Coup Country
April 16, 2012 § Leave a comment
Following the arrest of the generals involved in the 1997 “post-modern coup” that toppled Necemttin Erbakan’s government and outlawed his Refah Party, Erdoğan yesterday declared the era of military coups over and said that Turkey is no longer a “coup country.” While this appears to be a dangerous prediction given Turkey’s history, the purging of generals and the prosecution of officers as part of the Ergenekon and Sledgehammer investigations, along with the trials for the September 12 and February 28 coup plotters, means that Erdoğan is probably right. The military is no longer in a position to overthrow the government and was badly exposed when it tried unsuccessfully to intimidate the AKP from appointing Abdullah Gül as president, and the various reprisals it has suffered over the past few years are going to have the intended effect of keeping the officers in their barracks.
Few people will argue that this is a bad thing. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, civilian control of the military is a hallmark of democracy and Turkey has finally established true vertical accountability. At the same time, Erdoğan must not use his newfound unfettered power to create a different type of problem for Turkey’s democracy. While military interference in democratic politics is a bad thing, so is using democratic institutions to advance creeping authoritarianism. Worrisome signs abound, including the fact that the investigations into the military have been trumped up and relied on forged documents, and opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has denounced the recent arrest of the February 28 generals as motivated by a desire for revenge. After all, Erdoğan was a Refah member and a disciple of Erbakan, and the harsher restrictions placed on public displays of religion following the coup must have rankled Erdoğan personally. Now that the military is out of the picture as a constraint – and Erdoğan’s declaration of Turkey being coup proof indicates that he himself now feels that his freedom of movement is unrestrained by the army – it is crucial that the temptation of bending the rules to make the AKP a permanent ruling party is avoided. Turkey has made great strides in some areas, such as empowering the ability of Turks to participate in democratic politics with an increased voice on constitutional issues, and now that the structural constraint of military oversight is gone, it will be an encouraging sign for Turkey’s democratic future if the government does not now overreach and crack down further on groups that present challenges to its rule, real or perceived.
The Pros and Cons of the 1980 Coup Trial
April 5, 2012 § 2 Comments
In what is an amazing scene, General Kenan Evren, the instigator of the 1980 military coup and a former president of Turkey, is being prosecuted in a civilian criminal court for the atrocities and human rights violations that were carried out during the period of military rule. The entire Turkish political establishment is lining up against Evren, with over 500 co-plaintiffs including the CHP, MHP, and BDP, and the prosecution of Evren was paved by a referendum in 2010 that proposed to nullify the constitutional provisions granting Evren immunity for life.
Dealing with the perpetrators of the coup and the subsequent dark era in Turkish history is an important move for Turkey, as only by airing this type of dirty laundry out in the open can Turkey once and for all move past the era of military interventions in politics. The trial is one step on this path, and the scrapping of the 1982 constitution in favor of a new one will finally establish civilian control over the military as complete. That nearly every important Turkish politician, institution, and public figure is of one mind over the Evren trial, and that the military has so far remained quiet, is a great sign of how much Turkish democracy has matured. Prosecuting Evren does not read as a quest for vengeance so much as a desire to grapple with and face an unpleasant reminder of Turkey’s more authoritarian past, and it will make a future authoritarian takeover that much harder to accomplish, whether it emanates from the military or from Turkey’s civilian rulers.
Putting Evren on trial does not, however, come without consequences. I will leave the analysis of what nullifying these types of pacts does to the mindset of the SCAF in Egypt to those who are expert in both Egypt and Middle Eastern militaries and have written on the subject of pacts before (paging Steven Cook on all counts), but it will also affect internal politics in Turkey. Whatever one thinks of Evren and the validity of the 1982 constitution, the fact is that he only consented to returning power to civilians because of the immunity safeguard, and the uncomfortable truth is that the 1982 constitution is still the operative governing document of Turkey until it is replaced. Evren deserves to answer for his crimes, but this smells of mob justice rather than proper procedure. Furthermore, if Evren can be hauled in front of a court to answer for his crimes three decades later and despite his age (94) and bad health, it makes it that much more unlikely that should Turkey suffer an authoritarian relapse, the offenders will agree to leave absent some serious fighting and bloodshed. As unsavory as the golden parachute may be, it serves a distinct purpose, which is to pave the way for smooth transitions to democracy. Finally, while the ultimate objective here may be deterring the military from ever overthrowing the government again, it might have the opposite effect on the mindset of the officer corps. Erdoğan and the AKP have shown no hesitation at going after more contemporary military targets, such as Ilker Başbuğ, and this might be the straw that breaks the camel’s back so that the next time a military coup plot is uncovered, unlike Ergenekon and Sledgehammer it will be based on reality more than fiction.
A Good Example of Strengthening Turkish Democracy
April 4, 2012 § Leave a comment
The AKP has proposed, with the opposition’s backing, to abolish Article 35 of the Turkish Armed Services Law, which is the clause the military has relied on in the past in carrying out coups. This is unquestionably a good move for democracy in Turkey, as Article 35 has been used to justify blatantly undemocratic encroachments into Turkish civilian politics. Much as the way the Bush and Obama administrations have used the Congressional resolution passed after September 11 authorizing all necessary and appropriate force to go after al Qaida as cover for such far flung operations as warrantless surveillance and wiretapping, drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen, and trying Guantanamo Bay detainees by military commissions rather than civilian courts, Article 35 has been used in ways outside the scope of protecting Turkey and its constitution. Civilian control of the military and the absence of unelected officials as the ultimate decision makers are both hallmarks of democratic rule, and the abolishment of Article 35 fits squarely into this context. Unlike other moves to hound the military by arresting officers and trying generals based on hearsay and forged evidence, this is one time where the AKP’s battle to bring the armed forces to heel should be cheered by everyone.
FT on Erdoğan
March 29, 2012 § Leave a comment
This is a sloppy sort of reporting/editorializing about trends taking place in Turkey during Erdoğan’s third term so far. It captures the general essence of the fact that there are some disturbing actions the government is taking, particularly in the use of the court system to go after potential political foes and critics, but there are some things in here that made me roll my eyes on both sides of the spectrum. First the line, “Along with a gathering air of authoritarianism, many detect the first whiff of hubris.” Really, FT? The “first whiff of hubris” from Uncle Tayyip is just now being detected? Erdoğan has been wildly successful on many fronts, and when all is said and done it’s tough to argue that he has up until now been anything but a net positive for Turkey, but I think the first whiff of hubris has been in the rearview mirror for a decade.
The real problem in this piece though is the impression given that Turkey was a problem-free democracy before the AKP came to power. The authors use the term “managed democracy” to describe decades of Kemalist-military rule, but this is rather generous. Turkey had some characteristics of a democracy and some characteristics of an autocracy, but the main difference between then and now is that the government’s priorities are different. The old establishment was most concerned with maintaing enforced secularism, whereas the new establishment has other things in mind. Turkey was certainly not a perfect constitutional democracy before 2002 – in fact, many of the thornier issues that Turkey is dealing with today are a direct result of the 1982 constitution. The article notes that Erdoğan’s moves to assert control over the military have “removed a check on executive power, however undemocratic,” but that last clause should not be glossed over as an afterthought. There is a tendency among Western observers to equate secularism with democracy, but the presence of the first does not guarantee the presence of the second. It’s difficult to take an argument seriously that asserts Erdoğan is destroying a heretofore democratic Turkey and that there has been a slide toward authoritarianism when you have a sense of where Turkey was before. I agree that Erdoğan and the AKP are in the midst of taking a series of worrying moves, and that Turkey in many ways is indeed becoming less democratic, but let’s not be blind to the fact that in other ways, the AKP has improved the quality of Turkish democracy. Turkey may yet end up more authoritarian than it was five years ago, but that will only return it to the status quo ante that existed before the AKP was even formed.
