Word: junta
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Seven months ago, when Turkey's Strongman General Cemal Gursel ordered the leaders of the deposed regime of Adnan Menderes to stand trial, expectation was that their cases would be wrapped up expeditiously, the junta's revolt against the Menderes government vindicated neatly, and Menderes & Co. put out of the way conveniently. But by last week, the i sth trial on Yassiada Island ended inconclusively, the 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th trials were under way, the 1,000th witness took the stand to give testimony, and the Turks were frankly tired of the whole thing...
...their former leaders have been continually harassed, humiliated, cajoled and insulted, ex-Democrats are showing mounting defiance. Statues and pictures of Kemal Ataturk, the professed idol of both Gursel and Inonu, are defaced and disfigured regularly in provincial Democratic strongholds. Anonymous hate letters trickle in to members of the junta. And although the junta ostensibly ignores these signs, indications are that privately it is deeply worried. Thousands of ex-Democrats have been clapped in jail on the strength of mere denunciations, and only last week 161 were rounded up in an alleged plot to overthrow the Gursel government...
From most nations, the answer was a muted no. The only government to break with Cuba was the new right-wing junta of tiny El Salvador. More significant was the reaction of Latin America's largest nation Brazil. Its new President Janio Quadros recently journeyed to Havana to visit Castro, and though privately disillusioned, he is determined to show Brazilian independence. Brazil said a loud no to Guatemala. Another evidence of Brazil's new stance was its reception for Adolf A. Berle, visiting chief of President Kennedy's Latin American task force. Berle, who speaks Spanish...
Before long, 22 of the coffin snatchers were securely locked up in Istanbul. The incident served as a reminder that Menderes, though currently on trial for his life, and his Democratic Party, though officially banned, still have a following. Gursel's junta, after nine months in power and nearly as many months of hesitation, recently gave all political parties except Communists and Menderes' Democrats the go-ahead to operate freely once again. Eleven new parties materialized, including one made up wholly of army officers forcibly retired by the junta. The scramble for the Democrats' onetime...
Strongest of the new groups appears to be the New Turkey Party, led by pro-Western Ekrem Alican, 45. Trained at the London School of Economics, handsomely smooth Alican was a Democrat who broke with Menderes five years ago. He was the junta's Finance Minister until he quit two months back to gather together his New Turks. Alican made up for the lack of a party program by circumspect courting of ex-Democrats. ("Many honest people voted Democratic, and they will be welcomed by us.") But when the party's ten founders applied for permission...