His call is sufficient to attest to the existence of illegal groups within the government and the betrayal of the people of this nation. This testimony is a final call for those who belittle the Ergenekon case and remain unclear about the case. It is also a warning to the “republic elites” and their guardianship-supporting allies, who know that their privileged status will come to an end, saying, “everything you have done will be in vain; you will never be able to prevent [Turkey's] democratization.”Why is a written statement given by Avcı on June 18, 2009 to the Edirne 1st High Criminal Court, while he was working as the chief of police, so important?
Firstly, Avcı is a civil servant whose honesty and loyalty to his country cannot be questioned by anyone. Secondly, he worked as head of the Diyarbakır branch of the Security Directorate for seven years, from the end of 1984 until March of 1992. Thirdly, he is still working as the police chief of a large city.
The most important aspect of Avcı's statement is his words about JİTEM, an illegal structure within the gendarmerie believed to be responsible for several unsolved murders and whose existence is denied by the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK). Teoman Koman, the founder of JİTEM who worked as a National Intelligence Organization (MİT) consultant for a while, said, “Report those who speak of JİTEM.” Erol Özkasnak, Turkish General Staff secretary-general during the Feb. 28, 1997 process -- a “soft coup” in which the coalition government at the time was led to step down -- said, “Those who mention Susurluk and the TSK alongside one another and those who speak of JİTEM are traitors to their country.”
Mehmet Elkatmış, the head of the Turkish parliamentary commission into the Susurluk affair, said that he had asked MİT consultant Köksal Sönmez about JİTEM and received the answer that “there is no such organization.” Elkatmış further added: “JİTEM turns out be behind murders all the time. It is wreaking havoc in the southeast while the authorities say there is no such thing. When I think of JİTEM, I think of Teoman Koman, Veli Küçük, Arif Doğan and Cem Ersever. … Ersever realized that it wasn't right, disclosed this and was killed. They were concerned about the information and evidence he had, so they ended his life.”
Avcı also says the following in his statement:
“I used to run into organization founders and members Arif Doğan, Cem Ersever and Aytekin Özer and other people who I later learned I had been introduced to by their code names. There were JİTEM signs in certain allotted places within the Diyarbakır Gendarmerie Regional Security Command and the Diyarbakır military depot. I used to hear that a person named Veli Küçük was at the gendarmerie general headquarters and that JİTEM was being organized into units in Diyarbakır and the surrounding areas. While Lt. Gen. Hikmet Köksal was the Diyarbakır gendarmarie regional security commander, JİTEM was under him, just like all the other units.”
The most striking part of Avcı's testimony was his statement that Maj. Ersever was killed in a home in Ankara by JİTEM. Avcı also says: “We determined that the phone Cem was using was passed on to Yeşil [Mahmut Yıldırım] after his death.” (I would like to insert in parentheses here that an armed force that can kill its own major really bothers me. And so does Levent Ersöz. For the first time in the Turkish army a general has left Turkey due to fear of the administration of justice…)
There was another very important development which took place a few days ago. It was decided that the Diyarbakır courts would oversee the JİTEM case regarding eight homicides; the preparation of this case took 13 years and was bounced between different courts for four years due to decisions brought on by a lack of jurisdiction. The military Supreme Court of Appeals decided that the soldiers would stand trial at the Diyarbakır Sixth High Criminal Court. It was stressed in this decision that the criteria of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) must be taken into consideration.
The Ergenekon case is a snowball which is turning into an avalanche as it rolls down the hill. Together we'll witness that which will be buried under it.
