Coup attempt in Turkey
A coup in the night
Op-ed: Turkish reporter Tulin Daloglu provides a first hand account of what it was like to be in the middle of the attempted Turkish coup which occurred on Friday night; Daloglu, a war correspondent, never thought she would see fighter jets flying above her home and tanks in her streets.
Sipping a late night tea at my uncle’s terrace on what seemed like a peaceful night was scarred by the thunderous sounds of approaching fighter jets - something almost unheard of. Just then, I got a call my dear friend Zeynep who was on her way to the airport to pick up her daughter. “I am feeling very uneasy. Something isn't right. Do you know what is going on?”
Prime Minister Binali Yildirim spoke on the Turkish NTV news channel at 11:25pm and said that a coup was taking place. He was very careful to stress that this coup was not ordered through the military chain of command, but that it was a reactionary group from within the military which was carrying the uprising. It soon became clear that Hulusi Akar, the Chief of General Staff and other heads of the military were taken hostage.
The night turned surreal when cameras zoomed in on Istanbul's Ataturk Airport – the crime scene of a terror attack which occured 18 days ago and killed 42 people. Tanks were positioning at the entrance to the airport blocking all vehicle traffic in and out. Footage then went on to showing a similar situation on opposite ends of the two bridges in Istanbul. This time, Yildirim was degrading the coup attempt of its legality and vowing prevent it from succeeding.
Turkish civilians on a tank (Photo: AP)
I was not sure what we were witnessing at that point. I had no clue who these people in the military were, if the top-man was being held against his will, and it felt dubious and triggered caution. By that time, I was already back home, multitasking between the TV and social media .
Reports started to pour in from Istanbul that exchanges of gunfire were heard at the Istanbul Security Directorate as well from the vicinity of the military headquarters here in Ankara. It was a little past midnight when the first fighter jet came in flying low over my building. As someone who had covered both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars and had been on various assignments in the Middle East covering conflict zones, it never crossed my mind that these jets could do the same in my sky
At 12:26am President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke to CNN’s affiliate here via FaceTime and he urged people to come out to the streets. He blamed the Turkish born-US based Fethullah Gulen to be the leader of the coup attempt, and vowed to do everyting in his capacity to bring him to justice. The jets started to intensify and then the first sound of explosions hit. People on social media were fast to report from came from the direction of state owned Turkish Radio and Television (TRT). It's tradition to take control of the newsroom there during each coup this country has been through. There was another bang which came from the direction of the National Intelligence building.
At 1:29am in the morning, the real surprise came. An Imam took to the minaret in my neighborhood, made a call in Arabic calling people to unity, which then followed with remarks in Turkish asking people to go to the streets just as Erdogan asked them to. At 2:06, there was a similar call from the minaret. At 2:35, there was yet another call and that kept on repeating in every half hour to 45 minutes. As I am writing this article at 5pm on Saturday, there is yet another call from the minaret calling on people to gather at Kizilay square in support of Erdogan.
Soliders being attacked by civilians (Photo: Gettyimages)
None of these were as chilling nor as unnerving as the explosion followed however. There was a huge explosion divided by a minute or so with the other two bangs that shook my entire building. The Turkish Parliament was hit. I would have never thought this would happen in a million years. Now it's a reality .
At 2:51am the coup was announced to be over, but the jets did cease flying overhead. The pictures from Istanbul showed horrendous butchering of those carrying the coup over the Bosporus and elsewhere. One soldier’s throat was cut like a sheep left to bleed to death. Worse, Turkish media reported that some of the privates who were detained told interrogators that they thought this was a military exercise, and not a military coup. They only understood when people started to climb on the tanks in anger and protest.
The poison of the polarization was surely cooking something but facing what it could actually create was something different. People – from the same Turkish family killed one another. The coup could be over, but the scar of last night will remain permanent. And some of us will deem to stand courageous looking in the eye of the worst of what a human being could become. Yet, in the absence of a opposition which could turn the direction of the country to a constructive tone – all individual contextualization will go away by the wind.
What is left behind is an embarrassing scandal on so many levels at the cost of 190 lives including 41 police officers, 2 soldiers, 47 civilians and 104 coup plotters. With the rescue of the Chief of General Staff and government taking full control, 2,839 military personnel got arrested for plotting this mischievous night.
