Press Release

June 19, 1997

Tel: 202.483.6444

Turkish Military Claims Another Victim: The Prime Minister

Yesterday, Necmettin Erbakan, the Islamist Prime Minister of Turkey, resigned in response to the most recent threat by generals in the military to use force to overthrow the coalition government. The outgoing Prime Minister, whose party received a plurality of the vote in the most recent elections, said, "I resigned because I am a true patriot." Unless one is well-versed in Orwellian double talk, one would think a true patriot would fight for the choice the people mandated rather than succumb to a self-appointed "guardian" of the state.

Lest it needs repeating, in true democracies, the military is not in the business of dictating to civilian governments how they should conduct themselves. In Turkey, unfortunately, the military has dictated again and, not for the first time, spineless politicians have surrendered their mandate to the top brass. A NATO ally and darling of armchair policy-makers in Washington, Turkey has been teetering on the edge of self-destruction for some time now. Mehmet Altan, one of Turkey's most insightful journalists, has compared Turkey's situation to a bus going downhill without any breaks.

The roots of this crisis go back to the early 1980s. It began when the Kurds, who had been denied recognition in the constitution of the country, demanded improved social, cultural, and political rights. Many were killed, many others fled the country, and some took up arms to fight the central government.

The military thought it had an antidote for the Kurdish clamor. They began establishing religious schools in an effort to undermine the rising tide of Kurdish nationalism (remember: religion is the opium of the masses). Unwittingly, the generals opened the way for the rise of political Islam. In the 1995 elections, disillusioned Turks and Kurds, who had witnessed the imprisonment of their political leaders in 1994, voted significantly for Erbakan, giving his party a plurality of the vote.

Favoring the Islamists over the Kurds has created the present impasse. True friends of Turkey would not endorse the military's success in deposing the Islamist Prime Minister but urge it to declare peace with the Kurdish minority of the country and respect the religious preferences of its peoples. As the Austrian diplomat Metternich suggested, entrusting the ship of the state to the military will only bring stagnation and disaster.

The U.S. cannot afford to condone the military's latest interference in the democratic process in Turkey. Therefore, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright must confront Turkey's military leaders just as she has confronted other leaders throughout the world.