The Cyprus Conspiracy : America, Espionage and the Turkish Invasion

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book
Review: First I would like to say that I see alot written about some Turkish children killed in some bathtub. If this is true then it is terrible and I feel bad. But that also does not justify the killings in similar and/or *worse* fashion of Greek Cypriots by Turks throughout the past 5 decades or so. One incident that is documented is how a 80 year old Greek Cypriot folk artist was beaten to death by Turkish troops in 1974. Was he a threat to the Turks with his folk paintings?, did the Turkish soldiers get a medal for this exploit?. Or how a Greek Cypriot man in his 50's had his arms and legs cut off with a large knife while the Turks made his daughter watch ( Guardian July 1974). Yes there are many more but there is no point.

The main problem here is that Cyprus is looked at by Turkey as a "security threat" that in the "wrong hands" is very dangerous to Turkey( Turgut Ozal 1983, Bulent Ecevit 2001). Turkish politicians and military brass alike have made no secret of this. And even Bulent Ecevit stated such this week publicly. The reason why Turkey wants a presence in Cyprus is to guarantee it's own security. Turkey does not care about the Turkish Cypriots like she claims, this was a pretext for invasion only. If it cared so much then it would not displace these people with radical Turks from the mainland. If it cared so much it would not try to wipe out a Cypriot identity from these Turkish Cypriots . Instead Turkey discourages talk of Turkish Cypriot identity .It wants all people on North Cyprus to be considered "Turks" and only Turks. It is also interesting to point out that 70% of Turkish Cypriots have now left North Cyprus and live mainly in UK. Many have left because of the Turkish military regimes' poor and unfair treatment towards them and Turkey giving favourable status to mainland settlers. This has now created a Turkish mainland majority in north Cyprus creating a voting block and thus a better atmosphere for Turkey and her puppet Rauf Denktash to forward it's devisive and polemic aims.

As far as Turkey is concerned there is no "Cyprus Problem" she states that this has been taken care of in 1974. There is no political will for a settlement on Turkey's part , there cannot be any if she thinks there is nothing to talk about.
(...)

Rating:
Summary: Book dealing with the 'how' and 'why' of the Cyprus problem
Review: I first would like to challenge the last reviewer to explain when Turkish Cypriots ever accounted for a 33% minority on Cyprus during those turbulent years. Statistics consistantly show the number to be around 18%. With that said, this is not a book which engages in finger pointing. Atrocities were undoubtledy commited by both parties. In fact, the authors on several occasions give us numbers of the Turkish Cypriots killed, wounded, or fleeing. I wonder just how much one reviewer took a hard look at this book when mentioning pictures seen in occupied Cyprus of Turkish Cypriot children dead in a bathtub, yet the picture is IN THE BOOK!!! Personal acounts and personal tragadies of the invasion and events leading up to it are not the main focus of this study. Rather it is the 'how' and 'why' of the unfolding events.

O'Malley and Craig do a good job of this I believe. I would have liked to see a more detailed analysis of how exactly the US pushed the junta in attempting a coup to remove Makarios. Did Kissinger know Turkey would invade and the cards would play themselves out, or did Kissinger have to work more with Turkey "under the table" to broker what seems to be a playing out of the 1964 alternate plan to partition Cyprus? Two other brief criticisms are 1) the sometimes general and arbitrary footnotes to "Interview with the authors." O'Malley and Craig interviewed several people so it can be confusing just what "interview" they are refering to, and 2) the sometimes frustrating footnotes to the House sub-committee papers and other government documents, which to no fault of the authors, isn't exaclty readily available at the local library for personal reference.

That said I think the book is an excellent study into the rather unfortunate methods the United States implements its foreign policy in order to protect military interests at all costs. Lets hope that in the future the Cypriots (both Greek and Turkish) can decide their own fate rather than Ankara, Athens, London, and especially Washington at their necks. A unified, peaceful Cyprus is attainable, especially in the EU. Let's not lower our hopes and aspirations in saying that partition is the only solution.

Rating:
Summary: Does't Cut It
Review: I purchased this book in Northern Cyprus and read it there. The conspiracy theory the authors try to promote is not at all convincing and, not only that, may even be insidiously deceiving. While they try to link the US and Turkey together in a conspiracy to secure Cyprus as a paradise of spying activity for the US during the cold war, the book seems to purposely downplay the role of Archbishop Makarios, the Orthodox Church and Grivas as the real generators of the ethnic cleansing of Turkish Cypriots that eventually did occur. Had not Turkey "invaded", the Turkish Cypriots would have been slaughtered. So if you look at Turkey's "invasion" as a liberation (or even somewhere in between), the notion of a conspiracy between the US and Turkey here, even though there were obvious alliances, does'nt even begin to hold water, as the authors are trying to suggest, as the cause of the Cyprus problem.

Rating:
Summary: Oh but to know the whole story .........
Review: On Reading the book, I of course still have many questions that are unanswered and probably will be until the powers that be decide that we (The Genereal Public) are mature enough to handle the truth.
In reality it will probably never come to pass that all the facts are revealed, but what is clear is that the people of Cyprus were used and deceived by unscrupulous individuals with a personal agenda and the Cypriots as a whole are still suffering the consequences to this day.

Rating:
Summary: Oh but to know the whole story .........
Review: Stemming from its strategic position; Cyprus became an obsession for the quasi-party's self serving interests at the behest of the Cypriots. Cyprus a divided stated emerged from relentless back room politics between the U.S, Britain, Turkey and Greece. Hidden away within its unassuming territory lies an overworked highly active agency mandated to keep track on advances in enemy nuclear missile technology; early warning of attacks and controlling the passage of water ways for the free flowing of oil for the free world. All this attained at a minor price of gross negligence of human rights.

Cyprus has suffered for its strategically important position in the eastern Mediterranean. Colonized by the Greeks in the second millennium BC, it was tossed from Persian, Roman, Byzantine, and finally to Ottoman empire. The Turks retained possession of the island until it was annexed by Great Britain in 1914. From the 1930s onward Greek Cypriots agitated vociferously--and after 1955 militarily--for independence from Britain and union with Greece. Reeling under the pressure for independence the British sought a way to accommodate and still retain control by dividing the two communities and giving them a constitution. In 1960, the Greek and Turkish Cypriots agreed on a constitution for an independent Cyprus, with the Greek Archbishop Makarios III as its first president and Kutchuk as its Vice President. This agreement came into being with the Treaty of Establishment, Treaty of Alliance and the 1960 constitution and Britain as the guarantor of unified Cyprus. This setup was fatally flawed, as it established a system of government envisioned by outside powers neglecting to address the deep rooted divisions within the Greeks and the Turk Cypriots. In late 1963, after Makarios made 13 constitutional changes that would abolish the Turkish power of veto over legislation on defense, security, foreign affairs, elections, municipalities and taxation lead the Turks withdrew from the government. A decade of internecine warfare and assassinations followed between the two communities that were mediated or, more precisely, "observed" by the United Nations.
Ultimately--and some would argue, inevitably--the two most interested powers were drawn toward direct intervention: first Greece, which attempted to unite the island under its own form of benign military dictatorship on July 15, 1974; and then Turkey, which responded far more effectively and invaded the place five days later. Cyprus constitutes one of the great unresolved conflicts of the late 20th century.

The Greek Cypriots feeling betrayed by the Western began to look towards the Soviets for help. With this realization and a long-standing plan to save its strategic assets on the island from what U.S. officials feared might be a left-wing takeover if the crisis in Cyprus were not resolved. Cyprus, became invaluable to Washington for monitoring both Soviet nuclear missile activity in Central Asia and potential military threats in the Middle East. Ongoing instability threatened these assets. By mounting an invasion, Turkey saved them. The Americans had judged that to let Greece and Turkey fight it out would be disastrous for the Western interests, would destroy the NATO's southern wing and leave the entire eastern Mediterranean vulnerable to Soviet take-over. According to McNally the Turks had threatened that if there was any military intervention against their invasion, they would leave NATO. Since the Americans badly needed an insurance policy against the Soviets; Kissinger put "no credible pressure" on Turkey "not to go ahead with an invasion." He then did "everything" he could "to help the Turks make up their mind that intervention was the only way they could get satisfaction." And having quietly encouraged the Turks to invade, while systematically "ignoring the advice of his own experts," he played what even the Turks called a "constructive and helpful role" by not protesting the invasion and the subsequent division of the island.

The Greeks have suspected that there was a conspiracy and insist that Turkey could not have acted alone. The Greek sentiment was described by Makarios after the Turkish attack: "The United States is the only country which could have exerted pressure on Turkey and prevented the invasion.". The charge itself is perhaps based on circumstantial events by observing that the United States tilted toward the more powerful and stabler Turkey over Greece for their interests; and that Kissinger not only knew about Turkish plans to invade Cyprus but may have tacitly approved it. Kissinger's main concern was to control the invasion and force Turkey to assume defensive postures in order not to flare up a direct confrontation Greece and Turkey two key NATO allies. United Kingdom being the guarantor of Cyprus unity considered placing their between Cyprus and Turkey to deter the Turks; but was vetoed by U.S. However U.K decided against such an action to prevent a confrontation with a NATO ally (Turkey) and create a rift with U.S.

In a report submitted by the MP's of British parliament it was stated that Britain had a legal right, a moral obligation and military capacity to intervene, but choose not to do so. Britain had considerable forces at hand, and could have intervened with or without Turkey, to reverse the coup and had little doubt that either alone or as part of the U.N force, Britain could have forestalled the first Turkish invasion. The chairman declared that Cyprus crises had been a true test of Britain's standing in the world, which should be measured not by its military might or economic wealth, but by its standard of justice, integrity and humanity, and by the way it protects the weak, On all these counts Britain had failed Cyprus for reasons which the Government refused to give.