Turkey’s generals lose another argument with the government

[Nahraf]

Turkey?s military: No jobs for the boys | The Economist

Turkey’s military
No jobs for the boys
Turkey’s generals lose another argument with the government

Aug 12th 2010 | Ankara and Istanbul

Basbug (left) greets Kasaner, his sole success

IT HAS been a rotten month for Turkey’s generals. Their latest wrangle with the ruling Justice and Development (AK) party over who should be promoted during the army’s annual August review has ended in stinging defeat.

General Ilker Basbug, who is poised to step down on August 30th after two years as chief of the general staff, suffered the biggest loss of face. He wanted Hasan Igsiz, commander of the 1st army corps, to become land-forces commander. But Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, blocked the move. General Igsiz has been linked to bogus internet sites used to smear AK; their content was used as evidence when Turkey’s chief prosecutor sought to ban the party two years ago. The general has also been implicated in an alleged plot against adherents of the Fethullah Gulen movement, an Islamic fraternity that broadly supports AK.

The old guard lost out elsewhere. Eleven officers implicated in the so-called Sledgehammer case, an alleged coup plot, failed to win promotion. General Basbug’s attempts to have another ally become land-forces commander flopped. The only promotion that went as planned was that of General Isik Kosaner, a traditionalist who will succeed General Basbug.

AK supporters hail the outcome as a victory for democracy. “The government’s resolve”, says Mehmet Baransu, a journalist who exposed much of the army’s alleged mischief, “has weakened the coup-mongering corps.” Yet there is a whiff of horse-trading in the air. Mr Erdogan prevailed only after prosecutors decided, at the last minute, to revoke arrest warrants for 102 officers linked to Sledgehammer. Dani Rodrik, a respected economist whose father-in-law, Cetin Dogan, a retired general, is a top suspect in the Sledgehammer affair, thinks the prosecution was anyway deeply flawed.

Reducing the political influence of Turkey’s army, which has toppled four governments since 1960, is among the European Union’s hardest conditions for Turkey’s membership. A package of constitutional amendments that will further weaken the generals will be put to a referendum on September 12th. It includes a provision to allow coup-plotters to be tried by civilian rather than military courts, and a rule that says civilians can no longer be tried by the army, except in times of war.

Osman Can, a former rapporteur of the constitutional court, argues that the key to demilitarisation lies in measures that alter the structure of the judiciary. In particular he points to a proposed dilution of pro-army representation in a judicial watchdog, known by its initials HSYK and created by the generals following their last coup in 1980. Its decisions cannot be appealed—but this will change if the constitutional package is approved.

Secular critics of AK remain unswayed, seeing the amendments as a way for Mr Erdogan to cement his “civilian dictatorship”. Such exaggerations aside, some of the amendments will boost the powers of the presidency, an office Mr Erdogan is widely believed to covet. The package proposes, for example, that the president appoint 14 of the constitutional court’s 17 members. “If this is an exercise in democratisation, parliament should be granted a bigger contingent,” complains Ibrahim Kaboglu, a prominent professor of constitutional law. Better still, Mr Erdogan should stick to a promise he once made to rewrite the constitution altogether. Only then will the reign of the generals who wrote it 28 years ago truly end.

 

[Nahraf]

Plan to promote Sledgehammer generals under way in military

Plan to promote Sledgehammer generals under way in military
Three high-ranking military officers who missed out on promotion during this year's Supreme Military Council (YA&#350 meeting due to their suspected involvement in the Sledgehammer coup plot may still be promoted through illegal methods, the Taraf daily reported on Saturday.

Maj. Gen. Halil Helvacıoğlu, Rear Adm. Abdullah Gavramoğlu and Maj. Gen. Gürbüz Kaya could not be promoted during the YAŞ meetings, which concluded on Aug. 4, after the civilian wing of the council refused to approve their promotion as the officers had been mentioned as suspects in a case against the Sledgehammer plot, a subversive plan allegedly devised in 2003 to topple the government. There was also a court decision ordering their arrest at the time. Taraf's Mehmet Baransu reported that since the court order to arrest dozens of suspects, including the three senior commanders, was revoked in a controversial decision on Aug. 6, the General Staff has put into action a plan to promote the three officers.

The daily said that, surprisingly, Defense Minister Vecdi Gönül also endorses the promotion of the embattled generals.

In fact, in accordance with official TSK policy, these generals have no chance of promotion but there are fears that the TSK may contravene its own rules and promote the generals on trial to higher positions within the military. Baransu says, according to one of his sources, the General Staff plans to enable the promotions through a decision by the Military High Administrative Court.

Milliyet daily columnist Fikret Bila also wrote two columns on the same issue last week, which were titled “Three commanders who were given sign of promotion” and “Special examination for three generals.” Bila reported on an interview he had with Defense Minister Gönül, who said jurists were examining the issue. Bila said he had also spoken with jurists and they said there is no legal hurdle for the commanders to appeal to the Military High Administrative Court.

Baransu says his source told him that the General Staff has already laid out a strategy for the promotions and General Staff’s legal counsel, Maj. Gen. Hıfzı Çubuklu, was working on the issue. The first phase of the plan is reportedly to inform the public about the three commanders’ situation via the media. Later, the Military High Administrative Court is to announce its decision to promote the commanders and finally news reports would be run in the media saying, “Government’s decisions [not to promote the commanders] overturned by the court.” In this way, the opposition parties will also try to wear down the government.

The three commanders are among the 102 Sledgehammer suspects who are mentioned in the indictment against the devious plot. Sledgehammer is a suspected military plot aimed at unseating the government and included plans to shoot down a Turkish jet and bomb large mosques at busy prayer hours to undermine the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government, with the hope of eventually unseating it. In addition to standing accused of plotting to overthrow the government, Gen. Kaya is known for his scandalous remarks in relation to the deaths of several young soldiers in Turkey’s eastern region. In late June he said security cameras captured images of individuals approaching the Şemdinli border unit but that at the time they believed they were either shepherds or smugglers. However, they were the terrorists of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) who killed 11 soldiers in an armed attack. The general had made similar controversial remarks last year after the deaths of seven soldiers in Çukurca after a land mine blast on May 27. “It is not important at all. We are fighting for our lives. A few simple mistakes can be made,” he was quoted as saying in a voice recording.

Gen. Gavremoğlu is mentioned in the Suga action plan, a sub-plot of Sledgehammer, as the coordinator of the clash aimed to be sparked with Greece as part of the plot. A section of the plan is dedicated to a number of Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) plots to create tensions between Turkish and Greek military aircraft, which would culminate in a Turkish jet crashing after a skirmish with Greek jets. The TSK would intentionally crash the jet if the plan failed.