THE LAST IN THE SERIES

A NOTE FROM OUR SPONSOR

If any of us have to ask who “our boys” were, we'll never be invited to the party at that restaurant-bar in Tyson's Corner. In retrospect, the wishes of the American establishment and the Turkish establishment dovetailed neatly and completely. We wanted the coup. The Turkish general officers wanted it. They had prepared for it. No one who knows the country, or its military, or their relationship with the CIA during the seventies, thinks they were waiting passively for events to ripen.­

If they stepped aside in the run-up to the coup, it was only to foment chaos on a grander scale with less visible origins. It was like the assassination of Abdi Ipekci that was never really solved. Like the rogue bands of Gray Wolves they allowed to run rampant all over the subcontinent of Turkey and later over the continent of Europe. And like a lot of other bad things for which they could never be held responsible.

Recently, however, in the spring of 2012, a trial was opened in Istanbul that brought serious charges against the leaders of the coup of 1980. Although the charges were specific, the purpose is to have them answer for their sins. These were many, including the torture and murder of thousands of Turkish citizens.

Before the dragnets that followed the coup were done with their work, more than half a million people, most of them leftists, were arrested. Wages were frozen, unions were suppressed, journalists were imprisoned, and academia purged.

The left wing in Turkey virtually ceased to exist as a result of these “reforms.” The right wing, though also subject to arrest and punishment, did not experience anything like the blanket that covered and finally smothered the left. Some fascists were put in jail, two Gray Wolves were hanged, but the devastation was so one-sided that it did not compare.

The families of the victims, disproportionately left-wing students and militant organizers, are happy that the government has owned up to its duty even at this late date. But they do not—with good reason—see the current Islamic government as a friend to freedom, and especially not to left-wing freedoms.

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s regime is simply a different extension of the clandestine authoritarianism that has ruled Turkish life from the “deep” for decades. What the families of the lost hope for from the trial is some closure, so the healing process can at long last begin.

They probably won’t have more than that. General Evren is ninety-four years old and pleading ill health. Only time, and the Turkish judicial system, which is badly flawed, will tell whether justice has been served. For all the ones who didn’t make it, we can only say rest in peace.

And now for a note from our sponsor.

If you really want to know what happened in the dark depths of Mehmet Ali Agca’s life, and how it happened—in other words, if you want the real skinny—lend your ear to the thrice-told tale of THE SATAN MACHINE. It’s on sale nearly everywhere right now.