Post by Toskaliku on Jun 7, 2008 15:01:23 GMT -5
Why has the Cyprus Conflict not been solved? By Rachel Salomon
Introduction
The Cyprus issue has been on the international agenda for the past 44-years. Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots have been negotiating on and off since 1968, but have failed thus far to reach an agreement. As of today, Turkish Cypriots continue to live under an international embargo that forces them to live in isolation from the rest of the world, with the sole exception of Turkey. To the contrary, the Greek Cypriots are now members of the European Union and have become pretty wealthy compared to their Turkish Cypriot counter-parts. The two-sides have not lived together since the 1963 and are moving further apart from each other by the day. There are two peoples on the beautiful island of Cyprus, yet only one, the Greek Cypriot side, is recognized by the international community. In this paper, I hope to examine how we got to this point and explain the evolution of the political situation of Cyprus.
Beginning of the Enosis Struggle
There was once a time when Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots peacefully coexisted. For over three hundred years, there were no problems between Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots. Under Ottoman rule, from 1571 through 1878, Greek Cypriots were freely able to practice their religion and engage in economic and cultural activities. Even Hepworth Dixon spoke of how well Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots coexisted under Ottoman rule and his amazement over the amount of rights that the Ottoman Empire granted her Greek Cypriot subjects (Atakol 6).
This coexistence would continue under British rule up until 1955. Dr. Kenan Atakol wrote:
As a young boy, I had Greek Cypriot friends from the village of Kato Yialia with whom I would play. Our friendships were so sincere that on occasions we would stay over at each other’s house. I used to go to many Greek Cypriot weddings and baptisms with my parents and many Greek Cypriots would reciprocrate by coming to the weddings and circumcision ceremonies of the Turkish Cypriots” (9).
What happened to change all of this?
Over time, Greek Cypriots formed this idea called Enosis, which called for the unification of Cyprus with Greece. On October 20, 1950, Archbishop Makarios declared, “I take the Holy Oath that I shall work for the birth of our national freedom and shall never waiver from our policy of uniting Cyprus to mother Greece” (Stephen 6). This whole philosophy was the beginning of the tensions between Turkish and Greek Cypriots.
On April 1, 1955, the Greek Cypriot terrorist organization known as EOKA started to engage in terrorist activities against the British presence in Cyprus. Their goal was Enosis. Greek Cypriots viewed Turkish Cypriots as an obstacle to achieving this dream of theirs. During this time period between 1955 and 1960, hundreds of Turkish Cypriots were killed, 6,000 Turkish Cypriots were made refugees, and EOKA had destroyed thirty-three Turkish Cypriot villages (Atakol 29). Evidently, the terrorism worked. EOKA would eventually drive the British out of Cyprus.
The Establishment of the Republic of Cyprus
In the London and Zurich Agreements, the British, Greek Cypriots, Turkish Cypriots, Greeks, and Turks all agreed that a new state would be created that would be called the Republic of Cyprus. “The Republic of Cyprus was not a unified state but a political partnership between the two main Cypriot communities each of which retained its own language, religion, and cultural traditions” (Moran 145). The President was to be a Greek Cypriot. The Vice President was to be a Turkish Cypriot. 70% of the House of Representatives would be Greek Cypriot, while 30% would be Turkish Cypriot. However, legislation and executive action required an agreement between the President and Vice President. On sensitive issues, a vote on both sides would occur, where each side required a majority for action. Also, the Treaty of Guarantee was put into place to ensure that the sanctity of the constitution would remain intact (Stephen 8-9). Thus, independence was granted to Cyprus on August 16, 1960.
Destruction of the Partnership Republic of Cyprus
Unfortunately, the bi-communal partnership based on political equality between the two communities was short-lived. On September 4, 1962, Archbishop Makarios stated in a speech in Panayia, “Until this Turkish community forming part of the Turkish race which has been the terrible enemy of Hellenism is expelled, the duty of the heroes of EOKA can never be considered as terminated” (Stephen 10). Makarios was a man who had absolutely no respect for the constitution of the Republic of Cyprus.
Makarios regarded the Turks in Cyprus as a decidedly alien and insignificant minority who should never have been given partnership status with the Greeks. […..] Consequently in 1963-1964, by a series of drastically and uncompromising maneuvers, he forcibly ousted the Turkish Cypriots from all their positions in the new government (Moran 146).
On April 25, 1963, the Supreme Court of Cyprus, which consisted of*greek Cypriot, Turkish Cypriot, and a neutral president, declared that it was illegal for the Greek Cypriots to ignore Article 173 of the Constitution, which provided for the establishment of separate municipalities between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots (Stephen 11). The Greek Cypriots ignored this ruling, which thus led to the disintegration of the rule of law and the beginning of a brutal campaign by the Greek Cypriots to ethnically cleanse the Turkish Cypriots from their homes.
On December 21, 1963, the Turkish Cypriot Genocide began. Two Turkish Cypriots were murdered by Greek Cypriot police officers for doing absolutely nothing except wanting to go home.
Zeki Halil Karabuluk, happy husband and father, and Jemaliye Emir, happy, good looking divorcee with few cares, were standing together when the first burst came. They were only a few hundred yards from home. The bullets cut them nearly in two, flinging them into the road in a jumpled heap. Three onlookers rolled over on the pavement, wounded by a second hysterical outburst (Gibbons 9).
Unfortunately, this was not the only tragic incident that occurred on this day. “There were shots every where in Nicosia and shortly thereafter, the roads, water supplies and resources, power plants, refinery, radio, television, telecommunications, airport, and all seaports of Cyprus came under Greek Cypriot control” (Atakol 42).
As the rest of the world was celebrating Christmas on December 25, 1963, the Turkish Cypriots were living in terror.
Nicos Sampson, who was the symbol of Greek Cypriot fanaticism, hatred for Turks and a psychopathic murderer, went to Kucuk Kaymakli with his gang and picked up 550 of the remaining 750 Turkish Cypriots […] and took them to the Greek part of Nicosia. They were detained at Kykkos school, with 150 other Turkish Cypriot hostages who were brought there on December 24, 1963. [….] One hundred and fifty Turkish Cypriots never returned and the ones who returned were not allowed to go back to their homes. The residents of Kucuk Kaymakli became refugees for the rest of their lives (Atakol 43).
On December 28, 1963, Rene MacColl and Daniel McGeachie of the Daily Express reported:
We went tonight into the sealed-off Turkish Cypriot quarter of Nicosia in which 200 to 300 people had been slaughtered in the last five days. We were the first western reporters there and we have seen sights too frightful to be described in print. Horrors so extreme that the people seemed stunned beyond tears (Stephen 14).
On January 1, 1964, the Daily Herald reported, “When I came across the Turkish homes they were an appalling sight. Apart from the walls, they just did not exist” (Stephens 15). Il Giorno reported on January 14, 1964, “Right now we are witnessing the exodus of Turks from their villages. Thousands of people are abandoning homes, lands, herds; Greek terrorism is relentless” (Denkas 40). Such reports were confirmed by the Washington Post, who stated on February 17, 1964, “Greek Cypriot fanatics appear bent on a policy of genocide” (Stephen 15). Harry Scott Gibbons reported the following on the village of Kokkina slightly after August 9, 1964:
The village was blasted. It ceased to exist. The women and children
were living in caves, crudely hollowed out of the low sandstone cliffs
near the sea. [….] I find it difficult to express as I walked in among these wretched creatures. What had they done to deserve this? Here was a government, recognized by the rest of the world as the legal government of these people, coldly and calmly massacring its citizens
in full view of the whole world, and nothing could be done about it? It was more than a massacre. Their backs were to the sea, they had nowhere to run. No one could pretend they were being chased out of their country. [….] These people were going to be put to death. It was genocide (256).
Over 300 Turkish Cypriots are still missing without a trace from the massacres that occurred between 1963 and 1964. The UK Commons Select Committee concluded that:
There is little doubt that much of the violence which the Turkish Cypriots claim led to the total or partial destruction of 103 Turkish villages and the displacement of about a quarter of the total Turkish Cypriot population, was either directly inspired by, or certainly connived at, by the Greek Cypriot leadership (Stephen 17).
The Separation
After the massacres that occurred between 1963 and 1964, Turkish Cypriots were forced to withdraw into small enclaves, which constituted three percent of the land that they owned (Dodd 23). They were a stateless people within their own country, living their daily lives in fear. The UN Secretary General reported:
When the disturbances broke out in December 1963 and continued during the first part of 1964, thousands of Turkish Cypriots fled from their homes, taking with them only what they could drive or carry, and sought refuge in what they considered to be safer Turkish Cypriot villages and areas (Stephen 18).
The plight of the Turkish Cypriots of Yayla was the plight of many Turkish Cypriots. According to Dr. Atakol:
Yayla was under siege by the Greek Cypriots from December 1963
until the middle of 1968. During those five years, the villagers of
Yayla went through unimaginable hardship and misery. Their
survival under those inhumane conditions is a tribute to their courage
and determination (55).
Turkish Cypriots were denied the right to freedom of movement. They did not have access to postal services, building materials, electrical equipment, motor parts, fuel, chemicals, and many other commodities. The Turkish Cypriots who sought to return to their government jobs were denied the right to do so. Many Turkish Cypriots were forced to live in tents (Stephen 19). Food was scarce (Gibbons 253).
Children who had Turkish Cypriot parents were not recorded as existing by the State Register of Persons. They were not permitted to get passports nor were any Greek Cypriot person prosecuted for crimes that they committed against Turkish Cypriots. “Turkish Cypriots became, to all intents and purposes, stateless persons without any civil rights” (Oberling 126). They did not even have the right to freedom of religion, as demonstrated by the fact that the Greek National Guard seized the most important Muslim shrine on the island in 1965 and one year later declared it off-limits for the Turkish Cypriots (Oberling 132).
Such treatment played a significant role in the separating the Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots. As former British Prime Minister Sir Alec Douglas-Home once wrote, “I was convinced of the view that if Archbishop Makarios could not bring himself to treat the Turkish Cypriots as human beings he was inviting the invasion and partition of the island” (Stephen 24).
The role of the international community
Despite the inhumane treatment of the Turkish Cypriots by the Greek Cypriot administration, the reaction of the international community has not been sympathetic to the plight of the Turkish Cypriots. To the contrary, they have chosen instead to support the Makarios regime.
Galo Plaza of Ecuador […] minimized the suffering of the Turkish Cypriots at Kokkina, […] and his final report, issued in March 1965, displayed such a callous disregard for the welfare of the Turkish Cypriot community that the Turkish government promptly called for his resignation (Oberling 125).
Galo Plaza undermined principles that were vital to the 1960 Constitution, such as bizonality, and questioned the need for the Treaty of Guarantee. His views reflected the fact that he was a close associate of Makarios.
However, Galo Plaza was not the only person who fell under the influence of Makarios. The Greek Lobby in the United States had been advocating the idea of Enosis for years. They were so successful at it that by 1964, thirty-seven US Senators, thirty-six US Congressmen, and four US State Governors had made statements in favor of Enosis. Makarios was also working with the CIA, who sought to use British airfields to eavesdrop on communications in the Middle Eastern and Soviet-bloc countries (Oberling 124).
Unfortunately, the United Nations has not been much friendlier to the Turkish Cypriots than Galo Plaza and the United States has been. On March 4, 1964, UN Resolution 186 recognized the Greek Cypriot regime as the legitimate government of Cyprus, despite the fact that such recognition was in violation of the 1960 Cypriot Constitution. Sir Anthony Kershaw, Chairman of the UK House of Commons Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, explains:
It was decided that UN troops should be sent to preserve order, but the UN can only send troops if the legal government of the country concerned asks for them. The only organization which could in 1964 be called the Government of Cyprus was the administration headed by Makarios (Stephen 20).
Since then, only the Greek side has been recognized as representing the whole island of Cyprus, while the Turkish side has been ignored and neglected by the international community. Nevertheless, despite the major flaws associated with UN Resolution 186, the UN peacekeepers did restore some order. However, we are facing the consequences of this decision to this date. As Atakol wrote in his book:
Treating the Greek Cypriot administration as the legitimate representative of the whole island meant that the Greek Cypriots were able to go on with their lives as they did before and in the eyes of the world, they were the government of Cyprus. They did not face any negative consequences for the atrocities they had committed and continued to commit in Cyprus and therefore were in no real rush to settle the Cyprus dispute (53).
Thus, in the long run, the United Nations helped to create a situation on the island which punishes the victim and rewards the aggressor.
Crisis Continued
A power struggle began between Grivas and Makarios. Makarios sought to bring about Enosis through strangling the life out of the Turkish Cypriots in regards to economics and making them third class citizens, while Grivas sought to use brute force against the Turkish Cypriots. Starting in 1966, Makarios began to see Grivas as a direct threat. He “accused Grivas of trying to start a civil war and asked the Greek government to limit his powers” (Oberling 131). Obviously, this did not work. In 1967, Grivas tried to provoke the Turkish Cypriots into engaging in violence.
On April 8, a National Guard unit comprising two armored cars, a
Land-rover mounted with a heavy machine gun and a truckload of
Infantrymen stopped in front of the village of Mari, in the district of
Larnaca, and began firing. During the four hours of the barrage, at
least forty two-pounder shells and one thousand rounds of ammunition were fired by the armored cars alone (Oberling 135).
No Turkish Cypriot was permitted to leave Mari and food was only provided by the United Nations. The Turkish Cypriot people of Mari were facing the possibility of starving to death.
But as if things were not bad enough, the Grivas-supporters received additional encouragement for their terror when the junta took power in Greece on April 24, 1967. This junta was a major blow to the Makarios supporters, who were left-wing and against the anti-communist policies of the junta government. Indeed, the junta killed the dream of Makarios to achieve Enosis. From this day forward, Makarios would prefer independence to Enosis. However, Makarios was powerless to prevent Grivas, who was backed by the Greek Junta Government, from operating in Cyprus. Grivas would continue to try to provoke the Turkish Cypriots.
The two communities of the mixed Greek-Turkish village of Ayios Theodoros near Larnaca were segregated because of earlier outbreaks of fighting. In November Grivas sent Greek patrols through the Turkish sector, an operation that had not been carried out for the previous four years. The Turks objected, the UN were called in. […] The UN began negotiations with the Turks to allow the patrols in order to satisfy the demands of the Greeks. But while the talks were going on, Grivas surrounded the village with some 2,000 troops, and despite advice to the contrary by the UN, started the patrols again on November 14. [….] The same day, Ayios Theodoros was visited by Grivas himself, who inspected the Turkish quarter and warned the inhabitants that he would blast them into the ground if they dared make any challenge to the National Guard patrols. On the mourning of November 15, police patrols again went through the village. The Turks, seeing the trap Grivas had set, again ignored them. [….] Later reports said that Grivas, strutting, impatient little general, was furious with the Turks for not springing the trap by resisting the patrol. As the convoy reached the Turkish sector of the village, the armored cars opened up with two plunders. The 2,000 guardsmen, already positioned in the area, rushed forward and mortars and heavy artillery went into action against the Turks. As the hordes of Greeks rushed up, they seized the UN troops, watching helplessly, and forcibly disarmed them. Then they smashed the radio to prevent a call for reinforcements (Gibbons 265-6).
As if what happened in Ayios Theodoros was not bad enough, the all Turkish Cypriot village of Kophinou, which was two miles away from Ayios Theodoros, was attacked around the exact same time. For what reason were these villages attacked? Because Grivas had high-jacked control over the Greek Cypriot patrol and used them to act on his hatred of the Turkish Cypriot people.
Not surprisingly, on the mourning of November 16, 1967, the Turkish government warned that they would intervene militarily if the assault on the Turkish Cypriot people continued. The next day, the Turkish Parliament authorized the government to take military action against Cyprus and even Greece if necessary. By November 19, the Greek junta government had recalled Grivas. The Greek junta government was not in a position internationally where it would be advisable for them to go to war with Turkey.
The Turkish Cypriots learned something very important from this crisis, however. The status quo was not acceptable. They could no longer afford to live as a stateless people. So, on December 28, 1967, a Provisional Turkish Cypriot Administration was established.
With the formation of the Provisional Turkish Cypriot Administration, the separation of the two communities became complete. Hence, the splitting up of Cyprus into two ethnically-homogenous, self-governing states was not achieved by the Turkish armed intervention of 1974, as is commonly believed, but by Makarios and Grivas in the 1960’s (Oberling 145).
1974-----The Beginning of the End
The death of Grivas in January 1974 emboldened all of the Makarios supporters to take action against EOKA-B. On April 25, 1974, Makarios outlawed EOKA-B. On May 4, Makarios ordered all persons illegally possessing weapons to hand them over. He then proceeded to arrest two hundred suspected EOKA-B terrorists, attempted to reassert his control over the Greek Cypriot National Guard, and demanded that 650 Greek officers staffing the National Guard be sent back to Greece. These demands resulted in the end of Makarios’ career.
On July 15, 1974, Makarios was overthrown in a Greek-orchestrated coup. The Greek coup appointed Nicos Sampson as his replacement. This nightmare was the beginning of the end. Nicos Sampson’s first actions while in office were to murder ruthlessly innocent Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots. As Greek Cypriot MP Rina Katsellis wrote in her memoirs:
My God! Every one is frozen with fear….the old man who asked for the body of his son was shot on the spot. The tortures and executions at the central prison…..every one is frozen with horror. Nothing is sacred to these people, and they call themselves Greeks (Stephen 23)!
According to the Greek Cypriot priest, Papatsestos, the man who was in charge of the Greek Orthodox cemetery in Nicosia, 127 bodies were buried immediately after Nicos Sampson took power. On July 17 alone, seventy-seven people were buried in mass graves in Nicosia. He also claimed that there were massacres outside of the Kykko monastery, as well as in Paphos and Limassol (Oberling 159-160). The Washington Post quoted a Greek Cypriot university student, who had witnessed the bodies of Makarios supporters being dumped into mass graves (Gibbons 431). Bora Atun, a Famagusta architect and later mayor, described how Sampson treated the Greek Cypriot people:
We sat tight and watched the brutal fight for supremacy between Greeks developing into a massacre as the tanks pounded the police headquarters into submission. The crackle of machineguns and small arms fire filled the air, and we, the watchers, couldn’t believe what we were seeing, the Greeks were killing their own people (Gibbons 232).
As bad as Nicos Sampson was for Greek Cypriots, he was even worse for Turkish Cypriots.
He was a notorious killer who hated the Turks and was very well known in Cyprus for shooting his victims in the back. Nicos Sampson represented hatred, terrorism, and the Greek Cypriot Orthodox Church’s fanaticism (Atakol 72).
The Iphestos Plan clearly indicates that Nicos Sampson had genocidal intentions against the Turkish Cypriots.
It had been carefully plotted, meticulously worked out, with the sort of care that had gone into the Normandy landings in 1944, if you like. The moon landings even. There were plans, hundreds of plans, and thousands of type-written pages and maps, gone over and corrected, and altered and changed. Every command HQ, every unit, every man knew exactly what to do (Gibbons 415).
Under Nicos Sampson rule, Turkish Cypriots would suffer unspeakable tragedies. As a German tourist eye-witness to the violence said about the situation in Cyprus on the “Voice of Germany” radio station:
In the villages around Famagusta, the Greek National Guard have displayed unsurpassed examples of savagery. Entering Turkish homes, they ruthlessly rained bullets on women and children. They cut the throats of many Turks. Rounding up Turkish women, they raped them all….the human mind cannot comprehend the Greek butchery (Gibbons 462).
Another eye-witness, Yujel Ashan, spoke of the horrors that he faced from the Greek Cypriots as a Turkish Cypriot in Limassol:
We went through the Turkish park. The shell and mortar fire was unbelievable. The Greeks were blowing up the whole place. They had whole streets under fire and we couldn’t cross. There were dead and wounded everywhere. At one street, a close friend of mine, Atay Izanoglu, started to run across. I called to him to come back, then a mortar hit him and he was blown up. What was left of him landed on the roof of a parked car. We went to the Limassol Turkish Hospital. A wounded Turkish woman was lying in the yard, one leg threshing. Then she died. The Turkish quarter was overrun by four in the afternoon. We stayed in the hospital until midnight. Then the Greeks came for us (Gibbons 465).
During the night of July 20/21, Yujel Ashan and about 200 other men were taken from the Turkish Hospital to the football stadium. There, they would stay as hostages of the Greek Cypriots until the UN found them two days later. Time Magazine described the fate of the Limassol Turkish Cypriots:
Thousands of Turkish Cypriots were taken hostage, Turkish women were raped, children were shot in the street, and the Turkish quarter of Limassol was burnt down by the National Guard (Gibbons 472).
The plight of the Turkish Cypriots of Larnaca was not much different. 873 Turkish Cypriot men were detained in a school building that was made to accommodate 100 students. They were all forced to sleep on the bare concrete floors, did not have access to doctors and medicine, and were fed starvation rations (Oberling 174).
On July 23, 1974, the Washington Post reported, “In a Greek raid on a small Turkish village near Limassol, 36 out of a population of 200 were killed” (Stephen 25). On the exact same day, The Times reported:
Kazan Dervic, a Turkish Cypriot girl aged 15, said she had been staying with her uncle. The Greek Cypriot National Guard came into the Turkish sector and began shooting. She saw her uncle and other relatives taken away as prisoners. And later heard her uncle had been shot. “Before my uncle was taken away by the soldiers, he shouted to me to run away. I ran to the streets, and the soldiers were shooting all the time. I went into a house and I saw a woman being attacked by soldiers. They were raping her. Then they shot her in front of my eyes. I ran away again and Turkish men and women looked after me. They were escaping as well” (Stephen 25-26)
On July 24, 1974, France Soir reported, “The Greeks burned Turkish mosques and set fire to Turkish homes in the villages around Famagusta. Defensely Turkish villagers who have no weapons live in an atmosphere of terror and they evacuate their homes and go and live in tents in the forests. The Greeks actions are a shame to humanity” (Stephen 26).
Indeed, although Nicos Sampson’s presidency only lasted eight days, he caused quite a lot of damage on the island during that time period. In fact, Nicos Sampson declared himself in the Greek newspaper Eleftherotipia, on February 26, 1981, “Had Turkey not intervened I would not only have proclaimed Enosis but I would have annihilated the Turks in Cyprus” (Stephen 27). Indeed, the Turkish Intervention was very timely.
Partition of Cyprus
Between the years 1963 and 1974, 103 Turkish Cypriot villagers were destroyed and over 7,000 Turkish Cypriots lost their lives. Turkish Cypriots owe their existence today to the Turkish Intervention, which is now a national holiday for the Turkish Cypriots that is celebrated annually on July 20 called the Turkish Intervention Day.
As a result of Greek Cypriot policies aimed at the establishment of Enosis, the Turkish intervention of 1974, and a population exchange agreement between the Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots that took place in 1975, two peoples that once lived side-by-side now live separately. Turkish Cypriots live in Northern Cyprus, while Greek Cypriots live in Southern Cyprus. People on both sides suffered immense losses. Many innocents died and a large percentage of civilians became refugees. However, Greek Cypriots were able to recover from this much quicker than their Turkish Cypriots counterparts, for the Greek Cypriots had the international community behind them, while Turkish Cypriots only had Turkey.
On February 13, 1975, Turkish Cypriots formed the Turkish Federated State of Cyprus in the hopes of creating a bi-communal Federal Republic of Cyprus, based on the equality of the 1960 Cypriot Constitution. Turkish Cypriots drafted their constitution, put it to a referendum, and held parliamentary elections. The Turkish Cypriots requested that the Greek Cypriots form their own Greek Cypriot Federated State, so that the two federated states of Cyprus could unite as one. However, the Greek Cypriots did not want to do that. To make matters worse, since the United Nations had recognized the Greek side as representing all of Cyprus, the Greek Cypriots were using this to their advantage to leave the Turkish Cypriots in limbo, where they would be a stateless people who had no rights in the Republic of Cyprus while at the same time not having a country to call their own. The Greek Cypriot leadership effectively used the United Nations and the Non-Aligned Movement to silence Turkish Cypriot voices. The result was that the Turkish Cypriots gave up any hope of being able to live as equals in a united Cyprus and declared the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus to be an independent country on November 15, 1983.
The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus has all of the features of a nation state. They have their own government with complete control over their own domestic affairs, a unique national identity, make up the majority on a land with defined border, and have their own national flag. The only thing preventing the TRNC from being a country is the fact that it is only recognized as a country by Turkey. Every time a country tries to recognize the TRNC or even engage in direct trade with them, they get into trouble with Greeks and Greek Cypriots. For example, when Bangladesh tried to recognize the TRNC, all Bangladeshi foreign workers in Greece and Greek Cyprus faced expulsion. This is the primary reason why most countries have not recognized the TRNC, because the Greeks and Greek Cypriots are obsessed with forcing the Turkish Cypriots to live in isolation from the rest of the world.
Despite the stability that exists on Cyprus today based on the Turkish intervention, it would be deceiving to think that there is true peace in Cyprus. For instance, on October 7, 1995, the US State Department Report on Human Rights reported that a Turkish Cypriot farmer named Egmez required ten days of hospitalization due to being tortured by the Greek Cypriot police (Stephen 38). According to the Stephens report to the British Northern Cyprus Parliamentary group:
On April 11, 1996, several thousand young people, many on motorcycles who were organized to ride from Berlin, were encouraged to break into the UN buffer zone and confront the Turkish Cypriots at their border. They rampaged in the buffer zone, in defiance of the UN forces, setting fire to vegetation, brandishing knives, and throwing stones and Molotov c**ktails. They tore down the UN barbed-wire fence near Dherynia, and one was beaten to death in a violent struggle with Turkish Cypriots. Another was shot when he broke through the Turkish Cypriot line and tried to desecrate their flag (Stephens 38).
Even recently, on November 22, 2006, twenty Greek Cypriot students attacked a Turkish Cypriot student because they heard Greek Cypriot media reports that were inciting hatred.
There is only one mixed village left in Cyprus, Pile, which is located in the Intermediate Zone controlled by the UN peace-keeping forces. And even in this one mixed villages, the Greek Cypriot authorities fail to treat the Turkish Cypriots who live their like human beings. In Pile, Greek Cypriots are fined and jailed if they are caught buying any goods from Turkish Cypriots. Greek Cypriots also prevent foreign tourists from buying goods from Turkish Cypriot shops in Pile. Foreign tourists that have the chutzpah to do so have their souvenirs confiscated, and are fined by the Greek Cypriot authorities.
To this day, as the Greek Cypriot side gets richer and richer due to their vibrant tourism industry and now, European Union membership, while the Turkish Cypriots continue to lag behind. Since there are no direct flights to the TRNC, not as many tourists come to visit the TRNC and the ones that do mostly come from Turkey. You can not send mail or call the TRNC directly either. All international phone calls and mail has to go through Turkey, because of the international embargo. With the sole exception of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, Turkish Cypriots are denied a voice in all international organizations. This has been especially problematic at the United Nations and the European Union. Turkish Cypriot athletes can not compete with any non-Turkish Cypriot sports teams. Cultural activities involving the TRNC and foreign countries are rare. In fact, the Greek Cypriots went out of their way to try to prevent a cultural exchange program between San Diego State University and Eastern Mediterranean University. And there is no significant foreign investment in the TRNC with the sole exception of Turkey.
This whole environment where Turkish Cypriots are constantly being punished for doing nothing more than wanting equality has done nothing but confirm that Cyprus will be a partitioned island. In 2003, when the borders opened between the two sides, there was hope that perhaps the two Cypriot peoples could unite on the basis of equality. However, this hope was soon trampled upon when seventy-six percent of the Greek Cypriot population rejected the Annan Plan without coming up with any sort of counter peace proposal. Despite its flaws, the Annan Plan was the best peace proposal thus far and the lack of compromise on the behalf of the Greek Cypriots has done nothing more than strengthen the Turkish Cypriot desire to have their state recognized as an independent country. After the Greek Cypriots rejected the Annan Plan, EU Enlargement Commissioner Mr. Gunther Vergeugen stated, “Turkish Cypriots must not be punished because of this result…..now we have to end the isolation of the North. The Commission is ready to take various measures for that aim” (Denkas 19). Turkish Cypriots are still waiting for their isolation to end. Four generations of Turkish Cypriots have been yearning to be treated like human beings, while watching one promise being broken after another. They were betrayed by the United Nations, who illegally treated the Greek Cypriot regime as representing all of Cyprus. They were just recently betrayed by the European Union, who promised them membership if they voted for the Annan Plan. And they are still waiting for the big countries to recognize that they exist.
The future
I have no idea whether or not a solution will be found to the Cyprus conflict within the imminent future. Since the Greek Cypriots are now in the European Union, they have very little incentive to treat their Turkish Cypriot neighbors as equals and even less of an incentive to recognize their right to exist as a separate entity. Atakol summed up the situation pretty well when he stated:
The separation of the Turkish and Greek Cypriots for now is irreversible. It took over a hundred years and many incidents to force the Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots to separate. Maybe it should never have happened, but it did and the reality now is different to what it used to be. The clock can not be turned back. As for now, what the Turkish and Greek Cypriots need to do is to find ways and means of cooperating and living side by side as friends and good neighbors (120).
Until the Greek Cypriots accept the right of the Turkish Cypriots to economically and culturally develop themselves as human beings, there will be no solution to this conflict.
Source Citations:
Atakol, Dr. Kenan. Turkish and Greek Cypriots: Is their separation
Permanent? Metu Press, Ankara: 2003.
Dodd, Clement. The Cyprus Imbroglio. Eothen Press, Cambridgeshire:
1998.
Denkas, Rauf. The Cyprus Problem: What it is----how can it be solved?.
Cyrep, Nicosia: 2004.
Gibbons, Harry Scott. The Genocide Files. Charles Bravos Publishers,
London: 1997.
Moran, Michael. Sovereignty Divided. Cyrep, Nicosia: 1998.
Oberling, Pierre. The Road to Bellapais: The Turkish Cypriot Exodus to
Northern Cyprus. Columbia University Press, NY: 1982.
Stephen, Michael. The Cyprus Question. British Northern Cyprus
Parliamentary Group, London: 1997.
Introduction
The Cyprus issue has been on the international agenda for the past 44-years. Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots have been negotiating on and off since 1968, but have failed thus far to reach an agreement. As of today, Turkish Cypriots continue to live under an international embargo that forces them to live in isolation from the rest of the world, with the sole exception of Turkey. To the contrary, the Greek Cypriots are now members of the European Union and have become pretty wealthy compared to their Turkish Cypriot counter-parts. The two-sides have not lived together since the 1963 and are moving further apart from each other by the day. There are two peoples on the beautiful island of Cyprus, yet only one, the Greek Cypriot side, is recognized by the international community. In this paper, I hope to examine how we got to this point and explain the evolution of the political situation of Cyprus.
Beginning of the Enosis Struggle
There was once a time when Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots peacefully coexisted. For over three hundred years, there were no problems between Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots. Under Ottoman rule, from 1571 through 1878, Greek Cypriots were freely able to practice their religion and engage in economic and cultural activities. Even Hepworth Dixon spoke of how well Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots coexisted under Ottoman rule and his amazement over the amount of rights that the Ottoman Empire granted her Greek Cypriot subjects (Atakol 6).
This coexistence would continue under British rule up until 1955. Dr. Kenan Atakol wrote:
As a young boy, I had Greek Cypriot friends from the village of Kato Yialia with whom I would play. Our friendships were so sincere that on occasions we would stay over at each other’s house. I used to go to many Greek Cypriot weddings and baptisms with my parents and many Greek Cypriots would reciprocrate by coming to the weddings and circumcision ceremonies of the Turkish Cypriots” (9).
What happened to change all of this?
Over time, Greek Cypriots formed this idea called Enosis, which called for the unification of Cyprus with Greece. On October 20, 1950, Archbishop Makarios declared, “I take the Holy Oath that I shall work for the birth of our national freedom and shall never waiver from our policy of uniting Cyprus to mother Greece” (Stephen 6). This whole philosophy was the beginning of the tensions between Turkish and Greek Cypriots.
On April 1, 1955, the Greek Cypriot terrorist organization known as EOKA started to engage in terrorist activities against the British presence in Cyprus. Their goal was Enosis. Greek Cypriots viewed Turkish Cypriots as an obstacle to achieving this dream of theirs. During this time period between 1955 and 1960, hundreds of Turkish Cypriots were killed, 6,000 Turkish Cypriots were made refugees, and EOKA had destroyed thirty-three Turkish Cypriot villages (Atakol 29). Evidently, the terrorism worked. EOKA would eventually drive the British out of Cyprus.
The Establishment of the Republic of Cyprus
In the London and Zurich Agreements, the British, Greek Cypriots, Turkish Cypriots, Greeks, and Turks all agreed that a new state would be created that would be called the Republic of Cyprus. “The Republic of Cyprus was not a unified state but a political partnership between the two main Cypriot communities each of which retained its own language, religion, and cultural traditions” (Moran 145). The President was to be a Greek Cypriot. The Vice President was to be a Turkish Cypriot. 70% of the House of Representatives would be Greek Cypriot, while 30% would be Turkish Cypriot. However, legislation and executive action required an agreement between the President and Vice President. On sensitive issues, a vote on both sides would occur, where each side required a majority for action. Also, the Treaty of Guarantee was put into place to ensure that the sanctity of the constitution would remain intact (Stephen 8-9). Thus, independence was granted to Cyprus on August 16, 1960.
Destruction of the Partnership Republic of Cyprus
Unfortunately, the bi-communal partnership based on political equality between the two communities was short-lived. On September 4, 1962, Archbishop Makarios stated in a speech in Panayia, “Until this Turkish community forming part of the Turkish race which has been the terrible enemy of Hellenism is expelled, the duty of the heroes of EOKA can never be considered as terminated” (Stephen 10). Makarios was a man who had absolutely no respect for the constitution of the Republic of Cyprus.
Makarios regarded the Turks in Cyprus as a decidedly alien and insignificant minority who should never have been given partnership status with the Greeks. […..] Consequently in 1963-1964, by a series of drastically and uncompromising maneuvers, he forcibly ousted the Turkish Cypriots from all their positions in the new government (Moran 146).
On April 25, 1963, the Supreme Court of Cyprus, which consisted of*greek Cypriot, Turkish Cypriot, and a neutral president, declared that it was illegal for the Greek Cypriots to ignore Article 173 of the Constitution, which provided for the establishment of separate municipalities between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots (Stephen 11). The Greek Cypriots ignored this ruling, which thus led to the disintegration of the rule of law and the beginning of a brutal campaign by the Greek Cypriots to ethnically cleanse the Turkish Cypriots from their homes.
On December 21, 1963, the Turkish Cypriot Genocide began. Two Turkish Cypriots were murdered by Greek Cypriot police officers for doing absolutely nothing except wanting to go home.
Zeki Halil Karabuluk, happy husband and father, and Jemaliye Emir, happy, good looking divorcee with few cares, were standing together when the first burst came. They were only a few hundred yards from home. The bullets cut them nearly in two, flinging them into the road in a jumpled heap. Three onlookers rolled over on the pavement, wounded by a second hysterical outburst (Gibbons 9).
Unfortunately, this was not the only tragic incident that occurred on this day. “There were shots every where in Nicosia and shortly thereafter, the roads, water supplies and resources, power plants, refinery, radio, television, telecommunications, airport, and all seaports of Cyprus came under Greek Cypriot control” (Atakol 42).
As the rest of the world was celebrating Christmas on December 25, 1963, the Turkish Cypriots were living in terror.
Nicos Sampson, who was the symbol of Greek Cypriot fanaticism, hatred for Turks and a psychopathic murderer, went to Kucuk Kaymakli with his gang and picked up 550 of the remaining 750 Turkish Cypriots […] and took them to the Greek part of Nicosia. They were detained at Kykkos school, with 150 other Turkish Cypriot hostages who were brought there on December 24, 1963. [….] One hundred and fifty Turkish Cypriots never returned and the ones who returned were not allowed to go back to their homes. The residents of Kucuk Kaymakli became refugees for the rest of their lives (Atakol 43).
On December 28, 1963, Rene MacColl and Daniel McGeachie of the Daily Express reported:
We went tonight into the sealed-off Turkish Cypriot quarter of Nicosia in which 200 to 300 people had been slaughtered in the last five days. We were the first western reporters there and we have seen sights too frightful to be described in print. Horrors so extreme that the people seemed stunned beyond tears (Stephen 14).
On January 1, 1964, the Daily Herald reported, “When I came across the Turkish homes they were an appalling sight. Apart from the walls, they just did not exist” (Stephens 15). Il Giorno reported on January 14, 1964, “Right now we are witnessing the exodus of Turks from their villages. Thousands of people are abandoning homes, lands, herds; Greek terrorism is relentless” (Denkas 40). Such reports were confirmed by the Washington Post, who stated on February 17, 1964, “Greek Cypriot fanatics appear bent on a policy of genocide” (Stephen 15). Harry Scott Gibbons reported the following on the village of Kokkina slightly after August 9, 1964:
The village was blasted. It ceased to exist. The women and children
were living in caves, crudely hollowed out of the low sandstone cliffs
near the sea. [….] I find it difficult to express as I walked in among these wretched creatures. What had they done to deserve this? Here was a government, recognized by the rest of the world as the legal government of these people, coldly and calmly massacring its citizens
in full view of the whole world, and nothing could be done about it? It was more than a massacre. Their backs were to the sea, they had nowhere to run. No one could pretend they were being chased out of their country. [….] These people were going to be put to death. It was genocide (256).
Over 300 Turkish Cypriots are still missing without a trace from the massacres that occurred between 1963 and 1964. The UK Commons Select Committee concluded that:
There is little doubt that much of the violence which the Turkish Cypriots claim led to the total or partial destruction of 103 Turkish villages and the displacement of about a quarter of the total Turkish Cypriot population, was either directly inspired by, or certainly connived at, by the Greek Cypriot leadership (Stephen 17).
The Separation
After the massacres that occurred between 1963 and 1964, Turkish Cypriots were forced to withdraw into small enclaves, which constituted three percent of the land that they owned (Dodd 23). They were a stateless people within their own country, living their daily lives in fear. The UN Secretary General reported:
When the disturbances broke out in December 1963 and continued during the first part of 1964, thousands of Turkish Cypriots fled from their homes, taking with them only what they could drive or carry, and sought refuge in what they considered to be safer Turkish Cypriot villages and areas (Stephen 18).
The plight of the Turkish Cypriots of Yayla was the plight of many Turkish Cypriots. According to Dr. Atakol:
Yayla was under siege by the Greek Cypriots from December 1963
until the middle of 1968. During those five years, the villagers of
Yayla went through unimaginable hardship and misery. Their
survival under those inhumane conditions is a tribute to their courage
and determination (55).
Turkish Cypriots were denied the right to freedom of movement. They did not have access to postal services, building materials, electrical equipment, motor parts, fuel, chemicals, and many other commodities. The Turkish Cypriots who sought to return to their government jobs were denied the right to do so. Many Turkish Cypriots were forced to live in tents (Stephen 19). Food was scarce (Gibbons 253).
Children who had Turkish Cypriot parents were not recorded as existing by the State Register of Persons. They were not permitted to get passports nor were any Greek Cypriot person prosecuted for crimes that they committed against Turkish Cypriots. “Turkish Cypriots became, to all intents and purposes, stateless persons without any civil rights” (Oberling 126). They did not even have the right to freedom of religion, as demonstrated by the fact that the Greek National Guard seized the most important Muslim shrine on the island in 1965 and one year later declared it off-limits for the Turkish Cypriots (Oberling 132).
Such treatment played a significant role in the separating the Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots. As former British Prime Minister Sir Alec Douglas-Home once wrote, “I was convinced of the view that if Archbishop Makarios could not bring himself to treat the Turkish Cypriots as human beings he was inviting the invasion and partition of the island” (Stephen 24).
The role of the international community
Despite the inhumane treatment of the Turkish Cypriots by the Greek Cypriot administration, the reaction of the international community has not been sympathetic to the plight of the Turkish Cypriots. To the contrary, they have chosen instead to support the Makarios regime.
Galo Plaza of Ecuador […] minimized the suffering of the Turkish Cypriots at Kokkina, […] and his final report, issued in March 1965, displayed such a callous disregard for the welfare of the Turkish Cypriot community that the Turkish government promptly called for his resignation (Oberling 125).
Galo Plaza undermined principles that were vital to the 1960 Constitution, such as bizonality, and questioned the need for the Treaty of Guarantee. His views reflected the fact that he was a close associate of Makarios.
However, Galo Plaza was not the only person who fell under the influence of Makarios. The Greek Lobby in the United States had been advocating the idea of Enosis for years. They were so successful at it that by 1964, thirty-seven US Senators, thirty-six US Congressmen, and four US State Governors had made statements in favor of Enosis. Makarios was also working with the CIA, who sought to use British airfields to eavesdrop on communications in the Middle Eastern and Soviet-bloc countries (Oberling 124).
Unfortunately, the United Nations has not been much friendlier to the Turkish Cypriots than Galo Plaza and the United States has been. On March 4, 1964, UN Resolution 186 recognized the Greek Cypriot regime as the legitimate government of Cyprus, despite the fact that such recognition was in violation of the 1960 Cypriot Constitution. Sir Anthony Kershaw, Chairman of the UK House of Commons Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, explains:
It was decided that UN troops should be sent to preserve order, but the UN can only send troops if the legal government of the country concerned asks for them. The only organization which could in 1964 be called the Government of Cyprus was the administration headed by Makarios (Stephen 20).
Since then, only the Greek side has been recognized as representing the whole island of Cyprus, while the Turkish side has been ignored and neglected by the international community. Nevertheless, despite the major flaws associated with UN Resolution 186, the UN peacekeepers did restore some order. However, we are facing the consequences of this decision to this date. As Atakol wrote in his book:
Treating the Greek Cypriot administration as the legitimate representative of the whole island meant that the Greek Cypriots were able to go on with their lives as they did before and in the eyes of the world, they were the government of Cyprus. They did not face any negative consequences for the atrocities they had committed and continued to commit in Cyprus and therefore were in no real rush to settle the Cyprus dispute (53).
Thus, in the long run, the United Nations helped to create a situation on the island which punishes the victim and rewards the aggressor.
Crisis Continued
A power struggle began between Grivas and Makarios. Makarios sought to bring about Enosis through strangling the life out of the Turkish Cypriots in regards to economics and making them third class citizens, while Grivas sought to use brute force against the Turkish Cypriots. Starting in 1966, Makarios began to see Grivas as a direct threat. He “accused Grivas of trying to start a civil war and asked the Greek government to limit his powers” (Oberling 131). Obviously, this did not work. In 1967, Grivas tried to provoke the Turkish Cypriots into engaging in violence.
On April 8, a National Guard unit comprising two armored cars, a
Land-rover mounted with a heavy machine gun and a truckload of
Infantrymen stopped in front of the village of Mari, in the district of
Larnaca, and began firing. During the four hours of the barrage, at
least forty two-pounder shells and one thousand rounds of ammunition were fired by the armored cars alone (Oberling 135).
No Turkish Cypriot was permitted to leave Mari and food was only provided by the United Nations. The Turkish Cypriot people of Mari were facing the possibility of starving to death.
But as if things were not bad enough, the Grivas-supporters received additional encouragement for their terror when the junta took power in Greece on April 24, 1967. This junta was a major blow to the Makarios supporters, who were left-wing and against the anti-communist policies of the junta government. Indeed, the junta killed the dream of Makarios to achieve Enosis. From this day forward, Makarios would prefer independence to Enosis. However, Makarios was powerless to prevent Grivas, who was backed by the Greek Junta Government, from operating in Cyprus. Grivas would continue to try to provoke the Turkish Cypriots.
The two communities of the mixed Greek-Turkish village of Ayios Theodoros near Larnaca were segregated because of earlier outbreaks of fighting. In November Grivas sent Greek patrols through the Turkish sector, an operation that had not been carried out for the previous four years. The Turks objected, the UN were called in. […] The UN began negotiations with the Turks to allow the patrols in order to satisfy the demands of the Greeks. But while the talks were going on, Grivas surrounded the village with some 2,000 troops, and despite advice to the contrary by the UN, started the patrols again on November 14. [….] The same day, Ayios Theodoros was visited by Grivas himself, who inspected the Turkish quarter and warned the inhabitants that he would blast them into the ground if they dared make any challenge to the National Guard patrols. On the mourning of November 15, police patrols again went through the village. The Turks, seeing the trap Grivas had set, again ignored them. [….] Later reports said that Grivas, strutting, impatient little general, was furious with the Turks for not springing the trap by resisting the patrol. As the convoy reached the Turkish sector of the village, the armored cars opened up with two plunders. The 2,000 guardsmen, already positioned in the area, rushed forward and mortars and heavy artillery went into action against the Turks. As the hordes of Greeks rushed up, they seized the UN troops, watching helplessly, and forcibly disarmed them. Then they smashed the radio to prevent a call for reinforcements (Gibbons 265-6).
As if what happened in Ayios Theodoros was not bad enough, the all Turkish Cypriot village of Kophinou, which was two miles away from Ayios Theodoros, was attacked around the exact same time. For what reason were these villages attacked? Because Grivas had high-jacked control over the Greek Cypriot patrol and used them to act on his hatred of the Turkish Cypriot people.
Not surprisingly, on the mourning of November 16, 1967, the Turkish government warned that they would intervene militarily if the assault on the Turkish Cypriot people continued. The next day, the Turkish Parliament authorized the government to take military action against Cyprus and even Greece if necessary. By November 19, the Greek junta government had recalled Grivas. The Greek junta government was not in a position internationally where it would be advisable for them to go to war with Turkey.
The Turkish Cypriots learned something very important from this crisis, however. The status quo was not acceptable. They could no longer afford to live as a stateless people. So, on December 28, 1967, a Provisional Turkish Cypriot Administration was established.
With the formation of the Provisional Turkish Cypriot Administration, the separation of the two communities became complete. Hence, the splitting up of Cyprus into two ethnically-homogenous, self-governing states was not achieved by the Turkish armed intervention of 1974, as is commonly believed, but by Makarios and Grivas in the 1960’s (Oberling 145).
1974-----The Beginning of the End
The death of Grivas in January 1974 emboldened all of the Makarios supporters to take action against EOKA-B. On April 25, 1974, Makarios outlawed EOKA-B. On May 4, Makarios ordered all persons illegally possessing weapons to hand them over. He then proceeded to arrest two hundred suspected EOKA-B terrorists, attempted to reassert his control over the Greek Cypriot National Guard, and demanded that 650 Greek officers staffing the National Guard be sent back to Greece. These demands resulted in the end of Makarios’ career.
On July 15, 1974, Makarios was overthrown in a Greek-orchestrated coup. The Greek coup appointed Nicos Sampson as his replacement. This nightmare was the beginning of the end. Nicos Sampson’s first actions while in office were to murder ruthlessly innocent Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots. As Greek Cypriot MP Rina Katsellis wrote in her memoirs:
My God! Every one is frozen with fear….the old man who asked for the body of his son was shot on the spot. The tortures and executions at the central prison…..every one is frozen with horror. Nothing is sacred to these people, and they call themselves Greeks (Stephen 23)!
According to the Greek Cypriot priest, Papatsestos, the man who was in charge of the Greek Orthodox cemetery in Nicosia, 127 bodies were buried immediately after Nicos Sampson took power. On July 17 alone, seventy-seven people were buried in mass graves in Nicosia. He also claimed that there were massacres outside of the Kykko monastery, as well as in Paphos and Limassol (Oberling 159-160). The Washington Post quoted a Greek Cypriot university student, who had witnessed the bodies of Makarios supporters being dumped into mass graves (Gibbons 431). Bora Atun, a Famagusta architect and later mayor, described how Sampson treated the Greek Cypriot people:
We sat tight and watched the brutal fight for supremacy between Greeks developing into a massacre as the tanks pounded the police headquarters into submission. The crackle of machineguns and small arms fire filled the air, and we, the watchers, couldn’t believe what we were seeing, the Greeks were killing their own people (Gibbons 232).
As bad as Nicos Sampson was for Greek Cypriots, he was even worse for Turkish Cypriots.
He was a notorious killer who hated the Turks and was very well known in Cyprus for shooting his victims in the back. Nicos Sampson represented hatred, terrorism, and the Greek Cypriot Orthodox Church’s fanaticism (Atakol 72).
The Iphestos Plan clearly indicates that Nicos Sampson had genocidal intentions against the Turkish Cypriots.
It had been carefully plotted, meticulously worked out, with the sort of care that had gone into the Normandy landings in 1944, if you like. The moon landings even. There were plans, hundreds of plans, and thousands of type-written pages and maps, gone over and corrected, and altered and changed. Every command HQ, every unit, every man knew exactly what to do (Gibbons 415).
Under Nicos Sampson rule, Turkish Cypriots would suffer unspeakable tragedies. As a German tourist eye-witness to the violence said about the situation in Cyprus on the “Voice of Germany” radio station:
In the villages around Famagusta, the Greek National Guard have displayed unsurpassed examples of savagery. Entering Turkish homes, they ruthlessly rained bullets on women and children. They cut the throats of many Turks. Rounding up Turkish women, they raped them all….the human mind cannot comprehend the Greek butchery (Gibbons 462).
Another eye-witness, Yujel Ashan, spoke of the horrors that he faced from the Greek Cypriots as a Turkish Cypriot in Limassol:
We went through the Turkish park. The shell and mortar fire was unbelievable. The Greeks were blowing up the whole place. They had whole streets under fire and we couldn’t cross. There were dead and wounded everywhere. At one street, a close friend of mine, Atay Izanoglu, started to run across. I called to him to come back, then a mortar hit him and he was blown up. What was left of him landed on the roof of a parked car. We went to the Limassol Turkish Hospital. A wounded Turkish woman was lying in the yard, one leg threshing. Then she died. The Turkish quarter was overrun by four in the afternoon. We stayed in the hospital until midnight. Then the Greeks came for us (Gibbons 465).
During the night of July 20/21, Yujel Ashan and about 200 other men were taken from the Turkish Hospital to the football stadium. There, they would stay as hostages of the Greek Cypriots until the UN found them two days later. Time Magazine described the fate of the Limassol Turkish Cypriots:
Thousands of Turkish Cypriots were taken hostage, Turkish women were raped, children were shot in the street, and the Turkish quarter of Limassol was burnt down by the National Guard (Gibbons 472).
The plight of the Turkish Cypriots of Larnaca was not much different. 873 Turkish Cypriot men were detained in a school building that was made to accommodate 100 students. They were all forced to sleep on the bare concrete floors, did not have access to doctors and medicine, and were fed starvation rations (Oberling 174).
On July 23, 1974, the Washington Post reported, “In a Greek raid on a small Turkish village near Limassol, 36 out of a population of 200 were killed” (Stephen 25). On the exact same day, The Times reported:
Kazan Dervic, a Turkish Cypriot girl aged 15, said she had been staying with her uncle. The Greek Cypriot National Guard came into the Turkish sector and began shooting. She saw her uncle and other relatives taken away as prisoners. And later heard her uncle had been shot. “Before my uncle was taken away by the soldiers, he shouted to me to run away. I ran to the streets, and the soldiers were shooting all the time. I went into a house and I saw a woman being attacked by soldiers. They were raping her. Then they shot her in front of my eyes. I ran away again and Turkish men and women looked after me. They were escaping as well” (Stephen 25-26)
On July 24, 1974, France Soir reported, “The Greeks burned Turkish mosques and set fire to Turkish homes in the villages around Famagusta. Defensely Turkish villagers who have no weapons live in an atmosphere of terror and they evacuate their homes and go and live in tents in the forests. The Greeks actions are a shame to humanity” (Stephen 26).
Indeed, although Nicos Sampson’s presidency only lasted eight days, he caused quite a lot of damage on the island during that time period. In fact, Nicos Sampson declared himself in the Greek newspaper Eleftherotipia, on February 26, 1981, “Had Turkey not intervened I would not only have proclaimed Enosis but I would have annihilated the Turks in Cyprus” (Stephen 27). Indeed, the Turkish Intervention was very timely.
Partition of Cyprus
Between the years 1963 and 1974, 103 Turkish Cypriot villagers were destroyed and over 7,000 Turkish Cypriots lost their lives. Turkish Cypriots owe their existence today to the Turkish Intervention, which is now a national holiday for the Turkish Cypriots that is celebrated annually on July 20 called the Turkish Intervention Day.
As a result of Greek Cypriot policies aimed at the establishment of Enosis, the Turkish intervention of 1974, and a population exchange agreement between the Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots that took place in 1975, two peoples that once lived side-by-side now live separately. Turkish Cypriots live in Northern Cyprus, while Greek Cypriots live in Southern Cyprus. People on both sides suffered immense losses. Many innocents died and a large percentage of civilians became refugees. However, Greek Cypriots were able to recover from this much quicker than their Turkish Cypriots counterparts, for the Greek Cypriots had the international community behind them, while Turkish Cypriots only had Turkey.
On February 13, 1975, Turkish Cypriots formed the Turkish Federated State of Cyprus in the hopes of creating a bi-communal Federal Republic of Cyprus, based on the equality of the 1960 Cypriot Constitution. Turkish Cypriots drafted their constitution, put it to a referendum, and held parliamentary elections. The Turkish Cypriots requested that the Greek Cypriots form their own Greek Cypriot Federated State, so that the two federated states of Cyprus could unite as one. However, the Greek Cypriots did not want to do that. To make matters worse, since the United Nations had recognized the Greek side as representing all of Cyprus, the Greek Cypriots were using this to their advantage to leave the Turkish Cypriots in limbo, where they would be a stateless people who had no rights in the Republic of Cyprus while at the same time not having a country to call their own. The Greek Cypriot leadership effectively used the United Nations and the Non-Aligned Movement to silence Turkish Cypriot voices. The result was that the Turkish Cypriots gave up any hope of being able to live as equals in a united Cyprus and declared the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus to be an independent country on November 15, 1983.
The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus has all of the features of a nation state. They have their own government with complete control over their own domestic affairs, a unique national identity, make up the majority on a land with defined border, and have their own national flag. The only thing preventing the TRNC from being a country is the fact that it is only recognized as a country by Turkey. Every time a country tries to recognize the TRNC or even engage in direct trade with them, they get into trouble with Greeks and Greek Cypriots. For example, when Bangladesh tried to recognize the TRNC, all Bangladeshi foreign workers in Greece and Greek Cyprus faced expulsion. This is the primary reason why most countries have not recognized the TRNC, because the Greeks and Greek Cypriots are obsessed with forcing the Turkish Cypriots to live in isolation from the rest of the world.
Despite the stability that exists on Cyprus today based on the Turkish intervention, it would be deceiving to think that there is true peace in Cyprus. For instance, on October 7, 1995, the US State Department Report on Human Rights reported that a Turkish Cypriot farmer named Egmez required ten days of hospitalization due to being tortured by the Greek Cypriot police (Stephen 38). According to the Stephens report to the British Northern Cyprus Parliamentary group:
On April 11, 1996, several thousand young people, many on motorcycles who were organized to ride from Berlin, were encouraged to break into the UN buffer zone and confront the Turkish Cypriots at their border. They rampaged in the buffer zone, in defiance of the UN forces, setting fire to vegetation, brandishing knives, and throwing stones and Molotov c**ktails. They tore down the UN barbed-wire fence near Dherynia, and one was beaten to death in a violent struggle with Turkish Cypriots. Another was shot when he broke through the Turkish Cypriot line and tried to desecrate their flag (Stephens 38).
Even recently, on November 22, 2006, twenty Greek Cypriot students attacked a Turkish Cypriot student because they heard Greek Cypriot media reports that were inciting hatred.
There is only one mixed village left in Cyprus, Pile, which is located in the Intermediate Zone controlled by the UN peace-keeping forces. And even in this one mixed villages, the Greek Cypriot authorities fail to treat the Turkish Cypriots who live their like human beings. In Pile, Greek Cypriots are fined and jailed if they are caught buying any goods from Turkish Cypriots. Greek Cypriots also prevent foreign tourists from buying goods from Turkish Cypriot shops in Pile. Foreign tourists that have the chutzpah to do so have their souvenirs confiscated, and are fined by the Greek Cypriot authorities.
To this day, as the Greek Cypriot side gets richer and richer due to their vibrant tourism industry and now, European Union membership, while the Turkish Cypriots continue to lag behind. Since there are no direct flights to the TRNC, not as many tourists come to visit the TRNC and the ones that do mostly come from Turkey. You can not send mail or call the TRNC directly either. All international phone calls and mail has to go through Turkey, because of the international embargo. With the sole exception of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, Turkish Cypriots are denied a voice in all international organizations. This has been especially problematic at the United Nations and the European Union. Turkish Cypriot athletes can not compete with any non-Turkish Cypriot sports teams. Cultural activities involving the TRNC and foreign countries are rare. In fact, the Greek Cypriots went out of their way to try to prevent a cultural exchange program between San Diego State University and Eastern Mediterranean University. And there is no significant foreign investment in the TRNC with the sole exception of Turkey.
This whole environment where Turkish Cypriots are constantly being punished for doing nothing more than wanting equality has done nothing but confirm that Cyprus will be a partitioned island. In 2003, when the borders opened between the two sides, there was hope that perhaps the two Cypriot peoples could unite on the basis of equality. However, this hope was soon trampled upon when seventy-six percent of the Greek Cypriot population rejected the Annan Plan without coming up with any sort of counter peace proposal. Despite its flaws, the Annan Plan was the best peace proposal thus far and the lack of compromise on the behalf of the Greek Cypriots has done nothing more than strengthen the Turkish Cypriot desire to have their state recognized as an independent country. After the Greek Cypriots rejected the Annan Plan, EU Enlargement Commissioner Mr. Gunther Vergeugen stated, “Turkish Cypriots must not be punished because of this result…..now we have to end the isolation of the North. The Commission is ready to take various measures for that aim” (Denkas 19). Turkish Cypriots are still waiting for their isolation to end. Four generations of Turkish Cypriots have been yearning to be treated like human beings, while watching one promise being broken after another. They were betrayed by the United Nations, who illegally treated the Greek Cypriot regime as representing all of Cyprus. They were just recently betrayed by the European Union, who promised them membership if they voted for the Annan Plan. And they are still waiting for the big countries to recognize that they exist.
The future
I have no idea whether or not a solution will be found to the Cyprus conflict within the imminent future. Since the Greek Cypriots are now in the European Union, they have very little incentive to treat their Turkish Cypriot neighbors as equals and even less of an incentive to recognize their right to exist as a separate entity. Atakol summed up the situation pretty well when he stated:
The separation of the Turkish and Greek Cypriots for now is irreversible. It took over a hundred years and many incidents to force the Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots to separate. Maybe it should never have happened, but it did and the reality now is different to what it used to be. The clock can not be turned back. As for now, what the Turkish and Greek Cypriots need to do is to find ways and means of cooperating and living side by side as friends and good neighbors (120).
Until the Greek Cypriots accept the right of the Turkish Cypriots to economically and culturally develop themselves as human beings, there will be no solution to this conflict.
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