Erdoğan prepares for a bloodbath

President Erdogan and ormer general Adnan Tanriverdi
President Erdogan and ormer general Adnan Tanriverdi


Date posted: November 1, 2016

Michael Rubin

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called the failed July 15 coup attempt a “gift from God.” The Turkish government immediately blamed Erdoğan’s former ally-turned-rival Fethullah Gülen for being behind the plot, the genesis of which remains unclear, but the simple fact is that none of the material Turkish officials have given to their US counterparts has yet risen to the standard of proof — let alone credible evidence — to support Erdoğan’s charges. It is noteworthy that the Turkish press purports to describe the US reaction as accepting of the Turkish material, yet no American officials have ever been quoted as saying anything near what the Turkish press describes. Indeed, alternate narratives about the July 15 coup attempt are equally compelling.

The only certainty is that the attempted coup became the excuse Erdoğan needed or crafted in order to purge those opposed to or insufficiently enthusiastic about his agenda. Much of what has been reported in the Western media has focused on the ongoing purge of teachers and university professors. Certainly, there is a newsworthy irony to a man whose university diploma appears to be forged assuming the right to appoint university presidents through a board he has staffed with his cronies. But it is what Erdoğan has done in recent days to the police which should put chills down the spines of those who care about Erdoğan’s intent and Turkey’s future.

Last week, Erdoğan appointed new police chiefs for 61 out of Turkey’s 81 provinces. He also assigned 55 police chiefs to central departments that act as police professional bodies. (On page 105 of this book chapter, Turkish academic and counter terrorism specialist Ahmet Yayla explains how these positions relate to Turkish counterterrorism). Some of the police chiefs Erdoğan fired were religious and some even supported him. None were followers of Gülen, simply because those who were had long ago been purged. Most of the chiefs whom Erdoğan has appointed are fiercely nationalist, very young, and relatively inexperienced, and so are likely to more easily defer to Erdoğan’s orders. The problem seems not that Erdoğan believed all the sacked chiefs disloyal — most were not and many he had appointed in the first place — but rather that he considered them soft, unwilling to use the extreme violence Erdoğan believes will be necessary to exert not only on Turkey’s Kurds but also many liberal or apolitical Turks as he moves to further consolidate control.

Throw into the mix that Erdoğan has also just in the past few days extended the time for which Turks can be detained without access to an attorney to six months. What this sets the stage for is a significant augmentation of torture in custody in order to extract forced confessions, a practice that has become more common since July.

Erdoğan’s ruling party has also begun issuing weapons permits to loyalists, especially through the Ottoman Youth Authority (Osmanli Ocaklari). I have previously reported Erdoğan’s appointment of former general Adnan Tanriverdi, the head of SADAT, to be his military counsel. Tanriverdi had been dismissed by the Turkish General Staff during the 1997 soft coup and appears bent on revenge against the secular order. SADAT, which has trained paramilitaries and special forces, is increasingly becoming Erdoğan’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Indeed, SADAT appears to have been behind much of the killing of civilians which Erdoğan’s media blamed, absent any evidence beyond forced confessions, upon Gülenist coup plotters.

All this hints at Erdoğan’s long game. He appears to be consolidating his own religious control through the Service for Youth and Education Foundation of Turkey (TÜRGEV, a charity on whose board Erdoğan’s son sits) and Heyrettin Karaman, Erdoğan’s favorite local Islamic leader.

But, as Erdoğan seeks to change the constitution, he also wants to win through the point of a gun what he cannot win popularly. The issue at hand is not simply the Turkish public — Erdoğan believes he has them cowed — but rather Doğu Perinçek, a former Maoist and ultranationalist. Perinçek has been the chief beneficiary of Erdoğan’s purges, as they have eliminated many of his opponents as well. Today, Perinçek is effectively the shadow defense minister. He has said he will not allow the constitutional change, which means the terms of the showdown are now clear.

Whomever wins, the only certainty is that Turkey is headed for a bloodbath. The only questions are how soon it comes, and whether Erdoğan is more prepared than Perinçek.

Source: American Enterprise Institute , October 31, 2016


Related News

Fethullah Gulen Talked to Kurdish TV on Kurds, human rights and Erdogan

Fethullah Gulen Talked to Kurdish TV NRT on Kurds, human rights and Erdogan.

Dialogue and distrust: on the predicament of Gulen-inspired organisations in the UK

FRANCES SLEAP Dialogue can be hard work. It is an indisputably good idea for there to be meaningful contact between people of different religious, ideological and cultural groups, but to make that happen where it hasn’t yet happened is no mean feat. Between 2010 and 2014 I worked at the Dialogue Society, with people putting […]

Turkey purge victims unable to find jobs, cannot leave country

“It’s a kind of civil death,” Kerem Altıparmak, a human rights lawyer and political science professor at Ankara University, told the Los Angeles Times to describe how the lives of thousands have changed since a July 15 coup attempt. “You cannot leave the country, you cannot find other jobs, either because of legal or de facto obstacles, because even in the private sector people do not want to employ you.”

Turkey’s Post-Coup Purge and Erdogan’s Private Army

A year later, Western intelligence officials and top Turkey analysts aren’t nearly so sure of Gulen’s complicity. Earlier this year, German spy chief Bruno Kahl revealed that Ankara has failed to convince the BND foreign intelligence agency that Gulen was behind the ill-planned and executed coup plot. “Turkey has tried to convince us of that at every level, but so far it has not succeeded,” Kahl told the German weekly Der Spiegel in March.

Abant Platform discusses terror at UN headquarters in Vienna

“Dynamics of Radicalism: Why are people radicalized and why?” the second of the conference series titled “Combating Violent Extremism,” co-organized by the Journalists and Writers Foundation’s (GYV) Abant Platform and Vienna-based Friede-Institut für Dialog (Peace Institute for Dialogue) was held at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in the UN headquarters in Vienna.

Finally, an awakening… press freedom in Turkey

Yavuz Baydar “…notes with concern that most media are owned by and concentrated in large conglomerates with a wide range of business interests ; reiterates its call for the adoption of a new media law addressing, inter alia, the issues of independence, ownership and administrative control…” The excerpt is from the European Parliament Resolution on […]

Latest News

Fethullah Gulen – man of education, peace and dialogue – passes away

Fethullah Gülen’s Condolence Message for South African Human Rights Defender Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Hizmet Movement Declares Core Values with Unified Voice

Ankara systematically tortures supporters of Gülen movement, Kurds, Turkey Tribunal rapporteurs say

Erdogan possessed by Pharaoh, Herod, Hitler spirits?

Devious Use of International Organizations to Persecute Dissidents Abroad: The Erdogan Case

A “Controlled Coup”: Erdogan’s Contribution to the Autocrats’ Playbook

Why is Turkey’s Erdogan persecuting the Gulen movement?

Purge-victim man sent back to prison over Gulen links despite stage 4 cancer diagnosis

In Case You Missed It

Gulen-inspired school raided by Turkish diplomats, Turkish soldiers in Afghanistan

Defending Hizmet

Teacher detained in Turkey after forced return from Myanmar

Yamanlar Schools students sweep AMC 8

Sakarya court orders stay of execution on closure of Fatih Koleji

Turkish Schools, an Honor for Host Countries

The cleric, the coup and the conspiracy

Copyright 2025 Hizmet News