SENIOR MILITARY OFFICERS ARRESTED IN TURKEY
By Justus Leicht
World Socialist Web Site
k-f26.shtml
Feb 26 2010
The arrest of a number of senior officers has brought the
long-festering conflict between the government and the military in
Turkey to a new climax. The arrests take place against a background
of growing social discontent and tensions with the United States
and Israel.
On Monday, anti-terrorist units of the Turkish police arrested nearly
50 active and retired members of the military. They are accused of
belonging to a right-wing underground organisation called Ergenekon
and of having made coup plans against the Islamist AKP (Justice and
Development Party) government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
So far, there has been no public comment from the government about the
arrests, carried out by acting Chief of Staff Ilker Basbug. However,
the Turkish media is openly discussing Basbug’s dismissal, something
unheard of in Turkey.
Among those arrested are senior military figures, including General
Ibrahim Firtina, chief commander of the air force from 2003 to 2005;
Ozden Ornek, commander of the navy from 2003 to 2005; Ergin Saygun,
former commander of the 1st Army (which is stationed in the city of
Istanbul); and Cetin Dogan, another ex-commander of the 1st Army.
According to the Hurriyet newspaper, in 2007 Saygun was a member of
the delegation accompanying Prime Minister Erdogan to Washington. He
agreed with Washington on the need for greater intelligence cooperation
against the Kurdish nationalist PKK in northern Iraq.
Saygun was tasked with coordinating this collaboration.
Former Lieutenant General Engin Alan, who was also arrested, commanded
the special forces of the Turkish army. He was head of the special
teams that kidnapped PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan in Kenya in 1999 and
abducted him to Turkey, where he is serving a life sentence. Another of
those detained, ex-general Suha Tanyeli, was head of Sarem, a think
tank of the General Staff.
Other active and retired officers were also arrested. Their homes were
searched, along with the Mehmetcik Foundation, which is related to
the military. Including earlier arrests, and with the exception of
Chief of Staff Hilmi Ozkok, all of those arrested for alleged coup
attempts were commanders in the Turkish army between 2003 and 2004.
At that time, there were several coup plans, which were prepared
under pseudonyms such as "Fair-haired girl," "Moonlight," "Cage"
and "Sledgehammer." The media reported about the latter scenario in
January of this year. It consisted of planned provocations, including
the killing of politicians and journalists, and a bomb attack on
a mosque during Friday prayers, which were meant to undermine the
Erdogan government and pave the way for a military coup.
It is worth noting that all the alleged coup plans were developed
in the period just preceding the Iraq war, when Turkey’s relations
with the United States deteriorated sharply in a very short time. The
invasion was opposed almost unanimously by the Turkish population,
but the US still wanted to invade Iraq through Turkey.
Erdogan, the army leadership, big business and much of the media
wanted to allow Washington to use Turkish bases. In return, the Turkish
Army was to be permitted to invade the predominantly Kurdish northern
Iraq. However, parliament refused to sanction this, with a significant
proportion of AKP deputies voting against their own government.
The US administration took offence that Turkey was obstructing them
on the "northern front" and instead collaborated with the Kurdish
nationalists in northern Iraq. Then-US Deputy Defence Secretary
Paul Wolfowitz openly attacked the Turkish military because it
had not imposed the will of the United States against the elected
representatives in parliament. It is quite conceivable that a part
of the Turkish army understood this as tacit support for a coup.
The US, however, has been virtually silent on the action against
the generals. Washington has said that it has no concerns about
the arrests, but that everything should proceed lawfully and
transparently. This is a sign of how much relations have improved
with the AKP.
The current wave of arrests was preceded by sharp clashes between
the government and judiciary. In January, the Constitutional Court
unanimously overturned a judicial reform adopted by parliament in
July 2009 that allowed members of the Turkish military to be tried
in civilian courts.
In February, Sanal Osman, attorney general of the northeastern city
of Erzurum, had his colleague, Ilhan Cihanger, from the neighbouring
city of Erzincan arrested. Osman and three colleagues from the Supreme
Judicial Council in Ankara were then suspended from duty, against the
dissenting vote of the AKP justice minister. Osman is threatened with
proceedings for abuse of office.
State Prosecutor Cihanger is alleged to have participated in plans to
overthrow the Erdogan government along with those in the Ergenekon
trial. In Kemalist circles, however, it is said that Cihanger had
merely investigated Islamic sects for conducting illegal courses
on the Koran. In response to these investigations, the influential
Islamic organisation, Fethullah Gulen, is said to have sought the
backing of the AKP government. This interpretation of events views
the suspension of Osman as an attempt to hinder the investigation in
the Ergenekon proceedings.
It has also been reported that Attorney General Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya,
who dragged the AKP before the Constitutional Court two years ago,
was preparing a new order banning the ruling party. In 2008, a move to
ban the AKP nearly succeeded. Now, Yalcinkaya will investigate charges
that the ruling party has put the judiciary "under pressure." The AKP
has responded to these reports with the announcement that it may call
a snap election.
Whether the AKP will really call early elections is doubtful, however.
The popularity of the Erdogan government has dropped considerably
in recent months; many of its political projects have failed or are
about to fail.
A visible expression of social discontent is the strike by workers
of the former state tobacco company TEKEL against the consequences
of privatisation, which has been ongoing since December 2009. The
workforce is threatened with massive pay cuts and the loss of
contractually agreed benefits.
On February 4, hundreds of thousands of workers throughout the country
participated in a solidarity strike. The sympathy of working people
for the protesters could not be broken by false government claims that
the PKK and even the devil himself were influencing the strike–an
attempt to implicate TEKEL workers in terrorism and foment religious
backwardness and chauvinism against them.
The solidarity of working people shows that the right-wing,
market-oriented policies of Erdogan have lost support. These policies
aim to attract foreign capital through privatisation and deregulation,
to supposedly create economic growth. This strategy has undermined
by the economic crisis, especially in the export-oriented industries,
which have suffered heavy losses.
The "democratic initiative" of the government, which sought to
appease the Kurdish conflict with a handful of concessions, has also
not achieved its aims. Hardly a week goes by without new protests by
Kurdish demonstrators. The AKP did nothing to prevent the banning of
the legal Kurdish party DTP last year, even though its parliamentary
majority meant the AKP could have amended the law governing political
parties. Instead, it has come to terms with right-wing nationalist
forces.
The same goes for reconciliation with Armenia, which has been strongly
supported by the United States. Protocols signed in October, providing
for the opening of the Turkish-Armenian border and the establishment
of diplomatic relations, have so far not been ratified by either side.
In Turkey, nationalists are demanding Armenia must first withdraw
from Nagorno-Karabakh, which lies inside Azerbaijani territory.
Also in Armenia, there is a massive nationalist opposition against
Turkey, which wants to make recognition of the genocide of 1915 by
Ankara a condition for establishing relations.
Finally, the US is putting pressure on Turkey to take a tougher stance
against Iran. Ankara has been trying without success to mediate
the nuclear dispute with its neighbor. Washington, by contrast,
is employing threats and sanctions against Tehran.
Relations between Turkey and Israel have been strained for months,
and the recent visit to Turkey by Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak
in January brought no significant changes.
While admirers of the AKP have celebrated the arrest of the officers
as a "great moment" and "a part of the epic struggle between democrats
and non-democrats" (Suddeutsche Zeitung), the arrests in fact indicate
the extent of the crisis of the ruling elite. Pressure from workers
and Kurds at home, combined with the aggressive expansion of the US war
drive, are exacerbating tensions between the government and its police
apparatus on the one side and the army and the judiciary on the other.