The discovery of a coup plan pertaining to 2003 has put military officers in a tight spot. The military in Turkey has not only lost its credibility but is in a position where it can’t even defend itself, let alone stage a coup.Military officers had made plans to bomb mosques so as to create public unrest and drive people to take to the streets. The plans are quite overwhelming. Everything was considered to the last detail. Even starting a war with Greece so as to create a crisis that would put the government in a difficult situation was included in these plans. Another option in the plan was causing the economy to crumble to turn the people against the government.
An official statement released the other day by the General Staff accepted the existence of such plans from 2003. It did not include any objections to or explanation about whether any of the details published in the Taraf daily were false. It only underlined that “no one with a mind and heart would be able to accept the allegations that have been put forward.” It is said that taking the allegations seriously would only serve the goals of those who seek to create apprehension in society. The statement falls short in providing any information as to whether the allegations are true or false.
An army fighting against an internal enemy
The “Sledgehammer” plan that Taraf has published is not, as the military argues, a “war game,” but an outright coup plan that was prepared with the widespread participation of military personnel at the 1st Army Corps headquarters in İstanbul. This plan was devised to create justifications for a coup. Explosions at mosques would provoke the people and encourage them to take to the streets. Military personnel would provoke a reactionary upheaval against the secular regime. Military units would mobilize in order to quell the uprising, and then martial law would be declared. People would be gathered at soccer stadiums and then arrested. A wide-scale purging of military personnel would be launched, and the command staff that disapproved of the coup would be forced to retire. The coup leaders would first take control of the military, then İstanbul and then the entire country.
It is obvious that this plan is a coup operation and not a war game. Military officers that can’t deny the details in the plan are truly in a difficult position. Officers who plan coups to overthrow the democratic government and seize power create their own “internal enemies” with such kinds of detailed plans. This is an army that would start a war against its own people just to be able to stage a coup.
The 5,000-page plan was completed during a meeting in İstanbul on March 4-6, 2003 that was disguised as a 1st Army plan seminar. This file contains a wealth of information for everyone in Turkey and around the world who is wondering, “How can an army stage a coup?” Those who are seeking an answer to the question “How can a coup be prevented?” can also benefit from this file.
The army cannot stage a coup
The plan itself and its exposure show that the army is incapable of carrying out a coup. This is obvious from the repetition of previous coup models and their titles. The “Sledgehammer Operation” is the name of the operation that was carried out on April 26 following the March 12, 1971, coup. After Mahir Çayan and his two cohorts kidnapped Israeli Ambassador to Turkey Ephraim Elrom, a large-scale operation was launched in which every single home in İstanbul was searched. An important detail is that these events came after the steam of the March 12 intervention. The purpose behind the left’s attempts to rob banks and kidnap people was to make the “communism threat” visible. This visible threat ended with the execution of these three young men.
Shouldn’t the following sentences be included in the plans of an enemy army that seeks to invade our country? “Economic operations to be carried out by friends of the TSK [Turkish Armed Forces] will drive the country into a financial bottleneck in the national and international arena. Massive protests and rallies will be organized against the AK Party [Justice and Development Party] government. Public opinion will be shaped in such a way that it will expect the armed forces to do what is necessary [stage a coup] after news of acts of reactionaryism, student protests, soldiers killed in clashes, economic crisis and unsolved murders.” Wouldn’t it be more appropriate to use the phrase “the army of another country” instead of the TSK? Try reading the same paragraph replacing the word TSK with the phrase “occupying army.”
Can you believe that there exists a staff of generals that has decided to drag the country into a “financial bottleneck?” that there is an armed force that increases the number of “fallen soldiers’ funerals,” in other words ensures that more soldiers are killed in terrorist attacks and that “shapes public opinion.” They want to divide the nation just so there is a need for the armed forces to provide public order. On top of everything, these actions are being planned by people in official uniforms and within the army.
Careful readers of the “Sledgehammer” plan published in the Taraf daily have probably recognized the general state of perversion. The commanders that created this plan are not acting as if they are members of an institution responsible for defending the country but as if they are members of a political party seeking to become the ruling party. As for the project they are working on, it is the kind of project that an illegal political party looking for power would design. The only difference is that this project includes the use of weapons. They are convinced that the soldiers under their command and the weapons in their hands were given to them to seize power and to take control over the country.
This plan per se is enough to show that a military coup is the biggest danger for Turkey. Prudent military personnel that can evaluate this plan objectively will reach the same conclusion. Similar methods were sought in the implementation of the Feb. 28, 1997 postmodern coup. The military is used as an easy tool amidst a power struggle, and then Feb. 28 takes place. Banks’ funds are embezzled, and the economy collapses. Frustrated about losing their jobs and money, the people take revenge at the polls. But this time the coup leaders didn’t like results, so they made this plan. Is it about reactionaryism? Is it about protecting the secular order? No, they just think that the weapons in their hands open the way for them to become the ruling power. A military officer with a minimum knowledge of the world would have to not only be foolish but also extremely fixed in his opinion to think that secularism is under threat in a country that has integrated with the EU and is competing in the world market.
This plan shows what we need to do in order to firmly instill democracy and to protect this country from coup supporters. The commander in charge of the plan insistently mentions the provincial administration law and the Protocol on Cooperation for Security and Public Order (EMASYA). First the military needs to be detached from the internal security services. “Internal threat” evaluations that cause soldiers to have visions about coups should not be made by the armored division commander who uses mafia jargon to say that he will do whatever that is necessary. In fact, the ability of the feebleminded generals who declare 80 percent of the public an enemy to command needs to be questioned.
With the process we are going through, Turkey is doing some spring cleaning inside the house. It’s finding dirty clothing left here and there. Now is the time to do some more cleaning. There is only one way to appease concerns that the perilous situation exposed by the Sledgehammer plan has sparked and that is by placing the military under the control of the democratic powers. There is a need for complete transparency and more monitoring. The people have lost confidence in the military. Now it wants to monitor the military.
