Ergenekon’s recent tactics
27 December 2012, Thursday
ETYEN MAHÇUPYAN
e.mahcupyan@todayszaman
Neo-nationalists (ulusalcılar), who have made it their mission to wage
a political war against the government, continue to parrot that the
criminal case against Ergenekon — a clandestine organization nested
within the state trying to overthrow or manipulate the democratically
elected government ` is based on false or fabricated evidence.
But each new evidential document provides information that proves the
prosecutor’s claims against the defendants. Under the scope of the
trial concerning an anti-government Internet campaign spearheaded by
the military, a judge who was given the task of examining the hard
disks sent from the General Staff as evidence prepared a preliminary
report last week.
Apparently, the military continued to search for ways to overthrow the
government even after 2007, but they also made certain tactical
changes to their strategy. These changes are justified as follows: For
the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) to be overthrown, it
must lose its global backing. For this to happen, the cooperation
between the AKP and the global capital must be disrupted or the global
capital must lose its power so as not to maintain overall economic
stability. On the other hand, the conditions for overthrowing the AKP
through violence or other methods are not ripe. Such an attempt should
seek cooperation with central powers or the central powers may disrupt
the country’s economic structure overnight. Therefore, the best
strategy is to wait for the disruption of the AK Party’s accord with
the central powers and the weakening of global capital in Turkey.
It appears that the military has institutionalized its coup tradition
by extending it to cover a longer time period, and it has returned to
more patient and `subtle’ methods in the post-2007 era. A perusal of
Judge Hüsnü Çalmuk’s observations in the report reveals that the
military’s coup tactics for the new era follow three main lines.
The first tactical line suggests that the military should retreat to
the shadows and remain in disguise contrary to its previous strategy
of coming to the fore. In this context, the members of the TSK are
advised to avoid making references to the military being above parties
and politics and to stress that the military is defending the
interests not of institutions, but of the state, and to refrain from
any disrespect for the president and to ensure that they do not give
the impression of conflict with the ruling party or of intervening in
politics.
The second tactical line is about what should be done about political
parties. As the AKP is not a homogeneous party but binds together
people from diverse ideological attachments, the members of the TSK
are encouraged to develop `direct or indirect’ relations with the AKP
members who are close to the military and to manipulate or support
them using `proper means.’ Naturally, they adopt a bolder approach to
the opposition parties: The new strategic plan aims to ensure that the
military’s views are advocated by the opposition parties, and to this
end, to plant the people who are close to the military into the
decision making mechanisms of the main opposition Republican People’s
Party (CHP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).
The third tactical line is directly about how to manipulate the
general public. The purpose is to ward off negative comments or
assessments about the military and to produce false information so as
to make the secular public more resistant to the government. One of
the evidential documents covered by the report depicts in detail how
to conduct gray and black propaganda. According to this document, the
most effective method is to establish a news agency which will reach
both the national and international public. It is stressed that
running this news agency on the Internet would be more economical and
have advantages in terms of risk analysis. Reading these sentences in
the light of the previously seized evidence and information, one
cannot help thinking that OdaTV, against which there is an ongoing
trial, fits perfectly to this definition.
As for what such a news agency that operates through the web can do,
the document gives such examples, such as arranging media appearances
for certain people who are `deprived of any reactionaryism,’ making
them write books and making academics conduct prejudiced surveys to
lend support to the manipulated viewpoints. Oddly enough, all of these
recommendations seem to have been implemented in a number of cases in
the post-2007 era. The option of having a book penned does not belong
to `formerly pious people’ alone, but can include anyone who serves
this purpose and as such, one can understand how `researchers’ have
mushroomed and how the marketplace has been flooded with ideologically
motivated books.
By the way, we should not forget that the most important element in
the abovementioned analysis is the `central powers.’ The documents
openly refers to these central powers as the US and EU. This means
that pro-Ergenekon’s black propaganda targets primarily the US and EU.
The situation is no different today. The same propaganda is in place.