The Politics of Terror

As the killings mount, the army watches

Everybody who was anybody in Ankara should have attended the Belgian embassy's National Day reception last week. But as the evening wore on, the partying diplomats and politicians made a chilling observation: not a single Turkish general or admiral was present. Within hours of the reception, rumors were sweeping Turkey's capital that the country's top military commanders were in an emergency meeting plotting a takeover. As it turned out, the officers were merely attending a military wedding, but the wave of jitters was a barometer of the mood in a country where terrorist violence has claimed 2,000 lives this year and personal rivalries have stalemated the political process.

The latest alarms were triggered by the fact that terrorism, once largely confined to vendettas between extremists of the left and right, has burst into the highest echelons. In the past two months, four politicians of national rank--left and right in turn--have been murdered:

> On May 26, Gun Sazak, the deputy leader of the far-right National Action Party, was shot dead by leftists.

> On July 15, Abdurrahman Koksaloglu, a left-of-center politician, was gunned down, presumably by rightists. He was the first member of parliament to become a victim.

> On July 19, Nihat Erim, Prime Minister in 1971-72, was "executed" by the Dev-Sol (Revolutionary Left).

> On July 22, terrorists killed Kemal Turkler, leader of the metalworkers union and former head of DISK, the Confederation of Revolutionary Labor Unions.

Turkey has been bedeviled by leftist violence since the late 1960s; with the rightists increasingly hitting back over the past ten years, the mood of violence is reaching a dangerous level. Gangs of extremists from both sides compete to take over and dominate whole villages and neighborhoods. Recently the army had to move into the Black Sea town of Fatsa, where a leftist government had assumed power with the help of an underground revolutionary group and was running things its own way. Sadly, the country's political leaders have been unable to unite completely in the face of the terrorist tide. Premier Sueleyman Demirel and Opposition Leader Buelent Ecevit have distrusted each other for years. Late last week the two leaders huddled privately and managed to agree to support a limited package of new antiterrorist legislation. Otherwise, they have so far refused even to cooperate in the election of a new President, a post that remains unfilled after more than 100 indecisive parliamentary ballots in four months.

While the military has issued dire warnings that it will "not allow Turkey to be trampled underfoot by those who want to split the country," the soldiers appear unwilling to be dragged into a coup. Senior officers privately admit that there is little they can do to stop the killings beyond what they are already doing in the 20 provinces in which the army administers martial law. Moreover, intervention by the army would upset Turkey's Western allies, which are in no mood to tolerate a military dictatorship in a NATO country. A coup would also jeopardize the flow of Western aid and bank credits, key factors in Demirel's effort to prop up Turkey's sagging economy.

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