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  • Turkey and its generals

    Turkey and its generals
    These cursed plots

    Dec 30th 2009 | ISTANBUL
    The Economist print edition

    The latest episodes in various alleged conspiracies against the government

    AP

    IT HAS been a rotten year for Turkey's generals. A series of leaked
    documents, tapped phone calls and sometimes plain accidents have
    exposed enough instances of shenanigans and mischief to shake the
    faith of even the most hard-core secularist. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the
    prime minister, has spoken of "historic changes". The days when
    civilians took their orders from generals in Turkey may be gone for
    good.

    The most recent scandal concerns two officers from Turkey's special
    forces who were arrested just before Christmas on suspicion of trying
    to assassinate Bulent Arinc, the (overtly pious) former speaker of
    parliament who is now a deputy prime minister. One of them apparently
    tried to eat the piece of paper on which Mr Arinc's address was
    written when they were arrested near his Ankara home. The army's
    explanation that the officers were spying on a colleague after an
    anonymous tip-off that he was passing secrets on to Mr Arinc failed to
    impress prosecutors: several other officers were briefly detained in
    connection with the alleged murder attempt.



    Against stiff initial resistance, investigators combed the special
    forces' once-impregnable Ankara headquarters over several days for
    evidence of other plots to destabilise the country and unseat Mr
    Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development (AK) government. They may
    have found some old dastardly plans.

    The Tactical Mobilisation Group of the Special Forces Command is
    believed, among other things, to have orchestrated the provocations
    that led to the mass exodus of ethnic Greeks from Istanbul in 1955.

    The latest operation marks perhaps the first time that civilian
    officials have carried out such an action against the army. Their
    ability to do so was enshrined in a landmark law, passed by the AK
    government in June 2009, that allows men in uniform to be tried in
    civilian courts. After some wobbling, Mr Erdogan now seems ready to
    take the army on. Many officers, including several retired generals,
    are languishing in jail in connection with the so-called Ergenekon
    trial of a group of would-be coup plotters. With each new revelation
    that taints the armed forces, ever more Turks fret that the army may
    be undermining the state.

    This week General Ilker Basbug, the chief of the general staff,
    admitted that the raids on the Special Forces Command were carried out
    within the law. Despite occasional growls about unnamed enemies
    blackening the army's name, General Basbug seems quietly to be
    co-operating with the government in its investigation.

    Over the years the army, which has toppled four governments since
    1960, has been among the biggest obstacles to a stable democracy in
    Turkey. But the squabbling politicians are little better. The main
    opposition leader, Deniz Baykal, has at times seemed even keener on a
    coup than are the generals themselves. More than seven years after AK
    was first elected to government, laws restricting free speech
    remain. The most heartening aspect of the recent scandals may be that
    so many were revealed by officers who exposed rogues within their own
    ranks.


    http://www.economist.com/world/europe /displayStory.cfm?story_id=3D15180898&source=h ptextfeature
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