Security Forces Allegedly Involved in
Turkish Criminal Gang

YUKSEKOVA, Turkey -- This bleak, gritty town near the Iranian 
border sits deep in Turkey's southeastern guerrilla war zone, a 
harshly beautiful mountain region that has been battered by 12 years 
of armed conflict between government forces and Kurdish 
separatists. 

Like many other towns in Turkey's southeast, Yuksekova is full of 
former villagers who have come here after losing their homes and 
livelihood, if not their loved ones, to the war. More than 21,000 
people have been killed in the government's campaign against the 
Marxist Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), a conflict that is costing 
Ankara billions of dollars and has come to affect every area of 
Turkish policy, from economics to foreign relations.

And just like throughout this region, there are people here who have 
personal nightmares, stories of killings, torture, kidnappings and 
other crimes against them or their families that have left them 
tense and untrusting. Both sides in the war have committed human 
rights abuses against the civilian population, rights groups say, 
although the state has denied allegations of security force 
excesses.

But here in Yuksekova, authorities recently uncovered a gang that 
includes several members of security force special 
counterinsurgency teams and village guard contingents who have 
been arrested on charges of involvement in a kidnapping-extortion 
case. And, in a highly unusual development, a group of lawmakers, 
including a prominent former cabinet minister, is demanding a 
government investigation to "reveal the true extent of the 
involvement of the security forces" in the gang, which the 
lawmakers say was involved in extrajudicial killings, extortion and 
drug trafficking.

Two reports by the lawmakers, citing eyewitness testimony, point 
to the involvement of an armed forces officer in the gang.

No charges have been filed against the officer named in the report, 
Maj. Mehmet Emin Yurdakul, who has been transferred to a foreign 
assignment, according to his former brigade commander. The 
lawmakers' report quotes Yurdakul's commander as describing him as 
a "very successful" soldier and denying any allegations of 
wrongdoing involving the major.

But Ercan Karakas, a former culture minister and one of the authors 
of the report, alleges a coverup in the Yuksekova gang case to 
protect any high-ranking officers who may have been involved. 
"Clearly the military must be involved in some way" in the gang, 
Karakas said recently in his office at the National Assembly.

Such allegations against the security forces by members of the 
assembly are extremely rare, given the privilege and power of the 
Turkish armed forces, considered by many to be the country's most 
respected institution. Others who have made similar allegations, 
including rights groups and journalists, have been accused by state 
officials of spreading PKK propaganda and often have landed in 
jail.

The government largely has been supported by the Turkish public and 
the mainstream press in its military campaign against the PKK, 
which began fighting for an independent Kurdish state in 1984. The 
United States also has supported Turkey against PKK acts of 
terrorism, though it has been critical of human rights abuses 
committed by the government.

But as the war drags on, the state no longer appears as immune from 
domestic criticism of its anti-PKK fight as it once was.

Karakas, a member of the opposition Republican People's Party who 
said he has been approached by private citizens who want the war 
stopped, claims a "war lobby" is now in place in Turkey "which is 
firmly opposed to ending the conflict in the southeast, because a lot 
of people are making a lot of money from it."

Many of the alleged human rights abuses by the security forces in 
the southeast, including in the Yuksekova gang case, are blamed on 
the special counterinsurgency teams and local Kurdish village guards 
enlisted by the government to fill the particular needs of a guerrilla 
war. A large number of special team members and village guards 
have criminal records, according to Karakas.

In the botched kidnapping case that uncovered the Yuksekova gang, a 
phone call by the kidnappers, who had passed themselves off as 
members of the PKK, was traced to the headquarters of a local 
special team, according to the report.

The village guard system, in particular, has been criticized heavily 
by rights groups for putting villagers in a dilemma: either to join the 
guards and risk being killed by the PKK, who frequently target 
village guards and their families, or to refuse to join and risk 
reprisals by security forces.

For many villagers in the southeast, according to reports by rights 
groups and others, problems begin when security forces enter their 
village and give the men an ultimatum: Become village guards or we 
will evacuate and/or destroy your village.

That is what happened to Abdullah Canan, a wealthy businessman 
from a village near Yuksekova, according to the lawmakers' report. 

Canan had filed suit against members of the security forces who had 
destroyed several homes in his village after the men there refused 
to become village guards, according to the report and accounts given 
by his relatives.

According to the lawmakers' report, Canan was warned by Maj. 
Yurdakul to drop his complaint against the security forces. When 
Canan failed to do so, he disappeared. His mutilated body was found a 
month later.

"What bothers me most was the signs of torture on his body," Canan's 
son, Vahap, said recently in Yuksekova.

"They had carved pieces off his face and ears. Bits of his fingers 
were burned away by electric shocks. They had slit his throat and 
stuck his identity card inside," he said. "A very professional job.

The lawmakers' report accuses the Yuksekova "gang in uniform" of 
Canan's death and calls for the National Assembly to investigate 
similar extrajudicial killings in the southeast, of which there have 
been hundreds, according to rights groups.