Military Track Record in Past Investigations Unpromising
The General Staff's statement about an ongoing probe into military officers who allegedly devised a plot to undermine the credibility of the Justice and the Development Party (AK Party) and the influential faith-based Gülen movement has not been found satisfactory by any segment of society.
This is partly due to the track record of the General Staff in past cases, such as in the case of two military officers and an ex-Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) member who was later recruited by the gendarmerie as an agent that were caught red-handed bombing a bookstore in the township of Şemdinli in the Kurdish-dominated Southeast in 2005.
These individuals were first tried over a period of two years in a civil court and sentenced to nearly 40 years each. However, a high court decision declared a mistrial, and the trial was restarted in a military court, which released the three suspects in the first hearing.
Similarly, serious allegations that the military had prior information regarding a PKK ambush at a border station in Dağlica, also in the Southeast, which left 15 soldiers dead, were not earnestly investigated. The military didn't even start an investigation into journals allegedly kept by Özden Örnek, a retired admiral who was the chief of the naval force in the early 2000s, detailing then-generals' plans to stage a coup d'état. These coup diaries were established as authentic by a civil court during the ongoing investigation into Ergenekon, a clandestine network charged with plotting to overthrow the government.
The probe that was launched into a document allegedly prepared by a group inside the General Staff published by the Taraf daily last week detailing plans to defame the AK Party and frame members of the Gülen movement by planting arms and drugs in their houses is not expected to produce a convincing result, at least in the eyes of the public.
The document, titled "Action Plan to Fight Reactionaryism," targets civilians affiliated with religious circles.
Alper Görmüş, the former editor-in-chief of the Nokta newsweekly, which was shut down by its owner, who was scared after a police raid on the magazine's İstanbul office shortly after it published the aforementioned coup diaries, said the General Staff's statement regarding the latest "action plan" was wrong because it clearly showed that the General Staff formed a clear opinion about the document even before the probe was finished. The General Staff said earlier this week that a probe had been launched, but it also said the evidence at hand showed no indication that the document could have been prepared for a department of the military.
Reşat Petek, a former chief prosecutor, said the General Staff expressed its opinion even before the document was fully reviewed, which was a violation of the law.
Military inquiries were not completed
In addition to the coup diaries, which ended the existence of a publication rather than of those responsible for planning to overthrow the government, and the Şemdinli and Dağlica incidents, many other inquiries have been conducted by the military but never brought to a conclusion.
An investigation launched by the Military Prosecutor's Office into three noncommissioned officers for "forging documents" in March has still not produced results. Parliament requested information on the outcome of that probe a month ago, but the Military Prosecutor's Office has not yet made a statement.
Another similar investigation was about accusations that failures in military intelligence contributed to a deadly attack by the outlawed PKK on the Aktütün border outpost in October 2008, killing 17 soldiers.
Critics have claimed, based on leaked documents from a source inside the General Staff, that the military deliberately ignored intelligence showing that there would be an attack by the PKK on a border post near Aktütün. Statements by the military were contradictory. Land Forces Commander Gen. Işik Koşaner said there were no weaknesses in intelligence gathering, but then added that the military did not know that there would be an attack on Aktütün.
In another document leaked to the press, 2nd Armored Brigade Command Gen. Kaya Varol demanded in March 2004 that a local kaymakam (district governor) office provide information about "individuals who are pro-US or pro-EU" and "about members of high society." The General Staff probed the incident and confirmed that this was true. However, Varol did not suffer any legal consequences for trying to probe into the lives of civilians.
Also, no investigation was conducted into allegations put forth by the Taraf daily that the General Staff grouped, categorized and surveilled members of the business world based on their political affiliations. In the 73-page document, also leaked from the General Staff according to Taraf's allegations, the military kept track of the supporters and financiers of every civil society organization. Turkey's richest individuals, such as Rahmi Koç and Bülent Eczacibaşi, and others such as Kemal Derviş, a former economy minister who later headed the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), were included on this list.
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