Cyprus-Forum.com

[Piratis]

come on shahmaran, are you now going to tell me that you do not support the "trnc" and the occupation?

And one more question: Do you want to make the Cyprus Problem just a Greek Cypriot Problem? So you will enjoy all your rights all your benefits and our land, while we face all the problems of the Turkish occupation (which you support)?

When the majority of TCs come out and say: "We want legality to be restored, we do not support the "trnc" and the Turkish occupation" and they refuse to deal with the GC occupied properties, then I would support you 100%, regardless what Turkey will do. But as it stands now please do not pretend to be the innocent victim.

[shahmaran]

come on shahmaran, are you now going to tell me that you do not support the "trnc" and the occupation?

And one more question: Do you want to make the Cyprus Problem just a Greek Cypriot Problem? So you will enjoy all your rights all your benefits and our land, while we face all the problems of the Turkish occupation (which you support)?

When the majority of TCs come out and say: "We want legality to be restored, we do not support the "trnc" and the Turkish occupation" and they refuse to deal with the GC occupied properties, then I would support you 100%, regardless what Turkey will do. But as it stands now please do not pretend to be the innocent victim.

right, so if by "supporting" you mean actually living in the TRNC than yes i am guilty, but anything further i guess you are going to have to start being a little more specific with your accusations, most of the TCs don't want Turkey to be there any more then you do but to be honest the RoC is not exactly an alternative mentality either, specially when its majority are mentalities like yours, you are basically fighting Turkey in the expense of the TCs, what is that meant to be a peace offer or something? as long as you keep it up how do you expect people to work with you, let alone live with you?

face it, your demands are pretty unrealistic given the current situation, however the demands of the TCs are more feasible in order to restore any kind of normality which is needed immediately and definitely more urgently compared to the needs of the GCS, and if any steps are to be taken towards unity then it means the ball is in your hands, therefore making it a GC problem!!

[Alexis]

support illegality? who is "supporting" illegality?? what do you suggest i do, leave all my stuff and move to the south?

can you not see that your ridiculous and indiscriminate stance that you so love to advocate in every opportunity, is pretty exaggerated compared to the reality of the situation?

hi shahmaran,

I can understand your frustration at being told not to sell your land by others but you cannot call the argument ridiculous and discriminate.
If the land is yours and always has been then fine - completely understandable. If the land you have is in exchange for land in the south and assuming it is of a similar market value then again understandable although in that case you should at least acknowledge that at no point was an agreement made between yourself and the previous owner to exchange that land and at least realise that for respect of the legal owner perhaps it is better not to sell your land until a comprehensive solution is found. Although in this case I can fully understand if due to financial circumstances you are forced to. If on the other hand the land you have is in exchange for land in the south in excess of the market value of the land you own in the south then if you sell all of that I think it is perfectly understandable that the legal owner of the land would be upset. The worst case would be if you bought or were given land as a gift that is not yours which you then subsequently sell off. - in this case then you would most certainly be supporting illegality, what you are doing is clearly illegal.
So, just to be clear - I am not having a go at you when I refer to 'you' above, I don't even know if you have land in the TRNC or not - I am simply saying what I believe is reasonable in the circumstances described above. To call that argument ridiculous or indiscriminate might be seen as a little insensitive don't you think?

[Piratis]

shahmaran, the question is: Do you support that all GCs should also be able to do whatever they want with their own land? Do you also support that GCs should have their legal and human rights?

If you do not want GCs to compromise their land and their rights, then, and only then, you have the right to demand the same thing for yourself. And this demand should be directed to Turkey, which is the one which enforces this illegality in Cyprus.

Personally I have always supported that everybody should get their land and rights without any kind of discrimination. However to say that it is OK for the rights of GCs to continue to be violated as long as TCs are not affected, then it is something I do not agree. The Cyprus problem is a problem of all Cypriots and its solution can not be partial, serving only one side.

[shahmaran]

support illegality? who is "supporting" illegality?? what do you suggest i do, leave all my stuff and move to the south?

can you not see that your ridiculous and indiscriminate stance that you so love to advocate in every opportunity, is pretty exaggerated compared to the reality of the situation?

hi shahmaran,

I can understand your frustration at being told not to sell your land by others but you cannot call the argument ridiculous and discriminate.
If the land is yours and always has been then fine - completely understandable. If the land you have is in exchange for land in the south and assuming it is of a similar market value then again understandable although in that case you should at least acknowledge that at no point was an agreement made between yourself and the previous owner to exchange that land and at least realise that for respect of the legal owner perhaps it is better not to sell your land until a comprehensive solution is found. Although in this case I can fully understand if due to financial circumstances you are forced to. If on the other hand the land you have is in exchange for land in the south in excess of the market value of the land you own in the south then if you sell all of that I think it is perfectly understandable that the legal owner of the land would be upset. The worst case would be if you bought or were given land as a gift that is not yours which you then subsequently sell off. - in this case then you would most certainly be supporting illegality, what you are doing is clearly illegal.
So, just to be clear - I am not having a go at you when I refer to 'you' above, I don't even know if you have land in the TRNC or not - I am simply saying what I believe is reasonable in the circumstances described above. To call that argument ridiculous or indiscriminate might be seen as a little insensitive don't you think?

hey Alexis, i do disagree with lands that don't really belong to one to be sold, however i also do believe that many people sell the lands that were given to them in order to escape to other countries, to escape the embargoes and the low living standards of the TRNC, which is desperately supported by the GCs.

on the other hand, i come from a mainly TCs village, everything we own was always ours, we didn't exchange it we didn't buy it after 74, we were there before the war and we are there now, however we are being put into the same box along with everyone else who might or might not be selling GC lands and being labeled as thieves and criminals and occupiers, thousands of complaint letters sent to Channel 4 i believe it was, to stop their holiday programs that advertise property sales in the TRNC is a very good example of the kind of indiscriminate mentality that i am talking about, these are in fact the real insensitive people, people who forget that there might be other Cypriots in the North tyring to get on with their lives under very difficult circumstances, sadly, having to sell their family lands to foreigners in order to move to other countries so they can provide their children with a more promising future is part of it.

now, you tell me if it is OK for people like Piratis and whoever the other one was, to immediately try and sabotage Gavcars post with their "copy & paste" propaganda lines, who was trying to advertise some properties to a prospective foreign couple...

[shahmaran]

shahmaran, the question is: Do you support that all GCs should also be able to do whatever they want with their own land? Do you also support that GCs should have their legal and human rights?

If you do not want GCs to compromise their land and their rights, then, and only then, you have the right to demand the same thing for yourself. And this demand should be directed to Turkey, which is the one which enforces this illegality in Cyprus.

Personally I have always supported that everybody should get their land and rights without any kind of discrimination. However to say that it is OK for the rights of GCs to continue to be violated as long as TCs are not affected, then it is something I do not agree. The Cyprus problem is a problem of all Cypriots and its solution can not be partial, serving only one side.

True, but it has to start somewhere, clearly there is not going to be an overall solution over night, but i still dont think it justifies what the GCs are doing to make life much harder for the TCs.

GCs are complaining that the North is being taken over by mainland Turks and the TCs are being driven out of their lands or becoming assimilated, i mean are you surprised? isn't that what the GC strategy was all about? what did you expect Turkey would do, just sit back and watch the lands being evacuated by the people she fought for, GCs have brought it all up onto themselves, and the sales of GCs property and lands are a part of it!

in effect Piratis, for someone who has property in the North, your mentality can be serving you as a double edged knife...

[Alexis]

hey Alexis, i do disagree with lands that don't really belong to one to be sold, however i also do believe that many people sell the lands that were given to them in order to escape to other countries, to escape the embargoes and the low living standards of the TRNC, which is desperately supported by the GCs.

hi shahraman,
Thanks for the reply first off. This is off course an issue that requires a more proactive approach by the RoC. However, what I would say is that whilst the TRNC plays the game of on the one hand wanting the benefits the union will give them - the obvious trade advantages of the EU coupled with a degree of autonomy and of course recognition under a unified Cyprus, on the other hand they insist on direct trade/flights with no interference from the RoC and hold GC refugees' property to ransom. In parallel the ROC will continue to play her game of imposing the embargoes on the TRNC as strictly as possible. Not saying it is any one side's fault but at the moment our politicians are playing word games rather than making proactive efforts to ease people's plight.

on the other hand, i come from a mainly TCs village, everything we own was always ours, we didn't exchange it we didn't buy it after 74, we were there before the war and we are there now, however we are being put into the same box along with everyone else who might or might not be selling GC lands and being labeled as thieves and criminals and occupiers, thousands of complaint letters sent to Channel 4 i believe it was, to stop their holiday programs that advertise property sales in the TRNC is a very good example of the kind of indiscriminate mentality that i am talking about, these are in fact the real insensitive people, people who forget that there might be other Cypriots in the North tyring to get on with their lives under very difficult circumstances, sadly, having to sell their family lands to foreigners in order to move to other countries so they can provide their children with a more promising future is part of it.

As I'm sure you saw from my previous post I certainly do not label people in your case as theives and to be fair the vast majority of GCs would fully support any TC that sells their land as they would be hypocrites not to. I believe that the argument is against those that have sold GC land. The fact remains that large amounts of land in the north are GC owned and that even if you exchange all TC owned land in the south with this GC land there is still a net surplus of GC land in the north - hence the ability of the TRNC to gift land to settlers and veterans of the 1974 war. As I'm sure you'll understand the same way some TCs are forced to sell their land for economic reasons, most GC refugees never even got land to live on post 74 because of this 'land imbalance' and so had to leave the country.

now, you tell me if it is OK for people like Piratis and whoever the other one was, to immediately try and sabotage Gavcars post with their "copy & paste" propaganda lines, who was trying to advertise some properties to a prospective foreign couple...

If Gavcar was selling his land and not someone else's then I agree completely, it's not ok. All I would say is that he should not have been advertising on this section of the forum as it is about the Cyprus Problem and is probably the least appropriate part of the forum to advertise stuff especially what could easily (if wrongly) be mistaken for GC property.

True, but it has to start somewhere, clearly there is not going to be an overall solution over night, but i still dont think it justifies what the GCs are doing to make life much harder for the TCs.

GCs are complaining that the North is being taken over by mainland Turks and the TCs are being driven out of their lands or becoming assimilated, i mean are you surprised? isn't that what the GC strategy was all about? what did you expect Turkey would do, just sit back and watch the lands being evacuated by the people she fought for, GCs have brought it all up onto themselves, and the sales of GCs property and lands are a part of it!

I agree that the solution is not going to be overnight. However, having the attitude that the GCs brought this all on themselves and that their losses and violations are some kind of just consequence is completely the wrong attitude for reconciliation. You are making the assumption that Turkey is some kind of godlike righteous force that simply came in and corrected a few wrongs. In reality Turkey came, intervened, stopped wrongs done against the TC community and commited wrongs against the GC community and carries on doing so up until the present day. If it were the case that Turkey merely upheld the law the international community would not have allowed the current embargo on the TRNC go on as long as it has, it would also not have 'deplored' the creation of the TRNC back in 1983.
Imposing the embargoes is a game that the RoC is playing to hold onto legitimacy as the government of all of the country but it is in parallel to the game the TRNC/Turkey have played in setting up the TRNC to be a 'Turkish Republic' devoid of all GC influence. If we are going to unify both sides need to mean it we have to uphold that all Cypriots have a right to this country and that they have a right to all parts of this country. Transitions will be required of course and baby steps are what is needed but we must have a clear goal and co-operate with each other to reach that goal.

[Pyrpolizer]

hey Alexis, i do disagree with lands that don't really belong to one to be sold, however i also do believe that many people sell the lands that were given to them in order to escape to other countries, to escape the embargoes and the low living standards of the TRNC, which is desperately supported by the GCs.

on the other hand, i come from a mainly TCs village, everything we own was always ours, we didn't exchange it we didn't buy it after 74, we were there before the war and we are there now, however we are being put into the same box along with everyone else who might or might not be selling GC lands and being labeled as thieves and criminals and occupiers, thousands of complaint letters sent to Channel 4 i believe it was, to stop their holiday programs that advertise property sales in the TRNC is a very good example of the kind of indiscriminate mentality that i am talking about, these are in fact the real insensitive people, people who forget that there might be other Cypriots in the North tyring to get on with their lives under very difficult circumstances, sadly, having to sell their family lands to foreigners in order to move to other countries so they can provide their children with a more promising future is part of it.

Great post Shah, explains some things that most GCs have no idea really.Thanks.

I am still wondering though: In 1974 we had some 180,000 GC refugees and their place was taken by about 60,000 TC refugees who moved from south to north. Some 60,000 TCs were original inhabitants at the north so they never hd to move.

Are you saying that the GC properties were split among those 60,000 TC refugees only? I mean the original inhabitants got nothing??
This sounds strange to me because if this is what really happened then the TC refugees must have taken 3 times more than what the original TC inhabitants of the north ever had!!

Could you please clarify this?

[GAVCARoCOM]

This shahmaran explains everything very nicely .

[Pyrpolizer]

Yeah, but he never answered my question.

I am still waiting.