Taksim Square massacre

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"Taksim Square Incidents" also known as Taksim Square massacres is the name given to the events happaned during 1977 Taksim Square in Istanbul, Turkey.

Former Turkish prime minister Bülent Ecevit recalled he had learned of the existence of Counter-Guerrilla, the Turkish "stay-behind" armies for the first time in 1974. At the time, the commander of the Turkish army, General Semih Sancar, had allegedly informed him the US had financed the unit since the immediate post-war years, as well as the MIT, the Turkish intelligence agency. Ecevit declared he suspected Counter-Guerrilla's involvement in the 1977 Taksim Square massacre in Istanbul, during which snipers opened fire on a protest rally of 500 000 citizens, organized by trade unions on May 1, killing 38 and injuring hundred. In 1976, a demonstration gathering 100 000 against the domestic terror, for which Counter-Guerrilla was largely responsible, had already took place. The next year, the demonstrators were met with bullets. According to Ecevit, the shooting lasted for twenty minutes, yet several thousand policemen on the scene did not intervene. This mode of operation recalls the June 20, 1973 Ezeiza massacre in Buenos Aires, when the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance (aka Triple A), founded by José Lopez Rega (a P2 member), opened up fire on the left-wing peronists... According to Kurtulus Turkish magazine ^[1], Turkish CIA agent Hiram Abas who "was closer than his own brother" to the CIA chief of station in Istanbul Duane 'Dewey' Clarridge ^[2], was personally present on the May Day massacre. The Hotel International, from which the shots were fired, belonged to the ITT company, which had already been involved in financing the September 11, 1973 coup against Salvador Allende in Chile and was on good terms with the CIA. Hiram Abas had been trained in the US fin covert action operations and as an MIT agent first gained notoriety in Beirut, where he cooperated with the Mossad from 1968 to 1971 and carried out attacks, "targeting left-wing youths in the Palestinian camps and receiving bounty for the results he achieved in actions" (Kurtulus n°99). With MIT agent Mehmet Eymür, later promoted to direct the MIT's department for counter-espionage, Abas also participated in the Kizildere massacre of March 30, 1972, when they killed seven left-wing militants.