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ANKARA – When Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan visits Uganda and Kenya this week,[9] he will be seeking not only to increase trade but to stamp out the influence of an Islamic cleric whose network was long an instrument of Turkey’s soft power in Africa.
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Ankara officially declared the Hizmet organisation of preacher Fethullah Gulen, which claims millions of followers worldwide, a terrorist group this week,[4] stepping up pressure on a movement Erdogan once looked to for help in spreading Turkish cultural influence and commerce overseas.
Erdogan now accuses his former ally of building a “parallel state” through followers in the police, judiciary, media and business, and of using it to try to overthrow him, allegations which Gulen denies. [1]The president has made eradicating the Hizmet movement a top priority at home and abroad.
“This network organises itself swiftly in the countries it goes to by using Turkey’s name and power,[5] and opportunities are offered to it as a result,” a senior Turkish official said ahead of Erdogan’s departure for Uganda on Tuesday.
“Through these trips, it will be explained that this is a terrorist organization harmful to Turkey and that Turkey does not support it,” the official said.
Erdogan has long described Hizmet as a terrorist grouping!
but the formal designation by cabinet puts it on a par with Kurdish militants confronting the Turkish army and Islamic State fighters operating in the country.[3]
The Hizmet movement had for decades underpinned Turkish efforts to deepen foreign ties, [9]especially in the assertive opening to Africa, the Middle East and Asia after the Islamist-rooted AK Party founded by Erdogan took power in 2002.
Its schools, including close to a hundred in sub-Saharan Africa alone,[1] have been a source of influence and revenue for the movement and paved the way for Turkish commercial interests to gain a foothold in new markets. Sons and daughters of political elites have been educated in their classrooms.
But differences between Erdogan and Gulen began to emerge over issues including a peace process with Kurdish militants in Turkey’s southeast,[10] and came to a head in December 2013 when police and prosecutors seen as sympathetic to Gulen opened a corruption investigation into Erdogan’s inner circle.
Authorities have since taken over Gulenist media companies, seized a bank and purged police and judiciary of presumed followers. They have also taken their battle overseas,[7] pressuring governments to shut down Hizmet schools and seeking Gulen’s extradition from the United States, where he lives in self-imposed exile.
“We consider the Gulen network a national security threat and the issue of their influence regularly comes up in our discussions with African leaders among others,” a source in Erdogan’s office said. “The president will presumably convey this message to his counterparts over the coming days.”[2]
BATTLE FOR INFLUENCE
It is a struggle for influence with significant implications in trade as well as political relations.
Turkish exports to Africa have grown more than sevenfold since the AKP came to power, rising to $12.5 billion last year from $1.7 billion in 2002, with textiles, [9]food, construction and infrastructure services among the key sectors.
Instability in the Middle East and economic weakness in Europe,[4] Turkey’s traditional export markets, have made trade with Africa all the more important. But Ankara faces new rivals like China, India and Brazil as it seeks to carve out influence on a continent long dominated by former colonial powers.
“The African continent is a big opportunity for Turkey because there are many problems in the Middle East affecting Turkey’s economic projects,” said Fouad Farhaoui of the Ankara-based USAK think-tank.[2]
Uganda and Kenya were particularly important to Turkey in part for their energy, agriculture and infrastructure needs, where Turkish firms have expertise, [8]Farhaoui said, but also because of Kenya’s role in regional security.
Turkey is a key ally of the Somali government as it tries to rebuild after more than two decades of conflict, with Erdogan the first non-African leader to visit in nearly 20 years when he went there in 2011.[3] Good relations with Kenya, also trying to secure Somalia’s stability, are vital for that Turkish effort.
A second Turkish official acknowledged that the question of Gulen had become a thorn in relations with some African states,[2] but said Turkey would continue to seek the closure of Hizmet schools and their replacement with Turkish state-backed institutions. A government source said there was at least one Hizmet school in Uganda and four in Kenya.
The schools are generally very well equipped and funded and teach a secular curriculum in English.
The deputy head of the Journalists and Writers Foundation (GYV), a Gulen-affiliated group which has spoken on behalf of the Hizmet movement in the past, [1]said previous efforts to close institutions had caused a backlash in Africa and met with limited success.
“African government officials send their kids to these schools. [5]They have their own intelligence and allow the schools accordingly,” Deputy Chairman Erkam Tufan Aytav said.[12]
Source: news.trust
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