Damascus's Candy

I think there is no one who has not heard the phrase "neither the sugar of Damascus nor the face of an Arab". Let me tell you from the beginning, our topic has nothing to do with this word. It's about the Syrian border. As you know, there are border security debates that have become an important agenda in the public these days. Some say "Border is honor". They prepare banners and hang them on their windows, and some consider this a crime and take legal action. As it is known, the basis of these discussions is the Syrian and Afghan immigrants, which have become an important problem in our country recently. I don't know how accurate it is to call them immigrants though. Because the concept of immigration; It requires explaining many legal terms such as asylum seeker, immigrant and human smuggling, but I will not go into the literature here.

At one point in my career, I served in a border battalion in a small town on the Syrian border. My assignment was related to border security issues at battalion headquarters. Before I was appointed to this position, I took a course that lasted about three and a half months on my duty at the headquarters. But this course was more about the part I was assigned to than border security. In the course, information about the border was given only about the military and administrative structure of Syria. For this reason, I did not know exactly what I was going to encounter until I went to the union.

I had served in the units stationed in the districts in the border regions before, but this was my first time in the border unit. So I had no experience with border missions. After joining the unit, I saw that everyone who served in the battalion was in the same situation as me. Because there was no one who had served at the border for the second time. At least that was the case with my acquaintances. Moreover, there was no person who served before me in the department I was assigned to. I think this mission was carried out on a twin mission by someone looking at another part. That person had left to go to the new place of appointment when I joined the post. So I didn't learn anything from him either.

Then I started to examine the old files one by one. The more I studied, the more I realized how extensive and sensitive the task was. I gradually started to understand what the border is, how it is protected, what is the legal legislation, what are the safety and security measures, what are the threats. As a result, "Border is honor", which is written almost everywhere in the border troops. I realized that the word is not such a simple word.

My first conclusion was that I was in complete trouble. I'm not saying this as an exaggeration. Since I worked in many border regions (but not border unions) afterwards, I still believe this result is correct. Because the border duty is a duty that a person with classical military training cannot adequately cope with with his current knowledge, or at least very difficult. This situation is not only due to the difficulty of the task. The union structure and legal regulations are also problematic.

Now I will try to explain the reasons for this. Once upon a time, there was a border unit class that was subordinate to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, such as the Gendarmerie, not to the armed forces for the security of the borders. They were working under the highest civil authority in their place of duty. Those who watched Kemal Sunal's movie "Propaganda" will remember it. While Kemal Sunal was on duty at the border gate, soldiers wearing pale earthen clothes stood guard at the gate. The soldiers who wore those clothes were soldiers of the border class that protected the borders at that time.

Presumably, since border security was only considered within the scope of preventing illegal crossing and smuggling, these troops, who did not have heavy weapons, guarded the borders for a while. These were the units that knew the subject and the legal procedure and had the authority to implement them, since they always served at the borders. Later, I don't know why, but these troops were disbanded. The task of guarding the border was given to the Gendarmerie General Command. Since the Gendarmerie is also a class that has knowledge of the law and is authorized to implement it, there probably were not many problems. However, things changed when the actions of the PKK Terrorist Organization began.

Having no problems dealing with armed or unarmed smugglers, the Gendarmerie could not cope with this task after the terrorist incidents, so the responsibility of border protection was given to the infantry units of the Land Forces. After a while, border units were established. But when I took office, I was quick to realize that these units were formed without much thought.

The first problem was that the personnel were not knowledgeable and experienced on the subject. Although border courses were given to the officers assigned to the border units, not everyone saw this course. For example, I have never seen such a course. Moreover, since border duty is a job that also requires legal knowledge, it is not possible to have enough knowledge with such a course.

The second problem was that of authority. The responsibility of guarding the border was entirely (for my post) border battalion. But interestingly, the battalion did not have the authority to take any legal action regarding crimes committed at the border. For example, when the battalion caught a person smuggling, the staff of the battalion did not have the authority to take legal action. In such a case, a lot of reports and we were preparing a file and handing it over to the gendarme with the arrested person. The necessary legal action was also taken by the gendarmerie. There were many more problems but these are more or less related to border security so I won't mention them.

As I continued to examine the documents, I learned that there is something called "Border Stone" at the border. I had heard of it before, but I didn't know what it was like. These stones are produced in the form of very large concrete blocks, and they are erected at regular intervals under the supervision of the authorities of the two neighboring countries. They have a number written on them. Therefore, when this number is mentioned in border negotiations, it is understood where it is mentioned without the need for a place name. The line where the border crosses between these border stones is also written on the maps. In other words, where the border passes is known exactly by the authorities of both sides. I understood from the maps in the files that this issue is well studied.

In other files I have seen, I have come across sketches of wire barriers and minefields. Wire barriers were not everywhere. Minefields were also established only in certain areas. But in the battalion I served, there was no expert in these two specialties and no members of the engineering class. A team from the Corps-Engineering Units carried out these tasks at the time and left a copy of the documents to the battalion. For this reason, there was no one at the battalion headquarters to ask about the state of the minefields and wire barriers. One day, I got in the car and toured the whole border to see them on the spot and meet the border unit commanders. To be honest, I was very worried. Because nothing I saw was as simple as it appeared in the sketches and files.

Now let me tell you what I saw. Wire barriers were laid in many places on the border line following the border stones I mentioned above. Inside the fence was an open space free of trees and vegetation, and a driveway running through the middle of this open space. They called this road the "Line Road". However, this road was so winding due to the rough terrain that I was surprised to turn the corners with the vehicle. Moreover, the area that was cleared of plants and trees did not look so clean either.

When I talked to the unit commanders, I understood the reason for this. Since the region I am talking about is quite south, the weather was hot in summer and mild in winter. But because it was so close to the sea, it was raining all the time, and there was always fog when it wasn't raining. Even in summer it was foggy most nights. This provided a very suitable environment for plant growth. Therefore, the plants cut this year were growing up to a human height again next year. I have never seen anywhere else (even though I have seen so many places) in my life that pine trees come out of the ground as often as the crops in a wheat field and grow as fast as thatch or reed. But that's how they grew up here.

This being the case, both the visibility decreased (the visibility was often limited due to fog and rain anyway) and the wire barriers were not working. As a matter of fact, when I checked the wire barriers, I saw that there were dry tree branches hidden in the bushes in some places. When I examined the wire barrier, it was not difficult for me to understand that they were used to put the wire and pass over it.

Another thing that surprised me a lot was the minefields. The minefields looked like they were standing where they were marked on the map. Because these areas were surrounded by wire barriers and mined zone markers were placed. But when I talked to the unit commanders, I realized that this was not the case. Turns out they were walking mines. Do not be surprised or mistakenly think that I wrote it like that. They were really walking. For this reason, there were probably no mines in the marked places. As a matter of fact, from time to time, pigs stepped in and detonated mines, and none of the mines that exploded were in the places marked with wires.

I didn't believe it at first. I thought the wire barriers had been put in the wrong place. But when I looked at the mine maps, I saw that they were laid very professionally, by sappers who understand this business, and according to a certain key. It turned out that the ground was constantly slipping due to the heavy rain. Because the terrain was uneven, even the flattest place had some slope. For this reason, the soil was constantly shifting under the influence of gravity. This slippage was not noticeable with the naked eye, as it was so little that it could be expressed in millimeters in every rain. But since the mines that were laid years ago were constantly shifted by the rain that falls tens of times every year, they went 30, 50 or even 100 meters away from the places where they were laid, depending on the slope of the ground.

When I learned these, I realized that things would not be easy and that I would have to deal with many problems. Actually, these weren't too big of a problem, though. Because the other problems that had to be dealt with were much more complicated. I will briefly talk about them now.

For an ordinary person, the first thing that comes to mind when the border is mentioned is usually smuggling. It must be due to the influence of the movies that have been shown to us for years. a poor man comes to life trying to make a living in our eyes. But the goose's foot was not like that at all. While I was examining the documents in the files, I came across the records of the conflicts, and I learned that this is not like in the movies.

It turned out that most of the smugglers (especially Syrian smugglers) carried weapons with them. They are not pistols or shotguns, they are rifles you know. From time to time, those who stand guard at the border and "stop!" when they see themselves. They were fighting with our soldiers who had withdrawn. When I realized that the smugglers were not at all innocent or pathetic as they were told, I started to buy rifles myself and to take some armed soldiers to my car while visiting the border units.

In the meantime, I would like to state that it would be beneficial for you to re-evaluate the drooling stories about smugglers who were once shot down by planes as terrorists in northern Iraq.

After this general information, let's try to explain what passes through the border and what is passed. First, let me say that anything that crosses or passes through the border needs organized activity and detailed organization. But there were also individual and random transitions, albeit rare. For example, I know that a Romanian passed through Turkey to Syria and then to Lebanon years ago, and after a while he entered Turkey by crossing the border alone to return to his country.

I know because this guy got caught. He entered Turkey with a passport. His passport was still on him. Entry stamps were also from two or three years ago. In her purse, photos taken in Lebanon were found. We completed the process and handed it over to the Gendarmerie.

Once, two Iraqi brothers who entered Turkey from the Iraqi border a year ago and tried to return via Syria after working in various jobs and saving money were caught. There were other similar incidents, but they were not very frequent. Illegal crossings and smuggling were generally carried out as an organized and organized activity.

In the movies, tea smugglers are shown the most. On the Syrian border, there used to be tea and so on. smuggling, but I do not remember that a single person who smuggled tea was caught while I was on duty. I think these things work in direct relation with the rules of economics that I don't understand, such as supply-demand balance and price range. After all, smuggling is a "commercial" thing to make money. If tea is no longer making enough money to be worth the risk, why would a man smuggle tea?

Another product that was smuggled the most in the past was tobacco products. In fact, smuggling shredded tobacco, cigarette paper, and foreign cigarettes was once the main source of income for smugglers in the region. Moreover, it was the safest and most guaranteed smuggling from Syrian territory. Because the Syrian leg of this smuggling was managed by Syrian administrators and their families.

I used to talk to people who used to make a living in this business and had to quit smuggling when they got old. As you know, it is best to learn the secrets of a job from the person who does it. According to what these people told, the person who organized the smuggling of tobacco products in Syria was Hafez Esat's brother. Hani is the person who later got into conflict with Hafez and fled to France. This man is already dead. But when the Syrian civil war started, there was a 35-40-year-old man who was said to be from the Esat family and appeared on television (probably with the expectation that I would be the leader of the opposition) in an ugly suit that was at least two sizes too big for him, he would be the father of that man himself.

When you think of tobacco smuggling, don't think of a few cartons of cigarettes or a few packs of chopped tobacco. According to what I was told, the children or men of Hafez Esat's brother used to bring cigarettes in trucks to the villages located three or four kilometers from the border. Our smugglers were also aware of the day and place of this distribution, which was made on certain days of the week. Thus, our smugglers would cross the border on the most suitable day for them, go to the most suitable village and buy cigarettes. Since there are usually long queues, smugglers go to the specified place before sunrise in the morning; They paid their money, bought their cigarettes, carried them to the nearest border with donkeys, mules or vehicles and passed them to Turkey. Since the family that ruled Syria was involved, they acted comfortably on Syrian territory not like a smuggler, but as a legal guest.

When I went to Latakia, it was not difficult for me to understand that these smuggling works were still under the control of the Esat family. Because as soon as you entered the Syrian border, the first thing that caught your eye was the misery and backwardness. The newest of the cars was 25-30 years old. In the 70's and 80's, we saw a vehicle that broke down and pulled to the side of the road every few kilometers, just like we did. But this situation changed when he went to Latakia. Because there were old cars in the majority, but there were also very expensive cars of the latest model.

I established intimacy with a Syrian Colonel. The man had secretly told me that he was Turkmen and asked for primary school books to teach his children Turkish.

NS. When I asked this man, he said that the cars belonged to people from the Esat family and relatives of other ruling families. It's his fault, but from this situation, I thought that smuggling was done by the Syrian state and the ruling families of this country at that time. Even today, I don't think the situation has changed much.

However, cigarette smuggling was not common while I was on duty. Because the smuggling of goods that brought more money was being made. The most interesting of these was animal smuggling. When I say animal, I don't mean sheep or goat. I'm talking about cattle smuggling. At that time, there was the 'mad cow' disease. Whenever there were mass animal deaths in the villages, we used to think that “cows were smuggled again and we couldn't catch them”.

You may not have understood why animal trafficking is so lucrative. At first, I didn't understand either. But when I talked to a captured Syrian smuggler, I understood. It turned out that they were not giving money to these animals in Syria, they were stealing them. They were also stealing from Syria's state production farms. Tavekkeli, captured cows were always breed and fattened. Most of these thieves were known and sought by the Syrian authorities, but they were not caught because they slept in the field.

When he took action to return such a man, he begged us not to surrender him. Because the Baath regime, which some people can't finish with the praise, was such a cruel and fascist regime that I couldn't even say "to my enemies". The most acceptable outcome of being imprisoned was death, unable to endure torture. Because if you don't die but survive, being subjected to that torture was the worst thing that could happen to a person. I'm not making this up. I have personally heard from the tortured and their relatives. If I explain it here, the hearts will not stand.

Another smuggled product that we often caught from time to time and was said to have earned big money was a liquid substance called “Acid Anhydride” or “Acetic Anhydride”. This substance is one of the main precursors used in the manufacture of heroin. Intermediate chemicals are substances used in the manufacture of drugs and have an important place in the fight against drugs.

This liquid was contained in blue drums that were too large for a person to carry easily. It was usually brought to the border in these drums. In flat areas, a person carries the bin on his back, but it was mostly divided into small bins and passed across the border. What was interesting was that there were inscriptions on these cans that the product was produced in France. Sometimes we came across articles that it was produced in other European countries.

According to what I learned from smugglers and other news sources, this product was imported from European countries to Lebanon in order to be used for other purposes, and from there it was brought to Syria and to us from Syria. Maybe you will hear it for the first time (I don't know if it still is) but some villages in and around Antakya were very successful in heroin production. In fact, according to rumors among the people, the product of some villages was known by the name of the village in drug circles in Europe and was sold at a higher price. I can't confirm that, but it was said so.

What a beautiful arrangement isn't it? Europe sells precursors, drugs are produced with this chemical, and the manufactured substance is sent back to Europe through smuggled ways. Then all European states talk about their fight against drug trafficking. However, if they forbade the sale of intermediate goods or put them under strict control, there would be no need for them to try so hard. Anyways….

Now I come to a much more important matter. Leaving aside what I have said above, the smuggling that troubled us the most was human smuggling. Most of all, we were catching illegal immigrants of Sikh origin. They said that they came to Lebanon from India by ship, worked in the fields and in construction there, when they saved money, they contacted smugglers and crossed Syria by car in one day, and came to the border. Since these are men who wear turbans, it was strange for us at first, but over time we got used to it. We realized that although these people, who are all males and middle-aged, are incredibly weak, they have very strong arms when they hold them, proving that they work hard.

After the Sikhs, the most captured illegal immigrants were Africans. For example, I remember smuggling large numbers of middle-aged men from Siere Lion and Togo. If you look at the map, you'd be surprised how they got all the way to the Syrian border. At one time, too many black girls began to be caught. They carried only a small backpack and a satchel with them. Their clothes were also revealing clothes that were not suitable for walking in the field. When we checked their bags, we found erotic clothing and sexual objects. Then we realized that they had set out from their country to go to Istanbul. Because in those days, it was written in the newspapers that black prostitutes were fashionable in Istanbul.

I said above that illegal immigrants are much more important than other types of smuggling.

The importance of their work stemmed from the problems they created and the work they did to us. There were two reasons for this. First; they were also used in acid anhydride smuggling. The smugglers were both getting a toll from them (I think they were getting between 100 and 200 dollars per person at that time) and they were giving them a jerry can full of acid anhydride and carrying them. Since the smugglers sent them in groups of two or three while crossing the border, if they were caught, they would not come on their own, thus avoiding being caught.

Another problem created by illegal immigrants was related to the PKK Terrorist Organization. The basic policy of Bashar's father, who now accuses Turkey of supporting terrorist organizations, consisted of feeding and supporting all terrorist organizations working against Turkey in his country. Although there were some extreme left organizations among these organizations, the most respected organization was the PKK. Abdullah Öcalan was hosted in Damascus, there were many terrorist shelters near our border and training camps in Bekaa. Naturally, PKK terrorists were trying to cross our border. They even raided our border post a few times and once ambushed the battalion commander's vehicle. Fortunately, there were no casualties.

As such, the soldiers were not walking on the road along the line, they were ambushing at certain points. It was impossible to distinguish the immigrants he lived from the terrorist in the bush, forest and rough terrain, in the fog and at night. However, if our soldiers could not get a clear picture and be sure that they were terrorists, they would stop before firing. They were already in a frightening terrain and with the anxiety of committing a crime, when they heard this sound, they panicked and started to run away. Since they did not know Turkish, what they said was incomprehensible. Sometimes while they were escaping, they would confuse the soldiers, and the soldiers would shoot, thinking that they were terrorists and attacking them. That's why illegal immigrants got injured and sometimes died.

When it was understood that these were not terrorists, they were helped and taken to the hospital. Aside from the sadness of the people who died or were injured, their actions consisted of pure torture. Since I was looking at these things, when the phone rang at night, I was afraid to open it because someone was shot at the border again. Because I was getting up in the middle of the night, getting in the car and going to the scene. It was very difficult to reach the injured or dead people due to the land structure and dense vegetation. The battalion doctor immediately intervened in the wounded, and we sent those who were in serious condition to Antakya by ambulance, and sometimes to Adana when they were dispatched from there.

At this point the problem was getting worse. Because we did not have an allowance for this work. Hospital expenses etc. Since money was needed for this, the relevant places paid this money after a lot of procedures. The trouble did not end here. When they got better, they would come back and we would take them out of the border, technically we would deport them. There was no legal regulation or law for these people at that time. According to a decree of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, illegal immigrants were sent to the country they came from from the region where they violated our borders. This process was called deport.

There was also a legal dimension to this issue. When there was a fatal or injury event, we would notify the prosecutor and bring him to the scene early in the morning. When the prosecutor wrote his report, we would take the corpse or corpses to the district with the gendarmerie, get the autopsy report and prepare 6-7 copies of the case file. The sending of the dead to their own countries was another problem, but fortunately, we were not interested in that business.

Until now, we have always talked about smuggling from Syria to Turkey, but was there never any smuggling from us to Syria? Of course it was done. The most caught; such as engine parts (distributor caps, rims, carburetors), satellite antennas and outbuildings (for televisions), sports shoes and shotguns (especially pump guns), which were not very common in Syria and could not be bought by everyone. In 2000-2001, the shotgun was caught a lot. At the time, “These are probably armed. They will kill each other.” I remember talking to friends. Because there was no cohesive society or nation in Syria. On the contrary, there were religious and ethnic groups that hated each other. The main reason for this hatred was the practices of the state.

There was also talk of Captagon smuggling back then. Captagon is a type of synthetic drug. The production of this substance, which was legally produced in Germany before, was later stopped. After its production was stopped, it started to be produced illegally in various countries in order to gain high profits. It was said that one of these countries was Turkey. Produced in secret workshops in Antep and Kilis, this product was widely used by many people living in Arab countries, including Saudi princes. At that time, we heard that there were families who got rich from this business, as it was reflected in the press. But we've never met in our area.

But we have heard that there is cocaine smuggling by sea. An attempt was made to take action immediately. On the Mediterranean coast, there is a dead zone on the Syrian-Turkish border, invisible from above. More precisely, very little of the beach is visible, the rest is the dead zone. From here, the small motor boats rowed quietly at night, and the engine was started shortly after crossing to the Turkish side. So we made a road and a position down the slope and put a platoon with machine guns. Indeed, there were boats that passed as described, and returned when the fire was opened.

After that, we learned that they had found a new method. Anyone who went to Samandag saw that the beach was full of garbage. This garbage is not the garbage thrown by the people of Samandağ. You can understand this when you look at the sea with the naked eye. Garbage comes here from Syria, Cyprus and the Eastern Mediterranean coasts. Because the currents in the sea flow towards the Samandag coast.

After we fired, the smugglers would pack the drugs in nylon bags, tape them tightly, and put them in empty plastic bottles and bins. Then they left it in a place where the current is on the Syrian side. The current brought them towards Samandağ and the men of the network in Samandağ were collecting them with boats, pretending to go fishing. We tried hard for this, but we could not find it. Since it is out of our area, we reported the matter to the coast guard units.

Smuggling was not only done from the border, but also from the border gate. There was a border crossing in the border area that we were responsible for, which was not very busy. Since it is very close to Latakia, there were sometimes those who commute with their own vehicles for the day. Since the fuel is very cheap in Syria, these people usually put enough fuel in their tanks for the first gas station, and when they come, they fill the tank completely and return. Some said they were making the trip free this way. It wasn't exactly smuggling, but something other than the door was often smuggled. Although we were not responsible for the gate, we could not actually detect this, but we heard from the news staff and the gendarmerie.

What was smuggled into the country was a smuggling product with the least risk but the most profit. This product was the sugar we mentioned in the title. I did not know that sugar was produced in Syria until that time. I thought that the so-called sugar, which started with the phrase "What sugar from Damascus...", was also a sugar belonging to Damascus, like Konya sugar. It turns out that sugar cane farming was done in Syria. Produced from cane, this sugar is much sweeter than the beet sugar sold in us, but much cheaper.

Even those who commute to Syria on a daily basis were buying enough sugar to not cause any problems at the border. But smuggling was done in larger vehicles and hidden among other cargoes. When this candy entered Turkey, it was quickly distributed and offered for sale. The profit of this business is as sweet as the taste of sugar. In fact, some of this sugar, which was brought as powder, was turned into cube sugar and sold as beet sugar with a contract brand label.

Now I want to ask you a question. Why do you think I told you all this at length? Just to tell my memories?

No….

My main purpose is to express my thoughts about today.

Considering the current internal turmoil of Syria and the increasing permeability of the border, since we caught most of them while we were trying to protect the border with our wealth, thousands of soldiers, weapons and equipment, but still everything crosses the border, I wonder how things are now?

Moreover, aid organizations, foundations, etc. in the region. There are many units operating with names. There are trucks and other vehicles that bring these aids. My life experience has taught me that people and institutions such as foundations/NGOs (non-governmental organizations) who donate for the sake of charity are far less common than one might think. Are charities, foundations and NGOs operating in Syria audited? Could these foundation-type structures be front structures, the main purpose of which is smuggling and established for this?

The news of smuggled fuel has been on the agenda for a long time in the press. We also hear and read that people who say that people freely enter and leave our country and that they fled the war go to visit their country during the feast. Can't they at least bring sugar, let alone the conspicuous things like drugs? Are these threats being overlooked because our border troops are solely focused on terrorist organizations such as the PYD and ISIS, and the armed forces of Russian and Syrian states?

In regions close to the Mediterranean, both sides of the Syrian-Turkish border are covered with pine forests. We were detecting the cannabis planted here during border missions, reporting them to the gendarmerie and ensuring that they were destroyed with a report. In the parts of Syria close to the border, areas without pines were also covered with olive trees. It is now possible to plant and harvest jute more easily here. Is this taken into account?

Say above that smuggling is an organized business we lit. This organization had Turkish and Syrian legs. After the civil war, millions of Syrians entered the border. Even if we think that most of them are innocent people fleeing the war, could it not be that some members of these organizations that do illegal activities have also entered our country? Couldn't they be establishing the Turkish leg of their organization in Syria and continuing their illegal activities?

If these questions were asked to me, I would answer "yes" to all of them. At least I would say "probably".

I raised what I know..