Turkey: General in his Labyrinth

Somethings remain unpredictable. And the politics of any nation is one of them. When former Chief of General Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces, Gen. Ä°lker BaÅŸbuÄŸ, was arrested on court's order on charges of masterminding and facilitating an armed criminal organisation, nobody believed this was happening in Turkey where since decades Army's control has been almost absolute.

But that is what a democratically elected regime, with a heart at the right place and a spine worth mentioning, can do. The incident has turned a chapter in the history of modern Turkey.

Gen. Ä°lker BaÅŸbuÄŸ was arrested for facilitating an armed criminal organisation under the scope of the probe into almost four dozen 'black propaganda' websites that were designed to undermine, sabotage and in time bring down the democratically elected government.

Technically speaking, the arrest does not prima facie mean that the General is guilty. It essentially means that there has been proof beyond reasonable doubt that the General might be involved and there is a need to arrest him and interrogate lest he manages to influence the case. The old timers say that even this was unthinkable just a few years ago.

“I have said this and written it time and again that the Turkish Armed Forces has regrettably been the focal point of methodical crimes. It is pretty evident because as all sorts of louche affairs in Turkey at length lead to organisations or clique nested within the military,” maintains political commentator Abdulhamit Bilici.

With the arrest, apart from the military itself, the organisation that has been exposed is the media vehicles which under the guise of journalism were hands-in-glove with the military clique, jointly called Ergenekon group. And when some of the journalists who were part of the plan got arrested, a very familiar voice emerged from west that the democratically elected regime in Turkey is clamping down on media.

“This is very funny. I mean I am a journalist, but would you leave me when I commit a murder? It is not that the journalists who have been arrested have done so because of political reasons. These journalists have indulged in criminal behavior and were hatching plan to facilitate a coup. If they are not liable for arrest, then nobody in this world is,” explains Deniz Ergurel, General Secretary of Media Darnegi, Turkey's biggest media advocacy group. 

While the verdict on General is still to come, the circumstantial evidence suggests that he'll be declared guilty. It is not hidden from Turkey watchers how Gen. Ä°lker BaÅŸbuÄŸ in his tenure used his office to keep pressure on different wings of administration, especially judiciary, to uphold the historic policy of intervention by the military. Among other things, this included different types of psychological warfare operations that aimed the general public and democratic institution on a scale that was previously unheard.

The motive was to finish off the AKP [Justice and Development Party] and the Fethullah Gülen's movement in which the ruling party has its ideological roots. When the cover was blown off by an unknown caller who detailed how military officers planned, hosted and paid for the sites and blogs that were targeting to bring down the regime, many of the mainstream newspapers with vested interest, including illustrious names like Hürriyet, Milliyet and Cumhuriyet tried to pooh-pooh the evidence by erroneously suggesting that it was nothing but a “piece of paper”. These organisations now stand exposed and credibility tarnished.

On its part, military knows that now it can not pressurise the regime beyond a point. Last year when a section of top generals resigned fearing arrests of their comrades in Ergenekon case, the government moved in swiftly to fill the power vacuum. A new generation of Turks has come into the army who are content with remaining in the barrack and not inside the sanctum sanctorum of legislature and executive.

Now that the odd are heavily stacked against him, some people suggest that any General who has served the topmost post should never be arrested. This in a country where generals are known not only to topple democratic regimes roughly every decade but also to arrest and occasionally hang prime ministers and ministers.

The case remains a watershed in every respect. Watch this space.