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ANKARA: AKP's War Against 'Internal Enemies'

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  • ANKARA: AKP's War Against 'Internal Enemies'

    AKP'S WAR AGAINST 'INTERNAL ENEMIES'

    Today's Zaman, Turkey
    Nov 4 2014

    by ORHAN KEMAL CENGÝZ

    November 04, 2014, Tuesday

    When I was supporting the Justice and Development Party (AKP)
    government, I was hoping that we would send the phrase "internal
    enemies" into the dustbin of history in this country once and for all.

    The concept of "internal enemies" and frequent reference to it was
    one of the trademarks of the military rule in Turkey.

    As Abraham Maslow once said, "If all you have is a hammer, everything
    looks like a nail."

    Soldiers have guns and the biggest problems they have to fight against
    are the enemies. They have a difficult and noble job. However, if
    they start to rule a country, the country inevitably turns into a
    battlefield. We know how all these mechanisms worked in practice
    in Turkey.

    We very much used to hear the same cliches over and over again from our
    generals. Our country was in a very big danger. We were challenging
    the biggest danger we had ever seen in that particular moment when
    the generals were talking to us. We were surrounded by enemies from
    every angle and Turkey was full of enemies.

    Leftists, Kurds, devout Muslims, our ethnic and religious minorities
    were all turned into "internal enemies" one after another, but we
    never had a shortage of these internal enemies.

    There is of course a huge difference between being a suspect of an
    alleged crime and being seen as an enemy. In the former situation
    you have certain rights; you would give an account of your actions
    before the court. In the latter situation, however, you are someone
    against whom the state is in a kind of war.

    And we have very tragic memories of the consequences of being labeled
    an "enemy" by the military circles, such as in the case of Christian
    missionaries. Starting in the early 2000s the National Security Council
    (MGK) --which consisted of civilians and military personnel, but was,
    in practice, an organ soldiers used to tell civilians what needed to
    be done -- included "missionaries" on the list of groups that posed
    a threat to national security. Missionaries were included in the
    so-called "Red Book" which lists the enemies of Turkish state.

    When they were cited as an enemy, certain groups read it as a sign and
    Christians came under fire from every circle. In 2006, Catholic priest
    Father Santoro was killed in Trabzon. In January 2007, Hrant Dink, a
    Turkish Armenian journalist was killed and in April of the same year,
    three Christians were killed when their throats were slit in Malatya.

    When this government was gaining strength, the military guardianship
    and the role of the MGK were weakened. And I was very happy for a while
    that we had put aside this "internal enemies" nonsense and instead
    we started to talk about crimes, suspects and their rights, and so on.

    These days, however, we are unfortunately witnessing the resurrection
    of this ghost of "internal enemies" once again and the ghost is being
    called up by this government. The last MGK meeting took more then 10
    hours, and the civilians and military personnel discussed whether or
    not the Gulen movement should be included in the "Red Book," which
    we have not heard about for a long time.

    The AKP does not want to get rid of "internal enemies" but rather
    it wants to monopolize the power to declare any group an internal
    enemy against whom a war may be declared using of all the powers of
    the state.

    http://www.todayszaman.com/columnists/columnist/orhan-kemal-cengiz/akps-war-against-internal-enemies_363493.html

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