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Political violence, the ‘War on Terror’ and the Turkish military

2010; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 3; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/17539151003594251

1753-9153

Tim Jacoby,

Peacebuilding and International Security

Abstract This paper looks at the impact of the 'War on Terror' on political violence in Turkey. It begins by tracing the role of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the management and support of Turkey's militarised government since Ankara joined the Alliance in 1952. Here, it is suggested that a triangular concert of agents from the Turkish state's intelligence and special-forces organisations, operatives from Washington, and right-wing activists and paramilitaries have been an important feature of regime formation and maintenance. By the mid-1990s, these covert structures came under increasing social pressure, leading to a period of considerable reform. However, the War on Terror and the West's subsequent turn towards a greater emphasis on security has, it is argued, begun to undo, enervate or obstruct the implementation of many of these reforms. The result, it is concluded, is that elements of the Turkish state unhappy with recent policies have been emboldened and, since the collapse of the Partiya Karkareni Kurdistan's (PKK) unilateral ceasefire in 2004, have started to exert a growing influence. Keywords: nationalismterrorismfascismKurdsUnited StatesAdalet ve Kalkinma Partisi (AKP)reform Acknowledgement I am grateful to Dr Ayla Göl and Dr Robert Jacoby for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper. Notes 1. The literature on the West's 'good offices' is broadly divided between studies emphasising what might be called 'the shared struggle' (Mango 2005 Mango, A. 2005. Turkey and the War on Terror: For forty years we fought alone, London: Routledge. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], Aras and Toktas 2007 Aras, B. and Toktas, S. 2007. Al-Qaida, 'War on Terror' and Turkey. Third World Quarterly, 28(5): 1033–1050. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and 'the civilising influence' (Heper 2005 Heper, M. 2005. The European Union, the Turkish military and democracy. South European Society and Politics, 10(1): 33–44. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar], Sarigil 2007 Sarigil, Z. 2007. Europeanization as institutional change: the case of the Turkish military. Mediterranean Politics, 12(1): 39–57. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). 2. As such, Turkey, like NATO's founding signatories (Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, the United States, Canada, Portugal, Italy, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, and the United Kingdom), agreed that should one of its allies be attacked, it would take 'individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area' (Article 5). 3. Güres, who served as Chief of Staff from 1990 to 1994, founded the infamous Mountain Commando Brigades and has reportedly admitted to circumventing civilian authorities in the formation of their operational mandate (Bila 2007 Bila, F. 2007. Komutanlar cephesi, Ankara: Detay Yayıncılık. [Google Scholar]). For an official acknowledgement of US policy in the establishment of Gladio networks, see US Department of State (2006b US Department of State, 2006b. Statement. Washington, DC: Department of State. http://www.america.gov/st/pubs-english/2006/January/20060120111344atlahtnevel0.3114282.html (Accessed: 13 July 2009). [Google Scholar]). 4. This dual purpose was institutionalised (and encouraged) by the signing of a military accord between Turkey and the United States in 1959 which extended the geo-political focus of NATO's collective security to include direct assistance 'in the case of an internal rebellion against the regime' (Fernandes and Özden 2001, p. 12). 5. The attack on Kemal's home, which only succeeded in breaking a window, was greatly exaggerated by the Turkish press. It occurred shortly after the Greek government had appealed (in 1954) to the United Nations for Cypriot self-determination. The renowned Byzantist, Speros Vryonis, suggests that officials from Turkey's ruling Demokrat Parti helped to organise the subsequent disturbances in order to increase popular antipathy towards the prospect of a unified island (Vryonis 2005 Vryonis, S. 2005. The mechanism of catastrophe: The Turkish pogrom of September 6–7, 1955, and the destruction of the Greek community of Istanbul, New York: Greekworks. [Google Scholar]). Indeed, the British Embassy in Ankara was convinced that Prime Minister Menderes 'knew all about the business'. Although following an intervention from NATO, the British response was limited to a mildly disapproving letter from Prime Minister Harold Macmillan (Holland 1998 Holland, R. 1998. Britain and the revolt in Cyprus, 1954–1959, Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], pp. 75–77). Accusations of government involvement in both the bombing and the rioting persisted and eventually made up an important part of Menderes' trial in 1960 (Kuyucu 2005 Kuyucu, A.T. 2005. Ethno-religious 'unmixing' of 'Turkey': 6–7 September riots as a case in Turkish nationalism. Nations and Nationalism, 11(3): 361–380. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], p. 362). 6. It seems likely that General Gürsel (as Chief of Staff), would have sought the permission of NATO before allowing the coup to proceed. Indeed, plans for such an operation may have been leaked to the US Embassy as early as 1957 by an informant named Major Samet Kusçu (Yalçin and Yurdakul 1999 Yalçin, S. and Yurdakul, D. 1999. Bay Pipo: bir MIT görevlisinin siradisi yasami, Istanbul: Dogan Kitap. [Google Scholar], pp. 91–97). 7. The MHP has also been able to organise and fund itself in Belgium, the Netherlands, the UK and, especially, Germany, where, as Jurgen Roth notes, 'protection is particularly strong' and where 'right-wing politicians … gave support to the party in the 1970s' (cited in Fernandes and Özden 2001, p. 12). 8. Plans for a coup appear to have been discussed during a meeting between the Chief of the Turkish Air Force, Muhsin Batur, and his American counterpart, General Ryan, during a trip to Washington shortly before the takeover in March 1971 (Gürkan 1986 Gürkan, C. 1986. 12 Mart'a bes kala, Istanbul: Tekin Yayınevi. [Google Scholar]). 9. Later investigations have pointed to the central role of the former head of the CIA in Turkey, Paul Henze, in the organisation of the coup (Kürkçü 1997 Kürkçü, E. 1997. Trapped in a web of covert killers. Covert Action Quarterly, 61(Summer): 3–13. [Google Scholar]). 10. See the methodological caveats in the note to Figure 1. 11. Murat Somer finds that in 1988, for instance, Turkey's highest circulation newspaper, Hürriyet, published only 65 articles on domestic Kurds compared with 473 in 1998. This, he suggests, 'facilitate[d] the expression of Kurdish interests and the bargaining, deliberation, and voting processes that are necessary for democratically determining Kurdish rights' (Somer 2005a Somer, M. 2005a. Resurgence and remaking of identity: civil beliefs, domestic and external dynamics and the Turkish mainstream discourse on Kurds. Comparative Political Studies, 38(6): 591–622. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], p. 618). This was despite the deaths of 49 journalists between 1988 and 2000 and the world's highest proportion of journalists serving prison sentences (Oberdiek 2007). 12. Both parties had been seriously compromised by corruption scandals during the 1990s. Dogru Yol's Interior Minister, Mehmet Agar, was, for instance, implicated in the illegal supply of weapons to Grey Wolf operatives following the discovery of Ministry documents in the wreckage of an infamous car accident near the town of Susurluk in 1996 (Yörük 1996 Yörük, Z., 1996. Silence and silencers in the devil's triangle. Turkish Daily News, 23 November [online edn]. https://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/archives.php?id=1525 (Accessed: 13 November 2008). [Google Scholar]). The Party's leader, Tansu Çiller (who had recently been accused of misusing the Prime Minister's Discretionary Fund) badly misjudged the public mood and 'became the ardent defender of those involved in the death squads saying some of these people were heroes who had fought against the enemies of the state' (Çevik 1997 Çevik, I., 1997. Susurluk did not do the magic trick. Turkish Daily News, 7 November [online edn]. http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/archives.php?id=4883 (Accessed: 13 November 2008). [Google Scholar], p. 1). Anavatan faced similarly damaging charges over the privatisation of the power generation and financial sectors (particularly Mesut Yilmaz's involvement in Türkbank and Energy Minister Cumhur Ersümer's management of energy tendering deals) during the second half of the 1990s – allegations compounded by the Party leadership's perceived role in the catastrophic economic crash of 2001 (Gorvett 2005 Gorvett, J. April 2005. Anti-corruption drives uncovering some things rotten in the state of Turkey, April, Washington, DC: Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. Number 38 [Google Scholar]). 13. A fact sharpened by the party's enduring popularity (it won an unprecedented 42% in the local elections of 2004 and then 47% – up from 34% in 2002 – in the 2007 general election) and the accession of its Foreign Secretary, Abdullah Gül, to the Presidency in 2008. 14. Evidence from the Turkish Parliament's Commission on Unsolved Murders suggests that operatives from the so-called Kurdish Hizbullah organisation had been trained by the Turkish military within the province of Batman and equipped through the illegal importation of around US$2.8 million of weaponry during the early 1990s (Human Rights Watch 2000 Human Rights Watch, 2000. What is Turkey's Hizbullah? [online]. http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2000/02/16/turkey3057_txt.htm (Accessed: 28 October 2008). [Google Scholar], Aras and Bacik 2002 Aras, B. and Bacik, G. 2002. The mystery of Turkish Hizballah. Middle East Policy, 9(2): 147–160. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], p. 153). 15. Zeyno Baran, for instance, has argued that the AKP is 'concerned first with uniting people – Turks and Kurds alike – under the umbrella of Islam, and then only second with safeguarding the integrity of national borders' (Baran 2008 Baran, Z. 2008. Turkey divided. Journal of Democracy, 19(1): 55–69. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], pp. 60–61). 16. Notable events in this regard include President Sezer's official visit to Syria against US wishes (March 2003), Prime Minister's Erdogan's description of Israeli policy in Gaza as 'state terrorism' (April 2004), Turkey's successful application for 'permanent guest' status at the Arab League (September 2004), and Turkey's leadership and reinvigoration of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (from January 2005) (Robins 2007 Robins, P. 2007. Turkish foreign policy since 2002: between a 'post-Islamist' government and a Kemalist state. International Affairs, 83(1): 289–304. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). 17. Washington was also clearly concerned by negotiations between Turkey and Iran over the formation of a counter-PKK commission (the completion of which was announced in November 2006). 18. Long forgotten, clearly, is the fact that during the mid-1990s these planes had been singled out by Congress as American weapons used in operations in which human rights abuses occurred (Stanton 2006 Stanton, J., 2006. Sibel Edmonds vindicated? FBI reveals investigation continues. Turkish Digest. 25 October [online edn]. http://www.turkishdigest.com/2006/10/sibel-edmonds-vindicated-fbi-reveals.html (Accessed: 4 December 2008). [Google Scholar]). Indeed, overall US military assistance to Turkey appears to be growing significantly – from US$26.8 million for 1998–2001 to US$169.4 million for 2002–2005 – which, when considered alongside Ankara's new arms deal with Israel (expenditure on which has been US$256 million since 2001), is certainly reminiscent of the 1990s (SIPRI 2008a SIPRI, 2008a. Arms transfers database [online]. http://www.sipri.org/contents/armstrad/ at_db.html (Accessed: 8 November 2008). [Google Scholar]). 19. 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Asia Times, 24 January [online edn]. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HA24Ak02.html (Accessed: 23 November 2009). [Google Scholar]). 20. Giogio Agamben defines a 'state of exemption' as a 'situation in which the emergency becomes the rule, and the very distinction between peace and war (and between foreign and civil war) becomes impossible' (cited in Öktem 2006, p. 10). 21. The four men were identified as Ali Kaya, Tanju Çavus, Özcan Ildeniz and Veysel Ates (Bese 2006 Bese, E. 2006. "Gendarmerie intelligence (JITEM-JIT). In: Ü. Cizre". In Almanac Turkey 2005: Security sector and democratic oversight, 138–148. Istanbul: TESEV. [Google Scholar], pp. 186–188). MIT's 25-page report into the killing suggested that the murders were carried out by the PKK and that the presence of the officers at the scene was a 'coincidence' – a conclusion supported by future Chief-of-Staff Yasar Büyükanit, who described Kaya as 'a good boy' (Tugal 2007 Tugal, C. 2007. Nato's Islamists: hegemony and Americanization in Turkey. New Left Review, 44: 5–34. [Google Scholar], p. 29). 22. Despite this, Kaya, Ildeniz and Ates received long prison sentences, while Çavus was released (although he has since been charged with the murder of another man in Isparta). In 2007, however, the Appeals Court overturned their convictions and, rejecting the argument that 'throwing bombs at a citizen's shop is not a military activity', ruled that the case should be heard by a military tribunal (Korkut 2007). At the time of writing, the three sergeants remain serving members of the gendarmerie. The owner of the bookshop was arrested for maintaining his links with the PKK (Park 2008b Park, W. 2008b. Turkey's deep state: Ergenekon and the threat to democratisation in the republic. RUSI, 153(5): 54–59. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar], p. 56).