EVREN, KENAN

(1918- )

   General Evren was the Turkish military's chief of staff who presided over the military coup of 12 September 1980. He acted because the state seemed in imminent danger of collapse due to violence between leftist and rightist groups, including the Kurds.

   Evren took harsh, but under the circumstances not unreasonable, steps to reinstitute order. A new constitution was adopted in 1982, and Evren became president from 1983 to 1989. The new constitution represented a reversal of the more liberal constitution the military had drawn up following its coup in May 1960. Evren's 1982 constitution contained a number of specific provisions that sought to limit even speaking or writing in Kurdish. Although Evren's rule ended the left-right sectarian violence in Turkey, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) uprising was eventually renewed with much greater fervor during his tenure.

   In March 2007, Evren amazingly proposed federalism as a solution to Turkey's Kurdish problem and general difficulties in implementing democracy. He also declared that he had erred in trying to ban speaking Kurdish in public.