Cyprus-Forum.com

[Nicole22]

The problem I have with these guys claiming their heritage from the TRNC is the impact this would have on the rest of us; although, I can see the logic of them doing it, I believe greed motivated them and they didn't give a stuff about the rest of us. And if they were poor men, trying to eek out a living, I'd say good on 'em, but my instincts tell me these are rich bastards trying to get richer.

[miltiades]

Kikapu , I'm hoping that one day in the very near future the Turkish Cypriots admit to them selves openly that they are Turkish Cypriots and not as they seem to be seeing themselves as an extension of Turkey. In an earlier post I asked since when is Turkey a great Nation. I generally avoid such arguments. However if any one cares to examine the human rights record of Turkeys , easily done on google , the continuing tolerance shown by Turkish courts in respect of "honour killings , forced marriages and mistreatment of minorities , then perhaps compare these aspects to our Cypriot way of life , and inform me of what are the bloody benefits that Turkey will bring to Cyprus.
Even the present government is in contrast to the 1920s secular views of the father of modern Turkey. Then we are asked to trust Turkey to honour its commitments under the Annan plan.
YOUR STATEMENT AS SHOWN BELOW :

"since it is leagally no longer GC's property" You are aware that under international law the victim of a robbery is still the legal owner of the said property , so please do not use that word legal when you know perfectly well that "legality " was imposed by the gun.
Respectfully yours
Miltiades

[miltiades]

Came across a report by Lord Avebury ( a search on google would tell you about him ) .Although this report is 10 years old and Tutrkey has made strides towards correcting it's atrocious human rights record , it is never the less an indication of one of the reasons the Cypriots would rather disagree with those amongst us who would consider Turkey a reliable partner in Cyprus. I particularly wish to ask those amongst us who know Turkey a little more than perhaps we do , as to why are the 15 plus million Kurds of Turkey viewed as second class citizens .If you enquired of a Turkish man from Turkey , are you Kurdish ? he would immediately not only refute the inference but you would be told in clear terms that it is an insult to be called a Kurd. Do we really have much to gain by Turkey being in Cyprus ??

Why The Surprise?
By Lord Eric Avebury
The publication in "The European" of January 11-17 of photographs showing Turkish soldiers gloating over the bodies and severed heads of Kurdish victims, occasioned loud criticisms from some of the MEPs who voted, less than a month before, to admit Turkey to the European customs union.
Not only was there voluminous evidence of the atrocities which have been committed by the Turkish armed forces in the Kurdish region, over the eleven years of armed struggle, but on many occasions the Turks have escorted parties of journalists to place where they were invited to take pictures of dead bodies, alleged to be those of PKK guerrillas. The bodies are often mutilated, and decapitated is not particularly remarkable. The MEPs should be more concerned with what they do to living.

The war between the Turkish state and the Kurdish armed opposition has claimed the lives of an estimated 20,000 people over the last 11 years. Two and a half million people have been violently uprooted from their homes by the military, to live in the shanty-towns of Diyarbakir, the regional capital, and the poorer quarters of western Turkish cities. Many thousands of civilians have been permanently disabled in the indiscriminate bombardments of their towns and villages. There have been hundreds of unreported Pervomaiskoyes in Kurdistan: three thousand villages, and large areas of bigger towns have been erased from the map.

Just as many people in western Europe turned a blind eye to Hitler's preparations for Holocaust in the thirties, the democratic world ignores the evidence of incipient genocide of the Kurds in Turkey today. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch/Helsinki, the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, and the Turkish Human Rights Organization have published many damning reports. The US State Department, though committed to friendship with Turkey for geopolitical reasons, cannot avoid being severely critical in the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, published every year. The UN Rapporteur on Torture devotes more space to Turkey than any other country in the world. The Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions and the UN Working Groups on Disappearances and on Arbitrary Detentions all have long and detailed sections on Turkey in their annual reports.

For most of the time, however, the Turkish authorities manage to keep this material out of the western media. There are no foreign journalists based in the emergency region, and Ankara-based journalists who go there very infrequently jeopardize their right to stay in the country if they write too plainly about what they see. Foreign journalists may even run the risk of prosecution under the Anti-Terror Law, as happened to the Reuters correspondent Aliza Marcus.

Turkish journalists who try to cover the dirty war honestly take even higher risks. Some 15 have been murdered by "unidentified gunmen" or killed in custody. Many have been arrested and tortured, and dozens have been given long sentences of imprisonment for writing about Kurdish issues. The Turkish government made some cosmetic amendments to the Anti-Terror Law, under which many freedom of expression cases were brought, in order to deflect opposition to customs union in the European Parliament. But the Writers in Prison Committee of International PEN say this has made little practical difference, and their list of active cases is as long as ever. It was good that "The European" did publish the evidence of Turkish barbarity, and it was useful that Ankara defended itself by pretending that the photographs had been faked. If there was any doubt, let the Turks invite the human rights NGOs, which are denied entry into Turkey, to come and investigate for themselves. Let them lift the ban on Amnesty International and the Parliamentary Human Rights Organization, and let them invite a delegation from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which is playing an important role in every other trouble spot in the region, from Bosnia to Latvia and from Chechnya to Tajikistan.

The United Nations, and the OSCE, have built up an array of treaties and declarations which are supposed to protect the rights of individuals and of minorities. The Geneva Conventions, which are even older, prohibit the killing of civilians in situations of internal armed conflict. The Turks repeatedly demonstrate their contempt for their obligations under these treaties, and for the lives and safety of their Kurdish citizens. Isn't it time the world indicted the imitators of Mladic and Karadjic in Kurdistan?

January 22, 1996

[Kikapu]

"since it is leagally no longer GC's property" You are aware that under international law the victim of a robbery is still the legal owner of the said property , so please do not use that word legal when you know perfectly well that "legality " was imposed by the gun.
Respectfully yours
Miltiades

My friend Miltiades, please don't twist my words by taking the sentence in quotation out of context. All I'm saying was, if a person settles to sell their property in court, then it is no longer legally theirs. Now, the fact that there won't be any money to pay them with, that will be another problem for the seller, but he has long agreed to give his property away in exchange for cash. Besides, I'm just asking the question, whether what I wrote previously was possible, and I'm still waiting for someone to answer it, if they can.

[miltiades]

Kikapu , I did in fact misunderstood the point you were making .I did not intentionally twist your words , my humble apologies.

[Kikapu]

Kikapu , I did in fact misunderstood the point you were making .I did not intentionally twist your words , my humble apologies.

You're a true gentlemen.

[Sotos]

When will the ECHR decide about this?

[sadik]

When will the ECHR decide about this?

The deadline is over. They may decide any time.

[fox]

My question is if the G.C's accept compenation then who will own the land............. Turkey??? And in the future when the T.C's return to claim their property in the South........... who will then own the land in Cyprus???
33% Turkey
10% T.C's
50% Brits
and the crumbs under the table G.C's......................
Just doesn't make sense...............

[Pyrpolizer]

The best post here was Kikapus. And the most thought stirring….

My 2 cents:The RoC is guilty like hell to the refugees. Thats why she cannot dare take those who applied to the so called property commission to court.
The refugees were always second class citizens.They were just left to starve, while the properties of the non refugees were getting multiplied in value simply because the refugees lost everything. How did the government ever helped any refugeee? Was there even one refugee excempted from taxes? Was there any particular favorable treatment? Yes there were some peanuts now and then. Which compared to what we lost is nothing.

All the refugees started from zero! The original refugees died very poor. Some of us got married with non refugees so we splitted the social difference. The rest of us are the poor ones among the GCs. Look around you. 99% of the poor GCs are refugees married with refugees.