World Can Learn From Turkey's Coup Attempt

From Azman Ujang ANKARA, Oct 5 (Bernama) -- The whole world can learn important lessons from the July 15 coup attempt in Turkey, according to its Director-General of Press and Information. Mehmet Akarca, who is also Senior Advisor to the Turkish Prime Minister, said that although Turkey had gone through several military coups in the past decades, the recent one which was crushed by sheer people's power, was unprecedented in more ways than one. "It was totally unexpected. The perpetrators acted in high secrecy and treason to seize power, with the involvement of many top generals and even some of the closest aides of those in the corridors of power," he told a group of visiting journalists from four Asean countries here. Unlike past coups, this time around the mastermind is US-based Turkish cleric Fetullah Gulen, who heads what's officially known in Turkey as the Fetullah Terrorist Organisation (FETO). Senior officials of both the ruling AK Party and two leading opposition parties in Parliament, MHP and CHP, as well as NGOs whom we journalists met in the last few days spoke of the extensive worldwide network of FETO which runs schools, farms and hospitals and NGOs in over 160 countries. According to them, inside Turkey, FETO masks itself as a religious organisation but which infiltrates into all levels of the military and civilian apparatus and in the aftermath of the July 15 failed coup, some 50,000 people have been arrested. Among those detained are the chief ADC to the Turkish president. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had said in an interview with CNN soon after the coup that he himself avoided death by only a few minutes before the coup plotters stormed the resort in southwest Turkey where he was vacationing when it took place. "Had I stayed 10 or 15 additional minutes, I would have been taken," said Erdogan. Akarca, the Press and Information Director-General, was appointed to the post only last month and prior to that had been a journalist for 40 years. "I was inside my TV channel building on the night of the coup attempt and we all expected to be killed anytime," he said. As he spoke, Akarca showed videos of how millions of people took to the streets after Erdogan appealed to them via the Facetime app on his handphone to stop the advancing tanks and armoured cars in their tracks. The coup plotters had earlier stormed the studios of a state-owned TV station where they forced a woman newscaster who was on air at the time to announce that they had seized power. "The important lesson for the whole world from what Turkey went through recently is that when the people take to the streets, then the perpetrators cannot succeed. "The tanks may run over one fellow Turkish citizen but they will stop doing it for the second or third person who lay themselves on the path," Akarca said. Nevertheless, helicopter gunships and soldiers on the ground fired at the protesters and some 241 people were killed and over 2,000 injured. The outpouring of people's power in a show of solidarity to save Turkey's democracy was unprecedented in the country's modern history. For the first time ever in this coup-battered nation, the perpetrators in F-16 fighter jets bombed the Parliament complex. Officials that we spoke to here described this act as "totally unacceptable" as Parliament is the will of people. Referring to the acts of high treason by the coup plotters who held key positions in Turkey, Akarca said: "It just goes to show that in the administration of a country, you should not even trust your own father". He also scoffed at widespread rumours in Turkey of a repeat coup attempt. "This is not possible. We have arrested all the generals while massive clean-up operations are underway to dismantle the apparatus involved in the recent coup attempt," he said. He said this would take at least a year. Turkey has also sent an official request to the United States for the extradition of Gulen, the number one suspect accused of the failed coup and now the country's most wanted man. -- BERNAMA