I was just looking back on what I have previously written on the Ergenekon case. I found the article below, which partly analyzes this “unbelieving” situation. When I read my own article, I was surprised that nothing has changed since it was published one year ago. The “parties” to this conflict have almost frozen positions that have not changed even one inch. I can even say that the Ergenekon lobby is much more successful now than it was. Last week I was in Washington, and I observed the Ergenekon lobby’s success in casting doubt about the whole Ergenekon trial in Turkey. This is something we need to think about very seriously. There are many elements contributing to the success of this disinformation campaign in Turkey, each of which should be carefully analyzed. However, when you read my article below, you will see that the root causes of disbelief in the existence of the Ergenekon gang lie in some attitudes in Turkey. Namely, it is not seeing any wrongdoing in planning a military coup. If you see military coups as a legitimate way to interfere in the system, then you will not see a gang as illegitimate if it tries to pave the way for it. How this strange view successfully creates a strong influence in some circles in the West is another question that needs to be answered. I will continue analyzing this psychology of disbelief in the coming pieces in this column, but now let’s turn back and go to some root causes. Here is the article, published in the Turkish Zaman newspaper on Feb. 9, 2009:
“Since the inception of the probe into Ergenekon, a shadowy network nested within the state conspiring to overthrow the government, we have been subject to a disinformation campaign the likes of which have never been seen before. There is an ongoing battle fought to discredit said probe and confuse people’s minds about it, and it is so fierce that one is really astonished. First, some ‘advocates’ of Ergenekon came into existence.
“These people rushed to voluntarily defend this network. This naturally led to an extremely problematic type of ‘professional performance.’ Indeed, if they would naturally perform their professions as they are currently doing, many complaints would have been filed against them at the bar associations with which they are affiliated with. The legal profession has many specific rules, and one of them is that a lawyer cannot act as the spokesperson for his/her client.
“The first defense strategy employed by the network’s lawyers in the media and politics was to absolutely deny the existence of said network. There is no such network, and what we face is purely a political conspiracy, they said. However, as the process proceeded, the police found bombs and weapons buried in the ground, and these lawyers had to change their defense strategy and started to assert that the probe did not distinguish between the good and evil people but mixed the reputable people with some hit men. In other words, they said, yes, there is a network, but what connection can exist between these reputable people and the network? Still, they did not seem to be sufficiently convinced about the existence of the network. Some lawyers asked, ‘Who buried those bombs?’ to imply that those who buried them are the same as those who found them, i.e., the police. But it was no longer possible to build their defense strategy entirely on this argument as there was much other evidence and documents discovered. Perhaps it would be redundant to note here, but many more arguments were marketed in order to discredit the investigation: The police who conduct the investigation are members of a particularly community, and they intend to discredit the military. The prosecutor was a man of the government! The suspects were illegally wiretapped! The investigation was built entirely upon the statements of a ‘mad’ rabbi, Tuncay Güney. The court was specially appointed to the case!
“Some of these arguments were refuted in an extremely convincing manner, so there is no need to go into details. We know that the investigation was launched not in connection with the statements by Güney but upon the seizure of hand grenades in a slum house in Ümraniye in İstanbul. Moreover, it is known that Güney had been very close to Veli Küçük, a chief defendant in the Ergenekon trial, and he witnessed many incidents up close. While his statements may not be considered evidence on their own, they are certainly important, particularly when assessed in connection with other evidence. No one has claimed that the bombs found buried would be used to overthrow the government. But it was claimed that these would be used in the provocative incidents that would create chaos and lay the groundwork for an eventual military takeover. The evidence submitted by the police and prosecutors is assessed by an independent court. Prosecutors’ demands for search or arrest are evaluated by a judge on duty that changes every time. Given the fact that these judges formerly worked at the now-defunct State Security Court (DGM) and would not be appointed to these positions if they had problems with the establishment, it is obvious that these judges would not approve of these demands if it were not for strong evidence.
“Ergenekon is a massive network and lies at the heart of many shadowy events in Turkey. One of its faces looks to the future. Its past face comprises the Susurluk scandal, JİTEM, politically motivated murders, extrajudicial executions, mass killings and many more bloody events.
Its future-oriented face consists of attempts to create chaos and a military coup in Turkey. For now, the investigation, unfortunately, seems to have focused only on the future-oriented face of Ergenekon. While our hopes grow seeing prosecutors collect case files about JİTEM and some politically motivated murders, the investigation has so far concentrated mainly on the coup preparations part of the business. Thus, a number of elites who are very likely to be masterminds of these coups saw their fair share of detentions. And this had led to a storm in a teacup. You can see the traces of a very serious mentality behind all this noise. … A coup is not an illegitimate thing in our political culture. There are many people who still regard the military coup of 1960 as a revolution in Turkey. What is more legitimate than overthrowing a government that is ‘reactionary’? If there is no crime, there cannot be criminals, either. Therefore, the bombers and hit men should be considered part of the same organization.
“In all criminal organizations, there are both highbrows and lowbrows. The highbrows acting as the mastermind may not know about what the lowbrows as the hit men do or even whether there are any lowbrows within the organization. The basic organizational form of Ergenekon ensures that only a limited number of people see the whole picture while the rest only know about their own doings. If this is the case, can it be suggested that the ‘subversive’ masterminds belong to an organization while the ‘hit men’ are members of another network? Aren’t those who try to pave the way for a military coup aware of what they do? Don’t they know how the previous coups were conducted in this country? …
“In the cases of [Fr. Andrea] Santoro, Hrant Dink and missionaries in Malatya, the provocateurs behind the scenes made numerous promises in order to encourage the murderers. One of these promises was that after they committed these murders, there would be a military coup, and they would be released as heroes after the coup. Do your best in laying the groundwork for a coup in your elite meetings or talks in Ankara or İstanbul and then claim no responsibility for the bombs buried for the coups you planned or for the killing of people whose murders were motivated with the promise of release after these coups! A country with such a big, privileged elite can be neither a democracy nor a country governed by the rule of law. It is for this reason that Ergenekon is the last exodus for Turkish democracy.”
