It is high time that the tragic realities of Cyprus are acknowledged and the responsibility for the violence and suffering imposed on the Turkish Cypriot people be shouldered by the true perpetrators

[rick murphy]

http://www.turkishembassy.com/II/O/Cyprus/Greek_Cypriot_state_terror_revealed.htm

Greek Cypriot state terror revealed

It is high time that the tragic realities of Cyprus are acknowledged
and the responsibility for the violence and suffering imposed on the
Turkish Cypriot people be shouldered by the true perpetrators

M. ERGÜN OLGUN - Undersecretary of the KKTC Presidency

A recent statement of an ex-EOKA-B (National Organization of Greek
Cypriot Fighters-B) member further reveals that attacks on Turkish
Cypriots during the years spanning 1963-74 were the result of a
systematic Greek Cypriot campaign. The following account given by a
living witness is an undeniable testament to the fact that atrocities
to which Turkish Cypriots were subjected were indeed a premeditated
Greek Cypriot policy.

In an interview published in Greek Cypriot daily Alithia, a 67-year-
old Greek Cypriot named Andreas Dimitriu confessed to being involved
in one of the massacres of 1974. Dimitriu is reported to have revealed
that, in accordance with an official order, he and a few other
volunteers helped the Greek Cypriot police gather Turkish Cypriot men
of the village of Taskent (Dohni) into a coffee shop. Dimitriu
continued to state that upon his arrival to the Turkish Cypriot
quarter of Taskent the day following the roundup, he found out that
Greek Cypriot soldiers had already attacked many Turkish Cypriots,
including the rape of a number of Turkish Cypriot women living in the
quarter. The newspaper reported that fearing further atrocities,
Turkish Cypriot men had gathered at the village school while the women
took collective refuge in a few area homes. According to Dimitriu, all
Turkish Cypriot men were taken away in a bus by armed soldiers that
night. Dimitriu went on to state that he learned a few days later from
a Turkish Cypriot from the village of Tatlisu (Mari) that all those
who had been rounded up had been killed.

The fate of the 89 Turkish Cypriot men from Taskent was later
discovered in the presence of the United Nations. Having been taken by
force from their homes on Aug. 14, 1974, they were brutally murdered
and buried in mass graves. Bearing the guilt of this inhuman massacre,
Dimitriu confessed: “These things happened in those days. What have we
done that is different from what was happening throughout the island
at those times? Whatever we did, we did in collaboration with the
legal forces of the state.” Dimitriu claimed also that the EOKA-B
members guarding the besieged Turkish Cypriots at Taskent did not know
that soldiers later took the Turkish Cypriots to their death.

When one rakes over the ashes of the past, many similar dreadful
stories surface. It is well documented that between the years of 1963
and 1974 thousands of Turkish Cypriots had been killed and wounded,
with entire populations of many Turkish Cypriot villages disappearing
overnight. Greek Cypriot researcher and filmmaker Antonis
Angastiniotis reported to the Greek Cypriot English-language daily
Cyprus Mail on Nov. 4, 2004 that:
“All Turkish Cypriots know what happened in the villages of Aloa
(Atlilar),Maratha (Murataga) and Sandalari (Sandallar). It is the
Greek Cypriots who do not. ... The Greek Cypriots of the neighboring
villages, along with army personnel, attacked these villages. They
shot the children, the mothers and any old people left in the villages.
… For me this became a nightmare because all these years I had been
convinced that everything we had done was right.”

Turkish daily Hürriyet reported on Nov. 1, 2004 that in his short film
about the massacres documenting the story of 126 people who were
killed, Antonis Angastiniotis had called on the Greek Cypriot people
to apologize to the Turkish Cypriot people, prosecute the culprits and
pay compensation to the families of the deceased.

As in the point noted above, it must be made clear that the future
cannot and should not be held prisoner to the agonies of the past. To
achieve this, a transformation is required that will facilitate
healing and the emergence of a clear conscience in order to build the
necessary mutual trust and confidence to move forward. As also
stressed by President Denktas, the fact that individuals are beginning
to speak about the atrocious realities of the past is a very positive
development. These admissions demonstrate beyond the shadow of a doubt
that the violence of the past was not the work of uncontrolled EOKA
terrorists, as has been claimed by the Greek Cypriot administration,
but an organized case of state terror administered by the Greek
Cypriot leaders themselves. It is also important to recognize that
this aggression continues even today in the form of all-encompassing
embargoes on the economic, cultural and political lives of the Turkish
Cypriot people. The present Greek Cypriot policy continues to be aimed
at preventing each and every effort geared toward the lifting of such
embargoes. This fact clearly demonstrates that the Greek Cypriot side
is still determined to utilize any and all means available to deprive
the Turkish Cypriots of their basic human rights.

It is high time that the tragic realities of Cyprus are acknowledged
and the responsibility for the violence and suffering imposed on the
Turkish Cypriot people be shouldered by its true perpetrators. Turkey
and the Turkish Cypriot people cannot be held responsible for the
consequences for a war Greece and its Greek Cypriot supporters started
in contravention to international law and with the aim of realizing a
constitutionally prohibited objective, enosis, or the union of Cyprus
with Greece.

In order to create the necessary atmosphere of confidence for a
sustainable and peaceful future on the island, it is essential that
Greek Cypriot leadership put an end to its campaign of reality
distortion and oppressive policies. Greek Cypriot leadership needs to
admit past atrocities, take responsibility for them and apologizes to
the Turkish Cypriot people. It is only then that the foundation for a
sustainable, negotiated settlement can be laid.