New Statesman
The ‘desecration’ of Cyprus
Posted by Brian Coleman
22 October 2007
The deaths of a couple of dozen Turkish troops in operations against
the Kurds and the vote by the Turkish Parliament to in effect invade
Northern Iraq to pursue operations against the Kurdish people has
focused world attention on a conflict which the modern state of Turkey
has pursued for many decades.
Last weekend I was in Cyprus (and yes my expenses were paid by my
hosts) to attend events to continue to protest about the Turkish
occupation of North Cyprus in particular the beautiful town of Morphu,
twinned with my home Borough of Barnet.
Whereas over the last few years the legitimate Republic of Cyprus has
made huge economic strides.
On the back of EU membership it operates as a mainstream European
Country. The occupied north meanwhile continues to exist in a form of
Asiatic poverty with an army of occupation of about 40,000 troops.
Most of the native Cypriots (both Greek and Turkish) have long since
given up and abandoned the place to settlers flown in from Anatolia.
The desecration of Orthodox churches and the wholesale stripping and
sale abroad of religious icons and archaeological treasures has to be
seen to be believed and the ethnic cleansing carried out in the north
of this magnificent island is as bad as anything experienced in the
former Yugoslavia.
Yet as the new female Cypriot Foreign Minister Erato
Kozakou-Marcoullis told me in rather a forceful manner – she has a
touch of the Margaret Thatcher about her – there are thousands of
Britons buying property illegally confiscated from Cypriots many of
whom are my constituents in North London. In fact 95% of sales in the
occupied area are to Brits.
Quite why anyone would buy property they have no legal entitlement to
and which, when the eventual reunion of Cyprus comes, they may well
lose with no compensation at all is beyond me. However the British
Government sits back and does little to prevent these sales and the
environmental damage to picturesque North Cyprus which the huge
building boom is causing.
This last fortnight has also shown that Britain is not alone in
playing softball with Turkey; the attitude of President Bush to
Congress which was discussing the Armenian genocide was bizarre.
As the Armenian ambassador explained in his excellent piece on the New
Statesman website last week, nobody with any common sense denies that
the Armenian Genocide of 1915 onwards took place. Yet if the Germans
can admit their guilt over the Nazi Holocaust why cannot the Turks do
likewise?
The plucky little democratic country of Armenia still has to contend
with a blockade by Turkey not to mention the aggression of its
neighbour Azerbaijan whose idea of Democracy is to pass the presidency
down from father to son.
So why this desire by Britain and the US to butter up Turkey? Gone is
the Cold war threat from the Soviet Union and, with the election of
President Gul, the Islamists are taking over Turkey anyway. Quite how
the Turks imagine they can have any place in the EU whilst maintaining
their belligerence on Cyprus, Armenia and towards the Kurds is beyond
me.
Exactly why does the British Government continue to promote Turkey’s
EU membership? Could it by any chance be to do with Labour’s need of
the Muslim vote?