Too Many Unhappy Returns....

I woke up this morning pondering the terrible irony that boatloads of evacuees should be arriving in Cyprus today—of all days—the 32nd anniversary of the outbreak of a war that would cleave the island in two.

Cyprus already struck me as suspended in a state of tragi-comic tension. On the one hand, there are the land mines, the missing persons, and the lost homes. On the other hand, I remember the public spat last summer over the “shish kebab summit” that never happened between Papadopoulos and Talat. That intrigue seems rather small today, when I compare it with the incessant Israeli shelling of Lebanon, and the magnitude of this evacuation by sea. Yet aren’t we really talking about the same stuborn refusal to coexist with our neighbors?

Today I’m remembering all of the Cypriots who I met last summer—Greek and Turkish Cypriot—as well as the third parties. It’s the height of the tourist season on the Greek side, and yet I know that somehow you’ll accomodate the thousands of British, Canadian and American evacuees who will swing through your island. Presumably they’ll only cool their heels in Larnaca long enough to catch their charter flights home. I seriously doubt that many of them will realize what occurred on Cyprus 32 years ago this week. But the irony hasn’t been lost on at least one person on my side of the pond. Here’s hoping that there aren’t too many more unhappy returns of the July 15th and July 20th anniversaries....
tCr

Through the Looking Glass:How Happy To Say I’m a Turk

Greek and Turkish Cypriots marked the anniversary of the division of the island in very different ways.
This is the second story in a two-part series.
< < Part 1: Remembering a Greek Tragedy

From a Turkish Cypriot television advertisement before a protest in north Cyprus in the summer of 2005. ......................................................................................................

Someone shrank the Turkish Cypriots. They’re crammed into a bottle, pressing their hands against the glass walls. The bottle is surrounded by black-shirted giants with grease-painted faces that identify each of them as one of the great powers: Britain, America, the European Union, the United Nations. One of the giants suggests loosening the lid to give the Turkish Cypriots some air. A door swings open, revealing a shadowy figure. A well-known Turkish Cypriot actor—playing the Greek Cypriot leader Tassos Papadopoulous—enters the room and scolds them.

This advertisement played on all six television channels on the Turkish side of the island during the summer of 2005. It called on Turkish Cypriots to join a protest marking the anniversary of the coup on July 15th, 1974, when Greece attempted to take control of the island. But the sense of isolation and helplessness that the advertisement alluded to had more to do with the failure of the Annan Plan in 2004, which the Turkish Cypriots had overwhelmingly supported.

I watched this TV spot with Ergün Olgun, one of the protest organizers, in his spartan office at the back of his furniture store on the Turkish side of Nicosia. A few blocks to the south, on the Greek side of Nicosia, billboards reminded tourists that this was the last divided capital city in the world. But Nicosia is not Beirut. The Turkish side felt more like a small Midwestern American town in the 1950s—before The Gap, before Rite Aid, before Starbucks. What else would you expect after three decades when foreign businesses have shunned this part of the island?

The “great powers” (identified by their greasepaint) debate what to do with the Turkish Cypriots in a jar. ......................................................................................................

Mr. Olgun spoke emphatically, punctuating many of his comments with sweeping arm gestures. “The theme of this ad is that we are a beseiged society, a caged society. We are under embargo. We are deprived of our political rights,” he said. While he described himself as a one-time advisor to the former Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash—who long promoted the idea of a separate Turkish Cypriot state—Mr. Olgun seemed to have come around to the idea of reunification, up to a point.

He said he supported the idea of Greek and Turkish Cypriot provinces under a federal government, which was the backbone of the Annan Plan. But Mr. Olgun didn’t seem entirely convinced of the plan’s viability. “Federalism can only work if there are strong mutual interests, a degree of trust and confidence. But the Greek Cypriots just believe that the Turkish Cypriots are a nuisance,” he said. A little while later, he compared the peace negotiations to a marriage, “do marriages hold together because you sign a piece of paper?” he asked rhetorically, adding that he just didn't see “the glue factor” between the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities.

Mr. Olgun was planning the protest on July 15th, which he described as unofficial, and entirely separate from any Turkish Cypriot political parties. But the Turkish Cypriot leadership had it’s own festivities planned for July 20th. That was the day in 1974 when the Turkish Army landed in Kyrenia, on the north shore of Cyprus.

When July 15th arrived, the Turkish Cypriots didn’t wear black shirts and face paint. They gathered in a traffic roundabout to mark the anniversary of the 1974 coup. But their banner refers to 1963 riots that divided Nicosia into Greek and Turkish zones. ......................................................................................................

When you enter the Turkish side of Nicosia using the automobile crossing, you’re faced with a large read-and-white banner with a rough translation of Turkey’s national slogan, “How Happy to Say I’m a Turk.” Some Greek Cypriots consider this one more cynical proof that Turkey thinks of north Cyprus as just another part of Turkey, and not, as Turkey claims, a separate state.

The Turkish Army has occupied north Cyprus since 1974. Every July 20th, while Greek Cypriots mourn the anniversary of the Turkish invasion, Turkish Cypriots celebrate the “1974 Peace Operation,” which was Turkey’s official name for this military campaign.

Huseyin Ozel, a spokesman for the Turkish Cypriot leadership, told me what to expect. There would be a parade, an air show, and a football match between politicians from north Cyprus and mainland Turkey. “It's like Bastille day,” he said, smiling earnestly and handing me a typed program of the day’s festivities.

Like other Turkish Cypriots, Mr. Ozel objects to refering to July 20th, 1974 as the Turkish “invasion,” which of course is what the Greek Cypriots call it. Turkish Cypriots say this was an “intervention” because Turkey was acting under the Treaty of Guarantee, after Greece—which was ruled by a militiary dictatorship at that time—tried to take control of the island in a coup d’etat.

Mr. Ozel was 16 when Turkish war planes filled the skies over Cyprus. He had grown up in the enclaves, where many Turkish Cypriots had barricaded themselves after the intercommunal strife in 1963. Greek Cypriots had kept a whole range of goods from reaching the enclaves. Mr. Ozel said the first time that he saw a banana was in 1974, after the TMT, the Turkish Cypriot militia, relocated Turkish Cypriots from the enclaves to the northern part of the island.

But what might have seemed like an improvement to Turkish Cypriots who were young thirty years ago feels stifling to their youth now. Many of the Turkish Cypriots in that TV spot looked too young to remember 1974.
tCr

(The first two photos are from a CD-ROM of the TV advertisement, which was provided by the International Council for North Cyprus, the group that organized the demonstration last year.)

This is the second story in a two-part series.

< < Part 1: Remembering a Greek Tragedy

Then Read Firsthand Accounts of 1974:

In Their Own Words: The Summer of Pathos

In Their Own Words: The Summer of Pathos

Three Cypriots remember the summer of 1974, when violence erupted on their island.

	Alliances were very confused during the fighting in 1974. Greek colonels commanded the Greek Cypriot National Guard; while Turkish officers who landed at Kyrenia swiftly pressed young Turkish Cypriot men into fighting. Cypriots couldn’t always tell who their enemies were. Greek Cypriot fought against Greek Cypriot to repress the coup against Archbishop
A Paphiot village priest ..............................................	Makarios, who was then the president of Cyprus. Here are three

firsthand accounts from Cypriots—one Greek, one Turkish and one Maronite.

Papalazaros Neofytou, the man pictured above, was a Greek Orthodox priest in a small village in Paphos in 1974. (He remains so today.) Paphos, an aptly named district that evokes all of the sadness endured there that summer, is still one of the island’s most sparsely-populated districts. But until 1974, it was also one of the most integrated parts of the Cyprus, with Greek and Turkish Cypriot villages close at hand.

The priest said that two of his sons died that summer. He believes that one son was killed by EOKA-B, a Greek Cypriot paramilitary group that tried to overthrow Archbishop Makarios; while the other son died fighting the Turks. Before that summer, he had nine children, four boys and five girls.

This interview took place in front of the Greek Cypriot parliament building on July 15th, 2005, after an official ceremony marking the anniversary of the coup. The priest spoke in Greek, which was more-or-less simultaneously translated into English by both the priest’s son and an independent translator.

Papalazaros Neofytou: When the coup happened, I thought that EOKA-B would try to kill me because I supported Makarios. As the village priest, of course I supported Archbishop Makarios. So I moved from my house, and they didn’t find me. But EOKA-B found my son, who was hiding in the Bishop’s building in Paphos, and killed him. He was only 17 years old.

I had another son, Sotiris, who was studying medecine in Moscow. He was 21 years old. He was in Cyprus for the summer vacation. When Turkey invaded Cyprus, we had to fight the Turkish Cypriots, because they supported the Turkish invasion. Turkey invaded in Kyrenia, so when the Turks got to Limassol, we had to fight them so we would not have trouble from them. During the fighting in Limassol, Sotiris was killed.


In 1974, Tamer Burhan Garip was 12 years old. He lives in north Cyprus now, and I interviewed him after a Turkish Cypriot protest in north Nicosia last July 15th, when he said that he still supported the peace process, and the Turkish Cypriots were “still keeping the yes vote.” But he was clearly growing impatient, and he said if they had to wait too much longer for the Greek Cypriots to resume negotiations, “the mood will no longer be reunification, it will be liberation,” meaning a return to the Turkish Cypriot bid for independence. Here are his memories of 1974.

Tamer Burhan Garip: My parents used to produce wine in Paphos. We had 40 hectares and 60 acres of apples. One of my brothers was taken hostage by EOKA in 1974, and another brother had to go to the front.

My one brother was 15 or 16 when he was taken hostage. He was staying with my grandmother near Agia Nicholas, near Paphos. He sent a letter to my parents through the Red Cross saying that if they didn’t rescue him he was going to kill himself. My father went to a U.N. man and he drove in a U.N. car to the village and found my brother, put him in the trunk and drove him to this side. My other brother was 17. He was called up by the Turkish Army. And my father decided that if my brother went that he would go, too. So he went as a translator for the Turkish Army.


I interviewed Chrystalla Tsoutsouki, a Maronite Cypriot, one hot summer afternoon in Kormakitis, the largest of four traditional Maronite villages, which are all on the Turkish side of the island today. For centuries, Cyprus has had a small community of Maronite Christians, which is an ancient Catholic rite based in Lebanon. Although a few of the older Maronite Cypriots remain in Kormakitis, under very limited circumstances, now most of them either live on the Greek side of Nicosia, or they’ve emigrated abroad. Ms. Tsoutsouki was a young girl growing up in Kormakitis in the summer of 1974.

Chrystalla Tsoutsouki: We were safer because we were a neutral community, so the Turkish planes avoided these four villages. I remember when they occupied the village. They took the women and children into the town’s elementary school, and then they took all the men 16 and older away for two days. When the men came back, there was so much relief.

In the beginning, we could only come over from the Greek side for Christmas and Easter. They used to bring us at night in buses, so we couldn’t see. They would inspect our luggage. It cost twenty Cypriot pounds for the visa, and I say “visa” in quotation marks. The U.N. had always tried to protect enclave people, but in war and military situations, it isn’t always easy to implement international human rights.

Maybe we speak Greek, but we are a third community. The people in Kormakitis had the best relationship with the Turkish Cypriots. We are the kids of those people. I’m over 40, and our parents always taught us that this land belongs to all of us. We have to co-exist with the Turkish Cypriots and the Greek Cyriots. We must stay out of this conflict.
tCr

To Learn More About 1974, Read This Two-part Series:

THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS

Part 1: Remembering a Greek Tragedy

Part 2: How Happy To Say I'm a Turk