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Turkey's Summer of Discontent: Ergenekon Blues
by Steven A. Cook
August 7, 2013
Former Chief of the Turkish General Staff Ilker Basbug (Umit
Bektas/Courtesy Reuters).
Former Chief of the Turkish General Staff Ilker Basbug (Umit
Bektas/Courtesy Reuters).
With the dramatic developments in Egypt over the last month, Turkey
has fallen out of the news even though it has been an eventful summer
along the Bosphorus. The opposition to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan that began after authorities tried to clear Istanbul's Gezi
Park in late May has proven more durable than virtually everyone
predicted. The government has responded to this political turbulence
with a variety of coercive measures making Erdogan's illiberal turn
appear to be downright authoritarian. At the same time, Ankara's
strategic position in the Middle East continues to crumble. The prime
minister's reaction to Egypt's July 3 coup d'état may be principled,
but his harsh and oddly emotional rhetoric has alienated yet another
important Middle Eastern country. In an irony of ironies, the
Egyptian press recently reported that if Erdogan makes a much-delayed
visit to Gaza in late August, he will have to do it through Israel.
That makes Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq the major regional
powers with whom Turkey is at odds.
If all this was not enough, earlier this week a Turkish court handed
down verdicts in the controversial `Ergenekon case,' which is sure to
roil Turkish politics further. There is not much discussion of the
verdicts here in Washington. The Washington Post ran an AP story
about the case on Monday, but nothing since. The White House has been
silent. Marie Harf, a State Department spokesperson, offered an
anodyne comment about Turkish law permitting appeals and (groan)
`watching the process.' It is August, and maybe people in Washington
care more about getting a reservation at State Road than high policies
of state. Maybe officials believe that Washington needs Ankara on a
variety of important issues (though I can only think of Syria) so it's
not in anyone's interest to upset Erdogan. Maybe it is hard to get
the administration and Congress riled up over a case that at one time
promised to uproot Turkey's deep state and the dark underside of the
country's national security establishment. Even so, there are aspects
of the Ergenekon case that are troubling even if one quite rightly
believes that the Turkish military has historically been a force of
authoritarianism and repression.
Just to review. In June 2007, Turkish police discovered a cache of 27
hand grenades on the roof of a building in the Istanbul neighborhood
of Umraniye. The explosives were linked to a non-commissioned officer
in the Special Forces named Oktay Yildirim. He was subsequently
connected to other officers (retired and serving), members of criminal
gangs, ultranationalists, and intelligence officers ultimately
numbering about 300 people. It seemed that the Istanbul cops had
uncovered Turkey's mythical and much discussed `deep state' red-handed
trying to sow violence in Turkey's streets in an effort to bring down
Prime Minister Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP).
The Ergenekon organization was subsequently alleged to have been
responsible for a 2006 attack on the Council of State, played a role
in the murder of prominent Armenian-Turkish journalist, Hrant Dink,
and various other murders and plots. Turkish liberals were delighted.
Until that time, Erdogan had practiced a pragmatic, reformist,
consensual style of politics that made many (though not all) Turkish
democrats and most foreign observers swoon. For Turkish liberals and
their friends abroad, prosecuting members of Turkey's deep state and
in the process helping to bring the Turkish military to heel would be
an important step in the country's transition to democracy.
In time, however, Turkish liberals started having second thoughts
about what was then the Ergenekon investigation. Erdogan began to use
Ergenekon against his political opponents. The conspiracy became a
conspiracy within a conspiracy. Along with military officers,
journalists, academics, politicians and other critics were hauled off
to Turkish jails and detained indefinitely while state prosecutors
conducted investigations. In 2008 and 2009, Turks were in a panic
that the government was listening in on their telephone conversations
and that everything they said would be used against them. People
began taking the batteries out of their mobile phones in certain
situations or leaving them outside meetings rooms. It actually became
kind of `a thing' after a while. If you were not ostentatiously
removing your cell phone battery while sitting down for a meal at
House Café in Ortakoy, you were clearly not all that important.
Then in early 2010, state prosecutors launched a related investigation
directly into the military over what was called `Operation
Sledgehammer,' which was believed to have been plans for a coup d'état
in 2003 that then Chief of the General Staff, Hilmi Ozkok, stopped.
Given the military's history of coups (1960, 1971, 1980, and 1997) as
well as various other routine interventions to ensure the republican
political system that Mustafa Kemal founded in 1924, the accusation
that the senior command was plotting to overthrow Erdogan seemed
entirely plausible. At the time, Washington yawned and regarded
rooting out coupsters within the ranks was yet further testament to
Erdogan's efforts to create a more democratic polity.
It was clear to some analysts well before, but by late 2010 and 2011
it was obvious to virtually everyone paying attention that the
investigations were much bigger politically. The conduct of the
inquiries, the quality of the indictments, and the profile of people
who were being detained in the Ergenekon and Sledgehammer
investigations after the initial discovery of weapons in Umraniye
together became even more ambitious and cynical than the already bold
effort to undermine the deep state. Many in Turkey - including the
media - and foreign analysts have either decided to look the other way
or determined that Erdogan and the AKP were so entrenched that there
was little to be done, but much of the evidence contained in the
ludicrously long and incomprehensible indictments in both cases was
clearly fabricated. In the Sledgehammer investigation, the
government's case was based on a single CD (among a set of 19) that
came to light in January 2010. The CD allegedly contains incriminating
evidence of the plot to overthrow Erdogan. Yet forensic analysis of
the CD indicates that the information on it was created after the coup
was supposed to have taken place. The courts ignored this devastating
evidence of government malfeasance and last year 322 military officers
were sentenced to prison, some for as long as twenty years. Similar
kinds of chicanery went on in the Ergenekon case, leading to this
week's verdicts that sent former Chief of Staff, General Ilker Basbug,
and ten other retired officers to prison for life. All in all,
approximately 250 people (of 275 indicted) were found guilty and
sentenced to various terms behind bars. They include journalists,
doctors, politicians, and academics.
Regardless of what one thinks of the views of those convicted in the
Ergenekon (and Sledgehammer) case, they deserve due process - a hallmark
of democratic polities. They did not get it in Turkey.
http://blogs.cfr.org/cook/2013/08/07/turkeys-summer-of-discontent-ergenekon-blues/
From: Baghdasarian
by Steven A. Cook
August 7, 2013
Former Chief of the Turkish General Staff Ilker Basbug (Umit
Bektas/Courtesy Reuters).
Former Chief of the Turkish General Staff Ilker Basbug (Umit
Bektas/Courtesy Reuters).
With the dramatic developments in Egypt over the last month, Turkey
has fallen out of the news even though it has been an eventful summer
along the Bosphorus. The opposition to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan that began after authorities tried to clear Istanbul's Gezi
Park in late May has proven more durable than virtually everyone
predicted. The government has responded to this political turbulence
with a variety of coercive measures making Erdogan's illiberal turn
appear to be downright authoritarian. At the same time, Ankara's
strategic position in the Middle East continues to crumble. The prime
minister's reaction to Egypt's July 3 coup d'état may be principled,
but his harsh and oddly emotional rhetoric has alienated yet another
important Middle Eastern country. In an irony of ironies, the
Egyptian press recently reported that if Erdogan makes a much-delayed
visit to Gaza in late August, he will have to do it through Israel.
That makes Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq the major regional
powers with whom Turkey is at odds.
If all this was not enough, earlier this week a Turkish court handed
down verdicts in the controversial `Ergenekon case,' which is sure to
roil Turkish politics further. There is not much discussion of the
verdicts here in Washington. The Washington Post ran an AP story
about the case on Monday, but nothing since. The White House has been
silent. Marie Harf, a State Department spokesperson, offered an
anodyne comment about Turkish law permitting appeals and (groan)
`watching the process.' It is August, and maybe people in Washington
care more about getting a reservation at State Road than high policies
of state. Maybe officials believe that Washington needs Ankara on a
variety of important issues (though I can only think of Syria) so it's
not in anyone's interest to upset Erdogan. Maybe it is hard to get
the administration and Congress riled up over a case that at one time
promised to uproot Turkey's deep state and the dark underside of the
country's national security establishment. Even so, there are aspects
of the Ergenekon case that are troubling even if one quite rightly
believes that the Turkish military has historically been a force of
authoritarianism and repression.
Just to review. In June 2007, Turkish police discovered a cache of 27
hand grenades on the roof of a building in the Istanbul neighborhood
of Umraniye. The explosives were linked to a non-commissioned officer
in the Special Forces named Oktay Yildirim. He was subsequently
connected to other officers (retired and serving), members of criminal
gangs, ultranationalists, and intelligence officers ultimately
numbering about 300 people. It seemed that the Istanbul cops had
uncovered Turkey's mythical and much discussed `deep state' red-handed
trying to sow violence in Turkey's streets in an effort to bring down
Prime Minister Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP).
The Ergenekon organization was subsequently alleged to have been
responsible for a 2006 attack on the Council of State, played a role
in the murder of prominent Armenian-Turkish journalist, Hrant Dink,
and various other murders and plots. Turkish liberals were delighted.
Until that time, Erdogan had practiced a pragmatic, reformist,
consensual style of politics that made many (though not all) Turkish
democrats and most foreign observers swoon. For Turkish liberals and
their friends abroad, prosecuting members of Turkey's deep state and
in the process helping to bring the Turkish military to heel would be
an important step in the country's transition to democracy.
In time, however, Turkish liberals started having second thoughts
about what was then the Ergenekon investigation. Erdogan began to use
Ergenekon against his political opponents. The conspiracy became a
conspiracy within a conspiracy. Along with military officers,
journalists, academics, politicians and other critics were hauled off
to Turkish jails and detained indefinitely while state prosecutors
conducted investigations. In 2008 and 2009, Turks were in a panic
that the government was listening in on their telephone conversations
and that everything they said would be used against them. People
began taking the batteries out of their mobile phones in certain
situations or leaving them outside meetings rooms. It actually became
kind of `a thing' after a while. If you were not ostentatiously
removing your cell phone battery while sitting down for a meal at
House Café in Ortakoy, you were clearly not all that important.
Then in early 2010, state prosecutors launched a related investigation
directly into the military over what was called `Operation
Sledgehammer,' which was believed to have been plans for a coup d'état
in 2003 that then Chief of the General Staff, Hilmi Ozkok, stopped.
Given the military's history of coups (1960, 1971, 1980, and 1997) as
well as various other routine interventions to ensure the republican
political system that Mustafa Kemal founded in 1924, the accusation
that the senior command was plotting to overthrow Erdogan seemed
entirely plausible. At the time, Washington yawned and regarded
rooting out coupsters within the ranks was yet further testament to
Erdogan's efforts to create a more democratic polity.
It was clear to some analysts well before, but by late 2010 and 2011
it was obvious to virtually everyone paying attention that the
investigations were much bigger politically. The conduct of the
inquiries, the quality of the indictments, and the profile of people
who were being detained in the Ergenekon and Sledgehammer
investigations after the initial discovery of weapons in Umraniye
together became even more ambitious and cynical than the already bold
effort to undermine the deep state. Many in Turkey - including the
media - and foreign analysts have either decided to look the other way
or determined that Erdogan and the AKP were so entrenched that there
was little to be done, but much of the evidence contained in the
ludicrously long and incomprehensible indictments in both cases was
clearly fabricated. In the Sledgehammer investigation, the
government's case was based on a single CD (among a set of 19) that
came to light in January 2010. The CD allegedly contains incriminating
evidence of the plot to overthrow Erdogan. Yet forensic analysis of
the CD indicates that the information on it was created after the coup
was supposed to have taken place. The courts ignored this devastating
evidence of government malfeasance and last year 322 military officers
were sentenced to prison, some for as long as twenty years. Similar
kinds of chicanery went on in the Ergenekon case, leading to this
week's verdicts that sent former Chief of Staff, General Ilker Basbug,
and ten other retired officers to prison for life. All in all,
approximately 250 people (of 275 indicted) were found guilty and
sentenced to various terms behind bars. They include journalists,
doctors, politicians, and academics.
Regardless of what one thinks of the views of those convicted in the
Ergenekon (and Sledgehammer) case, they deserve due process - a hallmark
of democratic polities. They did not get it in Turkey.
http://blogs.cfr.org/cook/2013/08/07/turkeys-summer-of-discontent-ergenekon-blues/
From: Baghdasarian