Cyprus-Forum.com

[Chimera]

GENIUS!

Pure genius Piratis.

[T_C]

GENIUS!

Pure genius Piratis.

Yea right!

[Nikitas]

Union with Greece is unacceptable to the Turkish Cypriots as we have often read on this forum. Partial or double union is unacceptable to Turkey because it would make Greece a middle eastern power (according to Bulent Ecevit quoted in UK press).

Well guys, partition is equally unacceptable to the other side. If you cannot see this then we are all going nowhere fast. If the bottom line of the discussion is the attitude "we took 37 per cent so fuck you" then you are leaving open the possibility of reclamation by force. Is that the way you are planning for your future on the island? Are you so sure that reclaiming will always be beyond the capabilities of the other side?

Can any Turkish Cypriot here assure me that this bizonal thing everyone is proposing will not degnerate into effective partition? The evidence lately does not inspire confidence, see the thousands of people from the north who come south to work and get social services etc, yet the people from the south cannot do anything economically meaningful in the north. The situation seems to corroborate those that say that the bizonal thing is nothing more than "masters of north, partners in the south" and that will not fly!

Finally, much is made of the killings of the past, especially in 1963. The British commander of the UN peace keeping force in February 1964 said the casualties were "about 100 on each side". It seems that each side gave as good as it got, which is the way things usually go in a civil war. Getting stuck on who started it and who had a worse score wont get us far.

And back to my favorite question to all- is anyone doing anything to attract back to the island the Cypriots of all communities who were forced by circumstances to leave after 1974? Many of you here are concerned for the plight of settlers in the event of a settlemens but not one seems to give a fuck about CYPRIOTS like me who were forced to stay away from the island for most of our working lives. Rather than spend so much effort and eventually money on these people do something so that CYPRIOTS will come back to live and work and invest on Cyprus. Of all the negatives of the Annan Plan this was the most revolting, and no one in Cyprus, from either side, noticed!

[erolz]

However the British who ruled us, gave you the power to fight against us. If the British had not encouraged you (in order to serve their own interests), then definitely your 18% minority would not dare to oppose the perfectly legitimate demand of the great majority of the Cypriot people.

We needed no encouragement to want to oppose you in your efforts to force our homeland, which we shared with you, to be given to Greece against our will. You, by deciding that you were not Cypriot as a people, or as a state but were in fact Greeks AND trying to impose that on US as well against our will made the conflict between us inevitable.

The fact is that you turned against us to fight against our legitimate rights ....

We turned against you because in trying to exercise your rights as a part of the Greek people, you specificaly excluded us ans sought to trample and ignore our rights as 'not a Greek people'.

and I hope that one day you will also understand why after centuries of foreign oppression we finally wanted liberation (and not some minimal "autonomy" like the Palestinians have today)

I can understand why you would liberation. What I can not understand is why you wanted to replace previous foreign rules with a new one - Greece, or why you think you had the right alone to make this decision, purely as Greek Cypriots when you shared the island with other who were not Greek Cypriots.

And after all these compromises you insist that what I want is for a purely GC run state where TCs have no say!!

I say you want a Greek Cypriot Cyprus where Greek Cypriots alone, if they want the same thing as Greek Cypriots, can impose a purely Greek future on Cyprus with no regard for the TC community they share the island with ans with the TC having no right to an effective say in such cases. Yes we can have some say but ONLY if our say does not block the will of the GREEK Cypriots as a community. If we do want something different to them because we are NOT greek then we and our rights to have an effectvie say in our own future can go to hell. I say you say this because this is what you say.

Erolz, you are saying that TCs and GCs should be able to achieve their separate "communal desires". This can only be achieved with partition, so stop hiding behind your finger as if we don't know what you want.

No I am saying that GC should not be able to force their communal, not cypriot but communal, desires on TC community aginst their will, just as the TC should not be able to force theirs on GC. I want a system where neither comunity can impose its will on the other with no regard for the other and you want one where GC as a community can impose their will on TC and TC can just lump it. And you call me partitionist!

Beyond that the various minorities, as part of their individual and minority rights, can pursuit all the desires they have, as long as those desires do not go against the rights of other citizens and the desires of the country as a whole.

Just as indivduals can not pursue their rights as indivduals with no regrard for other indivduals , then so to can no people persue their rights as a people with no regard for the rights of other peoples. It was YOU than that defined the Cypriots as not a single people with your pursuit of enosis but in fact as either a part of the Greek people or not part of this people.

Just look at the map. The whole world today should be co-owned with the former colonialists based on your "logic"!!

As I have said Piratis I can not be held responsible for you lack of comprehension. For the Brisish in Cyprus, Cyprus was not their homeland, Britain was.

I have already shown to you the UN resolution that clearly states that "integration into an independent state" is a legitimate option for a territory being decolonized.

That right does NOT apply to the 'territory'. It does NOT apply to a majority of all the indivduals in that territory. It applies to the 'peoples' in that territory and in the process of chosing to pursue a Greek nationalist future and not a (pan) Cypriot one premised on the notion that you were, always had been and always would be part of the Greek peoples, you empowered those NON Greek peoples in that territory to have the SAME rights as a people that you had and claimed as Greeks. Integration into an existing state is a legtimate option what is not legitimate is to insist that your right to that option as part of the Greek people overides and can trample ours as part of a different people - is NOT GREEK.

So there is no doubt that it was our right.

THere is no doubt it was your right, just as there is no doubt that you can legitimately excersie your rights (as an indivdual or a people) with no regard for others rights (as indivduals or as a different people).

However today we accepted as a compromise not to pursuit that right.

Absolute bollocks Piratis. It is EXACTLY because you refused to compromise , regardless of the fact that excerising your rights as members of the Greek people required destroying ours as members of some different people that we are in this mess today.

And what exactly is so unique? That Cyprus is multi-ethnic or that the different ethnic groups had a conflict with each other?

What is unique is that you sought to destroy Cyprus as a nation state and had its rule over from one foreign power to another in the name of a 'single unitary cypriot people' when at the core of WHY you wanted to do this was the concept that there was no such thing as a cypriot people, only members of Greek people who lives in Cyprus and a few others that were remants of brutal ottoman rule of Cyprus. That was and is unique. Following colonial rule by intergration into an existing state was extremely rare but what makes Cyprus unique in this regrad is your attempts to acheive this in the name of a single unitary cypriot people (for it was ONLY in this name did you have such a right) when the very premise for why you wanted to do this was there was no such thing as a single unitary sovreign cypriot people at all.

[erolz]

Well guys, partition is equally unacceptable to the other side. If you cannot see this then we are all going nowhere fast. If the bottom line of the discussion is the attitude "we took 37 per cent so fuck you" then you are leaving open the possibility of reclamation by force. Is that the way you are planning for your future on the island? Are you so sure that reclaiming will always be beyond the capabilities of the other side?

Of course partition is unacceptable to you and I absolutely do NOT say 'fuck you'. However when I am told in no uncertain terms that my community for who Cyprus is also our homeland, can have no right to an effective voice in decision like if my homeland will be given to Greece or not, then what I hear from your side is in essense 'fuck you'.

Can any Turkish Cypriot here assure me that this bizonal thing everyone is proposing will not degnerate into effective partition?

No more than you can assure me that this bizonal thing will not degenerate into a unitary thing with GC controling both zones / all of Cyprus as a community and TC having no effective say in the most fundamental decision about their shared homeland in the face of purely Greek GC desires.

The evidence lately does not inspire confidence, see the thousands of people from the north who come south to work and get social services etc, yet the people from the south cannot do anything economically meaningful in the north. The situation seems to corroborate those that say that the bizonal thing is nothing more than "masters of north, partners in the south" and that will not fly!

You can not claim and be recognised as the only legitimate and valid representative goverment of ALL cypriots, with all the many advatages that brings you as a community, without allowing CYPRIOTS to do the things you say above. However TC in the south remain far from the legal and consitutional postion of 'partners' in the south as you imply.

Finally, much is made of the killings of the past, especially in 1963. The British commander of the UN peace keeping force in February 1964 said the casualties were "about 100 on each side". It seems that each side gave as good as it got, which is the way things usually go in a civil war. Getting stuck on who started it and who had a worse score wont get us far.

I just 'love' this idea that when it comes to BLAME there is not even the merest hint of questioning the equality of communites relevant to their different numerical sizes. For blame the communites can only ever be regarded equally , with communites as the 'unit'. It is only when ones dares to talk about such equality at a political level that size all of a sudden becomes the only relevant factor.
The bottom line is that up to 74 the GC community bears the greater responsibility for what happened in Cyprus because it simply had more ability , by its own choices, to avoid the disasters that susbsequently befell Cyprus and so many innocent Cypriots thant the TC community did in this period.

And back to my favorite question to all- is anyone doing anything to attract back to the island the Cypriots of all communities who were forced by circumstances to leave after 1974?

Why after 74? Why not also seek to encourage return of those that were 'forced' to leave by the 'circumstance' of 63-68 or 68-74? Or even encourage the return of those 'forced' to leave by the circumstances of the replacing of ottoman rule with British rule?

[Piratis]

You know Erolz, it is really funny when somebody like you, who as far as I understand has Cypriot just one of his two parents, he was born and raised abroad, and he doesn't even speak Greek or Turkish, to come and tell to us that we are not Cypriots.

What we are today is what we have been in 1571 when the Turks first came to Cyprus, and for 3000 years before that. So who gave you the right to tell to us what we can and what we can not be? If you didn't like Cyprus and Cypriots for what they really are, then you should have gone from where you came from, not to try to change Cyprus by means of mass murders and ethnic cleansing.

Cyprus tried to revolt along with the rest of the Hellenic world in 1821 for independence from the Ottomans. Here is how you reacted to our desire for liberation:

During the Greek War of Independence in 1821, the Ottoman authorities feared that Greek Cypriots would rebel again. Archbishop Kyprianos, a powerful leader who worked to improve the education of Greek Cypriot children, was accused of plotting against the government. Kyprianos, his bishops, and hundreds of priests and important laymen were arrested and summarily hanged or decapitated on July 9, 1821.

So if you are saying that it was wrong for Cypriots to want liberation from foreign rule, I will ask you again: Was it wrong that the rest of the Greek islands and territories (e.g. Cretans, Peloponisians etc) that were under Ottoman rule and had some Turkish minority, became part of the Greek state? Surely if it was wrong for Cyprus, it should have been wrong for all other Greek islands and territories as well, many of which have been under Ottoman rule for much longer than Cyprus, and had Turkish minorities bigger than your 18%.
So, is it some kind of double standards against Cypriots in particular, or you actually advocate that the Greek state should have never been created because the Ottomans spread their kind around their empire?

About your rights: You can have the 100% of the rights that all other minorities have in all other countries. The 100% of your human rights, the 100% of your minority rights, and whatever other rights minorities get in all other countries of the world. Or maybe whats is good enough for the Greek minority in Turkey and the Turkish minority in Bulgaria is not good enough for the "children of God" the TCs?

Now can you accept that we also should have our human and democratic rights as they exist in every other country in the world, or you will insist in using some excuses to violate our rights?

That right does NOT apply to the 'territory'. It does NOT apply to a majority of all the indivduals in that territory. It applies to the 'peoples' in that territory and in the process of chosing to pursue a Greek nationalist future and not a (pan) Cypriot one premised on the notion that you were, always had been and always would be part of the Greek peoples, you empowered those NON Greek peoples in that territory to have the SAME rights as a people that you had and claimed as Greeks. Integration into an existing state is a legtimate option what is not legitimate is to insist that your right to that option as part of the Greek people overides and can trample ours as part of a different people - is NOT GREEK.

Can't you read? It explicitly states: "steps should be taken to transfer, unconditionally, all powers to the Trust and Non-Self-Governing Territories"
Transfer the power to the territories, and Cyprus is explicitly listed as one of the territories. Beyond that the territory could have several "peoples" but the power was not transfer to each people separately, but to the territory as a whole as it is explicitly stated. And after this was done, the people of the territory (as a whole) could decide the destiny of their territory and democratically choose any of the three legitimate options, one of which is "integration into an independent State".

What is unique is that you sought to destroy Cyprus as a nation state and had its rule over from one foreign power to another in the name of a 'single unitary cypriot people' when at the core of WHY you wanted to do this was the concept that there was no such thing as a cypriot people, only members of Greek people who lives in Cyprus and a few others that were remants of brutal ottoman rule of Cyprus. That was and is unique.

Unique? How about a few 100s of other Greek islands as an example? When the Ottoman empire ended, the Turks that were spread around the empire that were outside the borders of the newly founded Turkish state became minorities. The same happened with the British, Spanish, Portuguese and all the other colonialists that lost their colonies.

I asked you again: Should no part of the world be allowed its self determination because their former rulers had left a small minority of their own people within their territories? If it was like that then no territory should have been liberated from colonialism!

So stop acting like our Ottoman ruler, start showing respect to this island and its people, assume your human, minority and the 100% of the other rights you can have like in every other democratic country, show respect to the human and democratic rights of the rest Cypriots, feel free to do whatever you want within the limits of democracy, human rights and the law, and then we can finally have peace and stability.

Also, instead of going against every our effort for reconciliation and trying to antagonize us, maybe you should have appreciated the steps we are doing toward you, like abandoning our right for union with Greece, and proposing for you rights and privilages that no other minority has in the whole world, and respond with similar steps, or at least recognize our rights as the great majority of the population of this island.

If you don't do that, and you spit on proposals like having 1 TC president every 5, and you insist that what we want is a country "purely run by GCs" , then the message you are sending to us is that you will stop in nothing short of partition, and any of our efforts for a peaceful resolution and reconciliation will be in vain. This will force us to withdraw and kind of goodwill as it will seem to be useless. Is that what you want? (Maybe Papadopoulos knows something)

[halil]

Does it matter where you are born? İ DON'T CARE AT ALL !!!!!!!!

[Piratis]

Does it matter where you are born? İ DON'T CARE AT ALL !!!!!!!!

Does it matter what race you are?
Does it matter what religion you have?
Does it matter what color you are?
does it matter what your ethnic background is?

For me all those things do not matter at all.What matters is "Are you showing respect?". The people should stop being divided into categories for the purpose of being discriminated against.

Still, because I can recognize the mistrust that can exist, I proposed guaranteed proportional representation up to the highest level, so to be certain that everybody gets their fair share. Still not good enough for some that care only for their side, and they even put their desires above the basic human rights of others.

[erolz]

You know Erolz, it is really funny when somebody like you, who as far as I understand has Cypriot just one of his two parents, he was born and raised abroad, and he doesn't even speak Greek or Turkish,

Find it as amusing as you like but to try and use it as a means of ignoring what I am saying because that is easier than dealing with what I am saying is youe choice. Just for you information I am according to the RoC very much a Cypriot and as much a Cypriot as you are.

to come and tell to us that we are not Cypriots.

Again Piratis you ability to misunderstand and pervert what I am sayin is stunning in its immenseness. It is no I that is saying you are not a Cypriot people , it is you that is saying that. It is you that is saying you always were are and always will be a part of the Greek people, that happen to live in Cyprus. That is the problem and it YOUR problem.

So who gave you the right to tell to us what we can and what we can not be?

I am not telling you what you can and can not be , I am pointing out that YOU have no more right to tell us what we can or can not be than we do you.

If you didn't like Cyprus and Cypriots for what they really are, then you should have gone from where you came from, not to try to change Cyprus by means of mass murders and ethnic cleansing.

If you did not want to be Cypriots but actually wanted to be Greeks, then I could just as easily claim you should go to 'where you came from' , Greece, and leave Cyprus to those of us that DO and DID want to be Cypriots instead of trying to force us to become Greeks, by means that included murder and ethnic based violence along with illegality and deception when force proved insufficent for your needs.

So if you are saying that it was wrong for Cypriots to want liberation from foreign rule,

I am saying it was wrong for Cypriots who did not consider themselves a Cypriot people but in fact Greeks to try and impose foreign (Greek) rule on Cypriots who did not consider themselves Greek.

I will ask you again: Was it wrong that the rest of the Greek islands and territories (e.g. Cretans, Peloponisians etc) that were under Ottoman rule and had some Turkish minority, became part of the Greek state? Surely if it was wrong for Cyprus, it should have been wrong for all other Greek islands and territories as well, many of which have been under Ottoman rule for much longer than Cyprus, and had Turkish minorities bigger than your 18%.

Right or wrong the fact is that these other places status was settled by international agreement seperate from Cyprus. One can indeed make very strong arguments that what happend in places like Crete was indeed VERY wrong but it is besides the point. International agreement settled the status of these places. A seperate international agreement should have alos settled the status of Cyprus, but failed to do so because those who sighed the agreements then set about with the specific aim of undermining them in the pursuit of GREEK antionalist objectives , support by those Cypriots who did not THEMSELVES consider they were Cypriot but beleived they were Greek.

About your rights: You can have the 100% of the rights that all other minorities have in all other countries.

As a community we are not a minority in Cyprus. Cyprus is our homeland as it is yours. Minorities in other countries have a homeland somewhere else. TC have no other homeland than Cyprus.

The 100% of your human rights, the 100% of your minority rights, and whatever other rights minorities get in all other countries of the world. Or maybe whats is good enough for the Greek minority in Turkey and the Turkish minority in Bulgaria is not good enough for the "children of God" the TCs?

It is not good enough for me given you tried to force my homeland, without any regard for me as a cypriot, to not exist as a state at all, for me as a people TC OR Cypriot to not exist at, to futher the aims of the foreign state of Greece, because you did not beleive you are a Cypriot but because you beleive you are a Greek. In such circumstances the above is clearly not sufficent, not because I am a child of god but because I am a CYPRIOT.

Can't you read? It explicitly states: "steps should be taken to transfer, unconditionally, all powers to the Trust and Non-Self-Governing Territories"
Transfer the power to the territories, and Cyprus is explicitly listed as one of the territories. Beyond that the territory could have several "peoples" but the power was not transfer to each people separately, but to the territory as a whole as it is explicitly stated. And after this was done, the people of the territory (as a whole) could decide the destiny of their territory and democratically choose any of the three legitimate options, one of which is "integration into an independent State".

THe right to self determination does not apply to territories. It applies to 'peoples'. By defining yourselves as Greek to justify enosis you defined me as 'not Greek' or as a seperate 'peoples'. So yes you have your rights as part of the Greek people to self determination in the territory you lived in after colonial rule just as I have my rights as a seperate peoples in that same territory. In a sane world where our respective rights as seperate peoples clash, compromise would be the way forward. In your world where they clash, yours take priority over mine and that is the problem.

I asked you again: Should no part of the world be allowed its self determination ..

And I tell you again the right to self determination does not apply to 'parts' of the world. It applies to peoples. When you decided to peruse Greek objectives in Cyprus rather than Cypriot ones because in your head you are always have been and always will be Greek , you excluded me and in effect confirmed me as a seperate and different peoples to you, thus establishing my equal rights as a people to yours as a people.

So stop acting like our Ottoman ruler, start showing respect to this island and its people, assume your human, minority and the 100% of the other rights you can have like in every other democratic country, show respect to the human and democratic rights of the rest Cypriots, feel free to do whatever you want within the limits of democracy, human rights and the law, and then we can finally have peace and stability.

Start showing respect to the EU and its people, assume yopur human, minority and 100% of other rights you can have in a democratic union of states, show respect to the human and democratic rights of the rest of the EU members, feel free to do whatever you want within the limits of democracy, human rights and the law, then we can finally have stable EU where tint tails to not wag the huge dog of the rerst of the EU.

The RoC is not a minority member of the EU. The TC community as a community is not a minority member of the RoC as it was legaly drawn up and consituted and signed and agreed. I will no more accept our demotion to a 'minority' as a community within my own homeland as you would accept the RoC demotion to a 'minority' member within the EU.

Also, instead of going against every our effort for reconciliation and trying to antagonize us, maybe you should have appreciated the steps we are doing toward you, like abandoning our right for union with Greece,

Trying to treat me and my community like fools is not making efforts at reconcillation. You did NOT abandon your right to destroy cyprus as a state and the existance of a cypriot people as a people , regardless of the other peoples that shared CYprus with you as an act of reconcillation. What kind of fool do you take me for. It was your continued and relentless illegal and violent pusrsuit of this iherently anti Cypriot agenda even after you AGREED to abandon it that has got us to where we are today. That you now after 140+ years of fruitlessly trying to achieve this GREEK dream in Cyprus, you have deicded for now for your own reasons and in your own interest to not continue this GREEK agenda for Cyprus is NOT an act of reconcillation on your part at all.

and proposing for you rights and privilages that no other minority has in the whole world, and respond with similar steps, or at least recognize our rights as the great majority of the population of this island.

My community is not as a community merely an 'ethnic minority' in Cyprus my homeland. Not morally and not legally. You may as well tell me to stop insiting on my human rights because I am not as a TC human. You can tell me my community has no rights in its own shared homeland beyond those of a minority as many times as you like but I will not agree to this any more than I would agree I am not human. The TC community has legal rights in the RoC beyond those of a mere ethnic minority and it has them because it is more than a mere ethnic minority.

If you don't do that, and you spit on proposals like having 1 TC president every 5, and you insist that what we want is a country "purely run by GCs" , then the message you are sending to us is that you will stop in nothing short of partition, and any of our efforts for a peaceful resolution and reconciliation will be in vain. This will force us to withdraw and kind of goodwill as it will seem to be useless. Is that what you want? (Maybe Papadopoulos knows something)

I will accept any number of solutions that are far short of absolute partition , and as a community we have proven this. If refusing to accept that my community is and can be nothing more than a minority as a community within its own shared homeland , despite all the previous agreements that say otherwise, because YOU say this is so, is spitting on your proposals then spit I do.

As soon as you can accept the simple idea that as communites we SHARE this island , both equally as our homeland then a solution is easy to achieve. As long as you continue to maintain that your community can do what it likes in our SHARED homeland and impose that on us with no regard for our community and our wishes, we will be in deadlock.

[Nikitas]

For Erolz,

The encouragement to return for Cypriots who left can be as wide as you like. As long as the person is a true Cypriot and not a make believe one I have no problem how far back you want to stretch the definition. I mentioned 1974 because it is the most recent and well defined period of mass emigration from the island. And the people who left then seem to be less likely to come back.

Nikitas