Page 335 - Encyclopedia Of Terrorism

R-Kushner.qxd 28-10-02 11:26 AM Page 315

Revolutionary People’s Struggle———315

Further Reading DHKP/C attacks have decreased significantly since
1991. In light of some failed attempts at forming an
Kassimeris, George. Europe’s Last Red Terrorists: The
Revolutionary Organization 17 November. New York: alliance with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK),
New York University Press, 2001. another of Turkey’s active terrorist groups, it is thought
Naxos, Shyam Bhatia, and Leonard Doyle. “Poison that support for the DHKP/C could be waning.
Bomber Offers Secrets for Sanctuary.” The Observer, The group’s leader, Dursun Karatas, was arrested
September 28, 1997, 1. and jailed in 1980, where he remained for nearly 10
years. He escaped from jail and fled to Europe, but in
the mid-1990s was arrested by French authorities. He
served a minimal jail term there, but was never extra-
REVOLUTIONARY PEOPLE’S dited to Turkey; it is believed he lives in Europe.
LIBERATION FRONT In June 1999, Turkish officials circumvented a
DHKP/C attempted assault on the U.S. consulate
aka Devrimci Sol, Dev Sol, Devrimci Halk Kurtulus during a presidential visit to Istanbul. And thanks to
Partisi-Cephesi
more counterterrorist raids and arrests by the Turkish
police in past years, the ranks of DHKP/C have weak-
The Revolutionary People’s Liberation Front ened significantly. It is believed that the group has
(DHKP/C), also known as Dev Sol (Revolutionary several hundred members. They conduct their attacks
Left), was formed in 1978 as an offshoot of the in Turkey, primarily in Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, and
Turkish People’s Liberation Party/Front. Today, the Adana, and fund themselves through robberies, extor-
DHKP/C is the most active of the left-wing Marxist- tion, and with help from sympathizers in Western
Leninist terrorist groups in Turkey. With intensely Europe.
xenophobic roots, the group is both anti-United States
and anti-North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and See also KURDISTAN WORKERS PARTY
wants communist social order in Turkey.
According to Turkish sources, Dev Sol assassi- Further Reading
nated many Turkish officials and the country’s former “Foiling a Deadly Plot.” Time, Vol. 138, Issue 5, August 5,
prime minister, Nihat Erim. After this, Dev Sol did not 1991, 43.
step up its efforts until the late 1980s, when the group Pelton, Robert Young. The World’s Most Dangerous Places.
attacked Turkish security and military officials. In New York: Harper Resource, 2000.
1990, the group focused its attention on foreigners in
or around Turkey, and in the ensuing two years, Dev
Sol murdered two U.S. military contractors, wounded REVOLUTIONARY PEOPLE’S
a U.S. Air Force officer, and launched rockets at a STRUGGLE
U.S. consulate in Istanbul, all in retaliation for U.S.
involvement in the Persian Gulf War. aka Revolutionary Popular Struggle
On July 12, 1991, eleven Dev Sol terrorists were
killed during a string of Turkish National Police The Revolutionary People’s Struggle (Epanastatiko
(TNP) raids in Istanbul. As such, the date July 11 has Laikos Agonas; ELA) is a Greek terrorist group that
become a hostile DHKP/C anniversary of sorts; for has been active since 1973. The ELA is believed to
the next two years on that date the group attempted have between 20 and 30 hard-core members.
attacks on U.S. targets in Turkey. The ELA was founded during a period of intense
After some infighting in 1994, the group changed political turmoil in Greece. Student protests in
their name to DHKP/C (Devrimci Halk Kurtulus November 1973 had triggered a police crackdown that
Partisi-Cephesi). In its first major act under their new killed more than 30 of the demonstrators and
moniker, DHKP/C murdered a prominent Turkish wounded scores. Shortly thereafter, these events her-
businessman. In response to the growing terrorism alded the fall of the Greece’s ruling military junta and
problem, the Turkish government conducted raids its replacement by a civilian government in 1974.
against Dev Sol safe houses and enacted new anti- Many leftists believed that the democratic reforms had
terrorist legislation. Largely because of such raids, not gone far enough and that mid-1970s Greece was