Cyprus-Forum.com

[aussieturk]

What has happened between 1974 and 2010 and beyond is peace, no fighting, no fear, even though economically the North has been worse off.

But it didn’t start out that way did it?

Immediately after the Turkish invasion, the Turkish Cypriots plundered all that the GC refugees had left behind including their homes, furniture, cash, cars, tractors, lorries, businesses, supermarkets, everything was looted! I’ll bet it must’ve felt like all your Christmases came at once eh?

The 185,000 GC refugees on the other hand, wasted in 4x3 wooden shacks for 15+ years before the war-bankrupt RoC could move them one by one to specially erected refugee housing communities that littered the unoccupied territory of Cyprus.

After a devastating start that lasted for some 20 years, the Greek Cypriot perseverance, resourcefulness, and business acumen gradually turned things around and today the RoC boasts an enviable economy and standard of living.

The Turkish Cypriots on the other hand, started out with enough loot to last them a lifetime… or so they thought, because there were enough abandoned GC properties for each Turkish Cypriot to have 4 houses, a couple of cars, 3-4 sets of furniture, and plenty of cash, gold, and other valuables found in ransacked homes, banks, and other buildings, so they just sat on their laurels like true Ottomans always do until the years went by and the loot was used up so they then turned to handouts from Turkey!

That is absolute rubbish. After the island was divided, TC's that moved from the South to the North had to live somewhere. The Government did not allow people to just plunder. TC's from the South had to prove what they owned in the South and were given equivalent land/House in the north as long as they gave up their rights to lands in the south.

Just like in the South, TC's properties have been taken over and redeveloped and GC's have become rich and will not give up their resorts and millions. These 5% of the GC population have influence over the government and will not given up their riches, so will prolong the talks as they make more money. Meanwhile the minority refugees who got little are the ones that suffer.

Its always the rich and poweful (on both sides) who influence governments and pretend they are trying to solve problems and reunite Cyprus, but in reality, they like it as it is.

[Kikapu]

I understand in what you are saying above in people wanting their own self determination if we are talking about, say Scotland, Wales, all the states in former Yugoslavia Federation and all the Soviet satellite states and so on, but how can that be the same for the TCs in Cyprus, when we lived all over the island in a Unitary state without any particular region being ONLY Turkish Cypriot, to want to separate from the rest of the island in the search of "self determination". I know this is what the north wants to do now, now that they believe they do have their own state to seek "self determination" , but before 1974, how could the TCs gained self determination without first having had large amount of their land being in one place on the island.??? Surely this was not going to be possible, was it.??

A groups status as a people with a seperate right to self determination is not dependent solely on them having a single contigous numerical dominace within a given area. Nor does a speperate right to self determination give a peoples the right to a state of their own. What it does grant is a right to have an effective say in the decisions that shape their lives, or in other words a right to rule themselves and not be ruled by others.

The reality in Cyprus was that neither group could exercises the fullest extent of their desires without impacting the rights of the other Group, and lack of a single geographic area in cyprus where TC were situated was part of the reason for this but far from the only one. This is exactly why the compromise agreements of the 60's was based as it was and not as some would have you believe as a 'reward' for TC fulfilling the aims of foreign imperalist powers.

However the GC leadership at the time and many GC today still believe that the TC had no rights as a people to any degree of self determination as a seperate people from GC who chose define themselves not as CYpriots but as part of the Greek people. They believed and believe that GC ALONE acting as either part of the Greek people or just as GC people had the sole right to determine the future of all Cypriots without having to pay any regard for those in Cyprus they consider 'other' than Greek, because either there were more of them or because they had been their longer.

This belief that TC as a communnity have no right to control their own future or have an effective say in it in Cyprus, even when they are explicitly defined as 'seperate' as a people from the GC community by that very same community and that ONLY GC have such rights as a group of people is at the core of the CYprus problem then and still is today. It iwhy today we are still discussing 'history' and issues like enosis, because it remains the same fundamental rift between us as cypriots.

Even today for me personally it remains the 'acid test' for settlement proposals re governance. For me the one single question I ask myself re any proposal on governance is would such a system have allowed the TC community as a community to effectively legaly resist the imposition of enosis on it in Cyprus against its communal will or not. If it would have then it is an acceptable proposal to me and if it would not have it is an unacceptable one. This is not because I today fear having enosis imposed on me but because it is the litmus test of the core issue in this regard. I care nothing of the details as to how this achived or not, only if it is or not.

Welcome back to the Cyprus Forum.....again, Erolz. It is always good to have your debating skills here when ever you show up, no matter how contradicting some of your statements may well be at times.

I've also noticed that you are still using quotes from the 18th Century in your signature in what a Democracy meant in those times, which what Benjamin Franklin stated was very accurate, considering "Democracy" was only practiced by the very few rich white man over everyone’s else’s "no rights". I'm sorry you still believe in his statement being the case today what was made in the 1700's, when his country of the United States has come a long way since from those days, but here you are in the 21st Century, still hanging onto it.!!

Erolz, you have failed to make the argument that "Self Determination" is only for self rule as a community in a Unitary state and not meaning to mean "Self Determination" in self ruling on one's own land. It is not possible to ask for a self determination in a mixed society no matter how diverse the number of "separate people" you may have in that mixed society. This quote from above is full of contradictions.

"The reality in Cyprus was that neither group could exercises the fullest extent of their desires without impacting the rights of the other Group, and lack of a single geographic area in Cyprus where TC were situated was part of the reason for this but far from the only one. This is exactly why the compromise agreements of the 60's was based as it was and not as some would have you believe as a 'reward' for TC fulfilling the aims of foreign imperalist powers."

First you are saying that neither group had self determination abilities, which is true by the way, just because each had a veto power over the other community, therefore they were locked into each other's potentially seeking self determination, in which case, the TCs would have agreed to not to seek self determination along with the GCs in signing the 1960 agreements. But what you are also saying above, is the fact the 1960 agreements were signed as a compromise to allow the TCs to seek a self determination. How could any "separate people" living in a mixed society of a Unitary state ever have a self determination to have self control over only their future and not part of the rest of the mixed society they are living with.?? Surely, all people living in a mixed society have a say so in their future, perhaps not exclusively for only for their own communities, but through proportionate representation in the government which is the case in all True Democracies. One cannot have a self determination ONLY for their own community in a multi cultural societies, or else every country would be fragmented to many pieces by each community needing have their own state from the rest of the country to fully have control over their own self determination, so naturally, land is required for a community to have an effective say so in their own future and self determination.

Without separate land, you cannot have a "self determination", which is what we had in Cyprus, hence the problems and the creation of the "trnc". You will be kidding yourself, that the TCs could ever have been able to have a self determination as a mixed society in a Unitary state without trying to create their own state first. In order for that to happen of course, there had to be mass movement of people from their land at the point of a gun in order for such a "self determination" to take place. The same argument can be made of course by the TCs over the GCs wanting to have Enosis with Greece, but the GCs claim that if such a Union did take place, there would have been no need for the mass movement of TCs from their land to achieve such a union much like what happened with the creation of the "trnc". I guess we will never know, since Enosis did not take place, but we do know the results of the actions of creating the "trnc"

This is how the Native Americans have separate land from the rest of the "white man" in the US, so that they do have self determination from the rest of the country. Their own land (reservations) are a independent nation and people of those nations, they have self determination which they are able to exercise by building casinos on their own land within all the states they have their reservations in, even if some of those states do not allow gambling, but they have no control over what the native Americans can do on their own land. This is also true for their own legal system, which is different than the legal system of the state where their reservations are located. They even have a different "day light savings" from the state they have their land on, like in Arizona, where you can have different time when crossing NA reservations from the rest of the state during summer. The only thing that the Natives Americans do not have International voice to make any bi-lateral agreements with foreign powers nor do they have a voice in the US government other than protections for the Native Americans and their reservations through what ever agreements the US government had signed with the Native American for their protections.

[erolz3]

I've also noticed that you are still using quotes from the 18th Century in your signature in what a Democracy meant in those times, which what Benjamin Franklin stated was very accurate, considering "Democracy" was only practiced by the very few rich white man over everyone’s else’s "no rights". I'm sorry you still believe in his statement being the case today what was made in the 1700's, when his country of the United States has come a long way since from those days, but here you are in the 21st Century, still hanging onto it.!!

The point of Mr Franklin's quote, himself a fervent believer in deomcracy, is plain and simple. It hightlights the inherent limits of democracy. It says nothing about 'who' has such rights, as you spuriously claim, and everything about the limits of it, for those that have the right. It's relevance as a comment on the limits of democracy is as insightful and relevant to todays democracies as it was to contemporary ones.

Without separate land, you cannot have a "self determination", which is what we had in Cyprus, hence the problems and the creation of the "trnc".

This is simply not the case. If it where the case that without exclusive control of a given terrirtory a people can not be said to have and be able to execerise their right to self determination, then the various documents that descibe and ratify the right of peoples to self determination would say this. They do NOT say this and for good reason.

Under the 60's agreements TC as a community or as a people as far as GC defined and acted as a seperate people (ie greek and therefore not cypriot) were able to have an effective say in the decision that shaped and controled their lives.

If you compare how much TC as a community / people in Cyprus who are not greek were able to have an effective say in the decision that shaped and controled their lives - ie how much they were able to express their right to self determination , under the 60's agreements with how much that would have been so under enosis , clearly under the 60's agreements they had vastly more pratical real world effectivecontrol over the decisions that shaped their lives.

The 60's agreements were an attempt to give both GC and TC as communites / peoples and expression of their rights to self determination in a way that did not require the infringment or denial of the others rights, something that could not be achieved by either partition or enosis. That is WHY they were drawn up as they were and NOT as some mass plot of the entire world designed to 'stich up' GC and reward TC unfairly.

Not being able to exercise the fullest extent of ones rights (as an indivdual or as a people) with NO REGARD for anyone elses rights does NOT mean you no longer thave that right.

I have a right to free movement, but that does NOT mean that unless I can freely come and go into your private house at will that right has been denied me. In the same way GC have a right to self determination, but just because they can not express that in enosis , because of how that would infringe the rights of TC who they define as an 'other' people through enosis, it is not the case that they have had thier right to self determination denied them. They have had THAT expression of the right denied to them, but there are many ways that their right to self determination can be validly expressed that do not require the removal of the same right from others.

[BirKibrisli]

Erol...you might be in a good position to answer this question...How much of their right to self determination do you think the TCs are exercising at the moment? There are conflicting reports regarding the number of settlers,and the proportion that was given trnc citizenship hence diluting the political will of the indigenous TCs...Can you shed some light on the truth of this matter???

[erolz3]

Erol...you might be in a good position to answer this question...How much of their right to self determination do you think the TCs are exercising at the moment? There are conflicting reports regarding the number of settlers,and the proportion that was given trnc citizenship hence diluting the political will of the indigenous TCs...Can you shed some light on the truth of this matter???

Who can say for sure. My personal estimate would place it somewhere between more than we would have had under enosis and less than under the 60's agreements as they were written.

I think the 'less than' is not really a result of settlers having more political influence in north cyprus than non settlers, though I also am reluctant to talk about settlers without clear defintions of who is or is not a settler. However having made that disclaimer, of those citizens in the north with rights to vote in elections I estimate that the ratio of settlers to non settlers is in the region of 2:1 in favour of non settlers. Futher my perception of the political power and influence of 'settlers' in the north is that their political power and influece is less than their numbers - they generally are poorer and wield less political power than their numbers as group could allow, as see in the number of 'settler' MP's and minsiters in the north. Finally from the limited evidence I have seen of voting patters between settlers and non settlers in the north there is no real evidence that non settlers consistently vote in patters different to an opposed to non settlers in any susbstantial degree. So for those reason I do not think that the reduction in TC ability to exercise their right to self determination in the current system vs the 60's agreements is particularly related to 'dilution of political power' from TC to 'settlers'

What, in my humble opinoon, does explain the reduction, is the TRNC's dependancy on Turkey, finacial, military and political. This reality does decease the degree to which TC can effectively exercise their right to self determination.

All of the above is my sincere belief and opinion - it does not represent 'truth'.

[Piratis]

I think that the notion of the right of self-determination for all peoples was one of the greatest achievements of the 20th Centruy, and is a prerequisite for world peace and stability.

However, it has to be admitted that this notion is flawed by a fatal contradiction. The concept of a 'people' is ethnic, but the concept of political independence of necessity has a territorial dimension. The peoples of the world, unfortunately, do not all reside in neat, compartmentalised geographic units, but often share the same geographical space with people having other ethnic identities. How do you reconcile the resulting contradiction when two or more peoples share the same space and support conflicting political claims over that territory? A prime example would be Northern Ireland, at least as it was about 20 years ago, where Catholics perceived themselves to be part of Ireland and considered the British to be an occupying force, while Protestants considered themselves to be British. Yet the Protestant and Catholic population was spread over the whole territory. How do you grant both peoples the right of delf-determination.

The right of a peoples to self determination does not equate to a right to an indpendant sovreign state exclusively theirs only - that is where you are getting into problems.

In the SIMPLEST of cases ONE way of expressing the right to self determination of peoples is via an unitary independant state.

In more complex situations like Cyprus where you have two peoples then compromise is required. That is the basis on which the 60's agreements were made.

TC were not granted unfair powers in those agreements as a reward by the world powers in order to stitch up GC in Cyprus. They were granted them as a reflection of both communites rights to self determination within a single nation state.

The problem remains that GC like Piratis refuse to accept that TC have such a right at all, NOT rights to their own state, but a right to have an effective voice as a community / people in their OWN shared state.

So he can justify first agreeing such a system for tatical advantage, then working in secret to illegaly remove the rights granted as a reflection of the TC communal rights to self determination using illegla ethnic violence as '100% legal' and 'restoration of justice'.

Accept that as far as GC define themselves as a people that excludes TC then TC have a sepertate and equal right to self determination and we can solve the Cyprus problem. Continue to deny we have such rights at all and we remain no closer to a solution than we were in 1955.

You repeat the same nonsense again.

The case of Cyprus is no different than the cases of most other unitary countries.

It is a rare exception that a country is made out of a single ethnic group. In most cases there are more ethnic groups than one. Ethnic minorities exist in just about any country in the world.

Take Turkey for example. A majority of Turks, a large ethnic minority of Kurds, and several other smaller minorities, including Greeks. Same with Greece. A majority of Greeks, a minority of Turks/Muslims and several other minorities. Same with Bulgaria. A majority of Bulgars and then a minority of Mulsims/Turks and several other smaller minorities.

The same with most other countries. I used the examples of Greece and Bulgaria because they are the most similar to the one in Cyprus. In those countries there is also a Christian majority and a Muslim minority formed during Ottoman rule, just like your minority in Cyprus. The only difference is that the Ottomans conquered those territories much earlier and the history of those minorities in those territories is almost twice longer than the one of TCs in Cyprus.

I hope you understand that no intelligent person will accept the lame excuses you made up to excuse your criminal actions. The truth is that in the 50s you collaborated with foreign Imperialists in order to be granted unfair and unjust gains on the expense of every other Cypriot, and today you continue doing the same, keeping half of our island as hostage and trying to blackmail us and force us to give up even more of our rights (and lands as well this time) for your benefit.

[Piratis]

I don't want to sweep the past under the carpet!!! I never allow that to happen! I demand an apology for all the crimes you have done against us from 1571 until now! Do you think we will erase 100s of years of crimes and oppression against us just like that? The first thing you should admit is that you shouldn't exist on this island in the first place. The creation of your minority on our island was a result of invasion, murders of many 1000s Cypriots, and oppression of the Cypriot population. If it wasn't for your aggression and expansionism Cyprus would be a peaceful democratic island with no problems at all. So don't sweep the past under the carpet! APOLOGIZE and ask for our forgiveness!!! Maybe we will forgive you but maybe not. We just had way too much suffering to forget so easily. Maybe you will need to be send back to Turkey for some years to give to us the chance to forgive you. Then maybe we will allow some of you to come back. So admit your crimes of 1571 -1878 and then we will move in the 50s! Nothing of the past will stay under the carpet!!

Thank you for being so honest and open,Sotos...
Believe it or not I understand your sentiments...I often look at our Aboriginee population here,and think about how much they suffered in the hands of their colonisers,and shake my head in wonderment- how can these people be so forgiving and non agressive...Let me say this,I sincerely wish the Ottomans had never attacked or captured Cyprus...I only have an incling of what it must've been like for the indigenious population at the time...I would be quite happy to say SORRY on their behalf,if that will make a difference..But Sotos,1571 was a long time ago...429 years if my math serves me right...Not even my great great great great grandfather was alive at the time...Nobody asked me or any of my ancestors for permission to capture Cyprus...Non of our ancestors came here voluntarily...They came either as soldiers or as forced settlers...And over the following hundreds of years they became part of this land,part of the Cypriot people...Cyprus is as much our home as it is yours now...We have nowhere else to go,nowhere else to call home...

It is my realisation that a lot of GCs feel like you do,though not all articulate it as openly as you have here,which made me reconsider my original position on the best solution for Cyprus...I would personally be very afraid to live together with people who are capable of holding on to centuries old bitterness and hatreds...And I cannot possibly advise the TC community to put themselves at the same risk as before,just to satisfy my romanticised belief and trust in humanity...What I think is neither here nor there,and the collective TC intuition/subconsciousness has already decided that we must live not togther but side by side, with enough safety precautions,so as not to invite still more pain and suffering for the future Cypriots,GC and TC alike...I am out of the picture now Sotos,and will probably never return to Cyprus...But you will have a very difficult time trying to convince those who live in the trnc to depart from their homeland...And you will not have too many of them apologising for something which happened more than 400 years ago...The fate of Cyprus is sealed,even a BBF will not keep your dark-hearted,ancient- hatred- filled selves safely apart from innocent TCs...

Just a reminder Bir: The Ottoman rule lasted until 1878. That is 80 years before 1958, when TCs attacked again.

So, given the fact that an oppression of centuries with 10s of thousands of GC casualties was over just a few decades earlier, what kind of sacrifices should the TCs have done in the 50s for the solution of the Cyprus Problem? Do you think that given your oppression against us that ended some decades earlier, the TCs should have agreed to give up their lands and their human rights in 1950?

No Bir, the GCs are not "holding on to centuries old bitterness and hatreds". If that was the case, then we would also hate the Latin minority. As Pyrplolizer said, GCs forgave the TCs within just a few years after the Ottoman rule ended and we lived together in peace.

The Bitterness and hate today are due to what you are doing today. Illegally occupying our lands and properties and trying to blackmail us and force us to grand to you our lands and give up even more of our human and democratic rights. It is you who is holding decades old bitterness and hatreds, for events that happened half a century ago.

It is you who doesn't want to "sweep history under the carpet" because you want to use some small very selective and highly distorted part of history as an EXCUSE to continue to violate our rights. Well, if you don't want to "sweep history under the carpet", fine we will not. But why are you then complaining when you are reminded about your own crimes during history? Or maybe you want to sweep all history under the carpet except the tiny parts that suit you?

[Piratis]

Erol...you might be in a good position to answer this question...How much of their right to self determination do you think the TCs are exercising at the moment? There are conflicting reports regarding the number of settlers,and the proportion that was given trnc citizenship hence diluting the political will of the indigenous TCs...Can you shed some light on the truth of this matter???

You can not exercise "self-determination" over a territory which belongs by over 80% to GCs. What you exercise is called theft.

[erolz3]

I hope you understand that no intelligent person will accept the lame excuses you made up to excuse your criminal actions.

No where do I or ever have I claimed that TC having a seperate right to self determination than GC as far as GC chose to define themselves not as cyptiot but greek gives them a right to a sperate state in Cyprus or that it justifies the creation of such through force of arms. I have said over and over specificaly that it does NOT confer such a right and the it does NOT justify the creation of such.

You do not need a vast amount of intelligence to be able to distinguish what I have said and what I have not said and see that what YOU claim I say is not what I have actually said. You just need to not be blinded and driven by a pathological need to believe certain things regardless of reality.

The truth is that in the 50s you collaborated with foreign Imperialists in order to be granted unfair and unjust gains on the expense of every other Cypriot,

No Piratis this is YOUR truth, and just as your truth about what I have said and am saying is far from actual objective reality so to is this 'truth' of yours.

[Piratis]

I hope you understand that no intelligent person will accept the lame excuses you made up to excuse your criminal actions.

No where do I or ever have I claimed that TC having a seperate right to self determination than GC as far as GC chose to define themselves not as cyptiot but greek gives them a right to a sperate state in Cyprus or that it justifies the creation of such through force of arms. I have said over and over specificaly that it does NOT confer such a right and the it does NOT justify the creation of such.

You do not need a vast amount of intelligence to be able to distinguish what I have said and what I have not said and see that what YOU claim I say is not what I have actually said. You just need to not be blinded and driven by a pathological need to believe certain things regardless of reality.

The truth is that in the 50s you collaborated with foreign Imperialists in order to be granted unfair and unjust gains on the expense of every other Cypriot,

No Piratis this is YOUR truth, and just as your truth about what I have said and am saying is far from actual objective reality so to is this 'truth' of yours.

Erol, I have just shown to you that the TC minority in Cyprus is no different than any other ethnic minority in the world, and almost exactly the same as the Muslim minorities of Greece and Bulgaria.

If we all defined ourselves as belonging to some "Cypriot Ethnicity" then Cyprus would be one of those rare cases where the whole place is inhabited by just one ethnicity. Well that is not the case. Neither in Cyprus, nor in Greece, Turkey or most other countries. Cyprus is the usual case of a place inhabited by several ethnic groups.

Therefore your argument that just because you belong to a different ethnic group that gives to you some special rights, doesn't hold water. If that was the case then those special rights would be held by the Greeks of Turkey, the Muslims of Greece and Bulgaria and every other ethnic minority in every other country.

Your rights are the same like every other ethnic minority in every other country. The fact that you got way more than that is therefore not because Cyprus is some special case (it is not) but because of the collaboration of your minority with foreign Imperialists, who granted to you more rights and privileges (on our expense) than to any other ethnic group in any other country, as a reward for the help you gave them in serving their interests in Cyprus.

The same continues today. You serve the interests of Turkey in Cyprus and as a reward Turkey promises to you that she will award you with even more powers, and land this time as well, taken from Greek Cypriots.