TURKEY - Erdogan's Crackdown

"Turkish government crackdown touches thousands after coup attempt" PBS NewsHour 7/19/2016

COMMENT:  A nation on the road to dictatorship via Hitler's playbook.

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SUMMARY:  In Istanbul, thousands of supporters of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan went out to the streets, demanding retribution for those responsible for the coup over the weekend.  Meanwhile, even more Turkish civil servants were detained or suspended from their jobs.  Special correspondent Marcia Biggs talks to Hari Sreenivasan about the crackdown.

HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour):  President Obama spoke by phone today with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.  The U.S. Justice and State Departments are reviewing Turkey's extradition request for Fethullah Gulen, the man the country says is responsible for the attempted coup last week.

And in its aftermath, the crackdown has only intensified, with thousands more civil servants suspended from their jobs today, in addition to the thousands already under detention.

For more, we're joined now from Istanbul by special correspondent Marcia Biggs.

Marcia, you're standing in front what looks like, what — is this a pro-Erdogan rally?

MARCIA BIGGS, special correspondent:  Indeed, Hari.

This is the largest protest of the last five days.  The first night, as you will remember, on Friday night, when the coup was attempted, President Erdogan called on his people to come down to the streets to save democracy, as he said, to protect him, to protect the government, and this is the fifth day.

People have come down in droves every single day.  And this is by far the largest.  I would say maybe 3,000 people are here tonight.  The mood is one of nationalism, the Turkish flags, a lot of saving the fatherland.

What is very interesting is that Erdogan sent messages, text messages to his people, to the citizens of Turkey today, saying, please come down to the streets, as he has every day, to save the fatherland, to save democracy.  And out they have come.

Public transportation has been free every day.  Indeed, I took the ferry and I took a tram today, paid no money, and that is to encourage people to come down into the streets.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  Tell me about the impact.  Is there an impact that you can feel, though, the people that you talk to can feel about all these detentions and firings?

MARCIA BIGGS:  The crackdown over the last couple of days has been brutal, as you mentioned, 30,000 suspensions of various ministries, police and education.

That's the people who work in the prime minister's office, judges, prosecutors, 15,000, as you mentioned, members of the Education Ministry; 1,500 deans were asked to resign, and that's in addition to the 1,000 civilians that were arrested and the 6,000 soldiers that were arrested.

That's 50,000 people in this country that have been affected by this crackdown, whether it's being fired, whether it's being asked to resign, whether it's being detained.  It's incredible.

"What will Turkey look like under a state of emergency?" PBS NewsHour 7/21/2016

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SUMMARY:  The failed coup attempt in Turkey has won that nation’s president extraordinary power, in a three-month state of emergency, to impose laws by fiat.  Critics fear he will chip away at Turkey's secular constitution.  Hari Sreenivasan talks with special correspondent Marcia Biggs; and Federica Mogherini, a High Representative/Vice President of the European Union.

EGYPT - And so Egypt's "Arab Spring" Dies (Newshour view)

"Egyptian Military Ousts Morsi, Nation's First Democratically Elected President" (Part-1) PBS Newshour 7/3/2013

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SUMMARY:  In Tahrir Square, hundreds of thousands of protesters erupted in celebration after Egypt's military commander announced Mohammed Morsi, the country's first democratically elected president, had been removed from office and the constitution suspended.  Margaret Warner reports.

"As Morsi Is Removed From Power, What Are Next Steps for Egypt and Its Military?" (Part-2) PBS Newshour 7/3/2013

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SUMMARY:  Jeffrey Brown talks with Nancy Youssef of McClatchy Newspapers in Cairo, Michelle Dunne of the Atlantic Council and Samer Shehata of the University of Oklahoma about what led up to the dramatic power shift in Egypt, how Egyptians are responding to the removal of former President Mohammed Morsi and what's next for the military.

EGYPT - And so Egypt's "Arab Spring" Dies (NYT view)

"Army Ousts Egypt’s President; Morsi Is Taken Into Military Custody" by DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK, New York Times 7/3/2013

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Egypt’s military officers removed the country’s first democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi, on Wednesday, suspended the Constitution and installed an interim government presided over by a senior jurist.

Tahrir Square, where tens of thousands of opponents of the government had gathered each night since Sunday to demand Mr. Morsi’s removal, erupted in fireworks and jubilation at news of the ouster.  At a square near the presidential palace where Mr. Morsi’s Islamist supporters had gathered, men broke into tears and vowed to stay until he was reinstated or they were forcibly removed.  “The dogs have done it and made a coup against us,” they chanted.  “Dying for the sake of God is more sublime than anything,” a speaker declared.

Mr. Morsi rejected the generals’ actions as a “complete military coup.”

Military vehicles and soldiers in riot gear had surrounded the rally in the hours before the takeover, and tensions escalated through the night.  Within hours, at least seven people had died and more than 300 were injured in clashes in 17 provinces between Mr. Morsi’s supporters and either civilian opponents or security forces.

By the end of the night, Mr. Morsi was in military custody and blocked from all communications, one of his advisers said, and many of his senior aides were under house arrest.  Egyptian security forces had arrested at least 38 senior leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, including Saad el-Katatni, the chief of the group’s political party, and others were being rounded up as well, security officials said.  No immediate reasons were given for the detentions.

For Mr. Morsi, it was a bitter and ignominious end to a tumultuous year of bruising political battles that ultimately alienated millions of Egyptians.  Having won a narrow victory, his critics say, he broke his promises of an inclusive government and repeatedly demonized his opposition as traitors.  With the economy crumbling, and with shortages of electricity and fuel, anger at the government mounted.

The generals built their case for intervention in a carefully orchestrated series of maneuvers, calling their actions an effort at a “national reconciliation” and refusing to call their takeover a coup.  At a televised news conference late on Wednesday night, Gen. Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi said that the military had no interest in politics and was ousting Mr. Morsi because he had failed to fulfill “the hope for a national consensus.”

The general stood on a broad stage, flanked by Egypt’s top Muslim and Christian clerics as well as a spectrum of political leaders including Mohamed ElBaradei, the Nobel Prize-winning diplomat and liberal icon, and Galal Morra, a prominent Islamist ultraconservative, or Salafi, all of whom endorsed the takeover.

Despite their protestations, the move plunged the generals back to the center of political power for the second time in less than three years, following their ouster of President Hosni Mubarak in 2011.  Their return threatened to cast a long shadow over future efforts to fulfill that revolution’s promise of a credible, civilian democracy.  But General Sisi sought to present a very different image from the anonymous, numbered communiqués from the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces that were solemnly read over state television to announce Mr. Mubarak’s exit, and the general emphasized that the military had no desire to rule.

"Political Turmoil in Egypt Is Replay for White House" by MARK LANDLER, New York Times 7/2/2013

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The vast protests gripping Cairo put President Obama in a position both awkward and familiar, recalling the winter of 2011, when he grappled with what to do about another embattled Egyptian president, a restive military and angry young Egyptians quick to see a meddling American hand in their political drama.

Then, as now, Mr. Obama has moved gingerly, placing a call to President Mohamed Morsi late Monday evening with a message not unlike the one he delivered to his predecessor, Hosni Mubarak, two and a half years earlier:  Exercise restraint and allow the protesters to express their views peacefully.

American officials have broached the possibility of Mr. Morsi’s calling early elections, a senior administration official said, but added, “We are not pushing it as a preferred U.S. option.”  Other options include Mr. Morsi’s replacing his cabinet or ousting an unpopular prosecutor.

But officials and outside analysts caution that the United States has little leverage over either the Morsi government or those demanding his ouster.  With neither side open to bargaining, the administration is essentially a bystander in what some experts characterize as a do-or-die struggle for control of the Egyptian state.

The White House acknowledged as much in its description of Mr. Obama’s phone call with Mr. Morsi.  “As he has said since the revolution, President Obama reiterated that only Egyptians can make the decisions that will determine their future,” it said in a statement.

The lack of American influence did not prevent a flurry of American phone calls.  Secretary of State John Kerry spoke to the Egyptian foreign minister, Mohamed Kamel Amr, who in a sign of the quickening pace of events had already submitted his resignation to Mr. Morsi.

The United States is also keeping open channels to the military, with which it has closer ties than with the civilian government.  The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces has warned Mr. Morsi to meet the demands of protesters or face military intervention.

Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, telephoned his counterpart, Lt. Gen. Sedky Sobhi, the Egyptian military’s chief of staff, on Monday morning, officials said.  They declined to describe the content of the discussion.

News reports in Egypt indicated that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel also phoned his Egyptian counterpart, but officials in Washington declined to confirm any involvement in the growing crisis by the Pentagon chief, who visited Cairo in late April.

AFRICA - Guinea-Bissau a Military Controlled Narco-State

"Leader Ousted, Nation Is Now a Drug Haven" by ADAM NOSSITER, New York Times 11/1/2012

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When the army ousted the president here just months before his term was to expire, a thirst for power by the officer corps did not fully explain the offensive. But a sizable increase in drug trafficking in this troubled country since the military took over has raised suspicions that the president’s sudden removal was what amounted to a cocaine coup.

The military brass here has long been associated with drug trafficking, but the coup this spring means soldiers now control the drug racket and the country itself, turning Guinea-Bissau in the eyes of some international counternarcotics experts into a nation where illegal drugs are sanctioned at the top.

“They are probably the worst narco-state that’s out there on the continent,” said a senior Drug Enforcement Administration official in Washington, who spoke on the condition of anonymity so as not to jeopardize his work in the region. “They are a major problem.”

Since the April 12 coup, more small twin-engine planes than ever are making the 1,600-mile Atlantic crossing from Latin America to the edge of Africa’s western bulge, landing in Guinea-Bissau’s fields, uninhabited islands and remote estuaries. There they unload their cargos of cocaine for transshipment north, experts say.

The fact that the army has put in place a figurehead government and that military officers continue to call the shots behind the scenes only intensifies the problem.

The political instability continued as soldiers attacked an army barracks on Oct. 21, apparently in an attempt to topple the government. A dissident army captain was arrested on an offshore island on Oct. 27 and accused of being the organizer of the countercoup attempt. Two critics of the government were also assaulted and then left outside the capital.

From April to July there were at least 20 landings in Guinea-Bissau of small planes that United Nations officials suspected were drug flights — traffic that could represent more than half the estimated annual cocaine volume for the region. The planes need to carry a 1.5-ton cargo to make the transatlantic trip viable, officials say. Europe, already the destination for about 50 tons of cocaine annually from West Africa, United Nations officials say, could be in for a far greater flood.

Was the military coup itself a diversion for drug trafficking? Some experts point to signs that as the armed forces were seizing the presidency, taking over radio stations and arresting members government officials, there was a flurry of drug activity on one of the islands of the Bijagós Archipelago, what amounted to a three-day offloading of suspicious sacks.

That surreptitious activity appears to have been simply a prelude for what was to come.

“There has clearly been an increase in Guinea-Bissau in the last several months,” said Pierre Lapaque, head of the regional United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime for West and Central Africa. “We are seeing more and more drugs regularly arriving in this country.”