Letters to the Editor The Wall Street Journal 200 Liberty Street New York, NY 10281
To the Editor:
Your August 20th editorial's assessment of the apportionment of culpability during the recent protests by Cypriots over the twenty-two year occupation of their country by Turkish troops was morally bankrupt. The demonstrators carried no weapons and posed no threat to the well armed Turkish occupation forces. Yet, as confirmed by UN spokesperson Waldemar Rokoszewski, Turkish troops intentionally fired live ammunition at the demonstrators and under direct orders from their superiors. The culture of brutality that the Greeks and Greek Cypriots have been lamenting all along was this time exposed and documented for all the world to see. In the presence of UN peacekeeping troops a Greek Cypriot protester was chased and, after being caught helpless while entangled in barbed wire, was beaten to death by a mob which, according to a UN report, included Turkish security forces. Leaving behind a wife who was five-months pregnant, Tasos Isaac was beaten with sticks, pipes and other objects and received his death blow after one of the Turks smashed his head with a large rock, the force of which popped Tasos' eyeballs out of his skull. A second unarmed Cypriot protester Solomos Spirou Solomou was shot dead as he started to climb up a flagpole towards a Turkish flag only minutes after the funeral of Tasos Isaac was held. He was fired at repeatedly by Turkish soldiers and officers, receiving three gunshot wounds and falling dead in front of a crowd of journalists and UN peacekeeping troops. Even our own State Department, notorious for its head-in-the-sand approach when dealing with Turkish transgressions of international law and human rights, was shocked upon seeing the footage of the murders, "deplor[ing] the actions of the Turkish Cypriot security forces in firing on protesters [and using] force . . . disproportionate to the threat posed by the protesters." Spokesperson Nicholas Burns continued, stating "frankly, protection of a flag cannot excuse the horrible events of August 14. Human life and the sanctity of human life are ultimately more important than protecting a piece of cloth. The reaction by Turkish Cypriot security forces were entirely disproportionate to the events." I urge the editorial staff and correspondents of your newspaper to visit the Internet sites which contain actual footage of the killings at either of the following web sites: Http://www.logos.hol.gr/ Http://www.hri.org/Cyprus/Cyprus_Problem/bikers Although you coldly dismiss this human tragedy by blaming the Cypriots and Turks in equal measure, condemning both sides as acting "like a couple of adolescents", the facts belie your assessment of culpability. The Cypriot Government was indeed very concerned about preventing the protesters from crossing into the "buffer zone", fearing both bloodshed and political repercussions, to the point where organizers of the event canceled the protest upon the urging of Cypriot President Glafcos Clerides. Clearly, the Cypriot authorities did take appropriate measures such as increased security, erecting barricades, issuing exhortations forbidding the protesters from crossing into the occupation zone, and issuing repeated appeals to demonstrators to leave the buffer zone. One telling indicator that the determination of the protesters had far more to do with their crossing of the "Green Line" than any action or inaction on the part of the Cypriot Government is that the unarmed demonstrators could not even be stopped by the draconian measures taken by the Turkish security forces. Although numerous peace demonstrators were shot by occupation forces during the course of the demonstrations, the protesters were not even deterred by Turkish bullets. After the two murders the Cypriot Government forbade all further demonstrations near the buffer zone. While Turkish Foreign Minister Tansu Ciller was further exacerbating the situation by traveling to Cyprus and issuing inflammatory rhetoric--proclaiming that "nobody lays a finger on the [Turkish] flag. If anyone dares do that, we'll break their hands"--the Greek Prime Minister risked important political capital by postponing his trip to Cyprus and canceling his attendance of the victims' funeral to avoid the appearance of antagonizing the Turkish Foreign Minister. Finally, your argument that "the Turkish Cypriot population of the island would be a powerless minority without Turkish troops" and thus Cyprus should not be accepted into the EU is a patently irresponsible one. The Turkish Cypriots fared far better under Cyprus' pre-invasion Government economically as well as in terms of civil and political rights. The same atmosphere of political oppression that characterizes Turkey today pervades occupied Cyprus, and while free Cyprus has achieved stunning economic prosperity, occupied Cyprus has deteriorated into a virtual ghetto wholly subsidized by Turkey. Many Turkish Cypriots, particularly those old enough to remember life while Greeks and Turks coexisted in a unified Cyprus, openly welcome reunification. On March 11th Turkish Cypriots held a march in occupied Kyrenia to oppose the regime's wholesale importation of Turkish settlers and in protest against a rash of armed robberies and killings by mainland Turks, many of whom view occupied Cyprus as a crime haven. Even during the most violent intercommunal fighting between Greek and Turkish Cypriots during the 1960's, deaths and serious injuries, Turkish or Greek, were relatively few and certainly did not approach the magnitude inflicted by the 1974 invasion, when thousands of Greek Cypriots were killed, maimed and raped by Turkish troops. Anyone familiar with the island's recent history would understand that neither the Greek nor the Turkish Cypriots pose a serious threat to one other. It is the occupation forces from Turkey that do, and that have inflicted the overwhelming number of fatalities on the island since its independence from British rule. An appropriate analogy lending insight into the understanding of Greco-Turkish strife in Cyprus is the African-American civil liberties movement in the US. Far more repressive methods were used by our federal and state governments against black civil rights militants during the Fifties and Sixties, including many more per-capita deaths, incarcerations and other civil liberty violations, than endured by the Turkish Cypriots during the same period under unified Cyprus. Is the Wall Street Journal then advocating a separate state for black America? Sincerely, Phillip Spyropoulos, Esq. Director