erolz wrote: I do not disagree with the essense of your post above. What I find strange is your idea that Turkey would take the massive cost (politicaly, militarily and financialy) of military action in Cyprus and then just return to the previous interminable years of 'negotiations' with no result. Turkey used military arms to force a solution from their perspective because negotiations had failed to restore TC rights under the constituion and no body really care a jot. Certainly not GC and not the rest of the world either.
Are you trying to just explain the Turkish stance or you are also trying to excuse it? If with all the above you are just explaining it, then at the same time you are also verifying the illegality of this operation. Because the "legitimising" pre-text that Turkey used to invade in 1974, was the treaty of guarantee. Of course the treaty of guarantee is preceded by the chart of the UN which Turkey co-signed and in which there is a clear statement that no country, irrespective of reasons, motive and other agreements, is not allowed to intervene militarily in any other country member of the UN without prior approval by the Security Council. Lets live aside the chart of the UN and concentrate on the treaty of guarantee. Under this treaty, Turkey had absolutely no right to enforce any political settlement of her wish on the people of Cyprus. The only right (obligation) it had under this treaty was to reinstate the constitutional order. Clearly the “proposals” (ultimatum) of Günes were not towards this direction. The negotiations between the two communities did not fail, as you conveniently want to believe but to the contrary, there was a lot of progress and most critical issues had been resolved. The fact that a final agreement had not been signed is not because these negotiations were into constant deadlocks but purely due to some minor differences, which were a matter of more time to also become resolved. In any case, Turkey did not have a right to impose any solution by the use of force and the fact that it went this direction proves the unethical character of Turkish politics all along those years and which continues up to this date.
erolz wrote: What you described above was the result of GC refusal to accept (immeditately) the principal of geographical federation. We simply do not know what would have been the impact on these 200,000 GC if the GC side had been prepared to accept this imposition. Maybe the results would not have been very different but I put it to you that there is a very realistic probability that if they had then the pain and suffering of these GC whilst certainly not removed entirely would have been significantly less than how it turned out with GC refusal. Was this not the essesnce of the Kleredies article that Banniot refered to in another thread?
Not maybe but for certain the results would have not been any better or any different. Perhaps a few less people would have been killed as a result of the military action, but in essence the results would have been exactly the same! What you just said equates with the analogy of a rape victim, which is given the choice to either allow the rapist to rape her without the use of force or to resist it, although in both cases the result will be the same. If the victim allows the rapist to rape her, there is a possibility that in a future court it may be argued that the rape was not a rape but a sexual encounter of mutually consenting adults, while if the victim resists and gets punched and bitten then such a claim cannot possibly stand.
erolz wrote: If you read the UN charters on human rights they clearly make the point that all human rights (indivdual and communal) derive from the right to self determination. That without this right all the others become meaningless (just as full indvdual rights for Cypriots under British rule were meaningless without Cypriot self determination)
I do not know where and how you read this, but most likely you are making a false interpretation. The Fundamental human rights are not related to a people’s right for self-determination. There is no direct relationship between the two. The set of Fundamental human rights, those that Turkey came in Cyprus to violate with her operation and her “proposals,” are the core of human rights and they include the right to ones life, physical freedom, no detention without trial, no torturing, respect for ones property and home, freedom of movement, religion observation, non discrimination on the base of race, sex, colour, language, etc. The right of self-determination of the people of a nation or a country is a secondary (Supplemental) right to those basic (fundamental) human rights.
However, since you so often like to speak about this self-determination right, I would like to stress this. The Turkish Cypriot community, as well as any other community, did not and do not have a separate or exclusive self-determination right. The Turkish Cypriot community doesn’t form a people, nor it historically possesses a separate and exclusive area of Cyprus in which it traditionally constitute the overwhelming majority, something which can rightfully be alleged about the Kurds and their historical Kurdish areas in southeast Turkey and north Iraq, or the Basques in Spain. In Cyprus, only the Cypriot people as a whole and irrespective of religious, cultural and linguistic differences, have such a self-determination right. Under no circumstances the TC community can claim to have a separate individual and exclusive self-determination right, in view of the fact that it was a numerical minority, spread evenly all around Cyprus. What you tried to say above is a complete fallacy. First you wrongly assumed that the TC community has a separate self-determination right and secondly you again wrongly assumed that this right is paramount (super seats) to the fundamental human rights (you said these fundamental human rights derive for the SD right and that they are meaningless without it,) in order to rationalise and legitimise the expelling of CCs from their homes and properties (a violation of their fundamental human rights,) in favour of the “paramount” self determination “right” of the TC community.
erolz wrote: GC persued objectives that meant the destruction of the TC communites rights to some (agreed in the constituion) form of partnership / political equality in their own homeland. It meant the destruction of the TC community as a partner community in Cyprus. Who knows to what extent this removal of their consitutional rights as a community would have lead to the destruction of the TC community in Cyprus? Would we today had enosis been achieved be 'allowed' to even call oursleves a Turkish Cypriot community? If Enosis was not as 'bad' a solution for Cypriots as what actualy became the case after 74 do you alos agree that union of all of Cyprus with Turkey would also not have been 'as bad' a solution? That such would not have meant in practice the destruction of the GC community in whole or partialy?
The GC side, in its own homeland, did not pursue any objectives that would have meant the destruction of the TC communities rights to some “agreed” “partnership” in their own homeland, but only to remove the excessive and disproportionate constitutional and “partnership” rights that the TC community in their own homeland had unfairly acquired, as a result of circumstantial and arbitrary “agreements” that were imposed on the people of Cyprus, in their own homeland. There was no planning nor envision on the part of the GC community to destroy the TC community nor the removal of those excessive and unfair constitutional rights would have let to such an outcome. I do not see why you would have not been allowed to call yourselves a TC community or whatever else you wished to call your selves, in the same way that The GCs would have continued to call them selves a Greek Cypriot community. I call my self a Cypriot and no one imposes to me any penalty, tax or fine to me for calling my self so. Enosis with either Turkey or Greece could have been a legitimate outcome, only as a result of the entire Cypriot people’s free exercising of their self-determination right and provided that no fundamental human rights of any Cypriot would have been affected! In such a case, I would personally have had no problem. No community by itself and alone had and has a separate self-determination right! Only the entire people of Cyprus have!
erolz wrote: Yes the TC leadership has reponsibility for what occured upto 74 - but as you point out they do not carry the same responsibility as the GC leadership do - if for no other reason that the fact that they were not as powerful as the GC community (and there are other reasons besides).
I am curious to know how you measure the amount of responsibility that each side has. How do you quantify it? The TC side was not powerful enough but had enough power to secretly import weapons in Cyprus since 1958 and up until 1974, and also had enough power and resources to immediately and upon the events of December 1963, capture the Kyrenia Mountains and blockade the Kyrenia passage, in order to defend the trees, the rocks and the Lizards in St Hilarion castle, and the GC side which was the “more” powerful one, despite the 2 attempts it had made to take them out of the hands of the TMT, failed to do so. Coincidentally, the mere success of the Turkish invasion of 1974 owes most of its “successful” outcome due to these mountains.
erolz wrote: I believe they forsaw a permanent and final 'solution' that involved the removal of TC communites rights under the consitituion and had shown a preparedness to use force and violence in it's persuit - if they believed that could be affective re the goal of removing TC rights under the consitituion. In 68 they decided that direct use of force and harsh discrimination was actualy working against their objective and creating to great a risk of Turkish intervention but I do not believe the objective itslef changed - just the means used to persue it.
You are allowed to do as many assumptions and hypothesis as you wish. I could also list a lot more of other hypothesis and assumptions but I do not want to waste my time.
erolz wrote: From 68 upto 74 and despite TC conceeding many of the rights they had under the original consitution agreement had still not been reached and under these conditions what incentive was there for GC to make any concessions to their goal of removing the rights of the TC community under the consitituion?
The TCs did not concede many of their constitutional rights, as you wrongly believe, but only some that they were convinced were totally unfair and unreasonable, and in exchange they gained other rights, such as substantial autonomy in their regions, etc. And a formal and final agreement had almost completed, unlike what you say that this has not been the case. It is better if you read more into this period and see what has been agreed and what has been pending and then comment, because your evaluation is not that objective, in my opinion.
