Cyprus-Forum.com

[cannedmoose]

[quote="Piratis] However if all reserves (almost all Cypriots males between 20 and 60) had guns in their homes, it wouldn't be too easy to capture a city with 50.000 soldiers in it. (I, and many others do keep their weapons and ammunition at home, but not everybody).[/quote]

It worries me that any reservists are permitted to keep their weapons at home. The civilian population has more to fear from widespread holding of automatic weapons than from any ficticious future Turkish assault.

Let's say this again... Cyprus has no need to fear a further invasion from the north. It is not in Turkey's interests to conduct such an operation, would certainly be opposed by every nation in the world (including the 'dastardly Brits and Yanks' and would be massively counter-productive.

The Turks aren't the idiots you seem to have them pinned down as. In my experience of looking at Turkish foreign-policy they are masters of realism and taking a carefully measured approach to military operations. They see no gain in Pyrrhic victories and a conquest of Cyprus would certainly be one.

I for one, feel no fear when staying in Cyprus (and before you say it, I'm not a tourist, my family live in Lefkosia and Pafos). However, weapons in the hands of all reservists... well that'd be something to worry about.

[insan]

Map & Graph: Military: Weapon holdings (per capita)



Definition: Per capita figures expressed per 1000000 population.


1. Israel 2.61 million per 1 million people
2. Dominica 1.03 million per 1 million people
3. Cyprus 895475.58 per 1 million people





Transparency International
Corruption Perceptions Index 2003


Nine out of ten developing countries urgently need practical support to fight corruption, highlights new index

The Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index 2003 charts levels of corruption in 133 countries. Seven out of ten countries score less than 5 out of a clean score of 10, while five out of ten developing countries score less than 3 out of 10



Cyprus is at number 27 with a 6.1 rate.

[pantelis]

A guerrilla war is what we should be preparing for. Buying tanks is going to be of little or no use.

In a crowd of 5,000 (4,999 unarmed people and one armed with a little pistol), it takes only one shot, by this armed idiot, at the opposite side (which has two armed idiots), to get dozens of innocent and unarmed people killed.
It happened in the early sixties and it can happen again, because we are stupid. When we know who these few idiots are when not only we don't lock them up, but we put guns and bullets in their hands, then we are as guilty and stupid as they are.

The British had been supplying Turkish Cypriot groups with arms since before the independence. Turkey was doing the same, before and after 1960 (Remember the ship Deniz). Greece was doing the same, with the Greek Cypriot side. All these parties wanted to "help" Cyprus survive and prosper as an independent country, right?

It is fifty years later now......, these idiots are still among us, boasting as super-patriots and as super-heroes, promising us victory and glory to the nation!
Unfortunately, some things never change, regardless of how much smarter or educated we think we have become.
Shame on us!

P.S. The arms-dealers offer more commissions with the sales of tanks, than with those of small arms and handguns. ($$$$$$$$$)
If you buy and distribute more guns to everyone though, the commissions add up. The trips (all expenses paid, including entertainment) become more attractive.........

[brother]

piratis's remarks have shocked me beyond belief, is it so that the gc community all have guns in their homes true? if so we the tc have lots to worry about like if tommorrow you wanted EOKA C could be formed and you could go on the same rampage you did before and kill and burn us.

Maybe we should start putting guns in our homes JUST IN CASE the idiots in the south decide to try their hand at genocide again.

[Saint Jimmy]

Returning to the original topic, the murder, here is what Makarios Drousiotis has to say about it. I have translated the article myself (or tried to, anyway), so excuse any discrepancies, if any.


Mehmet's sneeze and MIT's ghost



Ever since the murder of Elmas Guzelyrtlu, his wife and his daughter, became known, the media decided that the crime was the work of the MIT. On Sunday two newspapers (Phileleftheros and Haravgi) attributed, in their front page, the murder to MIT, neglecting to give the slightest of evidence justifying their headlines. Picking up on that, Papafilippou's channel (Antenna TV channel) and Hadjikosti's group (Sigma TV channel, Radio Proto station, Simerini newspaper and other publications) raised security issues. Antenna even ran a story on the insecurity of residents at Ayios Pavlos area. Speculations concerning MIT were exported to the north, were reproduced, and returned to the south as facts! In the same spirit, the minister of Justice did not exclude the possibility of MIT having a role in the crime and said that there is a 'hole' in the security, not only of Cyprus, but of the entire of Europe, because Guzelyurtlu's murderers crossed so easily from the north to the south.


First of all, no one is certain, as of yet, that the murderers did, in fact, come from the north. Already, his bodyguard is under suspicion, who, however, lived in the south. Still, is there no crime in the areas controlled fully by the government? Is there no corruption, underworld and criminal 'sorting out of affairs' in our society? Is this the first time something like this happens to us? Unless the media and the government are suggesting that this was a political crime, so the MIT scenarios do make sense.


We are not saying that nothing's wrong and we should not worry about anything. For as long as the turkish army is in Cyprus, the MIT will be present. But the solution to these problems is not the restriction of communication, as Papafilippou's channel suggests, who, along with his comrades, brought the borders of Turkey to Ayios Pavlos, but the solution of the Cyprus problem. Only when today's anomaly is eliminated and there exists a democratic government in Cyprus, controlling the entire island, will we be able to feel safer. Therefore, those who found an excuse from this murder to give the 'let them stay over there, and we'll live over here' message and believe that partition will set us free, are making the wrong assumption. Because, every time Mehmet sneezes in the north, we will be looking for MIT's ghost in the south.


Elmas Guzelyurtlu escaped the occupied area in 2000, when no Annan plans existed, no open gates, no EU decision about the Green Line. According to press information, this man was a member of the mafia in the north. Yet, he was able to become active in the south, open businesses, acquire a license to bottle water, create currency exchange offices and coexist with no problem whatsoever with Greek Cypriots. I am not saying that one should be miserable about that. But I am not certain to what extent a law-abiding Turkish Cypriot, who would be interested in conducting business in the south, would have been subject to the same treatment that Guzelyurtlu was. And if one should be afraid of something, it should not be of MIT's ghost, but the mere acknowledgment of the fact that only mafia men manage to coexist in this sorry island.

[boulio]

Maybe we should start putting guns in our homes JUST IN CASE the idiots in the south decide to try their hand at genocide again.

with stupid comments like this,its amazing how you can call someone else idiot.is it me or are there 40,000 highly trained occupation forces on the island?

[brother]

To match the 30000+ greek national guard but majority of tc do NOT have guns in their homes.

[brother]

Turkish Cypriot police arrest four suspects in murder of fugitive banker
AFP: 1/19/2005

NICOSIA, Jan 19 (AFP) - Turkish Cypriot police have arrested four Turks on suspicion of involvement in the murder of a fugitive banker and his family in the government-held south, the breakaway state's interior minister Ozkan Murat said Tuesday.

Murat declined to reveal the names of the four while the investigation continues, the Turkish Cypriot TAK news agency said.

The bodies of Elmaz Guzelyurtlu, 52, his wife Zerin, 50, and their 15-year-old daughter were found beside the main Larnaca-Nicosia motorway early Saturday.

They were all still wearing their pyjamas and had been shot at close range, prompting Greek Cypriot police to suggest they had been the victims of a mafia-style hit.

Guzelyurtlu had been living in the south since 2000 when he fled the north following the collapse of his Everest Bank with debts estimated by the Turkish media at 42 million dollars.

The failure of Everest and other banks left many Turkish Cypriots penniless and sparked an economic crisis and civil unrest in the breakway north.

Cyprus has been divided since 1974 when Turkish troops invaded its northern third following an Athens-engineered coup aimed at uniting the island with Greece.

The breakway Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus is recognised only by Ankara.