Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s description of this latest development during his speech last Sunday, without referring it in particular, as a “historic process,” indicates strongly that the decades-long dual power -- i.e., the military-led secular establishment on the one hand and the elected political authorities on the other -- governance of Turkey may come to an end, with the winner being democracy.
Turkey is again going through a tense period after two officers -- including one colonel -- were found by police Dec. 19 near Arınç’s house in Ankara’s Çukurambar district, where the majority of the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AK Party) members reside. The Turkish General Staff claimed last week that the two officers were in the area to track an officer suspected of leaking secret document. But this explanation has apparently fallen short of satisfying prosecutors investigating the Arınç case.
The officers, most possibly caught red-handed, are employed at the Ankara regional office of the Tactical Mobilization Group, affiliated with the Special Forces Command of the General Staff. The two officers are identified as specialized in artillery, while one of them is also a fortifications officer. This has raised serious questions over whether a fortifications officer or artillery officers could undertake the intelligence work of tracking an officer suspected of leaking secret information as stated in the General Staff statement. Their main training expertise should be acts such as bombing in the event of enemy attack.
Following the capture of the two officers, civilian prosecutors started a search at the Special Forces Command’s mobilization center in Ankara’s Kirazlıdere district, late Friday night. This search would indicate that prosecutors had strong evidence of abnormal events surrounding the incident, which culminated with the apprehension of two officers around Arınç’s house. The search at the center continued through yesterday morning, though the prosecutors were initially prevented from executing a search of some rooms said to contain top secret documents. As this column was being written, a third search has started at the Special Forces Command center.
The search probably continued in those rooms following Prime Minister Erdoğan’s three-hour-long meeting last Saturday with both Chief of General Staff Gen. İlker Başbuğ and Land Forces Commander Gen. Işık Koşaner.
How come civilian prosecutors have been able to conduct a search at a military headquarters, in particular at the Special Forces Command, whose existence, according to retired military prosecutor Ümit Kardaş, is illegal, as it is not based on any laws? Its existence is based on inner circulars issued by the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) that are not based on any legal procedures adopted by the civilian authorities, Kardaş says.
The answer to that question lies in a critical change in Article 250 of the Code on Criminal Procedure (CMK) adopted by Parliament during a late-night debate last June. The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) applied to the Constitutional Court for the cancellation of this amendment, but the highest court has not yet debated the issue.
This change in the CMK has made it possible for civilian prosecutors to conduct searches at military headquarters as part of an investigation.
The amendment to the CMK has paved the way for the trial of military personnel in civilian courts, marking an important step towards curbing military power in politics and in meeting one of the criteria set by the European Union for Turkey’s membership bid.
The amendment allows civilian courts to prosecute military personnel in peacetime for anti-government activities, threats to national security, constitutional violations and organized crime. The law also transfers the power to prosecute civilians in peacetime for offenses currently under the military penal code.
The ruling party’s move to change the CMK came in the midst of controversies surrounding an “action plan” allegedly devised by a colonel in the TSK outlining the details of a plan to discredit the ruling party through a smear campaign.
Kardaş is convinced that secret plans to topple the government might have existed in the rooms where searches have taken place as part of an investigation over alleged assassination plans against Arınç.
Kardaş also believes that the Special Forces Command, which he described as an illegal formation, should be abolished and that a new formation under the civilian authority’s control should be established if such a headquarters is required.
The Special Forces Command is usually renowned in Turkey as a formation targeting society through psychological warfare. The Special Forces Command ,affiliated with the General Staff, first came under public scrutiny in the late 1980s when the late Bülent Ecevit, then prime minister, suggested some of the Special Forces Command’s counter-guerrilla activities may have contravened Turkish law.
It is meaningful that civilian prosecutors have been conducting their first search at a controversial military headquarters.
The government’s resolve appears to be opening a new and a positive period in Turkey, though we will go through difficult times in the foreseeable future until the dust is settled.
