Counter-Guerrilla
The military accepts that the ÖKK is tasked with subverting a possible occupation, though it denies that the unit is Gladio's "Counter-Guerrilla", i.e., that it has engaged in black operations.
"[9] After the British government declared on 21 February 1947 its inability to provide financial aid (though she would establish the Central Treaty Organization a decade later), Turkey turned towards the United States, who drew up the Truman Doctrine, pledging to "support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures".
[12][13] In December 1947, United States National Security Council (NSC) Directive 4-A "secretly authorised the CIA to conduct these officially non-existent programs and to administer them" in such a way that "removed the U.S. Congress and public from any debate over whether to undertake psychological warfare abroad".
The OPC's charter unambiguously called for "propaganda, economic warfare; preventative direct action, including sabotage, anti-sabotage, demolition and evacuation measures; subversion against hostile states, including assistance to underground resistance movements, guerrillas and refugee liberations [sic] groups, and support of indigenous anti-communist elements in threatened countries of the free world."
In the words of career intelligence officer William Corson, "no holds were barred... all the guys on the top had said to put on the brass knuckles and go to work.
[2][21] Karabelen was one of sixteen soldiers (including Turgut Sunalp, Ahmet Yıldız, Alparslan Türkeş, Suphi Karaman, and Fikret Ateşdağlı) who had been sent to the United States in 1948 for training in special warfare.
[23] Some full generals that later ran the department were Adnan Doğu, Aydın İlter, Sabri Yirmibeşoğlu, İbrahim Türkgenci, Doğan Bayazıt, and Fevzi Türkeri.
[24] Books used to educate the officers included: Later, the generals formed the Turkish Resistance Organization to counter the Greek Cypriot EOKA.
[28] Operating under the authority of the Chief of the General Staff, the STK was quartered in the JUSMMAT (Turkish: Amerikan Askerî Yardım Heyeti) building in Bahçelievler, Ankara.
The CIA employed people from the far right, such as Pan-Turkist SS-member Ruzi Nazar (father of Sylvia Nasar),[17] to train the Grey Wolves (Turkish: Ülkücüler),[32] the youth wing of the MHP.
Nazar was an Uzbek born near Tashkent who had deserted the Red Army to join the Nazis during World War II in order to fight on the Eastern Front for the creation of a Turkistan.
Yamak left the meeting and expressed his concerns to the Chief of General Staff, Semih Sancar, and the agreement was subsequently annulled.
The commander of the Turkish army at the time, General Semih Sancar, informed him the U.S. had financed the unit as well as the National Intelligence Organization since the immediate post-war years.
[40] The ÖKK, whose 7000+ recruits are nicknamed the "Maroon Berets" (Turkish: Bordo Bereliler), combats terrorism and protects the chiefs of staff and the president on trips abroad.
[41] In 1993, the parliament formed a commission (Turkish: Faili Meçhul Cinayetleri Araştırma Komisyonu) to investigate the numerous unsolved murders believed to be perpetrated by the Counter-Guerrilla.
General Güreş contacted the Speaker of Parliament, Hüsamettin Cindoruk, to stop the investigation in order to prevent the outing of his men.
[42] Meanwhile, State Security Court prosecutor Nusret Demiral ordered the police force not to co-operate with the parliamentary commission in solving the crimes.
[19] In 1955, members of the ÖHD participated in planning the Istanbul Pogrom, which promoted both the state's secret policy of Turkification, and the subversion of Communism.
Immediately after the coup, Soviet leaning intellectuals, civilian and non-ranking participants in the 9 March plot were interrogated in a building allegedly belonging to the MİT (see the next section).
Another prisoner, outspoken liberal Murat Belge, says that he was tortured there by Veli Küçük, who later founded JITEM and Hezbollah (Turkey) to counter the Kurdistan Workers' Party.
The victims included Mahir Çayan (THKP-C), Hüdai Arıkan (Dev-Genç), Cihan Alptekin (THKO), taxi driver Nihat Yılmaz, teacher Ertan Saruhan, farmer Ahmet Atasoy, Sinan Kazım Özüdoğru (Dev-Genç), student Sabahattin Kurt, Ömer Ayna (THKO) and lieutenant Saffet Alp.
The three hostages (two British and one Canadian citizen) where part of GCHQ and were held in an attempt to prevent the execution of three student leaders (Deniz Gezmiş, Hüseyin İnan and Yusuf Aslan) were also killed.
He mentioned talking to general Memduh Ünlütürk (himself a Counter-Guerrilla, and infamous participant of the Ziverbey villa incident) about what to do with the Communist inmates of Maltepe prison, who were planning to escape.
[68] Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit, and member of the social democratic Republican People's Party, declared to then President Fahri Korutürk that he suspected the Counter-Guerrilla's involvement in the massacre.
[68] Ankara's Deputy State Attorney Doğan Öz then investigated on relationship between Alparslan Türkeş's Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) the Special Warfare Department and violent incidents of the 1970s.
[69] Seven students (Hatice Özen, Cemil Sönmez, Baki Ekiz, Turan Ören, Abdullah Şimşek, Hamit Akıl and Murat Kurt) were killed and 41 were injured at Istanbul University's Faculty of Pharmacy on 16 March 1978.
Being a member of Revolutionary Cultural Eastern Hearths and Kurdish Institute of Istanbul Musa Anter, who received a total of 11.5 years in prison, was assassinated in 1992.
