The death of a commander

With the mining disaster that occurred last week in the İliç district of Erzincan, we have once again seen how our country can be occupied without the need for enemy soldiers.

On the day the İliç disaster occurred, news of a commander's death arrived. That commander was General Saldıray Berk, who was the 3rd Army Commander during the period when İliç began to be opened up to occupiers.

When the Erzincan Chief Public Prosecutor of the time, İlhan Cihaner, launched an investigation into the Fethullah Gülen and İsmailağa communities, he also took on the gold mining business after a prosecutor's name became involved in bribery allegations.

Could foreign powers and their domestic extensions stand by? One leg of the Ergenekon conspiracy, which was carried out in waves to liquidate national forces, was immediately extended to Erzincan, and General Saldıray Berk, along with Cihaner, was placed in the crosshairs.

The reason for targeting Berk was the same as all the conspiracies: the redesign of the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK)...

Indeed, in that case, the bribe-taking prosecutor Bayram Bozkurt, who testified as a secret witness under the code name “Efe,” said that they wanted to block Berk's path to the Chief of General Staff position.

Let us open a parenthesis for this Bayram Bozkurt.

Realizing he could not escape the bribery investigation launched by Cihaner, he resigned from the prosecutor's office and began practicing law in Ankara alongside figures linked to “FETÖ.” After the 2011 HSYK elections, he underwent plastic surgery under the “Secret Witness Protection Law” and took the name Hakan Aslan. He was then appointed as a prosecutor in the Keskin district with this new identity. When the AKP-FETÖ relationship soured following the 17/25 December corruption operation, he was dismissed from the profession. A criminal complaint was filed against him, but he was released under judicial control on the grounds that there was “no suspicion of flight.” Naturally, he fled. This time, an arrest warrant was issued. However, after July 15, he was caught in a house where he was hiding in İzmir, arrested, and became a confessor. In the first hearing of the case opened against him in Ankara for membership in an organization, where he faced up to 15 years in prison, he was released again under judicial control. When an arrest warrant was issued upon objection, he had already fled long ago. He has been living his life in Germany since 2020.

Bozkurt's statements were highly debated. Because it was alleged that in the long statement he gave during the days he was detained, he called many names who were in office and “critical” for the government “FETÖ” members, that this statement was ignored, and that some names were removed in his second statement.

His release at the first hearing, his fleeing in plain sight?.. Let us leave the interpretation of this to İlhan Cihaner and his lawyer Turgut Kazan. They said;

“I think he is being protected by those in critical positions... These are all protected jobs... When Bayram Bozkurt became a confessor, he gave such names and told such things that that information is currently waiting under wraps. He was released because it could not be risked for that information to be voiced in an open hearing, and now he has been allowed to flee.”

ERDOĞAN HAD ALSO BECOME BERK'S PROSECUTOR

Let us return to Saldıray Berk.

The government and its media did not see or hear of his passing!..

Those who wrote two lines of news only remembered him thanks to the condolence message from Erdoğan's son-in-law Selçuk Bayraktar and his sending of a wreath to the funeral. Because they realized that Saldıray Berk was one of those who stood up for the UAVs!..

Yet, when the Ergenekon conspiracy was set up against him and a so-called audio recording was released one day before his trial began, look at what they had spewed...

They said “the leader of the organization” was Saldıray Berk... They said they could not stage a coup because the government “abolished the Washington in Ankara”... That there was a new Ankara now...

We understood whether the Washington in Ankara was abolished 6 years later on July 15!..

It is impossible not to remember the government's attitude during that process.

According to the allegations, Berk had summarized the following at a meeting:

“You know that Turkey is about to be dragged into a chaos like never before in its history. The only institution left standing is the Armed Forces. There is also a campaign of terror, reactionism, and attrition from outside the institution against the Armed Forces. There is a multi-faceted attack or pressure here, such as using the judiciary and using the police. You saw the events... This is not a job that can be done so easily... Let me tell you, tomorrow will be worse than today. It is not going well. But the most important issue is to ensure unity within ourselves. The essential element. That is, the Armed Forces must be a single fist... The Armed Forces are the pillar of this country. If they collapse, this state will also be left under them. So they are trying in vain. The collaborators who have come upon us, they are continuing. Their whole purpose is to make us fall out with each other. To make us timid and passive. They can say ‘The General's Ergenekon farm,’ ‘the General's Ergenekon exhibition.’ They are hoarding what they have and using it when the time comes. Now, I would be honored to sign the Ergenekon signature.”

Upon this allegation, the Prime Minister of the time, Erdoğan, first reacted to Berk without naming him, and on the very day the trial began, as follows:

“They wanted to silence us when we spoke, they convicted us when we read poetry, they ostracized us when we thought, they wanted to close the paths of politics to us, they threw headlines saying ‘He cannot even be a village headman.’ They said, ‘You cannot elect a President,’ ‘You cannot change the Constitution,’ ‘You cannot fight against gangs,’ ‘What is Ergenekon to you?’ This country saw those who said, 'We will sign under Ergenekon'…”

Then, just before the Supreme Military Council (YAŞ) meeting, he filed a criminal complaint against Berk on charges of “insulting a public official.”

Subsequently, Berk, who was expected to become the Gendarmerie General Commander in the 2010 YAŞ, was removed from the 3rd Corps Command and appointed as EDOK Commander.

The purpose must have been served; two months later, Erdoğan withdrew his complaint, but in the end, Berk was sentenced to 11 months and 20 days in prison in this case.

Berk retired when he was not appointed as the Land Forces Commander in the YAŞ one year later due to the “reservation of the government wing.”

Yes, years later, the Erzincan conspiracy resulted in an acquittal; but what about the experiences of those targeted by these attacks? Here, Saldıray Berk got cancer and lost his life. And not a single person from the government—if we don't count İlhan Cihaner—nor from the CHP attended his funeral ceremony.

What about what happened to the country? Here is the mining disaster in İliç... Here is the dominance established by the new communities and sects that are partners of the government!..

Let us record a small note on this subject.

Taner Aksakal, the prosecutor of the Erzincan conspiracy case, who was later arrested for “FETÖ,” asked the following to one of the defendants, the Eskişehir Provincial Gendarmerie Regiment Commander, Senior Colonel Recep Gençoğlu, at a hearing:

“Was there an intelligence gathering effort directed at Non-Governmental Organizations and religious groups? What is the legal basis for this?.. Is it your duty to gather intelligence about a community out of the blue?”

The first person to answer these questions was one of the defendants, İlhan Cihaner. Reading Article 174 of the Constitution, titled “Protection of Reform Laws,” Cihaner said that according to the law on Tekkes and Zaviyes numbered 677, religious formations cannot be considered civil society.

Now, who cares about these and who doesn't; we are seeing the results by living through them.

As far as we have learned, Saldıray Berk had been sedated for about 1 month before his passing.

He could not wake up again and was laid to rest on his birthday. May he rest in peace.

The two wreaths at the funeral ceremony; the wreaths of KUMPASDER and the victims of the February 28 conspiracy were like a summary not only of what Saldıray Berk was made to experience but also of our recent history, especially what happened to the TSK.

Hoping to wake up from the deep sleep we have been plunged into as a nation for years!..