MISSING PERSONS

(a) Turkish Cypriot Missing Persons

The Turkish Cypriots have at least as much interest as the Greek Cypriots in finding out what happened to members of their families who are missing, but most Turkish Cypriots have concluded that they are dead and will never be seen again.

For Turkish Cypriots, their bereavement goes back at least as far as Christmas 1963 when, the numerically superior Greek Cypriots made a violent attack upon the Turkish Cypriot civilian population.

Former British Prime Minister, Sir Alec Douglas‑Home, said in his memoirs^[1] "I was convinced that if Archbishop Makarios could not bring himself to treat the Turkish Cypriots as human beings he was inviting the invasion and partition of the island."

1963/64

On 28th December 1963 the Daily Express carried the following report from Cyprus: "We went tonight into the sealed‑off Turkish Cypriot Quarter of Nicosia in which 200 to 300 people had been slaughtered in the last five days. We were the first Western reporters there and we have seen sights too frightful to be described in print. Horror so extreme that the people seemed stunned beyond tears."

On 1st January 1964 the Daily Herald reported: "When I came across the Turkish homes they were an appalling sight. Apart from the walls they just did not exist. I doubt if a napalm attack could have created more devastation. Under roofs which had caved in I found a twisted mass of bed springs, children's cots, and grey ashes of what had once been tables, chairs and wardrobes. In the neighbouring village of Ayios Vassilios I counted 16 wrecked and burned out homes. They were all Turkish Cypriot. In neither village did I find a scrap of damage to any Greek Cypriot house."

On 12th January 1964 the British High Commission in Nicosia wrote to London^[2] “The Greek (Cypriot) police are led by extremists who provoked the fighting and deliberately engaged in atrocities. They have recruited into their ranks as “special constables” gun-happy young thugs. ....... Makarios assured Sir Arthur Clark that there will be no attack. His assurance is as worthless as previous assurances have proved.”

On 14th January 1964 the Daily Telegraph reported that the Turkish Cypriot inhabitants of Ayios Vassilios had been massacred on 26th December 1963, and reported their exhumation from a mass grave in the presence of the Red Cross and British paratroops. This harrowing story and many others from that period and 1974 are recounted by the Chief Matron of the Nicosia Hospital, Nurse Türkan Aziz MBE in her memoirs “The Death of Friendship.”^[3] She recalls how Greek Cypriots roamed the hospital wards killing the Turkish Cypriot patients,^[4] and found the bodies of two Turkish Cypriot boys who had taken refuge in her own apartments.

“The two sat on chairs exactly where I had left them, but this time they did not rise to greet me with smiles. Dark blood welled through the tattered remnants of their shirts and dripped on the carpet. Their Greek Cypriot “guard” had vanished, spraying the staircase senselessly with bullets as he left”^[5]

Matron Aziz describes the horror of Ayios Vasilios as follows:^[6]

“a few feet down they found the first bodies, three men thrown on top of each other, then a boy whose hands had been tied behind his knees, then a little girl, then an old man dressed in his peasant-style baggy trousers, then some women. There were 21 bodies, almost all dressed, but not in hospital garb. These were Turkish Cypriot families who had lived in Ayios Vasilios.”

The relevance of “hospital garb” is that the Greek Cypriots “revealed a new depth of sickness of the mind by insisting the bodies were of patients in the hospital who had died of natural causes.^[7] They had issued a press statement saying “Turks distort the truth.”

A further massacre of Turkish Cypriots, at Limassol, was reported by The Observer on 16th February 1964, and there were many more. On 17th February 1964 the Washington Post reported that Greek Cypriot fanatics appear bent on a policy of genocide.” The Greek Cypriot Minister of the Interior admitted^[8] that he had controlled the attack in Limassol himself.

On 31st December 1963 "The Guardian" had reported: "It is nonsense to claim, as the Greek Cypriots do, that all casualties were caused by fighting between armed men of both sides. On Christmas Eve many Turkish Cypriot people were brutally attacked and murdered in their suburban homes, including the wife and children of the Turkish Cypriot head of army medical services ‑ allegedly by a group of forty men, many in army boots and greatcoats." Although the Turkish Cypriots fought back as best they could, there were no massacres of Greek Cypriot civilians.

On 10th September 1964 the Secretary‑General reported:^[9] "UNFICYP carried out a detailed survey of all damage to properties throughout the island during the disturbances, ......... it shows that in 109 villages, most of them Turkish‑Cypriot or mixed villages, 527 houses have been destroyed while 2,000 others have suffered damage from looting. In Ktima 38 houses and shops have been destroyed totally and 122 partially. In the Omorphita suburb of Nicosia, 50 houses have been totally destroyed while a further 240 have been partially destroyed there and in adjacent suburbs."

In his memoirs, the American Under‑Secretary of State, George Ball, said^[10] that the Greek Cypriot leader’s “central interest was to block off Turkish intervention so that he and his Greek Cypriots could go on happily massacring Turkish Cypriots. Obviously we would never permit that." The fact is however that neither the US, the UK, the UN, nor anyone, other than Turkey eleven years later, took effective action to prevent it. In the same book^[11] he quotes Adlai Stevenson as saying that the Greek Cypriot leader, Archbishop Makarios, was “a wicked, unreliable conniver, who concealed his venality under the sanctimonious vestments of a religious leader” and comments that “In the years I had known Adlai I had never heard him speak of anyone with such vitriol.”

Ball also recalls^[12] that during his visit to Cyprus in the Spring of 1964, Sir Cyril Pickard, the British Under-secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, “denounced the Archbishop in devastating language for the outrages inflicted on the Turkish Cypriots.” Ball himself told the Greek Cypriot leader that “if he persisted in his cruel and reckless conduct Turkey would inevitably invade, and neither the US nor any other western power would raise a finger to stop them.”

He further recalls^[13] that “a massacre took place in Limassol on the south coast in which as I recall about 50 Turkish Cypriots were killed, in some cases by bulldozers crushing their flimsy homes. I said to Makarios sharply that such beastly actions had to stop.”

British troops in Cyprus at the time did what they could to protect the Turkish Cypriots, and their efforts are remembered to this day, but the scale and ferocity of the Greek Cypriot attacks made their task impossible. On 6th February 1964 a British patrol found armed Greek Cypriot police attacking the Turkish Cypriots of Ayios Sozomenos. They were unable to stop the attack.

On 13th February 1964 the Greeks and Greek Cypriots attacked the Turkish Cypriot quarter of Limassol with tanks, killing 16 and injuring 35. On 15th February 1964 "The Daily Telegraph" reported: "It is a real military operation which the Greek Cypriots launched against the six thousand inhabitants of the Turkish Cypriot Quarter yesterday morning. A spokesman for the Greek Cypriot Government has recognised this officially. It is hard to conceive how Greek and Turkish Cypriots may seriously contemplate working together after all that has happened."

This was not war, but a premeditated attack upon defenceless women, children and old men. The attacks were repeated in 1967 and again in 1974.

1974

The German newspaper Die Zeit wrote on 30 August 1974 "the massacre of Turkish Cypriots in Paphos and Famagusta is the proof of how justified the Turks were to undertake their [August] intervention".

In the village of Tokhni on 14th August 1974 all the Turkish Cypriot men between the ages of 13 and 74, except for eighteen who managed to escape, were taken away and shot.^[14]

In Zyyi on the same day all the Turkish‑Cypriot men aged between 19 and 38 were taken away by Greek‑Cypriots and were never seen again. On the same day Greek‑Cypriots opened fire in the Turkish‑Cypriot neighbourhood of Paphos killing men, women, and children indiscriminately. On 23rd July 1974 the Washington Post reported "In a Greek raid on a small Turkish village near Limassol 36 people out of a population of 200 were killed. The Greeks said that they had been given orders to kill the inhabitants of the Turkish villages before the Turkish forces arrived.”^[15]

"The Greeks began to shell the Turkish quarter on Saturday, refugees said. Kazan Derviş, a Turkish Cypriot girl aged 15, said she had been staying with her uncle. The [Greek Cypriot] National Guard came into the Turkish sector and shooting began. She saw her uncle and other relatives taken away as prisoners, and later heard her uncle had been shot."^[16]

"Before my uncle was taken away by the soldiers, he shouted to me to run away. I ran into the streets, and the soldiers were shooting all the time. I went into a house and I saw a woman being attacked by soldiers. They were raping her. Then they shot her in front of my eyes. I ran away again and Turkish men and women looked after me. They were escaping as well. They broke holes in the sides of houses, so we could get away without going into the streets. There were lots of women and children screaming, and soldiers were firing at us all the time".

On 28th July the New York Times reported that 14 Turkish‑Cypriot men had been shot in Alaminos. On 24th July 1974 France Soir reported "The Greeks burned Turkish mosques and set fire to Turkish homes in the villages around Famagusta. Defenceless Turkish villagers who have no weapons live in an atmosphere of terror and they evacuate their homes and go and live in tents in the forests. The Greeks' actions are a shame to humanity."

On 22nd July Turkish Prime Minister Ecevit had called upon the UN to stop the genocide of Turkish‑Cypriots and declared "Turkey has accepted a cease‑fire, but will not allow Turkish‑Cypriots to be massacred"^[17]

A Greek Cypriot reservist, Nicos Yenias, had this to say about his experiences in 1974 “we decided to go to Mersinliki and then to Lefkoniko, a ghost town. But what we saw going through two small Turkish Cypriot villages, Sandallari and Maratha was so shocking that it will stay in my memory for ever. Men of EOKA B were digging trenches with excavators and were burying old men and children from these villages whom they had killed. One of them boastfully told us ‘we have done our job.”^[18]

The Greek newspaper Eleftherotipia published an interview with Nicos Sampson on 26th February 1981 in which he said “Had Turkey not intervened in 1974 I would not only have proclaimed ENOSIS - I would have annihilated the Turks in Cyprus.” He would have done so in accordance with the second Greek Cypriot ethnic cleansing plan “The Iphestos Plan”

There are 803 Turkish Cypriot missing persons. A number of mass graves have been found, upon which memorials have been built, but many of these Turkish Cypriots have no known grave. Their families have been encouraged by the Turkish Cypriot leadership to accept the inevitable conclusion that they are dead and to put their grief behind them.

(b) Greek Cypriots

On 19th July 1974, before the Turkish army landed, Archbishop Makarios told the UN Security Council "I do not yet know the details of the Cyprus crisis caused by the Greek military regime. I am afraid that the number of losses is great..... I considered the danger from Turkey lesser than the danger from Greek army officers."

On 17th April 1991 US Ambassador Nelson Ledsky testified before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee that "Most of the missing persons disappeared in the first days of July 1974 (ie before the Turkish intervention on the 20th). Many killed on the Greek side were killed by Greek Cypriots and in fighting between supporters of Makarios and Sampson."

For the reasons which appear below, no human tragedy has been the subject of such blatant political exploitation as the case of missing persons in Cyprus. This issue has been a convenient, and very effective stick with which Greek Cypriots could beat Turkey before world opinion and enlist international sympathy for themselves.

For more than twenty-five years the Greek Cypriot government has deceived its people into thinking that their loved ones might still be alive, but in October 1995 they had to admit that not only were many of them known to be dead, but that the whereabouts of their remains were also known, and had been withheld from their families. Some were actually known to be alive. Andreas Mayas (Missing Person no. 572) was receiving a state pension.

The Greek Cypriot Cyprus Mail said (27.10.95) “So now the truth is out. We are not talking about 300 dead, but 96 people killed during action in 1974 - and that is only from an initial examination of 487 files out of 1,619 in the Attorney-General’s office.... Successive governments have a lot to answer for. Why were those put on the list of missing people in the first place?”

On 3rd March 1996 the Cyprus Mail wrote: “Subsequent (Greek) Cypriot governments have found it convenient to conceal the scale of atrocities during the coup in an attempt to downplay its contribution to the tragedy of the summer of 1974 and instead blame the Turkish invasion for all casualties. There can be no justification for any government that failed to investigate this sensitive humanitarian issue. The shocking admission by the Clerides government that there are people buried in Nicosia cemetery who are still included in the list of the “missing” is the last episode of a human drama which has been turned into a propaganda tool.”

On 19th October 1996 Mr. Georgios Lanitis wrote: “I was serving with the Foreign Information Service of the Republic of Cyprus in London......I deeply apologise to all those I told that there are 1,619 missing persons. I misled them. I was made a liar, deliberately, by the Government of Cyprus......Now it seems that the credibility of Cyprus is nil.”

On 12^th June 1999 The Guardian reported: “The war cemetery of Lakatamia (in Southern Cyprus) seems to be respectable..... But the well-tended surface of the cemetery conceals a very different story, as the wives of those missing or dead discovered officially this week when the graves were opened to reveal piles of bodies unceremoniously buried together.

Mrs. Maroulla Siamisi said: "There were faces [in those graves in Southern Cyprus]. They could easily have been identified. Why deny there were lots of bodies in there? Why mock us for 25 years?" Mrs Siamisi, 33 when her husband Andreas disappeared, is not alone: an estimated 1,619 Greek Cypriot civilians and soldiers vanished in 1974.

The wives and fiancées left behind are known as Penelopes. They are angry that since (1974), successive (Greek) Cypriot governments have used them at huge rallies to denounce the Turks for concealing the fate of the missing.”

As time passes there are more exhumations from places in the South, where the Turkish army did not venture. On 9^th June 2001 “Cyprus Today” wrote: “Slowly but surely the casualties of war whom the Greek Cypriot Administration claims to have been missing since 1974 are turning up. The latest batch of 36 whose identities have now been confirmed, bring the total identified by DNA testing to 108.

The fact is that the 1,600 on the list are not “missing.” They are not being held in Turkish jails or any other place from where “sightings” have been reported over the decades. They are – very sadly for their families – dead.

For Greek Cypriots, their loved ones went missing from 15th July 1974 when, as noted above, Greek Cypriot paramilitaries backed by mainland Greek troops overthrew the Makarios regime and began to slaughter any Greek Cypriot suspected of being a supporter of Makarios, before turning their attention to Turkish Cypriots.

The Greek newspaper TA NEA published an interview on 28th February 1976 with Father Papatsestos, the Greek Orthodox priest in charge of the Nicosia cemetery. He recounted the events of 17th July 1974 when Greek officers required him to bury truckloads of Greek Cypriots in mass graves, together with one young Greek Cypriot whom they buried alive, and ten dead Turkish Cypriots. This one priest counted at least 127 bodies brought to him, and there must have been many similar incidents throughout the island.

On 22nd July 1974 The Times reported that "a production Director from Dublin said he had seen bodies being buried in a mass grave near Paphos [in Southern Cyprus] after last Monday's coup. People were told by Makarios to lay down their guns and were shot out of hand by the National Guard, he said."

On 23rd July 1974 The Times reported "Fears that many supporters of Archbishop Makarios may have been massacred since last week's coup were expressed in London yesterday, by an American‑born woman whose husband is now on top of EOKA‑B's wanted list. She was told that about a hundred members of the Presidential Palace guard had been killed after they laid down their arms. Although Nicos Sampson claimed that since the coup no one had been killed or tortured while in custody, she had heard differently. According to very reliable sources, EOKA and the Greek-officered Greek Cypriot National Guard were not taking prisoners and she was told by trusted sources that those they hated were being killed on capture."

On 6th November 1974 TA NEA reported the erasure of dates from the graves of Greek Cypriots killed in the five days 15th - 20th July, in order to blame their deaths on the subsequent Turkish military action.

In an article on 28th February 1976 in the Greek Cypriot press Father Papatsestos said: "It is a rather hard thing to say, but it is true that the Turkish intervention saved us from a merciless internecine war. The Sampson regime had prepared a list of all Makarios supporters, and they would have slaughtered them all." Many of the people saved by Turkey are members of the present Greek Cypriot leadership.

During the fighting with Turkish troops between 20th July and 16th August 1974 many Greek Cypriots died in combat. So far as possible their bodies were recovered and identified by Turkish forces. There were very few deaths of Greek Cypriot civilians. It is regrettable but true that some Greek Cypriot militiamen fell into the hands of Turkish Cypriot militia, who killed them in retribution.

The balance of probabilities is therefore that of those Greek Cypriots still listed as missing most were killed during the Sampson coup of 15th ‑ 20th July 1974, and that others died in combat. Some are in mass graves such as those described by Father Papatsestos, and the remainder have no known grave. Those killed in the fighting with the Turkish army would not have died if the Greek Cypriots and Greece had not tried to exterminate the Turkish Cypriots and annex the island to Greece, and the blame for their deaths must rest firmly upon their own leadership.

^[1] “The Way the Wind Blows” Collins (1976) ISBN 0 00 211997-8 at p. 242.

^[3] Charles Bravos Publishers, London, 2000. ISBN 0-9514464-3-6

^[10] George W. Ball “The Past has Another Pattern” Norton 1982 at p.345

^[18] HARAVGI (Greek Cypriot daily) 20^th July 1998.