Cyprus-Forum.com

[Piratis]

I would be equaly skeptical of such 'remebering' of human rights by any community which had sat and watched human rights being perptrated against others and done nothing then suddenly 'remebering' human rights when they became victims.

Yes, and all I am saying is that this is exactly what your community did also. Did you care about our human rights during the ottoman rule? You remembered about human rights when your human rights were abused, only to forget about them again after 74.
This is why I am telling you can not by cynical about this, because you are not any better than us, and actually if you take into consideration the time and magnitude of human right violations you are much worst.

Maybe the GCs of that time were cynical like you and told the TCs "oh, you remembered your human rights now? Why you didn't remember about our human rights before?" obviously such an attitude was as wrong then as it is today. If what you want now is to abuse our human rights because we abused yours (because you abused ours ...), then sooner or later we will abuse yours because you abused ours (...) and this circle of events will never end. Is this the right way to go?

There can be no excuse for human rights violations today and in the future. Being cynical about it is a form of supporting this violations and it is wrong also.

[erolz]

There can be no excuse for human rights violations today and in the future. Being cynical about it is a form of supporting this violations and it is wrong also.

This is absoloutely pointless Piratis - because you are determined to see in my statements things that are just not there. For the third or fourth time I have NEVER said I was cynicial about the concept of human rights or that past abuses excuse current and future ones. What I am saying is I have a degree of skeptisim about how _genuine_ such expression of the importance of human rights are.

If an evil totalitarian dictator that abused his people for years with no concern for human rights is deposed and then starts complaining about human rights abuses - would you have no skeptisim about how -genuine- those stated concerns for human rights were?

-sigh-

[Piratis]

If an evil totalitarian dictator that abused his people for years with no concern for human rights is deposed and then starts complaining about human rights abuses - would you have no skeptisim about how -genuine- those stated concerns for human rights were?

And you compare the evil totalitarian dictator with us????

It is really ironic when you use the short period of time that your human rights were abused to present Greek Cypriots as some kind of monsters, when you are a Turk, with a history that is based on human right abuses and almost no contribution to world civilization and culture. (its hard to find another race to compete with you on this).

Before you try to judge our intentions and make such stupid comparisons, why don't you judge your actions today? Almost all TCs, including you probably, are currently using stolen property directly or indirectly. I hope you know what that makes you.

If there was somebody that should be cynic, this should be me, but it seems you took advantage of my effort to keep the tension low.

[MicAtCyp]

The difference between GC and TC in this case is that (for whatever reason) the TC are not shouting and lecturing and wailing about human rights in the way GC have been since 74.

Tell us Erol which that whatever reason is? Is it perhaps that they themselves are supporters of our human rights violations, and they do benefit from it?

Regarding the fact that there was violation of the human rights of the TCs before 1974 I would say that we should not forget that there was violation of the human rights of the GCs as well. And those violations were coming from various sources.Organised GC or TC paramilitary and terrorist groups, individual small groups of fanatics,nationalists and extremists, and even from single individuals aiming at self profit. And they were not always against the other community.There were attrocities of TCs and GCs against their own people. But yes the ones who suffered more severely from this situation are the TCs (propably 4-5 scales higher than the average GC). The question raised by Erol is why no GC raised his voice or did anything to protect the TCs. And in this respect why should any TC care about their human rights today, when they themselves did not care about the human rights of the TCS?

First of all it is not true that the GCs did not care about the human rights of the TCs in the past. We have hundreds of examples where GCs protected their TC neighbours and co-villages, risking their own lives. What is true is that these gestures did not evolve into any organised massive group that would provide support and protection to the TCs on a community to community basis, because within the communities there were terrorists who would not allow that.

There were also a lots of other reasons like the following:
1)The society and democracy was not mature.The Cypriots just formed a Republic after almost 800 years of slavery.(Cyprus ever since 1191 was under foreign rule). People only knew how to win using guns and fear, had no clue about the power of the law, the democratic discussion etc.
2)the attrocities were NOT coming from a single source and there were attrocities from the TCs against the GCs as well, although on a lesser scale.
3)The Police could not intervene as most TC villages had their own paramilitary groups and police controlling the area.
4)In most cases the ones doing the crimes were unknown and they were hiding their faces with masks.
5)The TC leadership realised that the attrocities against the TCs served their goals fine.So the only help they provided to TCs was to invite them into the enclaves "for protection" whereas the real aim was to prepare the ground for taksim.
6)Although there could be serious legal charges and claims of the TC community in a group effort, or even with the help of Turkey, at International fora (like the UN) the TC lawyers were not allowed by Turkey to proceed to legal measures, and were just doing what Ankara was telling them. The excuse was that the UN were already present here and they were just looking.But that was just an excuse....All the TC leaders were oblidged to follow what Ankara was ordering, thus the TCs could not organise into a group that would claim and their rights in a legal way.
7)The media was at an infant stage and events were not widely known.A slaughtering event at a village could be heard in Nicosia as "troubles". Bayrak radio (the only mass media of the TCs) was just broadcasting 15-20 minutes everyday in Greek and was just consuming its time to threat and scare the GCs. And in most cases even that media was weeks late in figuring out "the news".
Slowly slowly the separation of the communities was almost complete, the GCs would rarely even see a TC around, and what the average GC would hear from now and then was that there were some "troubles" with the Turks. The average GC born after 1960 in Nicosia would not even see a TC even once in his life!!!

[insan]

You well said brother MicAtCyp!

I agree with your all above statements... As an older Cypriot than many of us who involving with the Cyprus problem and witnessed so many incidents took place in those eras, can you tell us a bit about the era 1967 to 1971; the times when intercommunal strife had stopped and everything were turning to normal until the secret return of Grivas and formation of Eoka-B.

And besides; 1971-73 period, when Eoka-B had made several attmepts to assasinate Makarios and some GC leftists who were at the key positions of the anti-Enosist struggle, i.e resistance fighters.

Although the Eoka-Bs targets were Makarios and leftists; there should had been anxiety and concerns amongst TCs regarding the actions of Eoka-B. It was obvious that their aim was Enosis and all TCs were against it. Can we say that after they finished their jobs with Makarios and leftists, their next target would be the TC community?

[erolz]

And you compare the evil totalitarian dictator with us????

No I used an extreme example to try and make my point - which you totaly refused to accept desoite making the very same point yourself in another thread!

It is really ironic when you use the short period of time that your human rights were abused to present Greek Cypriots as some kind of monsters, when you are a Turk, with a history that is based on human right abuses and almost no contribution to world civilization and culture. (its hard to find another race to compete with you on this).

Once again you take what I have said and twist and manipulate it to your own requirments. I did not take GC human rights abuses to portray GC as (relative) monsters. I used that fact to explain why I hold a degree of skeptisim about GC protestation re human rights. I am not a TURK I am both British and Turkish Cypriot. Your views on Turks, their history and lack of contribution to history simply expose your true feelings and bigotry and reninforce my concerns about living as a minority (political and numerical) amongst people with such views and reinforce my skeptisim about your _true_ comittment to human rights.

Before you try to judge our intentions and make such stupid comparisons, why don't you judge your actions today? Almost all TCs, including you probably, are currently using stolen property directly or indirectly. I hope you know what that makes you.

Have I said I would not understand GC skeptisim at TC 'lectures' on human rights based on the fact of the situation today? No I have not. I would accept and understand such skeptism. Is it REALLY so hard for you to understand my skeptisim about how genuine some GC protestations of the primacy of human rights are?

If there was somebody that should be cynic, this should be me, but it seems you took advantage of my effort to keep the tension low.

If this is your idea of trying to keep tension low then I fear how you would behave if you were not making such efforts![/quote]

[erolz]

Tell us Erol which that whatever reason is? Is it perhaps that they themselves are supporters of our human rights violations, and they do benefit from it?

Have I tried to say GC have no valid reason to be skeptical (to a degree) of TC protesations and lectures concerning human rights? No I have not. I have simply explained why I have (to a degree) a similar skeptisim.

First of all it is not true that the GCs did not care about the human rights of the TCs in the past. We have hundreds of examples where GCs protected their TC neighbours and co-villages, risking their own lives. What is true is that these gestures did not evolve into any organised massive group that would provide support and protection to the TCs on a community to community basis, because within the communities there were terrorists who would not allow that.

I see a big difference between individuals behaving in humanitarian ways to others, that embody the spirit of the concept of human rights and 'lecturing' people on the concpet of human rights. My comments, which I now wish I had never even made given the response to them, was about how skeptical I am of GC lectures re human rights. If those lectures come from GC that in the past demostrated real indivdual comittment to such ideals via examples like you give above, then my skeptisim is very low indeed. If however those lectures some from GC that either commited human rights abuses themselves, or where aware of such and did nothing about them at that time (as is true for many GC that lecture on human rights today in my opinion) then my skeptism is high. Is that REALLY so hard to understand???

Really if we are going to end up in such a state of 'non understanding' over such a simple idea then whay hope is there for us ? Yours depressed - Erol

[MicAtCyp]

If however those lectures some from GC that either commited human rights abuses themselves, or where aware of such and did nothing about them at that time (as is true for many GC that lecture on human rights today in my opinion) then my skeptism is high.

Are you aware of violations of the human rights of the GCs and the TCs today Erol? if yes what you yourself are doing other than nothing?What is the source of all those violations?

So after all this waste of time for the expression of your skeptisism Erol, tell us what do you conclude about a solution to the Cyprus problem in relation to respect of human rights? I am really anxious to hear just for once a straight answer from you.

[MicAtCyp]

Well Insan kardesim i am not that much older than you :- ) i mean you were 7 years old in 1974 i was 17. I will be quite honest with you. I was not in a possition to understand anything of what was going on then, and moreover there was no detailed information available. Like I said the media was almost non existent. There were no telephones in fact among my neighborhood of about 20 families only my rich uncle had a telephone when I was 12. By 1974 I think only 1/3 of the houses had one, whereas half the people did not even have a refrigerator in the house or a washing machine. We were living at Ayios Dometios (very near to where the cars "gate" now is). There were no TCs around and if my father were not a merchant having TC clients around Cyprus I would have never in my life met a TC. In fact all my cousins and classmates in that area never met a TC either. I think we bought a TV only when I was 12, and RIK was the only available channel broadcasting 2-3 hours every night.The news presenter on the TV was just some sort of newspaper reader.No videos or live coverage or anything.Just reading. There was only one radio broadcasting station, with 1 or 2 news bulletins a day most of them with no details. So the only source of information were these and some newspapers. And like every teenager I had no real love for reading "difficult" and "meaningless" texts in newspapers. In fact the only one I remember reading the newspaper in my family was my grandpa, and sometimes my mother. We were hearing about the Eoka-b the Ethnico Metopo and other organisations, we were hearing about the intecommunal discussions about the everlasting Cyprus problem, we were hearing about Enosis with "mother Greece"-in my mind I was thinking that we were some kind of kids taken away from their mommy -, we were hearing that Eoka B was planting bombs at Police stations and bombs at other places and things like that, once every year we were hearing of the various assissanation attempts Vs Makarios. We were hearing that Makarios created the "efedriko" a paramilitary group fighting against Eoka-b, we were hearing about Grivas being an enemy of Makarios, we were hearing that Lyssarides had other fighters, and among all these we were also sometimes hearing that there were "troubles" with the Turks. All these were just headlines in my mind, and nothing more.If someone would ask me what all these were doing I would answer that they plant bombs, if someone would ask me how the TCs are living I would answer they live OK in the TC sector of Nicosia, but I hear they cause troubles every now and then. If he would further ask me what kind of troubles the TCs are causing I would answer "troubles man, don't you know what troubles are".I had to grow much older and do a systematic reasearch of my own to learn the truth and the details of the past, the same way you are doing now (although I admit your research is much much deeper and I admire you for that). The only advantage I have over you is that many events did pass through my ears when I was young, so when reading them I can judge how true they are.For example you posted some correspondence of Denktash with Clerides in 1972(?) indicating that they almost had agreed on everything.Well thats true, I do remember that a couple of years before the 74 the people and the news were saying "in a few days they will sign the solution" But I really never knew the details until I read your posting...., and moreover I never knew why they did not sign anything in the end.
Well after I did my research and reading years later (at my early 30s) I discovered with great surprise that the Eokas were not just liberators, they were cold blood murderers as well, of innocent British, GC leftists and TCs! And I discovered the suffering of the TCs during that period and the suffering of GCs at certain villages.

Now all these may look strange to young friends in this forum, and sometimes when I see young people today having such a broad political understanding, I ask myself, was I so naive when I was their age? Well my friends imagine you live in a suburb in Nicosia.No telephone in the house, no internet, only ONE channel black and white TV broadcasting a few hours at night, one boring radio station, 5-6 newspapers writing in "katharevousa" (note for the TCs - a form of intellectual Greek language close to the ancient greek-really difficult for the average person to understand), a lot of groups planting bombs during the night when everybody is asleep, what would you understand or know of the world you were living in?

Although the Eoka-Bs targets were Makarios and leftists; there should had been anxiety and concerns amongst TCs regarding the actions of Eoka-B. It was obvious that their aim was Enosis and all TCs were against it. Can we say that after they finished their jobs with Makarios and leftists, their next target would be the TC community?

".

The Eoka-bs aim was Enosis. You know they all took an oath in churches "before God and humans for Enosis and nothing but Enosis".That’s very serious for someone who is religious! If they would succeed killing Makarios they would wait for sometime and then declare Enosis.Thats what would happen after the coup actually if there was no invasion.The question is would they in the meantime until they declared Enosis attack the TCs? My answer is No. When Sampson got in power his first words were "this is an internal affair among the GCs. The TCs have nothing to fear". So even the lunatic Sampson was afraid to touch the TCs because he knew what would happen. And it is a fact that during the 7 days Sampson was in power not even one TC was hurt. The logical question is, since the TCs were organised, had Generals from Turkey in charge of every village or enclave, how would anyone declare Enosis after some time had passed, without at the same time causing war between Greece and Turkey or an invasion of Turkey in Cyprus?
There is no reasonable answer to this question and that is why the GCs consider the coup an act of insanity that would lead nowhere other that to what it lead, i.e the Invasion....

Selamlar
Mihalis.

[Bananiot]

I have been away for a while on account of holiday time and did not manage to read all posts especially some of them that are really long and tedious. Regarding the last post, I would like to add that Makarios also took an oath for enosis and he wasn't just religious, he came after ... god.

That is probably the main reason for him proposing the constitution changes in 1963. He was being accused as the purjurer of Phaneromeni (church where the oath was taken) by the die-hard enosis supporters and he could not live with the accusation.

Even when he signed the London-Zurich agreements he had no stomach for the independent state he got. He was an enosis fanatic and he never believed or tried to make the RoC work. He was megalomaniac and he thought he could find a way to trick the "stupid turks" into falling into the enosis trap. That was when he got AKEL to begin to sing in unison for enosis. AKEL displeased many of its TC members, including Kavazoglu, who had fallen from grace. Of course now they are only interested in exploiting the sacrifice of this true patriot.

Makarios did realise late in his life that enosis was impossible and a forlone hope and this is what led to Grivas and his henchmen take action against him. Of course, AKEL followed the directives of Makarios and also became, once again, a strong proponent of independence.

Under such a changing environment even the progressive TC started becoming skeptical of the targets of the GC community and I believe that we made it easy for Denktash and his likes to draw support from the TC community.

In conclusion, I could say that the antiques of the GC leadership had alienated the TC community and mounting a common struggle was now unthinkable since the targets were not clearly defined. Even AKEL, the only party that the TC community could trust, exhibited such diversity in its stated policy that lost much of its creditability.

This sad story continues today and up to this moment the GC side has done nothing to convince the TC side that we are interested in an agreed solution. Nobody could bet that Papadopoulos is interested in a federal solution to the cyprob and probably his closest ally on this is Christofias, despite the rhetorics.

Anyway, I am convinced and I said this many times, that the cyprob has been solved. Cyprus was partitioned on April 24 and I pray I am wrong on this. However, it will be extremely unlike that we get another crack.