Reality is often more deadly than anything dreamed up in a novel:

What was the inspiration for the name Gladio? It was named after a small stabbing knife used by the gladiators; this knife would produce a superficial wound with a lot of blood. It would not finish off the opponent quickly, and thus finish the contest, but it would terrify and prolong the entertainment for the crowds. A spymaster explains it to Dark: “They are not interested in killing many innocent people — but they want to terrify many people, with a superficial but spectacularly bloody wound.”

In preparation for his novel Duns read through pages and pages of classified documents now released under the time-lapse rules. Sadly his research on İstanbul is less accurate: he has our hero driving a jeep across the Galata Bridge from Pera and continuing on by land to İzmit. Even if he had accurately identified the Bosporus Bridge as connecting the two continents, that wasn’t built until some 20 years after the action took place.

This does no more than put a small dent in an otherwise well researched and documented set of guesses. In the notes at the end of the novel, Duns points out that “the existence of British stay-behind network and their offshoots had been publicized prior to Andreotti’s statement” — here referring to an admission by the Italian prime minister in 1990 that Gladio was part of a secret NATO operation.

Peter Edel, 15 July 2010

Each time just after an act of terrorism in Turkey there is this strange obscure vacuum. When the assault is claimed and even when suspects have been detained there will always be questions about the facts.

It’s far from illogical to bring up questions like, “Who really did it?” An analytical view of modern history shows that terrorism is often not what it appears to be at first. An act of terrorism may very well be instigated by provocateurs who have infiltrated groups. Or it may be a “false flag” operation, meaning terrorism committed in ways that make it appear as though it was done by others. With such strategies entering the arena, the edges between various forms of extremism can become very blurred. And they become even more blurred with the phenomenon that extremists on whatever side usually have more in common with each other than with the moderates in society. This effect can lead to the most paradoxical alliances and is often the reason why nothing is really what it seems at first with terrorism.

There is a distinctive psychological side to terrorism. While traditional warfare is about gaining territory, the terrorist wants to conquer public opinion instead. Whether based on religious or political ideologies, terrorists always go for public opinion one way or another. The intention to create political chaos through violence is another common denominator between them. These common grounds can to a certain extent lead to contacts and sometimes even to cooperation and joint operations by groups which oppose each other entirely in the “normal world.” A similarity in strategies applied by various terrorist groups is usually the basis for connections of this kind. Let’s illustrate this with the strategies of radical left and extreme right terrorist groups in Italy during the ’70s. Of course, we see opposing schemes. Violence from the left follows the expectation that political chaos will unmask the state, followed by a sequence of unchained revolutionary events. In the approach of right-wing terrorism, political chaos and instability will make the public demand drastic measures, with success for right-wing parties during elections, or a military takeover as an imagined result. Major differences. The point is that as long the state of political chaos has not been reached, the strategies are almost identical, which is the lubricant for infiltration and black flag operations. This combination is able to cover any terrorist attack in a shroud of uncertainty. That’s what happened in Italy during the ’70s. And that’s what seems to be taking place in Turkey nowadays.

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Eric Margolis - September 14, 2009

Violent rain storms lashed Istanbul, a metropolis of 12 million last week, leaving 31 dead and a huge mess. At the same time, Turkey was experiencing an even more violent and dangerous political tempest.

The name “Ergenekon” may not be familiar to non-Turks, but this murky affaire has riveted Turkey’s 70 million people.

Thirty-three members of a neo-fascist group called Ergenekon have been on trial, accused of murder, terrorism, and trying to overthrow the elected government. The trial was temporarily suspended after the courthouse was flooded out.

The trial has been laying bare the workings of the `deep state,’ a powerful cabal of retired military officers, security forces, gangsters, government officials, judges, and business oligarchs that has long been the real power in this complex nation.

Turkey’s military vigorously denies any links to the Ergenekon.

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TODAY’S ZAMAN - 30 April 2009

The leaders of Ergenekon, a clandestine terrorist organization charged with plotting to overthrow the government, masterminded the plan to kill a Turkish-Armenian journalist in January 2007, as well as the murders of dozens of people whose bodies were dumped at a crossroad in Sapanca, near İstanbul, according to new evidence compiled by the prosecution that was made public on Monday.

The dossiers of evidence from the second indictment in the trial of the suspected members of Ergenekon were handed to defense attorneys on Monday evening.

Metin Doğan, a former noncommissioned military officer who testified as a witness in the murder trial of three Christian missionaries brutally killed in Malatya, has testified for the prosecution in the Ergenekon case. According to Doğan’s testimony, retired Gen. Veli Küçük, a prime suspect in the Ergenekon investigation, confessed that his people had plans to kill Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, who would later be shot to death in broad daylight outside his newspaper’s office in 2007.

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Written by Jasper Mortimer
Published Wednesday, February 11, 2009

[Ankara, Turkey] The two-story-high bust of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk protruding from the side of the Turkish Navy’s headquarters looks down on a busy intersection outside parliament, as if admonishing: “Don’t you dare!”

But 70 years after the death of the secularist Atatürk – the military and political leader who transformed what was left of the Ottoman Empire into modern Turkey – Turks are daring to challenge the establishment, as the January investigation into the Ergenekon organization has shown.

Named after an old Turkish myth, Ergenekon is a network of ultranationalists who have allegedly conspired to kill and plot coups in the name of “protecting Turkey” from the moderate Islamic government that has been in power since 2002.

More than 80 alleged Ergenekon members, including a retired general, have been standing trial since October, charged with subversion and forming a terrorist organization.

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TODAY’S ZAMAN
29 January 2009

It would be a surprise not to have clandestine groups and structures in Turkey that bear the basic qualities of Operation Gladio — a stay-behind army set up in NATO countries during cold war years to counter a communist invasion — says Philip Willan, who has been researching the level and pattern of cooperation between secret services and the mafia, in addition to unsolved and mysterious assassinations.

Speaking to the Cihan news agency, Willan said Ergenekon, a clandestine terrorist organization charged with plotting to overthrow the government, is very similar to the Gladio network. He also stated that newly emerging evidence about Ergenekon in Turkey also highlighted the similarity. Describing Gladio as an organization set up by NATO through the US and British secret services and special operations units during World War II to prevent an invasion of Italy by the Eastern Bloc, Willan said the Gladio operation recruited individuals known for their anti-communist beliefs. The group also had arms and explosives caches buried underground in a large number of places in Italy.

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TODAY’S ZAMAN
11 February 2009

Seven people, including five members of the military, were detained late on Tuesday as part of an investigation previously launched by the Air Forces Command into secret meeting places of a clandestine terrorist organization.

These covert meeting places, also known as Karargah Houses, were used by members of the Ergenekon terrorist group to discuss strategic plans to manipulate the decisions of the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK). Ergenekon is a clandestine criminal organization charged with attempting to create chaos and undermine stability in Turkey in order to trigger a coup. Eighty-six of its alleged members are in jail and standing trial. Many other suspects are awaiting indictment.

The existence of Karargah Houses had been revealed as part of the ongoing Ergenekon investigation. These places are also known to be meeting spots for generals plotting coup d’états as well as hideouts for hit men and ammunition storage.

Niyazi Kizilyurek - 30.01.2009

There are quite a few facts that are pointed at through discussions about Ergenekon: state corporations of the Turkish government can subvert the law when it comes to benefits of the ‘state’ and ‘nation’. This act  goes as far back as the ‘Young Turks’ and has never been off the agenda since the establishment of the Republic of Turkey and the basis of this lies in the state elite and their perception of the community.
Although modern Turkey was built following the Turkish War of Independence with the participation of the people, it was later transformed so that an elite group ruled the government despite ‘the people’. The founder’s ideology, based on organic ‘nation’ and ‘contemporary civilisation’, was basically in conflict with the pluralist structure of the nation. The traditions and moral values of the people and the state elite worked to surpass them rather than try to solve the conflict. The process of surpassing defined 3 important ‘dangers’ and they did not hesitate in forcing legal boundaries to overcome these dangers. These are known as the ‘3 D’s which are the ‘Black Danger’ (religious threat), the ‘Kurdish Danger’ and ‘Red Danger’. There was a fourth ‘D’ with the addition of the ‘Cyprus Danger’.

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AYŞE KARABAT - 03 February 2009

Police have identified one of the Ergenekon suspects as the provocateur of a flag-burning incident in Mersin during Nevruz celebrations in 2005, which led to mass demonstrations all over Turkey and sparked anti-Kurdish sentiment among the public.

It is also expected that as a result of this development, the flag-burning case against six young suspects, which is still in progress in Mersin, may be merged with trial of Ergenekon, a shadowy network nested within the state apparatus aiming to overthrow the government through provocation and preparing the groundwork for a military coup.

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The Ergenekon investigation deepens distrust between the Turkish military and the country’s police force, as the ruling AKP suspects the ‘Deep State’ of trying to undermine it in the name of secularism, Gareth Jenkins writes for ISN Security Watch.

By Gareth Jenkins in Istanbul for ISN Security Watch

Turkish anti-terrorism police on 22 January detained 37 people in simultaneous pre-dawn raids in 16 of the country’s 81 provinces as part of an ongoing investigation into an alleged covert organization known as “Ergenekon.”

The operation was the 11th in a series of coordinated early morning raids over the last 18 months in which over 200 people have been detained and more than 120 formally arrested on charges of belonging to the Ergenekon “armed terrorist organization.”

Those currently being held on charges of belonging to Ergenekon include retired high-ranking members of the Turkish military, academics, writers, journalists, businessmen, lawyers and medical personnel. Although a few have a background in covert activities, the only common denominator linking all of them is that they are outspoken opponents of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).

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İP leader Perinçek denies allegations in tearful defense

Workers’ Party (İP) leader Doğu Perinçek was visibly tearful during a video presentation he had integrated into his defense testimony at yesterday’s hearing in the trial of Ergenekon, a clandestine terrorist organization nested within the state hierarchy and charged with attempting to overthrow the government.
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How Ergenekon evolved: the near past of a clandestine organization

Initial details about the Ergenekon terrorist organization were published by Can Dündar, a columnist from the Milliyet daily, and journalist Celal Kazdağlı in the book “Ergenekon,” published in 1997. Although Dündar denies the existence of the Ergenekon organization, Kazdağlı argues that the history of this organization can be traced back to the early ’90s.

Speaking to Today’s Zaman, Kazdağlı commented on the emergence of Ergenekon, saying: “Ergenekon, which is not defined as a state within the state or the ‘deep state,’ is an entity set up by the CIA in all NATO-member countries in the aftermath of the Cold War. This was an American invention to fight against communism. The organization, which did not rely on domestic legislation, was referred to as Gladio in many NATO countries, but while measures were taken against this sort of organization in these countries, it remained influential in Turkey.

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ECE TEMELKURAN - December 4, 2008

Turkey is facing a new round in her relationship with democracy. Opponents of the Islamic governing party, known as the AK for the initials of its Turkish name,  are being accused  being members of a secret state gang called Ergenekon. The trials in this case, which are expected to last for years, began last month.  The  sinister undertow portends the likelihood that Turkey is about to experience its own version of a ‘colored revolution’.

A few weeks ago in Diyarbak?r, in the Kurdish region of Turkey, a prominent Kurdish intellectual said: ‘Maybe I should appear as a commentator on the Ergenekon case’. Putting on a sour, hesitant face she carried on: ‘Since my husband’s assassin is still unknown I can be counted as a victim of deep state like many other Kurdish and Turkish leftists.’ The group of well-known intellectuals from both ethnicities gathered round the table were silent; nobody knew how to respond. Those who had for years been vocal about any political issue were now, like many of their peers, speechless.

That is why one should be warned about the Ergenekon case. Since the Ergenekon case represents the advanced level of classical Turkish chaos, this is not a good time to start learning about Turkey unless you are experienced in this ‘lonely and beloved country’. Of course, it makes the story easier if you are promoting a certain political engagement such as Kemalism or political Islam, but if you want to maintain a leftist stance on the Ergenekon case, there starts the hesitation, silence and confusion. And unfortunately this messy, pervasive state of mind has arisen at one of the most important cross-roads of not only Turkish political history but also the Middle East.

Ergenekon is the name of a legendary valley in Turkish mythology. According to the legend, the valley in Central Asia was home to the ancient Turks, until a grey wolf led them out onto the road to the eventual nationhood. Since last January this piece of mythology has become extremely vital for Turkey. Ergenekon is now the name of an alleged ultra-nationalist, ultra-Kemalist gang, which has been operating since 1999 as a part of the ‘deep state’. Their alleged aim is to organize coups against the AKP government. Like coups, the term ‘deep state’ has been and still is a very popular term in Turkish, used to describe renegade members of the security and military forces said to act outside the law in what they judge to be Turkey’s best interests. The term has a very long history, which goes back to the Ottoman period, but the contemporary version generally begins with the Cold War era. Under the name of ‘counter-guerrilla’, it was formed to combat the rising leftist movement and later on the Kurdish uprising in South Eastern Turkey. The secret entity represents illegal state violence, but also drug dealing and all kinds of smuggling, first in the Kurdish region then in whole country. The growing illegal, invisible and untouchable body has been the source of state terror against Kurdish and Turkish politicians, intellectuals, trade unions, leftist student organizations.

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