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Here is a nifty wrap-up
of the Cyprus issue, below. (Followed by related articles.) Cyprus and the
Greeks are a whole different matter regarding the purpose of this web site,
but Cyprus is often brought up as an example of Turkish barbarism (since
everyone believes, thanks to effective propaganda, that the Turks suddenly
decided to "invade" the island... even though the Turkish republic
has never had expansionism in her agenda) during arguments for the Armenian
"Genocide"... therefore, this page offers a token look at the
matter.
Nobody denies the Turks have
historically had a hand in massacres from time to time, in a region (or a
world) where nobody's hands have been clean. It is so ironic, however, that
massacres from the Turkish end are isolated examples of disgusting violence...
but when it's the turn of Armenians or Greeks to shed others' blood, they
typically go at it with the intention and hope of a complete ethnic cleansing.
Remember... genocide alludes to a systematic extermination with orders from
the top, exactly what the Turks are usually charged with.
In the case of Cyprus.... anyone hear
of the AKRITAS plan?
It's infuriating when these Orthodox
peoples ... having learned well from the methods of the annihilating Russians
(as the Serbs demonstrated in Bosnia, not long ago)... are the ones who
demonstrate true genocidal bloodthirstiness, and yet still remain the darlings
of the West, when the Turks are regarded as the bad boys. What's the
similarity between the Armenian "Genocide" and Cyprus? The
Armenians and Greeks keep provoking, provoking, provoking... and when Turkey
finally explodes, these Orthodox peoples get theirs at the end.
(Armenians and Greeks ACT... and the Turks... usually after a long and patient
while... REACT.) Unfortunately, the Turks — thanks to existing prejudices, combined with the
lobbies and well-oiled propaganda campaigns of the Turcophobes — wind up regarded as the villains.
Following the wrap-up, A TABLE OF CONTENTS:
1)
"Sampson is a thug and killer, pure and simple."
2) THE WORD FROM GREECE
3) U.S. Secretary of State George Ball
on Makarios' honor
4) Historian George Finlay wrote:
5) Why has a "Solution"
Stalled for Many Years?
6) And Now For a Greek-Cypriot
Source....
7) Irish M.P. Sean Power on Cyprus
Realities
8) Western Observations on Greek Blood
Lust
9) Other Western Reports on Greek
Atrocities
10) Greeks Call Ecevit to be Charged with War Crimes
11) Comments from Nick
12) Dr. Nakratzas Tells Us What Happened in 1963
13) Greeks with Integrity Coming Out of the
Woodwork!
14) More of Makarios' antics
15) Burden rests on Greeks to solve 'Cyprus
problem'
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"Greek Cypriot fanatics appear bent on a
policy of genocide."
The Washington Post, Feb. 17, 1964 |
Former British parliamentarian Michael Stephen reminds Mr.
Michael B. Christides, the Charge d'affaires of the Greek Embassy in Ankara and many
others who appear to have forgotten what indeed was the case in Cyprus from 1963 to
1974.
MICHAEL STEPHEN
(Ankara - Turkish Daily News 13 May 1999)
The assertion by Mr. Christides (May 10) that there was no
ethnic cleansing or attempted genocide of Turkish Cypriots by Greek Cypriots is
ridiculous. Until influential Greek Cypriots come to terms with the appalling behavior of
their community toward the smaller Turkish Cypriot community and stop trying to persuade
themselves and the world that each side was as much to blame as the other, there will be
no reconciliation in Cyprus.
In his memoirs, American Undersecretary of State George
Ball said: "Makarios's central interest was to block off Turkish intervention so that
he and his Greek Cypriots could go on happily massacring Turkish Cypriots. Obviously we
would never permit that."
The fact is, however, that neither the United States, the
United Kingdom, nor the United Nations, nor anyone, other than Turkey ever took effective
action to prevent it.
On Feb. 17, 1964
the Washington Post reported that "Greek Cypriot fanatics appear bent on a policy of
genocide."
Former British
Prime Minister Sir Alec Douglas-Home said, "I was convinced that if Archbishop
Makarios could not bring himself to treat the Turkish Cypriots as human beings he was
inviting the invasion and partition of the island."
On July 28, 1960
Makarios, the Greek Cypriot president, said: "The independence agreements do not form
the goal -- they are the present and not the future. The Greek Cypriot people will
continue their national cause and shape their future in accordance with THEIR
will."
In a speech on
Sept. 4, 1962 at Panayia, Makarios said, "Until this Turkish community forming part
of the Turkish race that has been the terrible enemy of Hellenism is expelled, the duty of
the heroes of EOKA can never be considered terminated."
In
November 1963 the Greek Cypriots demanded the abolition of no less than eight of the basic
articles that had been included in the 1960 agreement for the protection of the Turkish
Cypriots. The Turkish Cypriots, naturally, refused to agree. The aim of the Greek Cypriots
was to reduce the Turkish Cypriot people to the status of a mere minority, wholly subject
to the control of the Greek Cypriots, pending ultimate destruction or expulsion of the
Turkish Cypriots from the island.
"When the
Turkish Cypriots objected to the amendment of the Constitution, Makarios put his plan into
effect, and the Greek Cypriot attack began in December 1963," wrote Lt. Gen. George
Karayiannis of the Greek Cypriot militia ("Ethnikos Kiryx" 15.6.65). The general
was referring to the notorious "Akritas" plan, which was the blueprint
for the annihilation of the Turkish Cypriots and the annexation of the island to Greece.
On Christmas Eve 1963 the Greek Cypriot militia attacked Turkish Cypriot communities
across the island. Large numbers of men, women, and children were killed and 270 mosques,
shrines and other places of worship were desecrated. On Dec. 28, 1963, the Daily Express
carried the following report from Cyprus: "We went tonight into the sealed-off
Turkish Cypriot quarter of Nicosia in which 200 to 300 people had been slaughtered in the
last five days. We were the first Western reporters there, and we have seen sights too
frightful to be described in print. Horror so extreme that the people seemed stunned
beyond tears."
On Dec. 31,
1963, The Guardian reported: "It is nonsense to claim, as the Greek Cypriots do, that
all casualties were caused by fighting between armed men of both sides. On Christmas Eve
many Turkish Cypriot people were brutally attacked and murdered in their suburban homes,
including the wife and children of a doctor -- allegedly by a group of 40 men, many in
army boots and great coats."
Although the
Turkish Cypriots fought back as best they could and killed some militia, there were no
massacres of Greek Cypriot civilians.
On Jan. 1, 1964,
the Daily Herald reported: "When I came across the Turkish Cypriot homes they were an
appalling sight. Apart from the walls they just did not exist. I doubt if a napalm attack
could have created more devastation. Under roofs which had caved in I found a twisted mass
of bed springs, children's cots, and grey ashes of what had once been tables, chairs and
wardrobes. In the neighboring village of Ayios Vassilios I counted 16 wrecked and burned
out homes. They were all Turkish Cypriot. In neither village did I find a scrap of damage
to any Greek Cypriot house."
On Jan. 2, 1964,
the Daily Telegraph wrote: "The Greek Cypriot community should not assume that the
British military presence can or should secure them against Turkish intervention if they
persecute the Turkish Cypriots. We must not be a shelter for double-crossers."
On Jan. 12,
1964, the British High Commission in Nicosia wrote in a telegram to London: "The
Greek [Cypriot] police are led by extremists who provoked the fighting and deliberately
engaged in atrocities. They have recruited into their ranks as 'special constables'
gun-happy young thugs. They threaten to try and punish any Turkish Cypriot police who
wishes to return to the Cyprus Government.... Makarios assured Sir Arthur Clark that there
will be no attack. His assurance is as worthless as previous assurances have proved."
On Jan. 14,
1964, the Daily Telegraph reported that the Turkish Cypriot inhabitants of Ayios Vassilios
had been massacred on Dec. 26, 1963 and reported their exhumation from a mass grave in the
presence of the Red Cross. A further massacre of Turkish Cypriots, at Limassol, was
reported by The Observer on Feb. 16, 1964; and there were many more.
On Feb. 6,
1964, a British patrol found armed Greek Cypriot police attacking the Turkish Cypriots of
Ayios Sozomenos. They were unable to stop the attack.
On Feb. 13,
1964, the Greeks and Greek Cypriots attacked the Turkish Cypriot quarter of Limassol with
tanks, killing 16 and injuring 35.
On Feb. 15,
1964, the Daily Telegraph reported: "It is a real military operation which the Greek
Cypriots launched against the 6,000 inhabitants of the Turkish Cypriot quarter yesterday
morning. A spokesman for the Greek Cypriot government has recognized this officially. It
is hard to conceive how Greek and Turkish Cypriots may seriously contemplate working
together after all that has happened."
On Sept. 10,
1964, the U.N. Secretary-General reported that "UNFICYP carried out a detailed survey
of all damage to properties throughout the island during the disturbances. ...it shows
that in 109 villages, most of them Turkish-Cypriot or mixed villages, 527 houses have been
destroyed while 2,000 others have suffered damage from looting. In Ktima 38 houses and
shops have been destroyed totally and 122 partially. In the Orphomita suburb of Nicosia,
50 houses have been totally destroyed while a further 240 have been partially destroyed
there and in adjacent suburbs."
The U.K. House
of Commons Select Committee on Foreign Affairs reviewed the Cyprus question in 1987 and
reported unanimously on July 2 of that year that "although the Cyprus Government now
claims to have been merely seeking to 'operate the 1960 Constitution modified to the
extent dictated by the necessities of the situation,' this claim ignores the fact that
both before and after the events of December 1963 the Makarios Government continued to
advocate the cause of << enosis >> and actively pursued the amendment of the
Constitution and the related treaties to facilitate this ultimate objective." The
committee continued: "Moreover, in June 1967 the Greek Cypriot legislature
unanimously passed a resolution in favor of <<enosis, >> in blatant
contravention of the 1960 Treaties and Constitution." (Art. 1 of the Treaty of
Guarantee prohibited any action likely to directly or indirectly promote union with any
other state or partition of the island, and Art. 185(2) of the Constitution is to similar
effect).
Professor Ernst
Forsthoff, the neutral president of the Supreme Constitutional Court of Cyprus, told Die
Welt on Dec. 27, 1963: "Makarios bears on his shoulders the sole responsibility for
the recent tragic events. His aim is to deprive the Turkish community of their
rights." In an interview with the UPI press agency on Dec. 30, 1963 he said,
"All this happened because Makarios wanted to take away all constitutional rights
from the Turkish Cypriots." The United Nations not only failed to condemn the
forceable usurpation of the legal order in Cyprus, but actually rewarded it by treating
the by then wholly Greek Cypriot administration as if it were the government of Cyprus
(Security Council Res. 186 of 1964). This acceptance has continued to the present day,
and reflects no credit upon the United Nations, nor upon Britain, nor the other countries
who have acquiesced.
Holdwater
says: No different than today! The Greek Cypriots are regarded as "Cyprus,"
while the Turkish Cypriots are treated as though they don't exist.
On Aug. 12,
1964, the U.K. representative to the United Nations wrote to his government in London as
follows: "What is our policy and true feelings about the future of Cyprus and about
Makarios? Judging from the English newspapers and many others, the feeling is very strong
indeed against Makarios and his so-called government, and nothing would please the British
people more than to see him toppled and the Cyprus problem solved by the direct dealings
between the Turks and the Greeks. We are of course supporting the latter course, but I
have never seen any expression of the official disapproval in public against Makarios and
his evil doings. Is there an official view about this, and what do we think we should do
in the long run? Sometimes it seems that the obsession of some people with 'the
Commonwealth' blinds us to everything else and it would be high treason to take a more
active line against Makarios and his henchmen. At other times the dominant feature seems
to be concern lest active opposition against Makarios should lead to direct conflict with
the Cypriots and end up with our losing our bases."
Thereafter
Turkish Cypriot MPs, judges, and other officials were intimidated or prevented by force
from carrying out their duties. According to the Select Committee, "The effect of the
crisis of December 1963 was to deliver control of the formal organs of government into the
hands of the Greek Cypriots alone. Claiming to be acting in accordance with 'the doctrine
of necessity,' the Greek Cypriot members of the House of Representatives enacted a series
of laws which provided for the operation of the organs of government without Turkish
Cypriot participation." The report of the Select Committee continued: "Equally
damaging from the Turkish Cypriot point of view was what they considered to be their
effective exclusion from representation at and participation in the international fora
where their case could have been deployed.... An official Turkish Cypriot presence in the
international political scene virtually disappeared overnight."
It is not
therefore surprising that the world has been persuaded to the Greek Cypriot point of view.
More than 300 Turkish Cypriots are still missing without trace from these massacres of
1963/64. These dreadful events were not the responsibility of "the Greek
Colonels" of 1974 or an unrepresentative handful of Greek Cypriot extremists. The
persecution of the Turkish Cypriots was an act of policy on the part of the Greek Cypriot
political and religious leadership, which has to this day made no serious attempt to bring
the murderers to justice.
The U.K. Commons
Select Committee found that "there is little doubt that much of the violence which
the Turkish Cypriots claim led to the total or partial destruction of 103 Turkish villages
and the displacement of about a quarter of the total Turkish Cypriot population was either
directly inspired by, or certainly connived at, by the Greek Cypriot
leadership."
The U.N.
secretary-general reported to the Security Council: "When the disturbances broke out
in December 1963 and continued during the first part of 1964, thousands of Turkish
Cypriots fled their homes, taking with them only what they could drive or carry, and
sought refuge in safer villages and areas."
On Jan. 14,
1964, "Il Giorno" of Italy reported: "Right now we are witnessing the
exodus of Turkish Cypriots from the villages. Thousands of people abandoning homes, land,
herds. Greek Cypriot terrorism is relentless. This time the rhetoric of the Hellenes and
the statues of Plato do not cover up their barbaric and ferocious behavior."
The Greek
Cypriots sometimes allege that it was they who were attacked, by the Turkish Cypriots, who
were determined to wreck the 1960 agreements. However, the Turkish Cypriots were not only
outnumbered by nearly four to one; they were also surrounded in their villages by armed
Greek Cypriots; they had no way of protecting their women and children, and Turkey was 40
miles away across the sea. The very idea that in those circumstances the Turkish Cypriots
were the aggressors is absurd.
There were
further attacks on the Turkish Cypriots in 1967. In 1971, General Grivas returned to
Cyprus to form EOKA-B, which was again committed to making Cyprus a wholly Greek island
and annexing it to Greece. In a speech to the Greek Cypriot armed forces at the time
(quoted in "New Cyprus," May 1987) Grivas said: "The Greek forces from
Greece have come to Cyprus in order to impose the will of the Greeks of Cyprus upon the
Turks. We want << enosis >> but the Turks are against it. We shall impose our
will. We are strong, and we shall do so."
By July 15,
1974, a powerful force of mainland Greek troops had assembled in Cyprus and with their
backing, the Greek Cypriot National Guard overthrew Makarios and installed one Nicos
Sampson as "president."
On July 22, the
Washington Star News reported: "Bodies littered the streets and there were mass
burials.... People told by Makarios to lay down their guns were shot by the National
Guard."
On
April 17, 1991, Ambassador Nelson Ledsky testified before the U.S. Senate Foreign
Relations Committee that "most of the 'missing persons' disappeared in the
first days of July 1974, before the Turkish intervention on the 20th. Many
killed on the Greek side were killed by Greek Cypriots in fighting between supporters
of Makarios and Sampson."
(Holdwater:
How many Greeks killed? See Greek source, below)
On Nov. 6, 1974,
Ta Nea reported that dates from the graves of Greek Cypriots killed in the five days
between July 15-20 were erased in order to blame these deaths on the subsequent Turkish
military action.
On March 3, 1996, the Greek Cypriot Cyprus Mail wrote:
"(Greek) Cypriot governments have found it convenient to conceal the scale of
atrocities during the July 15 coup in an attempt to downplay its contribution to the
tragedy of the summer of 1974 and instead blame the Turkish invasion for all casualties.
There can be no justification for any government that failed to investigate this sensitive
humanitarian issue. The shocking admission by the Clerides government that there are
people buried in Nicosia cemetery who are still included in the list of the 'missing' is
the last episode of a human drama which has been turned into a propaganda
tool."
On Oct. 19 1996, Mr. Georgios Lanitis wrote: "I was
serving with the Foreign Information Service of the Republic of Cyprus in London.... I
deeply apologize to all those I told that there are 1,619 missing persons. I misled them.
I was made a liar, deliberately, by the government of Cyprus. ...today it seems that the
credibility of Cyprus is nil."
Turkish Cypriots appealed to the guarantor powers for help,
but only Turkey was willing to make any effective response.
Holdwater says: Where were YOU,
Great Britain?
On July 20, 1974 Turkey intervened under Article IV of the
Treaty of Guarantee.
Holdwater says: Get it now? It was
not an invasion. It was a legal intervention. (Not to mention, more importantly, a moral
one.) Had Turkey been scared off as she was by the Americans in 1964, there would
probably be no Turkish Cypriots alive on the island today.
The
Greek newspaper Eleftherotipia published an interview
with Nicos Sampson on Feb. 26, 1981 in which he said, "Had Turkey not intervened I
would not only have proclaimed << enosis,>> I would have annihilated the Turks
in Cyprus."
Holdwater says: REAL GENOCIDE!
"Sampson
is a thug and killer, pure and simple." British authorities believe that he was responsible for 26 killings
in his fight against British rule, but he was never convicted of murder. Sadistic
Reputation. One senior British official recalls that after a terrorist killing,
Sampson would frequently be "the first reporter on the scene. The reason, of
course, was that he himself had committed the murders. He would hide behind a narrow
turning in a Nicosia side street, wait for his victim to pass, and then blow the
man's head off or shatter his back. He would toss his gun to a small boy, who would
disappear into the bowels of the earth. Sampson would then run away and reappear
several minutes later clutching his reporter's notebook." Although much of his
terrorism was politically motivated, he acquired a reputation for sadistically
enjoying the pain he inflicted.
Big Troubles
over a Small Island, TIME Magazine, Jul. 29, 1974
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The Times and The Guardian reported on Aug. 21, 1974 that
in the village of Tokhni on Aug. 14, 1974 all the Turkish Cypriot men between the ages of
13 and 74, except for eighteen who managed to escape, were taken away and shot. There were
also reports that in Zyyi on the same day all the Turkish-Cypriot men aged between 19 and
38 were taken away and were never seen again and that Greek-Cypriots opened fire on the
Turkish-Cypriot neighborhood of Paphos killing men, women, and children
indiscriminately.
On July 23, 1974, the Washington Post reported that
"in a Greek raid on a small Turkish village near Limassol 36 people out of a
population of 200 were killed. The Greeks said that they had been given orders to kill the
inhabitants of the Turkish villages before the Turkish forces arrived."
The Times and The Guardian also reported on the killings.
"The Greeks began to shell the Turkish quarter on Saturday, refugees said. Kazan
Dervis, a Turkish Cypriot girl aged 15, said she had been staying with her uncle. The
[Greek Cypriot] National Guard came into the Turkish sector and shooting began. She saw
her uncle and other relatives taken away as prisoners, and later heard her uncle had been
shot." (Times 23.7.74)
On July 28, 1974 the New York Times reported that 14
Turkish-Cypriot men had been shot in Alaminos.
On July 24, 1974 France Soir reported that "the Greeks
burned Turkish mosques and set fire to Turkish homes in the villages around Famagusta.
Defenseless Turkish villagers who have no weapons live in an atmosphere of terror and they
evacuate their homes and go and live in tents in the forests. The Greeks' actions are a
shame to humanity."
On July 22, Turkish Prime Minister Ecevit called upon the
United Nations to "stop the genocide of Turkish-Cypriots" and declared,
"Turkey has accepted a cease-fire, but will not allow Turkish-Cypriots to be
massacred."
THE WORD FROM GREECE
Athens Court of Appeal dtd. March 21,
1979: The court decision reads as follows:
"The Turkish intervention in Cyprus, which was carried out in accordance
with the London-Zurich agreements, was legal. Turkey had, as one of the Guarantor
Powers, the right to fulfill her obligation. The true guilty ones were the Greek
Officers, who organised the coup and thereby created the conditions for an
intervention."
Holdwater: Mother of Mercy! Did the
Greek court actually and correctly use the word "intervention," instead
of INVASION?
Don't forget, Greeks: You owe Turkey a
huge thanks (which some of you gave at the time) for rescuing you from the tyranny
of your military junta. If you have ever seen Costa-Gavras' 1969 movie, Z,
you will be reminded of the HELL your country suffered through, before the Turks
inadvertently saved your necks.
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The German newspaper Die Zeit wrote on Aug. 30, "The
massacre of Turkish Cypriots in Paphos and Famagusta is the proof of how justified the
Turks were to undertake their intervention."
"Turkish Cypriots, who had suffered from physical
attacks since 1963, called on the guarantor powers to prevent a Greek conquest of the
island. When Britain did nothing, Turkey invaded Cyprus and occupied its northern part.
Turkish Cypriots have constitutional right on their side and understandably fear a renewal
of persecution if the Turkish army withdraws," the Daily Telegraph wrote on Aug. 15,
1996.
"Turkey intervened to protect the lives and property
of the Turkish-Cypriots, and to its credit it has done just that. In the 12 years since,
there have been no killings and no massacres" Lord Willis (Labor) told the House of
Lords on Dec. 17, 1986.
On March 12, 1977, Makarios declared, "It is in the
name of << enosis >> that Cyprus has been destroyed."
The United Nations, the Commonwealth, and the rest of the
world have put political expediency before principle and failed to condemn this appalling
behavior. Greek Cypriots are guilty of attempted genocide but no action has ever been
taken against them. Instead they have been rewarded by recognition as the government of
all Cyprus. The Turkish Cypriots by contrast were frozen out of the United Nations, the
Commonwealth and almost every other international organization. *
The author Michael Stephen was a member of the British
Parliament from 1992-1997.
Holdwater says:
Of course, it's dangerous to generalize. If one implies a race is entirely made up of
devils or angels, then one shows one's racist stripes. (As with many of the testimonies
you can read about in this web site... where the Gladstones, Morgenthaus, Lloyd Georges,
George Hortons, and practically every Greek and Armenian, who would have you believe the
Turks are a race of devils.) So I'd like to remind the reader that men and women of honor
and integrity certainly exist among the "Orthodox peoples."
However, do you see a pattern here? We're
not getting too much into the unimaginable extermination policies of the Russians (Read
Justin McCarthy's " The Ethic
Cleansing of Ottoman Muslims"... it is truly an eye-opener)... but the
Orthodox peoples have used the Russians' example as their model. These policies are still
followed, horrifyingly, to this day... Cyprus and the Bosnia/Kosova conflict are still
relatively recent, as is the Russian brutality in Chechnya. Not to mention the criminal
way the Armenians handled themselves, when they attacked Azerbaijan.
Here's the M.O.: (Think about the things
Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic would say in interviews, if you remember... and then think
about how he would act). (1) Do your nasty business (2) Lie and deny when confronted,
having zero honor... and blame the other party, as much as you can — groundless though
the charges may be (3) Support each others' criminal behavior, as Greece supported Serbia
during the Bosnia conflict (4) When possible, don't simply do a little massacre here and
there; try to make it part of an actual extermination campaign. Don't forget Muslim lives
are regarded as expendable, in the West (5) Count on the Western world's support, if
the "enemy" are the Muslims. Count on their lack of principles. Get rewarded for
your crimes, as Armenia has been, in her aggression against Azerbaijan.
If the accounting of the Cyprus tale above sounds like the truth, then think.... think
about the Armenian "Genocide."
Is it possible the Armenians started it? Even though they claim to be "helpless
and innocent" (Read "Article 2," above)?
Is it possible most of the Western sources they cite could have been biased?
Is it possible the Western sources for the Turks are much more reliable, given that
Westerners don't usually have loyalty for the Turks?
Is it possible that the crimes committed by the Armenians against their fellow Ottomans
were indeed genocidal in nature... as
ironic as that may be? (Read "Article 4," above.)
Is it possible that most of the anti-Turkish reports you have been exposed to
throughout your life have been part of a wide scale misinformation campaign? (Read
"Article 5," above.)
U.S. Secretary of
State George Ball on Archbishop Makarios' honor, 1964:
When I discussed the question
with our UN ambassador, Adlai Stevenson, he responded with far more heat than I had
expected. During the "troubles" he had stayed for three days in Archbishop
Makarios's residence and he regarded his former host with total contempt. The
Archbishop was, he said, a wicked, unreliable conniver who concealed his venality
under the sanctimonious vestments of a religious leader; the only way to deal with
Makarios, Stevenson assured me, was by "giving the old bastard absolute
hell." In all the years I had known Adlai I had never heard him speak of anyone
with such vitriol. "I have sat across the table from that pious looking replica
of Jesus Christ," he said, "and if you saw him with his beard shaved and a
push-cart, you would recall the old saying that there hasn't been an honest thief
since Barabbas."
Ffrom Ball's
1982 memoir, "The Past Has Another Pattern"; read more at
www.cyprus-conflict.net/Ball%20-%2064.htm
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George Finlay wrote:
(In History of the Greek Revolution, London, 1861, p. 172)
"In the meantime
the Christian population had attacked and murdered the
Mussulman population
in every part of the peninsula. The towers and
country homes of the
Mussulmans were burned down, and their property was
destroyed, in order
to render the return of those who had escaped into
fortresses hopeless.
From the 26th of March until Easter Sunday, which
fell, in the year
1821, on the 22nd of April, it is supposed that fifteen
thousand (Muslim)
souls perished in cold blood and that about three
thousand farmhouses
of Turkish dwellings were laid waste."
For
more Greek atrocities on the 1821 Uprising, see below.
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GREEK PROFESSOR IRAKLIDES SAYS GREEK CYPRIOTS WERE RESPONSIBLE FOR
CYPRUS ISSUE
Assistant Professor of International Relations Aleksis Iraklides from the Faculty of
Political Science and History at the University of Athens stated that while
observing the second round of talks between TRNC President Rauf Denktaş
and the Greek Cypriot leader Glafcos Clerides, where the issue of missing persons
was taken up, relatives of the so-called missing persons were protesting outside the
building where the meeting was taking place, and that in Athens there was the
impression that in Cyprus there were only Greek Cypriot missing persons. He said
that this was not the case because there were also many Turkish Cypriot missing
persons who were the victims of the EOKA-B terrorist organization and the Greek
Junta. He also added that some of the so-called missing Greek Cypriots were in fact
murdered by other (left-wing, Makarios supporters) Greek Cypriots.
Continuing Assistant Professor Iraklides said the reason why the Cyprus State only
lasted for three-years before it was abolished is perfectly clear. He said the
reason for this was the fatal 13-point plan proposed by Makarios on 13 November
1963, whereby the fate of the neighbouring community (Turkish Cypriots) would depend
on the Greek Cypriot majority, who would basically put them (Turkish Cypriots) in
the position of a minority.
He also said that the partition of Cyprus was as a result of the start of the bloody
events of December 1963 and 1964, which led to the arrival of the UN Peace Keeping
Forces to Cyprus, the gathering of most Turkish Cypriots into enclaves, and which
also paved the way for all state organs to be in the hands of the Greek Cypriots.
Assistant Professor Iraklides also said that on the issue of the continuation of the
inter-communal violence there are two main views; firstly that there was joint
responsibility, and that secondly the main responsibility lies with the Greek
Cypriots, who were responsible for starting the attacks.
He said that although the first view is generally supported by Hellenes or the
friends of Hellenes, the second view is more reliable and even the UN
Secretary-General, U Thant, considered this view to be correct.
(Source unknown.)
(Holdwater says:
An example of an "Orthodox" man of integrity. Bravo, Professor.)
---------------------------
" 'So many tin-pot regimes are
recognised around the world but not northern Cyprus, which has a freely elected
government,' bristles Julia Price, chairperson of the British Residents'
Society."
Rush to buy homes in north Cyprus
Helena Smith
May 19, 2002, The Observer
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Why
has a "Solution" Stalled for Many Years? |
(Holdwater says:
Alert! Turkish source below...
I'm including what may
appear as biased words on the surface because they shed revealing light. Through the
years, Cypriots on both sides have tried to come to an understanding, and I remember
specific instances when the Turkish side was unquestionably and genuinely conciliatory,
and fair. Suddenly, the Greeks would call off the talks. It would make me wonder, are the
Greeks serious about coming to an understanding? (A dramatic episode of what's
described occurred as recently as 2004, when the Turkish Cypriots accepted a restrictive
and disadvantageous U.N. Plan. Even then, the Greek Cypriots balked.) The following is an excerpt from Cyprus
vs Cyprus, by Kamil B. Raif & Bulent Akarcali, turcoman.btinternet.co.uk/cyprus-vs-cyprus.htm:
...Of course, we all know that this a well-known Greek tactic. They cry
for a solution; however, when there is a hope for a solution, they immediately run away
from it. There are reasons for this attitude.
The Greeks do not want a solution in Cyprus because they use their influential and capable
propaganda network to damage the international reputation of Turkey using this so-called
problem as bait.
The Greeks depend very much on the strong and influential lobbies they have in the
European Union and the United States. With these lobbies, they always manage to turn the
facts to their advantage and make the world believe that the Cyprus problem started with
the intervention of the Turkish army in 1974.
The Greeks know that they are economically benefiting from this conflict at the expense of
the Cypriot Turks. As such, it is in their interest to keep the conflict sustained.
Who is truly for peace in
Cyprus?
On Sunday October 20, 2002 the
annual UN Day celebrations took place at the Ledra Palace Hotel in the
UN-controlled buffer zone. While thousands of Turkish Cypriots attended only a few
hundred Greek Cypriots showed up.
As a volunteer who took part in the event I followed the Greek Cypriot TV news in
the evening to see how it was reported. I was amazed at the speaker's
interpretation of more Turkish participation. She said they had come for the free
food being served. And one Greek Cypriot youngster asked to comment said the same
thing. I cannot find words to describe such mastery of distortion in order to hide
their own reluctance towards peace and friendship. Apart from reflecting how they
look down on Turkish Cypriots, this mentality also shows that they do not share
the same feelings for peace and friendship.
What was served was
but a sandwich along with a small apple pie.
So how could anyone
imagine that Turkish Cypriots are so destitute.
Beraat Mustafaoglu.
|
And
Now For a Greek-Cypriot Source....
|
CYPRUS MAIL October 27, 1995
THE TRUTH IS OUT?
|
Out
with the Truth
|
So now the truth is out. We are not
talking about 300 dead, or 45 dead, but 96 people killed during action in 1974 —
and that is only from an initial examination of 487 files out of 1,619 examined at
the Attorney General’s office.
Successive governments have a lot to answer to. First, why these people were put on
the list of missing people in the first place., and why, now that the truth is out,
relatives are not put to rest once and for all on the fate of their loved ones.
News of the existence of dead persons on the list was made public more than a month
ago, a fact officially confirmed by President Clerides before his departure for the
United States three weeks ago.
And for all this time, 1,619 families have been virtually sitting on hot coals
wondering whether one of the numbers bandied about so nonchalantly concerns a person
they haven’t seen or heard for 21 years.
Eighteen of the 96 people mentioned are buried in the free areas, with no apparent
reason why their relatives should not be informed immediately on their fate. But
like so many other things, this will also be bogged down in government red tape,
with nobody really knowing whose shoulders the unpleasant task of informing the
relatives will fall upon.
The government needs to save its credibility on the matter at all costs.
But how seriously can one take authorities which have been fully aware of the
existence of dead people on a list of persons whose fate has been supposedly unknown
since 1974?
--------------------------
Holdwater adds: Only 96 people killed!!
(Not to minimize the importance of those poor, lost souls... My point is, a hundred
people is nothing — in context to the exaggerated numbers killed, presented by
lying Greek propaganda all these years.)
And WHO do you think killed them? The TURKS?
If that's what you think, travel back up and re-read THIS.
Just like with the Armenian
"Genocide." Naturally, the big, bad Turks are blamed for everything the
sun shines and doesn't shine on. And yet, who winds up as the guilty, murdering
party, when you dig down deep? The people recognized as the VICTIMS.
What an outrage...
Here is a take from a Northern Cypriot
editorial counterpart, relating to the article shown here... and shedding further
light on the shocking tale:
---------------------------------
"Missing": The Truth Emerges
Editorial
Northern Cyprus Monthly
“The truth is out” is how the Greek Cypriot English-language daily “Cyprus
Mail”, in its editorial of October 27, 1995, informed readers of dramatic
disclosures by the Greek Cypriot leadership regarding Greek Cypriots listed as “missing”
since 1974.
According to these confessions, hundreds were known to be dead by the Greek Cypriot
authorities, and by the Committee of Relatives of Greek Cypriot Missing Persons —
yet this vital information was kept secret from families concerned in order to
exploit their artificially-maintained agony for propaganda purposes.
The former Greek Cypriot Attorney-General, Michael Triantafilides, disclosed that
the policy of including known dead people on the “missing persons” lists and
withholding information from their families was adopted by the Greek Cypriot
administration in 1975 at a meeting chaired by the ex-Greek Cypriot leader, the late
Archbishop Makarios. (See Greek Cypriot daily ‘Alithia” of September 17, 1995
and also the text of an interview with the Greek Cypriot television station CYBC 1
on October 13, 1995)
In light of the disclosures, the Greek Cypriot administration was forced to lower
the number of Greek Cypriot “missing persons” from 1,619 to 1,493.
It is very likely that this number will drop even further, since hardly a month goes
by without a new shocking revelation being published in the Greek Cypriot press
regarding the Greek Cypriot “missing persons.”
On April 16, 1996, the Greek Cypriot administration was finally forced to admit that
more Greek Cypriots who were listed as “missing” were in fact dead and buried in
South Cyprus.
Claire Angehdou, the Greek Cypriot minister entrusted with the task of coordinating
with the families of “missing” Greek Cypriots, revealed that 26 additional Greek
Cypriots whose names were included on the “missing persons” list were known to
have been dead since 1974.
Moreover, according to Greek Cypriot daily newspapers “Agon”, of April 17 and
18, and “Fileleftheros” of April 18, 1996, Ms. Angelidou confessed that the
Greek Cypriot administration had known all along where they were buried.
According to the current Greek Cypriot Attorney-General, Alecos Markides, the
remains of those 26 persons will be returned to their families this year.
On October 14, 1995, Greek Cypriot journalist Takis Agathocleus wrote a revealing
article in the Greek Cypriot daily “Alithia” on the “missing” and on how
vital information was kept from reaching the families of the “missing” by the
Greek Cypriot authorities.
Mr. Agathocleus revealed that, following the cease-fire in 1974, he had been ordered
to bury some Greek Cypriots at the village of Kontemenos. He and his friends dug up
a crate with a bulldozer and buried the corpses.
The most shocking aspect of his story is that, although the identification tags of
the dead had been turned over to Greek Cypriot military authorities, Mr.
Agathocleus, having the opportunity to read the Greek Cypriot “missing persons”
list years later, discovered to his horror that names of the persons he had himself
buried at Kontemenos were also included.
Mr. Agathocleus’s pleas to correct the list fell on deaf ears. He concluded his
article in dismay: “No responsible person was interested in the fact that dead
people buried at Kontemenos village were listed as missing. When I tried to delve
into these matters, I was asked to stop because it was not in our interest that some
people whom we declared as missing should appearnot to be missing, but dead and
buried”.
On 20 July, 1995, the Greek Cypriot weekly magazine “Selides” published an
article on the Greek Cypriot “missing persons”, revealing further the true facts
behind the inhuman Greek Cypriot propaganda on the issue. In this article a certain
Christos Eliophotou recounted his bitter story.
Mr. Eliophotou had been the Chief Civil Defense Officer of the Greek Cypriot part of
Nicosia District. During the last days of July, 1974, he had been called to the
Greek Cypriot General Hospital at Nicosia by a Greek officer, Lieutenant George
Danos, and told to take care of burying some Greek Cypriots.
This is his story: “I went to the hospital and asked for the man in charge, and a
Greek officer, Lieutenant Danos, appeared. He guided me to the mortuary and showed
me a number of corpses. I estimated that there were about 45 to 50 bodies. He told
me to take them for burial.”
“I told him that I would take them after I had been given
the details about them.”
“Then this Danos started swearing at me and saying that their identities were none
of my business. I answered him, telling him that I knew my job very well and that,
during the World War!!, I had served as a major in the British army and had buried
many people — but none before they were identified.”
“The following day, when I went back to mortuary, they informed me that the army
had buried the dead.”
Further research by the “Selides” team revealed that a total of 65 Greek
Cypriots had been taken from the hospital and buried in and outside Lakadamia
village cemetery, with no attempt to identify them. What is more shocking, however,
is that the “Selides” team discovered that the assistant to Lieutenant Danos was
none other than Nicos Serghides— the current general Secretary of the Greek
Cypriots’ Pancyprian Committee of the Missing.
(end)
------------------------------
“We have taken these lands
from our ancestors as Hellenic, our national duty is to deliver them to our future
generations as Hellenic, however not divided but as a whole”
Enosis Loving Greek-Cypriot leader,
Glafcos Clerides
Holdwater asks:
When in history was Cyprus ever a
Greek state?
------------------------------
TWO MORE SO-CALLED
"MISSING" GREEK CYPRIOTS BURIED
(May 2003)
The Greek Cypriot daily 'Simerini' reported that two Greek Cypriots, Andreas Spano
and Hristaki Hristodulidi, who died in 1974 and were identified with DNA tests, were
buried yesterday in separate ceremonies at Ay Varvara and Kambo.
The daily stressed that the names of the two Greek Cypriots had for years been
included in the Greek Cypriot missing persons list and requests had been made to the
Turkish Cypriot side to determine their fate and that the remains of the two Greek
Cypriots in question were identified after investigations were carried out at the Ay
Konstantiou and Eleni
cemetaries.
They buried them in the South, but looked for them in the North In another report
published in 'Fileleftheros' it was stated that the family of a Greek Cypriot
national guard soldier, Hristakis Hristodulidis, who lost his life after being shot
in the throat during the clashes in 1974, were told that he was buried in Alaykoy,
whereas in fact he was buried in a mass grave in the Agios Konstantinos and Eleni
cemetaries in the Greek Cypriot side.
It was reported that his family, who had suffered for years because they could not
give their son a decent burial, died with this suffering.
The family's other son, Andreas, was also listed as 'missing' and it was stated that
they have no information regarding their son.
Following the identification of his identity after DNA tests were carried out, after
29-years the remains of Hristakis Hristodulidis will finally be buried next Sunday.
Buried 'missing' girl Meanwhile, the Sunday Mail reported that the remains of 15
year old Vasso Socratus, who lost her life in 1974 and whose name was also included
in the missing persons list, was identified through DNA testing and was buried on
May 10, 2003 in South Nicosia.
It stated that Vasso Socratus, was the daughter of Yorgos and Kalliopi Socratus who
used to live in Kucuk Kaymakli in 1974.
Vasso Socratus' remains were found during diggings that were being carried out to
determine identities at the Konstantinu and Eleni cemeteries.
TRNC News; thanks to Jeff Ertughrul
|
"It
is time we ... do what we think is right and just, rather than go along with what our
wealthier neighbours advise." |
IRISH M.P. SEAN POWER EXPLAINS CYPRUS
REALITIES IN IRISH PARLIAMENT
(2002)
Explaining the Cyprus realities in the Irish Parliament, Irish M.P. Sean Power
criticized the Greek Cypriots, Greece and the E.U.
His address to the Irish Parliament is as follows:
"As I have little time at my disposal, I will use that time to deal with
enlargement, in particular the application of Cyprus. I had the honour of visiting
northern Cyprus during the summer with two of my colleagues from the House. To my
surprise the ambassador chose to object in the strongest manner on my return. It was
not my first visit and it was obvious to me that on the island there exists two
democracies and two sovereign states representing their distinct peoples.
Turkey has never expressed a wish to make Cyprus a Turkish island or an annex to
Turkey, which is only 40 miles away, but the Greeks have continued to press for
enosis to make Cyprus part of Greece even through Greece is 500 miles away. The
history and settlement of the island would weight heavily towards a Turkish claim as
soldiers from the Ottoman Empire captured Cyprus in 1571. They were there until the
British arrived in 1878. We do not have time to go into the full history of the
island. In 1924, the Treaty of Lausanne was accepted by Turkey and Greece and
Britain was then the sovereign ruler of Cyprus. There has been much change since.
Gradually the Greek Cypriots made demands for enosis and Britain, playing politics,
offered the island to Greece in return for them taking up arms against Bulgaria.
Naturally, the Turkish Cypriots opposed enosis.
In 1950 the demand for enosis exploded under Archbishop Makarios. Britain took
strong action against the militants and Makarios was exiled to the Seychelles.
Turkey took a keen interest and was obviously anxious to protect the Turkish
Cypriots, but the partition of the island was suggested and has some appeal in
Ankara. However, Mr. Lennox-Boyd declared in the House of Commons in 1956: "Any
exercise of self-determination should be affected in such a manner that the Turkish
community should be given freedom to decide for themselves their future
states." This was reaffirmed in 1958 by Harold Macmillian. At this stage, with
a declining empire, Britain realised it did not want Cyprus as a military base but
wanted bases in Cyprus. Gradually talks between Greece, Turkey and Britain, with the
UN a very interested onlooker, led to a treaty of alliance and a treaty of guarantee
being accepted in Zurich. Enosis and partition were banned and the two countries
were to work out a system of government among themselves with Britain, Greece and
Turkey. These three states were to guarantee the general state of affairs proposed
under the treaty. Unfortunately, both the Greek Cypriots and the Turkish Cypriots
were suspicious of each other and the details of the shared government were complex
and proved very difficult to operate. Harmony and success very much depended on
consensus, respect for each side and security for the minority.
From 1964 to 1967 there were many attacks on the Turkish Cypriots and in an effort
to counteract the difficulty there the United Nations sent a peacekeeping force to
the island, including an Irish battalion consisting of many soldiers from the
Curragh. The Cypriot ambassador wonders why a Kildare person should show such an
interest in Cyprus. In 1967, Turkey and Greece were on the brink of war and the
Greeks wanted enosis and Turkey favoured a federation of Cyprus. In July 1974,
Archbishop Makarios was overthrown and was flown out of Cyprus. The Turkish premier
flew to Britain to ask Mr. Callaghan to intervene, but no action from any of the
guarantee countries was taken. Countries that had pledged support to make Cyprus
work were found wanting when a crisis arose.
With genuine interest and goodwill by the EU, some help can be given to find a
lasting peace on the island of Cyprus. Cyprus is an applicant or admission to the
EU. This should not be just for part of the island. This would only perpetuate
problems as Greece is a member and Turkey is unlikely to be accepted as a member in
the next draft for enlargement. We continue do drive wedges between the two parts of
the island. There are not direct flights to northern Cyprus. There are grants galore
for the Greeks side for the restoration of ancient sites, among other things, yet we
continue to deny northern Cyprus a market for its produce and access to it by
tourists.
Since Cyprus applied to become a member of the European Union all negotiations have
been carried out by the Greek Cypriot Government, which does not and cannot
represent the people of the entire island. The European Union has never sought a
resolution of the problem as a condition of Cyprus becoming a full member and as a
result, the talks between Mr.Clerides and Mr. Denktash are unlikely to prove
fruitful. There is no incentive for Greek Cypriots to find a solution.
If a divided Cyprus is allowed to become a member of the European Union, serious
problems will arise. The south is recognised by all states except Turkey as the
Republic of Cyprus while the north is recognised only by Turkey, whose forces there
for the defence of northern Cyprus may be accused of occupying the territory of an
EU member state. This scenario is very likely despite the fact that Turkey has a
customs union with the European Union and also been accepted as a candidate for
future membership. It is time we asserted our independence in order to do what we
think is right and just, rather than go along with what our wealthier neighbours
advise."
(end)
|
Western Observations on Greek Blood Lust |
David Howarth wrote:
(In "The Greek adventure - Lord Byron and Other Eccentrics in the War of
Independence," London, 1976, pg. 28):
"Once they (the Greeks) had started... they killed (Turks) because a mad
blood-lust had come upon them all, and everyone was killing"
(Regarding the Greek uprising, which the Metropolitan of
Patras, Germanos, unfurled on April 6, 1821, calling upon the Greeks to join the
rebellion; the first flag of the rebels portrayed a cross over an upturned crescent, or a
cross over a severed Turkish head. Source: William Miller. The Ottoman Empire and its
successors. 1801-1927. 4 vols., London 1966, pg. 71... among other sources.)
William St. Clair wrote:
(In "That Greece Might Still be Free - the Philhellenes in the War of
Independence," London, 1972, pg. 12):
"The savage passion for revenge soon degenerated into a frenzied delight in
killing and horror for their own sakes."
William St. Clair further wrote, (pg.1):
|
Greek
propaganda poster |
"The Turks of Greece left few traces. They disappeared suddenly and finally in
the spring of 1821, unmourned and unnoticed by the rest of the world... Upwards of 20,000
Turkish men, women and children were murdered by their Greek neighbours in a few weeks of
slaughter. They were killed deliberately, without qualm and scruple... Turkish families
living in single farms or small isolated communities were summarily put to death, and
their homes burned down over their corpses. Others, when the disturbances began, abandoned
home to seek the security of the nearest town, but the defenseless streams of refugees
were overwhelmed by bands of armed Greeks. In the smaller towns, the Turkish communities
barricaded their houses and attempted to defend themselves as best they could, but few
survived. In some places they were driven by hunger to surrender to their attackers on
receiving promises of security, but these were seldom honored. The men were killed at
once, and the women and children divided out as slaves, usually to be killed in their turn
later. All over the Peloponnese roamed mobs of Greeks armed with clubs, scythes, and a few
firearms, killing, plundering and burning. They were often led by Christian priests, who
exhorted them to greater efforts in their holy work"
The above "Western" passages were
taken from Professor Salahi Sonyel's excellently researched, "HOW THE TURKS OF THE
PELOPONNESE WERE EXTERMINATED DURING THE GREEK REBELLION"; to read more about the
Greeks' penchant for systematic murder, tune into greekmurderers.net/rebel02.html
Other Western Reports on Greek
Atrocities
|
Holdwater: I'm
not sure of the source of the following... however, it's included mainly for further
reports from the Western press.
WHAT IF MASSACRES OF EOKA START
AGAIN?
ANKARA (INAF) – Al sides want peace in the island. But Turkish Cypriots will for
peace is stronger than others. Because they experienced war and terrors for decades.
The U-turn in Cyprus is the messenger of crucial developments regarding the future
of the island. A smallest mistake may cause a massacre in the island which will be
worse than those lived in Checenia and Bosnia.
The experience from the past revealed that if border gates between Turkish Republic
of Northern Cyprus and Southern Cyprus will be lifted, massacres will take place in
the island. Southern Cyprus which claim sovereignty on the whole island will flow to
Turkish side if the borders will be lifted. They will plunder and conquer homes and
workplaces. Neither Greek Cyprus press or Southern Cyrus administration rejects this
possibility.
Then who will stop the genocide that might begin? Last decade of the world history
was the scene of massacres because international community was not successful to
stop it before it began. Pages of the history is full of massacres staged against
Turks in Cyprus. In this light, there is no need for Turkish Cypriots to believe in
Southern Cyprus administration.
On Monday of 15 July 1974, The Greek army officers who had been based in Cyprus
staged a bloody coup, upon the instructions from Athens, against Makarios with the
backing of EOKA members. Their aim was to eliminate Makarios and his supporters and
then unite Cyprus with Greece (achieving ENOSIS). During the assault, the tanks
commanded by the Greek officers reached up to the gates of the Presidential Palace
beginning to intensively shell the building. Those Greek Cypriots who had
eye-witnessed that Makarios’s men, who were trying to flee from the palace were
burnt with flame-launchers near the exit-gate of the palace remind this horrifying
event at ceremonies held annually on 15 July and damn those who had committed such
murders.
Yet another target of Greece in Cyprus was the Turkish Cypriot Community.
Following the Greece-EOKA aggression, having failed to obtain any results from her
diplomatic initiatives with her allies, Turkey, as one of the guarantors of the
Republic of Cyprus, was obliged to intervene to save from the paw of the “Greek
expansionism”, not only the Turkish community on the island but also the Greek
Cypriots.
As a result of the clashes between the Turkish troops and EOKA members, both the
Turkish side and the other side had casualties and prisoners of war.
For the past 23 years, the Greek-Greek Cypriot camp has hundreds or even thousands
of scenarios on the issue of the missing, based on efforts to misrepresent the Turks
as evil and barbarians.
“Daily Sketch” newspaper, in its issue dated 2 January 1964, carried an
article by Louis Kirby about the “Genocide” by the Greek-Greek Cypriot side,
aiming at the Turks in 1964. A passage is given below from the article:
“And when I came across the Turkish homes they were an appalling sight. Apart from
the walls, they just did not exist. I doubt if a napalm bomb attack could have
created more devastation. I counted 40 blackened brick and concrete “shells”
that had once been homes. Each house had been deliberately set on fire by petrol.
Under red tile roofs which had caved in, I found a twisted mass of bed springs,
children’s cot and cribs and ankle deep grey ashes of what had once been chairs,
tables, wardrobes.
In the neighbouring village of Ayios Vassilios, a mile away, I counted 16 wrecked
and burned out homes, they were all Turkish. From this village more than 100 Turks
had also vanished. In neither villages did I find a scrap of damage to any Greek
house.”
In its “Nicosia” origin report dated 3 January 1964, Bernard Jordan, a British
journalist who was one of the many foreign eyewitnesses of the events in Cyprus, had
the following to say:
“The Turkish houses in the village were set on fire by launching arrows wrapped
with kerosene-wetted pieces of cloth. About one hundred armed EOKA members were
wandering insidiously among the villages..”
Below are given certain excerpts from the reports of foreign journalists who
witnessed the “Genocide” carried out by the Greek-Greek Cypriot duo against the
Turkish Cypriots.
“The Times” of 4 January 1964
“The Imam of the Omorphita (K.Kaymakli) village and his crippled and blind son
were found today dead in their beds. The Turks who returned to Omorphita found Imam
HÜSEYIN IÐNECI riddled with machine-gun bullets.
It is said that Imam, having performed his prayers at the mosque, returned home and
went to bed. Imam HÜSEYIN refused to leave his crippled son alone and stayed with
him. The Turks say that they found further five corpses covered with earth.”
“New York Herald Tribune” of 13 January 1964
“I was allowed to go around the besieged Turkish sector. I was taken to the Kumsal
area and, walking on the broken pieces of glass, I entered into a green-white house
that had a garden of orange trees and around which a stray black-and-white car was
wandering. As if the bathroom of this was a slaughterhouse, everywhere was covered
with blood and a woman and three children were lying in blood in the bath. There was
another dead woman in the adjacent room.”
“Daily Telegraph” of 14 January 1964
“Among the 20 refugees who were brought today from Nicosia to London were also two
British women who came with children. One of these was afraid to disclose her
identity because her husband stayed behind. She said that she witnessed the shooting
and killing of five Turks outside her apartment flat by the Greek Cypriot police.
She described how these unarmed Turks were machine-gunned while their hands were up.”
“Daily Mail” of January 1964
“Silent crowds gathered tonight outside the Red Crescent hospital in the Turkish
sector of Nicosia, as the bodies of nine Turks found crudely buried outside the
village of Ayios Vassilios, 13 miles away, were brought to the hospital under an
escort of the (British) Parachute Regiment. Three more bodies, including one of a
woman, were discovered nearby but they could not be moved.
Turks guarded by (the British) paratroops are still trying to locate the bodies of
20 more believed to have been buried on the same sight. All are believed to have
been killed during fighting around the village at Christmas.
It is thought that a family of seven Turks who disappeared from the village may be
buried here. Their house was found burnt and grenades had been dropped through the
roof.
Shallow graves had apparently been hurriedly scooped by a bulldozer. The bodies
appeared to have been piled in two or three metres deep. All had been shot.
One man had his arms still tied behind his legs in a crouching position and had been
shot through the head. A stomach injury indicated that a grenade may have been
thrown into his lap. The search for the bodies began after it had been learnt that
about 12 Turks were buried on the site which is an old Turkish cemetery. It was
assumed that the bodies would be those of wounded men who had died in Nicosia
hospital, but all those so far recovered were fully dressed and evidently taken to
straight to the rough graves after fighting.”
Daily Herald of 31 December 1963
“We went to the private clinic of Dr. Nail Adiloglu, together with other British
journalists. In a room for 14, there were forty injured. We noticed that there was
neither fear nor tears under the circumstances. I saw that 24-year old Ayse Ibrahim,
shot in the back, lied in the same bed with her four-year old daughter whose knee
was dismembered with bullets. The mother had a stroke and her child would not be
able to walk for the rest of her life. In the meantime I was the bodies of three
Turkish children who were killed and thrown in the same bath. And their mother was
shot dead in another room. This was a horrible scene.”
Daily Telegraph of 14 January 1964
“This evening, we went to the Turkish sector of Nicosia, where 200-300 Turks were
killed within nine days. We were the first Western reporters who went there. We have
seen there indescribably horrifying scenes.”
Il Giorno of 14 January 1964
“It is thought that the seven-member Turkish family who disappeared from the
village may be buried here. Their house was set on fire and demolished with
grenades.”
Le Figaro of 15-16 February 1964
“If Turkey has not reinforced her contingent in Cyprus so far, this is a roof of
Turkey’s patience. Her right to so is undeniable. If the international agreements
mean anything, Turkey can save the Turkish Cypriots from further massacres. This is
the ugliest form of racial discrimination. In order to blur the issue it has been
alleged that both sides are to blame. However, the real culprit is the Greek Cypriot
organisation called EOKA.”
Christian Science Monitor of 17 February 1964
“Robed and bearded Archbishop Makarios has the Byzantine ability of covering up
the realities. The Makarios Government has deliberately started the clashes. He is
determined to destroy the Turkish Cypriots.”
Christian Science Monitor of 19 February 1964
“Greek Cypriots pursue a genocidal policy against the Turkish Cypriots.”
Damnation of the murders committed by the Greek-Greek Cypriot duo against the Turks
in Cyprus between 21 December 1963 and 4 March 1965 will not be lifted from them, so
long as Hellenism exists.
The well-known British writer H. Scott Gibbons is yet another eyewitness to the
Greek-Greek Cypriot atrocities. In one passage of his book “Peace Without Honour”,
he recounts the massacre of 1963 Christmas evening as follows:
“Sounds of gunfire and rifle butts were battering the locked doors; the people
were poured into the streets. A Turkish old man aged seventy was awakened by a
cracking sound on his front door. When he rose from his bed, he faced many armed men
who crowded the room. They asked him, ‘Have you got any children?’ The man, in
an scared manner, said, ‘Yes, I have’. One of those who broke into the house
ordered the old man, ‘Send him outside’. The old man had two sons aged 19 and 17
and a daughter aged 15. They were hurriedly dressed and came out. The raiding Greek
Cypriots lined them up in front of the garden wall and machine-gunned them dead.
In the same raid, in yet another house, a 13-year old boy’s hands were tied behind
his knees and was thrown into a room. While the Greek Cypriots were looting the
house, they were beating up and kicking the boy. And while departing from the house,
they shot him dead from the back of his head.”
On 21 July 1974, Greek Cypriots picked up 25 boys aged between 13 and 16 in Limassol
and took them to a briquette factory. According to the eye-witnesses (who will never
be able to wipe off this terrifying scene from their mind for the rest of their
lives), while they were killing boys by crushing their heads under pressing
machines, they were shouting, “That’s how we eradicate the Turkish race.”
Despite all these massacres and killings, the Greek-Greek Cypriot duo finds the
audacity to allege that 1619 (a number wholly concocted by themselves) Greeks and
Greek Cypriots had been taken as prisoners and killed by the Turks and to thrown
challenges over it without any sense of shame.
What the eyewitnesses account about those days today are unbelievable. One such
eyewitness is SALAHI HILAL, who was taken a prisoner at Dogruyol area and whose
flesh was cut and his blood sucked, by Greek Cypriots. He describes the Greek-Greek
Cypriot atrocity that is not compatible with any principle of war, as follows:
“Greeks and Greek Cypriots who captured me as a prisoner, drew out their daggers
from their belts and became to cut the fleshy parts of my arms and shoulder-heads.
In the meantime, a Greek officer came close to us asking the Greek Cypriots, ‘Has
any of you not drunk yet the Turkish blood?’. Some of them shouted, ‘We have not
drunk it yet’. Upon this, together with the Greek officer, 10-15 Greek Cypriot
soldiers began to suck the blooding oozing from the injuries opened on my flesh.
While I was about to be fainted, they took me outside. I saw a friend of mine who
was a prisoner in their hands, whose hands and feet were tied up. Meanwhile, a Greek
Cypriot drew out the grenade in his belt, removed its safety pin and threw it on to
the imprisoned Turkish soldier. The poor man was cut into pieces. I did not want to
live any longer..”
Genocide aimed at the Turkish Cypriots is full of incredible barbarisms. Murders
committed against the Turks are countless and hair-raising.
As if the blood they have shed in 1960s is not enough, they continued with their
murders in 1974 that have taken the dimension of massacres. Just as the Serbs have
done in Bosnia, the Greeks in Cyprus have killed defenceless civilians just out of
fun.
Let us give some examples:
20 July 1974: Greek militants raid the Alaminos village in Nicosia and machine-gun
to death 14 hand-tied people, most of whom are children and elderly.
21 July 1974: Greek Cypriots raid the village of Gaziveren in Nicosia and
indiscriminately open fire on to each Turk they gun on their way. Result: six are
killed, of whom four are women and 22 injured.
21 July 1974: 26 unarmed Turks in Limassol are killed. 1800 people are taken as
hostages.
23 July 1974: At Angolem in Nicosia Greek Cypriots first torture eight Turks,
including women, children and elderly, and then are killed by shooting them through
the head.
13 August 1974: At Kithasi village in Paphos, an old couple was killed with an axe.
14 August 1974: At Tokhni and Mari villages in Larnaca, 50 and 40 Turks are
massacred and put into mass-graves, respectively.
14-15 August 1974: In Famagusta district, Greek Cypriots line up and kill with
machine-guns and then bury en masse and then burn with petrol, 54 people of the
57-person Turkish population of the Atlilar (Aloa) village, the entire 57 people of
the Sandallar (Sandallaris) village and the entire 82 people of the Murataga
(Maratha) village, not even sparing 2-3 year-old children.
15 August 1974: In Paphos, two children aged five and three are used by the Greek
Cypriot soldiers as shooting targets and are killed with hundreds of shots. This
scene almost drive mad the eyewitnesses.
16 August 1974: At Ayios Ioannis village in Paphos, seven Turks, one of whom is a
woman, are tortured to death.
12 November 1974: Three children aged between 3 and 16 and two women are killed
while going to the Turkish area from the Greek area.
These are the murder-cases by the Greek-Greek Cypriot due, determined by the Unites
Nations documents. Atrocities of the Greek-Greek Cypriot camp are not that much
only. There are more than one thousand Turkish Cypriots who, in the period of
1963-74, have gone missing without leaving any trace behind, whose bodies have been
burnt and buried or put into mass-graves in the Greek-controlled areas.
If those who force today the Turkish Cypriots to live intermingled with the Greek
Cypriots, who exercise pressure on Turkey, who impose embargoes on the Turkish
Cypriots wish to be a bit “fair”, they should come to the TRNC and see the
realities themselves.
They should see people: whose organs were cut and who were forced at gunpoint to eat
them; whose chests were incised and crosses were engraved on them; whose family
members were killed before their eyes, and who try to survive despite all their
pains and sufferings.
|
Greeks Call for the Turkish Leader Who Gave the Order to Intervene to
be Tried for War Crimes |
"Nicosia, Jun 3 (CNA) -- The American Hellenic
Institute has called for the indictment of Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit for crimes
against Cyprus and the Kurds, stating the precedent of the indictment of Serbian President
Slobodan Milosevic.
In a letter to the US State Department Ambassador at Large for War Crimes Issues, David
Scheffer, the General Counsel of the Institute, Eugene Rossides, states that the decision
for the indictment of Milosevic "creates an important precedent of indicting an
incumbent Head of Government".
He says that "the obvious analogy is Turkey's Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit" with
regard to Cyprus and the Kurds.
Rossides states that "Ecevit initiated the illegal 1974 Turkish invasion of Greek
Cyprus with the illegal use of US-supplied arms, during which some 200.000 Greek Cypriots
were forced from their homes by the Turkish armed forces".
He adds that "over 4.000 Greek Cypriots were murdered" during the invasion,
"including five Americans, who had been kidnapped by the Turkish forces".
"In the course of the occupation" of the northern third of the island, he
continues, "the few Greek Cypriots who were not ethnically cleansed from the areas
under illegal Turkish occupation have been subject to persistent persecution on political,
racial and religious grounds", adding that "Greek Cypriot religious and cultural
sites have been devastated".
Referring to the Kurds, Rossides says that "during Turkey's 15-year war against the
Kurds, over 2,5 million Kurds have been forced from their homes and 2.600-3.000 villages
have been torched or razed".
He adds that "some 30.000 innocent Kurds have been killed by the Turkish army"
and that "extrajudicial killings, torture and deprivation of elementary civil and
human rights have been routine".
Rossides stresses that Ecevit and other senior military and political officials are also
culpable.
"I trust", he adds, "that the US will exploit the precedent provided"
to institute proceedings to indict Ecevit and other Turkish officials in the International
Criminal Court.
Rossides sent copies of his letter to US President Bill Clinton and US Administration and
Congress officials."
Holdwater: Unbelievable, isn't
it? The disgraceful degree of lies and deceit some Orthodox folks can sink to?
Let's see, now... we learn from
Greek sources above that, first, the Greek government decreed the intervention was legal, and yet this adorable Rossides fellow calls it
"illegal." He also claims "over 4.000 Greek Cypriots were murdered" by
the Turks, and yet we learned from "The Turth is Out," above,
that the numbers were "slightly" less. (96, and still counting... killed mainly
at the hands of fellow Greeks.)
And what did Ecevit have to do with
the Kurds, anyway? Did the PKK conflict begin
during Ecevit's Cyprus intervention-era administration, the 1970s? (The article is from
1999, and Mr. Rossides helpfully tells us the Kurdish conflict lasted "15
years." Let's see... subtract fifteen from 1999, and you get... well, you are welcome
to do the math.)
I wonder how shrill Mr. Rossides was,
calling for the indictment of Slobodan Milosevic, before the Yugoslavian leader got sent
to the Hague? (Greece turned a very blind eye to the crimes of the Serbs during the Bosnian and related conflicts.)
How does this intellectual sleep at night? It is stomach-churning, the lack of ethics some
forms of humanity have.
Favorite guestbook commentator Nick
responds further:
From: NICK
Date: 11/12/99
Comments
The American Hellenic Institute has called for the indictment of Ecevit........Well, let's
all run for cover then. Then we can dig up Makarios and charge him too!--"Until
this small community forming part of the Turkish race, which has been the terrible enemy
of Hellenism is expelled from Cyprus the duty of the heroes of EOKA can never be
considered as terminated." (1962)---"If Turkey comes in order to
save Turkish Cypriots Turkey will find no Turkish Cypriots to save..." (1964).
And this from the President of Cyprus and a "man of God." A call for ethnic
cleansing? A call for genocide? "Makarios's central interest was to block off
the Turkish intervention so that he and his Greek Cypriots could go on happily massacring
Turkish Cypriots.." — George Ball, US Envoy. So, who exactly is the
criminal here — Makarios, who engineered the destruction of the Cypriot constitution and
the ethnic cleansing and murder of his fellow citizens, or Ecevit who intervened to
prevent the annexation of Cyprus by Greece as he was entitled to do under the Treaty of
Guarantee? We did cover this a long time ago but, for the slower contributors out there
who evidently couldn't grasp a fact if it bit them, I can cover it again.
Holdwater loves the Briton,
Nick... not only does he have his facts straight, he knows how to express himself in the
language the genocide and related topics are often discussed in the international
arena. (Of course, his logic and rationale always falls on deaf ears among our
Orthodox friends, but that will usually be the case.) Below are a few other Cyprus-related
thoughts, by Nick.
"...
If the Turks did not take Cyprus, or if they had left it a generation or two
longer, all Cypriots would be Catholic today; in 1571 the Orthodox church in Cyprus
was moribund."
|
From: NICK
Date: 11/20/1999
Comments
Hi Sikader, I was interested to read your accounts of events in Cyprus and relating to
Cyprus. Well, we can trade injustices all day long and go back into the distant past. We
could even go back to 1571 when the Turks took Cyprus from Venice and liberated the
Orthodox church after generations of Catholic suppression. In fact, it would be fair say
(assuming fairness ever enters these discussions) that if the Turks did not take Cyprus,
or if they had left it a generation or two longer, all Cypriots would be Catholic today;
in 1571 the Orthodox church in Cyprus was moribund. Anyway, be that as it may, I think a
much more rational place to start a discussion on Cyprus is that point at which there was
last agreement- 1959/60. There was an agreed constitution, there were international
treaties- in short, there was a framework for a workable arrangement. In fact, Makarios
himself said it was a fair and equitable agreement. It is a shame he did not maintain that
opinion. One gets the impression that this comment was for the negotiating table and not
for practice as the quotes I gave you a while ago would seem to indicate. In reality, the
break down of the agreement in Cyprus was due to the fact that Greek Cypriot extremists
were not willing to live up to a compromise agreed by everybody else. If that were not bad
enough, the Greek government tries to annex the place in breach of its international
treaty obligations. These are the facts that need acknowledgement if a negotiated
agreement is going to emerge because these breakdowns were caused at a political level by
Makarios, Grivas, Samson and others — including the Greek government. As far a Cyprus is
concerned Turkish actions have always been reactive, not proactive. Turkish Cypriots were,
in effect, the victims of a collective mugging in 1963 and nobody did anything practical
or effective about it and there was no willingness on behalf of the Cypriot authorities
(Greek) to correct what had been done. It took ten years for Turkey to actually do
something concrete, and that was only in response to meddling by Athens. The suggestion
that The Treaty of Guarantee excluded the option of an armed response is incorrect- and
ridiculous — I wonder what reception a delegation of unarmed Turkish policemen would
have had. "I say chaps, sorry to bother you and all that, but we have a copy of your
constitution and you have clearly broken it — also according to this treaty I have in my
hand we can...." BANG
THE DISCUSSION CONTINUES...
I love the way you always try to lay the blame on someone else — the Greek junta was
"imposed" by the west! Please — nothing is that simple. Supported maybe,
imposed — I don't think so. Besides, the Anglo-Americans certainly did not encourage the
junta to annex Cyprus in 74 — this would have been popular with Greeks had it succeeded
and that is why it was attempted. The British offered Cyprus to Greece in WWI — so what.
The point is that as of 1960 there was an agreement sanctioned by international treaty and
a perfectly workable constitution. All parties involved undertook to maintain the
constitution and agreed that Cyprus was never to become a part of any other state
(articles I & II of the Treaty of Guarantee) and the guarantor powers had the right to
intervene if the constitution were overthrown (article IV of the Treaty of Guarantee).
This is the agreement — compromise. Before the ink was dry however, Makarios —
ostensibly the leader of all Cypriots — was busy undermining the constitution; "the
agreements do not form a goal — they are the present not the future. The Greek Cypriot
people will continue their national cause...." Sikader, the will clearly was not
there and it is also clear that Makarios was not negotiating in good faith. He always
intended to break his word. You can not blame this on outside forces. Makarios, with local
extremists, engineered the collapse of the constitution in 1963. Even the Greek government
of the day was embarrassed by what was in effect the overthrow of the legal government of
Cyprus — a coup. The Turks had the right to intervene then but, due to a whole range of
reasons, did not. They restricted themselves to limited air operations and threats. Cyprus
was a home grown crisis and you can't avoid this by saying the Turks are responsible for
something else, somewhere else earlier — 1955 in Istanbul for example. If you want to do
that we can go spiraling back in time trading horror stories until....... Well, until the
fall of Constantinople where in the minds of so many Greeks, all of this starts. But that
would not achieve anything. The Turks are here and they are here to stay. Going on about
past injustices is a dead end street; the Turks themselves could come up with plenty of
grievances if they wanted to trawl through the last 150-200 years. In Cyprus, start in
1959 and work from there.
Nick, the Brit with True Grit, now
writes wonderful essays for TAT.
Dr.
Nakratzas Tells Us What Happened in 1963 ("Section C")
|
Open Letter to a few hundred Greeks, for your
information
Mr Vitaliotis,
Normally I do not answer letters from correspondents with a different ideological
position, because most of them are not only ideologically abusive but also
shamelessly vituperative in expression.
Your letter, I must admit, was extremely polite,
and for that reason I am replying to it in this e-mail.
A) In your letter you say « First of all let me
state that I am Albanian by descent, 33 years of age, that my national consciousness
is Greek, that I love the Albanian language and that I try, with the modest means at
my disposal, to save it from oblivion » You will permit me to warn you that Mr
Bletsas, Greek by nationality and consciousness and Vlach by descent, was sentenced,
for the very cause you mention, to 15 months imprisonment and a fine of 500,000
drachmas.
B) In another part of your letter you make the
following astonishing statement:
« I am sorry, however, not that you have a different national consciousness -
wholly understandable, I am aware of the history of the Slavo-Macedonians, and your
absolute right - ».
I am not, for your information, a
Slavo-Macedonian, as you call the ethnic Macedonians, but I have, like you, a
national consciousness that is 100% Greek, and this I will have as long as I live.
Of course, my national identity bears no relation to that conceived by Mr
Paraskevaïdis, better known as Archbishop of Athens Chrystodoulos. As for the
latter, I have my doubts.
C) With regard to my letter to Mr Prodi, you
write that « The excesses and atrocities committed by both sides in Cyprus in the
1960s are well known; at least, all serious (and unblinkered) Greeks and Greek
Cypriots know what their compatriots did there ».
You will allow me to tell you that unfortunately young people in Greece today know
virtually nothing about what happened in Cyprus over Christmas of 1963, when crimes
were committed chiefly by the three parastatal military groups led by Lyssaridis,
Sampson and Georgatzis.
These bodies were armed, with the familiar Czech
weapons, by Makarios himself and were intended to back the forcible imposition of
the Akritas plan if the Turkish Cypriots should reject the 13 amendments to the
Cypriot Constitution. Abolition of these 13 articles would have stripped the Turkish
Cypriots of all their minority rights.
As Head of State Archbishop Makarios bore the
entire liability for any crimes perpetrated by these gentlemen, because his mission
was to protect all those living in Cyprus.
For your further information I am forwarding by
Attachment my two letters to Mr Prodi.
D) At the end of your letter you make another
astonishing statement:
« your letter is monumentally dishonest, in the sense that it is a deliberate
distortion of fact to someone else's benefit ».
The strangest thing about this is that, even in my discussions with responsible
members of the Cypriot community, they all accepted that everything I said in my
article had indeed taken place. Only one person, who also accepted the truth of what
I wrote, had any objection to make, and that was that it is rumoured that the
terrible crime of the murder of the wife of the Turkish major and their three small
children, in a bathtub in their house, was the work of Turks, in order to calumniate
the Greek Cypriots !!!!!!
I think, Mr Vitaliotis, that even you will
realise that any Turkish government that accepted a federal solution, that consented
in other words to the return of Mr Lyssaridis and his fellows to the Turkish Cypriot
sector, would be strung up in the main square of Ankara.
The only solution is a Confederation, or a loose
Federation, with a constitutional provision prohibiting Greek or Greek Cypriot
troops from entering the Turkish Cypriot sector of the island. This would guarantee,
100%, both the physical safety of the Turkish Cypriots and also the existence of a
single Cypriot state, which is in the interests of Greek and Turkish Cypriots alike.
Dr Georgios Nakratzas
Chest physician - Writer
Thessalonica
Rotterdam 26.11.2001
Political Advisor to the ?F? on Greek and Balkan minority affairs.
?F?: European Free Alliance.
Minority political group in the European Parliament.
|
Greeks with Integrity Coming Out of the Woodwork! |
(The emboldening below is
Holdwater's doing.)
GREEK CYPRIOT AUTHOR EXPLAINS GREEK CYPRIOT ATROCITIES
Greek Cypriot author, Antonis Angastiniyotis, who questioned
Greek Cypriot nationalism in his written works and in his documentary "The
Voice of Blood" drew attention to the mass massacres carried out by the Greek
Cypriots against the Turkish Cypriots, dedicated his new article entitled,
"Barbarism Against the Turkish Cypriots.The other side of the coin", to
the Turkish Cypriot schoolchildren who were brutally massacred in Murataga
in 1974 and brought to light the Greek Cypriot brutality.
In his article Angastiniyotis said:
"I'm constantly asked why I'm opening old wounds and not letting the past to be
forgotten. The answer is very simple. The wounds are not old, otherwise there
wouldn't be mothers dressed in black, weapons, soldiers and borders. Although I've
lived on this island for 40-years, I only began to explore the other half of the
realities last year and what I discovered bore a deep wound in my soul.
When I got over the propaganda wall and realized that people were knowingly hiding
the other half of the reality or they were distorting the reality, the past now
becomes a frightening 'present.' If you want to find more than one reality, you
need to constantly dig the soil until your hands are bloody. If you talk, they
say you are a traitor, threaten your life, and most of your friends turn their backs
on you. You can be totally alone.
Loneliness no longer frightens me. For a long
time now, at nights a group of children from Murataga come to my bed and together we
read short stories. They smile happily at me because I have told their stories to
the world, whereas I am engulfed in tears because of not being able to count the
number of bullet wounds in their small bodies before they leave. The wounds cannot
be old because when I wake up I find blood stains on my white sheets. The wounds
cannot be old because up until now no one has apologized.
The animosity between the Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots is not new. It didn't
start in 1974, or in 1963, nor when the Byzantium Empire collapsed. It started much
earlier; it started during the Cain and Abel period. The start of the
animosity is in the hearts of the people and as long as it remains there, we will
seek the opportunity to bury Cain's dead body or take revenge from Abel.
The purpose of writing this book is social, not political. However, it is not
possible to avoid the political aspects of the events. The main aim is to address
every Cypriot, especially the Greek Cypriots. Because I also learned to look at the
political situation of Cyprus from this point of view.
Both the domestic tension created by the 24 April 2004 referendum with the aim of
reunifying the island (Annan Plan) and my daily contacts with the world, takes me to
only one conclusion. Extreme nationalism that is deeply rooted in peoples' hearts
is the biggest obstacle for people to reconcile. For the situation to change permission
must be given to explain the realities regarding the dark corners of history.
It's not possible for people to clean their souls without regretting what they've
done and it's not possible for them to regret what they've done without
acknowledging their faults.
The majority of the Greek Cypriot youth know very little about the events that led
to the island's division. The tragic events of 1974 have been used as a huge curtain
to cover up the real events that led to the division of the two people. In our
schools it has always surprised me that while talking about the heroism of EOKA,
they skip 15-years and continue with 1974. Either nothing happened between 1960 and
1974, or no one wants to discuss this. While researching the events during this
period (1960-74), I realized that the second choice was right.
|
Archbishop
Makarios (from ATTILA '74) |
When I started to write this research, my
cousin from Greece and her two daughters came to visit me and we started to discuss
the events of 1963-74. The daughters knew nothing and what their mother knew was
very confusing. At one stage of the discussion I mentioned some of the Greek Cypriot
leadership's mistakes and all of a sudden this brought out the nationalist monster
in my cousin who said: "Makarios' biggest mistake was not to have killed all
the Turkish Cypriots in order for us to be comfortable."
This sweet and pretty woman, who couldn't even
kill an ant, had suddenly turned into a killer who could carry out mass murders.
She wanted a whole race to be wiped out. This is what I said to her: "In other
words, do you mean taking out all the children from school, all mothers with their
babies and all the men from their work places and taking them to a big hole in
Messaria and murder them. Do you want to be one of the murder(er)s or ... one of the
persons using the bulldozer to cover the mass graves."
There was silence. The example I gave helped her to understand the meaning of what
she said. Then I started to speak again. "We tried this before in Ayvasil,
Murataga, Atlilar, Taskent, but the only thing we succeeded in was soughing the
fruits of our efforts".
|
Tony
Angastiniotis |
Since our childhood we
were taught that the Turks were barbaric dogs. My aunt used to say to me that
they smelled because they weren't baptised. Whereas according to the Bible, we are
modern Christians who love their environment. Then, why did our religious leader
Makarios in 1964 say that 'If Turkey comes to intervene to protect the Turkish
Cypriots, she will not find a single Turkish Cypriot to save.' The answer is
clear. In Cyprus there is a saying, 'another priest's sermon'. In certain situations
this enables us to hate. This book will deal with some of these special
situations.
While there are those who claim that 'the Cyprus problem started in 1974 and the
problem is an issue of invasion and can be settled if the invading forces withdrew
from the island,' the Turkish Cypriots know well what they would be faced with if
Turkish troops left the island. Because the bitter pain of the 11-years before
the arrival of the Turkish troops has not been erased from their memories. The EU
should (say) to Papadopoulos, 'the Turkish troops brought peace to Cyprus, they are
the protectors of peace because as you arm yourself to take over the whole of Cyprus
under the usurped title of the Cyprus Government, the Turkish Cypriots have the
right to be protected and to protect their state against you'.
Those who (value) peace, unification and reconciliation should see the realities and
act realistically. The realities in Cyprus have been ignored for 40-years. These
realities are the existence of two equal peoples in Cyprus with the right to
self-determination and that neither one of these sides can dominate or represent the
other and does not have the right to be the sole government of the whole of
Cyprus."
Holdwater:
Bravo, Mr. Angastiniyotis; you are very courageous, and a necessary reminder of how
wonderful and honorable the Greek people can be. You have also hit the nail on the
head with the way many Armenians think. BRAVO!
ADDENDUM, 9-06: Another article
on the brave man.
|
MORE OF MAKARIOS'
ANTICS
Daily Express
1964
CYPRUS IS IN FLAMES
The islanders are butchering one another.
Yet what does President Makarios do?
He haughtily refuses to endorse the Anglo-
American peace-keeping plan.
He argues about matters of prestige and protocol.
He plays at diplomacy while scores of people
die.
Rarely in history has a Churchman shown such
scant concern for human suffering as Archbishop
Makarios. He has not only failed as a statesman,
he has disgraced his cloth.
* * *
Daily Express
Stephen Harper
1964
TURKS MUST SURRENDER OR DIE
The Greeks pounded the Turkish Quarter of Nikosia
with fire from mortars, bazookas and mashine guns.
the Greeks warned the British that they would be shot
if they got in the way of the attack.
The Greeks are demanding unconditional surrender
and a complete take-over of the town by their men.
The British authorities offered to send vehicles to
evacuate Turkish women and children, but the Greeks
would not allow it.
* * *
Sunday Express
Derek Lamber
1964
BIG NEW PUSH BY CYPRUS GREEKS
The Greek Cypriots attacked in force today - overrunning mountain
positions held by the Turks and threatening their garrison in the
towering castle of St. Hilarion.
The Greeks who claim to have killed 15 Turks in their action, used
heavy mortars and machine guns. They are now two miles from
the castle. A UN spokesman said: "This is the most dangerous
military development we have had to face in Cyprus."
A spokesman for the Turkish Cypriots said: "This is war. The Greeks
are trying to annihilate our villages in the plain below St. Hilarion".
* * *
The Sunday Telegraph
1964
HOSTILE COMMUNITY !
President Makarios' strategy is now becoming clear,
the establishment of massive military preponderance,
international support for the principle of " unfettered
freedom" based on majority rule and the acceptance
of his de facto Greek Government by The Turkish Cypriots.
His aim is for a long-term campaign to wear down the
Turks by economic pressure until they agree to give up
their special community powers and live in Cyprus as a
non-privileged minority.
* * *
NOTE:
Unfortunately, those isolation measures still continue
today , and with EU support. No direct flights or trade links
allowed . Everything Turkish is illegal while all Greek is
legal!
QUESTION (?) : To the EU President
With what justification? Legal or illegal, according to which LAW?
The Greeks are now EU members (with mother Greece),
why should the Turkish Cypriots continue to suffer?
EU President Austria must answer this questions !!
— Kufi Seydali, April 16, 2006
|
Burden rests on Greeks to solve
'Cyprus problem'
By Rep. Dan Burton
House Committee on International Relations
On Dec. 19, The Washington Times printed an Op-Ed column by Rep. Rush Holt, New
Jersey Democrat, titled "History can still be made: Europe should usher Turkey into
the Union." In it, he asserts that the "Cyprus problem" must be solved.
(Since 1974, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus has governed the northern third of
the island, while the Republic of Cyprus (ROC) has governed the southern two-thirds of the
island.) He then cites the European Union's recent failure to give Turkey a firm date to
begin EU accession negotiations and asserts that Turkey needs to "push Turkish
Cypriot leader [Rauf] Denktash to broker a compromise solution on Cyprus" if it ever
hopes to join the European Union.
While I appreciate Mr. Holt's effort to bring Greek and Turkish Cypriots together, as
someone who has worked on the Cyprus issue for 20 years, I would be remiss if I did not
point out a few important things about Cyprus that he didn't mention.
Unfortunately, few members of Congress seem to have a thorough understanding of the
history of Cyprus, specifically the period from 1960 to 1974. Without this understanding,
it is impossible to fully appreciate and adequately address the modern-day security
concerns of Turkish Cypriots. Let's review the facts.
* It was Archbishop Makarios III, a Greek Cypriot and the first president of Cyprus, who
devised a plan for "enosis" (union with Greece) immediately after assuming
office in 1960.
* It was Greek Cypriots who next ousted all Turkish Cypriot leaders from their elected
positions in the Cypriot government, and by so doing, destroyed the bicommunal character
of the government.
* It was Greek Cypriots, joined by the Greek army, who, in 1963, initiated an 11-year
reign of terror against Turkish Cypriots, killing one out of every 120 Turkish Cypriots
and destroying more than 100 Turkish Cypriot villages despite the presence of U.N.
peacekeeping troops.
In short, this is the tragic history of Cyprus, and it was in response to this terror that
the Turkish military intervened on Cyprus in 1974. If the ROC, Greece and the
international community ever hope to erase these painful memories and truly want to
achieve a lasting reunification on Cyprus, then they must come to realize that no
settlement will ever be possible until the security of the Turkish Cypriots is guaranteed
and the Greek Cypriots accept the Turkish Cypriots as equal partners in any future
government. Until these conditions are met, there's no point to further reunification
negotiations. Furthermore, penalizing Turkey will not help the cause of reunification. It
was very disconcerting that Mr. Holt chose to place the burden on Turkey to achieve a
Cyprus settlement and chose to use Turkey's admission to the European Union as a
bargaining chip to achieve this goal.
Might I remind Mr. Holt that when one community attempts to annihilate another
community for 11 years, the burden rests with the aggressor, not the victim, to create a
new political framework under which the victim can once again feel secure. The ROC and
Greece should be bending over backwards to craft a settlement that is acceptable to the
Turkish Cypriots, not the other way around.
(Emphasis above is Holdwater's.)
A nice wrap-up on the Cyprus story by Prof. Mahmut Ozan
Michael Cacoyannis's propagandistic stripes: Attila '74
Further: North Cyprus President
Denktas' Last Interview in Office
Pierre Oberling on Greek/Greek
Cypriot Conspiracy with the E.U.
|
|