Cyprus-Forum.com

[shahmaran]

pitsilos, i think there is still half of a giant cathedral sitting in the middle of Berlin for reminders, which is pretty spectacular to see never the less, and I'm pretty sure Auschwitz and its likes are still open for visits, but of course the mentality behind having them there is debatable, but i think they can hardly be compared with ours nor be labeled as "propaganda" since that case is pretty much closed and we all know who the baddies are .

About the army thing, it was a very long and a very hot day in an old bus full of stinking men, wearing layers of army clothes in the 40+ heat, trying to get a glimpse of anything female that we might drive past, just driving around places in the TRNC including the restricted zones such as parts of Maras etc...

I, like every other kid in Cyprus, always heard stories about the war but personally it was the first time i encountered the visual side of things (apart from a few very bad quality movies about the rapist evil Greek barbarians), it started off with a drive to the mass graves which are still there open for visit, i remember it was a turning on the way out of Famagusta towards west, approximately 1 hour drive, the graves were still open and it was turned into some kind of a memorial with signs and slogans.

We then moved on to a military museum-like-place in Nicosia displaying plenty of homemade rifles that TCs had built in desperation along with many other weapons used back in that time, also hundreds of pictures, including pictures of the people discovering the mass graves for the first time, lots of people crying and pulling out bodies from the graves which seem to be their relatives or neighbours, people in tears posing with dead babies in their hands, also many more of executed TCs, in dozens, lying symmetrically on the ground with their skulls open, and some pictures of the famous Cengiz Topel, who crash landed to a place very near Lefke, only to be captured by the GCs and tortured to death, i think he was electrocuted because his eyes were blood red and about to pop out of his extremely swallen face, which took place in what is now the Cengiz Topel hospital 10min from Lefke, funny enough it is where i got circumcised, in an ex-torture facility, ironic

...anyyyways, we then moved onto the Museum of Barbarism that we are talking about, to see a bath with lots of bullet holes and stains ALL over the room, i mean literally, and they were even labeled as "blood", "brains" etc. it is very gory and they even have pictures of the woman and her kids inside the bath, just in case you are not capable of imagining what the massacre was like...

Now this was exactly 10 years ago, i have been in Cyprus pretty much all my life and i only had faint ideas about the existence of such places, but (maybe naively) was never really curious to see, and i don't think i would have ever, if it wasn't for the army. But to be honest, i have many friends who did army training in Turkey, Israel, Norway, UK, etc. i don't think anyone can tell me similar parts of their "training", i mean I'm not the one to take such stuff seriously anyway but, you would expect the army to have a much greater purpose and discipline, rather than cheap and petty means of trying to build the patriotic force within you, which apparently, "you are meant to put before your life, along with your dignity and honor" as they like to remind you everyday you are there, of course i left the place believing that it was a lot more pathetic then i ever imagined, but that's besides the point...

...so, do i think all this should be there to remind us all?

when i went to see them back then, i thought it was a very sick thing to do, i mean you can have memorials for people who died in a war, and i think you definitely should do, but to actually make people re-live some of the lowest points of in-humanity and barbarism that this island has ever seen, as a 17 year old, to me it was just very absurd and very twisted, but a few years later the gates opened up and i saw all the GC propaganda all over the place and i thought maybe it has made having our ones a bit more justifiable, since we seem to be doing pretty bad about getting our voices heard globally, compared to the GCs anyway

But overall, it is still VERY ridiculous to have half of this tiny island setting up propaganda sites against the other half, and its definitely not the way to go forward for people who claim to want peace and unity, and i think the GCs probably hold the higher score but never the less, the TCs are just as guilty.

There is a fine line between telling things as they are and telling very specific things with a different agenda, and unfortunately this strategy seems to work with many people who have the herd psychology, which seems to be the majority of the people




(wow that was a long one )

[Kikapu]

pitsilos, i think there is still half of a giant cathedral sitting in the middle of Berlin for reminders, which is pretty spectacular to see never the less, and I'm pretty sure Auschwitz and its likes are still open for visits, but of course the mentality behind having them there is debatable, but i think they can hardly be compared with ours nor be labeled as "propaganda" since that case is pretty much closed and we all know who the baddies are .

About the army thing, it was a very long and a very hot day in an old bus full of stinking men, wearing layers of army clothes in the 40+ heat, trying to get a glimpse of anything female that we might drive past, just driving around places in the TRNC including the restricted zones such as parts of Maras etc...

I, like every other kid in Cyprus, always heard stories about the war but personally it was the first time i encountered the visual side of things (apart from a few very bad quality movies about the rapist evil Greek barbarians), it started off with a drive to the mass graves which are still there open for visit, i remember it was a turning on the way out of Famagusta towards west, approximately 1 hour drive, the graves were still open and it was turned into some kind of a memorial with signs and slogans.

We then moved on to a military museum-like-place in Nicosia displaying plenty of homemade rifles that TCs had built in desperation along with many other weapons used back in that time, also hundreds of pictures, including pictures of the people discovering the mass graves for the first time, lots of people crying and pulling out bodies from the graves which seem to be their relatives or neighbours, people in tears posing with dead babies in their hands, also many more of executed TCs, in dozens, lying symmetrically on the ground with their skulls open, and some pictures of the famous Cengiz Topel, who crash landed to a place very near Lefke, only to be captured by the GCs and tortured to death, i think he was electrocuted because his eyes were blood red and about to pop out of his extremely swallen face, which took place in what is now the Cengiz Topel hospital 10min from Lefke, funny enough it is where i got circumcised, in an ex-torture facility, ironic

...anyyyways, we then moved onto the Museum of Barbarism that we are talking about, to see a bath with lots of bullet holes and stains ALL over the room, i mean literally, and they were even labeled as "blood", "brains" etc. it is very gory and they even have pictures of the woman and her kids inside the bath, just in case you are not capable of imagining what the massacre was like...

Now this was exactly 10 years ago, i have been in Cyprus pretty much all my life and i only had faint ideas about the existence of such places, but (maybe naively) was never really curious to see, and i don't think i would have ever, if it wasn't for the army. But to be honest, i have many friends who did army training in Turkey, Israel, Norway, UK, etc. i don't think anyone can tell me similar parts of their "training", i mean I'm not the one to take such stuff seriously anyway but, you would expect the army to have a much greater purpose and discipline, rather than cheap and petty means of trying to build the patriotic force within you, which apparently, "you are meant to put before your life, along with your dignity and honor" as they like to remind you everyday you are there, of course i left the place believing that it was a lot more pathetic then i ever imagined, but that's besides the point...

...so, do i think all this should be there to remind us all?

when i went to see them back then, i thought it was a very sick thing to do, i mean you can have memorials for people who died in a war, and i think you definitely should do, but to actually make people re-live some of the lowest points of in-humanity and barbarism that this island has ever seen, as a 17 year old, to me it was just very absurd and very twisted, but a few years later the gates opened up and i saw all the GC propaganda all over the place and i thought maybe it has made having our ones a bit more justifiable, since we seem to be doing pretty bad about getting our voices heard globally, compared to the GCs anyway

But overall, it is still VERY ridiculous to have half of this tiny island setting up propaganda sites against the other half, and its definitely not the way to go forward for people who claim to want peace and unity, and i think the GCs probably hold the higher score but never the less, the TCs are just as guilty.

There is a fine line between telling things as they are and telling very specific things with a different agenda, and unfortunately this strategy seems to work with many people who have the herd psychology, which seems to be the majority of the people




(wow that was a long one )

That was a great read Shah, thanks.

By the way, I hope you were circumcised way before you were in the army, and not part of your training at age 17, ouch.

[free_cyprus]

turks and greeks from the mainland have been directly resposible for all the murders on the island of cyprus. they are teh ones who created the secret service on both sides to serve them they are the ones who gave every order that was carried out even though those who carried out the orders were cypriots. greece and turksy had a proxy war on the ilsand of cyprus since the begining of the 50s. but very few cypriots except this. instead they divid themselves with blaming each other for external forces who were directly involved . the brainwashing has gone so far that after 50 years of starting all these problems by turkey greece and britain cypriots are still devided becouse they love their sooo called motherland the same motherlands that created all the problems the same motherlands that killed your family and friends both turkish speaking and greek speaking....................and today they want us to worship them if i had my way i would take down every single greek and trukish flag from cyprus and throw them into the sea i would break of every kind of connection with those soo called mother lands

[shahmaran]

That was a great read Shah, thanks.

By the way, I hope you were circumcised way before you were in the army, and not part of your training at age 17, ouch.

no, but i was 7, so i remember that just as vividly, ouch

[Pyrpolizer]

pitsilos, i think there is still half of a giant cathedral sitting in the middle of Berlin for reminders, which is pretty spectacular to see never the less, and I'm pretty sure Auschwitz and its likes are still open for visits, but of course the mentality behind having them there is debatable, but i think they can hardly be compared with ours nor be labeled as "propaganda" since that case is pretty much closed and we all know who the baddies are .

About the army thing, it was a very long and a very hot day in an old bus full of stinking men, wearing layers of army clothes in the 40+ heat, trying to get a glimpse of anything female that we might drive past, just driving around places in the TRNC including the restricted zones such as parts of Maras etc...

I, like every other kid in Cyprus, always heard stories about the war but personally it was the first time i encountered the visual side of things (apart from a few very bad quality movies about the rapist evil Greek barbarians), it started off with a drive to the mass graves which are still there open for visit, i remember it was a turning on the way out of Famagusta towards west, approximately 1 hour drive, the graves were still open and it was turned into some kind of a memorial with signs and slogans.

We then moved on to a military museum-like-place in Nicosia displaying plenty of homemade rifles that TCs had built in desperation along with many other weapons used back in that time, also hundreds of pictures, including pictures of the people discovering the mass graves for the first time, lots of people crying and pulling out bodies from the graves which seem to be their relatives or neighbours, people in tears posing with dead babies in their hands, also many more of executed TCs, in dozens, lying symmetrically on the ground with their skulls open, and some pictures of the famous Cengiz Topel, who crash landed to a place very near Lefke, only to be captured by the GCs and tortured to death, i think he was electrocuted because his eyes were blood red and about to pop out of his extremely swallen face, which took place in what is now the Cengiz Topel hospital 10min from Lefke, funny enough it is where i got circumcised, in an ex-torture facility, ironic

...anyyyways, we then moved onto the Museum of Barbarism that we are talking about, to see a bath with lots of bullet holes and stains ALL over the room, i mean literally, and they were even labeled as "blood", "brains" etc. it is very gory and they even have pictures of the woman and her kids inside the bath, just in case you are not capable of imagining what the massacre was like...

Now this was exactly 10 years ago, i have been in Cyprus pretty much all my life and i only had faint ideas about the existence of such places, but (maybe naively) was never really curious to see, and i don't think i would have ever, if it wasn't for the army. But to be honest, i have many friends who did army training in Turkey, Israel, Norway, UK, etc. i don't think anyone can tell me similar parts of their "training", i mean I'm not the one to take such stuff seriously anyway but, you would expect the army to have a much greater purpose and discipline, rather than cheap and petty means of trying to build the patriotic force within you, which apparently, "you are meant to put before your life, along with your dignity and honor" as they like to remind you everyday you are there, of course i left the place believing that it was a lot more pathetic then i ever imagined, but that's besides the point...

...so, do i think all this should be there to remind us all?

when i went to see them back then, i thought it was a very sick thing to do, i mean you can have memorials for people who died in a war, and i think you definitely should do, but to actually make people re-live some of the lowest points of in-humanity and barbarism that this island has ever seen, as a 17 year old, to me it was just very absurd and very twisted, but a few years later the gates opened up and i saw all the GC propaganda all over the place and i thought maybe it has made having our ones a bit more justifiable, since we seem to be doing pretty bad about getting our voices heard globally, compared to the GCs anyway

But overall, it is still VERY ridiculous to have half of this tiny island setting up propaganda sites against the other half, and its definitely not the way to go forward for people who claim to want peace and unity, and i think the GCs probably hold the higher score but never the less, the TCs are just as guilty.

There is a fine line between telling things as they are and telling very specific things with a different agenda, and unfortunately this strategy seems to work with many people who have the herd psychology, which seems to be the majority of the people




(wow that was a long one )

Great post shah.

[pitsilos]

great post shahmaran, thanks mate

[GreekForumer]

Ret. general returns to N. Cyprus 44 years after ‘Bloody Christmas’


Hundreds of Turkish Cypriots welcomed with great enthusiasm a retired brigadier general who returned to the divided island yesterday for the first time since 1963 when his wife and three children were killed in 1963 by Greek Cypriots during inter-communal fighting.

At the time, Ret. Gen. Dr. Nihat İlhan was serving in the Cyprus Turkish Contingent. During an attack launched in December 1963, İlhan's family was killed in the bathroom of their home where they were trying to hide from attacking Greek Cypriots. The murder which took place on December 24 is known as "Bloody Christmas."

Since that time, İlhan has never been back to the island where his house has been converted into a museum called the "Museum of Barbarism," in which pictures and stories published in international newspapers about Greek Cypriot atrocities committed during and after 1963 are exhibited. The house is located in the Kumsal district of Lefkoşa and the tragedy is also called the "Kumsal Massacre."

Upon his arrival at Ercan Airport in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (KKTC), hundreds of people greeted İlhan at the airport gate and chanted slogans such as "Martyrs never die" and waved flags. İlhan said he never forgot the tragic incident of 1963 or the Turkish Cypriots and said he wished that Turkish Cypriots would live free forever.

Turkey's Ambassador to the KKTC, Türkekul Kurttekin, Commander of the Cyprus Turkish Peace Forces Lt. Gen. Hayri Kıvrıkoğlu and Commander of the Cyprus Turkish Security Forces Maj. Gen. Mehmet Eröz were also at the airport to welcome İlhan.

The four-decade-old Cyprus problem erupted after the eastern Mediterranean island was granted independence from Britain in 1960 and an outbreak of inter-communal clashes in 1963. The Turkish military intervened in 1974 under the terms of the 1960 Treaty of Guarantee since diplomacy had failed to end Turkish-Greek Cypriot fighting.

"Bloody Christmas" was part of a Greek Cypriot campaign of annihilation of Turkish Cypriots across Cyprus in what was later revealed by the Greek Cypriot Patris newspaper in 1966 as the "Akritas Plan." The Akritas Plan was aimed at enosis (union with Greece). The National Organization of Cypriot Fighters (Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston, or EOKA) initiated a guerilla campaign on April 1, 1955 with the intention of making the island Greek. In 2004 a former member of EOKA confessed in remarks to the media that EOKA, along with Greek Cypriot soldiers, had raped women and killed men in a Turkish Cypriot village during the campaign of attacks on the Turkish population of Cyprus.

İlhan is expected to hold a press conference today. His departure from the island is scheduled for tomorrow.

19.03.2007
Today's Zaman Ankara

http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detay ... ink=105796