Celil Gürkan

We are now saying goodbye to the 1960s. The 60's started eventfully on May 27. It ended as eventfully as it began. The '70s inherited escalating violence, student riots, and rumors of intervention. Prime Minister Demirel was trying to put out the fire in the street and to calm the increasingly restless army on the other. The October 1969 elections were held in this atmosphere and the Justice Party came out of the ballot box again. May 27 came by overthrowing the DP government, but the AP, which declared that three of the three elections held since the 1960s, were the continuation of the DP, emerged successfully. Demirel was about to roll up his sleeves for a new era. He felt that no one could stop him now. He was wrong. As he was dizzy from victory, he fell at Caesar's fault. Forgot about Brutus...

When March of 1971 knocked on the door, a military intervention was imminent in the country. Bombs were exploding in a strange way from right to left, and the urban guerrilla was resorting to unconventional acts such as bank robbery and kidnapping. The generals had decided to put a stop to this trend. Dynamite was placed under Prime Minister Demirel. The question now was who would ignite the fuse of the dynamite. President Sunay was waiting to watch the approaching explosion silently from Çankaya. Tuğmaç, Chief of General Staff, tried to delay the explosion as much as possible, preferring Demirel to self-destruct. The two generals were watching each other to see who would ignite the fuse first. These two generals were Faruk Gürler and Muhsin Batur. The fire was in their hands. They were going to detonate the dynamite...

Demirkırat stumbled on March 12, 1971. Actually, you know, they shoot limping horses. But this time it didn't. Turkish democracy continued to run despite its wounds. Because March 12 was not a "seizure" but a "warning". The generals were saying, "If what we want is not done, we will seize it." The country was entering a new era under this Sword of Damocles. A president who was helpless in the face of events, a prime minister who had to leave his seat, a newly fallen parliament, four generals neither inside nor outside the power... Now, a solution would be tried to be found out of this complex equation. But how and with whom? No one knew the answer to these questions in Turkey on the morning of March 13.