THE CYPRUS PROBLEM - PART ONE
This is my response to a storm of emails I have received from the USA asking about The Cyprus Problem...I am afraid my response is rather lengthy but I felt I had to start from the very beginning. Cyprus is Greek with a small minority of Turkish Cypriots who we love and care about a lot. Personally I consider every single Turkish Cypriot as equal to me. BUT ! They are only a minority , they are not threatened in any way. And having talked to many of them on the net ...they all dislike the Turks! The TMT is a terrorist organisation. All American politicians have always been in favour of Turkey! How ironic ! NOW they are talking about ...fighting terrorism ! Unfortunately, the Turkish Cypriots had their ...own ...doms !!! The TMT! (Turkish Terrorist Organisation). Mr Bush must be ...a brainless man ! On the one hand , he condemns terrorism in the world ! On the other ...he supports Turkey ..hence the TMT ! How very ironic !
The Cyprus problem, simple in its essence, has been complicated through foreign intervention and has grown into a major dispute endangering peace in the sensitive Middle East region with its repercussions felt almost all over the world. The Cyprus problem has been in the international foreground for a long time, occupying the United Nations and other international fora almost without pause for the last thirty years. During this period the world organisation has been actively involved in peace operations and mediation efforts. Regretfully, existing procedures have proved insufficient to tackle the dispute effectively and restore peace and order in this small but sorely tried island whose only concern is the welfare and progress of its people - a failure due to the inability to impress on Turkey, the main party.
Cyprus is the third largest island in the Mediterranean with an area of 9.251 square kilometers. It lies in the north-eastern corner of the East Mediterranean basin, at the meeting point of three continents - Europe, Asia and Africa - a fact which has added considerably to the island's importance and development. Cyprus' population at the end of 1992 was 718.000. Population distribution by ethnic group is 81,7% Greek Cypriots including Maronites, Armenians, Latins and others and 18,3% Turkish Cypriots.
Since early times Cyprus has had an eventful history, mostly the result of its geographical position. It appeared for the first time in the history of civilisation in the 7th millennium B.C. during the Neolithic period. This period, which lasted three millennia, was followed by the Chalcolithic period. The Bronze Age followed which lasted until 1100 B.C. During the last phase of this period, in the 13th century B.C., the Mycenean Greeks came for this first time to Cyprus as merchants and immigrants. They settled and they introduced the Greek language and culture both of which have been preserved to this day. At the end of the 4th century B.C. Cyprus became part of the Kingdom of Alexander the Great. During the first century B.C. it became a province of the Great Roman Empire and remained as such until the 4th century A.D. when it was included in the eastern part of the Roman Empire. This marks the beginning of the Byzantine period, which lasted until the 12th century A.D. when, during the Crusades, King Richard Coeur de Lion, conquered the island. Very soon, however, Cyprus came under the rule of the Lusignan family, which remained and ruled Cyprus until the 15th century. In 1489 Cyprus became part of the Republic of Venice and in 1571 it was conquered by the Ottomans. Cyprus remained under Ottoman rule together with the Greek mainland and the other Greek islands for centuries. However, after the 1821 Greek uprising and the liberation struggle, the various parts of Greece gradually attained independence. Cyprus also participated in the Greek War of Independence and a large number of Cypriots fought and fell during this war, particularly in the battle of Athens in 1828. (At the beginning of Greece's War of Independence a number of Bishops in Cyprus were hanged by the Turkish occupation authorities, having been accused of supporting the revolution). The question of the incorporation of Cyprus in the Greek state was raised soon after 1830, but it did not become possible and Cyprus remained under Ottoman rule until 1878. In that year the expansionist policy of Tsarist Russia caused the Turks to cede Cyprus to Britain which promised to help Turkey in the event of an attack by Russia on certain bordering provinces. The Turco-British agreement was concluded in complete disregard of the wishes and interests of the Cypriot people, who demanded incorporation of their island as part of Greece.
At the outbreak of the First World War, Cyprus was annexed to the British Empire, and in 1925 it was formally declared a British Crown Colony. By that time Turkey had, under the Treaty of Lausanne of 1923, Article 16, renounced all claim to Cyprus and by Article 27 of the same Treaty divested itself of the exercise of any power or jurisdiction in political, legislative, or administrative matters over the nationals of Cyprus. When Cyprus was declared a British Crown Colony, the Turkish population of the island - descendants of members of the Turkish occupation force and expatriates from Turkey - were invited to choose between repatriation to Turkey or permanent settlement in Cyprus, and a number of them chose to remain in Cyprus. At that time it had never been intended or expected, that the Turkish minority would become the arbiters of the country's destiny. From 1878 when Cyprus was handed over to Britain, until April 1955, when the struggle for liberation from British rule was started by the Greek Cypriots, the Turks in Cyprus intermingled with the Greek people and lived in peace and harmony with them.
In 1955, after a long but unsuccessful struggle to attain their freedom by peaceful means, the people of Cyprus took up arms against the colonial power. The British Government, in its attempt to thwart the Cyprus people's aspirations for self-determination, exploited the presence in Cyprus of the Turkish Cypriot minority, and sought assistance from Turkey in obstructing the natural trend of events in Cyprus. After some hesitation the Turkish Government accepted the invitation to intervene in Cyprus, in defiance of its solemn undertaking under the Treaty of Lausanne, and a section of the Turkish Cypriot minority in Cyprus became the instrument both of British colonialism and of a new expansionist tendency in Turkey. The British Government, moreover threatened that if selfdetermination were ever to be achieved in Cyprus the result would be the partition of the island since the Turkish Cypriot minority would be offered the right to self-determination separately. That threat might have been intended to discourage the Cypriot people's struggle for freedom, but its consequences were quite different. Instead, the partition of Cyprus became an objective of Turkish foreign policy and a number of Turkish Cypriots took up arms against the Cypriot freedom fighters while the Turkish Cypriot leadership advocated either partition or the continuation of British colonial rule.
At the conclusion of a conference in Zurich on 11 February 1959, agreement was reached between Greece and Turkey on a plan for a settlement. On 19 February, following a conference in London, attended by the representatives of Greece, Turkey, Britain and the two Cypriot communities, an agreement was signed for the final settlement of the Cyprus dispute.
On the basis of the Zurich and London Agreements, which were in fact imposed on the people of Cyprus, a constitution was drafted and Cyprus was proclaimed an independent state on 16 August 1960. It has often been asserted that the Zurich and London Agreements were freely signed by the representatives of the Cypriot people; but the only reason the Cypriot people's representatives signed them was because the sole alternative would have been the continued denial of independence and freedom, continued bloodshed and, possibly, the forced partition of Cyprus.
The Constitution provided for, under the Agreements, divided the people into two communities on the basis of ethnic origin and the Turkish Cypriot minority was given rights disproportionate to its size. The President had to be a Greek Cypriot elected by the Greek Cypriots, and the Vice-President a Turkish Cypriot elected by the Turkish Cypriots. The Vice-President was granted the right of a final veto on fundamental laws passed by the House of Representatives and on decisions of the Council of Ministers which was composed of ten ministers, three of whom had to be Turkish Cypriots (although only 18 per cent of the population) and be nominated for appointment by the Vice-President. In the House of Representatives, the Turkish Cypriots were elected separately by their own community. The House had no power to modify the Constitution in any respect in so far as it concerned its basic articles and any other modification required a majority of twothirds of both the Greek Cypriot and the Turkish Cypriot members. Any modification of the Electoral Law and the adoption of any law relating to municipalities or any fiscal laws required separate simple majorities of the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot members of the House. Thus 8 Turkish Cypriot members of the House could defeat a bill voted for by 35 Greek Cypriot members and 7 Turkish Cypriot members. In fact in 1963, when the fiscal laws according to Article 78 of the Constitution expired, the 15 Turkish Cypriot members defeated an income tax bill voted by the 35 Greek members, thus depriving the state of one of its main sources of income.
The highest judicial organs, the Supreme Constitutional Court and the High Court of Justice, had to be presided over by neutral presidents - neither Greek Cypriot nor Turkish Cypriot - who by virtue of their casting votes were supposed to maintain the balance between the Greek and Turkish members of the Courts. Whereas under the colonial regime Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot judges tried all cases irrespective of the origin of the litigants without any complaint ever having been made, the above Agreements provided that disputes among Turkish Cypriots be tried by Turkish Cypriot judges only, disputes among Greek Cypriots by Greek Cypriot judges only, and disputes between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots by mixed courts composed of both Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot judges. Thus for a petty offence which involved a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot, two judges had to sit and try the case. The procedure, apart from being unnecessarily expensive, was conducive to creating a biased judiciary.
In addition to the above provisions, which proved to be both unreasonable and impracticable, separate Greek and Turkish Communal Chambers were created with legislative and administrative powers in regard to educational, religious, cultural, sporting and charitable matters, cooperative and credit societies, and questions of personal status. Separate municipalities were envisaged for Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots in the five largest towns of the island. Such separation, apart from being impracticable, as the population and properties in many places were intermixed, made their functioning disproportionately expensive for small towns such as those of Cyprus. The Turkish Cypriots held 30 per cent of the posts in the Civil Service and comprised 40 per cent of the Police Force and Army.
As a result of the Zurich and London Agreements, as briefly shown above, the proper functioning of the state became virtually impossible through a constitutional structure conceived at a time of tension and suspicion and based on notions aiming at divisions rather than cooperation and unity.
But apart from the Zurich and London Agreements, two treaties were also signed which constituted an infringement of the independence of the Republic of Cyprus and which became part and parcel of the package deal agreed upon in Zurich. These were:
- The Treaty of Guarantee between Cyprus on the one hand and Greece, Britain, and Turkey on the other, whereby the said three powers were given the right of joint or even unilateral action for the purpose of re-establishing the state of affairs created by the Treaty and
- The Treaty of Alliance between Cyprus, Greece and Turkey to station contingents of their own forces on the island.
It should be noted, however, that these Treaties were never presented to the House of Representatives for ratification as the House would not have ratified them and an impasse would have been created from the earliest days of the birth of the Republic.
The Treaties, moreover, were in direct conflict with the basic principles of international law and morality, with the principles of the United Nations Charter and with the right of every state to full sovereignty and independence. They authorized foreign powers to take such action as would constitute an unprecedented intervention in the domestic affairs of an independent state and member of the United Nations, and violated the internationally accepted principles of democratic government, majority rule and equality among citizens. The United Nations Mediator on Cyprus, Dr. Galo Plaza, in paragraph 163 of his report to the U.N. Secretary-General in March 1965, described the 1960 Constitution, created by the Zurich and London Agreements, as "a constitutional oddity", and in paragraph 129 he stated that difficulties in implementing the Treaties signed on the basis of those Agreements had begun almost immediately after independence.
Nevertheless, the people of Cyprus did their best to ensure the smooth functioning of the new state, but their efforts were doomed to failure. In November 1963 the then President of the Republic, Archbishop Makarios in his sincere desire to improve the situation, suggested thirteen amendments to the Constitution - amendments not involving any radical changes but designed rather to remove some of the more obvious causes of friction. Those amendments were submitted to the leaders of the Turkish Cypriot minority in Cyprus, but before they had a chance to consider them the Turkish Government - to which they had been communicated simply for information - said they were unacceptable, thus compelling the Turkish Cypriot leadership to follow suit.
The Turkish Terrorist Organisation T.M.T.
The first inter-communal violence in the recent history of Cyprus was, in fact, caused by T.M.T. This was the result of a policy of hate cultivated by the Turkish Cypriot leadership and it aimed at persuading world public opinion that Turkish Cypriots could not co-exist with Greek Cypriots and, therefore, partition in one form or another was necessary. On 12 June 1958 eight innocent and unarmed Greek Cypriot civilians from Kondemenos village were murdered by T.M.T. terrorists near the Turkish populated village of Geunyeli. That was the first incident involving human lives. According to the findings of the "Commission of Inquiry into the Incidents at Geunyeli" (appointed by the British colonial administration), which were also included in the official report of Sir Paget Bourke, Chief Justice of Cyprus, "for some days prior to 12 June, in fact from 7 June, inter-communal feeling was running very high in the island and there had been many instances of attacks by Turks, particularly in Nicosia, upon members of the Greek community and upon Greek property". There is no reference to attacks on Turkish Cypriots as there were no such attacks. The T.M.T. terrorists attacked again in 1963. This is evidenced by the fact that they were found in possession of vast quantities of arms. Moreover, Turkish intentions were revealed in the "Deniz" incident when the Turkish ship full of arms was sent to Cyprus as early as 1959, after the conclusion of the Agreement on Cyprus.
And to quote "the New York Times" of 27.12.1963:
"Most of the fighting centered on a police station occupied by Turks in Nicosia, and on family apartments in the suburb of Omorphita. These were overrun and occupied by Turks who chased off Greek families. They were reported to have killed an unspecified number of women and children".
