The Military Takes the Stand

​​Together with another 54 defendants, the two ex-generals Hursit Tolon and Sener Eruygur are charged with planning a putsch in 2003 and 2004 against the Islamic government of Tayyip Erdogan, newly elected in late 2002, and with subsequently playing a leading role in a secret organisation that wanted to pave the way for another coup attempt through terrorist attacks.

The fact that the first day of the trial did not cause a huge stir in Turkey can be attributed to the way in which the sacrosanct status of the military had already been shaken to its foundations in recent weeks and months.

The "Ergenekon complex"

The trial is part of the so-called "Ergenekon Complex", which has already preoccupied Turkey for over two years. Ergenekon is the code name for an ultranationalist secular secret organisation with multiple ties to the military and the republic's old Kemalist establishment.

According to the public prosecutor's office, although Ergenekon was originally founded to overthrow the Islamic government of Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and President Abdullah Gül, it has long since become a code word for the entire "deep state" apparatus.

Since Turkey introduced a multi-party system and corresponding democratic elections in the early 1950s, the military has organised three coups in order to rescue the country's Kemalist legacy and present itself as the true guardian of the republic.

Almost everyone in Turkey knows that alongside the elected governments and official institutions, there is also a behind-the-scenes military/bureaucratic network, known as the "deep state", which repeatedly intervenes to protect the country's "true interests". It was always taken for granted that there would be victims.

Like a many-headed hydra

Also notorious are the killer commandos that have caused hundreds of Kurds to vanish since the early 1990s, all of them accused of supporting the PKK guerrillas. Former members of the military and the secret service were always implicated in these murders, but in some cases politicians and senior bureaucrats too.

​​All of this plays a role in the current Ergenekon trial, which makes efforts to shed some light on this sinister chapter in the republic's recent history extremely complex. These efforts got underway in autumn 2008 with the start of the first trial, involving over 86 defendants, among them bureaucrats, politicians and journalists.

At that time, the highest-ranking ex-members of the military were passed over. But now they are being included in the second wave of indictments. Almost simultaneously, charges were brought against more than 50 suspects. The trial for this third wave is scheduled to begin this autumn.

Day of reckoning for the "deep state"

The Ergenekon Complex therefore constitutes something like a settling of accounts with the "deep state" and the role that the Turkish military has taken upon itself to play for decades.

Commentators in particular are convinced that the trials will put an end to any further coup attempts in Turkey and that the military will finally have to accept the primacy of the policymakers. That would be a major step forward, and corresponds exactly to the conditions the EU is placing on Turkey's candidacy.

However, the indictments also give rise to doubts as to whether this is really a case of democratic renewal in the best sense. Before the beginning of the trial against Tolon and Eruygur, who were both members of the General Staff in 2003, the Turkish public was confronted week after week with new investigations, large-scale raids and arrests.

Even dyed-in-the-wool democrats, who cannot by any means be suspected of sympathising with potential insurgents, were horrified at the brute force demonstrated by the police.

Well-known journalists, businesspeople and professors were arrested in the early morning instead of simply being asked to come to the police station and testify, soon leading to suspicions that the government was actually retaliating against all political opponents – reaching far beyond the circle of possible conspirators.

Resistance against the AKP

What's more, the charges are frequently based on intercepted telephone calls, which would not even be permissible as evidence in a German court, or they cite testimony from secret witnesses who will not be appearing in court.

​​When Erdogan's AKP party, which has its roots in political Islam, came to power, there was in fact a shift in power in Turkey. All of the parties that had previously made up the republic's political establishment had either vanished from parliament or were exiled to the opposition.

The establishment fought desperately against its disempowerment, including an attempt to have the Constitutional Court ban the AKP. But Erdogan was able to defend himself successfully against all attacks. As soon as the AKP felt sure of its position, the Ergenekon investigations began.

The explosiveness of this confrontation is attributable in part to the fact that the power struggle is not just about how civil society is finally standing up to the military, but also that it is happening under the leadership of a religious party that is constantly suspected of replacing military guardianship with instructions from the Koran.

Political powerhouses

Although there is no risk that Turkey will be exchanging its civil code for the Sharia in the near future, it still inspires mistrust that after it came to power, the AKP did not quickly move to abolish the undemocratic social control authorities that were introduced following the 1980 military coup, but instead staffed them with its own people.

One example among many is the university system. For years the AKP rightly directed criticism at the Higher Education Board, a political council under the President that monitors universities nationwide and made sure that neither critical left-wing nor religious professors were appointed.

This board also supervised the observation of the headscarf ban at the universities. But now the AKP has staffed the Higher Education Board with party sympathisers and is making sure that its own handpicked rectors rule the universities.

Only recently the board fulfilled the AKP's urgent request and resolved that graduates of vocational schools where imams are trained would in future have unrestricted access to the universities.

What is lacking in Turkey today is an effective democratic opposition that could prevent the disempowerment of the generals, for which the country's democrats have been fighting for decades, from simply being replaced by a regime dominated by religious interests.

Jürgen Gottschlich

© Qantara.de 2009

Qantara.de

Turkey and the Ergenekon Secret Network
The Men in the Shadows
It is not Islamists or members of the military or the old elite that pose a threat to the Turkish state. Its real enemies operate under cover, as Ahmet Altan, one of the country's most successful authors, explains

"Ergenekon" Network in Turkey
On a Subversive Mission
86 members of the Turkish nationalist secret society Ergenekon have been in the dock since last October, accused of planning to overthrow Prime Minister Erdogan. The Kemalist opposition, however, alleges the case is a legal witch-hunt to silence the government's critics. Ömer Erzeren has the details

Islam and Democracy in Turkey
Squaring the Circle
Ioannis N. Grigoriadis takes a closer look at the AKP and its drive to democratise the Turkish Republic and bring it into the European Union. He concludes that the Turkish Constitutional Court’s decision not to disband the ruling party prevented serious damage being caused to efforts to reconcile democracy and Islam