by Mavi Zambak

Accusations against the PKK followed a little too quickly and the terrorist group vehemently denies involvement. The attack comes after a spate of violence which seems bent on derailing the reform process which the country is struggling to implement.

Ankara (AsiaNews) - Gunes Akkus, a twenty eight year old from Sivas, with a criminal record for involvement in clashes with police in Istanbul dating to May 1996.  A militant member of the illegal Turkish communist revolutionary party (TIKB). His family believed him resident in Holland these last nine years since his relapse from prison.  This is the suicide bomber who blew himself up on Tuesday evening in the grand bazaar in the commercial heart of Ankara’s historic centre.

A short distance away from this five story building the defence industries annual International Expo is underway.  On the very evening of the explosion, numerous top ranking foreign military officials were to have taken part in an inaugurating cocktail party.

A violent explosion, shattered windows, six dead and hundreds injured, followed by the immediate intervention of the Chief of Staff Yasar Buyukanit who, with one glance at the devastation announces that it was a professional job, provoked by a sophisticated devise with high explosive potential.  A few hours later the bomb squad announce the discovery of traces of A-4 plastic explosive, commonly used by PKK terrorists, giving rise to the first instances of suspicion that the Kurdish Workers Party were also behind this latest violence.  The terrorist separatists headed by Ocalan – currently held in prison on an island in the Marmara sea – has killed over 30 thousand people in their campaign of violence which reaches back to 1984.

Yesterday, however, this party vehemently denied all involvement in the suicide attack which targeted ordinary citizens: a young man who was at the bazaar to buy his weeding suit, a nineteen year old who was taking a last wander around the centre before leaving for military service, a shop assistant who supported her family on her wage, the owner of a watch shop…..

 “We have no involvement in the Ankara attack”, stated the separatist group in a declaration published by the Firat (“Eufrate”) news agency.

Is there reason to doubt this?

Thus the question pends regarding the identity of the true authors of this vicious and cruel attack, which could have been truly ferocious had the target been, as many believe, the International Weapons Fair and had Gunes detonated his devise before he panicked at the sight off a policeman coming towards him.

Who provided the explosive, what motivated this young man to such an act, remains a mystery.  What is certain is that the Kurds remain as always the scapegoat.  And today the daily Gunes published right across its front page the title: “PKK, this is what you are” describing the daily existence of the explosions’ victims.

Unfortunately in this country violent methods are becoming more commonly used by all groups: the secular groups, the Islamic groups, the PKK, the “grey wolves” and the “Hezbollah”. A worrying symptom: despite efforts towards concrete democratic reform, violent methods have not stopped, they even seem to have taken on new forms to target and indeed impede this very process of reform (bombs against Istanbul’s synagogue in 2003, the murder of Christians, murder in court, murder of journalists and threats to free thinkers).  

In Turkey a social transformation is underway to modify the traditional relationships between army, state and society.  The institutional authority is in crises and there are sectors of society which are really losing their status and fear losing their power in a more competitive, emancipated, freer society, thus these sectors of society are trying to legitimatize their resistance to change by condemning the loss of the secular states and by grabbing on to conservative and authoritarian positions.

In recent weeks we have witnessed the military’s threats to intervene in the face of Turkey’s political crises.  Already in the past the danger of communism was used to legitimize armed intervention in Turkish society, there has long been opposition to the Kurdish separatist threat, despite the fact that the Kurds have repeatedly sought a platform for dialogue towards a peaceful solution to the complex “question”.

The question as to who the next victims would be has long abounded: and now we have the bitter answer, the nation’s secular sphere, the ordinary and defenceless.

An unsettling interrogative is now being raised: if as reported by Sabah newspaper, that threats of violence against tourist resorts, shopping centres and buses first reached the ears of authorities over two and a half months ago; if it is true that over the last two months police have sequestered over 200 kilogram’s of explosives in a series of raids on PKK; seeing that the bazaar is at such a close proximity to the international armaments fair, thus a risk area, why then was this attack not foreseen by security forces, as was the case in Adana were they claim to have stopped a 31 year old women carrying 11 kilos of explosives in her bag?

All attention is now focused on the Kurdish separatists, but is it not perhaps more opportune to turn our thoughts to the State within the State? To that labyrinth of connections between the security establishment, nationalists and the world of organized crime dedicated to destabilizing the nation in order to divide the government, military and people and thus smash the delicate equilibrium brought about under great strain by the process for democratic reform? To those who attempt to smash this with terrorist violence which can reach a foreign Catholic priest or the historic bastion of kemalist secularism, the daily “Cumhurriyet” (Repubblic) with equal ease; which can kill a high court judge for having confirmed a ban on the veil, explode a bomb among Kurdish pacifists or in the beating heart of the capital, or kill an Armenian journalist or protestant missionary? It is not by chance that these are events which raise tension levels and insinuate doubts regarding the governments ability to maintain the secular nature of the state, which seem to once again legitimize the (re) militarization of Turkish politics, in order to guarantee public security, without any attempts to try other more democratic avenues or broader horizons.

 

• Turkey
• Kurds
• political
• reform
• Military
• bomb
• terrorism