Why Turkish Cypriots have no reason to celebrate 1974

Alkan Chaglar (archive article - Sunday, July 22, 2007)

THIRTY-three years ago this week following a coup d’?tat that overthrew what remained of the Cypriot government, Turkey launched an invasion that has partitioned Cyprus along ethnic lines since. Described as a “tragedy all round”, the anniversary of the July 15-20 period is a time of mourning and grief for most Cypriots, but also a time of celebration for some Turkish Cypriots and an opportunity to incite xenophobia by some Greek Cypriots. This year is no exception to this trend, even when in recent weeks the bodies of those missing from this dark period are in the process of being exhumed. Following the coup d’?tat of July 15, 1974, Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit launched a “Peace Operation” on July 20 to protect the Turkish Cypriot community. Despite Mr Ecevit’s guarantee the operation would benefit all Cypriots by restoring order, Greek, Maronite and Armenian Cypriots were collectively punished under the assumption that they were all, every single one of them, guilty for recent crimes committed against Turkish Cypriots by EOKA B. Clearly for some paramilitary irregulars, the event was equally an opportunity for vengeance. While there is no doubt that atrocities were committed against the Turkish Cypriots during 1964-1974, within days of the ‘peace operation’, 162,000 Greek, Maronite and Armenian Cypriots fled their homes, while 55,000 Turkish Cypriots fled north. Some 1,900 persons, including many civilians, are still listed as missing persons. Cyprus was facing a crisis on all fronts; for the first time the conservative pastoral society with its mostly rural population was forced to legalise abortion to cope with the sheer numbers of cases of rape against Cypriot women by the invading army. Amid the debris caused by extensive bombing, the human cost was phenomenally high; 6,000 were killed, one third of all Cypriots lived dependent as refugees with no certainty about their future, thousands left the country like my family, while thousands remained enclaved away from their families. Recently Cypriot filmmaker Antonis Angastiniotis directed a historical documentary Voice of Blood portraying the mass killing of Turkish Cypriot civilians in the villages of Attilar, Muratag and Sandallar in 1974, and as a result countless Greek Cypriots accused him of treachery. Meanwhile, Turkish nationalists have repeatedly exploited his valuable work for peace to make a cheap point, failing to grasp that Angastiniotis also reports the massacre of Greek Cypriot civilians or POW by Turkish Cypriot irregulars. But despite the fact that many Turkish Cypriots celebrate this invasion, while many Greek Cypriots hijack the time of mourning to incite ethnic hatred of Turks and Turkish Cypriots, the fact remains that the human costs of the coup and invasion can be found on all sides. In my own community here in London and in Cyprus, leaders from both left and right lead annual celebrations involving the recital of heroic poems by children and a floral ceremony to thank those who struck the ‘enemy’ a final blow and tore the island country into two. Subscribing to the logical fallacy that “Two wrongs make a right,” for many Turkish Cypriot leaders the action was deemed necessary to halt a civil war, but in effect has proved to have imprisoned those they have ‘saved’, while committing the murder of Greek Cypriots, the looting of their homes, desecration of their religious buildings, while depriving the entire island of its human rights. Who are they fooling? Since when, can such acts be considered a peace operation?The son of a family of refugees myself, I am ordered to express my appreciation to those who ‘saved us’. Lest I am ungrateful, I am reminded that my family’s ancestral villages were both attacked by Greek Cypriot militia, and that my father’s cousin was among those massacred in Tochni. But as the child of the survivors of Cyprus’ civil war and as a British Cypriot living in London, where I have grown up with British Greek Cypriot refugee families, I am fed up with hate. I cannot thank a ‘saviour’ who at the same time expelled those with whom my community had coexisted for half a millennia. The indiscriminate expulsion of Christian Cypriots does not ease the suffering on my refugee family or indeed on other Turkish Cypriot refugee families, but only adds to Cyprus’ tragedy. From the many positive memories of our grandparents that have been almost erased by a focus on the negatives, we know that not all Greek Cypriots are murderers. So how can I feel gratitude to those causing 33 years of pain and suffering to the neighbours with whom we have co-existed peacefully like brothers for centuries?Yet for many people in my community, it is justifiable to punish those who personally had no part to play in the civil unrest of 1964-1974. Based on sheer generalisations and stereotypes of what the ‘other’ side must be like and what they think of us, many of us must develop from such paranoia, contempt, where we actually believe the Greek Cypriots deserved to be treated in this way. Learning no lessons from our own suffering and crimes committed against us, many Turkish Cypriots, including our own self-styled human rights activists, demonstrate no feeling or understanding when others are in the same position of suffering that they were previously in. Through celebrating this collective punishment, Turkish Cypriots are condemning until their dying day people who happen to be of Greek, Maronite or Armenian descent from the right of return.Certain community leaders and hardliners claiming to be leading victims will tell you that the Greek Cypriots deserved it, but how can one victim justify the slaying of another victim? Regardless of what these honourable ‘patriots’ will tell you, in the eyes of humanity and under the 1949 Geneva Conventions, collective punishments constitute a war crime. Article 33 of the Fourth Convention clearly states: "No protected person may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed," and "collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.” The Convention (IV) relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, Geneva, 12 August 1949, Part III: Article 33 also prohibits “any destruction by the Occupying Power of real or personal property belonging individually or collectively to private persons, or to the State.” Yet there are those who use the excuse of our own suffering to justify these war crimes and at the same time to seek recognition of their entity to legally sell off the remaining land of those refugees. The widespread suffering and injustice brought about by the coup and invasion clearly transcends ethno-religious lines in Cyprus; in fact it is fair to say that all Cypriots have suffered from the events of 1974. Yet rather than learn lessons from joint suffering and say enough is enough, some Cypriots celebrate the events of 1974 to gloat of victory, while others exploit feeling to incite ethnic hatred for political reasons. In my view, Cypriots whatever their language or religion should resist such exploitation of tragedy and instead make the 33 year anniversary of the coup and invasion a day for the mourning of the dead, a time of reflection and reconciliation. The anniversary should equally be a time for personal space for families who want to grieve. At this time, when Cypriots seek to locate their missing loved ones so they can move on with their lives, such celebrations of these war crimes are inappropriate.