Information about Taksim Square Massacre

The "Taksim Square Incidents" better known as the Taksim Square Massacre relates to the incidents on 1 May 1977, the international Labour Day on Taksim Square in Istanbul, Turkey.

Background

In Turkey, the first celebration of Labour Day was organized in Üsküp in 1909. In Istanbul, Labour Day was first celebrated in 1912. No celebrations could be organized between 1928 and 1975.^[1] On 1 May 1976 the Confederation of Revolutionary Trade Unions of Turkey (DISK) organized a first rally on Taksim Square with mass participation^[2]

Rumours of bloody incidents to happen on Labour Day 1977 occurred in the Turkish press before the rally, once again organized by DISK.^[3] The leadership of DISK known to support the Moscow oriented Workers Party of Turkey (Türkiye İşÃ§i Partisi - TİP), the Socialist Workers Party of Turkey (Türkiye Sosyalist İşÃ§i Partisi - TSİP) and the illegal Communist Party of Turkey (Türkiye Komünist Partisi - TKP) 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.^[4]

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.^[5] 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).^[6] 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.^[7]

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 ^[8]. The Confederation of Revolutionary Trade Unions (DISK) prepared a list with 36 names ^[9]. 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.^[10]

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.^[11]

Legal measures

After the incident, over 500 demonstrators were detained. Among them 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.^[12] 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. ^[13]

After three months of investigation, the prosecutor Çetin Yetkin was appointed elsewhere and resigned. In the daily Radikal of 7 May 2007, Çetin Yetkin claimed that a sack with explosives had been handed over to the police, but later disappeared. Similarly the lawyer Rasim Öz alleged in Radikal of 5 May 2007 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.

Allegations of involvements of the Deep State

Main article: Deep state

The fact that none of the perpetraitors was caught and brought to justice has ever since, the Taksim Square Massacre fueled the allegations that powerful forces protected by the State have been behind the killings, including Counter-Guerrilla and the Deep State. 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."^[14] 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.^[15]

Since the beginning, the USA and the CIA have been suspected of having been involved. 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.^[16] Bülent Uluer, the then Secretary General of the Revolutionary Youth Federation (Devrimci Gençlik) 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."^[17]

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 ^[18]. 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 MIT, the Turkish intelligence agency. 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 Lopez Rega (a P2 member), opened up fire on the left-wing Peronists... According to Kurtulus Turkish magazine,^[19]Turkish CIA agent Hiram Abas, who "was closer than his own brother" to the CIA chief of station in Istanbul Duane 'Dewey' Clarridge,^[20] was personally present on the May Day massacre. The Hotel International, from which the shots were fired, belonged to the ITT company, 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 ^[18]. Hiram Abas had been trained in the US fin covert action operations and as an MIT agent first gained notoriety in Beirut, where he cooperated 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" (Kurtulus n°99). With MIT agent Mehmet Eymür, later promoted to direct the MIT's department for counter-espionage, Abas also participated in the Kizildere massacre of March 30, 1972, when they killed seven left-wing militants.

References

See also

• History of the Republic of Turkey

External links

• Turkey’s bloody 1977 May Day still clouded in mystery www.wsws.org