“Punishing Two Generals Doesn’t Confront Us with Military Coup”

bianet interviewed Tahir Canan on the life sentence rulings for Kenan Evren and Tahsin Şahinkaya, the Chief of General Staff and the Air Force Commander in 1980 respectively. After being imprisoned in 1979 and spending 32 years in prison, Tahir Canan was released in April 30, 2013. 

Canan followed all trials of September 12 Case after being released from prison and today, he was present in Ankara 10^th High Criminal Court - the court that convicted the two generals. Canan said that Turkey cannot confront with the military coup by sentencing two old generals to life imprisonment but it can be regarded as the first step of the real confrontation. 

Responsibility of business circles

 “The governors, police commissioners, tormenters and especially the business circles of the time, who are in the background have to appear in court.

“Fundamentally, the business circles prepared the outline of September 12. ‘Until this time, we had suffered a lot. From now on, You would suffer,” said [businessman] Halit Narin for instance when had said for the workers. In our present situation, if the only 2.5% of the proletariat is organized around a union, it clearly shows us the long-suffering of the workers. 

September 12 and the counter-guerilla

“We did not face September 12, we just made an attempt to face it. We can consider this as the first step of confrontation. Convicting them can lead to crack up their structures like the National Security Council (MGK) of September 12 and the counter-guerrilla. 

“The counter-guerrilla organization took important parts to prepare September 12 and afterwards. If we talk about 17 thousand unsolved murders, this is because of the counter-guerilla.”

State vs People

“Şahinkaya and Evren were not sentenced due to the tortures, unfairness against the people, executions and unfair punishments, stolen lives. They were sentenced just for the abolition of the constitution.

The sentence was not for the people lived the negative effects of September 12, but for conserving the state. 

What will happen to the torture reports?

“There is a rumor about suing the tormenters after this case ends. But I do not know whether this will happen or not. 

“For instance, they said to me there wasn’t enough evidence although I told them again and again how much I’d been tortured.”

“There are people who did not have a retrospective torture report prepared, have not any torture reports at all and there are the ones with the reports counted invalid because of the time-out. I mean, there are lots of mess.” 

“I do not know how it will end up. I guess they will say ‘there is not enough evidence’ for all the applications and close the files, in domestic law.” (EKN/MEV/BM)

* Click here to read the article in Turkish.