Turkey: Was the military really planning a coup?

Turkey’s military has finally been put on notice, said Murat Yetkin in Hurriyet. The massive coup plot code-named “Sledgehammer”—a Byzantine scheme to destabilize the country so that the military would have to take over—has been exposed in court, and the plotters have been punished. Three former generals were given 20 years in prison each, and more than 300 other soldiers, including top officers, were also given long sentences. It “sounds like an achievement in the name of the progress of democracy,” a defense of civilian rule in a country plagued by frequent military coups. But there’s plenty of discomfort with the verdict and “suspicion of political manipulation.” The charges were so outrageous as to be hard to believe: Officers were accused of planning to murder leaders of religious minorities, bomb mosques, and even shoot down one of our own fighter jets to trigger a war with Greece. The defendants claimed that most of the evidence against them was forged, and plenty of Turks believe them. Even some politicians seem to agree.

What else do you expect? asked Bulent Kenes in Today’s Zaman. The media have a strong pro-secular and therefore pro-military bias. Turkish newspapers and TV stations have supported coups in the past, and many are openly hostile to the current, Islamist-leaning government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “Thanks to the support and facilities afforded by these coup-loving media networks,” the defense lawyers had a megaphone to advance their flimsy theory that the entire plot was trumped up.

Oh, there was definitely a plot, said Cengiz Candar in Radikal. The military tried to claim that the documents showing it was planning to attack domestic targets were just war games, routine military contingency plans. As someone who has “lived through four military coups and been a direct target of two of them,” I find it hard to believe such a tale. Having said that, though, I will also admit that this looks like rough justice. More officers were convicted here than in the trials of the Greek or Argentine juntas or even the trial of the Nazis at Nuremberg. This “creates a perception” that the point was not to identify the guilty, but to collectively punish the armed forces for all their past sins against democracy.

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The court could have won convictions without taking so many legal shortcuts, said Ismet Berkan in Hurriyet. It never allowed the defendants to call key witnesses or dispute the legitimacy of the evidence. The danger now is that many Turks don’t have confidence in the verdicts, but see them instead “as a kind of political revenge.” That perception has tainted what should have been a turning point for Turkey, said Ahmet Altan in Taraf. It’s the first time that “pro-coup soldiers have been punished by a civilian government.” But instead of an atmosphere of celebration, we have “widespread sadness.” Turks feel that rather than replacing a military junta with a new democratic order, we have installed civilian leaders in “the same crippled system.” Turkey still has a long way to go before we achieve true democracy.