In the Grip of the Generals - Turkey

October 1998
With almost 800 000 men and 70 000 officers the Turkish army is the second largest in NATO. This powerful force asserts itself in all spheres of Turkish life. We join them at the annual celebrations of the founding of the Turkish republic. The cheerful men in uniform, singing fatherland songs are the most powerful men in Turkey. Their bullish actions have deposed the elected government four times in recent decades. It's the army's position on the Kurds that has recently brought them into focus. They have never budged on their consensus that the Kurds do not have a separate identity. Visting a base in the heart of a Kurdish settlement the army have brashly erected an banner with an Ataturk quote: "How wonderful it is to say 'I am a Turk'" it reads. For 15 years they have sent thousands of troops in to fight the PKK. It was their decison to draw out the war as proof of their own indispensability. Ataturk defined the Army's role thus; "It has to be one of the basic principles of the republic that the army stays clear of everyday politics." Turkey is still an agonizingly long way from this position.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• turkey
• military
• pkk
• kurd
• generals
• government
• journeyman
• pictures
• news
• documentary
• current affairs
• journeyman pictures

[Ainssen]

Turkey was the army general was a stable country in politics, but Erdogan's government is running out slowly that, in order to Islamize the country.

[TheBlindPowerslave]

Translation is inaccurate.



[TheRogerramjett]

@Ainssen ,,bull sht,,army fcked up the whole politics and the laws of Turkey..They tortured, But thanks to allah Erdogan put a stop to that and started ergonokon justice system to Question the generals and all the high figures in the army,,Before,,they were above the law but not now,,One wonders whether Turkish Army works for the citizens of Turkey or for USA?

[volvorayne]

Who ever put together this video is biased and clearly lacks objectivity. Plus, the video is constantly trying to point out facts although it does not include any true or relevant proof of things.

[MuKo18]

@Aboutparanormal

Maybe you don't know history but Turkey was just like that in these years.

Turkey changed since 2002, but that's something different.

[usuuyun]

Information in this video is not up to date.

[Mushkenu]

@sakkarugzo

Yes, I was just about to write the same. Im supporting kurdish struggle as a marxist, but I never trusted Europeans' involvment to this. This kind of "mistakes" lowering credibility of this documentary. One of the another documentary parts of the Journeyman Pics, they also didnt translated Karayılan's comments on socialist tendency of PKK.