Cyprus-Forum.com

[zan]

Hearken your souls O’ Greekish Cypriot brethren lest I may send a swarm of locusts to devour your crops and pester your families…

Fly swatters at the ready.........MARCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[denizaksulu]

Bullshit!!!!

BULLSHİT

Your lack of arguments is well known.

Justified fears! To whom are you refering Piratis? If iits the TCs justified fears, then that says it all. If not Please, clarify.

I think I was clear Deniz.

The EOKA struggle was a perfectly just one. Cypriots after centuries of oppression by British, Turks and others wanted to finally be liberated like it happened with many other Greek territories and islands.

In their struggle EOKA targeted the colonialists. The conflict between GCs and TCs in fact started by the TCs during 57-58 (with the encouragement of the British), not the other way around.

However, because I understand why TCs didn't want enosis and the fears that they had could be justified (due to what happened in Crete), for this reason I do not blame them for their collaboration with the British and for playing the divide and rule game of the colonialists and starting the inter-communal conflict against us. I would only hope that you would also be the same understanding and see why GCs wanted liberation after centuries of oppression.

So, the justified fears of TCs justified their rejection of enosis. However from the moment that GCs accepted to compromise their right for union with Greece and proposed independence then we should have been allowed to have a true independence.

However once again the TCs collaborated with UK/Turkey and became their organ in Cyprus, out of pure greediness this time and not fears, in order to gain on the loss of GCs and therefore maintain the hostility between the two sides. For this the TCs can not be justified.

Neither can the demand of TCs (which started from the 50s and continues until today) for partition can be justified. Unlike enosis, which was the right of the Cypriot people and would not involve the violations of the human rights of any Cypriot, partition is a crime that involves the killing and ethnic cleansing of 100s of thousands of people from their lands.

Britain and Turkey have used (and are using) the TC minority by promising to them gains on the loss of Greek Cypriots. The TC greediness does not allow them to see the game played by Turkey and UK and as a result all Cypriots lose and UK/Turkey get what they want from Cyprus.

Thank you Piratis. It was that one sentence which made me stop and ponder.
This post, I see as a great improvement on your attitude towards TCs.

Regards and may our dreams come true.

[phoenix]

UK's murky role in Cyprus crisis
By Jolyon Jenkins; Producer, BBC Radio 4's Document

Major Ted Macey demonstrated weapons to Turkish Cypriots

Evidence has emerged that British undercover forces were involved in fomenting the conflict between Greek and Turkish Cypriots ten years before the 1974 partition of Cyprus.

The new evidence found by BBC Radio 4's programme Document centres on the mystery of Ted Macey, a British army major who was abducted, presumed killed by Greek Cypriot paramilitaries.

I had no strong expectation that we would find the Turkish Cypriot village. We had a 40-year-old British army map, bearing only the old Greek names. Our guide, Martin Packard, had not been here for decades. The countryside was deserted, no one spoke English, and night had fallen.

In 1964, Martin was a naval intelligence officer, sent to Cyprus to do an extraordinary job. Fighting had broken out in the capital, Nicosia, between Greeks and Turks.

Unrest spread, and the British troops in Cyprus stepped in to keep the peace. But the British General, Peter Young, thought that peace meant more than keeping the two sides apart. He believed the communities could live side by side, sometimes in mixed villages, as they had for centuries.

But that meant small disputes had to be prevented from turning into big ones. Gen Young appointed Martin, a fluent Greek speaker, as a roving trouble-shooter and negotiator. With two officers from the mainland Greek and Turkish armies, he roamed the north of Cyprus by helicopter, settling disputes.

Diplomacy

We eventually found the village, and even an interpreter. Here, in Easter 1964, Martin had resolved a conflict over a flock of sheep, stolen from the Turkish villages by their Greek Cypriots neighbours. Martin tracked down the flock in a Greek village.

But none of the Turkish Cypriots were prepared to come with him to get them. So he went himself. He took the youngest lamb and flung it across his shoulder. The mother followed, and so did the rest of the flock.

"It is my feeling they wanted to have fighting
between the two sides.
They didn't want us to get together"
Nicos Koshis

"I walked a very long way, I was very tired, leading this flock of sheep," he said. "We arrived at the village and all of the villagers rushed out as if I were Moses coming back with some great message."

The old men of the village remembered the incident, but were not conspicuously grateful. It was a good thing Martin had got their sheep back, they said, grudgingly, because otherwise they were planning to steal a Greek flock in retaliation.

Martin believes such small episodes were the key to preventing the island drifting towards ethnic separation. But, he says, this was not what the Americans and British had in mind.

He recalls being asked to take a visiting US politician, acting secretary of state George Ball, around the island. Arriving back in Nicosia, says Martin, "Ball patted me on the back, as though I were sadly deluded and he said: That was a fantastic show son, but you've got it all wrong, hasn't anyone told you that our plan here is for partition?"

Cyprus museum

The division that followed - and still exists - caused pain for both sides

Undaunted, Martin pursued plans to move Turkish Cypriots back to the villages they had fled. But just as the first resettlement was about to take place, British General Michael Carver had him arrested and flown off the island - in an unmarked CIA plane.

The ostensible reason was that Cyprus had become too dangerous for Martin to operate in; the evidence given was that a British liaison officer, Major Ted Macey, had been abducted and presumed murdered just a few days before.

All the evidence points to the murder having been carried out by Greek Cypriot extremists.

In the Public Record Office in London, I found files showing that British military commanders in Cyprus had received "very reliable information" that Major Macey's abduction was planned "by Greek security forces with approval of high government circles and connivance of the police to extract information about Turkish invasion plans".

The Greek Cypriots were convinced that Major Macey was aiding the Turks.

Listening bases

Could it be true? I spoke to a former Para who accompanied Major Macey on expeditions to Turkish Cypriot villages. There, says the Para, he demonstrated the use of British ammunition and sub-machine guns to the Turkish Cypriot irregular forces.

I also tracked down one of Major Macey's former drivers, who showed me a curious note, in the major's handwriting. It is a list of arms and explosives being stored in civilian premises in Nicosia: arms, says the driver, which Major Macey had supplied, under British orders, to the Turkish fighters.

So did the peacekeeping forces, and the big powers, really want Cyprus to remain an independent, unitary state? Or was it more important to head off the threat of a "Mediterranean Cuba" by keeping the island within Turkey's - and hence Nato's - sphere of influence?

Britain had, and has, electronic listening bases on the island - important parts of the Nato intelligence effort.

Nicos Koshis, a former justice minister, thinks that it was those bases that determined the fate of the island: "It is my feeling they wanted to have fighting between the two sides. They didn't want us to get together. If the communities come together maybe in the future we say no bases in Cyprus."

[denizaksulu]

TMT was formed in 1958, EOKA was formed in the early 50s.

TMT was one of the actions foreseen by the KIP plan, Cyprus Regaining Plan of the Turkish General Staff. Its leader was code named Bayraktar Bozkurt and was a senior Turkish Army officer stationed in Nicosia. There were commanding officers of the TMT in every TC village and town.

TMT must have been set up with the blessings of the British, which also explains the British tolerance and immunity enjoyed by TMT members. During the period 1955-1959 any GC arrested with arms, regardless of type and quantity was hanged. Thousands of GCs were put into internment camps on suspicion of being EOKA sympathizers. During this period there was not even one arrest ot TMT people even when their victims were fellow TCs.

Despite the expressed purpose of countering Enosis TMT simply initiated partition by forcing a separation of the two communities and by punishing every TC who did not tow the line. Several TC journalists and labor union members were killed furing this time and even later, some murders occuring in the 90s.

But rather than listen to us here, why not look up writings by TC commentators like Sener Levent and others who were opposed to the tactics of the TMT.

As for the Greek islands, well I would rather be Turk living in Kos or Rodos today than a Greek from Imbros or Tenedos. The Turks are prospering and their numbers increasing, whereas the Greeks of Imbros and Tenedos have disappeared and their properties confiscated. It is northern Cyprus all over.

Nikitas; Bayraktar and Bozkurt were different ranks. Bayraktar the highest, the Bozkurt local. Not all Bozkurts were Turkish Army personnel.

As for the aiding or showing the use of weapons, there can be different slants on this. The one I took was (1963/64) was that they saw the unequal balance of numbers of weaponry available. With the few guns or demonstrations, my view is that the knowledge gained prevented a foreseen massacre of TCs.

Young TC fighters behind the Ledra Palace Hotel went on night time guard duty with two bullets in the stengun magazines. The fear of the sight of a sten acted as a great deterrent. It did not however stop the constant sniping of the GCs from the roof of the Hotel while the UN enjoyed their drinks on the floors below. I am glad they were bad shots.

[zan]

Hey! Phoenix...Have you still got that nob of butter in your mouth your mother put in when you were born...... I can't believe it still has not melted.....

[phoenix]

Hey! Phoenix...Have you still got that nob of butter in your mouth your mother put in when you were born...... I can't believe it still has not melted.....

Did you see my lips move? . . . . I did not say a word.
I am just the messenger.
Did it leave a sour taste in your mouth?

[zan]

Hey! Phoenix...Have you still got that nob of butter in your mouth your mother put in when you were born...... I can't believe it still has not melted.....

Did you see my lips move? . . . . I did not say a word.
I am just the messenger.
Did it leave a sour taste in your mouth?

Pass the buck........Can you guys take any responsibility for anything....

[Jerry]

Hey! Phoenix...Have you still got that nob of butter in your mouth your mother put in when you were born...... I can't believe it still has not melted.....

Hey Zan, that reminds me of a trick one of my workmates played on me.
He introduced me to a new female officer on the ferry I was working on.
He said:-
"This is my mate Jerry, he's got a heart of gold (I felt embarrased)"
"He has a will of iron (I felt very proud)"

And


"a knob of butter"( she fell about laughing and I wished the ground would swallow me up)

[zan]

[Nikitas]

Interesting post Phoenx.

major Packard was interviewed by Greek Tv a while back and he stated (pretty much what is written above.

Goerge Ball was also on the same programme and he evaded questions pretty well. Another American former CIA chap, I do not recall his name offhand, insisted that there was intercommunal fighting between 1967 and 1974. Pressed by the interviewer he stuck to his guns about the time and the fighting. The undisputed fact is that the last fight had been the one in Kofinou and things got gradualy and steadily more peaceful between 1967 and 1974.

Deniz,

Note the time frame hre. In 1958 there was already a Turkish mainland involvement in Cyprus with senior army officers laying the groundwork for what was to follow. Now, cross reference this with Bir's account of his growing up in Cyprus and tell me what conclusion you come to.

Also note that there was no mainland Greek involvement on the ground at this time, probably because it would be embarassing if Greek army people were caught by the British. The TC side had nos such risk obviously, since the British extended a peculiar immunity to them. This dual treatment is a personal observation from when we moved to Famagusta, the TCs were never curfewed.

What I see in Bir's descriptions is a community held in the grip of the Turkish military, tightly controlled so that the separation could be maintained. All voices of dissent were silenced. Bir is writing about the 60s, I assume that pretty much the same control was exercised during the 50s and that it is still going on but in a more "delicate" manner.