Cyprus-Forum.com

[Tim Drayton]

I am a British national who has settled permanently on this island. You may object to me intervening in a question that rightly should be settled by Cypriots on their own without outside interference, but a peice of graffiti that I have just witnessed has impelled me to comment. On a fence around a building site in a central area of Limassol somebody has spray painted the words (in English) "Kill Turks" three times. If you don't believe me, it is on the main road to Mesa Geitonia just after Makarios Avenue. Given this island's bloody recent history I am amazed that anybody can write such words, even if they think it is a joke. It is not so long ago that innocent people on this island were being slaughtered for the sole crime of having Turkish ethnic origin: 15 November 1967 in Kifinou/Geçitkale and 15 August 1974 in Tochni/Taşkent being two examples. Against this context this is a very sick joke indeed. By the way, I well appreciate that innocent Greek Cypriots have suffered greatly, and indeed those who continue to be deprived of the basic right to access their own homes continue to do so. I also realise that you cannot tar a whole community with the same brush and these monstrous acts were the work of criminals. However, when such a blatantly offensive peice of graffiti appears not to cause the slightest outrage within this community, one starts to wonder. I know Germany well, and I can assure you that if somebody were to write "kill Jews" on a wall there, this would provoke a major outrage, it would be cleaned off immediately, and efforts would be made to find the prepetrator. What does this show? Germany wishes to put its Nazi past behind it. So, does this island really wish to put its past behind it? For years, the nationalists in the north of Cyprus used to spout the propaganda line that without the heavily fortified green line and a massive presence of Turkish troops "We would all be slaughtered in our beds at night". Now that the barricades have come down and Cypriots cross freely in both directions, this discourse appears to be bankrupt. Or so I thought - but having witnessed this peice of graffiti and the total absence of any reaction to it locally, I wonder if this is so. Greek Cypriots need to make up their minds. Is this an island on which people of all ethnic origins can live together in peace? Then why does the appearance of such offensive graffiti appear to evoke not the slightest reaction among you? Or do at least a number of you harbour the sentiment expressed in the words "kill Turks" painted on this wall? If so, then the Turkish Cypriots are surely perfectly justified in barricading themselves into their ethnically-cleansed enclave and relying on their "Motherland" to protect them. Which is it to be?

[Piratis]

Tim, if you are going to refer to history, yes some 100s of Turks were killed, and some 10s of thousands of Cypriots, so that about the past.

Today what we have is a cease fire between Cyprus and Turkey, who is occupying 1/3rd of our country. We do not have peace, since peace can only come when the turkish occupations ends.

Would you be amazed if during World War II you found a slogan in France saying "Kill Germans"? Or would you be amazed if the French would actually go and kill Germans in order to get their country back? I don't think so.

So why are you so amazed that Cypriots are ready to fight for the liberation of their country against the enemy who is illegally occupying our island? If the Turks would allow Cyprus to exercise its sovereignty over the island and Cypriots to return to their homes, then everything would be fine. But guess what those 40.000 Turkish troops will do if we try with peaceful means to take what is ours? If you guessed "Kill Cypriots", thats the right answer.

This is why a solution is needed, so legality and peace can be restored without any more bloodshed. This is what we are trying for, and we will continue doing so. Until then however nobody can deny the right that Cypriots have to fight for the liberation of their country against the invading Turks.

[Kifeas]

I am a British national who has settled permanently on this island. You may object to me intervening in a question that rightly should be settled by Cypriots on their own without outside interference, but a peice of graffiti that I have just witnessed has impelled me to comment. On a fence around a building site in a central area of Limassol somebody has spray painted the words (in English) "Kill Turks" three times. If you don't believe me, it is on the main road to Mesa Geitonia just after Makarios Avenue. Given this island's bloody recent history I am amazed that anybody can write such words, even if they think it is a joke. It is not so long ago that innocent people on this island were being slaughtered for the sole crime of having Turkish ethnic origin: 15 November 1967 in Kifinou/Geçitkale and 15 August 1974 in Tochni/Taşkent being two examples. Against this context this is a very sick joke indeed. By the way, I well appreciate that innocent Greek Cypriots have suffered greatly, and indeed those who continue to be deprived of the basic right to access their own homes continue to do so. I also realise that you cannot tar a whole community with the same brush and these monstrous acts were the work of criminals. However, when such a blatantly offensive peice of graffiti appears not to cause the slightest outrage within this community, one starts to wonder. I know Germany well, and I can assure you that if somebody were to write "kill Jews" on a wall there, this would provoke a major outrage, it would be cleaned off immediately, and efforts would be made to find the prepetrator. What does this show? Germany wishes to put its Nazi past behind it. So, does this island really wish to put its past behind it? For years, the nationalists in the north of Cyprus used to spout the propaganda line that without the heavily fortified green line and a massive presence of Turkish troops "We would all be slaughtered in our beds at night". Now that the barricades have come down and Cypriots cross freely in both directions, this discourse appears to be bankrupt. Or so I thought - but having witnessed this peice of graffiti and the total absence of any reaction to it locally, I wonder if this is so. Greek Cypriots need to make up their minds. Is this an island on which people of all ethnic origins can live together in peace? Then why does the appearance of such offensive graffiti appear to evoke not the slightest reaction among you? Or do at least a number of you harbour the sentiment expressed in the words "kill Turks" painted on this wall? If so, then the Turkish Cypriots are surely perfectly justified in barricading themselves into their ethnically-cleansed enclave and relying on their "Motherland" to protect them. Which is it to be?

From the content of your above message, something tells me that is you that has painted the above words on a wall, so that you will use them as an excuse to contact anti-GC and pro-Turkish propaganda! Did you also make some photos of the "painted words" on the wall, so that you can show them to everybody in this forum, as an evidence of how "evil" many of the GCs are, and to prove how "right" the TCs are to demand the continuation of the illegal occupation of northern Cyprus by Turkey?

Are the TCs the only ones that have been slaughtered by the other side? Didn't the opposite happen as well, by both TCs and the Turkish army, but you forgot to mention it? Are you sure you went to the occupied north and you haven't seen similar provocative messages painted on any walls?

It is good to be concerned by such attitudes and behaviour, but please, when you wish to make propaganda, at least know how to do it without been noticed! Your above message was biased and one-sided, no matter how you have tried to trick us of the opposite!

[zan]

There you go Tim. I would have been wrong to have jumped in with both feet and replied to you but Piratis has said more than any of us TCs can ever say. We are not believed. You have heard it from the horses mouth. Hellenism lives on its its worse state. Aggression is justified in numbers as they try to do with ownership of land. It does not matter if you kill 18% of the people if that is what the majority wants. Democracy the Hellenistic way.

[Get Real!]

I am a British national who has settled permanently on this island. You may object to me intervening in a question that rightly should be settled by Cypriots on their own without outside interference,

I object to your intervening not on the grounds of your ethnicity but on the grounds of your lack of education.

According to “Minor Atrocities of the Twentieth Century” we have the following casualty figures:

1. Cyprus (1955-59)
o WPA3
UK: 142
Turkish Cypriots: 84
Greek Cypriots: 278
o B&J: 100 UK + 500 Cypriots
o 11 Nov. 2000 Times [London]: 100 British soldiers

2. Cyprus (1963-67)
o B&J: 1,000

3. Cyprus (1974)
o Clodfelter: 4,500-6,000 Greeks mil/civ k + 2,000-3,000 missing/presumed d. + 300 Turkish mil. k. [= 6,800-9,300]
o Eckhardt: 3,000 civ. + 2,000 mil. = 5,000 (1975-85)
o B&J: 5,000 (1974-78 )
o John J. Mearsheimer (Aug. 1990 Atlantic Monthly): 1,500 to 5,000
o Singer:
Turkey: 1000
Cyprus: 500
o WHPSI: 917 deaths from political violence, 1974

Taken from…

http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstatx.htm

The Greek Cypriots did not wake up one fine morning and unanimously decide to hate Turkey for the heck of it but it’s the gradual result of 3.5 centuries of atrocities caused by Turks against Cyprus that yielded the negative sentiments.

A little study in the history of Cyprus starting from the 1500's will go a long way in understanding the country you have chosen to live in.

Regards, GR.

[Kifeas]

It is not so long ago that innocent people on this island were being slaughtered for the sole crime of having Turkish ethnic origin: 15 November 1967 in Kifinou/Geçitkale and 15 August 1974 in Tochni/Taşkent being two examples.

He even knows how to spell the Turkish name of Kofinou, even though he has managed to misspell the Greek name, and then he claims that he is a "British" that now lives in Limassol!



Tim, tells us first the name of the Turkish propaganda book that you got the above information from, and then if you do not mind tell us also your (real) Turkish name! You jackass "Tim Drayton!" You smell from a thousand miles away!

[Piratis]

Who said anything about killing 18% of the people? I talked about killing the invadors who occupy our island so we can restore legality and human rights. The aggressor in this case are the Turks who invaded and illegally occupy a sovereign country, not the Cypriots who want to defend their country from the foreign invadors.

[zan]

The man asked if we were right to fear reprisals and justify the need for Turkish soldiers. You and Piratis have given him his answer and the likes of Kikapu and Birkibrisli who have called me names in this respect. I hope now they will open their eyes and ears.

[Get Real!]

There you go Tim. I would have been wrong to have jumped in with both feet and replied to you but Piratis has said more than any of us TCs can ever say. We are not believed. You have heard it from the horses mouth. Hellenism lives on its its worse state. Aggression is justified in numbers as they try to do with ownership of land. It does not matter if you kill 18% of the people if that is what the majority wants. Democracy the Hellenistic way.

Emotional and irrelevant drivel!

You heard a couple of rifle shots ring out in 1963 and now you're confusing yourself with the Jews in the holocaust! I wonder how many "poems" you would've written had a couple Turkish napalms landed on your thick head instead...

[zan]

There you go Tim. I would have been wrong to have jumped in with both feet and replied to you but Piratis has said more than any of us TCs can ever say. We are not believed. You have heard it from the horses mouth. Hellenism lives on its its worse state. Aggression is justified in numbers as they try to do with ownership of land. It does not matter if you kill 18% of the people if that is what the majority wants. Democracy the Hellenistic way.

Emotional and irrelevant drivel!

You heard a couple of rifle shots ring out in 1963 and now you're confusing yourself with the Jews in the holocaust! I wonder how many "poems" you would've written had a couple Turkish napalms landed on your thick head instead...

Not about me and I have seen the picture of you sitting with TCs that you hate so you did not come out of it too bad either. Perhaps your thick skull saved you also. Read what you guys did to my people and then what you intend to do and then we can talk. A couple of bullets that drove me out of my country and is still hanging over my peoples heads. You trying to belittle the prejudices that my people went through in their own country and displaces all ovr the world does not take away your guilt mate.