Has Hizbullah stepped in?

ÖZGÜR MUMCU

The incidents that have been continuing at Diyarbakır’s Dicle University for a couple of days have been reported in papers and on TV channels as tension among “students with opposing views.” However, the subject matter is between Hizbullah supporters and students from the Kurdish political movement, or what is known as the “patriotic youth.”

We understand from reports coming from the region and from photographs taken during the incidents that the people who are from the Hizbullah side with planks in their hands are not students are not being stopped by police.

On the other hand, it is known that students from the Kurdish political movement are being stopped with all kinds of interventions. Pepper gas sprayed from the helicopter is included in this.

Moreover, Deputy Aysel Tuğluk’s head was injured during this intervention.

The incidents are said to have been started because a youth association close to Hizbullah organized an activity on the occasion of the “Holy Birth Week.”

The reaction to the finding of the body of Murat İzol five days after he fell into the Dicle River trying to run away from the police is also said to have played a role in the incidents.

Clashes intensified yesterday and three students, one of them in critical condition, were injured. They were stabbed.

Hizbullah is not an ordinary organization. It has serious grassroots. During the 1990s, some wings of the state protected the organization so that it could fight against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The organization flourished through this protection.

Let’s remember.

In 1992, journalist Halit Gürgen, the Diyarbakır representative of the magazine “2000’e Doğru” wrote a story claiming that Hizbullah was being trained by riot police. He was killed two days after the story was printed.

In 1993, the police chief of Batman testified before the Parliamentary Research Commission on Unsolved Murders, saying, “Unfortunately, members of the Hizbullah organization were assisted by the military at one period. They went through armed training at certain army facilities, they received logistical assistance.” Amberin Zaman, in a story she wrote for daily Habertürk, said that in 1993 Mehmet Ağar ordered that Hizbullah militants should not be caught but only monitored.

In 2007, the regional governor of emergency rule, Hayri Kozakçıoğlu, confessed to daily Zaman that the counter-guerilla organization JİTEM and the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) shared intelligence with Hizbullah in the 1990s. “This is a pretty natural situation. If Hizbullah is one step ahead in determining the locations of the PKK, then there is no problem in receiving intelligence from them,” he said.

The former undersecretary of MİT, Teoman Koman, defined Hizbullah as such: “Citizens with strong religious beliefs who defend themselves against PKK pressure.”

With the capture of Abdullah Öcalan, “the partnership was broken” and Hizbullah, which was now out of control, was no longer needed.

Police raided cell houses of Hizbullah, and the organization was taken down. The bodies of victims who were killed through hogtie torture before being buried in cement were found in those houses.

Later, because the Hizbullah case was never completed, defendants were released because they had been under arrest for more than 10 years as part of a regulation that was introduced with a new justice package.

A portion of those who were released were somehow able to escape abroad. One of the founders of the organization, Edip Gümüş, chalked up his ability to escape while everybody was watching them to “God’s making the enemies of Islam blind, deaf and mute.”

A political party was also formed with policies close to Hizbullah in December 2012. Its name was a cunning play of words: “HÜDAPAR,” in other words “Party of Allah,” in other words Hizbullah.

It is obvious what this organization is and how close it was with certain segments of the state at one time. If there is determination in the solution process, then it will face its first test at Dicle University.

It is not a good sign that Hizbullah has stepped in at such an early stage of the matter.

Just as there was protection for ODTÜ, there should also be protection for Dicle University.

Özgür Mumcu is a columnist for daily Radikal in which this piece was published April 11. It was translated into English by the Daily News staff.

ÖZGÜR MUMCU - ozgur.mumcu@radikal.com.tr