THOSE TURKS, THEY ARE RELENTLESS!
George Gregoriou Professor, Critical Theory and Geopolitics

Greek News, New York
me=News&file=article&sid=7159
July 16 2007

It is 33 years since Turkey invaded Cyprus and carried out their
ethnic cleansing in the north. Nothing seems to change in Ankara.

Ankara gets away with, literally, murder. Does it have anything to do
with the Muslim religion? It does. Ayaan Hirsi Ali offers a partial
explanation. In her words: "Islam stopped thinking in the year 900 and
has stood still for more than a thousand years." For over 100 years,
the authorities in Constantinople and Ankara denied they committed
genocide against the Armenians, much less on all Christian subjects. I
do not mean 1915 or 1922, the massacre of 1,500,000 Armenians and the
burning of Smyrna and the genocide of the Greeks, respectively. The
deportations and massacres against the Christian subjects was part
of the policy of the Ottoman rulers to Turkify Anatolia. This policy
was accelerated, with vengeance, from the last quarter of the 19th
Century to the end of World War I, when the Empire was rotting from
inside and assaulted from the outside by the European imperialist
powers. The end of the Ottoman Empire was in sight. It collapsed with
the outbreak of the Great War.

The evidence on the deportations and massacres is overwhelming. It
was more than one can handle. Turkish intellectuals admit there was a
genocide. They relied on the Ottoman documents, already declassified by
Ankara. Newspaper reporting on the massacres, in the United States and
Europe, abound. So are eyewitness reports by government officials,
American, European, including Germans who coached the Turks on
genocide. This evidence came out at the trials in Constantinople when
the Ottoman capital was occupied by the Allied forces during World War
I. The skulls and skeletons of the victims still surface at the mass
graves. Yet, despite this evidence, the Turkish authorities still say
"Yok," It Did Not Happen!

It is the same on Cyprus. What occupation? What ethnic cleansing? All
traces of Greek history in the occupied north have been eradicated,
from cemeteries to streets to villages and towns. 200 thousand Greek
Cypriots were forced to leave their homes to "make room" for 140,000
settlers from Anatolia. They occupy Greek Cypriot homes, with Ecevit
photographs on bureaus, even take title of stolen property. This is not
true, it is Greek Cypriot propaganda! The bulldozing of Greek Cypriot
homes is daily, mostly for developers from the USA and EU countries,
with Washington encouragement. No, that cannot be true!

Ankara and Washington are masters of denial. And after 33 years of
occupation, even opening the barbed wire gates between the north
and the south for reconciliation, the only solution at the table
(promoted by Ankara, London, and Washington through the UN) is a
legalized partition or a two-state solution.

Why are the Turkish leaders in Ankara so arrogant, even lying in
the face of all the evidence on the genocide and the invasion and
occupation of Cyprus? Why do they get away with these lies? They are
not about to change, denunciations and protestations aside, unless
necessity knocks at their door, at least not by themselves. The
reason? The Turkish rulers, with mass support, are not only arrogant,
they have power to support this arrogance. The are also located at
a strategic place. The major powers in Europe and the US are with
Turkey, as enablers of these lies, thereby perpetuating Ankara¹s
arrogance and denials.

The deportations and massacres in the Ottoman era were well-known.

Americans and Europeans organized, protested, even pressured their
governments to set up commissions to look into these massacres
and take action. That is as far as it went. With the resurgence
of the nationalist movement, led by Mustafa Kemal, the political
tide favored Turkey. He was a competent strategist. His flirting
with the Russian Bolsheviks, for loans and arms, send shivers down
the spines of the capitalists. Though allied warships escorted the
Greek military expedition to Smyrna, they abandoned them. One by one,
the European leaders (Italy, France, Britain) and the United States,
came to terms with Mustafa Kemal and signed peace treaties. Something
else happened. The British did smell oil in Baku (Mesopotamia)
and the Middle East. The Americans would not be left out, since
oil was essential to industrial capitalism. They rushed to sign oil
concessions from the Turks, for billions of dollars in profits. And
voila, a new pro-Turkish policy was borne: the sworn wartime enemy of
the allies was the new ally! What human rights? What humanity? What
genocide? All these platitudes in wartime went out of the window.

This situation continued into the Cold War, the war on terrorism,
and the emerging "Cold War II" against Russia. Turkey is important
in these wars. Cyprus is not.

We cannot hold our breath forever. We have been doing this for 33
years. Any results? Nothing will be done unless this geopolitical
strategy is in danger. We have to stop this isolation. Washington¹s
pro-Turkish policy can be fractured only if the Cyprus problem
becomes part of the larger movement to force Ankara to recognize the
genocide against Greeks, Armenians, Assyrians (and Kurds) and get out
of Cyprus. Otherwise, Turkey will not be in the European Union. This
wind is already blowing in that direction throughout Europe. Sooner
or later Turkey will have to choose between the European Union or
an Islamic path. The present situation cannot last forever. Either
way, Turkey moving towards democracy or the Islamic path will be in
trouble. So would the United States-Turkey axis. For the Greeks,
doing the same thing over and over for 33 years, without results,
is the mark of insanity. Turkey has been denying the genocide for
100 years and occupying northern Cyprus for 33 years, to her advantage.

This cannot be done forever! When the stakes are raised to a higher
level, when Turkey is threatened to fall off its perch, and the
"marriage of convenience" between the United States and Turkey is
on the verge of collapse, we may see some movement on the genocide
denial and the occupation of Cyprus. Imagine such a threat to US
interests in the Muslim world. Iraq may be the beginning of a much
greater disaster waiting to happen. Washington cannot hold the hand
of Ankara at the doorsteps of the EU in Brussels much longer.

–Boundary_(ID_thLYwM0GcgNlMqosypQngQ)–