Cyprus-Forum.com

[Kikapu]

Count me in. I was there.

Welcome aboard, Issy1956. We are now Four.!

Issy, as I remember your story from few years ago, your family was not captured like we were in Küçük Kaymakli and that they manage to get to safety from (Büyük) Kaymakli, like some of my relatives did, but their house did not make it, because it was burnt to the ground..??

[Issy1956]

Hi Kikapu,
Yes you have an excellent memory. That is exactly correct. We escaped to be become firstly internal refugees in our own country in the city walls and then lived for a while in what I recall was a field full of tents with poor sanitation and hygiene living on aid. My father soon therefafter sent us all to London as he had given up hope on Cyprus and he himself followed after. It was amazing how quickly he manged to get himself and us all passports so quickly. the Greeks were very accomdating and understanding when it came to TC's leaving. I wonder why? I often tell GC friends who go on about being refugees from 74 that I outrank them by about 10 years in that respect.
But back to the point of the discussion I find it laughable to think that anyone can claim that were more afraid of TMt than the GC paramilitaries who chased us out of our home and burnt it down (to this day its still in the buffer zone a shell if any of it is left at all). It sort of adds insult to injury. If you see what I mean. I am sure that the TMt were no angels and were responsible for many unsavoury things but no they were not the reason the TC's were oppressed in my view.
Issy

[Kikapu]

Hi Kikapu,
Yes you have an excellent memory. That is exactly correct. We escaped to be become firstly internal refugees in our own country in the city walls and then lived for a while in what I recall was a field full of tents with poor sanitation and hygiene living on aid. My father soon therefafter sent us all to London as he had given up hope on Cyprus and he himself followed after. It was amazing how quickly he manged to get himself and us all passports so quickly. the Greeks were very accomdating and understanding when it came to TC's leaving. I wonder why? I often tell GC friends who go on about being refugees from 74 that I outrank them by about 10 years in that respect.
But back to the point of the discussion I find it laughable to think that anyone can claim that were more afraid of TMt than the GC paramilitaries who chased us out of our home and burnt it down (to this day its still in the buffer zone a shell if any of it is left at all). It sort of adds insult to injury. If you see what I mean. I am sure that the TMt were no angels and were responsible for many unsavoury things but no they were not the reason the TC's were oppressed in my view.
Issy

Hello Issy,

You are very accurate with your experience following the events that took place after the December 1963 incidents. I remember going to a center where food would be distributed by using a "ration card", which would be marked each time we were given anything to take home to eat. I remember once asking if they had "plimsolls" that I can wear, but they said they did not have any, or perhaps, it was considered to being an "luxury item", who knows.?

I was too young to really understand the roles the TMT played in the lives of the TCs in 1963-64 in their pursuit of Taksim, and having read stories written by our good friend Bir's experiences with the TMT, and his father being part of that organization in the level of protection of the TCs, it would be irresponsible to say that they (TMT) too did not cause any hardship to their own people. It is clear that the GC paramilitaries were doing the bulk of the hardship to the TCs, as expected, in their drive for Enosis, but the TMT were also no angels. This is why I say, it was all a mater of degree of just how often they "beat their wives". They both did, and to paint one being a "better husband" than the other, is a mistake, which is not what you are claiming btw, but it is the view of the NeoPartitionists on this forum that the TMT were only a "protection force" for the TCs...!

[Issy1956]

Hi Kiks,
Like you I was too young to have any direct first hand experience but I have plenty of older relatives who were involved and overwhelmingly the TMT were a defensive reaction to the Greek nationalism threatening their very existence. There is no doubt in my mind on this and without EOKA there would have been no TMT. That there was some kind of conspiracy to segregate the communities that was iniated by the TMT to promote partition is pure GC propaganda. Amusingly I recently discovered that I have GC blood relatives who were leading EOKA figures as well-I met them on my last visit.

[Kikapu]

Hi Kiks,
Like you I was too young to have any direct first hand experience but I have plenty of older relatives who were involved and overwhelmingly the TMT were a defensive reaction to the Greek nationalism threatening their very existence. There is no doubt in my mind on this and without EOKA there would have been no TMT. That there was some kind of conspiracy to segregate the communities that was iniated by the TMT to promote partition is pure GC propaganda. Amusingly I recently discovered that I have GC blood relatives who were leading EOKA figures as well-I met them on my last visit.

One thing you need to bear in mind, Issy, as to whether the TMT would have existed without the presence of the EOKA and the Enosis movement, that after 300 years of Ottoman Rule over Cyprus and then by the British, the GCs were naturally in wanting Cyprus to be part of Greece for added protection if and when the British left, and for Turkey, it was also natural to try and regain Cyprus if and when the British left, so when the time came closer for the British to leave the island, both the EOKA and Turkey got more active. To say that TMT would not have existed and that Turkey had no interest in reclaiming Cyprus had there never been EOKA and Enosis movement, is like saying there wouldn't have been a Nazi Germany and WWII would not have started if Hitler was never born. It was the circumstances of the past and the present at that time which started the WWII and not just because of Hitler himself. If it wasn't Hitler, it would have been another Fascist.!

Same can be said in Cyprus. The past circumstances created the motivations of GCs in wanting to be part of Greece and Turkey in wanting to re take the island. Since the late 60's, the GCs for the most part had given up on the idea of Enosis, but Turkey had not given up on the idea of reclaiming the island in anyway they can. In the meantime, us TCs got shafted by the Enosis movement and by Turkey's desires to re take the island. So far, Turkey has only managed to hold onto part of the island, which does her absolutely no good at all and the TCs are paying the price while the GCs, despite their loss in the north, have been able to move on by gaining world wide recognition, EU membership and a growing economy with oil on the way. So now, what ever plans Turkey had of reclaiming the island, it has all been thrown into limbo with Cyprus being in the EU, which has managed to gain far greater security for herself than she could have ever had with an Enosis with Greece, prior to Greece also becoming an EU member. Turkey had one last chance to have virtual control over the island with the Annan Plan, and that plan was foiled by the GCs with a simple OXI vote..

[Tim Drayton]

Much as I prefer to remain a passive observer of debate in this section, I find it surprising that nobody has challenged the basic claim that Martin Packard has said that the Turkish Cypriots were only ever oppressed by the TMT. Perhaps, in a spirit of objectivity, I can enter a few quotes from Martin Packard’s recent book which, it seems to me, challenge the basic premise in the article by Philippos Stylianou quoted at the start of this thread that:

“Martin Packard MBE revealed that the Turkish Cypriots were in fact oppressed and terrorised by their own extremist TMT organization”

If we refer to Martin Packard’s book “Getting It Wrong”, surely an attempt to provide a balanced eye-witness account of the events of 1964, we find on pages 225-6 the account of a murder that took place in the isolated village of Liveras. The following extracts taken from this book summarise his account of this event.

I was asked to speak privately to a Maronite shepherd. I was told by him that a Turkish Cypriot family of seven in Liveras, a village to the north of Ayia Irini close to Kolya Chiflik had been murdered a couple of weeks earlier. He said that the father had been shot, the mother and the five children strangled and the bodies thrown down a well. The story was not unlike others that had been reported to me in the past, but in this case there was a nasty echo of the 7 March killing at nearby Kolya Chiflik.

[…]

Despite the best efforts of Captain Michos, the villagers were extremely reluctant to talk to us.

[…]

They claimed that the Turkish Cypriots had been forced into going by TMT threats: “Why else should they leave? They were happy and safe here.”

[…]

We went back to Liveras. The more we cross-examined the Greek Cypriot villagers, the more unlikely did the story seem. When we asked to visit the Turkish Cypriots’ home, they took us there with extreme reluctance.

[…]

When we came out of the house into the bright sunshine, Captain Michos took my arm and said; “Let’s go.”

As we were walking away […] he said: “Don’t look back. I don’t want the villagers to think that we are suspicious. The Turkish Cypriots must have been killed. There were seven pairs of shoes out of sight under the stairs to the porch, two of adults and five of children. Nobody in a poor family in this country has more than a single pair of shoes. Even if they did, it would be the last item they would ever leave behind.

The gendarmerie at Myrtou declined to take an interest, just as they had over the killings at Kolya Chiflik: crimes against Turkish Cypriots were no longer regarded by them as being within their area of competence.

(PS – Captain Michos was a (mainland) Greek liason officer on the patrol)

I cannot help feeling that this particular event gives substance the claim of the Turkish Cypriot leadership of the time that they could no longer protect their people unless they moved into defensible enclaves.

[Get Real!]

I cannot help feeling that this particular event gives substance the claim of the Turkish Cypriot leadership of the time that they could no longer protect their people unless they moved into defensible enclaves.

Had the TMT refrained from rebelling against the RoC and engaging in atrocities against GCs, they would’ve never placed their people in any danger to have warranted their relocation to enclaves!

[insan]

I cannot help feeling that this particular event gives substance the claim of the Turkish Cypriot leadership of the time that they could no longer protect their people unless they moved into defensible enclaves.

Had the TMT refrained from rebelling against the RoC and engaging in atrocities against GCs, they would’ve never placed their people in any danger to have warranted their relocation to enclaves!

Yeah, as long as they accepted the minority status in a Greek-GC ruled Cyprus!

[Get Real!]

I cannot help feeling that this particular event gives substance the claim of the Turkish Cypriot leadership of the time that they could no longer protect their people unless they moved into defensible enclaves.

Had the TMT refrained from rebelling against the RoC and engaging in atrocities against GCs, they would’ve never placed their people in any danger to have warranted their relocation to enclaves!

Yeah, as long as they accepted the minority status in a Greek-GC ruled Cyprus!

And what status should they have accepted… supermajority?

You “Turkish Cypriots” are SERIOUSLY deluded!

[Get Real!]

I’m just wondering if “Turkish Cypriots” read from right to left like Arabs…

Because that would explain why they don’t understand that 18% is minority!