Mirkhan Karker, member of the KCK Committee for Peoples and Beliefs, spoke in detail about the (historical) attempts of the Turkish state to spread treason in Kurdish society and the democratic society of Turkey through contra organizations, particularly Hizbulkontra and HUDA PAR. 

Here is an excerpt of his interview.

"Betrayal is like cancer in a society. Just as cancer envelops the whole body and makes it sick, betrayal, if society does not take precautions, if it does not decipher and recognize those betrayers, spreads to society in a short time and destroys society. The rulers influence society through religion, money, or by giving out high positions in order to drag people into treason. One of the institutions used in this betrayal is Hizbulkontra, which was formed by an agent called Huseyin Velioglu. Officially, it was formed by him, but looking back, one can see from which tradition it comes. Huseyin Velioglu was a member of the so-called National Union of Turkish Students (MTTB) in 1970-80. The MTTB was founded in 1946 by Teshkilat-i Mahsusa, which was the Turkish intelligence service of that period. Its main mission was first aimed at the Armenians, taking away their property, massacring, and raping them. In 1925, when the Sheikh Sait rebellion started, they would put the Eastern Reform Plan into action. At the same time, the MTTB had started to mobilize. They started massacring Kurds by murdering Sheikh Sait. Then they mobilized in the metropolis against the Greek people. Their slogan at that time was ‘Citizen speak Turkish!’.

Between 1950-1980, they used it against democratic and leftist movements. For example, after the leftists protested against the US 6th Fleet coming to Turkey, the MTTB committed massacres that were aimed particularly at the youth. They were organized by the state to suppress society. They were responsible for the Gurgum (tr. Kahramanmarash) Massacre and the Sewas (tr. Sivas) Massacre, to name just two out of a very long list. In 1980, their member Huseyin Velioglu was assigned as responsible for Kurdistan. They first wanted to make him the union president of Petrol-Iş in Batman. There was Temel Cingoz, the martial law commander of Elih (tr. Batman) at the time, who promised to make Velioglu win the election. He used a helicopter to enable Velioglu to travel around all of Eli. But then Veliogu lost in the election, and they realized that their power was weak in society; they were not recognized by society. At that time, radical and political Islamists were not well known and were not accepted by religious circles. When they saw that they were not organized in society, they made a policy shift. For example, they started to open libraries in cities like Amed (tr. Diyarbakir), Elih, Cewlig (tr. Bingol), and Wan (tr. Van) between 1980 and 1990. Following the libraries, they built student houses and mosques and generally started to try to educate society according to their desire.

In the 1990s, our movement was well rooted in society and the serhildans were launched. Already in the 1980s, they had formed the institution of the so-called village guards. In the 1990s, they put Huseyin Velioglu’s Hizbulkontra organization into action. Through them, they massacred civilians, patriotic people, journalists, students and politicians on open streets. But when this was not enough, JITEM came into play. Their agents were both enabled to legally use weapons and ordered to commit massacres in the cities.

When they realized that even this wasn’t sufficient, they wanted to recruit other communities against the freedom movement. And they killed the leaders of the communities and organizations that did not accept this. For example, they burned Fidan Gungor. Mansur Guzelsoy and Ubeydullah Dalar were brutally murdered in their mosque. They kidnapped Kurdish scholar Izzettin Yildirim and murdered him. They murdered feminist writer Konca Kurish. It is such an immoral organization that they buried the people they murdered under the houses they built and lived in. Sometimes they say they fought against the PKK, but they are lying. They did not come and fight in the mountains. Instead, they slaughtered civilians, patriotic people, and journalists in the cities. At that time, Hizbulkontras were receiving training at riot police headquarters in Elih and Amed. The police would take people’s information and give it to the contras, and the contras would kidnap and murder people.

At that time, you either had to do what they said or you would be massacred. JITEM, on the one hand, and Iran, on the other, supported them. The Kurdish people named them Hizbulkontra. Because what they did was not in the morals of the Kurdish people. Arif Dogan’s confessions also included how people were killed through a special method of restraint that led to the suffocation of the victim. From Elih to Cewlig, from Amed to Wan, wherever the village guard system was developed, wherever JITEM was developed, the activity of Hizbulkontra increased. After the international conspiracy, the state hoped that the movement would disappear; accordingly, they set an end to Hizbulkontra. In 1999-2000, they went after the contras. They killed their agent-provocateur leader Huseyin Velioglu in Istanbul. However, the murder of Huseyin Velioglu was most probably staged. His body was found with 50 bullet wounds, while his companion, who was right next to him, was not even wounded. Arif Dogan later said that Valioglu was probably executed in a different place after an interrogation and that the crime scene had been prepared.

The names of the murderers who executed and burned people, some of them with acid, at that time were all in the state archives. When the time came, they arrested them all. They said there were 20 thousand pages on the main Hezbollah trial. But they had to realize that the freedom movement was not smashed and that now their contras were deciphered, so they established Mustazaf-Der. It was the political wing, consistent with those agents that had not been arrested. They started to distribute aid among Kurds and wanted to make society forget about the murderers. But after a while, this was not enough for the state, so in 2011, Edip Gumush and Cemal Tutar, former executioners who had murdered hundreds of people, were pardoned by the Erdoğan government. When the Kurdish political movement gained strength in society, the state gave Hizbulkontra a new mission. Even the name of the party they formed is interesting; HUDA-PAR, as if Allah needs a political party. They are immoral people that have no values; they abuse Allah, the Prophet, anything. They are not ashamed of doing anything.

Society knows who they are, who founded them; they know Cem Ersever; they know Arif Doğan; they know Huseyin Velioglu; they know the community leaders that were murdered by them. There is a social memory. That is why they have not been accepted among the Kurds. In the 2023 elections, these Hizbulkontras took part in the Ergenekon alliance. The state never kept this a secret. Many ministers have spoken about this, using it as propaganda and a threat. But unfortunately, there is a bigoted mass that follows such agents, contras, and provocateurs. They are few, but we need to recognize who these contras are. Even if they are few, they should not be a cancer in society. They need to be exposed, because what they have done in the past, they will do again in the future.

They try to redefine history according to themselves and try to use the significance of historical figures such as Sayit Nursi, Sheikh Sait, or Mevlid for themselves. They do the same with Saladin Eyyubi. In Elih and Diyarbakir, they put a showman in a Saladin Eyyubi costume on a horse and have him dance through the streets in their name. Saladin Eyyubi did not ride on the asphalt of Elih. He fought in Jerusalem. He was not a devious butcher like them. He was a just man. Now they say that they are protecting the Palestinian cause, but not one of them fought and died in Palestine. They only come out of their mosques and chant slogans of down with Israel. They cannot even show Palestine on the map. They have all become property owners, capitalists, owners of associations, and owners of shopping malls. They don’t care about the Palestinian cause.

They just try to deceive the people. Instead, they criticize the freedom movement on their stance on Palestine. But we have martyrs who lost their lives for the Palestinian cause. The movement fought alongside the Palestinian people in Lebanon and gave martyrs. They say they don’t sell Israeli goods and boycott them, but go to their shopping malls. Maybe they don’t sell Coca-Cola symbolically, but they sell all the other goods coming from Israel, Europe, and America. These are hypocrites. Not only do they get rich through powerful states, but they also make propaganda in society as if they are against these states.

On the other hand, the Union of Scholars and Madrasahs, which they established, declare those who are not with them as infidels and hypocrites. They are shameless like this. However, what they say is one thing and what they do is another. They are the biggest hypocrites. They have established something called the Union of Scholars with imams they bought with money, and through this they are enemies of society. They cannot keep themselves alive among the Kurds, so they intend to keep themselves alive through exploiting Kurdish values. In Elih, in Amed, they go and raid cafes, and question why Israeli, American and European goods are sold, but when you look at the images, you can see how unconscious they are. They themselves wear Nike or Adidas shoes on their feet. Their clothes are also Adidas. All these are European, American, and Israeli goods. There is a world of difference between the price of a person going to eat in a café and the price of their shoes. They go with their goods to supposedly protest against American and Israeli goods. What they stand for and how they live are not the same. This is called hypocrisy.

Also, looking at their associations and parties, you won’t find one female executive or a female leader in one of them. To them, a woman in a leading position is immoral. Men are free to do whatever they want, but they have removed women from society. They perceive women’s participation as a deterioration of society. According to them, women should only take care of the house and raise children. They have created such a system that when their parties hold their congresses, you can see who is sitting in front and who is sitting behind. They remove women from society. They bring a few women symbolically, but there are no women in their associations, in their parties, in their trade. They are enemies of women. They are detached from society, from the values and culture of society, they are betrayers, traitors, collaborators, Ergenekonists. Once they were the helpers of JITEM. Once they were the helpers of AKP. Now they are the helpers of AKP-MHP. They need to be exposed more. It is as if they have not done anything in the past, and they have founded a new party called HUDA PAR. No matter where the betrayal comes from, it should not be accepted by society. Society should not accept them among them."