Turkey's Islamists fall to army-led campaign

Turkey's Islamists fall to army-led campaign

By Jonathan Lyons

ISTANBUL (Reuters): A Turkish court decision last Friday to outlaw the Welfare Party marks the final blow in a year-long battle led by the country's fiercely secularist generals to crush the forces of political Islam.

Five months after Turkey's chief prosecutor first demanded the Islam-based party be banned for undermining the official secular order, the head of the constitutional court slammed the door on the Welfare era.

The court also banned party chief and former prime minister Necmettin Erbakan, at 71 a veteran of two earlier party bans, from any political leadership post for the next five years.

But analysts say the anti-Islamist call to arms was first sounded on Febr. 28, 1997, when the top brass demanded in public then-Prime Minister Erbakan choke off the very religious revival that helped make Welfare Party Turkey's biggest faction.

Within five months Erbakan had resigned, the victim of unrelenting political pressure from the armed forces -- easily Turkey's most respected institution -- and their allies in the business and political elite.

"The period that punished Welfare will go down in history as the '28 Febr. Era,'" wrote political commentator Ismet Berkan in the mainstream daily Radikal.

Certainly the commanders' orders to a sitting prime minister, and the underlying threat to unleash tanks in the streets if required, marked the army's boldest foray into civilian politics since a coup in 1980.

This time the army used its control of the National Security Council, empowered by the constitution to protect the secularist system, to demand Erbakan limit religious education, restrict the secretive Islamic brotherhoods and enforce bans on Islamic dress.

Other steps included investigations of Islamist-owned business, a big source of party funds, and cutting off funds for overseas Turkish students who engage in Islamist agitation.

Finally, the army and its political allies induced a number of resignations from the ruling coalition, driving modern Turkey's first Islamist leader from office on June 18, 1997.

But Berkan told Reuters there was no need to look for the hand of the top force commanders in Friday's verdict. He said the country's establishment, including the courts, was in agreement: "The end result was the same...Everyone has seen that Welfare has its place in Turkey's political life, but what we see here is the resistance to it from the (secularist) system."

One Western diplomat said domestic politics virtually demanded the party's closure.

No one, least of all the new conservative-led coalition that enjoys the support of the army, wants to allow Erbakan another chance at winning any future election.

"I could see a triumphant Erbakan reaping enormous political and electoral benefits from winning the seal of approval from the country's highest court," the diplomat said.

"It would lead to a situation with the army more tense than anything we saw back in 1997."

Despite the long run-up to the court decision, Welfare and its leaders appeared ill-prepared for the ban.

Under Turkish law Welfare can effectively reorganize under another banner, as Erbakan himself had done after he faced party bans in the wake of coups in 1971 and 1980.

But to do that, the party will have to overcome an incipient power struggle as younger members, well aware that Erbakan's age may preclude a return to active politics, eye his chair.

"Until now Erbakan has kept a firm rein on the party, not allowing the search for new alternatives to surface. It is unclear how long he will be able to continue to do so," analyst Ali Bayramoglu told Reuters.

"The party does not have a prepared strategy to follow..." he said.