CEMETERY FOR GREEK SOLDIERS IN SOUTHERN CYPRUS |
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Prof. Dr. Ata ATUN |
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The local Greek newspaper Simerini published a comment on Aug. 14, 2007 about the interment of Lt. Panikos Sotiris Danezis of the Greek Hellenic Army in the Makedonitissa Tomb in the Greek Cypriot sector of Nicosia. The remains of his body were found in Ozanköy (Kazafani) near Girne (Kyrenia) during the excavations being done by the Autonomous Missing Persons Committee. He was a sub-lieutenant in the troops sent by the government of Greece illegally to the island and was shot during combat with Turkish Peace Mission forces on July 22, 1974, at Bellapais.
According to Simerini, the excavated remains were identified by a DNA test and were inhumed with a military memorial.
His name is not in the list of the Greek mainland contingent dep-loyed in Cyprus according to the 1960 Cyprus Treaty of Alliance. This means he was sent by the government of Greece and entered Cyprus illegally before 1974, unlawfully breaking international laws and United Nations rules and regulations.
Another local Greek newspaper published a comment on Sept. 9, 2007, about the enlargement of the Greek military cemetery.
The cemetery is now completely full and remains of soldiers sent by the Greek mainland government, now identified by the Autonomous Missing Persons Committee, can not be inhumed due to the shortage of ground.
On instructions given by Papadopoulos, the Greek Cypriot ad-ministration announced that the cemetery will be enlarged and the Ministry of Defense will handle the enlargement process.
The total number of graves already existing is not numerically in balance with the losses of the officially deployed Greek contingent in Cyprus during the 1974 Turkish intervention.
When the total number of missing Greek soldiers, buried Greek soldiers and Greek soldiers in Nicosia and Greece who managed to survive the intervention are added up, it is obvious that the amount of Greek soldiers was far more than the official number of those allowed to be deployed in Cyprus according to the 1960 Cyprus Treaty of Alliance.
Now it is time to ask what these additional Greek mainland sol-diers, sent by the government of Greece, were doing on the island of Cyprus. Were they sent for a sunny holiday on the beaches of Cyprus or to massacre Turkish Cypriots in an effort to fulfill the great dream named the “Megalo Idea” by Alexander Ypsilanti in 1796?
It is officially recorded that some 20,000 Greek soldiers were sent to the island of Cyprus by the government of Greece in 1964, unoffi-cially sneaking in with their armor, arsenal, ammunitions and vehicles.
In 1968, after four years of their tyranny and numerous massa-cres of Turkish Cypriots, these illegal Greek troops were forced to go back to Greece by an ultimatum from Turkey.
Paragraph 25 of the UN Secretary-General’s Report S/83446 of March 1968 to the UN Security Council, Appendix 18, titled “With-drawal of Greek mainland troops from Cyprus,” reads as follows:
“25. The repatriation of the Greek national troops took place be-tween 8 December 1967 and 16 January 1968, in pursuance of an agreement between Greece and Turkey arrived at in response to the Secretary-General’s appeals of 22 November, 24 November and 3 De-cember 1967 (S/8248/Adds. 3,5 and 6). Since the responsibility for the repatriation operation was assumed at the time by the parties themselves and did not, strictly speaking, come within the UNFICYP mandate, UNFICYP undertook no independent observation in this connection. It was evident however that several thousand Greek Na-tional troops had left the island, taking with them a considerable amount of equipment and vehicles, including tanks. It is believed that most of the troops who were embarked came from formed units that were serving as part of the [Greek] Cyprus Government’s armed forces. It is known however that Greek national army officers and men are still serving individually in the National Guard and on the headquarters staff, but UNFICYP has not been in a position to estimate their number.”
It is quite obvious that the withdrawal of Greek mainland troops from Cyprus was just a display or a comedy staged by the Greek Cypriot administration and the government of Greece.
They existed on the island of Cyprus illegally and unlawfully from 1963 to 1974 and have numbered around 7,000 since 1974.
Whose existence is illegal on the island?
Is it the Turkish troops, who intervened according to the 1960 Cyprus Treaty of Guarantee on July 20, 1974 to prevent inter-communal clashes, or the Greek mainland troops, who are on the isl-and with no official reason or treaty and killed thousands of innocent Turkish Cypriots during the dark years from 1963 to 1974?
