Monday, September 13, 2010

THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE COUP, THE REFERENDUM, AND IRONY

"Top Turkish political figures, including former President Kenan Evren, were among the 49,446,369 voters country-wide who went to the polls Sunday to cast their votes in the constitutional referendum. . . . Former President Evren, voting at the Ankara Highways Guesthouse, declined to release a statement."
~ Hürriyet.


The results of the referendum are in, for the most part, and show no big surprises. However, we should extend a big shout out to the bad boys and girls of Hakkari who managed to give both fingers to the fascist AKP by having the lowest turnout rate of all--7% of registered voters!!

Secim.haberler.com shows that a whopping 9% of voters turned out for the AKP constitutional referendum in Hakkari. If you scroll down the page to see Hakkari's results for the March, 2009, local elections, you'll see that 80% of voters voted for DTP (now BDP), so the Hakkari region has become strongly politicized for BDP and against the ruling regime in Ankara. To see that only 7 to 9% of voters in Hakkari bothered to turn out for this utterly worthless referendum should come as no surprise to anyone.

For more regional details of the vote, check this page.

Here's the best photo from the vote, taken, naturally, in Hakkari:




This referendum reached a level of irony only possible in Turkey. Throughout the summer, Katil Erdoğan travelled around Turke, bawling his eyes out about all the victims of the 12 September coup, marketing Kurdish heroes like Musa Anter and Ahmet Kaya to get out the vote in favor of the AKP's carefully selected changes to the paşas' 1982 constitution. This would be the same Katil Erdoğan who's been the süt kardeş of every chief of Turkish general staff since Özkök at the very least. From the time of the Şemdinli bombing, Katil Erdoğan "massaged" Büyükanıt. During the Amed Serhildan, The Murderer gave explicit permission for the same paşas to do what they do best--murder Kurds. No doubt, The Murderer is now also süt kardeş to Işık Koşaner.

Yet, all this summer, this sorry-assed excuse for a prime minister has attempted to play the role of savior of the people. Whoever was convinced of the veracity of The Murderer's act is a flaming idiot.

Another level of irony is that AKP's constitutional changes do absolutely nothing to address the myriad problems of the paşas' constitution. Everyone is still a Turk in Turkey. The legal system still exists to protect the state from the people. The facade of secularism is still maintained.

The fact of the matter is that, even while the memory of the hundreds of thousands of victims of the 12 September coup were invoked, the intention of Katil Erdoğan and his evil AKP minions was merely to gain total control of the constitutional court. Don't believe me? Read it (in .pdf) for yourselves, boys and girls, from the AKP's own website.

Then there is the irony that the referendum vote was held on the anniversary of the 12 September coup. Honestly, you can't plan this kind of coincidence . . . Unless you happen to be Katil Erdoğan.

The final irony was never mentioned. I never heard it once all summer, not from any AKP apparatchik and not through all of The Murderer's crocodile tears. The final irony is that Fethullah Gülen was a huge supporter of Kenan Evren, the CIA's "boy". Let's recall exactly who Evren served:


The U.S. support of this coup was acknowledged by the CIA Ankara station chief Paul Henze. After the government was overthrown, Henze cabled Washington, saying, "our boys [in Ankara] did it." This has created the impression that the USA stood behind the coup. Henze denied this during a June 2003 interview on CNN Türk's Manşet, but two days later [Mehmet Ali] Birand presented an interview with Henze recorded in 1997 in which he basically confirmed Mehmet Ali Birand's story. The US State Department itself announced the coup during the night between 11 and 12 September: the military had phoned the US embassy in Ankara to alert them of the coup an hour in advance.


Two years later, there was another constitutional referendum in Turkey, creating yet another level of irony:


After the coup, in 1982, Kenan Evren was elected the President of Republic of Turkey on November 7 with the 90% approval of the new constitution that was submitted to a controversial referendum, replacing the older constitution which, according to him, had liberties "luxurious" for Turkey.


Nowadays, of course, Evren's biggest supporter has a US green card, accompanied by references from former CIA spooks--George Fidas and Graham Fuller. The irony never ends.

So, what now? The Murderer claims that AKP will write a new constitution after 2012. If so, it's time for BDP to get to work. They should pull out the 1921 constitution, dust it off, update it where necessary, and have it ready to present as an option for a totally new constitution. It's time to reclaim some of those "luxurious" liberties from the shit-eating paşas.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mizgîn,

it is important to clarify that the 7% in Colemerg (Hakkari) was probably mostly the security forces there. It's also common trend for Korucular to vote for whoever is in power.

Berfo

Mizgîn said...

Berfo, there was an article in Turkish media . . . oh, several weeks ago, I guess, in which it said that TSK had ordered the korucular to force people to vote. I don't remember now when or where I saw the article, but this is nothing new.

(Of course, having seen that article about the korucular, it means that the stuff Zaman has published about people in the region not voting for this shitty referendum because they were "threatened" should be seen in a completely different light.)

If you check the secim.haberler.com page for Hakkari and scroll down, you'll see the voting results from Hakkari in previous elections. Notice that in March, 2009, they had 15% that voted for AKP. How much of that was TSK, how much korucular and how much a result of people with their hearts and minds in the wrong place would be a subject for much speculation.

However, it indicates that Hakkari couldn't even get that 15% to vote on AKP's referendum. Why? Why not? Well, that's another subject for much speculation.

I'm quite pleased with Hakkari's turnout and only wish that we had seen such low voter turnout in other places.

Anonymous said...

Mizgin, the korucular always threaten people to vote for their party and this time was no different. I have seen them in action. Those dogs have been trained well.

People also voted because they didn't want to pay the fine which was double a few days before the voting. "You have to pay a fine for not voting and at that we'll double it for you" I was a bit disappointed about Cewlik (Bingol) and Dersim. I know the explanations but still.

The most pathetic action now is to look at the ratio of "YES" votes, say even in Hakkari. That's masturbation at its best. Congar et al played that game in their articles today and it was just stupid. Those people need a crash course in math.

Here is something "interesting":

Iran donates $25 million to Turkey's ruling party

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/turkey/8002168/Iran-donates-25-million-to-Turkeys-ruling-party.html

Next elections will be better. They won't reduce the quota? Well, I guess we will have to pass it because berxwedan jiyane.

Berfo

Mizgîn said...

Berfo, I saw that Telegraph news in Hurriyet this morning.

I'm not so sure about that. It would mean that Erdogan is beholding to Iran and I'm not sure if any Turk would go that far. Remember the historical rivalry between the Ottomans and the Persians? AKP fancies itself Neo-Ottoman so . . . I don't know.

If it's a "deal" then that means that both The Murderer and Ahmadinejad have contributed something. Since the Telegraph states Ahmadinejad contributed the money, what did The Murderer contribute?

The other thing that immediately came to mind regarding this news is that it could very well be "planted" news. Who would "plant" it? The Israelis. They're not happy with Turkey or Iran.

Notice what the article says exactly:

"Western diplomats say they are alarmed by reports . . ."


What reports? Reported by whom? Frankly, this sounds like something out of Debkafile. All of the implications in the Telegraph article sound like a Likudnik's wet dream. Specifically:

1. "Western diplomats now fear that the AKP's deal with Iran will heighten fears among Turkish secularists that Mr Erdogan will exploit the government's new powers to drive through the AKP's radical Islamic agenda."

2. "Apart from transferring funds to the AKP, diplomats say Iran has also agreed to provide financial support for the IHH, the Turkish Islamic charity IHH which supported last May's aid flotilla which ended in disaster when it was intercepted by Israeli commandos, which resulted in the deaths of nine activists."

Who else really cares about this stuff except Israel?

The Telegraph itself tends to be conservative. Maybe even somewhat neo-conservative.

I despise AKP and think The Murderer is basically an ayatollah wannabe, but let's wait and see what else happens with this news.

Anonymous said...

It should noted that the low participation in the district of Hakkari in the referendum of the 12th of September was due to a significant rise in the violence in this district close to the election. PKK supportes rised pressure against local population by burning entrances of schools, obstaculizing the entrance of voters. As usual, violence was applied to deter people to go to vote. PKK also attacked a camion transporting the votes making evident that they do not allow people to express freely their opinions. The bomb attack after the elections against local people was later confirmed to be done by a fraaction within the PKK. Please, up date your information and stop misleading people with your biased information and distorsion of the truth!

Amit Singh said...

Why is there so much violence? Turks are great people!