The aim was to banish the Welfare Party (RP), which had secured 21 percent of the national vote in the 1995 elections, from the political arena. Question: Who was not happy with the RP government?Several groups were trumpeting that "fundamental characteristics of the Turkish Republic" were being undermined and that something should be done to prevent this. Was there a real threat to "the fundamental characteristics of the republic," as they argued, or did they have other goals in mind? The groups who openly voiced support for military intervention in the Feb. 28 process consisted mainly of people who had accumulated wealth through exploiting public resources. Later these groups would commit large-scale frauds in the banks they owned, and the losses these banks suffered would be reimbursed by the state. It is estimated that the Feb. 28 coup cost Turkey $74 billion.
There is a famous argument that has stood since the May 27, 1960 coup: No military coup is possible in Turkey without foreign support. The rest of the world's stance toward the Feb. 28 process was interesting. The world did not openly give a "green light" to a military coup. In particular, European countries even made it obvious that they were "cold" toward such a coup. It was meaningful that just one day after the National Security Council's (MGK) famous meeting on Feb. 28, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl set up a meeting with [then Prime Minister Necmettin] Erbakan for Sept. 30. The statements made by US officials supporting the Feb. 28 process, accompanied by rhetoric on the sanctity of secularism, were seen as gratuitous. The masterminds behind the process had failed to take this into consideration.
Formerly, the military had taken full initiative in the coups of 1960, 1971, 1980. Although in each case it had been civilians who encouraged the military coup -- as was frequently stressed by Muhsin Batur and Kenan Evren -- the military would make their plans and implement them on their own. But this time there was a fundamental change in the manner in which the intervention was conducted. There were "bad odors" in the air. The civilian groups did fulfill their duties for inciting the military into action; in particular, the media exerted great efforts to make a military intervention seem "reasonable and necessary." Yet one could still get the strong impression that certain interest groups who wanted to overthrow the government through anti-democratic methods and the civilian politicians who acted in coordination with them were actually trying to achieve their own political goals "through non-political methods" and to "indoctrinate the military along these lines."The Feb. 28 process produced decisions that were difficult to implement. Once again "the fear of the military" profoundly affected social life. The military became the subject matter of speculation; markets fluctuated considerably. Politicians who were unsure about their level of support from the people but who were still fearful of evaluating their own political performance saw the coup as a golden opportunity to take political power. The majority of secular intellectuals and media figures did nothing but applaud the process. Today, there are some who want to employ the same tactics to grab political power. The coup attempt, which surfaced along with proof of Ergenekon's existence, was an attempt to re-launch something similar to the Feb. 28 coup.
Their tactics designed to force the military into action included triggering a Turkish-Kurdish conflict, serial murders and shocking assassinations. If this had been successful, they would have derailed Turkey from the Western axis and toward the Russian-Chinese axis. But they failed to do it.
