Military rule in Turkey

Press, 17 September 1980, Page 24

Military rule in Turkey

The replacement of a democratically elected government by a military junta, as has just happened in Turkey, cannot be accepted lightly. It means the disappearance of' one more democracy, a system which is becoming a rather fragile and rare form of government. It means adding to the number of coups d’etat, already the most frequent method of changing governments. There is no doubt that this is what has happened in Turkey. Although an economic adviser to the ousted Prime Minister, Mr Suleyman Demeril, appears to be occupying a post equivalent to that of a Prime Minister, effective control of the cbuhtry’s affairs is ih' the hands of the military and it may be assumed that the: adviser, Mr Turgut Ozal, will be tolerated only so long as he conforms to the wishes of the country’s military leaders.

Regrettable as the coup was, it did not come through obvious ambition or a sudden whim. Turkey has been in a state of civil war in all but name for a number of years. More than 1500 people have died in political feuding so far this year. Shi’ite Muslims, encouraged by the success of fellow Shi’ites across the border in Iran, have been seeking power and identified themselves with the Left. Turkey also has numbers of Sunni Muslims and the country has eight million Kurds, some of whom aspire to independence. Left-wing groups have fought Right-wing groups and, scarcely less frequently, have fought among themselves. If the military can bring some semblance of order then that will be a valuable legacy to hand on to a new civilian government. This year’s coup is the third, at intervals of 10 years, in Turkey. In 1960 and in 1970 the military handed the country back to civilian rule after a brief period.

Not that the civilian Governments did much but mismanage the country’s economic affairs. The present catalogue of economic ills is devastating. Inflation has been exceeding 100 per cent. Unemployment has been about 20 per cent; half of the country’s productive capacity is lying idle, Shortages of food are acute. The International Monetary Fund has poured huge amounts of money into Turkey, and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries have poured in a billion dollars. The fact that Mr Ozal has been retained indicates that the military agree with the general direction of Turkey’s economy, which has been influenced heavily by Mr Ozal recently. The . recent 70 per cent wage rise granted to workers without a corresponding increase in production is likely to compound the inflation problem.

The European Economic Community, reluctant as some of its members might have been to see ■ the organisation increase further in size, considered that democratic European governments wanting to join were entitled to do so. Turkey was one such applicant. Now the process of joining will be delayed indefinitely. Yet Europeans will worry more about Turkey because of its membership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation than they will about the E.E.C. membership application. As a country bordering the Soviet Union, and which has been used as a base from which to monitor the Soviet Union, Turkey is a valued, member of N.A.T.O. The coup may be considered by some to have made Turkey a stronger member of the alliance, but the refusal of Belgium to take part in a N.A.T.O. exercise, partly to demonstrate disapproval of the coup, shows how Turkey may divide allies. So long as Turkey remains under military rule, the likelihood of further divisions will grow.