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DE RUEHAK #1094/01 1291509
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 091509Z MAY 07
FM AMEMBASSY ANKARA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 2018
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE
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RUEHAK/USDAO ANKARA TU
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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