TESEV’s almanac to constitute 'security memory' in Turkey

ANKARA/ISTANBUL - Turkish Daily News

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

The Istanbul based-Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV) yesterday unveiled the country's first almanac on security and democratic oversight with the aim of “both democratizing security and democratization in security.”
Can Paker, the head of TESEV, and almanac editor Professor Ümit Cizre from Bilkent University's Political Science Department introduced the product of a one-year study titled “Almanac Turkey, 2005 -- Security Sector and Democratic Oversight” at a press conference in Istanbul.
The almanac is a product of ongoing collaboration -- dating back to 2004 -- between TESEV and the Geneva-based Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF), of which Turkey is a founding member, and is the first such almanac about defense and security published in the history of the Turkish Republic. It will continue to be published annually.
“This almanac will lead to the formation of a 'security memory' in Turkey,” Cizre said briefly.
“The almanac seeks to achieve as its primary goals: introducing information in a reliable way and to every sector by jarring open the shadow and the secret curtain above the security institutions; creating -- expert or ordinary, internal or external -- consumers and commentators of this information; and nourishing these [consumers and commentators],” Cizre says in the preface of the almanac that she titled “Preface or Scientific ‘Confess' and ‘Objection' Instead of Culture of ‘Obedience'.”
In brief, the almanac takes 2005 as a basis and introduces organization forms and known and unknown principles and activities of units within the security sector, while also elaborating on the legal framework and fundamental understandings that these units embrace and the civil authority under which they operate.