“Secret Report Tells About Turk Atrocities” was the headline that greeted readers of The Sunday Times of London on January 23, 1977. The newspaper obtained a copy of a then secret European Commission of Human Rights, or ECHR, report detailing the ethnic cleansing of Greek Cypriot Christians by the Turkish occupiers of Northern Cyprus.
According to The Sunday Times, the report “amounts to a massive indictment of the Ankara government for the murder, rape, and looting by its army in Cyprus during and after the Turkish invasion of summer, 1974…[including] systematic killings of civilians who were not involved in the 1974 fighting; repeated raping of women aged from 12 to 71, often brutally in public; the torture and savage and humiliating treatment of hundreds of Greek Cypriots, including children during their detention by the Turkish army; and charges of extensive looting and plunder which were supported by unpublished United Nations documents.”
Thanks to the work of Dr. Andrew G. Bostom of Brown University who rescued the document from obscurity 2 years ago, we know that among the “specific ‘atrocities and crimes’ perpetrated by the occupying Turkish army between Sept. 19, 1974, and July 10, 1976, when the report was filed,” — a time period, it should be noted, when “no military operations or any fighting whatsoever was taking place,” — were:
- Murders in cold blood of civilians including women and old men. Also about 3000 persons (many of them civilians) who were in the Turkish occupied areas are still missing and it is feared that they were murdered by the Turkish army.
- Wholesale and repeated rapes. Even women of ages up to 80 were savagely raped by members of the Turkish forces. In some areas, forced prostitution of Greek Cypriot girls continues to be practiced. Many women who remained in the Turkish occupied areas became pregnant as a result of the rapes committed by the Turkish troops.
- Forcible eviction from homes and land. The Greek Cypriots who were forcibly expelled by the Turkish army from their homes (about 200,000) are still being prevented by the Turkish array to return to their homes in the Turkish occupied areas and are refugees in their own country living in open camps inhuman conditions. Moreover, the Turkish military authorities continue to expel forcibly from their homes the remaining Greek Cypriot inhabitants in the Turkish occupied areas most of whom are forcibly transferred to concentration camps. They are not even allowed to take with them their basic belongings. Their homes and properties have been distributed amongst the Turkish Cypriots who were shifted from the southern part of Cyprus into the Turkish occupied areas as well as amongst many Turks who were illegally brought from Turkey in an attempt to change the demographic pattern on the island.
- Looting by members of the Turkish army of houses and business premises belonging to Greek Cypriots continues to be extensively practiced.
- Robbery of the agriculture, produce, and livestock, housing units, stocks in stores, in factories, and shops owned by Greek Cypriots, and of jewelry and other valuables found on Greek Cypriots arrested by the Turkish army continues uninterrupted. The agricultural produce belonging to Greek Cypriots continues to be collected and exported directly or indirectly to markets in several European countries. Nothing belonging to the Greek Cypriots in the Turkish occupied areas has been returned and no compensation was paid or offered in respect thereof.
- The seizure, appropriation, exploitation and distribution of land, houses, enterprises and industries belonging to Greek Cypriots.
The report concluded that “The aforementioned atrocities and criminal acts were directed against Greek Cypriots because of their ethnic origin, race and religion. The object was to destroy and eradicate the Greek population of the Turkish occupied areas so as to move therein Turks, thus creating by artificial means a Turkish populated area in furtherance of Turkey’s policy for the formation of the so called ‘Turkish Cypriot Federated State.’ In pursuance of this policy the members of the Turkish army who took part in the invasion (about 40,000) and their families have been recently declared as subjects of the illegally and unilaterally proclaimed ‘Turkish Cypriot Federated State’, i.e. the Turkish occupied areas of Cyprus, with the official blessing of Turkey and have occupied the properties, belongings of the Greek Cypriots.”
In 2009, a report by the United States Law Library of Congress entitled, “Cyprus: Destruction of Cultural Property in the Northern Part of Cyprus and Violations of International Law,” verified that:
- 500 Greek Orthodox churches and chapels have been pillaged, vandalized or demolished;
- 133 churches, chapels and monasteries have been desecrated;
- 77 churches have been turned into mosques, 28 are being used by the Turkish military forces as hospitals or camps and 13 are used as agricultural barns.
Since that time, Turkish dictator Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who maintains that “Hamas is not a terrorist organization,” has allowed Northern Cyrus to be used as a launch point for those seeking to avoid Israeli security checks in smuggling operations to Gaza. There are reports that Erdogan personally discussed with Hamas leaders the possibility of “building a port in the Gaza Strip and creating a naval ‘safe passage’ between Gaza and Northern Cyprus that would be controlled by Turkey.”
Bloodthirsty as the Turkish invaders were in 1974, under Erdogan the bloodthirst has reached a new potency when combined with Islamic extremism. If Trump follows through on his plan to give Turkey military carte blanche in the areas of Syria won by our Kurdish allies against ISIS, there is no reason to expect anything less than another campaign of ethnic cleansing.