Get Real! wrote:Bananiot wrote:Piratis, I have heard that these eight Greek Cypriots that were murdered near Gonyeli were not so innocent. Have you also heard these rumours?
You can live with rumours or get the facts...
http://thecyprusproblem.100webspace.net ... icle10.htm
Let's have a look at the pre-events.
As EOKA hit harder at British military personnel and installations, more British jobs were taken away from Greek Cypriots and given to Turks. Separate police units were formed, manned mainly by Turks under British officers, whose task it was to control Greek disturbances and help the army fight EOKA.
On 11 January 1956 Abdullah Ali Riza, a Turkish police sergeant who had given evidence at the trial of EOKA members, was shot dead. This precipitated Turkish Cypriot attacks against Greek stores in Nicosia. The Turkish underground organization Volkan issued leaflets on that occasion threatening reprisals - five Greek lives for every Turk killed.
Kutchuk protested to Governor Harding and in a message to Makarios demanded that the Greek community condemn the murder. At Vassilia village, fighting broke out between Greeks and Turks on 19 March 1956 and about 20 people were hurt. On the following day, 500 Turks smashed the windows of Greek-owned shops and offices in the Turkish quarter of Nicosia. On 23 April fighting again broke out after another Turkish police officer was shot dead. On 25 May, crowds of Turkish Cypriots attacked Greek stores and premises in Nicosia, Limassol, Larnaca and Paphos. Similar disturbances took place in January and February of 1957.
The Turks answered their Greeks rivals in kind. This 17 August 1957 leaflet attacks a number of Greek political positions and even the Greek Church. It says in part:
Did you forget that archbishops succeeded their predecessors by poisoning them and that street fights were fought between your left and right brothers? Don’t you know that the Greek youths shot in the streets as traitors were killed for the sole reason of strengthening the position of your archbishop? Are you claiming it in the name of freedom? Now I am asking you WERE YOU NOT NEARER TO ENOSIS BEFORE EOKA WAS IN EXISTENCE?
The Turks were now determined to achieve their object of taksim (partition) and Volkan, led by Rauf Denktash, would be their means. The fighting arm of Volkan, and its successor late in 1957, was called the Turk Mudafaa (sometimes Mukavemet Teskilati, the Turkish Defense or Resistance Organization. For short, it was known as the TMT.
In November 1957, the Turkish TMT published its first leaflet, in which it claimed that it would act throughout Cyprus and urged the Turkish-Cypriot people to support its actions. The members of TMT took an oath on the Koran and the Turkish flag:
I give my word that I will resist to any attack against Turkish lives and property. Our organization will only be dismantled when the glorious Turkish flag waves in Cyprus . I dedicate myself to the Turkish nation.
A TMT leaflet distributed in Larnaca on 6 June 1958 included the following:
O Turkish Youth! The day is near when you will be called upon to sacrifice your life and blood in the PARTITION struggle - to the struggle for freedom. You are a brave Turk. You are faithful to your country and nation and are entrusted with the task of demonstrating Turkish might. Be ready to break the chains of slavery with your determination and will-power and with your love of freedom. All Turkdom, right and justice and God are with you. PARTITION OR DEATH
The TMT, though smaller and less well organized, followed EOKA tactics. Hence, the boycott of British goods, which EOKA had ordered on 6 March 1958, was now applied by the Turks to Greek produce. Turks caught smoking Greek cigarettes or using Greek shops were beaten up by gangs of youths. Any Turk who deviated from the national line that coexistence with the Greeks was impossible was liable to be denounced as a traitor.
In spring 1958 two Turkish Cypriot democrats who belonged to a Greek and pre-dominantly left-wing trade union were murdered by TMT, not primarily for their ideological beliefs but mainly because such membership involved co-operation with the Greeks. EOKA was taking similar action against its “traitors.”
By mid-1958 Turkish Cypriots were sure that soon the tide would turn their way. On 7 June 1958, Turkish Cypriots started fires in Nicosia. In two months of bitter communal strife, 56 Greeks and 53 Turks were killed. Paphos were burnt down. In Nicosia, the Olympiacos club and other places suffered the same fate.
Passions reached a climax on Thursday 12 June 1958, when the Turks massacred eight Greeks during a clash near the Turkish village of Guenyeli. The report by the Commission of Inquiry (Sir Paget Bourne, Chief Justice of Cyprus, was the sole Commissioner) was published in Nicosia on 9 December 1958. The commission sat from 20 June to the 28th. It found that the 35 Greek “prisoners” from Skylloura had been rounded up by the security forces and, surprisingly, released on the same day near Guenyeli, seven miles from where they were arrested and a considerable distance from the nearest Greek villages. This incident has gone down in Cypriot history as the “Guenyeli Massacre,” organized by the British and executed by the Turks.
[b]]
http://www.psywarrior.com/cyprus.html
The fact is TCs have always against Enosis and rule of GCs. They naturally took side with Brits to struggle/fight against EOKA and it's supporters. It's too rational. What's irrational is expecting TCs to take side with EOKA and it's supporters against Brits. Why should they? Though I'm not approving Volkan's attitude of killing 5 GCs in return of every TC killed by EOKA or it's supporters but under the then circumstances the psychologly of the fighters of Volkan and it's supporters should also be taken into consideration in order to reach a fair judgement abt Volkan.[/b