Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Jul 05, 2008
TSK members displeased over latest detentions
Some members of the politically powerful Turkish Armed Forces (TSK)
have neither approved of the latest detentions of former senior-level
generals nor been happy about the silence of their top active
commanders over this development.
"The right thing should have been to invite the ex-generals to the
security department instead of detaining them in such a manner. Top
commanders should have reacted sharply to the way they were detained
as did a top businessman in reaction to a detention of his colleague,"
said a retired colonel, speaking to Today’s Zaman. The Turkish
authorities detained 21 people early in the morning of July 1,
including three former generals as well as businessmen, academics and
journalists, over the alleged planning of a coup. Those detained
included retired Gen. Å?ener Eruygur, the former commander of
the Gendarmerie General Command and the head of the Atatürkist
Thought Association (ADD), and retired Gen. Hursit Tolon, former
commander of the 1st Army.
The Office of the Chief of General Staff, meanwhile, stated on July 2
that the detentions of top generals and searches made at their
military lodgings were conducted by military authorities upon a
request from and with the participation of public prosecutors in line
with the Turkish Penal Code (TCK).
Gen. Ä°lker BaÅ?buÄ?, the Land Forces commander —
expected to become the new chief of general staff during the August
meetings of the Supreme Military Council (YAÅ?) — denied press
reports on July 2 that he was informed about the latest detentions of
ex-senior generals during a surprise meeting with Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip ErdoÄ?an last week. He, however, did not make any comment
on the detention of former generals.
"TSK members expected him to make some remarks of disapproval over the
way the ex- generals were detained, but he did not. We are not happy
about it," said a retired colonel.
He recalled the reaction of Rifat HisarcıklıoÄ?lu,
head of the powerful Turkish Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchange
(TOBB) on July 3, strongly criticizing the detention of Sinan
Aygün, head of the Ankara Chamber of Commerce (ATO) over
charges of connections with Ergenekon.
The retired colonel linked what he termed the indifference of
BaÅ?buÄ? to the way former commanders were detained to the
fact that BaÅ?buÄ? would stay in office for two years
instead of four due to the fact he will reach the retirement age of 67
once he becomes the new chief of general staff.
Current Chief of General Staff Gen. YaÅ?ar
BüyükanÄ&#x B1;t is also about to reach retirement age
after serving two years in office.
"Because one stayed and the other is going to stay for two years, both
Büyükanıt and BaÅ?buÄ? have preferred
to be more compromising with the government. If they knew that they
were going to stay for four years, I am sure their attitude would have
been different to the government practices in general and to the
latest detentions in particular. They could have stopped their
detentions," said a retired general, speaking to Today’s Zaman.
According to this general, the government has deliberately chosen this
two-year system to ensure a compromise with the top commanders.
Since the prime minister and the president have the authority to
extend the term of the duty of the chiefs of general staff in line
with the Constitution, they could have used this power by extending
their term of duty for another two years, he stated.
Despite uneasiness within the TSK over the detention of former senior
generals, there has been ongoing speculation over their alleged
activities to topple the government.
Retired Gen. Eruygur’s ADD helped in calling millions of Turks to the
streets to protest the election of former Foreign Minister Abdullah
Gül as president last year.
He was also implicated in an incident involving the alleged diaries of
the former Naval Forces commander, retired Adm. Ã-zden Ã-rnek,
published in late March last year by the now-closed weekly Nokta
magazine, as the mastermind of a coup attempt codenamed
"AyıÅ?ı& #xC4;?ı."
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄ?an said on July 1 that the
detentions were linked to the investigation into Ergenekon — a
hard-line secularist group suspected of planning bombings and
assassinations to trigger a military takeover against the ruling
Justice and Development Party (AKP), which is facing a Constitutional
Court case over charges of anti-secular activities. Predominantly
Muslim Turkey is a secular nation according to its Constitution.
This is the first time in the history of the Turkish Republic that
such high-level former military leaders have been detained on charges
of planning a coup, Turkish military analysts have noted.
No purges during YAÅ?, claim officers
Unlike the latest speculation in the press that there could be a
clean-up operation within the TSK against those who might have been
involved in alleged coup attempts said to be engineered by the
detained ex-generals, some TSK members were confident that no such
thing would happen.
On the contrary, around 20 to 30 officers alleged to have been
involved in Islamic activities may be purged, claimed a retired
colonel.
TSK’s ongoing autonomous and monolithic structure has made it harder
to understand and analyze the exact position of its members.
But the views of some members of the TSK that Today’s Zaman
interviewed appear to come close to the reality that even hawkish
Gen. Büyükanit does not seem to have been satisfying
them if the military fails to continue meddling openly in political
life.
On the other hand, the TSK does not seem to have liked the idea of
looking bad in the eyes of the public and thus allowed the legal
authorities to detain its former senior generals, said a retired
officer.
By preventing their detention, the TSK would have portrayed an image
that it is opposed to the law. If an indictment fails to prove the
alleged links of ex-generals with a coup attempt, then the TSK will be
able to tell the public that it adhered to the law, embarrassing the
government. If the indictment contains strong proof about their
involvement with unlawful acts, then again the TSK will be able to
tell the public that it has observed the law by allowing the detention
of their former members," said the same source.
However, the TSK has a record of incidents in which it has not allowed
its members to be tried or interrogated over different charges as well
as making public comments over civilian court decisions.
For example, back in 2002, seven top former generals, including former
Chief of General Staff Gen. DoÄ?an GüreÅ?, who was
at the time a deputy, publicly criticized the jail sentence of Korkut
Eken, a former TSK officer, over charges of forming a gang to commit
crimes in the infamous Susurluk case.
Turkish bar associations accused the former generals of attempting to
influence the judiciary and called for those generals to be tried in
order to shed light on the Susurluk case. But this has never happened.
A fatal car accident in which a truck collided with a Mercedes in
Turkey’s town of Susurluk took place on Nov. 3, 1996, revealing
state-mafia ties for the first time in Turkish history.
In another incident, for example, a colonel declined to appear before
a parliamentary commission investigating the assassination of
Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink early last year.
But because the Ergenekon investigation has become highly
sensationalized with the alleged links to some members of the TSK, top
commanders of the Turkish military may have allowed the prosecutors to
do their job this time — instead of preventing them — out of fear of
a strong negative public reaction, stated a Western military official.
As a matter of fact, in the midst of the first wave of detentions
early this year as part of the Ergenekon investigation,
Gen. Büyükanıt said the TSK was not an
organization that commits crimes.
"In every institution there are those involved in crimes, and they
would be tried and punished if they committed the crime," he said on
Jan. 29 of this year.
This statement of Gen. Büyükanıt might explain
the permission given by the TSK for the recent detention of its former
senior-level generals as an attempt to avoid a possible negative
public reaction to the military.
05 July 2008, Saturday
LALE SARIÄ°BRAHÄ°MOÄ?LU ANKARA