Most recently, the Radikal daily revealed the details of a document titled "Ergenekon Analysis, the Project of New Structuring, Management and Development, Oct. 29, 1999, İstanbul." This document has often been mentioned; however, this is the first time the details of its content have been revealed so fully. It's also through this recently revealed document that we are able to better appreciate what sort of formation the Ergenekon terrorist organization is and what sort of appalling acts it is ready to perpetrate to fulfill its illegal aims. It has thus become necessary to reintroduce you to Ergenekon. Here is Ergenekon according to the document in question:"Ergenekon, which upholds secrecy as a chief principle, "will not have any difficulty in overcoming the most important challenges it encounters by benefiting from its 'civil' personnel, including intellectuals and prominent figures from all professions in addition to the distinguished personnel of the Turkish Armed Forces [TSK].
"Terrorist organizations must be kept under control without fail; the world of terrorism should be manipulated by means of 'bogus' terrorist groups when necessary, and it is a must to take part in all the plots devised by powerful intelligence agencies. It is a must to enter into cooperation with national and international legal and illegal organizations that exist to achieve similar ideals.
"All of the systems that managed to perpetuate their existence in the world have eliminated politicians with ideologies contrary to the interests of the country and the current regime's principles. There are two ways to achieve this: 1. Assassination, 2. Disinformation. The only way to completely eliminate a politician who does politics for his personal interests and who considers everything legitimate to reach his targets is assassination.
"Soldiers stationed in army units and first-year and sophomore university students are positive resources to be benefited from.
"Ergenekon has accumulated enough experience within itself by watching a similar example in the reality of JİTEM [the Gendarmerie Intelligence and Counterterrorism Service]. Members to be selected from illegal circles should be those likely to be the most ethnically and politically compatible with the organization's ideology and aims.
"Ergenekon needs its own civil society organizations, which it will found itself. The world public can easily be influenced and manipulated by the means of civil society organizations. Ergenekon should be able to take all the civil society organizations that operate in Turkey under control.
"Ergenekon should be composed of four bureau commanderships and two civil presidencies that will be directly dependent on and accountable to the president of the organization. … An expert in the field, who will work with the two commanders and presidents of the units, will be charged with the task of portraying all the illegal activities as legal on a legal platform both at home and in the world. Ergenekon will be endowed with a privileged level of quality and security among all other intelligence organizations.
"… The agents to be assigned to the Control Bureau should be selected from among reputably honest and trustworthy people who must definitely be members of the TSK and special operations units. These agents should be merciless and able to work on their own. They should receive their orders directly from the commander of Ergenekon, and their identities should not be known to high-ranking administrators, other organization personnel or agents.
"Ergenekon, which has been operating within the TSK, needs and is obliged to build a new structure.
"Without losing any time, Ergenekon should be able to found its own holdings and banks and thus be able to establish the necessary economic-political balance to serve the ideology. The pharmaceutical and chemical industries are the most lucrative ones amongst the legal commercial activity areas with very high profit margins. Similarly, [the] air cargo carrying [business] occupies a very important place. Such commercial activities are also those most suitable for money laundering. The legal commercial companies to be founded by Ergenekon should be perpetuated and strengthened as long as they remain undiscovered.
"In order for financial resources to be created, it is an obligation to benefit from medium and large-sized companies, infiltrate them and realize money transfers from international banks through agents who have infiltrated various banks abroad and who have acquired account numbers and passwords.
"… Ergenekon should step up its activities meant for controlling media corporations and it should be able to found its own media companies."
My own conclusion: When we review all the anti-democratic and illegal developments we have witnessed in recent years in Turkey in light of what is written in this document, we can easily see that Ergenekon has covered a great distance on the way to achieving its goals. The coup plans, the so-called civil society activities (such as the republican rallies) and the attempts to eliminate Parliament and all democratic mechanisms will be enough to reveal the extent to which Ergenekon is influential in reality. Also, when we review all recent mafia, civil society, media, banking, political party and commercial formations, it is almost impossible not to encounter deep traces of Ergenekon in them. What matters at the current stage is the ability of our democratic system's legal and legitimate security units to prove courageous enough to decipher all the extensions of this horrendous formation and pursue them to the bitter end.
