POLITICS-TURKEY: Hizbollah Access to State Arms Suspected

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Nadire Mater

ISTANBUL, Feb 17 2000 (IPS) - Suspicions of weapon transfers made to the Islamist Hizbollah group, allegedly by security units, continues to grow as state property is located at the organisation’s southeast hide-outs.

Hand-grenades, AK-47 assault rifles, RPG-7 rocket launchers and rounds of ammunition, were reportedly recovered from a Hizbollah shelter in the southeast Gaziantep countryside last week.

This has given strength to suspicions voiced earlier by journalists and politicians that the Turkish security may have tolerated and supported Hizbollah’s alleged violence as part of ‘covert operations’ against Kurdish rebels.

Suspicions have been further heightened by the large numbers of weapons reported to be missing from the local Batman military arsenal.

Prime Minister, Bulent Ecevit, has expressed concern at the disappearance of hundreds of assault rifles, hand grenades and launchers.

“I am deeply worried that these weapons may have been leaked to the Hizbollah. I have appointed special investigators to the case. All will be clarified soon,” he told journalists.

Former governor of Batman Province, Salih Sarman, has said there is a definite possibility that “the weapons that were imported for a special 1,000 strong mixed counter-insurgency battallion of elite village guards and police may have been transferred to the Hizbollah, as well as to the PKK (Kurdish Worker Party).”

Sarman is facing charges of having tolerated Hizbollah in order to counter balance PKK activity in the area during 1994-96.

Around 70 000 pro-government local Kurdish tribesmen were reportedly recruited as members of the paramilitary since the beginning of ’emergency-case-rule’ in 1987.

Forced to choose between joining the village guards or leaving their villages, many locals opted to join the village guard system.

Armed and paid by the government, the village guards salaries have provided a major resource for this most impoverished part of the country.

Batman is known as the Hizbollah’s major power-base, and the scene of hundreds of extra-judicial executions of PKK sympathisers by the organisation throughout the bloody conflict.

The recovery of the ammunition is further complicated by the fact that governors are not granted the right, by law, to import arms.

However those government officials who could authorise such importations, such as former ministers of defence and interior, the head of the National Intelligence Organisation (MIT) and the governor of the emergency case area, have publicly denied any involvement.

Sarman has also been accused of by-passing relevant customs procedures and importing arms and ammunition valued at over 560 000 US Dollars.

He is also being taken to task for going against regulations and allowing the formation of a ‘special mixed battallion’ of village guards and special police teams.

However the former governor says he was forced to do this since there was a ‘lack of sufficient regular military deployment’ in the area which, he says, faced ‘massive PKK threat’.

In his defence Sarman claims that he had sought the permission of former prime minister Tansu Ciller, who has also been accused of creating her own special intelligence group of Turkish security. “We placed the special battallion under the local gendarme command and all was arranged with the permission and knowledge of local and central authorities”.

“We imported weapons, valued at approximately 2,7 million US Dollars from China, Bulgaria and the US, on 16 different occasions,” Sarman says. The list includes over 1,000 AK-47 assault rifles, hundreds of bomb launchers, RPG-7 rocket launchers and rockets, millions of rounds of ammunition, and other equipment.

Ciller has said she “assumes the responsibility of having lent all necessary support to local counter insurgency efforts.

“However, I was not interested in specific arrangements. This was conducted according to the relevant procedures. My officials saw to that,” she says.

However, according to government documents the funds allocated to the ‘special battallion’ were drawn from the ‘public housing budget’ under the pretext of ‘cottage building for the village- guards’.

Sarman says; “When the government stepped down, the special support we had from Tansu Ciller vanished, and we disbanded the battallion and delivered the weapons to local gendarme command and other regular units.”

But special “Batman Battallion” recruits claim they are still on duty. “We are called the ‘secret battallion of the state’,” a village guard interviewed by CNN Turk, who spoke on condition of anonymity said.

“And we are still on duty. We are patrolling the countryside. We were specially selected and underwent special commando training during military service…,” he told the CNN reporter.

However he denied that the battalion may have delivered weapons to Hizbollah. “It is absolutely out of question.”

However President Suleyman Demirel’s recent statement that in order to combat terrorism ‘you have to divert from the routine for the sake of the state’s supreme interests,’ has unleashed an angry response from critics, including junior coalition ANAP (Motherland Party) leader, Mesut Yilmaz.

“The state cannot act like an irregular army. All units of state are bound to act within law and they are obliged to comply with the laws,” Yilmaz said.

“Even emergency-case measures themselves are bound by strict laws,” he added.

Political analyst Ismet Berkan of daily ‘Radikal’ is convinced that the alleged arms transfers to Hizbollah point to deep rooted corruption within the security forces.

He says those who have been implicated in the Hizbollah case were also implicated in a similar incident in 1997, publicly known as ‘Susurluk affair’.

In a car accident in 1997, on the northwest Susurluk highway, a man, later referred to as an alleged assassin, and a top security official were killed while a village guard tribe-chief, a deputy from Tansu Cilller’s True Path Party (DYP) was injured.

All were reportedly carrying authentic documents and licenses to carry arms signed by then Interior Minister Mehmet Agar.

Subsequent investigations revealed that the weapons they were carrying were missing from the security arsenal. Ironically the weapons were on record as having been imported for the ‘Batman Battallion’.

The prosecution case against Agar was, however, suspended in April last year when he regained parliamentary immunity after being elected the independent deputy from the Elazig province.

“I have no doubt that a significant part of Hizbollah arsenal was once state-property. Both Hizbollah and the PKK have gained control on the village-guard’s weapons and directed these at the state.

“What is amazing is that noone has yet been held accountable and seriously prosecuted for what is going on. In fact I am sure that the former governor will also only receive a minor administrative punishment and will be allowed to continue in office,” he added.