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Rights Court slams Turkey

over failure to trace missing


Angelos Marcopoulos reports from Strasbourg


IN A judgement with immense implications for Cyprus Turkey was condemned by the Strasbourg-based Human Rights Court of the Council of Europe this week for failing to take any action to trace thousands of people reported missing in Turkey following military action against the Kurds.

The Court unanimously found Turkey guilty"of disregarding its essential responsibilities to conduct a thorough and effective investigation" on the fate of people who disappeared following their arrest by Turkish troops.

The European Convention of Human Rights "requires a thorough and effective investigation capable of leading to the identification and punishment of those responsible (for the disappearances)," the Court ruled.

"This is also essential in maintaining public confidence in the Rule of Law and in preventing the appearance of collusion in tolerance of unlawful acts," the Court added.

The Court criticised Turkey for delaying for more than seven years any investigation into the fate of these missing persons. Observers here pointed out that Turkey's culpability in this respect is even worse in the case of Cyprus where nothing has been done by the Turkish occupation authorities for 30 years to solve the problem of the hundreds of Greek Cypriots who went missing following their arrest by Turkish troops during the 1974 invasion.

These senior sources were strongly critical of the recent refusal of the Turkish authorities to follow the example of the Cyprus government by disclosing the sites of mass graves where many of the missing from both sides have been buried, so that their remains may be identified and returned to their families.

"Turkey must do something in this respect. It is completely incomprehensible that they have failed to disclose the site of even a single mass grave in the occupied territory of Cyprus,'' one top official said.

The latest Rights Court decision came a week before the Council of Europe is due to establish a ``European Remembrance Centre for the Victims of Forced Population Movements and Ethnic Cleansing.''

This development is bound to revive interest in the situation in Cyprus and the continuing toleration by the international community of Turkey's ethnic cleansing of the 200,000 Greek Cypriot population of north Cyprus.

A CoE statement said the establishment of such a centre will remind people of the human tragedy involved and act as an instrument ``of reconciliation and conflict prevention.''



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