Armenian, Assyrian and Hellenic Genocide News

Turkey's Dream of Democracy - Part 2
by Eric Rouleau
Posted: Wednesday, November 01, 2000 08:23 pm CST

MERCANTILE MILITARISM

APART FROM its constitutional guarantees, the political power of the pashas would be easier to curtail if it did not rest so firmly on considerable economic and financial means as well. In Turkey, it is the chief of staff, not the prime minister, cabinet, or parliament, who oversees arms production and procurement (which do not figure in the state budget). It is also the general staff that draws up the annual budget of the armed forces (even though it absorbs more than a third of state revenues). Given the amounts involved -- for example, the modernization of the armed forces will cost some $ 70 billion over the next 15 years -- such budgetary control affords the military huge power. Time-honored tradition has it that parliament approves the military budget as is, without debate and by acclamation, before presenting it to the chief of staff along with its congratulations and good wishes. Again, civilian resistance is dangerous; among the "crimes" perpetrated by Erbakan that led to his downfall was his refusal to release funds requested by the chief of staff beyond the budget already approved by parliament.

Then there are the military-controlled industries. In a recent study, Taha Parla, a professor at Bosphorus University, throws light on the army's most important holdings. The main one, OYAK, is a vast conglomerate comprising some 30 enterprises in sectors as diverse as automobile manufacturing, cement works, food processing, pesticides, petroleum, tourism, insurance, banking, real estate, supermarkets, and high technology. These enterprises employ more than 30,000 people. One of the most important companies of the group is OYAK-Renault, which has an annual production capacity of 160,000 French-designed vehicles.

OYAK, among the three or four largest holding companies in Turkey, is unquestionably one of the most profitable. And with good reason: the group is exempt from duties and taxes. Big business puts up with what could be considered unfair competition because OYAK, shrewdly, has integrated the business community into its activities: OYAK's partners include the powerful holding companies of the Koc and Sabanci families -- the "emperors" of Turkey's industry and trade -- as well the private banking baron Kazim Taskent. For their part, big Turkish corporations co-opt retired senior officers to serve on their boards, not only as compensation for services rendered but to maintain links with the current army brass. OYAK's sister firm, TSKGV (Foundation for the Strengthening of the Turkish Armed Forces), is devoted exclusively to arms production. Benefiting from the same privileges as OYAK, TSKGV comprises some 30 companies and generates tens of thousands of jobs. More than 80 percent of its revenues go into a reserve fund estimated to reach tens of billions of dollars.

ENEMIES WITHIN

THE MILITARY'S economic base, its unique constitutional status, and a plethora of repressive laws do not alone determine the balance of power between the military and the civilian authority. Other factors can play a role as well. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, for example, a combination of favorable circumstances and good statecraft on the part of then President Turgut Ozal allowed him to temporarily curtail the pashas' ability to intervene in the government. Thus when Ozal decided to support the allied forces during the Gulf war in 1991, the chief of staff, General Torumtay, could only resign in protest. Nor did the pashas move when Ozal, acting against their well-known convictions, began to prepare the way for a political solution to the Kurdish problem and for integrating Turkey's Islamic sectors into the mainstream political system.

Ozal's successors have had neither his stature nor the kind of circumstances that would enable them to follow his example, however. After Ozal's death in 1993, the high command of the armed forces quickly regained the upper hand, assuming tasks it considered vital for Turkey's future. Seeing that their raison d'etre had suffered a blow with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the bankruptcy of communism, the generals now launched a battle against two other enemies: Kurdish separatists and Islamic fundamentalists. The military expected this two-front war to confirm its traditional legitimacy as guardian of the Kemalist legacy and to increase its credibility with the public. To this end, ordinary Turks were bombarded with apocalyptic descriptions of the dangers in their midst.

The generals' hand was also strengthened by growing public disenchantment with the traditional political parties, whose servility to the military and apparent inability to take the least initiative further aggravated the power imbalance. The pashas thus received free rein both to diagnose the illness and to prescribe the treatment.

From the outset, the general staff dismissed the possibility of a political solution to either problem. Two all-out wars -- one military, the other political -- were launched against the two movements, Kurdish and Islamic. Drastic action was justified on the grounds that the PKK and the Islamist party were both determined to destroy Kemalist Turkey, the first by dismembering it, the second by infecting it with the virus of fundamentalism. The generals insisted that the movements were puppets in the hands of foreign powers, which supplied them generously with funds, arms, and logistical support. According to military statements made at the time, almost all of Turkey's neighbors -- Syria, Iraq, Iran, Greece, Cyprus, Armenia, Sudan, Libya, and Russia -- were involved, not to mention Germany, the EU, and sometimes even the United States. These Western states were accused of being too indulgent toward the Islamists, the Kurds, or both.

The army pursued its war against the Kurds relentlessly. When in 1993 the PKK renounced its senseless separatist ambitions, proposing to end the armed conflict in order to negotiate autonomy or even decentralization for the Kurdish provinces of the southeast, the general staff ignored the offers or rejected them as "tricks." The PKK's leaders -- by way of their various contradictions, political errors, and outright crimes -- only made things easier for the generals. With their fuzzy Marxism-Leninism followed by attempts to ally themselves with the Islamists, their preference for armed struggle over political combat, and the atrocities they committed against civilians -- Turkish and Kurdish alike -- the Kurdish warlords served the interests of the hard-liners in Ankara.

The EU, like the United States, has always condemned separatism and terrorism. But it deems unacceptable the notion that these ills justify authoritarian rule, state repression, and the violation of human rights. The Turkish military's attitude, on the other hand, can be summed up in a 1995 statement by Deputy Chief of Staff Ahmet Gorekci, when he announced that the army would "not allow itself to be bound hand and foot by democracy and human rights."

Nor has it, judging from the human rights reports published annually by the U.S. State Department and by various nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Over the years, individuals who advocate conciliation, including parliamentarians of Kurdish origin, have been imprisoned by the hundreds. Parties formed by moderate Kurds have been outlawed one after another. Torture has become widespread, and disappearances and assassinations of lawyers, journalists, politicians, and business executives suspected of sympathizing with the rebels have multiplied. According to the Turkish Ministry of Justice, in addition to the 35,000 people killed in military campaigns, 17,500 were assassinated between 1984, when the conflict began, and 1998. An additional 1,000 people were reportedly assassinated in the first nine months of 1999. According to the Turkish press, the authors of these crimes, none of whom have been arrested, belong to groups of mercenaries working either directly or indirectly for the security agencies.

By 1999, the PKK had been totally defeated. Its leader, Abdullah Ocalan, was imprisoned and condemned to death. The group's other leaders have since renounced violence and called on their followers to disband and to defend their cause "within the framework of peace and democracy." Rather than responding to these overtures, the army, unperturbed, continues to carry out "mopping up" operations in Turkey and northern Iraq, where former fighters have taken refuge. Emergency laws and the special courts are still in force in the nine Kurdish provinces. Capital punishment has not been abolished, despite Turkey's commitment to do so in keeping with EU demands. Nor is there any prospect of recognizing the Kurds' rights, since in the eyes of the military and civilian authorities the Kurds do not exist as a community. This extends even to cultural matters, such as teaching or broadcasting radio and television programs in Kurdish. Given this situation, it is not surprising that the Kurds are enthusiastic supporters of Turkey's EU membership. At least Brussels demands that their elementary rights be respected.

Meanwhile, the struggle -- this one political -- against the Islamists continues with the same tenacity. After outlawing the Rifah (Prosperity) Party two years ago, the legal procedure to ban its successor, the Fazilet (Virtue) Party, is already under way. The government's wrath against the Islamists seemed undiminished by Fazilet's setbacks in the last elections, when it fell from first to third place in the parliament. Nor is Ankara mollified by the fact that Fazilet's program and goals have been so moderated that certain media no longer consider it a "fundamentalist" party, while others describe its leaders as "Muslim Democrats." Indeed, the comparison to Europe's moderate Christian Democrats is apt. What exasperates the supporters of the status quo is that Fazilet, like Rifah before it, has made itself the champion of democratization and human rights, thereby implicitly challenging the political power of the army.

DOUBLE VISION

TURKEY'S EU CANDIDACY has crystallized the way in which two very different visions of the country are now facing off in a contest the outcome of which is difficult to predict. On the one side stands the Turkey of what can be called the "Kemalist republicans," those who see the military as the infallible interpreter of Ataturk's legacy and the sole guardian of the nation and the state. This side has formidable power; the military enjoys not only enormous constitutional and legislative advantages but also unrivaled prestige among large sectors of the population. As a university professor in Istanbul remarked this summer, "If the Turkish people had to choose between the European Union and our army, they would choose the army!"

On the other side stand -- rather cautiously -- what could be called the "Kemalist democrats." They are proud of the revolution carried out by the founder of the republic eight decades ago, but at the same time they believe that the regime should adapt to modernity and Western norms. This group includes intellectuals who maintain that Turkey needs democratization regardless of EU requirements, business circles in favor of the globalization of the economy, and (perhaps ironically) Kurds and Islamists hopeful that Brussels will ensure that their legitimate rights are recognized and guaranteed.

In a recent attempt to tip the scales in favor of his own brand of Kemalism, Chief of Staff Husayn Kivrikoglu made an ominous declaration on August 30. Warning the government and political parties to make sure that the bill to purge suspect civil servants is adopted as soon as parliament reconvenes, Kivrikoglu added that the army would closely monitor the process to determine how "sincere" the politicians are in "removing the rotten apples" or "reactionaries" who "have infiltrated the state by the thousands in the aim of destroying it." The chief of staff went on to note that even the judiciary has been infected by the Islamic virus, citing as an example the cancellation (subsequently reversed) of Gulen's arrest warrant.

Though the general's remarks sounded like an ultimatum, Hikmet Sami Turk, the minister of justice and himself a staunch secularist, had the courage to respond (albeit indirectly) that Turkey should avoid witch hunts and McCarthyism. And so tensions mount. With the civil service purge in the works and Brussels' "accession partnership document" soon to be considered, a confrontation between the army and civil society seems inevitable. Despite the unprecedentedly large numbers of people now willing to challenge the military's hold on Turkey's affairs, not everyone is optimistic about the outcome. In a remarkable forthcoming book, Umit Cizre, a professor at Bilkent University in Ankara, laments that civil society has increasing latitude but no real strength; parliament contains opposition forces but has no real teeth; the judiciary operates with some independence at times but is by and large controlled politically; media can uncover the dark connections of organized crime, but is itself oligopolistically owned and is prone to nationalist and populist influences.

Will Turkey miss the boat for the European Union? Some of the pashas, jealous of their power, hope that it will. Others are betting that, owing to Turkey's strategic and economic importance and out of "respect for Turkey's national specificities" (to use Prime Minister Ecevit's delicate phrase), the EU will let Turkey into the union after only cosmetic reforms. This seems unlikely. But all that is certain today -- as Turkey stands facing two very different paths forward -- is that the negotiations between Ankara and Brussels will be difficult, painful, and will most likely last for many years to come.

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