After the Deluge: A Turkish Cypriot=s View in 1976

THE CYPRUS PROBLEM

by Dr. L. Birgen

The study of a problem would not be complete without establishing the correlation between cause and effect. In seeking a solution of the Cyprus question, one should consider the events leading up to it in the light of recent history.

Just after the Second World War the Greek Orthodox Church in Cyprus under Archbishop Makarios used its vast resources to unleash a campaign, not in order to get independence but to unite Cyprus with Greece. The Church then followed up this political agitation with setting up and financing the terrorist organization, Eoka, in order to achieve its aim.

Now, a look at the map should convince anybody of the total irrelevance of Cyprus to Greece. Cyprus under Greece would be a distant, a very distant, province of that country. As with geography decrying such a notion, so with history, for never has Cyprus belonged to Greece.

The Turkish Community has always resolutely opposed the Enosis movement. That Greek Cypriots have shown no regard for Turkish rights, is immediately obvious when one considers that in the name of Enosis they have thought nothing of trying to cut, at a stroke, the Turkish proportion down to half a per cent of the population. It would be grossly unjust to the Turkish Community, the identity of which would be submerged under the sheer weight of numbers with the addition of the population of Greece. For the Turkish Cypriots the picture is that of a Greece stretching its long octopus-like arms in order to grab Cyprus as well. Nor have the Turkish Cypriots forgotten the fate of Turks in the Greek islands like Crete.

After years of sufferings and murders inflicted on the island by Eoka, Makarios seemed to settle tor independence. Turkish Cypriots too favoured independence, but had great misgivings about the genuineness of the Archbishop's change of heart. After lengthy negotiations both sides agreed and signed for an independent Cyprus with a constitution providing checks and balances to ensure power-sharing between the two communities. To guard against upsetting the constitution or any unilateral change of the Status quo, the Treaty of Guarantee empowered the guarator powers Turkey, Greece and England in the first instance to consult among themselves and then to act jointly or separately in the exercise of that power. Had the Greeks implemented the agreement faithfully, Cyprus would now be basking in the sunshine of independence. But the period 1963-1974 witnessed the Greek side dismantling the building blocks of the constitution, the cornerstone of independence.

Soon after the establishment of the Cyprus Republic the Greek Cypriots sought to control the Turkish municipalities and establish domination over the Turkish Cypriots, which of course was neither in the letter nor the spirit of the Treaty. This attempt culminated in the widespread Greek onslaught on Turks in 1963. One of the first to be attacked was a Turkish home in Nicosia, where the Greeks brutally murdered a Turkish Army doctor's wife and three little children, and dumped them in a bath-tub. Many civilian Turks, men, women, children, were slaughtered all over the island. Hundreds of Turks were abducted while crossing the Greek areas to go to their businesses, and they were never seen again. Not one Greek was punished for these dastardly and heinous murders by the Greek Cypriot Administration masquerading as the Government of Cyprus. Unprepared for all this, the Turks felt the need to withdraw to enclaves where they would be more secure. Those who still had to cross Greek-held territory just had to take their lives in their hands. Before setting out they would take tearful leave of their families just like those going on a perilous journey.

Makarios usurped all power in spite of the bi-communal nature of the constitution. He presented himself on the world stage as a smiling priest-statesman, the constitutional head of Cyprus, while at home he persecuted the Turks and divested them of their constitutional and human rights. The injustices done to the Turks for the following eleven years or so were myriad. Many of them either abandoned their homes and properties, or were driven out of them, and had to take refuge in the refugee camps in the Turkish enclave of Nicosia. There were some twenty-four thousand of them. Their plight and cries of anguish went unheeded. When some of them from Ormorphita, a suburb of Nicosia, wanted to take the risk of going back to their looted homes the response from the Greek side transmitted through the local Greek Press was historic, "what is taken after bloodshed is not given back." Ironically, the blood in question was that of the defenceless Turkish Cypriot residents of Ormorphita. It was to remain a ghost town for eleven years until liberated by the Turkish Peace Force in August, 1974.

Besides physical and political persecution the Turks also suffered economic persecution. For example, near Kyrenia the Greeks grabbed the commercial fruit and vegetable garden of a Turkish peasant and cut down the trees to set up a military barrack there, turning it into a parched and barren land. In contrast the Greek-owned gardens around remained green and untouched. The Turkish owner got not a penny of compensation. Again, when the new Kyrenia-Nicosia road was being built, parts of the fields through which the road passed were unceremoniously confiscated. The Turkish peasants who lost chunks of their fields and livelihoods in this way got no compensation at all, while their Greek counterparts were promptly and fully compensated. It was useless for the Turks to protest, as they could get no redress.

In his own country the Turkish Cypriot was less than a foreigner: the Turk had far fewer rights, like those of life, limb, property. It was the active national policy of the Makarios's Administration to deprive Turks of their lands by any means, fair or foul. It is an indication of the Greek sense of justice and compatriotship that some unscrupulous foreigners were even encouraged to (harass Turkish villagers living in Greek-held areas in order to buy off their lands. Any foreigner who succeeded in that would win immediate favour with the Makarios regime. The Turks, who have always been largely an agricultural Community living off the land, have traditionally owned a high proportion of land in Cyprus, and this was a sty in the eye for the Greeks claiming Cyprus to be Greek. Any Greek who wanted to sell his land or house to a Turk would incur the wrath of the Greek Authorities. Such a transaction would not be sanctioned by the Greek-run Land Registration Department, which would refuse to issue a deed of title, an odd behaviour indeed by those proclaiming to be the Government of Cyprus.

All these happened during the regime of Archbishop Makarios. Many Turks who could not stand the conditions of life sold up what little they had, at what little price they could get, and emigrated. To the Greek Administration, this was, after all, the point of the exercise.

Even the money given to Cyprus by international bodies was kept exclusively for Greeks. As the Turkish Community got weaker and weaker through various restrictive measures and pressures, the Greek side felt that Enosis was within their grasp. Two prominent schools of political thought emerged among the Greeks. The one was for immediate Enosis. But Makarios, who belonged to the second school, had a better idea. He calculated that the Turkish element in Cyprus should be eroded away in time and Enosis could be achieved stealthily step by step. Rather than declare immediate Enosis and provoke a violent Turkish reaction he would first pressurize the Turkish Community into poverty and powerlessness, while at the same time he would present the Greek administration to the world as the constitutional Government of Cyprus. In order to help his international image he would pretend at negotiating with the Turkish Community ostensibly to restore their constitutional rights. He accordingly dilly-dallied over points, ensuring that these negotiations dragged on for eleven years and came to nothing!

While the Greek community enriched themselves at the expense of the Turks, the Turkish community, forced into a ghetto-like existence, was getting desperate, and would soon be, Makarios hoped, too weak to oppose Enosis. But the Enosis-now boys were getting impatient. They were none too impressed by Makarios's step-by-step approach to Enosis: it was there for the taking. They were convinced Turkey would not intervene; a few noises by Greece would suffice to keep her off! They demanded immediate action. So they fell out with Makarios, not over the aim of Enosis but its timing and tactic. The Enosis boys together with the Greek army in Cyprus staged a coup. What have been the attitudes of the parent powers throughout the chequered history of the Cyprus Republic? From 1963 onwards, when Makarios trampled upon the constitution, which was based on close cooperation and partnership between the two communities, the guarantor powers unfortunately did not step in to restore the constitution. Greece of course was delighted with the turn of events, for, with the Turkish Community pushed aside, the way to Enosis was now wide open. Britain lodged a verbal protest, but was reassured by 'His Beatitude' that the status of the British bases was not affected in any way. After the coup in 1974 Britain protested again only to be reassured by the new upstart Greek Leaders in Cyprus that nothing had really changed; it was just a little internal difficulty! The British bases were certainly not affected. But, as far as the Turkish Community was concerned, something HAD changed. Whereas before the coup there was still hope that the slide to Enosis might yet be arrested and Cyprus' independence be salvaged. With the coup the point of no return had almost been reached. Yes, that was the real change. Britain was not prepared to use force. But if nothing was done now the independence of Cyprus, or whatever was left of it, would be gone for ever. So Turkey acted. But for Turkey's intervention Cyprus would now be, to all intents and purposes, an appendage of Greece. The future of the Turkish Community would be bleak; it would be doomed. Turkey honoured her pledge to the Turkish Cypriots to come to their aid if need be. She did this with great sacrifices of blood and money, even at the risk of straining her alliances, which she once valued without question.

The Greek propaganda machine has craftily portrayed Turkey as the would-be colonizer of Cyprus. In fact Turkey has no territorial ambitions. Turkey's motive is two-fold. Firstly, she was duty-bound to defend the Turkish Community and the independence of Cyprus. Secondly, she views the current revival of Greece's 'Great Idea' with grave concern because with Greece annexing Cyprus, the Greek encirclement of Turkey would be complete. . . . What Turkey now wants in Cyprus is the establishment of a bi-zonal federation, which would make each community strong in its own zone, so that never again will it be necessary to mount such a costly operation in order to safeguard the independence of Cyprus.

If Makarios was genuinely for independence, then why did he persecute and oppress the Turkish Cypriot Community? The right thing for him to do would have been to make common cause with the Turkish Community, a natural ally for him against Enosis. Nor can Greece shake off her responsibility in the Enosis troubles merely by a change of government. But, the lion's share for the blame must surely be attached to Makarios, for if he had not unilaterally abrogated the constitution, no matter how much Greece covetted Cyprus, so long as the two communities shared effective power, the Cyprus tragedy could not have taken place.

All the Cypriots suffered in this tragedy. In 1974 the world heard how whole Turkish villages, Maratha, Aloa and Sandallaris were massacred -- men, women and children. They were then all buried in a rubbish dump and bulldozed over. Their putrefying bodies were later dug out in the presence of U.N. troops and world press. In yet another Turkish village all adult males were arrested by the Greeks, taken to a quiet spot, offered cigarettes, and then machine-gunned in cold blood. Only one young man escaped, feigning death, and made his way to a British base, giving the exact locality of the massacre. The Greek authorities did not allow the U.N. to investigate. But such killings had been going on since 1963. The fact that many of the Turkish Cypriots were scattered all over the island afforded the Greeks the temptation to exterminate them by raids, ambushes, and kidnappings. Many perished in this way. It was nothing short of genocide.

Their majority rights do not entitle the Greeks to exterminate the Turks. No doubt that they would try to do it again if given half a chance. So the Turkish Cypriot stand on the future of Cyprus must be conditioned by the needs and mechanics of survival. They are not going to give hostages to fortune. The Turks in the south, who had enjoyed neither security of life nor property, were transferred en-masse to the north as a result of an agreement reached in the third round of Vienna talks, so they are now safely settled in the Turkish zone with the rest of the Turkish Cypriot Community. This in itself is a stabilizing factor in the situation. The bitter experiences have driven the Turkish Cypriot Community to the inevitable conclusion that they can only survive in a defensible and economically viable area of their own, as the Turkish wing of a bi-zonal Federal Republic of Cyprus. In the new Cyprus the two communities shall liive in their respective zones according to their own customs and traditions, respecting each other and not trying to exterminate nor dominate one another, but both cooperating to run the island on an equal footing.

In the past Makarios succeeded in exploiting Britain's interest in the British bases in Cyprus and the existence of the Greek lobby in the American Congress in securing British and American support for Greek Cypriots in the Cyprus dispute. It is believed that the inherent vulnerability and weakness of the British bases in the island will be a constant source of temptation for him to exploit in his intrigues against Turks, hence a de-stabilizing factor in the Cyprus situation. In the new order to be worked out in Cyprus, it should be spelt out that no one community can go to world organizations claiming that it alone represents and speaks for Cyprus.

A strong Turkish Community is the best guarantee internally, but the only effective guarantee for Cyprus' independence is the Turkish guarantee.

Nicosia -- February 13, 1976.

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AFTER MAKARIOS

by Dr. L. Birgen

The starting point of this discussion is the hope that the Greek side has corns to realize the political facts of life in Cyprus: that their attempts to ride rough-shod over and crush the Turkish community has misfired for good; that these attempts were devoid of any sense of morality and realism; that the Turkish community is not for domination but, for partnership; that the best thing for Cyprus is genuine independence and sovereignty based on close co-operation and partnership between the communities; that this is only possible if the two communities are equally strong, firmly based in their own regions; that the Greek and Turkish communities, which had lived with reasonable mutual tolerance in their own quarters before the Greek Orthodox Church led by Makarios crashed on to the political stage and began to play fiery politics, could live peacefully side by side if they are left alone by the Church; that Turkish Cypriots, who for eleven years found themselves at the butt end of Makarios's hostile actions, will never again put themselves at the mercy of the Greeks, which the Turks found terribly wanting, in view of the determined attempts to annihilate them when they were scattered all over the island ; that the balance of communal power is the best hope for the future.

The Greek community with its commercial tradition and the Turkish community with its attachment to the land form a complementary unit. But they have strong differences of traditions over a wide spectrum: historical, racial, religious, cultural and linguistic. The trouble has been that the Greek Orthodox Church has accentuated these differences to such an extent that they have taken a heavy toll of human misery. Thanks to the activities of the political Church, the two communities, which should have been partners in government, became partners in suffering. The main difference between the Turkish and the Greek sufferings has been the eleven-year time lag between the two. The two communities have in turn become the victims of the Church's taste for politics. Is it too much lo hope that by now even the Church may realize that its foray into militant politics has been an unmitigated disaster?

If the Church is to be relevant to this day and age, it should stand not for conflict but harmony, not for race but fellow feeling. Great efforts will have to be made to undo the work, whose fruit the Cyprus tragedy is, done by the Church. It may take a generation before these efforts can bear fruit. But a start has to be made, and this can only happen when the Church makes itself scarce from the political scene.

There should be no attempt to stereotype Cypriots; it would be counter-productive. People would react strongly if they felt that they were being done out of their national identities and deprived of their heritages. It is up to the future generations to decide how far they want to develop their Cypriotism. Some sacred cows will have to go, chief among them the concept of this ethnarchy. Historically, this dates back to the Ottoman administration, which elevated the Orthodox Church from the ranks of the Latin hierarchy and made this archbishop the official representative of the Greek Cypriot people before this Porte. And in time he grew to be all-powerful, dominating all aspects of Greek Cypriot life, including political and cultural. Surely, one ought to concede this irrelevance of the ethnarchy to our times. It is a most unfortunate anachronism that political power should be wielded for life by a cleric rather than the people's representatives periodically elected for the purpose. The law of the land should reflect this reality clearly. This power should now revert to the people.

It was not just misgivings about the whole idea of the ethnarchy but these consequences of Archbishop Makarios's political activities that brought the Church into disrepute in the eyes of his Turkish compatriots. His recent dubious achievements in gagging Turkish Cypriots on international forums in an attempt to prevent the world community from hearing both sides of the Cyprus case is only a tiny reminder of how he deprived the Turks of a rightful say in the administration for .eleven years. Although the first duty of a president is to uphold the constitution, Makarios monopolized power and ran the island all this time for the benefit of his community. Such behaviour was far from being presidently let alone priestly. The sad fact is that the Greek community short-sightedly went along with him on this path. Now when Makarios, with apparent modesty admits to his "mistakes" in the past he may well be genuine about it if he is referring to his tactics rather than his general strategy.

But the core of the matter is his intentions behind his flagrant actions against the Turkish community. There is no mistaking the fact that in so far as these intentions may be labelled "mistakes", they are those of principle: the are moral mistakes. One fears that the Archbishop has no qualms in this respect.

The Church should refrain from inciting racial animosity or from keeping it alive. Once the Church departs from the political arena the great divide the the Church has inspired between the two peoples will begin to narrow. Such departure will also have a democratic spin-off, for true democracy cannot be said to exist when one political group or other can be favoured with high episcopal blessings. With the Church keeping out of politics and with the adverse of genuine democracy there might even be political and ideological groupings that cut across the racial lines. In the new Cyprus that is emerging those who hope to flourish by clinging to the tails of the episcopal robes are bound to be disappointed. Rather the future will belong to those who wisely distant themselves from the Church.

To ask the Greek Cypriots to contain their Church within religious grounds is not to ask them to give up their traditions, far from it, but to realize that there lies the tranquility, the prosperity, and indeed the future of Cyprus. As long as the Church remains the arbiter of Greek Cypriot politics there is little hope of close co-operation between the two communities. The Church's function now is not to take part in partisan politics and inflame passions but to stay in the background, propagating fellow feeling, preaching tolerance and moderation. That is the function that befits a church, and there is need for it. It does not take too many sanguinary people to start an inter-communal flare-up: a handful of extremists could just do that. And it would be futile to hope that there won't be tensions around and that one can eliminate them. What can be done is to create the climate where they can be minimized, and to create the necessary machinery to deal with them promptly when they arise, to dissipate them and thereby defuse the explosive situation. It is here that the heads of religion have an important role to play, provided they are non-political. There could be a committee of two "wise-men" consisting of the Archbishop and the Mufti of the day, who would come together at regular intervals and especially in times of inter-communal stress, make a joint appeal for calm, and do their best to bring about harmony. It is in this humanitarian field that the Church should star.

A great role falls to the Cypriot educationalists in propagating intercommunal sanity in the island and trying to create new attitudes in people, Curricula and teaching at schools should be carefully scrutinized with a view to eliminating all racialist material poisoning young minds. Greek youngsters should be taught that being Greek is not synonymous with being anti-Turkish. Too much tragedy has flowed from this thoughtless, spineless idea. Admittedly, it will be more difficult to re-educate the fanatics of race into whom the ideas of racial superiority and hatred have been pumped since their childhood, since it is often harder to unlearn something than learn something new. Nor should the educational and re-educational process stop short of the Church, considering that racial utterances from the pulpit have done much to alienate the two communities.

Racial and religious conflicts are nothing new; they are just echoes of the past. Looking around the world to-day one finds dire manifestations of them. Lebanon is a point in question. In a way the case of Lebanon ought to be simpler than that of Cyprus, since the only thing that separates the two sides in Lebanon is religion: race is not involved, both belonging to the same race. Yet the sectarian war that afflicted that country for 18 months cost 60,000 human lives, 200,000 injured, and untold suffering. Then there is Northern Ireland, where the adversaries, though both Christian, belong to two different persuasions. Catholic and Protestant. The toll of the internecine sectarian struggle that has been going on there for several years is hundreds of lives and much destruction, with no end in sight.

In contrast, we have Switzerland, peopled by four linguistic groups with their historical, racial, religious and cultural differences: all the usual ingredients of conflict. Let no one think that the Swiss are pacifists by tradition. In fact the various groups comprising the Swiss were at loggerheads for centuries. Also, the equivalent of the present-day guest workers in Europe were the Swiss warriors of old who used to serve as mercenaries in their thousands in foreign lands. Switzerland, the great neutral, to-day is well known as a peaceful, pros- perous, industrial, highly-developed country. What is the secret behind their success? First, they remained true to their vow of independence. Secondly, they solved the problem of split and conflicting loyalties through strict adherence to neutrality in foreign conflicts, which does not of course preclude them from taking dynamic action to defend it. Thirdly, they turned their energies from fighting to productive fields. So, although the various regions have jealously guarded their individual heritages, they have nevertheless co-operated for the common good to build, against so many odds, the edifice that is Switzerland to-day.

Whereas in Switzerland the ethnic groups belong broadly to the same faith, Christianity, in Cyprus the religious differences are more clear-cut: Greek Orthodox and Moslem. On the other hand the usual frictions that arise when two rival religions compete with each other to win over converts and try to expand at each other's expense do not apply in Cyprus. It should be remembered that Greek Orthodox Church is lxmnd up with race. The Cyprus troubles, which occurred against the background of history, are not basically religious. But what the Church's deep involvement in politics has done is to focus the historical watershed into the vortex of a religio-racial conflict. The~ are strong regional forces in Switzerland, but a meticulous balance is struck between the regions. The existing regional jealousies, well under control, serve as a spur for healthy competition. With the churches operating in the background, the various stresses and strains are safely absorbed by the system. One aspect of the Swiss system that could well be adopted in Cyprus relates to the office of the president. In Switzerland the president is chosen from among the members of the Federal Council, which reflects the linguistic and ethnic groups in the country. The interesting point is that each member takes the presidential chair in rotation. The presidency is thus impersonal. This is one of the pillars of the Swiss system, and has served it well. The adoption of the rota system in Cyprus, which has some parallels to Switzerland, would stop the abuses of the presidency such as we have seen during Makarios's regime. In this way the presidency would be institutionalized rather than personalized. The latter has proved to be disastrous for the island. If the founding fathers of the Cyprus Republic had provided for the Swiss type of presidency in the first place, things might well have turned out to be different: the Church would not have been. at the helm of Cypriot politics, which is at the root of the Cyprus troubles.

The Archbishop should realize that the superficial support from the non-aligned countries that he is enjoying is little more than ritualistic: there certainly is no great belief in his righteousness or political wisdom. Already there are unmistakable signs that the world community is getting disenchanted with his antics. If he continues in his delaying tactics this apparent support will dwindle. The elements of a Federal Cyprus are already there, arid they can be improved. The fact that Turkish Cypriots, who have been the bastion of Cyprus's independence, are adamant on bizonal federalism is because it is the natural defence mechanism in their struggle for survival. They would dearly love to reach a negotiated settlement with their Greek compatriots. Indeed, so would Turkey. In years to come even the Greeks will come to realize that Turkey has been the saviour of Cyprus's independence, if they don't already do so in their hearts of hearts.

Cyprus is now at the cross-roads. The question is, "Which way?" The choice is in the hands of Greek Cypriots. Do they insist that Cyprus should be ruled by the Church? If they do, then it is the parting of the ways, something that nobody in their senses would want. But if they don't, then the road to follow is BI - ZONAL FEDERALISM. Then they should get the Church off their backs and put it in its proper place so that the long trek may begin for the promised land: the Switzerland of the Mediterranean.

Nicosia - - December 24. 1976.