written by Mehmet Hasguler printable version send your friend

Friday, 31 July 2009

Kiriakos Cambazis is a well-educated Cyprus-Helenian man, who completed his academic career in the USSR, and now lives in the Republic of Cyprus. In April 2009, The Gallery Culture, a serious and respected publishing house, published his book, “About Cyprus: Parthenogenesis,” which was written from a theory-based and historical perspective. In this respect, the effort and the attempt of the owner of the publishing house, Remzi Hallume, to introduce Cyprian-Helenian books to Turkish literature is appreciated. The prominent book-program director of BRT channel, Huseyin Aglamaz, invited Cambazis to his program and they discussed the issue in detail. Cambazis, in his book, discusses the facts that are probably presumed by everyone but are not mentioned.  On page 102, he talks about the official cards delivered to murderers and extreme nationalists by the Cyprus State under the name of a “special security officer.” Moreover, it is written that they are responsible for the innocent Turkish-Cypriot bodies that were thrown into the deep pits in Paralimni (a village between Larnaca-Magusta). According to Cambasiz, these nationalist Greeks murdered every Turk who came along and throw them into the pits. Cambazis claims that the organization called “Akritas,” which can also be described as the “Deep state” of Cyprus, had obtained arms illegally with the support of Makarios and his ministers.

In Cambasiz’s opinion, Makarios and his supporters are not the only ones responsible.  He also points out the AKEL administration as having collaborated with this organization by consciously covering up these murders for political reasons. Also Erzekias Papayuannu, who served longest as a General Secretariat in AKEL, declared, “the guns of the leftists did not remain behind the arms of nationalists.”At this point, although both the public and the victims were Cypriot Turks, silence about this issue was necessary. Actually, history has never absolved AKEL of its responsibility for this ferocity. As will be remembered, former President Papaduapulos had served as the vice president of Akritas. The Greek society, even through the votes of AKEL, elected this faulty leader as President. As Akritas was the prominent ‘Ergenekon’ of the events occurring in 1963, the ‘Green Berets’ of Nikos Sampson and ‘Red Berets’ of Vasos Lissaridis, the President of EDEK, were the little Ergenekons. It was so obvious that both Akritas and the paramilitary groups, including the green and red berets, had been established through the support of the State and were determined to make an ethnic cleansing of the Turkish Cypriots. Actually, there was no difference between the facts put forward by Cambazis and the role played by the ‘left-socialist’ powers during the ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia in the 1990s. These events clearly show the evolution of the reasons lying behind the ethnic separatism occurring in July-August 1974. On the other hand, it is certain that the organization founded by the Turkish Cypriots had also Greek Cypriot victims. As noted, Makarios, Yorgacis, Papadolupos and Kosis were the founders of Akritas. Makarios and Papadolupos were former Presidents and Yorgacis was the former minister of Internal Affairs. At present, three of them are not alive, and only Kosis remains.

The first lesson that former general secretary Dmitri Hristofyas should learn from the Ergenekon case in Turkey is the ‘conscious-socialist’ president of a EU member state must start an investigation about this issue. AKEL, which has been considered innocent – although former general secretary Ezekias Papayounnu says the opposite – should contribute to find areal solution to this serious moral purification.

In this respect, it will be an important expansion if the president of TRNC, Mehmet Ali Talat, voices this demand to Hristofyan, the UN, the EU and those responsible in the TRNC. While the Ergenekon case has not ended in Turkey and, while EU member state Cyprus Republic is seeking an international solution, it will be better to start the process now to enlighten the dark pages of history and also help the peace. In Cyprus, Sevgul Uludag is an example of someone who helps the peace process through her work on the missing people. With her journalism background, Sevgül Uludag has fulfilled her responsibility to her country. Here, I must underline that it will be more effective and powerful than the things that Hristofyas and Talat can do, though they were elected in hopes of peace.

I wonder whether the Greek and European journalists who are so interested in the Ergenekon case in Turkey positively influence the public opinion of these two leaders regarding this responsibility. History has brought us a new 20 July memory and events that can probably be labeled an “invasion” by the Republic of Cyprus and Greece. In light of this, we may ask if a desire to examine deep organizations like Akritas will ever arise or if those responsible will be forgiven by history.