Gülen movement will be liquidated; KCK suspects will be released

Emre Uslu

The title summarizes the gist of the whole discussion of the most recent crisis. This is the plan commonly held by MİT, BDP/KCK (Peace and Democracy Party and Kurdish Communities Union) circles and some pro-negotiation intellectuals.

Public opinion was ready for the implementation of this plan when the prosecutor summoned the MİT undersecretary.

Recall that one of the texts included in the agreement between MİT and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) read, “The parties shall work to establish a constitutional council, peace council and truth and justice commission over the same period; and to this end, they are forwarding the names they prefer for inclusion in these commissions and councils.” We have seen that the articles in the agreement are being executed. Some of the intellectuals who sided with MİT in the recent crisis were named for inclusion in the peace council and truth and justice commission spelled out in the agreement. Some of them also joined team efforts that could be viewed as forerunners of the peace council and truth and justice commission. The recent columns and writings by one of those names are important in that they demonstrated the details of the operation in the process.

This writer, who has been referring to the presumption of innocence since the Feb. 28 era and stressing that others cannot be held responsible for an offense by an individual, is now requesting the removal of the pro-Gülen movement figures within the bureaucracy in his writings and the TV programs on which he appeared.

There are two problems with this call. First, how would you decide who is pro-Gülen and who is not within the bureaucratic establishment, and which legal criteria would you use? Are you going to flag people like they did in the Feb. 28 process? Are you defending the flagging?

The second important problem is whether you are making this call because these bureaucrats had acted illegally. If they had and nothing had been done about this, it is a crime. But if these bureaucrats did nothing illegal and you ask for their removal from their positions just because of their identity and their belonging to a social group, could you call this a democratic stance? You might expect this from journalist Emin Çölaşan; but could a writer who regards himself as a promoter of democracy lead such a campaign? If a writer, who is known as a democrat, is serving as part of this campaign, at the expense of denying his identity and principles, one suspects involvement in an operation rather than good faith behind the calls he is making.

My recent assessments on the operations are based on these contradictions. If a writer or a media organ in a country begins to say the opposite of what is expected from them, I’m inclined to feel uneasy. Let’s face it: The goal of this operation is to remove the pro-Gülen movement bureaucrats and release the KCK suspects.

The writer who writes most clearly on MİT and the PKK/KCK/BDP line repeated on numerous occasions the goal of the operations: “It is obvious that Turkey is facing an extreme structure, a product of the process of change. Taming this extreme has become one of Turkey’s major issues…The liquidation of this structure (movement, EU) and the operation is the liquidation of the source of this authoritarianism. This liquidation represents a democratic move, and it promises something more…The political administration and Parliament should take care of the issue of special courts and prosecutors; Articles 250 and 251 should be reviewed. [To ensure the release of KCK suspects, Articles 250 and 251 of the anti-terrorism bill should be amended.]”

If this insistent call for the amendment of Articles 250 and 251 of the anti-terror bill had been made in conjunction with the MİT crisis, I would believe that it had something to do with the MİT crisis. However, this call was made 10 days before the outbreak of the MİT crisis, in a report by the Sabah daily. The report said: “It is possible to associate every offense with terror charges, which could be further subjected to special investigation and trial procedures. To ensure the right to a fair trial, Articles 250, 251 and 252 of the Code on Criminal Procedure [CMK] on the workings of special courts and their procedures shall be revised.”

The insistent calls after the MİT crisis made reference to the same points. The meaning of this is obvious: The KCK investigations will be conducted more leniently, and KCK suspects will be released.

If you live in a country like Turkey; are aware that the KCK investigations will be ceased and the relevant parties to those protocols agreed to the release of KCK suspects; if you have read in a paper, known for its staunch support of the government before the outbreak of the MİT crisis, that Articles 250 and 251 will be revised; and all writers and columnists supportive of the KCK-AKP-MİT equation insistently called for the amendment of Articles 250, 251 and 252 of the CMK when the MİT crisis erupted; and if you call all of these a coincidence, you are surely naïve.

And for these reasons, I would say that the situation presented to us as an MİT crisis is in fact an operation jointly conducted by MİT, the pro-negotiation figures within the AKP and some pro-negotiation intellectuals. The prosecutor and the police department were framed in this operation; MİT planned and executed this operation. The signals from the AKP show that this operation will be completed, despite the decision by the Court of Appeals that the KCK is a terror organization. You will see that Articles 250, 251 and 252 of the CMK will be amended, the KCK suspects will be released and pro-Gülen movement bureaucrats will be removed from duty.

Published on Today's Zaman, 24 February 2012, Friday