Turkey found guilty of murder of Tassos Isaak and Solomos Solomou
Agamemnon
The European Court of Human Rights has found Turkey guilty of human
rights violations in two cases Greek Cypriots had brought before the
Court.
The Court unanimously ruled that Ankara is guilty of violating Article
2 (right to life) of the European Convention on Human Rights in respect
of the killing of Anastasios Isaak and Solomos Solomou.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMut7pF8eSc
The Court also ruled that Turkey is guilty of violating Article 2 in
respect of the failure to conduct an effective investigation into the
circumstances in which Anastasios Isaak and Solomos Solomou were
killed.
Under Article 41 (just satisfaction) of the Convention, the Court
awarded 80,000 euro to Anastasios Isaaks widow for pecuniary damage. In
respect of non-pecuniary damage, the Court awarded 35,000 euro each to
Anastasios Isaaks widow, his parents, and to Solomos Solomous father,
and also 15,000 euro to each of Anastasios Isaaks and Solomos Solomous
siblings. The applicants in both cases were also awarded 12,000 for
costs and expenses.
The two applications were filed to the Court by the families of Tasos
Isaak and Solomou Solomou, both of whom were murdered by Turkish or
Turkish Cypriots during demonstrations in 1996.
The 25-year-old Tasos Isaak was beaten to death on 11 August 1996 by a
Turkish mob, while taking part in an anti-occupation demonstration at
Dherynia, on the east of the island. The killing took place in the
UN-controlled buffer zone, which separates the northern Turkish
occupied north from the southern government controlled part of the
country.
Solomos Solomou, then aged 26, was killed on 14 August 1996, after
being shot three times by Turkish snipers, while trying to climb a pole
in order to remove a Turkish flag from its mast. The killing happened
after the funeral of his cousin Tassos Isaak.
The appeals to ECHR against Turkey were based on Articles 2 (right to
life), 8 (right to respect for private and family life) and 14
(prohibition of discrimination), whilst in the case of Solomou was also
based on Articles 1 (obligation to respect human rights) and 3
(prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment).
Turkey has continued to occupy 37 per cent of the north of the island
of Cyprus following its illegal invasion of 1974, and has defied
countless UN resolutions to withdraw its troops from the island.
http://www.enthymia.co.uk/Violate.htm
http://www.greece.org:8080/opencms/opencms/HEC_Projects/Genocide/en/2_Events/cyprus/
Mhitsos***
It took 12 years but finally justness. At least for Anastasios Isaak
and Solomos Solomou.
Won't bring them back to life anyway but at least something was done
Agamemnon
"Mhitsos***" <mhi...@lycos.com> wrote in message
news:5b51225e-69dc-47ba...@d77g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...
Justice will only be served when the people responsible for their murders
are all put in jail for life including the former Turkish prime minister and
foreign minister Tansu Ciller and Rauf Denktash.
Ankouri
mpsur...@gmail.com
that would make sense to Turkey would be to send a squad of Greek
commandos into Turkish territory carry out a few targeted killings
then destroy Grey Wolves terror cells that are known to set up arson
fires on Greek islands. (2007 Peloponnese one of them?)
Nashton
Dhladh, 8eleis na ginoume Tourkoi?
mpsur...@gmail.com
choro
> European style diplomacy does not work on societies that value terror.
Poly eksipnos eisai re eksipnovlaka!!!
So why did you burn down my house (after looting everything in it, I may
add) on New Year's Day 1964? I hadn't even held a shotgun in my hands in
my life. Can you give me a logical answer?
You stupid idiots should read de Berniere's Birds Without Wings.
But you and the likes of you are such oxymorons that nothing will
register with you.
Go on. Keep shooting yourselves in the foot!
Gamo thn mouni pou sou egeneisai! You think you can solve everything by
terror! Go on, read de Berniere's Birds Without Wings. Who knows, you
might even learn something.
--
choro
*****
Agamemnon
"choro" <ch...@tvco.net> wrote in message
news:oZg8k.13878$ft1....@newsfe14.ams2...
> mpsur...@gmail.com wrote:
>> European style diplomacy does not work on societies that value terror.
>
> Poly eksipnos eisai re eksipnovlaka!!!
>
> So why did you burn down my house (after looting everything in it, I may
He didn't.
> add) on New Year's Day 1964? I hadn't even held a shotgun in my hands in
> my life. Can you give me a logical answer?
Your house was burned down by the Turkish state sponsored terrorist
organisation, the TMT.
>
> You stupid idiots should read de Berniere's Birds Without Wings.
>
> But you and the likes of you are such oxymorons that nothing will register
> with you.
>
> Go on. Keep shooting yourselves in the foot!
>
> Gamo thn mouni pou sou egeneisai! You think you can solve everything by
> terror! Go on, read de Berniere's Birds Without Wings. Who knows, you
> might even learn something.
No, we'd rather read the verdict of the court.
European court blames Turkey for '96 Cyprus killings
Tue Jun 24, 2008 4:10pm BST
STRASBOURG, France, June 24 (Reuters) - Europe's human rights watchdog said
on Tuesday that Turkey was responsible for the deaths of two men on the
divided island of Cyprus more than a decade ago.
Turkey has denied any role in the killing of Greek Cypriot Anastasios Issac,
beaten to death at a protest in 1996, or Solomos Solomou, shot three days
later at Issac's funeral while he took down a Turkish flag.
The Council of Europe's court of human rights said in its ruling the two men
"were killed by agents of the Turkish state and force was not justified."
It ordered Turkey to pay 340,000 euros ($529,000) in damages to the victims'
families. Decisions by the court are non-binding but are passed on to member
states' foreign ministers, who in turn ask states to comply.
Issac was killed in a buffer zone separating the island's ethnic Turkish and
Greek communities, a barrier partly reopened in April after almost a half a
century.
Cyprus has been divided since Turkish forces invaded the Mediterranean
island in 1974 in response to a brief Greek-inspired coup, and the island's
division has been an obstacle to Turkish ambitions to join the European
Union. (Reporting by Gilbert Reilhac, writing by Brian Rohan, editing by Tim
Pearce)
choro
>
> "choro" <ch...@tvco.net> wrote in message
> news:oZg8k.13878$ft1....@newsfe14.ams2...
>> mpsur...@gmail.com wrote:
>>> European style diplomacy does not work on societies that value terror.
>>
>> Poly eksipnos eisai re eksipnovlaka!!!
>>
>> So why did you burn down my house (after looting everything in it, I may
>
> He didn't.
I never said he personally burned down my house. He wasn't even in his
father's bollocks on New Year's Day 1964.
>
>> add) on New Year's Day 1964? I hadn't even held a shotgun in my hands in
>> my life. Can you give me a logical answer?
>
> Your house was burned down by the Turkish state sponsored terrorist
> organisation, the TMT.
Oh yes?! Amazing how much insider knowledge you've got re Agamemnona!
>
>>
>> You stupid idiots should read de Berniere's Birds Without Wings.
>>
>> But you and the likes of you are such oxymorons that nothing will
>> register
>> with you.
>>
>> Go on. Keep shooting yourselves in the foot!
>>
>> Gamo thn mouni pou sou egeneisai! You think you can solve everything by
>> terror! Go on, read de Berniere's Birds Without Wings. Who knows, you
>> might even learn something.
>
> No, we'd rather read the verdict of the court.
What verdict of which court, re Gagamemnona? What have events in the
late 1990s got to do with the burning down of my house on 1/1/1964 over
30 years earlier?
Both Anastasios Issac and Solomos Solomou were fools, if you ask me.
Climbing up a flagpole to bring down the Turkish flag! Whatever next?
Even someone who had escaped from the loony bin would have known better
than to challenge the Turkish military like that. Do I feel sorry for
the man? Of course I do. If I were the Turkish officer in charge I would
have ordered a tranquilizer dartgun to be fired at his buttocks! Making
heroes out of such idiots does not earn you any kudos in my view.
--
choro
=====
> European court blames Turkey for '96 Cyprus killings
> Tue Jun 24, 2008 4:10pm BST
[....]
Agamemnon
Standing up for convicted murderers and state sponsored terrorists now Vasif
to add to your genocide denials.
choro
Are you talking of Greek genocide of Greeks at the end of WW2, re
Gagamemnona, during the famous or rather the infamous civil war? (W)
And who killed Interior Minister Yiortatzis, himself a murderer?!
How many Greek Cypriots were killed in cold blood by EOKA-B which staged
the coup against Makarios? And shouldn't you be upholding them rather
than these two escapees from the loony bin?
--
choro
=====
Agamemnon
I am talking about the Hellenic, Assyrian, and Armenian genocides, and the
Kurdish genocide.
>
> And who killed Interior Minister Yiortatzis, himself a murderer?!
>
> How many Greek Cypriots were killed in cold blood by EOKA-B which staged
EOKA-B was created by Henry Kissinger and the American CIA!
mpsur...@gmail.com
choro
> You are setting yourself up again for painful abuse by Panta.
Panta is an old Internet whore well known by anybody and everybody
around here. She is notorious for frigging herself around here. Trouble
is, she never cums!
--
choro
*****
gogu
news:DVn8k.49628$7m7....@newsfe30.ams2...
> mpsur...@gmail.com wrote:
>> You are setting yourself up again for painful abuse by Panta.
>
> Panta is an old Internet whore well known by anybody and everybody around
> here. She is notorious for frigging herself around here. Trouble is, she
> never cums!
Neither you, old, cancer suffering, impotent fart!
choro
> ? "choro" <ch...@tvco.net> ?????? ??? ??????
> news:DVn8k.49628$7m7....@newsfe30.ams2...
>> mpsur...@gmail.com wrote:
>>> You are setting yourself up again for painful abuse by Panta.
>>
>> Panta is an old Internet whore well known by anybody and everybody
>> around here. She is notorious for frigging herself around here.
>> Trouble is, she never cums!
>
> Neither you, old, cancer suffering, impotent fart!
Guess who we have here! Why, none other than the "trifero" (tender)
"tazzetiko" town-boy "hisself".
--
choro
*****
PS= Yiortatzis (in my earlier posting -- see below) should have been
spelt Yiorkatzis (with a k). Sorry about that.
gogu
> gogu wrote:
>> ? "choro" <ch...@tvco.net> ?????? ??? ??????
>> news:DVn8k.49628$7m7....@newsfe30.ams2...
>>> mpsur...@gmail.com wrote:
>>>> You are setting yourself up again for painful abuse by Panta.
>>>
>>> Panta is an old Internet whore well known by anybody and everybody
>>> around here. She is notorious for frigging herself around here. Trouble
>>> is, she never cums!
>> Neither you, old, cancer suffering, impotent fart!
> Guess who we have here! Why, none other than the "trifero" (tender)
> "tazzetiko" town-boy "hisself".
Buzz off bozo!
Nazi Turkish TROLLS and dogs are not allowed in scr;-)
PWN!
Panta Rhei
> gogu wrote:
>> ? "choro" <ch...@tvco.net> ?????? ??? ??????
>> news:DVn8k.49628$7m7....@newsfe30.ams2...
>>> mpsur...@gmail.com wrote:
>>>> You are setting yourself up again for painful abuse by Panta.
>>>
>>> Panta is an old Internet whore well known by anybody and everybody
>>> around here. She is notorious for frigging herself around here.
>>> Trouble is, she never cums!
>>
>> Neither you, old, cancer suffering, impotent fart!
>
> Guess who we have here! Why, none other than the "trifero" (tender)
> "tazzetiko" town-boy "hisself".
Still spreading your stench in these groups, you subnormal, slimy,
disgusting Turkish piece of shit?
Fuck off to your stinking Turkish newsgroup where you belong, you twisted,
primitive cunt!
F'up to SCT where you skunk you belong.
--
Slimy choro-sick: good at snow jobs, better at blow jobs.
Panta Rhei
<snip this disgusting lowlives usual blather>
Nashton
Is choro still going on with his nonsense about how "Greeks" burnt down
his house? I wonder if there was ever a trial, if witnesses were present
to account for what he alleges.
Or is this the usual hearsay and inflammatory rhetoric from a Turk
Cypriot that has everything to gain from lying and nothing to gain by
not lying, given his anonymity.
mpsur...@gmail.com
consult with the Greek authorities first.
choro
> ? "choro" <ch...@tvco.net> ?????? ??? ??????
> news:J7o8k.49633$7m7....@newsfe30.ams2...
>> gogu wrote:
>>> ? "choro" <ch...@tvco.net> ?????? ??? ??????
>>> news:DVn8k.49628$7m7....@newsfe30.ams2...
>>>> mpsur...@gmail.com wrote:
>>>>> You are setting yourself up again for painful abuse by Panta.
>>>>
>>>> Panta is an old Internet whore well known by anybody and everybody
>>>> around here. She is notorious for frigging herself around here.
>>>> Trouble is, she never cums!
>
>
>>> Neither you, old, cancer suffering, impotent fart!
>
>> Guess who we have here! Why, none other than the "trifero" (tender)
>> "tazzetiko" town-boy "hisself".
>
> Buzz off bozo!
> Nazi Turkish TROLLS and dogs are not allowed in scr;-)
> PWN!
Still calling anybody and everybody who gives you an inferiority complex
a "Nazi", you townie boi?
--
choro
*****
choro
The UN military unit in the area have recorded the looting and burning
down of my house on new year's day 1964 (rpt 1964). They even told me
that they had tried to use the garden hose to put the fire out but were
unsuccessful. Who needs witnesses when the burnt out shell of the house
was there and was filmed for British TV and who knows how many other TV
news broadcasts around the world? It is also recorded that Greek forces
were in control of that area at the time.
You still need proof? What more proof do you want?
Accept that you shot yourselves in the foot and let's be done with it.
Otherwise I'll continue to state the facts till the cows come home.
--
choro
*****
gogu
PROVED!
Period!
Get lost!
? "choro" <ch...@tvco.net> ?????? ??? ??????
news:4Fs8k.99928$8k.8...@newsfe18.ams2...
Panta Rhei
<snip the sick, endless blather by this Turkish piece of shit>
Panta Rhei
Still spreading your stench in these groups, you subnormal, slimy,
Panta Rhei
> YOU ARE JUST LYING!
> PROVED!
> Period!
> Get lost!
LOL Years ago he had seen some house burning in some Turkish propaganda TV
documentary about Cyprus and decided to declare forever that this was his
own house and that he will be able to expose Greek guilt in the Cyprus
conflict like that with his pathetic story about this house he had seen
burning on TV. LOL Well, he's one of those rotten Turks, so it's safe to
assume he really believes his own stories by now.
gogu
? "Panta Rhei" <kr...@test.invalid> ?????? ??? ??????
news:g3tpjg$qk1$2...@news.mixmin.net...
Agamemnon
By the TMT which was a Turkish state sponsored terrorist organistion.
> that they had tried to use the garden hose to put the fire out but were
> unsuccessful. Who needs witnesses when the burnt out shell of the house
> was there and was filmed for British TV and who knows how many other TV
> news broadcasts around the world? It is also recorded that Greek forces
> were in control of that area at the time.
Meaning that the Turks were attacking them and the property around them.
>
> You still need proof? What more proof do you want?
It is proof that the Turks burned down you house.
>
> Accept that you shot yourselves in the foot and let's be done with it.
> Otherwise I'll continue to state the facts till the cows come home.
This is like blaming the US for the Al-Qaeda attacks on 9/11 instead of
Al-Qaeda.
>
> --
> choro
> *****
♥ Seanie Loves AOL for sneering at GRIK crybabies ♥
> "choro" <ch...@tvco.net> wrote in message
Incitement to racial hatred by Argyros George Argyrou of St Michaels
ave NN1
From: "Agamemnon-Skopianosfaktis" <agamem...@hello.to.REMOVE-SPAM-
TRAP>
Subject: NATO must bomb Turkey - Kurds forced to evacuate villages in
Turkey
Date: 1999/03/30
Message-ID: <7dr2dc$kpa$4...@apple.news.easynet.net>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 460827326
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3110.3
X-Complaints-To: ab...@ukonline.net
X-Trace: apple.news.easynet.net 922815724 21290 195.40.200.178 (30 Mar
1999 17:42:04 GMT)
Organization: �� �� ��� ������� ���� � �����Mime-Version: 1.0
NNTP-Posting-Date: 30 Mar 1999 17:42:04 GMT
Newsgroups:
soc.culture.australian,soc.culture.british,soc.culture.canada,soc.culture.europe,soc.culture.greek,soc.culture.italian,soc.culture.kurdish,soc.culture.turkish,soc.culture.usa,soc.culture.yugoslavia
In the spirit NATO's New World Order it is Time to Bomb Turkey and
make it
incapable of taking any kind of military action against its own people
in
Kurdistan.
If we do not bomb Turkey into submission then NATO action in Kosovo is
a
Hypocritical SHAM.
---------
Kurds forced to evacuate village in Turkey-party
Wed, Jan 7, 1998
ANKARA, Jan 7 (Reuters) - Turkey's main Kurdish party said on
Wednesday
Turkish security forces had forced civilians to evacuate villages in
the
country's southeast for their alleged support for Kurdish separatist
guerrillas.
The Peoples' Democratic Party (HADEP) said in a statement a Turkish
military
officer in Diyarbakir province had placed a food embargo on Benin
village
late last month, forcing residents to move elsewhere. The statement
quoted
the officer as telling the villagers: "You will die of hunger along
with
your children. You either migrate or behave as we want." It said
troops
raided Benin on December 21, destroyed food stores and blocked further
food
supplies from entering the village, saying residents were aiding
Kurdistan
Workers Party (PKK) rebels.
Turkey has come under pressure from Europe to find a solution to its
Kurdish
problem after about 1,200 refugees, many of them Turkish Kurds, landed
on
the Italian coast last week.
Turkey says the migration is due to economic reasons alone and denies
any
persecution of its Kurds.
"The opposition of the authorities, who force people into starvation,
poverty and migration, to the...migration of Kurdish people shows they
are
not sincere," the HADEP statement said.
Turkey denies any rationing of food to Kurdish villages.
Over a thousand Turkish and Iraqi Kurds landed on the Italian coast in
boats
last week, sparking European fears that a Kurdish immigrant influx
could
spill over to them.
Turkey's top human rights activist Akin Birdal on Tuesday accused
authorities of causing a Kurdish migration crisis by using scorched-
earth
tactics against PKK guerrillas.
He said millions of Kurds inside Turkey had been uprooted in a
military
campaign in 1994 and 1995 to empty Kurdish villages and thus dry up
rebel
support and supplies.
More than 27,000 have died in the 13 years of conflict between Turkish
troops and the PKK who are fighting for self-rule in the mainly
Kurdish
southeast.
SavasTU
>
> http://web.ukonkline.co.uk/argyros.argyrou/turkey/Kurds.htm
how are the women bromley cabbie?
Panta Rhei
Ruttledgeâ„¢ from Bromley, London, a full-blown psychopath as you can see,
writes:
Above you can see the hilariously stupid racist Asshole Ruttledgeâ„¢ from
Bromley (after he got convicted by the UK police because of his excessive
racism, stalking, death threats, etc.) trying to accuse OTHERS of the racism
he had been practicing for about TEN YEARS on the Usenet, virtually around
the clock!
The hilarious idiot from Bromley found an article from the year 1999!!! LOL
that actually depicts Turkey's racism towards the Kurds, and tries to accuse
the Greek poster of that article of racism! Hahahahahahahaaaaa...!!!
Thanks for bringing to the attention of the public again Turkey's atrocities
towards the Kurds! Good job, dumb Turk lover! As a reward, your fat Turkish
wife might decide to do you a few times more yet with your cherished "huge
strap-on" LMAO!
F'up to alt.asshole.sean-ruttledge
--
Some say Asshole Ruttledgeâ„¢ was born like that, some claim he became
like that after getting fucked by a fat and ugly Turk, some believe he
became the complete, devastated psycho after everybody on Usenet beat
the living daylights out of him, for years. You decide! LOL
Spirit of Truth
> mpsur...@gmail.com wrote:
>> European style diplomacy does not work on societies that value terror.
>
> Poly eksipnos eisai re eksipnovlaka!!!
>
> So why did you burn down my house (after looting everything in it, I may
> my life. Can you give me a logical answer?
>
>
> But you and the likes of you are such oxymorons that nothing will register
> with you.
>
> Go on. Keep shooting yourselves in the foot!
>
> Gamo thn mouni pou sou egeneisai! You think you can solve everything by
> terror! Go on, read de Berniere's Birds Without Wings. Who knows, you
> might even learn something.
> choro
> *****
A couple of points:
For fair use only:
MEDIA BYPASS
Vol. 8, #11, November 2000
pp. 28-31
Torturing Cypriot History
Hostile Environment of Yesteryear Still Remembered
by Matthew J. Stowell
As an American with no Cypriot or Greek ancestry, I understand how Cyprus'
complex and, to most Americans, obscure past can make many easy prey to the
disinformation fed our press by the Turkish government.
A common propaganda bite used by the Turkish state to legitimize its 1974
invasion of Cyprus is that "The Greek Cypriots then unleashed a campaign of
extermination and eviction that killed or wounded thousands and drove a
frightening percentage of Turkish Cypriots into besieged enclaves.."
(Insight Magazine, "Fences Might Be the Right Thing for Multiethnic Nation
of Cyprus", Ahmet Erdengiz, Feb. 7).
This claim has been refuted by findings of impartial sources such as the UN
Secretary General's report No. S/5950, para. 142 which confirms that as a
result of the brief but turbulent period of hostilities between Greek and
Turkish-Cypriot extremists from December 21, 1963 to June 8, 1964, a total
of 43 Greek Cypriots and 232 Turkish Cypriots are missing and presumed dead.
Clearly, this was no "campaign of extermination".
Moreover, these deaths were a direct result of Britain's documented policy
of arming Turkish separatists and encouraging Greco-Turkish conflict to
facilitate its control over Cyprus.
While extremists of both communities are to blame for intercommunal
violence, fueled by British attempts to prevent this overwhelmingly Greek
island-nation from achieving its self-determination, history is clear that
Turkish extremists initiated the cycle of violence that claimed victims on
both sides.
In June of 1958, a bomb explosion outside the information office of the
Turkish Consulate-- later shown to have been planted by Turkish extremists
(the "TMT")--set off the first intercommunal clashes on Cyprus. As noted by
British author Christopher Hitchens in his highly acclaimed work on Cyprus,
Hostage to History, the self-proclaimed president of Cyprus' occupation
regime, Rauf Denktash, admitted in a 1984 interview that it was a Turkish
Cypriot friend who planted the bomb. As a result, "Turkish Cypriots
promptly burned out a neighboring district of Greek shops and homes, in what
was to be the first Greek-Turkish physical confrontation on the island. A
curfew was imposed, and Greek guerrillas [were] blamed [by British
authorities] for the bomb as they were for everything else."
Next the British released from jail eight Greek Cypriot EOKA fighters,
forcing them to walk through the Turkish village of Guenyeli, where they
were quickly set upon and murdered. Thus began two months of violence by
extremists on both sides, killing 56 Greeks and 53 Turks. Tellingly, the
British arrested 2,000 Greeks, but only 60 Turks.
In addition to the hostile environment that was created by combatants on
both sides, there was a second factor that led to the polarization of both
communities: with a view toward partition, the Turks withdrew from
predominantly Greek areas and evicted Greeks from areas where Turks were in
the majority. In a single week over 600 families, two-thirds of them Greek,
left their homes, and many Turks who left Greek areas did so under intense
pressure from Turkish separatists.
Turkish Cypriots who favored compromise or a close relationship between the
two ethnic communities were targets of TMT violence. Turks caught smoking
Greek cigarettes or visiting Greek shops were beaten, and Turkish gangs
forced some Turkish Cypriots to resign from Greek Cypriot trade unions. In
Limassol, a Turkish Cypriot owner of a restaurant popular with Greeks was
threatened and later murdered by the TMT. Two progressive-thinking,
London-educated Turkish barristers who spoke against partition were killed
outright by these same Turkish gangs.
Turkish extremists forced several thousand Turkish peasants to abandon their
farms and animals and move into an overcrowded Turkish enclave in Nicosia.
"Thus the aim of partition, camouflaged by Turkish propaganda as
'federation,' was relentlessly pursued regardless of loss of human life and
the human misery created. However, this so-called 'first phase' of the
invasion of Cyprus by Turkey only partly succeeded, since well over half of
its brethren refused to obey instructions to abandon their homes for the
predetermined enclaves" (The Making of Modern Cyprus, Panteli). On December
23, 1963, Turkish gangs also moved through the Armenian quarter of Nicosia
and forced the inhabitants at gunpoint to leave their houses, shops, church,
school and clubs to make room for more Turks.
This forced population transfer continues in occupied Cyprus today. Since
1974, Turkey has relocated over 125,000 mainland Turks to northern Cyprus.
In this clearly illegal, Soviet-style effort to alter the demographics of
northern Cyprus, one which the UN has condemned, Turkey has displaced not
only the few remaining Greek Cypriots but also Turkish Cypriots, who are
often treated as second-class citizens and denied the rights and privileges
of the alien settlers from Turkey.
As a result, a diminishing number of Cyprus' indigenous Turks remain.
Turkey has made it easy for them to obtain visas to emigrate, and they have
left en masse, mostly for Britain and Turkey as well as other Mideast
countries; some have even escaped through the Green Line and returned to the
Greek south.
Apologists for Turkey's invasion disingenuously omit the imperative fact
that it is the Greek Cypriot community that bore the overwhelming brunt of
violence on Cyprus. As a result of Turkey's 1974 invasion, fittingly
codenamed "Operation Attila", Turkish troops perpetrated more than 6,000
killings, widespread rape, torture, the systematic obliteration of cultural
property including the destruction of churches, and the ethnic cleansing of
200,000 Greek Cypriots--making them refugees in their own country and
bringing twenty-six years of heartbreak for the families of more than 1,500
missing persons.
Placing Turkey's invasion of neighboring Cyprus in a contemporary context,
four times as many Greek Cypriots were killed by Turkish troops as Albanians
were killed in Kosovo prior to NATO's intervention--and in one-sixth the
time frame. Yet Serbia was bombed back to the Stone Age, while Turkey's
occupation of Cyprus continues to enjoy tacit US support.
In numerous applications to the European Human Rights Commission, Turkey was
found guilty of widespread violations of human rights in Cyprus. Although
the European Court of Human Rights has ordered the Turkish government to
compensate Greek Cypriot Titina Loizidou for the loss of her property seized
during its invasion, Turkey remains the only member of the 40-nation Council
of Europe to refuse compliance with a compensation order from its human
rights court -- a breach that could lead to Turkey's expulsion from the
Council.
The 1963 constitution forced on the Cypriots by the British in a
take-it-or-leave-it standoff--with the alternative being partition--was
known as "the most rigid, inflexible, and probably the most complicated in
the world" (S.A. DeSmith, The New Commonwealth and Its Constituents). The
president, a Greek Cypriot, and the vice president, a Turkish Cypriot, could
each veto legislation. Despite comprising only 18% of the population,
Turkish Cypriots were granted three of the ten seats in the Council of
Ministers and thirty percent of the deputy positions in the House of
Representatives. A Turkish Cypriot was to be made minister of defense,
foreign affairs and finance. Turkish Cypriots were allotted 30% of the
civil service jobs and 40% of the command positions in the Army. Any change
to the constitution required a two-thirds majority of representatives from
both communities. Even the most rudimentary of governmental functions
became impracticable--for example the Turkish Cypriot leadership's voting
against income and other taxes had placed the government in danger of
bankruptcy. In short, the government was hog-tied; Cyprus' very undoing was
written into its own constitution.
Other assertions by the Turkish government, that "President Makarios craved
union with Greece and the subjugation of Turkish Cypriots . and proposed
amendments to the constitution to achieve these objectives" (Insight
Magazine, Feb. 7), are patently false. By the time this ill-conceived
marriage of a government and its unworkable constitution was imposed on
Cyprus, Makarios was opposed to union with Greece. He sought complete
independence for Cyprus and a unified sovereign state that protected the
rights of all Cypriots, both Greek and Turkish.
It was precisely because Makarios opposed union with Greece that Greek
extremists shelled the presidential palace and twice attempted to
assassinate him. The amendments he proposed to the constitution were
designed to make the government (which has been described by legal experts
as "the first in the world to be denied majority rule by its own
constitution") somewhat workable and to reflect a closer approximation of
the true ratio of Greeks to Turks in Cyprus. Makarios submitted these
proposals to the Vice President, a Turkish Cypriot, who did not respond.
Instead, the Turkish government, reflecting its dominant role in separatist
efforts, answered for him: Turkey rejected the proposals out of hand and
forbade the Turkish Cypriots from even discussing them. Shortly thereafter,
the Turkish Cypriots abandoned the government completely.
Turkey's 1974 assault on Cyprus is commonly referred to by many in the media
as a "landing", a "dispatch of troops" or as anything other than what it
was: a brutal invasion. Turkey also misleadingly argues that the invasion
was authorized by the Treaty of Guarantee. The Treaty of Guarantee provided
that one of the guarantor powers (England, Greece or Turkey) could intervene
in an emergency but only in order to restore the country to its original
(unified) state, and certainly not to partition, ethnically cleanse or
occupy it. And under the U.S.-Turkey Agreement of July 1947, American
consent was required for the use of military force by Turkey because
virtually all of Turkey's military equipment, weapons, tanks and fighter
jets, was supplied by the U.S. This consent was never given. On the very
day of the invasion, July 20, 1974, the United Nations Security Council
condemned Turkey for its aggression, demanding that Turkey withdraw all
troops and allow the displaced Greek Cypriots to return to their confiscated
homes.
There have been at least three further UN resolutions since 1974 demanding
the same, but Turkey has ignored them all. This is why the "Turkish
Republic of Northern Cyprus," the TRNC, is not recognized by any country in
the world except for Turkey and has no legitimate international standing.
The continuing insistence on partition by Turkey, using the protection of
the Turkish-Cypriot community as a pretext, is merely part of Turkey's
long-held expansionist plans for the island. According to Professor John L.
Scherer, in Blocking the Sun: The Cyprus Conflict, "Since the 1950s, [Turkey
's] plan had been to turn northern Cyprus into a Turkish-run province.
Ankara needed an excuse to intervene, and that was provided by George Grivas
and EOKA fighters. If there had been no EOKA, however, the Turks and
Turkish Cypriots would have found another pretext. They would have planted
their own bombs in Turkish-Cypriot areas and blamed the Greek Cypriots in
order to justify the Turkish invasion."
Attempts are also made to minimize the 80% Greek majority's cultural and
historical claim to the island through assertions like: "Turkish and Greek
Cypriots occupied the island for centuries under a succession of sovereigns
before the Republic of Cyprus was established in 1960" (Insight Magazine,
Feb. 7).
Because of its geo-strategic position in the Mediterranean and the bounty of
its natural resources, Cyprus has been invaded and intermittently ruled over
by many: Phoenicians, Assyrians, Persians, Romans, English, Lusignans,
Genoese, Marmelukes, Venetians, Ottomans, and again the English. The
Ottomans invaded in 1571 and controlled Cyprus for three hundred years (its
longest period of cultural stagnation), but through all of its decidedly
civilized history it has remained a Greek nation in language, architecture,
art, music, culture and spirit.
As noted by Christopher Hitchens in Hostage to History, "the complexity and
variety of Cypriot history cannot efface, any more than could its numerous
owners and rulers, one striking fact. The island has been, since the Bronze
Age, unmistakably Greek." Out of 7,000 years of history, the Turks have
been in Cyprus a mere 300 years. Based on this and an 18% minority, Turkey'
s military establishment, with a seemingly truncated memory, believes that
Cyprus should be part of Turkey.
Most troubling for the future of Cyprus is the apartheid-like creed,
parroted by some journalists covering the issue, that Greek Cypriots and
Turkish Cypriots will never be able to live in harmony (although they did so
for three hundred years), therefore let's maintain the Attila Line that has
been imposed on both communities by the Turkish military and forget about
finding a solution. It is no accident that this is identical to the
argument used by Turkish extremists in the 1950s to promote the idea of
partition-one separate state for Turkish Cypriots, another for Greeks.
It is this very separatist objective-engineered by Turkey's ruling military
establishment to achieve its goal of taksim, or the partition of Cyprus (and
further exacerbated by Britain, America and the Greek junta's disastrous
intrigues in Cyprus)-that initiated the cycle of violence by extremists of
both communities in 1963 after centuries of peaceful coexistence.
While Turkey has refused to allow Greek Cypriot refugees to return to their
homes in the occupied north, the Cypriot Government has kept Turkish-Cypriot
homes in trust for them in the hope that they will one day return when
Cyprus is united.
Situated in the UN-controlled buffer-zone, Pyla serves as an example of what
can be achieved when the divisive effect of Turkey's occupation regime is
removed. It is one of the few villages on the island where Greek and
Turkish Cypriots still live together peacefully as they had done for
centuries.
A recent mobilization by Turkish Cypriots to find a blood donor for a
6-year-old Greek Cypriot boy with leukemia further underscores the
speciousness of the myth, propagated for the very purpose of keeping Cyprus
divided, that both communities are somehow inherently incapable of living
together.
Another disinformation bite promoted by the Turkish government and its
spindoctors here is that the Turkish-occupied part of the island functions
as a democracy.
As confirmed by the State Department's most recent Human Rights Report and
by independent human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and
Human Rights Watch, Turkey is among the worst human rights violators on
earth, where torture and extra-judicial killings remain a part of its
political landscape. For the fifth consecutive year the Turkish state has
led the world in imprisoned journalists ahead of China and Syria, and has
recently admitted to using death squads to kill as many as 14,000 people
since the 1980's.
As the TRNC is in reality a puppet administration that answers directly to
the Turkish state, the same authoritarian repression that afflicts Turkey
also pervades occupied Cyprus. Turkish Cypriots critical of Denktash's
occupation regime have asked that their identities be kept confidential, as
one economics professor did, for example, when interviewed by the BBC ("the
fact that she didn't want to be identified was significant", BBC News,
9/1/98).
The assassination of prominent Turkish Cypriot journalist Kutlu Adali in
1996 is instructive--his assassination is widely attributed to extremists
working on behalf of the Turkish state. According to Professor Claire
Palley, a British constitutional law expert, Adali was murdered six days
after the European Human Rights Commission declared Cyprus' application
against Turkey admissible and "after it became obvious he would have been a
witness" in the case. Adali's writings had been extensively quoted in the
application, and Palley stated that Adali "proved Turkey's colonisation of
Cyprus . . . [and its] compelling Turkish Cypriots to emigrate"
Anyone who wants to believe that the TRNC is a democracy will soon be
disappointed upon visiting occupied Cyprus, and taking note of the
square-helmeted, goose-stepping soldiers wielding machine guns on every
corner. Cross the Green Line in Nicosia into the Turkish sector and try to
photograph any building or videotape any street scene and you will soon find
yourself camera-less, in jail, or both.
That apologists of the occupation regime are under the misperception that
this is how a democracy should function is indeed part of the problem. And,
much like the situation with the former Berlin Wall, now there are Turkish
Cypriots from the north escaping to the south to return to their old
neighborhoods among the Greeks; their homes, as guaranteed by Cypriot law,
still waiting for them.
As was recently reported by Gregory Copley of The International Strategic
Studies Association in Washington DC, "[t]he Turkish Cypriots' standard of
living has declined compared with that of their Greek Cypriot neighbors
since 1974. Turkish Cypriots, with 37 percent of the land and the best
agricultural and tourist areas of the island, earn only 30 percent of the
average wage of the Greek Cypriots."
European Foreign Affairs Commissioner Hans van den Broek protested that the
Turkish Cypriot community was being "victimized" and withheld from "a better
and more prosperous future" as a result of Turkey's insistence on an
occupied and divided Cyprus.
An increasing number of Turkish Cypriots have realized that the future of a
prosperous Cyprus is a united one without Turkish troops. Rejecting the
hard-line partitionist stand of the occupation regime, in October 1999 an
influential bloc of 23 Turkish-Cypriot trade unions and professional
organizations appealed directly to visiting U.S. envoy Alfred Moses to work
for the reunification of war-divided Cyprus on the basis of UN Security
Council resolutions that call for a unified Cyprus and a withdrawal of
occupation troops.
The TRNC's occupation regime has trapped Turkish Cypriots in a political and
economic black hole, all the while importing Turks from the depths of
Anatolia to wrest control from Cyprus' native Turkish population. As a
result, as many as half of all Turkish-Cypriots have fled their own homeland
in search of greater economic and political freedom elsewhere.
In conclusion, it should be emphasized that there were extremists on both
sides of the Cyprus conflict, while power-brokering by colonial-minded
Britain and interventionist violence by junta-era Greece clearly added fuel
to the Cypriot powder keg. But insiders know that it was Turkish designs
for partition that ultimately caused the breakdown in government and the
terrible tragedy of 1974, the repercussions of which all indigenous
Cypriots, both Greek and Turk, are still suffering today.
Cyprus is Berlin all over again, with one difference. Rather than taking
the side of civilian-controlled governments, pluralistic societies, and
democratic values, our own government has instead decided to ratify
invasion, occupation, and transnational aggression in order to sustain an
alliance of increasingly questionable value.
_______
About the author: Matthew J. Stowell is an Associate with the American
Hellenic Media Project (AHMP), a non-profit think-tank created to address
bias in the media and encourage independent, ethical and responsible
journalism. Commentaries, letters and opinion/editorials by AHMP have been
published in The Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune, The Christian Science
Monitor, The Dallas Morning News, The Detroit News, The Economist, The
Financial Times, Forbes Global, The Miami Herald, The New York Post, The New
York Times, The Toronto Sun, USA Today, The Village Voice, The Wall Street
Journal, The Washington Post, The Washington Times and World Press Review.
A shorter version of this article was published in the form of a letter to
the editor of Insight Magazine.
_________________
American Hellenic Media Project
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New York, NY 10028-0008
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www.ahmp.org
The American Hellenic Media Project is a non-profit organization created to
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Spirit of Truth
choro
Oh no. Not that Stowell article again, Spirit of Truth. This must be the
1000th time you have posted it here. Is this your standby weapon in your
armoury? Tell me, how much does he get per posting? Or was he paid in a
lump sum?
--
choro
*****