FETÖ's 16 April campaign

As we head swiftly toward the referendum, it is evident that the most active and effective workers of the "no" campaign are FETÖ. There is no idea or argument the CHP has voiced in this campaign that sticks in the mind. Phrases such as "one man" and "dictatorship," recited like a memorized litany, go not one word further. Kılıçdaroğlu's question, "Why don't they explain what will happen when the prime minister is from one party and the president from another?", already showed how indifferent and how foreign even he himself is to the change to be made.

From that moment on, the CHP effectively dropped out of the referendum debate. Indeed, Kılıçdaroğlu's statement in his own defense unwittingly confirmed the AK Parti's and MHP's theses from the outset on the separation of powers and the system of checks and balances in the executive. For Kılıçdaroğlu said that if the party of a president who was not elected in the first round were left in parliament with too few seats to legislate alone, this would weaken the president and would pose a problem. In fact, by failing to see that this thereby eliminates the possibility of the "one man" or "dictator" that he has tirelessly repeated since the beginning of the process, he once again, as is his habit, boarded the escalator going the wrong way.

Therefore, with the CHP having dropped out, we see that the main burden of the "no" campaign is being shouldered by FETÖ

(and, to give credit where it is due, by the PKK, with its recent attempts to enter the field more effectively in the east).

FETÖ is not using its campaign merely to encourage voting "no" in the referendum.

With the campaign it conducts through its satanic intelligence and mode of action, it acts by provoking international circles against Turkey. It does business with foreign intelligence organizations, carries out every kind of manipulation to steer the foreign press against Turkey, and does everything it can to produce a bad perception of Turkey. As if it has sworn to set Turkey and the whole world against each other in order to save itself.

It even took on the treachery of having Turkey tried by the American judiciary by carrying to America's agenda the Halk Bankası case, which formed the backbone of the December 17-25 judicial coup attempt. The process that led to the arrest of Halk Bankası's deputy general manager in America these days is entirely a process provoked by FETÖ.

However much it boasts of the level it has reached on the bar of treachery with this move, it would be too little.

FETÖ's contribution is also an undeniable fact in European countries' taking part in the "no" campaign in Turkey by disregarding and suspending all their principles, criteria and conventions.

The parallel infiltrations that FETÖ has begun to build within Germany have a significant share in Germany's stance toward Turkey.

Yet these parallel infiltrations look likely to cause a serious state crisis inside Germany as well. Because, as our friend Abdullah Muradoğlu set out in detail in yesterday's column,

FETÖ, by trying the same path as the parallel infiltrations it carried out in Turkey, has established its sedition inside Germany too.

It tried to influence the state hierarchy in a way that endangers Germany's security and official foreign policy, and in the end tried to drive a wedge of sedition between Germany and Turkey.

It is clear that it would be to the benefit of both Germany itself and of relations between the two countries if Germany's political mind noticed this influence while there is still time and took its own measures.

Of course, these are not FETÖ's only preparations for the April 16 referendum. It is also trying to be effective in Turkey in other ways. It does not escape notice that it is trying to keep the possibility of a coup constantly alive on society's agenda beneath the surface.

No one doubts in any case that, with all their elements, they can do every kind of harm to the country and the nation and commit every kind of treachery.

Nor that they can assume any guise with the taqiyya performances they have reached. However, keeping the possibility of a coup or a new uprising on the agenda cannot be the wisdom of a team that is actually preparing a coup, because it would ultimately set in motion more effective measures against them. A junta that really intends to carry out a coup does not so openly give advance notice of the attempt. On the contrary, it tries as far as possible to conceal it, to mislead public opinion and keep it asleep until the moment of the coup.

That is why these rumors should be read as a psychological warfare tactic rather than as a coup's advance challenge.

The most important aim of this war is, on the one hand, to keep its own supporters' morale high and their tails up, and, on the other, to inflict the greatest possible damage on the opposing front under these conditions by causing a serious crisis of confidence in society.

Truly, "trust" is a society's strongest social capital. People who have lost trust in one another cannot accomplish a common task together. The greatest harm that can be done to a society with strong synergy and a founding will is moves that destroy their trust in one another.

Water sleeps, the enemy does not. One must therefore be extremely vigilant. But this vigilance must not give those fighting on the same front an opportunity to erode and destroy their trust in one another.

The anti-coup sensitivity that swiftly mobilized over a company's April 1 advertisement is, above all, hopeful as a sign of the level of vigilance in society. Of course the necessary investigations will be carried out into the real purpose or intention of this tasteless advertisement.

But on this occasion it must be noted that the FETÖ elements miss no opportunity to insolently threaten society and create unease in it.

What they target with this tactic is social trust and faith.

They are targeting the feelings that make society most resistant to traitors and coup plotters like themselves and to the imperialists whose lackeys they are. Of course one must not surrender to this. Everyone should know that a society that has produced the July 15 victory will not yield to them.