"The truth about Cyprus" is a lie

Israelinsider.com
By Argyros George Argyrou January 1, 2007

The article "The truth about Cyprus" by Rachel Salomon is a complete
pack of unsubstantiated lies and Turkish hate-filled propaganda that
the gullible Salomon who, as she has admitted, is working for the
Turkish government, has fallen for hook, line and sinker.

In paragraph two Salomon falsely claims that the British allowed
Greeks to settle in Cyprus in 1879. This is a lie since Cyprus has
been a Greek island for over 3,500 since Mycenaean times and Greeks
have always lived on the island continuously until the present day. Up
until 1879 only 5% of the population of the island was Turkish
speaking and the rest were Greeks. This Turkish speaking population
was mainly the result of forced conversions of the island’s Latin
communities to Islam. From the time when they took control of the
island in 1879, the British, in order to implement a policy of divide
and conquer, imported thousands of mainland Turks to work for them and
this brought the Turkish speaking population up to 18%. There was
never a Turkish quarter of Nicosia for any Greeks to march
through. What is now the Turkish quarter of Nicosia is what was
originally the Armenian quarter until Turkish terrorists ethnically
cleansed the Armenians and occupied their homes in the early 1960’s.

Greek patriotic songs were not about slaughter but about freedom from
brutal Turkish oppression. Christians in the Ottoman empire were
treated as second class citizens and had to pay extortionate taxes
including a Child Tax where their children — boys and girls — were
taken as slaves to be converted to Islam and forced to serve out the
rest of their lives in the Sultan’s army or harem. In 1923 Turkey was
forced to renounce all claim to Cyprus by the Lausanne Treaty and all
Turks in Cyprus were supposed to have been repatriated to Turkey.

The constitution that the British imposed on Cyprus in 1960 violated
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by giving the 18% Muslim
minority unjustifiable privileges and through institutional
discriminations against the Greek Cypriot Christian majority and
treating them as second class citizens. The Muslim minority was
effectively treated as if it made up 50% of the population and given
de facto rule of Cyprus through an undemocratic blanket right of veto
which they used to paralyze the government.

After President Makarios announced his decision to make 13 amendments
to this unviable and undemocratic constitution to bring it in line
with Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Muslim minority pulled
out of the government and began a violent armed rebellion and campaign
of terror with Turkish weapons and explosives secretly smuggled into
Cyprus by Turkey with the help of members of the British army and the
Americans, their NATO allies. They immediately began attacking police
officers and police stations and taking people hostage in December of
1963.

Contrary to Rachel Salomon’s lies in paragraph six, the Akritas Plan
was not about annihilating the Turkish Cypriots but was about how to
reform the racist constitution while preserving peace on the island,
in a civilized manner, which was being threatened by the recent
discovery that arms and explosives had been supplied by Turkey and
Britain to Muslim extremists who were members of the TMT terrorist
organization founded by Rauf Denktash in the 1950’s which attacked
both Greek and Turkish Cypriots alike in order to drive them apart.

This violence, which the United Nations Security Council attributed to
illegal Turkish aggression in violation of Article 2 Paragraph 4 of
the UN Charter, resulted in the death of 350 Turkish Muslim terrorists
and 200 Greek policemen and civilians, not 600 innocent Turkish
Cypriot men, women, and children as Salomon falsely claims.

In 1965 the UN Secretary General Galo Plaza noted in the Galo Plaza
report on the violence that the Turks wished to ethnically cleanse the
Greek Cypriot majority which made up 82% of the population and owned
90% of the land and property on the island from their homes in the
north and turn it into a purely Turkish state. To this end they began
withdrawing into Turkish-only enclaves under TMT intimidation and
seized and fortified the Armenian quarter of Nicosia from which they
burst out and captured the Nicosia-to-Kyriania main highway to use as
a bridgehead for a Turkish invasion, which was prevented by
intervention from US president Lyndon Johnson.

Paragraphs 8, 9 and 10 are complete and utter hate-filled lies. The
objective of coup against Makarios in 1974 planned by the American CIA
who Nicos Sampson was working for and its objective was to partition
Cyprus between Greece and Turkey by giving the Turks a base in the
north, something which Makarios would not allow.

Paragraphs 12 is another total fabrication. Over 200,000 Greek
Cypriots who made up over 82% of the populations were brutally
ethnically cleansed from their homes in the north through barbaric
acts committed by invading Turkish forces as is shown by the first two
reports of the European Commission of Human Rights, "Turkey’s invasion
in Cyprus and aftermath (20 July 1974 – 18 May 1976)" and "Turkey’s
invasion in Cyprus and aftermath (19 May 1976 – 10 February 1983)".

Rachel Salomon’s comments likening the Greek Cypriots to Adolf
Hitler’s Mein Kampt and The Nazi Final Solution are truly disgusting
and downright lies. Mustafa Kemal’s genocide over 1.5 million
Armenians, 2 million Greeks and 500,000 indigenous Assyrians in
Asia-Minor was the inspiration of Hitler’s decision to exterminate the
Jews and this genocide has been continued against the Greek Cypriots
in Cyprus since, unlike Germany, Turkey has never recognized or been
made to pay the price for its crimes against humanity. Views
expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of
israelinsider.