Erdogan’s Muddled Plan For Yassiada Memorial
Erdogan uses a historical tragedy to initiate a profit-oriented project on Yassiada Island, the symbol of the 1960 coup that resulted in the execution of then-premier Adnan Menderes, the man Erdogan idolizes.
Yassiada is the symbol of the sorrows of Turkish democracy. It is the island where Prime Minister Adnan Menderes and his aides stood trial following the May 27, 1960, military coup, before being sent to the gallows. Menderes, his foreign minister, Fatin Rustu Zorlu, and finance minister, Hasan Polatkan, were executed on Sept. 17, 1961, on Imrali Island, but it was Yassiada that lived on in Turkish memory as the symbol of mourning.
As Radikal Editor-in-Chief Eyup Can pointed out, people expected that Yassiada would become a place for painful remembrance, just as was Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for years. The government, however, came up with a completely different option involving profit-making.
Deviation from original idea
Since 2003, Yassiada has been an invariable point of reference of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in its vigorous advocacy of democratic reforms to undo the military tutelage. Now, step by step, the island has been zoned for construction to serve the tourism sector.
