It is an audacious, aggressive and arrogant mentality that considers “everything acceptable.” According to those who have this mentality, the state is always at “risk and in danger.” It is for this reason the “domestic threat” warrants any and every “action” that is carried out against it. How else can you explain the reason for framing someone for a crime they have not committed? It isn’t enough for them that citizens pay their taxes, respect the law and are miles away from “coercion and violence.” They wanted to secretly place weapons in homes, prove that the Ergenekon investigation was just a plot by setting up traps for the police, ambush a political party and remove it from power and carry out assassinations to incite conflict between Alevis and Sunnis.Those who seized every opportunity to dilute coup allegations are increasingly shocked as the authenticity of the documents are being confirmed one by one. Is there any other man in the history of Turkish law that has as many criminal reports in his record as Dursun Çiçek? Reports including police crime lab reports, gendarmerie crime lab reports, Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) reports and forensic reports. Before the original copy of the document was discovered, some people started an outcry over the document being a “photocopy.” Then when the original copy came out, they started clinging to the lie that a machine that reproduced wet signatures had been invented in America. But that didn’t hold either. The Council of Forensic Medicine (ATK) convened again and reached the same conclusion: “It was the product of Çiçek’s hand.” Some people still didn’t believe it. After the Gendarmerie General Command’s Criminal Investigation Department connected the final dot, the General Staff was obliged to admit that the document was authentic. So what was the benefit of putting up a front? Was there any need for Chief of General Staff Gen. İlker Başbuğ to say it was just a “piece of paper”? Should we be criticizing those who misinformed Başbuğ or those who damaged their reputation by giving an unnecessary defense? This issue goes back to whoever Çiçek reports to. It goes back to the senior official whom Çiçek can visit in his office at any time.
The issue isn’t about a colonel who has been caught red-handed; rather the issue is about a confrontation with a particular mentality. The authenticity of this person’s signature has been confirmed several times, yet a politician comes out and says he wants a “fingerprint” as proof. Come on, people, have a heart. Some military personnel who try to make themselves more powerful by constantly presenting the state and regime as being under threat and some civilians who are at their disposal think it is legitimate to set up a conspiracy against a segment of society. This is the mindset that plans incidents to intimidate leftists, rightists, religious people, Alevis and Kurds. We need to reconsider the bloody May 1 of 1977, re-evaluate the Kahramanmaraş incidents that led to sectarian violence and rethink the political assassinations that led to public unrest from this perspective.
Meanwhile, the court has approved the indictment that goes back to the document signed by Çiçek and mentions the incidents that occurred in Erzincan. In fact, the indictment was accepted despite pressure from the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK) not to do so. The prime suspect is 3rd Army Commander Gen. Saldıray Berk. The information and documents included in the indictment against one of the army’s top commanders is humiliating. The allegations against Erzincan Chief Public Prosecutor İlhan Cihaner, who is accused of being a member of Ergenekon, are blood-curdling. I wonder if the HSYK members, who prompted a crisis by directly intervening in the investigation, are ashamed as well. According to the indictment, the state’s commanders, prosecutors and intelligence officers put their heads together and tried to plan a conspiracy against the people. It is a terrifying situation.
One needs to be blind to not see the truth. Unfortunately, there have always been some people who have taken it upon themselves to protect the state and who abuse their power to set traps for the nation. It is an inhumane decision to act is if nothing has happened after all the information and documents that have been exposed. We are confronting an issue that is beyond politics. The notion of “domestic threat and domestic enemy” was targeting one group of people yesterday, and it is targeting a different group today. But the mentality is still the same. Expressing one’s reaction with statements such as “I feel like I have been deceived” is far from convincing. In order for people to believe your sincerity, you need to apologize to your colleagues, whom you turned into targets for the armed forces. Do not forget that a trap that is set up for certain people today will be set up for other people tomorrow. Those who want to use weapons purchased with taxpayer money against the people, saying, “I will crack down on İstanbul,” do not know that İstanbul will “crack down” on anyone who tries to crack down on it. In the end, even if people plan conspiracies against others, the public conscience is the ultimate court.
