Markou96,
Metacyp you sound like an educated individual who happens to care deeply about our land, Cyprus. But let us not forget an important issue. It is not the Turkish Cypriots, about 150-200 thou., who were evicted from their houses.
I'm not denying the G/C refuges. What happenned to them was wrong, and I hope as many of them return back to their houses with Annan Plan. What I'm asking is the same acknowledgement for T/C refugees of 1963 and 1974. Although not in as great numbers, there are T/C refugees. I'm also asking for acknowledgement of sufferrings of T/Cs between 1963-1974 and an apology for T/C exclusion from Rep. of Cyprus and its hellenization.
Also, Metacyp, what makes you believe that Turkey is your friend and ally, and that Denktash is working for his people? Unless I'm mistaken, the occupied areas are very poor, underdeveloped and generally seem to have been left back in the middle ages.
I didn't say that Denktas works for his people. If you read my earlier posts, you'll see that I said what Denktas wants is not necessarily what the whole T/C community wants. North is pooer than the south, but "left back in middle ages" is very harsh and unrealistic. There's nothing middle age about north. If you've never been to north, I invite you, I'll show you around and prove that there's nothing middle age about it.
The problem, I believe, is that the Turkish Cypriots are forgetting the fact that everything took place because some superpowers, namely the Great Britain, decided to seed a sense of national identity to the Cypriots, especially the Turkish Cypriots, before leaving the island after the liberation fight of EOKA. Before that, the T/C weren't quite screaming for a state of their own and they were contend with simply living on this land.
Yes, superpowers played a major role, but you cannot blame everything on them. We, Cypriots, made many mistakes ourselves. I heard stories from the older generation how their villages were occupied by G/C extremists in 1974, and they were kept in their village schools all together, not knowing what would happen to them for days, and then Turkish army came and save them. Now, for these people who experienced such horrible incidents, superpowers are the secondary issue, because they experienced something horrible caused by G/Cs, and the Turkish soldiers saved them from the situation and that's all they'll remember when they think about Cyprus problem.
And before you say anything let me remind you that you are a minority on this land and all this is just unheard of. The injustice done to us is unbelievable. Never before I heard of the outragous claims your leader is making, and before you say that he is not a representative of your people make sure that he is not sitting on the negogiating table.
Yes, T/Cs are minority in numbers, but not in political power according to Republic of Cyprus. I'm not getting into the argument of "no minority has such rights", it's useless. We have Republic of Cyprus, and you tell the whole world that it is the legitimate government on the island. Then, respect its laws and rights given to T/Cs in it. And Denktas being on the negotiating table is determined by Turkey, not T/Cs.
I understand you love this land the same way that I do...maybe even more, but demanding an autonomous state or even an autonomous community goes against all notions of fairness and justice. You comprise merely a 15% of the total population for crying out loud!!
18% for your information, but it doesn't matter. We're just demanding a federal state, something like Switzerland, Belgium. In Switzerland, there are many ethnic minorities and they have their own seperate regions. Do you call Switzerland a divided country? No, because it consists of many small pieces that form the whole federal system. Same will happen in Cyprus as well. Federation was accepted by Makarios in 1976, now don't try to tell me that I'm asking more than I deserve.
It promotes seperatism and ethnisism in an already over sensitive country. By calling for two seperate ethnic entities as seperate states/communities it is simply telling us that we are not all Cypriots but that we are Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots.
Annan plan does not create two distincly seperate states. Individual states are as seperate as the federal government allows them to be, end of discussion.
What are you so afraid of? We are certainly not the people of the 60's and I'm pretty sure that our government is strong enough now, as opposed back then, to protect its interests.
I'm not afraid of anything. But I do realize that there might be some people who experienced horrible incidents in the past, and they would want some seperation for a while. Now, what we need to do is respect the fears and desires of these people, and give peace a chance. If everything goes well, not parts of Annan plan will be obselete anyway.
