Cyprus-Forum.com

[DT.]

DT wrote:

I don't think Utu is TC actully. You seem to be stuck on all this admittion of crimes. The GC side can admit, confess and repent for everything those gangs of fanatics committed in the 60's. A situation so dark and badly recorded that sometimes you feel that this period happened in another country and not our own. And yet, we admit to these crimes and take our fair share of what these individuals had done. Careful now, this is the important bit the fact that we admit that these crimes happened and share our shame with the world depsite the fact that they never happened in the name or desire of 95% of the population of the Cypriots.
Yet we grudgingly admit to these killings and murders een though we were never taught them. Personally I still find fault of the TC's with a well orchestrated withdrawal from govt that gave our fanatics the perfect signal to carry out their share of horrors. But I could never ever understand the maniacs that committed the crimes that they did against TC civilians. Our biggest mistake as a community was not ignoring both Makarios and Clerides whe they pardoned these bastards and hunt them down ourselves. We should have hung them in ELeftheria Sq for the whole world to see.


The same can be said by the TC's with the activities of the TMT. The ordinary TC never gave a carte blanche to these officers from Turkey who were kidnapping and slaugthering GC's either. This one however gets notched down as self defense. How the hell we've reached a stage where slaughtering and heinous crimes against humanity are excused as self defense is beyond me. (by both sides!!)

The 3rd one is the invasion. This is the Big one for me and the one that baffles me the most. Grown men, educated and with families have sat on their PC's and told the forum that the invasion was a peace intervention to save the GC's and the TC's. They told us how no GC civilians were killed during this even though most of us have family that died in 74. They told us they would never have fired had the GC's not fired back and kept a straight face while those of us who remembered the F5's dropping bombs on the villages read with disbelief. They told us that all our missing where killed by the coup when everyday more and more brave TC's are confessing what their entire village knows, that the well on the mountain contains something more than water. Excuses, more excuses and more excuses....and then I sit and wonder. WHat make s a grown man lie like this in someone else's face when that someone else has obviosuly been affected so much by this?

FOr the life of me the only reason I can find is that its the fear of having your words used against you on a later argument. So we sit here and sell our souls to our own propaganda machine for a lousy argument.

Sorry if I dragged on.

Thank you for this response DT. I believe it provides the basis for some serious debate, despite the fact that you started aggressively (just like APOEL). I am referring to the point you made about me being stuck on an issue which probably you find not worth considering. I think that a good start will be made if all of us recognise our crimes, assume responsibilities for them and ask for forgiveness. It will be a good start, especially if we are interested to find a common language that will enable us to move on. It is a simple case of burying the skeletons. Anyway, lets move on to more important aspects of the events that led to the Cyprus tragedy.

You write about gangs of fanatics that represented only 5% of our community which was responsible for committing crimes. (Piratis recognises that crimes were committed only by EOKA B, despite the fact that EOKA B was not around in the early 60`s). I cannot agree with your thesis. In our community, paramilitary organisations were set up and funded by the government, under the leadership of Makarios. They were led by blood-thirsty warlords of the kind of Lyssarides, Yiorgadjis and Sampson. Their sole aim was to prevent a reaction by the Turkish Cypriots to the proposals of Makarios for changes to the constitution and to ensure that these changes would take effect regardless of the desires of the Turkish Cypriot community. What Makarios did was unconstitutional and it violated our signatures that were placed on the agreements only 3 years before. Enosis was the predominant issue in the Greek Cypriot community at the time and it is no secret that we wanted to use the agreements as a stepping stone to achieve our age long desire of union with Greece. We still boast that 99% of the Greek Cypriot community voted for enosis only a few years prior. Denktash and other nationalist elements in the Turkish Cypriot community embarked on a course that would encourage the Greek Cypriot leadership to pursue a path that would lead to an armed conflict. Both sides were thus preparing for this eventuality.

Our side fell into the trap set by Denktash quite willingly because we underestimated the Turkish Cypriots and overrated our ability to contain a head to head conflict. Denktash succeeded in another way too, just as important, by convincing the majority of the Turkish Cypriots that their very existence was in danger. We in fact helped Denktash to gain the respect of the Turkish Cypriots when our warlords started killing innocent Turkish Cypriots and then making these killings appear as heroic acts against a barbaric enemy. Every Turkish Cypriot we killed then brought us one step closer to partition but foolishly we shouted hooray while Denktash rubbed his hands with delight too. Perhaps you are right DT and only 5% did the killings but the remaining 95% not only kept quite but unfortunately condoned the killings. You see, we were fighting a war at the time and we were blinded by the noble aim of this war which was to fulfil our national so called aspirations.

I will carry on later, time permitting.

Bananiot you fail to mention the reasons the 13 PROPOSED amendments were made int he first place! Did Makarios wake up one day and decide that he is going to propose amendments because today's the day we go one step closer to enosis?

The govt was about to collapse due to bankruptcy. The TC's were refusing to allow the collection of any taxes until the municipality blackmails were met. Why do you not question the motives of the TC ministers and representatives who insisted on blackmailing the govt into suffocation thus proving that Makarios had no way out BUT to propose these amendments?

It seems to me that the GC's were playing that game we had as children "Surgery" were if you touched the metal part of the patients body with the tweezers the buzzer would sound and you'd lose. There were 100 different decisions that the GC leadership could have taken....99 of them would had led to a Turkish Invasion. We weren't clever or experienced enough to figure out the 1 method that wouldn't. The TC ministers had left instructions from Denktash and Kutchuk in their offices after they left the govt that explained the methods in which the govt would have been sabotaged....before any amendments came out.

You explain to me what choice did the govt have in order to avoid the collapse of the constitution anyway. Then I want you to pretend for one second that the GC leadership wanted to make 1960 work and the TC leadership was waiting for a F*** up to split the island up. While you'
re pretending this happened now play out the whole story in your head again and tell me if it makes sense.

[DT.]

DT, before continuing with my remarks on your interesting post, I should like to point out that Makarios was instrumental in keeping the TC’s in enclaves. It also appears that invasion did not constitute plan A for Turkey. This is inferred from the way Inonu tried to discourage Makarios from proceeding with his plans to change the constitution and later on from the letter that was sent to Kucuk, asking the TC’s to return to the RoC. It is very simplistic and thus totally wrong to point an accusing finger to Turkey and put all the blame on this, until 1974, invisible enemy as the scourge of Cyprus. Of course there were forces within Turkey that looked towards partition, but at the same time there were forces of sanity and reason. Inonu and the Turkish government tried hard to instil some sense into Makarios, but all to no avail. These are historical facts that cannot be denied. The forces of reason within Turkey should have been reinforced by our proper actions not exposed to the hawks within Turkey by the butchers in our side. The government of Cyprus, which was left in the sole hands of the GC’s, was seen as organising the attacks on the enclaves and orchestrating the campaign of fear against the ordinary TC’s. The warlords were accountable to Makarios and even held a large scale military exercise at the summer holiday home of Makarios at Troodos. Actions such as these could only weaken the hand of the moderate forces within Turkey (and the TC community) and at the same time strengthen the extremists who saw partition as the only solution. Makarios, in my opinion, was not guilty of “pardoning these bastards” for he knew what these bastards were doing, but he was just as guilty as these bastards. It is about time we stopped looking at Makarios as a sacred cow and look at him in a serious, critical context, if we care to get to the bottom of things. The same of course holds true for all persons that shaped the recent history of Cyprus, dead ones and living ones.

I have no problems of labelling makarios as a bungling megalomaniac wannabe statesman. And I'm the last to classify him as a sacred cow. I believe you know of my feeling s of the calibre of politicans this island has produced.

I'll ask you from refraining of using gossip that was circulating at the time ston kafenen tou Tooulli tjai sto chai ths Stete's mou ths Kshakshous

even held a large scale military exercise at the summer holiday home of Makarios at Troodos.

and lets stick to the facts. Turkey...a country that has experienced 3 coup d'etats from its military and one moratorium recently cannot by any means be labelled as a country that (especially in the 60's) was ever ran by politicians. No matter how liberal or hawkish they were. A policy is drawn up for national security with the inclusion of the island of Cyprus in it and the politicians have to implement this policy. Once again there is a sense that out of 100 different directions the Cypriot govt could have taken, 99 would have led to taksim. Kutchuk declared Taksim as the national struggle of TC's in 1957 way before the 1960 constitution.

The invasion now. It was a huge shock to us, no doubt. By shear luck we managed to avoid invasion in 1964 and 1967 and one would have thought that we would learn from our past mistakes. However, having this knack of not admitting our mistakes and always pointing an accusing finger at the others for all our calamities, we were bound to keep repeating the mistakes until catastrophe would strike. The extremists on the Turkish side banked heavily on this attribute of ours. And they were rewarded, eventually. It was a third time unlucky for us. Never mind DT what grown men with families say. This is life. Remember in 1919? Grown Greek men with families told a similar story. The Greek army went in to save the Greeks of Asia Minor. Only, that campaign did not succeed but proved an ill conceived one, for our side. Tasos Kostopoulos, in his excellent book “War and ethnic cleansing” describes the scene when a Greek company of soldiers entered a Turkish village and looked for loot. To their dismay, another Greek company beat them to it and they found nothing. A group of soldiers knocked down a door and came face to face with an old woman crutching a hungry, skinny child. The child looked at the soldiers and asked “ekmek istyor effendi”. Such is the monstrosity of war DT. Of course the Turkish army went wild, and many TC’s jumped to the opportunity to settle old scores. There is no excuse for it but here you are.

Now here's were I really wanted you to prove yourself. This is were I expected you to say "Sikkeme, my next lunch over in the north will be a little awkward but I can't not excuse the horrors of 1974 once more.

Not only have you ignored ALL of the turkish crimes and mistakes of 1974, not only do you NOT ask the right questions from your tc friends but you also try to cover the entire period with a reference to 1919 and the Greek army. Why was there a 2nd invasion Bananiot? What had Clerides done wrong during the negotiations? Why not use the story of the 12 year old girl who was raped repeatedly by 4 turkish soldiers while her father watched before he was executed in front of her..instead of the 1919 story?

Will it make the next lunch in Kyrenia that uncomfortable? Will that 10 seconds of uncomfortable silence round the table be worth your silence to so much suffering your people, innocent people! have experienced from this country?

I face the mistakes of both sides Bananiot, but it seems you've chosen sides.

[YFred]

DT, before continuing with my remarks on your interesting post, I should like to point out that Makarios was instrumental in keeping the TC’s in enclaves. It also appears that invasion did not constitute plan A for Turkey. This is inferred from the way Inonu tried to discourage Makarios from proceeding with his plans to change the constitution and later on from the letter that was sent to Kucuk, asking the TC’s to return to the RoC. It is very simplistic and thus totally wrong to point an accusing finger to Turkey and put all the blame on this, until 1974, invisible enemy as the scourge of Cyprus. Of course there were forces within Turkey that looked towards partition, but at the same time there were forces of sanity and reason. Inonu and the Turkish government tried hard to instil some sense into Makarios, but all to no avail. These are historical facts that cannot be denied. The forces of reason within Turkey should have been reinforced by our proper actions not exposed to the hawks within Turkey by the butchers in our side. The government of Cyprus, which was left in the sole hands of the GC’s, was seen as organising the attacks on the enclaves and orchestrating the campaign of fear against the ordinary TC’s. The warlords were accountable to Makarios and even held a large scale military exercise at the summer holiday home of Makarios at Troodos. Actions such as these could only weaken the hand of the moderate forces within Turkey (and the TC community) and at the same time strengthen the extremists who saw partition as the only solution. Makarios, in my opinion, was not guilty of “pardoning these bastards” for he knew what these bastards were doing, but he was just as guilty as these bastards. It is about time we stopped looking at Makarios as a sacred cow and look at him in a serious, critical context, if we care to get to the bottom of things. The same of course holds true for all persons that shaped the recent history of Cyprus, dead ones and living ones.

I have no problems of labelling makarios as a bungling megalomaniac wannabe statesman. And I'm the last to classify him as a sacred cow. I believe you know of my feeling s of the calibre of politicans this island has produced.

I'll ask you from refraining of using gossip that was circulating at the time ston kafenen tou Tooulli tjai sto chai ths Stete's mou ths Kshakshous

even held a large scale military exercise at the summer holiday home of Makarios at Troodos.

and lets stick to the facts. Turkey...a country that has experienced 3 coup d'etats from its military and one moratorium recently cannot by any means be labelled as a country that (especially in the 60's) was ever ran by politicians. No matter how liberal or hawkish they were. A policy is drawn up for national security with the inclusion of the island of Cyprus in it and the politicians have to implement this policy. Once again there is a sense that out of 100 different directions the Cypriot govt could have taken, 99 would have led to taksim. Kutchuk declared Taksim as the national struggle of TC's in 1957 way before the 1960 constitution.

The invasion now. It was a huge shock to us, no doubt. By shear luck we managed to avoid invasion in 1964 and 1967 and one would have thought that we would learn from our past mistakes. However, having this knack of not admitting our mistakes and always pointing an accusing finger at the others for all our calamities, we were bound to keep repeating the mistakes until catastrophe would strike. The extremists on the Turkish side banked heavily on this attribute of ours. And they were rewarded, eventually. It was a third time unlucky for us. Never mind DT what grown men with families say. This is life. Remember in 1919? Grown Greek men with families told a similar story. The Greek army went in to save the Greeks of Asia Minor. Only, that campaign did not succeed but proved an ill conceived one, for our side. Tasos Kostopoulos, in his excellent book “War and ethnic cleansing” describes the scene when a Greek company of soldiers entered a Turkish village and looked for loot. To their dismay, another Greek company beat them to it and they found nothing. A group of soldiers knocked down a door and came face to face with an old woman crutching a hungry, skinny child. The child looked at the soldiers and asked “ekmek istyor effendi”. Such is the monstrosity of war DT. Of course the Turkish army went wild, and many TC’s jumped to the opportunity to settle old scores. There is no excuse for it but here you are.

Now here's were I really wanted you to prove yourself. This is were I expected you to say "Sikkeme, my next lunch over in the north will be a little awkward but I can't not excuse the horrors of 1974 once more.

Not only have you ignored ALL of the turkish crimes and mistakes of 1974, not only do you NOT ask the right questions from your tc friends but you also try to cover the entire period with a reference to 1919 and the Greek army. Why was there a 2nd invasion Bananiot? What had Clerides done wrong during the negotiations? Why not use the story of the 12 year old girl who was raped repeatedly by 4 turkish soldiers while her father watched before he was executed in front of her..instead of the 1919 story?

Will it make the next lunch in Kyrenia that uncomfortable? Will that 10 seconds of uncomfortable silence round the table be worth your silence to so much suffering your people, innocent people! have experienced from this country?

I face the mistakes of both sides Bananiot, but it seems you've chosen sides.

Look who is getting emotional DT?
You haven't answered my question about the intentions of Samson. Secondly once the coup was defeated, why wasn't the deposed president reinstated? Why was Clerides selected? Who selected him? Wasn't Clerides part of the group that engineered the akritas plan?

[Bananiot]

This time, deeply disappointed by your response DT. I'll get back to this tomorrow, but I cannot resist making one small point at this moment.

You wrote:

I'll ask you from refraining of using gossip that was circulating at the time ston kafenen tou Tooulli tjai sto chai ths Stete's mou ths Kshakshous
Quote:

even held a large scale military exercise at the summer holiday home of Makarios at Troodos.

Please direct your above comment to Glafkos Klerides who wrote this before he became "senile" in His Deposition. Your response to the fact that the paramilitarists were training away on Mount Troodos, next to the summer residence of Makarios, does you no credit at all. I expected better, to say the least.

[Sotos]

Remember in 1919?

I remember 1571-1878 also. The Turks attacked us. We didn't attack them. Since then we are fighting for our freedom and democracy on our island.

[insan]

DT, I could have never understood what's wrong with TCs Taksim stance while GCs backed by Greece had been struggling for Enosis. Could u please explain?

[Piratis]

DT, I could have never understood what's wrong with TCs Taksim stance while GCs backed by Greece had been struggling for Enosis. Could u please explain?

Very easy to answer insan.

Greek Cypriots are the majority in the whole Cyprus. Partitioning Cyprus requires crimes and human rights violations against 100s of thousands of people, such as ethnic cleansing. This is the only way to create some "Turkish State" on part of the country were the 80% of the population are Greek Cypriots.

On the other hand, union with Greece violates the human rights of nobody. Instead of Cyprus being part of the British or Ottoman empires, against the will of the Cypriot people, and Cypriots being the subjects of those empires forced on them, union with Greece would mean that Cyprus is part of the Greek Republic, which is what the Cypriots democratically choose, and with Cypriots being equal Greek citizens, and not subjects of some foreign empire.

Just because you didn't like union with Greece it doesn't mean there was anything wrong with it. In fact a the UN resolution for decolonization clearly defines "integration into an independent State" as one of the "three legitimate options of full self-government."

Do you see any UN resolution or anything else giving to you the right to murder and ethnically cleanse 100s of thousands of people and declare a Turkish state on land that belongs by over 80% to Greek Cypriots?

So the difference between the two is huge. Union with Greece was a right, partition was and continues to be a crime.

[insan]

I've already known your opinions regarding this issue, Piratis. Your views r very well known among us. U don't actually need to repeat them 100s of times. I wonder the opinions of DT regarding this issue.

[DT.]

DT, I could have never understood what's wrong with TCs Taksim stance while GCs backed by Greece had been struggling for Enosis. Could u please explain?

Insan the will for taksim is important in the context that I use it because it shows that despite the political mistakes of the GC's, the TC's had a plan for taksim at the ready. Now whether it was plan A or plan B it all depends who you are. Kutchuk with his 1957 declaration obviously had it as plan A

[insan]

DT, I could have never understood what's wrong with TCs Taksim stance while GCs backed by Greece had been struggling for Enosis. Could u please explain?

Insan the will for taksim is important in the context that I use it because it shows that despite the political mistakes of the GC's, the TC's had a plan for taksim at the ready. Now whether it was plan A or plan B it all depends who you are. Kutchuk with his 1957 declaration obviously had it as plan A

In 1957; even onwards and backwards, Plan A of GCs was Enosis. DT, in a united Cyprus that TCs have political equality and Turkey's guarantorship; there's no reason for us to pursue Taksim policy. One should be too brainless not to see the difficulties in front of Taksim during the cold-war era and even onwards. However, when it is left for u as the only option to choose; u can even struggle for the only option even if it is most difficult to be achieved.