The Thoughts of the Assassination of General Eşref Bitlis

One of the movies about the J.F Kennedy assassination ended with this question! "Did Kennedy, who clashed with eight separate interest groups, have a chance to survive?"

If we want to ask a similar question: I wonder if Org.Eşref Bitlis, whose plane was shot down by sabotage on 17 February 1993, had a chance to survive?

He was perhaps the only member of the Military Politburo, which consisted of 17 Generals at that time, who did not come from the American school… He received language training in Germany while he was an officer. He was one of the very few staff officers who received the Military Academy Training in Germany. He came from the Prussian school. For him, his country came first. Wasn't this thought the basis of Turkish nationalism?

I went to Samsun with my family for the 1992 New Year holiday. It was around the evening news; “Do you know this major?” my mother said from the hall. he called. I smiled when I got in front of the TV. “Mother, he is not a major, Gendarmerie General Commander General Eşref Bitlis!” I said. My mother was right to be surprised. He used to wear the uniform of the soldier and talk with the official discourses of the system. Eşref Bitlis was sitting in front of the announcer in TRT in civilian clothes. It also gave the message that I am a citizen of this country. He said, "We are ready as the gendarmerie. (The message he gave to the political institution) “However, the state also needs to take responsibility. According to our findings, the main financial sources of terrorism are drugs and smuggling… first of all, we need to stop them. But unfortunately, some state officials, police officers, soldiers and even some politicians / businessmen in the region are also involved in this drug and smuggling organization.”

This was a very unusual information sharing on the state television channel. It was very brave. It was very deadly. But when it comes to Turkey and its inhabitants, you saw an Eşref Bitlis who was afraid of nothing. He was brave enough to take information from a major (Ahmet Cem Ersever), value the source of information and even work together in the entire gendarmerie administrative hierarchy.

Although it was not a task given to him by the Assembly or the Council of Ministers, it was clear that it was necessary to fight against the separatist terrorist threat posed to our country in the 1990s. That was enough for him to consider himself a missionary in this struggle. Because the Internal Service Law gave him the task of fending off that threat when his country was under threat.

What did he do or what did he not do?

Iran managed to gather Iraq, Syria and Turkey around the same table. However, it is interesting that Syria, to which the US secretly provided economic aid in the 1990s, was off the table.

He strengthened his relations with Barzani and Talabani and enabled them to travel the world with a Turkish passport. He wore civilian clothes during his meetings with them. He used the argument of diplomacy to walk to the target without disturbing the other side. He explained that Turkey evaluates PKK terrorism and Kurds separately. He tried to explain to the parties that the USA was trying to divide Iraq and that Saddam Hussein and the Kurds should not fall against each other. This step was against the game that the USA was trying to set up in the region.

After the 1991 Gulf War, he tried hard to control the US coalition force called Hammer Power, which was deployed in the region (southeast of Turkey). He succeeded, but an attempt was made to shoot down his helicopter by coalition warplanes in Northern Iraq. He determined that the hammer power provided material and moral support to the PKK, and provided food and weapons aid. Documented it. He put it on the government's table, contradicting Demirel. Demirel, who had to take the gas of the society, said, "If there is such a thing, we will destroy the sky on their heads." But the wolf politician knew that if he went against it, the United States would break the sky over him. Eşref Bitlis was left alone against the Hammer Power. In fact, the second pilot, who was on the plane on the day of the assassination, was one of the officers who flew in Hammer Power helicopters for 6 months and gave a real status report to Eşref Bitlis.

The flight crew on the day of the incident was personally selected by General Eşref Bitlis. They knew their task very well. In the meteorological report published at 09:30, icing was reported. Although the plane is one of the best planes to fly in icy conditions; The flight crew decided to delay the flight in order to reduce the risk. Because the person on the plane was not just a VIP, but as both pilots were aware, he was a commander in the eyes of the society who needed to be protected very tightly.

The VIP plane of the Gendarmerie General Command was kept out of order for a long time, and the necessary parts could not be obtained for some reason. Eşref Bitlis had to go to Diyarbakır with a Land Forces plane to see the preparations for the critical Spring Operation to be launched against the PKK and to give the necessary directives. A plane was requested from the General Staff for this task and it was found appropriate to give this plane of the Land Forces. However, the plane's shield was no longer in the Gendarmerie.

It is stated in the civil court records that a technician petty officer in a pilot's uniform wandered in the hangar where the plane was located at night and knew the password. According to a rumor believed by Special Forces Officers from Eşref Bitlis school, a US general and technician intervened in the plane that night. The presence of US planes and flight crews in Güvercinlik and the fact that they can move freely in Güvercinlik are well known to the public.

At noon on 17 February 1993, the flight was actually scheduled. The world's most reliable VIP Aircraft, which was built to fly in icy conditions and whose engines were designed to never freeze, was not icy at -60 degrees Celsius in the arctic region it passed through on its way to Turkey, and was crashing due to icing. What made this statement more interesting was the fact that the icing statement was made to the public immediately after the accident, which was not based on any scientific research or without any examination of the wreckage. Thus, it was intended to cover up the sabotage-assassination by calling it icing and building the official discourse on this statement. Moreover, while none of the 22 planes flying on the same day had crashed due to icing….

Another interesting aspect of the assassination plane was that the plane was uninsured. If the plane had been insured, the insurance company would have made its own independent investigation and the traces of the Assassination would have been revealed.

This move to disable the law in the assassination would be nullified by the second pilot Tuğrul Sezginler's heroic older sister, Saime Sezginler, who pursued the incident without hesitation, and Attorney Nusret Senem. In the lawsuits they filed against the aircraft manufacturer company in civil courts in Ankara, the court stated that there were no traces of icing and that there were some missing parts in the aircraft engine, pointing to the assassination.

About 3 years after the incident, the Minister of Justice of the time, Şevket Kazan, announced to the public that the established order had eliminated Eşref Bitlis. Once again, Turkey could not prevent the assassination of one of its most important sons, it was watching his destruction in tears….