Encümen-i Daniş & More Speculation About Feb. 28

The Ergenekon invetigation has raised a flurry of questions about political events in Turkey's not-so-recent past, including hints and allegations of just exactly what happened in the country's "postmodern coup" of Feb. 28, 1997. The coup toppled the Islamist Refah Party, which was closed shortly after by a decision of the Constitutional Court. Refah is the more conservative antecedent of AKP, and among the many recriminations that have circled around Ergenekon are charges that the deep state group colluded with elements in the Turkish Armed Forces. From TDZ:

An organization calling itself Encümen-i Daniş (Consultation Council) sent a letter to former President Süleyman Demirel in 1994 with a list of recommendations on a number of issues in an attempt to influence decision-makers in the country ahead of the Feb. 28, 1997, post-modern coup, the Bugün daily reported yesterday.

Considered to be a “think tank” that included some of the most powerful figures in the country, who came together behind closed doors to talk about Turkey’s problems, Encümen-i Daniş sent a letter to Demirel and then-Prime Minister Tansu Çiller in 1994 in an attempt direct political decisions in the country. Paragraphs from the letter were quoted verbatim a few years later -- this time in a grim resolution issued by the National Security Council (MGK) in 1997 that led to the collapse of an elected coalition government.

Encümen-i Daniş is, according to some, a clandestine committee that also has links to the Ergenekon gang and to the Western Working Group (BÇG). BÇG was another clandestine group formed within the army during the Feb. 28 coup that blacklisted various politicians, intellectuals, soldiers and bureaucrats as “dangerous personalities” who were threatening the regime.

Included in the six-article recommendation letter sent to Demirel and Çiller are calls for the strict implementation of the Law on Political Parties; tough controls on Quran courses; and the reclassification of imam-hatip schools -- high schools that offer religious education -- as vocational schools so that students would have a lesser chance of being admitted to university.

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