Cyprus-Forum.com

[Bananiot]

But aren't we all stupid before we become wise? I give you this, some never live long enough to become wise, but GR, science can extend your life to over 120 years, do not despare, you still have a chance.

[Get Real!]

But aren't we all stupid before we become wise? I give you this, some never live long enough to become wise, but GR, science can extend your life to over 120 years, do not despare, you still have a chance.

I appreciate your concern but I don’t want to live that long!

Besides, I’m told wisdom is like wearing 3D horror movie glasses… you see terrible things you wouldn’t have otherwise known!

Like people propagating lies as an example…

[BirKibrisli]

But aren't we all stupid before we become wise? I give you this, some never live long enough to become wise, but GR, science can extend your life to over 120 years, do not despare, you still have a chance.

I appreciate your concern but I don’t want to live that long!

Besides, I’m told wisdom is like wearing 3D horror movie glasses… you see terrible things you wouldn’t have otherwise known!

Like people propagating lies as an example…

Or people keeping their head so firmly in the sand for so long they risk losing their arse...

[Piratis]

You got me here GR ... how do I get out of this predicament? GR it seems you understand very little of the recent history of Cyprus and on top you make worse political judgements than Piratis. If I were you I wouldn't bother to read on, the rest is not intended for you.

According to Nikos Kranidiotis (Anoxiroti Politeia, Vol. A' p. 34) as early as 1961 Giorgadjis, Sampson and Lissarides set up and organised armed groups of paramilitarists. Giorgadjis's group was called EOK (National Organisation of Cyprus). Sampson's men were known as red berets and Lissarides's men, green berets. As early as January 1961, Makarios started talking about the need to change the Constitution while Giorgadjis openly called for the realisation of our aspirations (enosis). Makarios gave the TC nationalists plenty of food for thought, and action, unfortunately. Speaking at OHEN in Nicosia, on January 4 1962 he said: "I am compelled to ignore or ask for changes to those constitution articles that impede the functioning of the state and can cause problems when they are badly implementated by the TC minority".

Unfortunately, we never stopped for a minute considering the TC as a mere minority.

In Ankara, on 22 November 1962, Makarios was welcome as the Head of State. He flew from Nicosia aboard the private plane of the Turkish President Gurcel. He was met at Ankara airport by the President of Turkey and all the official state hierarchy. Twenty one cannon shots were fired in his honour. TC students organised a demonstration at Ankara Airport holding placards that read: "Implement the London-Zurich agreements" and "Peace through the implementation of the London-Zurich agreements". According to Reuters, agreements were reached to implement the constitution and the Turkish press condemned the students demo.

Of course, politics (especially in this part of the world) is not that simple. Here is when political acuteness is required in order to try to understand events. It is fairly obvious now (even oracle can understand this) that Makarios embarked on his visit to turkey in order to poke the Turks about the possibility of changing the Constitution. The Turks, told and showed Makarios that they would never agree to such changes and that Turkey would make sure that the Constitution was fully implemented. Glafkos Klerides, in his "Deposition" Vol. A' p. 162, writes that "Makarios met with the strong refusal of Turkey to agree to the idea of constitutional changes when he told Inonu of his thoughts". Kranidiotis also mentions that the Turks knew only too well of the setting up of the GC paramilitary groups and Cemal Erkin, Foreign Minister, demanded strongly the dismantling of these groups.

Bananiot, thank you for continuing to support what I already said.

The Turks in the 50s collaborated with the British in order to deny to Cyprus its freedom. The TC minority was used as the means and the excuse to this end, and the Imperialists as a reward gave to this small minority gains on the expense of every other Cypriot. In return the TCs would continue to collaborate with the foreign Imperialists in order to keep Cyprus enslaved. Makarios signed those agreements not with his own free will, but because he was blackmailed. That racist undemocratic constitution was not even put in a referendum to be approved by the Cypriot people.

It is a joke saying that in 1960 Cyprus was given its independence. If we were really independent then what is the business of Turkey, a foreign country, telling to the democratically elected president of Cyprus how to run his own country?

The fact is that Cyprus was not given its independence in 1960. Freedom and independence means to be able to democratically run our own country. That means the TC minority to have as much say as it proportionately belongs to them (18%), where foreign countries such as Turkey having no say at all. This is what independence means, and this is definitely not what was given to Cyprus.

Therefore obviously the Cypriot people had to continue the struggle for their freedom. We tried to do this in the most peaceful way possible, by proposing changes to a constitution that was written by foreigners without the slightest input from the Cypriots. (do you know many such "independent" countries who have their constitutions written and imposed on them be foreigners?) Look at the 13 points that Makarios proposed and you will see that they aim to make Cyprus a more democratic country, without violating even a single of the human rights of the TC minority. Not only that, but the TC minority would continue to have more powers than say the Greek minority in Turkey, the Muslim minority in Greece or Bulgaria, or any other equivalent minority.

But it was obvious that the Turks had no intention to allow Cyprus to be truly free and independent, and the threats about them causing unrest and conflict in case Makarios dared to make proposals for democratic reforms proves this point beyond any doubt.

Of course Bananiots with slave mentality have no problem being slaves of the Turks and taking their approval for anything we wanted to do. Such people with slave mentality were happy under Ottoman rule, under British rule, and under a pseudo independence where Turkey will continue to rule over us and tell us what we should do.

But most Cypriots are not slaves like Bananiot. Therefore we will continue to fight for our FREEDOM. When Cyprus is truly and fully liberated and we are truly free to run our own island in a democratic way without having Turks telling us what to do, that is when the Cyprus Problem will be really solved.

[BirKibrisli]

The Turks in the 50s collaborated with the British in order to deny to Cyprus its freedom

Correction....The Turks in the 50s single handedly worked to deny you Enosis with Greece....You have since tried to achieve that cherished goal by hook or by crook...When' Freedom' comes to Cyprus you can be sure YOU will not like it one little bit...And you will only have yourselves to blame...Listen to the wise and sensible Bananiot,he is telling you the way to get yourselves out of this mess....If you insist on achieving'freedom" which is slavery for the TCs you will end up losing what little of it you have now...don't say I didnt warn you...

[DT.]

The Turks in the 50s collaborated with the British in order to deny to Cyprus its freedom

Correction....The Turks in the 50s single handedly worked to deny you Enosis with Greece....You have since tried to achieve that cherished goal by hook or by crook...When' Freedom' comes to Cyprus you can be sure YOU will not like it one little bit...And you will only have yourselves to blame...Listen to the wise and sensible Bananiot,he is telling you the way to get yourselves out of this mess....If you insist on achieving'freedom" which is slavery for the TCs you will end up losing what little of it you have now...don't say I didnt warn you...

That's right! F%^#ing GCs!



We're holding your homes, your villages and towns at gunpoint and yet the need to threaten you further seems like a good idea yet you're not reacting!WTF!

The insolence of some people, you bring 40,000 troops ALL the way from Turkey to kick innocent GCs (that's right! iNNOCENT GCs that never harmed a Tc in their life) out of their homes and they still make it necessary for us to threaten them with more violence, if we don't listen to a couple of turncoats that happen to blab on about what a haven of peace Turkish policy has been.

[Gasman]

Obviously wasn't all sweetness and light with the TCs having nothing to worry about or fear from the GCs, until Turkey 'invaded' in 1974. This was 1958.

http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=60455

CYPRIOT TURKS MARCH TO DOWNING STREET
video newsreel film

[Bananiot]

Piratis

Bananiot, thank you for continuing to support what I already said.

The Turks in the 50s collaborated with the British in order to deny to Cyprus its freedom. The TC minority was used as the means and the excuse to this end, and the Imperialists as a reward gave to this small minority gains on the expense of every other Cypriot. In return the TCs would continue to collaborate with the foreign Imperialists in order to keep Cyprus enslaved. Makarios signed those agreements not with his own free will, but because he was blackmailed. That racist undemocratic constitution was not even put in a referendum to be approved by the Cypriot people.

It is a joke saying that in 1960 Cyprus was given its independence. If we were really independent then what is the business of Turkey, a foreign country, telling to the democratically elected president of Cyprus how to run his own country?

The fact is that Cyprus was not given its independence in 1960. Freedom and independence means to be able to democratically run our own country. That means the TC minority to have as much say as it proportionately belongs to them (18%), where foreign countries such as Turkey having no say at all. This is what independence means, and this is definitely not what was given to Cyprus.

Therefore obviously the Cypriot people had to continue the struggle for their freedom. We tried to do this in the most peaceful way possible, by proposing changes to a constitution that was written by foreigners without the slightest input from the Cypriots. (do you know many such "independent" countries who have their constitutions written and imposed on them be foreigners?) Look at the 13 points that Makarios proposed and you will see that they aim to make Cyprus a more democratic country, without violating even a single of the human rights of the TC minority. Not only that, but the TC minority would continue to have more powers than say the Greek minority in Turkey, the Muslim minority in Greece or Bulgaria, or any other equivalent minority.

But it was obvious that the Turks had no intention to allow Cyprus to be truly free and independent, and the threats about them causing unrest and conflict in case Makarios dared to make proposals for democratic reforms proves this point beyond any doubt.

Of course Bananiots with slave mentality have no problem being slaves of the Turks and taking their approval for anything we wanted to do. Such people with slave mentality were happy under Ottoman rule, under British rule, and under a pseudo independence where Turkey will continue to rule over us and tell us what we should do.

But most Cypriots are not slaves like Bananiot. Therefore we will continue to fight for our FREEDOM. When Cyprus is truly and fully liberated and we are truly free to run our own island in a democratic way without having Turks telling us what to do, that is when the Cyprus Problem will be really solved.

At least Piratis does not question the facts with the above. The historical truth is there to be seen by anyone with an open mind approach. Piratis however is guilty for something extremely important. He is constantly committing a cardinal political sin, because he chooses to ignore the most fundamental political axiom.

Politics is the art of the feasible!

More important people than Piratis committed the same crime during the last 60 or so years. In 1955, a priest and a thick soldier decided to start an armed struggle against an umpire in order to unite Cyprus with Greece, completely ignoring the vested interests some big boys had in this area. The price we paid in 1959 was the London-Zurich agreements, which we were coerced to signed, because of our options in 1955. In 1963 we wanted to change the constitution in order to turn the TC's into a minority, without political clout and thus no say whatsoever in our continuous quest for enosis. The suggestsions that we just proposed the changes and they could have been rejected and back to square one, is a dirty lie which we invented after the events. When the Turkish Ambassador came back with Ankara's response to our "proposals" we refused to even see him, let alone read the Turkish respone. Our so called proposals were for implementing, not for discussion, and for this we set up armed paramilitary armies to work towards this effect. Later, when the TC's, suffering from the strain of living for so long in enclaves, basically accepted the 13 points, Makarios changed his mind, and he asked for something more. The price we paid for this and the struggle of the dark forces of EOKA (and ELDYK, I am afraid, which secured Nicosia International Airport on Monday 15 Luly 1975 for the coupists) was the invasion by Turkey and the division of Cyprus for the last 36 years, despite the struggle of Piratis and the other self proclaimed freedom fighters.

The situation is quite comical too. Here we are in deep mess, trying to salvage what can be salvaged, and Piratis wants to go to a situation that would be better than the London - Zurich agreements. If tomorrow we are offered back the London - Zurich agreements we would bent over backwards, get hurt in the stampede and cry with joy, yet all Piratis will see is an imperialist plot.

Piratis thinks we live in an ideal world. This is childish, for only 5 year old brains can think like this, and constantly weep that we were hard done by the bullies who did not respect our numerical superiority. On top, Piratis thinks that the majority has an absolute power over the minority. In fact, any decision taken by the majority has to be respected by the minority, even if it is for the minority to commit suicide, according to the logic of Piratis. This absurd thinking is made more comical, for if you ask Piratis now, he will say that of course the minority will enjoy all human rights in a democratic frame. Unfortunately for Piratis, those he addresses such words will have to take him seriously. I have a sneaky suspicion they will not be convinced and perhaps Piratis will need to employ another line of action to see if we can cut some ice. Can we give them some local governance, Piratis, over and above?

P.S. Another uncompromising patriot, Tassos Papadopoulos, who actually disagreed with the London - Zurich agreements in 1959 (probably for different reasons than Piratis cares to admit) came to his senses a wee bit late I am afraid. At Intercollege, in 2006, during a speech, he recognised that "eventually the agreements were a blessing in disguise". They were the best that could have been achieved under the circumstances, of which partly we created.

Politics, the art of the feasible! Go for the desirable and you put your neck on the line. It does not help crying once the damage is done.

[Afroasiatis]

But maybe in the future we will be able to get our "car" back, nobody knows what the future will bring. So why not keep the keys of our car just in case and meanwhile also make the Mafia Boss suffer a bit? Since the deal the Mafia Boss is offering us today is not good enough, thats really the only logical thing to do.

What's wrong is to think at the car, and plan your life based on it. Throwing the keys away might help you to forget about it and continue your life. If you want, you can of course make the Mafia Boss suffer a bit, for getting some sort of revenge.

Of course, if you ask me, the deal that the Mafia Boss seems ready to accept isn't that bad, given the conditions, so there is no reason for throwing the keys away yet.

The same way that the Turks overcame the problems, only for us it will much easier since we would be liberating our own lands and we will already have people owning the real title deeds to the properties there.

The Turks overcame the problems by:

- Scaring off the native population through massacres, rapes etc, so making them flee. Are you planning to do the same to the future population of the North, which by then will feel as much native?

- Using the previous isolation and suffering of TCs to make them feel that it worths leaving their land and houses behind and move to the North. Are you planning to create a similar situation of pressure on a part of GC population, to make them feel unwelcomed and be ready to leave everything behind and move to the North?

- Using the bad economic situation of parts of Turkish population (I mean, from Turkey), to give them a motivation for moving in North Cyprus in search of a better future. Where are you going to find people in similar bad economic situation, in Greece?

Not much better than Annan Plan as a total, but better in some key issues which are of great importance to GCs, like the one I mentioned.

I am not sure which are the key issues you are referring to. Obviously if key issues change in a way that will be acceptable to us (e.g. land distribution, power sharing etc) then the result could be accepted. But I don't see this happening because the Turks will not accept changes to key issues, and even Christofias makes proposals (e.g. rotating presidency) which are not accepted by the majority of GCs! So I really don't see how key issues can be changed in a way that the result will be acceptable to us.

I don't think there is much chance for improvements in territory or coastline issue. Power sharing is more or less already agreed - I don't know the Annan Plan in detail to tell you if and how much it's improved, but the weighted vote is for sure a great progress, not from a GC but from a general Cypriot point of view.

Key issues in which there is a chance for improvements is, I think, the property issue (mainly clearing up the procedure, and providing guarantees), the army issue, perhaps even the guarantee treaties. The deviations from rights as applied in EU is also an area where a deal close to GC positions is possible, I believe, though I don't know how this was in Annan-Plan exactly.

You can't do anything to the Prime Minister of Turkey, but if the TC president violates the constitution, there should be a process to kick him out of his office, like I guess there is in all states based on a constitution.

First of all we would need a parameter in the constitution that would define this. But even if there is, who will decide if there is a violation and who would enforce the law. Do you envision GC policemen dragging a TC president out of the presidential palace? The TC leadership (under the direction of Turkey) could claim that the issue is humanitarian, and use this excuse to flood Cyprus with even more Turks and there would be very little we could do.

I don't quite understand the point with the humanitarian claim.

If the policemen who will drag the TC president out will be TC or GC is irrelevant - they will obey to the federal goverment. As to who will decide if there is a violation, I guess some kind of a constitutional court.

If the child thinks of you as the father instead of me and you fulfill all your functions as a father, then the question, who's the father isn't easy to answer, even if it legally belongs to me.

The "child" in this case is land. Land can't talk. So let me rephrase: If I stole your car and I keep your car illegally in my possession, does your car belong to me? I think nobody can seriously debate that it does.

Just as the child metaphor has deficits, so does the car metaphor. Territory gained through war between countries isn't the same as a stolen car, and the value of international legality isn't the same as the laws which apply on car thefts.

You earlier admitted that TCs are not the ones who exercise real power over the north part of Cyprus. Turkey is. The TCs are just a bunch of puppets with no real power so even by using your own definition we again come to the same conclusion: There is no such "trnc" state, which is why we use this term in quotes to distinguish this pseudo state, from real states such as RoC which is the one and only state in Cyprus (and you can't have more than one real state over the same territory. On the other hand you can have as many fake states like the "PS" and the "trnc" as you want. All you need to do is to declare them)

First, the TCs are a people, they aren't puppets. There is a difference between the TC people and the TC regime. The TC regime is one higly dependent on Turkey. All states are dependent on others, there is no such thing as a really independent state, but the difference between e.g. RoC and TRNC (besides recognitions etc) is that the later is almost exclusively dependent on one and single other state.

As the English say "What's good for the goose is good for the gander" If they think that they can get the ideal solution for themselves by ethnically cleansing us then we should reciprocate and define as our ideal solution the ethnic cleansing of TCs from Cyprus which will solve all the problems for us.

Sorry, I am not Jesus Christ. If somebody insists on slapping me then I would slap him back, I will not turn the other cheek. So when the balance of power will change the Turks should know that they will get what they wanted, but in reverse.

This is what I mean by a national, instead of humanist, way of thinking. You speak of the GCs and TCs as if they are each a single body, and so a punishment can be applied to TCs collectively as a people. That's the same mentality which supported the ethnic cleansing of Sudete Germans by the Czechs, this is why I asked you why did you mention it. It is also a similar mentality with that e.g. of Hamas when it carries suicide bombings with civilian Israelis as targets.

This has nothing to do with Christian ethics, but to if you can see a people as collectively guilty for something, instead of juding their guilt as individuals.

[Afroasiatis]

Afro,

I am not sure if you have already expressed an opinion on this,but I have missed it in any case...So I will ask you directly...What is your considered opinion on the TC situation during the 1964-74 period...???Do you think,like most of our GC friends here,that the TCs left their rights and responsibilities in RoC government voluntarily,and moved into enclaves to advance Turkey's territorial ambitions??? Were there any other considerations??? And the other thing is, do you think the TCs were in any position to come to the aid of the Makarios supporters during the Greek Junta inspired coup d'etat of 74???

As you understnad of course, I'm too young to have a really well founded opinion on these things, because I haven't lived these situations myself. All I can do is have some ideas based on what I read or heard from other people.

So, having in mind this deficit, my ideas are more or less the following:

- To the TC situation 1964-1974: Obviously, in this period it was mainly the TCs who suffered as a result of the conflict, not only because of the violence they experienced, but also of the isolation they had to live in, and the difficulties associated with that.

- To why TCs moved into enclaves: First, it's important to differentiate between people and leadership, as I said to Piratis earlier. But yes, I believe the TC leaderships, its most significant parts at least, did look for a chance to leave the government and push the TC population into enclaves, for the sake of promoting Turkish interests (though it must be said, it seems there were different opinions as to what these interests were, between Inonu-goverment and the turkish deep state). On the other hand, the GC leadership also seems to have looked for a chance to begin the conflict again, and it seems it was not so unhappy about the enclaves and the withdrawal of TCs from government. So, these events can't be blamed on a single factor. As to why the TC population did move to the enclaves, I guess the reasons are both the pressure from their own leadership and the violence from some GCs and insecurity they experienced in these days.

- To TCs and their stance during the coup: I really know very little on this, but it's hard for me to imagine TCs fighting on the side of some GCs against other GCs in these days - I don't know if such a help would even be welcomed by Makarios's supporters. No, I don't think TCs were really in position to help. On the other hand of course, their leadership wouldn't want to help even if it had the chance, as the coup suited its interests perfectly.