Everyone focusing on Ergenekon is now being exposed to “democracy lessons” via the government party’s being democratic or not.

- 22 / 07 / 2008 12:04

Cengiz Candar

A decade ago we were exposed to the military “andıç,” or “background information paper,” prepared by the General Staff, which was actually a plot against me, Mehmet Ali Birand of daily Hürriyet, and Akın Birdal, the then-chair of the Human Rights Association.

The claim was that the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, allegedly paid us some money, and this claim was appended by several commanders in the confessions of the accused Şemdin Sakık of the PKK.

  It was explained two years later that the note was necessary for “psychological warfare” and its purpose was to belittle the names mentioned in the document, including us. The “andıç” was served by some middlemen in the media in late April 1998. As a result of this, Birand was fired by daily Sabah and my articles in the paper were suspended. Publication of articles supporting us was also banned or censored.

Shooting of Birdal:

  In a period of less than two weeks, on May 12, I was giving a lecture at Bilgi University. Suddenly, a faculty member barged into the room. “Sir, forgive me but I have to interrupt your class. The Sabah daily is calling you. They said it is urgent and you have to call them back immediately,” he said.

I had a sense of why I was called and returned their call during the break. “Do you know?” the paper’s chief administrator was asking, “Birdal was shot! You better come down here. We have to protect you. Let’s talk about what we can do.”

I paused a little and then said, “Don’t worry. I know. Birdal was shot for all of us. So I am not in danger now. If you are worried about me, don’t worry. I have been threatened since the military note, but now Birdal is shot, we will not be in danger.” He was not satisfied. So I headed to the paper and with the directive of the paper’s owner then, Dinç Bilgin, publication of my articles was resumed the next day.

After a long coma, Birdal miraculously survived this incident. But the repercussions of such an attack were so big that perpetrators were caught soon. The Turkish Revenge Brigade, or TİT, claimed the attempted assassination of Birdal. It was an underground murder network. The mastermind behind the attack was Semih Tufan Gülaltay, and everyone learned the name of Gendarmerie Sergeant Cengiz Ersever through this attack.

A couple of days later, Sabah’s police reporter in Ankara called me and said that someone who introduced himself as a TİT member said to him, “Çandar shouldn’t feel safe. We will shoot him too.” So the reporter asked me to protect myself.

I had contact with the management and took measures. After a while, I was informed by the security sources that Gülaltay was planning either to kill me or hire someone to kill me.

He was released after serving five years in prison and formed a political party following a “neo-nationalist” line. Daily Radikal the other day asked in its headline, “Is TİT Ergenekon’s hitman?” and wrote in the spot: “Ergenekon suspect Muzaffer Tekin was in close contacts with Gülaltay, who perpetrated the Birdal assassination attempt. Tekin visited Gülatay in prison and was involved in the party formed by Gülaltay upon his release.”

A 10-year-old photograph depicting Birdal being taken to hospital after the shooting accompanied the article.

 Character assassination:

Since the Ergenekon crime network investigation was launched, some of us who witnessed the dirty mechanisms in this country and who were the targets of assassination attempts took this inquiry seriously. They were aware that this case is closely related to the “struggle for democracy” in Turkey and they were also aware of the significance of this investigation. They took parallel position in this episode. I did so too.

Since the beginning, some circles wanted to black out the Ergenekon probe. In the meantime, some stepped forward and adopted a harsher attitude in their articles, criticizing others who point out the connection between the Ergenekon case and Turkey’s “democratization process.”

Bringing this “murder network” called Ergenekon to the light and having a positive opinion on that the judiciary, perhaps for the first time, pursuing an ideological crime organization spread in the state have become a “crime” itself.

Everyone focusing on Ergenekon is now being exposed to “democracy lessons” via the government party’s being democratic or not. These people who are eager to teach democracy go overboard and even engage in “character assassination.”

They are trying to do what they failed to do through the bullets of TİT by launching a denigration campaign against me and flinging dirt at me when I write that Ergenekon works like a “litmus paper,” the issue can neither be diluted nor be taken lightly.  “Munitions” of the people who are now the Ergenekon suspects today are the bitter remarks and accusations they directed me for years.

Fear of democracy: 

 What they say or write is nothing new. Ergenekon proponents have been doing this to me for years. These so-called leftists may dazzle audiences in television programs they attend or in the articles they write. But someone like me, who survived that military note, will not be fooled by their acts. 

 I do know that they are the “steel soldiers” of the “psychological war.” The Ergenekon murder network will be erased just like the TİT with all its “dirty track records.” They are already sentenced in people’s consciences. So others who go for “character assassination” will also have a dark future in this country. 

 “Fear of democracy” will serve nothing.