Reminders | 45 years after September 12, a new crossroads on the way to a one-man regime

Bülent Forta

Forty-five years after the coup of September 12, 1980, the country is once again being driven toward a new crossroads by a political Islamist regime.

The one-man regime, shaped by the legacy of the military coup carried out by the US, continues to perpetuate September 12 within its own power structure today.

The Palace regime, which is trying to implement its vision of holding sham elections as of March 19 and having the opposition determined by the ruling party, is also trying to suppress every wave of opposition to the regime with all the power of the state.

Having lost their ability to persuade society and struggling to stay afloat, they are now tightly clinging to the fascist methods of September 12.

Bülent Forta, former head of DEV Genç, assessed the 45th anniversary of September 12 and the crossroads the country has once again reached.

BUILT STEP BY STEP

Stating that September 12 was a coup that came step by step in the country, Forta said, “Actually, the coup was rehearsed during the March 12 period, and when the leftist movements in Turkey could not be suppressed, the path was paved for civil war tactics during those years. However, when even the conditions of a small-scale civil war could not prevent the growth of the left, they needed an open military coup.”

“In this sense, it also marked the beginning of a brutal era. Fascist methods such as torture, executions, and the dismantling of organizations began to increase,” said Forta, whose assessments are as follows:

"Over the past 45 years, the consequences of the coup have been discussed extensively. But it must be clearly stated that the history of the Republic is a very fragmented history. Every critical period was interrupted by coups and various interventions.

FORCE OF OPPOSITION BECAME A TOOL

For this reason, it must first be stated that, at the point we have reached today, the regime of September 12 continues in various forms. On the other hand, the ideological bombardment carried out in opposition to the coup or military tutelage has become one of the important tools of the current administration, which is a product of the coup.

IT IS ALIVE IN ALL ITS INSTITUTIONS

However, the fact that the entire structure of September 12 continues is also clear . The media scheme is one example of this. During that period, progressive publications such as Cumhuriyet and Demokrat newspapers were shut down. Censorship was imposed. Today, practices very similar to those days continue, such as blackouts, the elimination of the opposition press, and the support of the pro-government press. Looking at universities, September 12 saw universities as a threat and created an anti-democratic structure like the Council of Higher Education (YÖK). This continues today.

Looking at trade unions, the right to strike is constantly postponed, unions have been weakened and rendered ineffective.

On the other hand, the parliament becoming an ineffective figure and the high thresholds in election laws are also legacies of September 12 for this regime. In other words, ultimately, September 12 is not just a historical event but a continuation of the system still in power today.

Another example of this is the emergence of symbols reminiscent of September 12 today. One of the things that symbolized those days was prisons. Diyarbakır, Mamak, Metris... Today's regime is also symbolized via the Silivri prison.

Therefore, nothing has been eliminated in the time that has passed since then. On the contrary, even though it is said that the coup era was liquidated with the deception of the referendum held on September 12, 2010, we are faced with a situation where all the institutions of September 12 continue to exist.

THE COUP WAS AGAINST THE REVOLUTIONARIES

September 12 also has a few famous mottos. The saying, “Our boys staged a coup,” is one example. It was a pro-American coup. And it bears a striking resemblance to today. In this sense, it is very clear that Turkey is condemned to a moderate Islamist, American-backed government.

One of these mottos was a sentence by Halit Narin. After the coup, the phrase “Until now, the workers laughed; from now on, we will laugh” stuck in people's minds.

Of course, it was not just a casual remark. Since September 12, with increasing pressure on workers, the deprivation of their right to organize, and the reduction of real wages, a regime that fully supports the capitalist class has been established in Turkey.

Another example is the statement by Agâh Oktay Güner of the MHP, who said, “Our ideas are in power, but we are in prison.” Today, the MHP has truly become part of the ruling power, both with its ideas and its presence. The Turkish-Islamic synthesis was made the official ideology of the state on September 12. And this understanding continues uninterrupted.

Again, despite the emphasis on secularism in the country, imam hatips were a means of preventing communism from Kenan Evren's perspective.

Looking at all this, perhaps the most important thing was Kenan Evren's admission that this coup was directed against the left and revolutionaries when he said, “If we hadn't spoken here, Terzi Fikri would have spoken.”

Looking back from today, what we see is that the September 12 regime has been further institutionalized through 23 years of AKP rule and has become the main regime that determines our lives today. Kenan Evren was a single man. Today, there is also a single man in the middle...

Therefore, if there is to be real freedom and real democracy in Turkey, it can only take shape around the option of completely eliminating and dismantling all the institutions and rules of September 12. The 2010 referendum was insufficient, but it was not a deceptive liquidation that opened the door to a “yes” vote; rather, the necessity of truly eliminating September 12 remains as urgent today as ever.

Now, 45 years later, yes, September 12 was a dark period for Turkey. It was a regime that crushed the left and revolutionaries, filling prisons with hundreds and thousands of them.

But this regime is still standing and continuing today. Therefore, taking a stance and position against it requires a free, democratic, and legitimate course of action, which seems to be the most urgent task.

PRACTICES OF THE COUP PERIOD

After September 12, there was a period of vetoes. Elections were to be held, and when parties began to form, the junta vetoed certain parties and certain names. Thus, they were leading to an election with people who could sustain their regime. What is being done today with March 19 is similar to the veto practices of September 12.

It is a period in which the opposition is designed, and the regime's boundaries are drawn by its own rival. Today, Turkey is heading towards political suicide, where elections have become a mere formality in the face of this long parliamentary tradition, and where the power determines who will stand against it.

THE STRUGGLE WILL DECIDE

Will this country really fit into this box? Will the current regime's game plan succeed?

These questions will be shaped in part by the struggle waged by the opposition and by the emergence of hope that a united struggle will disrupt this game. In other words, the process that began on March 19 means that the top-down political design, just like on September 12, is being recreated according to today's conditions.

On the other hand, we are also experiencing a period in which the potential for resistance in the country is coming to light. In fact, since the March 31 elections, we have seen a lack of surrender in small acts of resistance, burning like a grassfire. These acts of resistance manifested themselves from time to time in labor movements, from time to time in universities, and from time to time in peasant uprisings.

However, the main problem was that all these different demands and areas of struggle failed to coalesce into a united opposition movement.

RESISTANCE MUST BE UNITED ON COMMON GROUND

Now, with March 19, we can say that the segments that were expected to be suppressed, coded as such, and hoped for as such, have been included in the fields of struggle. The youth sphere is one of these. The retreat that followed Gezi has become one of the most important parts of this current resistance with March 19.

However, it is still not possible to speak of an organization like the one before September 12.

Therefore, if we truly want to establish a line of struggle today, we need to deepen our organization in all areas of life, intensify the struggle, and unite these social opposition movements, which have formed around different demands, into a united line of struggle.

THE REVOLUTIONARIES OF THIS COUNTRY WILL TEAR THIS GARMENT APART

For 23 years, Turkey has been ruled by a political Islamist regime. While all kinds of oppression and political games are being played out, a large segment of society does not agree with this regime. Under the current circumstances, this is the glass half full.

The empty side of the glass is the current government's use of its dominance, established across all state institutions, particularly the judiciary, as a weapon against the people's rising struggle. And despite their nationalist rhetoric, they lean on the US and the West in the international arena.

At this point, it is worth emphasizing that Turkey's progressive and revolutionary tradition will tear off this regime that has been imposed on them, this garment, and reject this. It is necessary to believe and hope for this.

On the other hand, one of the reasons for the success of September 12 was the weaknesses of the left itself. It was a mistake to divide into factions and enter into a highly competitive environment with each other. Subsequently, a state of weakness emerged in which the workers' movement and other anti-fascist struggles went in different directions, and the 12 Septemberists utilized this very well.

THEY WILL EXPERIENCE A VERY DIFFERENT DEFEAT

Now, given where we are today, we must recognize that the socialist left no longer has its former strength in terms of socialization. However, since March 19, we see that both the political line and struggle practices pursued by the CHP and the socialist left's opposition to the government's policies from day one have begun to make it a social force again.

So, it is true that we are not as strong as we were on September 12. But we must clearly see that the seeds we sowed on September 12 are beginning to sprout today.

Today, Turkey is governed by the two marginal parties that existed before September 12. Back then, the National Salvation Party, where the ideological roots of the AKP were formed, was at the 5-6% threshold, and the MHP was at the 2-2.5% threshold.

However, these two parties became the ones governing the country due to the collapse of the center-right and center-left, as well as political developments in the world and in Turkey.

The oppression of the left and the criminalization of leftist ideas in society played a major role in this.

Therefore, 45 years later, if the left can truly unite around a common goal within today's united struggle axis, drawing lessons from the defeat of September 12, and if it begins to establish its roots alongside the current social resistance in Turkey, the current regime will suffer a defeat very different from that of the September 12 regime.

***

“SPECIAL WAR REGIME”

The September 12 coup was the culmination of the fascist massacres that preceded it and the political engineering efforts of the United States. Prior to this, in order to halt the social awakening, rising class struggle, and revolutionary movement that occurred in Turkey after May 27, and to bring Turkey into a certain political design within the framework of imperialism's plan, many different initiatives were undertaken, from the MHP and Ülkü Ocakları to the establishment of Anti-Communist Associations. At the center of these operations that dragged Turkey into its current regime was the Special Warfare Department.

In the bipolar world established after World War II, Turkey sided with the US as early as 1947, during the single-party era. The military-economic agreements with the US, which İsmet İnönü himself would later regret, would play a critical role in Turkey's future for the next 80 years. Turkey held geopolitical significance for the US's strategy of indirect warfare against the USSR. Our country first became an American ally, then a direct NATO member, and with the bases established on our soil, the US had reached the Soviet border. For this reason initially, and later as part of the Green Belt Project encompassing the entire Middle East, Turkey was intended to become an important ‘presence’ of imperialism.

Following İnönü, Menderes's policies of submission to Washington accelerated the country's pro-American transformation. Although this momentum was halted by May 27, as İnönü himself said, pro-American experts had already settled within the state. However, the gravity of the situation would be revealed by Ecevit's disclosure in 1974.

***

MHP AS AN AMERICAN INVENTION

As part of an indirect war strategy against the USSR, the Special Warfare Department was established in Turkey. Initially named the Mobilization Investigation Board, this structure operated in the same building as the American Relief Association, with its expenses covered directly by the US. Although this structure, which had a hand in the September 6-7 incidents, was already active during the Menderes era, it only became known to the public in 1974. Following the American embargo imposed on Turkey after the Cyprus Peace Operation, the funds sent to the Special Warfare Department were cut off. As a result, then-Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit learned of the existence of this organization when he requested that its expenses be covered by a covert budget. Subsequently, Ecevit's personal testimonies alone reveal how the US attempted to manipulate Turkey through the Special Warfare Department. Similarly, when Ecevit met with former Special Warfare Department Head Sabri Yirmibeşoğlu in Sarıkamış in 1978 and asked him, "Suppose, hypothetically, couldn't the MHP provincial chairman here also be one of the secret agents in the civilian extension of the Special Warfare Department?“ Yirmibeşoğlu's response, ”Yes, he is, but he is a very reliable, patriotic friend of ours," reveals how the MHP and the Ülkü Ocakları (”nationalist youth organizations”) were directed and financed by the US from their inception. Indeed, Alparslan Türkeş was saved from execution after May 27 by Rudi Nazar, the CIA station chief in Turkey. Then, during his exile, CIA agents themselves demonstrated the propaganda of “Turkish nationalism against communism” in Turkic countries. After his return to the country, the MHP and the Ülkü Ocakları were established, with funding and training also provided by the CIA and the Special Warfare Department.

However, the US's only response to the revolutionary upsurge in Turkey was not limited to the establishment of the Ülkü Ocakları and the MHP; it also supported the creation of Anti-Communist Associations, which produced many Islamist figures such as Fethullah Gülen, developed relations with the Muslim Brotherhood, which was growing in Egypt, and sought to take control of the Diyanet with Saudi funding. Fearing that Turkey, its most important asset in terms of indirect warfare strategy, might break away from an independent and revolutionary path, the U.S. was pouring its two most effective poisons against communism: Islamism and nationalism.

***

THE ROAD FROM MASSACRES TO COUP

However, when neither the Ülkü Ocakları nor the Islamist organizations could achieve the desired effect, the US resorted to its familiar tools, tried all over the world, particularly in Latin America, in the face of the radicalization of the country's villages, factories, slums, and universities. The 1977 Taksim May Day, perhaps the most massive May Day action in Turkish history, was turned into a massacre by the intervention of the Special Warfare Department. Subsequently, in 1978, Robert Alexander Peck, who was stationed at the US Embassy in Turkey, visited Çorum, Amasya, and Tokat in succession, and wherever Peck went, sectarian conflicts were organized by nationalist groups and reactionary organizations. The most bloody of these clashes took place in Maraş, but it was only possible to prevent them from turning into major massacres in Çorum and Amasya through the organized intervention of revolutionaries. However, starting in 1978, the acceleration of fascist provocations, from the murders of intellectuals to sectarian tensions, failed to suppress the revolutionary rise. The only solution left was to have the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK), which had become almost a co-ruler with the imposition of martial law in 1979, carry out the bloodiest coup in the country's history in September 1980. While “their boys” won, the intervention, which the nationalist Islamist organizations they had financed for decades were unable to achieve, was carried out with the NATO army. Washington was the winner that day, and thus the Special Warfare Department moved from a small building in Ankara to the center of the state and politics, and over the years to a palace in Beştepe.

***

“OUR BOYS DID IT”

The words “our boys did it” by Paul B. Henze, who served as the CIA Turkey Station Chief, can be seen as a summary of both the September 12 military coup and Turkish history. As with all important issues in our country before and after the September 12 coup, it was brought to the agenda as an American policy, with its support. Designed in accordance with Cold War policies, when the civil war environment created by civil fascist forces to suppress the rising social revolutionary struggle in Turkey proved insufficient, a military coup was brought to the agenda, creating a turning point for Turkey's Islamist and neoliberal transformation.

“NOW IT'S OUR TURN TO LAUGH”

Halit Narin, President of the Turkish Confederation of Employers' Unions (TİSK), greeted September 12 with the words, “They laughed until now, now it's our turn to laugh.” One of the first actions of the junta, which was one of the biggest supporters of imperialism alongside capital, was to shut down and disband unions and worker organizations; to ban and gradually eliminate the rights workers had gained, especially the right to strike.

“EVREN IS HEAVENLY”

September 12, as a state policy, paved the way for the right-wing and reactionary segments of society to flourish and organize within the state. F. Gülen declared Kenan Evren, the head of the junta who paved the way for religious fundamentalism in all areas with the implementation of compulsory religious education, to be heavenly!

THE COUNT OF THE COUP

According to ‘official figures’ during the coup regime, 650,000 people were detained, 1,683,000 people were blacklisted, 14 people died in hunger strikes in prisons, 171 people lost their lives during interrogations and prison torture, and 49 people were executed.

The picture left behind by the coup, according to ‘official figures’, is as follows:

■ Those detained: 650,000

■ Those filed: 1,683,000

■ Number of cases opened: 210,000

■ Those tried in martial law courts: 230,000

■ Stripped of citizenship: 14,000

■ Total number of convicts and detainees in 644 prisons: 52,000 (remaining in 1990)

■ Died on hunger strike: 14

■ Shot while fleeing: 16

■ Killed in clashes: 74

■ Those reported as having died of natural causes: 73

■ Those reported as having ‘committed suicide’: 43

■ Those killed as a result of torture: 171

■ Total sentences received by journalists in prisons: 3,315 years and 3 months

■ Number of days İstanbul newspapers were unable to publish: 300 days

■ Journalists killed in armed attacks: 3

■ Number of laws restricting press freedom: 151

■ Number of publications banned: 927

■ Number of films banned: 927

■ Number of people facing the death penalty: 7,000

■ Number of people sentenced to death: 517

■ Death sentences approved by the Military Court of Appeals: 124

■ Death row inmates whose cases are pending before Parliament: 259

■ Death sentences carried out: 50

Note: This article is translated from the original article titled Hatırlatmalar | 12 Eylül’den Tek Adam Rejimine 45 yıl sonra yeni bir yol ayrımı, published in BirGün newspaper on September 14, 2025.