Turkey’s Ergenekon Investigation.” The luncheon invitation says the event will elaborate on questions such as “Is the case making Turkey a more democratic country or becoming a tool to undermine the opposition?” By looking at Jenkins’ published record so far, it is most probable that his answer would be that the case is becoming a tool to undermine the opposition, if he does not shock us by radically changing his previous views on the case. But why is a group such as ARI, which presents itself as liberal democrat pro-civil society, in favor of accountability, transparency, the rule of law and participatory politics, organizing such a more or less pro-Ergenekon event? Let me start with the discussion moderator Yurter Özcan, a research analyst at the pro-Israeli Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s Turkish Research Program, otherwise known in Turkey, anti-AK Party but neo-con friendly Soner Çağaptay’s institution. Mr. Özcan is also Washington representative of the ARI foundation. Mr. Çağaptay is known to have been writing about the AK Party government along the lines that the party will Islamicize the country, will turn it into an authoritarian hell and will radically depart the country’s way with the West, accusations without any shred of evidence. Messrs Çağaptay and Özcan recently published a piece in July complaining again about Turkish people and the AK Party underlining that despite everything Obama has done, Turkish people do not still trust the American government and the AK Party is responsible for it, as its leaders do not have any positive words to say about the US. As my column is about the ARI event, I will not ask for now if the period between January and July 2009 was enough to change the Turkish perception of the US and what is their proof that the AK Party is guilty of charge. It is obvious that the ARI group’s Washington representative is no friend of the AK Party. He does not have to be, but it is reasonable to expect that to have a balanced discussion on the Ergenekon case, we at least need an objective AK Party and Ergenekon case observer. With this hope we turn our attention the speaker, Mr. Gareth Jenkins.
A cursory reading of the titles of his recent publications shows that he has been writing along the lines of Turkey’s oligarchic militarist elite such as Bekir Coşkun and/or Emin Çölaşan and has been trying to undermine the AK Party government at whatever cost. Some of the titles read as follows:
“Government Pride and Populism Threaten to Deepen Recession in Turkey;” “The Politics of Personality: Erdoğan’s Irascible Authoritarianism;” “Strategic Posture Review: Turkey braces for an uncertain future.” It is obvious that among Turkey’s several acute problems, Jenkins has preferred to focus on the AK Party and its alleged lack of democratic credentials. It is unfortunate that in his works on the Turkish military, Mr. Jenkins seems to be tolerant, understanding and forgiving as regards the military’s constant harm to the development of a proper democracy in Turkey. It seems that it is not the lack of democracy in Turkey or it being under threat, but the rule of AK Party that bothers Mr. Jenkins.
As I mentioned above, Mr. Jenkins published a report on the Ergenekon case suggesting essentially that there is a predilection for conspiracy theories in Turkey and the case is more or less a fantasy even though some of the suspects may be real criminals. His main line of argument is that there is not an organization called Ergenekon, but based on some evidence, the government is trying to terminate its political opponents. He repeatedly refers to the case as the “abuses and absurdities of the Ergenekon investigation” and puts firmly that there are questions about the AK Party’s commitment to democracy and equality before the law. He employs some pro-case sentences to look objective but all in all his report tries to belittle the case and thus supports pro-Ergenekonians. Here is one of his verdicts on the case, “The indictments are so full of contradictions, rumors, speculation, misinformation, illogicalities, absurdities and untruths that they are not even internally consistent or coherent.” He concludes that the case “represents a major step not -- as its proponents maintain -- towards the consolidation of pluralistic democracy in Turkey, but towards an authoritarian one-party state.”
Jenkins cannot, of course, explain why all democrats, liberals, non-nationalist leftists, non-neo con and non-orientalist Western observers of Turkey who have nothing to do with the AK Party are fully supportive of the prosecutors, are against the Ergenekon terror organization and why they all believe that the prosecutors are spot on. He also cannot explain why it is only the AK Party enemies, such as the neo-cons, that are skeptical about the case and they curiously never mention the factual evidence of the case but talk about the detainment of “respectable” people.
Let me ask again. Why a group such as the ARI that presents itself as pro-civilian, democracy, rule of law, transparency, accountability, and so on, organizes an event that one-sidedly undermines a democratically elected government, a government that will easily go when the electors decide not to vote for it, but does not focus on the military interventions, coups, juntas, secret arsenals, assassinations and bloody plots that took place in our history and question if Ergenekon could be just another of them? Are we simply witnessing the end of a masquerade ball?
Benzer Haberler 
