Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T10:32:45.006Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Beyond Istanbul's ‘Laz Underworld’: Ottoman Paramilitarism and the Rise of Turkish Organised Crime, 1908–1950

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 June 2010

RYAN GINGERAS
RYAN GINGERAS*
Affiliation:
Naval Postgraduate Institute, Monterey, California, United States; rgingeras@yahoo.com.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Although the Turkish mafia is increasingly recognised as a powerful force in the ongoing trade in weapons, narcotics and people in Europe and beyond, there are few critical histories of organised crime's origins in Turkey. Rather than present some pedantic general survey of the history of organized crime in modern Turkey, this essay attempts to address two broader critical points of departure. First, how did Anatolia's journey from imperial to republican rule impact, and how was it impacted by, criminal gangs? Second, how do we situate the experience of modern gangs in Turkey in a global context? In attempting to answer these questions, this paper looks at the development of criminal syndicates among Laz migrants in the greater Istanbul area during the first half of the twentieth century. The case of the Laz shows particularly how war, migration, imperial politics, urbanisation and the rise of the international drug trade shaped the parallel development of organised crime and the nascent Turkish Republic.

Au delà du ‘milieu des lazes’ d'istanbul: le paramilitarisme ottoman et l'avènement du crime organisé turc, 1908–1950

Bien que la mafia turque soit de plus en plus reconnue comme un acteur important dans l'actuel trafic d'armes, de drogues et de personnes en Europe et au-delà, il y a étonnamment peu de recherches critiques sur les origines du crime organisé en Turquie. Plutôt que de présenter un survol général de l'histoire du crime organisé dans la Turquie moderne, cet article examine deux points de départ plus larges. Il s'interroge sur les effets réciproques de la transition d'un régime impérial à un régime républicain sur les bandes criminelles. Il examine ensuite comment il faut situer l'expérience des bandes modernes en Turquie dans un contexte global. Pour répondre à ces questions, l'auteur analyse en particulier le développement des syndicats criminels parmis les migrants lazes du grand Istanbul durant la première moitié du vingtième siècle. L'exemple des Lazes illustre parfaitement à quel point la guerre, la migration, la politique impériale, l'urbanisation et la montée du trafic de drogue international ont marqué le développement parallèle du crime organisé et de la République turque naissante.

Istanbuls ‘unterwelt der laz’ und darüber hinaus. osmanischer paramilitarismus und der aufstieg des türkischen organisierten verbrechens, 1908–1950

Obwohl die türkische Mafia zunehmend als einflussreiche Größe im Handel von Menschen, Waffen, und Rauschmitteln in Europa und darüber hinaus anerkannt wird, gibt es erstaunlich wenige kritische Untersuchungen der Ursprünge des organisierten Verbrechens in der Türkei. Der vorliegende Artikel versucht zwei zentrale breitere Ausgangspunkte anzusprechen: Erstens, wie beeinflusste der Übergang Anatoliens von imperialer zu republikanischer Herrschaft die Entstehung krimineller Banden, und umgekehrt? Zweitens, wie kann die Erfahrung moderner Banden in der Türkei im globalen Kontext verortet werden? Um diese Fragen zu beantworten, betrachtet der vorliegende Aufsatz die Entwicklung krimineller Syndikate unter Laz Migranten im Großraum Istanbul während der ersten Hälfte des Zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts. Das Beispiel der Laz verdeutlicht inwieweit Krieg, Migration, imperiale Politik, Urbanisierung und der Anstieg des internationalen Drogenhandels die parallelen Entwicklungen von organisierten Verbrechen und der entstehenden Türkischen Republik beeinflussten.

Type
Articles
Information
Contemporary European History , Volume 19 , Issue 3: Aftershocks: Violence in Dissolving Empires after the First World War , August 2010 , pp. 215 - 230
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 The one noted exception to this trend is found in the work of Hamit Bozarslan. See Borzarslan, Hamit, ‘Türkiye’ de Devlet, Komitacılık, Cuntacılık ve Cetecilik Konusunda Birkaç Hipotez’, in Başkaya, Fikret, ed., Resmi Tarih Tartışmaları, Cilt I (Ankara: Türkiye ve Ortadoğu Forumu Vakfı/Özgür Üniversite Kitaplığı, 2005), 173–90Google Scholar.

2 Gingeras, Ryan, ‘Last Rites for a “Pure Bandit”: Clandestine Service, Historiography and the Origins of the Turkish “Deep State”’, Past and Present, 206 (February 2010), 121–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Zürcher, Erik Jan, ‘The Ottoman Legacy of the Turkish Republic: An Attempt at a New Periodization’, Die Welt des Islams, 32 (1992), 237–53Google Scholar.

4 Yurdakul, Doğan, Abi: Kabadayıler-Mafya Derin Devlet İlişkilsi (Istanbul: Positif Yayınları, 2007), 22Google Scholar.

5 McCarthy, Justin, Ölüm ve Sürgün: Osmanlı Müslümanlarına Karşı Yürülten Ulus Olarack Temizleme İşlemi (Istanbul: İnkılap Kitapevi, 1998), 123–4Google Scholar.

6 Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi (BOA).DH.KMS 62/23, 9 June 1922.

7 Ferdan Ergut, ‘State and Social Control: The Police in the Late Ottoman Empire and the Early Republican Turkey, 1839–1939’, Ph.D. thesis, New School for Social Research, 1999; Özbek, Nadir, ‘Policing the Countryside: Gendarmes of the Late 19th Century Ottoman Empire (1876–1908)’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 40 (2008), 47–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Yetkin, Sabri, Ege'de Eşkıyalar (Istanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, 2003), 162–9Google Scholar.

9 BOA.Y.MTV 242/8, 31 March 1903.

10 Hanioğlu, Şükrü, Preparation for a Revolution: The Young Turks, 1902–1908 (Oxford University Press, 2001), 221–7, 254–8Google Scholar.

11 The National Archives of the UK: Public Record Office: PRO/FO 371/4161/49194, 19 March 1919.

12 Akçam, Taner, From Empire to Republic: Turkish Nationalism and the Armenian Genocide (New York: Zed Books, 2004), 160–163Google Scholar.

13 Dündar, Fuat, İttihat ve Terakki'nin Müslümanları İskan Politikası (1913–1918) (Istanbul: İlestişim Yayınları, 2001), 157Google Scholar.

14 Yüce, Rifat, Kocaeli Tarih ve Rehberi (İzmit: Türkyolu Matbaası, 1945), 64Google Scholar.

15 A thorough discussion of the connection between the Committee of Union and Progress and the National Movement can be found in Zürcher, Erik Jan, The Unionist Factor: The Role of the Committee of Union and Progress in the Turkish Nationalist Movement, 1905–1926 (Leiden: Brill, 1984)Google Scholar.

16 PRO/FO 371/4157/62437, 5 April 1919.

17 BOA.DH.İUM 19/5//1/31, 14 March 1919; BOA.DH.ŞFR 95/279, 30 January 1919.

18 BOA.DH.KMS 56–1/14, 20 September 1919.

19 BOA.DH.EUM.AYŞ 18/119, 8 August 1919.

20 Yüce, Kocaeli Tarih ve Rehberi, 75, 82.

21 Ünal, Muhittin, Miralay Bekir Sami Günsev'in Kurtuluş Savaşı Anıları (Istanbul: Cem Yayınevi, 2002), 186Google Scholar.

22 TTK Bekir Sami Dosya, Vol. 2, p. 163, 26 October 1919; ibid., p. 185, 31 October 1919.

23 See Gingeras, Ryan, ‘Notorious Subjects, Invisible Citizens: North Caucasian Resistance to the Turkish National Movement in the South Marmara, 1919–1923’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 40, 1 (2008), 89–108Google Scholar.

24 PRO/FO 371/5167/4510, 10 May 1920.

25 As one reads through the scattered reports of crimes reported to the Interior Ministry during the occupation years, incidents of Laz brigandage do pop up here and there (in the case of the vilayet of Istanbul, see BOA.DH.AYŞ 53/65, 22 May 1921; BOA.DH.AYŞ 54/5, 12 June 1921; BOA.DH.AYŞ 54/30, 19 June 1921).

26 BOA.DH.KMS 60-2/20, 19 May 1921; Lausanne Conference on Near Eastern Affairs, 1922–1923: Records of Proceedings and Draft Terms of Peace (London: HMSO, 1923), 677; Toynbee, Arnold J., The Western Question in Greece and Turkey: A Study in the Contacts of Civilizations (London: Constable, 1923), 310–11Google Scholar.

27 Zürcher, Unionist Factor, 145–54.

28 Gingeras, Ryan, Sorrowful Shores: Violence, Ethnicity and the End of the Ottoman Empire, 1912–1923 (Oxford University, 2009), 139–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29 Criss, Nur Bilge, Istanbul under Allied Occupation, 1918–1923 (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 29–32Google Scholar.

30 Kolars, John, ‘The Integration of the Villager into the National Life of Turkey’, in Karpat, Kemal et al. , eds., Social Change and Politics in Turkey: A Structural–Historical Analysis (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1973), 191Google Scholar; Shankland, David, ‘Integrating the Rural: Gellner and the Study of Anatolia’, Middle East Studies, 35, 2 (1999), 132–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In 1927 there was a total of five cities with populations of more than 50,000. By 1950, there were eleven and in 1960 there were twenty-seven.

31 ‘Turkey Troubled by Crime Increase’, New York Times, 7 Dec. 1947.

32 Çulcu, Murat, Kan Defteri (Türkiye'de MAFİA'laşmanın Kökenleri IV) (Istanbul: E Yayınları, 2005), 572–80Google Scholar.

33 Bovenkerk, Frank and Yeşilgöz, Yücel, The Turkish Mafia: A History of the Heroin Godfathers (Preston: Milo Books, 2007), 77–8Google Scholar.

34 Turgay, Üner, ‘The Nineteenth Century Golden Triangle: Chinese Consumption, Ottoman Production, and the American Connection, II’, International Journal of Turkish Studies, 3, 1 (1984–5), 93Google Scholar.

35 Erdinç, F. Cengiz, Overdose Türkiye: Türkiye'de Eroin Kaçakçılığı, Bağımlılğı ve Politikalar (Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2004), 30–4Google Scholar.

36 Ibid., 53–69.

37 Valentine, Douglas, The Strength of the Wolf: The Secret History of America's War on Drugs (London: Verso, 2004), 10Google Scholar.

38 Erdinç, Overdose Türkiye, 87–101.

39 Subject Files of the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, 1916–1970, Records of the Drug Enforcement Administration, Record Group 170, National Archives Building II, Silver Spring, MD, Charles Siragusa to Mr H. J. Anslinger, 25 July 1950, Turkey, 1950; ibid., Frank Sojat to Mr H. J. Anslinger, 1 October 1951, Turkey, 1951–1952; ibid., Frank Sojat to Mr. H. J. Anslinger, 5 November 1951, Turkey, 1951–1952.

40 Ibid., Charles Siragusa to Mr H. J. Anslinger, 25 July 1950, Turkey, 1950.

41 Interestingly, one man among his group is specifically referenced as being of Albanian descent. Ibid., Frank Sojat to Mr H. J. Anslinger, 5 November 1951, Turkey, 1951–1952.

42 Ibid., Frank Sojat to Mr. H. J. Anslinger, 1 October 1951; Turkey, 1951–1952; Subject Files of the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, 1916–1970; Records of the Drug Enforcement Administration, Record Group 170; National Archives Building II, Silver Spring, MD.

43 Ibid., Charles Siragusa to Mr H. J. Anslinger, 25 July 1950, Turkey, 1950.

44 Ibid., Charles Siragusa to Mr H. J. Anslinger, 24 July 1950, Turkey, 1950.

45 Henry Kamm, ‘Turkish Ban on Poppy: Delayed Impact Seen’, New York Times, 10 Oct. 1972; Mumcu, Uğur, Silah Kaçakçılığı ve Terör (Ankara: Tekin Yayınevi, 1981)Google Scholar.

46 Berberoğlu, Enis, Kod Adı Yüksekova: Susurluk, Ankara, Bodrum, Yüksekova Fay Hattı (Istanbul: AD Kitapçılık, 1998)Google Scholar; Bozarlsan, Hamit, Violence in the Middle East: From Political Struggle to Self-Sacrifice (Princeton: Markus Weiner, 2004), 76–7Google Scholar; Herman, Edward and Brodhead, Frank, The Rise and Fall of the Bulgarian Connection (New York: Sheridan Square Publications, 1986)Google Scholar; Ural, Gültekin, Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa'dan MİT'e: Abdullah Çatlı ve Susurluk Olayı (Istanbul: Kamer Yayınları, 1997)Google Scholar; Yalçın, Soner and Yudakul, Doğan, Reis: Gladio'nun Türk Tetikçisi (Istanbul: Doğan Kitapcılık, 2007)Google Scholar.

47 For greater discussion on the Americanisation of law enforcement practices worldwide, see Nadelmann, Ethan Avram, Cops across Borders: The Internationalization of US Law Enforcement (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993)Google Scholar.

48 Felix Belair, ‘US Loan to Turkey Dismays Narcotics Officials’, New York Times, 14 June 1970; Alfried Friendly, ‘Turkish Program Curbing Opium Poppy’, New York Times, 11 June 1970; ‘Turkey Rebuffs US on Opium Ban’, New York Times, 11 Sept. 1970.

49 Fraser, Chris, Bandit Nation: A History of Outlaws and Cultural Struggle in Mexico, 1810–1920 (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2006), 20–57Google Scholar; Vanderwood, Paul: Bandits, Police, and Mexican Development (Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 1992), 5–13Google Scholar.

50 Vanderwood, Disorder and Progress, 53–60.

51 Alonso, Ana Maria, Thread of Blood: Colonialism, Revolution, and Gender on Mexico's Northern Frontier (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1997)Google Scholar.

52 Astorga, Luis, ‘Organized Crime and the Organization of Crime’, Bailey, John and Godson, Roy, eds., Organized Crime and Democratic Governability: Mexico and the US–Mexico Borderlands (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2000), 58–82Google Scholar; Sandos, James A., ‘Northern Separatism during the Mexican Revolution: An Inquiry into the Role of Drug Trafficking, 1910–1920’, Americas, 41, 2 (1984), 191–214CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

53 Astorga, Luis, Drogas Sin Fronteras (Mexico City: Grijalbo, 2003), 283–94Google Scholar.

54 Billingsley, Phil, Bandits in Republican China (Stanford University Press, 1988)Google Scholar; Holquist, Peter, Making War, Forging Revolution: Russia's Continuum of Crisis, 1914–1921 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002)Google Scholar; Raleigh, Donald J., Experiencing Russia's Civil War: Politics, Society and Revolutionary Culture in Saratov, 1917–1922 (Princeton University Press, 2002)Google Scholar.

55 Blok, Anton, ‘The Peasant and the Brigand: Social Banditry Reconsidered’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 14 (1972): 494–503CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hobsbawm, Eric, Bandits (London: Abacus, 2007)Google Scholar.

56 Martin, Brian, ‘The Green Gang and the Guomindang State: Du Yuesheng and the Politics of Shanghai’, Journal of Asian Studies, 54, 1 (1995), 64–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

57 Galante, Pierre and Sapin, Louis, The Marseilles Mafia: The Truth Behind the World of Drug Trafficking (London: W. H. Allen, 1979)Google Scholar; Rover, Eduardo Saenz and Davidson, Russ, The Cuban Connection: Drug Trafficking, Smuggling and Gambling in Cuba from the 1920s to the Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009), 105Google Scholar; Wilson, Stephen, Feuding, Conflict and Banditry in Nineteenth-Century Corsica (Cambridge University Press, 2003)Google Scholar.

58 Hobsbawm, Bandits, 183–99. Hobsbawm readily acknowledges that ‘banditry as a social phenomenon diminishes when better ways of agrarian struggle become available’ (184). Yet in discussing the modern manifestation of ‘banditry’ in the contemporary world, he appears consciously to avoid any discussion of contemporary cartels, gangs and other urban criminal groups.