The Road to Freedom
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Gul Celkan
Some call it the Cyprus tragedy, the others the Cyprus drama while others refer to it as the never ending Cyprus problem, I can assure you these tags are all wrong. Yes, up until the year 1974, it was possible to talk about a tragedy and it was a rightful one: the Turkish Cypriots could not enjoy the privileges they were promised they would by being one of the co-founders of the Republic of Cyprus. This dates back to the year 1960. The British having decided to return her Crown Colony to the owners of the Island, a partnership Republic was founded between the Turkish Cypriots and the Greek Cypriots.
At the onset, this newly established State looked promising. The president was to be a Greek Cypriot and the vice-president a Turkish Cypriot, and the Constitution granted equal rights to both sides. Despite having a Constitution that outlaid all the rules as to how this new partnership state was going to be governed, the Greek Cypriots never forgot their ENOSIS ideals and at every opportunity they grasped, they made sure the Turkish Cypriots were deprived of all the rights and privileges endowed upon them by the Constitution. Their ultimate goal was the annihilation of the Turkish Cypriots and be the sole owners of the island. Their dream falls at a conflict with Turkey’s ideals on the Island of Cyprus, and therefore Turkey was always ready to defend the Turkish Cypriots.
The Greek Cypriots never refrained from exercising genocidal attempts against the Turkish Cypriots. Any human being who evaluates these inhumane actions of mass murders and tortures the defenseless Turkish Cypriots on the Island have been exposed to will understand why Turkey needed to take the necessary measures so that these were never repeated again.
It’s been almost 2 score years and ten since these atrocities against the Turkish Cypriots began, however, due to the falsified information given by the Greeks in all platforms, the outside world gives all credit to the Greeks and in a way orders the Turkish Cypriots to give up all their rights.
I find it, at this point worthwhile quoting Gibbons, the historian, and his accounts on how the Turkish Cypriots were treated and how brutally they were killed by the Greek Cypriots. The incident I have quoted below happened in the Mathaiati Village of Nicosia where 208 Turks lived.
“(…) three Turks were seriously injured at the first minutes. When Turks burst out of their white, small houses into the streets, the screaming and cursing crowd began to push and kick them along the way. The terrified Turks who fell down on the floor as a result of riffle butt strikes were dragged across the streets while the crowd stormed into houses, pulled burning logs out of the furnaces and set curtains and beds on fire. The old wooden roof beams were surrounded by smoke and then flames. Barefoot women mostly in nightgowns were also pushed here and there on the burning streets, either holding tight their terrified little babies or with their toddlers catching the ends of their nightgowns or trousers and following them together with others dragging their injured away.
Greek youngsters host at the houses hysterically and yelled madly with hoarse voices. Before the flames completely covered the houses, they materialized into the houses, broken things and grabbing valuable goods. The wild sounds coming from the back of the houses attracted he attention of the assailants to the animals of Turks. They stomped into the barns and raked cows, sheep and goats with machine guns. They threw the chickens into the air and shot them while they desperately cackled and struggled. Their bodies broke into pieces and feathers covered everywhere.
The crowd screamed and yelled in a bloodthirsty manner. Turks were dragged through the frozen streets out of the village. They were left in pain around Kochatis, another Turkish village. The Kochatis villagers hurried out of their houses to help their neighbors while the crowd headed back to Mathiati to continue the plunder and all the madness”. (H. Scott Gibbons, Peace Without Honor, Ankara, 1969, p. 31).
Anyone who evaluates these inhumane treatments that the Turkish Cypriots suffered with a clear conscience, would most likely consent to the taking of measures so that such tragic events are no longer experienced on the island.
It would be appropriate to mention what journalists from different nationalities witnessed during those years of strife. In January 1964, an Italian journalist in Cyprus made the following observations:
“Right now, we are witnessing the migration of Turks from their villages. The Greek Cypriot Terror is ruthless; thousands of people are leaving their houses, lands and flocks. The Hellenistic claims and Plateau can not conceal these savage and barbarous behaviors. Curfew starts in Turkish villages everyday at 16:00 p.m. As soon as darkness falls, threats, weapon sounds and attempts of arson begin. Any resistance seems impossible after the Christmas slaughter which spared neither women nor kids (Giorgio Bocca, İl Giorno, 14 January 1964).
James Rayner’s recollections of the Greek Cyprioy brutality are as follows:
“Greek Cypriots behaved barbarously in the 20th Century, and exercised massacres. They not only slaughtered Turks in a bloodthirsty manner but also buried them half alive. Many corpses in this mass grave unfolds the Greek brutality to the people of the world. The corpses disentombed out of the mass graves were evident of how vile Greeks were and the feudal laws that had been applied by them for years…” (Crushed Flowers, Nicosia, 1982, p. 25).
The Greeks even after the July 20th Peace Operation did not stop their atrocities. Here is what a German tourist who was on the island on July 30th recollects from those days:
“Human mind can not comprehend the barbarism of Greeks… Greek National Guardsmen represented extraordinary examples of brutality. They broke into Turkish houses; they ruthlessly shot women and children; cut the throats of many Turks and gathered and raped Turkish women… (Germany’s Voice, 30 July 1974).
These are just a few of the recollections from foreign media organs. During the 19 years that I lived in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, I had the opportunity to converse with people who had virtually been exposed to the torturous acts of the Greek Cypriots during the years before the Glorious Peace Operation of July 1974.
One has to live and talk with the locals to have an insight into these long years of strife. It was after the year 1963, said this retired teacher, when 300 Turkish villages were burned and thousands of Turkish Cypriots had to live in tents whether it be hot or cold, that the Greeks deprived Turkish Cypriots of getting all the supplies sent from Turkey, even medicine. Sick Turks were not given any treatment and were left to die. Even if they were in way or another hospitalized, they were never given proper treatment and left to die. Food that came from Turkey was thoroughly checked by Greek Cypriot militia before the Turkish Cypriots could have their share. In one incident, recalled this lady, a truck full of watermelon had arrived and the Greek militias made the Turkish driver empty the entire load and then reload it. They were after any kind of ammunition that could be shipped from Turkey and hidden under the melons. On a very hot summer day, the driver had to do this unloading and reloading all on his own, and the Greeks had just gazed. What else can you call this but an act of brutality, or torture?
Each and every story I have heard was enough to send chills down my spine. Anyone who visit the TRNC should not return without seeing the Atlilar, Sandallar and Murataga mass graves. You should note that these killings took place on August 14, 1974 the day of the second Peace Operation. The Greek Cypriots knew that all the men were at the front, so they raided these villages and killed who ever they found. The youngest they brutally murdered was a 9-day old baby, and the eldest a 109-year old man.
During one of the visits we paid to these graves, we met a men who takes care of these sites shared his story with us. He said he was about 7 years old when all the children, women and elderly in his village were killed by the Greek Cypriot thugs and their bodies dumped into a hole that was dug for this purpose. This man, so young at the time, was hiding in a barn among the haystacks, and witnessed all these through a small window. He does recall some of these tragic incidents, and whenever he shares them, he always gets very emotional. Some people told me he sometimes just looks blankly and remembers nothing, but at others recalls everything.
Turkish Cypriots have got a lot of memories to share; in one of my conversations with a lady she told me all the troublesome hours they lived while crossing the border from south to north the week after the Second Peace Operation, I decided to use her closing remarks as the title for this article. Her husband was a truck driver, and would always carry goods to earn his living. They used to live in a village in the south close to the Green Line, and about a two hour drive to Guzelyurt. Following the armistice, the family decides to leave their village at night and cross the border to get to Guzelyurt as it was cleansed from Greek Cypriots and was under Turkish control. However, they were aware that they would need to cross Greek Cypriot barricades and check points. Once determined to leave, they loaded the truck with the usual goods that needed to be transported, and embarked on their deadly journey across the border. The husband knew Greek and he was well known by the Greeks. Yet the wife knew no Greek at all, and if she was to be seen, that would mean trouble. This may sound like a film scenario to some, but it’s purely fact: she wrapped herself in layers of blankets and squeezed in the space between the exhaust pipe and the truck body. She recalls being stopped several times on the way, and the truck being checked thoroughly. She also remembers that burning feeling she had all over her body as the exhaust pipe got hotter and hotter. Once they crossed the border into free land, the husband stopped the truck to free her from her hiding spot and was shocked to see parts of her body burned; however, she was still in high spirits.
When I asked her how she managed to survive all that pain and not lose her faith, her response was short and highly emotional: “We were on ‘the Road to Freedom’ ”.
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