OT: Farewell To Bulent Ecevit - An Honest Politician

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Ecevit Buried Amid Secularist Chants

 

POSTED: 1705 GMT (0105 HKT), November 11, 2006

 

 

ANKARA, Turkey (Reuters) -- Thousands of Turks chanted in defense of

secularism on Saturday as they buried veteran leader Bulent Ecevit, best

known for winning EU candidacy for Turkey and invading Cyprus in a

five-decade political career.

 

Crowds keen to protect Turkey's official secularism booed Prime Minister

Tayyip Erdogan -- whose party's roots are in political Islam -- as he

arrived at the state funeral in Ankara.

 

" Turkey is secular and will remain secular, " chanted members of the

crowd, which a police official estimated at 50-80,000.

 

Mainly Muslim Turkey is officially secular but defenders of secularism

suspect the AK Party government of having a hidden Islamist agenda.

 

The funeral chants follow a demonstration by secularists last Saturday,

and in May some 25,000 marched in defense of secularism at the funeral

of a judge shot dead by a suspected Islamist gunman.

 

Ecevit, who attended that funeral, said earlier this year that the

government posed a threat to the secular order.

 

Secularists concerned that Erdogan may run for president -- which he has

not ruled out -- shouted: " Cankaya (the presidential palace) is secular

and will remain secular! "

 

Supporters of Ecevit, the former prime minister who had a stroke in May

and died on Sunday aged 81, wore and carried pictures of the leftist

nationalist politician. Some cried, waved flags and chanted: " Ecevit,

man of the people. "

 

Unionists and miners wearing helmets joined the crowd, and the huge

funeral was also attended by members of the cabinet, former presidents

-- including one who interned Ecevit after a 1980 military coup -- and

the leader and former leader of the Ankara-backed enclave in northern

Cyprus.

 

Ecevit was best known outside Turkey for ordering the invasion of Cyprus

in 1974, after a Greek Cypriot coup backed by the military junta then

ruling Greece. At home, the invasion won him the title " Hero of Cyprus " .

 

He won European Union candidacy for Turkey in 1999, paving the way for

the start of talks in 2005 -- which are now strained by the long-running

Cyprus dispute. Ecevit also presided over a deep financial crisis in 2001.

 

Born in Istanbul on May 28, 1925, Ecevit was educated at London and

Harvard universities. Before entering parliament in 1957, he was known

as a writer and poet, translating T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound into

Turkish. He also studied Sanskrit.

 

Copyright 2006 Reuters. All rights reserved.

 

Police estimated 50-80,000 attended Former Turkish Prime Minister

Ecevit's funeral.

 

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Turkish Sorrow at Ecevit Death

 

POSTED: 1112 GMT (1912 HKT), November 6, 2006

 

ANKARA, Turkey (CNN) -- Bulent Ecevit, the Turkish politician, poet and

journalist whose career spanned nearly half a century, has died aged 81.

 

Ecevit died on Sunday night in a military hospital in Ankara, where he

had been in a coma since suffering a stroke on May 18, the hospital said

in a written statement. His lungs collapsed, it said.

 

Soon after the news was made public, thousands of mourners gathered

outside the hospital in a show of grief over the death of the former

prime minister and former member of Turkey's Parliament whose secularist

leanings and intellect helped shape his country's politics.

 

Others expressed their sorrow in writing. " He has always been an

exemplary personality of our political history, " said President Ahmet

Necdet Sezer. " During his lifelong service to the country, he has put

ethical values ahead of all other duties ... he has gained a respectful

place in the hearts of our nation. "

 

" It is a very sad day, " said former Foreign Minister Ismail Cem. " But I

have one comfort in knowing that he achieved and realized most of his

political goals he set out in his political life. He contributed to the

strength of the left, and its acceptance by large groups, and for

Turkey's advancement. "

 

" In Turkey, he was the last leader whose name is associated with hope, "

said Ridvan Akar, a Turkish journalist. " His name was written on the

mountains and rocks for hope. It is a giant loss. He made us understand

honesty, respectability, honor and modesty. With his passing, the era of

honesty, honor and modesty is closed now. I knew him as a human being

and a leader. "

 

" We lost a giant from our political life who had very high ethical

values, and an unforgettable guardian of our democracy and our secular

republic, " said former Foreign Minister Hikmet Cetin. " He put respect

for Turkey above everything. It is a giant loss, especially when we

think about what is happening with secularism ... he never wavered in

his stand for it. "

 

Former Foreign Minister Ismet Sezgin described Ecevit's passing as the

loss " of a democracy legend ... a giant child, an artist, a man of many

hearts. "

 

Bitter defeat

 

Born in 1925, the son of a medical professor who was himself a poet and

a member of Parliament; his mother was an artist.

 

In 1946, he married his classmate, Rahsan Ecevit, who would work with

him throughout his political life.

 

That year, he worked as a press officer in the Turkish Embassy in

London, and continued as a journalist until 1957, when he became the

youngest member of Parliament.

 

By 1972, he became prime minister, the first left-winger to achieve the

position. It was a post he was to win four more times, until he met his

final bitter defeat in 2002.

 

" He was a great thinker, " said Hadi Sekura, of Chatham House, a

London-based organization for the analysis of international issues.

 

" He was a strong social democrat. At the same time, he was a very, very

strong nationalist, which appealed very much to Turkey's sensibilities

and political inclinations. "

 

At home, Ecevit was responsible for authorizing trade unions and giving

workers the right to strike.

 

Later, came social reforms like making the divorce laws more equitable.

And constitutional changes, like banning the death penalty. That move

spared the life of Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers

Party -- a militant separatist movement accused of staging cross-border

attacks from Iraq into Turkey -- who was hunted down in Kenya and

returned to Turkey for trial during one of Ecevit's terms in office.

 

It was Ecevit who started to pave the way for eventual Turkish entry

into the European Community, making this claim at the Helsinki summit in

1999:

 

" This candidacy and in due time full membership to the EU is Turkey's

birthright -- by virtue of Turkey's historical development, its

geography and its present-day attributes. "

 

Though the dove of peace was the symbol of Ecevit's party, he authorized

Turkey's invasion of northern Cyprus in 1974, when Turkish Cypriots

feared a Greek military coup. It was an action that has left Cyprus

divided to this day, but Ecevit had no second thoughts.

 

" Turkey lost a political philosopher, " said Husamettin Cindoruk, former

president of Parliament. " We will never forget his honesty, his deep

experience and his decisions about Cyprus ... he created a rhythm for

the left, gave it color and always worked to create political parties

with concept, thought and philosophy; he was a leader for politicians

with concept. "

 

" He never had any regrets, " Sekura said. " He was always a staunch

nationalist until the last days of his life. "

 

Ecevit, a short, slight man whose big spectacles, fierce mustache and

ever-present blue cap made him instantly recognizable, was always a

strong secularist. His last public appearance was at the funeral of a

judge apparently killed for upholding the ban on the wearing of Muslim

headscarves. But his long survival reflected political realism too.

 

But Sekura said Ecevit showed himself willing to compromise his

secularist values. " In the 1970s, he organized a political coalition

with the Islamic National Salvation Party which brought him into power

in 1974, " he said. " So, on the one hand he was a strong secularist, but

in political terms he was willing to do compromises to get into government. "

 

In the end, with his health failing and the Turkish economy having to

call in the International Monetary Fund, he may have stayed on too long.

 

Coalition bickering over the economic crisis finished Ecevit and his

party, but not before he had authorized an economic reform program that

has boosted Turkey's hopes of one day achieving EU membership.

 

CNN's Robin Oakley and Talia Kayali contributed to this story from

London and Atlanta.