One controversial player in the Kurdish issue, the Kurdish Communities Union (KCK), rather than contributing to stopping the bloodshed, resolving the conflict and speeding up the process of acquisition of cultural and political rights, is blocking peacemaking efforts with further attacks on military posts and personnel and provoking and intensifying violent street clashes with security forces. Yesterday, the KCK leadership gave interviews in which it stated openly that it opposes the probe and searches by a civilian judge at the Special Forces Command of the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK). The searches could shed light on many clandestine dealings and acts of the deep state, the junta and its JİTEM arm, all of which are implicated in 17,000 extrajudicial killings and the escalation of discord and unrest in the Southeast. So how can it be that Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and KCK “rogue elements” from terror bases outside Turkey oppose the probes and searches? Have they something to hide?Another important element of the status quo, or more correctly, the deep state, in Turkey is the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK). HSYK members who have already been photographed and wiretapped and implicated in plots keep on talking negatively about the ongoing trials and filing complaints against prosecutors and judges who are striving to investigate coup attempts and dealings of the junta and terrorists. Their interference in the ongoing trials of Ergenekon and other assassination efforts are doubtless unlawful and unconstitutional. However, the HSYK’s efforts are either hopeless last attempts to protect themselves, their privileges and colleagues or confident, well-calculated tactics because they have the conviction that whatever happens they will be protected by their ideological confreres in the HSYK who are nested in the judiciary. We will see.
Defenders of the status quo within the media are still publishing stories that aim to distort the facts about the ongoing judicial probes and searches and mislead the public. They publish or broadcast the most unlikely scenarios, fabrications and conjectures about the trials, arrests and searches being conducted by the courts. Interestingly, they also oppose the searches conducted at the Special Forces Command, arguing that this is the master bedroom of the state and should not be violated by civilian courts and authorities.
Moreover, while the TSK denies the existence of any unit by the name of JİTEM, further revelations are being published by its founders, retired personnel, henchmen and assassins. More payrolls, signed documents, correspondence on official letterhead, guidelines, admissions or confessions are sent to the investigative authorities and press every day. As the TSK still does not admit its existence and operations, further revelations seem likely to follow and embarrass the military authorities who are trying to defend the members and units that are implicated. Defenses such as the claim that one colonel and one major know all the state secrets and must not share them even with their commanders or military units are far from convincing. How do these two decide what a state secret is? How can assassinations and plots alleged to have been conducted by the junta or JİTEM be known only by these two officers, who were themselves caught red-handed preparing further plots and assassinations? Why is the TSK still defending such personnel and not handing them over for due investigation and prosecution?
Turkish society and citizens are not the same as they were in the bygone 1950s or ’60s. For cultural, democratic and political rights, neither Kurds nor Turks need such people, organizations or heinous plots. We need alternative voices, new peaceful democratic organizations and proper opposition parties to establish and consolidate cultural and human rights, democracy, the rule of law and civil society.
Turkey needs constitutional changes in line with EU accession and a new constitution that can put all the rogue elements in order. We need cultural rights and freedom, proper opposition parties and the supremacy of law to be able to investigate the loss of the precious lives of thousands of people and billions of dollars of state and other human resources for decades. Nothing should remain concealed behind bogus claims of “state secrets” known only to two low-ranking officers and defended by the vested interests and criminal elements in the status quo.
