Ergenekon: Berlin-based think tank releases Operation Cage plan in English translation

by Lou Ann Matossian

Published: Wednesday December 16, 2009 in Dateline Democracy: News and views from today’s Turkey

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Minneapolis - Like Watergate and The Gulag Archipelago, the Ergenekon investigation challenges "a culture of impunity for crimes committed by the state," says the Berlin-based European Stability Initiative (ESI) in a news analysis. "Recent weeks have seen the Turkish veil of secrecy drawn aside in a spectacular manner."

Ergenekon is the name of an alleged ultranationalist conspirators aiming to overthrow Turkey's Islamist-leaning government.

Until recently, only Turkish-speakers were able to read the Operation Cage Action Plan in horrifying detail. Now, however, an English translation available at esiweb.org confirms that the four-stage operation was intended to distract the public from the Ergenekon investigation by terrorizing "non-Muslims" in Turkey.

The stated aim of Operation Cage was "to increase both local and foreign pressure on the AKP Government, to keep the public pre-occupied and to change the agenda, particularly in the Ergenekon case, by questioning the safety of non-Muslims' life and property." ESI notes that the largest community among the 125,000 "non-Muslims" is the Armenian community of some 60,000 people.

In the preparatory stage, members of the "non-Muslim" population would be identified through subscription lists, organizational membership rosters, and the names of students, parents, and employees of "non-Muslim" schools. Also to be determined were the dates and locations of religious festivals and holidays where the targeted community would be likely to gather. "Non-Muslim" cemeteries "which would be suitable for operations" would be located.

In the "fear creation stage," Agos subscriber lists would be posted on the Internet, particularly at hostile sites, and left out in the open at the Princes Islands, an Armenian-inhabited area of Istanbul. Subscribers and residents would be threatened in phone calls, letters, and graffiti slogans.

Next, "black propaganda" would mobilize public opinion against the "insensitive attitude" of the AK Party. The subscriber lists would be planted in press reports, ensuring further publicity. Indignant newspaper columns would be commissioned about the issue. False-flag Web sites would be set up, purportedly to defend Agos and minority rights.

In the final "operation stage," bombings would target Agos and the Princes Islands while the police were being distracted with bomb scares. Leading defenders of minority rights would be assassinated. "Non-Muslim" celebrities would be kidnapped. "Sensational operations" would attack "non-Muslim" cemeteries. "In regions with a dense non-Muslim population, vehicles, houses and workplaces will be set on fire at close intervals," the plan states. Similar actions would target other provinces with a high population of "non-Muslims," such as Istanbul and Izmir.

"Responsibility for sabotage, kidnapping and assassination operations will be claimed by reactionary organizations," according to the plan.

Senior Naval Forces Admiral Feyyaz Ögütçü, who organized secret meeting places for the generals who were plotting the Ergenekon coup d'état, is listed as the "president" of Operation Cage. Also named in the plan are 40 naval officers organized into Marmara, Aegean, Black Sea, and Special Operations commands.

The action plan concludes with a list of weapons, munitions, and materials, such as sniper rifles, handguns, machine guns, bombs, and related equipment. Colonel Ercan Kireçtepe, whose signature appears on the Cage plan, was arrested in April during an investigation into a hidden arms cache in Istanbul's Poyrazköy district.

ESI reports that an electronic copy of the Cage Operation Action Plan was seized in the April raid and a signed copy in June during the arrests of Turkish military officers suspected of involvement in Ergenekon. The Turkish General Staff at first dismissed the documents as fakes, but in October, a whistleblower within the General Staff sent the original signed copy to a Turkish prosecutor, along with further details on the individuals involved. Taraf published the plan on Nov. 19.