Cyprus-Forum.com

[Paphitis]

According to the BBC Radio 4 documentary programme “Document” transmitted on Monday 23 January 2006 evidence exists which shows that the UK was directly behind Turkish terrorism in Cyprus after it gained its independence in 1960 in order to bring about the partition of the island.

In a handwritten note written by British Army Major Ted Macey details were given of the locations of various arms and explosives that were being stored in civilian premises in Nicosia. According to one of Macey's former drivers who found the note after Macey’s execution, which British intelligence believes was carried out by Cypriot security forces, ammunition was smuggled in their car disguised to the Turks in State Express cartons of cigarettes and explosives were stored in the cellar of Androulas cabaret bar.

By the drivers admission Turkish terrorist militias out in the villages were being assisted by Major Macey under instructions of the British government or British forces since he would have had to obtain the ammunition from somewhere and account for it not coming back.

Other documents show that other members of British armed forces were up to their necks in gun running and espionage for the Turks and Turkish Cypriot terrorist militias.

In May 1964 senior RAF aircraftsman Keith Marley was arrested by Cypriot police after they discovered two mortars in the boot of his car along with incriminating letters from senior member of Turkeys civilian militias.

Documents from the national archives in London show that three other airmen were involved, the ringleader being corporal Sam Bass.

A Telegram from HQ British Forces Cyprus, states

“Bass has been deeply involved in gunrunning for the Turks. He has agreed to assist as a frogman at which he is proficient to meet Turkish submarines arriving over a period of 7 days for the landing of Turkish mainland volunteers at the rate of 200 to 300 a day. He professed to know many details of Turkish plans, including scope and method of landing operations, aimed at effecting partition of the island.”

A spy ring operated with members stationed in different parts of Cyprus. They had expensive diving equipment far beyond the needs or capabilities of most amateurs and were probably all members of a diving club in Cyprus called Omerous, an Anglo-American club, predominately American. Most of the meetings were held at the American embassy. Keith Marley, Sam Bass and Bill Brown were the only members from the British forces and the rest were Americans from the US Navy, Marines and Marine Embassy Guards. The men were never court-martialled but secretly flown out of the country as part of a cover-up.

http://www.greece.org/cyprus/MI6.htm

[samarkeolog]

According to the BBC Radio 4 documentary programme “Document” transmitted on Monday 23 January 2006 evidence exists which shows that the UK was directly behind Turkish terrorism in Cyprus after it gained its independence in 1960 in order to bring about the partition of the island.

Yes and no. Elements within the British state were working towards partition, but other elements were working against it. Elements within the British military and intelligence were working for partition, it may even have been official intelligence policy; but neither the British state nor the British community was trying to partition Cyprus.

Plus even the intelligence services weren't "behind" TMT; but maybe they were [i]beside it. They didn't create or direct TMT, but they did support and help it.

Either way, it was a shameful episode in British history.

[CBBB]

Don't see any references to the actual documents being quoted!

[Paphitis]

US connived to facilitate Turkey

US gave full backing to Turkish invasion

THE United States gave full blessing to the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, even assuring Turkey that it would "get them a solution involving one third of the island.''

This cynical US involvement is revealed in the latest batch of secret official State Department documents released for publication under the 30-year rule.

The American stand has long been known, but this is the first time that it has been confirmed so completely by an official State Department document.

This is clarified in the very first paragraph of the document which is stamped ``SECRET/EYES ONLY.''

It declares that the only conceivable settlement of the Cyprus problem "will have to rest on a de facto division of the island, whatever the form."

While admitting that the United States ``has the clout'' to prevent the invasion, the document nevertheless advises against doing so "before the fighting stops."

The document is dated August 14, 1974, the exact date of the second massive wave of the Turkish invasion of the island. It is headed: ``Memorandum for the Secretary - Cyprus Actions'' from Helmut Sonnenfeldt, one of the top State Department officials dealing with Greco-Turkish affairs.

The document even includes a map detailing the plan of action of the Turkish invasion force. This is headed ``Map done by the Bureau of Intelligence and Research projecting Turkish moves on Cyprus, August 13, 1974.''

It is worth noting that this plan was the one followed exactly by the Turkish troops, a further proof of the close American involvement in the Turkish invasion planning.

Here is the full text of the document:

THE COUNSELOR

DEPARTMENT OF STATE

WASHINGTON

August 14, 1974

SECRET/EYES ONLY

MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY

FROM: Helmut Sonnenfeldt

SUBJECT: Cyprus Actions

You wanted some brief ideas on what we do next.

Nothing I can think of will stop the Turks now from trying to secure by force what they demanded in their ultimata. In fact, as has always been true, the only coneivable modus vivendi will have to rest on a de facto division of the island, whatever the form.

If the Turks move fast and can then be gotten to stand down, it may pre-empt Greek counteraction and then give us a chance to try for a deal. (It may also save Karamanlis).

While the Soviets can serve as a bogey, we must keep them at arms length. They cannot become the arbiter between US allies. Their interests differ drastically from ours: we want a modus vivendi between Greece and Turkey, they want a non-aligned Cyprus, preferably with Greece or Turkey or both disaffected from NATO.

Thus, we should

- urgently try to contain Greek reaction; 24 hours at a time;

- bluntly tell the Turks they must stop, today, tomorrow at the latest;

- warn the Turks that Greece is rapidly moving leftward;

- send high-level US man to Athens to exert continuing direct influence on Karamanlis;

- assuming the Turks quickly take Famagusta, privately assure Turks we will get them solution involving one third of island, within some kind of federal arrangement;

- assure Greeks we will contain Turk demands and allow no additional enclaves, etc.

You should not get involved directly till the fighting stops; then you must since there is no alternative and only we have the clout.

I do not think Brussels/NATO is the place to use when the time comes. The Greeks are probably too sore at NATO and the vehicle of a ministerial meeting is awkward. Anyway, you need Ecevit and Karamanlis.

London may be unacceptable to the Turks because of Callaghan’s blast at them.

You should not shuttle.

This may mean Geneva. Washington, at the President’s initiative, would be all right but hard to get the parties to come to. Also provocative of the Russians. New York would make it difficult to keep the Russians away.

You could also try Rome.

Cyprus Weekly
10 August 2007

[samarkeolog]

Well, there's the Irish Times:

[British navy officer Martin] Packard recruited regular Greek and Turkish army officers into tripartite teams which went from village to village – 80 per cent of the population were village dwellers – settling disputes, freeing hostages, and encouraging villagers to resolve their own problems. His teams achieved reconciliation in many villages, although in some Turkish Cypriots opted for resettlement in Turkish-army protected enclaves due to intimidation by communal militiamen backed by Athens and Ankara. However, Packard believed the “mother countries” were, at that time, seeking a way out of the crisis and might have found a formula which would have preserved the integrity of the 1960 Cyprus republic. But that was not to be. After Packard described his reconciliation efforts to US envoy George Ball, he replied, ominously: “Very impressive, but you’ve got it all wrong, son. Hasn’t anyone told you that our objective here is partition, not reintegration.”

That was written by an international on the Greek Cypriot side, whose work has been sponsored by the Greek Cypriot administration, and that acknowledged that the British navy were working against partition (but that other elements were not; unfortunately, the other elements won).

As Christopher Hitchens made clear, Packard was on a British state mission; so it was not the British state itself that was trying to partition Cyprus, but elements within it, powerful, undemocratic - antidemocratic - forces like the enosist Greek Cypriot para-state and the taksimist Turkish Cypriot deep state.

[Paphitis]

The real truth about British spy ring in Cyprus

FANOULA ARGYROU, a professional researcher, looks at allegations made this week in a BBC Radio programme about a British spy ring operating to support the Turkish Cypriots in 1964 and finds that the truth is even more amazing…THE murky side of Britain’s role in Cyprus was highlighted this week by a BBC Radio 4 programme that claimed a British spy ring cooperated with the Turkish Cypriots during the troubled days of 1964.

The following summary of the documentary was also available on the same day on the BBC 4’s website:

" Ever since the Turkish army invaded and occupied Northern Cyprus in 1974, the partition of the island between ethnic Greeks and Turks has seemed set in stone.

"But the first Green Line, through the capital, was drawn ten years earlier, by a British general (Young) using a green chinagraph pencil that happened to be at hand. Throughout 1964, British troops were on the island, supposedly for peace-keeping. But were they really bringing peace?

"In this programme, Mike Thomson examined new documents that suggest that the real motives of some of the peacekeepers were less than honourable."

The documents reveal the existence of a spy ring of British troops who were materially aiding Turkish insurgents by gun-running and spying on Greek Cypriot military installations.

Although one of the men was caught by the Greek Cypriots, the rest were spirited off the island by the British authorities before the Cypriot police could interrogate them.

The programme also investigated the long-standing mystery of a British army major, who was abducted, presumed murdered, by Greek Cypriot paramilitaries. New documentary evidence uncovered by the programme shows that he, too, was aware of illicit gun-running on behalf of the Turks and that, although the British authorities had good intelligence about the identities of his murderers, they chose not to press the Greek Cypriot authorities to investigate the case.

Intelligence officer

Many Greek Cypriots have long believed that the Nato powers, notably Britain and America, were opposed to the idea of an independent Cyprus because of fears that it could fall into communist hands and become a "Mediterranean Cuba" - a scenario that would have put at risk British electronic spying bases on the island.

The programme assesses the evidence that pro-American elements on the island in 1964 actively conspired to foment inter-communal strife in order to justify the effective partition of the island - a situation that came to pass in 1974."

The most striking part of the BBC documentary was the story of Martin Packard, a British naval intelligence officer who was sent to Cyprus from Malta on account of being a fluent speaker of Greek, to help prevent small incidents between Greek and Turks from escalating into serious ones.

It seems, though, that he was taking his mission very seriously, for just as he was being very successful in stopping bloodshed, he was virtually abducted by his superiors, put on a plane and flown out of the island.

Packard related his experience to the BBC that, after mediating successfully between a Greek and a Turkish village over some stolen sheep: "The US Acting Secretary of State George Ball, visiting the island at the time, patted me on the back, as though I were sadly deluded and he said: ‘That was a fantastic show son, but you’ve got it all wrong, hasn’t anyone told you that our plan here is for partition?’ "

Undaunted, Martin pursued plans to move Turkish Cypriots back to the villages they fled. But as the first settlement was about to take place, British General Michael Carver had him arrested and flown off the island in an unmarked CIA plane.

Not new documents

I listened to the programme very carefully and as a researcher I have the following comments to make.

It is necessary from the offset to set the record straight by underlining that these documents are not new releases but documents that were released ten years ago and ever since have available for research at the Public Records Office (PRO) in London.

As a regular researcher at the PRO myself, I have seen and researched thoroughly these documents long ago and refer to them in length in two of my books - ‘Conspiracy or Blunder?’ published in Nicosia in 2000, and ‘Top Secret,’ also published in Nicosia in 2004.

I have no doubt that the Radio 4 programme, although well intentioned, gave half the truth around the existence of the ‘spy ring’ in Cyprus that was aiding the Turkish Cypriots.British ‘conciliators’

Both Lt Commander Martin Packard and Major Ted Macey were, in fact, working in Cyprus under the instructions of the Foreign Office, specifically under the instructions of high-ranking official Sir Cyril Pickard.

Sir Cyril was at the time an Assistant Under Secretary directly involved with the Cyprus problem.

Their secondment to UNFICYP -†Martin Packard as Conciliator for the Greek Cypriot side and Ted Macey as special Liaison Officer attached to Turkish Cypriot leader Dr Kutchuk’s office - had a hidden agenda.

In 1963, Lt Commander Martin Packard was rushed to Cyprus from Malta, where he was serving as a naval intelligence officer.

He mastered the Greek language perfectly.

After his peacekeeping in Cyprus he was awarded an MBE.

Invasion preparations

The same went for Major T. Macey. He mastered both the Greek and Turkish languages and had served in Greece for a number of years.

He had a rough ‘Rambo’ image and his ‘terms of reference’ were quite different from those of Packard for obvious reasons if one studies the British documents analytically vis-a-vis the Foreign Office policy of the period (which has hardly changed at all!).

Macey, indeed, provided the Turkish Cypriots with arms and ammunition, offered them training and, in general, he headed the preparation for an eventual Turkish invasion.

Packard, on the other hand, was working on a different level; that of a friendly conciliator, as the British policy needed the Greek Cypriots to be kept in check, quiet, unarmed, restrained and behaving themselves.

The knowledge of the local languages in these cases was a definite must and the best way to gain the confidence of the people.

According to PRO documents (which refer to a statement made by the then President Archbishop Makarios) Major Macey and his driver were murdered by a ringleader of a gang active in the Famagusta-Larnaca area.

Macey and his driver were accused of spying and working for the Turks.

In another document, it is revealed that two Greek Cypriot informants gave the British authorities information as to the place where the bodies lay.

The informants were helped by the British authorities to take asylum in England and also received the £2,000 reward offered.

Macey was also employed to make visits to Greek and Turkish villages throughout Cyprus (just like Martin Packard) reporting on the state of feeling in the countryside. In other words, both were engaged in collecting intelligence in a manner undetected by the locals and keeping things in check for their superiors.

The Foreign Office also regarded the positioning of British officers within the UN a necessity, in order to be privy to all information received by the UN. " His special experience (Macey’s) enabled him to play a unique role in efforts to maintain peace and save lives through his personal contacts with Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots," it was noted in a report in the PRO files.

The British documents reveal the true ‘unique’ role of T. Macey as a British ‘spy ring leader’ aiding the Turkish Cypriots against the Greek Cypriots.

Martin Packard’s superiors, fearing for his life, days after Macey’s murder, rushed him out of Cyprus via a CIA plane that took him to an American base in Greece.British subversion

As it was correctly stated in the BBC programme, British officers were directly involved in subversive activities on the island: the manufacture of bombs, bombing Turkish properties to blame the Greek Cypriots, espionage and so on.

Their main objective was to de-stabilise Cyprus, bring chaos and confusion and assist the Turks in the execution of their long-term plans.

As Nicos Koshis stated, the British policy was to keep the two communities separated. But with an enlarged hidden agenda.

In February 1964, Archbishop Makarios handed a document to the British High Commissioner regarding those activities.

He referred to the case of Colonel Thursby who, on January 20, 1964, went to the Manager of the Cyprus Asbestos Mines Co Ltd and, under false pretences, demanded to be allowed to collect all the explosives in the stores.

Makarios also wrote to General Gyani (UN force) complaining and listing instances when British troops with the UN contingent did nothing to stop Turks from firing at Greek Cypriots. Marley (mentioned in the programme), Bachelor, Bass (mentioned), Heron, Tyft, Offard and Jones are among those accused of aiding and providing the Turks with arms, ammunition and other military equipment.

Some of those arrested had given sensational information but the Cypriot authorities were totally ignorant of the even more damning information they could have extracted.

But they did not have the chance. The British authorities, who knew full well the extent of the consequences in such a case, quickly arranged for them to be flown out of Cyprus. Marley, who was arrested (as stated in the programme) and gave vital information under interrogation, was tried and condemned to 15 years imprisonment.

However, the British authorities again ‘arranged’ with the then Attorney General (ex Colonial employee) Tornaritis (and not the Cypriot Government) to get him out of for health reasons.

Partition plans

Although Martin Packard refers to George Ball’s statement regarding "their policy being partition," he and the programmers make no mention whatsoever of the policy of the Foreign Office, which is clearly demonstrated in no uncertain terms through the PRO files.

In fact, George Ball was at the time referring to the British plans to which he and his department were privy.

In February, 1964, the Planning Department of the Foreign Office (Packard’s superiors) devised a comprehensive plan named ‘ The Future of Cyprus’ which stated: "It is now clear that any long term solution in Cyprus must involve geographical separation of the Greek and Turkish communities.

"This could of, course, be achieved by wholesale removal of the Turkish community elsewhere. Less drastic alternatives following some redeployment of the population in the island are:

"a Partition so that a predominantly Greek area is united with Greece and a predominantly Turkish area is united with Turkey.

"b Partition so that one or both areas are independent, perhaps with special relationships with Greece and Turkey respectively, or

"c A Federal Constitution, in which the island would be divided into cantons, one or two of which were Turkish.

"It would already be difficult for the Greeks to intervene successfully in Cyprus. The Turks would have completed their intervention before they could prevent it.

"The obvious Greek counter-move would be to invade Turkish Thrace. One way of preventing this would be for a small force drawn from all NATO countries to police the frontier.

"We could make much greater use of United States and British naval power to deter Greek naval assault across the Aegean. The ability of the Greeks to mount an airborne intervention is strictly limited…".

(A month before, in London, where representatives of both communities were summoned for a conference, Rauf Denktash had placed on the table in the presence of Glafcos Clerides, Tassos Papadopoulos, Stella Soulioti and others his and Turkey’s demands i.e. geographical federation...).†

From the masses of the PRO documents released so far, one can build upon the theory that it was in fact the British and not the Americans who thought of, prepared and instigated the Greek Junta takeover in Greece in 1967, in order to achieve their planning objectives over Cyprus.

The Americans were used as and when it suited the British, always retaining a secondary and assisting role to date.

†False accusations

Upon leaving Cyprus, Martin Packard prepared a report, which he handed to his superiors, in which he accused the Greek Cypriots of slaughtering 27 Turkish Cypriots in the Nicosia General Hospital.

His accusations appeared on April 2, 1988 in the ‘Guardian’ newspaper through his friend at the time Chief Editor of the paper Peter Preston, who, in 1964, was also working in Cyprus.

On February 10, 1994 Channel 4 Television showed a documentary called ‘Secret History – Dead or Alive’ which in a way addressed the drama of the 1,619 missing Greek Cypriots since the brutal Turkish invasion of Cyprus in July 1974.

Martin Packard made an unexpected appearance to say that in 1963/64 he had prepared a report in which he included that: "The largest single element of these missing people were the Turkish Cypriot patients at the General Hospital. Nothing had been heard of any of them. It was assumed that they were being held in custody somewhere. The outcome of my investigation suggested that they had all of them been killed in the General Hospital. They had been removed at night, the bodies from there had been taken out to outlying farms up in the region of Skilloura and out there they had been dismembered and passed through farm dicing machines and they had then been seeded into the ploughed land."

I found these accusations too horrific to be true. Immediately, I wrote to the then Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs David Heathcoat-Amory and demanded to be allowed to view Packard’s report.

As he spoke about this report having definitely not been released, I found Mr Packard’s liberty to disclose such damning secret information, with no evidence at all to substantiate it, extraordinarily questionable.

Five-year fight

I raised the issue that he either had breached the Official Secrets Act as he spoke from knowledge of a report still retained or he spoke in his capacity of a British conciliator with the Department’s permission. Whatever the case, we had a right to see the evidence of what he was so freely accusing us.

My fight with the Foreign Office and other government departments lasted five years (1994-1999) until he was finally ‘ordered’ to close the matter by withdrawing the accusations.

Peter Preston, with an article in the ‘Guardian’ (which was equally guilty and responsible for printing unsubstantiated allegations), on May 3, 1999, wrote that Martin Packard revisited the island and found out that he was given wrong information, no evidence at all, and that in fact no Turkish Cypriot had been harmed.

I wrote an article in Simerini on May 18, 1999 and another one was written by Charalambos Charalambides on May 19, 1999, finally revealing the truth.

Packard was wrong and had no evidence whatsoever for those horrific allegations against us.

The damage, however, to the Greek side was immeasurable. The Turks had used Packard’s allegations to the full and in all international forums, as admitted by Peter Preston.

Packard was obliged to write to Kofi Annan withdrawing the allegations and restoring the truth, which is that no Turkish Cypriot had been killed.

They were all protected under Makarios’s orders.

And that was the result of Packard’s role in Cyprus in 1964 which had nothing to do with petty conflicts over….sheep between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots.

†Finally: "The programme assesses the evidence that pro-American elements on the island in 1964 actively conspired to foment inter-communal strife in order to justify the effective partition of the island - a situation that came to pass in 1974", is stated on the BBC 4’s website.

This is totally wrong.

The British documents reveal exactly the opposite. I find it extraordinary after such a broadcast to reach such a ridiculous assumption!

It was not the so called pro-American elements on the island in 1964 who actively conspired to foment inter-communal strife in order to justify the effective partition of the island, but the very British intelligence men - the ‘spy ring’ - as they chose to name them under direct orders of the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence.

They were the ones who were aided on the island by their pro-British elements within both communities who in their own way assisted the British and Turkish partitionist policy to gain ground.

This was an assistance they enjoy to this very day with disastrous results for our national cause.

Fanoulla Argyrou
Researcher/author
London 24.1.2006.

[CBBB]

The real truth about British spy ring in Cyprus

FANOULA ARGYROU, a professional researcher, looks at allegations made this week in a BBC Radio programme about a British spy ring operating to support the Turkish Cypriots in 1964 and finds that the truth is even more amazing…THE murky side of Britain’s role in Cyprus was highlighted this week by a BBC Radio 4 programme that claimed a British spy ring cooperated with the Turkish Cypriots during the troubled days of 1964.

The following summary of the documentary was also available on the same day on the BBC 4’s website:

" Ever since the Turkish army invaded and occupied Northern Cyprus in 1974, the partition of the island between ethnic Greeks and Turks has seemed set in stone.

"But the first Green Line, through the capital, was drawn ten years earlier, by a British general (Young) using a green chinagraph pencil that happened to be at hand. Throughout 1964, British troops were on the island, supposedly for peace-keeping. But were they really bringing peace?

"In this programme, Mike Thomson examined new documents that suggest that the real motives of some of the peacekeepers were less than honourable."

The documents reveal the existence of a spy ring of British troops who were materially aiding Turkish insurgents by gun-running and spying on Greek Cypriot military installations.

Although one of the men was caught by the Greek Cypriots, the rest were spirited off the island by the British authorities before the Cypriot police could interrogate them.

The programme also investigated the long-standing mystery of a British army major, who was abducted, presumed murdered, by Greek Cypriot paramilitaries. New documentary evidence uncovered by the programme shows that he, too, was aware of illicit gun-running on behalf of the Turks and that, although the British authorities had good intelligence about the identities of his murderers, they chose not to press the Greek Cypriot authorities to investigate the case.

Intelligence officer

Many Greek Cypriots have long believed that the Nato powers, notably Britain and America, were opposed to the idea of an independent Cyprus because of fears that it could fall into communist hands and become a "Mediterranean Cuba" - a scenario that would have put at risk British electronic spying bases on the island.

The programme assesses the evidence that pro-American elements on the island in 1964 actively conspired to foment inter-communal strife in order to justify the effective partition of the island - a situation that came to pass in 1974."

The most striking part of the BBC documentary was the story of Martin Packard, a British naval intelligence officer who was sent to Cyprus from Malta on account of being a fluent speaker of Greek, to help prevent small incidents between Greek and Turks from escalating into serious ones.

It seems, though, that he was taking his mission very seriously, for just as he was being very successful in stopping bloodshed, he was virtually abducted by his superiors, put on a plane and flown out of the island.

Packard related his experience to the BBC that, after mediating successfully between a Greek and a Turkish village over some stolen sheep: "The US Acting Secretary of State George Ball, visiting the island at the time, patted me on the back, as though I were sadly deluded and he said: ‘That was a fantastic show son, but you’ve got it all wrong, hasn’t anyone told you that our plan here is for partition?’ "

Undaunted, Martin pursued plans to move Turkish Cypriots back to the villages they fled. But as the first settlement was about to take place, British General Michael Carver had him arrested and flown off the island in an unmarked CIA plane.

Not new documents

I listened to the programme very carefully and as a researcher I have the following comments to make.

It is necessary from the offset to set the record straight by underlining that these documents are not new releases but documents that were released ten years ago and ever since have available for research at the Public Records Office (PRO) in London.

As a regular researcher at the PRO myself, I have seen and researched thoroughly these documents long ago and refer to them in length in two of my books - ‘Conspiracy or Blunder?’ published in Nicosia in 2000, and ‘Top Secret,’ also published in Nicosia in 2004.

I have no doubt that the Radio 4 programme, although well intentioned, gave half the truth around the existence of the ‘spy ring’ in Cyprus that was aiding the Turkish Cypriots.British ‘conciliators’

Both Lt Commander Martin Packard and Major Ted Macey were, in fact, working in Cyprus under the instructions of the Foreign Office, specifically under the instructions of high-ranking official Sir Cyril Pickard.

Sir Cyril was at the time an Assistant Under Secretary directly involved with the Cyprus problem.

Their secondment to UNFICYP -†Martin Packard as Conciliator for the Greek Cypriot side and Ted Macey as special Liaison Officer attached to Turkish Cypriot leader Dr Kutchuk’s office - had a hidden agenda.

In 1963, Lt Commander Martin Packard was rushed to Cyprus from Malta, where he was serving as a naval intelligence officer.

He mastered the Greek language perfectly.

After his peacekeeping in Cyprus he was awarded an MBE.

Invasion preparations

The same went for Major T. Macey. He mastered both the Greek and Turkish languages and had served in Greece for a number of years.

He had a rough ‘Rambo’ image and his ‘terms of reference’ were quite different from those of Packard for obvious reasons if one studies the British documents analytically vis-a-vis the Foreign Office policy of the period (which has hardly changed at all!).

Macey, indeed, provided the Turkish Cypriots with arms and ammunition, offered them training and, in general, he headed the preparation for an eventual Turkish invasion.

Packard, on the other hand, was working on a different level; that of a friendly conciliator, as the British policy needed the Greek Cypriots to be kept in check, quiet, unarmed, restrained and behaving themselves.

The knowledge of the local languages in these cases was a definite must and the best way to gain the confidence of the people.

According to PRO documents (which refer to a statement made by the then President Archbishop Makarios) Major Macey and his driver were murdered by a ringleader of a gang active in the Famagusta-Larnaca area.

Macey and his driver were accused of spying and working for the Turks.

In another document, it is revealed that two Greek Cypriot informants gave the British authorities information as to the place where the bodies lay.

The informants were helped by the British authorities to take asylum in England and also received the £2,000 reward offered.

Macey was also employed to make visits to Greek and Turkish villages throughout Cyprus (just like Martin Packard) reporting on the state of feeling in the countryside. In other words, both were engaged in collecting intelligence in a manner undetected by the locals and keeping things in check for their superiors.

The Foreign Office also regarded the positioning of British officers within the UN a necessity, in order to be privy to all information received by the UN. " His special experience (Macey’s) enabled him to play a unique role in efforts to maintain peace and save lives through his personal contacts with Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots," it was noted in a report in the PRO files.

The British documents reveal the true ‘unique’ role of T. Macey as a British ‘spy ring leader’ aiding the Turkish Cypriots against the Greek Cypriots.

Martin Packard’s superiors, fearing for his life, days after Macey’s murder, rushed him out of Cyprus via a CIA plane that took him to an American base in Greece.British subversion

As it was correctly stated in the BBC programme, British officers were directly involved in subversive activities on the island: the manufacture of bombs, bombing Turkish properties to blame the Greek Cypriots, espionage and so on.

Their main objective was to de-stabilise Cyprus, bring chaos and confusion and assist the Turks in the execution of their long-term plans.

As Nicos Koshis stated, the British policy was to keep the two communities separated. But with an enlarged hidden agenda.

In February 1964, Archbishop Makarios handed a document to the British High Commissioner regarding those activities.

He referred to the case of Colonel Thursby who, on January 20, 1964, went to the Manager of the Cyprus Asbestos Mines Co Ltd and, under false pretences, demanded to be allowed to collect all the explosives in the stores.

Makarios also wrote to General Gyani (UN force) complaining and listing instances when British troops with the UN contingent did nothing to stop Turks from firing at Greek Cypriots. Marley (mentioned in the programme), Bachelor, Bass (mentioned), Heron, Tyft, Offard and Jones are among those accused of aiding and providing the Turks with arms, ammunition and other military equipment.

Some of those arrested had given sensational information but the Cypriot authorities were totally ignorant of the even more damning information they could have extracted.

But they did not have the chance. The British authorities, who knew full well the extent of the consequences in such a case, quickly arranged for them to be flown out of Cyprus. Marley, who was arrested (as stated in the programme) and gave vital information under interrogation, was tried and condemned to 15 years imprisonment.

However, the British authorities again ‘arranged’ with the then Attorney General (ex Colonial employee) Tornaritis (and not the Cypriot Government) to get him out of for health reasons.

Partition plans

Although Martin Packard refers to George Ball’s statement regarding "their policy being partition," he and the programmers make no mention whatsoever of the policy of the Foreign Office, which is clearly demonstrated in no uncertain terms through the PRO files.

In fact, George Ball was at the time referring to the British plans to which he and his department were privy.

In February, 1964, the Planning Department of the Foreign Office (Packard’s superiors) devised a comprehensive plan named ‘ The Future of Cyprus’ which stated: "It is now clear that any long term solution in Cyprus must involve geographical separation of the Greek and Turkish communities.

"This could of, course, be achieved by wholesale removal of the Turkish community elsewhere. Less drastic alternatives following some redeployment of the population in the island are:

"a Partition so that a predominantly Greek area is united with Greece and a predominantly Turkish area is united with Turkey.

"b Partition so that one or both areas are independent, perhaps with special relationships with Greece and Turkey respectively, or

"c A Federal Constitution, in which the island would be divided into cantons, one or two of which were Turkish.

"It would already be difficult for the Greeks to intervene successfully in Cyprus. The Turks would have completed their intervention before they could prevent it.

"The obvious Greek counter-move would be to invade Turkish Thrace. One way of preventing this would be for a small force drawn from all NATO countries to police the frontier.

"We could make much greater use of United States and British naval power to deter Greek naval assault across the Aegean. The ability of the Greeks to mount an airborne intervention is strictly limited…".

(A month before, in London, where representatives of both communities were summoned for a conference, Rauf Denktash had placed on the table in the presence of Glafcos Clerides, Tassos Papadopoulos, Stella Soulioti and others his and Turkey’s demands i.e. geographical federation...).†

From the masses of the PRO documents released so far, one can build upon the theory that it was in fact the British and not the Americans who thought of, prepared and instigated the Greek Junta takeover in Greece in 1967, in order to achieve their planning objectives over Cyprus.

The Americans were used as and when it suited the British, always retaining a secondary and assisting role to date.

†False accusations

Upon leaving Cyprus, Martin Packard prepared a report, which he handed to his superiors, in which he accused the Greek Cypriots of slaughtering 27 Turkish Cypriots in the Nicosia General Hospital.

His accusations appeared on April 2, 1988 in the ‘Guardian’ newspaper through his friend at the time Chief Editor of the paper Peter Preston, who, in 1964, was also working in Cyprus.

On February 10, 1994 Channel 4 Television showed a documentary called ‘Secret History – Dead or Alive’ which in a way addressed the drama of the 1,619 missing Greek Cypriots since the brutal Turkish invasion of Cyprus in July 1974.

Martin Packard made an unexpected appearance to say that in 1963/64 he had prepared a report in which he included that: "The largest single element of these missing people were the Turkish Cypriot patients at the General Hospital. Nothing had been heard of any of them. It was assumed that they were being held in custody somewhere. The outcome of my investigation suggested that they had all of them been killed in the General Hospital. They had been removed at night, the bodies from there had been taken out to outlying farms up in the region of Skilloura and out there they had been dismembered and passed through farm dicing machines and they had then been seeded into the ploughed land."

I found these accusations too horrific to be true. Immediately, I wrote to the then Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs David Heathcoat-Amory and demanded to be allowed to view Packard’s report.

As he spoke about this report having definitely not been released, I found Mr Packard’s liberty to disclose such damning secret information, with no evidence at all to substantiate it, extraordinarily questionable.

Five-year fight

I raised the issue that he either had breached the Official Secrets Act as he spoke from knowledge of a report still retained or he spoke in his capacity of a British conciliator with the Department’s permission. Whatever the case, we had a right to see the evidence of what he was so freely accusing us.

My fight with the Foreign Office and other government departments lasted five years (1994-1999) until he was finally ‘ordered’ to close the matter by withdrawing the accusations.

Peter Preston, with an article in the ‘Guardian’ (which was equally guilty and responsible for printing unsubstantiated allegations), on May 3, 1999, wrote that Martin Packard revisited the island and found out that he was given wrong information, no evidence at all, and that in fact no Turkish Cypriot had been harmed.

I wrote an article in Simerini on May 18, 1999 and another one was written by Charalambos Charalambides on May 19, 1999, finally revealing the truth.

Packard was wrong and had no evidence whatsoever for those horrific allegations against us.

The damage, however, to the Greek side was immeasurable. The Turks had used Packard’s allegations to the full and in all international forums, as admitted by Peter Preston.

Packard was obliged to write to Kofi Annan withdrawing the allegations and restoring the truth, which is that no Turkish Cypriot had been killed.

They were all protected under Makarios’s orders.

And that was the result of Packard’s role in Cyprus in 1964 which had nothing to do with petty conflicts over….sheep between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots.

†Finally: "The programme assesses the evidence that pro-American elements on the island in 1964 actively conspired to foment inter-communal strife in order to justify the effective partition of the island - a situation that came to pass in 1974", is stated on the BBC 4’s website.

This is totally wrong.

The British documents reveal exactly the opposite. I find it extraordinary after such a broadcast to reach such a ridiculous assumption!

It was not the so called pro-American elements on the island in 1964 who actively conspired to foment inter-communal strife in order to justify the effective partition of the island, but the very British intelligence men - the ‘spy ring’ - as they chose to name them under direct orders of the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence.

They were the ones who were aided on the island by their pro-British elements within both communities who in their own way assisted the British and Turkish partitionist policy to gain ground.

This was an assistance they enjoy to this very day with disastrous results for our national cause.

Fanoulla Argyrou
Researcher/author
London 24.1.2006.

You are doing it again! Where is a link to the credible source?

[Paphitis]

This is the credible source:

Fanoulla Argyrou
Researcher/author
London 24.1.2006.

And in case you have not noticed, she is not making any extravagant claims but is researching claims from the very credible British Media - BBC Radio 4 transmitted on 23 Jan 06!

Is the BBC not credible enough for you CBBBC?

[CBBB]

This is the credible source:

Fanoulla Argyrou
Researcher/author
London 24.1.2006.

And in case you have not noticed, she is not making any extravagent claims but is researching claims from the very credible British Media - BBC Radio 4 transmitted on 23 Jan 06!

Is the BBC not credible enough for you CBBBC?

Yes, if you give me a link to their original piece, not just someone quoting from them!

[paliometoxo]

its funny we are running to the very same people that helped divide the island for help to re unite cyprus... england could re unite cy in a day if they wanted