Cyprus-Forum.com

[eracles]

The Black Turks? Never heard them called that before!

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... 40,00.html

The Worst Yet

A cheering throng of Turkish Cypriots streamed through Nicosia's ancient walled Turkish quarter one morning last week. They were celebrating a report from Ankara, where Britain's Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd was conferring with Turkey's Premier Menderes and Cyprus Governor Sir Hugh Foot, that Britain had accepted partition of Cyprus (between Greeks and Turks) as a solution for the island's troubles. Minutes later, the rumor was proved false. The peaceful procession was abruptly transformed into an angry, howling mob. The "Black Turks" —Cyprus' special police trained to brutal efficiency in breaking up riots—were unwilling to fight their own people; the brunt fell on British troops and police. Flinging Coke bottles and stones, the mob stormed down narrow Kyrenia Street to the house of the Turkish Cypriot leader, Dr. Fazil Kuchuk, a physician whose fancy it is to keep a bottled fetus at each end of his consulting-room mantel.

Dancing Dervishes. Just when the mob seemed ready to disperse, a British officer chose to order a soldier-driver to move his Land Rover out of the jammed street. The soldier stepped on the foot throttle, knocking people down right and left, and bouncing his heavy vehicle over the bodies of an old man and woman. Howling with rage, the crowd broke through the police lines and overturned Land Rovers and trucks. At a Ford agency garage near the Mosque of the Dancing Dervishes, flaming gasoline-soaked rags were flung among the brand-new cars, and soon the building rocked with the explosions of gas and oil drums. A Greek-owned tobacco factory was put to the torch, and fire trucks were held off with a hailstorm of bricks and paving stones. Tear-gas bombs thrown by the outnumbered and disorganized troops were picked up by schoolboys and hurled back. Three Turks died by gunfire as they drove through a roadblock near the burned-out garage; two others were slain at the foot of Othello's Tower in Famagusta. Before the mobs were dispersed, seven were dead, more than 100 injured in the worst rioting Cyprus had yet seen.

Exterminated Turks. In Ankara, where he had gone to see that Menderes yielded nothing, Dr. Kuchuk was still breathing fire: "To leave the Cyprus Turks at the mercy of the Greek government would only mean their death," he cried. "Whenever a Turkish community has lived under Greek rule, it has been exterminated." When challenged by reporters, Dr. Kuchuk changed "exterminated" to "dispersed." Turkey's newspapers backed him up with flaming headlines, e.g., ISLAND OF CYPRUS IS LIKE SMALL BUDAPEST, and in the Turkish Assembly both government and opposition Deputies stood for three minutes' silence in honor of the Turkish Cypriot dead.

Britain has pledged that no final solution of the Cyprus problem will be imposed without the consent of both Greece and Turkey, and Turkey's Premier Menderes has seized on the pledge to insist on partition. In London last week, where only a few days ago there were high hopes that liberal Governor Sir Hugh Foot could find a solution to the troubled island, there was deep despondency.

[eracles]

More on the 'Black Turks', this one from late 1957

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... 58,00.html

Through eight months, the people of Cyprus have maintained an uneasy truce with the British authorities, awaiting the day when their cause would once again reach the floor of the United Nations. For weeks. Cyprus' exiled Archbishop Makarios has haunted Manhattan, a black-robed reminder of Cypriot demands. Last week, as debate started in New York, the island erupted with riots.

Jumping their cue by two days, 1,500 Greek teen-agers swirled into the twisted alleyways of Nicosia, swarmed into a cathedral chanting: "Enosis" (Union with Greece). Outside, they were met by black-helmeted security police. Recruited from the Turkish Cypriot community by the British, the "Black Turks" are hated by the Greek Cypriots. Truncheons came, down on the backs of screaming boys and girls. Tear-gas shells were lobbed into crowds of rock-hurling youngsters.

Under the Tower. On the day the debate did begin, shops were shuttered across the island in a general strike. Under the shadow of Othello's Tower in Famagusta, Gjreek Cypriots clashed with police in a two-hour battle. At Ephtakomi, someone defiantly flew a Greek flag; a British patrol attempting to tear it down was stoned by the villagers. The patrol counterattacked with fixed bayonets.

Next day in Nicosia, 300 students armed themselves with empty Coca-Cola bottles, stones and iron bars, locked themselves on the roof of a school library. They pelted "Black Turk" police in the square below, beat back attempts to storm the library entrance. Security forces broke the siege only after firing volleys of tear gas and charging in with batons for hand-to-hard fighting. The same day, a rumor swept Nicosia of the murder of two Turks by EOKA's Greek terrorists. Turk Cyprors stormed out of their quarters, sacked a Greek church and five shops.

Only seven days before, Sir Hugh Fo:)t had arrived to take over as Britain's new governor. Cyprus quickly learned that it had a new kind of governor. Unarmed and unguarded, Foot walked through the streets of Nicosia to assess the damage, mingled with shopkeepers. "A governor with guts," admitted Greek and Turk alike, and cheered him. Next day Foot paid a surprise visit to twelve Greek women terrorists held in Nicosia's central prison, ordered two of them released immediately on grounds of health.

Above Pride. At week's end Greece failed to muster a two-thirds majority in the U.N. General Assembly for a resolution which urged further negotiations "with a view to have the right of self-determination applied in the case of the people of Cyprus." The U.N. rejection touched off new rioting.

Foot, who had arrived declaring that he had "an open mind," pleaded for calm in which Britain, Turkey and Greece could try to unravel the tangle. He was not going to let pride stand in his way. When local officials refused to come to see him at Government House, Foot called on Nicosia's Greek Cypriot mayor in his own home. "Things are bad—very bad," said Foot. "But give me a break and I know we can find a way."

Greek Cypriots still refuse to recognize any spokesman except Makarios, and most well informed Britons concede privately that his return sooner or later is inevitable. A solution Britain would consider: independence for Cyprus, retention of NATO bases on the island, but no merger with Greece. One of the biggest sticking points is Turkey's increasingly stubborn insistence on partition or the status quo as the only ways to safeguard Cyprus' outnumbered Turkish community. But if good will and determination could find a way, Sir Hugh Foot seemed the man to find it.

[Oracle]

I remember my mum mentioning (in passing) how the Turks were in control of their everyday lives, having been put in charge of the constabulary by the Brits.

Imagine, the poor GCs, daily under threat of searches, homes and bodies, by any low-class British squaddie, then no restitution as most of the police-force where GC hating Turks, so no one to turn to ... What an atmosphere for the poor GCs!

[Sotos]

Thanks eracles. The articles show very clearly how the Turks started the intercommunal conflict.