What they did to Hrant they are doing to me
by Emre Uslu

The daily describes me as an intelligence agent, arguing, “He has played a role in the fight against the [Kurdish Communities Union] KCK, the urban organization of the PKK, sometimes with his pen and sometimes with his active involvement.” And it also made up an expert in order to get an opinion: “Experts hold that these names were picked as targets because they played a role in the identification of the KCK, seen as a form of assurance by the PKK during its period of inaction, and the detention of its key figures.”

This news report means that police experts acknowledge my role in the arrest of key figures of the KCK. Of course, experts’ opinions send a message to the PKK: “Well, these people played key role in the arrest of leading figures of the KCK; so take care of them.” Are these reports true? Of course not, it is a big lie. Besides, none of the names referred to in the news report, with the exception of the Diyarbakır police chief, have been involved in the KCK operation. For instance, Fatih Balcı from the Department of Education at the National Police Department serves as the editor-in-chief of Polis Magazine. He does not provide training on combating terror, nor does he assume a role in the fight against terror. Likewise, Samih Teymur works in the Passport Department with no connection to anti-terror units; so he has nothing to do with the KCK operation. You all know Önder Aytaç. The only link between him and the National Police Department is his providing his services as a professor at the Police Academy.

The fact that Akşam published our photos with numbers on them shows that it has nothing to do with the KCK operation. If this were the case, I should not have been number one on the list. The Diyarbakır police chief who actually carried out the KCK operation should have been higher than me in the ranking. However, Akşam put a number one on my photo. But am I number one on the PKK’s list? Of course not. I am at most number two. It is not clear why İsmail Küçükkaya and Akşam identified me as number one. They could not adequately answer this question.

Akşam argues that I have played a critical role in the KCK operation, but they failed to even read my column. On Dec. 26, 2009, I wrote a column titled, “KCK: The operation to entrap the initiative.” Above all, I have always noted that the KCK is an illegal organization. Besides, not only do I, but Abdullah Öcalan as well describes this as an illegal organization. The chairmanship of the executive board of this organization is held by Murat Karayılan. So let me quote from said column of mine: “The KCK is an organization promoted by Abdullah Öcalan for the post-PKK period. There is a fundamental point of view that security analysts supporting the operations against the KCK hold: The presence of the KCK under the administration of Sabri Ok affiliated with the deep state allows the deep state to undermine the Kurdish initiative and this creates a serious risk. When progress is made in respect to the initiative, the KCK is involved in the process to undermine it. Therefore, elimination of the KCK is closely related to the progress to be made in regards to the initiative process.

“I am one of those who first realized that Ok was affiliated with the deep state since his detention in Bursa Prison, as the stagers of the Feb. 28 post-modern coup in 1997 sent messages to Öcalan through Ok, and Ok actually served as a messenger between the deep state and Öcalan. But this does not justify operations against the KCK, at least with these conditions.

“The most recent KCK operations are the outcome of preliminary investigations that have been carried out over the last two years. This is a vibrant process, and occasional operations will and should be performed. However, the timing of the last operation is interesting. In addition, unlike previous operations, this one was not carried out to prevent an expected KCK action. This most recent KCK operation was an operation to offer the evidence at hand to the prosecutor. Regardless of the motivation to start the KCK operations, the actual outcome is the erosion of the initiative. In terms of its conclusions, the KCK operations actually did much harm to the initiative process. Those who benefited from this process are the deputy police chiefs allegedly affiliated with gangs and the [Turkish Armed Forces] TSK administration, which made an unconvincing statement in response to the assassination attempts on [Bülent] Arınç. With the recent KCK operation, the initiative process was assaulted by state bureaucrats. So what is left to do is collect the fallen fruit. Resolving problems does not matter for bureaucrats. They only think about how to keep their seats, for which they work hard. They wield their power based on this primary consideration. For this reason, at the beginning, I argued that the initiative process cannot be properly advanced by trusting bureaucrats. In the meantime, I should note that the vast majority of the police department note that the KCK operations should be carried on with. But naturally, they interpret the process from a police perspective. At this point, the adoption of this perspective by the political administration prevented the initiative from making progress.”

Considering that this was what I wrote in respect to the KCK operation, there needs to be reason for Akşam to put me in first place on the PKK’s target list. Frankly, I have no idea what this reason could be. Küçükkaya, whom I spoke to, and two other editors from Akşam were unable to provide a reasonable explanation for this. I am wondering if neo-nationalist Serdar Akinan, who once argued that the problem could be resolved by blood and then all of a sudden acted as a spokesperson for Karayılan, had a role in this matter. Küçükkaya says Akinan briefed the editorial board of the paper. Akinan, on the other hand, threatened that the PKK will not remain the same after June 15. Therefore, I cannot be sure as to whether Akşam, which implied that I played role in the KCK operations despite the fact that this is not the case, made up this report through the manipulation of Ergenekon circles. The only commonality between the targets in this news report is that they have been targeted by Odatv, with which Akinan has close ties. Küçükkaya and the two other editors from Akşam I spoke with also complain about the fact they are referred to as supporters of Ergenekon. They argue that they do not publish anything supportive of Ergenekon, whereas they actually support the entire staff of Odatv and pro-Ergenekon actors. I tend not to believe this, but would like to think that they wrote this story due to the manipulation of a pro-Ergenekon structure. What they tried to do is obvious: What Hürriyet and the pro-Ergenekon media had done to Hrant Dink is now being done to me and four others by Akşam. What they are doing is poisoning the air and provoking Kurdish Ogün Samast-like figures against us.