No Surprise from the General Staff Again
If you think that I made a mistake in choosing this title, you are wrong. Despite the fact that the statement made on Wednesday at the end of an investigation conducted within the boundaries of the chain of command seemed to be made by the Military Prosecutor's Office, we can safely deem the statement concerning the "plan to finish the AK Party [Justice and Development Party] and [Fethullah] Gülen," disclosed on June 12 by the Taraf newspaper, to have been made by the General Staff.
Although the gendarmerie criminal laboratories, the police criminal laboratories and the forensic department examined the document and found that the signature beneath the heinous plan was the authentic signature of Col. Dursun Çiçek, the head of the 3rd Support Branch Directorate, which is in charge of psychological warfare in the General Staff Operations Department, the military prosecutor held, in an unbelievably flawed decision, that there is no need to prosecute Col. Çiçek.
The military prosecutor said, in sum: "Having concluded that the said document has not been prepared at the General Staff and that there is no such document and that there is no evidence showing that the signature above the name of Col. Dursun Çiçek, located in the signature bloc on the fourth page of the photocopied document, whose original could not be found, belongs to Marine Infantry Staff Col. Dursun Çiçek or the document has been prepared by the suspect or given to any other person, we hold that there is no need to prosecute Marine Infantry Staff Col. Dursun Çiçek or investigate the said incident with recourse to objections being fully open."
To tell you the truth, this statement did not come as a surprise to me. As there is no possibility that this shadowy action plan, prepared at the heart of the headquarters of the General Staff, is not known to the General Staff, there was no possibility for the military prosecutor, acting upon order from the General Staff and within the limits of the chain of command, to make a different statement from the above-mentioned one. Indeed, it would be sheer fantasy to expect that the military prosecutor would reach a different conclusion and make a different statement based on this conclusion. The Military Prosecutor's Office has properly and fully abided by the order issued to it and fulfilled the duty assigned to it by superiors by zealously attempted to cover up the nefarious plot in question, which has profoundly shocked Turkish society.
I have never had the slightest doubt that the so-called investigation would end differently. Indeed, how the so-called investigation would be conducted has been obvious from the start. Despite the fact that its duty is nothing but to act on behalf of the public for collecting evidence concerning crime or claims and submit them to the court, the Military Prosecutor's Office had concluded, even before obtaining the document concerning the plot, that “the document is not authentic" and tried to act more like the defense than the prosecution. As a matter of fact, to expect a different course of action from the Military Prosecutor's Office -- which is assigned some role by the said heinous action plan -- would be nonsense.
What strikes me as unbelievable is how the General Staff can so easily scorn the intelligence of the general public at the expense of finding itself in so pitiful a state. This statement by the military prosecutor's office turns a blind eye to the findings obtained up to now by the gendarmerie, the police and the forensic department, and has created numerous question marks in the minds of the Turkish public. This flippant statement, which can be summed up as "the signature is authentic, but the document is not," will obviously create mistrust in people against the General Staff. Nevertheless, we still did not expect a different conclusion. What different course of action could be expected from the Military Prosecutor's Office and the General Staff, which afforded protection to a colonel who not only failed to comply with the request by the Ergenekon prosecutors ― who seized the document in the office of an Ergenekon defendant ― to testify, but also attempted to deceive the judicial authorities by sending a specimen of signature that is different from his customary signature with the assurance of protection from the General Staff?
Yes, but what should we do now? The course of action is obvious... Both the civilian prosecutor's office, with which the government filed an official complaint, and the prosecutors conducting the Ergenekon investigation must focus on this incident, and they must find out both the truth about this incident and the reason why the General Staff felt the need to afford protection to the people who committed this offense.
The investigation by the civilian prosecutors and courts should not be viewed as sufficient, but Parliament must take swift action. A parliament that fails to act against such a big conspiracy against the nation in a way to destroy democracy and undermine the rule of law within the army can be said to be in a position of not deserving even a military coup against itself. No one is entitled to cause the army, some of whose members are engaged in illegal activities, to lose credibility, and this applies to Parliament, which may suffer the same discredit if this scandal is covered up. In conclusion, fair and bold prosecutors and deputies face a big and historic test in this critical period.
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