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Revision as of 01:54, 9 January 2007

This article refers to the Turkish political group. For the animal see Gray Wolf; for the death industrial music group see The Grey Wolves.

Grey Wolves (Bozkurtlar in Turkish) is the youth organization of the Turkish Nationalist Movement Party ("Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi", MHP), an ultra-nationalist movement founded by Alparslan Türkeş in 1969. They are named after a legendary wolf that led captive Turks to freedom. Their formal name in Turkish is ülkücüler (the Idealists) and Ülkücü Hareket (The Idealist Movement), inspired from Italian fascist Giovanni Gentile's "Actual Idealism" theory as a pseudo-philosophical reference. Ülkü Ocakları (Forges of Ideal), the proper platform of Grey Wolves, denies any "direct" links with MHP and presents itself as an independent youth organisation. Their female supporters are called Asena and Grey Wolves of Kurdish stock are designated sarcastically as Bozkürtler, literally "Grey Kurds," punning on the Turkish name of the movement. When loudly acclaimed while visiting an İstanbul synagogue in 1992, Alparslan Türkeş referred to the gatherers, with some humor, as the "Grey Wolves of Moses".

History

Foundation and ideology

The Grey Wolves were founded as the youth organization of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) created by Alparslan Türkeş in 1969. A significant pillar of the MHP's ideology is the dream of creating the Turan, the "Great Turkish Empire", including all Turkish (sometimes referred as Turkic) peoples mainly in the successor Central-Asian countries of the former Soviet Union as well as China (the Uyghurs of East Turkestan).The concept of Turan is similar to racist and expansionist concepts of an Aryan empire proposed by the Nazi regime. Alparslan Türkeş, the founder of the Grey Wolves is known to be an admirer of Adolf Hitler.

Role in 1980 military coup

At the time of the military coup of September 12, 1980, led by general Kenan Evren (who was also the leader of Counter-Guerrilla) they were some 1,700 Grey Wolves organizations, with about 200,000 registered members and a million sympathisers. However, after being useful for Kenan Evren's strategy of tension, the leader of the Counter-Guerrilla turned president outlawed the MHP and the Grey Wolves. Colonel Türkeş and other Grey Wolves were arrested. In its indictment of the MHP in May 1981, the Turkish military government charged 220 members of the MHP and its affiliates for 694 murders, according to Edward Herman and Frank Brodhead in The Rise and Fall of the Bulgarian Connection. However, Grey Wolves emprisonned members were offered release if they accepted to fight the Kurdish minority and the PKK, as well as the ASALA ("Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia"), which carried out 110 attacks in 38 cities of 21 countries. 39 of these were armed attacks, 70 of them bomb attacks and one was an occupation. 42 Turkish diplomats and 4 foreign nationals were assassinated in these attacks, while 15 Turks and 66 foreign nationals were wounded.

The Grey Wolves then lost many of its core cadres to the neo-liberal Motherland Party or various vestiges of the Islamist movement. In 1983, the Nationalist Task Party ("Milliyetçi Çalışma Partisi", MÇP) was founded as a successor to the MHP; as of 1992 it is again known as the MHP.

Role in Kurdish affairs

The MHP is strongly opposed to Kurdish separatists, namely the PKK, although they nevertheless do have some Kurdish supporters. The paramilitary wing of the Grey Wolves have been utilized by the Turkish intelligence services to assassinate Kurdish leaders. With Counter-Guerrilla, the Grey Wolves went to fight Kurds, and have been accused of killing and torturing thousands in the 1980s, and also carrying false flag attacks in which the Counter-Guerrilla attacked villages, dressed up as PKK fighters, and raped and executed people randomly (Ganser, 2005). The fact that Counter-Guerrilla had engaged in torture was confirmed by Talat Turhan, a former Turkish colonel. In addition, they carried out operations to assassinate the leader squad of ASALA, in which they have succeeded.

Activities to date

On a global scale, the Grey Wolves are suspected to have been responsible for numerous political assassinations and disappearances of Turkish and Kurdish human rights activists, and are known to have ties with the Turkish mafia. The Grey Wolves have also raised funds for Chechen separatists, who they consider their Turkish brothers.

In 2004, the Grey Wolves successfully prevented the screening of Atom Egoyan's Ararat, a film about the Armenian Genocide.

Links to intelligence and organised crime

Numerous sources show that the MHP and the Grey Wolves had ties to the Turkish mafia, to the Turkish intelligence services as well as to the CIA and other intelligence agencies. Emin Değer, former military public attorney and member of the Turkish Supreme Court, has established that the Grey Wolves' collaborated with the counter-insurgency governmental forces, as well as the close ties between these state security forces and the CIA Indeed, Martin A. Lee also wrote that the para-military wing of the Grey Wolves were covertly supported by the CIA, which worked with the Gladio network, while a December 5, 1990 article by the Swiss Neue Zürcher Zeitung stated that the Counter-Guerrilla had their headquarters in the building of the US DIA military secret service. Le Monde diplomatique wrote that "the CIA used proponents of the Greater Turkey to stir up anti-sovietic passions at the heart of Turkish Muslim minorities in the Soviet Union". Thus, in 1992, colonel Türkes went to newly-independent Azerbaijan, where he was acclaimed as a hero. He supported Grey Wolves sympathiser Abülfaz Elçibay's candidacy to the presidency. Once elected, Elçibay chose as ministry of Interior İsgandar Hamidov, a member of the Grey Wolves who plead for the creation of a Greater Turkey which would include northern Iran and extend itself to Siberia, India and China. Hamidov resigned in April 1993 after having threatened Armenia with a nuclear strike.

According to Daniele Ganser, a researcher at the ETH Zürich University, the founder of the Grey Wolves, Alparslan Türkeş was a member of Counter-Guerrilla, the Turkish branch of Gladio, a stay-behind NATO anticommunist paramilitary organization which was supposed to prepare networks for guerilla warfare in case of a Soviet invasion. Le Monde diplomatique confirms that the Grey Wolves were infiltrated and manipulated by Gladio, and that important Grey Wolves member Abdullah Çatlı had worked with Gladio. According to the same article, Abdullah Çatlı met with Italian international terrorist Stefano Delle Chiaie, who, apart of taking part in Italy' strategy of tension, also maintained links with Pinochet's DINA and participated in the Argentinian dirty war. However, in Italy, Greece, and Turkey, Gladio supported a strategy of tension (strategia della tensione in Italian) which used false flags terrorist attacks in order to discredit the communist movement.

Activities outside Turkey

Alparslan Türkeş visited Azerbajan in 1992 and rallied Azerbajanis . The Grey Wolves have many supporters within the Azeri government .The Grey Wolves are believed to have provided support to Azerbajani forces to suppress the separatist Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh. This led to several massacres of Armenian civilians

The Grey Wolves went to Cyprus to support Turkish Cypriot protestors in 1996.The Grey Wolves were involved in setting arson fires in the Greek Cypriot properties and beating up Greek Cypriot protestors .

According to investigative reporter Lucy Komisar, the 1981 attempt on Pope's life by Grey Wolves member Mehmet Ali Ağca may have been related to Gladio. Ali Ağca would in this case have been manipulated by NATO's clandestine structure, in an attempt to fuel again Italy's strategy of tension, which last big event was the 1980 Bologna massacre. Komissar underlines the fact that Ali Ağca had worked with Abdullah Çatlı in the January 1, 1979 murder of Abdi İpekçi, the editor of left-wing newspaper Milliyet. "Çatlı then reportedly helped organize Ağca's escape from an Istanbul military prison, and some have suggested Catli was even involved in the Pope's assassination attempt" reports Lucy Komisar, adding that at the scene of the Mercedes-Benz crash where Çatlı died, he was found with a passport under the name of "Mehmet Özbay" - an alias also used by Mehmet Ali Ağca.

Some significant slogans

  • Tanrı Türk'ü Korusun ve Yüceltsin! (God save and sublime the Turk!)
  • Şehitler Ölmez, Vatan Bölünmez! (Martyrs don't die, Undividable Fatherland!)
  • Ülkücü Hareket Engellenemez! (The idealist movement can't be hampered!)
  • Alparslan Türkeş'in askerleriyiz! (We are the soldiers of Alparslan Türkeş!)
  • Dökülen kan, alınan can bizim / Yıkılsın liberal kapitalizm! (The blood spilled and the lives taken are ours / May liberal capitalism collapse!)
  • Elimizde Kur'an, Hedef Turan! (Qur'an in our hands, our target is Turan!)
  • Çakal çakaldır, bozkurt olamaz ki! (Jackal is a jackal, and can never be a greywolf.)
  • Her Türk asker doğar ama komando doğmaz! (Every Turk is born as a soldier, but not as a commando.)
  • Ulutürk! (The noble Turk!)
  • Kurtköy Ovası, ülkücüler yuvası! (Plain of Wolfsville, land of the greywolves!)

References

  1. " Update to the UNHCR CDR Background Paper on Refugees and Asylum Seekers from Turkey" - UNHCR
  2. Template:Tr icon www.yeniaktuel.com.tr
  3. Template:Tr icon www.hurriyetim.com.tr
  4. ^ Martin A. Lee (1999). The Beast Reawakens: Fascism's resurgence from Hitler's Spymasters to Today's Neo-Nazi Groups and Right Wing Extremists. Routledge. 0415925460.
  5. "http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/countries/turkey/turanian.html". {{cite web}}: External link in |title= (help)
  6. "On the Trail of Turkey's Terrorist Grey Wolves", Martin A. Lee, in Consortium News, 1997
  7. ^ Daniele Ganser (2005). NATO's Secret Armies, Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe. London: Franck Cass. 0714685003.
  8. (New York, 1986, quoted by Ganser)
  9. (see interview of Grey Wolves member İbrahim Çiftçi with Milliyet on October 13, 1996, quoted by Ganser)
  10. "Turkish Dirty War Revealed, but Papal Shooting Still Obscured", Martin A. Lee, in Los Angeles Times, April 12, 1998
  11. "http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2000/russia/story/chechnya/istanbul.connection/". {{cite web}}: External link in |title= (help)
  12. "Egoyan award winning film not shown yet in Turkey". Toronto Star. Retrieved May 6, 2006.
  13. Gray Wolves Spoil Turkey's Publicity Ploy on Ararat
  14. Template:Tr icon Ülkü Ocaklari: Ararat Yayinlanamaz
  15. Template:Tr icon Ülkü Ocaklari: ARARAT'I Cesaretiniz Varsa Yayinlayin !
  16. ^ Template:Fr icon "Les liaisons dangereuses de la police turque", in Le Monde diplomatique, March 1997
  17. The Double Standard: The Turkish State and Racist Violence (Chapter 13) in Racism in Europe (edited by Tore Bjorgo) (ISBN 0-312-12409-0)
  18. Maksudyan, N. The Turkish Review of Anthropology and the Racist Face of Turkish Nationalism, in Cultural Dynamics, 2005, Volume 17, Issue 3, pgs 291-322.
  19. Chronology of Gladio events, at the ISN institute] hosted by ETH Zürich
  20. Template:En icon/Template:Fr icon ""Turkey's pivotal role in the international drug trade"". Le Monde Diplomatique. 1998 July. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  21. Official documents on ISN (hosted by ETH Zürich) concerning Gladio, including SIFAR (Italian military service) report on Gladio, extracts of former CIA director William Colby's memoirs, Italian prime minister Giulio Andreotti's public revelation to the Senate of the existence of Gladio in October 1990, Parliamentary investigation into the Swiss Defense Ministry, 1995 Italian parliamentary report on Terrorism, etc
  22. Secret Warfare: Operation Gladio and NATO's Stay-Behind Armies ETH Zürich research project on Gladio directed by Dr. Daniele Ganser. Many documents available in various languages, including Turkish articles; audio interviews of Ganser; Ganser's June 2005 article in The Whitehead Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations; Der Spiegel article, etc.
  23. Lucy Komisar. "The Assassins of a Pope". Retrieved 07/04/2006. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)

External links

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