As told by Rahmi Turan of the Hürriyet newspaper in his column, Evren told his relatives in Yalıkavak, Bodrum, several days ago what he had told then Hürriyet Editor-in-Chief Ertuğrul Özkök almost a year ago.“I cannot accept such a situation. A bullet in my gun is enough to finish everything off. Only a bullet! Boom! I will handle my business on my own. I will not give them the pleasure of trying me. History will judge us all,” he said.
Speaking to Özkök on June 26, 2009, Evren, who had also served as president after the coup, had demanded that a referendum should be held on his trial, and he would commit suicide before being tried if the referendum produces a “yes.” “Do you want me to be tried? Go and ask the people. Hold a referendum. Ask, ‘Should Evren Pasha be tried?’ If the people say, ‘Yes, he should be tried,’ then I promise everyone, and the nation is my witness, that I will not leave this job to the court. I will commit suicide. […] Yes, let me say it clearly once again: I will commit suicide because I cannot live with that stain,” he had said.
While Evren may regard being tried as a “stain” on his “honor,” let us see to what extent he was respectful toward the honor, dignity and right to life of other people. These figures may be part of statistics, but they are actually not. They are the lives terminated one by one at the hands of the subversive generals and the ensuing trauma experienced by millions of people who are relatives of the victims. Therefore, please regard the following figures as representative of the people whose lives were either terminated or darkened.
The inventory of the sins committed by Evren -- who had professed that they had tried to strike a balance between two groups by hanging equal numbers of leftists and rightists, irrespectively of their guilt or innocence -- and his cronies is hard to bear: After the coup, 1,683,000 people were categorized according to their ideological views; 650,000 people were detained; 230,000 people were tried; prosecutors sought the death penalty for 7,000 people; 517 people were sentenced to death; 50 were executed -- 26 on political charges, 23 on criminal charges, and one for being a militant of the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA).
Only Parliament could halt the processing of the dossiers of 259 whose execution was sought by the military rule. A total of 98,404 people were tried on charges of membership in illegal organizations; 388,000 people were denied the right to own a passport; 30,000 people were laid off on accusations of being undesirable; 14,000 people were denaturalized; and 30,000 people fled to foreign countries as political refugees. Three hundred people were suspiciously killed during this period; 171 were documented fatalities of torture; 937 films were banned; 230,677 associations were prohibited from operating; 3,854 teachers, 120 university lecturers and 47 judges were dismissed. Prosecutors sought 4,000 years in prison in total for 400 journalists. They were sentenced to 3,315 years and six months in prison. Thirty-one journalists were jailed; three journalists were killed by firearms; 299 prison inmates died of unfavorable prison conditions and ill-treatment; 14 people died in hunger strikes launched in protest of torture and ill-treatment; 16 people were reportedly killed as they fled from “law enforcement”; 95 people were killed in armed clashes; 73 people who suspiciously died in prison were given medical reports certifying they died a natural death; 43 people were reported to have committed suicide. And the list goes on.
Now, Mr. Evren, tell me, will a single bullet be sufficient to clear so many crimes or, to put it in your own terms, “solve” them?
There is more. I have not even mentioned the offense of causing the deaths of thousands of young people in clashes between leftist and rightist groups, which were arranged to pave the way for the military coup of Sept. 12, 1980 just like more recent conspiracies such as the Sledgehammer (Balyoz) coup plan, the Cage (Kafes) action plan, the anti-reactionaryism action plan and many more. No, Mr. Evren, you are wrong. One bullet cannot compensate for so many crimes, offenses, sins, murders, tortures, sufferings and victimizations. Unfortunately, there is no way to make up for such nefarious and inhuman practices.
Yet, we may perhaps discuss some methods which may give some comfort to the poor people of this country who long for democracy and the rule of law. Of course, it is up to retired Gen. Evren to make up his mind about committing suicide. But since I cannot bear the death of any person, I prefer his being tried at the court and facing the accusations about the coup. I would love to see the court punish him in the heaviest way possible. We don’t have to implement this penalty. No one will be satisfied by seeing a 90-year-old man serve his prison term.
But only trying Evren on coup charges should not be enough. All people, dead or alive, who are responsible for the e-memorandum of April 27, 2007, the postmodern military coup of Feb. 28, 1997, the military coup of Sept. 12, 1980, the memorandum of March 12, 1970 and the bloody military coup of May 27, 1960 must be tried and penalized for the inhuman, antidemocratic and unlawful offenses. Natural death or suicide cannot be a way to get rid of the blame of the nefarious offenses committed against this nation.
In short, these terrible offenses committed against the Turkish nation and democracy must be tried and punished, and the results of these trials must be told in history textbooks. In this way we must make sure that military officers who dream of coups know that they will be damned in the eyes not only of the current generations but also of the future ones. To the list of who will be tried in reality or symbolically, you can add those who were responsible for the incidents of Sept. 6-7, 1955 against non-Muslim minorities in İstanbul, the 1937 Dersim massacre and the suffering that occurred during the forced deportation of Armenians in 1915. You can be assured that these trials will certainly be held some day, if not today.
