Turkish Invasion of Cyprus: Encyclopedia II - Turkish Invasion of Cyprus - Invasion and occupation

Turkish Invasion of Cyprus - Invasion and occupation

Turkish Invasion of Cyprus - 1963-1974

The objective of EOKA [5] was to drive the British out of the island first and then integrate the island to Greece by destroying the Turkish community with a massive annihilation. EOKA initiated its activities by planting the first bombs on 1 April 1951 with the directive by Greek Foreign Minister Stefanopulos.

The first secret talks for EOKA as a terrorist organization [6] established to destroy the Turkish public in Cyprus and integrate the island to Greece, were started in the chairmanship of Makarios in Athens on 2 July 1952. In the aftermath of these meetings, a "Council of Revolution" was established on 7 March 1953. In early 1954, secret weaponry shipment to Cyprus started to the knowledge of the Greek government. Grivas covertly disembarked on the island on 9 November 1954. EOKA's campaign of terrorism [7] was properly under way.

Assaults on Turks began on 21 June 1955.

In 1963, EOKA restarted its acts, killing over 500 Turks, burning down 103 Turkish villages and forcing tens of thousands of Turks to migrate. Now a secretive organisation and going by the name of EOKA-B, in the Sampson coup on 15 July 1974, EOKA members this time pointed their weapons to their own community, killing 2,000 Greek cypriots who were Makarios supporters. These dead and missing were later to be added on to the casualties of Turkish invasion, so as to be used for Greek propaganda.

Turkish Invasion of Cyprus - The Turkish invasions of Cyprus of July and August 1974

In the spring of 1974, Cypriot intelligence discovered that EOKA B was planning a coup against President Makarios [8] which was sponsored by the fascist military junta of Athens.

The junta had came to power in a military coup in 1967 which was condemned by the whole of Europe but had the support of the US. In the autumn of 1973 after the 17 November student uprising there had been a further coup in Athens in which the original Greek junta had been replaced by one still more obscurantist headed by the Chief of Military Police, Brigadier Ioannides, though the actual head of state was General Phaedon Gizikis.

Alleged secret documents which were declassified during the trial of former NATO advisor Athanasios Strigas reveal that in May 1974 Henry Kissinger sent a secret telegram giving orders for Makarios to be deposed, because Cyprus' policy of non-alignment was considered unsatisfactory by US policy makers who saw Makarios as favouring the Soviet Union. Kissinger described the plot as the, "final cure of the national security council". In June of 1974 Kissinger sent a further secret telegram which put the plan into action.

On 2 July 1974 Makarios wrote an open letter to President Gizikis complaining bluntly that 'cadres of the Greek military regime support and direct the activities of the 'EOKA B' terrorist organization'. The Greek Government's immediate reply was to order the go-ahead to the conspiracy. On 15 July 1974 sections of the National Guard, led by its Greek officers, overthrew the Government.

Makarios narrowly escaped death in the attack. He fled the presidential palace by catching a taxi after escorting a party of school children out of the building and went to Pafos, where the British managed to retrieve him and flew him out of the country in an RAF jet fighter.

In the meantime, the EOKA B member Nikos Sampson was declared provisional president of the new government after Glafcos Clerides who was the coupists original candidate declined the offer at the last moment.

A top secret letter allegedly signed and sent by Joseph Luns the Secretary General of NATO in July 1974 indicates that America was directly responsible for the coup by EOKA B and for allowing the subsequent Turkish invasion to take place. In it he states; "The Assistant Undersecretary of state Sisco's visit to the Alliance, showed the decision of the American government to finish the Cyprus problem. We agreed with Mr Sisco for supporting the Turkish army during the landing, as well as, in the violent expulsion of Makarios."

Turkey invaded Cyprus on July 20, 1974 after unsuccessfully trying to get support from one of the other guarantor forces - Britan. Heavily armed troops landed shortly before dawn at Kyrenia (Girne) on the northern coast. Ankara claimed that it was invoking its right under the Treaty of Guarantee to protect the Turkish Cypriots and guarantee the independence of Cyprus – a claim which is still being contested by Greeks and Greek Cypriots. The operation, codenamed 'Operation Atilla', is known in the north as 'the 1974 Peace Operation'.

Democracy was restored in Cyprus eight days after the coup against Makarios. By the time the UN Security Council was able to obtain a cease-fire on the 22 July the Turkish forces had only secured a narrow corridor between Kyrenia and Nicosia, which they succeeded in widening during the next few days in violation of the cease-fire. At a conference on 14 August 1974, Turkey demanded from the Cypriot government to accept its plan for a federal state, and population transfer, with 34% of the territory under Turkish Cypriot control. When the Cypriot acting president Clerides asked for 36 to 48 hours in order to consult with Athens and with Greek Cypriot leaders, the Turkish Foreign Minister denied Clerides that opportunity on the grounds that Makarios and others would use it to play for more time. An hour and a half after the conference broke up, the new Turkish attack began. Britain's then foreign secretary and soon to be prime minister James Callaghan, later disclosed that Kissinger "vetoed" at least one British military action to pre-empt the Turkish landing. Turkish troops rapidly occupied even more than was asked for at Geneva. Thirty-six-and a-half per cent of the land came under Turkish occupation reaching as far south as the Louroujina salient.

In the process about 200,000 Greek Cypriots who made up 82% of the population in the north became refugees; many of them forced out of their homes (violations of Human Rights by the Turkish army have been acknowledged by the European Court of Human Rights), the rest fleeing at the word of the approaching Turkish army.

The ceasefire line from 1974 today separates the two communities on the island, and is commonly referred to as the Green Line.

By 1975 on 20,000 Greek Cypriots remained in the north, enclaved in the Karpass peninsula.

Facing threats of a renewed Turkish offensive as well as threats to ethnically cleanse the enclaved Greek Cypriots the Cyprus government and the United Nations consented to the transfer of the remainder of the 51,000 Turkish Cypriots that had not left their homes in the south to settle in the north, if they wished to do so.

On 13 February 1975 Turkey declared the occupied areas of the Republic of Cyprus to be a "Federated Turkish State" to the universal condemnation of the international community (see UN Security Council Resolution 367(1975)).

Turkish Invasion of Cyprus - Human rights violations

In 1976 and again in 1983 the European Commission of Human Rights found Turkey guilty of repeated violations of the European Convention of Human Rights.

The European Commission of Human Rights reports of 1976 and 1983 state the following:

"Having found violations of a number of Articles of the Convention, the Commission notes that the acts violating the Convention were exclusively directed against members of one of two communities in Cyprus, namely the Greek Cypriot community. It concludes by eleven votes to three that Turkey has thus failed to secure the rights and freedoms set forth in these Articles without discrimination on the grounds of ethnic origin, race, religion as required by Article 14 of the Convention."

The 20,000 Greek Cypriots who were enclaved in the occupied Karpass peninsula in 1975 were subjected by the Turks to violations of their human rights so that by 2001 when the European Court of Human Rights found Turkey guilty of the violation of 14 articles of the European Convention of Human Rights in its judgment of Cyprus v. Turkey (application no. 25781/94) less than 600 still remained. In the same judgment Turkey was found guilty of violating the rights of the Turkish Cypriots by authorising the trial of civilians by a military court.

Since the Turkish invasion over 120,000 Turks have been brought to the north from Anatolia in violation of Article 49 of the Geneva Convention, to occupy the homes of the Greek Cypriot refugees.

Approximately 70,000 Turkish Cypriots have been forced to emigrate from the north due to economic hardships brought on by the international isolation of the Northern Cyprus.

Turkish Invasion of Cyprus - Missing persons

Over one and a half thousand people went missing after the Turkish invasion. This tragic problem of a purely humanitarian nature remains unresolved to this day.

Greek Cypriot Military personnel and reservists, as well as civilians, including women and children, were captured by the invading Turkish armed forces, or disappeared, after the cessation of hostilities, in areas under the control of the Turkish army. Some were listed as prisoners of war by the International Red Cross. Television footage taken by a BBC crew in Turkish jails in Adana in September 1974 shows some persons who have later been identified by their own relatives as missing.

In 1981 the UN Committee on Missing Persons (CMP) was established.

On 5 October 1994, the US Senate unanimously adopted an Act for the ascertainment of the fate of five US citizens missing since the Turkish invasion. Following this, the US President appointed Ambassador Robert Dillon, who came to Cyprus to carry out investigations. Andreas Kasapis’ grave was discovered in January 1998 in the TRNC and his remains were sent to the US for DNA testing and identified, yet the Turkish side has still failed to provide reliable information as to the fate of another 1587 Greek Cypriots.

Facts and information on the death and the burial site of 201 out of 500 cases of Turkish Cypriot missing persons were provided by the Cyprus government on 12 May 2003.

On 6 December 2002, excavations at the village of Alaminos, led to the discovery of human remains, which according to existing testimonies, belonged to Turkish Cypriots who lost their lives during a fire exchange with a unit of the National Guard, on 20 July 1974.

Quoted Newspaper report: “In a Greek raid on a small Turkish village near Limassol, 36 people out of a population of 200 were killed. The Greeks said that they had been given orders to kill the inhabitants of the Turkish villages before the Turkish forces arrived.” - Washington Post, 23 July, 1974

Exhumations carried out by British experts in the TRNC village of Trahonas which was a burial site designated by the Turkish side in 1998 were completed on 11 January 2005 but failed to locate any remains belonging to Greek Cypriots listed as missing. After this failure the Cyprus government raised questions over the willingness of the Turkish side to resolve this humanitarian issue.

Turkish Invasion of Cyprus - Destruction of cultural heritage

After Turkey's invasion of Cyprus all but 5 of the 500 Greek Orthodox Churches were looted, desecrated, or destroyed.

Treasures from looted Cypriot churches appeared on the international black art market including the much publicised Kanakaria mosaics.

In 1989 the government of Cyprus took an American art dealer to court for the return of four rare 6th century Byzantine mosaics which that survived an edict by the Emperor of Byzantium, imposing the destruction of all images of sacred figures. Cyprus won the case and the mosaics were eventually returned. In October 1997 Aydin Dikmen who had sold the mosaics was finally arrested in Germany in a police raid and found to be in possession of a stash consisting of mosaics, frescoes and icons dating back to the 6th, 12th and 15th centuries worth over 50 million dollars. The mosaics, depicting Saints Thaddeus and Thomas, are two more sections from the apse of the Kanakaria Church, while the frescoes, including the Last Judgement and the Tree of Jesse, were taken off the north and south walls of the Monastery of Antiphonitis, built between the 12th and 15th centuries.

Turkish Invasion of Cyprus - Turkish immigration

As a result of the Turkish invasion over 120,000 settlers were brought into Cyprus from mainland Turkey. This was despite Article 49 of the Geneva Convention stating that "The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies."

UN Resolution 1987/19 (1987) of the "Sub-Commission On Prevention Of Discrimination And Protection Of Minorities" which was adopted on 2 September 1987 demanded "the full restoration of all human rights to the whole population of Cyprus, including the freedom of movement, the freedom of settlement and the right to property" and also expressed "its concern also at the policy and practice of the implantation of settlers in the occupied territories of Cyprus which constitute a form of colonialism and attempt to change illegally the demographic structure of Cyprus"

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Invasion and occupation", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki