From the The Parliament:
The mayor of the Cypriot “ghost town” of Famagusta has called on the EU to press for the removal of Turkish troops from the area.
Speaking in parliament on Wednesday, Alexis Galanos, a Greek Cypriot, said that negotiations on Turkish membership of the EU should be made conditional on such a move.
He said, “If Turkish troops are withdrawn, that would represent a step closer to finding a solution to the whole Cyprus problem.”
The coastal town, once one of the most modern and developed on the divided island, has been occupied by Turkish troops since the Turkish invasion in 1974. It is fenced off, empty and now widely known as a ghost town.
It is one of nine municipalities which have maintained their legal status but have been temporarily relocated to the government-controlled areas until the reunification of Cyprus.
The mayor and municipal council of these municipalities are elected by the refugees who used to live in them before 1974.
Read the full article here.
Showing posts with label War Crime. Show all posts
Showing posts with label War Crime. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Monday, July 07, 2008
Lobbying Arm for the Turkish Government
I have received this email from the Cyprus Action Network of America and will post it verbatim:
cana@cyprusactionnetwork.org
reply-to cana@cyprusactionnetwork.org
date Mon, Jul 7, 2008 at 1:55 AM
subject WASHINGTON POST COVERS TURKISH EMBASSY CORRUPTION AND MANIPULATION
WASHINGTON POST COVERS TURKISH EMBASSY CORRUPTION AND MANIPULATION
For Immediate Release: July 7, 2008
Contact: Nikolaos Taneris, New York, Tel. 1-917-699-9935
NEW YORK—The Washington Post reported in its Saturday edition on the ongoing corruption and manipulation of American scholarship by the Turkish government, Susan Kinzie’s article “Board Members Resign to Protest Chair’s Ousting Leader in Georgetown-Based Agency Encouraged Scholars to Research Mass Killing of Armenians” details the most recent scandal surrounding the ITS (Institute of Turkish Studies) founded with a $3 million dollar grant paid directly by the Turkish government.
Beginning in the 1980s, in response to the Congressional arms embargo of the 1970s following Turkey’s criminal military invasion of Cyprus, the Turkish Embassy in Washington DC, under the leadership of then Turkish Ambassador Sukru Elekdag, initiated a far flung campaign in America to whitewash Turkish criminal history. The practically non-existent ,apathetic community of Turks in America, was reorganized with the help of millions of dollars of funding-- buying high priced advisors to set up such Cyprus Invasion denying entities as the Washington DC-Based “American Friends of Turkey” the ATC (American Turkish Council) recently reorganized under the new name “Turkish Coalition of America” ,the ATAA (Assembly of Turkish American Associations) and the New York-New Jersey-Based FTAA (Federation of Turkish American Associations) whose job was to organize a “Turkish-American” parade to counter the decades long parade by Greek-Americans on New York’s Fifth Avenue.
The Parade like the funding of Turkish ‘academic’ institutes was set up for the dual purposes of Genocide denial and Cyprus Invasion denial. According to the Turkish Daily News ( May 21, 2007) “In the 1980s the parade was a platform where Turkish Americans tried to draw the attention of American public to some of Turkey's international conflicts such as those with Armenia and Greek Cyprus…The first official Turkish Day Parade in the city was held on April 23 1980. Those who attended that parade remember vividly that there were only two flags in the 150 people cortege. The FTAA could not get a permit for the parade in 1981 either. In 1982 however, with support from Ankara FTAA was able to get the permit to organize first official Turkish Day Parade. It was decided that the parade would take place on the weekend that is closest to May 19th,” (NOTE: May 19th is the day in 1919 that Turk leader Mustafa Kemal landed in Pontus to perpetrate the Pontian Genocide, In Turkey this is celebrated as “Turkish liberation day”)
Greek-American scholar Speros Vryonis wrote the first detailed academic study of Turkish government manipulation of American scholarship in his monumental work “The Turkish State and History: Clio Meets the Grey Wolf.” Vryonis documents the ITS (Institute of Turkish Studies) attempt to manipulate American scholarship, and in turn US public opinion, with the granting of monies to Genocide deniers, activities that question the objectivity of this group and its role in essentially lobbying on behalf of the Turkish Embassy.
Turkey has also bankrolled the establishment of endowed Chairs of Turkish Studies at various American universities, at least one such Chair, the endowed Chair of Turkish Studies at Portland State University , paid for directly by funding from the Turkish Embassy, is involved in actively producing Cyprus Invasion denial literature, and is home to the “Cyprus Peace Initiative”. The “Cyprus Peace Initiative” actively lobbied for the discredited, so-called Annan Plan, which made provisions that call for Turkish military to remain and intervene over all of Cyprus.
The Washington Post article follows on the heels of a long list of credible news outlets that have reported on Turkey’s false historical revisionism and the Turkish Embassy’s morally bankrupt attempts to present a distorted image of Turkey’s true face to the American public.
(Article is reproduced for Fair Use and Educational Purposes)
Board Members Resign to Protest Chair's Ousting
Leader in Georgetown-Based Agency Encouraged Scholars to Research Mass Killing of Armenians
By Susan Kinzie
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, July 5, 2008; B05
The issue that has roiled U.S.-Turkish relations in recent months -- how to characterize the mass killing of Armenians in 1915 -- has set off a dispute over politics and academic freedom at an institute housed at Georgetown University.
Several board members of the Institute of Turkish Studies have resigned this summer, protesting the ouster of a board chairman who wrote that scholars should research, rather than avoid, what he characterized as an Armenian genocide.
Within weeks of writing about the matter in late 2006, Binghamton University professor Donald Quataert resigned from the board of governors, saying the Turkish ambassador to the United States told him he had angered some political leaders in Ankara and that they had threatened to revoke the institute's funding.
After a prominent association of Middle Eastern scholars learned about it, they wrote a letter in May to the institute, the Turkish prime minister and other leaders asking that Quataert be reinstated and money for the institute be put in an irrevocable trust to avoid political influence.
The ambassador of the Republic of Turkey, H.E. Nabi Sensoy, denied that he had any role in Quataert's resignation. In a written statement, he said that claims that he urged Quataert to leave are unfounded and misleading.
The dispute shows the tensions between money and scholarship, and the impact language can have on historical understanding.
Hundreds of thousands of Armenians were killed when the Ottoman Empire collapsed after World War I. Armenians and Turks bitterly disagree over whether it was a campaign of genocide, or a civil war in which many Turks were also killed.
In the fall, when Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) championed a bill that would characterize the events of 1915 to 1917 as genocide, the Bush administration fought it and several former defense secretaries warned that Turkish leaders would limit U.S. access to a military base needed for the war in Iraq.
The Turkish studies institute, founded in 1983, is independent from Georgetown University, but Executive Director David Cuthell teaches a course there in exchange for space on campus.
Julie Green Bataille, a university spokeswoman, wrote in an e-mail, "we will review this matter consistent with the importance of academic freedom and the fact that the institute is independently funded and governed."
The institute's funding, a $3 million grant, is entirely from Turkey.
A few years ago, Quataert said, members of the board checked on what they thought was an irrevocable blind trust "and to our surprise it turned out to be a gift that could be revoked by the Turkish government."
Quataert, a professor of history, said the institute has funded good scholarship without political influence. The selection of which studies to support is done by a committee of academics on the associate board, he said, and approved by the board, which includes business and political leaders. Never once, he said, did he think a grant application was judged on anything other than its academic merits.
He also noted that during his time there, no one applied for grants that would have been controversial in Turkey. Asked if any of the research characterized the events as genocide, Cuthell said, "My gut is no. It's that third rail."
Roger Smith, professor emeritus of government at the College of William and Mary, questioned whether the nonprofit institute deserves its tax-exempt status if there is political influence -- and whether it is an undeclared lobbying arm for the Turkish government.
Cuthell said none of the institute's critics ever bothered to check the truth of Quataert's account with the institute: It does not lobby, Cuthell said, and "the allegations of academic freedom simply don't hold up."
The controversy began quietly in late 2006 with a review of historian Donald Bloxham's book, "The Great Game of Genocide." Quataert wrote that the slaughter of Armenians has been the elephant in the room of Ottoman studies. Despite his belief that the term "genocide" had become a distraction, he said the events met the United Nations definition of the word.
He sent a letter of resignation to members of the institute in December 2006, and one board member resigned.
But in the fall, around the same time that Congress was debating the Armenian question, Quataert was asked to speak at a conference about what had happened at the institute. He told members of the Middle Eastern Studies Association that the ambassador told him he must issue a retraction of his book review or step down -- or put funding for the institute in jeopardy.
His colleagues were shocked, said Laurie Brand, director of the school of international relations at the University of Southern California.
Ambassador Sensoy, who is honorary chairman of the institute's board, said in a statement this week, "Neither the Turkish Government nor I have ever placed any pressure upon the ITS, for such interference would have violated the principle of the academic freedom, which we uphold the most. The Turkish Government and I will be the first to defend ITS from any such pressure."
Since the May 27 letter from the scholars association was sent, several associate and full members of the board have left. Marcie Patton, Resat Kasaba and Kemal Silay resigned; Fatma Muge Gocek said she would resign, and Birol Yesilada said his primary reason for stepping down at this time is his health, but that he is concerned about the conflicting accounts of what had happened. "It's a very difficult line that scholars walk," Patton said, "especially post-9/11, especially because of the Iraq war."
========================
Cyprus Action Network of America (CANA)
2578 Broadway #132
New York, NY 10025
New York: Tel. 917-699-9935
Email: cana@cyprusactionnetwork.org
www.cyprusactionnetwork.org
========================
The Cyprus Action Network of America (CANA) is a grass-roots, not-for-profit movement created to support genuine self-determination and human rights for the people of Cyprus.
cana@cyprusactionnetwork.org
reply-to cana@cyprusactionnetwork.org
date Mon, Jul 7, 2008 at 1:55 AM
subject WASHINGTON POST COVERS TURKISH EMBASSY CORRUPTION AND MANIPULATION
WASHINGTON POST COVERS TURKISH EMBASSY CORRUPTION AND MANIPULATION
For Immediate Release: July 7, 2008
Contact: Nikolaos Taneris, New York, Tel. 1-917-699-9935
NEW YORK—The Washington Post reported in its Saturday edition on the ongoing corruption and manipulation of American scholarship by the Turkish government, Susan Kinzie’s article “Board Members Resign to Protest Chair’s Ousting Leader in Georgetown-Based Agency Encouraged Scholars to Research Mass Killing of Armenians” details the most recent scandal surrounding the ITS (Institute of Turkish Studies) founded with a $3 million dollar grant paid directly by the Turkish government.
Beginning in the 1980s, in response to the Congressional arms embargo of the 1970s following Turkey’s criminal military invasion of Cyprus, the Turkish Embassy in Washington DC, under the leadership of then Turkish Ambassador Sukru Elekdag, initiated a far flung campaign in America to whitewash Turkish criminal history. The practically non-existent ,apathetic community of Turks in America, was reorganized with the help of millions of dollars of funding-- buying high priced advisors to set up such Cyprus Invasion denying entities as the Washington DC-Based “American Friends of Turkey” the ATC (American Turkish Council) recently reorganized under the new name “Turkish Coalition of America” ,the ATAA (Assembly of Turkish American Associations) and the New York-New Jersey-Based FTAA (Federation of Turkish American Associations) whose job was to organize a “Turkish-American” parade to counter the decades long parade by Greek-Americans on New York’s Fifth Avenue.
The Parade like the funding of Turkish ‘academic’ institutes was set up for the dual purposes of Genocide denial and Cyprus Invasion denial. According to the Turkish Daily News ( May 21, 2007) “In the 1980s the parade was a platform where Turkish Americans tried to draw the attention of American public to some of Turkey's international conflicts such as those with Armenia and Greek Cyprus…The first official Turkish Day Parade in the city was held on April 23 1980. Those who attended that parade remember vividly that there were only two flags in the 150 people cortege. The FTAA could not get a permit for the parade in 1981 either. In 1982 however, with support from Ankara FTAA was able to get the permit to organize first official Turkish Day Parade. It was decided that the parade would take place on the weekend that is closest to May 19th,” (NOTE: May 19th is the day in 1919 that Turk leader Mustafa Kemal landed in Pontus to perpetrate the Pontian Genocide, In Turkey this is celebrated as “Turkish liberation day”)
Greek-American scholar Speros Vryonis wrote the first detailed academic study of Turkish government manipulation of American scholarship in his monumental work “The Turkish State and History: Clio Meets the Grey Wolf.” Vryonis documents the ITS (Institute of Turkish Studies) attempt to manipulate American scholarship, and in turn US public opinion, with the granting of monies to Genocide deniers, activities that question the objectivity of this group and its role in essentially lobbying on behalf of the Turkish Embassy.
Turkey has also bankrolled the establishment of endowed Chairs of Turkish Studies at various American universities, at least one such Chair, the endowed Chair of Turkish Studies at Portland State University , paid for directly by funding from the Turkish Embassy, is involved in actively producing Cyprus Invasion denial literature, and is home to the “Cyprus Peace Initiative”. The “Cyprus Peace Initiative” actively lobbied for the discredited, so-called Annan Plan, which made provisions that call for Turkish military to remain and intervene over all of Cyprus.
The Washington Post article follows on the heels of a long list of credible news outlets that have reported on Turkey’s false historical revisionism and the Turkish Embassy’s morally bankrupt attempts to present a distorted image of Turkey’s true face to the American public.
(Article is reproduced for Fair Use and Educational Purposes)
Board Members Resign to Protest Chair's Ousting
Leader in Georgetown-Based Agency Encouraged Scholars to Research Mass Killing of Armenians
By Susan Kinzie
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, July 5, 2008; B05
The issue that has roiled U.S.-Turkish relations in recent months -- how to characterize the mass killing of Armenians in 1915 -- has set off a dispute over politics and academic freedom at an institute housed at Georgetown University.
Several board members of the Institute of Turkish Studies have resigned this summer, protesting the ouster of a board chairman who wrote that scholars should research, rather than avoid, what he characterized as an Armenian genocide.
Within weeks of writing about the matter in late 2006, Binghamton University professor Donald Quataert resigned from the board of governors, saying the Turkish ambassador to the United States told him he had angered some political leaders in Ankara and that they had threatened to revoke the institute's funding.
After a prominent association of Middle Eastern scholars learned about it, they wrote a letter in May to the institute, the Turkish prime minister and other leaders asking that Quataert be reinstated and money for the institute be put in an irrevocable trust to avoid political influence.
The ambassador of the Republic of Turkey, H.E. Nabi Sensoy, denied that he had any role in Quataert's resignation. In a written statement, he said that claims that he urged Quataert to leave are unfounded and misleading.
The dispute shows the tensions between money and scholarship, and the impact language can have on historical understanding.
Hundreds of thousands of Armenians were killed when the Ottoman Empire collapsed after World War I. Armenians and Turks bitterly disagree over whether it was a campaign of genocide, or a civil war in which many Turks were also killed.
In the fall, when Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) championed a bill that would characterize the events of 1915 to 1917 as genocide, the Bush administration fought it and several former defense secretaries warned that Turkish leaders would limit U.S. access to a military base needed for the war in Iraq.
The Turkish studies institute, founded in 1983, is independent from Georgetown University, but Executive Director David Cuthell teaches a course there in exchange for space on campus.
Julie Green Bataille, a university spokeswoman, wrote in an e-mail, "we will review this matter consistent with the importance of academic freedom and the fact that the institute is independently funded and governed."
The institute's funding, a $3 million grant, is entirely from Turkey.
A few years ago, Quataert said, members of the board checked on what they thought was an irrevocable blind trust "and to our surprise it turned out to be a gift that could be revoked by the Turkish government."
Quataert, a professor of history, said the institute has funded good scholarship without political influence. The selection of which studies to support is done by a committee of academics on the associate board, he said, and approved by the board, which includes business and political leaders. Never once, he said, did he think a grant application was judged on anything other than its academic merits.
He also noted that during his time there, no one applied for grants that would have been controversial in Turkey. Asked if any of the research characterized the events as genocide, Cuthell said, "My gut is no. It's that third rail."
Roger Smith, professor emeritus of government at the College of William and Mary, questioned whether the nonprofit institute deserves its tax-exempt status if there is political influence -- and whether it is an undeclared lobbying arm for the Turkish government.
Cuthell said none of the institute's critics ever bothered to check the truth of Quataert's account with the institute: It does not lobby, Cuthell said, and "the allegations of academic freedom simply don't hold up."
The controversy began quietly in late 2006 with a review of historian Donald Bloxham's book, "The Great Game of Genocide." Quataert wrote that the slaughter of Armenians has been the elephant in the room of Ottoman studies. Despite his belief that the term "genocide" had become a distraction, he said the events met the United Nations definition of the word.
He sent a letter of resignation to members of the institute in December 2006, and one board member resigned.
But in the fall, around the same time that Congress was debating the Armenian question, Quataert was asked to speak at a conference about what had happened at the institute. He told members of the Middle Eastern Studies Association that the ambassador told him he must issue a retraction of his book review or step down -- or put funding for the institute in jeopardy.
His colleagues were shocked, said Laurie Brand, director of the school of international relations at the University of Southern California.
Ambassador Sensoy, who is honorary chairman of the institute's board, said in a statement this week, "Neither the Turkish Government nor I have ever placed any pressure upon the ITS, for such interference would have violated the principle of the academic freedom, which we uphold the most. The Turkish Government and I will be the first to defend ITS from any such pressure."
Since the May 27 letter from the scholars association was sent, several associate and full members of the board have left. Marcie Patton, Resat Kasaba and Kemal Silay resigned; Fatma Muge Gocek said she would resign, and Birol Yesilada said his primary reason for stepping down at this time is his health, but that he is concerned about the conflicting accounts of what had happened. "It's a very difficult line that scholars walk," Patton said, "especially post-9/11, especially because of the Iraq war."
========================
Cyprus Action Network of America (CANA)
2578 Broadway #132
New York, NY 10025
New York: Tel. 917-699-9935
Email: cana@cyprusactionnetwork.org
www.cyprusactionnetwork.org
========================
The Cyprus Action Network of America (CANA) is a grass-roots, not-for-profit movement created to support genuine self-determination and human rights for the people of Cyprus.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
ECHR Judgment: Varnava and Others v. Turkey
Turkey violated the rights of nine Greek Cypriot nationals who went missing when detained by the Turkish Army during its 1974 invasion of northern Cyprus, Europe's top human rights court ruled Thursday. The seven-judge panel said the case filed against Turkey by the families of 18 people who were originally captured and nine of whom remain missing after they were detained by Turkish forces was justified, and awarded representatives of the nine 4,000 (US$5,872) each in damages to cover legal costs and expenses. The court said it had accepted witness testimony "to seeing eight of the missing men in Turkish prisons in 1974." The body of one of the nine was found in 2007, but the other eight remain missing.
Below is the judgment in its entirety:
EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS
10.1.2008
Press release issued by the Registrar
CHAMBER JUDGMENT
VARNAVA AND OTHERS v. TURKEY
The European Court of Human Rights has today notified in writing its Chamber judgment1 in the case of Varnava and Others v. Turkey (application nos. 16064/90, 16065/90, 16066/90, 16068/90, 16069/90, 16070/90, 16071/90, 16072/90 and 16073/90).
The Court held:
Under Article 41 (just satisfaction), the Court held, by six votes to one, that the finding of violations constituted in itself sufficient just satisfaction for the non-pecuniary damage sustained by the applicants, and awarded them 4,000 euros (EUR), per application, for costs and expenses. (The judgment is available only in English.)
1. Principal facts
The applicants are or were 18 Cypriot nationals, nine of whom disappeared after being captured and detained during the Turkish military operations in northern Cyprus in July and August 1974. The other applicants (three of whom have since died and been replaced by their heirs) are or were relatives of the men who disappeared.
The applicants are or were: Andreas and his wife Giorghoulla Varnava, who lived in Lymbia; Andreas and his father Loizos Loizides (now deceased), who lived in Nicosia; Philippos Constantinou and his father Demetris Peyiotis, who lived in Nicosia; Demetris Theocharides and his mother Elli Theocharidou (now deceased), who lived in Nicosia; Panicos and his mother Chrysoula Charalambous, who lived in Limassol; Eleftherios and his father Christos Thoma (now deceased), who lived in Strovolos; Savvas and his wife Androula Hadjipanteli, who lived in Nicosia; Savvas and his father Georghios Apostolides, who lived in Strovolos; and, Leontis and his wife Yianoulla Sarma, who lived in Limassol. The applicants were born, respectively, in: 1947, 1949, 1954, 1907, 1954, 1929, 1953, 1914, 1955, 1935, 1951, 1921, 1938, 1938, 1955, 1928, 1947 and 1949.
Witnesses have testified to seeing eight of the missing men in Turkish prisons in 1974; they have been considered missing ever since. A number of the applicant parents also claimed that they had identified their missing sons in photographs published in Greek newspapers showing Greek-Cypriot prisoners of war. The body of the ninth missing man, Savvas Hadjipanteli, was discovered in 2007.
The applicants made the following claims:
Varnava and Sarma
In July and August 1974 Andreas Varnava and Leontis Sarma’s battalions was stationed in the vicinity of Mia Milia to man the Cypriot outposts. On the morning of 14 August 1974, Turkish military forces, supported by tanks and with air cover, launched an attack on the area. Cypriot forces retreated and the surrounding area was captured by the Turkish military forces.
Loizides
In July 1974 Andreas Loizides was serving in a battalion which was moved to the Lapithos area to support Greek Cypriot forces there. The soldiers were split up into various groups and the applicant was in charge of one of those. On 5 August 1974 they were over-powered by Turkish forces and ordered to retreat. Since 6 August 1974 none of the members of his group have seen Mr Loizides.
Constantinos
Mr Constantinos was posted with a section of his battalion to Lapithos. Following a full-scale attack from the Turkish Army on 6 August 1974, the group split up.
Theocharides
At about 04.30 hours on 26 July 1974 Mr Theocharides’ company came under attack from a Turkish paratroops battalion, with 20 tanks, who broke through Greek Cypriot lines, infiltrating the right flank of the applicant’s company. When his company was regrouped, he was missing.
Charalambous
On 24 July 1974 Mr Charalambous came under fire from Turkish soldiers while searching buses in the Koutsoventis Vounos area with two or three other soldiers. He was wounded in the right hand and on the left side of his ribs. After his wounds were cleaned and his gun loaded, he went back. He has not been seen again by his unit.
Thoma
On the morning of 20 July 1974 Eleftherios Thoma was involved in trying to prevent Turkish military forces landing in the area of "Pikro Nero", Kyrenia. At around 12.00 hours on 21 July the Turkish military forces which had landed, supported by tanks and with air cover, attacked Cypriot forces defending the area. The applicant’s battalion was ordered to retreat. After the battalion had been regrouped the applicant was missing.
Hadjipanteli
On 18 August 1974 Mr Hadjipanteli, a bank employee, was taken for questioning by Turkish soldiers. According to the applicants, representatives of the International Red Cross in Cyprus visited Pavlides Garage in the Turkish occupied sector of Nicosia and on 28 August 1974 recorded the names of 20 Greek Cypriots held there, including the applicant.
On 27 August 1974 a group of Turkish Cypriot civilians went to a bank where they emptied two safes and ordered a third to be opened, but they were told that the keys were with the applicant. Subsequently they returned with the keys for that safe, which the applicant always carried with him.
In 2007, in the context of the activity of the United Nations Committee of Missing Persons (CMP), human remains were exhumed from a mass grave near the Turkish Cypriot village of Galatia in the Karpas area. The remains of Mr Hadjipanteli were identified and several bullets were found in the grave. Mr Hadjipanteli’s medical certificate indicated a bullet wound to his skull, a bullet wound in his right arm and a wound on his right thigh.
The Turkish Government disputed that the applicants had been taken into captivity by the Turkish army during the military action in Cyprus in 1974. They considered that all the alleged "missing persons", except for Mr Hadjipanteli, were military personnel who died in action in July-August 1974. The Government noted that the International Red Cross had visited the Pavlides Garage, where Mr Hadjipanteli had allegedly been held, but his name did not appear in the list of Greek Cypriots held.
The Government of Cyprus submitted that the nine men went missing in areas under the control of the Turkish forces.
2. Procedure and composition of the Court
The nine applications were lodged with the European Commission of Human Rights on 25 January 1990. They were joined by the Commission on 2 July 1991, and declared admissible on 14 April 1998. They were transmitted to the Court on 1 November 1999.
The Cypriot Government submitted observations on the merits of the case.
Judgment was given by a Chamber of seven judges, composed as follows:
Boštjan Zupančič, (Slovenian), President,
Elisabet Fura-Sandström, (Swedish),
Alvina Gyulumyan, (Armenian),
Egbert Myjer, (Dutch),
David Thór Björgvinsson, (Icelandic),
Isabelle Berro-Lefèvre, (Monegasque), judges,
Gönül Erönen, (Turkish), ad hoc judge,
and also Santiago Quesada, Section Registrar.
3. Summary of the judgment2
Complaints
The applicants relied on Articles 2 (right to life), 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment), 4 (prohibition of forced labour), 5 (right to liberty and security), 6 (right to a fair trial), 8 (right to respect for private and family life), 10 (freedom of expression), 12 (right to marry), 13 (right to an effective remedy) and 14 (prohibition of discrimination).
Decision of the Court
Article 2
The Court noted that the fate of the nine missing men, and whether they had been unlawfully killed, was largely unknown. While Mr Hadjipanteli’s remains had been found very recently, the circumstances surrounding his death remained unclarified. The Court recalled that it was established in its Grand Chamber inter-State case Cyprus v. Turkey (application no. 25781/94 of 10 May 2001) that the evidence showed that many people who went missing in 1974 were detained either by Turkish or Turkish-Cypriot forces. Their detention occurred at a time when the conduct of military operations was accompanied by arrests and killings on a large scale which was found to disclose a life-threatening situation. The clear indications of the climate of risk and fear at the time, and of the real dangers to which detainees were exposed, was found to disclose a life-threatening situation. The nine missing men in the applicants’ case disappeared against that same background. The Court noted that the eight combatants were last seen in areas surrounded or about to be overrun by Turkish forces, one of them, Panicos Charalambous, in a wounded condition. Statements from several witnesses attested to seeing Mr Hadjipanteli being taken away by Turkish-Cypriot fighters. Given previous findings and the circumstances of the disappearances at a time and at locations which were, or very shortly thereafter were, under the control of Turkish forces or those acting under their aegis, the Court considered that an obligation arose for Turkey to account for their fate.
While it might be noted that in the context of the individual cases arising out of events in south-east Turkey and the conflict in the Chechen Republic, where there were, at the relevant times, numerous reported instances of forced disappearances, individual applicants had nonetheless been required to give an evidential basis for finding that their relatives were taken into some form of custody by agents of the State, the Court considered that the situation in the applicants’ case was different. A zone of international conflict where two armies were engaged in acts of war was per se life-threatening for those present. Circumstances would frequently be such that the events in question lay wholly, or in large part, within the exclusive knowledge of the military forces in the field, and it would not be realistic to expect applicants to provide more than minimal information placing their relative in the area at risk. International treaties imposed obligations on combatant States as regards the care of wounded, prisoners of war and civilians; Article 2 certainly extended so far as to require States which had ratified the Convention to take reasonable steps to protect the lives of those not, or no longer, engaged in hostilities. Disappearances in such circumstances were therefore protected by Article 2.
The Court recalled its previous finding that, whatever its humanitarian usefulness, the CMP did not provide procedures sufficient to meet the standard of an effective investigation required by Article 2, especially in view of the narrow scope of that body’s investigations.
While it was true that the remains of Savvas Hadjipanteli had recently been discovered, that did not demonstrate that the CMP had been able to take any meaningful investigative steps beyond the belated location and identification of remains. Nor, given the location of Mr Hadjipanteli’s remains in an area under the control of the “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus3” after a lapse of some 32 years, had that event displaced the Turkish Government’s accountability for the investigative process during the intervening period.
The Court concluded that there had been a continuing violation of Article 2 concerning the failure of the Turkish authorities to conduct an effective investigation aimed at clarifying the whereabouts and fate of the nine men who went missing in 1974.
Article 3
The Court recalled, in view of the circumstances in which their family members disappeared following a military intervention during which many persons were killed or taken prisoner and where the area was subsequently sealed off and became inaccessible to the relatives, they must undoubtedly have suffered most painful uncertainty and anxiety. Furthermore, their mental anguish did not vanish with the passing of time.
The Court observed that the Turkish authorities had failed to undertake any investigation into the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of the missing persons. In the absence of any information about their fate, the relatives of those who went missing during the events of July and August 1974 were condemned to live in a prolonged state of acute anxiety which could not be said to have been erased with the passage of time. The Court recalled that the military operation resulted in a considerable loss of life, large-scale arrests and detentions and enforced separation of families. The overall context had still to be vivid in the minds of the relatives of persons whose fate has never been accounted for by the authorities. They endured the agony of not knowing whether family members were killed in the conflict or were still in detention or, if detained, had since died. The fact that a very substantial number of Greek Cypriots had to seek refuge in the south coupled with the continuing division of Cyprus had to be considered to constitute very serious obstacles to their quest for information. The provision of such information was the responsibility of the Turkish authorities.
The silence of the Turkish authorities, in the face of the real concerns of the relatives of the nine missing men, attained a level of severity which could only be categorised as inhuman treatment within the meaning of Article 3. The Court therefore concluded that, during the period under consideration, there had been a continuing violation of Article 3.
Article 5
The Court found no violation of Article 5 concerning the alleged detention of the nine missing men as it had not been established that, during the period under consideration in the applicants’ case, they were actually being detained by the Turkish or Turkish Cypriot authorities.
However, there had been a continuing violation of Article 5 because the Turkish authorities had failed to conduct an effective investigation into the whereabouts and fate of the nine men, in respect of whom there was an arguable claim that they had been deprived of their liberty at the time of their disappearance.
Articles 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 13 and 14
The Court did not consider it necessary to examine further the applicants’ other complaints.
Ad hoc judge Gönül Erönen expressed a separate opinion, which is annexed to the judgment.
***
The Court’s judgments are accessible on its Internet site (http://www.echr.coe.int).
Below is the judgment in its entirety:
EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS
10.1.2008
Press release issued by the Registrar
CHAMBER JUDGMENT
VARNAVA AND OTHERS v. TURKEY
The European Court of Human Rights has today notified in writing its Chamber judgment1 in the case of Varnava and Others v. Turkey (application nos. 16064/90, 16065/90, 16066/90, 16068/90, 16069/90, 16070/90, 16071/90, 16072/90 and 16073/90).
The Court held:
· by six votes to one, that there had been a continuing violation of Article 2 (right to life) of the European Convention on Human Rights concerning Turkey’s failure to conduct an effective investigation into the whereabouts and fate of nine of the applicants, who disappeared in life-threatening circumstances;
· by six votes to one, that there had been a continuing violation of Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment) of the Convention concerning the remaining nine applicants, relatives of the nine men who disappeared;
· by six votes to one, that there had been a continuing violation of Article 5 (right to liberty and security) concerning Turkey’s failure to conduct an effective investigation into the whereabouts and fate of the nine men, concerning whom there was an arguable claim that they had been deprived of their liberty at the time of their disappearance; and,
· unanimously, that no violation of Article 5 had been established concerning the alleged detention of the nine men.
Under Article 41 (just satisfaction), the Court held, by six votes to one, that the finding of violations constituted in itself sufficient just satisfaction for the non-pecuniary damage sustained by the applicants, and awarded them 4,000 euros (EUR), per application, for costs and expenses. (The judgment is available only in English.)
1. Principal facts
The applicants are or were 18 Cypriot nationals, nine of whom disappeared after being captured and detained during the Turkish military operations in northern Cyprus in July and August 1974. The other applicants (three of whom have since died and been replaced by their heirs) are or were relatives of the men who disappeared.
The applicants are or were: Andreas and his wife Giorghoulla Varnava, who lived in Lymbia; Andreas and his father Loizos Loizides (now deceased), who lived in Nicosia; Philippos Constantinou and his father Demetris Peyiotis, who lived in Nicosia; Demetris Theocharides and his mother Elli Theocharidou (now deceased), who lived in Nicosia; Panicos and his mother Chrysoula Charalambous, who lived in Limassol; Eleftherios and his father Christos Thoma (now deceased), who lived in Strovolos; Savvas and his wife Androula Hadjipanteli, who lived in Nicosia; Savvas and his father Georghios Apostolides, who lived in Strovolos; and, Leontis and his wife Yianoulla Sarma, who lived in Limassol. The applicants were born, respectively, in: 1947, 1949, 1954, 1907, 1954, 1929, 1953, 1914, 1955, 1935, 1951, 1921, 1938, 1938, 1955, 1928, 1947 and 1949.
Witnesses have testified to seeing eight of the missing men in Turkish prisons in 1974; they have been considered missing ever since. A number of the applicant parents also claimed that they had identified their missing sons in photographs published in Greek newspapers showing Greek-Cypriot prisoners of war. The body of the ninth missing man, Savvas Hadjipanteli, was discovered in 2007.
The applicants made the following claims:
Varnava and Sarma
In July and August 1974 Andreas Varnava and Leontis Sarma’s battalions was stationed in the vicinity of Mia Milia to man the Cypriot outposts. On the morning of 14 August 1974, Turkish military forces, supported by tanks and with air cover, launched an attack on the area. Cypriot forces retreated and the surrounding area was captured by the Turkish military forces.
Loizides
In July 1974 Andreas Loizides was serving in a battalion which was moved to the Lapithos area to support Greek Cypriot forces there. The soldiers were split up into various groups and the applicant was in charge of one of those. On 5 August 1974 they were over-powered by Turkish forces and ordered to retreat. Since 6 August 1974 none of the members of his group have seen Mr Loizides.
Constantinos
Mr Constantinos was posted with a section of his battalion to Lapithos. Following a full-scale attack from the Turkish Army on 6 August 1974, the group split up.
Theocharides
At about 04.30 hours on 26 July 1974 Mr Theocharides’ company came under attack from a Turkish paratroops battalion, with 20 tanks, who broke through Greek Cypriot lines, infiltrating the right flank of the applicant’s company. When his company was regrouped, he was missing.
Charalambous
On 24 July 1974 Mr Charalambous came under fire from Turkish soldiers while searching buses in the Koutsoventis Vounos area with two or three other soldiers. He was wounded in the right hand and on the left side of his ribs. After his wounds were cleaned and his gun loaded, he went back. He has not been seen again by his unit.
Thoma
On the morning of 20 July 1974 Eleftherios Thoma was involved in trying to prevent Turkish military forces landing in the area of "Pikro Nero", Kyrenia. At around 12.00 hours on 21 July the Turkish military forces which had landed, supported by tanks and with air cover, attacked Cypriot forces defending the area. The applicant’s battalion was ordered to retreat. After the battalion had been regrouped the applicant was missing.
Hadjipanteli
On 18 August 1974 Mr Hadjipanteli, a bank employee, was taken for questioning by Turkish soldiers. According to the applicants, representatives of the International Red Cross in Cyprus visited Pavlides Garage in the Turkish occupied sector of Nicosia and on 28 August 1974 recorded the names of 20 Greek Cypriots held there, including the applicant.
On 27 August 1974 a group of Turkish Cypriot civilians went to a bank where they emptied two safes and ordered a third to be opened, but they were told that the keys were with the applicant. Subsequently they returned with the keys for that safe, which the applicant always carried with him.
In 2007, in the context of the activity of the United Nations Committee of Missing Persons (CMP), human remains were exhumed from a mass grave near the Turkish Cypriot village of Galatia in the Karpas area. The remains of Mr Hadjipanteli were identified and several bullets were found in the grave. Mr Hadjipanteli’s medical certificate indicated a bullet wound to his skull, a bullet wound in his right arm and a wound on his right thigh.
The Turkish Government disputed that the applicants had been taken into captivity by the Turkish army during the military action in Cyprus in 1974. They considered that all the alleged "missing persons", except for Mr Hadjipanteli, were military personnel who died in action in July-August 1974. The Government noted that the International Red Cross had visited the Pavlides Garage, where Mr Hadjipanteli had allegedly been held, but his name did not appear in the list of Greek Cypriots held.
The Government of Cyprus submitted that the nine men went missing in areas under the control of the Turkish forces.
2. Procedure and composition of the Court
The nine applications were lodged with the European Commission of Human Rights on 25 January 1990. They were joined by the Commission on 2 July 1991, and declared admissible on 14 April 1998. They were transmitted to the Court on 1 November 1999.
The Cypriot Government submitted observations on the merits of the case.
Judgment was given by a Chamber of seven judges, composed as follows:
Boštjan Zupančič, (Slovenian), President,
Elisabet Fura-Sandström, (Swedish),
Alvina Gyulumyan, (Armenian),
Egbert Myjer, (Dutch),
David Thór Björgvinsson, (Icelandic),
Isabelle Berro-Lefèvre, (Monegasque), judges,
Gönül Erönen, (Turkish), ad hoc judge,
and also Santiago Quesada, Section Registrar.
3. Summary of the judgment2
Complaints
The applicants relied on Articles 2 (right to life), 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment), 4 (prohibition of forced labour), 5 (right to liberty and security), 6 (right to a fair trial), 8 (right to respect for private and family life), 10 (freedom of expression), 12 (right to marry), 13 (right to an effective remedy) and 14 (prohibition of discrimination).
Decision of the Court
Article 2
The Court noted that the fate of the nine missing men, and whether they had been unlawfully killed, was largely unknown. While Mr Hadjipanteli’s remains had been found very recently, the circumstances surrounding his death remained unclarified. The Court recalled that it was established in its Grand Chamber inter-State case Cyprus v. Turkey (application no. 25781/94 of 10 May 2001) that the evidence showed that many people who went missing in 1974 were detained either by Turkish or Turkish-Cypriot forces. Their detention occurred at a time when the conduct of military operations was accompanied by arrests and killings on a large scale which was found to disclose a life-threatening situation. The clear indications of the climate of risk and fear at the time, and of the real dangers to which detainees were exposed, was found to disclose a life-threatening situation. The nine missing men in the applicants’ case disappeared against that same background. The Court noted that the eight combatants were last seen in areas surrounded or about to be overrun by Turkish forces, one of them, Panicos Charalambous, in a wounded condition. Statements from several witnesses attested to seeing Mr Hadjipanteli being taken away by Turkish-Cypriot fighters. Given previous findings and the circumstances of the disappearances at a time and at locations which were, or very shortly thereafter were, under the control of Turkish forces or those acting under their aegis, the Court considered that an obligation arose for Turkey to account for their fate.
While it might be noted that in the context of the individual cases arising out of events in south-east Turkey and the conflict in the Chechen Republic, where there were, at the relevant times, numerous reported instances of forced disappearances, individual applicants had nonetheless been required to give an evidential basis for finding that their relatives were taken into some form of custody by agents of the State, the Court considered that the situation in the applicants’ case was different. A zone of international conflict where two armies were engaged in acts of war was per se life-threatening for those present. Circumstances would frequently be such that the events in question lay wholly, or in large part, within the exclusive knowledge of the military forces in the field, and it would not be realistic to expect applicants to provide more than minimal information placing their relative in the area at risk. International treaties imposed obligations on combatant States as regards the care of wounded, prisoners of war and civilians; Article 2 certainly extended so far as to require States which had ratified the Convention to take reasonable steps to protect the lives of those not, or no longer, engaged in hostilities. Disappearances in such circumstances were therefore protected by Article 2.
The Court recalled its previous finding that, whatever its humanitarian usefulness, the CMP did not provide procedures sufficient to meet the standard of an effective investigation required by Article 2, especially in view of the narrow scope of that body’s investigations.
While it was true that the remains of Savvas Hadjipanteli had recently been discovered, that did not demonstrate that the CMP had been able to take any meaningful investigative steps beyond the belated location and identification of remains. Nor, given the location of Mr Hadjipanteli’s remains in an area under the control of the “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus3” after a lapse of some 32 years, had that event displaced the Turkish Government’s accountability for the investigative process during the intervening period.
The Court concluded that there had been a continuing violation of Article 2 concerning the failure of the Turkish authorities to conduct an effective investigation aimed at clarifying the whereabouts and fate of the nine men who went missing in 1974.
Article 3
The Court recalled, in view of the circumstances in which their family members disappeared following a military intervention during which many persons were killed or taken prisoner and where the area was subsequently sealed off and became inaccessible to the relatives, they must undoubtedly have suffered most painful uncertainty and anxiety. Furthermore, their mental anguish did not vanish with the passing of time.
The Court observed that the Turkish authorities had failed to undertake any investigation into the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of the missing persons. In the absence of any information about their fate, the relatives of those who went missing during the events of July and August 1974 were condemned to live in a prolonged state of acute anxiety which could not be said to have been erased with the passage of time. The Court recalled that the military operation resulted in a considerable loss of life, large-scale arrests and detentions and enforced separation of families. The overall context had still to be vivid in the minds of the relatives of persons whose fate has never been accounted for by the authorities. They endured the agony of not knowing whether family members were killed in the conflict or were still in detention or, if detained, had since died. The fact that a very substantial number of Greek Cypriots had to seek refuge in the south coupled with the continuing division of Cyprus had to be considered to constitute very serious obstacles to their quest for information. The provision of such information was the responsibility of the Turkish authorities.
The silence of the Turkish authorities, in the face of the real concerns of the relatives of the nine missing men, attained a level of severity which could only be categorised as inhuman treatment within the meaning of Article 3. The Court therefore concluded that, during the period under consideration, there had been a continuing violation of Article 3.
Article 5
The Court found no violation of Article 5 concerning the alleged detention of the nine missing men as it had not been established that, during the period under consideration in the applicants’ case, they were actually being detained by the Turkish or Turkish Cypriot authorities.
However, there had been a continuing violation of Article 5 because the Turkish authorities had failed to conduct an effective investigation into the whereabouts and fate of the nine men, in respect of whom there was an arguable claim that they had been deprived of their liberty at the time of their disappearance.
Articles 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 13 and 14
The Court did not consider it necessary to examine further the applicants’ other complaints.
Ad hoc judge Gönül Erönen expressed a separate opinion, which is annexed to the judgment.
***
The Court’s judgments are accessible on its Internet site (http://www.echr.coe.int).
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Here We Go Again: Ancient church turned into ceramics factory
From the Cyprus Weekly:
(Click Image to Enlarge)
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Secretive visit inside the "forbidden city" of Varosha
UN Security Council Resolution 550
...Considers attempts to settle any part of Varosha by people other than its inhabitants as inadmissible and calls for the transfer of this area to the administration of the United Nations...
A Vlogger (video blogger), going by the name Dave Stuart, has posted new video footage of a visit to Varosha, a "ghost town" in Occupied Cyprus. The Turkish army took control of the city in 1974 and forced tens of thousands of Greek Cypriot inhabitants to flee their homes. Varosha is currently being used as a bargaining chip by Turkey and the Northern breakaway State as part of an overall settlement to the Cyprus problem.
The 15 minute film taken within the fenced off city is entitled "Return inside Varosha" and is divided in two parts. The videos have been placed on YouTube and can be viewed here and here.
Thank you Dave
Sunday, September 02, 2007
Jewish lobby changes stance on Armenian genocide
From the Cyprus Weekly:
Jewish lobby changes stance on Armenian genocide
But group stands against Congress resolution
By Philippos Stylianou
THE Anti-Defamation League (ADL), representing the powerful Jewish lobby in America, has taken a sudden, albeit reluctant, step towards recognising the 1915 Armenian genocide by the Turks.
But it stood firmly against a US Congress resolution to that effect, fearing repercussions on the Jewish community in Turkey and on the relations of the United States and Israel with that country.
Although watered down, the ADL move has met with fierce reaction from Ankara with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan complaining to Israeli President Shimon Perez over it.
According to Anatolia news agency, Erdogan said that the ADL had sent him a fax retracting the genocide statement and admitting they had made a mistake in changing their stand on the issue.
"They said that they share our sensitivities in particular on account of this statement regarding us, and they expressed the mistake they had made in the written fax they sent us," Erdogan is said to have told the press.
Confront past
Asked if the retraction would be limited to the facsimile message or the ADL would "declare it to the world", Erdogan said that it had already been posted on the ADL website.
But only the statement on the recognition of the Armenian genocide, dated August 21, 2007, appeared on the ADL webpage and no retraction had been posted on it.
The Cyprus Weekly has sought to clarify the issue with the Israeli Embassy in Nicosia but without success.
In its surprise statement of August 21, the Anti-Defamation League said that they had all along described the 1915-1918 events perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire against the Armenians as massacres and atrocities.
"On reflection – the statement added – we have come to share the view of Henry Morgenthau (US Ambassador to Turkey at the time) that the consequences of those actions were indeed tantamount to genocide. If the word genocide had existed then, they would have called it genocide."
Urging the Turkish nation to "confront its past and work to reconcile with the Armenians over this dark chapter of its history," the ADL concluded as follows:
"Having said that, we continue to firmly believe that a Congressional resolution on such matters is a counterproductive diversion and will not foster reconciliation between the Turks and Armenians and may put at risk the Turkish Jewish community and the important multilateral relationship between Turkey, Israel and the United States."
Dramatic U-turn
The development, described as a dramatic U-turn by influential Jewish circles, came only four days after the Anti-Defamation League sacked its New England Regional Director, Andrew H. Tarsy.
According to the website "Ynet - Jewish World", Tarsy blasted the organisation for failing to recognise the Armenian genocide, pointing out that this position was "morally indefensible."
Tarsy’s dismissal caused tension among American Jews and forced the ADL to issue the genocide statement. An ADL official source stated afterwards: "We changed our position and we hope the Turkish government doesn’t take it out on the Jews." The source was also revealing about the position previously held by the Jews on the Armenian genocide issue.
"The ADL has always sought guidance form the Turkish Jewish community, which told us to back the Turkish government on this. So we have always backed Turkey’s stance," the source said.
The Jewish community in Turkey was established 500 years ago and today numbers 27,000 people, of whom 24,500 live in Istanbul. Another 2,400 live in Izmir (Smyrna) from which the total Greek population was expelled or slaughtered in 1922.
The Armenians, one of the ancient indigenous people of Asia Minor along with the Greeks, numbered several million until 1915. Taking advantage of the World War I upheaval ally enemy Turkey proceeded to exterminate more than 1,5 million Armenians through mass deportations, called "death marches", forced labour, executions and other privations
To date, Turkey refuses to admit its responsibility for the genocide, despite calls by Europe and the international community at large.
Saturday, April 15, 2006
Missing Cypriots
A photo (taken on 13.04.06) of a woman is seen reflected in the portraits of Greek Cypriots who have been missing since the 1974 Turkish invasion.
Sunday, March 12, 2006
Famagusta Video
I found the link to this video from David Koyzi's website. It is video footage taken last year of Famagusta including the ghost town of Varosha in the occupied North. A small bit of info on Famagusta: When Famagusta was conquered by the Ottoman Turks in 1571, the Cypriot inhabitants were expelled from the old walled city but did not leave the area and settled close by to the south. Varosh means suburb in Turkish, so Varosha refers to the suburb of Famagusta. Today, Famagusta can mean both, the old walled town of Famagusta and the ghost town of Varosha.
Friday, March 10, 2006
Obliterated ... Why?
With the flight of the Greek population, Turkey succeeded in her first target: the region ceased to live and breathe to the tune to which it had done for almost three millennia of its history. Here is a recent article from Chiesa (Italiana) that talks about Cyprus and the pillaging and destruction that occurred after the Turkish invasion. Article in its entirety:
Cyprus: Portrait of a Christianity Obliterated
In the northern part of the island, occupied by Turkey, the churches have become stables or mosques. The diary of a trip beyond the wall
by Sandro Magister
ROMA, March 9 2006 – The island of Cyprus was the first destination of the “special mission” that the Holy Spirit entrusted to Paul and Barnabas, according to what is written in the Acts of the Apostles, in chapter 13.
On the island they found a Roman governor, Sergius Paulus, “an intelligent man who wanted to hear the word of God and believed, deeply shaken by the teaching of the Lord.”
But if Paul and Barnabas were to return to Cyprus today, to the northern part of the island, they would find not the Romans as governors, but the Turks.
And instead of a Christianity being born, they would find a dying Christianity, with the churches and monasteries in ruin, or else transformed into stables, hotels, and mosques.
This is documented in a startling report from Luigi Geninazzi, who was sent to Cyprus by “Avvenire,” the newspaper of the Italian bishops’ conference.
Cyprus became part of the European Union on May 1, 2004. But this was true only for the southern part of the island, which is Greek and Christian.
The northern part was occupied by Turkey in 1974, with 40,000 soldiers. The Turkish occupation caused death, destruction, and a forced relocation of populations. About 200,000 Greek Cypriots of the Christian Orthodox faith who lived in the north of the island fled to the south. And likewise, the Turkish Cypriots of the south, Muslims, moved to the north.
In 1983 Turkey consolidated the occupation by creating a Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which is internationally recognized only by the government of Ankara: 180,000 persons live there, 100,000 of whom are colonists originally from Anatolia.
A wall guarded by the blue helmets of the United Nations divides the two parts of the island and cuts through the capital, Nicosia. In April of 2004, the UN placed before a referendum a plan of confederation between the two states, but this was rejected by the Greek Cypriots of the south, who are four times as numerous as the Turkish Cypriots of the north.
The Islamization of the north of the island has been concretized in the destruction of all that was Christian. Yannis Eliades, director of the Byzantine Museum of Nicosia, calculates that 25,000 icons have disappeared from the churches in the zone occupied by the Turks.
For a Turkey that aspires to enter the European Union, its actions in the north of Cyprus give a terrible impression of itself.
And what it has done in destroying the Christian presence begun by Paul and Barnabas is described in the report that follows, published in “Avvenire” on Sunday, February 26:
"They did not even spare the stone altar..."
by Luigi Geninazzi
Europe ends here, in the most beautiful island of the Mediterranean, torn by a wall that splits it in two. Europe ends abruptly along a barrier of barbed wire, cement, and military turrets that splits Cyprus along its entire width and divides Nicosia, a capital wounded in its ancient heart.
For the UN, which guards over it with its blue helmets, it is the “green line.” But here the people continue to call it the “Attila line,” from the name that the Turks gave to the invasion.
The scourge has left its marks. It has struck Cyprus, the site of the most ancient Christian community on European soil, in its artistic, cultural, and religious treasury: stupendous Byzantine and Romanesque churches, imposing monasteries, mosaics and frescoes of inestimable value. It is a heritage that in the northern part of the island, under Turkish occupation, has been sacked, violated, and destroyed.
To realize this it is enough to cross the “Attila line” at the checkpoint of Nicosia, and there you are in the so-called Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which greets the visitor with a large banner on which is written a topsy-turvy welcome: “How happy I am to be a Turk!” (a famous phrase of Kemal Ataturk). The nationalist pride of the descendents of the Ottoman empire has also modified the natural countryside, carving the crescent moon and the red star on the side of the Pentadattilos mountains, which dominate the wide plains.
The Turkish flag billows on the façade of the church of Agia Paraskevi, in the once Greek Orthodox village of Angastina. A sign says that work is underway to transform it into a mosque. The bell tower, which no longer bears a cross, is a strange minaret with the loudspeaker of the muezzin fixed upon an archway.
Christodoulos, the young archeologist accompanying me, is visibly shaken: “I was baptized here,” he says in a voice hoarse with emotion. He is one of the 200,000 Greek Cypriot refugees who, thirty years ago, lived in the north of the island and were chased out of their homes.
Christodoulos kneels on the spot where he was once baptized and lights a candle. The Turkish construction workers, squatting in front of the apse for their lunch break, look at him curiously: “Every time I come back to this area, it’s always worse,” he sighs.
We stop at Trachoni, where a jewel of the Renaissance once stood, the church of the Panagia, Our Lady. Now only the walls are left; the interior bears the signs of vandalism that has not spared even the stone altar, the pieces of which have ended up in a hole dug recently to search for who knows what treasure.
Ours is a sad pilgrimage that at every stop adds to one’s outrage and disbelief, a via dolorosa that retraces the places of Christian memory at risk of disappearing. At the village of Peristerona, on the road to Famagosta, the medieval monastery of Saint Anastasia (see photo) is being used as a stable, with the cows chewing their cud amid what remains of the ancient cells. The tombs of the cemetery have been profaned, and the gravestones broken.
We leave the countryside behind and go to the coast. Here many of the churches have been turned into restaurants, bars, and nightclubs, for the enjoyment of the tourists. At the top of the rock of Lapethos, which juts out over the sea, the church and convent of Agia Anastasia have become a sumptuous hotel with a swimming pool dug into the cloister, and a casino under the bell tower.
Almost the entire artistic patrimony of the Orthodox Church in the territory occupied by the Turks – 520 buildings between churches, chapels, and monasteries – has been sacked, demolished, or disfigured. Only three churches and one monastery, the monastery of Saint Barnabas, which has been turned into a museum, are in a more or less dignified state.
“The ruin is before our eyes, but the European Union prefers to look the other way,” the Cypriot foreign minister, George Iacovou, bitterly tells us. “The only hope is that, in the course of negotiations for Turkey’s adhesion to the EU, someone might pull out the dossier of shame.”
The Byzantine Academy of Nicosia has gathered detailed and meticulous documentation on the occupied churches in Cyprus. And for two years an attempt has been made at religious dialogue, with the support of the Orthodox bishop Nikiforos of the historic monastery of Kykko: “We have met with the Muslim leaders headed by Lefka, and I told them that respect for our places of worship is the basis for cooperation.” Nikiforos is moderately optimistic: “I encountered a lot of understanding. Errors have been made on both sides; we must overcome the divisions of the past and walk together.”
But the last word belongs to the politicians. Huseyn Ozel, a government spokesman for the so-called Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, displays great cordiality with the foreign journalist. The destroyed and sacked churches? “There was a war, and bad things happened on both sides,” he explains.
I point out to him that most of the mosques in Greek Cypriot territory have been restored, while his government has authorized the transformation of churches into restaurants and hotels, an insult to the sentiment of believers. “They did this to keep the buildings from falling into ruin, and anyway, these are decisions made by the preceding government, which I do not share,” Ozel counters.
I insist: what do you have to say about the churches that, still today, are being turned into mosques? The Turkish Cypriot functionary spreads his arms wide: “It is an Ottoman custom...”
It as a tradition that, unfortunately, continues. An unsettling calling card for a Turkey that aspires to enter the European club.
__________
The Greek Orthodox bishop: "Europe, intervene!"
An interview with Chrisostomos Englistriota
In Cyprus, the head of the Church has always been an ethnarch, too, a leader of the people. This directly political role was exercised by the famous archbishop Makarios, the charismatic leader of the rebellion against the English domination during the 1950’s, and the first president of the independent republic of Cyprus.
“Our Church doesn’t practice politics anymore, but its authority has not diminished,” recalls the bishop of Paphos, Chrisostomos Englistriota. Since His Beatitude Chrisostomos I was struck by a grave illness, the bishop of Paphos has carried out his functions as leader of the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church on the island.
Q: Your Excellency, Cyprus remains divided. Can the Greek Orthodox Church foster dialogue between the parties?
A: “It is a situation that saddens us deeply, the result of a completely illegal military occupation. A true dialogue is impossible, because the Turkish Cypriots do not enjoy any autonomy, the last word belongs to the government of Ankara.”
Q: Are there contacts among the religious exponents?
A: “Some of our bishops have met with the leaders of the Turkish Cypriot Islamic community. It’s important to us to have good relations with them, but then when it comes time to discuss concrete matters, like the problem of the sacking and profanation of our churches, they don’t know what to say, they refer everything to the political authorities.”
Q: Have you tried to raise the question in international circles?
A: “Yes, of course. We have repeatedly turned to the European Union to ask for their intervention. The last time was in the autumn of 2004, after Cyprus entered the EU.”
Q: The results?
A: “Nothing so far. My personal conviction is that the European governments should exert pressure on Turkey, above all in this phase of the opening of negotiations for the entry of Ankara into the Union. But they don’t want to take advantage of this opportunity. And so the more time passes, the more our sacred places in the northern part of Cyprus are falling into ruin. The Turks want to destroy every trace of Hellenism and of Christianity. Only strong international pressure can stop them.”
Interesting reading, right? Just search the word "destruction" on this site to get an idea of the ongoing cultural obliteration.
So, a great article from Chiesa. Truly amazing and i say this because it is very rare to read such an accurate depiction of Turkey's occupation from the western press as to not upset a key NATO ally. Obviously there are some exceptions. Below are some foreign publications and what they had to say in the past about this so called special "peace operation".
The Times
"It is important to distinguish between random damage that might have been caused by drunks after a night out, and the demolition of crosses, tombstones and heavy marble slabs which weigh several hundredwieht and would need men with sledgehammers to destroy them. We found nothing to fit the first category. In fact, at Dhavlos, on the north coast, now occupied by mainland Turks, even the graveyard wall was partly demolished. Not a single tombstone remained standing...
..the process of obliterating everything Greek has been carried out methodically. The churches and graveyards have suffered severely."
"The Times", 5.27.1976
"The little treasure house of Antiphonitis Monastery, in the mountains north of Lefkoniko, had sustained the most comprehensive looting and damage....the 11th, 12th, and 15th century icons..all had vanished or had been destroyed. The nineteenth and twentieth century icons were smashed, the furniture broken. In the corner were bags of cement and the remains of a fire. Furniture had been lugged outside onto the grass, and the whole place was a strewn with bottles and filth. Somebody was clearly proud of this work, for the wrecked iconostasis the date was chalked March 6, 1975."
"The Times", 5.27.1976
The report (August 9)from the Cyprus Director of Antiquities on the recent looting or desecration of the mosaics in the church of Panayia Kanakaria in the Turkish occupied north of Cyprus has reopened the debate on the fate of churches, monasteries and mosques on that unhappy island.
As a journalist I have travelled widely and freely on both sides of the partition line. In Turkish Cyprus there was large scale damage to churches in the immediate aftermath of the 1974 intervention. That was perhaps understandahle. More recently, historic churches have been seized, stripped and whitewashed and converted into mosques. One example is on the fringes of Nicosia, another outside Famagusta. Others have been desecrated.
Less than a year ago, travelling in the company of Mr. Mustapha Adiloglou, press official in London of the Turkish Federated State of Cyprus we came across a desecrated church in the centre of a busy village between Famagusta and Nicosia. Fresh excrement and urine lay on the smashed altar and the floor. The church Bible had been used as toilet paper and the wall paintings gashed and disfigured. The icons had vanished. From the state of the place it was clear that this was not a single act of violation. The place obviously had been a public convenience for months.
In fairness one should add that some churches (particularly tourist conscious Kyrenia) have been restored by the rurkish authorities and are either open for prayer or tourism or securely locked.
"The Times", 19.8.80
Yenidyzen
"The Turkish Cypriot Arts Society leader, Ali Atakan, in a statement issued on May 20 revealed yet more antique smuggling. According to this revelation, a valuable Byzantine mosaic has been stolen from a Byzantine Church in the village of Lythrangomi. There are two inter-connected churches in the village and the mosaic was stolen from the apse of the older church which dates back to the 8th century..."
Turkish Cypriot "Yenidyzen", 6.1.1982
"You will see chambers cut out of the rocks, lighthouses, the remains of baths, layouts and the military camps set up on the ruins both before and after 1974... Today Lambousa is a military zone closed to tourists. Here are many important churches and the mythological Akhiropietos Monastery. Now you cannot see it because it is being used as a military warehouse. The icons stolen from Lambousa were retrieved while being smuggled out of Ankara airport."
Le Monde
"The antiques are illegaly exported from the northern part of the island, especially rich in archaeological sites'
"Le Monde", 12.27.1978
Bozkurt
"The Cyprus Arts Society in the occupied areas issued a press release saying that the antique smuggling in the occupied areas has reached enourmous dimensions and that measures should be taken to protect the destruction of the antiques."
Turkish Cypriot "Bozkurt", 7.4.1982
The Guardian
"We visited 26 former Greek villages. We found not a single undesecrated cemetery..."
"...The vandalism and desecration are so methodical and so widespread that they amount to institutionalised obliteration of everything sacred to a Greek ... In some instances, an entire graveyard of 50 or more tombs had been reduced to pieces or rubble no larger than a matchbox...we found the chapel of Ayios Demetrios at Ardhana empty but for the remains of the altar plinth, and that was fouled with human excrement... At Syngrasis ... the broken crucifix was drenched in urine.. At Lefkoniko ...the interior of Gaidhouras church... was overlooked by an armless Christ on a smashed crucifix... Tombs gaped open wherever we went...crosses bearing the pictures of those burried beneath ... had been flattened and destroyed.
"The Guardian", 'The Rape of northern Cyprus', 5.6.1976
Ortam
"The trial of the director sic of Kyrenia Museum, Mehmet Rasih, has ended with the case being referred to the "criminal court". The trial is connected with the 3 chests of antiques discovered in Turkey on their way to Germany, on 16.3.1981... The number of the missing icons or substituted icons were 225 ...later it was found that large icons had been sawn down to smaller sizes and thus entered in the books."
Turkish Cypriot "Ortam", 5.6.1982
Bozkurt
"Two icons estimated to cost arounf TL 1 million were stolen from Kyrenia "Court". The icons stolen from the village church of Karmi 5 months ago were found in the Famagusta district and 4 persons were arrested in connection with the incident. The icons were locked away in Kyrenia "Court-House" to be stolen again."
Turkish Cypriot "Bozkurt", 3.9.1979
The Times
"Confidential United Nations military documents, circulated to officers in the United Nations peace - keeping force in Cyprus, disclose that looting is being systematically carried out on a massive scale by the Turkish and Turkish Cypriot authorities in the north of the island"
"The Times", 12.13.1976
"...historic churches have been seized, stripped and whitewashed and converted into mosques ... Others have been desecrated. ... we came across a desecrated church in the center of a busy village between Famagusta and Nicosia. Fresh excrement and urine lay on the smashed altar and the floor. The church Bible had been used as toilet paper and the wall paintings gashed and disfigured. The icons had vanished. From the state of the place it was clear that this was not a single act of violation. The place obviously had been a public convenience for months. ... On the Greek side all the mosques I have seen are securely locked and protected."
"The Times", 8.19.80
The Sunday Times
"Scotland Yard and Customs Officials are uncovering a highly organized smuggling network behind the trail of antiques looted in Cyprus"
"The Sunday Times", 4.25.1976
OPEN GRAVES, BROKEN CROSSES...
The Times
The above testimony, by a British journalist, member of the crew of a British TV network which visited the occupied part of Cyprus, proved that the places of rest of the dead became targets of the most intense destruction mania. According to this and other testimonies, the crosses on graves were cut away and broken to pieces. Tombstones were also overturned and crushed to bits, while the invaders violated the graves.
"We managed to check 26 villages in all. Some other villages, such as Marathovouno and Pyrga, were sealed by the Army and access to the church itself was not possible. Since graveyards are usually some way out of the village, these were checkable and, in every instance, we found deliberate and usually comprehensive damage. In no village we visited was the graveyard intact"
"The Times", 5.27.1976
The Guardian
"We visited 26 former Greek villages. We found not a single undesecrated cemetery..."
"The Guardian", 5.6.1976
"The next village had been -until the events of 1974- Greek. Now it is deserted but for Turkish refugee squatters. There are two churches in the village. One has been stripped and converted into a mosque. A few Turkish Cypriots kneel, praying, inside it. The other church has been vandalised. The exterior walls are covered with illegible graffiti. Inside, the destruction is complete. The body of the church is bare of pews or chairs. The alter screen, composed of six-inch timbers, has been wrenched out, the icons have been looted. Among the filth on the floor lies the torn remains of an antique bible. ...The altar ... has been smashed. On the remains of the altar are broken bottles, excrement, and what smells like urine. When asked about the desecrated Greek church and the massacre villages, Rauf Denktash, "president of Turkish Cypriots"...ads that it all shows that Greeks and Turks can no longer live side by side on the island".
"The Guardian", 11.30.1979
OLAY
"Illegal digs are being made in all districts. For example, in Kyrenia, in Ayios Epiktitos, in Nicosia, and in the hills beyond Krini. But, Famagusta is the most suitable for illegal digs. Illegal digs virtually cover the whole district. In this district the first settlements were established and since ancient times they had maintained their historical importance.
Illegal digs in the Karpass start from the cliff in the east, from the small islets in the sea, and from the caves of Galinoporni, and extend to the north-west of the Karpass, to Eptakomi, Ovogoros, Galatia and Ardhana".
Turkish Cypriot, "Olay", 1 7.5. 1982.
The Observer
"Vandals have desecrated scores of British graves in Turkish occupied northern Cyprus, some of them dedicated to First World War soldiers ... The wrecking of British gravestones pales beside the destruction in Christian Greek Orthodox cemeteries ... Every cross has been destroyed and the tombs gape open to the elements, the lizards and the robbers, spurred on by the superstition that the Greeks have valuables buried with them"
"The Observer", 3.29.87
OLAY, April 1982.
"Haven't you heard that the 2000 year old Christian church in Cyprus, St Barnabas' Church, has been robbed? Haven't you heard that 35 icons were stolen, that 11 of them were found in Kythrea, that 11 were retrieved at Ankara airport while being smuggled out, and that the rest are lost? Haven't you heard what's happening in Varosha (Famagusta)? Haven't you heard that figurines belonging to the Catholic period and kept in the Archaelogical Museum have been stolen and smuggled to London? What about the icons in the other churches; the mosaics, the private collections, the illegal digs? Why have they stopped the digs started before 1974 at the city of Gastria, which belongs to the geometric age? Do you know what happened since then? The government has issued permits to certain businessmen from Turkey to set up a gypsum factory there. The tombs were destroyed and plundered."
Mehmet Yasin, "Perishing Cyprus" in the Turkish Cypriot Review "Olay", April 1982.
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