TURKEY: VIOLENT CLASHES CAST SHADOWS OF PAST COUPS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 ANKARA 000672

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/08/2018
TAGS: PGOV PREL TU
SUBJECT: TURKEY: VIOLENT CLASHES CAST SHADOWS OF PAST COUPS


Classified By: Political Counselor Janice G. Weiner, for Reasons 1.4 (b
,d)


1. (C) SUMMARY AND COMMENT. Violent clashes at universities
around Turkey over the last several weeks, while small in
scale, are being widely identified as deliberate provocations
to polarize and destabilize the country. In the back of
everyone's mind is clashes as prelude to a possible coup. If
true, it is a dangerous game with which Turkey has
bitter experience: the violence that bloodied the country in
the lead-up to the 1980 military coup was later understood to
have been at least partially provoked to bring Turkey to the
point of welcoming military-imposed order. Current clashes,
if indeed provoked, lend credibility to the claim of some
contacts that those who see the Republic as under threat from
Islamists have taken off the gloves, disregarding possible
consequences. Whether along ideological,
religious, or ethnic lines, polarization serves those who
look for a return to less democratic, but more traditionally
Turkish, governance. Most of Turkey's youth is too young to
remember the lead-up to 1980 and thus potentially more
susceptible. On a positive note, a wide range of observers
see the recent violence in this light and condemn it. END
SUMMARY AND COMMENT.


2. (SBU) A series of clashes at universities and a handful of
other violent incidents are raising the specter of the
widespread social violence that preceded the 1980 coup. The
clash at Antalya's Akdeniz University over the weekend of
April 5-6 is making headlines as it turns out that the two
gun-wielding participants were not in fact university
students. One of them, 34-year old Omer Ulusoy, had already
been detained by the police five times. Ulusoy, who sports a
sword tattoo across his forehead (said to be the sword of the
prophet Ali),was a prominent participant in Antalya's Ulku
Ocaklari (Nationalist Hearths) Youth Festival. Three
students were stabbed, 18 injured, and 40 people taken into
custody. "Hurriyet" daily writes that the tension at Akdeniz
has been building for several weeks between "leftist ethnic
view" (read Kurdish) and right-wing students. The paper
quotes an anonymous student as saying that when the leftists
burned a Turkish flag in the dorm, students brought in
weapons, broke dorm windows, and harassed female students.
"Then right-wing people from outside came, and incidents got
bigger."


3. (SBU) Nationalist Action Party (MHP) leader Devlet
Bahceli, reportedly angered by reports about links between
the Akdeniz perpetrators and MHP/idealist youth, instructed
party officials to investigate allegations that gunman Ulusoy
and his 19-year old colleague -- whom he termed provocateurs
-- are members of the Nationalist Hearths, which functions
unofficially as an MHP youth branch. MHP deputy group
chairman Oktay Vural said that the Akdeniz incident "smells
of provocation" and said trying to link it to MHP is unfair.
Vural confirmed that after the incident, MHP sacked the
leadership of the Antalya provincial party organization,
which Ulusoy reportedly frequented.


4. (SBU) After the Akdeniz incident, the Security
Directorate General decided to increase police presence
outside the campuses of Ankara, Diyarbakir's Dicle, Izmir's
September 9, Marmara, and Istanbul Universities through the
end of the semester. Media reports of clashes and the
motives behind them may be more easily manipulated than the
clashes themselves, and such reports should be read with
caution. Some of the incidents around the country, as
reported in media and human rights websites, include:

February 26 - Ankara
Two television reporters were attacked by ultranationalist
students with knives while trying to report on the headscarf
issue at Gazi University.

February 29 - Giresun
After a vocational student was beaten by three
ultranationalists, a Kurdish student complained that the
university remained indifferent to harassment of leftist
students.


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March 8 - Ankara
Clashes between two different leftist student groups resulted
in more than 30 injuries at Ankara University's Education
Faculty.

March 10 - Bursa
Right-wing students attacked leftist students at Uludag
University. The following day, Jandarma prevented 250 people
from protesting the attack and detained 64. Twelve students
were injured in the would-be protest.

March 11 - Adana
Fifteen non-students entered Cukurova University campus and
attacked a small group of leftist students with iron bars.

March 25 - Ankara
Leftist students were attacked with knives at Ankara
University's Faculty of Letters, History, and Geography; some
were seriously injured. One report contends that clashes
began after a leftist student harassed the girlfriend of a
right-wing student. Private security prevented students from
holding a press conference to protest the attacks.

April 2 - Istanbul
Left-wing students organizing a commemoration of 1970s
communist Mahir Cayan clashed with right-wing students at
Istanbul University's Faculty of Literature. Twenty-six
students were taken into custody.


5. (U) Clashes have also taken place at universities in
Mugla, Afyonkarahisar, and Karabuk. Other unusual violent
incidents that may or may not be related include: a
hand-grenade thrown by a 10-year old in Istanbul on April 6;
an April 7 attack in a Tarsus cafe that killed 5.

Reactions
--------------

6. (SBU) The cabinet reportedly discussed the violence April

7. Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Cicek described the incidents
as provocations and reminded that such incidents had happened
in the past. Akdeniz University rector and Inter-University
Board Chairman Mustafa Akaydin expressed concern that the
pre-1980 period may emerge on campuses and said, "For weeks,
such incidents are happening at universities." He noted that
Akdeniz was selected as a target and that the incidents were
provoked from outside. The Human Rights Association (HRA)
issued a statement on April 7, referring to numerous violent
incidents and objecting to what it characterized as
discriminatory treatment of leftist and Kurdish-origin
students. It alleged that students known as "nationalists"
or "idealists" were protected and provoked against other
youngsters.


7. (SBU) Some hold AKP responsible. Egitim-Sen leftist
teachers' union president Alaaddin Dincer claimed that
discussions about the headscarf and a new constitution pulled
campuses into politics. He added that such incidents cannot
be portrayed as simple left-right clashes. Middle East
Technical University rector Akbulut called on the GOT to
relax the atmosphere.


8. (SBU) Observers agree that polarization and
destabilization are the goals of campus provocateurs. A few
connect this violence, which disproportionately involves
minors, to the clawings of the cornered Ergenekon
organization, the alleged aim of which is to destabilize the
country and facilitate a coup. Hasan Cemal of "Milliyet"
described the Akdeniz incident as a trap laid for democracy
and stability. He assessed the aim is to divide the youth
into left-right, Islamist-secularist, idealist-revolutionary,
Alevi-Sunni, and Turk-Kurd to pave the path for a coup.
Gungor Mengi of "Vatan" describes the Akdeniz event as a plot
designed to terrorize; he urged students, judges,
administrators and security forces to cooperate against
disruption. Taha Akyol of "Milliyet" pointed out that
alleged nationalist youth involvement runs counter to MHP's
general strategy and asked everyone on the right and left to
isolate provocateurs. Prominent activist Sanar Yurdatapan
observed, "What is pleasing today is that a majority of
society is making this very analysis, that there are

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provocations behind such a conflict."

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