1980 Turkish coup d'état

The Military coup in Turkey, 1980 was a military coup made on September 12, 1980 by General Kenan Evren, head of the general staff and also chief of Counter-Guerrilla, the Turkish branch of Gladio. Kenan Evren became the leader of the new junta, named National Security Council, and dissolved the parliament and the government. According a widely believed story in Turkey, he and his team of force commanders were named "our boys" in the CIA headquarters after the coup .

Following bloody years of turmoil and a deliberate strategy of tension followed by Counter-Guerrilla and the Grey Wolves, the military took power claiming to end anarchy. Thousands of people were imprisoned after the coup, generally from the intellectual strata of the community. After having used the Grey Wolves, Kenan Evren also decided to imprison hundreds of them for their role during the strategy of tension; however, many of them were later released in exchange for their fight against the PKK during the 1980s.

The people suffered heavily under strict leadership. Under the generals' leadership's guidance a new constitution was established diminishing civil liberties, and increasing the role of the National Security Council. In 1983 new elections were held, relinquishing the power to civilian rule. According to the acknowledged Turkish scholar Ergun Özbudun "The 1983 Turkish transition is almost a textbook example of the degree to which a departing military regime can dictate the conditions of its departure (…)" (Özbudun, Ergun: Contemporary Turkish Politics: Challenges to Democratic Consolidation, Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2000; p. 117).

Context

The 1980 coup took place in a context of struggle and clashes between the left and the right-wing through-out the 1960s till the 1980s. A first millitary coup had already happenned on May 27, 1960, ending up with the execution of Prime minister Adnan Menderes. The junta returned the power to civilians in October 1961, a period succeeded by parliamentary unstability. In 1969, Alparslan Türkeş, a member of the Counter-Guerrilla (Turkish branch of NATO's stay-behind army, known as Gladio), founded the right-wing Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), whose youth organizations became known as the Grey Wolves.

A second coup, dubbed "Coup by Memorandum", took place on March 12, 1971, leading to Bulent Ecevit's exercise of power. The NATO stay-behind army Counter-Guerrilla, related to the Millî İstihbarat Teşkilâtı (MIT), the Turkish intelligence agency, engaged itself in domestic terror and killed hundreds. As in Italy, it engaged itself in a strategy of tension The overall death-toll of the terror of the 1970s is estimated at 5 000, with right-wing and terrorism responsible for the most part. According to statistics published by the British Searchlight magazine (n°47, May 1979, p.6), in 1978 they were 3 319 fascist attacks, in which 831 were killed and 3 121 wounded. The 1977 Taksim Square massacre, the 1978 Bahçelievler Massacre and the 1978 Kahramanmaraş Massacre testify to a serie of attacks.

According to Le Monde diplomatique, Grey Wolves member Abdullah Çatlı "is reckoned to have been one of the main perpetrators of underground operations carried out by the Turkish branch of the Gladio organisation and had played a key role in the bloody events of the period 1976-1980 which paved the way for the military coup d’état of September 1980. As the young head of the far-right Grey Wolves militia, he had been accused, among other things, of the murder of seven left-wing students." He was seen in the company of Avanguardia Nazionale founder Stefano Delle Chiaie, while touring Latin America and on a visit to Miami in September 1982 .

On February 1, 1979 in Istanbul, Grey Wolves member Mehmet Ali Ağca murdered Abdi İpekçi, editor of the moderate left-wing newspaper Milliyet.

On the international scale, Bulent Ecevit also decided the invasion of Cyprus to counter a coup supported by the Regime of the Colonels.

The Coup

A paralyzed parliament and increasing death-toll prompted a coup in September 1980, led by General Kenan Evren, who was also the commander of Counter-Guerrilla, the stay-behind NATO network which had engaged itself in the repression of the left-wing. The US-support of this coup was acknowledged by the CIA Ankara station chief Paul Henze. After the government was overthrown, Henze cabled Washington, saying, "our boys have done it." At the time they were some 1 700 Grey Wolves organizations in Turkey, with about 200 000 registered members and a million sympathisers. After being useful for the strategy of tension followed by Kenan Evren, the leader of the Counter-Guerrilla turned president outlawed the right-wing Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and the Grey Wolves, its youth organization. Colonel Türkeş and other Grey Wolves were arrested. In its indictment of the MHP in May 1981, the Turkish military government charged 220 members of the MHP and its affiliates for 694 murders .

However, Grey Wolves emprisonned members were offered release if they accepted to fight the Kurdish minority and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a separatist movement. , as well as the ASALA ("Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia"). They then went on to fight, with Counter-Guerrilla, Kurds, killing and torturing thousands in the 1980s, and also carrying false flag attacks in which the Counter-Guerrilla attacked villages, dressed up as PKK fighters, and raped and executed people randomly . The dirty war had a toll of 37 000 victims . The fact that Counter-Guerrilla had engaged in torture was confirmed by Talat Turhan, a former Turkish general. According to a December 5, 1990 article by the Swiss Neue Zürcher Zeitung, the Counter-Guerrilla had their headquarters in the building of the US DIA military secret service . In addition, they carried out operations to assassinate the leader squad of ASALA, Hagop Hagopian, in which they succeeded on April 28, 1988.

According to a widely believed story in Turkey, Paul Henze, former chief of the CIA station in Turkey, declared the following day to his colleagues in Washington: "Our boys have done!" US president Carter would comment much later that "before the September 12 movement (sic), Turkey was in a critical situation with regard to its defences. After the intervention in Afghanistan and the overthrow of the Iranian monarchy, the movement for stabilisation in Turkey came as a relief to us." .

Aftermaths

In 1982, the military had returned the government to civilian hands, but General Kenan Evren had banned Demirel, Ecevit, and a number of other politicians from politics for life.

Out of the rubble of the previous political system came one-party governance under Turgut Ozal's Motherland Party, which combined a globally-oriented economic program with conservative social values. Under Ozal, the economy boomed, converting towns like Gazi Antep from small provincial capitals into mid-sized economic boomtowns.

Upon the retirement of President Kenan Evren, the leader of the 1980 coup, Ozal was elected President, leaving parliament in the hands of the feckless Yildirim Akbulut, and then, in 1991, to Mesut Yilmaz. Yilmaz redoubled Turkey's economic profile and renewed its orientation toward Europe. But political instability followed as the host of banned politicians reentered politics, fracturing the vote, and the Motherland Party became increasingly corrupt. Ozal died of a heart attack in 1993 and Suleyman Demirel was elected president.

See also

• Grey Wolves
• Military coup in Turkey, 1960
• Military coup in Turkey, 1971
• Operation Gladio
• National Security Council (Turkey)
• Taksim Square massacre
• Bahçelievler Massacre
• Kahramanmaraş Massacre
• Turkish Armed Forces and Kemalism
• Multi-Party Period of Republic of Turkey