Today's Zaman
Numerous military documents prove JİTEM’s existence
An official report from 1993 prepared by a gendarmerie major, published yesterday in the Star daily, makes a clear reference to JİTEM -- an illegal intelligence unit inside the gendarmerie whose existence has been denied so far by the General Staff despite a growing body of evidence on its presence and its activities -- in what is yet another proof of JİTEM’s existence and evidence that JİTEM is far from secret when it comes to intra-military correspondence.
The report, prepared by Maj. Cafer Balçık, says, “JİTEM was set up in September 1987 under the Gendarmerie General Command [JGK].” The report noted that when squads under JİTEM were successful in various operations, their number was increased. “When JİTEM squads were successful, in 1990 the organization was structured into eight groups which all divided further into 24 squads,” according to the major’s report.
JİTEM is also thought to be an instrumental arm of the terrorist Ergenekon organization, which is charged with plotting against the government.
In late December 2009, the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) made a claim that there is no unit called “JİTEM” under the General Staff. The statement, sent to the Diyarbakır 3rd High Criminal Court, came in response to the court’s questions regarding JİTEM in reference to allegations about the existence of a death unit -- called JİTEM -- established within the gendarmerie to crush separatist terrorism.
Star also published scanned pages from Balçık’s report, dated Nov. 11, 1993. The report said JİTEM’s zone of activity was initially established as Batman, Siirt, Şırnak and Mardin. When JİTEM was expanded, this zone also expanded. On July 18, 1991 according to the report, the gendarmerie was restructured to accommodate JİTEM.
The daily also published a picture from what it said was a joint operation of JİTEM with the customs police, showing that the organization actually collaborated with other security agencies. In this picture, bullets seized during this operation spell out JİTEM in front of a mixed group of police and gendarmerie officers.
JİTEM is believed to be behind the disappearance of countless Kurds in the Kurdish-dominated Southeast in the mid-to-late ’90s. The court asked the General Staff whether or not there is a unit called JİTEM; if there is, when it was established; whether or not it is currently functioning; and whether or not the people named in the indictment in question are members of it.
Signed by Judge Orhan Önder of Criminal Legal Affairs on behalf of the General Staff, the response stated that “there is no unit called JİTEM formed under the General Staff.”
The General Staff has denied the existence of JİTEM before. In another statement in February 2009, the General Staff had said that there was no truth to news stories regarding the testimony of İbrahim Şahin, the former deputy chief of the National Police Department’s Special Operations Unit, who said he was ordered by a general to assemble members of the Special Operations Unit into death squads to assassinate community leaders.
Şahin had claimed in his testimony that Chief of General Staff Gen. İlker Başbuğ had ordered an assassination squad of 150 to 300 people to be established. Şahin was convicted earlier in a similar investigation into a gang exposed in 1996 when a police chief and an internationally sought mafia boss died in the same vehicle in a car accident near Susurluk.
In a report prepared by the Prime Ministry on the Susurluk affair, Kutlu Savaş, the author of the report, had written that JİTEM was under the control of the Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia Security Army Corps.
JİTEM is also thought to be an instrumental arm of the illegal organization called Ergenekon, which is charged with plotting against the government.
Abdülkadir Aygan, a former member of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and later a member of JİTEM, gave spine-chilling details about crimes committed by gendarmerie officers who worked for JİTEM. Aygan, who has been living in Stockholm in fear of his life since confessing, had said JİTEM members were given their own guns and were hired as civil servants under Turkey’s Public Servants Law No. 657, with paycheck documents, tax cuts, benefits and the right to a state pension. He had also said the person who recruited him was Col. Arif Doğan, currently in jail as an Ergenekon suspect.
Meanwhile, former JGK head retired Gen. Necati Özgen said recently in a television interview: “The people they call JİTEM are also military officers. They are our own people.” His remarks on journalist Can Dündar’s program have been interpreted as an admission of JİTEM’s existence.
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