Cyprus-Forum.com

[Piratis]

Michalis Papapetrou, from United Democrats Party (Vasiliou), claimed in an interview that while he was a high school student in 1964, he was trained, with his fellow students, in arms, in order to execute the Akritas Plan. He revealed the above in order to answer someone who said that the atrocities were committed by a handful of fanatics. In my opinion the fanatics reigned supreme at the time and they were the majority. The people with any sense were once again a sorry minority.

I called people like Papapetrou as traitors before, and I will say it again. We know they lie. Why? Because we have parents, grandfathers, uncles etc, we didn't fall from the sky. So we know for a fact that people that claim such things (EOKA B - Akritas plan supported by majority etc) are lying. So why they do it? Who would vote for such liars? The only reason they do it is to help our enemies to achieve their aim. Am I unfair calling such people traitors???

[MicAtCyp]

Was EOKA's goal not enosis?
Was EOKA B's goal not enosis?

It seems to me that there were no differences in the
goals of these two oganisations?

No, No. There were many differences. Both on the goals, and the ways to reeach those goals. Heres an old post to save some time:

In my opinion the reason EOKA got so wide support among the GC population was EXACTLY because they wanted their liberation from the British. If you do a good search you will see how the British were oppressing every aspect of life of the Cypriots, and were actually holding back any efforts for development. Even the leftists did not oppose Eoka for it's liberation cause, they opposed it because of its Enosis cause. And it was not only the leftists. It was the big capital also.

One can distinguish the liberation cause from the Enosis cause of Eoka if he looks at what support Eoka B received among the population. As you know Eoka B’s one and only cause was Enosis. It was in fact very low.

I would say the "Enosis" cause of Eoka was supported fanatically only by the fighters themselves and a part of the population. Among the GC population about 35% (Akel) opposed it, I would say another 15% supported it fanatically (basically those having direct links/interests with the church, and the education (teachers), some 30% did not care, and some 5% (the big capital) did not want it, but because they could not endanger themselves they were working behind the scenes to kill it. Guess who finally won? The big capital as usual !!!!

Freedom of movment is not a problem for me or TC in
general. Even freedom to live in any part of Cyprus is
not a problem. It becomes a problem when you inist on
freedom to lice anywhere in Cyprus AND to be politicaly
represented at the component state level where you live.
The problem for TC then becomes that you may well end up
with a federal Cyprus where both component states have a
numerical GC majority - which is defeats the whole poit
of a federal solution in the first place.

Political ights are NOT basic human rights! If the GCs want a Federation where they can live, work, return, then they must forget about Political rights in the TCCS.

For me personaly even bizonality is not as important as
bi communality (and some equality of communites). For me
we can live anywhere we like and as mixed as we like
with no restrictions, but the TC community must have
political representation as a community and that is
accepted to be equal to that of the GC community.

I agree.

I have been saying the same thing over and over for the
last 6 months that I have been a member, but it seems
quite obvious after 6 months that GCs are not willing to
see where our priorities lies.

Are you sure? I personally spotted it a long time ago. However I am not sure you and Erol do represent the majority of TCs.My opinion is the TCs got stuck to BBF as if this system is the only way to guarantee them their sharing of power ( i use this term because the term political equality is often misunderstood as meaning 50-50 on everything). There are 100s of other ways like multriregional Federation, autonomy, return to 1960 constitution or a new Unitary state with a different constitution.

Annan plan provided some quite strong mechanisms but
should they not be sufficient then additional guarantees
can be provided so that the Greek Cypriots that become
TCCS internal citizenship holders are at any given time
no more than Ό or 2/3 of the total TCCS population. The
rest (2/3 or Ύ majority) will be Turkish Cypriots.

Would this be satisfactory to you?

It wouldn’t be satisfactory to me, because it still limits BASIC human rights and freedom of choice of GCs

I did not state that EOKA B had no support amongst the
GC community. This is just more revisionist history. It
had much support, just not as much as EOKA had.

YOU ARE WRONG!! Eoka B was supported only by those participating in it and a few extreme Nationalists. Read my explanation above.

That's why after 1968 only the extreme GC right wing
supported the Enosis cause. Nevertheless although there
were leftists in National Guard, most of the young
members of Ntional guard adored Grivas and Enosis cause.
30.000 men in National Guard were under command of
Enosist Greek officers.

30,000??? The National Guard never exceeded the 10,000.Those young men in the National Guard who adored Grivas and Enosis where an exact image of the society i.e about 5%. The rest were keeping a neutral stance. Known leftists in the National Guard were terribly oppressed.

If you agree with this then I also agree with it and
thus we solved 90% of the problem

Hmmmm. So property issues and settler issues are less
than 10% of the problem then? Seems a bit optimistic to
me.

Ha,Ha, Ha. See kifeas how quickly you got your leg caught? No, No, no I quite disagree with Kifeas. You solved just the 10% which for me personally equals to nothing.The major problem is the property/settlers/ basic human rights and libertries issue. The political rights are not basic rights, they are secondary.

If what Kiefas is suggesting is that the decision on
enosis would require simply 50% +1 of federal senators
from either component state, then no this does not meet
my requirements.

Boy this stuff gets complicated Thanks for your help
with improving my understanding Turkcyp.

Ha,ha,ha. Back to zero then!!! Meanwhile the Keyboards depreciated.

You never have a RIGHT to use violence

Erol I asked you before and I am repeating my question: SAYS WHO? How about the RIGHT to self defense which can even allow you to KILL to avoid yourself being killed. Is that a RIGHT or is it not?

According to your view TC (with the aid of Turkey) had a
RIGHT to kill GC and force them from their homes -
because they had previously denied TC their rights? This
kind of approach leads no where in my opinion

Here you are mixing up RIGHTS with EXCUSES. It leads us nowhere indeed.

Britain did not gain control of CVyprus through force of
arms. They gained it through treaty initally. T

Treaty with who? I can make many treaties with third parties to "juice you out" you know, this does not mean you should be happy with it.

Like TC (with aid of Turkey) reacted in 74?

Like the way they should have reacted, if they were not adding 100 more excuses to do what they did.

I believe Piratis and many other GCs (except maybe Alex)
are in the first category. They're opposed to the idea
of federation because anything that doesn't guarantee
the return (or the right of return) of 100% refugees is
unfair and against human rights for them.

Metecyp, a true Federation does not have restrictions on basic human rights. A BBF has.So count me first among those who don't want BBF.

Piratis wrote:
The bottom line is: yes you can have an area where
you will be the majority


Erol: How can we have this (or a guarantee of this) without
restrictions on GC?

By having a flexible/adustable system of multiregional Federation where you will be ruled by yourselves to any areas that ANYTIME you are the clear majority.And with adopting many other sustems except this damn thing called BBF.

[metecyp]

Metecyp, a true Federation does not have restrictions on basic human rights. A BBF has.So count me first among those who don't want BBF.

And who defines what a "true federation" is? But thanks for sincerity, at least you admit that you don't want federation.

[insan]

According to The Military Balance, 1989-90, published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, the National Guard had a complement of some 13,000 men on active duty in 1989. Scaled back from a peak of 35,000 in 1967, its size had remained fairly constant since the Turkish intervention in 1974. The bulk of its personnel were Greek Cypriot conscripts fulfilling twenty-six months of mandatory service.

http://www.photius.com/countries/cyprus ... ~7682.html


And according to reliable NATO sources, there are currently 17.000 National Guard and 4000 Eldik troops; besides 35.000 reservists in South Cyprus.

You should ask the so-called RoC government not to cheat with you about the number of troops stationed in South Cyprus.

[erolz]

I would say the "Enosis" cause of Eoka was supported fanatically only by the fighters themselves and a part of the population.

Yet in 67 the GC house of representatives _unanimoulsy_ passed the following resoloution

"Interpreting the age-long aspirations of the Greeks of Cyprus, the House declares that despite any adverse circumstances it will not suspend the struggle conducted with the support of all Greeks, until this struggle succeeds in uniting the whole and undivided Cyprus with the Motherland, without any intermediate stages."

Political ights are NOT basic human rights!

The right to self determination is a human right. The right to political represntation is a human right. They are in the charters of human rights.

Are you sure? I personally spotted it a long time ago. However I am not sure you and Erol do represent the majority of TCs.

Quite possibly not.

My opinion is the TCs got stuck to BBF

er sorry to be so dumb but what is BBF?

YOU ARE WRONG!! Eoka B was supported only by those participating in it and a few extreme Nationalists. Read my explanation above.

Maybe I am wrong - I am 'happy' to ammend by previous 'much' support to "it was less than for EOKA and more than zero". Somewhere between these two is the reality.

Erol I asked you before and I am repeating my question: SAYS WHO?

Says the charters on human rights. These list what rights indivduals have and what rights peoples have and no where does it list a right to kill or use violence.

How about the RIGHT to self defense which can even allow you to KILL to avoid yourself being killed. Is that a RIGHT or is it not?

You have a right to self DEFENSE. Wheather killing can be _justifed_ on that basis is down to a value judgment - but it does not mean that killing is your RIGHT - even in self defense. It means that it can be justification (the _only_ way to exercise my right to self defense was to use violence or to kill)

Here you are mixing up RIGHTS with EXCUSES. It leads us nowhere indeed.

So let me get this straight. GC had a RIGHT to use violence and murder to secure purely GC objectives for Cyprus, but TC did not have such a right according to you? Why? My view is a lot simpler - neither had such a right.

By having a flexible/adustable system of multiregional Federation where you will be ruled by yourselves to any areas that ANYTIME you are the clear majority.And with adopting many other sustems except this damn thing called BBF.

I do not really understand this. How big is an area? All of Cyprus? A region? A city? A town? A village? A part of a village? A single house? I also fail to understand how such right to 'local' autonaomy would provide us any protection on national issues that were against our will and interestes (like enosis). Oh and I still do not know what BBF means.

[pantelis]

AR: Would you prefer, as Denktash, a separate confederated state?

MT: If it was possible, again I can say no. You know why? Because having a separate state will always have the possibility of secession. It will always have the possibility to create tension between two states in Cyprus. True, there are a lot of states throughout the world that are even smaller than Cyprus, or some smaller than TRNC. But again, having a small state is not a wise demand, because you will not have your own money. It is not possible to issue money for such a small state, 200,000 people. If you look to the world, you will you will see that most of them use another country’s money. You cannot have enough institutions or powerful institutions to resolve your problems.

Just imagine, if you have a heart problem, can you build a hospital to deal only with that specialized part of that disease? It is not possible, because you don’t have the population. If the population’s only 200,000, you may have such a patient only once a year.

http://www.erpic.org/perihelion/interviews/talat.htm

[MicAtCyp]

Erolz, I am not an economist but believe this example is
way too hypothetical. Why would Cyprus or any other
country for that matter want to limit foreign
investments? EU as a whole needs foreign investments.
Actually with our EU entry we were hoping that Cyprus
could be used as a bridge for business between Europe
Asia and Africa.

I already answered to Erol regarding this matter in the past. Foreign investment is already limited. Nobody can come here and invest on whatever he likes. There are rules. For example nobody can come here and build a nuclear power plant, nobody can come here and build a factory that will turn the sky from blue to black.In fact in the past the Mazda car manufacturer requested a licence to build a factory here making cars and they refused to them.

It is not to legitimise the
illegal, or to take what is not mine, or to profit at
the expense of GC.

The problem is Erol, that for many TCs, it is not so.In fact it is to legitimise what is not theirs and to profit on the expense of GCs.Do you deny this fact?

The only way to stop the property boom in North is
lifting of embargos and exchange of properties.

There are no embargos.Giving licence to do whatever you like with stolen properties (which is what you call embargo) will not limit the problem it will multiply it. Exchange of properties is a myth. There are no equal to equal properties to exchange. There are 3 times as many GC properties area-wise and 20 times as much valuewise. Exchange of equal to equal valuewise will still leave an unbalance of 1 Vs 19 against the GCs !!

I don't find your comments controversial, rather I find
them ridiculous. The whole trend of history in the
mid-1950s through the 60s and 70s was for decolonisation
of sizeable colonies. It is a fallacy to say that had
EOKA not existed, the British would still be overlords
in Cyprus.

I think you are the ridiculous one. The fact is that within 4 years the British were forced out. You have no facts to prove they would move out in 10,20,30 or 100 years. All you have is a lot of hypotheses.

EOKA was a terrorist organisation

Have in mind that ones terrorist is anothers liberator. Have in mind that the real terrorists are the ones who excercise state terrorism (e.g US Vs Iraq, Afganistan etc etc). For many GCs the Eoka was a liberation organisation and it proved to be so from the fact that within 4 years they forced the British out ending almost 100 years of slavery and dejuicing of Cyprus resources.

You really need to look at what Makarios himself said.
Here are some examples to help you on your way.

Makarios was playing on double boards. You cannot take anything he said for granted. Otherwise you will lead yourself to wrong conclussions. The safest way to draw safe conclussions is to look at facts, not speaches.As a current example, Papadopoulos today stresses he wants BBF. However look at facts. Is he really working towards BBF?What politicians usually say is NOT in line with what they actually do.

Michalis Papapetrou, from United Democrats Party
(Vasiliou), claimed in an interview that while he was a
high school student in 1964, he was trained, with his
fellow students, in arms, in order to execute the
Akritas Plan

Wasn’t he a member of the Central Commmittee of Akel until the mid 80s when he was kicked out of Akel? Such "confessions" are for consumption by "priests" like you.

[garbitsch]

erol: BBF is bi-communal, bi-zonal federation.

[cannedmoose]

Your post could almost have come ad nauseum from a Cyprus school history text MicAtCyp...

Slavery and dejuicing? I think you're confusing the Brits with the Ottomans... Essentially you're claiming in this statement that the British ruled Cyprus like the King Leopold of the Belgians ruled Congo, which is a bizarre comparison. Sure, British rule wasn't totally benign, but just look at the situation they inherited in 1878, a backward, poverty-striken, pseudo-medieval society, with barely any infrastructure and hardly any citizens educated enough to effectively run the society. The Cyprus they left in 1960 had its faults, but it was in a far better state. Had the British enslaved and dejuiced Cyprus, the change would have been less marked. You may return with the argument that Cyprus continues to experience a massive trade deficit with the UK and that this is somehow evidence of the remaining effects of colonisation... if you look at most non-industrial small states, they are in exactly the same position vis-a-vis the larger industrialised countries.

Terrorism - The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.

OR

Terrorism - the calculated use of violence (or threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature; this is done through intimindation or coercion or instilling fear.

The argument of "one man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter" is valid, but by any measure, EOKA fits the two definitions above. They did use violence and threats against people and property, indeed against their own people in the event that they disagreed with them, i.e. supporters of AKEL, Turkish Cypriots, people who worked for the British administration.

You also make an assumption that it was the EOKA campaign alone that forced the British out of Cyprus, which I find a rather misguided view. Yes, it played a part, more by draining resources than by inflicting massive casualties. It is also coincidental that the EOKA campaign occurred simultaneously with the process of decolonisation throughout the empire. Had EOKA begun its campaign 30 years previously, there would have been quite a different and more bloody outcome. By the mid-1950s, Britain was exhausted economically and politically from its efforts during the war, with the granting of independence to the possessions east of Suez and with the adverse result of the Suez debacle, Cyprus lost its importance as a staging post for British activities in the east. The British reaction to revolt in colonies was also markedly less harsh than in the pre-war era, with human rights a higher priority. EOKAs campaign did catalyse the decision to withdraw from Cyprus, but the whole movement of history at the time made decolonisation inevitable.

Yes, this is merely a hypothesis, but it's one based solidly in the whole sweep of modern history, which I think are pretty firm foundations. Are you seriously saying that you could even imagine Cyprus being a British colony today, against the wishes of its people... no, no way.

[Bananiot]

Is it a sin to be kicked out by the stalinist leadership of a party like AKEL? Papapetrou, one of the very few sincere politicians in Cyprus, mentioned publically on tv, something that all people of his generation went through, and nobody came forward to dispute his allegations. Papadopoulos himself, in a letter to the UN in 1964, warned the international community that if the turkish fleet enters Cyprus waters, we would "clean up" the TC's in 18 hours. To deny that a plan existed in which the very existence of the TC's was put in jeopardy is only for thick headed skulls with fascist mentality, so MikAtCyp, keep your bright ideas for youself and make sure you do not take the blinkers off; you will be blinded by the light.

Is Talat the same as Denktas? Rubbish!