ANNOUNCEMENT BY THE MOVEMENT AGAINST NATIONALISM

Shameful interview by Papadopoulos, President of Greek community in Cyprus

On 11 September 2004 the Cypriot newspaper Politis published an extraordinary article by the journalist Makarios Drousiotis under the title Contractors of division, drowning in blood. In the article Mr. Drousiotis refers to an interview granted by the President of the Greek community in Cyprus to the journalist Mohamet Galadari of the newspaper Haleej Times.
In the interview Mr. Papadopoulos states more or less that ‘in 1963-64 it was the Turkish Cypriots who perpetrated massacres’.
On 13 May 2003 the Cypriot Ministry of Foreign Affairs published a list of 500 missing Turkish Cypriots, who disappeared during the period 1963-64, 1967 and 1974 (see  http://www.mfa.gov.cy ). The ministry also sought information from anyone with knowledge of how these individuals disappeared, promising that such information would be treated as confidential.
The Movement against Nationalism will do its utmost to provide information on the murdered Turkish Cypriots, while at the same time releasing the Cypriot ministry from the undertaking of confidentiality it has given.
More specifically, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs states that of a total of 500 missing Turkish Cypriots, 219 disappeared in the years 1963-64, 5 in the year 1967 and 276 in the period of the Turkish invasion in 1974.
Of the 219 Turkish Cypriots who disappeared in 1963, the ministry mentions 26 who were last seen in Omorfita, the Turkish suburb of Nicosia.
Here we believe the ministry has committed a massive statistical error. It is well known that around Christmas 1963 the paramilitaries of Sampson, Georgatzis and Lyssaridis carried out an assault on Omorfita and, according to the Report to the Security Council by the UN General Secretary (No. S/5950 – 10 September 1964) destroyed 50 houses altogether and seriously damaged another 240.
In respect of human casualties, the same paramilitary forces took prisoner at Omorfita 500 Turkish Cypriots, with another 150 from the village of Kumsal, and took them to the Kukkos school in Nicosia. Of these 650 prisoners, 150 were separated from the others and forcibly removed from the school on Christmas Day. An English teacher from the school reported the sound of shooting shortly after the prisoners’ removal. She was herself flown out of Cyprus on the same day by the British authorities, for security reasons. The notorious photograph remains as a perpetual reminder of this terrorist crime, showing a triumphant Sampson returning that day from Omorfita like ‘a latter-day Leonidas at Thermopylae’, holding a Turkish flag and dragging behind him, shamelessly, a group of Turkish mothers with their infant children in their arms. The terrorist was extolled by the Greek Cypriot press as the ‘Liberator of Omorfita’.
We therefore advise the Cypriot Ministry of Foreign Affairs not to seek on the internet for those with knowledge of how these Turkish Cypriots disappeared, since all the ministry need do is ask the surviving paramilitary and Cypriot MP, Lyssaridis, along with those of his ‘comrades’ who were involved in the disappearances. They will be able to provide all too precise information.
The Movement against Nationalism will not refer to the many examples of violence by Greek Cypriot paramilitaries against civilian Turkish Cypriots; the hypocritical charade being enacted by the Greek Cypriot Ministry of Foreign Affairs is devoid of all real meaning. We shall just mention the murders carried out by Greek Cypriot paramilitaries of 22 Turkish Cypriot patients at the Nicosia hospital, and those committed at the Turkish Cypriot village of Koumsal.
One of the more shocking crimes at the village in question was that of three infants and their mother, slain in the bathroom of their house. The woman was the wife of the Turkish doctor and officer in the Turkish forces in Cyprus, Major Ilhan.
As for President Papadopoulos, we are aware that Mr. Verhoegen, EU Commissioner, has publicly denounced him for deception, using on the record the phrase ‘he deceived us’. The verb ‘to deceive’ constitutes a serious accusation in Europe, where a politician charged with deception must either refute the accusation or disappear permanently from the political scene – there are numerous examples of politicians who have suffered such a fate.
The condition laid down by the UN General Secretary for acting as mediator in the talks between Greek and Turkish Cypriots in Switzerland was that each side should promise publicly that in the event of an agreement between them they would accept the additional terms imposed by Mr. Annan. Mr. Papadopoulos publicly pledged his acceptance of this condition.
However, the tearful message of Mr. Papadopoulos to the Cypriot people on the eve of the referendum demonstrated the very opposite – demonstrated, in fact, the politics of dishonesty.
Of particular interest is the following reference by Mr. Drousiotis in his article of 11 September 2004: ‘Mr. Papadopoulos, who was a member of the political system and the unofficial apparatus which was responsible for the crimes that have divided our people, has nothing to say in his interviews except that the other side is to blame’.
According to information published in the past in the Greek and Greek Cypriot press, and in various other sources, Mr. Papadopoulos was a close friend and collaborator of Georgatzis and his paramilitary organization. We also learn from the press that Mr. Papadopoulos is married to the widow of Georgatzis; if this is true, it does at least indicate that the President had close ties with the Georgatzis family.
Finally, if everything reported in the press and the interview with Mr. Drousiotis is true, then the bulk of the responsibility is not borne solely by Mr. Papadopoulos, but mainly by the AKEL – the Cypriot Communist Party – which supports and maintains in office a man with such an unattractive past.