TURKISH INCITEMENT The tactics of TMT, to provoke ethnic conflict when none would otherwise have arisen, were successful. On 12 June 1958, following the press office bomb explosion, British security forces rounded up eight Greek Cypriots from the village of Kondemenos and subsequently released them near the Turkish Cypriot village of Guenyeli, approximately seven miles from where they were arrested, and a good distance from the nearest Greek villages; the released Greek Cypriots were subsequently massacred by Turkish Cypriots acting on the orders of TMT. These were the first reported inter-communal killings. These killings were carried out in the certain knowledge that Greek Cypriots would also carry out revenge attacks. (It was subsequently established that the bomb planted at the Turkish press office was the work of TMT & not Greek Cypriots the plan being to incite inter communal violence) Turkey rushed to put forward a formal protest to Britain the day following the press office bomb, alleging that the Cyprus administration had failed to give the Turkish minority adequate protection. Cyprus, partition or death, was the slogan constantly repeated by Turkish leaders and the armed paramilitaries. The claim was that Turkish Cypriots could not think of themselves as being integrated into Cypriot society. The fact that they already were, necessitated a strategy of tension and forced separation. The principle of partition was not based on the realities of Cypriot society at the time, but on Turkey’s perceived security requirements alone. In the Summer of 1958, in the mixed suburb of Omorphita in Nicosia, TMT evicted 700 Greeks from their homes. By the end of July 1958 a much clearer line had been drawn between the Greek and Turkish quarters. The reluctance of British authorities to deal even-handedly with the violence became clearer when the partisan decisions made by the Courts at the time is taken into account. Whereas Turks arrested for participating in the riots were released, Greeks received custodial sentences for minor offences.
Posted on: Sun, 16 Mar 2014 11:34:33 +0000
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