Cyprus-Forum.com

[GeorgeV97qaue]

Yfred why do you occupy our land. When you allow are people to retrun then the isolation will be lifted simple as that. Its not rocket science. TC's are permitted to return to their land as long as the meet the criteria set out by the ROC goverment we are not permitted simple as that.

We allow you to work on our side do you allow us?

[YFred]

Yfred why do you occupy our land. When you allow are people to retrun then the isolation will be lifted simple as that. Its not rocket science. TC's are permitted to return to their land as long as the meet the criteria set out by the ROC goverment we are not permitted simple as that.

We allow you to work on our side do you allow us?

George, I personally have no GC land, my land is used by GCs. The reason why TRNC has GC land is because the failure of the political leadership of both sides to sign the peace agreement after 74. Clerides is on the record saying that if they wanted to they could have solved it but they chose not to. The non-solution is not just down to Denktash or Talat, it was equally down to RoC. Nothing would please me more if they came to an agreement so that even if we do not get our lands back we get adequately compensated for it and then we can all move on with our lives.

[Nikitas]

Insan wrote:

"It was a well known fact that TCs were against Enosis and would take side by Brits to fight prevent Enosis. "

Yes, understandably the TCs did not want Enosis. From that point to the mob attacks on GC civilian areas in Nicosia and the surrounding areas there is a large gap which can have many rationalisations.

EOKA was set up to fight small, contained actions against rural targets. EOKA did not have the means to attack en masse. Any GC caught with one single round of ammunition was hanged, many were. The state of emergency made it impossible for EOKA to bring arms into towns.

It is no coincidence that TMT under British protection brought the fight to the urban areas even though there was no provocation from EOKA. Grivas in his memoires records as much and says that only after the first attacks did EOKA gear itself to respond, and even then it did not do a proper job of protecting GCs. Perhaps that was the point the British wanted to drive home all along- EOKA cannot protect you.

Similarly, to get back to the theme of the thread, the point the Turkish army wanted to drive home in 1974 was that staying in the north was dangerous for the GCs and they had better clear out. How else can the killing that went on in late August and early September of 1974, way after any GC resistance was quelled, be explained?

Turkey has never done anything without prior calculation.

[GeorgeV97qaue]

Yfred if you wanted to you could return but we cant. Thats the difference in our positions. I'm not saying it just down to the TC's that an agreement isnt in place. But we have good opportunity to resolve the issue once and for all.

Your side need to take an even approach and all these red lines your leaders keep going on about do not help. The majority of the settlers must go back. I'm not reffering to the ones that have been their for 20 odd years I'm talking about the ones that have moved to Cyprus since 2004.

But the stance your leaders take is not helpful. If your side is serious then they need to move away from their current position.

Guaranture rights is another hot topic. We dont trust Turkey. You wont budge. The only possible way round that would be Turkey has intervention rights for the first 10 years of the new state. Only 1000 Turkish troops to be station in Cyprus until then. Once the 10 years are up we should be fully intergrated so you wont need them anymore. What do you think?

[YFred]

Yfred if you wanted to you could return but we cant. Thats the difference in our positions. I'm not saying it just down to the TC's that an agreement isnt in place. But we have good opportunity to resolve the issue once and for all.

Your side need to take an even approach and all these red lines your leaders keep going on about do not help. The majority of the settlers must go back. I'm not reffering to the ones that have been their for 20 odd years I'm talking about the ones that have moved to Cyprus since 2004.

But the stance your leaders take is not helpful. If your side is serious then they need to move away from their current position.

Guaranture rights is another hot topic. We dont trust Turkey. You wont budge. The only possible way round that would be Turkey has intervention rights for the first 10 years of the new state. Only 1000 Turkish troops to be station in Cyprus until then. Once the 10 years are up we should be fully intergrated so you wont need them anymore. What do you think?

George, the conditions put on the return of TC property makes it impossible. Why do I or any TC have to move to South Cyprus to claim our property. It can be proven that we are not double dipping. Those who have not double dipped should have been given their land back.
Regards to other considerations, Talat will give in the give and take stage. We just have to be patient and wait and see what happens. There is only a few months left now.
There is one thing that is for sure not going to happen and that is everybody to their homes. That is an impossible task. That is a position the GC leadership has been stuck on, knowing full well it cannot be achieved. The settlers since 2004 or any other settlers are not that relevant in the equation. Some I have no doubt will go back volentarily with a bit of financial lubrication.
Peace is possible, we just have to be realistic about our demands. Otherwise the chance is going for good. I am sad to say.

[GeorgeV97qaue]

We shall see Yfred.

[Tim Drayton]

[..]
The job of TMT was to protect the enclaves. Nobody was forced to stay there.
[...]

In a spirit of inquiry in order to establish the objective facts, could you comment with reference to the above as one who was there on the following event from Louroujina described by Martin Packard in Getting It Wrong, pp 318-319:

The second case was that of an unhappy and impoverished Turkish Cypriot in Louroujina who had agreed with his wife that he would try to escape to a Greek Cypriot area and that she and their two children would try to join him if he managed to do so. Having let it be known that he was going out to gather wood, he made off to Dhali, where he told the Greek Cypriots of how difficult life had been in Louroujina and of how the people there were suffering "under a TMT dictatorship."

The man's wife failed to get away and eventually I was asked by the Greek Cypriots to try and arrange for her to join her husband. I went and discussed the position with Erol Huseyin and other TMT leaders in Louroujina. When she was called into the meeting, the woman said that her husband had deserted her and that she had no wish to go. Later, however, when I talked to her in private, she told me that she was desperate to rejoin her husband but that she was very frightened. She believed that she would be badly beaten if her real feelings became known in the village. I therefore let it be known that she had not yet made up her mind.

A week later, when I judged that feelings would have simmered down, I returned to Louroujina and pursuaded the TMT leaders that it was a poor advertisement for their cause if they could only hang onto their people by force or threat. They then agreed that she could go if she declared to them that she wished to do so. With great trepidation she joined me and told the meeting that she had no complaints against Louroujina, but that she and her children did want to be back with her husband.

At this point, the woman's parents appeared and announced that under no circumstances would they let her go. They were illiterate and very rough and neither my arguments or those of Mr Nihat seemed to move them at all. Eventually the TMT leaders called a halt, saying that they would not force the woman to go against the wish of her parents.

Rather apologetically, they afterwards advanced to me the argument that, however hard it might seem, this was a struggle that could only be won through the unity of the people. The will of the majority was to resist, and it was the task of the leadership to reinforce that resistance.

Thanks for that Tim. Several points. TMT was not a committee. It was run by one-man single handed as it were, literally and his name was not Erol Huseyin.

I do not recall such an incident, as I was 6 years old. But anybody who lived in Lurucina would immediately find quite a few holes in this story.

Lurucina is surrounded with high hills. All the defence positions are on these hills. The productive land inside the village is approx
1 % the rest of the productive Lurucadi land is outside. Dali is walking distance away from Lurucina. There is nothing on earth that would have stopped this woman going to Dali if she wanted to do so, just like her husband. We ventured outside of the protection zone every day to tend to our fields even in the darkest political days.

Was her or her husbands name mentioned?

Thanks. No names were mentioned.

We learn from page 152 of Packard's book that Erol Huseyin was a young schoolteacher in Louroujina who acted as a spokesman for the TMT leadership and with whom Packard laised.

Now that makes sense. He was the english teacher for the Secondary school and probaply the only competent english translator in the village. To describe him as a spokesman though may be doing him injustice.

Thanks for the information. Your point about Dhali being a short walk away is confirmed by a glance at the map. I will take you at word on the other points unless corrected by somebody who is better informed. I must confess that I have never directly heard from a TC that they or anybody they knew were coerced into moving to enclaves or held there against their will. There is some circumstantial evidence, though, which suggests that not everybody moved willingly.

[yialousa1971]

In a report (see here http://www.kathimerini.com.cy/index.php?pageaction=kat&modid=1&artid=5374 , in Greek) in the Cyprus edition of Kathimerini, Andreas Paraschos writes of the existence of a mass grave containing the remains of between 800-1,000 Greek Cypriots located near the occupied village of Lapithos, in the Kyrenia district. The alleged site of the mass grave has been designated by the Turkish army as a military zone. It is fenced off with barbed wire and signs have been erected warning about mines, although the Turkish Cypriot daily Afrika, yesterday reported that 'everyone can walk around in that area as he wishes. No mines have been found until now.'

Paraschos refers to the testimony of Savvas Mastrappas, enclaved in Lapithos until 28 October 1975 and who, after coming to the free areas, gave details to the Cypriot police of the mass grave; and to more recent witness accounts from Turkish Cypriots, who confirmed the existence of the mass grave, declaring its existence an 'open secret' among Turkish Cypriots in the region, some of whom, indeed, would periodically dig up the site and remove skeletons for medical studies.

The Mastrappas account

From March 1977, Savvas Mastrappas gave a series of depositions to the Cyprus police in which he described what he knew of the places of burial of Greek Cypriots killed by Turkish invasion forces. In one of these depositions, Mastrappas says: 'In July 1974, when the invasion occurred, I remained with my wife in our village [Lapithos]. I came to the free areas in October 1975. Apart from us, in Lapithos there must have been 40-50 other Greek Cypriot enclaved. Because I knew a little Turkish and other languages, the Turks put me in charge of the enclaved and I moved around somewhat more freely than the others. Four or five days after the fall of Lapithos, a Turkish Cypriot I knew called Ahmet from the [Turkish Cypriot village of] Photta came to our village, along with a police officer called Nizet. Ahmet came to my house and during conversation told me that the Turkish police observed the collection of between 800-1,000 Greek Cypriot bodies from the region of Lapithos and Vasilia, who were then buried in a place known as "Agni", close to the little harbour, where the villagers from Lapithos kept their fishing boats…'

In another part of his deposition, Mastrappas says: 'One day, it must have been around October-November 1974, when I went with a Turkish policeman named Mehmet – I think he was from the village of Kazaphani – and with a Briton from the British embassy, to the place known as "Koufi Petra", so we could place a British flag on a house there owned by a Briton, I noticed a fire in the place known as "Agni", just east of the orchards of Savvas Frantzieskou. Mehmet told me it was the Turkish army that had started the fire, in order to burn the bodies of Greek Cypriots uncovered by the rain. And, indeed, two-three days previously, it had rained heavily…'

Turkish Cypriot accounts
Paraschos then goes on to report that on a recent visit to Lapithos, he spoke to Turkish Cypriots in the area, and one said to Paraschos: 'I'll take you to a place near the sea where missing persons are buried.' I asked him: 'How do you know there are missing buried there?' 'It's an open secret here in Kyrenia and many Turkish Cypriots know that some people dug up skulls for medical purposes.'

According to this Turkish Cypriot, Paraschos writes, a teacher-friend of his told him that he dug up a skull for his daughter, who was training in medicine. Indeed, when this teacher-friend wanted to get hold of a skull for his daughter and started asking around where he could get one, he was told at the local cafe that many others had similar 'needs' and that the only way was to enter the fenced-off area and dig up Greek Cypriot dead. 'Don't be scared,' he was told, 'you won't be the first. Others have done the same.' And this is what he did. Despite his fear that since the area was fenced-off as a military zone, he went there, waited for a while, to see if there was any soldiers patrolling the area and when he saw there was not, he entered, dug, found what he was looking for, took it and left…

Posted by John Akritas at Wednesday, September 09, 2009

http://hellenicantidote.blogspot.com/2009/09/mass-grave-with-800-1000-greeks.html

[YFred]

[..]
The job of TMT was to protect the enclaves. Nobody was forced to stay there.
[...]

In a spirit of inquiry in order to establish the objective facts, could you comment with reference to the above as one who was there on the following event from Louroujina described by Martin Packard in Getting It Wrong, pp 318-319:

The second case was that of an unhappy and impoverished Turkish Cypriot in Louroujina who had agreed with his wife that he would try to escape to a Greek Cypriot area and that she and their two children would try to join him if he managed to do so. Having let it be known that he was going out to gather wood, he made off to Dhali, where he told the Greek Cypriots of how difficult life had been in Louroujina and of how the people there were suffering "under a TMT dictatorship."

The man's wife failed to get away and eventually I was asked by the Greek Cypriots to try and arrange for her to join her husband. I went and discussed the position with Erol Huseyin and other TMT leaders in Louroujina. When she was called into the meeting, the woman said that her husband had deserted her and that she had no wish to go. Later, however, when I talked to her in private, she told me that she was desperate to rejoin her husband but that she was very frightened. She believed that she would be badly beaten if her real feelings became known in the village. I therefore let it be known that she had not yet made up her mind.

A week later, when I judged that feelings would have simmered down, I returned to Louroujina and pursuaded the TMT leaders that it was a poor advertisement for their cause if they could only hang onto their people by force or threat. They then agreed that she could go if she declared to them that she wished to do so. With great trepidation she joined me and told the meeting that she had no complaints against Louroujina, but that she and her children did want to be back with her husband.

At this point, the woman's parents appeared and announced that under no circumstances would they let her go. They were illiterate and very rough and neither my arguments or those of Mr Nihat seemed to move them at all. Eventually the TMT leaders called a halt, saying that they would not force the woman to go against the wish of her parents.

Rather apologetically, they afterwards advanced to me the argument that, however hard it might seem, this was a struggle that could only be won through the unity of the people. The will of the majority was to resist, and it was the task of the leadership to reinforce that resistance.

Thanks for that Tim. Several points. TMT was not a committee. It was run by one-man single handed as it were, literally and his name was not Erol Huseyin.

I do not recall such an incident, as I was 6 years old. But anybody who lived in Lurucina would immediately find quite a few holes in this story.

Lurucina is surrounded with high hills. All the defence positions are on these hills. The productive land inside the village is approx
1 % the rest of the productive Lurucadi land is outside. Dali is walking distance away from Lurucina. There is nothing on earth that would have stopped this woman going to Dali if she wanted to do so, just like her husband. We ventured outside of the protection zone every day to tend to our fields even in the darkest political days.

Was her or her husbands name mentioned?

Thanks. No names were mentioned.

We learn from page 152 of Packard's book that Erol Huseyin was a young schoolteacher in Louroujina who acted as a spokesman for the TMT leadership and with whom Packard laised.

Now that makes sense. He was the english teacher for the Secondary school and probaply the only competent english translator in the village. To describe him as a spokesman though may be doing him injustice.

Thanks for the information. Your point about Dhali being a short walk away is confirmed by a glance at the map. I will take you at word on the other points unless corrected by somebody who is better informed. I must confess that I have never directly heard from a TC that they or anybody they knew were coerced into moving to enclaves or held there against their will. There is some circumstantial evidence, though, which suggests that not everybody moved willingly.

Tim, I think there is enough smuggling going on between Lurucina and Dali to this day, right now and under the noses of the military and police to prove me right.

Now, I think it’s the other way round. People left because of fear. It may have been exaggerated in their minds but it was fear. People do not leave their homes and their livelihoods for any other reason. Once they moved in the enclaves they were faced with hardship. It took some time for the UN to organise supplies. We used to watch the refugee children get supplies from the UN shop whilst we had to pay for it.

They had no way of earning money for years except becoming a Mujahid in the payroll of Turkey. Of course they would wish to go back. Has N Kizilyurek ever mentioned anything like that? He was one of them. I knew many families who even after 67 would not go back to their homes. One family came to a house next door to ours, and when she saw the church on the hill was visible from the house, she left screaming saying she feared for her children being shot. I witnessed that personally.

It was simply impossible to intimidate anybody not to go back. The locations made it impossible.

[bill cobbett]

In a report (see here http://www.kathimerini.com.cy/index.php?pageaction=kat&modid=1&artid=5374 , in Greek) in the Cyprus edition of Kathimerini, Andreas Paraschos writes of the existence of a mass grave containing the remains of between 800-1,000 Greek Cypriots located near the occupied village of Lapithos, in the Kyrenia district. The alleged site of the mass grave has been designated by the Turkish army as a military zone. It is fenced off with barbed wire and signs have been erected warning about mines, although the Turkish Cypriot daily Afrika, yesterday reported that 'everyone can walk around in that area as he wishes. No mines have been found until now.'

Paraschos refers to the testimony of Savvas Mastrappas, enclaved in Lapithos until 28 October 1975 and who, after coming to the free areas, gave details to the Cypriot police of the mass grave; and to more recent witness accounts from Turkish Cypriots, who confirmed the existence of the mass grave, declaring its existence an 'open secret' among Turkish Cypriots in the region, some of whom, indeed, would periodically dig up the site and remove skeletons for medical studies.

The Mastrappas account

From March 1977, Savvas Mastrappas gave a series of depositions to the Cyprus police in which he described what he knew of the places of burial of Greek Cypriots killed by Turkish invasion forces. In one of these depositions, Mastrappas says: 'In July 1974, when the invasion occurred, I remained with my wife in our village [Lapithos]. I came to the free areas in October 1975. Apart from us, in Lapithos there must have been 40-50 other Greek Cypriot enclaved. Because I knew a little Turkish and other languages, the Turks put me in charge of the enclaved and I moved around somewhat more freely than the others. Four or five days after the fall of Lapithos, a Turkish Cypriot I knew called Ahmet from the [Turkish Cypriot village of] Photta came to our village, along with a police officer called Nizet. Ahmet came to my house and during conversation told me that the Turkish police observed the collection of between 800-1,000 Greek Cypriot bodies from the region of Lapithos and Vasilia, who were then buried in a place known as "Agni", close to the little harbour, where the villagers from Lapithos kept their fishing boats…'

In another part of his deposition, Mastrappas says: 'One day, it must have been around October-November 1974, when I went with a Turkish policeman named Mehmet – I think he was from the village of Kazaphani – and with a Briton from the British embassy, to the place known as "Koufi Petra", so we could place a British flag on a house there owned by a Briton, I noticed a fire in the place known as "Agni", just east of the orchards of Savvas Frantzieskou. Mehmet told me it was the Turkish army that had started the fire, in order to burn the bodies of Greek Cypriots uncovered by the rain. And, indeed, two-three days previously, it had rained heavily…'

Turkish Cypriot accounts
Paraschos then goes on to report that on a recent visit to Lapithos, he spoke to Turkish Cypriots in the area, and one said to Paraschos: 'I'll take you to a place near the sea where missing persons are buried.' I asked him: 'How do you know there are missing buried there?' 'It's an open secret here in Kyrenia and many Turkish Cypriots know that some people dug up skulls for medical purposes.'

According to this Turkish Cypriot, Paraschos writes, a teacher-friend of his told him that he dug up a skull for his daughter, who was training in medicine. Indeed, when this teacher-friend wanted to get hold of a skull for his daughter and started asking around where he could get one, he was told at the local cafe that many others had similar 'needs' and that the only way was to enter the fenced-off area and dig up Greek Cypriot dead. 'Don't be scared,' he was told, 'you won't be the first. Others have done the same.' And this is what he did. Despite his fear that since the area was fenced-off as a military zone, he went there, waited for a while, to see if there was any soldiers patrolling the area and when he saw there was not, he entered, dug, found what he was looking for, took it and left…

Posted by John Akritas at Wednesday, September 09, 2009

http://hellenicantidote.blogspot.com/2009/09/mass-grave-with-800-1000-greeks.html

This is an outrageous report. Cys bring dug up for medical research and bodies burned to hide the evidence of attrocities by the Turkish Army.

Pres X - postpone the talks again, until this site is dug up. It ain't fair on the relatives.