RESTIVE COLONELS AND GENERALS
The Economist
splaystory.cfm?story_id=13871188
June 17 2009
UK
New evidence of old anti-government conspiracies within the army
OLD habits die hard. No institution in Turkey lives up to that adage
more than its meddlesome army, which is embroiled in yet another
row with the ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party. The latest
mischief-making concerns an alleged plan that was hatched last April to
overthrow AK and to incriminate Turkey’s largest and most influential
Islamic brotherhood, led by a moderate preacher called Fetullah Gulen.
A copy of the "Plan to Combat Islamic Fundamentalism" was published by
Taraf, a liberal daily newspaper, on June 12th. It promptly sparked
a political storm that has left the army on the defensive. Signed by
Dursun Cicek, a colonel serving in the army’s psychological warfare
unit, the plan calls for "mobilising agents" within AK to discredit the
party through their actions and words. Worse, it speaks of planting
weapons in the homes of members of Mr Gulen’s movement, with a view
to demonstrating that they are "terrorists" with links to separatist
Kurdish PKK rebels.
Another aim of the plan was apparently to use the media to galvanise
nationalist support against Armenia and Greece. And the authors also
wanted to clear the names of officers who are being prosecuted for past
coup plots against AK as part of the so-called Ergenekon conspiracy.
Skulduggery of this kind is not exactly new in Turkey. The army,
which has seized power three times directly, used similar tactics to
unseat the country’s first Islamist-led government in 1997. In 2004
a group of generals cooked up various schemes to overthrow AK on the
grounds that it was seeking to introduce religious rule. Yet for once
the government is fighting back. It has laid a formal complaint with
public prosecutors, calling for a full criminal investigation into
an attempted coup. Colonel Cicek, who protests his innocence, has
been called to testify before prosecutors dealing with the Ergenekon
case. "If the allegations are true, the situation is dire," declared
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, after a 70-minute meeting
with Ilker Basbug, the chief of the general staff.
Reuters
Basbug and Erdogan, sailing into the sun The general denies all
knowledge of the affair, but he has promised to punish any of
his men who are guilty. The general staff has launched its own
investigation. But army prosecutors have rushed to declare that
there is no evidence that the plan was devised at its headquarters,
even if they could not refute its existence. "This statement has only
reinforced suspicions," sneered Bekir Bozdag, an AK whip.
If the plot was really conceived without General Basbug’s knowledge,
it was probably the act of a group of renegade officers within the
army. This theory was buttressed by a recently retired general,
who told Taraf that he knew of "five or six people" who were bent
on unseating AK, adding that he had warned General Basbug of their
plans. Another less likely story is that the police, heavily penetrated
by Gulenists, forged the document to embarrass the army.
Certainly there is little trust between the army, the government and
the security services. Many hope the affair will give Mr Basbug a
chance to prove his democratic credentials and root out rogue elements
once and for all. Yet the signs are not encouraging. Colonel Cicek
has not been suspended during the inquiry. And army prosecutors have
slapped a legally dubious ban on any coverage of it.
The onus is now on Mr Erdogan to insist to the generals that they
must take orders from him and not the other way round. His meeting
with General Basbug suggests that he may be more interested in
cutting deals. That is what he supposedly did with the general’s
predecessor, Yasar Buyukanit, who had issued a statement on the
internet in April 2007 threatening to seize power. Soon afterwards
Mr Erdogan met General Buyukanit for two hours. Both vowed secrecy,
prompting speculation of a truce.
This new scandal suggests that, no matter how many conspiracies it
survives, AK will remain a target of those who resent its encroachment
on their traditional bastions of power. Ominously, the prosecutor
who launched the court closure case against AK in 2008 has now made
the bizarre complaint that the government is focusing "too much on
economic growth" at the expense of secularism. He has also spoken
against proposed constitutional changes that would make it more
difficult to ban political parties. Mr Erdogan needs to stick to his
guns and push through these changes. The best response to an attack
on democracy is more democracy.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
