by the scandal and the newest revelations of the corrupt 'Susurluk state'. Nearly 100,000 workers marched in protest in the Turkish capital demanding the truth about the stay- behind soldiers while people on the streets in opinion polls expressed their belief that the Turkish judicial system was not working properly and that the govern- ment was corrupt, declaring that they were sick and tired of all the violence and secret operations. Millions followed the country-wide protest action 'One minute of darkness for complete Clarification' and in protest switched off all lights each 90 evening at 9 p.m. for over a month and thus darkened whole cities. |
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The Washington Post picked up the Susurluk story and its relations to the Counter-Guerrilla and reported that 'there are people here who have personal nightmares, stories of killings, torture, kidnappings and other crimes against them or their families' and in a somewhat less well-researched paragraph added that the United States 'has been critical of human rights abuses committed by the 91 information emerging almost daily and the press and the public talking of little else, evidence suggests that officially sanctioned criminality may have reached 92 levels few had imagined.' |
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Turkish President Suleyman Demirel in front of the press confirmed the obvious when he declared that 'claims are of a highly serious nature' according to which there exists within the Turkish state 'a special operations section at the General Directorate of Security. Some staff members of that section have been engaged in narcotics trading, gambling schemes, extortion and murder... These 93 Erbakan stressed: 'You cannot have a gang within the state. Nobody can be allowed to do anything illegal, with no exceptions. Nothing, including fighting the PKK, can be an excuse for crime. If such things happen, those gangs, what- 94 service and declared that the 'MIT does not just engage in repression and terror against the people. It is involved in every kind of dirty business, such as the drugs trade, extortion and prostitution... the MIT bears responsibility for the 95 disappeared, for massacres and torture.' |
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Together with the MIT also the CIA came into the line of fire when the press highlighted the intimate relationship between the two secret services. Amongst growing criticism MIT Under-secretary Sonmez Koksal declared: 'Why should the MIT apologise? The MIT would do no such things on its own without securing 96 Fikri Saglar of the Republican People's Party (CHP) stressed that 'The links between the illegal right-wing organisations and the Turkish security should be |
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traced back to Gladio... Unless the operations of Gladio, the NATO-linked inter-
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national counterinsurgency organisation within the Turkish security system, is investigated, the real source of the security corruption will not be effectively dis- covered. It is necessary to investigate the Special Forces Command, previously 97 known as the Special Warfare Department of the Chief of Staff.' |
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The suggestion was wise, but it was not followed as parliament decided to investigate the Susurluk scandal only. In January 1998 new Prime Minister Mesut Ylmaz had the pleasure to inform millions of television viewers in Turkey on the results of the seven-month-long parliamentary investigation into the Susurluk scandal. 'It is the anatomy of a disgraceful mess', he declared and confirmed that 'An execution squad was firmed within the state.' He concluded 98 the government remained vague the Turkish Human Rights Association (IHD) concluded that 'Through the facts that have emerged in the wake of the Susurluk accident there are around 3,500 crimes of the Counter-Guerrilla, which have been committed with the support of the state and which are covered up until today by the state', whereupon IHD President Akin Birdal was shot at in May 1998 but 99 movements found that 'US sponsored stay-behind operatives in Turkey and several European countries used their skills to attack domestic opponents and forment violent disorders. Some of those attacks were intended to spark right- wing military coups.' Witnessing the inability of the Turks to eradicate the terror without the help of the White House and the Pentagon, Lee concluded: 'Across the Atlantic in Washington, the US government has yet to acknowledge any responsibility for the Turkish Frankenstein that US Cold War strategy helped to create. When asked about the Susurluk affair, a State Department spokesperson 100 said it was "an internal Turkish matter". He declined further comment.' |
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CONCLUSION
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