Piratis wrote:Dear Piratis, inter-communal conflict emerged inevitably by itself as a consequence of the clashes of Greek and Turkish nationalism in 1930s. After the GC ruling elite armed to struggle for Enosis, TC ruling elite also prepared to struggle for Taksim. That's why TC ruling elite took side with Brits against GC ruling elite.
You are wrong Insan. The desire of the Cypriot people, like every other Greek, for the creation of a free Greek state goes back to 1821 to the time of the Greek revolution. We had no "ruling elite" at that time, since we were ruled by foreigners. Just like
today the Cypriot people desire democracy, freedom and
self-determination. This is what is desired by the vast majority of the ordinary Cypriot people, not by any elite.
Are you going to tell me that the Cypriot people asking for democracy, freedom and self-determination was something wrong insan? If it was wrong for Cypriots, then it must be wrong for everybody, right? So every nation should have been content to live under some Colonial empire, be it British, Ottomans or any other.
Union with Greece was a right for the Cypriot people if this is what they would have chosen in a democratic referendum. We have been asking for a democratic peaceful referendum so the Cypriot people could decide in a democratic and peaceful way the destiny of their own island, but this was denied to us by the British and the Turks.
The UN resolution about de-colonization clearly defines "integration into an independent State" as one of the "three legitimate options" for the people being decolonized to choose in a democratic way.
http://www.un.org/Depts/dpi/decolonizat ... ration.htmIf the Cypriot people had democratically chosen union with Greece, then the Greek Cypriot majority and the Turkish Cypriot minority in Cyprus would continue to live on this island as they used to live under Ottoman or British rule, but this time as
free equal citizens of the state they
democratically chose to be part of, and not as
subjects of a foreign empire
imposed on them by force.
This is what happened in Rhodes island a few years earlier (1947) when it was united with the rest of Greece and the Greek majority and Turkish minority continues to live there in the way they lived during the Ottoman and Italian rule. No conflicts, no wars, no suffering.
So tell me what was wrong with union with Greece and how any of the human rights of the TC minority would be violated if Cyprus became part of Greece, as opposed to be part of the British or Ottoman empires.
Now lets look at Taksim (partition):
Greek Cypriots are the 5 to 1 majority in all areas of Cyprus. In order to achieve partition, crimes such as
ethnic cleansing and
stealing of lands are
required. This means that the demand for partition not only it was illegitimate, but it required the human rights violations of 100s of thousands of innocent people.
So back to the inter-communal conflict:
The Cypriot people had revolted against the
British Colonialists demanding their freedom and self-determination. There were
no attacks against TCs and no threats or anything else against them. All that the Cypriot wanted was the right to decide the destiny of their own island in a democratic way as opposed to having some foreign empire deciding for us. It was an anti-colonial struggle, a revolution, like those that happened in many other places.
The TCs on the other hand, instead of accepting that the destiny of Cyprus should finally be decided by the Cypriots themselves in a democratic way, they instead sided with the colonialists in order to defeat the Cypriot revolution. Not only that but they started to threaten that 100s of thousands of Greek Cypriots should be annihilated from their homeland in order to achieve partition. And in 1958 they started to put into action their partition plan by attacking and killing innocent Greek Cypriots, looting shops and homes, and starting the inter-communal conflict. It is only
after all these threats and murders of innocent GCs that EOKA responded against the TCs.
So stop trying to avoid the
fact that it is the TCs who started the inter-communal conflict.
Furthermore, our desire for freedom and self-determination does
not even provide a good excuse to either your attacks against innocent people, or to your demands for the annihilation of 100s of thousands of Cypriots from their towns and villages in order to achieve partition.
