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UK's murky role in Cyprus crisis |
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Evidence has emerged that British undercover forces were
involved in fomenting the conflict between Greek and Turkish Cypriots ten
years before the 1974 partition of Cyprus. The
new evidence found by BBC Radio 4's programme Document centres on the mystery
of Ted Macey, a British army major who was abducted, presumed killed by Greek
Cypriot paramilitaries. I
had no strong expectation that we would find the Turkish Cypriot village. We
had a 40-year-old British army map, bearing only the old Greek names. Our
guide, Martin Packard, had not been here for decades. The countryside was
deserted, no one spoke English, and night had fallen. In
1964, Martin was a naval intelligence officer, sent to Cyprus to do an
extraordinary job. Fighting had broken out in the capital, Nicosia, between
Greeks and Turks. Unrest
spread, and the British troops in Cyprus stepped in to keep the peace. But
the British General, Peter Young, thought that peace meant more than keeping
the two sides apart. He believed the communities could live side by side,
sometimes in mixed villages, as they had for centuries. But
that meant small disputes had to be prevented from turning into big ones. Gen
Young appointed Martin, a fluent Greek speaker, as a roving trouble-shooter
and negotiator. With two officers from the mainland Greek and Turkish armies,
he roamed the north of Cyprus by helicopter, settling disputes. Diplomacy We
eventually found the village, and even an interpreter. Here, in Easter 1964,
Martin had resolved a conflict over a flock of sheep, stolen from the Turkish
villages by their Greek Cypriots neighbours. Martin tracked down the flock in
a Greek village. But
none of the Turkish Cypriots were prepared to come with him to get them. So
he went himself. He took the youngest lamb and flung it across his shoulder.
The mother followed, and so did the rest of the flock. I
walked a very long way, I was very tired, leading this flock of sheep,"
he said. "We arrived at the village and all of the villagers rushed out
as if I were Moses coming back with some great message." The
old men of the village remembered the incident, but were not conspicuously
grateful. It was a good thing Martin had got their sheep back, they said,
grudgingly, because otherwise they were planning to steal a Greek flock in
retaliation. Martin
believes such small episodes were the key to preventing the island drifting
towards ethnic separation. But, he says, this was not what the Americans and
British had in mind. He
recalls being asked to take a visiting US politician, acting secretary of
state George Ball, around the island. Arriving back in Nicosia, says Martin,
"Ball patted me on the back, as though I were sadly deluded and he said:
That was a fantastic show son, but you've got it all wrong, hasn't anyone
told you that our plan here is for partition?"
The division that followed - and still exists - caused pain for
both sides Undaunted,
Martin pursued plans to move Turkish Cypriots back to the villages they had
fled. But just as the first resettlement was about to take place, British
General Michael Carver had him arrested and flown off the island - in an
unmarked CIA plane. The
ostensible reason was that Cyprus had become too dangerous for Martin to
operate in; the evidence given was that a British liaison officer, Major Ted
Macey, had been abducted and presumed murdered just a few days before. All
the evidence points to the murder having been carried out by Greek Cypriot
extremists. In
the Public Record Office in London, I found files showing that British
military commanders in Cyprus had received "very reliable
information" that Major Macey's abduction was planned "by Greek
security forces with approval of high government circles and connivance of
the police to extract information about Turkish invasion plans". The
Greek Cypriots were convinced that Major Macey was aiding the Turks. Listening bases Could
it be true? I spoke to a former Para who accompanied Major Macey on
expeditions to Turkish Cypriot villages. There, says the Para, he
demonstrated the use of British ammunition and sub-machine guns to the
Turkish Cypriot irregular forces. I
also tracked down one of Major Macey's former drivers, who showed me a
curious note, in the major's handwriting. It is a list of arms and explosives
being stored in civilian premises in Nicosia: arms, says the driver, which
Major Macey had supplied, under British orders, to the Turkish fighters. So
did the peacekeeping forces, and the big powers, really want Cyprus to remain
an independent, unitary state? Or was it more important to head off the
threat of a "Mediterranean Cuba" by keeping the island within
Turkey's - and hence Nato's - sphere of influence? Britain
had, and has, electronic listening bases on the island - important parts of
the Nato intelligence effort. Nicos
Koshis, a former justice minister, thinks that it was those bases that
determined the fate of the island: "It is my feeling they wanted to have
fighting between the two sides. They didn't want us to get together. If the
communities come together maybe in the future we say no bases in Cyprus."
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Last Updated: Monday, 23 January 2006,
12:52 GMT 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4632080.stm