15 July 1974 Turmoil (1/2)
I was in Cyprus on the very day July 15, 1974 when a Coup d’etat was organized by the military junta in Greece, against Archbishop Makarios, the then President of Republic of Greek Cyprus, to achieve immediate Enosis (union with Greece). The next day, on July 16 “The Hellenic Republic of Cyprus” was proclaimed and the notorious murderer of EOKA, Nikos Sampson, who ruthlessly killed many English and Turkish civilians in the late 50’s and 60’s, appointed as the President of the Hellenic Republic of Cyprus. On July 17, he dared to declare Enosis without the consent of the remaining two guarantors England and Turkey, many Greek Cypriots and the whole of the Turkish Cypriots.
It was a unilateral declaration of unification with Greece without approval of the international organizations, UN, EEC, Russia, USA, etc.
Within the first 5 days of the coup d’etat more than three thousand Greek Cypriots, including civilian supporters of Makarios, some of his armed police force members and supporters of the Communist party AKEL were ruthlessly exterminated by the coupists. On July 18, 1974 the annihilation plan called AKRITAS was put into effect to exterminate Turkish Cypriot people.
The coup d’etat aiming immediate Enosis (Union with Greece) ended with a tragedy on August 16, 1974 remaining behind thousands of dead bodies, hundreds of thousands immigrants and a divided island.
Tens of thousands of Turkish Cypriots were held as prisoners of war in the southern part of the island. Thousands of Greek Cypriots fled to south as immigrants. The coup d’etat turned into a big disaster and catastrophe rather than a smooth unification with Greece as planned by the military junta in Greece.
To understand the reasons of the Coup d’etat, one most go back in the history of Cyprus as back as to Dec ember 21, 1963.
On this notorious day, the armed Greek Militia attacked to Turkish Cypriot quarters by the command of the President of Republic of Greek Cyprus.
Makarios wasn’t happy with the constitutional rights given to the Turkish Cypriots by the 1959 Treaty for the foundation of the Cyprus Republic, which was signed by England, Turkey, Greece, Makarios himself and Dr. Küçük.
On November 1963 Makarios proposed thirteen amendments in the constitution of Cyprus Republic to eliminate the partnership rights of Turkish Cypriots and convert the existing republic into a unitary Cyprus Greek Republic, run solely by the Greeks.
His amendment proposals were rejected by Turkey, one of the guarantors of the Republic and by the Turkish Cypriots, founding partners of the Republic of Cyprus. These both rejections ignited the armed assaults of Greek Cypriots towards Turkish Cypriots with the intentions to convert the island into a sole Greek Cypriot soil….. (to be continued)
Ata ATUN
ata.atun@atun.com
http://www.ataatun.com
Failing Talks
It seems that a “Big Fail” is waiting the Cyprus talks because of the negative attitude and reluctance of the Greek leader Nikos Anastasiades.
From first day of his presidential days, he was quite reluctant to sit down with Dervish Eroglu, the President of TRNC, and discuss the problems blocking the way to a sustainable solution to the almost 51 years old Cyprus dispute.
The Greek Cypriots obviously are not willing to share the government and the governance of the existing so called “Republic of Cyprus”. Actually it is not the same Republic of Cyprus founded on August 16, 1960 where the Turkish Cypriots were the founding partners of the Republic and constituting the 30 percent of the civil servants and 40 percent of the Military force.
The then president Archbishop Makarios, after a dense and inhuman armed assaults to Turkish Cypriots with the intention to wipe them out from the island, realized that he cannot get rid of the Turks in the island by force and decided to find an alternative method.
Upon this failure he invented a rule titled “Law of Necessity” and unilaterally amended the 1960 Constitution of Republic of Cyprus with the votes of Greek Cypriot MP’s only in the Parliament and cancelled all the constitutional rights of Turkish Cypriots.
Of course this method was totally against the 1960 Constitution of Republic of Cyprus as any amendments in the Constitution or in any law, needed “absolute majority” of the Turkish Cypriot MP’s as well.
This is the main reason why Republic of Turkey does not recognize Republic of Cyprus as the continuation of the 1960 Republic of Cyprus.
The last long meeting of the leaders, which were supposed would give a push to the talks for a faster pace, on the contrary gave a slowdown as if somebody hit the brakes. The Greek leader “introduced new areas of disagreement, which all of them related to the “Procedure” and “Substance”.
President Anastasiades rejected the Talat-Papadopulos, Talat-Christofias and Eroglu-Christofias convergences and wanted the talks to start from the scratch. This means a further 50 years of discussions and is not acceptable by the Turkish Cypriots. On the last meeting he expressed his opposition to the rotating presidency and reportedly made a “president and vice-president” proposal where this concept never took place in any report of the Secretary General of the UN.
Anastasiades also demanded the submission of proposals on all the Chapters of the Cyprus Problem, which included “Territory” and “Security”.
Both of these chapters are the last ones in the “order of discussions” defined by the UN and cannot be discussed earlier than the planned stage.
It is obvious that the Greek Cypriots are not sincerely willing to end the four decades long discussions and trying to create artificial blockages to delay the negotiations, till a chance comes on stage to capture or overtake the island under Greek Cypriot hegemony as was before 1974, where the Turkish Cypriots had no political rights and human rights.
Ata ATUN
ata.atun@atun.com
http://www.ataatun.com
Borders in the Middle East are Shattering
The borders in the Middle East were drawn in 1919 by Ms. Gertrude Bell of British Intelligence using a simple 12 inch wooden ruler and a blue colored chinagraph pencil. She was quite talented and as good as the Lawrence of Arabia.
Britain and France shared the whole Middle East stretching from the shores of Eastern Mediterranean Sea till Strait of Hurmuz on the East-West direction and from Anatolia till Yemen on the North-South direction clandestinely after the Sykes-Picot agreement on 1916. The signatories were French diplomat François Georges-Picot on behalf of France and Sir Mark Sykes on behalf of British Empire. The Russian Tsarist government was the minor party to the agreement and seeking a portion from the estate of the Ottoman Empire. After the Bolshevik Revolution of October 1917 in Russia, the Bolshevik government under the leadership of Lenin exposed the agreement.
After the exposition of the agreement the Arabs dismayed, especially Hussein bin Ali, the Sharif of Mecca felt heavily deceived as he was promised to be declared and appointed as the King of Arabia after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire.
In reliance upon this promise given by the British, he and his Bedouin troops fought side by side with the British forces to defeat the Ottoman Army in the region. Although the Ottoman Army was defeated at the end and the British took hold of the Middle East, he wasn’t rewarded with a Kingdom of any kind and size at all. He passed away as a standard and a ordinary citizen of the Ottoman Empire on 1931.
At the end of Worl War I, the new borders in the Middle east were drawn according to the sole interest of British Empire without taking into consideration the ethnical accumulation of the local Arabs and any kind of geographical feature. The new born states were quite artificial had no special characteristics of their own.
On the regions rich with oil, built artificial states with small population so that they cannot revolt in any way against British or Western powers and on the territories with no oil, created artificial states with large but poor population, who cannot afford to buy arms for a revolt against Western powers.
Till the end of World War II, these artificial new states of the Middle East were under the strict control and dominance of the British Empire and France. Beginning from the year 1946 the control loosened up and all of these artificial states declared their independences. Since they were not nation-states at all but a collection of local tribes with different cultures, beliefs and wealth, the only way to keep up the unity of the state was to limit the basic human rights of the citizens under gun point and dictatorship.
This system lasted in all of these artificial states one way or another till the Arab Spring and burst out. The Sykes-Picot Agreement finally ended and the borders in the Middle East are now due change and new states will emerge within the next 10 years…..
Ata ATUN
ata.atun@atun.com
http://www.ataatun.com
EP Elections Told us a Lot
European Parliament (EP) elections were held on May 25 in Cyprus and the voting was only in the Greek side. The Turkish Cypriots who are the Citizens of European Union had to cross the border to vote.
The result of this election reflected the reality of the Cyprus Problem and hinted clearly how the solution should be as well.
It was actually a very serious trial of the Greek view that there are no Turkish Cypriots or Greek Cypriots but only “Cypriots” exist in the island and the elections should be held jointly, under one single list of candidates and one single list of electors.
The Greek Cypriot Administration totally failed to understand the wish of the Turkish Cypriots to be represented in the European Parliament solely by 2 Turkish Cypriots. And on the contrary, aimed to erase the Turkish Cypriot identity and put into force the “Cypriot” concept.
In the beginning they did not want to hear the messages sent from EU concerning the representation of the Turkish Cypriots in the EP. The two seats they grasped from the Turkish Cypriots created a desire to keep them for themselves and also the idea of a Turkish Cypriot speaking in the European Parliament freely and conveying the injustice we did face for years since mid fifties, seems frightened the Greek Cypriot Administration.
When the pressure from the European Commission (EC) turned out to be unbearable anymore, they passed a law in the House of Representatives, enabling Turkish Cypriots to vote and get elected aswell.
Of course as usual this special law was again unfair and lacked to protect the rights of the Turkish Cypriots.
The total number of the Turkish Cypriots who were the citizens of Republic of Cyprus before 1974 and their descendants were declared as 95,900 by the Greek Administration.
Since the amount of Turkish Cypriots were quite enough to elect even two Turkish representatives to the EP, the Greek Administration quite smartly invented a method to escalate the number downwards and created artificially the “Residence address” blockade.
The residence address of almost the 28,000 Turkish Cypriots were their pre 1974 addresses in the southern part of the island and all of the electors, who declared their old addresses were disqualified from the elections.
The Greek Administration also declared that almost 10,000 Turkish Cypriots did not declare any residence address and duly eliminated also from the elections. The total number of Turkish Cypriots who were eligible for voting and candidacy dropped dramatically from 95,900 to a mere 58,638.
Out of this 58,638 Turkish Cypriots only 2019 crossed the border for voting. A further 150 elector sent back and only 1,869 Turkish Cypriot managed to vote.
Of course the result was a big disaster. None of the 5 Turkish Cypriots got enough votes to be elected. They even could not reach to 1 percent line.
This election tells to both of the Turkish and Greek Cypriots and as well to United Nation’s bureaucrats and European Union people that none of the people of the island of Cyprus are willing to have a common identity, common list, common voting and a common administration.
It came out as a crystal clear fact from the European parliament elections.
Ata ATUN
ata.atun@atun.com
http://www.ataatun.com
Who is the owner of Natual Gas
The hydrocarbon fields, said to be explored in the Greek Cypriot alleged Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) still needs to confirmed and legalized. The unilaterally declared EEZ by the Greek government, itself needs to be internationally recognized as per the Law of the Sea, Convention1, dated 1958, Convention 2, dated 1960 and Convention 3, 1982.
To declare any sea bed as an Exclusive Economic Zone, extending as much as 200 miles into international waters, there are some international rules and regulations to be fulfilled.
First of all the Republic of (Greek) Cyprus is not the same state as internationally recognized on August 16, 1960 under the title Republic of Cyprus.
The Turkish Members of Parliament were expelled from the House of Representatives under gunpoint within couple of weeks after the attacks of armed Greek Militia to Turkish civilians on the night of December 21, 1963.
The Greek Cypriot Members of Parliament, illegally and unilaterally changed the constitution of Cyprus, by amending the items of constitution giving Turkish Cypriots the equal right of partnership. To change the constitution according to 1960 Constitution of Republic of Cyprus, at least 11 votes out of 15 Turkish Cypriot Members of Parliament need to be approving the changes.
The than President of Republic Archbishop Makarios III and his legal advisors, suddenly discovered a law titled “Law of Necessity*” of 19th century, and grabbed the idea of “Doctrine of State of Necessity”, to change or cancel the unamendable Basic Articles of the Cypriot Constitution reflecting the idea that will of state can occur only if there exists a combination of the wills of two separate Communities*. And of course with the consent of the Supreme Court, which approved the imposing of the above mentioned law, where again the decision was taken without the presence of Turkish Cypriot Member and Natural member, which is totally against the 1960 Constitution, the “ancient” Law of Necessity was put into effect and all the legal and partnership rights of Turkish Cypriots in the 1960 Constitution of Republic of Cyprus were amended and Turkish Cypriots stripped out from their partnership rights. After these amendments in the Constitution the legal rights and statute of Turkish Cyprus escalated downwards from the partners of the Republic to minority rights same as the existing minorities in the island, ie Maronites, Armenians and Latins.
So now the existence of the Cyprus (Greek) Republic is still based on the “Law of Necessity” and illegally and unilaterally amended 1960 RoC Constitution.
For the legalization and internationally recognition of the Exclusive Economic Zone declared by the Greek Cypriot Administration, the existing administration had to sign initially a Memorandum of Understanding with each of the surrounding neighboring states, then a preliminary delimitation of the EEZ with the neighboring country, agreement on Median Line separating the two neighboring EEZ’s, and finally the EEZ Agreement itself.
Greek Cyprus Administration did not sign EEZ Agreements with each of the neighboring states and duly the declared Greek Cypriot EEZ is not legal and internationally recognized yet. For the declared EEZ to be legalized and internationally recognized, The Greek Cyprus Administration h ad to complete the above legal procedure with Turkey as well. For the time being Turkey, as one of the guarantor states as per the 1960 Constitution, does not recognize Greek Cypriot Administration, because of their existence being based on the illegally and unilaterally amended 1960 Constitution.
This is the main reason why the Western powers insisting on a quick solution to the Cyprus dispute and advising to Greek Cypriots to share the income of the hydrocarbon products pumped out from the alleged EEZ….
*Note: For further details on Law of Necessity Cyprus, read Assoc. Prof. Dr. Kudret Ozersay’s article titled “The Excuse of State Necessity And Its Implications on the Cyprus Conflict” on internet,
http://sam.gov.tr/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/KudretOzersay.pdf
Ata ATUN
e-mail: ata@kk.tc
http://www.ataatun.com
