March 3, 2013

On the Blink of a Marginalizing Turkish Socialism, Extremist Turkish Revolutionary Peoples Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C) is Signaling for More Actions in 2013.


DHKP-C (The Front) Started to hit sensational targets, after a decade long silence.

Turkey's extreme-left Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C) has claimed the responsibility of the suicide attack on the US embassy in Ankara on February 1, 2013. Right after the US Embassy attack, Front’s most popular website www.halkinsesitv.com announced that “the attack was an act of self-sacrifice and the sole intent was to target US and its collaborator AKP Government.” Through their website they also claimed that they have the potential, dedication and willingness to punish traitors who are siding / cooperating with Imperial powers like US, Israel and especially Turkish Security Forces, accusing the police as being a merciless tool for AKP Government and serving Gulen Congregation/Hizmet Movement, an Islamic Turkish influential group whose leader is living in the US. (These comments can be reached at www.halkinsesitv.com., www.sosyalistforum.net, www.devrimcigenclik.info, www.ozgurce.org in German and Turkish)

In the US Embassy Attack; DHKP-C militant Ecevit Şanlı (A.K.A Alisan) blasted a 6 kg TNT embedded to a vest, killing a security officer and wounding a journalist. Ministry of Interior reports indicated that he was in disguise as a cargo-man which enabled him to enter the main gate. He was also carrying a pistol and hand grenades as a backup; indicating that his primary objective was to clear the entrance with his pistol guarded by three to four security guards, try his chances to find a passage through a second security door with grenades and finally blow himself inside the visa offices compound.

According to police records, Şanli was a well-known figure for DHKP-C, who was recruited in Istanbul, trained in Greece and attended several attacks from 1995 to 1997 against police posts and governmental buildings. He was arrested after his deliberate attack to Istanbul Harbiye Officers’ Club building with LAW rockets in 1997 and sentenced to 25 years. He served time for some 4 years and released in 2001 with a presidential amnesty due to the Wernicke Korsakoff syndrome, a disease caused by a long- term hunger strike he performed, during his time in jail.

A Brief History of the DHKP-C

The DHKP-C (Revolutionary People's Liberation Party/Front) is a Marxist-Leninist, anti-western splinter group of the Turkish terrorist group Dev Sol (Revolutionary Left). Dev Sol was originated as a splinter group of Dev-Yol (Revolutionary Path) which itself was a splinter group of THKP-C (Turkish People's Liberation Party-Front). The THKP-C was an offshoot of the broader Revolutionary Youth movement (Dev Genc) within Turkey. In the early 1990s, infighting within Dev-Sol resulted in the emergence of two factions. Dursun Karatas (a.k.a Dayı/Uncle), who

founded Dev-Sol by combining splintered factions of Turkish radical leftist groups in 1978, changed the group's name to DHKP/C in 1994 in Damascus. Bedri Yagan, also a founding member of Dev-Sol, broke from the Karatas faction and created a new faction, THKP/C (not to be confused with the original THKP/C). Karatas faction dismissed its political branch in 2000 adopting the name DHKC (Revolutionary People’s Liberation Front). They shortly call themselves as “Cephe” (The Front).

The organization has committed many acts since then and formed a strong system within the prisons which helped to strengthen its grassroots. Aftermath of 1994 remodeling, the organization continued their activities. One of the groundbreaking attacks of DHKP-C was assassination of a prominent businessman of Sabancı Group, Özdemir Sabancı and his two associates in 1996. This sensational action is followed by some other assassination attacks to retired army generals and police officers, and then a chain of “hunger strike” protests in Turkish prisons from 1999 to 2003, which caused at least 13 out of 126 DHKP-C prisoners’ death in strike.

In 2000; DHKP-C leadership – most of them were in Belgium, Netherlands, Greece and Germany- initiated a new agenda for the organization, for the purpose to reach out the acceleration they enjoyed during 1990s, announcing that their “Revolutionary Wave Program” would be initiated by every member whether in jail, in exile or on the field/front. The program was primarily put in action by the jailed members of the Front with a series of hunger strikes and prison uprisings. Turkish Government took some harsh methods to counter, launched military operations to some major prisons in Istanbul on December 19, 2000. As a result, a total of 54 prisoners were killed and more than 150 were wounded. Turkish Government named these prison interventions as “Back to Life Operations” and re-punished 154 prisoners –majority of which were DHKP-C members- with additional sentences. In the following term, DHKP-C tried to assassinate some government officials and ex-Secretary of Justice Hikmet Sami Turk who they thought were masterminds of “Back to Life” operations.

Turkey’s terror experts mostly agree that; following the death of DHKP-C founder and leader Dursun Karatas in Belgium in 2008, the Front –under the new leadership of Musa Asoglu, Zerrin Sari and Huseyin Fevzi Tekin- stayed low and avoid confrontations. Except one failed attempt to kill ex Secretary of Justice H.Sami Turk with a suicide bomber attack in 2009, the Front did not show any profile other than participating “May 1 Workers’ Day” celebrations with Front banners and flags. Analysts agree that between the years 2008-2012; the Front, trying to fill the gap of Dursun Karatas, most probably focused on assigning new leadership cadres and cells in Europe, Turkey and Middle East. They also must have been established new areas of operation as well as new assault plans and targets.

Countries Sheltering DHKP-C
According to Turkish Ministry of Interior and intelligence reports; The Front is believed to be functional in Syria and six European countries; Greece, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy and Spain.
(1)  Greece: Huseyin Fevzi Tekin is reported to be heading the Front’s activities in Greece. He’s also believed to be directing the cells in Turkey and organizing the safe passages of the militants from/to Turkey and Middle East, through Greek Islands, Bulgaria, Romania and Cyprus. Another prominent figure Zerrin Sari is believed to be managing the training camps in Greece’s Lavrion, Kinesa and Oropo-Dileysi regions. According to media reports, the group is sharing Lavrion camp’s guerilla training facilities with another terrorist group, PKK.
(2)  Germany: DHKC’s politburo is believed to be located in Berlin. Germany has a significant importance for the group, in terms of providing short-term safe housing, money raising and publications’ printing and distribution. The group is believed to be managing at least 3 printing houses, 10 to 15 local markets, coffee houses, restaurants and some small scale doctrine training camps in Germany.
(3)  Belgium is also important for the group, since the country black-listed Turkey for human-rights abuses in 2001. So the Front members can find refuge in this country without much difficulty. Musa Asoglu, who was a close friend of Dursun Karatas and accepted as the heir of him, is living in Brussels. Intelligence reports mention that Belgium is Front’s primary address for organizing its major decision making meetings and political demonstrations.
(4)  In Netherlands, The Front is believed to be dealing with drug trafficking and sales, making enough profit to support weapons procurement.
(5)  In Italy, the group is developing ties with Italian Communist Refoundation Party and organizing political activities to corner Turkish government with accused human rights abuses.
(6)  In Spain, the group is believed to be organizing joint political platforms with Bask and ETA figures, as well as Socialist party (Partido Socialista Obrero Español) members. Also there are reports suggesting that the Front has a couple of safe houses in Madrid’s suburban areas.
(7)  Syria: The group leaders as well as militants have great sympathy against Syria and Assad regime, since Damascus provided shelter for Karatas and his friends from 1994 to date. Bekaa Valley, a no man’s land on Syria-Lebanon border had been used by lots of extremist left organizations for almost 50 years. Interrogation reports of some captured militants indicate that DHKP-C leadership was planning to establish a safe haven along with efficient training camps in Syria’s Bekaa Valley but the project is cancelled in 2011, after the outbreak of the Syrian uprising.

The Reasons Behind US Embassy Attack

After a four year re-organization phase, DHKP-C has become more active in Turkey by 2012 once again. The organization have killed 3 police officers and committed some illegal activities like attacking to police stations by suicide bombers in the last six months, before the attack of US Embassy in Ankara.
Following their activities closely, Turkish Police and National Intelligence Agency (MIT) shared a report last year and indicated that there are 15 suspects who were abroad and trained to deploy terrorist attacks to some high value targets. Police stated that 8 of them were trained in Greece, 4 in Germany, one in Syria and two in Belgium. Based on this report Ecevit Şanlı was among four people who were trained in Germany.
According to the organization’s press announcements and web site comments, DHKP-C supported Assad Regime and his war against Syrian resistance. The group also condemned Turkey’s war readiness efforts against Syria and took sides with PKK, strongly opposing PATRIOT deployments in the region, as well as NATO/US military involvement against Syria.
The recent attack shows that the concerns of security forces in Turkey were not baseless. DHKP-C assumed the responsibility of the attack to the embassy next day and publishing a declaration in its website stated that the bomb blasted because of the US and Turkey’s policies in Libya, Egypt, Iraq and Syria.
DHKP-C dynamics are based on opposing imperialism and fighting against every value which represents American ideology. In this perspective, it will not be wrong to say that every American entity “in Turkey” is bound to be targeted by the Front. Also, intelligence experts believe that the organization is looking for options to reach out a permanent training base which will enable the group to recruit more and more candidates both in Turkey and abroad, smuggle them to a safe haven to train, equip and prepare for a revolutionary war, just as PKK has been doing for more than four decades. And by targeting high profile American figures and/or buildings, it will be easier and prestigious for the Front, to gain access to such places in Syria or another place in the Middle East.

Regional Reasons for DHKP-C’s Rising Profile

The DHKP-C as stated above is a Marxist-Leninist organization and this is not the first time that the organization attacks to a foreign target, especially to American targets. But again, the US Embassy attack shouldn’t be regarded as a confrontation against US; as in one of his speech a leader figure of the organization Huseyin Fevzi Tekin stated that “the most vital objective of the Front is not US but its collaborators”. He added that America’s imperialist policies wouldn’t gain such success without the support given by other nations so the revolutionists should do their best to bring havoc on this cooperation by creating a chaos and instead of attacking “the strong” they should choose to punish “relatively weak” collaborators.

It can be argued that developing events after Arab Spring fueled anti-Western/anti-American ideologies both for right and left wing ideologies. “E.g. in Middle East’s Islamic culture, which prohibits the suicide, the Arab Spring is initiated with a suicide in which Mohammed Bouazizi – a Tunisian street vendor- dowsed himself with fuel and set his body on fire in a protest in 2010. What happened next was unexpected as it was explosive. Riots broke out, spread to Tunisian cities and amidst massive demonstrations President Zayn-Al Abidine and his cabinet were eased out by army and forced to flee into exile.

Uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Syria, against heavy handed governments with close ties to West have inspired one another and created a domino effect in the region. DHKP-C Leadership should have noticed the importance of a strong organization with dedicated militants whose sacrificial acts are keen to inspire crowds. The group started to “awaken” its cells in Europe and in Turkey due to the following possible reasons;
·         The time was right, and with the advantage of anti-American and anti-West atmosphere, they would be able to gain some international support and sympathy in the Middle East, a front they have been neglected for more than a decade. (E.g. even a slight improvement to establish a post in North Africa (Tunisia or Libya) may give Front an advantage to transport its militants in and out of Europe.)
·         Syrian regime did not dissolve as fast as it was expected and they turned out to be an immediate enemy of the Turkish State. The Front probably felt the urgent need to support its enemy’s enemy, probably hoping to get a permanent support either from Baathists or their current sponsors like Russia, or even Iran.
·         It became obvious that, the instability throughout the Middle East would be permanent, causing long term vacuums which might be filled with strong organizations with military capabilities. (If the Front succeeds to gain access to the isolated regions, the longer their cause, existence and ability to fight may survive.)
·         New governments in Egypt, Yemen, Libya and Tunisia have Islamic roots and a significant religious agenda. If Assad regime dissolves, the picture in Syria will not be so different. Despite their differences, most of these countries will pursue a fundamentalist policy, and all together they will be able to oppose Israel, as well as America and continue to support Palestinian regime, Hamas and Hezbollah, who’re also filling some vacuum in the region. In the long run, even though they are distant to any religious ideology, DHKP-C’s military capabilities and its strong connections in Europe might be needed by the new regional actors/groups, to suppress any initiative in favor of Israel and the West.
·         Turkey’s ruling party AKP and Turkish Security Forces are also in the central target of the Front, since AKP crushed Turkish Left parties –including the main opposition CHP (Republican People’s Party) - in the last two elections and filled out most of the state agencies, governorates and municipalities with its cadres. In addition to the negative atmosphere of “The Ergenekon Case” about an alleged illegal neo-nationalist organization accused of planning to oust the pro-Islamic Justice and Development Party (AKP) government through a military coup, university students and some left wing socio political humanitarian foundations are not happy with AKP policies and Turkish Leftist groups have no efficiency in Turkish political arena. This weakness creates some amount of sympathy to marginal left wing groups, and DHKP-C might easily enjoy popularity among Turkish Left by putting some weight on social life, with sensational activities. (E.g. In Istanbul Okmeydani square on February 15, 2013 a public bus of metropolitan municipality have been stopped and burned to fire with Molotov Cocktails. Traffic has stopped for hours and Istanbul Police couldn’t reach the area on time. In the following hours more than three revolutionary leftist groups claimed responsibility and each of them praising US Embassy attack, threatened government for following angry mob demonstrations.)

DHKP-C’s Possible Actions in the Future

DHKP-C is significantly famous with its assassinations and suicidal attacks, so it will probably be the first priority for the Front to attack “soft and hard targets” whenever and wherever the ground is suitable. Soft targets by their nature and existence do not have much security and they are much easier to attack than hard targets, which deter attacks by maintaining a comparatively strong security presence, as was the case in US Embassy Attack. Possible “hard targets” on the cross-hairs of the Front might be US or Israeli personnel and their associates, AKP figures and party employees, police and police stations, Turkish media buildings and journalists who are known to be supporting AKP policies, Turkey’s Islamic foundations and support groups who have Western ties. (e.g. like Gulen Movement’s supporters). A wide variety of soft targets may be included to this list; such as tourists and touristic places, restaurants and cafes with US franchising trademarks like Starbucks, Burger King or Mac Donald, public transportation, water, electric distribution facilities, etc.
Turkish media and police records in the vicinity of recent events indicate that the Front is expected to increase their safe house restructuring activities in Turkish metropols -like Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Kocaeli, Antalya and some other cities in Turkey’s Southeast, like Mersin, Hatay, Gaziantep, Maras -with improvements like multiple steel-door emplacements in their safe houses, building complicated explosive mechanisms and booby traps, with the intention to make any police operations hard and costly. Since the safe houses are used to provide short/long term refuge and safety for militants before and after their activities, it is also logical to presume that each safe house location might as well indicate a location for the group’s assault attempt. And this brings Turkish intelligence to the assumption that the cities stated above, might witness DHKP-C assaults in a close future.
The Front may also be expected to show more profile in political opposition arena, cooperating with other marginal leftist groups in Europe. They also may seek for a common ground to develop a mutual agreement with PKK, putting aside their long term political disagreements, but cooperate, at least in opposing and condemning the AKP Government. Such cooperation may include intelligence gathering and sharing about critical targets and organizing social protests against AKP policies, to be demonstrated by large crowds.

By Coskun Unal
Published by TRAC on February 2013

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