Taksim Square massacre
Encyclopedia
The Taksim Square massacre relates to the incidents on 1 May, 1977, the international Labour Day
on Taksim Square
in Istanbul
, Turkey
.
(now Republic of Macedonia
) in 1909. In Istanbul, Labour Day was first celebrated in 1912. No celebrations could be organized between 1928 and 1975. On 1 May, 1976 the Confederation of Revolutionary Trade Unions of Turkey (DISK) organized a first rally on Taksim Square with mass participation.
Rumours that Labour Day 1977 would turn out bloody were circulated by the Turkish press before the rally, once again organized by DISK. The leadership of DISK known to support Workers Party of Turkey
, the Socialist Workers Party of Turkey and the then-illegal Communist Party of Turkey had banned the participation of the so-called Maoist block (at the time acting under names such as the Liberation of the People, the Path of the People and Union of the People). It was expected that these groups would clash with each other.
On the day of the incident, Istanbul Radio Station announced that 34 people had been killed and 126 persons had been injured. According to the autopsy reports only four victims had been killed by bullets. In three cases the cause of death could either be a bullet or injuries to the head and 27 victims had been crushed. Several witnesses stated that Meral Özkol had been overrun by an armoured vehicle.
After three months of investigation, the prosecutor Çetin Yetkin was appointed elsewhere and resigned. Çetin Yetkin claimed that a sack with explosives had been handed over to the police, but later disappeared. Similarly the lawyer Rasim Öz alleged that he had shot a film of the incident showing many things including the snipers on the roof of the Water Supply Company. He had handed it over to the prosecutor's office, but it had been lost at Istanbul Police HQ.
Hope of legal recourse finally fizzled out due to the statute of limitations
; a deliberate tack by the culprits, according to Öz.
, the Counter-Guerrilla
, was involved. One of the first persons to raise such allegations was the then leader of the opposition Bülent Ecevit
. At a meeting in Izmir
, he said on 7 May: "Some organizations and forces within the State, but outside the control of the democratic State of law, have to be taken under control without losing time. The counter-guerrilla is running an offensive and has a finger in the 1 May incident." Later he declined to comment on the incident, just like the then Prime Minister Süleyman Demirel
. But in a confidential letter Demirel sent to Ecevit, he warned his rival that he might become the victim of the same circles, if he would speak at Taksim Square on 3 June 1977. The letter that was disclosed by Ecevit warned that shots might be fired from Sheraton Hotel. The forces to conduct such an attack in order to spoil the stability of Turkey Demirel were suspected to be "illegal communist or terrorist organizations" or "foreign enterprises or international terrorist organizations" that had been encouraged by the incidents on Taksim Square on 1 May 1977.
Since the beginning, the CIA has been suspected of involvement. After the incident, Ali Kocaman, chair of the trade union Oleyis, stated that police officers and Americans had been in the Intercontinental Hotel that had been closed to the public for that day. Bülent Uluer, the then Secretary General of the Revolutionary Youth Federation said on 2 May 1977: "Most victims were among us. About 15 of our friends died. This was a plan of the CIA, but not the beginning nor the end. To solve these incidents, one has to look at it from the angle."
Former Turkish prime minister Bülent Ecevit
recalled he had learned of the existence of Counter-Guerrilla
, the Turkish "stay-behind
" armies for the first time in 1974. At the time, the commander of the Turkish army
, General Semih Sancar, had allegedly informed him the US had financed the unit since the immediate post-war years, as well as the National Intelligence Organization . Ecevit declared he suspected Counter-Guerrilla's involvement in the 1977 Taksim Square massacre in Istanbul
, The next year, the demonstrators were met with bullets. According to Ecevit, the shooting lasted for twenty minutes, yet several thousand policemen on the scene did not intervene. This mode of operation recalls the June 20, 1973 Ezeiza massacre
in Buenos Aires
, when the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance (aka Triple A), founded by José López Rega
(a P2 member
), opened up fire on the left-wing Peronists.
According to an article in the leftist pro-Kurdish Kurtuluş magazine, MIT deputy chief Hiram Abas was present on the May Day massacre. (Swiss historian Daniele Ganser says that Abas was a CIA agent; the CIA's station chief
in Istanbul, Duane Clarridge, spoke glowingly of him.) The Hotel International, from which the shots were fired, belonged to ITT Corporation
, which had already been involved in financing the September 11, 1973 coup
against Salvador Allende
in Chile and was on good terms with the CIA. Hiram Abas had been trained in the US in covert action operations and as an MIT agent first gained notoriety in Beirut, where he co-operated with the Mossad
from 1968 to 1971 and carried out attacks, "targeting left-wing youths in the Palestinian camps and receiving bounty for the results he achieved in actions".
Labour Day
Labour Day or Labor Day is an annual holiday to celebrate the economic and social achievements of workers. Labour Day has its origins in the labour union movement, specifically the eight-hour day movement, which advocated eight hours for work, eight hours for recreation, and eight hours for...
on Taksim Square
Taksim Square
Taksim Square situated in the European part of Istanbul, Turkey, is a major shopping, tourist and leisure district famed for its restaurants, shops and hotels. It is considered the heart of modern Istanbul, with the central station of the Istanbul Metro network...
in Istanbul
Istanbul
Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...
, Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
.
Background
In the Ottoman Empire, the first celebration of Labour Day was organized in SkopjeSkopje
Skopje is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Macedonia with about a third of the total population. It is the country's political, cultural, economic, and academic centre...
(now Republic of Macedonia
Republic of Macedonia
Macedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country located in the central Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991...
) in 1909. In Istanbul, Labour Day was first celebrated in 1912. No celebrations could be organized between 1928 and 1975. On 1 May, 1976 the Confederation of Revolutionary Trade Unions of Turkey (DISK) organized a first rally on Taksim Square with mass participation.
Rumours that Labour Day 1977 would turn out bloody were circulated by the Turkish press before the rally, once again organized by DISK. The leadership of DISK known to support Workers Party of Turkey
Workers Party of Turkey
Workers Party of Turkey was a Turkish political party, founded in 1961. It became the first socialist party in Turkey to win representation in the national parliament. It was banned twice and eventually merged with the Communist Party of Turkey in 1988.TİP was founded by a group of labor union...
, the Socialist Workers Party of Turkey and the then-illegal Communist Party of Turkey had banned the participation of the so-called Maoist block (at the time acting under names such as the Liberation of the People, the Path of the People and Union of the People). It was expected that these groups would clash with each other.
The event
The estimates on the number of participants in the Labour Day celebrations on Taksim Square in 1977 is usually given as 500,000 citizens. Many participants and in particular the so-called Maoist block had not even entered the square when shots were heard. Most witnesses stated that they came from the building of the water supply company (Sular İdaresi) and the Intercontinental Hotel (now called The Marmara). Subsequently the security forces intervened with armoured vehicles making much noise with their sirens and explosives. They also hosed the crowd with pressurized water. Most casualties were caused by the panic that this intervention created.Casualties
The figures on the casualties vary between 34 and 42 persons killed and 126 and 220 persons being injured. An official indictment against 98 participants of the celebrations presented 34 names of killed persons.These include: Meral Özkol, Mültezim Oltulu (Mürtezim Örtülü), Ahmet Gözükara, Ziya Baki, Bayram Eği (Eyi), Diran Nigiz (Negis), Ramazan Sarı, Hacer İpek (Saman), Hamdi Toka, Nazan Ünaldı, Jale Yeşilnil, Bayram Çatak (Çıtak), Rasim Elmaz (Elmas), Mahmut Atilla Özbelen (Özveren), Leyla Altıparmak, Ercüment Gürkut, Kenan Çatak, Mustafa Elmas, Hatice Altun, Kahraman Alsancak, Kadriye Duman, Aleksandros Konteas (Kontuas), Hüseyin Kırgın, Mehmet Ali Genç, Ali Sıdal, Ömer Narman, Sibel Açıkalın, Garabet Ayhan, Hikmet Özkürkçü, Nazmi Arı, Kadir Balcı (Bağcı) and Niyazi Darı The Confederation of Revolutionary Trade Unions (DISK) prepared a list with 36 names. This list included the names of Ali Yeşilgül, Mustafa Ertan, Yücel Elbistanlı, Tevfik Beysoy, Bayram Sürücü, Özcan Gürkan ve Hülya Emecan In another publication the name of Mehmet Ali Kol was also mentioned. Fahrettin Erdoğan, the press advisor for DISK concluded that these names taken together would raise the death toll to 42.On the day of the incident, Istanbul Radio Station announced that 34 people had been killed and 126 persons had been injured. According to the autopsy reports only four victims had been killed by bullets. In three cases the cause of death could either be a bullet or injuries to the head and 27 victims had been crushed. Several witnesses stated that Meral Özkol had been overrun by an armoured vehicle.
Legal measures
After the incident, over 500 demonstrators were detained, and 98 were indicted. Among the 17 defendants, who had been put in pre-trial detention, three were released before the first hearing and nine were released at the first hearing on 7 July 1977. The remaining prisoners were released soon afterwards. The trial ended in acquittal on 20 October 1989. Various sources stated that from the roof of the Water Supply Company, some 20 snipers were detained by the gendarmerie and handed over to the police. However, none of them appeared in the records of the police. This information comes from the prosecutor investigating the Taksim Square Massacre, Çetin Yetkin. He said that Lieutenant Abdullah Erim made the detentions and handed the detainees over to the police officers Muhsin Bodur and Mete Altan (who after the military intervention of 12 September 1980 worked in the political department of Istanbul Police HQ). Both officers rejected the claim that they had been involved.After three months of investigation, the prosecutor Çetin Yetkin was appointed elsewhere and resigned. Çetin Yetkin claimed that a sack with explosives had been handed over to the police, but later disappeared. Similarly the lawyer Rasim Öz alleged that he had shot a film of the incident showing many things including the snipers on the roof of the Water Supply Company. He had handed it over to the prosecutor's office, but it had been lost at Istanbul Police HQ.
Hope of legal recourse finally fizzled out due to the statute of limitations
Statute of limitations
A statute of limitations is an enactment in a common law legal system that sets the maximum time after an event that legal proceedings based on that event may be initiated...
; a deliberate tack by the culprits, according to Öz.
Assailants: Counter-Guerrilla
Ever since the Taksim Square Massacre, the fact that none of the perpetrators was caught and brought to justice has fueled allegations that the Turkish branch of Operation GladioOperation Gladio
Operation Gladio is the codename for a clandestine NATO "stay-behind" operation in Italy after World War II. Its purpose was to continue anti-communist actions in the event of a shift to a Communist party led government...
, the Counter-Guerrilla
Counter-Guerrilla
Counter-Guerrilla is the Turkish branch of Operation Gladio, a clandestine stay-behind anti-communist initiative backed by the United States as an expression of the Truman Doctrine. The founding goal of the operation was to erect a guerrilla force capable of countering a possible Soviet invasion...
, was involved. One of the first persons to raise such allegations was the then leader of the opposition Bülent Ecevit
Bülent Ecevit
Mustafa Bülent Ecevit was a Turkish politician, poet, writer and journalist, who was the leader of Republican People's Party , later of the Democratic Left Party and four-time Prime Minister of Turkey.- Personal life :...
. At a meeting in Izmir
Izmir
Izmir is a large metropolis in the western extremity of Anatolia. The metropolitan area in the entire Izmir Province had a population of 3.35 million as of 2010, making the city third most populous in Turkey...
, he said on 7 May: "Some organizations and forces within the State, but outside the control of the democratic State of law, have to be taken under control without losing time. The counter-guerrilla is running an offensive and has a finger in the 1 May incident." Later he declined to comment on the incident, just like the then Prime Minister Süleyman Demirel
Süleyman Demirel
Sami Süleyman Gündoğdu Demirel, better known as Süleyman Demirel , is a Turkish politician who served as Prime Minister seven times and was the ninth President of Turkey.-Life:Demirel was born in İslamköy, a town in Isparta Province...
. But in a confidential letter Demirel sent to Ecevit, he warned his rival that he might become the victim of the same circles, if he would speak at Taksim Square on 3 June 1977. The letter that was disclosed by Ecevit warned that shots might be fired from Sheraton Hotel. The forces to conduct such an attack in order to spoil the stability of Turkey Demirel were suspected to be "illegal communist or terrorist organizations" or "foreign enterprises or international terrorist organizations" that had been encouraged by the incidents on Taksim Square on 1 May 1977.
Since the beginning, the CIA has been suspected of involvement. After the incident, Ali Kocaman, chair of the trade union Oleyis, stated that police officers and Americans had been in the Intercontinental Hotel that had been closed to the public for that day. Bülent Uluer, the then Secretary General of the Revolutionary Youth Federation said on 2 May 1977: "Most victims were among us. About 15 of our friends died. This was a plan of the CIA, but not the beginning nor the end. To solve these incidents, one has to look at it from the angle."
Former Turkish prime minister Bülent Ecevit
Bülent Ecevit
Mustafa Bülent Ecevit was a Turkish politician, poet, writer and journalist, who was the leader of Republican People's Party , later of the Democratic Left Party and four-time Prime Minister of Turkey.- Personal life :...
recalled he had learned of the existence of Counter-Guerrilla
Counter-Guerrilla
Counter-Guerrilla is the Turkish branch of Operation Gladio, a clandestine stay-behind anti-communist initiative backed by the United States as an expression of the Truman Doctrine. The founding goal of the operation was to erect a guerrilla force capable of countering a possible Soviet invasion...
, the Turkish "stay-behind
Stay-behind
In a stay-behind operation, a country places secret operatives or organisations in its own territory, for use in the event that the territory is overrun by an enemy. If this occurs, the operatives would then form the basis of a resistance movement, or would act as spies from behind enemy lines...
" armies for the first time in 1974. At the time, the commander of the Turkish army
Turkish Army
The Turkish Army or Turkish Land Forces is the main branch of the Turkish Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. The modern history of the army began with its formation after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire...
, General Semih Sancar, had allegedly informed him the US had financed the unit since the immediate post-war years, as well as the National Intelligence Organization . Ecevit declared he suspected Counter-Guerrilla's involvement in the 1977 Taksim Square massacre in Istanbul
Istanbul
Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...
, The next year, the demonstrators were met with bullets. According to Ecevit, the shooting lasted for twenty minutes, yet several thousand policemen on the scene did not intervene. This mode of operation recalls the June 20, 1973 Ezeiza massacre
1973 Ezeiza massacre
The Ezeiza massacre took place on June 20, 1973 near the Ezeiza International Airport in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Peronist masses, including many young people, had gathered there to acclaim Juan Perón's definitive return from an 18-year exile in Spain. The police counted three and a half million...
in Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
, when the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance (aka Triple A), founded by José López Rega
José López Rega
José López Rega was Argentina's Minister of Social Welfare during the Peronist government started in 1973 by Juan Perón and continued after Perón's death in 1974 by his third wife and vice-president, Isabel Martínez de Perón , until the coup d'etat of 1976 that initiated the so-called National...
(a P2 member
Propaganda Due
Propaganda Due , or P2, was a Masonic lodge operating under the jurisdiction of the Grand Orient of Italy from 1945 to 1976 , and a pseudo-Masonic or "black" or "covert" lodge operating illegally from 1976 to...
), opened up fire on the left-wing Peronists.
According to an article in the leftist pro-Kurdish Kurtuluş magazine, MIT deputy chief Hiram Abas was present on the May Day massacre. (Swiss historian Daniele Ganser says that Abas was a CIA agent; the CIA's station chief
Station Chief
Station Chief is a term for certain officials who are appointed as chief of a 'station', i.e. a stationary post, of various natures.-Colonial:...
in Istanbul, Duane Clarridge, spoke glowingly of him.) The Hotel International, from which the shots were fired, belonged to ITT Corporation
ITT Corporation
ITT Corporation is a global diversified manufacturing company based in the United States. ITT participates in global markets including water and fluids management, defense and security, and motion and flow control...
, which had already been involved in financing the September 11, 1973 coup
Chilean coup of 1973
The 1973 Chilean coup d'état was a watershed event of the Cold War and the history of Chile. Following an extended period of political unrest between the conservative-dominated Congress of Chile and the socialist-leaning President Salvador Allende, discontent culminated in the latter's downfall in...
against Salvador Allende
Salvador Allende
Salvador Allende Gossens was a Chilean physician and politician who is generally considered the first democratically elected Marxist to become president of a country in Latin America....
in Chile and was on good terms with the CIA. Hiram Abas had been trained in the US in covert action operations and as an MIT agent first gained notoriety in Beirut, where he co-operated with the Mossad
Mossad
The Mossad , short for HaMossad leModi'in uleTafkidim Meyuchadim , is the national intelligence agency of Israel....
from 1968 to 1971 and carried out attacks, "targeting left-wing youths in the Palestinian camps and receiving bounty for the results he achieved in actions".