SUSPECTS ON TRIAL FOR PLANNING TO INCITE COUP IN TURKEY
By Larisa Epatko
NewsHour
October 23, 2008, 2:05 PM ET
A massive trial underway in Turkey — involving retired military
generals, journalists, politicians and a university rector accused of
trying to create the conditions for a coup — might have far-reaching
political and military implications.
The lawsuit names 86 people allegedly connected to a secret
ultranationalist organization known as Ergenekon after the legend
describing the re-emergence of the Turks who successfully fought
their enemy using the cunning of a gray wolf. Forty-six of the 86
defendants are in custody.
A 2,455-page indictment says the group was behind the murders of a
prominent judge, a priest, Armenian journalist Hrant Dink and three
Christian publishing house employees, and the bombing of newspaper
Cumhuriyet’s offices in Istanbul in 2006.
Prosecutors claim the group was planning to target other prominent
figures, including Nobel Prize-winning author Orhan Pamuk, in order
to spur a military takeover of the government in 2009.
The investigation began in July 2007 after police found hand grenades
and other explosives in a house in Istanbul. The case has riveted the
Turkish public’s attention because it feeds into the belief that a
"deep state" of military, intelligence and judiciary elements are
working behind the scenes to manipulate the country’s political,
business and education elite.
The trial opened Oct. 20 in a heavily guarded courtroom on the
outskirts of Istanbul and is expected to take months to complete.
Critics say the case is politically motivated and is being used
by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s AK Party to silence its
opponents.
The defendants include retired Brig. Gen. Veli Kucuk, nationalist
Workers’ Party leader Dogu Perincek, Cumhuriyet columnist Ilhan Selcuk,
former Istanbul University rector Kemal Alemdaroglu and nationalist
lawyer Kemal Kerincsiz.
Lawyers for the defendants are questioning the ties that prosecutors
are making between people from different and often opposing
backgrounds, the New York Times reported.
According to Turkish-born professor Henri Barkey, chairman of
the Department of International Relations at Lehigh University in
Pennsylvania, the suspects involved could be considered "the gang that
couldn’t shoot straight" for operating under the assumption that if
you create a little bit of violence, the army will intervene.
Although Turkey has had four military coups since becoming a republic
in 1923, the likelihood of Turkey experiencing another coup is
diminishing as it seeks to attract foreign investments and become an
international player.
"There is no question that if, for example, tomorrow there were to be
a military coup in a traditional sense in Turkey, the Turkish economy
would collapse," Barkey said. And now with the global economic crisis,
chances of a coup are even less, he added.
Still, the trial itself could have some serious implications, said
Barkey, and depending on which way the verdict goes, the case could
puncture the military’s untouchable persona. In a country where
the military is generally held in high regard, several four-star
and two-star generals, along with other military officers, are being
tried by a civilian prosecutor in a civilian court for the first time,
he said, and that could transform civil-military relations.