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[Tim Drayton]

PS - I accept that individual houses and whole quarters of villages were burned down or destroyed in the course of the 1963-1964 disputes, but I have still to hear anybody back up the claim of whole villages being burned or bulldozed by quoting a name.

[Tim Drayton]

Hasan Erçakıca, in a press conference on 13 June 2007, stated that 30 Turkish Cypriot villages in the south have been destroyed, and has named them:

http://www.samanyoluhaber.com/sondakika-53248.html

These are the names of the villages as quoted in the source article:

Larnaka; Esendağ (Pertrofan), Softalar.
Baf [=Paphos]; Akkargı (Pitargu), Beşiktepe (Melendra), Dağaşan (Vretçça), Dereboyu (Evretu), Faslı, Gökçebel (Falya), Gündoğdu (Antriliku), Kervanyolu (Karamulliyes), Kurtağa, Kuşluca (Sarama), Olukönü (Lukurnu), Uluçam (Marona), Moronero, Susuz, Tabanlı (İstinco), Tatlıca (Zaharga), Uzunmeşe (Tremetusa), Yakacık (Magunda), Yuvalı (Prastyo).
Limasol; Aşağı Kivides, Yerovası (Yerovasa).
Lefkoşa [=Nicosia]; Alevkaya, Alifodez, Arpalık (Ay Sozomeno), Aybifan, Kurtboğan (Yukarı Kutrafa), Selçuklu, Yağmuralan (Vroişa)

[Nikitas]

Koutrafas is a place I know. It is up the road from Astromeritis and I walked about the place extensively in 1977 to take pictures of Cyprus adobe construction and also because some of the houses were built by apprentices to my grandfather using molds he gave them.

There were no demolished houses. No signs of destruction. The place was a dirt poor hamlet and the adobe houses were all in bad condition and in a state of neglect, even though people lived in them at the time. After talking with some people there it was evident that they were all in the process of looking for better housing nearer Astromeritis or anywhere near the main tarmac road.

So in the case of Koutrafas at least the assertion that it was bulldozed etc seems to be inaccurate.

[Tim Drayton]

Well, I have located Yerovasa (Lemesos) on Google Earth. It is true that nothing remains of this village. However, one has to ask what actually happened to it. Apparently at the time of the 1960 census, it had 23 Greek Cypriot and 83 Turkish Cypriot inhabitants.

http://www.peace-cyprus.org/VillagersMe ... gepop.html

It seems that the Greek Cypriots left the village during the ethnic conflict. This was a tiny village in a deserted location on the Troodos foothills. Is it not possible that everybody left for a better life elsewhere? Or perhaps the houses were in a poor state of repair when the inhabitants left in 1974 and have gradually collapsed. This is such an out of the way place set on a winding dirt track that leads from nowhere to nowhere. It beggars belief that anybody would deliberatley come out here and waste their energy destroying the village. For what purpose?

[Nikitas]

Tim,

A lot of Cypriot pride is involved regarding the place of origin. Not many CYpriots are willing to admit that their so called village was nothing more than a pitiful hamlet with a few adobe hovels, or that it was no more than a satellite settlement of a real village located nearby.

In RIK interviews with the mayors of viable vilages the constant complaint is that the population is diminishing because young people move to cities. If people from viable villages like Omodos move to the city it is easy to understand what they would do in dusty hovel collections like Koutrafas.

[T_C]

Yerovasa?

I have a map detailing all the TC properties destroyed (which are all noted by the UN's Ortega report, July 1964).

Yerovasa isn't even on there.

Thanks for giving me an idea though Tim. I never thought of using Google Earth. I have birds eye view pictures of TC villages after they were destroyed, I'll have to do a "before/after" when I have time.

I did just take a look at Mathiatis, since the Turkish quarter had completely been destroyed in 1964. It looks like the TC homes were demolished....the village certainly looks smaller now and the Turkish quarter is missing.

[Tim Drayton]

Yerovasa?

I have a map detailing all the TC properties destroyed (which are all noted by the UN's Ortega report, July 1964).

Yerovasa isn't even on there.

Thanks for giving me an idea though Tim. I never thought of using Google Earth. I have birds eye view pictures of TC villages after they were destroyed, I'll have to do a "before/after" when I have time.

I did just take a look at Mathiatis, since the Turkish quarter had completely been destroyed in 1964. It looks like the TC homes were demolished....the village certainly looks smaller now and the Turkish quarter is missing.

Were any whole villages ever destroyed?

[kafenes]

Been through my picture archives and found this picture. I took this picture of Yerovasa in 2004 (the road is asphalt now). Not having any electricity, no one has bothered to move in and fix any of the houses there. In time it has all perished but by natural causes and not burnt or bulldozed as you can see from the picture below. BTW it is a beautiful part of Cyprus and there is a natural waterfall through a hole in the mountain nearby and an old wood and steel bridge.

[T_C]

I don't know Tim. The map just says things like "50 houses destroyed" (in the case of Mathiatis). Theres villages with lots of houses, shops and mosques destroyed. Wether it constitutes WHOLE villages I don't know.....

[Tim Drayton]

I don't know Tim. The map just says things like "50 houses destroyed" (in the case of Mathiatis). Theres villages with lots of houses, shops and mosques destroyed. Wether it constitutes WHOLE villages I don't know.....

I accept that. There was an interview recently in the Yeni Düzen newspaper by Sevgül Uludağ with a named Greek Cypriot from Lapta who says that, after the Turkish Cypriots left the village in 1964, some Greek Cypriots went and destroyed the Turkish Cypriot quarter. However, I do not see what constructive purpose is served by making inflammatory statements about hundreds of villages being burned down when this was not so. How can Adnan Tink in the article I quoted above speak of 130 villages being burned down in 1963 when Hasan Erçakıca names only 30 Turkish Cypriot villages which he claims have been destroyed? How many of the villages named by Erçakıca were destroyed maliciously, and how many have just succumbed to the ravages of time? A little objectivity is called for.