Let’s take a closer look in particular at three sections of the tableau that faces us: While talking about court decisions allowing retired generals Hurşit Tolon and Şener Eruygur to leave prison, Eruygur’s wife referred to certain courts as being “ours.” In fact, there are audio tapes to this effect. She has not denied this, but there remains a question that needs to be answered: Who exactly are you?
The second frame that calls for examination herein is this: There is a new audio tape alleged to be of former Chief of General Staff Gen. İsmail Hakkı Karadayı. In it, Karadayı refers to Ergenekon suspect Eruygur as a “good guy.” Well, we already know who people are talking about here: “I also wanted Şener Paşa; we included him knowingly. He is a great guy. He is the one who arranged those rallies. He is the one who came up with the idea of those first rallies. God willing, we will be successful in this business -- business that could change the fate of the nation.” And if we take a look at the journals kept by former Naval Commander retired Adm. Özden Örnek, it is clear how exactly it is that the fate of this country is to be changed: by a coup. Is this the “success” that is promised?
Recently, another audio tape with Karadayı emerged, and although he has claimed that parts of it were edited, he hasn’t denied the entire tape. On the audio tape, he refers to the election of Abdullah Gül as president and to the Justice and Development Party’s (AK Party) chances in the elections, noting that “now only the Turkish Armed Forces [TSK] can clean this business up.” In fact, the voice on the audio tape concludes, “If these elections also fail to give us success, it’ll have to be the armed forces that take care of this.”
So, here is the question: Since the phrase “these elections” was in reference to the July 22, 2007 general elections, doesn’t that mean that we are now firmly in the season when the armed forces are to “clean this business up”? Or will there be one more stab at “success” during the upcoming March 29 elections? We will return to this basic question again, but first we need to respond to the question of exactly “who” it is that is expected to be successful.
Was it the party of Doğu Perinçek, who is now a suspect in the Ergenekon case, that was expected to be successful in the 2007 elections? Or was this success expected from one of the marginalized patriotic parties? Or was it actually Deniz Baykal’s Republican People’s Party (CHP)? Whichever party it was that was expected to be “successful” is as dark in its ranks as the coup plotters themselves. But we need enlightenment as to whose darkness this really is.
I have no doubt that those same voices from the audio tapes are now referring to the upcoming March 29 elections in the same way, saying, “If we don’t win these elections, it’s only the TSK who can clean up the mess.” Will the ongoing Ergenekon investigation put a stop to this? Maybe.
Another critical disclosure is a conversation businessman Mehmet Emin Karamehmet had in 2003 with two top-level military officers who are also Ergenekon suspects. While this dialogue displays, for all to see, the scandalous relations between big capital, the media and the military, it also puts a bright spotlight on the backdrop of “special interests” upon which the unending “pro-militarism” of certain large businesses are based. This dialogue is also a clear display of how a businessman could sell his customers’ personal information, private conversations and confidential data to these people. And so I ask: Is this person actually a member of the Turkish Industrialists and Businessmen’s Association (TÜSİAD)? And if so, is TÜSİAD not considering throwing him out for having stained the name of all business figures in Turkey?
Another scandalous frame in this tableau that requires examination is the allegations made by Ergenekon suspect İbrahim Şahin during questioning by prosecutors. Şahin asserts that he was ordered to head up a unit that would fight against terror in Turkey and that he had direct relations with the military’s General Staff headquarters. He characterizes the work he was meant to do as “cleaning out.” And it is quite clear what kind of “cleaning out” this person, whose home was found to contain written plans to assassinate Alevi and Armenian community leaders as well as lists of “traitors and apologist intellectuals,” was planning to do.
But the real question is this: Seeing as how no one would have the courage to hire someone like Şahin to oversee any sort of legal organization, I wonder if some forces were preparing Şahin instead to oversee “an inner cleansing” in the wake of some sort of extraordinary situation in Turkey? In other words, is someone still planning a coup? Are they planning to see Şahin at the helm of an “inner national cleansing” with his specially formed units and lists of traitors in hand?
