kalahari wrote: During his coup, Nicos Sampson slaughtered GCs and TCs alike. Hundreds of both. Official figures do not seem to be available, probably because certain members of the community wouldn't believe them anyway and could get very angry.
The above is a completely and purposely falsified claim. I would like to ask you to provide the source from which you got this information. It is not my intention to act as an appeaser or an apologist of the coup (quite the opposite, as my family was always on the opposite end of this movement,) however I feel it is proper to put the facts and events in their proper dimension, for the sake of historical accurancy.
First of all, the coup was not carried out by Sampson himself, but by many of the mainland Greek officers who were then seconded in Cyprus and in charge of the G/C National Guard, upon orders from Ioannidis, the Greek Junta head. Their aim was neither to slaughter any G/Cs or T/Cs but to overthrow Makarios and replace him with a pro-union puppet government. This puppet was found in the person of Nicos Sampson, after several other political figureheads of the G/C society, including former president Klerides, were asked and subsequently rejected the "offer." During the 5 days that the coup preceded the Turkish invasion (15/7 -20/7/74,) some 150-200 people from both sides (about 50:50) were killed (all G/Cs and no one T/C,) during street fights between the two fronts -the National Guard and the pro-Makarios government (special police) forces. Only a few unarmed civilians were killed (again all G/Cs) that happened to found themselves in the middle of fire exchanges. No mass murders of pro-Makarios civilians and /or surrendered forces took place, not even after the coupists took complete control of the most important posts in Nicosia and the other cities.
The coupist "government," under acting "president" Sampson, lasted only 8 days since the start up of the coup on the 15/7, or until 3 days after the Turkish invasion started on the 20/7/74. Until the time the Turkish invasion started, absolutely no T/C was touched. After the beginning of the Turkish invasion, it was only natural that the G/C National Guard -besides trying to defend the coastline at which the Turkish landing was taking place; it also had to take under its control all the T/C enclaves within and around the whole of Cyprus, since they were all armed and most of them were in a way acting as facilitating bridgeheads of the Turkish invading efforts, especially the north Nicosia one inside which Turkey was continuously dropping parachutists since the beginning of the invasion. Under these circumstances (a war situation,) yes T/Cs -mainly fighters were killed. No mass murders, as such, of innocent T/C civilians took place, at least during the first phase of the invasion, with one exception if I am not mistake of a few people (less than 10) in a village near Morfou. At the same time though, Turkish troops that landed in Kyrenia had already committed substantially more mass murders of civilians, especially in the surrounding villages to the landing spot.
Essentially, the only major T/C civilian mass murders that took place in 1974, were committed by G/C irregulars only after the second and more massive, powerful and violent phase of the Turkish invasion begun and which started on the 14 of August 1974, during which the Turkish Army initiated an attack with some 40,000 troops and 500 tanks that it had gathered in Cyprus during the previous 4 weeks, and it was also during this phase that Turkey proceeded and occupied most of the part that it now occupies, which eventually also brought the death to as many as 5,000 G/Cs (including the missing ones,) almost half of which were innocent civilians. After the commencing of the 2nd phase of the invasion, we observed the mass murders of T/C civilians in the Aloa /Maratha villages in Famagusta (some 200) and the mass murder of T/Cs of Tochni village (some 80 people,) like wise we observed the murders of many G/Cs who are on the missing list, after they were arrested by the Turkish troops during the first phase of its invasion and which were handed to T/C paramilitaries, supposedly to be kept as exchange hostages.
The coup itself and /or the coupists as such, did not attack and did not cause the death to any T/Cs, at least during the period before the starting of the Turkish invasion, nor the mass murder of hundreds of G/Cs as you claimed above.
These are the facts of 1974, and anything else you may read is pure propaganda nonsense! If you have any evidence to the contrary, I would like you share it with us here and comment on it.
As for official figures, yes there are such official figures! Who said to you that there aren't? Do you think we live in a huge country of millions of people, and therefore it is easy to hide or manipulate numbers or names? We live in a country in which almost everybody knows everyone else, and should a person dies in one place, everybody else gets to know it and also who he is, the next day in the morning. Not only we know who, where and when each one was killed, but also what each ones role was in 1974 and what each one did or did not do. The same goes for the T/Cs.
