Annulled Turkish security protocol takes center stage

The Police-Security Cooperation Protocol, or EMASYA, is no more, but its existence has been a focus of debate since its signing in 1997. Declared unlawful for contradicting with many laws in effect, and unnecessary because of the Provincial Administrative Law, EMASYA was also defended as being necessary to hastening interventions in disasters or social unrest

Recent coup allegations based on the “Sledgehammer” operation have brought the Police-Security Cooperation Protocol, or EMASYA, onto Turkey’s agenda and led to its annulment Thursday due to links to the alleged plot.

The 1st Army of the Turkish Ground Forces is being blamed for the Sledgehammer plot and was said to use EMASYA as the stepping-stone for actualizing the coup.

No longer in effect as of Thursday, EMASYA essentially determined the conditions under which local governments could ask for military help in times of disasters, social uprisings and terrorism threats when their own staff and resources proved to be inadequate. But in practice, it was more complicated than that.

EMASYA was signed in 1997 between the General Staff and the Ministry of Interior Affairs to determine rules for employing military forces internally during times when neither marshal law nor war have been declared. Events such as forest fires, natural disasters or broad social unrest fell under the scope of the protocol. The governor of a province could call on the military if the police and the gendarmerie forces could not handle the matters. In such cases, the governor continued to be the highest official in the province, but all other forces would be under military command. However, in extraordinary situations, such as social unrest spreading to more than one province, the military was allowed to intervene without waiting to be called on by either governors or the ministry.

According to retired military judge and author Ümit Kardaş, the main problem with the protocol was granting the military the authority to intervene on its own behalf, which he said was clearly unlawful and unthinkable. “Internal security is a thing completely outside of the scope of the military,” said Kardaş. “When you grant the military such a leading role, it would employ it as a power domain and it has been doing so.”

Most debates over EMASYA centered first on whether or not it was antidemocratic to place military authority over local governments, and second on the protocol’s allowing the military to constantly carry out intelligence efforts and keep records on people. Criticisms made focusing on these two subjects also argued that the protocol was in contradiction with certain laws, and that Article 11/D of the current Provincial Administrative Law had already covered the matter before 1997 in any event.

There are two official internal threats recognized by the government: separatist terrorism and fundamentalism. EMASYA allowed military intelligence to be active in both these fields beforehand. Nejat Eslen, a retired general and author, said he believed the protocol was necessary, noting that EMASYA was prepared primarily to be used in southeastern Anatolia, where clashes with the outlawed Kurdistan Worker’s Party, or PKK, are most common.

“Such a protocol was needed to fasten the civil-military relations,” said Eslen. “It is not necessary to have those protocols, but they make it easier to employ military forces when needed. You have to be prepared and have plans beforehand.”

Otherwise, Eslen said, the military would not be ready to intervene. He gave the example of the Sivas Massacre of 1993, in which a hotel full of intellectuals was torched during civil unrest, saying that if the military had been prepared, such a tragedy might not have occurred. Eslen added that the EMASYA plans were not kept secret from civilian authorities.

Önder Aytaç, a columnist for daily Taraf, disagreed with Eslen, saying: “The protocol [was] limiting the discretionary power and freedom to act of the civilian authorities by founding an operational system that might lessen the speed and effectiveness at solving problems that appeared suddenly and required emergency decisions.”

According to Aytaç, the political authority was at its weakest in 1997 and EMASYA granted the military the right to intervene in the democracy. He added that EMASYA was thoroughly analyzed and declared to be unlawful during at meeting of the Civil Administration Council on April 25, 2002, which was attended by then-Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit.

Addressing the criticisms about the protocol being used to gather intelligence, Eslen said even banks gather information about people who ask for credit and asked why it is wrong for soldiers, who are responsible for the country’s security, to gather intelligence within legal perimeters.

Kardaş said this had led to the military having a resident place in internal security affairs, since the protocol had given it the right to intervene, a situation he said does not mesh with democracy.

/Hurriyet Daily News/