Cyprus-Forum.com

[SSBubbles]

To Bubbles, I confirm. that is definitely Mr. Oracle.

Thank you Kafene mou, though I am sure I was not the only curious one!

[Piratis]

Are we talking about the proclamation of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, or the name Turkey for Asia Minor that was first coined in the Middle Ages by Europeans? These are totally unrelated questions.

Tim, I am talking about the official name of the country which was declared without the approval of the minorities.

In general I don't disagree with what you say but it is a different subject. Did you know that the mother tongue of many of the "Turkish" Cypriots was Greek? Some of them didn't even speak Turkish. Basically they took all the Muslims of Cyprus, and they declared them as being Turkish. Then the TMT and Turkey forced all of those people to change language to Turkish and to bring their children up with Turkish as their language.

It seems to me that it is not the name of the country that is important. I mean, if instead of the Republic of Turkey, the country had taken the name Republic of Asia Minor - or Republic of Anatolia (if I dare face your wrath for using what is actually a Greek name) - but apart from that had followed exactly the same policies, then what would have changed? What you are criticising, I think, is the way this state in various ways and at various times has oppressed non-Turkish ethnic groups within the country. As Shakespeare said, a rose would smell the same by any other name.

My point Tim is that Asia Minor has 80% Turks, just like Cyprus has 80% Greeks, only that our history in Cyprus is far longer than the history that the Turks have in Asia Minor. And yet some people object to the fact that Cyprus is Greek and that the Cypriot people had every right to be in a united free state along with the rest of Greeks, while the same people do not object that Asia Minor is Turkish.

If some minority of 18-20% should have the right to determine the destiny of a territory against the will of the vast majority, then this should be a right of all minorities, including the Greek minority of Asia Minor, not just of the TCs.

A minority should have its human and minoritiy rights 100% protected, but should not have the right to impose anything beyond that against the will of the majority. Do you disagree with this general rule that should apply everywhere without any double standards?

And here I am talking about minorities, not about separate nations with their own separate territories that are under occupation, like it is the case of Kurdistan, Tibet and some other cases. These nations should be allowed to be independent in their own territories.

[Oracle]

Too many Cypriots of all flavours forget how much of a Hero Makarios was in his time ... and ever after...

Hero's Return

Monday, Mar. 09, 1959

Through three bitter and often bloody years, Greek Cypriots had looked to the day when Archbishop Makarios, their spiritual and political leader, would return from exile. This week the day came, and Cyprus went wild with joy.

From coastal towns and mountain hamlets, 150,000 Greek Cypriots—more than one-fourth of the entire population of the island—walked, pedaled and bounced in decrepit buses into the capital of Nicosia (pop. 80,000). They clogged the narrow streets, clotted the tortuous alleys. "Makarios, Ma-ka-ri-os," they chanted as the black-robed archbishop rode in triumph beneath arches of myrtle and laurel in a cream-colored Mark VII Jaguar. This, declared Makarios, is "the resurrection of our country."

The man that the British had whisked out of Nicosia by plane on a March afternoon in 1956, to exile in the remote Seychelles Islands in the Indian Ocean, had come home—as exiled leaders usually do —a hero.

But the jubilation seemed to be intended more for Makarios, the politician and primate, than for the London agreement (,'TIME. March 2) that will within the year turn the island from a British crown colony into an independent republic. In their whitewashed coffee shops Greek Cypriots frowned at Article 22 of the agreement, which forbids them ever again to demand enosis (union with Greece). "We shall have to hear about it from the mouth of Makarios," said one coffee drinker. "From him we shall learn if it is good."

Britain's respected Cyprus Governor Sir Hugh Foot (who previously guided both the Nigerians and Jamaicans on the road to independence) moved swiftly to reduce onerous restrictions, so that Makarios and Turkish Cypriot leaders would find it easier to sell the compromise plan to a doubting populace. Swallowing hard, the British proclaimed an amnesty that assures safe-conduct to Greece for Colonel George Grivas, wispy, 60-year-old leader of the Greek Cypriot terrorist underground organization EOKA, along "with anyone he may wish to take with him." The British also announced plans to cut their garrison from 25,000 to 5,000 men.

Peace on Cyprus had one important side effect. Sixty Greek officers and men who last June had walked out in a huff from NATO's Southeastern European Command headquarters at Izmir, Turkey, quietly returned to their job. Friendly allies once again in the Eastern Mediterranean, the British, Turks and Greeks scheduled joint naval maneuvers in April.

[zan]

Too many Cypriots of all flavours forget how much of a Hero Makarios was in his time ... and ever after...

Hero's Return

Monday, Mar. 09, 1959

Through three bitter and often bloody years, Greek Cypriots had looked to the day when Archbishop Makarios, their spiritual and political leader, would return from exile. This week the day came, and Cyprus went wild with joy.

From coastal towns and mountain hamlets, 150,000 Greek Cypriots—more than one-fourth of the entire population of the island—walked, pedaled and bounced in decrepit buses into the capital of Nicosia (pop. 80,000). They clogged the narrow streets, clotted the tortuous alleys. "Makarios, Ma-ka-ri-os," they chanted as the black-robed archbishop rode in triumph beneath arches of myrtle and laurel in a cream-colored Mark VII Jaguar. This, declared Makarios, is "the resurrection of our country."

The man that the British had whisked out of Nicosia by plane on a March afternoon in 1956, to exile in the remote Seychelles Islands in the Indian Ocean, had come home—as exiled leaders usually do —a hero.

But the jubilation seemed to be intended more for Makarios, the politician and primate, than for the London agreement (,'TIME. March 2) that will within the year turn the island from a British crown colony into an independent republic. In their whitewashed coffee shops Greek Cypriots frowned at Article 22 of the agreement, which forbids them ever again to demand enosis (union with Greece). "We shall have to hear about it from the mouth of Makarios," said one coffee drinker. "From him we shall learn if it is good."

Britain's respected Cyprus Governor Sir Hugh Foot (who previously guided both the Nigerians and Jamaicans on the road to independence) moved swiftly to reduce onerous restrictions, so that Makarios and Turkish Cypriot leaders would find it easier to sell the compromise plan to a doubting populace. Swallowing hard, the British proclaimed an amnesty that assures safe-conduct to Greece for Colonel George Grivas, wispy, 60-year-old leader of the Greek Cypriot terrorist underground organization EOKA, along "with anyone he may wish to take with him." The British also announced plans to cut their garrison from 25,000 to 5,000 men.

Peace on Cyprus had one important side effect. Sixty Greek officers and men who last June had walked out in a huff from NATO's Southeastern European Command headquarters at Izmir, Turkey, quietly returned to their job. Friendly allies once again in the Eastern Mediterranean, the British, Turks and Greeks scheduled joint naval maneuvers in April.

The butcher of Cyprus...Some hero

[Oracle]

Well you may not have appreciated his efforts to rid the Island of colonial rule, because you empathise with the invaders.

If he was a butcher, by your unreliable assessments, was does that make your Turkish leaders ....

[zan]

Well you may not have appreciated his efforts to rid the Island of colonial rule, because you empathise with the invaders.

If he was a butcher, by your unreliable assessments, was does that make your Turkish leaders ....

Saviors.......Makarios alone had the future of Cyprus in his hands.....He alone could have lead us to our island paradise but instead used his position, both as president and priest, to bring mayhem and murder instead. Political ENOSIS and religious ENOSIS......

[BirKibrisli]

Three or four vignettes of my Cyprus days stand out sharply in my memory. A massacre took place in Limassol on the south coast in which, us I recall, about fifty Turkish Cypriotes were killedCin some cases by bulldozers crushing their flimsy houses. As Makarios and I walked out of the meeting together on the second day, I said to him sharply that such beastly actions had to stop, that the previous night's affair was intolerable, and that he must halt the violence. With amused tolerance, lie replied, "But, Mr. Secretary, the Greeks and Turks have lived together for two thousand years on this island and there have always been occasional incidents; we are quite used to this." I was furious at such a bland reply. "Your Beatitude," I said, "I've been trying for the last two days to make the simple point that this is not the Middle Ages but the latter part of the twentieth century. The world's not going to stand idly by and let you turn this beautiful little island into your private abattoir." Instead of the outburst I had expected, he said quietly, with a sad smile, "Oh, you're a hard man, Mr. Secretary, a very hard man!"

Oracle,you might like to have a look at this link. It is taken from the memoirs of George Ball...He was sent to Cyprus in 1964 to deal with the conflict for President Johnson...Just something to wet your appetite while I look further for those speeches from the 60s....

But tell me up front ,if, like GR,you are not going to believe what was reported in the newspapers at the time,so I don't bother with it....

If you only believe in those links that supposrt your idea of the truth,then we might as well call it a night (here in Down Under)...

http://www.cyprus-conflict.net/www.cyprus-conflict.net/Ball%20-%2064.html

Have you had the time to consider this link,Oracle???

[BirKibrisli]

Makarios left no memoirs, and it is unlikely that archives will shed much light on his thinking in this or later phases of his career. What is clear is that he had two courses open to him after the diktat of Zurich. [b]He could escape from it either by continuing to pursue the goal for which he and the overwhelming majority of his compatriots had struggled, union with Greece; or by building a truly independent state in Cyprus, neither beholden to the guarantor powers nor crippled by the impediments they had bequeathed. Once Makarios became president, he left both open. Cyprus did not join Nato, as stipulated in the gentleman’s agreement, nor was AKEL banned – provisions which would have followed automatically had Cyprus been united with Greece, but which he was able to block on taking office. As head of state, his first trip abroad was to Nasser in Egypt, followed by attendance at the Non-Aligned Conference hosted by Tito, and a visit to Nehru in India. In this role he had the profile of a Third World leader, at the antipodes of the pickled Cold War politics of Restoration Greece.

At the same time, he appointed a cabinet dominated by stalwarts of EOKA, and made it clear to his electors – he had won a two-thirds majority of votes in the Greek community – that Cyprus remained entitled to self-determination, a free choice of union with the motherland that had been so flagrantly denied it. Enosis might be deferred, but it was not renounced. Makarios was a charismatic leader, of great dignity and subtlety, and often spellbinding eloquence. But he could not ignore the sentiments of those from whom he drew his authority, who knew they had been cheated of their wishes and saw no reason why they should give them up on foreign instructions. In moving to revise the mock constitution, he was acting as they wanted him to. But in doing so, he miscalculated Turkish reactions in a way common to the Greek community.

Oracle,this link might be interesting as well....





http://www.lrb.co.uk/v30/n08/ande01_.html

And this?????

[BirKibrisli]

Oracle...This is from the horses mouth:

I,too spoke of Enosis after Zurich....voicing this aspiration...

You will find it around 4.30 minutes into the video....

And this?????

[BirKibrisli]

Are we talking about the proclamation of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, or the name Turkey for Asia Minor that was first coined in the Middle Ages by Europeans? These are totally unrelated questions.

Tim, I am talking about the official name of the country which was declared without the approval of the minorities.

In general I don't disagree with what you say but it is a different subject. Did you know that the mother tongue of many of the "Turkish" Cypriots was Greek? Some of them didn't even speak Turkish. Basically they took all the Muslims of Cyprus, and they declared them as being Turkish. Then the TMT and Turkey forced all of those people to change language to Turkish and to bring their children up with Turkish as their language.

It seems to me that it is not the name of the country that is important. I mean, if instead of the Republic of Turkey, the country had taken the name Republic of Asia Minor - or Republic of Anatolia (if I dare face your wrath for using what is actually a Greek name) - but apart from that had followed exactly the same policies, then what would have changed? What you are criticising, I think, is the way this state in various ways and at various times has oppressed non-Turkish ethnic groups within the country. As Shakespeare said, a rose would smell the same by any other name.

My point Tim is that Asia Minor has 80% Turks, just like Cyprus has 80% Greeks, only that our history in Cyprus is far longer than the history that the Turks have in Asia Minor. And yet some people object to the fact that Cyprus is Greek and that the Cypriot people had every right to be in a united free state along with the rest of Greeks, while the same people do not object that Asia Minor is Turkish.

If some minority of 18-20% should have the right to determine the destiny of a territory against the will of the vast majority, then this should be a right of all minorities, including the Greek minority of Asia Minor, not just of the TCs.

A minority should have its human and minoritiy rights 100% protected, but should not have the right to impose anything beyond that against the will of the majority. Do you disagree with this general rule that should apply everywhere without any double standards?

And here I am talking about minorities, not about separate nations with their own separate territories that are under occupation, like it is the case of Kurdistan, Tibet and some other cases. These nations should be allowed to be independent in their own territories.

This is truly disappointing,Piratis...It is totally denying that part of our history which followed 1571...It also denies the existence of the other minorities like the Armenians,Maronites,Jews,Romans and what have you...What you are advocating is the Tyranny of the Majority,knowing well this is the main practical reason we are where we are today...

It is this failure to overcome our irrational obsession with our ethnicity which continues to be the biggest obstacle to a peaceful and lasting solution...I cannot believe that you are doing this...You know well,at least as well as I know,that the final solution to our problem lies in putting our ethnic origins behind us and fostering our Cypriotness,in an inclusive, all embracing nation of Cypriots...It is bewildering that this corrossive virus which is nationalism and the cause of so much anguish to our people still lives on in the hearts and minds of intelligent and sensible people...