Cyprus-Forum.com

[newgeneration]

Repulse warrior, is this the group who have moved into the buffer zone in Varosha?

No I didn't visit them. We did drive through the buffer zone with an Uncle in the military. We saw houses with blood still on the walls, tables laid for a meal that had been left abandoned. It was something I will never forget.

We visited Sepitah, the GC vilage in the North, and Pyla, and Lourijina, all areas where GC's and TC's live side by side.

[newgeneration]

Jerry, thanks for your post. I want to address all of your points ...

Re your reading of only British papers at the time, I don't think this is reason enough to discount the International press. These sources do exist, and I'd like to hear your take on them.

In terms of Makarios, wanting to block Turish intervention is understandable. In the same way GC's suspected the intention of the TC's was intervention, the TC's suspected that Enosis was the intention of the GC's all along. The majority of my quotes refer to Makarios in reference to massacre/shooting/killing TC's. This I have trouble coming to terms with, and I can only summise it was wrong. How do you justify it?

[newgeneration]

Jerry.

Re George Ball, US position at the time is something I have little knowledge of and I'll start by reading the Martin Packard book. In your opinion, why did the US want partition?

Re genocide, I agree and will not use this term going forward. Genocide refers to wiping out and entire race/group. This didn't happen.

'in simple terms 1963/4 was revenge for the events of 1958 and the TCs got the worst of it because despite their claims of “equality” they were outnumbered 4 to 1' ... can you give me some info on the events of '58 you're referring to that brought about this revenge?

The events of '58 as recounted by Anthony Nutting who was the British Minister of State at the Foreign Office during the period 1954-56, in his book 'I Saw for Myself' are below. I cannot see a reason here for the GC's to then kill hundreds of TC's in '63/64 in revenge.

'On 26 and 27 January 1958, the Turkish Cypriots staged a peaceful demonstration against enosis and in favour of partition. The British responded to it by doing what they had not done to the Greek Cypriot anti-British demonstrators for three years (from 1955 to 1957): they shot dead seven Turkish Cypriots who were doing nothing unlawful. The next day, thousands of Turkish Cypriots attended a mass burial in defiance of the Colonial Government’s attempt to prevent the ceremony.

By the end of 1958, Makarios and Greece realised that the Turkish Cypriot reaction to enosis, and the consequent inter-communal bloodshed (about 100 people on each side had been killed by June 1958 and Turkish Cypriots had been evacuated from about 33 mixed villages to safe areas), would bring Turkey onto the island, and partition (double self-determination) would become a reality. However, when Greece failed to get a resolution from the United Nations in favour of self-determination in December 1958, Turkey and Greece, put their heads together and worked for a solution based on bi-communal partnership'.

[newgeneration]

Jerry.

The TC's 'got the worst of it' yes, because they were outnumbered, but also because they were unarmed, forced into refugee enclaves and completely vulnerable.

The telegram source is interesting and does not put Turkey in a good light - sacrificing lives for a stake or positioning in Cyprus. There is alot of info on the link you give and I want to read it in full. It's a shame there is not an original non-translated source available.

The Deniz incident - this is something I didn't know of and I will be back to discuss when I have read up ...

[kimon07]

And you, please take the time to read this:

AFRIKA
HTTP://INFOGNOMONPOLITICS.BLOGSPOT.COM/ ... FRIKA.HTML
“THE LIES OF THE NATIONAL DEMAGOGS TO THE COMMUNITY".

By Sener Levent

Turkey, which, as a guarantor country, undertook the keeping of the constitutional order and the safeguarding of the territorial integrity of the Republic of Cyprus, which was established in 1959 under the provisions of an international treaty, in 1974, after the known events, having invaded the island as a “Liberator” forgot it’s duties and took as it’s own every empty space it found, regardless whether it belonged to a Greek Cypriot or a Turkish Cypriot and posted it’s flag to it.

It divided the country and occupied half of it, removing by force, out from their lands the Cypriots, both Greek and Turkish. Violating the international treaties brought into the occupied lands populations of its own. Later, it established into these lands a supposed to be sovereign and independent state which turned into a nest of all kinds of illegalities.

Naturally, there is no people which does not wish to be the master of a truly sovereign and independent state, free of foreign interventions. But it is unthinkable, you, with the use of your weapons, to institute a state in lands belonging to other people, unrooting them and moving in their place your own populations. If, by violating the international law, and the legal order you establish a state and you consider that you have the right on your side, then, you are committing an Ottoman bullying which you can not justify to nations which belong to the international order of today.

Do not expect them to embrace the dummy state you established. They will be making things difficult for you pressing you continuously. And you, not being able to see your size in the mirror, you are attacking left and right like tavern thugs.

In the meantime, all that happens is contrary to the interests of our community which, like a lit candle, every passing day melts little by little and vanishes. For this reason you are not wanted here any more. Because your ideology has nothing in common with the Kemalist ideal but it is a neo-ottoman racism the date of which has expired. Get down from the neck of this people and abandon our country.

During the course of your history you dried up every land on which you set foot. You have never done any good and you never allowed anyone else to do any good. 37 years ago we welcomed you with flowers as liberators. We put you in our arms. We hosted you in our homes. We did not hold back in terms of respect and treatment. We did everything you asked from us. Because we believed that we would escape the fascist and racist attacks of Greeks and Greek Cypriots and that we would get back our rights as partners to the ROC and that the two communities would live peacefully and in a civilized way starting a new life.

You however, while not even the Greek Cypriot fascists ever said anything about our decent, you suddenly discovered that it is (our decent) defective. In order to turn us into “Turks” of “noble” decent, you made our mothers cry. You “snatched” our will, our freedom. By writing off our past you darkened our future.

Enough now. Enough. Dismount from the necks of our people. Get back to your home, to Turkey. And, on your way there, take with you your local heroes, who are now similar to you and who, for 37 years, have been eating from the table of the “Halil Ibrahims”. Post them there, in there fatherland, with Ankara criteria. Let their children serve their military service in the turkish army. Because this country here is called Cyprus and belongs to all Cypriots. "You know what saddens me most?

The fact that a “resistance” organization like TMT, the members of which, in the past, served in luxurious offices of tyrannical directors, the sanjaktars(?) and who never managed to be the cure to the wounds of our community, so it saddens me, how and in whose hands it transformed into an aggressive organization. So, curse, today, to these manlike monsters, the national demagogs, who through the people to bottomless wells and who demonstrate to the society with pride the medals awarded to them by the intruder commander, for their services to TMT." (Bugün toplumu dipsiz kuyulara atan insan kılığındaki yaratıklar, bazı milli demagogların “TMT’ye hizmet” madalyasını, işgalci komutanın eliyle göğsüne takarak topluma hava atmalarına, lanet olsun.).

And This:

The Bloody Truth about Cyprus

The book that painstakingly exposes Turkish and British propaganda from 1955 to 1974.

The book is both in Greek and in English. Enjoy it.

• Book essay:
EuropeNews 28 April 2011
Bloody truth, Nicosia, March 2009.
By Henrik R. Clausen
"The apparently endless stalemate on Cyprus is getting a thorough treatment in the publication by the organization “Freedom and Justice for Cyprus”.
While the documentation of what went down through the 1960's and 1970's is shocking and brutal, the real coup of the book is that it goes back to the 1950's, once and for all settling the question of who originally created the conflict in Cyprus: It wasn't the 'Turkish' Cypriots. Nor was it Turkey. It was, documentably, Great Britain".

Read more here:

http://europenews.dk/en/node/42657

• Book Download

http://www.google.com/search?q=bloody+t ... 1I7RNRN_en

[newgeneration]

Kimon07, thanks for your post.

Your stance is that Britain is to blame?

Sener Levent (editor of Afrika newspaper), is expressing the sentinments of many TC's - that they want Turkey out of Cyprus. I agree. But I would also want to see some protection of the TC's put in place beforehand. Beyond partition how could this be done? Joint govt doesn' work, we tried it before and look what happened.

Your 2nd source, 'The Bloody Truth' by Henrik R. Clausen, as with many GC accounts does not mention the events of '63/64. These are the events I am concerned with, but many GC's will not accept that TC villages were destroyed and razed to the ground, many TC's killed. From your source:

'Descriptions of events after 1962 are somewhat more sketchy. The proposed constitutional changes in 1963 play a central role, and the efforts by the TMT to segregate the Greek and Turkish are recorded in a very varied degree of detail. The Turkish bombardment of Tylleria in August 1964 is mentioned, but the heavy fighting in the preceding months are not'.

[Jerry]

Jerry.

The TC's 'got the worst of it' yes, because they were outnumbered, but also because they were unarmed, forced into refugee enclaves and completely vulnerable.

The telegram source is interesting and does not put Turkey in a good light - sacrificing lives for a stake or positioning in Cyprus. There is alot of info on the link you give and I want to read it in full. It's a shame there is not an original non-translated source available.

The Deniz incident - this is something I didn't know of and I will be back to discuss when I have read up ...

You really do have a lot to learn NG. The TCs were not unarmed, otherwise how would you account for the fact that GCs were also killed in the intercommunal troubles. The British (Major Macey) were supplying the TCs with arms, it's all in Martin Packard's book. The first intercommunal slaughter was at Guenyeli in 1958, check it out.

There's loads that does not put Turkey in a good light. Here's another huge source of information on the Cyprus Problem, some of it supports both side's arguments but when you read it never lose sight of the fact that Turkey wanted to take Cyprus back against the wishes of most of the island's population.
http://web.archive.org/web/200608101825 ... ntents.htm

[newgeneration]

I do have a lot to learn, thanks for those further sources ..

[kimon07]

Kimon07, thanks for your post. Your stance is that Britain is to blame?

Blame? They were they engineered and implemened it YES. But, there is no "blame" in foreign politics. Britain, having been defeated militarily by EOKA, used the divide and rule tacktics successfully to protects it's strategic interests. I.E., braught Turkey into ther gane and turned the TCs against the GCs in order to promote the partition.

Sener Levent (editor of Afrika newspaper), is expressing the sentinments of many TC's - that they want Turkey out of Cyprus. I agree. But I would also want to see some protection of the TC's put in place beforehand. Beyond partition how could this be done? Joint govt doesn' work, we tried it before and look what happened.

You are raising an issue here which needs a new topic to be opened. I will be glad to participate.

Your 2nd source, 'The Bloody Truth' by Henrik R. Clausen, as with many GC accounts does not mention the events of '63/64. These are the events I am concerned with, but many GC's will not accept that TC villages were destroyed and razed to the ground, many TC's killed. From your source:

'Descriptions of events after 1962 are somewhat more sketchy. The proposed constitutional changes in 1963 play a central role, and the efforts by the TMT to segregate the Greek and Turkish are recorded in a very varied degree of detail. The Turkish bombardment of Tylleria in August 1964 is mentioned, but the heavy fighting in the preceding months are not'.

There are plenty of descriptions and records about the events after 1962. Above book is mostly examining the previous period and the policies of Britain.
The accusations for destruction to the ground of TC villages and for the intention of the CY government and the national guard to eliminate them etc, are pure Turkish propaganda. I will gladly come back to that as well but you would help a lot if you would refer to particular cases.
The clashes of 1963-1964 were nothing more than the prelude to the de facto partition which the Turkish side was preparing methodically with the help and the encouragement of the British since 1957. You will find this evidenced even by Turkish Cypriots in the other sources I submitted above.

[kimon07]

There's loads that does not put Turkey in a good light. Here's another huge source of information on the Cyprus Problem, some of it supports both side's arguments but when you read it never lose sight of the fact that Turkey wanted to take Cyprus back against the wishes of most of the island's population.
http://web.archive.org/web/200608101825 ... ntents.htm

Thanks for the link.