We were already concerned that this year would be heated and full of tension in direct relation to the presidential election and the concomitant possible crises. However, this anxious wait doesn't serve to either placate or diminish our grief and anger caused by the heinous attack realized by terrorists who found the nerve to carry it out in this tense atmosphere. Those who created one of the deepest political crises in the history of the Turkish Republic out of the presidential election by nonchalantly disregarding constitutional conventions and democratic rules are also to blame, to a large extent, in helping the terrorists get up their courage. The evil forces, which feed on their peace-killing actions in peaceful times, are reviving themselves in such a tense atmosphere through bloody attacks that will surely cater to the tension.
This tense atmosphere provides fertile ground for the dark conspiracy theories which fill one with suspicions that push the borders of the mind in relation to a terrorist attack that must be condemned. These theories range from plausible assumptions -- such as that it might be the first example of the terrorist PKK's descending from the mountains to metropolitan areas with its terrorism -- to difficult-to-believe theses like some groups in Turkey attempting to lay the groundwork for a cross-border operation into northern Iraq or an attempt to get the general elections cancelled. I personally condemn whatever goal or whoever may be behind the attack with all my heart, without paying much attention to these conspiracy theories.
In fact, I will not be talking of conspiracy theories in this article. Just the opposite, I'd like to share the state of shock I'm still in caused by how an amoral, paranoid madman can turn into an absolute villain with his ideological obsessions or with the manipulation of dark forces. What sorts of cause, faith and ideology are those that they make one blacken others' lives alongside his own and spread terror to all segments of society? What sort of deviant world do those who perpetrated this slaughter -- I say "those" because I want to mention the dark forces behind the perpetrator as well -- live in that they can consider such an end as fitting for themselves and the people they killed?
Maybe the portrait of one of these terrorists, Güven Akkuş, who set off the explosives he was carrying on himself, killing six people -- most of whom were living in slum neighborhoods -- would shed some light on the matter.
Here is the portrait of the villain: Tried for being a member of the illegal terrorist organization, the Turkish Union of Revolutionary Communists (TİKB), Akkuş, born in 1979, took an active part in the name of the organization in 1996. He was taken into custody on Feb. 19, 1996, during an illegal TİKB demonstration and was later released. The same route was repeated a couple more times. Akkuş appeared in the May 1 demonstrations eight days after a demonstration in Yenibosna. The events known as the "Suburban Demonstration" in 1996, where 67 people, 50 of them policemen, were wounded and three died, turned out to have been organized by the TİKB, a member of which was Akkuş, and the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party/Front (DHKP-C). During that event Akkuş was taken into custody once again and was tried by the Istanbul State Security Court (DGM), which was still active in those days, and was charged with being a member of an outlawed organization. After spending nearly two years in prison, he was acquitted, and as his case had exceeded the statute of limitations, it was thus was dropped in January 2007. Akkuş, who lived in İstanbul, reportedly hadn't seen his relatives for nine years. Having dropped out from high school in the ninth grade, Akkuş's older brother and uncle had committed suicide in 2001, and his parents were both also long deceased.
Going to prison as a sympathizer of the TİKB in 1998 and leaving it as a member of the PKK, Akkuş was taken illegally to the Netherlands by the terrorist group. (Please note the country.) He did not inform either his older brother or older sister of his return from the Netherlands.
What do you think: Is it not a portrait suitable for being used by terrorist groups or foreign intelligence services willing to manipulate a country's agenda? How sad it is that our society generates the foggy atmosphere that serves the purposes of the dark forces that use these villains and inhumane psycho crime machines, and then we all pay the price.
