German site: WETPOLITIK.net
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1963 November 30
President Makarios’ attempts to implement 13 constitutional changes is perceived by the Turkish Cypriots as an attempt to change the constitutionally based distribution of power This triggers violent inter-communal fighting, during which about one thousand Turkish and two hundred Greek Cypriots are killed.”
UK PARLIAMENT:
Below quotes are from a briefing note published by a group of 131 Members of both Houses of Parliament and of all political parties (Chairman : Keith Speed, RD MP Conservative; Vice-Chairmen : Lord Willis, Labour, Andrew Faulds MP Labour; Treasurer : Peter Fry MP Conservative; Secretaries : Stephan Day MP Conservative, John D. Taylor MP UUP). London May 1992.
The inhabitants of Cyprus have no common language (except English), and no common religion; nor have they, except at the surface, any common culture. This being so, any approach to the Cyprus question which regards Cypriots as a nation is fundamentally flawed. There are in fact two peoples of Cyprus - the Turkish Cypriots numbering about 175,000 and the Greek Cypriots numbering about 500,000.
The Turkish Cypriots have for nearly thirty years been deprived of an official voice in the world, and have been deprived of the financial resources to match the Greek Cypriots in the communication of their case to the world community. It is the purpose of this briefing note to help redress the balance for an understanding of the real nature of the Cyprus question.
There is no doubt that the idea of annexing Cyprus to Greece (ENOSIS), invested as it is with the most intense religious and nationalistic overtones, has been and probably still is, the principal obstacle to good relations between the Turkish Cypriots and the Greek Cypriots[/b], and indeed between Turkiye and Greece. The Turkish Cypriots are just as fervently committed against the annexation of Cyprus to Greece, but they do not advocate the annexation of Cyprus to Turkiye, knowing that it would be just as objectionable to the Greek Cypriots as ENOSIS is to themselves.
In a speech on 4th September 1962, at Panayia, Makarios actually said “Until this Turkish community forming part of the Turkish race which has been the terrible enemy of Hellenism is expelled, the duty of the heroes of EOKA can never be considered as terminated."
Article 173 of the Constitution provided that separate municipalities be established for Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots. The Greek Cypriots refused to obey this provision, so the Turkish Cypriots took the matter to the Supreme Constitutional Court of Cyprus.
In February 1963 (Cyprus Mail 12.2.63) Archbishop Makarios declared on behalf of the Greek Cypriots that if the Court ruled against them they would ignore it. On 25th April 1963 the Court did rule against them and they did ignore it. The neutral President of the Court (a German citizen) resigned and the rule of law in Cyprus collapsed.
In November 1963 the Greek Cypriots went further, and demanded the abolition of no less than eight of the basic articles which had been included in the 1960 Agreement for the protection of the Turkish Cypriots, to which they naturally refused to agree. The aim was to reduce the Turkish Cypriot people to the status of a mere minority.
Christmas 1963 the Greek Cypriot militia attacked Turkish Cypriot communities across the island, and very many men, women and children were killed.
On 2nd January 1964 the Daily Telegraph wrote "The Greek Cypriot community should not assume that the British military presence can or should secure them against Turkish intervention if they persecute the Turkish Cypriots. We must not be a shelter for double-crossers."
On 28th December 1963 the Daily Express carried the following report from Cyprus: "We went tonight into the sealed-off Turkish Cypriot Quarter of Nicosia in which 200 to 300 people had been slaughtered in the last five days. We were the first Western reporters there and we have seen sights too frightful to be described in print. Horror so extreme that the people seemed stunned beyond tears."
On 14th January 1964 the Daily Telegraph reported that the Turkish Cypriot inhabitants of Ayios Vassilios had been massacred on 26th December 1963, and reported their exhumation from a mass grave in the presence of the Red Cross.
A further massacre of Turkish Cypriots, at Limassol, was reported by The Observer on 16th February 1964, and there were many more.
On 1st January 1964 the Daily Herald reported: "When I came across the Turkish homes they were an appalling sight. Apart from the walls they just did not exist.[/b] I doubt if a napalm attack could have created more devastation. Under roofs which had caved in, I found a twisted mass of bed springs, children's cots, and grey ashes of what had once been tables, chairs and wardrobes. In the neighbouring village of Ayios Vassilios I counted 16 wrecked and burned out homes. They were all Turkish Cypriot. In neither village did I find a scrap of damage to any Greek Cypriot house.”
On 31st December 1963 The Guardian reported: "It is nonsense to claim, as the Greek Cypriots do, that all casualties were caused by fighting between armed men of both sides. On Christmas Eve many Turkish Cypriot people were brutally attacked and murdered in their suburban homes, including the wife and children of the head of Turkish Cypriot army medical services - allegedly by a group of forty men, many in army boots and greatcoats." The Turkish Cypriots fought back as best they could, but there were no massacres of Greek Cypriot civilians.
On 10th September 1964 the U.N. Secretary-General reported (UN doc. S/5950): "UNFICYP carried out a detailed survey of all damage to properties throughout the island during the disturbances,..........it shows that in 109 villages, most of them Turkish Cypriot or mixed villages, 527 houses have been destroyed while 2,000 others have suffered damage from looting. In Ktima 38 houses and shops have been destroyed totally and 122 partially. In Orphomita suburb of Nicosia, 50 houses have been totally destroyed while a further 250 have been partially destroyed there and in adjacent suburbs."
Professor Ernst Forsthoff, the neutral President of the Supreme Constitutional Court of Cyprus in an interview with the UPI press agency on 30th December 1963 said: "All this happened because Makarios wanted to remove all constitutional rights from the Turkish Cypriots."
In his book "The Way the Wind Blows" former British Prime Minister, Sir Alec Douglas-Home said "I was convinced of the view that if Archbishop Makarios could not bring himself to treat the Turkish Cypriots as human beings he was inviting the invasion and partition of the island."
More than 300 Turkish Cypriots are still missing without trace from these massacres nearly 27 years ago. These dreadful events were not the responsibility of "the Greek Colonels" (who did not take power in Greece until much later) or an unrepresentative handful of Greek Cypriot extremists. The persecution of the Turkish Cypriots was an act of policy on the part of the Greek Cypriot political and religious leadership, which has even to this day brought hardly any of the murderers to justice.
The U.K. House of Commons Select Committee found that, "There is little doubt that much of the violence which the Turkish Cypriots claim led to the total or partial destruction of 103 Turkish villages and the displacement of about a quarter of the total Turkish Cypriot population, was either directly inspired by, or certainly connived at, by the Greek Cypriot leadership itself".
In the village of Tokhni on 14th August 1974 all the Turkish Cypriot men between the ages of 13 to 74, except for eighteen who managed to escape, were taken away and shot (Times, Guardian, 21st August)
In Zyyi on the same day all the Turkish Cypriot men aged between 19 and 38 were taken away by Greek Cypriots and were never seen again. On the same day Greek Cypriots opened fire in the Turkish Cypriot neighbourhood of Paphos killing men, women and children indiscriminately.
On 23rd July 1974 the Washington Post reported "In a Greek raid on a small Turkish village near Limassol 36 people out of a population of 200 were killed. The Greeks said that they had been given orders to kill the inhabitants of the Turkish villages before the Turkish forces arrived." (also Times, Guardian, 23rd July 1974).
On 24th July 1974 France Soir reported: "The Greeks burned Turkish mosques and set fire to Turkish homes in the villages around Famagusta. Defenceless Turkish villagers who have no weapons live in an atmosphere of terror and they evacuate their homes and go and live in tents in the forests. The Greeks' actions are a shame to humanity."
The German newspaper Die Zeit wrote on 30 August 1974: “the massacre of Turkish Cypriots in Paphos and Famagusta is the proof of how justified the Turks were to undertaken their (August) intervention.”
"Turkiye intervened to protect the lives and property of the Turkish Cypriots, and to its credit it has done just that. In the 12 years since, there have been no killings and no massacres" Lord Willis (Lab.) House of Lords 17th December 1986 (Hansard, col. 223).
On 12th March 1977 Makarios had declared "In the name of ENOSIS that Cyprus has been destroyed."
On Independence Day 1985 the Greek Cypriot Daily Simerini lamented as follows: "We believed that we are the centre of the Earth. We thought that we, small and insignificant as we are, would be capable of exercising policy on an intercontinental plane. But also above all we underestimated the Turks. The unstable and fickle policy of our leaders has brought us to the brink of total disaster."
THE SUBJECT OF LANDOWNERSHIP Greek Cypriots say it is an injustice that Turkish Cypriots occupy 36.2% of the land area of the island although they are only about 20% of the population. However, there are four answers to this:
First, there is no country in which each ethnic group occupies such proportion of the land area as their numbers bear to the total population. The Greek Cypriots did not regard the equitable distribution of territory as important between 1963 and 1974, when they forced the entire Turkish Cypriot population, most of whom were dependent on agriculture, to live in enclaves amounting in total to less than 3% of the land.
In Cyprus, Turks and Turkish Cypriots owned most of the land under Ottoman rule, but Greek Cypriots were allowed to purchase land as free citizens, and by the time of independence in 1960 Turkish Cypriot holdings had reduced to about 30% of the land. Throughout the 1950's and 1960's Greek Cypriots were encouraged to buy land from Turkish Cypriots, but Greek Cypriots who contracted to sell land to Turkish Cypriots were treated as traitors by EOKA and dealt with accordingly.
Second, the area in which the Turkish Cypriots live is close to the minimum necessary to establish a defensible position and to ensure reasonable economic viability. The Turkish Cypriots did not wish to live in a divided island, and are well aware of the benefits of a larger economy, but trust and confidence having been destroyed, it is impossible to go back to the status quo ante.
Third, the Turkish Cypriots have, by accepting the UN draft framework agreement, agreed to negotiate territorial adjustments.
Fourth, the Turkish Cypriots have accepted that as part of an overall settlement there will be an exchange and valuation process, and compensation will be made in property and/or money to those on both sides who have lost their property.
Displaced persons or refugees are today no more than a political device in Cyprus, as all Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot displaced persons have been resettled. In the case of Greek Cypriots this has been done with funds supplied from international aid programs, but none of this aid was given to the Turkish Cypriots, who had to rely on Turkiye alone.
ON MISSING PERSONS On 17th April 1991 Ambassador Nelson Ledsky testified before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee that "Most of the missing persons disappeared in the first days of July 1974 (ie before the Turkish intervention). Many killed on the Greek side were killed by Greek Cypriots and in fighting between supporters of Makarios and Sampson."
On 19th July 1974, before the Turkish army landed, Archbishop Makarios told the UN Security Council "I do not yet know the details of the Cyprus crisis caused by the Greek military regime. I am afraid that the number of losses is great... I considered the danger from Turkiye lesser than the danger from Greek army officers."
The Greek newspaper TA NEA published an interview on 28th February 1976 with Father Papatsestos, the Greek Orthodox priest in charge of the Nicosia cemetery. He recounted the events of 17th July 1974 when Greek officers required him to bury truckloads of Greek Cypriots in mass graves, together with one young Greek Cypriot whom they buried alive, and ten dead Turkish Cypriots. This one priest counted at least 127 bodies brought to him, and there must have been many similar incidents throughout the island.
On 23rd July 1974 The Times reported: " a production Director from Dublin said he had seen bodies being buried in a mass grave near Paphos after last Monday's coup. People were told by Makarios to lay down their guns and were shot out of hand by the National Guard, he said."
On 23rd July 1974 The Times reported "Fears that many supporters of Archbishop Makarios may have been massacred since last week's coup were expressed in London yesterday, by an American-born woman whose husband is now on top of EOKA-B's wanted list. She was told that about a hundred members of the Presidential Palace guard had been killed after they laid down their arms."
On 6th November 1974 TA NEA reported the erasure of dates from the graves of Greek Cypriots killed in these five days in order to blame their deaths on the subsequent Turkish military action.
In an article on 28th February 1976 in the Greek Cypriot press Father Papatsestos said: It is a rather hard thing to say, but it is true that the Turkish intervention saved us from a merciless internecine war.The Sampson regime had prepared a list of all Makarios supporters, and they would have slaughtered them all." Many of the people saved by Turkiye are members of the present Greek Cypriot leadership.
Prisoners of War taken by the Turkish Army were sent to Turkiye, where they were visited by the Red Cross, and repatriated on 8th August 1974, 16th September 1974 and 28th October 1975 under international supervision. There are no prisoners of war still in Turkiye. Until recently however allegations continued to allege "sightings" of Greek Cypriots in Turkiye, and sometimes photographs were produced.
On 17th April 1991 Ambassador Ledsky told the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee "The US Ambassador to Turkiye has looked into all of these allegations and found there was no substance. The Turkish Government was cooperative and the Turkish and US Governments worked together on this. The subject has been exhausted and we haven't heard an allegation in two years."
Christmas 1963 when, as noted before, the Greek Cypriots made a violent attack upon the Turkish Cypriot population. This was not war, but a premeditated attack upon defenceless woman, children and old men. These attacks were repeated in 1967 and again in 1974.
In July 1991 the following motion was tabled in the UK House of Commons: "This House recalls that when independence was granted to Cyprus in 1960, sovereignty was transferred to the Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots jointly as political equals; recalls that the 1960 Constitution broke down in 1963 and is now defunct; notes that the U.N Secretary General has stated that the relationship between the two communities in Cyprus is not one of majority and minority but one of equals; further notes that UN Security Council Resolution 649 calls upon the two peoples of Cyprus to co-operate on an equal footing; believes that the Greek Cypriot side's reluctance to recognise the equal political status of the Turkish Cypriot side is obstructing the way to a federal solution since federations can be formed only between political equals; and therefore calls upon Her Majesty's Government to treat the two peoples of Cyprus and their respective leaders on a basis of complete equality without any further delay."
