Gölcük Naval Base revelations prove all shady plans interconnected

“All of the plans mentioned -- I mean the Sledgehammer, Cage, Poyrazköy and the Action Plan to Fight Reactionaryism -- make up the links of the same chain. All of them are interconnected, and the connections among them cannot be denied,” argued Önder Aytaç, a researcher and writer.

The exposure of the connection between all the shady plans -- suspected to have been prepared by the military for a coup -- follows the seizure of a large number of secret documents at the Gölcük Naval Command last week. İstanbul Specially Authorized Public Prosecutor Fikret Seçen supervised a police operation at the naval command last Tuesday after receiving an e-mail from an anonymous source claiming that naval officers were disposing of confidential documents at the Gölcük Naval Command's intelligence unit.

The documents at the base are believed to have been compiled by a prostitution racket accused of using blackmail to extract vital state security information from high-ranking military officers and senior bureaucrats with the intention of selling it to foreign intelligence services. The documents contain records of the categorization of top state figures as to their religious and political tendencies as well as documents suggesting what would happen after a military takeover.

In addition, the documents contain key information about subversive coup plans, including the Cage Operation Action Plan, the Action Plan to Fight Reactionaryism and the arms cache discovered in İstanbul's Poyrazköy neighborhood.

Even more shocking was the discovery of a document that showed that a rear admiral -- Alaettin Sevim -- who reportedly ordered an active duty colonel to prepare the Action Plan to Fight Reactionaryism was also implicated in scandalous phone conversations with the air forces in 2007 in which they discussed how to down Heron unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to protect terrorists of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

According to Aytaç, more shady plans will be prepared unless the Interior Ministry and the Defense Ministry take action against members of the military who are implicated in anti-democratic acts. “Whoever moves outside the boundaries of the law -- let them be military members, bureaucrats, press members or businessmen -- should be punished,” he stated.

Cage is a suspected plan that was exposed in 2009 in which prominent non-Muslim figures in Turkey were to be assassinated with the aim of fomenting chaos in society and leading to a coup d’état against the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government. The Action Plan to Fight Reactionaryism, on the other hand, outlines a systematic Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) plan to damage the image of the AK Party government and the Gülen movement -- inspired by internationally respected Turkish scholar Fethullah Gülen -- in the eyes of the public. An ongoing investigation into Poyrazköy concerns the discovery of a stock of munitions in İstanbul’s Poyrazköy district in April last year.

Documents seized from the Gölcük Naval Command also showed that the 2007 republican rallies during which retired members of the military, university rectors and members of the judiciary called for a military coup were organized by the Republican Work Group (CÇG), an illegal network established in the Gendarmerie General Command.

Retired prosecutor Gültekin Avcı stated that the documents seized from the Gölcük Naval Command indicate that all coup plans were administrated by a single center, which is most probably the command itself. “In Turkey there are people who try to downplay the Ergenekon investigation and create suspicions in people’s minds about the course of the investigation. I believe the recently exposed documents will nullify baseless arguments about the legitimacy of the investigation and further concretize the Ergenekon fact,” he noted.

According to the retired prosecutor, the documents have also revealed that Ergenekon has a special and serious formation within the Naval Forces Command. He is hopeful that the exposure of the documents will pave the way for a deeper investigation into Ergenekon. He believes that Turkey may see a new operation and new wave of detentions as part of the investigation in the days to come. “I believe that the Gölcük documents will lead to developments concerning [former Chief of General Staff] Gen. İlker Başbuğ. It is by no means possible to believe that all those documents and plans were prepared outside Başbuğ’s knowledge. So will Turkey witness new detentions? Probably. Because the new documents have revealed more dirty acts of Ergenekon,” Avcı stated.

About republican rallies and Heron scandal

Some documents seized from the Gölcük Naval Command suggest that the CÇG had a hand in the organization of the 2007 republican rallies.

According to the documents, the CÇG categorized many people in state offices, schools, nongovernmental organizations and private businesses across Turkey in accordance with their religious and ideological tendencies. In addition, it urged the preparation and display of posters that would foment the fear of rising reactionaryism in the country. The posters would be carried during rallies that would invite the military to take action against pro-reactionaryism circles.

The documents also showed directives from the CÇG to university rectors and retired members of the military. In the directives, the CÇG urged rectors and retired members of the military to appear on TV shows and focus on the threat of reactionaryism and attend rallies in which participants would express concern about the danger to the secular order. “Create an image that Turkey is being lost,” read one of the documents.

In addition, the documents showed that it was Rear Adm. Alaettin Sevim who ordered an active duty colonel to prepare a coup plan titled the Action Plan to Fight Reactionaryism. A document seized from the naval base features a genuine signature belonging to Sevim, according to Akşam.

Sevim was also implicated in scandalous phone conversations between members of the air forces in 2007 in which they discussed how to down Heron unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to protect terrorists of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The National Intelligence Organization (MİT) began to wiretap the rear admiral’s phone conversations after they discovered that the man who asked to down Herons, identified as air forces pilot Sr. Lt. Fırat Ç., called Sevim on the phone. The two had frequent phone conversations, according to MİT records. MİT, however, did not release details about the content of the phone conversations between the two.