Cyprus-Forum.com

[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

[denizaksulu]

Who was it that uttered the famous words, "I see no ships", with his telescope on the eye with an eye-patch? Was it Nelson?

Reminds me of the "Malta yok!" story...

"In the year 1645, the story goes, the Ottoman sultan Ibrahim the Mad ordered his fleet to attack the Christian island of Malta in the western Mediterranean. Upon receiving the order, however, Ibrahim’s chief admiral, fearing such a move would end in disaster, placed a candle on his naval map, allowed the wax drippings to fall on the little island until they covered it, declared to his adjutants “Malta yok”, and sailed off to attack the Venetians in Crete."

He is no idiot the Mad Ibrahim. Naturally he went for the bigger prize.

I should've posted the next sentence too which reads…

“The siege of Crete lasted 24 years, in the third of which Ibrahim lost his head, and the Venetians finally surrendered in 1669.”

.................and the siege of Rhodes took twice (almost) as longer and the Maltese sieges failed twice, so did the Viennese Campaigns. Are you going to say something new GR. Dont keep us in suspense.

I'm just a bit confused about the "lost his head" bit... is that literally?

Yes. As if you did not know. Strangled by a Bow.

[Piratis]

Enosis is a word, which means "union", it is not initials so it doesn't need to be written in all caps.

Union with the rest of Greece not only was not a crime, but a right of the Cypriot people which has been denied to us by brute force and blackmail initially by the Ottomans and later by the British-Turk combined attack against us with the aim to oppress our revolution for freedom. Freedom meant union with the rest of Greece. Not every island and village should be independent in order to be free, otherwise we would have millions of countries. Cyprus is overwhelmingly Greek, in history, culture, language and population and being part of Greece along with the rest of Greek islands was not only natural, but was also what the overwhelming majority of Cypriots wanted.

Those who dispute this right with the excuse that there is some TC minority on the island, should tell us why Asia Minor was named "Turkey" by the Turks, when there is a 20% Kurdish minority, as well as Greek and other minorities who obviously would not like their homeland to be called "Turkey". After all, those Kurds and Greeks existed in Asia Minor for far longer than the Turks did, so they should have had even more rights on how their homeland is named, but they didn't. (never mind be given any special privileges or powers)

Yes, after being blackmailed and attacked by the combined forces of Turks and British we were forced to agree to give up this right. But this doesn't mean we were not even allowed to talk about it.

[denizaksulu]

Enosis is a word, which means "union", it is not initials so it doesn't need to be written in all caps.

Union with the rest of Greece not only was not a crime, but a right of the Cypriot people which has been denied to us by brute force and blackmail initially by the Ottomans and later by the British-Turk combined attack against us with the aim to oppress our revolution for freedom. Freedom meant union with the rest of Greece. Not every island and village should be independent in order to be free, otherwise we would have millions of countries. Cyprus is overwhelmingly Greek, in history, culture, language and population and being part of Greece along with the rest of Greek islands was not only natural, but was also what the overwhelming majority of Cypriots wanted.

Those who dispute this right with the excuse that there is some TC minority on the island, should tell us why Asia Minor was named "Turkey" by the Turks, when there is a 20% Kurdish minority, as well as Greek and other minorities who obviously would not like their homeland to be called "Turkey". After all, those Kurds and Greeks existed in Asia Minor for far longer than the Turks did, so they should have had even more rights on how their homeland is named, but they didn't. (never mind be given any special privileges or powers)

Yes, after being blackmailed and attacked by the combined forces of Turks and British we were forced to agree to give up this right. But this doesn't mean we were not even allowed to talk about it.

So it is ok for you to copy other nations/empires, wicked ways. Who says 'crime doesnt pay' when you would do the same.

[SSBubbles]

Then post an interesting hero .....

Oracle's hubby

This is him trying to get away ....

Is this really Mr O - or just a joke? ?

[Piratis]

Enosis is a word, which means "union", it is not initials so it doesn't need to be written in all caps.

Union with the rest of Greece not only was not a crime, but a right of the Cypriot people which has been denied to us by brute force and blackmail initially by the Ottomans and later by the British-Turk combined attack against us with the aim to oppress our revolution for freedom. Freedom meant union with the rest of Greece. Not every island and village should be independent in order to be free, otherwise we would have millions of countries. Cyprus is overwhelmingly Greek, in history, culture, language and population and being part of Greece along with the rest of Greek islands was not only natural, but was also what the overwhelming majority of Cypriots wanted.

Those who dispute this right with the excuse that there is some TC minority on the island, should tell us why Asia Minor was named "Turkey" by the Turks, when there is a 20% Kurdish minority, as well as Greek and other minorities who obviously would not like their homeland to be called "Turkey". After all, those Kurds and Greeks existed in Asia Minor for far longer than the Turks did, so they should have had even more rights on how their homeland is named, but they didn't. (never mind be given any special privileges or powers)

Yes, after being blackmailed and attacked by the combined forces of Turks and British we were forced to agree to give up this right. But this doesn't mean we were not even allowed to talk about it.

So it is ok for you to copy other nations/empires, wicked ways. Who says 'crime doesnt pay' when you would do the same.

So it is OK for every other nation except us? If you think it is not OK then why don't you start with Turkey to give an example that others should follow, and you instead trying to force it on us?

[Oracle]

Then post an interesting hero .....

Oracle's hubby

This is him trying to get away ....

Is this really Mr O - or just a joke? ?

Well he posted this himself on the forum some time back .... and here's the one I posted of me ...

http://www.cyprus-forum.com/viewtopic.p ... c&start=70

... but of course it's up to you what you believe.

(Only Kafenes has met us both....)

[Tim Drayton]

[...]

Those who dispute this right with the excuse that there is some TC minority on the island, should tell us why Asia Minor was named "Turkey" by the Turks
[...]

You will find that it was Europeans that first began to refer to Asia Minor as Turkey; the etymological roots of this name are to be found in the Medieval Latin word "Turchia".

If you study the development of a Turkish national consciousness, you will see that this was a very late historical development. Speakers of the Turkish language in the Ottoman empire perceived of themselves as belonging to the Muslim "ruling community" and had no awareness that their language was related to those spoken in Central Asia, or of their ancestors' migration from that region. It was Western European orientalists who first discovered this link. The great father of Turkish nationalism, Ziya Gökalp, himself said that it was only in 1896 when he read a work by one of the great contemporary French orientalists that he first became aware of a unique Turkish identity.

[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

[Piratis]

[...]

Those who dispute this right with the excuse that there is some TC minority on the island, should tell us why Asia Minor was named "Turkey" by the Turks
[...]

You will find that it was Europeans that first began to refer to Asia Minor as Turkey; the etymological roots of this name are to be found in the Medieval Latin word "Turchia".

If you study the development of a Turkish national consciousness, you will see that this was a very late historical development. Speakers of the Turkish language in the Ottoman empire perceived of themselves as belonging to the Muslim "ruling community" and had no awareness that their language was related to those spoken in Central Asia, or of their ancestors' migration from that region. It was Western European orientalists who first discovered this link. The great father of Turkish nationalism, Ziya Gökalp, himself said that it was only in 1896 when he read a work by one of the great contemporary French orientalists that he first became aware of a unique Turkish identity.

I don't know which are those Europeans you are talking about Tim. There are Europeans today that still call Istanbul as Constantinople.

The point here is that the Turks (or Muslims or whatever you want to call them) decided to name that country as "Turkey", without taking the approval of the minorities of Asia Minor.

The idea that some minority, especially one which is created by a relatively recent foreign ruler, should be able to stop the overwhelming majority of that territory to achieve their freedom in the way they wanted, is something forced only against Cyprus.

The "Turkish Cypriot Community" was invented and created out of the Muslims of Cyprus, just to use them as an excuse and as the pawns to deny to Cyprus its freedom.