Cyprus-Forum.com

[Bananiot]

Piratis told us that the intercommunal conflict started in 1958. It did not start then of course, simply there was another escalation at the time.

The serious conflict that was to mark the future events started in December 1963 when we tried to undermine the agreements we signed only three years ago and when TMT went full out for partition. There was a general mistrust at the time because of the simple fact that each nationalist part had a secret agenda which of course was very transparent. Many times I blamed the GC for this because we never believed in the Independent Cyprus and tried to use it as a stepping stone for enosis. Had we not tried to bring enosis from the back door, after the failure of the EOKA armed struggle, we could have the average TC fighting on the side of the Republic for the Republic, rather than for TMT. We targeted the simple, ordinary TC that was an easy target thus forcing TC's to look for protection to TMT and the Turkish army.

We failed miserably and lost half of our country and now the people responsible for this disaster are ready to sell the other half with their maximalist asks.

[Nikitas]

Deniz said:

"You are wrong here Nikitas. I remember the collection of all arms when we lived in Kyrenia. They were stored in the police station next to the castle. All Turkish Cypriots also had to hand in their guns too. My father had brought from the UK a new shotgun and I remember my uncle oiling it wrapping it up and handing it in. . I think the year was 1956. I also remember picking it up too when they were returned to their original owners. The same happened to all my family members in Kophinou, Civisil and Anglsisidhes. Facts should not be distorted to suit your argument."

I was not referring to shotguns when talking about arming the TCs. That the British armed select TCs is beyond dispute and has been revealed in released British papers. There is plenty of photographic evidence of TCs armed with Sten sub machnice guns posing proudly during the 50s. This while GCs arrested with even one single cartridge were hanged. This is also well documented. The comparative arrest and conviction records also show this as do the comparisons of numbers held without trial in the internment camps of Kokkinotrimithia and Pyla, as I recall there were 3000 Gcs interned and only a few dozen TCs.

But the gist of it all is that the British, having realised that their 40 000 troops could not handle the insurgency in the countryside, turned the tables on EOKA and incited an URBAN conflict between GCs and TCs. EOKA could not operate in urban areas under curfew nor could it incite anti TC riots like those directed against GC areas. The reason is simple, th TCs had firmly established the exclusion of GCs from their areas early on in the 50s to the extent that even GC police were excluded, while GC areas were regularly patroled by TC auxiliaries. GCs of any rank could not enter TC areas in major towns, this was true of Nicosia, Famagusta, Larnaca and Limassol, the major urban areas.

[Nikitas]

The above points to the fact that EOKA had no real strategy. The hope had been that the insurgency, combined with the petition of the late 40s and Greek pressure, would force the issue. This is not strategy, this is playing politics with a little violence added for effect.

[Acikgoz]

... it is only the TCs in here who demand that GCs should be collectively punished and made to "pay the price" for everything that happened in the past.

Personally I never supported such racist and unfair practices.

Piratis, come come now, we're doing that lying thing again, stretching half truths to sound like principle facts, playing to the soft minded or ill-informed crowd...
You know better don't you, or perhaps you were agitated and didn't look too closely at what you were saying again.

[Afroasiatis]

I disagree with you that conflict was inevitable simply because the Cypriot people wanted their freedom as it happened with every other Greek island and territory.

Muslim/Turkish minorities were created in most Christian territories which were under Ottoman rule. This didn't stop all the other Greek islands to be liberated from foreign rule and unite with mainland Greece, as it was their right. Rhodes for example, which also has a Muslim minority, united with Greece in 1948 after being Liberated from Italian Colonial rule, and not a single nose broke over this.

What brought conflict to Cyprus was not our legitimate choice, but the interests of the Imperialists who used their usual divide and rule tactics to turn the Muslim minority against the majority of the population. As I said these kind of practices were used by the British in many other parts of the world even when those other parts where fighting for independence.

As far as your second point goes, it is only the TCs in here who demand that GCs should be collectively punished and made to "pay the price" for everything that happened in the past. Ask Bir.
Personally I never supported such racist and unfair practices.

And the excuse that those TCs use to demand the indiscriminate collective punishment of all GCs is that supposedly GCs started the inter-communal conflict. With this thread I showed that this was not the case. The conflict was part of the partition plan and it was initiated by TCs with the aim to later use the results of the conflict as an excuse for partition - and this is exactly what they do, even until today.

The Cypriots didn't simply want freedom or independence. The GC leadership wanted union with another state.

If this goal was legitimate or not, is not that important. As I said, in my opinion it was about so legitimate as the creation of enclaves by TCs, or as a possible independence of Muslim regions in Western Thrace.

Important is, that this goal was something that created worries to TCs, and with good reasons. Being a minority in states of our region is never an easy thing, and never a guarantee for survival, just look at the fate of Greeks/Armenians or Kurds in Turkey, Muslims in Greece, Muslims in Bulgaria, and generally minorities in Yugoslavia. So, as long as the TCs had the power to react, they would.

As for the comparison to Rhodes: I don't know if the percentage of Muslims there was so high as in Cyprus. But more importantly, they probably didn't feel strong enough to react, and Turkey also not.

But generally, what happened to Cyprus was similar with what happened to Greece/Turkey, as a consequence of nationalism: previously mixed regions were separated through various stages into ethnically "clean" ones, in order to build nation-states. We can't understand the Cyprus question, if we don't look at what happened elsewhere and find the common pattern. The ethnicity of the person who fired the first shot, is not really such a central question.

[Bananiot]

Have you read Tasos Kostopoulos Afroasiatis?



If not, get a hold of it. Here are some words by none other than Stratis Mirivilis.

«Σαν έφεξε, βάρεσε η σάλπιγγα συναγερμό πάνω από το λασπωμένο λοφάκι του χωριού. Εκεί μαζεύτηκαν όλοι οι αιχμάλωτοι άντρες και κατόπι ντουφεκίστηκαν. Βρέθηκα αντίκρυ στο γέρο. Είχε μερικές μελανιές στο πατριαρχικό του πρόσωπο. Το πιο καλό που μπορούσα να του κάνω ήταν να τον σκοτώσω αμέσως και τελειωτικά για να μην τυραγνιέται σα μερικούς που σπάραζαν σαν τα βουβάλια χτυπώντας τις απαλάμες στο χώμα. Τράβηξα τη σκανδάλη και σωριάστηκε μονοκόμματα σαν αστραποκαμμένος στη λάσπη? Κατόπι βάλαμε φωτιά στο χωριό!».

Οι παραπάνω γραμμές δημοσιεύτηκαν πριν από 80 περίπου χρόνια στη συλλογή Διηγήματα ενός άσημου ακόμα μυτιληνιού πεζογράφου ονόματι Στρατή Μυριβήλη. Περιέγραφαν το κάψιμο ενός τουρκικού χωριού της Πτολεμαϊδας και τη μαζική εκτέλεση των αρρένων κατοίκων του από τον προελαύνοντα ελληνικό στρατό το Νοέμβριο του 1912.

Translation: Stratis Mirivilis (famous Greek literary historian) was a soldier in the victorious Greek army in 1912 during the Balkan wars and he describes how the Greek army executed all male inhabitants of a Turkish village and then set fire to it. He describes how he personally executed a Turkish elder, to put him out of his misery. To be fair, it must be said that in those times all victorious armies, be they Greek or otherwise, performed extensive cleansing in the occupied areas in order to create minority-free regions.

[Lit]

These so called moderates in this forum have suggested in the past that the rape numbers during the invasion were not so high. These so called moderates in this forum love to sing a song about 63-74 but when someone mentions 58 he is told why are you looking at the past?

Well done, Pirates, for exposing these hypocrites.

[Afroasiatis]

Have you read Tasos Kostopoulos Afroasiatis?



If not, get a hold of it. Here are some words by none other than Stratis Mirivilis.

Thanks, it seems very interesting. I'll try to find it at some point.

[Oracle]

The Cypriots didn't simply want freedom or independence. The GC leadership wanted union with another state..

That is a distorted view. A historian would put it into the perspective of a drive towards righting the wrongs of some centuries of oppression.

It wasn't just "another state" the GCs wanted union with ... as would be the case if the enosis/union/taksim was with Turkey (a totally foreign and alien to these lands country) ... but it was the rightful re-establishment and continuation of their historical ties with the Hellenic world they correctly sought for survival.

Only tyrants and demons would continue to enforce oppression to an 80% majority to rightfully reconnect with their own people. Only an Expansionist nation like Turkey would deny a population its lifeline.

[Bananiot]

What is Lit on about? Can he get it through his thick skull that we all played a part in destroying Cyprus?