The latest statement of the General Staff confirmed that there was a strategy and action plan as such during that period designed only for planning practice and that it was executed as a seminar. It was neither named as such nor was it directed against an internal enemy, especially not the government. These statements were repeated by retired Gen. Çetin Doğan, former commander of the 1st Army, who is said to have undersigned the document.Gen. Doğan categorically denied that there was an action plan of this name and said that the plan which was executed as a training exercise (seminar) targeted external enemies, not an internal one, especially not the newly elected government. He added, “How can a man with a sane mind hatch such irrational and criminal capers?”
This would be the right answer had not half a dozen pre-coup preparation plans been previously leaked from the General Staff by more constitutionally and democratically oriented officers. Neither of these coup plans was acknowledged by the military. However, a prosecution is under way, interrogating the supposedly putschist elements called the Ergenekon gang.
On Wednesday night and Thursday during the day Gen. Doğan made two TV appearances that looked very genuine and convincing. He assured the audience that none of the alleged crimes were true and that the action plan and its execution were part of training and had nothing to do with domestic politics. He would have been believable if several expressions had not revealed the mentality behind his smooth and witty talk.
He said, “Today there is censorship and oppression over the media equal to that of the times of Sultan Abdülhamit [accused by the Young Turks of absolutism]; soon it may reach the level of Hitler’s reign.” Wow! Unconsciously we have fallen prey to AKP dictatorship. This sounded like a sentence in the action plan: “… the AKP has bowed to the political intensions of occupying forces…” These forces are the US and the EU as stated in the documents.
The second statement that revealed the general’s contention concerning the role and duty of the army in safeguarding the nation was reiterating the role of the armed forces as the guardian of the regime. This is the source of all the extra-political interventions into government affairs by the military. The Internal Service Law bestows on the military the duty of protecting and watching over the republic. This broadly defined code allows the military to define how the republic should be shaped, what security measures should be taken and how the danger posed to the republic should be defined. In lieu of this task, the military designated successive enemies, such as the left, obscurantism (or religious extremism) and ethnic separatism. All of these are internal enemies, and the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) has fought a fierce battle against these near and clear threats since the founding of the republic. So an unnamed quasi-civil war has been under way in this country for decades. These circumstances made the army into the central political figure unmatched in size and power by other political actors. This is the short history of Turkish politics.
The interrogations just about to be initiated concerning these new documents and allegations against some army personnel may fundamentally change the character of Turkish politics and public administration if the documents are proven to be authentic. We may once again regain our will as the people in order to determine how we want to live rather than obeying the dictates of “Big Brother.”
