Its
funny, I like most of the people in the UK grew up believing that our
Government always did the right thing, we were like some heroes of
the international community. Watching too much James Bond I guess
will do that to you, but when you are taught the polarised view by
through the recent memories of WWII and the Falklands, you are
miss-sold the line that the British use due force to protect its
sovereignty and of its allies. As a child you should be forgiven for
believing such rubbish, but as adults it should be our responsibility
to constantly strive for the truth in all things, especially those
which are paid for with our taxes.
This is an article about how
Britain and America fucked over a sovereign nation for their own
agenda's during the 1960's and 1970's.
So what happened in Cyprus? A
long story short, after an agreement with the Ottoman Empire, Britain
received colonial power over the territory of Cyprus after a war
between the Ottomans and Russia .Cyprus had however always been a
Greek island despite Ottoman occupations during 1571-1660
and 1745-1748. (Britain had offered Cyprus back to Greece back during
WWII as a bargaining chip for their entrance into the war under the
allies, an offer rejected by Athens at the time.)
When
Britain gave independence to the Cypriot Government in 1960, there
were concerns that with the strongly Orthodox-Christian
Greek-Cypriots (and historical resentment towards the Ottomans/Turks)
that the minority Turks were going to be treated badly. There had
already been Turk resistance groups formed during Cyprus' time as a
British colony before independence. The
Turkish_Resistance_Organisation's
intention from the very beginning had been to create a partition
across Cyprus to give Turk-Cypriots their own land and at the same
time the EOKA, a
Greek Nationalist group which wanted to see Cyprus returned to Greece
as a Greek province. Both groups fermented violence towards the
other.
To try
and counter the ethnic in-fighting, the British Government gave the
minority Turkish population a permanent 30% veto power over the
Cyprus Government and its own police force. This further exacerbated
resentment for the Greek-Cypriots. To make matters worse, with
addition of Turkey and Greece funding their own ethnic groups on
Cyprus, the British Government continued to support the minority Turk
population by supplying weapons and explosives to resistance groups
whilst the American CIA supported the Greek nationalist groups of
which eventually led to the ousting of the first president Makarios
III. This is despite Makarios calling for amendments to the Cyprus
constitution to try and stop the fighting whilst trying to open
diplomatic talks with both Greece and Turkey through the
Non-Aligned_Movement.
This was in 1964, but the proposed amendments to the constitution caused an uproar with the Turk council members who left in protest.
Of course, none of the support
for both hard-line groups both on the Greek and Turk side were being
drummed up because of President Makarios' dim view on British and
American international politics. Because of his isolationist views it
led him to be known as 'the Castro of the Med' with both Washington
and London suspecting he had 'tenancies towards communism'. Or that
he had been speaking with the Soviet Union and other 'rogue' states?
No, these facts had nothing to do with it, right?
In any case, Turkey had from
the very beginning, even before the end of British occupation, called
for partition on the Island, a request which understandably was seen
as being unacceptable for the Greek-Cypriots when you consider the
demographics before the 1974 invasion.
(The blue represents Greek-Cypriot population,
the red/orange Turk-Cypriot.)
So the
invasion of 1974 is where things get interesting. The British were
still meant to be Cyprus' guarantor for independence and security, so
the next findings were pretty startling, but considering recent
events in the middle-east, not surprising. The whole reason why I
began asking questions about Cyprus was because of a holiday I had
there in July of this year, I got talking to a local who mentioned
that the UK and US turned a blind eye to the Turkish invasion in
exchange for Turkey allowing US military bases on its land. This was
apparently due to the Cyprus Government refusing to allow US military
bases on the island.
I've not
been able to find evidence of this fact on the internet, but I have
read and heard it from more than one person. Whether this is just a
Cypriot urban legend or not is hardly important however as there is
still evidence that both London and Washington willingly turned a
blind-eye towards the Turkish invasion, and who were in actual fact
always in cahoots with the Turkish side to introduce a divide across
the island.
What is most repugnant about
the whole ordeal is that America and Britain could have brought about
a diplomatic end to the situation had they not continued to fund and
support both the Greeks and the Turks simultaneously. It was
president Makarios, who sought true independence and diplomatic
resolve who was the one real chance for a peaceful unified republic
on the island. This is just another example of divide and rule
tactics and Governments using differing factions to suit their own
agenda. The results of the 1974 invasion of Cyprus was the killing of
thousands which could have been avoided and the displacement of Greek
civilians who were evicted by Turkey and forced to the South side of
the island. Their homes, businesses and possessions were then
forfeit, a situation which meant some Turks got very rich off the
backs of Greek-Cypriot loss:(http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17560821
.) Turkey then used aggressive re-population tactics to change the
demographics of Cyprus by moving thousands of Turks to the captured
Northern Cyprus, a move now which would be seen as cultural genocide.
The
following PDF article includes documents sent from the British
Government to the Australians and detailed information about how and
what was going to happen before the Turkish invasion.
If you
haven't the time to read through this long and detailed article, then
please take notice of this particular paragraph sent in telegram to
Australia from Britain:
"Commenting
privately to us on the situation on the 20th July a senior FCO
official said that Britain secretly would not object if Turkish
military forces occupied about 1/3 of the island before agreeing to a
cease-fire. (Please protect.) Such a position would need to be
reached by 21st July if peace prospects were not to be endangered
further. In the meantime, Britain continued to support publicly
appeals for an immediate ceasefire".
If this
article is correct, and this telegram has been leaked, it explains
why despite having naval bases on Cyprus Britain’s non-involvement
in the protection of Cyprus throughout the invasion. As a side note,
there is also evidence that Britain was supplying information to
Turkey about the military strength of Cyprus to help with the
invasion. The fact that one third of the island was taken seems to
have been agreed in advance, and falls in line with Britain’s
previous political handling of 30% veto power to the Turks.
In any
case, all of this information points to one thing. The US and UK are
constantly manipulating current political turmoil to suit their own
needs and agendas. As we look upon this information in the new
millennium with all current ongoing issues in the middle east, we
need to be aware of the facts of the past. The same has been applied
in Iraq, Libya and ongoing in Syria. We must learn to wield this
knowledge to our
own advantage,
we must put pressure on our politicians to prevent unnecessary
suffering and war caused by the deliberate actions of our Governments
on the smaller sovereign nations. History has been repeating itself
more and more recently, but this fact only relies on an unaware
public who believe in those history books.
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