Turkey and its generals
These cursed plots
Dec 30th 2009 | ISTANBUL
The Economist print edition
The latest episodes in various alleged conspiracies against the government
AP
IT HAS been a rotten year for Turkey’s generals. A series of leaked
documents, tapped phone calls and sometimes plain accidents have
exposed enough instances of shenanigans and mischief to shake the
faith of even the most hard-core secularist. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the
prime minister, has spoken of "historic changes". The days when
civilians took their orders from generals in Turkey may be gone for
good.
The most recent scandal concerns two officers from Turkey’s special
forces who were arrested just before Christmas on suspicion of trying
to assassinate Bulent Arinc, the (overtly pious) former speaker of
parliament who is now a deputy prime minister. One of them apparently
tried to eat the piece of paper on which Mr Arinc’s address was
written when they were arrested near his Ankara home. The army’s
explanation that the officers were spying on a colleague after an
anonymous tip-off that he was passing secrets on to Mr Arinc failed to
impress prosecutors: several other officers were briefly detained in
connection with the alleged murder attempt.
Against stiff initial resistance, investigators combed the special
forces’ once-impregnable Ankara headquarters over several days for
evidence of other plots to destabilise the country and unseat Mr
Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development (AK) government. They may
have found some old dastardly plans.
The Tactical Mobilisation Group of the Special Forces Command is
believed, among other things, to have orchestrated the provocations
that led to the mass exodus of ethnic Greeks from Istanbul in 1955.
The latest operation marks perhaps the first time that civilian
officials have carried out such an action against the army. Their
ability to do so was enshrined in a landmark law, passed by the AK
government in June 2009, that allows men in uniform to be tried in
civilian courts. After some wobbling, Mr Erdogan now seems ready to
take the army on. Many officers, including several retired generals,
are languishing in jail in connection with the so-called Ergenekon
trial of a group of would-be coup plotters. With each new revelation
that taints the armed forces, ever more Turks fret that the army may
be undermining the state.
This week General Ilker Basbug, the chief of the general staff,
admitted that the raids on the Special Forces Command were carried out
within the law. Despite occasional growls about unnamed enemies
blackening the army’s name, General Basbug seems quietly to be
co-operating with the government in its investigation.
Over the years the army, which has toppled four governments since
1960, has been among the biggest obstacles to a stable democracy in
Turkey. But the squabbling politicians are little better. The main
opposition leader, Deniz Baykal, has at times seemed even keener on a
coup than are the generals themselves. More than seven years after AK
was first elected to government, laws restricting free speech
remain. The most heartening aspect of the recent scandals may be that
so many were revealed by officers who exposed rogues within their own
ranks.
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