TURKEY: INTELLECTUALS TAKE A STAND AGAINST

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 ANKARA 001094 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV PHUM TU SUBJECT: TURKEY: INTELLECTUALS TAKE A STAND AGAINST MILITARY INTERVENTION REF: ANKARA 1071 AND PREVIOUS ¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY and COMMENT. Two hundred five Turkish writers, artists, journalists, and human rights lawyers attached their names to a strongly worded condemnation of military interference in the political process. The statement is a leftist interpretation of the military's April 27 e-memorandum and still-unfolding events (reftels); it argues that the interference constituted a coup-by-memorandum and that while purportedly targeting anti-secular activity, it instead serves an anti-Kurdish agenda. The statement implicates the United States as a supporter of the military's interference. It calls for the prosecution of the generals who perpetrated the coup. ¶2. (SBU) SUMMARY/COMMENT, cont'd. Among the 205 names are Kazim Genc, head of the Pir Sultan Abdal Culture Association, an Alevi organization with considerable membership; Ahmet Abakay, the head of the Contemporary Journalists Association, Turkey's third largest journalist organization; and Sanar Yurdatapan, musician and prominent freedom of thought activist. In an environment where the attorney who attempted to sue the Ministry of Defense for the April 27 e-memo was disbarred and may face worse, the signatories have taken a brave step in support of a freely functioning democracy. END SUMMARY and COMMENT. ¶3. (U) Informal embassy translation follows: No to the April 27 memorandum and to the military coup! Let the coup-perpetrating generals be tried! Turkey is going through the fifth military intervention in the republic's history. With its April 27 memorandum, the General Staff once more (inappropriately) assumed the duty of being the armed guardian of order. Currently the most important decisions of our political life are being adopted in line with the demands of the coup-by-memorandum. The Constitutional Court decided in line with the Armed Forces' demand. The Armed Forces halted the presidential election. The fact that this parliament is dissolving and the new one will be elected is a result of this coup-by-memorandum. The coup-by-memorandum openly threatened a military coup: (NOTE: quoting the April 27 memorandum. END NOTE.) "the Turkish Armed Forces when necessary will reveal its position and attitudes in a clear and open way" and "The Turkish Armed Forces maintains its unshakable determination regarding fulfilling in a faultless way its clear duties given to it in the law to protect these values" cannot be interpreted in any other way. What a military coup means is apparent when we look at the legacy of the September 12 regime (NOTE: following the 1980 coup. END NOTE). The military, as it did yesterday, also today sides with the United States, just like the AKP (sic). Military coups are against the people and aim at eliminating acquired rights and freedoms. Indeed it was the military administration under the September 12 regime that made the Turkish-Islamist synthesis take root and religious courses compulsory and thus strengthened the hand of political Islam. In short, the vital interests of workers and laborer masses are under armed threat. This coup-by-memorandum was given under the guise of protecting secularism. But indeed in its essence this coup-by-memorandum was a tool of the power struggle among those who are sovereign (powers) and in which imperialism is also involved. This coup-by-memorandum at the same time is declaring everybody a "permanent enemy": all non-Turkish citizens of the republic and all those who oppose chauvinism, primarily Kurds. This is the meaning of the sentence (in the memorandum), "Everyone who opposes the understanding of the Founder of our Republic the Great Leader Ataturk, 'Happy is he who calls himself a Turk,' is the enemy of the republic and will remain so." Indeed the Turkish people are a friend of the Kurdish people and will remain so and will defend brotherhood among people! The effects of political Islam can only be eliminated through ANKARA 00001094 002 OF 002 a political struggle represented by the interests of workers and laborers. We oppose a military coup no matter what the reason. The owners of the coup-by-memorandum have committed a crime. All generals who committed the coup should be prosecuted! Let us unite the forces of labor. Let us lock up this coup-by-memorandum to the place that it came from: the virtual world! We writers, artists, journalists, and human rights activists are appealing to labor forces and the intellectual world to be sensitive against the April 27 coup-by-memorandum and the coup threat that it contains. END Embassy translation. Visit Ankara's Classified Web Site at http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/ankara/ WILSON