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[zan]

‘It took me 30 years to learn why Greek Cypriots did not kill us’



CEVDET A?KIN
ISTANBUL – TDN/Referans

The other Cyprus

Part 3 of 4

Dr. Mehmet Hasgüler, born in 1965 in the Karakol district of Magusa, is first introduced to the violence on the island when he was eight years old.

Speaking about the time, Hasgüler says, “Karakol was a very interesting suburb of Magusa. There were between 250 and 300 Turks there. I never saw a single Greek Cypriot in our neighborhood. We never left the place. We walked to school and back. There was a Greek Cypriot doctor and a nurse in the hospital. I formally met Greek Cypriots in 1996 in Britain. We were never taught to hate Greek Cypriots, unlike in the south, so it was nothing extraordinary. Makarios was the president at the time and the most important gift he gave Turks was to allow the broadcasting of a Turkish movie on state television every Friday. My father worked at the port, as did my grandfather. There, Greeks and Turks worked side by side. I would like to tell you a very interesting story. The mother of the labor minister of the time, Tassos Papadopoulos, and my father's grandmother were close friends. Papadopoulos was from Pasakköy. They helped my father to find a job. My father was very close to Greeks. He worked with them. When my father was 5 or 6 years old, he used to stay with a newly wed Greek Cypriot policeman used to stay in their house. Then, the tradition was for a child to keep the bride company when her husband was away. In those days, Cypriots, Turks or Greeks, never left brides alone at home at night. On July 20, 1974, the war came to us. My cousin died. She was a nurse. As she was helping a wounded person, she fell victim to a bomb. We moved to Magusa. There were two Greek Cypriot army divisions between us and the Magusa Castle. We had to pass them that night. My father was fighting at the front. AT around 9 or 10 p.m., me and two of my brothers passed the police station. I was holding my brothers' hand and was walking among a crowd of about 200. I asked my mother, ‘Why aren't they shooting at us?' I learned the answer to that question only in June of 2004, when I was an independent candidate for the European parliament. As I was on a campaign trail in the south, I was talking at a coffee shop in Magusa, former Magusa Commander Rtd. Gen Chakkas arrived. He told me, ‘I gave the command not to shoot, but found myself in trouble for that.'”

“He was retired and could not use his left arm. He told me it was him who had trained the EOKA militants in my father's hometown Pasaköy. History of Cyprus cannot be taught solely in the north or in the south. Sides need to come together to understand what happened.”

Hasan Hasgüler, Mehmet Güler's father, talks about his fighting days. “The day Turkey's operation begun, Rauf Denkta? made an address. They said Turkish soldiers would be deployed firstly in Magusa. However, it didn't. Turks hung Turkish flags in front of their homes so that they could be seen from the sea. However, this only resulted in rocket fire from Greek Cypriot batteries. Our fighters responded with gunfire, while the civilians fled the region. As I was fighting, the civilians took shelter at the Magusa Castle.”



Lieutenant Alpay was a legend at Magusa castle:

Hasan also explains why Greek Cypriots were unable to take the Magusa Castle. He summarizes his conclusion as a lack of courage. He also talks about the legendary commander of the castle, Lieutenant Alpay.

“He was a Turkish Cypriot and was from Karakol. He had a jeep. He completed the military school. He cleared all the debris from the castle holes and use heavy artillery to repel Greek Cypriots. He constantly changed the location of the artillery.”

38 year-old journalist Sami Özuslu, who lived in the village of Evdim in the southern province of Limasol when the coup to topple Makarios and Turkey's operation began, say about those days,” It was a medium sized Turkish village. I was six years old when it all happened. We gathered in my aunts home when the Turkish troops came. All of the men were at a undisclosed location, defending the village. There were regular announcements from the local mosque, calling on men to preserve their ammunition. ‘Each bullet means one enemy,' it said. There was an attack against the village from the mountains. It was probably Aug. 16. I got out of home and a bullet whizzed right near my ear. I don't know if it was really a bullet or I was very scared and was imagining things, but I can still recall the sound. Later on an order was broadcast, calling on all to take what they could before evacuating the village. Us kids didn't know where we were going. Busses came and we got on one. It was a old one and took us to a British base.”



How a Greek ship silenced Baf Radio:

Dr. Arif Albayrak from Baf was waiting for university examination results when the operation happened. “We didn't know how to use guns. We were not trained. Elder boys knew and were posted as guards all around the place. We took shelter at the Papatya Movie Theatre. The Gazi Baf Rido contacted a ship at the port and told them their location. We later learned that the ship was Greek. It bombarded the radio building. They later posted us to the city border. Me and three friends were hiding behind a stone wall. They gave me a gun and every now and then we fired at the general direction of Greek Cypriots. We had no commander of our own. They were sending rockets at us. Our ammunition soon ran out and we fled the scene. When I went to the headquarters, the commanders were complaining. I asked them to give us more ammunition. They were saying we were about to be defeated. I took a box of bullets and took off with my friends. We returned to the wall and suddenly bullets started to rain on us. I fell two meters down and took shelter. Night soon fell. We were hungry and tired. There was a small house 40 meters ahead and thought we saw someone entering it. We started shooting at the house. We later learned four bodies were found there. We were devastated. We weren't sure if we had killed them or not.”

Albayrak's friend from the same neighborhood, Dolgun Dalg?ç, tells us what he went through near the sea when the Turkish operation began. “We were guarding the sea-side. We were told to stop any enemy encroachment. No one came. I didn't fire a single shot. We were next to a construction site. There was a rocket launcher there that used to fire at Greek Cypriot positions. When the Turkish operation began, it started to fire. Towards noon, a ship was seen near the port. We had a radio and it was telling us that the Kocatepe Cruiser was sunk. Some said the information was wrong and that was the ship. Our radio started to announce that the ship was Kocatepe and the rocket launcher was told to stop firing at it. Meanwhile, the ship was firing at somewhere close to the Greek Cypriot positions behind us. The radio is telling the ship to fire a bit towards the east. Suddenly, the radio building exploded and the Greek soldiers started to get off the ship in the port. They called us towards the back, but couldn't because the Greek Cypriot troops prevented us from evacuating our positions.”



Very close to being executed:

Dalg?ç says they later surrendered to the U.N. forces on the island. “We surrendered our weapons. Others refused to do so, getting rid of them some other way. We were told no Greek Cypriot troops would come near us. We were placed in houses but suddenly, Greek Cypriot troops started to enter the houses. They started to execute the Turks who they believed were fighters. As they approached our house, I thought they were killing everyone. Dilaver Te?men, Erdo?an Çak?r, Mustafa Çak?r, Hasan Kiral were some of those who were killed by Greek Cypriots.A few minutes later they arrived and took us outside. My mother started to scream. A Greek Cypriot soldier was about to shoot her but later decided against it. They got everyone on a soccer field. Women were gathered at one side and children and men on the other. They brought a machine gun and put it next to the field. They had all fought against Greeks. Suddenly one Greek officer arrived. Greek Cypriots asked whether Dilaver Te?men was with us. We said, “He fell.” The Greek officer was furious when he heard he was dead. He asked who had done it. He said: ‘Find whoever did this and send them to the front. Those who want to see blood should go to the front.” He got rid of the machine gun.

Dr. Arif Albayrak brings a Greek Cypriot dimension to the massacre that was avoided. After 30 years, he found a Greek Cypriot counterpart who could explain what happened.

“They asked us to gather. There was confusion everywhere. There were also U.N. troops. They collected the Turks in a soccer field. I remember how much they shouted in Greek. There was a Greek word spoken that I still remember after 30 years. It was spoken between two Greek Cypriots. One was setting up the machine gun and the other was helping him. It took me 30 years to learn what it meant. One day, I went to Baf with a doctor friend of mine who works for Doctor for Cyprus. He also invited another doctor friend of his for lunch. The guy came and I told him what had happened all those years ago. He started to cry. I asked him what happened. He said the Greek Cypriot soldiers near the field were students. He said he was one of the soldiers. He said as the other soldier was setting up the machine gun, he had threatened to kill him if he fired on the civilians. The Greek Cypriot voice I heard all those years ago was ‘Stop, or I'll shoot,' and it had come from him.” I cried. We were guests at a television show in the south that made the news.”

Dr. Hasan Adata?, who was 100 meters from the defense lines in Baf, says the Greek commander on the other side abided by the Geneva Conventions. “His grandfather was a Anatolian Greek. He told his grandchild not to treat Turks badly if he fought them. The people of Baf were happy with this commander. He later served in Muttalo.”

43 year-old journalist Tayfun Ça?ra, who works as a journalist in Nicosia, remembers nothing bad being said about Greek Cypriots at home. “My mother, grandmother and father never had anything bad to say about them. My father had a truck. He worked with both Greeks and Turks. He carried goods to Turkish and Greek villages. He had many Greek friends. When the coup took place on July 15, 1974, I was very young. Greek Cypriots took my elder brothers and father into custody. I was at home. They had left women and children at home. They kept them for three months at Limasol until the prisoner exchange. Those were hard times. We used to take food to the prisoners. A month later, we were moved to British bases.”

Cypriots who became refugees talk differently about the matter of returning to their previous homes. Some have no one to return to, while others still long for the villages they spent their childhoods in. K?vanç Diren, who works as a doctor in Istanbul, says, “Thousands, apart from the dead and missing, moved to the north. Some of the young people who went to Turkey to study, stayed there. However, they all think about Cyprus. They all hope to return to their homes one day.” Safa Dalg?ç, who sent his son Dolgun north during the clashes in the back of a truck, says, “Any return is impossible.” His wife, Fatma Dalg?ç, says, “He doesn't want to return, but I do. We used to be like brothers with Greek Cypriots. We used to drink coffee.”

Hasan Adada? says, “We lived through a lot but when one sees what lies beneath it all, one understands. Some ask how so many people could be deceived and forced to leave their homes. I took a friend of mine to Baf. When they saw how beautiful it is, they started to cry. Yes, we were pushed around so much that we abandoned heaven.”

Dr. Akif Albayrak said makes a qualified answer to this question. “Some see the matter as an issue of identity. The people of the region of Baf are different from the rest of the island. A Greek Cypriot friend of mine took me to a village where his parents lived up in the mountains. . It used to take my father four or five hours to go up to the mountains. It took us 20 minutes with a jeep. When we went there, I asked them whether they knew my father, who used to come to these parts. They said, ‘It is not Hanc? Ali, is it?' When they learned it was, they started to cry, and the father said, ‘He was my best friend. He used to stay with me when he came here.'”

[Nikitas]

Very interesting!

Dr Albayrak expresses a thought I tried to put across several times but failed. How a person who is attached to one place in Cyprus be moved arbitrarily to another. When things settle and people feel secure enough to move about they will gravitate to the places they and their families come from.

[Get Real!]

‘It took me 30 years to learn why Greek Cypriots did not kill us’

After reading the first story...

I'm starting to realize that the TC community is CLUELESS as to what REALLY happened in July 1974.

Save your petty TC experiences Zanny for a children's book you can write and start educating yourself about the real horrors committed by the Turkish dogs.

MASS MURDER
6,000 Greek Cypriots were massacred, many of them tortured to death.

MASS RAPE
1,000 women aged 12 to 78 were raped.

ENFORCED DISAPPEARANCES
More than 1,500 missing Greek Cypriots are still unaccounted for. Many were recorded by the Red Cross and filmed by the BBC as prisoners of the Turkish army. They have never been seen again.

ETHNIC CLEANSING
200,000 Greek Cypriots were expelled from their homes at gunpoint from the occupied north of Cyprus. To this day they are prevented from returning to and reclaiming their homes by 35,000 Turkish troops which are enforcing apartheid in Europe.

COLONISATION
Since 1974 Turkey has colonized the occupied north of Cyprus with 120,000 Turkish citizens in order to alter the demographic composition of the island.

CULTURAL DESTRUCTION
Hundreds of Greek Orthodox churches have been destroyed in order to eradicate the culture and history of the Greek Cypriots who are indigenous to the island for thousands of years.

[zan]

‘It took me 30 years to learn why Greek Cypriots did not kill us’

After reading the first story...

I'm starting to realize that the TC community is CLUELESS as to what REALLY happened in July 1974.

Save your petty TC experiences Zanny for a children's book you can write and start educating yourself about the real horrors committed by the Turkish dogs.

MASS MURDER
6,000 Greek Cypriots were massacred, many of them tortured to death.

MASS RAPE
1,000 women aged 12 to 78 were raped.

ENFORCED DISAPPEARANCES
More than 1,500 missing Greek Cypriots are still unaccounted for. Many were recorded by the Red Cross and filmed by the BBC as prisoners of the Turkish army. They have never been seen again.

ETHNIC CLEANSING
200,000 Greek Cypriots were expelled from their homes at gunpoint from the occupied north of Cyprus. To this day they are prevented from returning to and reclaiming their homes by 35,000 Turkish troops which are enforcing apartheid in Europe.

COLONISATION
Since 1974 Turkey has colonized the occupied north of Cyprus with 120,000 Turkish citizens in order to alter the demographic composition of the island.

CULTURAL DESTRUCTION
Hundreds of Greek Orthodox churches have been destroyed in order to eradicate the culture and history of the Greek Cypriots who are indigenous to the island for thousands of years.

Still quoting numbers straight out of the Greek propaganda machine book GR...Tut Tut!!!! We know what went on and how you suffered and that a great many of those numbers were down to the Greek junta and not all the Turks. Try being honest about the numbers and the TC's suffering and then the world will not think you are still trying to pull the wool over their eyes. Just quoting false numbers will not work anymore my friend.......We are correcting and justifying our story now.....Ignore it at your loss. Thank god for the Internet.

[iceman]

No matter what anyone says i still like to believe that the good hearted Cypriots,be it GC or TC would not have fired a single bullet to the other if it wasn't for pressure from their community..
The way i look at it now is that we were both subjected to similar situation (TC's by GC's and GC's by Turkish Army) which was being over powered by a more powerful military force and we both fought to defend our ground not to destroy the opposition..

[zan]

No matter what anyone says i still like to believe that the good hearted Cypriots,be it GC or TC would not have fired a single bullet to the other if it wasn't for pressure from their community..
The way i look at it now is that we were both subjected to similar situation (TC's by GC's and GC's by Turkish Army) which was being over powered by a more powerful military force and we both fought to defend our ground not to destroy the opposition..

If I thought any different to that iceman, I would give up on the whole lot of them in an instant and let them tear themselves to bits. We have to solve the politics not whether people are really human or not.

[miltiades]

No matter what anyone says i still like to believe that the good hearted Cypriots,be it GC or TC would not have fired a single bullet to the other if it wasn't for pressure from their community..
The way i look at it now is that we were both subjected to similar situation (TC's by GC's and GC's by Turkish Army) which was being over powered by a more powerful military force and we both fought to defend our ground not to destroy the opposition..

Left alone as Cypriots we are the most decent bunch of people with self respect integrity family commitment and fairness.
Long live the Cypriot spirit.

[Eric dayi]

No matter what anyone says i still like to believe that the good hearted Cypriots,be it GC or TC would not have fired a single bullet to the other if it wasn't for pressure from their community..
The way i look at it now is that we were both subjected to similar situation (TC's by GC's and GC's by Turkish Army) which was being over powered by a more powerful military force and we both fought to defend our ground not to destroy the opposition..

Left alone as Cypriots we are the most decent bunch of people with self respect integrity family commitment and fairness.
Long live the Cypriot spirit.

But we call those who do not obey our orders and become "Cypriots" just like us "foreigners" and tell them to piss off just like EOKA did, so there.

miltiades, look in the metaxa bottle, that's where you'll find your "Cypriot spirit" you senile old fool.

[Get Real!]

No matter what anyone says i still like to believe that the good hearted Cypriots,be it GC or TC would not have fired a single bullet to the other if it wasn't for pressure from their community..
The way i look at it now is that we were both subjected to similar situation (TC's by GC's and GC's by Turkish Army) which was being over powered by a more powerful military force and we both fought to defend our ground not to destroy the opposition..

Left alone as Cypriots we are the most decent bunch of people with self respect integrity family commitment and fairness.
Long live the Cypriot spirit.

But we call those who do not obey our orders and become "Cypriots" just like us "foreigners" and tell them to piss off just like EOKA did, so there.

miltiades, look in the metaxa bottle, that's where you'll find your "Cypriot spirit" you senile old fool.

Shut the fuck up or I’ll send a well endowed EOKA terrorist to come over to your house in Essex and rape you again…

[repulsewarrior]

Get Real a good thread about to turn bad
You turn yourback on humanity to sling a little
on yourself and eric dayi, i say
pooh pooh on you: you can stand against
the weapons of mass destruction or
you can become one; compelling
arguments, you choose.